The handsome half-smile Wren loved so well curled up one side of Shrike’s perfect mouth. “Then shall we begin?”
And, under the hungry gaze of the Hidden Folk, he turned to Wren, cupped his cheek in his palm, and drew him in for a kiss. Deep and languid, just as Wren liked best. A claiming kiss, he realised. One which marked him out as Shrike’s forevermore—and marked Shrike as his—no matter what occurred on this eve. The thought of it thrilled him to his core.
As they broke apart, Hull stepped forward.
“May I?” he asked Wren.
Wren, his pulse unaccountably fluttering, nodded.
Hull cradled Wren’s jaw in his fingertips and bent to kiss him. Wren, who’d kissed no one but Shrike since they’d met, and had kissed precious few gentlemen before him, hadn’t the first idea what to expect. Hull proved gentler than one might suppose, his touch carrying a tentative curiosity. He waited to open his mouth until Wren opened his, and only then did their tongues meet, still with that same tender exploration, as if the experience were as novel for him as it was for Wren.
Then they parted, and Wren opened his eyes to find Hull halfway into pulling his shirt over his head. It was a shirt in the style which had been fashionable in the age of Wren’s father or grandfather, with flowing sleeves and a loose open collar. Wren supposed Hull favoured it because it went easily over his horns.
A quick glance around showed all the other fae doing likewise. Rikke had the least to do in throwing off his tattered shawl. Drude had worn the same flowing shirt and knee-breeches as Hull; the thin white of the shirt had done little to disguise his broad crimson chest and stout middle, and the removal of his black woollen breeches revealed a prick in proportion to the rest of his enormous body.
Shrike likewise disrobed. The speed and ease with which he did so—out in the open, under the sun, in front of a horde of fae—astonished Wren at first, until he stifled his shock by reminding himself that Shrike was fae, after all, and the fae had no mortal moral qualms against the nude form. They’d done the very same at Midsummer. And after all, Wren enjoyed the sight of him. His sun-kissed skin, his well-earned muscles, his scarslike a weathered map of forgotten lands which Wren delighted in navigating.
Wren felt less delighted at the prospect of baring his own body. He knew his reluctance was ridiculous. He had, after all, shown everything in the Midsummer duel—though he still blushed to recall it, much to Shrike’s amusement.
Even then, however, his body had merely been observed from afar. Whereas the three strange fae gathered before him now would experience it first-hand. He knew himself not half so beautiful as any huldrekall or incubus. No matter what Shrike might say to the contrary.
Shrike watched him now. The gleam of eager anticipation in his dark eyes turned to concern which knit his brow. A single stride closed what distance remained between them. He bent his head, and Wren upraised his face to meet his kiss. A brief one, nonetheless sweet, and one which Shrike followed by turning his lips to Wren’s ear as he enfolded Wren in his arms.
“We don’t have to do this, if you don’t wish it,” he murmured. “We may merely dance or feast. Or go at once. You need but give me a sign.”
“I want to,” Wren insisted low into his collar, knowing those keenly pointed ears would still hear him. “I just…” He trailed off, uncertain what he needed, until inspiration struck. “Will you help me?”
Shrike gave him a curious look but questioned him no farther. He kissed him again, this time slipping his hands beneath the lapels of his frock coat and sliding them up the sleeves until the whole thing shrugged off Wren’s shoulders and fell to the ground. Cravat, waistcoat, boots, trousers, shirt, and smalls followed suit. Under the watchful gaze of the three strangers, Wren realised more keenly than ever before what a ridiculous amount of clothes he wore by fae standards.
Then Shrike’s palms, deliciously warm against Wren’s bare skin, slid beneath his under-shirt and drew it up over his head. When his vision cleared of white cotton, he beheld all of the fae—Shrike included—staring at his body. Not with derision, as he’d feared, but with appreciation. Despite the countless freckles spattered across his skin, and despite the soft swell of his stomach, all three strange fae looked on him with no less interest than before.
As Shrike withdrew, Hull stepped forward.
“I’d be honoured to devour a king,” he said to Wren, his voice husky and low.
Wren glanced to Shrike again, saw his sly half-smile, and returned to Hull. He nodded.
Hull dropt to his knees. Wren beheld his corkscrew horns, the blue-black close-cropped curls tousled over his head, and his Payne’s grey shoulders dappled in silver. Likewise, he beheld a hollow in his back, from where his shoulder-blades ought to have begun, tapering down to just above the root of his tufted tail. The Payne’s grey deepened into darkness within the hollow. Dappled skin smoothed over the ragged edge, with occasional tufts of fur giving the illusion of a mossy crevice within a fallen tree.
Then Hull raised his arm to take Wren in hand, paused, and lifted his face to meet Wren’s gaze.
“May I?” he murmured.
Wren, his prick twitching at the barest brush of his fingertips, nodded again.
Hull wrapped it in his hand. It pulsed in his palm, stiffening even before he began to stroke it. He leant forward and kissed its tip. His lips opened. The head slipped inside.
Wren came undone.
Hull’s tongue, velvety-soft beneath the head of his prick, drew teasing, coaxing knots around him, slipping beneath thefore-skin to encircle the ridge, tracing the vein underneath from its root all the way up to the slit at its tip. His cheeks hollowed as he swallowed Wren down in earnest.
A familiar weight settled against his shoulder-blades. Wren glanced over his shoulder to find Shrike braced against him, back-to-back, whilst Drude and Rikke both knelt before him. Shrike turned his head likewise, smiled to see Wren, and shifted his position enough for their mouths to meet in a kiss. All the while Hull plied his mouth to Wren below, drawing unseemly sounds from his throat to echo within Shrike’s mouth.
An enthusiastic moan from Hull resonated through Wren’s prick, just as Wren broke off his kiss for breath. He turned to regard the huldrekall, who had dropt a hand to his own cock and abused it furiously. As delightful as Wren found the sight of Hull kneeling before him, he regretted that his posture blocked his beautiful dappled-grey prick from view. His fingertips traced the ridges of Hull’s horn before he thought better of it.
“May I…?” he asked, his voice coming ragged.
Hull raised his gaze to meet Wren’s with a mischievous gleam and withdrew his mouth from his prick just long enough to reply, “Please do.”
