***

Kai grunted as he was made to meet the ground, butt first, by one of the skilled knights in his retinue. It was his fault for having his head in the clouds, and his body couldn’t compensate entirely for his lack of awareness. 

“Your Majesty,” the knight said breathlessly as he jumped off his horse and hurried to him. “I apologize for throwing you off! Please forgive me!”

Kai pushed himself up. “No sweat, man. I wasn’t paying attention. Let’s do that again.”

His current body had many wonderful perks, it seemed, among which the fact that he didn’t feel as much pain as ordinary people. 

“I will make sure not to throw all my strength behind it this time,” the knight pleaded.

“Oh, you make sure you do, or I’ll get mad,” Kai said playfully. As the hero of the realm, he couldn’t allow others to cut him any slack.

Once he began paying attention, he outsmarted all the knights on the jousting grounds, much to his delight. It was a good boost of confidence to overpower everyone like that.

“So, are you tired already?” he called.

“No, Your Majesty!” The knights shouted as one.

These guys needed to learn a bit about life-work balance. 

“Well, I’m done here. You’re free for the day. But don’t forget about tomorrow. Dragons, caves, all that.”

He turned on his heels, ignoring the flabbergasted knights he was leaving behind. All this time, Conrad had stayed there, judging him with his eyes. As soon as Kai began to move, he was on his heels again.

“I hope you’re not getting any weird ideas,” Kai said as he threw a look back at Conrad. “I’m hungry, and I don’t know where Pepin is. I’m only supposed to eat his cooking.”

He was surprised when Conrad grabbed the reins of his horse and guiding them both in the opposite direction of the castle. 

“What are you doing? You know very well that I can kick your ass.” Not that he wanted to do it, but Conrad was annoying. 

Conrad said nothing until they were at a fair distance from the jousting ground and everyone’s earshot. He dismounted and then offered Kai his hand.

For a moment, Kai closed his eyes. I could ignore him and leave. But I suppose that will make me a coward, and Prince Sebastian appears to be the complete opposite of a coward. What can he do to me? I can just send him flying, like before.

He accepted Conrad’s hand and dismounted, too. 

“Well?” he asked.

Conrad began to unbutton his coat, his eyes never leaving Kai.

Kai groaned. “What are you doing?”

Conrad threw his coat on the ground, offering Kai the unimpeded view of a strong perfect torso. “You were quite explicit in your requirements, Your Majesty,” he said through his teeth. 

“I changed my mind,” Kai said with a forced grin. 

Conrad seemed completely deaf as he continued to shed his clothes.

“Don’t,” Kai said and covered his eyes as Conrad pushed down his pants. 

Maybe the guy was an exhibitionist. Kai didn’t uncover his eyes and put his free hand in front to make sure that Conrad wasn’t getting too close. “Stay away, I’m warning you. I can shoot ice from my eyes.”

“Then you must be keeping them covered for a reason,” Conrad said.

Kai walked back and grunted when his back hit a large tree. He uncovered his eyes only to find Conrad close. Really close. 

“You said,” Conrad said slowly, “that you require satisfaction at least three times every day.”

Kai groaned. Prince Sebastian, you damned manwhore!

He was still debating how to deal with Conrad when the other glued himself to him and plastered his lips against his neck. 

“Oh,” Kai barely managed. His eyelids began getting heavier. That wasn’t unpleasant at all. Conrad flicked his tongue around, making him shudder as pleasure shot through him head to toes. It was… 

Kai pushed Conrad away. “All right. Okay. This isn’t working. Down, boy,” he ordered Conrad.

“I’m not a dog,” Conrad protested and looked at him with the same hurt eyes from before.

There was no way to please this guy. He got pushed away, he got mad. He got told he could leave, he took offense. 

“Then why are you licking things you shouldn’t lick?”

“Do you want me to bite?”

Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. “No,” he said quietly. “I want you to stop licking and biting. And kissing.”

“Which means,” Conrad said in a pensive tone, “that there is only one thing left. You should have said so.”

Kai put his hands up to keep Conrad away. “Stay there. I’d hate to turn you into a popsicle, but you’re pushing it, man.”

“Pop… what?”

“You know.” Kai began to gesticulate. “A block of ice or something.”

Finally, Conrad stopped. “What did I do to displease you?”

“You just keep wanting to hump me,” Kai shot back. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Ah, you’re not in the mood,” Conrad said slowly like he was trying to understand what Kai meant by that.

“Don’t you find it embarrassing? At least a little?” Kai asked. “I mean, everybody knows that we – whatever. Isn’t this… thing something you don’t want?”

Conrad frowned and blinked a few times. “If you’re talking about your men, all I heard was how they would all like to share your bed. If only so that they don’t have to fear you so much anymore. How little they know,” he added with bitterness.

“Crazy BL plot,” Kai murmured under his breath. “Yeah, okay, but you’re… a knight, right?

“A prince,” Conrad said heatedly.

“A prince, of course. You don’t want to be a concubine, right?”

“I don’t.” Conrad crossed his arms. He was still distractingly naked, and Kai had a hard time keeping his head up so that he didn’t look down by accident. “No matter how coveted the position is.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Kai said to himself. “But, for you, it’s like a disgrace, right?”

Conrad stared at him with hurt eyes. “Yes,” he said quietly. 

Right. Conrad must have been an enemy. Prince Sebastian was walking a thin line getting an enemy to serve as his bed partner. He probably thought that he was overpowered enough not to have to worry about anything.

“Is there really nowhere in the world you could go?” Kai asked.

“No,” Conrad said directly. “And if you send me away, it is as good as a death sentence. There is no place left in the world for a vanquished prince.”

Hmm, that was a difficult situation, indeed. “Then how about this? You play your role in front of everyone else, and I don’t send you away. But we don’t do any more…” Kai trailed off and just made a vague gesture with his hands.

Conrad watched him with incredulous eyes. “If that truly is your wish, release me from the bond.”

“Hmm, what bond?”

“This.” Conrad touched his chest, and thin lines the color of blue ice appeared and shone softly. 

“What does that do?” Kai asked.

“Don’t you know it better than me? The less I please you, the tighter these vines of ice will curl around my heart.”

“Ah, so it’s ice magic. Then it should be easy,” Kai said.

He looked at the fine ice lines and focused. They began to shine brighter. Conrad gasped and grabbed his chest.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Kai hurried to say and looked away. All right, so that wasn’t working. How was he supposed to undo that? He would have to ask Pepin later.

“Is it a slow or a quick death you have in store for me?” Conrad asked in a pained voice. 

“Neither. Trust me,” Kai said. “I’ll figure out how to undo that bond. Then you’ll be free.”

“I don’t see how I can believe you.” The pain had forced Conrad on his knees, and Kai felt terribly guilty. 

“Well, you should because, you see, I’m a nice guy, no matter how weird that might sound to you.” Kai offered Conrad his arm to help him to his feet.

“Each time I fail to please you, you only make it worse. You’re not nice, Prince Sebastian,” Conrad said heatedly.

“Damn. So you have to, um, please me, so that your heart doesn’t freeze or something?”

Being so overpowered had its downsides, for sure, Kai thought. 

“All right. I’ll let you kiss me once. Will that make it better?”

He was crazy for even suggesting a thing like that, but what was he to do? He couldn’t watch Conrad getting a heart attack or something. 

Now Conrad seemed reluctant to do what he was told. He was probably fearing that he was getting himself into another trap.

“Damn you, BL author,” Kai said, grabbed Conrad’s cheeks, and kissed him once.

Conrad lost his balance for a second and then stared at him with unhidden surprise. 

“Any better?”

If he did it fast enough, it didn’t count, right? And he could just think of something else. Kai pulled Conrad to him again. This time, when they kissed, Conrad grabbed him and pushed him to the ground.

Think of something else, think of something else…

Conrad pushed one thigh between his legs, forcing them open. Great, not he could practically feel… Why on earth was he humping himself against Conrad’s leg? It was all great when his body had quick reactions while knights in heavy armor dashed toward him with all kinds of dangerous weapons, but not so much when it was reacting to this!

“All right, all right, just stop. Feeling any better?”

Conrad was breathing heavily, and his eyes were hazy. He was a handsome dude, but Kai wasn’t going to play into that crazy BL plot. All he had to do was keep Conrad alive until he figured out how to get rid of that bond. And for now, he was sure he had done enough.

“You want me, too,” Conrad said in a raspy voice. “I can feel you.”

Kai had a very distinct idea of what Conrad meant by that, but it was all that body’s fault and not his. “And, unfortunately, I can feel you, too.” The dude’s tool was lengthening against his leg. That was totally weird. “I’ll handle the thing with the bond. Now, get off me.”

Conrad stared at him for a moment with burning eyes. Little by little, the flame in them dimmed. He stood up abruptly and began dressing up with brusque moves.

“You know, you might have an anger problem,” Kai suggested as he got to his feet. “Maybe you should take the day off, ride around, I don’t know, do stuff you like.”

Conrad turned toward him with lightning speed and thunder in his eyes. Yeah, totally an anger problem. “How can you be so cold? Last night --” He stopped and turned toward his horse.

“Well, you know, ice magic, ice prince, cold. It’s all natural,” Kai justified himself. “And could you forget about last night? It was a…” – how did people say in movies? – “…mistake.”

“A mistake?” Conrad stared at him again like he was saying unfathomable things. “You kept asking me to --”

“Hush, zip it, shut up,” Kai said quickly and cut the air with one arm. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

Conrad cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. “Are you ashamed of your weakness? People say you call it that.”

“Weakness?” Ah, right. Pepin had said something about it. Prince Sebastian’s – apparently notorious – weakness for handsome men. “No, I’m not ashamed. Because I have no weaknesses. Whatever you’re talking about, it’s gone. Poof. Like that.”

“You’re different from last night. How can you call it a mistake? Five times --”

“Five times?!” Kai covered his face. Prince Sebastian was a shameless bastard. 

“Five times you told me that you would never let me go, that if I kept it like that, you would see no reason to get rid of me.”

Oh, phew. Not that kind of five times. “Ah, well, people change.”

“Overnight?”

“Yes. Hey, do you believe in ice magic? You know, the stuff that comes out of my eyes.”

Conrad touched his chest and grimaced in pain. Kai made himself little. “Yes, I do believe in it.”

“Then it should be easy to believe in people changing overnight.” Pleased with his logic, Kai mounted his horse. “And stop following me. Go have some fun, whatever you think that is. And eat and drink as much as you want.” What could people around there do to enjoy themselves? It wasn’t like they had internet and video games. “It’s on my tab, I suppose.”

“Fine,” Conrad said in a strained voice. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

Well, that had been taken care of quite swiftly. Now, he needed to find Pepin. 

“You don’t have to hide whenever you feel like using Conrad, you know?” He heard a voice from behind.

Kai closed his eyes. “Do you master teleportation, Pepin?”

“What magic is that, Your Majesty?”

His servant appeared from behind the tree like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to eavesdrop on his master’s trysts. 

“Never mind. Now, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

Pepin pursed his lips. “If you wanted horse, you should have let me know in advance. And because of you and your ideas, I had little time to cook properly.”

“Eww, I don’t want horse, what the hell?” Kai put his hands over the horse’s ears and looked into his humid eyes. “Don’t worry, in this house, we don’t eat our horses.”

“We do,” Pepin contradicted him.

Kai scoffed. “Could you please stop saying stuff like that in front of him?” He gestured with his chin toward the horse. 

Pepin shrugged and disappeared behind the tree, only to reappear with a basket. 

“Are we having a picnic?”

Pepin said nothing as he lay a blanket on the ground and then the basket. He started taking out all kinds of little pots and plates and arranging them on the blanket in an orderly fashion.

“We totally are,” Kai said and grinned. He could barely wait to see what Pepin had prepared.

He knelt on the blanket and watched Pepin displaying the tasty foods.

“I heard everything,” Pepin said accusingly.