Chapter 1 — Candlelight

The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the dim room. Snake knelt beneath King Fallon, face pressed into the silk pillows, bordering on suffocation.

With every thrust, Snake could feel the king grow closer and closer to his peak, he sighed, suddenly limp between his legs. He always hated when this would happen—when his body would retreat before his mind did.

He pushed back against Fallon in an attempt to get his body to work again, moaning once as the cock deep within him brushed his prostate. Still, nothing.

"Stop." Snake reached behind him, sharp nails brushing against Fallon's thigh.

When Fallon grunted and kept going, Snake pushed himself up on his hands and crawled forward once. "I said stop." He sneered, sitting upright and facing the king with a narrowed, red gaze.

"You forget you're speaking to your king, Snake." Fallon sighed, but he made no attempt to grab Snake once more. The scholar knew he wouldn't.

"You forget that, without me, your plans are bound to fail. So when I say stop, you stop."

And that was that. They both went about their days as usual—well, Fallon went to the bathhouse to finish the job first. Snake went back to his study, deciding he would wash up later. There was much to do.

Snake sat hunched over scattered parchments, one hand writing in a large font, loopy cursive, his other hand flipping through maps and history books written of the Kingdom of Vaust. Which was to become, much to Snake's fury, Iron Aris.

The study was dimly lit, as well, the only light being a lantern whose flame kept flickering and dying out. His eyes shook trying to examine the page, the magnifying glass not helping anymore either. The shortage of wax not lost on him either. Of course, before Fallon hired Snake, there wasn't much wax to spare to begin with—that was a delicacy meant for royalty. But Snake was unofficially royal as far as he was concerned. And Fallon had his fair share of fun despite today's sex cut short, so what was really the issue? 

Snake didn't want to face Fallon at the moment, still a little snippy with him for no particular reason. But if he was going to do his job, he needed to be able to see what he was doing. As if his eyesight wasn't bad enough.

Snake found Fallon, still soaking in the tub, though luckily the king had finished his business and wouldn't assume Snake was coming to help him finish.

"Snake—gods, you should knock first." Fallon quickly tied a silk sash about his robe. Snake raised an annoyed, white brow. As of they hadn't both been naked together in Fallon's bed moments ago.

"I need a new candle. Mine has burned too low and I can't see what I'm doing." He folded his arms over his chest.

"Unfortunately, I won't have any candles for you until next month. The man delivering them to me was caught in the battle still going on down South."

"Then, I'll take one from the ballroom. I can't recall the last time you had guests over, anyways." 

Fallon sighed but nodded, "Very well. Do not take more than two."

"I'll take as many as I want." Snake closed the door behind him with a click. Not that he needed one hundred candles. He really would only use two over the next month, but he liked watching Fallon's brows knit in annoyance. Besides, there was not much to do around Fallon but annoy the man himself.

Sure, Iron Aris was thriving, but beyond those walls, freshly built—the image of a new beginning—there was kingdoms like Fallon that still struggled to even obtain wax and cloth for clothes.

Snake's eyebrows pinched, head tilted as he reached for a new parchment, careful not to rip it with his nails, dipping his quill in ink and writing away.