Page 8 of The Pastel Prince

“My horse is…” I jerked a shaky thumb over my shoulder, only to jump when Atriel nuzzled my throat. “My horse is here.”

The dapple mare and the brown gelding rubbed noses. “She is a rare beauty.” I nodded as I slid my foot into a stirrup. I was immensely happy to have such a robust and eye-pleasing companion.

Not that my thoughts should be of his fine profile or the way he looked fresh from the lake. Surely that was not fitting a man of his stature, but goddess blessed, he was lovely to view beside me. It would be a long, uncomfortable ride with my cock at half-mast the entire trip. Perhaps a crooked old crone with halitosis would have been better after all.

Over the next few days, I began to learn a great deal about Beirach Dreyath.

Everything I discovered made me admire him more. Not a good situation to be in as we had a dire objective that required our full attention. Whimsical notions of soft kisses, warm embraces, and his large body pressing mine into the leafy ground were rather shameful of me, but I could no easier stop them than I could cease breathing.

Beirach was a pleasant companion, not only in looks but in personality.

He had more stories of past adventures than there were birds in the trees. As we rode, he kept me entertained with tales of bravery, tomfoolery, and danger. He had lived a full life, rife with travels, until for some reason, nearing his last century, he simply stopped. There was no explanation forthcoming during our rides. It struck me as odd that an archdruid of his caliber and vast involvement with teaching young druids and battling the forces of darkness that sought to snuff out nature’s light would suddenly retire.

Obviously, he was hearty and hale. He rode well. He ate with gusto. While neither of us partook of meat, our dinners were always robust, for he made fine stews and soups from the stores in his satchels and what we found in the ever-thickening woods. The man also played Fish the Pond with something akin to glee. I’d only ever played the card game with Aelir, and so had no knowledge of just how vigorous most adults grew over a simple game where one matched different suits of cards.

Every night we played and every night he cleared out my cache of berries and tree nuts. Granted, the berries and nuts were fed back to me the next eve, so while I lost, I still won, for my cooking talents were nonexistent.

Also, the bear of a man slept like the undead and snored loudly. It was a sound that quieted the woods and kept my eyeswide open. Finally, when I nearly fell asleep on horseback, I suggested we take vigils keeping watch. The Verboten had enveloped us, and while I feared little in the forest, outlaws and thieves were known to prowl the trails. Many set up camps in the old-growth woods, for it was so dense that it was nigh impossible for the local town guards to ferret out the bandits. I now slept with the silver daggers under my bedding just in case.

He thought it a wise idea, so we began to take turns tending the low fire as the other slept. My time on guard was spent trying not to stare for hours at the man splayed out beside the fire, his long thick leg resting outside his blanket, his chestnut hair freed from any bonds, and his impressive chest on display as it rose and fell with his thunderous breaths.

One of the things I learned about Beirach was that he slept in the nude. I’d not done so for many years, for city elves wore thin sleep shirts to bed. Also, I had a young friend who suffered sleep terrors and would, unexpectedly, climb into my bed for succor. So nudity was out of the question in Renedith even though I had been raised with it as common course.

It became quite obvious that I was a poor guard when just last night, as Beirach lay snoring, his blanket tangled in his legs, our camp was invaded. My eyes had been lingering on his cock resting comfortably by his heavy balls. A thicket of reddish-brown curls grew around the base of his meaty shaft. With the horses asleep behind me and Nin roosted in a dead yellow pine several yards away, I let my mind wander. My imagination took over and soon I was lost in a heated fantasy rife with questing hands, hot mouths, and long fat pricks. My hand had slid into my trousers, found my rigid shaft, and was massaging it when a snuffling black boar with yellowed tusks as long as my forearm charged through camp. The horses reared and cried out in fright. The boar ran around the firepit, knocking over the leftover leek soup that we would have had for breakfast. I jerkedmy hand from my shaft, face as red as the coals in the fire. Beirach sat up, motions slowed with sleep, and flung a muzzy look at me.

“I dozed off,” I lied, my prick throbbing with need, my cheeks hot. I crossed my legs to hide the pole in my pants.

“Looks as if we shall have flat bread and dried berry strips to break our fast,” he sleepily said and fell back to his bedroll to begin snoring once more, his body bared to my hungry eyes. I bit back a groan at his nude form as I crawled to my bedroll.

I buried my face in the rolled-up shirt I used as a pillow and tried my best to ignore the wet spot in my underclothes.

“I HOPE THE MORNING FAREwas to your liking,” Beirach said as we rode along the next day, his gelding and my mare trotting side-by-side on a cart path that showed signs of slowly returning to the forest. “The bread is getting drier by the day lamentably.”

“Apologies for my lack of attention.” I glanced to my left to drink in the new day on his rugged face. His hair gleamed more red than brown in the dappled light. The scar on his chin was surrounded by thick chestnut whiskers, the hair not growing on the deep reddish mark. Would that scar be raised or had it flattened out? How had he come by it? Did his hair feel as thick and soft as it looked? Ugh. Lack of attention was quickly becoming a dire problem for me.

“Think nothing of it. It had been a long day and you are not used to such vigorous activity.”

I nodded in silence, then ripped my eyes from him to try to find comfort in the saddle. My cockstand made that difficult. I let my thoughts drift. A vision of the man at my side laying me down on a mattress stuffed with lilac petals and fine down from swamp tuffet seed pods filled my mind. We were both bare, hard, and grinding into the other.

My gasp pulled his sight from Nin cawing down at us.

“You sleep fitfully most nights. Mayhap you would like me to rub some pink hawthorn salve into your—”

“No!No, I am…my mind is beset with worry, that is all. Thank you, though.”

He gave me a benignant smile, then returned to humming an old tune while our steeds carried us closer to my homelands. We were now navigating small, less traveled lanes, the tiny villages and farming communities had faded away. Now we saw only trees, their numbers increasing with each day’s journey. In many ways, I was glad to be away from judgmental eyes. Here among the oaks, with Beirach at my side, I felt less the outsider.

Within a twelve day, if the weather held and the horses stayed fit, we would be entering the middle vale of the Verboten range, where the clans of bosk elves lived and worshipped. I prayed that my people would not judge me too harshly for the pale tone my flesh had taken on during my stay in Renedith.

“Would you consider it forward to ask how you came by the touch of Danubia upon your brow?” His voice floated over to me as we rounded a gentle curve where someone had, long ago, erected a road sign. The post was overgrown with climbing vines heavy with red flowers that opened to us as we rode by. The vines reached out to me. I let them dance over my fingertips as we passed, and I smiled at the hum of nature’s energy flowing into me.

“I was a small child when the goddess appeared to me and bid me travel to Renedith to help guide the young babe Aelir Stillcloud as he aged.”

“You are indeed blessed to have been touched by the goddess,” he replied as we pushed along, our pace steady.

“It’s been…difficult at times. City elves dislike the coloration of my skin.”

“Then they are fools to the extreme.” I felt heat race up my throat all the way to the tips of my ears. “In all my years, I have never seen a more lovely sight than that blush coloring your cheeks.”

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