Page 127 of The Prince's Fealty

Currently, more than ninety-five percent of Torpelians had pledged their Fealty to Tor, and the land had never been more prosperous.

There was still plenty that they were figuring out, but Tor celebrated each success. As far as they knew, Fealty could still only be inherited, but Tor had begun to wonder if it couldn’t be transferred in some way. Itmostlytransferred to blood relatives, and almost always the eldest child. But sometimes it transferred to a spouse or different child, and occasionally to someone else entirely, though their records seemed to indicate that happened only when there were no blood relatives left. But was that because ithadto or because that was what the holder of the Fealtyexpectedit to do?

People kept pointing to Pamexa as a prime example. Nostex hadn’t known she was his daughter, but the Fealty had gone there. Tor always argued back that Nostexhadknown she existed and hehadbelieved Fealty passed by blood or bond. Just because it hadn’t gone to the blood he’d wanted it to didn’t mean the transfer hadn’t been influenced by his overall belief.

Or it could turn out it was truly linked to blood and bond, and there was no way to influence where it went. The problem was that it was difficult to test without potentially huge repercussions. Their back-up plan was that each person in Torpel could revoke their Fealty from Tor and select someone new. It sounded long and painful, but it should work. Everyone knew that Fealty could be revoked—it was how the exiles had left in the first place, and it was the standard process if people moved between realms, although people usually stayed where they were born.

Tor had another theory that the tie to the Fealty and the land meant that people tended tostayon that land, unless something catastrophic happened and a ruler was so bad that it prompted an exodus like that of the exiles or the citizens who’d moved to Alossa after the war. Even there, the exiles hadn’t left the United Realms. There was an entire world out there, and while their trade with the mainland was minimal, shouldn’t it have seemed like an attractive alternative to exile or death? Yet they’d all stayed. Tor was adventurous and liked to travel, yet he had no desire to visit the mainland. And no realm on the mainland had ever sought to conquer them. Tor had always assumed that they were too small and hard to reach to make it worthwhile, but maybe it wasn’t that at all.

He was trying to question a lot of the things they’d always taken for granted. He wanted to experiment with the Fealty, but they’d agreed to wait at least a few more years, because no one wanted to risk the stability of the land if a transfer didn’t go as intended.

(Pel had been the one to point out that thus far, Fealty was only transferred on people’s deaths. What if removing Fealty en masse like thatcauseddeath? Tor was almost one hundred percent certain it was the other way around, but he agreed it was smart to be cautious.)

Tor had also been thinking more about what Pel had said about Extraordinary not actually being that useful when they weren’t fighting. The United Realms was more at peace than it had ever been, and every ruler was intent on keeping it that way—citizens, too, because they’d never been more prosperous.

Of course, they had to keep training and be ready in case a threat arose. (No one had seen Nostex coming, after all.) But was thatallthey could do? He’d started to wonder if Healers were really the only ones who could share magic readily, or if they perhaps just had a facility to do so. What if Tor could push the magic back to his citizens instead of just receiving magic from them? What if everyone could light crystal lights?

Again, he had to be careful; the Torpelians had accepted his leadership because he helped heal the land. If anything he did jeopardized that, it would defeat the purpose ofhis being here. But at the same time, the possibilities seemed endless. He had lots of ideas, and he didn’t want possibilities to be discounted simply because things had always been done a certain way.

Tor was going to figure out how to test things safely. He was convinced that together, there was nothing they couldn’t do.

Pel

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

Pel couldn’t help but giggle at the absurdity of two grown men in their thirties ducking into a linen closet to get their hands all over one another. But if there was one thing that parenthood had taught them, it was to seize the moment.

Tor threw up enough lights that they could see, then let out an explosive gasp as Pel wrapped his hand around his husband’s hard length. Long, leisurely encounters were restricted to when Grandma Istila or one of their siblings could babysit overnight. The rest of the time, they had to get creative.

And right now, they had about ten minutes before the naming ceremony started, and Shara was with Tor’s brother, no doubt getting up to all sorts of mischief—but not about to walk in on them.

Pel made a humming sound of appreciation. “Feels like someone is happy.”

Tor seized his mouth in a bruising kiss. “I’m always happy with you. You’re the best. And you have great hands.”

Pel snorted with laughter as he demonstrated just what he could do with his hands, until Tor was gasping and spilling into his palm.

That was one advantage to doing this in a linen closet, Pel supposed. It made cleanup a lot easier.

As Pel wiped his hand clean, Tor sank to his knees.

“You’ll ruin your hose,” Pel pointed out.

Tor winked at him. “I don’t really think anyone would be surprised, do you?”

Pel snorted, and then his head thunked back against a shelf as Tor sucked him down. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but he was nevertheless certain that Tor actually got better at this as time went on—and he’d been fantastic the very first time!

Pel closed his eyes and just let the feelings overwhelm him, clutching at Tor’s shoulders so that he wouldn’t grab his hair and make it evenmoreobvious what they’d been doing.

It was all heat and suction and that warm glow that came with knowing that Tor had chosen him—and continued to choose him every day. There’d been more than one lure cast at Tor over the years. He’d foiled a treason plot, after all, and he had a bit of a reputation.

But he looked at Pel like he hung the moon, and his steadfast devotion had convinced even Pel and his insecurities that Tor was exactly where he wanted to be.

Especially when that was on his knees coaxing Pel to make embarrassingly needy sounds.

Pel looked down again, and the sight of Tor’s mouth wrapped around Pel’s cock, his bright blue eyes blazing, was enough to tip Pel over the edge.

Tor continued to suck until Pel squirmed with sensitivity, and then he released his mouthful with a soft “pop.”