Page 2 of The Prince's Sacrifice

“Why would I get bored?” Tor looked more confused than anything.

Pel huffed out a breath, exasperated, and snapped, “Because you like to have sex with more than one person! Because I’m only one person! The most boring and regular and—andUnremarkableperson in the United Realms!”

He was inexperienced, utterly average-looking, and possessed the smallest amount of magic. What was appealing about that?

Pel’s world tilted abruptly, and he found himself on his back pinned by the other man. Tor’s blue eyes flashed, and he looked down at Pel from his position a scant few inches above him.

“You are anamazingperson. I’ve never found you boring, not since I came here and actually got to know you. Your magic might be classified as Unremarkable, butyouare extraordinary. You’re kind and thoughtful and beautiful and one of the best people I know. Yes, you’re only one person, but to be perfectly frank, I can’t imagine dealing with anyone else. Pel, I swear you’re who I want.”

Pel dragged a breath in and then blew it out in a shuddering exhale, trying to quell the storm of emotions inside him.

“I want you so much,” he admitted, his voice unsteady. “I haven’t… I haven’t ever felt like this before. It’s a little overwhelming.”

“We can figure it out together,” Tor assured him. “We can get rid of the people I’ve had sex with.”

Pel blinked at him, stunned. “You can’t just get rid of people!”

“Of course I can.” He sounded supremely certain. “We can send them to Alossa. I’ll find a job for them there.”

Pel’s brain tried to grapple with this cavalier idea of sending people from Tond in the north across the entirety of the United Realms to Alossa in the south.

“They might have families here,” he pointed out. “They might not want to go.”

“Then I could move their entire families,” Tor answered easily. “Or I could pension them off if they’d rather stay here.”

Pel was still struggling with this. “You would pay all the people you’ve had sex with to retire so that they were out of the castle?”

“If it makes you more comfortable,” Tor agreed simply.

Looking at his steady, worried gaze, Pel knew the man was serious. Because he wasridiculous. And incredibly sweet.

It felt like the ground had firmed up under Pel again, and he was able to ask, “Out of curiosity, would the castle continue to function if we got rid of all the people you’ve slept with? I would hate to have to explain a dearth of staff to King Forex.”

Pel’s father didn’t like to be inconvenienced in any way, and he wouldnotbe amused.

Tor eyed him for a moment as though to make sure that Pel wasn’t serious, and then he cracked a smile, Pel laughed, and Tor looked desperately relieved.

Pel might be the only one who needed to worry about past sexual partners, but it was clear Tor was invested in this, too.

“There weren’t that many people,” Tor told him once their mirth had subsided. “I, uh, was a little bored when I first got here. And a little resentful of my brother, who actually thought my behavior warrantedroyal orders.”

“No orgies, no drinking, no captaining the guard, and bonding with the wrong person,” Per recited. “It does seem rather personal.”

But maybe that was what happened when your twin brother was the High King of the United Realms.

Tor looked surprised. “I don’t actually remember us talking about that.”

“You had some feelings while you were drunk,” Pel said carefully.

The one time that Tor had broken his brother’s edict, after he’d confessed to Pel about an order gone wrong that had resulted in the death of a dozen guards.

“Ah,” Tor said, looking entirely uncomfortable for a moment, before he sighed and rolled his eyes. “It’s not easy having family who also technically rules over you, as I’m sure you know well. I was determined to obey the letter of the law but get a little creative with the spirit of it.”

“Whatdoesqualify as an orgy?” Pel asked with deliberate lightness.

Tor’s expression went both open and a bit outraged. “Right? Because now you’re probably thinking that I went around having sex with a hundred people in a night. And I never did—not once! Honestly, I think it can’t have been more than four or five, which”—catching sight of Pel’s expression, Tor clearly amended what he was going to say—“is more than one, obviously. But it wasn’t like we were all having sex at the same time, even. It’s just… a night can be kind of long, and sometimes lots of peopleare interested. But most of the time, it was genuinely only one or two other people. I have a friend who was happy to join me when there was an interested lady. And thatisn’tan orgy.”

Tor was very emphatic, and Pel had to admit that it wasn’t what he imagined if he thoughtorgy. But it was hard to still the faint churning in his stomach. Those four or five people were more than Pel had ever slept with, never mind in one night—and he would never be more than one person.