Chapter 4: Midnight Ride
The subtle absence of warmth was what woke him. Evan surfaced from a deep, untroubled sleep, a rarity for him, to find the space behind him empty. The silk sheets where Valen’s back had been pressed against his chest were cool.
He kept his eyes closed, listening. The room was still. No rustle of clothes, no soft footfalls. Only the faint sound of breathing, close by.
When he finally opened his eyes, the moonlight streaming through the single high window had shifted, painting a silver rectangle across the floor. Valen stood within it, a pale, spectral figure, staring out at the night. He was naked, his profile sharp against the dark stone, the delicate chain of his earring glinting. His stillness was not of peace, but of profound tension, as if he were a bowstring drawn taut, waiting for release or a snap.
Evan said nothing. He watched the line of Valen’s spine, the set of his shoulders. This wasn't the broken whore or the defiant prince. This was something in between, a man caught in a private war Evan had instigated.
Valen must have felt the weight of his gaze. He turned his head slowly. Their eyes met across the shadowed room. No words passed. The air thickened, charged with everything they had done and left unsaid.
Valen turned fully. In the moon’s cold light, every plane of his body was a study in contrasts: sharp hipbones, the shadowed hollow of his stomach, the dark thatch of hair between his legs where he was already half-hard. The sight was deliberate. An offering, or a challenge. He walked back to the bed, his movements fluid, silent. He didn’t join Evan under the covers. Instead, he stood by the bedside, looking down at him.
"Can't sleep?" Evan's voice was rough with disuse.
"The drugs they lace the wine with have worn off," Valen said flatly. "Reality is less… accommodating."
He reached out then, not for Evan, but for the heavy silk sheet. He pulled it down, revealing Evan’s body. The night air was cool on Evan's skin. His own arousal, instinctual and immediate, stirred under that clinical gaze.
Valen’s eyes tracked the movement. A flicker of something—satisfaction, grim acknowledgment—passed over his face. "Still eager, Prince of Elantra?"
"Is that what you want?" Evan countered, making no move to cover himself. "To reduce this to transactions and eagerness?"
"What is this?" Valen asked, the question hanging, sharp as glass. "Your personal redemption project? A way to wash the blood from your hands by drowning it in mine?"
The words were intended to wound. Instead, they clarified something for Evan. He sat up, the movement causing Valen to take a half-step back. "It stopped being about blood the moment you looked at me and saw a man, not a conqueror," Evan said."You laughed. Remember?"
Valen’s composure cracked for a second, his lips pressing into a thin line. He remembered.
Evan shifted, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to face him. The distance between them was inches. "Tell me to leave, Valen. One word. I'll dress and walk out that door, and I won't come back. Your contract remains. Your life here remains." He let the offer sit, brutal in its simplicity. "Or stop talking."
Valen stared at him. The silence stretched, filled with the ghosts of kings and kingdoms and the stark reality of this room. He searched Evan’s face for mockery, for deceit. He found only a weary, unflinching honesty.
He made his choice.
It was the heat that roused Valen next, a solid, demanding pressure against the small of his back. He was curled on his side, Evan’s body a furnace behind him, one heavy arm slung possessively over his waist. He lay perfectly still, listening to the deep, even rhythm of Evan’s breathing. Asleep. Vulnerable.
The hard length nudging him was an insistent, primal truth. It cut through the fog of uneasy sleep, through the lingering shame and the strange, dangerous comfort of being held. This was a language he understood. A transaction of flesh. A way to reclaim a shred of agency, even here, like this.
Slowly, carefully, he extricated himself from Evan’s arm. The prince grunted in his sleep, his brow furrowing, but he didn’t wake. Valen turned to face him. Evan’s features in sleep were younger, stripped of their calculating sharpness. The sight twisted something inside Valen’s chest. He pushed the feeling down, smothered it.
Moving with a hunter’s quiet grace, Valen rose up on his knees. He pushed at Evan’s shoulder until he rolled onto his back with a sigh, his dark hair stark against the white pillow. The sheet fell away, revealing his body in the milky light. He was fully erect, his cock laying thick and heavy against his stomach.
Valen’s mouth went dry. He wasn’t being taken this time. He was doing the taking.
He swung a leg over Evan’s hips, settling his weight atop him. Evan stirred, a low murmur escaping his lips, his hands coming up to rest clumsily on Valen’s thighs. Valen caught them, pushed them back down to the mattress, pinning them gently.
“Shhh,” he whispered, the sound barely audible. “My turn.”
Evan’s eyes fluttered open, blue and clouded with sleep. Comprehension dawned slowly, then ignited into something hot and dark. He didn’t move his pinned hands. He just watched, his breathing deepening.
Valen reached between his own legs, his fingers finding Evan’s cock. He guided the blunt head to his entrance, already slick from their earlier couplings. He hesitated for only a second, his body clenching instinctively.Then he sank down.
It was a slow, inexorable descent, a tight, burning stretch that stole his breath. He felt every inch, the thick, insistent fullness as he sheathed Evan completely inside himself. A soft, punched-out groan escaped him. He braced his hands on Evan’s chest, fingers splayed over the scarred muscle, and let his head fall back.
Evan was rigid beneath him, a statue of restrained need. “Gods, Valen,” he choked out, his hips giving a minute, helpless thrust upwards.
“Don’t,” Valen breathed, his voice tight. “Don’t move. Let me.”
He began to move. Not a frantic, desperate ride, but a deliberate, sensual claiming. He rose up until Evan was almost slipping free, then sank back down in a slow, deep roll of his hips, taking him to the root. The angle was different, deeper, hitting a spot that made white stars burst behind his eyelids. He set a relentless, grinding rhythm, using the muscles of his thighs and back to control every inch of the slide.
It was raw, but it was also shockingly intimate. He could see every flicker of pleasure on Evan’s face—the clenched jaw, the parted lips, the way his eyes darkened to a stormy sea. He could feel the powerful body beneath him trembling with the effort of staying still.
“Look at you,” Evan rasped, his voice thick. “Fuck. Taking what you want. Using me.”
“Yes,” Valen hissed, the word a revelation. He sped up slightly, the slap of skin on skin a quiet, wet counterpoint to their ragged breaths. His own cock, hard and neglected, brushed against Evan’s stomach with each movement. The friction was maddening, not enough. “Is this what you wanted? Your conquered prince on your cock?”
“I want this,” Evan grunted, his hands finally breaking free from Valen’s light hold. They flew to Valen’s hips, his grip iron-strong, not to control, but to feel.“Just this. You. Like this.”
The words, raw and unchecked, shattered something in Valen’s careful control. The deliberate rhythm fractured into something needier, more frantic. He rode Evan harder, his body driving down with a punishing force that was as much about anger as it was about pleasure. Each plunge was a rebellion, each gasp a surrender.
Evan’s thumbs dug into the hollows of his hips, guiding him, matching his pace. “Touch yourself,” Evan commanded, his own voice fraying. “Let me see you come.”
Valen’s hand flew to his own cock. The touch was electric, a direct line to the coiled tension in his gut. He stroked himself in time with his downward thrusts, his movements becoming jerky, uncoordinated. The dual sensations were too much. The deep, filling stretch inside him and the tight, slick friction in his fist blurred together into a single, unbearable point of heat.
“Evan,” he gasped, the name a broken plea. His spine arched, a beautiful, taut bowstring. “I’m… fuck, I’m gonna…”
“Do it.” Evan’s command was a growl. He drove upwards, meeting Valen’s descent with a powerful thrust that seated him impossibly deep.
Valen came with a sound that was half-sob, half-shout. His release painted streaks across Evan’s chest and stomach, hot and sudden. His body clamped down in violent, rhythmic pulses around Evan’s cock, milking him.
The sensation tore Evan’s climax from him. With a guttural roar, he held Valen down, his own hips pumping up off the bed as he emptied himself deep inside in hot, pulsing waves.
The collapse was gradual. Valen’s arms gave out first, and he slumped forward, catching himself on his hands on either side of Evan’s head. They were nose to nose, panting harshly into the small space between their mouths. Sweat dripped from Valen’s brow onto Evan’s. He was still impaled, still intimately connected as they both shuddered through the aftershocks.
Valen’s breath hitched, a sharp, wet sound in the quiet room. The heat inside him was a vivid, living presence, a claim that made his skin feel too tight. Evan’s hands slid from his hips, coming to rest heavily on his own stomach, slick with Valen’s spend.
The connection remained, intimate and shocking. Valen could feel Evan, still thick and hard within him, twitching with the fading pulses of his own release. The wetness between them was a cooling glue. He should move. He should roll away and let the silence yawn between them again.
He didn’t.
Instead, he shifted, a subtle roll of his hips that made them both gasp. Evan’s eyes, which had fallen shut, snapped open. They were dark, fathomless pools in the low light, fixed on Valen’s face with an intensity that felt like a touch.
“Still?” Valen whispered, the word a ragged scrap of sound. He moved again, a testing, deliberate clench of internal muscles around Evan’s softening length.
A low groan vibrated from Evan’s chest. To Valen’s surprise—and his own dark thrill—he felt Evan begin to stiffen again inside him, the spent flesh thickening anew against his sensitive walls. It was impossible. It was obscene. It was exactly what he needed.
“Fucking hell,” Evan breathed, his hands coming back to Valen’s thighs, fingers biting in. “You’re insatiable.”
“You’re still here,” Valen countered, his voice gaining a razor’s edge. He pushed himself up onto his knees, the slow, delicious drag pulling a shiver from them both. Evan’s cock, slick with his own release, glistened in the moonlight as it slid nearly free.
VALEN USES THE SLICKNESS OF EVAN'S RELEASE TO RIDE HIM AGAIN, CHASING ANOTHER CLIMAX, THIS TIME EVAN THRUSTS IN TIME WITH VALEN'S MOVEMENTS.
Valen sank back down. The slide was effortlessly smooth, aided by the wet mess they’d made. A choked sound escaped him. This wasn’t the burning stretch of the first time. This was a deep, filthy, practiced glide, a piston motion in a well-oiled chamber. He set a rhythm immediately, a hard, driving pace that sought only his own relief.
His thighs burned with the effort. Sweat traced new paths through the dried salt on his chest. He braced his hands on Evan’s shoulders, using him as an anchor, his head bowed, eyes squeezed shut against everything but the building coil of sensation low in his gut.
“That’s it,” Evan gritted out beneath him. His own hips began to move, a subtle lift at first, then a powerful upward drive that met Valen’s downward plunge. They found a syncopated rhythm, a wordless collaboration of flesh. The wet slap of skin grew louder, more urgent. “Use me. Just fucking use me.”
Valen’s only answer was a harsh gasp. He was close, so close, teetering on a knife’s edge. Evan’s thrusts angled perfectly, hitting a spot that made his vision blur. He was being fucked and he was doing the fucking, a beautiful, degrading contradiction.
“Touch yourself,” Evan commanded again, his voice rough. “Show me. Let me see you wreck yourself on my cock.”
Valen’s hand was between them in an instant, fisting his own aching length. He was already leaking, pre-cum mixing with the mess on his stomach. The dual sensation was catastrophic. His rhythm fractured into frantic, short strokes.
“I’m gonna—” he choked out, a warning and a plea.
“Do it.” Evan’s hands clenched on his ass, pulling him down hard onto a deep, penetrating thrust. “Come all over yourself again. Mark yourself with it.”
The command, filthy and absolute, tore the climax from him. Valen’s cry was raw, torn from a place deeper than pride or strategy. His release splashed hot over his knuckles and onto Evan’s chest in frantic pulses. His body convulsed, clamping down on Evan with a vise-like intensity that spurred the man beneath him.
Evan drove up into him twice more, hard and final, his own groan a deep rumble of completion as he spilled inside Valen for the second time that night.
Valen collapsed forward, his strength utterly spent. He lay boneless on Evan’s chest, their hearts hammering against each other in a frantic, fading discord. The smell of sex was overwhelming, a musk of salt and sweat and spent passion. Evan’s arms came around him, not in passion now, but in something that felt suspiciously like shelter.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing slowing. Valen’s face was pressed into the hollow of Evan’s neck. He felt hollowed out, scraped clean of every pretense. The defiance was gone. The strategy was ash.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered into the skin beneath his lips. The words were so soft he wasn’t sure they were heard.
Evan’s hand came up, his fingers threading through Valen’s sweat-damp hair. It was a shockingly tender gesture. “Do what?”
“This.” Valen gestured weakly between their bodies, still joined, a sticky, intimate ruin. “Whatever this is. This… shuffling of pieces on a board that’s already been burned.”
Evan was silent for a moment. His thumb stroked the shell of Valen’s ear, tracing the cold metal of the tag. “It’s not a game anymore.”
“Then what is it?” Valen pulled back, just enough to look at him. In the dimness, Evan’s face was stripped bare. The prince was gone. Only the man remained, looking just as lost.
Evan didn’t answer. Instead, he carefully guided Valen off him, turning them onto their sides to face each other. The separation was a shock, a sudden chill. Evan reached for a discarded cloth from the bedside, dampening it in the water basin. Without a word, he began to clean Valen’s stomach, his motions gentle, methodical.
Valen watched him, a strange, cold numbness seeping into his bones. This careful attention was worse than any brutality. It promised things that could not be. When Evan’s hand, still holding the cloth, moved between his legs, Valen caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
Evan stopped. His eyes searched Valen’s. “Why?”
“Because it’s a service,” Valen said, the numbness cracking to reveal a sharp edge of despair. “And I am done being serviced for the night.”
He took the cloth from Evan’s limp hand and turned away, cleaning himself with brisk, impersonal strokes. The silence that followed was a physical weight. When he was done, he tossed the cloth to the floor and lay back, staring at the canopy.
After a minute, he felt the bed shift as Evan moved behind him. He expected to be left in the emptiness. Instead, Evan’s body curved around his again, his front to Valen’s back. An arm settled over his waist, not demanding, just present.
“Sleep,” Evan murmured, his breath warm against Valen’s nape.
It wasn't a request. It was an order, but one wrapped in a fragile, impossible peace. Valen closed his eyes. Outside, the first grey light of dawn began to bleed into the edges of the window, promising a day he did not want to face. Inside, wrapped in the arms of his conqueror, he felt more defeated than he ever had on his knees.