“What about your own magic?” I asked.
“My magic enhances desire,” he said. “That’s about it. This wand only does parlor tricks.”
“Yes, well…what does it enhance desire for?”
“You know what it does.” He barked out a rough laugh. “The revelers’ desire is enhanced by the magic. That’s all. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“How do you get the desire into the sweets? You take it from me, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have the caramel that old woman gave you?”
“I do…”
“And we must join quickly, right now. I’m about to feel you inside me for the first time. You’ve been giving me that damn potion so I can hardly orgasm if I tried. I can’t help but wonder, if you took that magic and put it in the caramel, and gave that to Deniel… Maybe he wouldn’t want to fight anymore.”
He laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it now?” I crossed my arms. “I can hardly think straight when you do the things you do to me. It’s as good as a confusion spell or anything else that addles your head. I asked for it and he didn’t, but all’s fair in war…well, they say that, don’t they?”
“Maybe you’re right, but how am I supposed to get him to eat it?” Then he put a hand on my shoulder. “Actually—it’s not a bad idea…” He laced his fingers with mine. “First things first. And this is…a first. For both of us. However rushed and tense we may feel now, I want you to forget all that, if even for a moment. I’m not always the best at expressing or even admitting my feelings, but I hope you know…”
“I do,” I said.
“I love you, my Gretel. For three years I’ve needed to find someone whom I could love, and the moment you showed up at my door…”
“I love you too.”
“I wanted this to be special. I wanted it to be so that you would never forget a single moment of it.”
“Do you think I will?” I shook my head. “I just don’t want you to die, idiot.”
“Oh, is that how it’s going to be now?” He wrapped his arm around the front of my chest and pulled me against him. “Come with me, you saucy tongued thing. I know just the place to put you.”
Now that he could touch me, the wand didn’t need to tap me into place, and a wand could hardly compare to his confident fingers, the sensation of his chest pressing against my back. He took both my hands in one of his behind my back and urged me down a shadowed path, deeper into the forest. My heart immediately started skittering a faster beat, and it was already thumping along to begin with, thanks to all the tension of the night. We walked long enough that the noise of the faeries was distant, and came to a glade where the forest was not so thick. A soft blanket of moss covered the path, and moonlight illuminated the trees, which grew in strange twisting shapes.
They didn’t grow like that naturally, I thought. They were trained like the topiaries I had heard of in palace gardens. He led me to one of the trees which grew in a gentle downward slope, forking into two separate trunks that maintained the sloping shape until about nine feet from the base, where the tree finally started growing toward the sky. He kept pushing me toward the tree until I had to straddle the trunk, spreading my legs around it, my thighs hugging soft whitish bark.
He unfastened my cape and hung it on a smaller branch, baring my breasts. Then he took my hands and guided them up onto the two forks of the tree trunk. I felt two vines snake down and catch my wrists. Then he pushed my torso down into the fork between the two trunks. I was nervous at this new position, but I trusted him. I didn’t fight his guidance. Anyway, I could feel his legs brushing the back of mine, and as I bent down, I realized I had to stand on my tip-toes—actually, I didn’t have to stand at all. The tree would support me. The slope of the tree trunk pushed my ass higher, and I felt his hard cock press against me. I was all spread out, my arms spread out above my head like I was flying, my braid breaking free from how I had pinned it and falling past my head. My head was pitched slightly downward, but not so much that I was lightheaded. My breasts hung in empty air, and all I could see was the dewy ground.
I moaned.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“How do I answer that?”
He stroked his hands up my thighs and flipped up my skirt, which was still somewhat wet from the river. If anything was making me uncomfortable, it was my sodden clothing, but the air was surprisingly warm here.
Or maybe I was just getting very, very hot.
His hands cupped my ass, kneading my buttocks, and I felt him crouch. Suddenly, I felt his mouth open around the pearl of my desire, his soft breath and then his lips and tongue drawing it into a cave of pleasure. He sucked hard and I shrieked. I could barely even see, the sensation was so strong and unexpected. One would think I was used to stimulation by now, but it was true that everything before this moment had only been a tease. Nothing compared to him.
His tongue traced expert lines around the most sensitive places, and I was speechless. Only when he stopped for a moment did I gather my wits enough to gasp, “You must hurry.”
“I’ve been waiting so long to do these things to you. And we have to get some powerful magic into the caramel. You must indulge me. I doubt it’s been more than a minute, although it might feel like a lifetime to you.”
“Please, just—just get it over with for now. Later, we can— Oh, god!”
His tongue was on me again, but now his hands had reached up to pinch my nipples at the same time. He had never done anything to my nipples before. It was completely uncharted territory of sensation. I was nothing short of a mess in no time at all, whimpering and quivering, my arms sagging against my bonds, my legs heavy against the tree trunk, while my inner muscles and abdomen clenched without relief. The moment I felt him stand up again, I lifted my ass to press against him, almost unconsciously.
“Are you eager, my dearest?”
“Yes—yes, Magus.” I paused. “Now, will you tell me your real name?”
“Corentyn.”
I don’t know why, but it almost made me cry, just to have a name for him. A real name, a real person, a boy from Ellurine who became a king, a king who became a baker mage—and mine.
“It’s all right if you don’t care for it.”
“Why wouldn’t I care for it? It’s yours. Or—“ I grinned. “Is it too workaday?”
He chuckled. “No, not that, at least. I suppose I’m not used to it.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it, because I might be screaming it out quite often.”
“Are you ready for me, my Gretel?”
“I’ve been ready since the day we met.”
I couldn’t really see what he was doing, and so the exact moment would be a surprise. I heard his trousers loosen and then he leaned over me, lifting my braid away from my face again, pulling my head up slightly. He gently kissed my neck and then slowly slid his tongue from my earlobe up the curve of my ear. My braid fell again, and his hands found my nipples once more. Almost the same moment as his hands took hold of my breasts, I felt the head of his cock push into me. Although nothing so large had penetrated me before, I was well prepared for him. I felt sorry for every bride who had no experience of such things, because for me there was no pain or shock, only sheer exquisite pleasure that I finally had the real thing filling me up, stimulating my skin in what felt like a thousand different angles. It was just a relatively small part of me, but I seemed to feel him everywhere, my skin tingling along my back, my arms, my legs, down to my fingers and toes.
He went slow at first, finding a rhythm, and despite my position I had some room to move with him. I could not be passive now; I wanted to make him fuck me harder as much as I could. Just as we worked together, we didn’t say a word now. He felt what I was doing. I could sense the moment he understood that I wanted to take all of him, as hard and deep as he could give.
And once he did—
My entire soul surrendered
to the feeling. His cock drove into me, again and again, his shaft both soft and as hard as steel, dismantling me from the inside out.
Of course, I knew it would end tragically for me. Soon I felt his hot, pulsing juices filling me as he clutched my breasts more firmly. “Gretel…my Gretel. Now you’re truly mine, and you’re all I could ever want.”
“Corentyn.” I wept his name. “I know we have to stop, but…”
He slid his hands up my arms, freed me from my bonds, and turned me over into his arms in one easy motion. I was limp as a doll and he felt so strong.
He held up the single caramel, wrapped in paper. “This would break a king,” he said. “And once we’ve gotten rid of that young upstart of a prince, I will make it all up to you a hundredfold. I was once the king of pleasures. And if you are always my queen, I will always be your king. All my attentions are for you now. Believe me, my dearest, your sweet little self will never want for anything again.”
Chapter Twenty
The Magus
I’m not sure a crueler task was ever asked of a man than to pull myself away from Gretel to save Will, but I did what I must. And I knew I had to hurry. Every moment I had lingered with Gretel was already a dangerous move.
Still, I knew the revelers preferred negotiation to fighting, and I hoped that would take time. When we straggled into the grove, the musicians were pleading their case to Deniel.
“Will might be a human born, but he’s a faery now! Please, your grace—“
“Humans can’t turn faery,” Deniel scoffed. “Any more than faeries can turn human.”
“But sometimes a person has the soul of someone else. Aren’t you the heir of Ellurine? Why not stay there?”
“Who wants to be king of Ellurine? Someone telling me what to do all the time?”
“I understand,” I said, announcing myself. “I was once the Prince Corentyn, then the King of the Revels. I became the latter to escape the former.”
“Mmhm,” Deniel said impatiently. “I’ve heard the story. Everyone has.”
“You’ve heard the beginning. Maybe not the end. What do you desire from this place? Dancing? Parties? Good food? Pretty girls? Ellurine has all of those things.”
“Freedom!” Deniel said. To him, it was obvious, as it had been to me.
“I thought the same thing,” I said. “But in fact, no king is free. Kings have a great responsibility. The Revels might look like an escape, but in fact, they must be treated with care. Will understands this in a way that I never did, I hate to say. If I really wanted to be a king, I should have stayed in Ellurine. I assumed Ellurine would never change for me, when I should have changed Ellurine instead.”
“It sounds like a damnable lot of work to change that place—you know how it is.”
“I certainly do. And you’re right. But who will be king of Ellurine if you stay here?”
“My little brother.”
“Is that the life you want for him?”
“Well, no—“
“Wait a minute,” Aramy said, interrupting just as I thought I might not even need the caramel. “My lord, I saved your life. I dealt with the Trickster Mage—“
“You made a bargain you said was meaningless anyway,” I reminded him.
“Well, I should have known better! I’ve just gotten a letter from Vermon from a girl who says she’s my daughter with that pretty little dancer who was here some fourteen years ago. You should see this letter, my lord—lovely penmanship, beautiful writing, she spins the finest thread, and she sent me a miniature of her face. The girl is the spitting image of my own dear departed sister. Now she wants to come here and what am I supposed to tell her? The Trickster Mage will come for her instead?”
“That is why he’s called the Trickster Mage,” I snapped. “Aramy…” I kneaded my forehead, which had sprouted a few lines of chagrin since I’d been brought back to life. “I appreciate that you brought me back to life. I truly do. I know it was the only way. But if you are truly loyal to me, listen to me now. You’ve given me your bake shop, and I have never been happier. Retire in peace and know that you served your king well.”
“You are no king of mine anymore.” Aramy drew his sword. I knew he wasn’t very skilled with a sword, but I still didn’t want to fight him. “Don’t listen to him, Prince Deniel. All of this should be yours. It belongs to your family, not a human cripple.”
Will drew his sword as well, and that prompted all of Deniel’s soldiers and the clans who supported him to draw weapons.
“I might have a stiff leg, but don’t underestimate me,” Will said. “I’ve survived a war. I earned the Revels. If you want me gone, you’ll have to fight me first.”
“Will!” Evaline cried. At least Deniel had untied her. “Please, don’t be proud and stupid!”
Will and I were actually rather alike, in many ways, I realized.
Few of the revelers had weapons, so this could escalate quickly and my people would have little choice but to surrender. But Aramy would still need Deniel to play along.
Time for the caramel—if I could get him to eat it.
I took out the small wrapped sweet and looked at Will, but I stayed close to Deniel. “Will—this candy is infused with all the powers I possess. Take it and you’ll win the fight! Catch.” I threw the caramel a bit off on purpose, and I knew Will wasn’t fast to dive for a fallen object. It was still a gamble, but this had to be somewhat convincing or Deniel would immediately suspect it. One of his men snatched it instead.
“Bring that to me,” Deniel said.
I had to mask my relief. “Deniel, you don’t want to do this.”
The young man rushed it to Deniel, eager to serve. Deniel unwrapped the caramel. “You want to spend your days making confections, Uncle? Let’s see if they’re any good.”
He popped it in his mouth and chewed. It stuck to his teeth as caramels tend to do. His expression shifted quickly from defiant to curious and then took on a warm glow. “Moon and stars…”
“Are you all right, my lord?” Aramy asked nervously. He shot a look at me.
I gave him a brief smug grin.
“Yes,” Deniel said. “This is—holy hell. The flavor—”
“I think you might have been enchanted,” Aramy said. “Spit it out.”
“No way. If I’ve been enchanted, give me more of it. It’s like the best fuck of my life but somehow it’s just…a caramel. All this fighting just seems stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” Aramy clenched his fists. “It’s your right as a faery.”
“This is the whole spirit of the Revels infused in one bite, isn’t it? You made this, Uncle?”
“It’s my magic, yes. And Gretel’s. It’s the magic of desire, that’s all.”
“I’ve tried aphrodisiacs and love potions,” Deniel said. “This is different. It’s—joyous.”
I looked at my darling Gretel. Yes, I could never have made such magic without her. Everything I did to her was not just stoking desire, but also fulfilling desire. The magic came from a place she had asked to go. “Deniel, stay for a few days and I’ll make you boxes of caramels. Take them back to Ellurine. See what happens.”
Deniel sheathed his sword and shrugged at Will. “Sorry about all this mess, tying up your wife and such.”
“It runs in the family,” Will said, with what I found to be unwarranted sarcasm.
Well, we were never going to like each other.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gretel
Even in the midst of all this, I didn’t forget Hansel. I was relieved when I spotted him among the crowd, with Peter beside him, although they looked a little lost. When the revelers erupted into cheers of relief and Will invited the soldiers from Ellurine to have first crack at the banquet tables, I went to my brother even before I went to my Corentyn.
“Gretel,” he said. “I—I see there’s no use stopping you from joining this world and leaving mine. I suppose that’s what hurts, in the end. It’s not what Mother and Fa
ther would have wanted for you.”
I’m not sure Mother and Father would have wanted Peter for Hansel, either, but I decided not to say so. “I am not really leaving my home,” I said. “It’s going to be a part of me forever. The house, the farm, and you. There’s nothing to say we can’t write and visit. I’m not moving to the moon. But if what really bothers you is that I’ve changed, well, it’s too late for that. You could lock me in the attic for the rest of my life but you could never change me back.”
“Heaven forbid, I don’t want to lock you in an attic,” he said. “I know you’re right. I’m not comfortable with this, but I don’t want to lose you.”
“You don’t have to be comfortable, I suppose. Just tolerant.”
Peter nudged him. “I suppose if we’d just accepted the situation, I wouldn’t have gotten knocked out. This is pretty funny, when you think about it. It’s like that time Marcus caught us kissing in the woods behind the school and I beat the daylights out of him.”
“Please…Corentyn—the Magus—is going to ask Will to marry us,” I told Hansel. “Will you stay for it?”
And so he did, and when the moment came, he didn’t even look begrudging. It was a simple ceremony under the trees, and Will himself spoke the words to pronounce us husband and wife. He didn’t really look begrudging either.
“Corentyn of Ellurine, Mage-Baker of the Revels, you and your wife are welcome back to the festivities—as long as you have time to keep making those cakes,” he said.
Queen Evaline welcomed me herself after the ceremony, and Jeannie kissed my cheeks. “Good for you, dear. I like happy endings. Although I don’t envy you yours. Didn’t your husband just promise his kin a whole bunch of magic caramels?”
That was very true. I had a feeling I would never truly see the end of my torments!
But for now, we came home to a quiet house, and he scooped me into his arms and carried me over the threshold and up the stairs.
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