In the Arms of the King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She was powerful.

  “The queen is stronger.”

  Avery laughed, a harsh, guttural, pure evil sound, and Selene inhaled sharply as the hand at her breast was suddenly around the waistband of her filmy skirt. She knew it was coming a split-second before he wrapped his fingers around the top of it and ripped downward, shredding the garment with one swift pull.

  She cried out at the sudden tug of it against her skin, but the material had been weak, and it had given so very easily, leaving her exposed in new and terrifyingly tantalizing ways.

  At once, she was moving beneath him, her legs pulling up and together in a futile attempt at modesty – or escape – and she knew that either one was hopeless.

  And if his grin was any indication, so did he.

  His teasing, torturous hand moved from her now bare hip bone to graze her waist and once more cup her breast. As his grip around her wrists tightened, he brushed his thumb across her nipple once more, this time pressing ever so slightly on her hard peak before moving on. Just as she knew it would. Going lower.

  Keen, burning eyes branded her as her lids half-closed and a moan, soft and low, escaped her throat. Rivers of heat were flowing over her now, growing wider and deeper with every one of his expert touches. In utter contradiction to his cruel manipulations and the threat he now posed, he placed his lips to her cheek, kissing her tenderly. She shuddered.

  Lower… lower, his hand roamed, sliding across the flat plane of her stomach until he was riding the swell of her hip bone to the dip beneath. There, he paused, releasing a shaky breath. She could feel his desire mirroring her own, stilled in terrible anticipation.

  His fingers slid beneath the band of her panties.

  Selene caught her lip between white teeth, biting in earnest. She held her breath.

  Do it, she thought madly. Just do it!

  He dipped his head, taking her nipple into his mouth to trap it between his teeth, and Selene cried out as he parted the soft curls over her pubic bone. Her chest rose sharply, her raging heart demanding oxygen, and white spots exploded behind her lids as he grazed the outer tenderness of her lips. She was slick and hot, and he moved over her with expert cruelty, slow and steady and circling.

  A wave of incredible warmth washed over her; her skin lighting on fire. She moved, bending into him, desperately needing more.

  But instead of delving deep, as she so desperately willed him to do, he pulled away, and now she felt his fingers curl around the elastic band of the only garment that yet remained on her glowing, desirous body.

  Again, he tortured her tender nipple, flicking it with his tongue as he held it tight between those perfect, white teeth. Selene thrashed, but that made it worse, sending rivulets of electricity through her body to her core.

  He lifted his head, and she at once stilled, breath harsh, cheeks and chest flushed. He met her gaze, and waited. The sudden stillness was a warning. It was a promise. This was it; her final defense against him was about to be destroyed.

  But if she were meant to act on that warning, he gave her no time, nor did he release her wrists where he pressed them into the bed above her head. There was a tug, a rip, and Selene drew blood with her teeth as the rather expensive lace panties were tossed away, leaving her completely bare before the Seelie King.

  The soft scent of soap wafted across the bed, the fire crackled madly in the hearth, and Avery again captured her mouth with his own.

  But she writhed beneath him, a vessel of desire that was burning out of control. So wet, so ready.

  *****

  Touch me….

  He heard her thoughts, a grazing of her inner voice against the walls of his mind, and realized that their souls had begun to merge.

  Finally, she was really his. Now she would belong to him forever. The knowledge was gasoline to the fire enveloping him, and all he wanted to do in that moment was grant the Wisher’s wish.

  And touch her. In every possible way.

  The scent of her, clean and sweet, wafted over him, cradling him in its femininity. He breathed deeply, filling himself with it until it white-washed his brain, driving out all thought coherent and kind. All that remained within him now was instinct and desire in equally strong measure.

  Selene’s fingers ran through the curls of his hair, grasping them tightly in her fists as he moved over her body, covering her with his still-clothed form. He hadn’t even realized he’d released her wrists. He was lost in her now. There was no sense left; he had no plan.

  Pure, hot, molten desire sped him on, thrumming through him like a V-twin engine. He rose, ripping off his black tee-shirt because he couldn’t bear to not feel her skin against his for a moment longer. She rose with him, her gaze trailing boldly across the muscles of his chest and midsection. She raised her hands and placed them hesitantly to his chest and Avery’s glowing eyes closed in ecstasy.

  Heat sparked across his flesh, sinking through the muscle and bone beneath until he felt something ignite somewhere deep, deep inside. Deeper than Caliban’s blood could reach, deeper than his own. She was consuming his very core with no more than a tentative touch.

  “Selene,” he whispered, growled, gasped. He spoke her name, wondering what her true name was, and his mind swam. “My queen,” he said, speaking the words in the language of the fae.

  My love. “Syl kala....”

  Braver now, Selene’s hands moved over his chest and to the narrow incline of his waist. Avery felt her touch vanish at the boundary of the waistband of his jeans, and impatience flared in him. The rest of his clothing, he simply flashed away with no more than a supernatural thought.

  She had officially run out of time.

  He was hard and hot and heavy, and as he laid himself bare before her, he again took them down into the mattress. He had decided. When he touched her there as she so desperately pleaded with him to do – it would be with the very core of him, and in a way that would brand her forever, claiming her as his once and for all.

  One of his hands fisted in her luxuriously soft, raven black hair, the other pressed into the sheet beneath them. There, it gripped the material with stark impatience, with craving, and even with pain. The feel of her warm and soft against his rigid need was at once and very suddenly unbearable.

  Her legs bent beneath him, unwittingly opening her up to him. She gasped, suddenly feeling him there, taunting, tempting, brushing against her with red-hot warning. The monster leapt to life within him, narrowing his glowing gaze, subjugating his body completely. He had never lost control before, not in ten thousand years. But it was well and gone now.

  He bent over her, his lips leaving tender kisses on her throat before his teeth followed suit, raking gently against her smooth skin to the curve of her shoulder. He released her hair and the sheet to once more capture her wrists in his hands, forcing them from where they’d been curling into claws across his back and most likely drawing blood. He held them to the bed above her as he moved lower with his teeth, scraping a trail across her sweet, naked flesh.

  She pulled against him, fighting because she knew where he was headed and she’d had enough of his teasing. When his tongue flicked out across the sensitive buds that rose so taut and tempting in the air, she again arched, rising up instinctively to ease this torture. He rode her momentum, though, expertly easing himself over her until the tip of his shaft parted her silken, moist lips.

  Now she froze and inhaled sharply, her blue, blue eyes opening wide. He moved, just a little, and her mind screamed.

  He could hear it.

  Her need coursed through him, riding the tail winds of his own and pushing them onward like a driving gale. In that instant, he went a little mad inside. So he gave her what she wanted, spearing her with a hard, hungry look before he rose above her and all reason fled from him once and for all.

  A beat passed.

  Her quick, expectant breaths filled the chamber, the small sounds the most beautiful he’d ever heard.

  And then Avery drove fo
rward into his queen, slipping exquisitely past her outer barriers and deep into her warm, wet tightness.

  She enveloped him, her moist heat gripping him firmly, and he groaned in unbelievable, insurmountable ecstasy. Time and space shattered, crackling into shards like a broken mirror and scattering to the far corners of the multiverse. He drowned in a euphoria that poisoned his reason and sent him hurtling over some kind of edge. Slowly, he forced himself deeper, relishing every tiny millimeter of hot, unyielding tightness her lithe body had to offer.

  He bent and reclaimed her mouth with renewed, terrible hunger, and when she moaned again, Avery swallowed the sound as if it would keep him alive.

  She rose off the sheet, eager to meet his thrust half-way, but he easily controlled their dance, his body forcing her own to comply as he continued to take his time entering her. It was maddening to go slow, and it was delicious to the point of danger, and it was his absolute right. She was his queen. And he had waited far too long for this.

  Inch by breathtaking inch, he sank into her body, claiming her with gradual, lascivious determination. She was so tight, so perfectly molded to him, he floated above the realm, high on some eternal plane where only pleasure and pain existed.

  Only perfect painful pleasure. Only this.

  Avery felt Selene’s nails dig into the tops of his hands where he held her wrists. She gasped for breath between his kisses, panting wantonly against his lips.

  And he sank. And she moaned low.

  At last, he rested completely inside her, having driven deeper and more fully than he thought possible. She trembled beneath him, her legs encircling his waist with complete abandon, pulling him tight against her, and he shuddered in response.

  He gently ended their kiss and raised himself above her, releasing her arms to brace his weight on the bed before he lowered his head and his piercing gaze sliced through the tops of his eyes. His body tensed and he pulled back, just enough.

  Anticipation flickered in her beautiful blue gaze. And perhaps a bit of fear.

  Avery smiled that wicked, dark-light fae smile, and drove back in, shoving into his mate with hard, demanding strength.

  Selene cried out in surprise and bliss. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her nails again finding purchase, but he didn’t give her time to adjust to this new onslaught. He pulled back again to drive into her with sheer, brute force.

  Her cries became gasps, and then moans, and finally the small sounds of rhythmic, sexual surrender as he withdrew, drove deep, withdrew, and thrust relentlessly into her, urging her toward that precipice that he fully planned to take them both over. Once he had what he wanted from her. What he needed.

  He kissed her neck, bit it gently, and grazed his teeth across her taut flesh until he reached the top of her right breast. Selene thrashed, those nails of hers carving deep, red half-moons into his muscles when he opened his mouth, sucked in a nipple, and teased it between his teeth.

  A low growl escaped her throat and her thighs pressed in on his sides, demanding and impatient.

  Just as he was sure she was drawing his blood, he sucked hard enough upon her tender breast to leave a mark. Selene gasped aloud, but he attacked on another level, pulling out of her enough to see her eyes close – and shoving back in hard enough to wring a cry from her slender throat.

  A faint trickling dripped down Avery’s left arm, freed from his veins by Selene’s battle between pain and pleasure, and he chuckled against her, every male fiber of his being crowing with absolute triumph. That dark laugh that mirrored the darker needs of his soul wrapped around his little raven one, forcing goose bumps upon her flesh before he reared back to drive ruthlessly forward, silencing her with more pleasure-pain.

  He took her like this, with his tender lack of mercy, until both shoulders were bleeding and her beautiful, beautiful eyes went wide.

  It’s time.

  Her true name appeared to him on a plane of existence. It was a floating level, like a two-dimensional cosmic string, only reachable in sheer nanoseconds, in those dream-like moments reached just like this.

  And the moment he saw it and knew it, Avery threw up the protective barrier that would allow his next word to be heard by her, and her alone.

  He gave it voice.

  It rolled over his tongue and through his teeth like the powerful, precious, incredibly rare treasure that it was – and the fire in the hearth exploded in sparks of rainbow light. The curtains billowed like mad, and the ground shook, rocking the bed beneath them.

  It was a feeling he would never experience again, an orgasm of the soul, even as his physical body rode the wave closer to its own explosive time.

  Say my name, he commanded her, issuing the order deep into her mind, thrusting it into her along with his strength and hardness, selfishly ramming past her barriers to lodge himself deep, deep inside.

  Say my name, Selene. And finish this. Become my bride.

  She alone would know it. In all of eternity, she alone would speak it.

  Selene went still beneath him, her breathing ragged, her chest rising and falling, her clenching fingers so desperate. She made a small sound, hopeless and lost.

  But he knew she could hear him. She could not only hear him – she could feel him. In so many ways.

  Say it, he commanded again as he pressed into her, moving just enough that she writhed again, her breathing hitching, her gorgeous glowing body flushing pink. You know it in your heart as I know yours. Look at me and speak it aloud.

  She licked her lips. Her climax was riding so close, so painfully near, she was curling her nails into him as if to hold on for dear life.

  Please, she begged. I don’t understand.

  Hear me now, he told her firmly, and he dove down to once more capture a breast in his mouth. She hit him, slamming a fist into his shoulder, but her effort was half-hearted and her body was so long gone, she was fighting a losing battle. He didn’t budge, and his teeth scraped along the hardening length of her poor nipple, torturing, teasing. You’ll get no release, he promised her cruelly. You will suffer this need until you say my name, Selene. I won’t let you go.

  He could do it, too. He would use his fae magic, he would subjugate her body and force it to remain there, agonizingly teetering on the edge of that chasm, unable to climax, unable to reach the apex he was simultaneously shoving her toward.

  He would deny her until she surrendered.

  But I don’t – I can’t…. She was delirious. She didn’t know his name was there, right there, on the tip of her tongue. She need only let it in, let it become a part of her. And then speak it.

  Yes, you can. Listen to it, Selene Trystaine.

  He attacked ruthlessly, sliding his hand between them as he rode her, to part her soft mound of curls with vicious resolve. A soft sob of lust-filled anguish escaped her throat when he found the hood of her clitoris and pressed inward, driving himself further into her at the same time. The sharp sensation stole Selene’s breath, only to release it once more in a frenzied cry.

  Avery’s body hummed with power. He held all the cards.

  In her desperation, she tried to say his name, something close but not quite, and lost it again when he pressed his fingers downward once more, moving them in a slow circle that hardened her little button to the point that she growled through clenched teeth.

  Say it. Say my name, raven one.

  And then, because he wasn’t sure how much longer he, himself, would be able to hold out, he added softly, Please.

  Oh god! her mind cried. Avery, please!

  My real name, Selene! He could feel himself swelling within her, her tightness around him becoming a gluttonous, terrible kind of friction that was sure to drive him permanently mad.

  And then Selene froze in his grasp. She drew back – and looked into his eyes. Comprehension dawned in her beautiful, fine features.

  Avery’s breath stilled. The fire in the hearth stopped crackling. The castle yawned into silence, as did the entire realm beyond.
r />   She spoke his name.

  Avery’s heart hammered once so hard, it felt like death, and lights exploded behind his eyes. He rose up, threw back his head, and drove into her one final, forceful time. Selene screamed her absolute, final release, and he echoed it with a roar of his own.

  Light filled the room, blindingly bright and all encompassing. It filled every corner, destroyed every shadow, forced the entire universe to glow. The light coalesced then, drawing together like a slow moving tornado, before it shot into Selene’s body, entering through her chest, her heart, and then slammed into Avery’s a second later.

  The world ruptured, fractioning into a billion pieces.

  It stayed that way for a moment. A short forever or two.

  And then, very slowly, it pulled its pieces back in to rebuild itself in a way that at last made sense.

  Finally. And neither Avery nor Selene were alone any longer.

  The Unseelie King

  The Kings, Book Six

  “You aren’t spending your nights alone, my lord,” she hissed, gaining both strength and courage with every word she pushed between her lips. “You have plenty to keep you busy. The fairy as much as handed me your little black book! You definitely don’t need me!”

  She felt a rush of pride when Caliban straightened before her, and for the first time since she’d met him, he actually looked a little uncertain.

  “What is it exactly?” she demanded, leaning forward in momentum. “Does a Wisher make a really nice fae trophy wife or something? Do you just want to keep one of the only two Wishers alive firmly under your thumb? Is that why you’ve been by my side this entire time? Is that why you came after me? Is it because of fear? Or maybe it’s power? What the hell is it?” she demanded, yelling now. “Why the hell do you care?”

  The silence that rushed in after she finished speaking was all-encompassing and nine months pregnant with a huge host of unspoken things. Caliban stared at her for some time. Seconds stretched into veritable hours before he finally blinked, and his beautiful eyes narrowed.