by Ella Fields
Our hands brushed, and I threaded our fingers, watching her as she watched me. “What do you think tomorrow will bring?”
“Me in a hideous fluffy gown for one.” The humor faded, apprehension creasing her eyes and thinning her lips. “I wish I knew. But I suppose I will have breakfast with my mother, and you will hide until things proceed according to plan.”
“I do like plans, especially when they work,” I said in an attempt to ease some of her anxiety. It failed, and I squeezed her hand. “What do you want to happen?”
It was as though she hadn’t truly thought about that, her brows furrowing and her eyes darting over my face as she finally did. “Honest answer?”
“Always.”
“I don’t know.” My chest caved, then she said, “All I know is that I want you, I want everyone, unharmed, so I guess that means I want us to marry and then leave.”
My throat tightened. “And you will come with me.”
“I agreed to, did I not?”
“You agreed to marry me,” I said, and immediately wanted to punch myself for it. “That was it.”
Opal just gazed at me as though she could see right through me for melting seconds, and I felt my hand grow clammy in hers. “We both know that will never be it.” Relief washed in, and she whispered, “You are really not yourself.”
I licked my lips, thinking we’d best end this conversation and go to sleep. Well, she would sleep, and I would pretend while listening to every sound in this foreign castle I’d once planned to reduce to rubble.
My stupid mouth had other ideas when Opal shifted closer. “Talk, say what is wrong.”
I closed my eyes, counted to ten, then murmured, barely a sound, “You do not forgive me, and I cannot make you, but I want this.” I opened my eyes, clasped her cheek. “I want you every day, every night, always.” Her eyes swam, wet and so bright. I rubbed my thumb beneath one. “I’m selfish, I know, and undeserving, but could we maybe…” Fuck.
“Could we what?” she asked, so low, so sweet.
I rushed out, “When we return, could we try?”
Opal’s lashes fluttered, lips parting as understanding dawned. “You mean a real marriage.”
I nodded, my entire body numb with fear of rejection. Lie to me, I almost said. Just fucking lie to me.
My swan stared and stared, the heat of her, the heat inside me, unfurling and gathering. I couldn’t breathe, didn’t dare open my mouth to try for fear of sending her from this bed, from reach of me forevermore.
Wound so perilously tight, I didn’t see her intent, just felt my heart roar in my ears when she pushed me flat onto the bed and curled herself over me.
Her answer came in the form of hands in my hair, tugging it back. In the searing bliss of her tongue at my throat, then teeth sinking into my neck. Stars flashed throughout the room, the type that only we could see. A heat so encompassing that sweat broke out over the both of us as my blood broke through my skin and spread itself with greed over her awaiting tongue.
She’d sealed our fates, the stars plan for us, our bond—her tongue lapping at the punctures, gentle and drugging swipes.
There was no hesitancy in our movements. Clothing peeled and tore, collecting around our limbs and thrown across the bed to the floor as I rolled and stared down at her.
At my mate.
Fire shone in her eyes, a fire I knew she saw mirrored in my own, and then I captured her bloodstained mouth, her thighs rising, hands seeking. They roamed my back as my tongue tasted what she’d done. The vow she’d made that outweighed and mocked things such as engagements and weddings.
She’d pledged herself to me, mind, body, and soul, and there was no turning back.
Wild with the knowledge, with the taste of my essence on her lips, the synchronized pounding of our hearts, and the power thrumming through my veins in a way I’d never felt before, I sank inside her. She was ready, her need for me so strong I could scent it upon the stifling air.
Opal gasped, and I covered her mouth with my hand, my eyes falling into hers as I groaned softly and cursed. She nipped me, and I grunted, planted deep inside her and feeling her body shake with a devilish little laugh.
I grinned, then removed my hand, replacing it with my mouth and kissing her hard. In slow thrusts, I loved her, brought her to a shaking climax swiftly. I held her as I did and bit her shoulder to contain my roar while I did the same.
But my swan wasn’t done.
A flash of her eyes, and then I was pushed onto my back. I allowed it, still catching my breath, and then cursed when she squeezed my length and glossed her lips over my cheeks. “Smile,” she whispered, kissing one with a flick of her tongue, and I withheld a laugh that gave her what she wanted. Her hand squeezed again, a tiny growl leaving her as she licked… my dimple.
She then moved to the other, her tongue precise as it swiped and dipped and her hair tickling my overheated skin. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
“You wanted to lick my…”
“Dimples, yes,” she supplied, then kissed a pathway down my chest.
I cursed, torn between wanting to devour her divine mouth and never wanting her to stop everything she was doing. “Stars, you fucking ruin me.”
She hummed. “That would only be fair.”
Her teeth scraped over my pec, fingertips tracing and scoring into every dip and ridge of my torso. I shivered from head to toe. More, I urged silently. Stroke me, torture me… a groan rumbled from me when those delicate fingers rubbed.
“I want to poison you,” she said to my abdominal muscles, and they clenched, the admission heated and soaking into my skin. “The way you’ve done me.”
My heart slammed, my words thick and throaty. “Poison me, sunshine, and don’t you dare think twice.”
Her eyes flicked up to mine, riddled with lust. A desire so potent, it matched what I could scent building like an inferno between her thighs. They flared, a luminous liquid bronze, and then she moved lower.
“Swan,” I warned when she reached my cock, but she had to already know I was covered in her release and mine.
Apparently, she didn’t care. Her lips wrapped around the head of my cock and sucked hard enough to make it and my eyes bulge.
Satisfaction curled her glistening lips as she watched me twitch, hard as steel in her tiny hand, but she didn’t stop. She sucked and bobbed her head, taking as much of me as she could into that sweet, hot mouth.
Just when I thought I might die if I held back any longer, her other hand slipped down the base of my cock to rub my testicles.
“Fuck,” I spewed, and lifted her from my genitals and over my stomach, my breathing embarrassingly ragged.
She pouted. “What?” Then she blinked and bit her lip, unsure. “Shit, did I hurt you?”
“If by hurt you mean sucking until I nearly exploded down your throat, then yes,” I said roughly, “you’re fucking killing me.”
“Oh.” She tried but couldn’t hide her smile.
I didn’t let her gloat for long, lifting her back until she felt me waiting beneath her. Her eyes hooded. Lashes cresting her cheeks and her bottom lip in her mouth, she straddled me and then eased me inside perfection.
The sight of her, that long golden hair curling over her breasts, her mound slick with our coupling, and me disappearing inside her sweat-misted body…
I sat up and gripped those glorious hips. Opal moaned with the new depth of me inside her and curled her legs around me.
My mouth at her chin, crawling along it, my hand in her hair, tilting her head back for my teeth and tongue to graze her neck, I rasped, “Move those hips.” She did, and we both hitched a breath. “Good little swan. How does it feel?” I dragged my lips over her throat, then nipped at her chin. “Having me so deep inside you.”
“Like I could burn and be thankful for it.”
I snarled low, not expecting such a frank, swift response—let alone one that would steal my next heartbeat.
“How,�
�� she started, then swallowed and lowered her forehead to mine, arms locking around my neck. “How does it feel for you?”
I smiled against her cheek, rubbed my lips over it, and tightened my hold at her hip while moving my other arm around her lower back and squeezing her close. Her breasts, damp and lush, squashed against my chest, her heartbeat dancing with mine. “Forever.” Her eyes flicked open, wide and searching. “It feels like forever, a right I never want to get wrong.”
Her mouth fused itself to mine so hard, we fell back onto the bed.
Over me, my swan writhed, her hips circling, grinding, and her hands in her hair when she rose and ground down hard. We both cursed, a growl I couldn’t contain if I’d tried releasing when she began to shake, to fracture, her body riding mine on instinct, chasing a high she would get nowhere else.
From nowhere but me. “My mate,” I whispered, in both shock and awe.
“Yes,” she moaned, and I lost it.
Taking her to her back, I pushed her leg over my shoulder as she came apart. A silent cry widened her eyes, and inside them, a feral gleam reflected back at me from my own. I shuddered, my entire body aflame as I jerked and grunted like the animal I was and emptied myself inside her once more.
Our lips met, glued themselves still, as we both panted into one another’s mouths. “I don’t hear anyone,” Opal whispered, fingers trailing down my back as I kissed her once, twice, twenty times, growing more obsessed with the taste of her each day.
“Then we’re not done.” I kissed her one last time, and she smothered her laughter in the pillow when I flipped her onto all fours.
Opal
A rooster crowed hours too early, and I shifted closer against a hard chest.
On the fringes of sleep, I felt his finger trail up and down the indent of my spine while he whispered barely-there words to my hair.
Through the tiny cracks in his voice, I heard, “I’m sorry.”
I fought the urge to tumble into dreams, listening, trying to make out more of what he was saying. “I’m sorry”—his lips pressed to my forehead—“for taking him from you, for breaking your heart before I thought myself worthy of it, before I knew better.” A heavy exhale stirred my hair, heated my skin. “Before I knew what it was to love.”
Though closed, my eyes burned along with the battered organ in my chest. His touch lulled, his repeated murmurings singed, and I didn’t know anything anymore, but when he whispered, “Sleep, swan,” I let myself drift away from it all while still trapped within his arms.
Morning arrived with a bang, the door rattling.
And a male sprawled on his side, head propped on his hand and staring down at me, his legs tangled with mine.
Mine, echoed throughout my blood.
I’d done something insane in accepting that, this bond, yet staring at him, those adoring ice-blue eyes, it felt like one of the best things I’d ever done.
A right I never want to get wrong.
I reached for him, for the patch of sunlight sliding over his tousled white-blond hair to touch his sculpted cheek, that dimple.
The bang came again as Dade drawled, “Your mother wishes to see you.”
Shit. Where were my clothes? I rolled to the edge of the bed, Dade’s soft chuckle behind me, and snatched my torn dress from the ground. “Thank you for your help,” I said, sarcasm heavy.
Dade’s finger appeared over my shoulder, my undergarments hanging from it. I snatched those too, quickly stepping into them and tugging them up my legs.
He hissed, “Stars, that ass.”
I glared at him, but it softened when I saw the heat in his eyes, that bare chest I longed to rake my fingers down, to feel every ridge like a washboard beneath my—
“Opal,” my mother shouted through the wood. “I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
The king bit his lips and rolled over to drag his pants on while I stuffed my arms through the dress and raced for the comb on my dressing table. It was a little dusty, but I had to wash my hair anyway and pulled it through the knotted and sweat marred strands while hurrying to the door.
I paused, looking back at the bed.
Dade smirked, sprawled over it on his side again, bare-chested, but at least his pants were on. “Shirt,” I whispered.
He made a face that said he didn’t quite catch what I said, and I made one back that said he was a damned liar. He laughed again while I undid the locks and opened the door.
In my haste to get somewhat presentable, I hadn’t fathomed what it would feel like to lay eyes upon her again. My mother’s hair, a shade darker than mine, was pulled back into a tight bun at her nape, not a honeyed strand out of place, and those same colored eyes…
Fury melted from them, and I was pulled into her arms. I hugged her back, inhaling her lemon and rose scent and clutching her tighter than I ever had before.
Rearing back, she sniffed, her hands still upon my arms, but her eyes fixed beyond me.
Upon the half-naked king on my bed.
Queen Nikaya was no fool. She could scent it as well as see it all over us, yet she said nothing. She just stared, too long and too hard for me to think any good would come from it.
No good would ever come from her and Dade looking at one another.
He’d killed her mate.
And I’d just made my father’s killer mine.
Dizziness swamped me. As if sensing it, my mother swallowed and promptly patted her hands over my cheeks, shoulders, arms. “You’re okay?” Those hands shook, rising to my face again and holding it. “You’re okay.”
“I am,” I confirmed. “Mother, Prince Bron…”
“I know all about the cretin and all about the larger one who stole you from them.” Her voice deepened to a low growl. “From me.”
“I fear I simply had to wreck your plans, Nikaya.”
I winced. Shit.
“You,” she seethed, pushing past me. “You will rot in the deepest, darkest depths of—”
“Mother,” I snapped, taking her arm before she drew any closer to my bed. “Enough. We have an agreement.” I didn’t look at Dade, found I couldn’t when my mother’s eyes fell upon me, tear-soaked with rage. I took her other hand, imploring, “I have made an agreement, and we must not break it.” I said those last words slowly, carefully, begging her to rid her mind of revenge and schemes. “Please.”
Her eyes swam over my face, her fingers shaking as her lips parted, and she again looked back at the king. Her eyes closed as she turned away. “Breakfast in twenty minutes. Just you.”
Then she was gone.
I stared after her, then swung the door closed with a thought and pushed my hands into my hips.
My hung head snapped up, lips curling into a sneer when Dade muttered lazily, “So that went pretty well.”
“You should go now,” I said, traipsing to the bathing room as everything he made me forget threatened to reduce my heart to ashes. “Do your disappearing act.”
“Opal,” he called, a warning within not to walk away, one that hinted at him knowing I wasn’t so sure about any of this anymore.
Not when my mother’s pain lingered in the room with the cause of it.
“Please,” I demanded, then I closed the bathing room door.
A knock sounded, and I sank deeper into the bubbles, my knees tight to my chest. “I told you to—”
“Princess?” Linka.
I nearly jumped from the tub, but she cracked open the door before I could, one bright blue eye peering inside and widening when she saw me.
She opened, then closed the door and cupped her hands over her mouth. “You’re here. You’re really, really here.”
She rushed to hug me, forgetting I was naked, then retreated, her cheeks turning a dark pink as we both laughed. “I’m here.”
She lowered to the stone floor, her apron spilling around her, and gaped.
“How are you?” I asked, deciding I’d better wash myself and get to this breakfast before my mother came
in search of me again.
“Me?” Linka almost shrieked. “How are you? Oh, my stars. What did he do to you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, understanding her concern, for I would feel the exact same way. I squeezed the cloth out and hung it over the side of the tub, offering her a small smile. “I’m truly fine.”
“But,” she started, sputtering out, “Queen Nikaya says you plan to marry the crimson king. How in the stars are you fine?”
“Because,” I said, searching for the right words. I wouldn’t go around flashing the fact I’d found a mate in our sworn enemy. That would not be helpful, nor would it be wise. “It is the right thing to do. The only thing to do,” I added when it looked as though she’d protest. “So fetch me a drying cloth, please. We have a kingdom to rescue via marriage.”
Linka’s eyes bulged, but she laughed when I did, then fetched me one from the shelves by the door, unfolding it as I climbed out. She studied me as I wrapped myself and walked into the bedroom.
No king. I was both thankful and a little disappointed.
“You seem… different,” Linka observed, heading to my bed before I could stop her. “And why did I catch a whiff of sex…” Her eyes grew impossibly huge then, and I stopped outside the dressing room, hoping she would say no more.
That hope was futile. Linka dropped the sheets and ran over to me, her pointed chin trembling. Spindly hands reached for me, then retreated. “He didn’t, did he? Oh, stars, let me fetch the healer—”
“Stop,” I said, the order unmistakable and causing her to freeze at the door. I released a slow breath, then said, “It wasn’t like that.” Lifting my chin, I met her eyes, then squared my shoulders at the horror sweeping across her face. “It’s not like that. Not at all.”
But there was no relief. There were no whispers for more details. There was nothing but that fear and an evident disgust staring back at me.
Before she could leave, I asked her one last thing. “Please, do not tell a single soul.”
Her back was to me, her hand around the door handle, and she didn’t answer. The door slammed behind her, and I slumped to the unmade bed.