by May Dawson
“Croft would say it’s a good thing you can’t afford hats.”
“He told you about the hat phase? Croft hated the hat phase.”
He’s smiling, trying to be light, but there’s a deep sadness beneath it. In that brief, charged exchange, it felt like there was genuine love as well as distrust and hurt between him and his mother. Why does she hate me so much? Is it because of who my father is, or is there something darker, something deeper?
My father had a lot of supporters. There are many good reasons to hate my father, but I think some people reject me so intensely now because they embraced him once. I wonder who his parents really are. I wonder who they were when my father walked this earth.
But I know who Cax is.
I lean forward and brush my lips across his cheek.
“I think you made a bad deal, Cax,” I whisper.
“I’d rather have the chance that one day, I might have you,” he says softly, “then all the money in the world.”
I shake my head. Everything begins to click into place. Stelly was so upset because she knew Cax was being disowned. This is why there’s suddenly a rift between her and her mother. I wonder if being friends with me has cost Stelly anything, if Cax’s affection for me has cost his inheritance.
He’s still looking at me as if all his wealth means nothing compared to being close to me like this.
Cax loved me enough to choose me over his money. Did he make Stelly keep his secrets because he didn’t want me to feel guilty? He’s carried this burden while he’s tried to win me back, and never said a word about what he gave up for me.
“There’s no chance,” I say, and just as his face begins to fall, I add, “I’m already yours, Cax. Always have been. Always will be.”
Chapter 27
We’ve got to get out of his mother’s house. Cax rifles through the shelves of his books and draws one out. When he flips it open, it’s really a wooden box.
“What’s that?” I ask, just before he plucks out a key.
“The key to my grandfather’s summer house.” His lips purse to one side. “It’s not hers.”
“Cax…” I don’t want to make things worse for him.
“You said it yourself. You’ll never go back to sleep in that room, even once the tunnels are boarded up. For one night…”
I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to sleep in the same building as Moirus Neal even if he’s in the dungeon and I’m five stories above.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”
He grins in delight, taking my hand in his—and leading me straight to his bedroom closet. Over his shoulder, I can see neat rows of shirts and carefully hung trousers, and the much-talked-about hats on a shelf above. I start to reach past him for a derby, a smile coming to my lips. He takes it from me, tosses it back into the closet, and shuts the door.
Then he puts the key into the lock, making a face as he jiggles it in. “Universal key, sure,” he mutters before the knob turns in his hand. He shoulders the door, and this time when he opens it, there’s the living room of a small cabin beyond.
“The magic never gets old,” I murmur as I follow him into a living room. Big windows look out on a deep silver-blue lake, and to either side stretch endless dark pines. The sunset streaks the sky with gold and pink, even though the stars are already coming to life high above.
Cax wanders around the room, murmuring spells to turn on soft lights, music, to bloom a fire in the fireplace. It is cool in here, and when I shiver, he returns to me, wrapping his arms around me.
I don’t want to think about what we have to go back to in the morning. The decision I have to make is between two terrible choices. Either I give up the chance to restore my magic—and disappoint these men who have worked so hard for me, as well as losing my own dreams—or I order a man killed.
Whichever of those two doors I walk through, I’ll live with regrets.
But Cax has taken me through a different door, just for tonight.
“Cax,” I say softly. I want to forget everything tonight, everything beyond these walls.
“Tera?” There’s a teasing note in his voice, but wanting, too.
“Take me to bed.”
“It’s been a long day,” he agrees, being purposefully obtuse.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” I chide.
When Cax drops the pretense and grins, it lights up his whole face, crinkling the corners of his gorgeous green eyes. He lifts me easily into his arms, picking me up like a bride, and I let out a surprised laugh as I loop my arms around his neck.
He carries me down the hall, and I catch glimpses of original paintings hanging on the wall between simple silver sconces before he kicks open the door of one of the guest bedrooms. I have to grin at his hurry. I glance around at the room as he murmurs the words and the fire ignites in the fireplace, sparks popping wildly for a second before they settle into a steady, comforting yellow-orange glow. There’s a big comfortable bed covered in white linens—clearly our destination for the evening—and the fireplace, and little else in here. This place feels homey and relaxed.
“This is nicer than the palace,” I blurt out.
“Good, because on the off chance my grandfather decides to leave it to me, for the sake of our old fishing memories, this is going to be all my wealth. Right here.” He gestures around the small room, with its sloped ceiling, plain white walls, and cozy fire.
“I don’t have even the smallest summer house to bring to the table,” I remind him. “All I’ve brought you is trouble and the knowledge of a whole ‘nother realm of curse words.”
“You’ve brought me a few other things,” Cax says, his expression fond. But I can tell by his mischievous smile a second later that he’s shifting back to his usually playfulness. “But I’m actually very fond of some of those words you’ve introduced me too. Fuck? So brilliantly versatile. I really can’t thank you enough.”
“You haven’t even explored the full definition of the word,” I say, my light tone matching his. I reach for him, taking him in my hand through his trousers, and lean forward until my lips graze his ear. “Fuck me.”
I’m as much dirtside as I am good Avalon boarding-school girl now, and Cax doesn’t seem to mind one bit. Our lips meet, again and again, as he pulls my clothes off, his eyes lighting up at the sight of me as I strip off his belt and drop it to the ground, as I pull his pressed shirt free of his waistband and unbutton it slowly, looking up at him. The hard angles of his face are shadowed by the light from the fire, but there’s only tenderness in his eyes.
His lips on my mouth, my cheeks, my throat make me feel loved, but his wandering hands—as firm and sure as his lips are tender—leave me throbbing with desire.
When I push him down on the bed, straddling him, he grins up at me. I wrap my hand around his cock, which fills my grip. As I stroke him against my inner thighs, his grin turns into a soft give of breath. Good. Let him want me as helplessly as I want him. I move my hand up and down, bending over to flick my tongue against the head of his cock, and he groans.
My hair falls between the two of us like a veil, and he idly winds a few golden-brown strands around his fingers, then gently tugs them. I look up as he whispers, “Come here.”
I straddle his narrow hips, resting my palms on those flat, hard abs. His chest and abs are smooth, his nipples flat and brown, and I could stay there admiring him all night except I feel his cock brushing against my thigh every time I shift, and every single time, there’s an answering throb. When I lean forward and brace my arms on either side of his head, the faint scruff on his jaw tickles my neck as he kisses my cheek.
His hands wrap around my hips firmly. He holds me there, over his cock, and I reach back between our legs to take him in my hand and brush him firmly over my center. He bites his lip as if it feels as good to him as it does to me.
For long minutes we rock together with his cock teasing both of us, pressing slow circles, then quick ones, through the growing w
etness between my thighs. I leaned forward, overcome with desire, and rest my forehead on the cool pillow besides his face.
He brushes my hair back from my face with his palm, kissing my cheek, my neck, his lips firm and tender all at once.
I moan and fall to his side, among the pillows. I wrap my hands around his shoulders, pulling him toward me, and he braces himself carefully above my body. The head of his cock brushes against my thighs, teasing me until I can’t stand it.
I look up into those vivid green eyes and bite my lip as I realize Cax is in no hurry. But I want him inside me, now. “Would you…?”
“Would I what?” he asks innocently, as if he weren’t keenly aware that I’m desperately wet for his cock inside me.
“Cax Roman.”
He grins at the scolding but shifts his weight so he can hold himself up with one hand, the other rubbing his cock against my clit and then gently pushing just the tip inside. Just his tip stretches me pleasantly wide, as if I can just barely accommodate him. He watches my face to make sure I’m still feeling pleasure.
“I want you all,” I say, my breathing rough. “I want to feel you inside me.”
He pushes all the way inside me. The stretch to take him in throbs in a way that’s pleasant and painful at once. I’d never known I could feel both things so intensely, an ache that I don’t want to stop, a pleasure that tightens my muscles around him.
He pushes in and out of me, slow and steady, the one controlling the pace no matter how desperately I wrap my thighs around his lean waist, wanting to force him to take me fast, to let this growing heat blossom into full-blown orgasm. Instead, it grows slowly, a heat that flushes across my body, that makes my hands tighten on his broad shoulders until the slow cadence of our bodies is the only thing at the center of a fast-spinning world: his cock, filling me, emptying me, filling me. My muscles convulse around him until even my fingers on his shoulders are trembling.
When I hear him exhale, as he bites his lower lip, he must be coming too. I cling tight to his shoulders as his cock buries deep inside me and he comes. Our bodies rock together as he finishes, as my own orgasm builds to a final, shattering heat.
He kisses my neck, just below my ear. I unwrap my thighs from around his waist and pat the red marks on his shoulders. My nails dug into his shoulders while I was caught up in the unthinking wave of my orgasm.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be sorry.” He looked at the red scratches with amusement lighting those vivid green eyes. “That was perfect.”
I bite my lip as I run my hands over his skin. His shoulders are tan, but even so, the marks where my nails had been are clearly visible little half-moons. He notices me noticing, and takes my hand in his. He turns it over to kiss my fingers, his lips as patient and passionate as I couldn’t be.
“You were perfect,” he tells me.
I thought I’d never sleep tonight, but with my head nestled on his shoulder, my leg thrown over his, his lean, heated body all along mine, I drift off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 28
The next morning with Cax, as he makes me breakfast and we eat together naked in the kitchen, before making up for lost time all over again, is a chance to pretend that there’s nothing wrong. Then we slip back through the portal, and all the shouting begins.
“This is stupid, Tera,” Mycroft tells me bluntly in the prince’s apartment later that day. “That man doesn’t deserve your compassion.”
“You really buy everything he said?” Airren demands. He’s been pacing restlessly. “Listen, he killed someone on his way here. That’s how he got into the palace.”
“If I’d known she’d be so easy to con, I wouldn’t have let her listen in,” Mycroft says to Airren, who looks as if he agrees with the sentiment.
I hold up my hands to stop the heated exchange. I know they’re upset because they care about me, but they’re not helping.
“You two are a pair of condescending pricks,” I tell them both.
“You need to stop feeling personally responsible for everything that’s ever happened in Avalon,” Airren snaps at me. “It’s not all your fault.”
“That might be more convincing if you weren’t yelling at her,” Cax says.
Airren’s gaze snaps up to him. “And you. What were you thinking, whisking her out of here? She needed to hear the rest of the interview.”
“She needed to get out of here,” Cax says. Cax trusts me that I know what’s best for myself, and that warms my heart.
Airren sighs in exasperation. He makes a visible effort to steel his emotions, to get himself under control. Then he tries again, more calmly. “I just want you to have your magic back. What happens without it, Tera?”
“The worst case scenario is that I go back to Primus.”
“That’s a pretty bad worst case scenario.”
“Is it?” I demand. I don’t want to go back to Primus—I never want to leave the land of magic and mists—and yet the words spill out. “With me gone, you could go back to your life’s mission. Protect Avalon instead of wasting your time protecting me.”
Airren catches my shoulders with his hands. “No. I’m not listening to any of this particular brand of nonsense.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Wherever you go,” Airren tells me, his voice low and firm. “I’ll always go with you. I’ll always be protecting you. If you go back to Primus, so do I.”
Cax, behind him with his hands in his pockets, nods. “And I do as well.”
Despite myself, I glance at Mycroft.
“I fucking hate Primus,” he grumbles. “So we’ve got to get your magic back. One way or another.”
“There’s got to be another way,” I say.
“No, Tera,” Airren says. “There really isn’t. Moirus’ spell causes him to absorb your magic. Believe me, we’ve been running down every possibility, and Rian has his scholars on it too. The only way your magic returns to you is when it leaves his body.”
“Why can’t we just use the same spell he used to take my magic, to take my magic back from him?” I demand.
“No one can do that for you,” he tells me. “You have to have the power to use the spell to steal someone’s magic for yourself.”
“That seems unfair,” I mutter.
“Everything about this is unfair.” Cax sighs. It seems to bother him most of all that Rian’s father, the real Crown, can be cruel and capricious; Mycroft and Airren take it in stride. “But it hasn’t stopped us from figuring something out so far, and it won’t stop us now.”
“That’s a nice sentiment,” Airren says impatiently. “Would you two give me a minute alone with Tera?”
“You’re not going to be more persuasive one-on-one,” I tell him firmly. “I know what my decision is. No more bloodshed.”
Airren nods, but his fingers flicker by his side—the movement almost imperceptible if I didn’t spend almost every minute with these men—and Cax and Mycroft move to the door.
I shake my head in disbelief. They certainly don’t give up. I move to the balcony, where I look out over the palace pool and gardens below. It’s all so beautiful; the trees aren’t quite bare here yet, and red and gold leaves cling to the trees. The pool reflects the clear blue sky, dotted with fluffy clouds.
I can feel Airren behind me at the doorway, and I can feel him hesitate. He’s probably trying to figure out what to say to bend me to his will. For Airren, caring is synonymous with bossing.
“Well?” I rest my elbows on the balcony railing. Rian has insisted on giving me my way in this situation. It’s my magic on the line, my old enemy, my choice. Airren is probably just as exasperated at Rian as he is with me. “What are you going to say? How are you going to show me that I’m wrong?”
“Oh, Tera.” He sighs as he joins me, leaning on his elbows on the railing next to me.
He’s so close that his shoulder brushes mine, and the pleasant citrus-and-clove scent of his cologne barely touc
hes my nose. I take a deep breath. I always want more of his scent. I want more of him. Maybe I want more than he can ever give me.
“We’re just so close.” His voice comes out as a whisper, and it makes me glance toward him. His strong jaw trembles with a faint tic, betraying the strong emotions beneath his exterior. “If you’ll just give the word, you’ll take your place with us. For the rest of your life.”
“The rest of my life?” I shake my head. “How can you promise that?”
“Do you really think we can imagine ourselves without you now?” he says. “We need you. Just as much as you need us. Maybe more.”
“You don’t need me.”
“You’ve got no idea.”
He sounds so sure when he says that.
“Are you really scared of what’s going to happen if…” If I don’t allow Moirus’ execution? If I don’t order it? Because that’s what we’re really talking about. Whether Moirus deserves it or not, the decision I make will leave his death on my hands. I’ll be killing Kella’s father. I’ll be completing my father’s legacy as another family line is wiped out by the ripple effects of his dark deeds.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “You say you want to stay here in Avalon. But you don’t act like it.”
He could be talking about things with Rian too. My feelings for the prince are slowly, unexpectedly growing, but Airren is probably frustrated by how slowly. It would be cruel to use Rian. No matter how rich and powerful he is, he’s still a human, and human hearts are easily broken.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” I say softly.
“You don’t need to be so afraid of that. You aren’t your father.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” His voice is hard.
“But Avalon needs to heal. Avalon needs to leave my father and his legacy behind.” To leave me behind—to stop hating me, to stop worshipping me, to stop thinking about me at all. “That’s more important than any one girl.”
“Not to us.”
“That’s why, as much as I love you, I can’t listen to you.”