Claiming the Prince: Book One

by Cora Avery

  “I will not break my word,” she said through her teeth. “Find him. Tie him up.”

  She charged through the bushes, back towards the house, certain that she was right.

  Sleeping with Kaelan while in her Shine was wrong, and claiming him out of the question. But she couldn’t help remembering that day at Eris’s . . . how overpowering his desire for her had been; how good it had felt to be touched by him; what he had said . . .

  She rushed into the kitchen, where the brownie was a gray and brown blur zipping through the lamp light, cleaning and organizing and cooking all at once. Up the back stairs, she raced towards the west bedroom, her heart pounding.

  Was Damion right? Had she been ignoring Kaelan? Resisting him? Why? Because of Honey? Or Endreas? Or because of how she’d felt when he’d died? The hollowness had been overpowering. While she knew they stemmed from having his heart-place within her, it didn’t make the feelings she’d experienced any less real. Or any less terrifying.

  Regardless, she cared too much for Kaelan to break her word.

  When her Shine had burned out, maybe then, she could talk to him. Maybe then she could open herself to the possibility that something had changed between them beyond the influence of their instinctual attraction.

  But the Shine was all instinct, primal and unforgiving. If she saw him now, there would be no conversation. Not until after the Shine had ended, which could be hours or days.

  Fortunately, it seemed Flor had Kaelan occupied elsewhere in the house, because she didn’t see him.

  Hurrying into the room, she pushed the door shut and leaned her back against it. Though it had only been a short time since Meer had appeared, the wood floors shone. The globes over the oil lamps on the walls glittered. The four-poster bed was freshly turned down. Only the faintest hint of mustiness hung under the aromas of lavender and sage, which were bubbling in a diffuser on the night table.

  “Meer?” she called softly.

  The brownie popped up before her, the lightest sheen of sweat on her brow.

  “Your bath is through there,” Meer said, pointing towards an open archway. “I am quite busy acquiring new clothes—”

  “Can you secure the doors and windows of this room?”

  “Secure them?” Meer asked.

  “Lock them. I’m in my Shine,” Magda said, holding out her softly glowing arms as evidence. “I don’t want any . . . stray Princes knocking down my door or breaking my windows.”

  Meer’s nose wrinkled. “Whoever heard of a stray Prince?”

  “I need to rest,” Magda said more strongly. “If Cae is allowed in here, I won’t sleep . . . possibly for days.”

  Meer’s eyes widened. “That’s unacceptable. I’ll secure the entrances, but you’ll be locked in.”

  Magda sagged. “That’s fine. Thank you. And will you do you me another favor?”

  The brownie gave Magda a look that suggested she was already quite put-upon.

  “I asked Damion to tie Kaela . . . Cae up with gorgon rope,” she said. “Please see that it’s done.”

  “Why in the Lands would you—?”

  “Because Cae has a very unusual ability to traverse the Shadow Realms, which he could do to enter my room. The gorgon rope can prevent him from doing so.”

  Meer’s eyebrow lofted. “That is quite unusual. I will see that it is done, but you must see that you are bathed and in bed at once. I have a great many preparations ahead of me. I may not return to you unless you call for me.”

  “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  Meer gave her one last sour look and then disappeared.

  Magda tried the door knob. It turned, but the door didn’t budge, not even a creak. She let out a long breath and then wandered into the bathroom.

  Amorphous gray and blue-veined tiles covered the floors, the walls, the ceiling. A deep tub carved of the same marble, native to the Eastern Cliffs, sat beneath a stained-glass river tableau. Brownie-lights glowed, pulsing and ebbing through the glass in rippling blue and green ribbons, so that the room appeared submerged underwater. Steam collected on the tri-fold mirrors above the sink and an aromatic blend of jasmine, honeysuckle, nutmeg, and cream filled the air—Rae oil. Her own personal perfume blend, which she hadn’t smelled since she’d been exiled. How Meer had discovered it in such a short time, Magda had no idea, but all at once, it brought tears to her eyes and unknotted the muscles in her shoulders.

  Finally, she slid her knives into her shadow’s vault and peeled off her clothes.

  After a long soak and a good scrub with the salt and oils left on the ledge by the tub, she wrapped herself in a plush robe that had been folded neatly on the dressing stool.

  The Shine was full on her now, and the mirrors weren’t the only things that were misted. She chewed her cheek, fighting the temptation to call Meer and tell her to remove the spell from the doors. To hell with promises. The thought that Kaelan was somewhere in the house, tied up, curled her toes and set her heart purring.

  But, as she combed back her wet hair, she managed to push aside the urge, though she ached from head-to-toe to be touched, to be kissed, to be taken.

  Locked in her room though, she still had enough sense to remember why she had done so. Just so long as she remained alone . . .

  Sinking down onto the bed, she planned to satisfy herself as much as she could and then sleep for as long as possible. Had she not been so weary, the Shine might’ve prevented her from sleeping, but the two pulled on each other. Without a Prince immediately present, sleep was winning out.

  She drank some water, chewed a couple of sweet chamomile and peppermint drops, and allowed the burn of desire to slip over into the warm lull of sleepiness.

  She drew back the covers, drowsy and prepared to have some very, very good dreams, when the scorching tension that had been sloughing away suddenly reasserted itself. Her fingers balled in the blankets as her breath caught.

  In the corner of her eye, she saw the shadows shift.

  Not now, please.

  Endreas’s lips parted as though he’d been about to speak, but had forgotten what he was going to say. But it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t interested in conversation.

  CROSSING THE ROOM in a few swift steps, she hooked her arm around his neck and kissed him. Where their delicate skin met, heat welled and coursed through her, down her throat, across her chest, into her depths. His mouth pressed hard against hers, opening, their tongues meeting.

  Tugging off her robe took less than a second and then his hands were on her skin, her back and thighs, cupping one of her breasts and working the tender flesh, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She broke from his kiss to gasp.

  His mouth moved to her breast, tongue flicking, and then drawing the peak between his lips until she panted, fingers twisted in his hair.

  The throbbing heat in her core tangled and clenched.

  She pushed him back, stripping off his shirt and yanking down his trousers to expose his glorious shaft, already hard and darkened. Her mouth watered and she bent to taste it, just to lick the drop of salt from the tip, but instead found herself taking him in.

  He groaned and seized the back of her head as her mouth plunged down the length, laving and consuming all at once. As much as she enjoyed the growls and needy thrust of his hips, she retrieved her knives to slice through the wrappings and the laces of his boots. She put her knives away, ran her tongue once more over him, and then freed his legs from the last of his clothes. Pushing him back against the wall, she mounted him, hitching her leg up onto his thigh, sinking her weight down onto his pulsing erection, every inch unfurling another wave of pleasure so intense she nearly lost all strength before he had fully entered her.

  He hoisted both of her legs up, slamming into her, spurring an eruption.

  Her vision flickered in and out as the coiling tension in her briefly released before drawing back tighter than ever when he withdrew to carry her over to the bed.

  Pinning her dow
n, his chest against hers, he slid into her again, slowly. His lips branded her throat, breath strafing across her skin, growling and moaning and murmuring.

  She couldn’t tell if his words were real or a new language altogether, created in the moment. Either way, she understood the meaning. She may not have been claiming him, but he was claiming her.

  Each stroke of his heavy stave pushed her closer. Little tremors rippled off the surface of her skin as he slid out to his swollen tip and then built up again as he plunged once more, as if he was trying to drive deeper somehow, even though he already filled and stretched her to the limits.

  Dizzy with need, she pushed him over onto his back and straddled him, sliding down the steel of his flesh.

  His hands molded to her breasts, squeezing and twisting as she rode him. He caught her nipple in his mouth. Each pull of his lips and flick of his tongue tightened her around him, her passage milking him.

  He threw back his head, gritting his teeth through a moan, hands gripping her hips, digging himself into her deeper, quickening her pace.

  Her straining knot rubbed up and down against him, inside and out, slick and hot and winding with a rising, shuddering energy, abrading against his rigid iron shaft, at once fraying and tightening . . . until, at last, it broke.

  She arched back as the gasps of ecstasy released through her, quaking and trembling.

  He roared as she clenched around him. His fingers burrowed deep into the soft flesh of her thighs. His hips thrust upwards as his heat unleashed inside of her, pumping and swelling.

  She collapsed against the slick planes of his chest, his heart pounding hard against her breasts.

  His muscles twitched. They both moaned together as the last of him was spent. He fell slack under her.

  For a moment, there was only their hammering pulses and quick breaths and ebbing currents of intertwined fervor.

  As the blinding corona of her Shine receded, a clawing spark of panic formed in her.

  What if he thought this meant she’d made her choice—him? She hadn’t chosen anything. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t been in her Shine. Everything would be so much more complicated now. Why had she tied Kaelan up?

  Kaelan . . . her heart sank.

  What would he do when he found out? If he found out.

  She wasn’t going to tell him. She wasn’t going to tell anyone. This had been a mistake . . . a fluke of her damned Rae instincts.

  Before her logical mind succeeded in pulling her from the mire, Endreas rolled her over.

  Gently, he kissed her forehead, her lips, her throat, the hollow between her breasts, the downward slope of her belly.

  Each soft brush of his lips spoke to her in that silent language of his.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  He kissed the curls over her mound. His tongue parted the folds and lapped up the wetness he had left there. He watched her from the top of his eyes.

  Mine.

  And then he delved in, lapping and devouring, chasing away the pesky nits of rational thought as her Shine brightened, blinding her.

  THE ROOM WAS DIM. Seconds passed before she recalled where she was. Many more went by before the memories of what had happened between her and Endreas surfaced through the lingering fog left by her Shine.

  Twisting in the sheets, she found the bed empty beside her.

  No trace of Endreas except the musky aroma of their time together. Although just how much time that had been, she couldn’t say. Thinking about it ignited a terrible burn under her skin.

  Finally, she shoved aside the bedclothes. Finding her body naked, muscles loose and responsive after days of love-making, made her tense.

  Hurrying to the bathroom, she started filling the tub. While the water ran, she checked herself in the mirror. No glow. The Shine was burnt.

  She said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods that, even though her body went into a mating frenzy every few months, pregnancy was not possible until after she had claimed a Prince.

  She ran her hand down her neck, searching, but Endreas had left her skin unmarked.

  Once convinced no outward evidence existed, she retrieved her knives from her shadow’s vault and trimmed her hair, which was a tousled mess. She could just hear her mother clucking disapprovingly for using her daggers to cut her hair. But Magda had other things to worry about.

  The biggest among them, Kaelan.

  The thought that he might discover what had happened between her and Endreas sent a cold tremor through her.

  Once the bath was drawn, she sank in and scrubbed herself again, attempting to slough off every bit of skin Endreas had touched, at least on the outside.

  Though her thoughts kept tugging towards Endreas, she restrained them with two mantras.

  The first, I do not love Endreas.

  The second, No one has to know.

  When she stepped out of the bathroom, she found the bedding changed and remade, the curtains drawn back, food steaming on the table under the triptych of stained glass windows—red dwarf cap mushrooms in a green meadow—and new clothes laid out on the bed.

  Did Meer know?

  The brownie had to suspect.

  No one could’ve mistaken the lingering scent of sex in the room and certainly not on the sheets. But would she tell the others that Magda had been with someone? And what if she’d seen Endreas? Would she have known who he was?

  Magda’s stomach churned wondering and worrying, but she ate everything Meer had left—because she knew the brownie would give her hell if she didn’t. She washed it all down with many good strong cups of spiced tea and cream.

  Palms sweating and heart hammering, she dressed. The new clothes fit even better than the ones Kirk had brought her. The trousers were gold-hued, the knee-high boots fine Pixie-cloth, a proper brassiere, a soft cream-colored tunic, and a dark brown jerkin with delicate bronze buckles up the left side. A satchel was provided, in which she stowed the Enneahedron.

  She hovered by the door for countless minutes, chewing her lip.

  I don’t love Endreas.

  No one has to know.

  She pulled open the door and headed downstairs.

  The house had been transformed. Surely, more than a couple of nights had passed. The woodwork gleamed, not a spider or a dust mote in sight.

  Unsettled by the quiet, she donned her daggers again. With their weight reassuring her, she moved through the downstairs hall into the gallery.

  The dining table had been relieved of its shroud and buffed to a shine. The moth-eaten curtains had been replaced. The windows sparkled, offering a grand view of the terrace and the gardens beyond. Sparing Cae’s portrait a guilt-ridden glance, she passed through the kitchen, where pots boiled and steamed on the ceramic stove and the buttery aroma of bread baking told her it was, indeed, morning. Every tiled surface shone. The copper pots gleamed in the low light.

  Out through the kitchen door, she rounded the barrier of a now tidy hedgerow and found the stone table on the terrace prepared with a cornucopia, the pond cleared of scum and excess vegetation, and the stone-lined garden beds mostly bare for all the weeds that had been uprooted.

  “Good to see you are finally awake,” Meer said, popping up on one of the wooden terrace chairs. “You must be starved.”

  She tensed. “Why must I be?”

  The brownie lofted an eyebrow. “You’ve been locked in your room for six days.”

  “Six days?” She touched her head. Had she been with Endreas the whole time? “Listen, Meer. You mustn’t . . . whatever you may know about what happened in my room, you can’t tell anyone.”

  Meer’s nose turned up. “I would never speak to anyone about anything that occurred within my household.”

  “Not even to the other brownies?”

  Meer thrust her fists downwards. “Absolutely not! What do you take me for, a gossipy little sprite?”

  She let out a relieved breath. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s only . . . anything t
hat transpired in my room must never be spoken of.”

  Meer straightened a fork. “Of course not. Though a week of much needed sleep hardly seems worth all this fuss. But as you wish, Mistress.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your discretion.”

  “Is there anything else you require?” Meer asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “The others are at the sparring grounds,” Meer said, gesturing towards the path leading to the training shed. “They have all been quite anxious for you to wake. Of course, I did not allow them to disturb you. In addition to the barriers on the entrances and exits, I also created a muffling spell around the room. No sound could pass inside . . . or out.”

  The strangling tightness in her chest returned—Meer did know.

  She took another deep breath to still the panicked tempest brewing within her.

  Brownies were unfailingly loyal to their masters, but Meer wasn’t bound to Magda. Rather she’d been lent to them by Flor’s brother. She just had to hope Meer would be true to her word. Or she could kill the brownie. But saving herself a fight with Kaelan was hardly worth taking someone’s life . . . she guessed.

  “Thank you again.”

  The brownie bowed and then vanished.

  Recomposing herself, Magda strode out to the sparring grounds.

  They, too, had been tidied. Fresh sand covered the training yard. The shed had been repainted and the broken windows repaired.

  Damion and Kaelan, as Cae, sparred with wooden wasters, both shirtless and plastered in sweat and sand. Flor sat behind a food-laden table under a crisp white sunshade. Her gray hair was cut short, though still longer than Magda’s. After the initial shock of it, Magda found the look quite suited the matron. Beside her, Honey gazed on placidly. Hero huddled near a half-eaten rind of melon, eyes glazed from overindulgence. Gur reclined in the shade under the old walnut tree.

  “Well, look who it is,” Damion said.

  Kaelan took the opportunity to knock Damion flat on his back.

  “Ha!” Flor’s laugh startled a couple of green sprites who had been sneaking away on their spindly legs, carting a hunk of cheese between them. They dropped their ripe plunder and dove into the grasses.