The Heir and the Bastard

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.

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Characters are over the age of 18.

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Steel rang against steel and breath streamed through the slats of training helmets. They were the only souls in the yard today, so John didn't feel all that timid about losing. Rob was nearly of an age with John, but the auburn boy was bigger, stronger, and had the endurance of their lord father. John had patience, though, and he had speed. His dark curls glistened with sweat and stuck to his forehead inside the iron halfhelm.

'You'll never beat me like that,' Rob bellowed, his voice smothered by his own helm. John laughed just loud enough for the older boy to hear and made a feint. Rob did not take the bait, and instead punished John's poor strategy with a downward cut across the thigh. John did his best not to cry out, but instead drove him back as best he could, but Rob had the arms and chest of a man, and his center rarely if ever broke.

Damn him

, the smaller boy thought. If their swords had been sharpened instead of blunt training weapons, the blow would have cleaved straight to the bone. Instead, he would awaken with a nasty bruise tomorrow. And from more than just training, by Rob's disposition. After training, John never wanted more than to rest, to eat, and to nurse his wounds. He and Rob couldn't have been more different in that regard. But then again, they would be different, wouldn't they?

We share the same father

, John thought,

but my mother was low-born.

It was easy for the younger boy, with his mop of dark curls and sad blue eyes, to blame his dark disposition on his mother's low blood. What other explanation was there? Their lord father was strong, relentless and virile, as was his right-born son Rob. Whenever they trained, Rob was tireless, both on and off the yard.

Rob pressed another attack, stride on stride he pressed forward, his sword slamming off John's practice shield, glancing off his blade and denting his helmet. Back and back he pushed until, finally, the smaller boy lost his feet and sprawled in the snowy mud. For a moment the only sound was the hollow, tinny rush of his hot breath as he lay cursing himself for another loss.

Rob was ever the friend and better man. He laughed a jovial, guileless laugh and extended his arm to his bastard brother.

'You almost had me there,' the older boy said as he pulled John up.

'I always almost have you,' John said solemnly. Rob did not take their fights seriously, and that is why it hurt so much for John to lose. Rob's bravery was effortless. His humility, even in victory, was second nature. Rob was truly the image of noble birth.

'Let's out to the armory,' Rob said, peeling off his helm and exposing his auburn-brown hair to the cold. Steam poured off the older boy like a lathered warhorse. Every day he seemed taller and was now a full head taller than John. His hair stuck to his forehead in red-brown ringlets, and the shadow of his beard, which grew thick and needed the blade often, framed his full lips. John's beard had only just begun to fill in, and he so hated when their father expected him to shave for occasions. It was thin and wispy, nothing like Rob's when he let it go. Rob clapped him on the shoulder and they went off toward the armory.

The bolt on the great oaken door had hardly clattered home when Rob turned on the smaller boy.

He's tireless

, John thought.

Fighting only makes him lust.

The first time Rob had come to him with the intention of conquest had been almost a year ago. He found John in the armory, where they had met every time since, and confessed that he had seen John

handling

himself in a dark stairwell of the castle. The younger boy was speechless, even more so when his half-brother unlaced his breeches and presented himself.

Those memories welled up and fueled something in him when Rob whisked off John's training helmet and let it fall to the dirt floor with a

thud

. Their breath mingled, steaming in the cold air, as green eyes studied blue. Theirs was a silent language, more sweat and breath than words, and it never spoke of anything but consensus. Still, John's eyes must have held some trepidation, because Rob leaned in then and pressed his lips to John's and caressed his face. That was all the younger boy needed.

When John turned to fling his training sword down, the older boy attacked his neck, kissing and nibbling as he fiddled with the straps that bound the great leathern padding they both wore. John's eyes rolled as the older boy found his ear and began to huff and nuzzle. The smell of Rob's sweat and breath only added to his almost drunken state, but there was yet work to be done before all that. The younger boy had nimbler fingers, for Rob's vest fell first, John's a moment later.

Rob took a moment to unlace his half-brother's jerkin before stepping back and undoing his own belt. It had taken on the dimensions of ritual at this point: Rob slowly unlaced his own doublet and shrugged out of it, while the younger boy watched. Then, his belt undone, let the tops of his trousers fall to the middle of his massive thighs. John was no longer looking up.

Auburn curls crowned the base of his member, which outdid Johns by inches. Rob found his own dexterity, for in almost one fell move, he defeated the younger boy's belt, unlaced his britches and let them fall. It always began the same way, ever since that first night. Rob drew his half-brother close, and with a hand, joined their members in one grip. With one hand buried in his dark curls, and the other around their single sex, John could do nothing—wanted to do nothing—but listen to the huff and purr, the rise and fall of Rob's great chest, now bare against his cheek. When John peered up to see his lover's face, his mouth caught Rob's in a searing kiss.

The older boy's ministrations increased, and soon he was swallowing John's moans. Rob gyrated his member against his lover's shaft, all the while tightening his practiced grip. John felt himself being pushed back, pressed before the ecstasy sliding between Rob's fist, and the smothering, burning kisses. He listed backward, groping for the table he knew to be there.

He likes me like this

, John thought as he leaned back onto the table, careful not to break his lover's firm, but gentle grasp, nor to escape the warmth of his hand wherein his pleasure was already beginning to slick them both.

Suddenly the grip broke, the heat receded, and their one sex became two again. John looked up wanting, and saw the older boy's face, red and stormy with lust and command.

No, not a boy

, John thought,

but a man grown

. Rob gripped his lover by the waist and lifted him onto the table. Tongs and links of mail scattered. Thankfully the smithee was empty this time of day, but neither of them was thinking of that. Rob slipped off his half-brother's boots, and John hissed in anticipation, his pale cheeks now ruddy with heat.

Once the older boy peeled off John's trousers, he stood and presented his manhood. Long and thick, veined slightly, with a great glistening head slick with the musk of them both. He was a sight to behold. Rob was much bigger than John, but the younger boy had taken him like this half a hundred times by now. In truth, Rob had had his half-brother in every way a man could have another man, and never once could John bring himself to do the same. Not for want of offer; Rob had tried to take John in his mouth many times, but the younger boy always refused.

He is my father's rightful heir. My future liege lord. I serve him.

Rob leaned forward and ran his heat up the curve of his brother's sex. John shuddered and hissed, and the older boy gripped them together once again, joining their souls. Rob was surprised when the younger boy shot forward and drug him into a smothering kiss, but rather than slow, his ministrations increased, until the younger boy, moaning into the sweet caress of his brother's mouth, began joining his movements to Rob's, rolling and gyrating, begging with his body and with his heat.

'Take me,' John whispered, and Rob looked into his eyes as if he would read whether his lover told him true. He saw truth there, for he broke their bond only to split in his hand, an undignified act in any other, but Rob even prepared his member with grace. He slathered himself and immediately pressed into the younger boy. John threw his head back and sighed, his face contorted in lust-agonies.

Rob pushed the attack until he hit home, and both men groaned, welcoming the familiar and wished-for union of their bodies. The older boy rested inside for a moment, giving his lover a reprieve before he began the dance. As John loosened around him, Rob ran his hands up and down his brother's flat stomach, tight and sinewy with youth. Save for his sex, John's body was hairless, while Rob's stomach and chest bore wispy shadows of red-black hair. The muscles of the younger boy's stomach loosened under his half-brother's touch, and their eyes met in conclave, silent but for their husky breath and the ever-so-soft sound of wet flesh as Rob began to gyrate, and the muscles inside the younger man twitched and squeezed at Rob's length.

Rob ran his hands over John's thighs, muscled as they were from the yard and the hunt. Rob's own thighs were as big and muscled as the stifles of stallions, and the younger man could not wait to feel their familiar power. His thrusts began softly, but steady, and John could feel the power held back behind them.

Do it

, he thought,

take what's yours.

Not waiting for his lover's lead, the younger man began to meet Rob's shallow thrusts stroke for stroke, somewhat wantonly grinding in such a way as to proffer that hollow sucking sound, the kiss of his fundament and his lover's loins.

With that, Rob's thrusts became bolder, his thighs popping against those of his lover, the younger man now hungrily moving to exploit every inch of his half-brother, his liege, his world. Locking his legs about Rob's waist and flinging his arms about his shoulders, John buried his hands in the older man's red-brown curls and sunk his muzzle into that musky valley between nape and jaw, where Rob's muscled flesh drank his moans.

Rob lost himself in ecstasy, slamming into the smaller man, whispering things that might topple dynasties if others heard, the warm muttering and moans of the smaller man vibrating and purring in his ear. John imagined, in the drunk tempest that his mind became, that he was being bedded, truly bedded, and that he might provide his liege with a son, a legitimate heir like his own mother could never have done for their father. He did not truly believe he could, but the thought of serving his future lord so thoroughly, of being loved and giving him a token of his in return, embarrassed him in his dreams, comforted him when he touched himself, and presently sent him over the edge.

John began what might have been a shout, a moan, a squeal, but it caught in his throat. A silent scream contorted his features as the fire in his loins erupted, as if it emanated from the member inside him and worked its way outward, shuddering every muscle and rolling the lean sinew of his stomach like breakers on the shore.

Rob must have felt his contractions, for no sooner had John's musk shot across both their stomachs, the older boy was hunched over, bucking into his young lover, and with a final thrust home, spent himself with a long groan and a shudder.

There, on the smithee's table, amidst their haphazardly disposed of clothing, fallen into a ball of kisses and strokes and nuzzles, they rode out the warm waves of their ecstasies.

John lay back, his fingers tangled in Rob's hair as the older man grew soft inside him. He felt seed dribble down his buttocks and hoped that that which was still inside him would quicken there, and by some miracle outside of nature, bear Rob a son.

But the fantasy passed, and without words, the two disentangled, dressed and continued on together back to the keep where their lord father waited.