by Kaia Pierce
“So,” I began, sitting back in my chair, “what was pregnancy like for you? Did you get bad morning sickness? Swollen ankles? Nipple sores from breastfeeding?”
“All three,” Lucas said exasperatedly. His cheeks pinkened slightly. “And I’m...I’m still breastfeeding right now.
”“So am I,” I said in surprise. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the tea cart. “Lucas, I think we’re about to become good friends.”
Chapter 3: Lucas
It felt like the conversation was just warming up when suddenly our hour was up, and Damon had to “whisk away,” as he’d put it.
We said a hasty goodbye before parting ways in the hallway, Johnny in his arms and Charlotte in mine. Shortly afterwards, another staffmember appeared and announced he would be escorting me to my suite.
“Has King Henry arrived yet?” I asked as I followed him up the left arm of the double staircase.
“Just a moment ago, with Queen Helga. They’re getting settled into their suites as we speak,” the staffmember replied.
The second floor was just as opulent as the first floor, but without the family touches. Clearly, this floor was for guests. Some of them were already walking through the upstairs passageways, wearing the black plush robes they’d been given after arriving at the estate in their wolves.
I got more than a few curious looks as I walked past the nobles milling about. One nobleman with a pointy gray beard stopped in his tracks, clearly recognized Charlotte from her royal birth announcement, and dropped into a quick bow before disappearing into one of the guest rooms.
“Right at the end of this corridor, sir,” the attendant said, turning a corner that looked like all the others. He finally stopped at a door, unlocked it with a keycard, and handed the keycard to me as he turned the knob.
“There’s my baby!” Henry said from the sitting room when I walked in. He was also in a plush robe, belted at the waist with just a bit of bare chest showing through.
Squealing, Charlotte reached for Henry even before I could walk across the room. Once I got to him, she wriggled out of my arms, letting him catch her against his chest.
Suddenly exhausted, I collapsed onto the cream-colored sofa.
“Did you get a chance to ask Damon what he knows about Richard Godefroy’s mission?” Henry asked, sitting carefully beside me.
I slapped my forehead. “Shit. It completely slipped my mind.” We’d been so busy talking about sleep training, breast pumping, and our favorite shows on Netflix that the whole Richard thing had slipped my mind.
“That’s okay, Lucas. The kings are going to have a private meeting after the welcome feast to discuss the state of our realms,” Henry said. “I can ask King Alex about it then.”
I felt my eyebrows rising incredulously. “The kings? Is the Southern king—or whatever he is—coming, too?”
Henry stared ahead as Charlotte yanked on his ear, his expression barely changing. “I’m not sure. All I know is that King Alex would certainly have sent them an invitation. You know how they are here in the Northern Kingdom.”
“Yeah. All about tradition,” I mumbled, remembering the way Henry and Queen Helga had changed into their wolves before stepping foot on Thornriel territory.
“Hey, where are you going?” I added when Henry suddenly got up. He was making his way towards the exact same door I’d just walked through.
“Taking Charlotte to my mother next door,” Henry said matter-of-factly.
“Why?”
“Because what’s about to happen in here isn’t meant for the eyes of children,” Henry said with a smirk.
* * *
By the time Henry came back, I’d wandered out onto the balcony. Our view was of the gardens behind the house, sections of which were either dusted in snow or covered in drop cloths to protect from frost.
From up here, the landscape was blinding white.
I was still hugging myself against the railing when Henry opened the door and stepped out to join me. Instead of waiting for me to turn around, he simply pressed himself to my back and wrapped his arms around me.
I exhaled silently as I was pulled against his hard, warm chest. He was still in his robe, and I could feel the steel-edge hardness of his muscular physique under the draping fabric.
“Shall we head in?” he murmured deeply, making shivers run down my back that had nothing to do with the cold.
Silently, I slipped my cold hand into his warm one, and we stepped back into our suite.
The bedroom was on the other side of the sitting room. There was a king-sized bed with a headboard of tufted gray velvet, dressed in clean white sheets and a down comforter. It looked like a cozy place to sleep...and the perfect place to wrestle with my king.
In that moment, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind as I turned to face Henry.
“We have thirty minutes until the welcome banquet,” he said, drawing close.
His brown gaze filled my eyes. An instant later, I felt his warm breath touch my lips. And then we were kissing.
My chest was still swollen with milk, and my nipples ached as my body reacted to Henry’s touch. His hands slipped under my jacket to skim up my back, the thin fabric of my tee shirt the only barrier between his clever fingers and my bare skin.
Groaning with need, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself up onto my toes. My torso pressed against his. Standing this close, I could feel his rapid pulse beating in three places: his mouth, his chest, and the hardening mound under his belted robe.
I could feel my own cock stiffening in response. In fact, my entire body was throbbing with desire. I couldn’t even remember the last time Henry and I had made love. We’d simply been too busy or too exhausted from raising Charlotte to make the effort. But now…
“I need you,” I said, breaking away to tear off my jacket. “Right fucking now.”
Henry grabbed my chin. This time, his kiss was rough and possessive, communicating just how badly he needed me, too. As his tongue moved inside of my mouth, I untied his robe and curled my fingers around his shaft.
“Ah, yes,” Henry murmured hoarsely. His cock twitched in my hand, driving me wild.
I released him and undressed myself in record time. Henry pushed the robe off his shoulders, and the plush fabric pooled heavily at his feet. Every ounce of breath left my body as if I’d been punched in the stomach. It was what usually happened whenever I saw Henry—all hard, lithe, six-foot-three inches of him.
My own cock was a raging column of aching desire, but all of my focus was trained on the weapon between Henry’s thighs. The sight of Henry’s erection injected me with an unshakable sense of lust. I needed him. I needed him in every part of me, beginning with my mouth.
Immediately, I scrambled to my knees and wrapped my lips around his swollen cockhead.
Henry cursed as he became sheathed inside of my mouth. I tightened my lips around his shaft, applying just a little suction, and Henry’s entire body shuddered.
“Are you touching yourself, Lucas?” he said breathlessly.
I couldn’t speak, so I groaned instead. My hand reached between my kneeling legs and stroked my cock. Every inch of my skin tingled in response, and I groaned again.
After several seconds, Henry pulled my mouth off of his member and forced my head back to look up at his handsome face. His expression was soft, but his dark eyes were intense and dilated, a hair’s width away from the feral alpha wolf dwelling inside of him.
“Get on the bed,” he ordered with a growl.
With my heart beating in my throat, I got up and repositioned myself on my back across the bed. This was how Henry liked me, I knew. On my back, so he could look into my eyes at the moment of penetration.
Henry climbed on top of me, shaking the bed with his weight. I spread my legs, and he hoisted each of my knees over his arms.
“Please,” I begged. “I can’t wait anymore.”
Henry groaned as his cock pierced my tightness.
I dug my fingers into his shoulders and cried out. It’s been so long, I thought deliriously. It had been so long since the last time that it hurt almost as bad as the first time Henry fucked me.
Henry groaned as his cock plunged into my depths. The muscles in his neck and chest seized. He pressed his forehead to mine, blowing his breath into my face.
He began thrusting.
My back bowed, pushing my chest against Henry’s.
“Oh god!” I screamed.
Sometimes Henry made love tenderly, as if he were kissing me with his entire body. Not this time.
This time, he was merciless, brutal, and hungry. He fucked me as if we were in a race with the end of the world, and it was the final hour before the Apocalypse. My eyes rolled back, and I was completely blind and deaf to everything but the sensation of Henry’s alpha cock deep inside of me, driving and ramming and stabbing my tender, hot sex.
Both of us came quickly, as if we were teenagers wrestling under the sheets for the first time. I was still shaking when I sensed Henry bracing himself to pull his cock out of my cavity.
“Wait!” I said, reaching for his hips. “Stay inside!”
Henry moaned. It was a vulnerable, surprised sound. As his weight bore down on top of me, I felt his body give one last shudder. Then, the knot bloomed from the base of his shaft.
It was like an explosion.
Every muscle clenched as I was wracked with a second orgasm. It wasn’t the knot itself that was getting me off, but the meaning behind it. Without knotting, we never would have made Charlotte. It was the most important part of shifter mating, and I was the only soul in the entire world who would ever experience it with Henry.
“Was that okay?” Henry asked after catching his breath.
“It was perfect,” I said. And it was true, even though it had been unexpectedly short.
Chapter 4: Damon
Meet me in our secret place.
That was all Alex texted back when I messaged him, wondering where he was. Luckily, Alex didn’t need to elaborate any further.
Our secret place was a small annex in the northeast wing of the house. It was where Alex and I had shared our first kiss.
As requested, I showed up in the northeast annex. And I was furious.
“The welcome banquet starts in twenty minutes,” I said, bursting through the door.
Alex obviously knew this, because he was dressed for the occasion. For a moment, I forgot how aggressively irritated I was when I saw him standing up from his chair.
He wore a crisp white shirt under a cobalt blue suit, which set off his dark coloring nicely. When he smiled, his green eyes sparkled like emeralds, and I knew I couldn’t be mad for long.
“Sorry. I just needed to get you alone, and this seemed like my only chance,” he said.
I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow. “Your only chance was twenty minutes before we have to greet our guests? Really?”
Alex stepped closer. “Really.”
My eyes went immediately to the naked swath of skin just above his open collar. Focus, I scolded myself. “What for?” I said, snapping my attention back to my fiance’s face.
“To do this,” Alex said.
He grabbed me by the back of the neck and lunged forward. His mouth claimed mine before I could utter a single cry of surprise.
I groaned against Alex’s lips, feeling the heat of lust forming in the pit of my stomach. Swiftly, I unfastened my jacket and threw it aside.
I broke the kiss to remind him, “We have twenty minutes.”
“Plenty of time,” Alex murmured, unbuttoning his shirt sleeves.
Alex and I had barely seen each other the past few days. Except for bedtimes, of course, which often found us too exhausted to stay awake for anything more than a simple goodnight kiss. Planning a royal wedding required one hundred percent effort from both of us—which meant we had no energy left to devote to each other.
It’ll be better after the wedding, Alex had promised more than once.
But that wasn’t what he was saying now.
“I can’t wait anymore,” he growled, spinning me around to face the wall. When he pinned me against it from behind, I could feel just how much he meant what he said.
I reached back and slipped my hand between our bodies. I molded my fingers against his length, squeezing until I felt him shudder.
“Goddamn it, Damon,” he whispered.
Alex wrapped his arms around me and began unbuttoning my trousers. His fingers grazed my pounding cock as they fiddled with the zipper. At the same time, he drove his hips forward, rubbing his erection against my ass.
“We need to make this quick,” I said.
“I’ll make sure it is,” Alex said. “Go bend over that chair.”
The annex was small and barely furnished, but there was just enough room for me and Alex to move around.
Obediently, I walked to the armchair Alex had indicated and bent forward at the waist, planting my hands on the padded right arm. At this position, I faced the wall of glass that formed the exterior wall of the annex, and I could see Alex’s reflection as he approached me from behind.
He was lowering his pants. Then, he wrenched my hips into position and forced my boxers off. I could feel him spreading my cheeks wide.
“God, you’re so wet for me,” he remarked.
An instant later, he slid his cock into my aching, wet asshole.
Alex fucked me fast and hard, just as he promised. I gritted my teeth as he pounded my ass like a jackhammer. He came within seconds, pulling my hips back against him as he blew his load deep, deep inside of me.
“Sorry. You just felt so good—” Alex said.
“Sure. It’s fine. Let’s go,” I said abruptly. I pulled forward until Alex’s glistening cock slid heavily out of me.
“Wait.” Alex stopped me from pulling up my boxers.
I turned around to look at him. “What?”
“You’re still hard.”
“So?” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter. I—oh—”
I gasped as Alex dropped to his knees and plunged my cock into his throat. He sucked greedily, and my fingers immediately went to tangle through Alex’s thick, dark locks.
Alex cupped his hands against my clenching ass cheeks. Hips bucking, I cursed as his deft tongue lashed against my sensitive frenulum. Pretty soon, I found myself coming into Alex’s hungry mouth.
“Now we can go,” Alex said with a smirk.
* * *
With minutes to spare, Alex and I arrived at the banquet hall just in time for the royal announcer to present us to our guests.
Hand-in-hand, Alex and I stepped up to the head table. Queen Helga, King Henry, and Lucas were already there, sipping wine and nibbling on canapés. Charlotte, Johnny, and a pair of child-minders sat at their own table nearby.
Alex and I turned to face our guests. They sat among four tables that were positioned perpendicularly to the head table. Only a select few of the noble houses had been invited to stay at the estate. Everybody else would be arriving on the day of the wedding...including the feuding Dorsets and Buchanans.
I had a little over a day to reorganize a seating chart that took two full weeks to complete. It was almost enough to make me faint.
Feeling the room spinning around me, I tightened my grip on Alex’s left arm. Meanwhile, Alex bowed to our guests.
“Damon and I are grateful for those of you who have come to us in your wolves. We open our home to you and thank you for witnessing one of the most important events of our joined lives.”
“Hear, hear!” a voice shouted, followed by a wave of delicate applause.
“I won’t waste any more of our time. Let’s eat!” Alex concluded.
Several guests chuckled gratefully as they helped themselves to the platters running down the center of each table. The head table was served last with the hottest and freshest morsels out of the kitchens. The last of the entrees were being delivered as Alex and I took our seats
.
“Mmm. Roast boar is my favorite,” Queen Helga remarked cheerfully. She was a short, stout woman, shaped almost exactly like a robin. Her salt-and-pepper hair was styled into an adorable bob.
King Henry sat to her right. “I prefer the beef blood pie,” he said.
“And nobody does beef blood pie better than us Northerners,” Alex said. We all watched as he cut the first slice. Tendrils of steam rose from the pie as he sank his knife through the crust.
“Ah,” Lucas sighed as he inhaled its savory aroma. He’d admitted during our talk that he’d developed a taste for the delicacy during his pregnancy.
Wine was poured. Glasses were clinked. I brought the glass to my lips when Alex suddenly went off on another one of his speeches.
“I’d like to propose a special toast,” he began.
From across the table, Lucas caught my eye and grinned.
“To finally bringing our two kingdoms together,” Alex concluded.
Lucas cleared his throat. “And to finally meeting someone who knows what I’ve been through,” he said, tipping his glass in my direction.
“Me too,” King Henry added as an afterthought.
Ten minutes after we tucked into dinner, Anastasia finally showed up.
“My god, what a day,” she said, falling into the seat on Queen Helga’s left side. She was wearing the same thing she’d been wearing this morning, which was a beige suit and white shell. It made her scarlet hair look extra vibrant over her shoulders. If she hadn’t had time to change for dinner, she absolutely must have had quite the day.
“Lovely to see you, Helga. Damon, did you find my dress?” she asked.
“No—” I began.
“Oh, no!” Anastasia wailed, clutching her narrow face with her hands. Her eyes immediately filled with tears.
“But Lucas here has promised to help me find it,” I hastily concluded.
Anastasia leaned forward to look two seats away at Lucas. He blushed at realizing he’d snagged the attention of the princess, which was a common reaction, to be honest. Anastasia had inherited her mother’s observant, green eyes. Her focus was more intense than a laser beam.