My climax teetered on the edge, and his rhythm became frantic and messy, driving me closer, almost there…
King Athon groaned and pressed his forehead against mine, closing his eyes while his fingers dug into my skin, almost there…
His thrusting cock suddenly grew larger—too large—and his rhythm stuttered to a complete halt when he tugged his hips back, but his cock wouldn’t move.
I screamed.
The reason was worthy of the bloodcurdling noise.
King Athon’s warm russet skin tone disappeared. Orange, black, and white stripes painted his entire masculine body, including his face. No fur showed, thank the Fae, but his coloring had just morphed into his tiger’s hues.
The shifter king’s pure black eyes popped open, his head jerking back to stare at me in shock and horror. He bellowed, “What the Fairy is going on?”
“Your body,” I screeched, trying to explain.
“No, your body,” King Athon growled.
I stared for an overlong moment, a ball of dread dropping hard in my gut and making me stall at the inevitable. I moved my right hand to the side and glanced at it.
I whimpered, “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.”
My hand—my entire body—was fiery red.
King Athon’s expression blanked. He peered down at his arms where they were blatantly tiger striped. He blinked. He blinked some more. He hesitantly moved his hips back from mine, but they weren’t going anywhere, his cock stuck inside my vagina.
I lowered my hand and turned my horrified gaze up to the solid black eyes that had returned to my face. I whispered brokenly, “Are you…knotted?”
King Athon’s frozen face of nothing—possibly in shock—nodded once with a jerk. No words came out of his mouth, the King of Shifters having turned mute suddenly.
He opened his mouth, but then shut it. Still silent.
I whacked at his left arm, frantically ordering, “Get it out! Get it out now!”
The shifter king blinked. In a choked, gruff tone, he said, “That’s not exactly how it works.”
Yes, I knew how it worked.
I shook my head. “We cannot be soul mates.”
When an elf found their soul mate, their skin turned the color of whatever their power might be. When a shifter found their soul mate, their skin turned the color of their animal. But if the male—all kingdoms—climaxed while knotted inside the partner, the deal was sealed. His climax would put a string of events into place: the male climaxes, the female climaxes, their Fae-sparks connect, they are soul mates—the only person they could ever have a child with.
“My body isn’t going to give either of us a choice soon,” he said neutrally, his features still frozen in time. “I can’t hold it back much longer.”
He wasn’t in shock. No. He was trying to keep from climaxing like his body was urging him to do. The shifter king was trying to stay in complete control of himself.
“What do we do?” I asked hysterically. Wait. My eyes widened with a thought. “I could burn your dick off!”
King Athon’s eyes rounded comically, and then hurriedly went back to chilly stone. “Do not even think about burning my cock off. That would not help the ultimate issue of me eventually creating an heir.”
Never had a baby been born of two different kingdoms.
Even when the originals had tried, it hadn’t happened.
They’d killed each other over that, too. One of their many times of killing one another, before the Fae finally created a compatible mate for them. They still ended up killing each other, though—too many times.
It was entirely impossible for us to have children.
He was correct. But bloody Fae still…
“You think that’s the ultimate issue here?”
“It is for my people. Either way, they’re fucked if I can’t get my dick out of you safely.” He held still, thinking silently. “I could cut you open. You would heal as long as I didn’t permanently remove anything.”
“Do it.” I nodded sharply. “Just get the fuck out of me.”
“I’ll make this quick. I’m particularly good with my claws.”
“I don’t give a Fae fuck. Just get it done. I’ll heal.”
Ever so carefully, he turned only his torso so that he could see and get one of his hands down there. His white hair trickled over his shoulder and smacked me in the face again, the soft locks swaying ever so slightly as he situated himself.
I lifted my right hand to swat it away.
King Athon barked, “Don’t move, you damned fool! My body is fighting me. This is hard enough, so keep still.”
I kept my red colored hand in the air, not moving.
A white hair tickled my nose.
I twitched my nostrils to move it.
It tickled again.
I scrunched my nose to remove it.
The lightest brush of it once more, tickling. Tickling.
I sneezed hard.
The King of Shifters jerked his head to face me, his eyes widening in a fury, bellowing, “What the fuck did you just do?”
“Your hair!” I screamed frantically. “Your hair did it!”
“Oh my…fuck.” King Athon squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body trembling.
“No, no, no, no,” I sputtered.
King Athon’s head thrust back. The muscles chorded in his strong neck, and his jaw snapped shut. His tiger painted fingers curled into the comforter on either side of my head, and his hips shot forward—the wrong way—toward my own.
The first pump of his cock inside of me…
My body arched underneath him so far that I pressed up hard against his rock-solid body. I bit my lower lip to keep from screaming as molten waves crashed through me, traveling up and down, up and down, my quaking body. Bodily pleasure unlike any I have ever known dug its way into my mind, and then circled and circled and circled until no part of me knew anything but the cherished falls of repeated ecstasy. My body convulsed hard enough I should have broken a bone, and perhaps I had, but I didn’t feel it.
King Athon’s massive frame shook the bed so fiercely the headboard broke in a slanted, jagged line from the bottom to the top.
My eyes caught on his when his chest began to glow orange right over his heart, mine now shimmering red. The lights shot from our chest to the other’s chest, burrowing down into the other’s Fae-spark, stabbing down deep, uniting us as soul mates forever.
My arched body slammed back down on the bed, knocking the breath out of me. I blinked in a daze at the shifter king above me. I couldn’t focus. I could barely see. I couldn’t move my limp body. My last thought, when he fell right on top of me, was that he was Fae fucking heavy, and then the lights went out on this deadly day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Confession of a princess:
I must have done something very wrong to someone once. They are surely using caster spells to make my life go from bad to worse. If that were true, I would apologize so my life might go back to normal.
That is just a dream, though.
My life will never be the same with a monster for a soul mate.
Or, the most horrifying thought yet…
If my soul mate is a monster, does that mean I am one, too?
I blinked open my sleepy eyes to muted sunlight. As slumber slowly trickled away from my body, I stared at the tiny motes of dust displayed and floating in the air from a sliver of direct light slipping through at a curtain’s edge. It was particularly beautiful like the dust had its own mind and merely wanted to dance in the sunshine when the realm was quiet.
A small smile curved my lips—until my bare foot brushed against the coarse hairs on a person’s leg. I snapped my head to the side and gazed in complete dismay, a strangled sound trapping in my throat at the King of Shifters sleeping peacefully next to me. The memory of last night rammed into my brain, and it was hard to breathe after that.
King Athon’s white hair was sprawled all over my comforter around his face. He was angl
ed toward me as he slept on his stomach. His dark, muscled arms were crooked at the elbows, and his hands were resting up near his head, lying on top of some of his disheveled hair, his caster-spelled ring worn on his pinky still shiny even in the low lighting. His dusky pearl lips were parted slightly from the squished side of his rugged face pressed against my bed.
The darkness of his skin highlighted the muscles on his shoulders and near his shoulder blades. The bulk of his torso slimmed down at his tapered waist, only to slope back up at his bare buttocks, an indecent curve of masculinity. His thighs were just as muscular and powerful as his pants yesterday had alluded to, and his calves were rounded with strength. The bottoms of his dark feet were lightly pink in color and clean of dirt.
He was absolutely gruesome in size, practically a monster.
And those rounded ears? Revolting.
At least his eyes were closed. Those were rather creepy.
The thought that my…soul mate…turned into a tiger churned my stomach with loathing—and some fear. He wasn’t appealing in the slightest. What in the Fae fuck had happened? This was wrong on every level that I could even count. My life and his were now up for grabs as soon as the Fae realized what had happened.
I sneered in disgust and quietly slipped from my bed.
I found my underwear and bra on the floor and quickly put them on, along with an overlarge nightgown that hid almost every part of my frame. I rubbed over my heart and glanced back to the naked slumbering man on my bed. I could feel him in my chest. I could tell he was having sweet dreams, not a care in the realm right now. It was light, a quiet touch, but it was there.
It was definitely there inside my Fae-spark now.
The Fae would kill us…
Or, perhaps they wouldn’t? Because this was a mistake.
I would argue that point if they didn’t own up to it.
Obviously, the Fae were not flawless.
They messed up like any other being.
But since they were not known for being particularly forgiving, I would rather they stay far, far away in Fairy for the foreseeable…forever.
I flashed my fangs at the shifter king. This was atrocious.
My eyes shifted to the covered window. The sun appeared to be bright enough that it was no longer early morning. It would be time to leave soon for our first quest to save the realm.
Wonderful. I had to wake King Ugly.
I bent down and grabbed one of his heavy boots. I hefted it up and threw it across the room straight at him. It hit his naked ass hard just as I had wanted.
I snarled, “Wake up.”
His head shot up off the bed. His teeth bared from being jarred awake, and one of his arms lifted and turned his torso in the direction of the attack. He bellowed, “Who in the fuck just hit me—”
King Athon snapped his mouth shut, stopping his own words short. He blinked the sleep from his eyes gradually and squinted right at me—as if he were trying to remember who in the Fae fuck I was. His white hair stuck up in a few places, giving him a much less regal appearance.
I allowed him a moment to gather his thoughts, as I had done when waking. This situation was a lot of horrible to process in the first place, much less when rousing from the protection of slumber.
The shifter king’s mouth opened. “I think I might throw up.”
Excellent. He was done. We could move on with our day.
I pointed a finger behind him. “Bathroom is back there. Get the Fae fuck out of my bed, Your Royal Highness.”
“Holy Fairy fuck,” King Athon groaned. He rolled and dropped his feet to the floor—monstrous enough to touch it while sitting on my mattress—and started rubbing at his face with both of his palms, chafing the skin with jerky movements. His back faced me when he griped, “Where is my crown?”
“Right next to your naked ass that needs to get off my bed.” I bent down and chucked another boot at him, nailing him right in the middle of his back with a decent thump. “We’re going to be late for this wretched day if you don’t hurry up.”
The boot shot back through the air so fast it blurred.
“Oomph,” I gasped in pain, hunching over at my middle. The boot had met its mark right in my stomach. “You asshole! You broke something in there!”
He grabbed his crown beside him and glared over his shoulder. The shifter king didn’t speak. He just aimed death from his eyes directly at me, not giving a Fae shit that I was in pain.
“Damned shifter prick.” My stomach mended itself, and I straightened to stand tall—as much as I could around him. “Fine. I won’t hit you again, Your Royal Highness.”
“Excellent. If you attack me, I will come back ten times harder at you,” he snarled. His solid black eyes blazed on mine. “Do you understand?”
“I understand your bare shifter ass is still on my bed. I will need to burn my sheets.” I sniffed and lifted one hand. I quirked a questioning, red eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll do it now to save time?”
King Athon bared his teeth, but he did finally stand up.
I altered my raised hand to block the view of his cock and balls before I had to see them again. I stated, “If you really need to use the bathroom—”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Trixie, my daughter!” Father shouted from outside my bedchamber door. “Are you awake yet? We have to be there in two hours!”
I froze where I stood with my heart hammering.
Narrowed black eyes stared into my emerald gaze. He tilted his head to the door and silently mouthed, “Answer him.”
I cleared my throat, and said loudly, “I’m awake, Father. I’ll be ready to go shortly.” It sounded normal to my own ears, even though I felt anything but.
“I wish to talk with you a moment,” Father called. “Open the door, please.”
“I’m not decent right now,” I returned quickly.
“Then get decent and open the door. This is important.”
That was my king speaking.
I had no choice.
“Give me a second,” I shouted.
I started shaking a pointed finger behind the naked shifter king, ordering him to get into my bathroom.
He ran his fingers of his free hand through his hair, tugging it back from his face in aggravation, but nodded his head in agreement.
As one, we hurried around my room, grabbing his clothes that were all over my floor. I shoved what I had collected at his chest and then grabbed his shoulders and jerked him around toward the bathroom. I gave him a none to gentle shove in the back to get him moving.
He stalked across the floor in all his naked, foul glory, and glared at me over his shoulder. He hadn’t appreciated that, but I didn’t truly care if I had bruised his kingly ego.
I shrugged a shoulder and silently closed the bathroom door on his face. I walked across the room and regulated my breathing and plastered a disgruntled look onto my face. I unlocked my door and opened it, mumbling, “What is it now, Father? I packed everything you told me to pack.”
Father rolled his emerald eyes and strode into my room. He sat down on my wrinkled comforter, and stated, “This has nothing to do with your packing. I wanted to talk to you about my welfare while we are in the Blood Forest.”
I stared. “What of it? You are more likely to survive than I am.”
“You would think that to be true, but it is not.” He shook his head softly, his emerald eyes somber and patient. “I have a soul mate, Trixie. I know you have seen the effects after someone loses a soul mate. I’ve sent a guard to Jarisbur to warn your mother so that she may prepare for my absence. She’ll need to purchase a lot of drugs to handle this, thanks to my power level, but the same may occur for me while we are there. I honestly don’t know. Our power is being taken away so it could do nothing, but I need you to do your part.”
I gulped hard and looked nowhere near the bathroom.
Softly, he murmured, “I will need you to protect me if I am unable to protect myself. They won’t hurt you. You a
re young. They will think they can mold you to be who they want. I will be the one they would try to remove if they thought it best for their kingdom.”
“I don’t think they will,” I answered slowly, even with a horrible worry now eating away at my heart—all for my father. Words that King Athon had said last night strained in my mind. “You may be the one needed to find an artifact. They wouldn’t risk the realm only for your death.”
Father’s grin was cutting. “You would be surprised.”
“Who?” I asked instantly, my hackles rising in wrath. I stomped forward to stand right in front of him. “Which one wants you dead?”
“King Elon. He despises me,” he answered easily.
My forehead crinkled. “What did you do to him to make him risk the realm?”
“I may have killed his favorite brother.” Father shrugged a shoulder.
I threw my hands up into the air. “Good Fae, Father. Will you quit assassinating people that royals care about?”
“As opposed to people they don’t?” Humor twinkled in his emerald eyes. “I’m proud you have your standards, my daughter.”
I shook my head and sighed heavily. “Yes, I will make sure the snake does not bite you, Your Royal Highness.”
And purchase some damned pills in a hurry.
I hadn’t thought about being affected by losing a soul mate, even a soul mate I wish I didn’t have. With pills, survivors can “manage.” But without, they are positively in pain at all times. Being drugged and pain-free would be better than being useless and a burden on this journey.
“I appreciate that, my daughter.” Father stood and wrapped me in his arms, gifting me a rare hug. He kissed the top of my head, and then he stepped back and frowned. “Are you sure that King Athon didn’t harm you when you were alone with him?”
My red brows puckered in confusion. “He ambushed me, but he didn’t hurt me.”
He sniffed at the air around me. “Take a shower. For some reason, you bloody well smell like him.”
I kept my features properly disgusted in light of that repulsive discovery. “Gross.”
“Precisely.” Father walked to my bedchamber door and glanced back at me. “Two hours. Be ready.”
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