Terrance strode towards his charge. For today he was not his protector but just another swordsman. He let himself look upon the waifish boy. Barely now a man and remembered the blood upon his face. Disgusted with his twisted mind that he wanted nothing more than to bend the prince over and defile every inch of his tiny body. Wringing Allgaurd for every inch of usable flesh until he was coated in Terrance’s essence. Claiming him more than anyone had claimed another.
He let none of that reach his face as he strode forward and took a knee before Allguard. “Terrance Royalsworn pays his respect to his majesty. I report as you have called me.”
The soft hand that had never seen a day of work in its life settled upon the crown of Terrance’s head. The sweet gentle voice of his desire spoke, “I acknowledge you and your bravery to attempt to don the gorget. May it accept you as its wearer and you walk through the land as our new Hero.”
Then maybe I can claim you as my prize. Force you to be my squire and go on a quiet campaign to ruin you for anyone but me. It was possessive, perverse and he hated himself for it. But he could not help his desire. That moment. When he had an assailant’s blood on his blade and the prince threw himself before Terrance, nestling his cheek against his hips and that sweet breath that tickled the skin of his stomach.
”Thank you for this privilege. I accept your blessing and well bring it forth in my mind while I am measured.” Terrance rose, looking down on the prince. Keeping the hunger from his eyes as he bravely locked his gaze with Allguard.
The prince turned and Terrance schooled himself not to gaze upon his figure and instead walked behind him. Taking a step in time with him yet always remaining behind the boy as was his station. Even now Terrance kept his head on a swivel. Looking for any threat that my present themselves even in the heart of the castle.
The doors opened into the chamber and Terrance locked his gaze upon the strange artifact. The grasping hands of the gorget open and waiting for someone to pull them around their neck and let it measure them. It was the strangest feeling wearing the thing. Memories of last year, when he was a lesser man, not yet the protector of prince Allguard. When he hadn’t won the tournament of a thousand blades and won his place as a royal guard and earning his surname.
Allguard stood to the side of the gorget and sat up straight. “Bare the weight of our expectations and do not bend in the face of adversity.”
”Yes your majesty.” Terrance’s hands reached and picked up the shoulders of the gorget. It would be draped across his own and then it would be his own mission to clasp the hands around his throat and let the process begin.
Bringing it around he settled the weight upon his frame and took a deep breath. Clasping the hands and bringing its fingers to wrap and interlock over his Adam’s apple. As soon as the fingers brushed one another they tightened until they were just a hair uncomfortable.
The gorget went from weightless to weighing a hundred pounds. Trying to crush Terrance under its weight. The first test as it was called. He stepped away from the pedestal and stood on his own strength. Terrance’s legs shook as it grew so heavy it would drive a lesser man to his knees. The bones of his knees ached and cried for relief and then the weight lessened letting Terrance take a ragged breath and swallow. If he had failed it would have began wringing the life from him.
Now it was for the second part, the most uncomfortable. The hands along his shoulders came to life. They spread down his chest, the feeling of a master’s hand quested across his frame. He could feel the heavy callouses of a man that had swung a blade ten thousand times just to warm up his muscles. They cupped and tested his muscles, seeing if he was strong enough. If he had the muscles to wield the blade. His arms were wrapped around like snakes readying themselves to constrict and smother the life from its wearer. This is where he had failed last time. He was found wanting.
Something changed, the fingers dung into the cloth of his tunic and pulled. Tearing his shirt open and exposing it to the world. Allguard’s cheeks turned red as the slabs of muscle were exposed, the thin hair growing after a week of not shaving his chest on display as the hands went from touching clothes to touching skin. More tearing of his sleeves followed as his forearms were being tested.
He had heard horror stories of those wearing armor while being tested. Of this step rending their armor and crushing it into the wearer’s chest, crumpling skin and bone. Terrance raised his arms and looked as the hands gripped his wrist. The thick bones just wide enough to prevent the index finger from touching the thumb and then it paused.
The hands on his throat began to tighten. Terrance growled, “Don’t you dare!” The arms around his growing hard as stone as he flexed to stop the hands from choking him. He could feel the pressure in his head.
Allguard cried out, “Free him!”
The hands still weren’t to the point where Terrance couldn’t breathe. He could still rasp in breath so he shouted, “Wait! Let me try!”
Each lungful was labored as the hands kept him on the edge of passing out. Drool rolled down the corner of his mouth as he fought the blackness coming from the corner of his mouth. Terrance fell to one knee and the hands didn’t let up. A second knee hit the floor.
Someone shouted in the room but the pounding of his own heart was all that he could hear as hands caught him from falling forward. Finally the hands cut off all air as it became clear Terrance had failed. It took all the men in the room and even the prince himself to free Terrance of the grasping gorget and he fell to his hands and knees as he wheezed in a breath.
It felt like he was on the verge of a breakthrough. That if he had only managed another few moments he would have been accepted. That it was waiting for something, some action he would take in that moment. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the floor as each burning lungful forced the blackness to retreat.
He pounded the floor with his fist until it hurt and the skin on his knuckles cut open. Splattering the stone with blood. “I was so close! DAMMIT!”
Then small shaking arms wrapped around his shoulders, not able to wrap fully around him from the side as prince Allguard fell to his knees and held onto Terrance’s side. He was shaking like a leaf, like a woman who had seen her man almost die right in front of her. That was just his imagination though. There would never be a world where that would be the truth.
Chest heaving Terrance sat up slowly as a guard extricated the prince from Terrance’s side. He looked at the cieling and fought off the tears that wanted to fill his eyes and fall. He could feel how flushed his face was and how bruised his throat would be from the crushing grip of the Hero dismissing him.
Slowly he braced a hand against his knee and stumbled to standing. A guard was at his side, ready to support him should he falter. But his pride would not let him. Terrance straightened his back and looked at the room. His shirt a ruin, his chest bared and bruised from where hands had dug fingers into the skin.
”Thank you gentlemen. I will take my leave.” Terrance bowed to the prince and took a deep breath, fighting the pain. “I apologize for failing this test, your majesty. I will go now and recover. I’ll see you upon the ‘morrow.”
”You have my leave,” Allguard’s voice was shaky as the image of his choking hero fighting through something that many would have already given up on. He could feel watching such strength causing his cock to secret the juices of pure desire. There was nothing Allguard wanted more than to attend to the knight that had tried so hard to prove himself once more. But that was not his place. No doubt some whore would find themselves aching and forced to stretch for his girth. Lucky bitch.
Terrance turned and strode from the room. Shame in his heart, and anger on its heels. There was something it was waiting for when it was barely keeping him breathing. It wanted him to prove a point. To show what he would do upon the precipice of death.
He walked into the ball, grabbed the first goblet of wine and downed it while all the other masters looked upon his disheveled state. He wore the marks of failure. Of someone that hadn’t proved themselves. The hard pressure in his eyes must have burst vessels as he saw a reflection and could see they were bloodshot and had pools of deep red inside them. He took a second goblet of wine and raised it up.
Terrance bellowed, “To those that try! And the one that shall succeed!”
”HUZZAH!” Shouted half the room. Those that had failed and been forced to mingle with the other prospects did not join in on the toast.