by May Dawson
“Funny,” I breathed into his mouth. “Because you don’t seem very scared at all.”
He was still kissing me as the two of us fell through the door and into the bedroom.
Chapter Eight
Azrael closed the door behind him with his back, and as soon as he did, I leapt into his arms, knowing he’d catch me. My legs wrapped around his waist as his shoulders slammed back into the door, and the building felt like it shook. He half-smiled against my lips. His palms cupped my ass, holding me lightly against his body.
“For tonight,” I breathed, “Let’s pretend things are simple between us.”
His lips pressed mine in a long, breathless kiss that stole the air from my lungs. I cupped his jaw with my hand; he’d shaved after his bath, and his skin was fresh and smooth, the scent of cloves clinging to his skin. He broke away from the kiss, then seemed to change his mind and kissed the corner of my mouth.
“Some things really are simple,” he said, punctuating his words with another kiss. “I always want you, Alisa.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. You always want sex—that’s not exactly romantic, Az.”
“No,” he said, and the vehemence in his voice surprised me. “I always want you.”
I gazed into those intense purple eyes. “You said I was your first.”
“You were my only,” he corrected. “I never wanted anyone else after you.”
That was sweet, or was it? “Did I ruin you?” I asked, suddenly worried that I’d traumatized him so badly he’d never wanted to be with another girl.
He chuckled, a low, warm sound that lit a glow in my chest. There was something unexpectedly tender when he kissed the bridge of my nose. “In the best of ways.”
The last twenty-four hours seemed suddenly overwhelming. The way the village had treated me as a hero, being hailed as the true queen, Azrael’s unexpected tenderness… things had changed so much since I left the castle.
But I hadn’t changed. What if these were the only few moments in my life when the world saw me this way? What if the woman they saw right now was a lie?
I decided to phrase it as a joke, but my heart was beating faster right now.
“I don’t know if I’m—” I began.
He suddenly turned, pinning me between him and the wall, before his warm palm covered my mouth and nose. He warned, “Don’t doubt yourself.”
“If you put your hand over my mouth one more time,” I said, my voice muffled, “I’m going to bite you, and not in a fun way.”
But my irritation had driven away all that self-doubt that threatened to overwhelm me a moment before. Lord, he was bossy.
“Oh really?” He suddenly dropped his hand—a wise choice—but he was already capturing my wrists in one hand. He drew my wrists up over my head, pinning me to the wall as he captured my lips with his. He kissed me slowly, demandingly.
Those kisses took all my attention. But when he pulled away, I couldn’t hide my smile.
His eyes were intent on my face, gauging my reaction. “You should listen to me for once. I happened to know you rather well.”
“Oh really? Do you?”
“Mm-hmm.” His lips pressed against the curve of my throat, finding the spot beneath my ear that made me suck in my breath. “I know you as a boy and as a girl. As a Fae and as a mortal. I know you at your wickedest and I know you at your sweetest… and I love you in every incarnation.”
Being wanted the way he wanted me was a powerful thing, and I couldn’t take any more separation between the two of us. I put my hands flat on his chest and pressed him across the room toward the bed.
“I still think I’ve lost my mind,” I confessed. “But I don’t think it’s just my body that remembers you, Azrael. I think my heart does too.”
This moment was getting a bit too sweet, though, so before he could answer, I shoved him hard.
He sprawled across the bed, then sat up to yank his shirt off. I stopped and watched the mouthwatering show, the way he gripped the hem with one hand and drew it up slowly, exposing taut, chiseled abs and then his broad, flat pecs.
Then he leaned back, cocking one arm behind his head. He raised a finger to beckon me toward him as his lips turned up into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Don’t get cocky,” I told him.
“I’ve told you before,” he said. “Autumn always conquers summer.”
“I wasn’t aware we were at war,” I shot back. I pulled my shirt off in one smooth move—hey, this time that worked—and balled it up, throwing it at him. He swiped it away, just smiling wider.
“You and I are always at war.”
“Oh?” I climbed onto the bed, straddling his knees. “That sounds healthy.”
“That sounds fun,” he corrected.
He suddenly rose from the bed, catching me around the waist, and the two of us rolled over onto the bed. He tried to pin me under all that long, hard, lean muscle, but I shoved off the bed, rolling with him. I felt air and realized I’d knocked us right off the bed.
He twisted, landing on the hard wooden floor with another thud that I could’ve sworn shook the building. I closed my eyes, afraid that everyone knew just what we were up to.
Then his lips were on mine again. His hand cupped the back of my neck, holding me as if he couldn’t get enough of me. I shifted so I straddled his lap. His hard cock pressed against my inner thighs, and suddenly I didn’t care about two layers of clothes or what anyone else thought. I was on fire for him, and I wanted him to lose it too.
The hardwood floor was hard against my knees as I rose off him, just enough to work his belt loose. He set to distract me mercilessly, his hands delving into the back of my own pants, caressing the curve of my ass. He managed to push my drawstring pants down, his fingers skimming familiarly down the inside of that curve, his thumb tracing between my lips before he skated his fingernails down my thigh.
He was always the perfect mix of tender and sharp. He was just what I wanted, what I’d never known I needed. His words about how I was his first and his only came to my mind. I never would’ve imagined that from how suave and confident he seemed, but suddenly it made sense. He felt the bond between us just as intensely as I could—stronger than memory itself.
“You know in the mortal world, I never managed to want anyone else,” I said.
He stared at me, something lighting in his eyes. His face softened, as if that meant something to him.
“Good.” That was all he said, his voice brusque, and I rolled my eyes. He nipped my throat, and I tilted up my chin, squirming against him.
He pushed my pants the rest of the way down my legs, and his hands skimmed up the outside of my thighs, raising sparks along my skin. “Glad you remembered who you belonged to.”
“Excuse me?” I demanded, leaning over him again, pinning him with a hand to either side of his head.
He laughed at my sudden ire. “I belong to you too, of course.”
“Well, all right then,” I said, a bit pacified. Then his hand was in my hair, yanking my mouth down to his, and the two of us were kissing again. Suddenly I couldn’t manage even the smallest bit of ire.
I ground my hips across his, feeling his tip glide across my core. I was throbbing with desire for him, and when I sank down onto his cock, he filled me completely until my thighs ground against his lower abs. I moved my hips in a slow circle, grinding against him, and his breath gave against my mouth.
The two of us traded a few more hot, eager kisses, then I straightened. I began to move my hips in a slow, rhythmic circle, feeling how the base of his cock caressed my clit when I ground forward. I felt a sense of power watching his face change, his lips parting, his gaze growing dreamy as I rode him faster and faster. So many females wanted him—but I was the only one he wanted like this, the only one who made him wild, who satisfied him.
My core throbbed. I bit my lower lip, cupping my breasts in my hands, rolling and squeezing them, teasing my nipples between my fingers. He watched my every mom
ent, his face tense with desire.
He let out a sudden groan and caught me around the waist, rolling the two of us over again. He drove into me over and over. I grabbed his powerful shoulders, my nails digging into the muscle. The throb between my thighs had turned into ripples of warm sensation that spread through my body, on the verge of exploding, and I rolled my hips up, wanting even more of him. He plunged into me, his lips plundering mine, stealing every breath from my lungs.
The rest of the world faded away and it was just him and me, and I moaned his name into his ear before I caught his earlobe between my teeth. As if that pushed him over the edge, he let out a long growl and shattered inside me. His cock twitched and pumped, filling me. My thighs tightened around the lean angles of his waist as my channel squeezed over and over, as my own orgasm took me over. My back arched, my fingers tangling in my hair as pleasure swept over me.
When I came back down to earth and I opened my eyes again, he was watching me. His chin was propped on his hand. He looked as if he had something he wanted to say, but instead he leaned over and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “We should get into the bath. Before Tiron and Duncan come back.”
“I’m pretty sure the whole village knows what we’ve been up, given the thuds and moans and…”
“Screams?” he offered.
“Was that you or me?”
“Let’s pretend it was you.”
I grinned back at him. His smile was so irresistible when it was genuine like it was now, crinkling the corners of those vivid eyes and turning up the corners of that beautiful mouth.
He rose to his feet and crossed to the tub. He snapped his fingers, heating it again with his autumn power. His back was still to me when he said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About how you don’t think you gave your father the key.”
My breath froze in my chest. I was too naked, too vulnerable, for this conversation right now. “Oh?”
He climbed into the tub and turned to face me. Quietly, he said, “Part of me has never really been able to believe you’d really betray me. The evidence has seemed to be hard to deny, but… my heart’s never been able to agree with my mind.”
My heart stuttered in my chest. I needed him to be right, I needed to be the person he believed I was. But I tried to resist that need. “We’ll figure out what happened soon.”
He held his arm out to me, as if it didn’t even matter, but I knew it did. I climbed into the tub with him and settled into his side, feeling the hard length of his muscled body pressing against mine. When he held me close, it felt like I really was home.
“If that’s true,” he said softly, “then neither of us is really the villain after all. You didn’t betray me. I didn’t destroy the autumn court.”
I didn’t dare answer him. So I just let him hold me close, there in the tub in front of the crackling fire, where the two of us were safe and happy in this beautiful, perfect moment.
And I hoped.
Chapter Nine
Duncan
When I walked into the room, it was dark and shadowed. Tiron slept in one of the beds, his arm thrown over his face, the same way he slept whether we were in trenches or a castle. His chest rose and fell soundlessly. Tiron drove me mad with his optimism and naivety, but at least he didn’t snore.
I’d expected to find Azrael rolled up with his sleeping bag; it was enchanted the same way as his bed, but less comfortable since he slept with the material pulled over his head. It kept his dignity intact while we fought at the Rift.
I hated that he slept in that cruel cocoon—just thinking about it made my chest tight, imagining how hard it would be to breathe with cloth pressing into my face all night—but it was his life to live miserably. I couldn’t convince him to try anything else. Maybe he felt he deserved those nightmares.
But he wasn’t in the sleeping bag. He lay across one bed, and Alisa had her head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her even in sleep. Her lavender hair, spread across the pillow, glistened in the moonlight, and his jaw was pressed against her forehead. The two of them were curled together as if they belonged that way, like two halves of a broken dish. I stared at them, expecting the familiar flare of jealousy, but they were both breathing evenly and steadily.
No nightmares.
Relief washed through my chest. I didn’t know what had made that change. Sex wasn’t magic. But I hoped whatever it was, it would hold. Azrael deserved to sleep without torment.
I threw myself onto one of the beds and I was asleep in moments.
When I woke, the first light of dawn seeped through the window. Tiron packed his belongings back into his hiking pack, almost silently.
When I turned my head, it felt as if one part of my brain was stabbing the other. I rubbed my temple with a groan.
Tiron offered me a sunny smile.
“I hate you this morning,” I said.
“You didn’t hate me last night when you joined me singing in the pub,” he said. “You were surprisingly cheerful. When you weren’t crooning those moody love songs, anyway.”
Oh, gods. If I’d been singing-drunk last night, today was going to be hell. I threw the covers aside and stumbled out of bed.
Birds sang obnoxiously loudly outside. I was rubbing my hand across my face when Alisa’s brilliant silvery-blue eyes opened and met mine. She was still wrapped under Azrael’s arm, her head nestled onto his shoulder. So he’d exposed his runes to this version of Alisa too, deciding to trust her. The stupidity and courage of that startled me. I must have stared, because a look of consternation crossed her face. I turned away.
Thankfully, even Alisa was quiet for once as we all packed our few belongings, which didn’t take long.
We ate a quick breakfast, then saddled our borrowed horses. I hated being without my own horse.
The villagers gathered to see us off. One of the females helped Alisa arrange her hair beneath a light, silky cowl, pinning back every lavender strand. We were leaving summer territory behind today, and Alisa wasn’t popular where we were headed.
The skies looked heavy and overcast, and once we’d left behind their cheerful goodbye, the first fat drops began to splatter across our skin.
As long as we were going to be miserable anyway, we set a hard pace. The skies opened up, wind battering our bodies as the rain lashed into our face. It was too hard to keep a shield up as we moved that fast, that long, so the rain soaked our clothes to our bodies. We passed from summer territory into spring, but the rain just seemed to beat harder.
Dusk began to settle in, the sky growing even darker. We’d been riding all day, and Alisa was struggling to keep up, tired and sore. Tiron and Azrael stayed with her, babying her, as I rode ahead to scout. Over and over, I had to pause my horse to wait grimly for the three of them to catch up.
We needed to find someplace to shelter before dark, given the rumors we’d heard back in the village. Along with the Ravagers and the worms that must have come from another land, they claimed the Shadows were back.
I was in a bad mood long before brigands tried to stop us.
Since I was in the lead, I saw the line of magic shimmering in front of us, almost invisible, at my neck level. “Trap wire!”
I pulled up my horse’s reins abruptly and he turned sharply to one side, barely avoiding it. The others were already turning too. The four of us thundered back down the road the other way, seeking safer ground.
Beyond my friends, I saw the horsemen materialize from the mist that clung between the trees. Almost a dozen of them galloped toward us. A girl rode ahead, her cloak hiding her face, but then, her face didn’t matter to me; it was the arrow notched in her bow and aimed at my heart that caught my eye.
“Weapons down and ease off those horses,” she called.
“Let’s take it easy,” Azrael said. He nodded to all of us and we began to slide off our horses. “We don’t have much of value, but we�
�re happy to pay for safe passage.”
“To pay?” She pushed her cloak back, revealing a heart-shaped face, as her lips parted in surprise. “You condescending ass.”
“Wow, she really did not have to know you long to realize that,” I muttered at Azrael. He looked at her as if he recognized her, and then he looked as if he wanted to curse under his breath. But ever the good prince, he restrained himself.
“We’re not thieves,” she said, gesturing at the other riders. “We’re knights.”
“Knights of what?” Azrael demanded.
“Of spring,” she said. “You know you crossed the border from summer to spring? Are you lost?” Her tone was haughty.
Azrael crossed his arms over his chest, regarding her with an awfully skeptical expression given we were so outnumbered. “I don’t see spring knight uniforms.”
“You’re usually quite bedazzled,” Tiron reminded her helpfully. Gods, I hated it when he helped.
She seemed to bristle in Azrael’s direction, though. “We’re knights just the same. I serve at Fenig’s keep.”
“You’re sure you’re not brigands?” I asked.
“I’m happy to cut your throat if that will make you happy,” she said. “Otherwise, we can be friends, depending on why you’re in our territory.”
“I’m happy to be friends,” Azrael said. “Our friend here is afflicted with a curse, and we’re trying to reach the Cursed Caves.”
“There are many monsters here,” she warned. “You’ll want to seek shelter at night.”
“We don’t mind monsters.” Azrael flashed her a cool smile.
“Lovely. They don’t mind eating arrogant Fae.” She smiled right back. “However, the hospitality of our keep is available for the night, if you’d like to see dawn.”
“Thank you for your generous offer,” Az said curtly, then added, “We’ll find our own shelter.”
It was too dangerous for us to bring Alisa anywhere near anyone in the spring court who might not feel forgiving of her role in the war.