Chapter 6

AFTER RAFE undid the ties that bound Zaspyr to the bed, he told me we should go back to Delion. The last thing Zaspyr needed was for guards lurking about looking for two fugitive slaves. Zaspyr would need to regain some strength before he could travel. Rafe said there was water and food here and that Zaspyr could recover here in peace until we were ready to smuggle him out of the palace. I was reluctant to leave my friend behind, but Rafe was right. Our presence here would only bring Zaspyr unwanted attention.

"Why are you helping us?" I asked Rafe as we made our way back through the hedge maze. The sun was starting to set, and purple rays of twilight turned the garden into an enchanted wonderland. It would have been easier to appreciate the beauty of the sunset if it didn't remind me of the pools of blood of the arena. "Aren't you from Manna City? Don't you guys see us as animals?"

"I have a secret," Rafe said and grabbed my hand to hurry me down the pathway toward the hedge maze. His hands were cold and clammy. Clearly, what had happened in that shed had shaken him to the core. His emotional reaction to what happened to Zaspyr had left his eyes puffy and tear-stained. "I am partially Nivarrin on my mother's side."

"Why did her family leave Nivarrin, to go to a city in Ignias of all places?"

"I don't know. I know she had the option of going back, but she chose to stay with my father." Rafe swatted away a stray vine of ivy that brushed against my shoulder. He beamed at me after doing so as though he was fulfilling some kind of gentlemanly obligation.

I didn't consider myself the intuitive type, but even I can see that he looked as though a tremendous weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Did he really care that much about helping Zaspyr or did he have another objective in mind?

"My dad didn't have much to offer, not compared to what she had in Nivarrin," Rafe said with a light-hearted chuckle.

"Tell me, who do you think is more handsome? Prince Orion or me?" Rafe asked suddenly with an amused smile. "Let's assume for the sake of argument he isn't a complete raving lunatic."

"Why don't we assume one of you is a panda? What kind of question is that?"

"What I mean is, do you think there could be a chance for redemption for a man like him?"

"No," I snapped back. "Not in a thousand years would I pick Orion Balan. You don't understand, how could you? If you saw what I saw, out there in the streets, you would hate him too."

"I guess you're right," Rafe said with a more subdued laugh. "Forget Prince Orion. Do you think we can be friends, you and me?"

Rafe approached and cornered me against one of the hedges. Although he was about a head taller than me and could probably snap me like a twig with his bare hands, I shoved his well-muscled chest away.

"Only if you agree to run away with Zaspyr and me. You're a criminal now, aren't you? You stole from the Prince. And doesn't it feel good helping the good guys for once?"

"That is true," Rafe said as his expression turned grave. "It was a great feeling to save that wounded man."

"I need to take him back to the mountains if he is going to live," I said. "There is a man with the Modryne, a priest, who they say has great healing powers. I only started the process; he can finish it."

Before I was able to continue, Rafe kissed me again. His mouth was rougher than his hands, more demanding. I've never been kissed that way before, like I was the water in the desert before a man who had seen only mirages before. He didn't need words to convey to me his hunger, his longing, and our sense of belonging together. The way he seemed to part my lips with his tongue and passionately, lovingly, shyly fill my mouth with the most intimate parts of himself — it was as though we were two pieces of the same puzzle that had fit together perfectly.

His fingers intertwined with mine, pinning me up against the side of the hedge. I barely felt the twigs and leaves poking through my sheer dress against my skin. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon. They were going to notice we were gone soon. As much as I wanted with every inch of my being to escape from this damned place, I couldn't run — not if Zaspyr was going to have a chance at rest and recovery.

We had to go back and pretend as though nothing had happened. I was going to bed Orion Balan that night. It was a matter I had no choice in. There were those who are born to be slaves and those who were born to be kings. Rafe continued to kiss me as though he didn't have another care in the world. I was starting to wonder if he was very brave to defy the mad Prince or if he was just very stupid.

"You really are an angel," Rafe whispered, his breath hot against my ear. I felt an undeniable stir between my legs at the sound of his growling voice. Staring at his dark bluish-hazel eyes, at the innocent blush in his cheeks, I wanted nothing more than to explore every crevasse of his naked, welcoming chest with my lips. He glanced shyly at my eyes and smiled, his tongue licking his lips in anticipation. "I've never met anyone like you."

"Can I ask you for a favor?" I asked as I pushed him off of me, holding Rafe at arm's length. His chest was heaving with the force of his desire. The look in his eyes spoke of impatience and barely contained lust. He cocked his head at me in an adorable, playful way as though he already knew every scandalous thought passing through my mind.

"Anything."

I bit my lip. I was the one whose cheeks were turning red now. "Will you m-make love to me?" I felt the tears form in my eyes and roll down my cheeks before I could will myself to be strong. "I don't want that monster to have me. I can't stop him, but I want to know what it's like, just once, to be with a boy."

He laughed softly at me. That wasn't the reaction I was expecting. I was dead serious about my request.

"The Prince has probably forgotten all about you. He has the attention span of a hummingbird."

"Please, Rafe," I whispered as I wiped my wet eyes with the back of my hand. "It is silly, I know. If you do this for me, I'll be so grateful. I'll find a way to pay you back in this lifetime for the next."

Rafe's lip curled up as though he was about to brush aside my words with another joke. As a sob escaped my throat, he reached up with his thumb and cupped my cheek. Suddenly, solemn — he nodded and ripped the strap of the gold dress off my shoulder. I guess that meant he agreed. Before I was able to mind my sudden nakedness and rethink my proposition, Rafe embraced me with his strong, muscular arms.

He pressed his chest against me and kissed me with the unabated enthusiasm of a teenage boy who was exploring a girl's body for the first time. As he continued to kiss me, my sobs of sorrow gave way to moans of pleasure. His lips traveled down my throat to my breast. He cupped my left breast with one hand and then placed his lips around the center of my other breast. All my doubts were brushed aside as I watched him feast on me. There was something indescribably wonderful about being made love to by a boy who was filled with genuine appreciation and gratitude.

He groaned softly as his body brushed up against my thigh. "Are you sure?" He asked, pausing breathlessly to look up at me one more time.

I didn't know if it was my relief to get this over with finally or if I was actually developing feelings for this handsome boy. At that second - smolderingly gorgeous couldn't begin to describe him. Glancing at me with his inquisitive eyes underneath those strong bushy eyebrows that reminded me of a lion crouching in the savanna, I would have said yes to anything that passed between his lips.

 I didn't want him to delay things any further. I just wanted to tear his threadbare pants off him. I wanted to wrap my hands around those beautiful, robust buttocks that his low-hanging pants offered up a teasing glimpse of.

I nodded. "Yes, Rafe, I want, just once, to know what it's like."

"No regrets?"

"No. I want to be with someone like you — someone who I actually want touching me. Someone who isn't repulsive. Y-you don't know what this means to me."

"Okay. Sora, look at me, believe me —the pleasure is all mine," Rafe replied sincerely. He eased the other strap off my other shoulder, and the dress fell to my feet in a pile of liquid gold. I wasn't wearing any underwear underneath my dress. I wasn't wearing anything underneath; I wasn't wearing anything else at all. Rafe started kissing his way down between my breasts, all the way down into my inner thigh. "I love the way you taste," he moaned between kisses.

Whatever it was that he was doing, I had never experienced anything like it before. For a girl who lived in the streets, I knew painfully little about the details of intercourse. The one time I spoke to my late sister-in-law about it, she told me a boy puts the hardest part of his body in the most sensitive part of a girl's. I was pretty sure that was not what Rafe was doing, down on his knees before me and his head between my thighs.

I would have stopped him out of shyness if not for the fact that he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. As his tongue entered me, I gasped and reached for the hedge behind me for support. His mouth was so warm and inviting against my skin. The way his rough cheek scraped against my skin only added to my exquisite arousal. I didn't want it ever to stop.

Moaning, I reached down and grabbed a handful of his dark curls. I tugged at them. He responded by reaching up with one hand and seizing my breast. There was something so deliciously forbidden about that violation, the slave boy deflowering the property of His Mighty Highness Orion Balan.

It was an act of rebellion that I would hold in the most treasured sanctum of my mind — no — of my heart, even through the darkest of times ahead. As my joy coursed through me, like the sweetest of all honey and cream, I cried out in ecstasy. After he slowly, happily pushed himself back up to his feet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he winked at me as though we now shared a secret.

"We should head back, Sorayi. We're lucky they haven't started looking for us yet."