The Plan Commences

by Kristen Ashley

  Well!

  My Dellish gowns were lovely.

  And they were warm.

  I couldn’t very well wear silk and sheers in a Dellish autumn clime, for goodness sake.

  “But I do very much like this nightgown, my new wife,” he finished, running his hand along the material at the slit before moving it back to claim my thigh.

  I was burning it on the morrow.

  After a spell, Mars seemed to relax under me.

  I did not do the same even when his fingers at my neck started to stroke its side.

  Eventually, he advised, “You need to ease, my Silence.”

  “Can I roll off?”

  “No.”

  I tensed further.

  He started to stroke my thigh.

  That did not help.

  “What did I tell you?” he whispered, his voice gentle.

  Which thing he told me was he referring to?

  “What did you tell me?” I asked.

  “You do not run from me,” he answered, and at that, I blinked at his neck. “You’ve been avoiding me in a manner that is the same as running, my queen, and I’ll not have it. You do what I do not like, there will be consequences. These are your consequences. You’ll sleep right here.” He gripped my thigh again. “Tonight. And every night. Until you give yourself back to me, and after, you will likely fall asleep right here regardless, but due to me exhausting you. But for now, ease, Silence. And sleep.”

  He had indeed warned me never to run from him.

  I just did not know the kind of consequences I would face if I did.

  Now I knew.

  I tried to force myself to ease.

  It was difficult.

  Mars did not fall asleep under me before I found slumber.

  But eventually, my body demanded what my mind wished to refuse it.

  And I fell asleep atop my king.

  46

  The Gale

  Princess Elena

  Fifty Miles Inside the Southern Border

  WODELL

  I was pacing my tent, waiting.

  He would come.

  He always came.

  Because I was staying up, it was getting later and later when he would arrive.

  But he always did.

  The last two nights, it had gotten so late, I’d given up and gone to bed, only to wake when his weight shifted the pallet beneath me as he joined me on it.

  He did not touch me or hold me in his arms as he had that first night he’d slept with me.

  But he slept with me.

  Every night since that first.

  He just didn’t touch me.

  Or speak to me.

  Prince Cassius, my future husband and I were not getting along.

  Granted, I started it. I was big enough to admit that.

  And apologized for it (of a sort).

  It was known by all he greatly loved his deceased wife, and although she’d died some years earlier, I’d brought that loss to the fore in a manner that was innocent, but nevertheless thoughtless.

  That said, it was he who ordered my ward, Theodora, to be sent home with my mother by making an arrangement to do just that with my mother prior to the Nadirii warriors commencing their return to The Enchantments.

  He did this without discussing it with me.

  Mother then took Dora without discussing it with me.

  And I had lost my mind.

  Rightly.

  She was my ward.

  I made the decisions of where she went and with whom.

  I would admit, he might be right about where Dora would be safest. The attack at Catrame Palace. The strength of Beast’s last quake. Sofia and Catedrais perishing in two separate assaults that came on the same night.

  Every sister in The Enchantments was a witch. Even the new ones who arrived started their initiations into the ways of the craft shortly after they were settled. The very earth there was permeated by magic after the Fire King, Sky King and Green King spent their magic there millennia ago and then the Nadirii brought their magic there centuries later. Even if the Beast had risen, I would reckon the safest place on Triton would be in our charmed forest.

  Indeed, Cassius had also changed the course of his daughter’s journey, making another deal with my mother that Aelia, who he had sent the order to have brought directly to him, would go to my mother in The Enchantments.

  He still did not discuss any of this with me.

  Mother was gone. On her way home. She knew better then to take Dora without my knowledge (or consent). And probably for this reason and the fact she was ill and weak and needed to be home in order to rest and perhaps gather some strength, she did not approach me to discuss it for she knew that conversation would be contentious.

  Though in the end, she was Queen of the Nadirii. What she said went.

  In other words, I’d have to do what she wished regardless.

  But my mother was my mother and my queen.

  Cassius was my future husband.

  He didn’t get to take these decisions without discussion.

  Something I had shared with him.

  All right, perhaps it was something I had shouted at him.

  And it could not be denied I’d learned instantly never to do that again for he’d stood there, staring at me in that brooding way of his (that was ridiculously attractive, and I wished it was not). He did this silently. And when I’d blown through my anger (something that happened quickly, it was difficult to keep yelling at someone who did not yell back), he’d waited what had to be at least a full minute, as if allowing me that time to carry on yelling at him should I have more to say, before he’d said not one word and he’d walked away.

  He’d never mentioned it again.

  I hadn’t either.

  Then again, we’d barely spoken since.

  And the cold draught that had started gusting between us when I’d thoughtlessly (albeit, I would repeat, innocently) reminded him of the loss of his wife flourished into a chilly gale that seemed to be blowing us further apart with each passing day.

  This was a problem and not simply because he was to be my husband, and after he became that we needed to fight side by side to save Triton from the clutches of an unknown but entirely feared entity.

  But because I liked him.

  Yes, I, a Nadirii, in fact, a Nadirii princess, liked him.

  A man.

  An Airenzian man.

  Our mortal enemy.

  Indeed, the Airenzian man for he was not only prince and future king of that realm, he was prince regent, thus essentially acting king.

  But I liked him.

  He was brooding, and when he wasn’t that, he was wry.

  But he was also a very good kisser and not hard at all to look upon and something about being around him, regardless if we hadn’t had much time together and nearly the entirety of it we quarreled, I felt…

  Alive.

  Alive in the way I’d never felt before.

  I had not had that feeling for long.

  But it was such that not having it any longer, I missed it.

  Therefore, these past days I’d become brooding.

  And in that brooding I’d formed a plan.

  Tonight, I would follow through with it.

  I considered extinguishing the lanterns, which I suspected he waited for me to do before coming to the tent. However, I thought this was a tactic I should not employ for it was a falsity, lying in wait to spring my plan on him, making him think I was asleep before I did that.

  Due to Aramus and Ha-Lah taking a detour to the sea, we were riding so slowly to Notting Thicket, it wasn’t like we needed hours of solid rest before enduring a grueling trek the next day.

  But everyone needed sleep.

  And obviously it got late enough even Cassius was ready for his bed. I knew this when the coral flap of my tent was slapped back, and his tall, be-leathered body, bent at the waist in order to clear the top, moved through it.

  I drew in a
breath of preparation and courage.

  He straightened, allowing the flap to fall closed behind him.

  My tent was not as large as Mars and Silence’s. Nor King Wilmer and Queen Mercy’s or King Gallienus’s, nor my mother’s, wherever she was in her journey home.

  But it was not small.

  His very presence dwarfed it.

  Not simply because he was a large man.

  His presence dwarfed it.

  He looked how I thought a king should look.

  As Mars did. Aramus as well. And the same with True.

  Cassius was the second son. Only the death of his older brother brought him in direct line to ascend.

  But everything about him screamed he was born to rule.

  I liked that about him too.

  “Cassius—” I attempted to launch my plan.

  And immediately failed.

  His deep voice interrupted me. “I’m weary, Elena.”

  He could not be weary. We’d done nothing all day but sit on horses, stop and eat, then sit on horses, then stop and eat and hang about visiting while waiting to go to sleep.

  He began to move toward the pallet, doing this with his fingers to the buttons of his shirt.

  “I wish for you to come with me,” I told him.

  He stopped moving and turned his head to the side to look down at me.

  I also liked how tall he was.

  Goddess help me.

  “Come with you where?” he asked.

  “To visit with the pixies,” I answered.

  He turned fully to me and dropped his hands from his shirt.

  “Why would we do that?”

  “We’re in Wodell, and outside The Enchantments, the pixies are most populous in Wodell,” I told him something he probably already knew.

  I then went on telling him other things he probably knew.

  “They don’t exactly hibernate, but they don’t often come out in the cold when the leaves are gone from the trees, and the leaves are falling. It’s rare I have time to commune with them. But it’s enjoyable when I do. And I have…that is, we have an opportunity to do that before they seek their holes.”

  He made to move to the pallet again, stating, “Then go, but take your lieutenants with you.”

  “They’re already abed.”

  He ceased moving and drew an audibly beleaguered breath through his nose before again shifting to face me.

  “I’m not going to visit with pixies,” he denied.

  I took a step toward him, stopped and inquired, “Have you ever visited with them?”

  “No.”

  I gave him a small, encouraging smile. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “No.”

  Hmm.

  “It’ll only take an hour, at most, two,” I coaxed.

  He resumed unbuttoning his shirt “I have no desire to meet pixies, Elena.”

  All right.

  It was clear this strategy was not working. Me maneuvering us out of the tent, out of the camp, into nature and amongst magical creatures. And thus us being mostly alone (because pixies were lovely, they could be mischievous, but they weren’t chatterboxes when it came to communing with humans).

  Cassius and I would have to talk.

  Which would (I’d decided) lead to sorting a few things out.

  However, since this was not working, I had to try a different tack.

  Now.

  Before he got to the point of taking off his pants, something I took pains not to witness when he disrobed around me because of the strength of my desire actually to witness what might be exposed in that act. Something that I had a feeling I would like very much, seeing as I liked the rest of him as much as I did. Something also that I would have in future, but now I was sensing I could not.

  “You were right,” I blurted. “About Dora,” I explained. “She’s much safer in The Enchantments.”

  He stilled, fingers at his buttons, but they were now down about his stomach.

  “Though I would have liked to say farewell to her,” I muttered.

  “Ah.” He turned away. “The Nadirii caveat.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  He continued unbuttoning, repeating, “The Nadirii caveat.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He again shifted to face me, doing this shrugging his shirt off his broad shoulders and exposing his wide chest with its fascinating adornments of ink on one side, a vision that was beyond titillating. Something I now allowed myself to admit fully. Something, now that I’d allowed myself to admit it fully, was frustrating as, before our estrangement, I could have done something about it, and now, I could not.

  “I am right,” he said, taking my attention from his chest and tattoos in order to look at his face. “Though,” he stressed that word. “You should not have said or done something…but. Though. But. The Nadirii caveat. I cannot just be right, and you cannot simply be wrong. There seems always to be a caveat that makes you right and me the one who has done wrong.”

  I realized that it would not be beneficial in this situation to lose my temper.

  But sadly, I was losing my temper.

  I mean truly?

  The Nadirii caveat?

  “I’m being honest,” I said tightly.

  “This is regrettably the truth,” he muttered, moving his hands to his pants.

  That didn’t make me angry.

  That stung.

  “Ow,” I whispered.

  His eyes caught mine.

  When they did, if it could be credited (which I was in no place to credit it in that moment), I would have sworn I saw a minuscule flinch.

  I took a step back, saying, “Jasmine will likely still be awake. She’ll visit the pixies with me.”

  “Elena—”

  I was moving to the tent opening but looked to him as I did and assured in a flat voice, “We won’t be long.”

  “I’ve been unkind and spoke insensitively,” he admitted. “Please stay. We need to talk.”

  I stopped at the flaps and queried, “It doesn’t feel good, does it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Speaking insensitively and having the person you did it to not allowing you to make up for it. And more, even if you aren’t very good at that, they don’t give you credit for trying.”

  His hard, handsome face grew soft.

  “Elena,” he said gently.

  It must be noted, Cassius speaking thus with his expression gentling was a beautiful thing. Of a man who was beauty head to foot, that might be the most beautiful thing I’d experienced from him.

  “Goodnight,” I bid and moved through the flaps.

  I did not want to be the kind of female who made a dramatic statement by swanning away from an unpleasant discussion in the hopes that the male who had caught her eye came chasing after her.

  But I could not lie and say it didn’t hurt worse that not only did I arrive at Jasmine’s tent without Cassius even calling out to me to return, he did not waylay us at any time after I discovered she was awake and happy to visit the pixies with me.

  So this we did.

  “Suck his cock,” Jasmine advised as we sat atop a bed of fallen leaves by the creek bed.

  The two female pixies, Twig and Mossy, who were fluttering before us, sparkling dust drifting down from their doubled quadruple (four on each side) gossamer wings (Twig’s sparkles were a gingery color mingled with a pearlescent shade, Mossy’s were a buttery color with more that were the hue of a fern), burst into such gales of laughter, they wafted back several inches.

  And Twig actually did an uncontrolled backflip.

  In them doing so, for once, I was not captivated by their lean, pale bodies tinted much like their sparkles (in Twig’s case, her skin was gingery pearl, in Mossy’s case, her skin was a buttery green).

  I was also not enchanted by their large, but broadly slanted eyes that had no pupil and were also colored with their magic (Twig’s, a gleaming porcelain, Mossy’s, a shining pear). Nor their poi
nted, distended ears or their thick, long, swept-back hair (Twig’s, a white blonde with gold highlights, Mossy’s, a shimmering chestnut, also with gold highlights)

  I further was not charmed by their scant outfits that appeared to be naught but a long diaphanous strip of material expertly twisted and draped about their bodies to cover the pubis with a short skirt-like swathe with free-flowing bits. This enveloped them also at their breasts, with coils crisscrossing at their midriffs and circling their shoulders.

  Nor their calf and forearm shields that looked like they were made with bits of leaves.

  Nor their pixie marks of ink down the sides of their thighs, up their breastbones and the sides of their necks, and down from their hairline in the middle of their foreheads. Twig’s, a contrasting shade of honey. Mossy’s were marmalade.

  Then again, telling them all what was happening between Cassius and I, nothing would charm me.

  Not even a pixie.

  “I cannot say some of the men I dally with don’t get peeved with me,” Jasmine went on. “But when they do, I drop to my knees,” she lifted her hand and snapped her fingers, “and they get over it just like that.”

  “Not that I would do that,” I mumbled. “But just to say, I don’t even know how to do that.”

  Twig’s and Mossy’s eyes got large.

  “She’s a virgin,” Jasmine told them.

  They twittered amongst themselves.

  I regretted going to Jasmine’s tent and not Hera’s.

  “It isn’t hard,” Jasmine told me. “Suction. Head bobbing. Just mind your teeth.”

  Was that all there was to it?

  I did not ask.

  “Maybe we should commune under the moon silently,” I suggested.

  Twig tittered at me.

  “I know he had no right to send Dora away, Twig,” I told her. “But maybe I shouldn’t have shouted that at him.”

  Mossy tweeted my way.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Sending your child away without your consent or even a farewell is not all right. But again, twice, I lost my temper with him and did not measure my words, and twice he’s made it very clear he does not wish our discourse to go in this way.”

  “You want to know what I think?” Jasmine asked.

  Both Twig and Mossy peeped that they did.

  I said, “I’m not sure.”