Chapter Text
Thanks to You
It was midway to the rising of the God Flame, and the cold had driven Tamacti Jun to wakefulness. He touched the marks gouged into his temple. The blood was already dry. It should have been his final act before committing himself to Valier justice, but intention, barring execution, only went skin deep.
He knew those in the fishing camp would be asleep, as should their uninvited guests, but the crunch of shells along the beach told him not all were. He recognized the approaching gait—quiet but heavy—not trying to hide.
Baba Voss stopped several paces away.
Tamacti remained crouched near the water’s edge, offering nothing in greeting, still irritated Baba had interfered with his plans to die. The fact that he had a valid point did not make it less annoying. In a few days, they would reach their destination, and his promise to help Baba find his wife would be fulfilled—assuming princess Maghra was still alive when they got there. What he did after that would not be the warrior’s concern.
“Did you get food?” Baba asked.
“She did as you ordered,” he said in answer, though he had not touched what the Compass guardian reluctantly brought him. The shore scavengers were probably pleased to get roast pheasant instead of fish heads.
“I had a thought,” Baba said with a weightiness that belied the spontaneous comment.
“Congratulations,” he replied, even as he noticed Baba slowly circling him, almost in prelude to an attack—which made little sense, unless he had changed his mind about letting him live.
“I doubt you’ll like it,” Baba’s voice was suddenly full of controlled menace.
Tamacti was reminded of Edo Voss, each time the commander brought prisoners for the rack. His instinct told him to grab the knife in his boot and go for the throat, but he ignored it. He would not kill Maghra’s husband.
In the time it took to dismiss the idea, Baba closed the distance, sliding along the ground and knocking him off balance. Landing on his side, he attempted to roll out of reach, but was caught around the waist, pinned by the man’s greater weight.
“Thanks to you, I haven’t fucked my wife in months,” Baba growled.
Tamacti was not sure why this personal problem had suddenly become his concern. “May I suggest,” he panted, trying to block the efforts to subdue him, “you go fuck yourself?”
“I would rather fuck you,” said a voice deep with aggression.
It was not in his nature to submit to that, but Baba was well-endowed with both muscle and skill. As an arm snaked around his neck, Tamacti yanked down on it with both hands, attempting to break the hold. “I’d rather…you didn’t,” he grated, struggling to swallow. He pried the arm back just enough, biting at the cloth-covered muscle encircling his throat. Baba’s other hand grabbed at him, and he felt a splitting pain as a piece of godbone was torn from his ear, then his head was dragged back and locked in an inescapable chokehold. The pressure was nearly overwhelming. Pushing as hard as he could against the ground, he tried to shove Baba onto his back, where he was still healing from the whipping in Trivantes, but the man kicked the back of his knee, dropping him to the sand.
He could hear little besides the increasingly loud rush of his own pulse as Baba’s arm tightened against the sides of his neck, then words came faint to his ear: “I wasn’t asking permission.”
The arm flexed again, and the sustained constriction snuffed out his thoughts within seconds.
***
When he came to, he found himself kneeling, still restrained by an arm around his neck. He was no longer being choked, but the pressure under his jaw kept his back arched. His breeches had been dragged down, and the shaggy cloak he wore was shifted to the side. Baba’s body pressed tight against him from nape to buttocks, and he felt the heat of bare skin touching his ass, a stark contrast to the cold air chilling his groin. The warrior’s potent musk assaulted his senses.
He began to turn, but Baba took hold of his wrist, trapping it between their bodies. A rough beard scraped hot against his ripped ear.
“There are…consequences, for what you did to my tribe.”
So it was revenge, he thought.
Baba’s free hand slid down his back, all the way to the base of his spine, then calloused fingers were touching him in places no other man had. He tried not to react as he was crudely penetrated. Even so, his cock twitched in response to the stimulation.
“You like that?” Baba asked.
“Not really,” he gritted.
“I’ll go slow.”
He had no idea if that was supposed to be reassuring or threatening. When it came to torture, slow was rarely a good thing. But as Baba began probing him even more intimately, with an almost pleasurable pressure, he felt himself stiffening further, despite his reservations.
Unlike many in his service, he had never been on the receiving end of this act. No one dared suggest it, and his rank demanded he remain the one in control, no matter the situation. But ever since Baba freed him from Trivantes, it was the warrior who had been in charge. He had done nothing to challenge that notion.
Shifting his weight, Baba forced his head downwards, exposing him more. Then the fingers retreated, and he felt warm flesh prodding him. There were prickles of pain as he was pushed at roughly.
Meeting resistance, Baba stopped and spat. After a few moments of preparation, he returned to his efforts, this time persistently.
Tamacti hissed involuntarily when he was breached, half expecting to be brutally pounded right after, but Baba had not been lying about taking it slow. As he was gradually filled by it, he had to admit the warrior’s shaft was sizable. Baba grunted softly as he pushed in further, until there was no space between them.
It had been a natural reaction to resist, but when he considered it further, it no longer mattered what anyone did to him—his problems went infinitely deeper than a prick up his ass. Resigned to whatever would happen, the tension faded from his muscles.
Noticing the change, Baba relaxed the hold around his neck. “This a trick?”
“No,” he coughed.
Surprisingly, Baba must have believed him, relocating the grip around his throat to a more comfortable position across his chest. He found his arm was no longer trapped behind his back, but true to his word, he stayed in position, while Baba remained fully sheathed inside, giving him time to adjust to the intrusion. The man’s breath blew steadily against the back of his neck, as he listened distractedly to the lapping of waves on the shore.
An arm pressed against his chest, and Tamacti let himself be pulled back on his haunches. Being so tightly filled, even the slightest shift in position caused pronounced sensations, not all of which were bad. He had never been an easy one to arouse, having too much rational control over his own feelings, but something about Baba’s tactics were persuasive. His own cock now jutted out between his thighs, and the longer he waited for something to happen, the more he thought about massaging himself.
“If this is what you consider fucking,” he rasped, “Maghra’s not missing much.”
“I would gag you with it, Witchfinder, but I know you will bite.”
“Wise choice.”
Letting go of his chest, Baba’s powerful hands curled tightly around his hips, and the man slowly pulled out. Then the void was refilled, this time with a grinding heaviness, as if Baba sought something deep within his center. It shoved him onto his hands and knees, and he braced to avoid being driven to the ground, while broken shells dug into his palms. After that, the warrior began to thrust in earnest.
The unmistakable impact of flesh against flesh resounded in the calm night, while Baba’s guttural noises did nothing to disguise the act. If this drew the Valier sentries onto them, resulting in one or both slaughtered in the middle of sex, it would not be his fault, Tamacti thought wryly.
Jaw clenching, his hand finally went to his own cock. He doubted Baba cared if he was enjoying this or not, so he might as well make the most of it.
With the additional ministrations, his frame of mind began to shift. Baba’s angle shifted as well, and suddenly he felt more than he expected to, as he was hit in a certain spot with every thrust. His own actions were almost secondary to the feelings Baba elicited—the tip of his cock was already slick with proof of it.
He felt his inhibitions beginning to collapse, and he barely managed to stifle a moan, as Baba coaxed him to a state he had never been in. Blunt nails dug into the tender skin just before his hips, and he knew he would be filled with the man’s seed soon enough. The thought was both unwelcome, and utterly stimulating, pushing him closer to the edge. The pressure swelled just beneath the surface, while Baba’s relentless rhythm caused a rush of intense tightening from the back of his thighs through his torso. His heart beat even harder than when they were fighting, and Tamacti bowed his head, shuddering at the aching pleasure surging through his body, the feel of it building to an intolerable point.
Baba responded by wrapping his arms tightly around his chest—as if he were some sort of primal possession—then pulling out almost cruelly, before ramming himself hard inside.
Clutching at the ground, Tamacti’s fingers burrowed deep into the sand, as his other hand quickened its pace. He felt Baba’s body quivering against him, his breathing erratic, and he realized the man was struggling to hold back, drawing out the punishment. He suddenly imagined being impaled by a Valier spear, leaving him eternally at the peak, without relief. The threat of it brought him to the brink. Then Baba was vocalizing like an animal in rut, pulsing inside of him.
The sensation was more than he could stand. He convulsed within Baba’s grasp, snarling his release, as his seed shot blood-warm across the inside of his thigh.
Muscles trembling, he crumpled into himself, forehead touching the back of his wrists, the weight of Baba’s body draped over him. He was still clasped in a rough embrace, while the man’s chest heaved slowly against his back. At last, the warrior pulled out without a word, rolling to the side.
For long moments Tamacti remained a fur-clad heap on the shore, as the spasms ebbed like the tide.
With the warmth of a body no longer shielding him from the wind, he pulled up his breeches, wondering what they were supposed to do now. Kiss and cuddle? Pretend nothing happened? Neither seemed appropriate. This act was intended to be retribution for destroying a village full of people, yet he felt almost guilty about not hating every moment of it.
“So now what?” he asked bluntly.
Baba spoke gruffly from an arm’s length away. “You want more?”
“No,” Tamacti said sharply, surprised the answer was not self-evident.
“Good, I’m tired,” Baba yawned.
“I meant, are you satisfied?” He was unsure if this had sated Baba’s desire for revenge.
“Yeah, for the moment,” he answered blithely. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t mean like that,” he said, slightly exasperated. Baba’s aggression seemed to have dissipated, but he did not understand what had replaced it. “And why would that matter to you?”
The man’s breath huffed in something resembling a laugh. “I knew you wouldn’t agree to it, unless you thought it was a punishment.”
“What else would it be?” he asked, touching his torn ear, the blood slowly running down his neck.
“Mutually beneficial?” Baba suggested. “I need you to stay alive. I thought this might help.”
“By being a pain in my ass? Thanks,” he said sarcastically.
“So you could feel something…better.”
Were it someone else, he might have distrusted the dual motivation, but Baba seemed to have as little love for lies as he did.
“Felt as if you liked it,” Baba said, daring him to deny it.
Which he could not quite bring himself to do. The man had forced open a gate to feelings he had not expected to access again, and for a brief time, he experienced something that was not purely pain or guilt. But his life had been spent maintaining control over himself, as much as others, and anything which threatened that was problematic. “Nothing I can’t do myself, were I so inclined,” he said dismissively.
“Really?” Baba snorted. “Then maybe next time we switch?”
“You want me to fuck you?” he said skeptically.
“If you’re up for it.” It sounded like a genuine challenge, rather than a jest.
“Huh,” Tamacti laughed slightly, knowing he should simply reject the concept, but…the man seemed convinced of having done him a favor. Perhaps he should return it.
“Well?” Baba said impatiently.
He hesitated, wondering how willing the warrior would be to submit to his methods. “I’ll consider it.”
“You do that. I’m going back to sleep.” Baba began to retrace his path to the huts. “We will meet you at the cross-road in the morning.”
Tamacti grunted his acknowledgment.
“And do not get caught,” Baba ordered.
As the footsteps receded, he knew he should relocate before the early risers came to check their nets. Instead, he remained unmoving, letting his mind sift through events.
Each time he had been determined to die, something impeded him. Some might consider it a blessing, but it felt more like a curse. He suspected Baba understood that. Rarely had anyone hindered his plans so profoundly. At this point, the man’s will was clearly stronger than his, which would normally be a problem, but perhaps it was a sign Baba was destined to be king. Time would tell, and, Tamacti supposed, he would have to be around to find out.
Standing, he shifted his cloak back into place. After locating his staff, he made for the crossroads, doing his best to follow Baba’s command.