Marquise made a tsking sound. “Not a living creature, pet. Honestly, sometimes you say the funniest things.”
I rolled my eyes, which Rogue caught and laughed at. No doubt pleased to see someone else on the receiving end of it. “Do they have legs? Can they survive outside the water for a short length of time?”
“The point of a moat monster, as you call them,” Rogue explained in a tone of great patience, though he was clearly amused, “is for them to defend the castle by swimming around in the moat. Bringing them inside the castle renders that point somewhat moot, don’t you think?”
Fine. Focus on the main problem. A slew of dragonfly girls showed up then, distributing what looked like meat sandwiches to the winch team, who gobbled them up with gusto. Rogue gave me a questioning look.
“People need to eat,” I explained sweetly, as if I’d been on top of this all along.
“Indeed.” He snapped his fingers at one of the girls—a pretty buttercup-yellow one—who bounced over and gave him one of the sandwiches. He handed it to me. “You too. Eat while you think.”
I would have argued with him about ordering me about, except the scent of the meat made my stomach growl. Voraciously hungry, I gobbled it down, along with the second one Rogue grabbed for me. By the time I was done, I had an idea.
“Okay, this is actually an easy workaround. You don’t want to have a magical door in place because the mundane works so much better as a seal against magic attacks. But it can work for a temporary solution. You’ll stop the spin, Marquise and Scourge will nuke all the spiders they can reach, Darling Goliath will come in, I’ll create a magic door, put it in place to hold the seal while the guys there pull up the drawbridge. Once it’s closed, I’ll poof the magic door. Slam dunk.”
I loved a simple plan. I know I’ve said so before, but I really did.
Of course, it wasn’t nearly so simple in the execution. On the first try, Marquise and Scourge nearly fried Goliath, the black-laced white spear of their magic setting his fur on fire before I doused it. Which meant a wave of spiders poured into the opening because I didn’t make the magic seal in time.
Rogue set the spin going while we adjusted tactics, the inertia of setting it into motion dragging at his energy. Marquise and Scourge argued with me and called me sentimental and crazy, but finally agreed to aim around my Familiar.
On the second try, Rogue fumbled the spin—something I never thought I’d see—and a sign that he was tiring more than he showed. We stopped well past the drawbridge, facing Titania’s encroaching troops, who hurled a flaming missile of globular green fire straight for the doorway. Marquise and Scourge flung their readied spell at it instead, while Rogue wrenched us into motion again.
“Are you okay?” I asked him quietly, and he nodded but rested a hand on me. I fed him all the magic I could spare while keeping a healthy portion to execute my share of the spell. The black-and-white twins indulged in a long, probably incestuous kiss to bump up their own magic.
“Let’s hope three’s a charm,” Rogue said. “Ready everyone?”
We settled ourselves, cooling and focusing. Gathering our meager reserves. To make sure my timing would be perfect, I listened in on Rogue as he executed the complex spell to stop the spinning relocation of the gate. I might bring an inventive approach to magic, but he worked the medium like a maestro. Yes, it turned me on. That was the kind of gal I was—won over better by passionate expertise than by all the flowers in the world.
He knew it, too, sliding me a hot blue glance. For once, I didn’t mind. We needed all the power we could dredge up.
Rogue’s spell clicked into place with finesse, stopping the spin on a dime right at the drawbridge. And none too soon. Titania’s forces had reached the other end and ran toward us, brandishing spears, flaming torches and tortuous devices I didn’t care to contemplate. Marquise and Scourge smoothly nuked the spiders with a blanket of magic that slid under and around Darling Goliath—who then leaped through the doorway, sending me an annoyed thought when I caught the tip of his tail as I slammed a magic force field into place.
The men sprang into action, chanting furiously as they drew up the drawbridge, flaming spiders and fae tumbling off the rising plank like passengers tumbling into the sea from a sinking Titanic. The moat monsters churned the water in their frenzy, gobbling up the unfortunate fae. They likely had no more choice in this battle than we did. Just hapless puppets to Titania’s will. It made me sick and sorry to witness it—I should have thought to make the force field opaque. But holding it there was sapping enough of my magic, especially when the catapults nailed it with a few more flaming missiles. I couldn’t split off attention to alter it.
Rogue, recovering from the drain, wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me against him, now supplementing my magic with his.
At last the ponderous drawbridge sighed into place and the men cheered, anchoring the great pins that held it in place. I dropped the force field with relief, leaning back against Rogue, grateful for the sudden peace of sealing the army outside.
It was past midnight. Faerie never slept, of course, since so few of its denizens did, but the castle grew quiet. No more missiles. Titania had either exhausted herself or was devoting her considerable deviousness to surrounding us and planning her next move. Everyone in the Castle of the Dark Gods, safely fed and sheltered, had retired to nurse their wounds or those of others.
Everyone was accounted for—at least those who rated names and notice—except for Blackbird and Fergus, who had yet to arrive. And Lady Incandescence, aka Nasty Tinker Bell, who’d gone mysteriously missing.
Fancy that.
I headed in the direction of our tower, but Rogue took my elbow, guiding me down a different hallway. “Dammit—I was sure I had this figured out now.”
“We’re not going to our tower. Yet.”
“We’re not?”
I flipped through in my mind what I’d missed. Then I flipped through his mind.
“Dancing?” I shook my head, confused. “We spend the day fighting an enraged queen of the fairies and you want to finish it with dancing?” Actually, put that way, it sounded reasonably logical.
We’d reached the ballroom across from the feast hall and Rogue opened the doors. Beautifully decorated also, it waited for wedding guests to fill it. The mirrors ringing the room reflected warm candlelight and rafts of blue lilies. Ribbons tumbled over every surface and glittering indigo sand was scattered across the dance floor like glitter. Or fairy dust.
“Yes.” Rogue guided me to the center of the floor. “We also spent today marrying each other and it’s traditional, for both our kind, I believe, to seal the wedding with a dance.”
Well, and consummation.
“We will do that, too,” he promised, with a lascivious thought that seared through me. “Besides, the last time we danced, you were too preoccupied to enjoy it.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. But I want to dance with you when you’re thinking only of me. Of us.” He took my hand and swept a formal bow, pressing a kiss to my skin. “Will my lady favor me with a dance?”
Apparently I was a romantic fool at heart, because I could only nod. Music swelled up from nowhere, a waltz to match his heartbeat, and Rogue drew me into his arms, holding my gaze rapt. We swept around the floor, the glittering dust swirling up to our passing, making its own elaborate dance in the air. It would have been a phenomenal sight with hundreds of guests dancing, but it seemed perfect in that moment that it was only the two of us.
Everything seemed to come back down to that, Rogue and I, in our eternal waltz.
We moved as one, a glorious feeling, entwined so closely that he barely led. Instead of the formal distance usually required, he held me close against him, one arm pressing against my lower back, the other holding my hand tucked up against his chest.
His scent wove in with the flowers, a masculine spice that echoed their redolent sensuality. I lost myself in his depthless eyes and, when he bent to kiss
me, our steps never faltered. We whirled around the room, a work of art and magic.
Even without Darling’s anesthetic assistance, I could have danced all night.
Eventually, I realized we’d stopped dancing and simply stood in the middle of the floor, locked in a breathless kiss. I’d wound my hands tightly around the back of his neck and stood on tiptoe, even in the high-heeled boots, stretching myself against him to indulge in more of his amazing, seductive mouth.
With a long breath, I pulled back, surprised at the level of my hunger for more of him.
Rogue smiled, smoky, delicious. “That was much better. I like it when you’re focused on me.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I retorted, but I lacked conviction. At the moment it seemed impossible I’d ever think of anything else.
“Oh, but I plan to, my seductive Gwynn.” With that he swept me up and carried me out of the ballroom with long ground-eating strides. “Your feet are sore,” he noted, before I’d opened my mouth to argue.
As soon as he said so, I felt it. Funny how it worked, that I only noticed the pangs of mortal flesh at particular times and otherwise cruised on magical energy. Almost like being on methamphetamines or something. Hopefully I wouldn’t eventually pay for those highs with a major physical crash.
Rogue nuzzled the spot under my ear, then took the lobe in his teeth and nipped it—a tingle that made my nipples tighten.
“You’re thinking again,” he murmured. “You know the sort of measures I’ll have to take to put a stop to that.”
“You’re not going to do it here in the hallway.”
“Is that a dare?” He sucked my earlobe into his hot mouth and I moaned a little.
“No. And you should look where you’re going.”
“Believe me, luscious Gwynn, I know exactly where I’m going.” The double entendre reverberated through me, especially with the images running through his mind. His urgency fed into mine, stoking my building arousal.
We reached the stairs to the tower and Rogue took them three or four at a time, leaping up them with athletic grace. For once I didn’t mind not having to climb them myself. Instead I indulged with kissing his throat, savoring the salt tang of his skin and the tantalizing thrum of his response to me.
This amplified feeling each other was crazy good.
“And we’ve barely started.” He flung the door open with a thought and set me down in the center of the room.
It, too, had been transformed and I blinked back a prickle of tears at all Starling had accomplished for me. She must have sent some of her staff after we left for the ceremony. The bed had become a bower of silk, flowers and romance. Bunches of the Stargazers were tied to the bedposts, trailing blue and silver ribbons. Petals in every shade of blue floated over the floor, the sheets, sometimes lifting with a breath of air and fluttering down again.
Rogue knelt at my feet. “Why are you—?” I started to ask, getting my answer when he slid his hands under my skirt and began unbuckling the straps on the boots. Oh.
Outside the dome, snowflakes swirled again. A reverse snow globe.
I hoped the dragons weren’t cold.
Rogue sighed at my thought, and at the same moment an amber lantern eye popped up, peering in the glass at us, no doubt from the perch ring below. I smothered a laugh and gestured at her to go back down before Rogue spotted her.
He eased the boot off my foot. “If I hadn’t heard that laugh, or sensed your surprise, I’d know that it was there from the light those eyes cast. Tell them if they peek I’ll skin them all and use their hides for rugs.”
“I don’t think they listen to me.” But I tried sending the message anyway, the sound of it swallowed by their nullness, like dropping a rock into a bottomless well. “Besides, I thought you didn’t care if they watched.”
“I don’t.” He grinned up at me with sly wickedness, drawing off the second boot and sliding hot hands over my calf up to the edge of the silly lace bloomers and down again to rub the arch of my foot. “But I don’t want you feeling inhibited. By anything at all.”
Oh my.
His caress felt like molten gold on my skin, buzzing with tiny sparks, champagne bubbles of sensual electricity. I drew in an unsteady breath and set my hand on his shoulder for balance. He looked up at me, eyes burning with that sapphire flame so uniquely his. “Do you remember this?” he whispered.
Yes. Oh yes. Back when Rogue first turned up to woo me, he’d put his hand between my legs and driven me to orgasm with that simple vibrating touch. “It was a long time ago.”
“Does it feel that way to you?”
“Ages ago and yesterday.”
“Exactly.”
He removed his hands and reached over my skirts to unlace the ribbons that held the overdress on, then pushed it off my shoulders. I stood there in the corset and all those layers of leaflike silk, translucent and rustling. He tugged at one and it came away.
“Starling will skin my hide if you ruin this dress.”
He smiled, slightly, but his face burned with intensity. “It’s meant to come off this way. I want you to stand still while I strip you naked, bit by bit. Will you let me?”
Scalded by the heat of his words, by the blaze of demanding desire that licked through him, I could only nod. He circled me, removing the dress leaf by leaf, baring my limbs, then my breasts, kissing my skin as it appeared. I tasted myself through him, saw myself as he saw me. And I slowly melted into a trembling mess, barely able to stand. When I swayed, he backed me up against the bedpost and, with a long look that dared me to object, tied my wrists with the ribbons high above my head.
Transported, I let him. The way he relished having me helpless before him, increasingly vulnerable, ratcheted into my own mind, amplifying my need. They became two faces of the same feeling, both the had and the having, power reflecting from dark to light and back again.
He unlaced the corset and pulled away the silk beneath, lavishing my breasts, rib cage and belly with more kisses, that golden buzzing touch penetrating my skin and making my blood simmer. The bunched lilies over my head exuded their scent, so I felt I might be under a soft rain of sensation. Rogue slid the pantalets down my legs with exquisite care and made his way back up my body, leaving none of my skin unkissed, uncaressed.
All the while, he wrapped me in utter attention and emotional focus, somehow strumming my heartstrings as well, sharing his delight in me. Every sound I made, the smallest of my reactions to his touch, aroused him more, which he then shared back with me, increasing my responses.
In an erotic delirium, I let him turn me to face the bedpost, gasping when something silken brushed my skin. Not his hands, but both soft and lightly prickling. It left a sizzling trail in its wake. The warm burn of cinnamon, the evaporative cool of alcohol, the scent of lilies.
I looked through his eyes—it was a lily. He’d taken a blossom and stroked my skin with it, tracing my curves. It left a shimmering trail of pollen behind, painting me in all shades of glittering blues that tingled, invading my blood and making me drunk with it.
“You know I’d do nothing to harm our child,” Rogue replied before I completely formed the concern, his voice rough with passion. “And I want to drive you wild, make you desperate for me.”
This wasn’t wild enough? “I am desperate for you.” Surely he had to know. My breasts ached with arousal and my thighs moved slickly as I scissored them together.
“I’m not quite convinced.” He coaxed my ankles apart and I moaned, following his anticipation.
“Oh Rogue, I don’t—” I threw my head back, the words clenching in my throat as he drew the blossom between my thighs, dragging the petals against my swollen labia, the pollen mixing with my fluids and setting me on fire.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In Which I Go for a Swim
The theoretical physicists say that time is what keeps everything from occurring at once. Under the influence of magic, time in Faerie still performs this function, but in
apparent fits, starts and billows.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules of Magic”
I did go wild.
My focus narrowed to Rogue and the diabolical things he did to me with his hands, mouth and that flower. I hadn’t known what desperate was until he’d driven me to the edge over and over, while I pleaded with him and made all sorts of wild promises.
Especially when he turned me to face him and started over on the front of my body.
I let myself go in a way I never could have while hanging on to my suspicions and fears. He knew it, too, drinking in my utter surrender and giving me back his.
In this way, our wedding night did become a consummation. The paired wish we’d used to cement our connection sang between us with increasing power, and we layered it with shared passion, mutual need and love.
Maybe even true love.
Because this felt unlike anything I’d imagined. A kind of emotional and mental harmony that seemed impossible to achieve. By the time he untied my wrists and draped me over the bed, hissing in fierce pleasure as his skin absorbed the blue pollen from mine, I seemed to be as much in his head as my own.
His cock ached as much as my sex and the sensation of my hot, slick channel clamping around it, combined with the drenching pleasure of him entering my body, shattered me. As we’d danced, we moved together, giving and taking, possessed and possessing, fusing ourselves into one body.
He drew out the moment, keeping me from coming as he kept himself, until we both were so taxed, so desperate, for one another, that there was no holding back.
We climaxed at the same instant, tumbling together from the heights, entirely tangled, consumed, each dissolved into the other.
* * *
I came back to myself disoriented. Taking a moment, I blinked up at the arch of the dome and the snowflakes falling to briefly stick in crystalline complexity and then melt away. The candles had gone out and Rogue was still draped over me, like a blanket of man, his face buried in my hair, breathing deep and even. I stroked a hand down his long back and he stirred, lifting his head to look at me, lighting one candle so he could do so.
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