Lust and Propriety - 16. False Mating

Finian led the unexpected pair to Nigel's office, which had been fashioned out of a room on the left wing of the Montcroix estate. Alistair's grandfather had been adamant about having the Healer within reach, especially in the earlier days of his therapy sessions when he had trouble sleeping. Eventually, Nigel decided to simply attend to his patients there.

When the three of them entered his office without warning, the Healer nearly spilled his tea. Before he could ask why, Finian quickly explained Hazeth's injury. With a firm nod, the green-eyed Unicorn had Hazeth lay down on the chaise lounge and held his hands an inch above either side of the red-headed Nightmare's head.

Winter forced his hands to fold calmly in front of him when his body seemed to want only to fuss and flutter around Hazeth in a most undignified manner.

"He had a small degree of internal bleeding," The Healer explained as his hands hovered over Hazeth's neck and down the rest of his body for an overall assessment. "But, he'll be fine. Some light food and rest would aid in his recovery."

"He'll have it," Winter told him, happy with how his voice didn't waver.

"Thank you, Nigel. And excuse my earlier rudeness," Finian stated. "This is Prince Winter of Peraza, our Hazeth's intended mate?"

The prince couldn't help the flush that pinked his cheeks but he didn't argue his relationship with Hazeth.

A frown formed on Nigel's face. "A royal from Peraza in Zirao Zion could be seen as a Montcroix take-over to other nations," he warned.

Finian shook his head. "We're not the ones trying to take over Peraza, King Rathburn of Cha Borolan is. He's taken over the Maestri castle," he explained. "He had planned to assassinate them both after a forced mating, but they escaped."

"Yeah, the guy's seriously insane," Hazeth added a bit groggily.

"How troubling," Nigel responded. "Will the Montcroix soldiers join in to try to take Peraza back?" He asked, concerned about his mate having to fight.

"Yes, I believe we'll need all the help we can get," Finian responded as he placed a hand on the Healer's shoulder. "I can always give Vetiver another task to keep him out of the fight. Only say the word."

The older Unicorn frowned, the movement causing the green leaf crest on his forehead to crinkle. "No. No, he'd know I said something," Nigel decided. "I shouldn't hold my mate back from what he was born to do."

"Don't worry, doc, I'll keep an eye on-whoa!" Hazeth gasped as the sudden movement caused him to lean against Winter for support.

Nigel's green eyes narrowed. "Let me have one more look at you. There might be a smaller injury I didn't catch the first time," He thought aloud as he looked the Nightmare over. "Clothes sometimes get in the way. Please remove your shirt and hold your hair to the side."

"Heh," Hazeth teased as he pulled his shirt off and scooped his long hair over his shoulder. "If you didn't already have a mate, I'd have said you merely wanted to gawk. Right, Win?" He added as he sent the prince a wink and a half-smirk.

The Healer ignored the redhead's comments and continued scanning with his hands hovering over Hazeth's body. He hadn't missed any injuries, but something else caught his eye. "A mating...of course! You're not fully yourself because it's an unstable mating mark." He explained.

The green-haired Unicorn himself had similar symptoms when he tried to deny his own feelings towards a certain soldier for too long. A couple was generally fine with an incomplete mating so long as it was mutual. They might come together physically first and don one another's crests later, or it could be vice versa. Problems only arose when only one person was marked and the other was not.

Green eyes immediately glanced at the legitimate Prince of Peraza. "Prince Winter...are you aware that you've marked Hazeth Montcroix with your crest, but have yet to accept a crest from him in return?"

"I…" Winter shook his head. "No, we had a false mating." It shamed the prince to admit out loud. "It was an illusion, a trick to keep Rathburn from attempting to mate me by force. The false mark is hurting him? We have to remove it immediately."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Nigel responded with a heavy sigh. "That is no false mark. It is a real one. You've claimed him as a mate."

Hazeth's eyes lit up as if Nigel had told him he'd won a free travel excursion to a remote area he'd never visited. "I'm not dreaming, am I?" He mused aloud as he ran his fingers over the snowflake crest beneath his bellybutton.

"Quick! Touch it!" Hazeth all but demanded as he took hold of one of Winter's hands and pressed the fingers along the crest. His body felt like he'd been struck with lightning from that contact alone. "I'm definitely your mate."

Winter's expression shifted from shock to consternation to a soft wonder as he stroked his fingertip over the not-so-false mating mark decorating Hazeth's skin. The little smile dropped away, a look of horror replacing it as he yanked his hand away.

"I mated you against your will!" Winter said, his face whitening as the blood drained from his cheeks, leaving him dizzy.

"Here we go," Nigel stated as he steadied the Unicorn royal. "As I thought. It's affecting you, too. I highly suggest that the two of you finish what you started."

"I'll take you both to a guest room. It's much closer than Hazeth's spare room," Finian insisted as he ushered them out the door. "Thank you, Nigel!"

Before either of them knew it, Fin all but locked them into the nearest room. Hazeth flopped onto his back on the mattress. "Win...have I died and gone to heaven? All this time...you had marked me for real," He said in a state of awe.

"You don't mind?" Winter sat heavily on the edge of the bed, realized what he was sitting on and what everyone expected to happen in that bed, and shot upward again as though on a spring. "I feel like a criminal. I don't know how you're accepting this so easily. I've wronged you terribly!"

"Wronged me? You meant wooed me, surely." Hazeth countered. He reached out to gently cup the side of the prince's face. "Winter, I am the luckiest bastard that has ever roamed the two worlds. I wanted nothing more than to be your real mate from practically the moment we first met."

"Are you certain?" Winter asked, laying his hand against Hazeth's, pressing the touch firmly to his cheek. "I don't want you to feel trapped by this, by me. I don't want you to go along with this because you feel you have no choice. There are spells to break an unwanted bond. It's…painful to the one who's placed the mark, but I'd go through with such a thing if that's what you really wanted." Winter's lashes fell, shuttering his gaze. "Being my mate…It's going to be difficult, dangerous even, right now."

"Prince Winter Maestri of Peraza," Hazeth responded in his most serious tone of voice. "I know it will still take some time before you fully trust me. But, I am asking you to take that chance now." The redhead then began to slowly take off the rest of his clothing. "Danger be damned, I want to be yours just as badly I want you to be mine."

The storm-eyed prince couldn't look away from the confident redhead's bared skin. His gaze fell to the silvery snowflake that he had placed just beneath Zeth's belly button. That had been his own doing. His hand lifted to where the false sun crest had been placed between his collarbone. A part of him longed for the marking to be real. Could he trust in the Nightmare's words that Hazeth truly wanted this? Winter swallowed hard when the other royal took hold of his hand to press a kiss to the palm and the wrist. The gold-hued eyes were alight with the promise of pleasure, prompting his heart to skip a beat.

"Winter, please," Hazeth pleaded in a rumbling tone of voice that should have been illegal. His tanned knuckles gently caressed his partner's pale skin between the collarbones, but his eyes never left the prince's. The Montcroix was indeed trapped, and he couldn't pinpoint exactly when it happened. Was it from the moment he first looked into those blue-grey eyes, or when the prince's fingers accidentally caught in his hair and tugged him down to his thighs, proving that he wasn't nearly as perfect as he tried to outwardly project? Did it fucking matter? Not to Zeth, it damn well didn't. "Won't you be mine?"

Winter ordered his scattered thoughts. He considered each reason Hazeth Montcroix would be better off, safer, finding a mate who wasn't the ruler of a threatened land. Winter thought of all the reasons it was too soon or unwise to move forward with the mating.

Instead of any of those things, Winter closed his eyes and said, "Yes. I want this mating. I want you, Zeth."

The Nightmare likely had the most ridiculously happy expression on his face, completely destroying his usual image as he turned his hand to press the tips of his fingers against the prince's skin. "Then I'm a Perazan from now on, love," he declared as his real sun crest manifested right between Winter's collarbone. He then took hold of the shorter man's face and kissed him. One of his hands slid down the side of his mate's neck to brush along the new marking. When the Unicorn clung to him in response, he knew that they really succeeded in marking one another.

Winter sucked in a breath, pressing close to sag against Hazeth. "That feels…that's much better. I didn't realize how off-balance I've been." The Unicorn wanted to wallow in this feeling, to hold and explore his mate. But he wasn't just Winter, he was Prince Winter. He clung to Hazeth as he said, "I have to go back. My people…"

"No, our people," the redhead corrected as he rubbed the back of the prince's neck, unwilling to untangle them. "And of course we're going back. My cousin and his mate are rallying the troops right now…which means we have plenty of time to complete our bond, don't you think?"

"There's nothing to be done right now?" Winter asked. He wanted this, just a little time to be with Hazeth and cement their bond, but if the prince was needed elsewhere that would take precedence. He wouldn't choose pleasure and comfort over those who relied on him. "We should be planning, finding out if anyone else got away, if anyone was lost, calming the children. They must be so frightened." Winter looked stricken. "I didn't even check to see what can be done for the children until it's safe to take them home. Someone kind will need to be found to care for them. And they'll need to be reassured that-" Winter stopped speaking as Hazeth caught his mouth in a kiss.

Hazeth wasted no time in disrobing the prince while he had him distracted. The Unicorn's sense of responsibility was something he greatly admired. But, they all couldn't be in safer hands in the Montcroix estate. His kisses and bites trailed down the side of Winter's throat until he pressed a firm kiss to the sun crest on the pale prince's chest. When his partner arched his back in response, he moved on with tongue and teeth to each of the soft pink peaks. Zeth worked his way down the torso, giving no warning before engulfing the shaft below. His thumb pressed firmly along the base as he moved, savoring the taste.

"I s-suppose everything will be alright for a little while," Winter conceded with a moan.

Winter's fingers tangled in Hazeth's hair as the prince was overwhelmed in pleasure. There was heat, pressure, and the wicked tracing of a tongue that shattered Winter's usual stoic facade like the blow of a pick on thin ice. Winter wiggled and whimpered without a care to propriety or who might overhear.

The redhead noted the moment that the prince let himself go, but the only indication he gave was a devious glint that lit up his eyes. Before the pale-haired prince could regain his wits, Hazeth shifted into his faun form. His intent was to use his faun shaft as lubrication. But, when his fingers slid along Winter's entrance, he was so surprised to find it leaking that he nearly choked on the rod in his mouth. Unwilling to relinquish said rod, he slid two fingers in at once and hummed in glee when the flesh gave way like butter.

Winter went wild.

"Gah, yes! Fucking, yes!" Winter bucked and cried out. He lost hold on his form, fur appearing on his lower half dense and velvet. A horn, smaller than if he'd been fully equine, sparked with silver and white light. "Hazeth!"

The Nightmare had never heard anything more euphoric than his mate calling out his name. How many times had he dreamed of that moment? The real deal was pure fire. Don't fuck this up. He thought to himself as he continued to stretch the prince and adjusted to the larger size of the faun's shaft down his throat. As he worked his way up and off the staff, he moved to lift Winter's hips, trying not to become too distracted by the lovely tail swishing about behind the prince.

Hazeth held himself there at the entrance, utterly enchanted by the sexy display before him of a flushed and panting Winter. "Winter, may I go further?" He asked. The Perazan royal was neither a stranger nor a false mate to him anymore. What kind of Montcroix would he be if he didn't ensure that he had full consent?

"Now, dammit, Zeth." Winter shifted, trying to push downward. "If you tease me I'm going to smack you so hard!"

A salacious grin formed on the Nightmare's face as he carefully breached the Unicorn beneath him, though it was quite a struggle to keep holding Winter steadily amidst his attempts to take him in immediately. With every inch that he sank into the prince's heat, he wanted nothing more than to empty himself inside. The pulsing of his own shaft and the clamping of the prince's inner walls were sensations that he had to adjust to if he didn't want to disappoint his mate so quickly. Hazeth pulled out halfway and sank back in almost as slowly as the first time. He then grinded inside when he was down to the hilt, keeping them connected.

Before Winter could argue with the redhead, Zeth's grinding began to stimulate an area of his body that he'd never truly explored before. He drew in a shuddering breath and reached down to sharply slap the back of one of his mate's hands. "I thought I told you not to tease!" The prince gasped.

Hazeth pulled out and back in again, dragging along the area where he had drawn the most reaction from his partner. Through gritted teeth, he responded. "Wasn't teasing that time…" His hips dipped as he started to piston into the heat with vigor. His dark red locks fell over his shoulder as he leaned down so that the horn on his forehead slid against Winter's before he fed magic through them both, amplifying the building pleasure.

Winter felt like he was flying or dying, maybe both. Pleasure like nothing he'd ever known cascaded through him in waves that built higher and higher until his body shook with it. He clutched Hazeth's forearms, nails dragging down until Winter gripped Hazeth's wrists just above the Nightmare's hold on the Prince's hips.

"Don't let go," Winter begged, not noticing the tears that slid down his temples into his pale hair. "Don't stop and don't let go, please, Zeth!"

Hazeth's own faun tail flicked behind him in response and he found himself pressing a quick kiss to Winter's lips as his movements stepped up another notch. The thrusts were rougher than he had originally wanted for the Perazan's first time, but their faun forms would ensure the most minimal of aches. His mate looked beautiful with his silvery white hair fanned beneath him. The Montcroix belatedly realized that the reason the strands weren't a tangled mess was due to that protective spell that had been cast on the prince's hair. Eager to comply with his partner's wishes, Hazeth neither stopped nor let go of the pale hips. Instead, his gold hued eyes glowed as he cast a clever spell he'd learned in his travels that would synchronize the sensations their shafts felt.

"Wha-," Winter whimpered, eyes going wide in surprise as he felt what Hazeth did, not understanding why the pleasure he didn't think could increase had crested higher. Hazeth's wink and quick kiss let Winter know what was happening. Then nothing mattered as Hazeth once again touched his horn to Winter's and the world seemed to shatter around them as Winter crashed into an orgasm that stole his breath and locked his body in a storm of sensation.

Both of their crests glowed in the aftermath. Hazeth's body, which had already been buzzing with the afterglow, felt healthier than it did an hour ago. His residual aches and pains were long gone. A pleasant warmth filled him up from inside that he couldn't begin to describe. "Winter, will you marry me?" He asked aloud without realizing that the words had even fallen right out of his mouth. "Fuck, I know we did everything backwards…"

Winter smiled, kissing his mate to hush him. "Yes," Winter said, curling close. "Please marry me." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring the warmth of Hazeth against him. For the first time in a long time, the prince relaxed and let his worries go for a little while. He wasn't alone anymore. Everything was going to be alright, somehow.