If I Had a Voice, I Would Sing

Beloved

It's the quiet hiss of the cooling embers that wakes Stiles.

He opens his eyes slowly, for he knows what the morrow brings.

The fire in the hearth has faded, leaving only glowing coals and the full moon to cast the tavern room into shadows.

Stiles rolls onto his side, facing his bedmate, and stares.

He traces every handsome ridge of his fearsome Norseman, trying desperately to stem the flow of poisonous regret—to stop it from reaching his heart.

After all, the organ no longer belongs to him.

Stiles reaches out a tentative hand—one just aching to touch that tanned skin one last time—before a battle-roughened hand darts out and grips his wrist in an unbreakable hold.

Peter had not even opened his eyes to do it.

"What troubles you so, my treasure? You are usually long asleep by this hour."

Tears well unbidden in Stiles' eyes, but he blinks them back furiously. "'Tis nothing," he whispers, voice choked. "Go back to sleep."

Within a matter of mere seconds, Stiles finds himself flipped around—his back thumping against the thick muscle of Peter's chest, the man's strong arms coming to wrap tightly around Stiles' abdomen.

"You foolish creature. Do not think that you can keep yourself from me. You know that every part of your being belongs to me—or have you forgotten your place already?" Peter rolls his hips against Stiles' ass, ever-so-carefully wedging his growing erection into the split of Stiles' cheeks. The oil and seed from their earlier lovemaking leaks from his hole and spills along his thighs, making the slow glide of Peter's cock deliciously wet and smooth.

"Please...Peter, I can't—" a muffled sob wrenches itself from Stiles' throat, and he clutches longingly at the arm wrapped possessively across his chest.

"You can," Peter growls. "Tell me what burdens you so, so that I may kill it and bring to you its head."

Stiles' breath hitches, and he tries to be strong—but as soon as Peter bites down on the curve of his neck, Stiles breaks. "I am leaving tomorrow."

"You and I leave one another all of the time, treasure. It is in our nature." Peter soothes his bite with sloppy kisses. "But it is also in our nature to find each other again. We always do."

"Not this time, I fear," Stiles whispers.

Peter stills behind him, his whole body going taut. He tightens his hold on Stiles. "What are you saying, beloved? What foul blasphemy is that, to say that we should never meet again?"

"I am afraid I have never confided in you the unfortunate circumstances of my birth," Stiles says, voice utterly bereft. "Or of my duty."

"Nonsense!" Peter interrupts, tone as sharp as his sword. "You are a warrior—a fearsome one! When I first spied you on that battlefield, blood in your teeth and death in your eyes—I had thought my time had already come, that a Valkyrie had already guided me to the gates of Valhalla and you were my reward." Peter starts petting Stiles, circling his palms over Stiles' hips in soothing motions. "When I claimed you as my treasure and stole you away, I knew myself to be a blessed man."

Stiles bursts out into watery laughter, unable to forget the ugly hilarity of their first encounter. "Have you forgotten, then, the matter of me escaping my bondage and leaving you shackled to your horse?"

"I have not forgotten, treasure. That was when I knew it was love."

Stiles' tears return. "Gods, but I love you, too."

Peter shushes him softly. "Then what is this talk of leaving?"

"You will not believe me."

"I would believe the ocean was red if you swore it was true."

Stiles shivers at the gravity of those words. "I am a prince." He twines his hands with Peter's and kisses the tips of his fingers. "And I am to be married."

Silence.

And then: "You do have a regal bearing, beloved."

Stiles laughs, a weariness weighing down the sound. "I have been promised to a king from the West." He spits on the ground scathingly. "King Christopher of Argent."

"I would rend his head from his shoulders—bury my hands in his guts—before I let him touch you," Peter swears ferociously.

"I have a duty to my father, to my people, to Poland. It is not for me or you to decide—it was never for me to decide. He has been my betrothed since I was a babe."

Silence.

"And this is how it must be? You would ask me to let you go?"

No! "Yes."

"Then I shall do as you ask," Peter growls, rolling them until Stiles is straddling Peter's waist and sinking down onto his cock. Stiles moans as Peter sits up suddenly, staring into Stiles' eyes as they slowly grind together in the most sinful of dances. "But remember this, beloved," Peter utters silkily into Stiles' ear. "You may be bound by the ways of kings and princes, but I am not. I am one of Odin's sons, and you must never forget what that means." Peter begins to snap his hips in sharp, unrelenting thrusts—and Stiles allows his eyes to close, to embrace the dark pleasures of his lover—his Norseman—just one last time.

----------

When the sun reaches its peak, Stiles allows his mind to wander.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the rocking of his horse's steady gait a deliciously cruel reminder of what he has lost.

The four guards accompanying him to the Argent kingdom are keeping time with him—noticeably wary of Stiles by orders of their King, who knew there was a chance that Stiles would try to escape his fate.

But their alert attentions are wasted, Stiles knows his duty and—

The shrill cry of a war horn.

Oh. He definitely knows the sound of that.

Stiles freezes and then looks out at the forested horizon. He smiles slowly, his heart beginning to pound against his rib cage.

His four guards freeze as well, hands going to hilts as they determine the horn to be a sign of impending attack.

But Stiles knows it for what it truly is: a promise.

I am one of Odin's sons, and you must never forget what that means.