by May Dawson
She laughed, but she was already curling to sit up, pulling her shirt over her head. She must have bound her breasts to play Faer, but she’d already lost the bindings; her small breasts swung freely, her short lavender hair brushing her shoulders, which were silvery-white under the moonlight.
“Do you approve?” she asked archly.
I didn’t bother to answer that; instead, I pushed her thighs to either side, spreading her body out like a feast; the faintest wisps of lavender hair, her pink, glistening pussy, the already slightly swollen clit at the top.
“You’re gorgeous in every way,” I said, “but then, you already know that, don’t you? Arrogant princess.”
“Wretched prince.” The words were affectionate and lazy, her eyes glittering as she watched me through those heavy, thick lashes.
I kept my hands on her thighs, holding her open for me as I began to lick her glistening folds. She groaned and her back arched against the bed; her thighs tried to yank out of my grip, and my fingers tightened, holding her spread out for me. I’d barely begun.
I swirled my tongue around her opening, and her fingers tangled in my hair. When I thrust my tongue inside her, my mouth working steadily against her clit, she let out a moan so loud I was afraid the servants would hear. It made me smile against her perfect pussy.
Her hips began to buck, her fingers catching the sheets and tearing them loose; she must be coming closer and closer to her orgasm. She caught my shoulder with her foot and tried to push me away.
“For once, princess, you aren’t in control,” I murmured, and then went back to work, delving my tongue into her smooth, glistening pussy over and over until her thighs trembled against my palms and her hips bucked against my relentless mouth.
She let out a gasp, her whole body trembling with the power of her orgasm, and I stilled. I slowly withdrew and pressed a kiss to her thigh.
I hesitated, but she crooked a finger at me, beckoning me toward her. She had a smile on her face, a wide, dreamy smile that was better than any orgasm I could ever have myself. I wanted to make her smile like that twice a day, bare minimum, for the rest of our lives.
“What?” I asked gruffly, before capturing that finger in my mouth. She laughed as I bit her gently.
“Get over here,” she murmured. She straddled me, her movements as quick and decisive as when we were in the ring. She slid her hands up my torso, pushing up my shirt.
I rolled into a sitting position, yanking my shirt off. She’d seen me shirtless plenty of times, but that didn’t stop her eyes from lighting with pleasure at the sight of my body. Seeing her look at me like that brought a glow of warmth to my chest.
I slid my arm around her waist and yanked her toward me. She came with me easily, the tips of her hair teasing against my face before her lips found mine again. I brushed her hair back with gentle hands so I could see that beautiful face, her silvery eyes full of light and a faint smile on her lush pink lips.
She pushed my pants down just low enough that she could reach my cock, as if she were desperate for me. I felt myself already beading at the tip, full of desire for her, and she gave me a look I couldn’t read just before she leaned down and ran her tongue over the tip, licking up my pre-cum. I groaned in desire, my cock twitching in response, and then she wrapped her mouth around me, working her way up and down the shaft, stopping to tease around the foreskin until I thought I was going to explode in her mouth.
“I’m going to come.” My voice was rough with desire. “Get up here.”
She stopped and took her mouth off my cock just long enough to tell me, “Oh, you’re not in charge here, Prince.”
“Brat,” I accused her, rolling up from the bed long enough to catch her around the waist. She grinned and let me catch her. Then the two of us fell into the bed together.
She kissed my lower lip, then bit it, just hard enough to sting. I decided enough was enough because Alisa would keep to mischief all day if I let her, and rolled on top, holding my weight off her carefully. I nudged her thighs apart with my thigh, holding myself over her as my tongue parted her lips just as easily.
She tangled her fingers in my hair and held me close to her, the two of us still trading wild kisses as she rocked her hips up and shimmied her legs until her thighs closed around my waist. She clung to me, her nipples like hard little pebbles pressing into my chest, her pussy, slick and wet again, pressing up against my cock.
I couldn’t take it. I’d meant to tease her, to string things out and maybe try to make her orgasm again before we had sex because I already missed the way she’d smiled when she climaxed. But I just needed her so fucking badly.
My tip teased against her, and she reached down, took my cock firmly in hand, and guided me in. I groaned as I pressed inside her and stopped; she was so goddamn tight and I was well-endowed, and I didn’t want to hurt her.
“Don’t stop,” she told me, haughty and commanding as ever, but that tone made me smile now.
I slid inside her slowly, taking my time, filling her up. When I thought she was ready, I began to move slowly out, then back in, the tip of my cock brushing against her clit every time before I slid inside. She let out a gasp as I began to pump inside her faster, and I stilled.
“All right?” I asked.
“It’s a bit better than all right, Duncan,” she said breathlessly, and I buried my face in her neck to hide my pleased smile. I breathed in that soft, fresh but sweet summer scent she carried as I drove into her again and again.
Her thighs tightened around my hips, beginning to tremble again. She ran her hands through her lavender hair, pushing it back from her face, as her back began to arch. I was pretty sure I could have come just from watching her, from the way her breasts heaved, her sharp, pointed little nipples crowning those small breasts, her taut abs rippling with the force of her coming orgasm.
But she also felt so goddamn good. I was on the verge of shattering, and I tried to hold on, so hard that my cock throbbed with a mix of agony and pleasure as she squeezed around me. She moaned my name. The sound of Duncan on her lips…. I was done for.
I drove into again, letting out a roar as I came, harder than I ever had before. The world was suddenly very bright around me, and a force of pleasures rushed through my body before it faded into a warm, pleasant glow.
I was suddenly very aware of the cool breeze skating across my skin from the open window, the sense of my cock throbbing with the last of my orgasm, the scent and warmth and the taste of her still on my tongue.
I’d never felt so alive as when I was with Alisa.
I didn’t dare tell her that—she had to know how much I worshipped her, dangerously so—and instead, I gathered her into my arms. She tucked her head into my shoulder, throwing her thigh over my abs.
I rested my hand lightly on her leg. “Trying to trap me, Princess?”
“Already did,” she said, a self-satisfied smile on her lips.
“You scare me,” I said, patting her thigh, cocking one arm beneath my head to make a pillow.
I had a feeling both of us were speaking truths as if they were nothing but teasing. But all I did was raise my brows at her. “Want to do it again?”
“I didn’t sneak into your room to play cards,” she whispered, her fingernails sharp against my skin as she ran her hand down my body.
In the morning, when she was lying in my arms, I studied her face until I couldn’t bear it anymore. I kissed her forehead. She stirred, then smiled up at me as her eyes opened. They were a silvery-blue, the same color as the ocean when the sun shines on it so brightly that it hurts to look.
“Is your father really dying?” I asked, because that question had been tormenting me.
“Yes, I think so,” she said. She stretched, then crawled on top of me, her lithe, naked body against mine. Her lips pressed my chest, just above my nipple, and I wrapped my hands around her hips to hold her back.
“Alisa,” I managed. “You know you can talk to me.”
; I’d told her everything that mattered to me—at least, everything but how I felt for her.
“I originally meant it as a lie,” she admitted. “But as soon as I said it, I knew it was true. Some part of me must have noticed the symptoms before my mind caught up.”
“That takes some doing, because your mind is rather quick.”
She smiled, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I tucked my chin over her head. I didn’t know how to protect her—hell, I didn’t know how to be in a relationship at all—but I hoped maybe I could figure out how to be there for her.
“He’ll want Faer for his heir, of course,” she said. “So he’ll try to marry me off or kill me. Once I’m married, I can’t take the throne. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless I marry more than one male. Marrying one male means I take his title and leave the line of ascendance; marrying two means I keep my own and they keep theirs.” She traced her fingernails idly over my skin, reminding me just how sharp she was, even though she wasn’t scratching me now.
“Oh? Did you have anyone in mind? Some males you can easily bring under your thrall?”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said.
I wanted to believe she meant me, but anyway she was kissing me, and I let it go for now.
That morning, I thought Alisa and I could handle any mess together.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alisa
Present Day
That night, I crept out of my room and down the hall to the library. The lamps weren’t lit, so only the glow from the luminescent color lit the room dimly. I pulled the book out from the stack and debated whether it was safer to read here or smuggle it back to my room.
Here, perhaps I could more easily play off my late night reading as an obsession with stopping the Shadow Man; if Raile discovered a book in my room, he was more likely to be curious about the title. I flipped it open and began to read.
“Can’t sleep?” Raile stood framed in the doorway, his broad shoulders and leanly muscled frame taking up all the space.
I’d already jumped; it was too late to hide it. I pressed my palm against my chest. “You scared me. Yes.”
He took a step toward me, frowning, and my heart sped as I forced myself to hold the book open as if I weren’t doing anything.
“Is it being under the sea?” he asked. “I didn’t know it would affect you.”
“You couldn’t have,” I said. “You didn’t know the story.”
“Still, I’m sorry.” He looked at me with a gaze so full of sympathy that I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t expect that kind of emotion from Raile.
Then he asked, “Would you like to go kill a monster?”
“That happens to be my favorite kind of therapy.”
He asked curiously, “What’s therapy?”
“Something you and Azrael and Duncan all desperately need.” And maybe Tiron too, though I’d seen no signs of it yet.
Still, Tiron seemed to like me, and that indicated there was something a bit off in his head, didn’t it?
“What about you?” he returned.
“Yes. Absolutely.” Every Hunter needs therapy. No one devotes their life to being the most badass human they possibly can if they’re emotionally healthy; something drives that behavior. We all needed to see ourselves as more powerful than whatever ghosts haunted us. Even me, even though I didn’t remember the ghosts.
“Get dressed and come along with me to the armory,” he said, “and tell me on the way about how this therapy works.”
I tried to pretend I didn’t think twice about Raile standing in my room, taking up too much space as he always did. I headed for the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of silky black pants and a form-fitting tank top.
But even though he turned his back and ambled over to the bookcase, I was keenly aware of his presence in the room as I pulled on the pants. Something about just knowing he could turn around and see me, imagining how his eyes would flare with heat—because there was no denying that for all his wickedness, there was something between Raile and me—made my nipples pebble as I quickly yanked the top over my head.
The clothes were the perfect blend of what I wore in the mortal realm and Fae finery; I could move easily, dress myself, draw deep breaths. I was ready to fight. But the glimpse I caught of myself in the mirror above the dressing table looked beautiful and dangerous and entirely Fae. I’d meant to thank Raile—credit where credit is due, even to the devil—but the sight made me stop as something stuttered in my heart.
I’d been missing the mortal world, and Elly and Carter and Julian, but I didn’t belong with them.
“Were you looking for anything in particular in the library?” Raile asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He tilted his head back, examining the shelves.
“Just a way to stop the Shadow Man.”
“And escape me?” His voice was casual.
My heart pounded in my chest. “I thought we weren’t talking about that part.”
“Ah well, we all know you aren’t going to come back,” he said. He walked his fingers along the shelf. “I thought you might be looking for your diary.”
“My diary?”
“You kept a diary, but you didn’t trust Herrick or Faer,” he said. “The two of us worked out an enchantment. The pages materialized down here.”
My heart hammered faster, but in hope this time. I tried to press it down. “Did you read it?”
He shook his head. “No. At first, I wouldn’t have; you were my friend, and I had promised I wouldn’t. And then… well… it’s camouflaged, coded, completely impossible to find to anyone who isn’t you. We had discussed one spell; you added a bit to the enchantment. Oh, I had my servants read every damned book in the castle when you betrayed me, but I couldn’t find it. I’m not sure if it’s in this room or the library.”
He looked at me over his shoulder. “I thought you might have remembered something about it.”
“No,” I said. “But that could answer so many questions.”
“It could,” he admitted. “The most important thing to answer is still how do you live long enough to get yourself coronated.”
“I need to know who I was,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m—”
“Worthy?” He filled in, then snorted. “Well, I don’t have the highest opinion of you but you’re certainly far less psychopathic than your brother, so…”
“What if I have to kill him?” My voice came out quiet, and I added, more certainly, “I know I probably have to kill him. But I don’t want... to do that without understanding.”
“You don’t want to do that at all, and that’s all right,” he said. “He is your brother.”
I hadn’t expected sympathy from Raile.
“Now come on,” he said. “I have a room full of pointy things I think you’ll enjoy.”
I followed him down the hall to his armory, and he wasn’t wrong. Raile had a very well-appointed armory, including a lot of mortal weapons—some modern and some ancient, but all equally gleaming and well-kept, as if age hadn’t touched them down here. “Shipwrecks,” he explained. “For a while, there was a rift between our world and some place that the mortals call Bermuda…”
“Did you fix it?”
“I did,” he said. “The day a plane almost crashed into my castle, the novelty factor wore off. It’s reopened a few times, but I’ve always closed it again.”
“A plane?” I cocked my head to one side, thoughtfully. “Emily? Emelia?”
“You’re thinking of Amelia. She lived a long and happy life for a mortal,” he said, then gave me a severe look. “And not as a servant, either.”
“Sometimes I forget how much older you are than me,” I said.
Tiron and Duncan and Azrael were young Fae, my own generation. Raile as the Sea king was far older.
“And so much wiser,” he said.
“Then why do you like me so much?”
“It’s the way you never respond when someone baits you,” he said. “You’d never return one insult with another. You’re better than the rest of us.”
I smiled at that and pulled a sword off the wall. “I’ll take this one.”
“You’re going to need something different to fight underwater,” he said.
“To fight underwater? I can’t breathe underwater, Raile.” The thought of leaving his air-bubble castle made my heart pound, and I fought back the feeling.
“We have a spell for that,” he said.
“Did I ever come down here?” I demanded.
He sighed. “Yes, Alisa. You came here once.”
“Willingly?”
He stared back at me, cocking one eyebrow. “I’ve only kidnapped you the once. And I still think that’s a very dramatic take.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I was trying to save your life. Even Duncan agreed I should drag you off.” He crossed his arms. “He likes you. Do you like him?”
“I meant, why did I come here before?”
“Yes, I know what you meant. Just like I know you’ve stolen my diary.” He flashed me a grin—a genuine one. “Did you find it illuminating?”
“You have a truly unhealthy love of games, Raile.”
“And you have a remarkable gift for not answering questions, my mighty little mollusk.”
I stared at him levelly and said, “I didn’t think you could become any more annoying, but you managed.”
“I always find a way,” he promised.
Raile took me to a door at the side of his castle, and there he asked, “How much do you trust me?”
“Minimally,” I said, although if the truth had been that simple, I wouldn’t have gone to fight a monster with him.
I knew I was going to be terrified out there, and I hoped my body would keep moving, and I could find my way through the fear that had dogged my steps since that ghost. I gripped the spear I carried a little tighter.
He smiled faintly. “Then this will be miserable for you.”