THIRTY-SEVEN
T hree weeks wasn’t a long time for faeries. Yet waiting for Mildred to make her next move was a true taste of immortality.
A dull, aching, and maddening eternity.
I’d believed she’d left me in that throne room to return to the festivities, and that we would play-fight some more when she grew tired of suffering through the fanfare. Preferably with our bodies.
Only for Pholly to inform me that she’d vanished Mildred to Nephryn to visit her sister.
A visit shouldn’t have taken three horrendous weeks. And someone who was merely visiting should have no issue with correspondence. Ceaselessly, I’d waited for thoughts of me so that I could share some of my own.
But I’d reached Mildred’s mind only twice.
I might have been monstrously arrogant, but I wasn’t wrong to believe that she would never stop thinking about me.
A concoction of thistle and hopeleaf, our healer had told me. It kept unwanted guests from prying into people’s minds—popular many years ago among those with a mating bond they didn’t want.
Ours was not a bond unwanted. So I’d then sent my troublesome Mildred a letter. Short, no-nonsense. You have two choices — stop drinking that rotting tea or come back.
No letter had been sent in return. No indication of her thoughts reopening to me.
And still no Mildred in my damned castle.
Pholly had vehemently warned against vanishing to the human lands to snatch her back. She’d said Mildred needed time, and I’d demanded to know what she knew and when they had spoken.
She’d claimed they hadn’t, then rolled her eyes and said I was as obtuse as I was ruthless and to use my brain.
I’d told her to scrunch the parchment she’d been drawing on and shove it in her drivel-spouting mouth. But after more days of nothing, I’d reluctantly taken to pondering why Mildred wouldn’t wish to be here.
Wouldn’t wish to be with me.
And I’d determined it had nothing to do with the Unseelie king who’d taken two weeks to lick his wounds before signing the treaty I’d been preparing for the past year.
So here I was—staring at three guards. Two of whom looked ready to offer me their weapons rather than use them.
I poked the tip of the sword closest to me, and pushed it down. “Take me to your queen.”
After gaping at me for wasteful seconds, they led me through the foyer and into halls that were far too bright. I refrained from hissing. It was fucking daylight, and every sconce had been lit.
Humans , I reminded myself.
Their senses must be abysmal indeed.
We reached a sitting room, and I was momentarily distracted by the terrace beyond the windows lining the hall. The same gardens where I’d taken my first look at the princess who would one day become my queen.
A guard entered first, announcing my arrival to the stunned human woman.
Her husband, Royce, was absent. A white musical table I vaguely recalled being referred to as a piano gleamed in the corner of the apricot and cream room. I pondered whether it was the one I’d seen in their ballroom the evening Mildred poisoned me.
“You have no wards,” I said by way of greeting and flicked my fingers at the guards. They frowned but moved back toward the doors. “Anyone could just stroll on in here.”
Bernadette set a squawking babe upon the settee behind her. “We don’t often have faerie visitors this far east, King Atakan.”
“There are faeries living in this realm.” Though skies knew why.
“None with the ability to vanish into someone’s home,” she said pointedly.
I smiled with all of my teeth.
It fell when she picked up the babe and walked over to me. “What may we assist you with?”
“You know exactly why I’m here.”
“Indeed.” She struggled with the bodice of her gown while holding the babe. She didn’t ask—she thrust the creature at me and demanded, “Hold her for a moment.”
“Me?” I blinked.
“Unless you want my breasts to fall out of this hideous maternity gown due to your impeccable—”
I took the squirming creature before she could finish that sentence. Mostly because I didn’t think Mildred would appreciate her mate seeing another female’s breasts.
And a tiny bit because the hormones this queen exuded were a touch frightening.
Milk dribbled over the babe’s chin as I held it suspended in the air before me. Ruffles decorated its sinisterly small form. A miniature nightgown of sorts, I concluded.
It made an odd sound and squeezed its eyes closed.
Royce arrived and halted in the doorway, breathing heavily as if he’d run through the halls to save his spawn and wife from my evil clutches.
“There.” The human queen sighed and turned back to me. “Oh, my poor dear.” She had a tinkering laugh. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t as nice as her sister’s. “Hold her properly. She won’t bite.”
Her husband, reeking of fear, walked three steps into the room as he made an embarrassing attempt at a joke. “If she does, it won’t hurt. She has no teeth.”
His wife was kind enough to laugh.
I held the creature close, and dared to push the overabundant nest of lacy white material from its small mouth so that it could breathe. The creature cooed, a tiny hand punching toward my fingers.
As soon as they touched, I took them away, but I quickly gave them back when its lower lip bulged. “What is its name?”
“ Her name,” Bernadette said firmly. “We wanted to call her Mildred, but Mildred said she needed her own name, so we agreed on Millicent.”
“Interesting,” I lied, then lowered my head to take a better whiff of that smell. “Why does it smell so delicious?”
“Please don’t eat her.”
My eyes rose, thinning upon the male this land called their king. “Hilarious.”
The babe stiffened, and I peered down at its reddening face. It twisted in my arms as if trying to break free. Before I could determine what it was trying to accomplish, a far less pleasant scent filled my nostrils.
The creature relaxed and gurgled, evidently relieved.
I held it away from me. “I do believe it just soiled itself.”
The human king hurried over, taking the smelly babe from my outstretched hands without touching them.
I brushed them on my pants, then informed Bernadette, “I’m going to collect my wife.”
“Uh, wait.” She scrambled for words. “You cannot just take her, Atakan.”
I huffed. “Believe me, I know.” I walked on, wanting to escape the reek in the room. “We’ll need to duel a little first.”
She whispered, “Duel?” to her husband.
He mumbled, “How should I know what faeries do?”
Due to stepping out onto the terrace to breathe some untainted air, it took only a minute to find her.
Her scent reached me immediately, carried by the breeze and accompanied by the nudge that always warned when she was near. Since we’d accepted the bond, it was now more of a tremble.
One Mildred felt, too. She looked over from where she sat across the grounds against a tree.
The same tree we’d stood under when we’d first met.
I’d loathed her then.
Almost as much as I loved her now.
The felynx dozing upon the grass beside Mildred leaped to her feet when she heard my approach. Her lips peeled back, and she snarled.
“Adorable,” I said dryly and walked right past the little beast.
Mildred petted her behind the ear.
The felynx huffed and sat, but her swishing tail and flattened ears conveyed her immense irritation as I stood beside Mildred.
I had hoped to be rid of the unfortunate consequence of Mildred’s time in The Bonelands. Knowing she would never forgive me, I’d kept my claws and teeth to myself.
“If it isn’t my monstrous husband,” Mildred drawled, yet her eyes shimmered as she gazed up at me.
“If it isn’t my misbehaving wife.” I scowled at the book on the grass and lifted a brow at her. “Who’s ignoring me for a book.”
“I do believe I’m staring at you.”
“I do believe you can do better after leaving me to rot for three weeks.” I held out my hand.
She eyed it as if it were a trap but placed her hand in mine after a teasing moment. Just one touch made the restless beast within me settle, and I pulled her to her feet.
Our eyes clashed. A tremulous breath parted her lips, and her eyes dampened even as she poked, “Better?”
Relief softened my scathing tone. “Not nearly, dread.”
Her gaze fell to my clenched jaw, then my throat when I struggled to swallow. Struggled to form words although I’d had so much I’d intended to say.
All of it became dust on the breeze with her hand in mine, her eyes eating their fill of my features, and her thudding heartbeat and addictive mouth so close.
Fuck, I wanted to kiss her. Needed to push her up against the tree and lift her skirts to see if she’d yearned for me, thought of me, dreamed of me as much as I had her.
Mildred sniffed, then smiled so brightly, I wondered if this might be easier than I’d thought. That is, until she said, “You met Millicent.”
“I did.”
“You held her,” she said, almost accusatory as her eyes rounded. “I can smell it.”
“I might have been forced to due to a situation I failed to foresee.”
She frowned, then understood and laughed.
The felynx let out a whined grumble and trotted toward the woods beyond the gardens.
But I wasn’t sure I breathed as the soft yet bird-like melody of that laughter seeped beneath my flesh and rib cage.
Mildred’s smile waned as she squeezed my hand. “I’m assuming you didn’t come here just to be accosted by a helpless babe.”
“Certainly fucking not.”
Another laugh. She stepped closer, tilting her head back as she saw right through me and goaded, “Then why?”
“I’m here to take you home.” I grinned, then lied. “As it occurred to me that you have no means of vanishing, so therefore, you’re stuck here.”
“Stuck,” she repeated.
I nodded once. “Of course, I did wonder if you were already on your way via carriage, but I thought it wise to check with your sister first.”
Her eyes danced. “And if I had been on my way?”
“I would have found you based on when you’d left and perhaps even saved you from suffering the rest of the journey.”
“Perhaps?” she asked.
“I suppose we’ll never know.”
“That would have been uncharacteristically gallant of you.”
I no longer had any idea what we were talking about, let alone what I needed to say. “That’s why I said perhaps.”
“I see.” She withheld another laugh but smiled.
And I wanted to lick all of those pretty teeth.
It was time to hurry this along, so I blurted the obvious, “I need you to come back, Mildred.”
Her smile remained, though it ceased illuminating her eyes as she waited.
“I might not care for much of anything outside of my desires, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely heartless.” Her hand settled on my hip, and my clinical tone roughened. “That doesn’t mean I cannot love you.” I clasped her chin, my head lowering. “That doesn’t mean I don’t need you to be as obsessively in love with me as I am with you.”
Birdsong joined our racing heartbeats in the quiet that followed.
Mildred blinked over the sheen coating her eyes and looked at the ground. “And what if I can’t do that?”
“Then I wouldn’t be standing here.” I tilted her chin until she looked at me again. “Asking you to trust that you can.”
My audacious creature curled her petal-perfect lips. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“What I’m doing is collecting you, but I thought it necessary to make a sickly fool of myself first.”
For torturous seconds, those big green eyes just searched mine. “Well…” Her smirk turned into a smile. “You’ve certainly taken your time.”
Taken aback, I cocked my head. “You were waiting?”
This devious wife of mine didn’t need to answer. She skimmed her teeth over that plush lower lip, and my hard cock twitched against the confines of my pants.
I scowled and almost growled, “Then why didn’t you return my letter and tell me?” An incredulous laugh left me. “Or at least stop drinking that tea to let me access your thoughts?”
“Where’s the fun in that, my king?”
Her taunting couldn’t distract me. She might have been telling the truth—that she had indeed been playing with me from afar—but she’d omitted the reason.
Mildred was afraid. Not of me, I knew. She simply didn’t know what to do now that she no longer needed to survive. Now that she needed to live.
Now that she was free to love instead of loathe.
My ire was replaced by an overwhelming heat that expanded the organ in my chest.
Knowing exactly what she needed now, I glowered at her until she shifted closer, uncertainty furrowing her golden brows.
Then I slid my fingers into her hair, my other hand over her back, and I hauled her to me. I kissed her, once and bruising, and bit her lip. “Here I was…” Against her mouth, I whispered, “Thinking the games had ended.”
Her soft hand cupped my cheek. The breeze stirred her long hair over her shoulder, allowing a better view of the confidence coloring her cheeks. “I hope they never do.”
“Never?” I challenged.
Her arms coiled around my neck, and when she rose onto her toes and breathed, “Never,” I caught her lovely ass and lifted her.
“A dangerously long time,” I warned.
She wrapped her legs around me. “It had better be.”
Holding her against the same tree we’d stood under when I’d loathed her, I placed my forehead on hers and promised, “Then far be it from me to disappoint the queen who loves me.”
She laughed.
Relieved I’d broken through that fear, I whispered daringly, “Tell me, dread.”
“Tell you what, monster?”
I snarled, then bit the tip of her nose, which earned me another luminescent laugh.
But she sobered when she found me waiting, impatient and likely looking as desperate as I felt. I failed to care. She was the only thing I truly cared about.
And as her smile faded while she touched my cheeks with the pads of her fingers, I knew I would do anything to ensure she always looked at me like that. With a wonder that let me believe I was the only thing she wanted to adore for the rest of her days.
“If I do, what do I get in return?” she asked, yet the fear hidden from her playful tone crept into her eyes.
It wouldn’t deter me. “Tell me, and you’ll find out.”
“Fine.” Taking my cheeks, she pressed her nose to mine and said in a rush, “I love you, Atakan.”
My chuckle made her face redden, but I kissed her before she could retreat and crooned, “Very good. Now, are you ready for your reward?”
She nodded, waiting.
“Here it comes…” I cleared my throat far more dramatically than necessary and declared, “I love you, too.”
Her eyes narrowed as I grinned in victory.
But her feigned displeasure couldn’t fool me. Nor could it win against the joy spreading from her pounding heart to her eyes and curling mouth.
Still, I taunted, “Disappointed?”
“I’ve yet to decide.” She repeated words I’d once said to her. “Perhaps you should take me home so I can properly ascertain how I feel.”
The beast within me roared as I stared into those green eyes.
Then I kissed her, and I didn’t stop until she was stripping free of her gown back in our tower, her felynx sadly left behind.