Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Aurelia
T he dining room in the Rodrige’s imperial palace is a smaller space than the royal one, as is the entire palace compared to the royal family’s. That hasn’t stopped the Lavirians from going all out with their hospitality. Tonight’s dinner feast only includes about half as many courses as yesterday’s birthday extravaganza, but by the time we’re through, my stomach is aching from the richness of all the incredible flavors.
My shoulder is still aching too. I hold my injured arm gingerly by my side, using my knife as little as I can get away with, not letting on to our courtly audience that anything’s all that wrong.
Marc hasn’t stopped doting. He motions for the servants to bring over the most elaborate dishes and keeps his arm by my back to protect me from jostling when we get up from our chairs.
The unnerving mix of shame and pleasure that filled me this morning stays tangled inside, one part or the other spiking hotter at random intervals.
I hate feeling this way. I’m not sure how long I can stand it before the conflicted revulsion starts shuddering through my limbs.
If only I could erase that unwanted interlude with the one that should have been.
Perhaps I can. As we walk along the table, I catch Lorenzo’s eye. My hand flicks by my skirt. I need you three.
He lets his gaze slide over me, but I see the hasty twitch of his fingers on the table. Go to your window.
Marc walks me back to my bedroom and guides me inside, but as I anticipated after the way he talked this morning, he doesn’t linger. He claims a lingering kiss that I have to fight the urge to break free from and trails his fingers along my jaw. “I’m taking tomorrow too. After he got two days in a row, I should have the same. You’ll get a little more time before you have to deal with him again.”
I smile with a pointed question held back behind my teeth. How about you deal with him for me?
Maybe Marc will. Maybe he’ll lay into Linus tonight about harming me, and Linus will snark back with all his overconfident paranoia, and the sense of caution or brotherly loyalty or whatever else that’s stopped Marc before will snap.
All I can do is hope and keep fanning the flames on both sides.
He leaves me to my rest as if he’s a perfect gentleman. I wait until the next ring of the hourly bell to be sure he isn’t going to return. Then I drift over to one of the bedroom windows in the dim glow of the single lantern I’ve lit.
With a click of the latch, I push the wrought-iron-laced pane open to let in the cool night breeze. My bedroom overlooks a short stretch of neat garden beds and a sprawl of city buildings beyond.
It only takes a few minutes before Lorenzo’s illusionary voice travels into my head with a single word. “Alone?”
I nod yes and gesture to indicate, Safe.
“Bastien will bring you down. Climb up on the ledge.”
I drag over a chair to make it an easier scramble one-handed and clamber onto the stone surface. A warble of wind surrounds me. When the current tugs me forward, I step out onto the cushion of air that’s formed beyond the window.
Bastien carries me down with a breeze fluttering through my dress as if I’m soaring into the courtyard. Lorenzo watches with his brow knit with concentration—he must be concealing us with an illusion.
The moment my feet touch the ground, Bastien is slipping his hand around mine with an emphatic squeeze. He guides me off into the garden with Lorenzo stalking alongside us.
Raul’s absence niggles at me, but I keep quiet so as not to strain the prince of Rione’s gift. Presumably I’ll get answers soon enough.
When we reach the wall at the side of the gardens, Bastien sends me gliding atop it before he and Lorenzo join me. A staircase made of shadow waits on the other side. Raul leans against a small carriage parked across the street, a familiar cocky grin stretching his lips.
“Can’t have you in my hometown without showing you at least one of my favorite haunts,” he murmurs to me when we join him, and steals a quick kiss. “You ride with them. I’ll do the driving.”
I arch my eyebrows. “Since when do you drive carriages?”
He chuckles. “I’m a man of many talents, and I’ll aim to keep surprising you.”
Pulling the hood of the light cloak he’s donned low over his face, he hauls himself into the driver’s seat behind the single horse. Bastien gives me a hand into the carriage. I grope for the bench to steady myself and wince.
As soon as we’re inside, Lorenzo tugs the curtains shut so he can dispel his illusion. His dark gaze sweeps over my body. “Are you all right? We were worried. Marclinus said you were staying in your chambers because you were under the weather.”
Beside him, Bastien nods, his forehead furrowed. “You looked a little uncomfortable—in a different way from usual—at dinner.”
I hesitate as another wave of conflicting emotion crashes over me. I want to nestle myself in their embrace and soak up all the affection they’ll offer—but even imagining their bodies next to mine brings back the memory of another man crouching before me just hours ago.
The carriage rattles forward. I drag in a breath, knowing I can’t hold this shame in like a secret.
“Linus wasn’t happy with the false relic Raul and I arranged for him. It didn’t do what he was hoping… I don’t think he knows I purposefully gave him a replica rather than simply making a mistake, but he was angry all the same. He hit me—pushed me around—yanked my shoulder right out of its socket and ordered my guards not to let me seek help.”
Bastien inhales with a hiss through his teeth. “That fucking bastard.”
Lorenzo’s eyes have widened. He motions to my shoulders in a question.
I point to the right. “This one. It only hurts a little now. I have to be careful with it, but it should heal completely. Marc helped me set it right the next morning. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it with the court… for them to speculate about what happened.”
Lorenzo crosses the carriage to sit at my other side. He slips his arm around my waist and tucks his head next to mine, and all at once tears are welling in my eyes.
“It’s good that Marc intervened,” Bastien suggests hesitantly, rocking with the bump of the wheels over a pothole. “He’s looking out for you and discovering more reasons to hate his twin.”
“Yes. That’s what I was hoping for.” I blink hard, my gaze dropping to the darkened floor of the carriage, and force myself to spit it out. “While he was with me, trying to—to make it up to me, I suppose… Things turned intimate. He went down on me. I didn’t want to stop him and ruin the connection he was feeling. I thought I’d just fake my reactions, but the stimulation—the body reacts of its own accord?—”
Bastien slides forward to grasp my hand as Lorenzo’s arm tightens around me. At the squeeze of the prince of Cotea’s fingers, I lift my eyes to meet his.
His voice comes out a little ragged but firm in its conviction. “You don’t have to explain yourself to us. You didn’t even need to tell us. He’s your husband . You have his marriage band around your wrist. We’re the ones you’re not supposed to be dallying with.”
Lorenzo adds his own reassurance in his resonant baritone. “If it means he’s more likely to murder Linus and give you the opportunity to end him as well, it’s all for the good of the plan. I’d rather you got some enjoyment out of it than feeling awful through the whole act.”
Does he really, or is he only saying that to make me feel better?
I swallow thickly and lean into his embrace. “I still—it wasn’t what I wanted. I’d always rather be with you.”
The corners of Bastien’s lips quirk upward in a subtle smile. “You called for us, and we came. We’ll always find a way, Star, no matter where you want to guide us.”
His nickname for me, reminding me of the time he called me his signal star, sends a quiver of reassuring warmth through my veins.
I glance toward the curtained window. “Speaking of where we want to go… what adventure is Raul taking us off on? I don’t expect that Marc will disturb the sleep he thinks I need, but I do have to be back before morning.”
Lorenzo strokes his other hand up and down my arm. “Raul was a little secretive about it, but he said he’d ‘promised’ you. I don’t suppose you know what that means?”
I shake my head, thinking back through the various conversations I had with Raul about his country. “We couldn’t get into anything all that personal while he was imparting his knowledge to prepare me.”
Bastien lets out a short laugh. “I suppose it’ll be a surprise to all of us, then.”
I tuck myself closer against Lorenzo, absorbing his warmth. Wishing I could sink right into him, away from the horrors of the past few days.
As his repeated caress stirs a growing flicker of heat in my veins, it occurs to me that I might not be able to enjoy his closeness for much longer. Wherever Raul is taking us, the prince of Rione will probably need to bring his illusionary gift to bear again to conceal us, needing to focus all his attention on that.
But no one can see us in the carriage right now.
I touch his cheek to tilt his face toward me and tug his mouth to mine. Lorenzo makes a rough sound in his throat and kisses me back, urgently but still with all his usual tenderness. “It’s been too long, Rell. It’s so hard staying so far away from you.”
A matching urgency kindles inside me. I kiss him again, our mouths melding together with the heat flaring between our bodies.
Lorenzo’s hand teases down my neck and over the bodice of my dress. As our lips momentarily part, I dart a glance toward our other companion in the carriage.
Bastien is watching from the opposite bench with a pleased smile and a smolder in his eyes. His voice takes on the commanding tone he brings to our intimate encounters to such thrilling effect. “Show our empress just how well you can make the most of this short time together, Lore. Don’t leave her wanting. Those perfect breasts are waiting to be caressed.”
An eager shiver passes under my skin. Lorenzo grins and captures my mouth while easing his lithe fingers beneath my gown’s neckline.
The first stroke of his hand over the peak of my breast has me gasping against his lips. He massages the sensitive flesh more firmly, conjuring quivers of pleasure as magical as his music, and nibbles a searing line down the side of my neck.
The nick of his teeth sends a jolt of bliss straight to my sex. I squirm on the seat, my legs pressing together against the building throb of need.
“She’s going to need more than that,” Bastien says in a huskier tone. “You’d better get her out of those drawers.”
We don’t know how much time we have before we reach our unknown destination. As Lorenzo reaches beneath my skirt to slide off my silky undergarment, my breath quickens.
I shift to help him displace the drawers, and he guides them to my feet. Then he rests his hand gently on my ankle. “Where did he touch you, Rell? Let me wipe away every trace of him.”
Bastien’s eyes gleam. “Yes, burn away those memories with something better.”
I wet my lips in giddy anticipation. “Just my legs, all the way up, and… between.”
Lorenzo hums and rubs his palm in a slow circle against my calf. Kneeling down on the floor of the carriage between the benches, he applies both of his hands to the massage.
As he works his way up my knees and thigh, he strokes every inch of my skin. His soft lips pepper me with kisses where his hands have already traveled.
By the time he’s finished with just the one leg, arousal has pooled between my thighs. I’m aching to drag him to me, in to me. But when he reaches for my other ankle, I tip my head back against the wall of the carriage and give myself over even more to the flames of desire he’s stoking.
This is who should have been touching me, taking care of me, all along. Someday it will always be my princes. I’m going to make sure of it, no matter what I have to do.
Because I deserve that one happiness, don’t I?
When Lorenzo has continued his provocative massage up my other thigh, he trails his fingertips over my sex. I have to suppress a needy moan, a thin whine escaping me all the same.
“I want you inside me,” I say. “Like he’s never been and never will be. Take me all the way.”
A matching desire lights Lorenzo’s face. He pushes up to meet my lips with an even fiercer kiss. Sitting on the bench again, he yanks at the fastenings on his trousers and urges me onto him.
As I move to straddle him, my injured shoulder bumps against the wall of the carriage. A gasp that’s more pain than pleasure hitches from my throat.
Lorenzo freezes, but Bastien has already crossed the small space of the carriage. He sinks onto the cushion I just left.
“Turn her so I can support her too, Lore. We’ll keep her sheltered between us.”
Touching me carefully, Lorenzo shifts us around so he’s facing Bastien. At the press of Bastien’s encouraging hands, I lean back against the prince of Cotea’s lean chest.
Bastien plants one hand against my shoulder to hold it still. The other comes to rest on my waist, tugging my skirt higher. His mouth brands the crook of my neck before he speaks again. “Give her what she’s craving, Lore. Fill her to the brim.”
I grasp Lorenzo’s shirt with a sound that’s almost desperate, and he wastes no time obliging. With one last kiss, he lines up the head of his cock and plunges into me.
I can’t quite muffle another moan. Lorenzo echoes it with a groan of his own, rocking back and then into me again.
Bastien keeps my injured shoulder in place against my side and trails his other hand up over my chest. As Lorenzo and I buck together, he pinches my nipple through my bodice.
I arch into Lorenzo, welcoming him even deeper. His head bows over me, his mouth seeking out my other breast.
He grasps my ass and pushes even deeper into me. I revel in the joint embrace, locked between the two men and enveloped in a flood of pleasure and heat.
“Come for us,” Bastien commands by my ear. “Come for us like there’s never been anyone else, Star.”
His scorching tone tips me over the edge. I buck with Lorenzo once more and quake apart at the next slam of his cock.
Lorenzo’s breath fractures. As I clamp around him with the force of my release, he drives into me with a few more erratic thrusts and spills himself inside me.
Bastien presses another kiss to my neck. “And that’s what our woman deserves every time.”
I sag into him, still clutching Lorenzo’s shirt to keep him close too. We drift in that shared bubble of warmth for just a few more minutes before the carriage jerks to a halt.