by Ella Fields
“Why?” Opal spoke up then, and Scythe seemed to startle as though remembering we now had a female in our presence. Neither he nor Fang were impressed when I’d decided to include my swan in our meetings as of last week, but the shock quickly wore off, and so did their reluctance to share important intel.
Especially after I’d threatened to kick them both out and leave the work of war and rebuilding to my mate and me.
My uncle was still alive. Unfortunately. He’d been given a promotion, too.
He now headed one of our new projects—the repair and restoration of Sinshell. I’d expected him to protest, but he’d simply nodded and vomited many thanks at mine and Opal’s feet before Nikaya had swept in with a grim look of determination. The two had left a week ago, Sinshell’s queen agreeing with what seemed a perverse pleasure to oversee the rebuilding of the fractured parts of her kingdom.
Stars, a fate worse than death if you asked me.
Yet I would soon be joining them. In a village far from where either of them would be working, thank you very much.
Opal had protested upon finding out, her worry over my presence so close to the border of Errin clipping each word as she’d suggested we both focus on rebuilding the ruined towns and villages here in Vordane.
It’d taken one ravishing kiss for her to remember who the fuck I was.
A creature not so easily bested—unless happened upon by a black swan.
So it took a night, but remember she most certainly did.
Scythe stared at my mate, and I bristled at the way he kept her waiting. Sighing, he drawled, “What do you mean, why? If I knew, I’d tell you,” he added dryly, “my queen.”
Opal smirked. “No, I’m referring to the humans overall. Why such large numbers? Why the sudden interest in ridding us from Nodoya?” Fang’s head tilted as he watched her, listening carefully. “They’ve never tried such a thing before because they know they cannot eradicate us, kill enough of us to seize the continent.”
“Swan, I’m certain that smug as fuck prince assumed he could but,” I lifted a finger, feeling as though we were trying to catch something that kept evading us, “the armies from across the sea do not add up. More of our kind live on some of those continents…”
“Greed,” supplied Scythe. “Gold is gold, and we’ve all been to battle for far less.”
Opal’s eyes narrowed, and I studied her, then sighed. “Ponder that. We’ll reconvene in two mornings.” I stood from the table before anyone could protest, and held my hand out for Opal’s.
She eyed the map, the locations of places we’d brutalized in Sinshell now marked for different reasons, then looked at Scythe. “May I talk to her?” she asked, referring to a captive he’d taken upon himself to keep imprisoned in his home.
Scythe was halfway out the door when he grunted, “No, you may not.” I snarled, and he halted, turning back with a sigh. “Why?”
Opal slid her hand in mine, saying softly but firmly, “Perhaps another female would encourage her to talk.”
“A gentler approach, you mean?” He laughed through the words. “No, it does not care for such things as gentle.” He sketched a half-hearted bow. “Trust and excuse me.”
Fang watched him disappear into the dark hall, his lips rolling between his teeth, then followed.
“I’ll speak to him later,” I said between my teeth. The asshole was treading water with this captive situation, and it was beginning to really piss me off.
“No,” Opal said, leading me out the door. “Don’t meddle. I’ll try again next time.”
“You are a queen,” I reminded her, something I so often had to do. “You may do as you wish, and he knows it.” I gave her my best grin. “We’ll go visit this captive tomorrow.”
Opal smiled, her eyes laughing, and leaned into my side as we took the stairs that would lead us from the underbelly of the Keep. “No, you can’t abuse his trust.”
Prisoners moaned, cried, and shouted in the dungeon. It was spelled so no one could hear. No one save for the wolves.
She was right. A creature with a history such as Scythe’s… it wouldn’t matter that I was his king. His loyalty to me would be decimated if I disrespected him in that way.
Pushing thoughts of war, repairs, my shithead friends, and a myriad of other issues from my mind, I led Opal to my rooms. Well, our rooms. She’d been staying with me since she’d woken up after the attack on Vordane. I’d refused to let her leave my sight for days, and she seemed happiest when I did not stray from hers.
She passed me a confused glance when I tugged her from the doors and to the door of her old quarters.
I bit back a shit-eating grin as the wood swung open to reveal her new perfumery slash mending room slash library.
Upon one row of floor-to-ceiling white shelves, the titles I’d often seen her reread, and others I thought were of the same vein enough that she’d like them too, were tucked neatly. There were some empty rows for her to add to the collection as she saw fit. On the next shelf over sat glass bottles, vials, bowls filled with mismatched corks, ribbon, twine, differing oils, salts, and mixing pots.
In the corners of the room were rolls of fabrics upon stands, and on the shelves beside them, more materials folded and stacked. The afternoon sun splashed over them and Opal’s roaming fingers as they swayed over it all with a reverence I grew hard and nearly jealous from.
And I would’ve been, if she didn’t treat me in the same manner. She touched me as if I were the finest project she’d ever created, as if she couldn’t believe I was tangible—that all of this was real.
I’d done plenty of hideous things in my life, yet I would never know it from the way she adored me. And though a better male might, I lost no time lamenting how undeserving I was. She was mine, and I would rather rot than waste time not enjoying all I’d been blessed with.
I stepped back against the closed door as she took everything in, heading from one shelf to another, fingers dancing but not touching, fluttering to her mouth and then to her chest. She twirled to the space where the bed used to be. Now, there was a large plush red and gold carpet beneath a long white desk.
Quills, inkpots, and parchment sat in tidy piles in the corners, and a large chair fashioned from a rich blue velvet with the help of Olivianna awaited her perfect backside. My swan didn’t sit. She continued to float around the space, the beaded hem of her bronze dress knocking into the table legs and dragging over the carpet.
I couldn’t wait to rid it from her body, knowing there’d be nothing but bare, wet flesh awaiting me beneath.
Restraining the need to take and bend her over that table, I left her to fuss and twirl about the room and plucked a bottle of rosemary oil from the shelf. I’d barely uncorked it before stuffing the cork back in place and crinkling my nose.
“Nicely done, savage.”
I could do without her experimenting with that one. “Whatever do you mean?”
Opal drifted to me, taking the oil from my hand and putting it back upon its wooden holder on the shelf. “You know,” she leaned into me, looping her arms behind my back and laying her chin upon my chest, “you could have just asked me.”
I wiped my curious expression, feigned confusion with a tilt of my head. “Ask you what?”
“To share your rooms with you,” she said flatly.
“Oh.” I smacked my lips together and pushed out a rough breath. “Well, this is rather awkward. You see, I’ve had your things taken to a smaller room on the main floor.”
Her arms slackened, as did the pointed expression upon her flushing face.
“My lovely, breathtaking swan,” I purred, hands rising to cup her cheeks, “Will you miss being so close to me?”
She laughed, the sound a low, warm nectar bathed beneath the sunlight. “I suppose being closer to the kitchens, the library…”
I trapped a vibrating grumble behind my teeth, and she laughed harder, squeezing my hands over her cheeks and rising onto her bare toes. “Take me to the
se new rooms of mine.”
Her heart hitched as I nipped the tip of her tiny nose, then collected her into my arms. “Gladly.”
We’d barely made it through the adjoining door that entered that of our dressing room when she noticed her clothing taking up a good portion of the large space. With a laugh, she twisted in my arms for her legs to wind around me, arms tight around my neck. “Thank you,” she breathed between kisses to my throat, my chin, and I stole her lips before they could reach my mouth.
She accepted my tongue with a greed that matched my own—rough, hot, and urgent. Her dress lifted from her body as I lowered her to the ground before the end of the bed, and I growled with approval at what stood before me.
Naked perfection.
After shedding my clothing, the scent of her desire permeating the air, her lips between her teeth as she watched me, I then picked her back up and fell over her on the bed. “I hope you’re hungry because I’ve been starving all stars-damned day.”
“We can go longer than six hours without fucking,” Opal said, yet moaned and pressed into my fingers when they crawled between her legs.
“This says otherwise.” I thrust a finger inside her, swallowed her mewl, and then demanded, “Say fucking again.”
“Fucking,” she echoed, a dancing gleam in her eyes.
I circled her clit as a reward, watched those lashes flutter and her arms fall to the bed as liquid heat sped through her. “Say I want you to fuck me morning, noon, and night.”
A breathy laugh left her, followed by another moan. “I want you to fuck me right now.”
I pursed my lips, even as my cock lurched and dug into her stomach. “That wasn’t what I said.” Trailing my fingers up her body, decorating her skin with her glistening want, I licked her essence from them and then rubbed her bottom lip. “Open.”
She did, sucking herself from my fingers, those damned eyes never leaving mine. Her teeth gently scraped as they slowly left her mouth. I shivered violently. Before I could return them to her cunt, she stole my wrist and pushed one back in, writhing beneath me.
And I cracked.
She smiled when I cursed and readied myself to ram inside her. Our mouths fused, and we moaned together as I plunged deep and she hooked her thighs higher up my back. I circled my hips, my tongue in her mouth, then dragged her lip into mine with my teeth. “Wicked, disobedient bird.”
She laughed through a moan and gripped my hips with her thighs. “Would you have me any other way?”
“Never,” I grunted, thrusting deep and nibbling down her chin to her neck. Her body stiffened, then uncoiled beneath me, trembling when I hit that spot inside her. “There,” I rasped, and bit the smooth curve between her shoulder and neck, moving with slow yet sharp precision. “Melt for me, swan.”
Her nails scored into my back. I didn’t let up, and she ruptured within seconds, her low cries and moans music to my fucking ears. She squeezed me so tight, so good, I gritted my teeth and fought the urge to release with her and made myself wait.
I wasn’t anywhere near being done with her yet.
Light as misted air, her fingers trailed up my arms, each muscle quivering, the fists by her head clenching harder. “Forevermore,” she said to my shoulder, and I lifted my lips from her reddened skin.
Golden affection, the likes of which had taken me time to absorb, to realize what it was that shined in her eyes when she gazed at me like that, sank velvet talons inside my chest. “I want you at every meal, in the training yard, the woods, the kitchens, the bathing room, the gardens, annoying me while I’m reading…” she grinned when I scowled. “I don’t want you morning, noon, and night. I want you”—a finger stroked down my cheek—“everywhere and always. All of you, forevermore.”
A verbal promise unlike any she’d declared to me yet. A permanent embedment that clawed so deep, I nearly exploded inside her as a storm swarmed inside my chest and threatened to erupt from my eyes.
I lowered my head. “Fuck, sunshine.”
She plucked it back up. “I mean it,” she vowed, pressing my nose into hers, her eyes refusing to let go of mine. “I swear it.”
I blinked back the warmth in my eyes and grew dizzy with all she was, all I’d found, all I now couldn’t breathe without. “You were right,” I said, and kissed her nose. “You were right to think I didn’t have a heart. I didn’t.”
My queen’s lips parted, but I kissed them and whispered, “It arrived when I found you. You are the beat within my chest, the heart I never knew I needed.”
Tears glossed her eyes, and I kissed each one, then returned to her mouth. Our bodies moved, sliding and pushing. Our heartbeats thundered and crashed before we began anew with her climbing atop me.
And I vowed, with every caress and murmured affection, that no matter how many times the sun went down, I would never lose my light.
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If you loved The Savage and the Swan, you might also enjoy another steamy fantasy romance—A King So Cold.
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