The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince: An Epic Fantasy Romance (Heirs of Magic Book 1)

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Zeph almost couldn’t catch her breath with so many emotions wringing her heart. What was happening to her? This wasn’t the gríobhth’s possessiveness, as there was none of that hot-blooded ferocity to it. No, this was a softer, though no less keen, longing for the man holding her. What if she couldn’t bring herself to give him up? She would have to, but… What if she couldn’t?

  “Zephyr?” His lips kissed her ear. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, then forced herself upright, meeting his summer-sky gaze—rain-muddled with concern—and forced a smile onto her face. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  He didn’t smile back. “You’re not. Something is upsetting you. Did I say something wrong?”

  “No.” She spoke the word through the tightness in her chest. Too full of all those heart-juices swelling up inside and making her ribs creak. She shook her head to emphasize that. “Can we—would it be appropriate for us to withdraw yet?” She tried to sound arch and teasing, but the words came out breathless, very nearly a whimper.

  “Of course.” Keeping her hand in his, he threaded his way through the dancing crowd, greeting people here and there—never less than charming and never pausing. Another of his skills in literally navigating court that she lacked. Except he didn’t think she lacked anything. You are perfect exactly the way you are.

  He’s also not thinking about you as a future queen, the voice just had to say. You’re perfect as a lover. Here today, gone tomorrow.

  Which is all I ever wanted, she argued with herself.

  Is it? The voice had a mocking tone now. Maybe you pretended to yourself that all you wanted was a night or two, but I know better. And you’re beginning to see the truth, too.

  You are me, she snarled.

  Exactly, the voice replied smugly.

  “Are you not feeling well?” Astar asked once they reached the cool, quiet air of the deserted hall. He shifted his grip to feel the pulse at her wrist. “You’re pale.”

  “I’m always pale,” she shot back. “I got the Dasnarian winter-white skin.”

  Astar tilted her a look. “At least that put some color back into your cheeks. When did you last eat?”

  Good question. “At breakfast, I suppose.”

  “Which you mostly drank, as I recall,” he replied grimly. “Which is not a problem, let me hasten to add, but you barely touched the food on your plate, so unless you ate more after I left, then you’ve been flying all day on a couple glasses of wine.” He snagged a passing page and asked that food be sent up.

  “I’m not really hungry,” she protested, though not strongly because his concern touched her. Her raw heart couldn’t possibly take much more, but she had to pinch the bridge of her nose to keep from getting weepy. What in Moranu was wrong with her?

  “You’re going to eat,” he informed her in that authoritative tone that went straight to her groin. He stopped at their chamber door and opened it, gesturing her within. Closing the door, he turned to her. “After you eat, we’re going to talk more about—”

  She stopped his words with her mouth, fastening her lips to his with avid hunger, climbing him like a tree until her arms were wrapped around his neck and her legs around his narrow hips, clinging to him like a cat who might know the way down but couldn’t extract her claws. Astar made a sound—surprise, need, longing—and hugged her tight to him as he staggered toward the bed, collapsing back on it when his knees hit the edge.

  Perfectly happy to have him under her, she feasted on his mouth, pinning him to the bed and sinuously rubbing against his big, hard body. She was starving, yes, but not for food. She only wanted him, inside, outside, around and over.

  “Zephyr,” he said, tearing his mouth away, his head falling back with a gasp as she only occupied her voracious mouth elsewhere. His smooth jaw, the pulse point under his ear, the corded muscle of his neck that begged to be bitten. “Wait. The servants are bringing food and—”

  “Please, Astar,” she begged. “Let me have you. I need… Please let me.”

  “Yes,” he groaned back. “Always yes, but—” He took her in a firm grip and levered her off of him with the easy shapeshifter strength he so rarely used, the bearish dominance making her shiver. No matter how wild she got, Astar could handle her. She’d never thought she needed that. But then, she hadn’t realized how much she needed him. “They’re at the door,” he said to her, slowly and firmly. He was holding her wrists, keeping her from tearing off his clothes. “Once the servants bring in the food, I’ll lock the door, and you can have as much of me as you can take.”

  She licked her lips at that enticing promise. “I can take a lot.”

  “Believe me, I know that full well now,” he replied with a salacious grin. Tugging out his shirt to cover the erection straining at his pants, he went to the door and let the servants in. As soon as they left, he barred the door as promised and came back to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat first?”

  In lieu of an answer, she shapeshifted herself naked, her hair unbound. There—at least that was one fancy gown and hairdo safely stored away. Reclining on her elbows, she spread her legs, one knee drawn up, and slid her fingers through the curls at her mons, slipping them into her sex to stroke herself, purring in pleasure. “I need to sate this hunger first,” she told him as he watched, rapt, his jaw tight and fingers twitching. “Will you help?”

  His gaze flew up to hers, and he began ripping off his clothes. “I keep thinking one of these nights we’ll do this slowly. I have fantasies, of kissing you all over, of—”

  One of these nights… as if they had so many to squander. “Less talk,” she suggested. “Hurry.”

  “Now who has so much edge?” he taunted, fully naked now and crawling up her body to straddle her on all fours. Taking her wrists in each hand, he pressed them to the bed beside her head and bent to kiss her, ignoring her straining attempts to reach him. He kissed her slowly, lingeringly, with excruciating thoroughness. “I’m going to make this slow,” he informed her, lifting his head so he could gaze down at her.

  “Astar,” she groaned. “Please…”

  “Please go so slowly? Good idea.” He smiled, smugly pleased with himself, then kissed the soft point just under her jaw. With agonizing and meticulous care, he kissed his way down her throat, lavishing her skin with licks and nibbles, holding her still despite her frantic, needy thrashing beneath him.

  With exquisite patience, he slowly devastated her, taking her apart until she lived only for the next brush of his lips, the nip of his teeth, the lavish stroke of his tongue. She became a quivering mass of need, obedient to his least caress, adoring and adored.

  When he at last slid inside her, transferring his grip on her wrists to interlace his fingers with hers, her body took him in with ease, sweet and hot and hard, filling all of her. He paused there, fully inside of her, their bodies slicked together, skin to skin, and he gazed down at her, his face showing everything she felt. The summer sky in his eyes, the golden sun radiant as his heart, and she realized—with a sense of joy so acute it nearly rent her apart—that she loved him.

  She loved him as the only sun in her world. There might be countless stars, but Astar made them all dim with his brightness. Biting down on her lip so she wouldn’t blurt out the words, she moved under him, wrapping her legs around him and urging him deeper.

  “Let me do that,” he murmured, lowering his head to gently nibble the fullness of her lower lip, moving inside her to stoke the fire ever higher. “Let me have you, lovely Zephyr,” he murmured against her lips.

  “Always,” she breathed, and gave herself over to be immolated in his fire.

  ~ 24 ~

  Zephyr had clearly worn herself out with flying. After that intensely intimate lovemaking session, she’d fallen asleep and hadn’t stirred since—not even when he turned down the covers and gently picked her up to tuck her beneath. He’d even spread out her hair across the pillow the way she liked it, so she wasn’t lying on it, and she’d only sighed and
burrowed deeper in. He lingered a moment longer, caressing her glossy hair, wishing he’d gotten food into her, but glad she was getting rest.

  Though she slept as deeply as a child with the purity of a clear conscience and a day spent fully exerting herself without reservation, he made himself move away from her lest he be tempted to touch her more. Pouring himself a glass of wine, he picked at the food, taking the rare moment alone to gather his thoughts.

  She’d been upset, clearly agitated in a way lighthearted, carefree Zephyr never was. Maybe he’d made a mistake, saying those things to her on the dance floor. But he’d been so stricken that she would see herself as lacking in any way. And maybe her uncertainty had hit him harder after a day in Berendina’s company, with her countless sly jabs at the Tala in general—and Zephyr in particular. Astar had been around court politics long enough—and had been relentlessly tutored by Ursula in strategies of all types—that he recognized a carefully waged campaign. Berendina had lost no opportunity to point out Zephyr’s inappropriateness as a candidate for high queen, while simultaneously offering her own qualifications. He felt like he’d spent the day interviewing a candidate for a position in his household.

  Astar had tolerated the game, mentally toting up the points for each as Berendina saw them, then adjusting them according to his own heart. Zephyr outshone Berendina—and, to be fair, all other women—in every way that mattered to him. Beauty, cleverness, sensuality, humor, a genuine love for the people who mattered to her. She was good for him, counterbalancing his tendency to be too serious, to worry over his responsibilities, to bind himself with duty. Plus, she understood the bear within. No—she embraced that side of himself, as the Berendinas of the world never could.

  Then, of course, there was the bald truth that he’d fallen in love with Zephyr, just as he’d feared. Or rather, he’d finally acknowledged how much he loved her and perhaps always had. Opening his body to her had removed any hope he’d had of withholding his heart. Zephyr would have his heart as long as he lived, no matter who he married. A dismal picture formed in his head, of himself married to one woman and longing for another, seeing Zephyr at festivals and having to pretend he felt nothing.

  Counting up his own private total of Zephyr’s virtues had been enough to distract him from blurting out that Berendina could save her concerted attempts to oust her rival since Zephyr didn’t want the job.

  Not that he blamed Zephyr for it. The tales made marrying the crown prince and becoming queen sound terribly romantic, but Zephyr was no fool. Another of her many fine qualities—she saw through the pretty jewels and fancy castles and recognized the hard duty and strain of the throne. She valued the truly good things in life—the freedom of the skies, the warmth of friendship, the uninhibited tumult of sexual passion.

  What if he couldn’t bring himself to give her up? He would have to, but… What if he couldn’t? Contemplating his wine, he confronted the dark possibility of abdicating as Ursula’s heir. But then who would hold the high throne in his stead? He couldn’t shirk his duty. He also couldn’t let go of Zephyr, now that he had her.

  The framework of his honor shook at the thought, his very foundations shuddering between the two impossibilities.

  “Astar?” Zephyr called his name, throatily inviting. The temptation he couldn’t resist. She sat up in bed, bare breasted, hair tumbling wildly around her. “Come to bed.”

  Because he wanted nothing more than to be with her, he did.

  “I meant to tell you last night,” Astar said, waving a cup of hot tea under Zephyr’s nose as she blinked sleepily at him, “I have to travel to Lake Sullivan today. Groningen wants me to see for myself.”

  “The lake creature?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with alert interest. She generally woke very slowly, stretching like an indolent cat in the big bed. People might think that the gríobhth was mostly raptor—because the head and wings drew so much attention—but Astar privately thought she was mostly cat. And Zephyr’s playful, mercurial nature bore that out. Also, her love of napping curled up, on, and around him. Now he might as well have waved catnip under her nose as tea, because she practically bounced out of bed. “Can I come along?”

  “I was hoping you would, since it’s far enough north that we’ll have to stay overnight. Everyone else is going. They seem to be excited for the excursion. I don’t know about Nilly,” he amended, “as I haven’t talked to her about it yet, but I’m assuming she’ll want to go.”

  “Well, yes! Everyone wants a chance at sighting the famous lake creature that’s bigger than a dragon. And Jak’s dancing colors in the night sky.” Zephyr shook back her hair, blinked into the form of a small cat, then back to human—fully dressed in fighting leathers and with her hair in a long, single braid down her back. “When do we leave?”

  He had to laugh at her enthusiasm. Going to her, he skimmed his hands over her form-fitting outfit, which revealed every enticing curve and hollow of her gorgeous body. “When did you acquire this outfit?” he asked as she curled into his caress. All cat, complete with purr.

  “A while back, before this adventure,” she replied, languidly twining her hands behind his neck. “I figured I should have something for combat, should I ever need to fight in human form. I was wearing this for a little while when we fought the stone giant, but you weren’t there.”

  “Probably a good thing, as I’d have been struck dead because I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”

  She frowned a little. “But that was before your promise, before I seduced you. When you were still determined that you would never want me enough to compromise your principles.”

  He groaned internally at his own pompousness. Had he really phrased it that way? Probably. That self seemed like someone who’d lived in another lifetime—and like the boy he’d been, terrified of giving in to the one thing, the one person he did want enough to pitch every last principle out the window. “I have a confession to make,” he said slowly, gazing into her clear sapphire eyes. There lay his moral compass, the most profound truth of his life. “I always wanted you, more than enough to abandon every last principle—and that terrified me.”

  She gazed back, not scornful as he’d feared, but perfectly serious. “What scared you about me?”

  “This,” he admitted. “That if I opened the door to the possibility of having you in my life, then I’d care about you more than anything else. And if I didn’t have the framework of honor and duty, I’d have nothing when you inevitably left me.”

  She nodded solemnly. “I wanted to free you of that cage. I understand now that you don’t see your responsibilities as chains, but rather as support.”

  “I did before. Maybe I clung to the cage because I thought it was safe, but not anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  He smiled at her artless question, the innocent curiosity in it. Kissing her softly, sweetly, lingering over the moment to drink her in while he could, he wondered if what he was about to say would make this their last kiss. Finally, he made himself stop and tell her the truth. “Nothing changed—I can just admit now that I care about you more than anything else. I’m head over heels in love with you, Zephyr, and I find that nothing else matters as much as that anymore.” He held his breath, waiting for her reaction, feeling as if his very heart had stopped beating.

  She’d gone still, too. Her face like a carved marble angel, no longer warm and pliant under his hands. “I was going to end things between us this morning,” she finally said, a chiming hammer of words that chipped pieces off his heart.

  He nodded slowly. “I understand.”

  “You understand because you’re convinced I’ll inevitably leave you?” She smiled a little, wryly enigmatic.

  “I don’t want to cage you, either,” he explained, running his hands over the enchanting curve of her narrow waist and flaring hips. “You were clear with me that you didn’t want forever, and—as aggravated as I get with Rhyian—I do understand that the Tala are different, that monogamy simply is
n’t part of your culture or mindset.”

  “You’re Tala, too, Astar,” she said with quiet insistence. “You keep ignoring that fact.”

  He shook his head. “I’m a son of Avonlidgh and Mohraya. More, I’m the son of a family committed to rule. I don’t think like you do. Sometimes I wish I could. Regardless, I understand why you feel the need to end things between us.” He made himself take his hands off her, the woman he loved with all his being, but who he no longer had the right to touch. The grizzly bear within howled in possessive fury. “I’m grateful I got as much time with you as I did,” he made himself say, willing the bear to pay attention.

  Zephyr’s eyes flashed with irritation, her lush crimson lips firming and high cheekbones standing out sharply. As much as he loved her gloriously long hair loose, the sleek tightness of the braid set off the sculpted beauty of her face so that he wanted to run his fingers over the elegant, delicate lines, worshipping her like a work of art.

  “Don’t be grateful,” she spat, poking him sharply in the chest with a long, pointed nail—just shy of being an actual claw—and he nearly laughed at himself for his romantic imaginings. Though he loved the ferocious aspect of her equally well. “The last thing you should feel for me is gratitude. And you’d better start listening. I said I was going to end things between us this morning. Actually, I was going to end things between us last night, but I couldn’t bear to. I hadn’t had enough of you. The truth is I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of you. And now you go and tell me you’re in love with me??” She threw her hands up in the air. She was incandescent with fury, shadows of wings and whipping tail around her.