Once Upon a Time

第20章 Chapter (1)

Rohan jumped off the zywern’s back, enabled its gravitational bindings again, and headed back to the palace.

He had hoped a ride would clear his head and help him get rid of the maddening tension building under his skin, but judging by the fact that he still itched to go to the Crown Prince and get back inside him, it hadn’t exactly worked.

Rohan heaved a frustrated sigh, at his wits’ end. He had been Jamil’s “manservant” for six days already and he had spent them avoiding the prince instead of actually working with him to aplish what he was there for. When he wasn’t avoiding the prince, he was too high on their mental connection to want to do anything productive. As things stood, he was never going to learn anything substantial.

Fuck, maybe he should just break into the Fifth Royal Palace, caution be damned. But as Jamil had said, Dalatteya’s security measures were bordering on paranoid, with three different people doing background checks, cameras everywhere and most servants being droids.

It was almost as though she had something to hide.

Rohan’s lips curled at the thought. The woman was smart and cautious; he would give her that. But then again, she knew better than anyone that treachery coulde from even the most innocuous sources.

No, trying to get into Dalatteya’s palace on his own would be suicidal. He needed Jamil’s help if he hoped to get close enough to the woman.

If only he could figure out how to be around Jamil without getting… sidetracked.

Rohan stopped, realizing where his feet had brought him. He was in front of Jamil’s private chambers once again.

Rohan clenched his jaw, looking at the door in frustration. His muscles were tense and there was a low hum of arousal under his skin—arousal that made no sense. He wasn’t into men. That didn’t change, no matter how much he liked looking at the prince’s pretty face. But Rohan’s body seemed to confuse the tension, the pent-up need with a sexual one, which was wrong on so many levels Rohan wanted to laugh. He didn’t want to fuck the prince. Jamil was as far from his type as it got. He liked them blonde, petite, and curvy. Muscular, dark-haired men as tall as himself did nothing for him. Except it seemed he couldn’t tell right from left when he was inside the prince’s sweet, beautiful mind, and his cock got a little confused.

The door suddenly opened and he was greeted by the sight of Jamil in his white, silky nightwear. “Are you going to stand there all night?” the prince said tersely, his green eyes blazing fire. “Your thoughts are loud.”

That was another thing—another pretty damn creepy thing. The more time passed, the more attuned to each other they seemed to be. Rohan had his shields fully up. The prince shouldn’t have been able to sense him at all, much less get a glimpse of his thoughts.

“You didn’t have to open the door,” Rohan said, shouldering past Jamil and walking toward the window.

The door slid shut.

Silence fell over the room, filling his senses with tension the likes of which he’d never felt in his life.

His cock strained his pants.

Rohan gritted his teeth, looking out the window. The night was moonless so there was nothing of interest, but he stared at the night scenery as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. As if his cock wasn’t so hard he could pound nails with it. As if he couldn’t feel the prince’s need almost as acutely as his own.

“I could hardly have you standing outside my rooms,” Jamil said, his posh voice stiff, a little awkward. “What would the servants say?”

Rohan snorted. “For someone who cares so much about propriety, you sure spend a lot of time thinking about my cock in you.”

Silence.

“Get out,” Jamil said flatly.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I ot we weren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“I said get out.”

Rohan turned around, his lips twisting into something that was almost a smile when he saw Jamil’s withering look. “I’m tired, and not really in the mood for our usual denial dance, sweetheart. Shall we skip it? We both know how it ends.”

Two spots of color appeared on the prince’s pale cheeks, the color of his plush lips. He really was incredibly lovely, for a man. It was a pity he was a man. If he weren’t, Rohan would have already been balls deep inside him and fucked this strange fixation out of his system days ago.

“I know no such thing,” Jamil said, haltingly.

“Liar,” Rohan said, walking toward him.

Jamil took a step back, his eyes very bright. Wary. Hungry.

Rohan continued advancing on him.

Wetting his lips with his tongue, Jamil took another step back.

“I know you’ve been thinking about it all day,” Rohan said, stepping closer. “Because I have, too.e on, admit it, Highness.”

Jamil shook his head, even though his mental presence was already reaching out greedily, entwining with Rohan’s, inviting him in, hungry and needy.

“Is this how it’s gonna be?” Rohan said, smiling sardonically. “You want to keep pretending that you don’t want it?” Truth be told, the prince’s continued claims that he didn’t want this should have pissed him off. It should have. But having been in Jamil’s mind, Rohan knew him. He knew him on the most intimate, deepest level there was to know another person. He knew what made Prince Jamil the person he was now: a boy who had grown up too fast, with immense expectations and responsibilities put on him from very early childhood, a grieving man who had lost his husband and best friend months ago, a man who felt crippling guilt for just feeling good, as if his ability to feel good should have died with his husband. Jamil had molded himself to be the perfect husband, bondmate, and heir to the throne. Anything that didn’t fit those roles—or what Jamil perceived as unfitting—stressed him out to an unhealthy degree.

“You didn’t even love him,” Rohan heard himself say and then nearly sighed in frustration. He had been resolved to leave it alone—the subject wouldn’t exactly endear him to Jamil—but it didn’t work. Something in him wanted to point it out, the same something that wanted to rip that ugly, broken bond out of Jamil’s mind. It made Rohan uneasy. He wasn’t a possessive man, had never been. Until now, apparently. It was almost funny that he felt so insanely possessive over a man he didn’t want to fuck while he had never felt even a little jealous when he was with women he dated.

“How dare you,” Jamil bit off, breathing unsteadily. “You think you know my feelings for Mehmer better than I do?”

Yes. Rohan had to actually bite his tongue to stop himself from saying that. “All I’m saying is that your… feelings for the prince-consort were artificial, born from that unnatural bond you had with him since you were a small child. You know I’m right. You loved him because you had no choice, Jamil.”

The prince glared daggers at him. “I didn’t give you permission to use my shorter name,” he said,pletely ignoring what Rohan had said. “It’s Prince Jamil’ngh’veighli for you.”

Rohan chuckled, taking one last step forward until they were toe to toe. “That’s a bit of a mouthful, darling. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to call you that.”

“You will call me Your Highness. Failing that, you will call me Prince Jamil’ngh’veighli,” the prince said stubbornly, as if he wasn’t trembling from head to toe from their proximity. He was wound up so tightly it made Rohan agitated, too—more agitated than he already was.

Sighing, Rohan pressed their foreheads together. “You need to learn to loosen up,” he murmured, burying his fingers in the prince’s soft hair. “Let go, sweetheart,” he whispered, his eyelids growing heavier as their minds slotted together, slipping into a shallow merge, effortlessly.

Jamil whimpered, his mind going empty with pure bliss. Truth be told, Rohan wasn’t faring much better, his senses quickly clouding with pleasure. The only reason he wasn’t as gone yet was because, unlike Jamil, he actually had experience with merges and his tolerance was higher. He was just rational enough to recognize that this was bad. This was a disaster. They were quickly bing addicted to a merge—to each other’s minds. He’d heard stories of merge addiction, but it was rare enough and usually nowhere near as extreme as this. The mere fact that Rohan no longer even needed to touch Jamil’s telepathic point to initiate a merge was extremely worrying. Or would be if he were able to feel anything but pleasure at the moment.

“We need to figure out how to get close to Dalatteya.” Jamil’s voice in the merge was low and intimate, almost sleepy, free of tension and primness that always seemed to be present in his real voice. “Then you can leave and we won’t have to deal with this anymore.”

“Yes.” Rohan slid in deeper, reaching to Jamil’s pulsing, golden core that seemed to be aching for him. Closer, it whispered. Need you closer.

“Later,” Jamil murmured, his thoughts turning erratic the closer Rohan got to his core. The vile remnants of his torn bond were still wrapped around it, though much looser than before. It wouldn’t take much to tear them away—if he wanted to. And fuck, did he want to. He wanted to rip that thing out and take its place. It didn’t belong.

“Didn’t we talk about your inappropriate possessiveness?”

“We did. And we established that it isn’t my fault.”

Jamil laughed. It was a beautiful sound—a beautiful feeling.

Rohan stroked his core with his mental fingers and Jamil moaned, jerking as though electrocuted. “More.”

He stroked Jamil’s core again, which pulsed in pleasure, reaching out for him hungrily, inviting him in. Rohan groaned. He’d never done such a deep merge—never wanted to—but this was beyond addictive, pleasure spreading from his mind down his body, to his cock.

“Fuck, I don’t think I can pull out,” he said aloud, opening his eyes and focusing them on Jamil’s slack-jawed, flushed face. The sight was… oddly satisfying. He liked watching this very proper princee absolutely undone just from his mental touch. It was ridiculously heady.

“Then don’t pull out,” Ja