Royal Blood (ManxMan Fantasy Romance)

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ROYAL BLOOD

A Love Story from the Reign of King Tamoe Talestra of the House of Tisanneides

Also available on Smashwords  (see the comments for the link)

Let's say, I'll celebrate 500 votes on this chapter by translating the sequel to this story, it's approximately the same length, also 5 chapters, and is titled 'February 14' (it's the Crown Prince's birthday).

At the age of nineteen Daronghi Dancennou, the Crown Prince of Creede, was a thoroughly spoiled, impudent and cynical brat. His father King Talestra was extremely lenient towards his only son, spoiling him to excess and indulging his every whim. At the age of sixteen the Crown Prince was already appointed lieutenant of the King's Royal Guard, and in mere two years he was named the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Creedan army, no less.

Not that his appointment was completely undeserved. The young Prince was a fair military expert, possessed a great strategic mind and a daring imagination. The only things he lacked, both in military service and in private life, were responsibility, modesty and self-restraint.

Prince Dancennou had been changing lovers as often as underwear. Sometimes more often. Quite a few of them didn't even merit the honor of their names being remembered, never mind the second meeting. He firmly preferred women, although in his early youth he had one or two experiments with boys his age. Female charm, compliance and frailty appealed to him a great deal more than male strength, and his own flippant manners and capricious charms attracted almost exclusively ladies.

Besides, Daronghi was very fastidious about his partners and always sought only those who could equal his own attractiveness. And that wasn't an easy task, because Prince Dancennou was beautiful as a typical hero of a tawdry romance. He possessed not one or two of the necessary qualities but the whole list of them, namely smooth snow-white skin, finely chiseled features, full crimson lips, eyes of an unusual violet-blue color like the stormy night skies after the sunset, raven-black hair streaming like rain down to his shoulders, and those shoulders, waist, hips, legs, blah-blah-blah, all the stuff one had read in a romance a million times over and had been bored to death by it.

He wore his military uniform with unrivalled elegance; he sang songs and recited verses with so much skill his audience had been invariably moved to tears. It should be added that he didn't compose songs and verses himself — so maybe the list of his qualities was not so full after all. But he did everything else: fenced, rode horses, shot bows, threw knives, played half a dozen musical instruments (not half badly but without heart), spoke three foreign languages including Elvish (the latter rather poorly, but seeing as others spoke it much worse he still could make an impression). He was an acknowledged king of seduction who never once had met with any serious resistance. He could win over anyone he desired, and without going any particular length for it. Until he had met Chevalier Ruatta.

Rudra Ruatta was a serious and quiet young man of two-and-twenty, newly appointed lieutenant of the Royal Guard. Daronghi was enraptured by him at first sight, right from the moment he saw him a few steps away on the sunlit courtyard of the Guard barracks: clad in a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned, in tight pants and knee-high boots, with a rapier in hand practicing his fencing skills with another officer.

For a very long time no man had the privilege of capturing the Prince's attention. But that young man was an exception, he was exceptionally handsome — no, beautiful beyond words, and Daronghi wanted to have him right from the moment he saw him. Yet the Prince didn't came near him that day, didn't say a word to him, didn't show the slightest interest, only flung out some passing remark with pretended indifference when his attendant said, "And that one there is Rudra Ruatta himself. The red-headed hottie who had driven the whole province mad with lust, now came to conquer the capital."

The Prince proceeded with his inspection, surveyed the barracks, visited the Royal Quartermaster, then his father the King, then he spent some time in the evening with his friends at the tavern. He talked coherently, even laughed when somebody was telling a joke, but his eyes saw only the young Chevalier, his red and auburn hair with a tinge of copper, his eyes the color of spring leaves wet with rain, his skin... oh God, his skin with delicate golden tan, and his slim graceful legs — between those legs the Prince would spend the whole night, the whole week without getting out of bed — and his strong shoulders under the thin fabric of his shirt, and his arms, and — yes, of course, his lips, pressed sternly together, just to think how they would part gasping, breathing out Daronghi's name, begging him...

That was the moment when the Prince had to excuse himself, leave his drinking companions and go splash his face and neck with cold water, because the heat of his thoughts became unbearable. Yet he couldn't stop and even made things worse by suddenly trying to imagine what was hidden underneath the young Chevalier clothes, how his stomach and hips and buttocks would look, and the red fuzz of his groin... Consequently the Prince had to lock himself in the men's room and masturbate to the point of exhaustion imagining himself fucking Rudra Ruatta senseless.

The next day the Prince could muster enough composure to meet the object of his desire face to face. He had lost no time in ordering the transfer of one Chevalier Ruatta to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Creedan army and a secret and thorough background check on him.

It was very strange indeed that someone possessing such beauty should be so modest in his personal life. During a year and a half Rudra Ruatta had spent in the capital he plunged into no adventure of notice and even had no official love affair! One might fall under the impression the whole purport of the young Chevalier's life was carving out his military career, which he did with unseen devotion, ardor and diligence, learning the art of war and politics. It was rather understandable, though, for the heir of a family of very modest means who lived in the country until the age of twenty. He still visited the trysting houses, although not very often, and had an occasional drink with his friends but lived alone and generally kept to himself.

"My kitten is shy," the Prince thought. The data gathered didn't discourage him. On the contrary, it inflamed his desire even more. A gloomy anchorite was in some sense an easier prey, more susceptible than a light-headed libertine used to flirtation. One had only to find the right approach, match the right key to the lock, and all that repressed sensuality, all that years of longing for love, all those secret dreams and desires would spring out like a fountain and shower upon the lucky conqueror.

Of course, had it been uncovered that Ruatta's reserved disposition was the product of trauma — a love wound still unhealed, for example, or a lingering sorrow after a heavy loss — the Prince would deem the idea of seducing the man utterly pointless and abandon it happily. He cared not one bit for cripples of unhappy love, overripe virgins, and self-loathing losers as well as for those sexually impaired or wallowing in their sorrow.

But the background check on Chevalier Ruatta produced no evidence of such kind. The Prince had every reason to believe that Rudra was one of those rare specimens who spent their lives in fetters of rigorous discipline and dismissed out of hand any passing fancies waiting for their true love to make its appearance. Daronghi just adored to be mistaken for someone's true love, it was always so refreshing.

It should be said however that the Prince was light-headed but not altogether cruel. He possessed the uncanny ability to sever relationships in such a manner that a break-off was never followed by a single scandal, scene, demand, suicide attempt or any other unpleasantness. His exes just quitted the stage to lick their wounds somewhere quiet and never approached him again, which suited him nicely.

The Prince didn't even think of the old fable known to every child in Creede. The fable told about a foolish man who was in such a haste to quench his thirst that he had plucked a tiny stone from a river dam, intending to put it back after he had drunk enough. Of course the result was quite foreseeable: the water burst through the tiny opening wrecking the whole dam to pieces, and the raging flood swept away the foolish man among everything that had the misfortune to be nearby.