Red On Your Lips
Words: 4,309
Pairing: OMC (Cadeyrn)/Harry
Beta: None.
Warnings: Mpreg. Also, beheading (i.e. murder), though not particularly explicit.
He pants heavily as he practically flies, barefoot, across the branches and stones that litter the forest floor, his breath a cloud before him. He almost trips several times and his hands bare the marks of the instances in which he hasn't regained his balance in time, palms skinned and blood rising in scarlet pinpricks across raw pink skin. Everything hurts, but he has to leave, has to run from the hunter on his tail.
Just a little further, he tells himself desperately, dogging the bulk of yet another branch swaying into his path. It feels like the forest is tightening around him, vines grasping at his ankles in conspiracy to stop him dead in his path.
He would not be surprised if they were.
He does not know this land, can't speak to the magic here. Not when it is so loyal to the men who rule it - to the man chasing him right now.
He can hear the man behind him, steps heavy on the ground of his forefathers as he runs to capture the witch on his territory, and Harry foolishly makes the mistake of looking behind him.
He catches only a glimpse of icy blue eyes before he finds himself falling, collapsing still onto the rough ground before the prince in a strange imitation of prostration. He sits up, rising fast in an attempt to run again, but it is too late - his hunter has caught him, is standing above him right now with a heavy hand between his shoulder blades and a strong arm around his waist, keeping him chained where he is.
He struggles desperately, turning this way and that to dislodge the hold those fingers have on him but they are too strong, and he is too weak.
Eventually he has no more energy left in him and is reduced to glaring at the man who held him captive, the man who looks down at him smugly now, a smirk alighting on his thin lips.
"Like a bird," he laughs. "No more, my little sparrow?"
Harry bares his teeth in response, eyes spitting fire and what he wouldn't do to rip those arms off him, to escape the vicious hold this man holds him in, but he knows it is more than just arms around him, more than just his refusal to let Harry run.
Cadeyrn chains him by his heart and it's whims, by the fruit his seed has brought him, and Harry has tried so many times to leave him and his bed permanently - this time being his latest, only to fail every time.
"Why won't you let me be?" he asks. It is rhetorical, his eyes exhausted and dark as he looks upon his lover sadly, but Cadeyrn answers regardless.
"How could I?" he asks, running the knuckles of his hand down a soft cheek. He is gentle, but cruel - because he will always be cruel, this man. A warrior prince with no regard to who stand in his path, for he cuts them all down regardless, and is loved and adored by his people despite his disregard for them.
And Harry, the man who's fallen in love with him, the man he's fallen in love with, and yet this is not a happy story.
Cadeyrn leans forward, makes to touch lips to Harry's, but Harry turns his face away, refusing to look at him. It is a challenge to the prince - and the prince never deals well with those.
Growling, he grips Harry's chin tight, pulling his face around. "Look at me," he roars, eyes wide and angry. "Look at me, at the man who sired the child within you!"
"Let me go," Harry replies, trying not to betray the tremble of fear in him, nor the pain he feels at the tense grip on his face.
"Never." It is the demand in that tone that makes Harry want to run, the possessive undercurrent of darkness. A miracle of miracles resides inside the fragile cage of his body, and he loves it more than his own life already. Once he'd been able to lie with this man, flirt with the danger he poses to him and his kind and accept the risk because it was just him who was at risk, but now?
How can he trust Cadeyrn to take care of him? To take care of his- no, their child. This man is a predator, and Harry has always been his challenge. They have played with each other, but it isn't a game anymore, and Harry wants so badly to just run-
But he is trapped.
"What do you even want from me?" he whispers. His gaze is lowered onto their feet - his own bare and white and delicate, dirt-covered toes seeming so breakable next to his lover's, which rest covered with the protection of strong leather boots, muddy and dirty from the chase.
"I want you," Cadeyrn replies, grabbing onto his upper arms and pulling him close. "And you want me, Harry."
"So what if I do?" Harry replies angrily. "Don't you see? This is not just about you and me anymore. Whatever game we were playing, it's done!"
"Who said this was a game, little witch?" he growls, shaking him a little. "This became serious the moment you conceived the child within you." He smirks. "Don't you realise, my little sparrow, that I am a Prince? You are carrying my heir."
"And what, you would want any harlot who happens to come to carry your child? Is that it?"
"Of course not," Cadeyrn snorts. His grip has softened on his arms, becoming almost gentle, but Harry knows that it will be just as firm and inescapable as before if tried. "I'd never allow some whore to bear me a child, dear. I'd sooner kill her with my bare hands."
Harry's eyes widen, but he doesn't even know why he's so surprised. He knows this man, could have guessed his answer himself, and yet it is another thing altogether to hear it being said.
Cadeyrn laughs at the expression on his face. "Don't mistake me for a kind man, Harry," he teases, and Harry growls.
"I don't think I could, even if I wanted," he retorts angrily, but the prince only laughs harder.
"Harry, dear Harry..." he chuckles. "I'll ask only this of you. My father is becoming old, and he won't last much longer. Sooner rather than later, I'll ascend to the throne." He smiles at Harry's confusion, raising a finger to trace it along his lover's parted lips. "I'll need to marry, little sparrow. Won't you rule by my side?"
Harry stands, silent, and he feels the overwhelming urge to cry because he knows what was coming next. And yet, still he has to ask.
"What if I don't?"
Cadeyrn merely smiles. "Rule by my side," he repeats. "Become mine, my consort, the mother of my children, and I'll promise you won't want for anything."
It is so, so tempting to just accept. How simple it would be, how easy to just give in to the demands of this man. It is a sweet temptation, and for a minute Harry let's himself imagine it.
"And what of your love," he asks softly, refusing to look into those proud blue eyes. When Cadeyrn tilts his head up to look at him this time, he seems almost fond.
"You'll want for nothing," he repeats gently, and Harry understands that this is the closest that he's going to get to an answer.
Cadeyrn's hand slides down so that one wraps around his back, holding him in place, and the other comes to rest between them on a still-flat stomach. The message is clear - if not for himself, then for his child, and how can he say no to that?
He leans up, tilts onto his tiptoes and presses a kiss to the strong jaw before him in answer.
Cadeyrn's palace is a lavish and beautiful thing, every inch exquisitely crafted and constantly bustling with servants going about their business. And it is Cadeyrn's palace, if only because he's the one that runs it now, even when his father still holds the title of king.
Harry has seen it before, but never like this. His rendezvous with Cadeyrn usually take place outside the palace, in the forests or in rented rooms, or in the properties Cadeyrn owns outside the city. The few times they meet inside, Harry only walks through the halls at night, sneaking around as if he's a thief.
And perhaps he is. But if he's managed to steal something precious of Cadeyrn's, he can't find it in himself to feel sorry for him in any way.
This time, he walks through the halls for the first time whilst the sun still shines bright outside. He walks for the first time where everyone can see him, and he walks with pride.
Cadeyrn's arm around his waist says all, and whispers follow him like a bride's train. The father will know before the hour is up, but his companion seems unconcerned. In fact, he smirks as smugly as is possible, and makes little circles with his thumb that Harry can feel through the thin cloth of his tunic.
It warms him, arouses him, and he has to quell a shiver in response, but if he is ashamed, then nobody would know it from observing him. He's sure of that.
They end in Cadeyrn's chambers, where they had started last night when Harry had entered on dancer's feet. Last night, when he'd closed the door behind him and been taken straight to bed, touched by rough warrior's fingers and made to scream for what he'd imagined would be the last time.
He'd left in the early morning, before dawn. He'd done it so many times before, there would be no reason for him to think Cadeyrn was awake. No reason to suspect he even knew, for his lover had said nothing even in the late hours before they slept, when his tongue was loosest.
But of course he'd known.
It was why Harry had found himself running with no cloak and bare feet, and why Cadeyrn had bothered giving chase, being of the firm - and not incorrect - belief that if Harry left now, he'd never come back. He'd grabbed onto Harry's wrist as he made to leave, pushed him effortlessly against a wall and lain a meaningful palm across Harry's abdomen, and Harry had understood.
Who'd have thought they'd find themselves here? They'd calculated every step of this dance, every move and flick of a wrist, but they'd neglected to think on how it would end. Perhaps he'd dreamed it'd last an eternity, or maybe they had been so lost in the taste of each other that it had never even crossed their minds.
Cadeyrn takes him back there now, lays him down on soft cotton and polished wood. He touches Harry, slowly trailing fingers down his temple and cheek and jaw and Harry does not move, but closes his eyes and savours it. Are they in love? Is that why they keep coming back to each other? Perhaps the reason Cadeyrn does not strike him down on the spot is not because he's no harlot, but because he's actually found it in himself to care for another.
And what a day that would be.
He's been stripped of his breeches now, and lies only in a thin shirt that has been pushed up his chest. He may as well be naked, but what does that matter when he's been naked a million times before this man?
Kisses come to rest on the soft white skin of his thighs, and Harry is thinking of the first time he saw this man, bored and proud and angry and so achingly handsome that Harry both hated and wanted him in one breath. He's thinking of when their eyes met, and the way icy blue turned into the hottest flame, and the way they trailed down his body so slowly it felt as if he was standing bare before him.
Cadeyrn is pushing him onto his knees now, and Harry bows his back in clear invitation into his body. Cadeyrn is asking him for entrance, and Harry offers it to him without a word. And why wouldn't he, when he wants it just as much?
Cadeyrn has never been gentle with him before. He's not rough, not violent, but their coupling has always been a thing of raw power and animalistic passion, and there is no room for slow lovemaking in a relationship like that. And Harry has never complained - there is nothing to complain about! He'll be the first to admit he loves it.
But now Cadeyrn moves so slowly, and is so gentle with his fingers and his lips that Harry feels ten times as sensitive, and ten times as fragile. He feels as if he'll fall apart at the slightest touch, and smallest word, and it makes him feel so achingly vulnerable that he's glad his face is hidden from Cadeyrn's gaze.
His lover's fingers caress the opening to his body and he trails kisses down Harry's back as if he knows exactly what he's thinking, but Harry's too lost in pleasure to care anymore. He stretches up further, panting and whining and Cadeyrn laughs low and deep behind him.
"Patience, little bird," he says, and then holds onto his hips as he slides his heavy erection into Harry's body.
He moans, slow and languid, and spreads his legs a little more. He's calling Cadeyrn into him, and it feels more intimate than anything they've ever done before despite the fact that Cadeyrn has seen all of him, many times. But it feels different this time - feels more profound.
He doesn't know what it is - perhaps it is the slow whispering in his ear, or the way his lover's rough palm rests on his abdomen - but in any case, it feels like Cadeyrn is touching the deepest parts of him. The parts he didn't even know existed.
They aren't having sex anymore. They aren't fucking or just 'having fun', they're making love now. For the first time in his life, Harry is being made love to and he feels so cherished, so precious, that he wants to cry. Cadeyrn is moving inside him, chasing not his own end but their mutual enjoyment, and for the first time Harry actually feels like he could believe Cadeyrn's words when he claims love.
The erection within him stills, and then Cadeyrn's strong arms are turning him around to face his lover, the father of his unborn child. He is not looking at him with a soft, gentle sort of love - not the type of love Harry has always imagined when he thinks of such things. No, his eyes are fierce still, his mouth just as firm and his fingers just as strong and capable. But they shine with a protective gleam, a harsh sort of reality that takes his breath away. Cadeyrn wouldn't throw himself in front of an arrow for him, but would grab the weapon out of mid-air and hurl it back, and rip apart the bodies of their enemies with his bare hands. He'd protect them both with everything he had, his eyes told Harry. He'd keep them safe.
And, Harry thinks, he's content with that.
Cadeyrn's father is an old man, close-minded and set in his ways as many of the elderly often are. Especially those used to getting their way.
He is not unfriendly - or at least not outright. Instead he looks at everyone with the same moody expression on his face, the same harshness on his tongue. He is kind to no one, if only because he feels his rights have been taken from him. His right to rule, to be obeyed.
Cadeyrn doesn't seem to care.
He introduces Harry swiftly, arm firm across his back. When they woke this morning - though honestly it had been closer to midday - Cadeyrn had slipped a ring onto his finger without a word. He's examined it a little since, and recognised the stone as alexandrite - a stone known for changing colour drastically in different lights. A stone that he knows Cadeyrn is especially fond of.
It is a different type of claiming. Harry says nothing.
And now there is Cadeyrn's father, staring at him through dark, sullen eyes as he sneers at someone he thinks below him and Harry's shudders with sudden rage.
This. This is the reason he and his kind are oppressed instead of accepted, the reason they are no longer healers and seers but witches, unnatural offspring of bad women and their devil lovers. He looks down at Harry like one would look upon a particularly disgusting bug but Harry is not cowed - he does not care for the opinion of this dying tyrant. Not even if he is Cadeyrn's father.
He straightens his back, pulling back his shoulders and lifting his chin, and sneers right back at the old man.
Cadeyrn chuckles - a dark, sarcastic sound, and tightens his arm around Harry's shoulders. "He is to be my consort," he says, not a request but an order, like everything Cadeyrn says. But unlike everyone Cadeyrn talks to, Gwrtheyrn deems himself superior to him, and thus rankles at the tone his son takes with him.
"I refuse," he hisses. He sends a poisonous glance at Harry, as if asking him how he dares, but Harry just blinks down at him coldly. He is glad Gwrtheyrn is sitting, because had he been standing Harry knows he'd be taller. It makes all of this much easier.
Cadeyrn is smirking now, raising and eyebrow at his father as if the situation is infinitely amusing. "I didn't ask," he says, so bold and insolent, and for a minute Harry feels strangely awkward. He might hate the old man, for years spent hiding his heritage, for the fear of being hunted and caught one day, for the constant moving - but this is still Cadeyrn's father. Do they not care for each other at all?
But it seems not, as Cadeyrn seems completely uncaring of his father's anger. "He is a witch!" the man derides. "To think you've even touched him-"
Cadeyrn slams his hand down on the table beside him. His smirk is still there, but it is tighter now, angrier. Harry suppresses a shiver.
"Your opinions are not wanted," he says, fingers turning white against the wood with the strength of his grip. "Father."
He says the word like an insult, and then turns and leads Harry out without another word. They don't speak as they make their way back to Cadeyrn's private rooms, but once they get there Cadeyrn turns him to face him again. He rests a hand on his face, and just stands there a while before sliding it down, down, until it comes to a rest over his abdomen.
And then he leaves.
And Harry is left staring at where he stood just seconds ago.
His life as Cadeyrn's consort is unlike any he's lived before, even when compared to the sweet childhood spent he has spent with his now deceased family among his countrymen. Then, he'd been a child, happy and beloved and innocent until tragedy had struck, and he realised that there had always been a veil over his eyes. Now, he lives fully aware of the harsh life of war, of the streets, and yet lives in luxury.
He earns his respect. Living in a beautiful castle and sleeping in soft beds does nothing to blunt his mind or his magic, and soon enough the insolent stares and cutting rumours turn to demure glances that turn to the floor as he passes, and nothing save the unfailingly polite in those whom he converses with or hears talking as he passes.
He leaves his rooms less and less, however, as the child within him grows. Cadeyrn still visits him every day save when he is away, and loves him just as fiercely, but as his belly grows so does the hostility between his husband-to-be and Cadeyrn's once-king father. Their sharp tongues fight political battles almost every day as the older man tries to discredit his son, sully his reputation and denounce his right to power, and Harry watches as his lover becomes more and more angry.
Cadeyrn has always been a warrior, a man who fights his battles with sword rather than words, and Harry is aware that, sooner or later, the man will lose his patience and snap.
He prays for his child's safety when he does.
The situation comes to a head five months after Harry first meets Gwrtheyrn. They are in the rooms Harry has been given, eating together as they have started to do as their relationship develops. Harry has been served after his fiancé, and as the maid turns away Harry reaches out to drink, only to freeze.
There is a sharp smell coming from the cup in his hands, and though Harry realises he should not be able to recognise its presence he feels like he can almost see the noxious, purple cloud of it in the air. Cadeyrn stills, tensing, and turns to him slowly as Harry turns his eyes to the woman. She cowers, but what does Harry care when she would have killed both him and the child he carries?
"Poison," he whispers, and the maid flinches as if struck. And she may as well have been, because Cadeyrn does not even deign to say a word as he stands, unsheathes the weapon at his side, and cuts her head clean off. And Harry does not flinch or look away as her headless body crumples to the ground, and as her blood splatters against the walls and the food and his passive face.
Cadeyrn drops the sword and kneels before him, taking his hands into his larger ones with surprising gentleness, and Harry realises belatedly that they're trembling. "Poison," he says again, almost accusing, but his lover does not seem to take offence.
He instead smiles - the turn of his lips almost feral - and stands, pulling Harry up with him as he takes a hold of the hilt of his blade again. He does not sheath it as he bends down and lays a kiss on the back of the hand in his grasp.
"I swore to you, my little sparrow," he says, and then saunters out like a wolf amongst sheep.
To appear with a bloody sword, uncovered, before his own father as he does is the height of disrespect in itself, but Cadeyrn has lost the small amount of concern he had. He walks straight up to the throne, where his father is coincidentally sitting. It seems almost planned - the smug smile, the pride and badly hidden glee in his eyes at his son's rage all speak to previous planning and gloating, but all of it vanishes as the old man sets eyes on Harry's heavily pregnant form. All at once, horror comes over his aged face as he turns to face his progeny, and is instead faced with a tip of a bloody blade.
"On your knees," comes the loud, hard command. Cadeyrn is covered in blood, his chest bare from neglecting to put on a shirt when he stalked out of his rooms, and his blade is dripping red from the lifeblood of a young maid, but his eyes are just as bright a blue as always. The looks of shock on the people's faces are almost comical, but his lover looks almost amused.
No, he looks excited, Harry realises, but he finds he is not nearly as horrified as he should be. There is no room for it in his head right now, not when it is filled with the buzzing of panic wearing down and anger rising up.
Gwrtheyrn calls out his son's name, but Cadeyrn does not seem to care as he motions with his sword almost lazily. "On. Your. Knees," he says again, more softly, but here is the undercurrent of impatience now, and despite his pride the father is fully aware of the strength of his child.
He slips down onto his knees.
Cadeyrn smiles broadly out to the people standing and staring, frozen in whatever job they were busy with, and Harry covers his belly with his arms gently. His lover's eyes alight on him with the movement, and his smile widens as he runs an appreciative glance down the length of his body.
"I swore to you," he says, so soft that Harry could not possibly have heard it, but the shape of his lips tell him all. And then he swings. There is utter stillness as dozens of eyes rest in disbelief on the decapitated head, and then a scream rings out as the sight registers.
There is a frantic rush as people panic about what to do, and yet still Cadeyrn does not look away from Harry. He extends a hand to him and beckons, and calls for an official to be brought to him swiftly as Harry takes soft steps up to him, not looking away from the ice and fire of his eyes.
Cadeyrn does not look away from him either, and when the old man arrives, they are married like that - Cadeyrn shirtless and bloody, and Harry barefoot and dressed in soft white and green, the body of his father-in-law bleeding at his feet, and the future of the kingdom resting, growing in his belly unaware.
Harry thinks it is the best gift anyone has ever given him.