Royals of Ruemri Book I: Betrothal

Chapter 6 - Part 2

"WHAT DO you think I'm doing?" Raffe asked him, dallying ankle-deep in the water and gloriously nude for the world to see.

Soren, caught between the urge to glare and the sheer astonishment of the situation, found himself gaping at Raffe's nonchalant demeanor as the prince leisurely submerged into the water, relishing its embrace just as Soren had moments before. Raffe gracefully moved around, navigating the depths with ease, dropping his head into the water before resurfacing and pushing back his hair.

As Raffe glanced in his direction once more, Soren's expression soured, a sudden self-consciousness washing over him despite the natural cover provided by the water. At least the depths shielded him from any unwanted attention.

"I didn't know you wanted to bathe, too," Soren answered after a long awkward silence. He splashed his face with the cool water to cool off the heat rising to his cheeks, feeling spontaneously stupid at the moment.

Raffe remained silent and just shrugged one shoulder.

The faie didn't realize he was staring a little bit too much again until the prince's smug-dripping voice entered his mind with a teasing, "Do you fancy what you see?"

Soren glared. "No," he answered without thinking and turned away, suddenly anxious. "Do you?"

He couldn't resist the pull of his gaze toward the striking sight before him. Being a healer meant assessing and studying bodies, both externally and internally, had been an integral part of his job. He'd encountered a wide array of lanky, muscular, stout, and scrawny bodies in his past experiences.

Curiosity. Just curiosity. He reminded himself.

But nothing like this. Nothing like right now.

The human God, Venu, blessed Ruemri's Crown Prince a little too well for a human Soren thought it was almost unfair, especially down there. He had a little glimpse—he swore it was just a microsecond glimpse of the prince's well-endowed lower region just a while ago. Blood swiftly rose to his cheeks as the image popped up in his head all of a sudden.

Prince Raffelar wasn't as muscular as Soren had expected him to be. He wasn't built like High Commander Salav or Elio, with a compact but well-toned body that seemed just right. Standing a foot taller than Soren, he boasted a broader frame and a youthful leanness that perfectly accentuated the sculpted muscles defining his arms, shoulders, chest, and notably, a flat abdomen.

He was not supposed to look gorgeous. But Soren can't deny the fact that Prince Raffelar might be a dick, but he was a hot dick.

Soren felt his cheeks flushed. His heart wasn't supposed to beat this hard and loud so much it seemed like it was going to burst out from his chest as he studied every perfect plane of the man's physique. He forgot what he was supposed to say especially when all that lovely golden skin was bared. He wasn't sure how long they were just staring at each other as they stood there in the chest-deep water, but he could feel the growing nearness of flesh-to-flesh and soft ripples produced by small hesitant movements. His own pale body looked so horribly scrawny next to Raffe's battle-honed form.

Soren was not, in any way, insecure about how small or short he looked among his kind or humans in the past.

Except now.

Being inches away from the prince, bare, made him feel so small, so inferior. There was a stark contrast between them. Soren chewed the inside of his mouth, blaming his underdeveloped muscles for his diffidence.

Being an aspiring healer required him to huddle with books indoors and to tumble with different medicinal foliage outdoors almost all the time. He doesn't really have that much time to train his body like others do. And now it's starting to eat away at his self-confidence.

"It's not bad," Raffe answered, examining the planes of Soren's face and studying Soren's form that was visible above the water.

The words and the sincerity of the way it was spoken surprised Soren in equal measure. A blush crept from his cheeks to his chest and the tips of his ears under the scrutiny. Frozen legs failed him as he tried to back away when the prince slowly inched nearer, closing what little space that remained between them, and carefully touched a fingertip to his collarbone, tracing it from one end to another. Soren caught his breath but remained still when Raffe laid an uncertain palm to cover one area of his chest, just above his heart. Chuckling, he muttered, "It's quite loud."

Soren's retort was stuck to his throat. He could only look up to the two stormy grey eyes studying his expression.

Ignoring Raffe's statement, Soren dropped his gaze, lifted his hand from the water, and outlined the ugly scar raking the prince's left chest to the bottom of his right ribcage, the skin smooth underneath his fingertips. It looked vicious, even lethal. "This is horrible. How did you get this?"

"Carelessness," Raffe answered, his breath ghosting on Soren's heated cheeks. "My first real battle. It was in Selemea before my uncle's marriage to a faie. We're to subdue the rebels. I wounded a man, turned out it wasn't enough to discourage him from fighting. Over a hundred sutures and four months in bed. Nearly a year before I could convince the king I was fit to fight again. I was sixteen."

"Oh," Soren mumbled still absently running a finger along the scar, unable to think of anything better.

"He gave me this ugly scar branding me of my thoughtlessness, so I took his head." Soren grimaced. He tried imagining what that raised, pale flesh might feel like. Just a curiosity, of course, for he had no scars of his own.

"That was brutal."

"It was mercy," Raffe countered. "If I had cut his hands instead and let him live, what do you think would happen? He'll be flogged and hanged in front of his countrymen, shaming him until death."

Frowning, Soren muttered, "You humans are barbarians."

Raffe's fingers drifted to caress a single line from Soren's left collarbone to the right. Then it moved to Soren's shoulders, to his neck. His thumb settled in touching circles in his jaw. "That's how we survived wars."

Forcing himself to meet Raffe's penetrating gaze squarely—the kind that seemed to read his very soul, flipping pages here and there, reducing him to a helpless puddle of embarrassment—Soren opened his mouth to speak. But went rigid when slowly, so slowly, he felt the prince's feathering thumb touch his lower lip, triggering every nerve of his body to shiver.

"What are you doing?" he softly asked, almost half-choking his words, hand stilled where it lay between the man's collarbones.

"Shh." Grey eyes blinked at him, just inches away from Soren's face. Raffe's hand curled to cup his chin, thumb still softly caressing his lip. "I've been meaning to ask this since you came to Ruemreon a month ago, but..."

Soren looked at him quizzically. "What?"

Raffe hesitated. "Do you hate me?"

"No," Soren answered without missing a beat because it was true. The prince was obviously annoying and confounding most of the time, but Soren didn't hate him for that. "I just don't like you," he added, managing a little grin that tugged one corner of his lips.

"That's fine," the prince responded, smirking. He wove his fingers through Soren's hair and cupped the back of his head, forcing Soren to look up to him. "I don't like you either."

Soren cocked his eyebrows and froze when the prince pulled him closer and felt soft lips against his.