The Dawn of the End

by Kristen Ashley

  He liked where his cock was, therefore, he got a handle on himself.

  “I do not believe I’ve complained,” he pointed out.

  “I should have had a conversation with you. But you’ve been very busy. So distracted. I thought when the sling was gone, we would…and then we didn’t. For days. And it was meetings. And you going to Crittich Keep. And visiting with Alfie. And behind closed doors with Bram and Wally and Florian and Luther. And—”

  As she spoke, he realized how agitated she was.

  And as she spoke, and his cock slid out, losing the heat of her, he saw the vines that had overtaken the bed retreat.

  “We created a garden,” he noted, cutting off her words.

  “I…sorry?”

  “Your magic, my world,” he said, shifting his eyes to the side.

  She turned her head just in time to watch two vines of ivy slink away.

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  He looked to her and grinned at her when she turned again to him.

  He then sobered.

  “I have been derelict in my duties to my wife,” he declared.

  She moved a hand from his back to lay it on his cheek, murmuring, “True. It isn’t that. It’s—”

  “A dereliction of duties to my wife,” he somewhat repeated. “I did not sense you were ready.”

  “The best way for you to know I was ready was for me to tell you, not trick you into making love to me by essentially throwing myself at you.”

  “Farah, please rest assured, and I wish you to take this in and know it completely, I am quite all right with you meeting us in our bedchamber, your beauty openly exposed for me, every night for the rest of our lives.”

  She stared up at him.

  Then she dissolved in laughter.

  True again grinned down at her.

  “Though next time,” he said through her amusement, “know you have my permission to actually throw yourself at me, rather than waiting for me to come to you.”

  She kept laughing and did it harder.

  True kept smiling at her.

  She got hold of herself (mostly) and then moved her other hand so she could frame his face in both.

  When she had a hold on him, she declared, “We are husband and wife.”

  They were.

  Thank the gods.

  He felt his body settle further into hers.

  “Yes, darling,” he agreed.

  “I am truly yours,” she said.

  His voice was thick at knowing what this meant to him, hearing what it meant to her, when he replied, “Yes.”

  “And you are mine.”

  “Yes, Farah.”

  The tears sprang to her eyes.

  “None of that,” he whispered, shifting his own hand to her face in order to rub the pad of his thumb along her cheek.

  “They are happy tears.”

  “All right. Then I’ll allow it,” he muttered.

  She gave him a watery smile.

  And then she gave him the new meaning to his life.

  “It will all be much. Too much. Who you are. What you must give to your people. Overwhelming. Onerous. Sometimes monotonous. Also, frustrating. I know there will be victories. Successes. Advancements. Celebrations. But I practically grew up in Catrame Palace. I know what the duty you face is. I saw Ares assume that mantle every day, and he was a great king, but he was also human. I could not miss sometimes he did it with reservations, or fatigue. But here, True…”

  She explained “here” by again wrapping her arms about him, her legs tensing where they were still curled around his thighs.

  “Here, for both of us, is sanctuary,” she finished.

  Sanctuary.

  Gods, just the word from her lips in their bed, her body beneath his, made him feel he was there.

  Thus, yes.

  She was right.

  This was sanctuary.

  “I will listen,” she said. “If you wish it, I will give my advice. If you must rail, I will keep quiet and be your sounding board, allowing you to release it. If you must fume, I will give you nothing but patience and my ear. But this,” she squeezed him again, “is where you come, and know you are understood. You know you have unwavering support. You know it is yours, it is ours. And that is all. The world does not enter here. It is just you and me. It is us.”

  He felt his throat close and he feared his eyes, too, were growing wet.

  He loved her.

  He could not do this without her. Not navigating the loss of his mother. Not the taking of the throne. Not dealing with Alfie. Not living the rest of the days of his life.

  She was not his support.

  She was part of him.

  He had fallen in love with her beauty and strength, and now the rapture of her body.

  But it was simply that he loved her.

  He had for some time.

  And now, with her words, he knew he would never stop.

  “What?” she whispered, gazing up at him.

  One could argue, after the first time they made love, declaring his feelings as they were right then was the perfect time to do so.

  But True would argue that it was not.

  He wanted to share this with her when there was nothing to question the pure sentiment behind it. Not caught up in the afterglow of a climax. Not having it mistaken for gratitude for her attention or support in times of mourning, in times of trouble.

  He wanted to look over a breakfast table, into her eyes, and just say it, so she knew, apropos of nothing—and everything—that it was true.

  “My husband…what?” she prompted.

  “That went quickly, and I was not as gentle as I would have wished to be. Are you sensitive?” he queried.

  “Are you asking if I wish you to ravish me again?” she queried in return.

  He shot her another grin, wondering who it was that was ravished, for he felt that it was he.

  He had no complaint about that either.

  She lifted her head and kissed the curve on his lips before dropping back down and answering, “I am delightfully sensitive, and if we do not make love again, my king, it would be very vexing.”

  He rolled off her, onto his back, taking her with him so she was atop.

  “I would not wish to vex you,” her murmured, eyes to her mouth.

  “Then don’t,” she whispered, head descending.

  She kissed him.

  He returned his wife’s kiss.

  Then they set about not making her vexed as True again let himself be ravished.

  And he returned the favor.

  It was the next morning.

  They were both in dressing gowns, at their breakfast laid out in their sitting room.

  Farah was spreading marmalade on a triangle of toast.

  True was watching her.

  Her hair was tousled, a glorious mane adorning her shoulders.

  Her face was relaxed, and for the first time since he knew her, carefree.

  He had, at times, been able to make her happy.

  He had never, not once, seen her look carefree.

  “Farah,” he called, and she lifted her gaze from her toast to his eyes. “I love you, my darling.”

  She grew still as a statue, her eyes glued to his.

  “Finish breakfast, sweetling,” he urged, his lips curved. “As ever, we have a busy day.”

  She did not move.

  True reached for his own triangle of toast from the caddy.

  “True.”

  He looked to her just in time to see one lone tear trace down her cheek.

  She no longer looked carefree.

  Her eyes were shining with gratitude, happiness and…

  Love.

  He had been right.

  Over breakfast was perfect timing.

  “Here,” he whispered. “My study. A meadow. The moon. Anywhere, my love, it is yours, I am yours, and that is all.”

  “I would experience it all again, if it brought me to you,” she whispered tr
emulously.

  True reached to her cheek, running his knuckles through the wet, then opening his hand to slide his fingers into the side of her hair.

  “I love you, True,” she said.

  And he had her love.

  “I am blessed,” he told her his truth.

  “Not as much as I,” she returned.

  “No, Farah, I am far more blessed.”

  “You are wrong, True. It is I who is the most blessed. By far.”

  He started laughing.

  She smiled brightly at him and began laughing too.

  She stopped and said, “A meadow. The moon. I am yours and that is all.”

  At her words, he used his hand in her hair to pull her to him as he leaned to her.

  And their love was sealed with a kiss.

  Over the breakfast table.

  98

  The Transformation

  Prince Cassius

  Bedchamber of the Prince Regent, Sky Citadel, Sky Bay

  AIREN

  Cassius woke to an empty bed.

  He instantly growled.

  He did not like waking to an empty bed, but it seemed every day since they arrived in his home, just this had occurred.

  His soon-to-be bride only woke beside him in a bloody tent on bloody campaign.

  A campaign, incidentally, during which she was miraculous.

  It had not been a difficult battle to win, defeating the besiegers, but she was outstanding with bow and arrow and superb with staff.

  But her talents with a sword, he had not, until then, witnessed.

  And they were exemplary.

  Though she should use a bloody shield.

  And even if they had argued, as he had not wished her to come along, but at looks he received from Frey, and Lahn, and to his surprise, Mac, he had allowed it, he was glad in the end.

  For victory sex with Princess Elena of the Nadirii was gods-damned magnificent.

  But now he was abed, awake, hard, and his woman was gone.

  Doing what, he did not know.

  But his intended had been busy since they made the Citadel.

  It made him anxious.

  And in times like this, it made him frustrated.

  He threw back the covers, tossed his legs to the side, stood and started to prowl to his dressing room.

  But he stopped dead.

  He then blinked.

  There was a new rug on the floor.

  It was not black with charcoal gray edges.

  It was cerulean.

  And the space beyond it that all his time in this bedchamber held nothing, now, facing the bed, sat a button-backed chesterfield couch covered in azure velvet.

  Next to the couch was a low table, the base fashioned out of what looked like thick silver wire, on its top, a stack of books ready at hand should you wish to read.

  And in the corner was a tall, healthy green plant with long, fat, glossy leaves.

  Slowly, he turned and froze when he saw a squat, round silver vase erupting at its rim with a poof of velvety pale purple roses on the chest at Elena’s side of the bed.

  And on the chest by his, a childish drawing Aelia had done while in The Enchantments that his daughter had given him, and he had kept, now stood in a frame.

  “What the bloody hell?”

  These things had to have been there last night.

  However, he had come upstairs with his intended after she’d been at the wine with him and their friends for some hours (something she arranged every night—it was a constant celebration, no courtiers to be found, just Elena, him, people they cared about and a goodly amount of spirits).

  She had been kissing him, thus he had been kissing her, and his mind had been elsewhere as they entered the room and fallen in bed.

  He turned again.

  The couch was long, it looked comfortable, and it was handsome.

  On this thought, he continued stalking to his dressing room, threw on his leathers, pulled on his boots, and moved out.

  He strode down the hallway, his mood deteriorating as he did so, and he did not meet a single servant to ask where his betrothed was.

  But he stopped dead on the stairs down to the entryway.

  He did this, for now, under the enormous daunting candelabrum, stood a wide round table of gleaming rosewood, under which was a circular rug with an ombre pattern of midnight blue in the middle, expanding out to sky blue at the edges.

  And on the table was a large crystal vase filled with a massive spray of brilliant purple, pale yellow, rich cream and delicate peach gladiolus.

  He stared at the blaze of vibrant color in a room that had not had a vibrant anything in centuries, the shock this delivered to his system so extreme, he was unable to move, even when he heard angry words coming from the Great Hall.

  “I must again inform you I take my orders from my king…and my prince,” a voice Cassius knew was the castle steward declared.

  “And again, I must inform you that I will be your princess and then your queen,” Elena retorted.

  “The running of this citadel has always been left directly in the efficient hands of the steward, that being me, including all decisions therein taken, be they about food, spirits, cleaning, maintenance, heating and decorating,” the steward rejoined. “Even the king’s wives have no say in such matters.”

  “I am not called to the king’s bed when he has gathered enough energy to perform,” Elena returned, and Cassius’s gut jolted, for he had the unusual desire to emit a bark of laughter. “I am in the Prince Regent’s bed, thankfully, and he has no problem bestowing the right of decorating her own home to his bride, that being me.”

  Cassis resumed descending the stairs as the steward pronounced, “We do not have flowers in the royal foyer.”

  “You do now,” Elena replied.

  “And those red cushions will be removed from the davenports in the informal sitting room immediately,” the steward went on as if she did not speak.

  Red cushions?

  “If they are, I’ll have you beheaded,” Elena threatened.

  Yes.

  It was happening.

  In this place. This terrible place where his mother died. His wife died. And he had lived what felt like a walking death.

  He was fighting back laughter.

  He moved beyond the gleaming rosewood table standing on its richly colored rug (and he wondered where she’d procured them), heading toward the Great Hall, succeeding in the endeavor of quelling his laughter, though with some effort.

  No further effort was needed as he heard the steward sneer, “You do not have that power, female, and you never will.”

  “Elena, find Mac.”

  Both turned to him at hearing his voice.

  “Your Grace.” The steward dropped into a graceful bow.

  He halted ten feet away from them, eyes to the servant, but his words were aimed at Elena.

  “Elena…Mac,” he growled.

  “Cass, I think that—”

  His gaze sliced to her.

  She quieted.

  “Go…find…Mac,” he bit out.

  “What are you going to do?” she whispered.

  “Go,” he whispered back.

  Her eyes blazed amethyst as her mood set to stubborn.

  “Not until you tell me what you’re going to do,” she demanded.

  “He’s going to the dungeons,” Cassius drawled.

  Elena’s face paled.

  The steward shot up straight and stared at him with fright.

  “Cassius, we were just having a discus—” she began.

  “Get Mac.”

  “It is not that important,” she retorted.

  “It is my will that women will be treated with respect in my realm, Elena. And obviously, this will start in my own, gods-damn, bloody home. If I allow my own steward to speak like this to you, all is lost. He is a servant. You will live here your whole life, raise our children here, and die here. Thus, this is his place of employment, but it is
your home. He does not get to tell you that you can or cannot have flowers. And he does not…ever…speak to you in that manner. Now, go…get…” he leaned her way, “Mac.”

  “And you can speak to me that way?” she attempted to make her point.

  “Yes, because you have my respect, you have my regard, you have my cock, and you can speak to me any bloody way you feel like doing it, and you do, and when you do, I listen to you,” he returned, making his point.

  “This is true,” she murmured.

  “By the gods, Elena, just go find Mac.” He finished this time with, “Fucking please.”

  “Well, since you said please,” she mumbled as she made her way to him. She kept mumbling when she was close, doing it to say, “We’ll be discussing this dungeon situation later.”

  “No, we won’t,” he replied.

  She rolled her eyes before she left the room.

  He moved his to the steward.

  “Sire—” the man started.

  “Quiet,” Cassius ordered.

  The steward quailed.

  Cassius took a few moments to gather his patience before he spoke.

  “You were in the courtyard when I brought your future queen to her new home, were you not?”

  “Yes, sire, but—”

  “And thus, you heard me say that she was to be considered your Princess Regent, did you not?”

  The servant shakily nodded his head.

  “I understand it will take some time, maybe decades, before the men of this realm understand the wisdom of the decisions I have made and the bounty I have bestowed on them in the making,” Cassius stated. “However, even understanding that, it is necessary…nay, crucial, that the example is set forth for the people of my land in my own home. And it will not be tolerated when it is not.”

  “Yes, sire, I—”

  “What’s happening?” Mac asked from behind him.

  “You’re arresting the Citadel steward for gender sedition,” Cassius shared, not taking his attention from the man in front of him.

  “Is there such a thing as gender sedition?” Mac queried, now at his side.

  Cass turned his head and looked at him.

  Mac’s lips quirked.

  Mac then turned to the steward and rolled his hand at the man. “Right then, come along, old chap. Let’s get you in chains.”

  “But, may I—?” the steward began.