He had, in fact, come to crave it nearly as much as Yuri seemed to. Angelo didn’t exactly understand how he and Yuri had ended up where they now were, but that also seemed inevitable. He’d tried spanking with a few girls who’d seemed game, but had quickly dropped it. It hadn’t been the act he’d begun to crave. It was that the act was performed with and on Yuri. He was the important component.
His very last girlfriend had accused Angelo of having an affair with Yuri while being with her. It was nonsense, which he’d told her, and that had been the truth. Whenever Angelo had a girlfriend, his game with Yuri had stopped. Or perhaps a better word was paused. Angelo had protested that firstly, he wasn’t a cheater, and secondly, he wasn’t gay. That her accusation was completely baseless.
“If that’s the truth,” she’d said, each word sounding like it had been etched in ice, “then tell me that you’re not going through with that archaic and ridiculous betrothal. Tell me that you don’t intend to follow through.”
Angelo had stared at her, speechless. Not follow through with his betrothal to Yuri? The idea was impossible. “No,” he finally said. “I can’t break it off.”
“Can’t or won’t, Angel?” Before he could answer, she’d rushed on. “What exactly were you planning to do once this crazy marriage thing goes through? Have you thought about it at all?”
He had, after a fashion. He’d seen himself tied to Yuri for the rest of his days, the two of them next to each other at political and society functions, doing the royal thing side by side. What he’d never thought of, or never allowed himself to think of, was the after, when the two of them were alone. What they would do. He saw them talking, and eating meals together, and watching movies. Things they’d done together their entire lives. But then something else popped into his head and it made him catch his breath.
Angelo saw himself and Yuri in his elegant room in the royal palace in Tanzhir. He sat on the side of his bed with a naked, squirming Yuri on his lap. Angelo spanked the prince until he cried and then came, as he had so many other times before, but in this fantasy, after it was over, Angelo gathered Yuri to him and they lay in each other’s arms, skin to skin, Yuri’s scent filling his nose.
The fantasy hadn’t gone any further in his imagination, but even that had given him an erection—one that his girlfriend had noticed and acidly remarked upon. They’d broken up shortly afterward and Angelo hadn’t sought to replace her.
That, he now realized, was the day he had his first real idea that he wasn’t quite as straight as he’d always said. Angelo couldn’t quite bring himself to say he was bisexual, however. It seemed to him that he was Yuri-sexual. Yuri was his fate, had been so since before his birth, and the accident of his gender had had no bearing on Angelo’s destiny. Yuri was his and Yuri would always be his. That Yuri’s body was male, and not female, didn’t make nearly as much as a difference as one would’ve thought. Angelo would’ve still wanted Yuri had he been missing a limb or was disfigured in an accident. That he had a penis was hardly an obstacle at all, when you got down to it.
Angelo didn’t care what obstacles were put in his path now. Yuri was his. He was Yuri’s. Nothing at all was going to change that. Not his injured body, his sapped strength, or the machinations of his father.
Now all he needed was for his body to cooperate. He was getting stronger every day, but he felt that if he was confined and separated from Yuri much longer, he would go completely mad.
Shortly after one of the king’s daily visits with the palace doctor, Angelo’s mother came to see him. He lay in his uncomfortable hospital bed and stared out the one window the room had to offer.
“How are you doing?” she asked, sitting on a chair beside his bed.
“I’m only being held against my will by my father until I’m well enough that I can do his bidding, thereby making three people miserable.”
Gabriella put a hand to Angelo’s forehead. “I mean physically, dear. I know how you feel otherwise. You seem less feverish today.”
“Yeah. Dr. Mallick says I should be able to be up and about in a few days, so I guess my play-acting has been working.”
His mother smiled. “That, and I’ve had a word with Dr. Mallick. He’s agreed to play up your illness for as long as necessary.”
“And how long is that, Mama? How much longer do I have to wait? I feel strong enough to go now, but you and Nadia and Philippe keep telling me it’s not time yet. When will it be time?”
The queen kissed her son on his no-longer feverish forehead. “Soon. Very soon. In fact, I came here this morning to ask if you’re quite sure being with Prince Yuri is what you desire in life. I don’t want you running to something when what you’re really doing is running from something else.”
“What?” Angelo had no idea what she was getting at.
Gabriella laughed softly. “Which is more important to you: making sure your sister is the heir and you are not, or being with Prince Yuri?”
Angelo thought about it. “If Father insisted I be king instead of Nadia being queen, but I was allowed to have Yuri as my prince consort, I’d do it. It would piss Nadia off, and I’d do as much as I could to co-rule with her, but if the price of being with Yuri was also being heir, I’d do it. I’d rather have Yuri without the throne, however. Nadia won’t be pissed off at me forever and we can just live our lives. Well, within reason. As much as any married
