i was a king under your control

Afterward, Damen found his way back to the tent, weaving and swaying with his pants held up with one hand. Laurent stirred from beneath his furs, laughing as the ground beneath Damen swayed and lurched. 'Stop,' he warned, walking on unsteady legs toward his own pile of furs. 'If you laugh, I'll follow over.'

And he did just that, collapsing into the pile with a grin and closing his eyes. His muscles were still thrumming pleasantly, mind fuzzy from the drink and activity. 'Halvik had a lot of girls,' he said, exhausted and utterly sated.

'Stop laughing,' he said when he heard another snicker, glancing over to see Laurent with his head propped one on hand.

'This is instructive. I've seen you put half a dozen men in the dirt without breaking a sweat.'

'Not right now, I couldn't,' Damen said. The low ceiling of the tent began to swim and Damen closed his eyes again.

'I can see that,' said Laurent. 'You're relieved of your regular duties in the morning.'

'That's nice of you. I can't get up. I'll just lie here. Or did you need something?'

'Oh, how did you know? Take me to bed.'

Despite himself, Damen laughed, a low thing halfway stuck behind a groan. Rolling onto his side, he pulled the furs up over his head and sleep swiftly dragged under.

If he dreamt, he did not remember it. He woke slowly. Peacefully. The furs beneath him were unbelievably comfortable and the drink he had been given the night before, he was pleased to note, had not left him with an throbbing head.

Taking a deep breath, Damen rolled to his side and stretched his legs as the morning sun peeked through the front fold of the tent.

Damen blinked his eyes open, but his mind could not making any sense of what he was seeing.

The body was not Laurent's. Nor was it Kashel's, nor any of the other women he could remember exhausting him. And there were no furs.

Fear gripped him and held tight and Damen scrambled from the bed, his feet landing on the soft fabric of a rug. Only when Damen looked down, he noted that the rug extended to every corner of the room and that these corners connected walls the likes of which he had ever seen before.

The body in the bed was a man, as broad and tall as Damen but blond like Laurent. He looked like a warrior. Like a soldier.

'Where have you taken him?' he demanded in Veretian, shoulders hunched, unlaced pants barely clinging to his hips. He had no weapon but his own brute strength, but he was prepared to fight.