Chapter 4: From Neapolis to the Labyrinth's Center

On the road back to the Neapolis capital city, Prince Erebas assured Atreus that the forces of the Naxian general Leonidas had perished in the labyrinth under the mountain while trying to sneak into Melio—and thus that the army sent under Dorus to attack Naxia need not be warned to expect a greater defense than would be anticipated.

“Be that as it may,” Atreus answered, “I fear that Dorus, having served consul Vasilas of Melio, may be all too familiar with the Naxia captive Nikon. With your permission, once you have been crowned and life in the capital has settled down, I believe I should be sent to ... consult ... with Dorus.”

“I agree that this would be wise,” Nikon said. To himself, though, he began to weave plans of his own.

No one in Neapolis other than the priest left behind at the Temple of the Son having seen Prince Erebas since infancy, Nikon had no trouble, with Atreus’s help, in being accepted as the new king of Neapolis.

Upon General Dorus’s victory in Naxia, Atreus and another general sent to relieve Dorus of his command so that he could return to Neapolis for a victory procession, departed for Naxia. The new general was then to use the labyrinth under the mountain again—this time following Nikon’s own markings—to press an attack against the state of Melio.

Before the contingent left, however, the new king called upon the services of the handsome and virile lieutenant of Atreus’s guard force in his bed chamber, timing his visits to avoid those of Atreus’s.

The lieutenant was a tall, handsome brute, younger even than the king. And he was always looking so serious and standing so stiff at attention in the presence of the king. “Erebas” could not be sure that he was sexed at all, although from the moment the new king saw Xenon, he wanted him—and he wanted to see him when his staff was as stiff as his bearing.

Erebas set the discovery of what Xenon might do for him on one warm, lazy afternoon when Atreus had traveled to inspect the troops on the eastern border. He would be gone for at least three nights.

The king requested some special entertainment in his chambers and, no, he declared, he didn’t need a large contingent of bodyguards around. Xenon would do.

Erebas lay naked and pleasuring himself on his bed as a young male dancer danced sensuously for him in the center of the chamber. Xenon was standing stiff and serious beside the bed. But, happily, Erebas could see as the dancer became ever more intimate with himself in the dance that some parts of Xenon were becoming stiffer than other parts.

When Erebas motioned the dancer to the bed and drew the dancer’s cock inside him and encircled the dancer’s waist with his legs and the two moaned a writhing dance upon the bed, Erebas was pleased to see that Xenon, although still standing at attention, was trembling and breathing heavily.

Afterward, Erebas declared that he wanted a wrestling match out in the courtyard and that Xenon being the only worthy opponent nearby, the king wished to wrestle with his lieutenant of the guard.

They grappled, both naked. Xenon was tentative and was set on falsely showing the king off as more accomplished than he, until Erebas taunted him with his tongue, slapped him with an open palm, and grabbed his balls and squeezed. Xenon was pushed over the edge of restraint and became like a mad man and fought like a tiger, pinning a laughing Erebas to the ground and forcing his pelvis between the king’s readily yielding thighs and splitting the king’s buttocks with the strong, hard sword jutting out from his belly, thrusting again and again, not realizing what he was doing, although Erebas certainly realized and appreciated what he was doing. Xenon grunted and gave a look of astonishment as he came. But as he tried to pull away from the terrifying thing he had done, Erebas laughed a low throaty laugh, wrapped his legs around Xenon’s waist, and clenched the lieutenant’s sheathed cock with the muscles of his channel, beginning an undulating motion of those muscles on the virile young cock as, panting heavily, Xenon quickly recovered his hardness and began thrusting anew.

Afterward, they lay there, panting, Erebas mewing and Xenon slowly, alarmingly coming back to his senses.

“My lord,” Xenon muttered in shock.

“Again, my savior of the mighty sword,” Erebas murmured. “I command you. Again. And take no prisoners, no quarter. The king commands.”

And Xenon did as commanded, then and later that night, and the night following that, so that by the time Atreus returned from the frontier, Xenon was fully vested as the king’s lover on the king’s command.

When Atreus and his contingent departed for Naxia, the understandings between the king and Atreus of what mission lay ahead differed in some slight, but significant way from the understanding between the king and his lieutenant, Xenon, of the mission. Alas, treachery was uncovered in Naxia. Atreus, understanding that Xenon was to cover his escape from the side of a dying Dorus, was, instead, caught by Xenon and his men escaping from the assassination of Dorus and was, himself, dispatched by the lieutenant of his guard.