Read The Invisible Chains - Part 2: Bonds of Fear for Free Online

began
    ebbing away.
    It was only then that he saw that his brother was also aroused.
    “There is so much you can give me,” Anaxantis whispered.

    42
    Andrew Ashling

    It was the strangest thing. He and another page had night duty
    that week. The prince needed to be guarded at all hours after all, and
    you could never tell when he might need something. Not that he ever
    did. In fact, they had never even seen him after he mounted the stairs
    to his private apartments.
    That is, until tonight. Late in the afternoon he had asked them to
    lead Myrmos, his new horse, to a meadow outside the encampment.
    He would come late in the evening to fetch him, he had said. And so
    he had. The nights were cold and despite their winter clothing they
    had been shivering.
    The prince had come about an hour or two before midnight,
    wearing a drab dark brown mantle with a hood that covered his
    golden hair, instead of one of his more brightly colored ones. It was
    annoying to admit, but although his highness had been civil enough,
    his look hadn’t halted on him. Not even for a fraction of a second. It
    was disconcerting. He had thanked them, mounted his horse, and
    given them leave to return to the castle. They looked forward to a
    late evening meal and warming up in the kitchen. Renda was sure to
    have left them something tasty and filling.
    So far this whole page experience had been somewhat of a
    letdown. He had realized from the first days that his world view had
    been rather limited until now. The fact was that he had been a very
    big fish in a very small pond. At home he was the highest in rank,
    or as good as, the most handsome, the cleverest. Here he was the
    Bonds of Fear
    43
    son of a baron, among future counts and dukes, and there were at
    least a few who were nearly as smart as he was, maybe even just
    as smart. He had also learned that being rich was rather relative.
    He was still the most handsome though. Albeit that this failed to
    impress some people, like that ill-bred boor of a Ramaldah. How the
    prince had ever seen fit to make that oaf a head page, he would never
    understand. And would it kill the bloody churl to use a comb once in
    a while? Surely there must be a few around, even in that hole in the
    ground called Ramaldah.
    The greatest disillusionment, however, was that the prince didn’t
    seem to have noticed him. His highness didn’t exactly hurt the eyes
    either, and he would have no trouble finding a partner whenever he
    desired one. Moreover, as he himself knew all too well, his station in
    life added to his attractiveness. Nothing sexier than power.
    “There is still ample time. One of these weeks I will be assigned
    to Princely Service. There will be much more occasion for personal
    contact then, and under better circumstances too. Meanwhile I might
    as well have some spurious amusement to while away the time.”
    Although usually fastidious to a fault, Lorcko of Iramid had a
    streak for the bizarre, the grotesque even. Every now and again he
    would meet someone he called characterful, someone so disfavored
    by nature that he became, well, interesting in a most stimulating way.
    His friends would wonder why he, who could get anyone he cared
    to choose between his sheets, would sometimes go for an ungainly,
    even hideous freak.
    To begin with, it was invariably an easy kill, though that was
    not the reason. It was more that after a diet of delectable, limber
    young men he craved something more earthy, something more of a
    challenge. He was enthralled by the dawning realization in their eyes
    that this polite, charming, well born young beauty was really courting
    44
    Andrew Ashling
    them. He was fascinated by the contrast of his near perfect body next
    to the often shockingly unsightly collection of bones and skin that
    was his partner of the moment. But he was a master in keeping his
    revulsion inside and let only his fascination shine through under the
    unlikely form of adulation.
    At every occasion of this