23
Jeryn
All I could concentrate on was her throaty sigh, which led to images of her railing my cock last night. Present sanity fled my mind, as it had less than twelve hours ago.
This woman on my lap, the hot temperature of her skin obliterating my restraint like a wrecking ball. The taste of her nipples. Her legs splayed open on my lap, her ass gyrating in my face, the trench of her pussy ramming into my cock as we rutted like animals in heat. Both of us leaking crimson from our wounds. Convulsions assaulting her body and how I’d almost fucking passed out when she climaxed onto my pants.
The despicable triumph of making her come. The aggravation because I hadn’t been able to watch her while it happened.
Finally, the indefensible self-disgust. Un-fucking-forgivable.
Discovering a palatial structure at the center of a rainforest failed to overpower the memory. With supreme effort, I refocused. The fortification rose into the canopy, its uppermost level shrouded from view. Based on the deteriorating bridge and plants choking the edifice, whoever once lived here had since passed.
This abandoned structure had to be centuries old. Colonnades and verandas were commonplace in Summer’s architecture, but the statues depicting a hierarchy of rainforest fauna dated this relic to an ancient era. Back then, perhaps this rainforest hadn’t been a legend so much as a pitstop among the kingdom’s islands, if not another official stronghold of this court.
The beast and I swapped ambitious glances. Shelter. Tools. Weapons. Many objects would have decayed or corroded by now, while others might have withstood the test of time. The ancients knew how to construct items that lasted, which justified why this building remained upright, dilapidated though it might be.
The beast stepped around me and pointed to the trees. The rope conveyor snaked through the branches, extended over the lake, and disappeared into one of the colonnades.
“They used rigging to transport resources across the forest,” I murmured. “Ingenious.”
“Marvelous,” she said with a grin. “Except the ropes are too brittle to work. They won’t hold much now.”
“We will fix that.”
Her head veered toward me. Those gold eyes blazed with hesitancy.
I twitched, registering my reply. I had said we .
Venturing a dozen feet across the platform, we reached the first obstruction. Pausing at the threshold, I braced my hands on my hips and contemplated the eight-foot-wide chasm between us and the rest of the suspension.
The beast and I measured the distance, then craned our heads over the ledge. The lake glistened as clear as glass. My brow furrowed with distrust. The waters of this realm could not be vouched for.
And that was even before my eyes landed on the skeleton. Stretching along the sandy floor, the curved vertebrae of a sea dragon lay amid stalks of swaying kelp. The lattice of gills, broad skull, flared wing bones, and row of teeth revealed enough. Swimming to reach the ruins was out of the question.
Naturally, the beast had already stepped toward the banister. With a hiss, I wheeled in front of her. “No.”
Her face scrunched, as if ordering her around had ever worked in my favor. “Oh, come on,” she argued. “I thought you were a scientist. Sea dragons are extinct, so that beauty and the rest of its kin have been dead for a while.”
“Which is sufficient enough time for them to have evolved into something else.”
“Are you always this determined to expect the worst from every situation?”
“I’m determined to be logical,” I ground out. “There’s a distinction between vigilance and neurosis. I’m not fearful of anything.”
She tilted her head, those eyes shining like brass. “I didn’t say you were. But if that’s true, I pity you.”
Pity me? Why the fuck would she pity me?
I tore myself from her gaze. “If we find a fallen log and use one of the tidefarer sails to haul it across the platform, that might do. Or we can fill the gap with rocks, though that shall take more than a week’s labor. Another possibility is to —”
A feminine silhouette flew past me and soared into the air. I whipped toward the female as she catapulted over the void, flying as though launched from a slingshot.
“Beast!” I roared, staggering at the gap’s edge.
She yelped while crashing to the opposite side and landing in a bed of moss. Momentary pain cramped her features. Peeling herself upright, she panted from across the divide and tossed me a cocky smile.
I did not require a fucking mirror. I knew how low my mouth had dropped.
The audacious creature relished my astonishment, then stood and smacked clumps of dirt from her chemise. Swinging an arm toward me in invitation, she called, “See? Easy.”
Recovering from the stunt, I glared at my boots. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself, then charged into a run.
The bridge vanished beneath me. Mid-flight, thoughts of broken femurs, fractured kneecaps, and torn tendons passed through my mind. But while she had less weight on her, I possessed longer limbs, which shuddered as my boots smacked the ground. I stumbled forward before halting, then whirled on the female who skipped past me while patting my shoulder.
“Next time, we swim,” she said.
The fuck we would. Releasing a pent-up gust of air, I gained her side as we strode past the fauna statues and climbed the steps leading to a stone door etched with a circle of droplet symbols.
The beast traced the emblems in reverence. “Rainfall.”
I waited until she finished admiring the artwork. The heavy facade cracked on its hinges as I flattened my palm on the surface and pushed open the door. Instead of dust clouds, a thick wall of mist spilled from the vestibule. Cobwebs stretched like elastic from the rafters, glowing flowers sprouted from the chinks, and a birdbath—the only artifact present—stood in the room’s center.
The foundation could be unstable. Our entry could disturb fragments of masonry. Objects could topple over. Predators could have built nests here.
I stepped in front of the beast, shielding her from potential threats, then reached backward for her hand. After a stunned moment, her fingers slid into mine, and my skin burned at the contact. I had reached for her without thinking, but I would not analyze the gesture. Nor why she decided to accept my offer rather than sprint through the corridors extending from every direction.
Picking around bits of rubble, I tested the floor until deeming it safe for us to walk freely. Even so, I kept a firm grip on her.
From one of a half-dozen levels overlooking the vestibule, a raptor vaulted into the air, its flapping wings reverberating. The woman startled. With an amazed chuckle, she aligned herself beside me. “We’re in a treasure chest.”
“We are,” I agreed. “Built by whom?”
What had happened to them? Why would Summer’s legend omit their existence?
Deeper into the vestibule, the echo of dripping water halted us. The female’s hand squeezed mine, and she aimed a free digit toward a passage with a downward slope. We paced in that direction. Regardless of what awaited us in these ruins, water took priority.
The tunnel burrowed underground, growing lighter rather than darker, its walls reflecting the iridescence of labradorite and germinating with foliage. The cavity dug in, arching high and wide, light brimming from an unknown source. Eventually, the channel opened to a cavern and a pool of vibrant liquid.
My companion gasped, her hand unwinding from mine. “It’s a grotto.”
I had read of such places. The water glinted a prismatic green, perhaps from deposits or sediments beneath the surface. Ripples trembled like veins, their reflections illuminating the scabrous enclosure.
I knelt at the rim. Sanitary. Deadly. Either possibility required a thorough check.
Yet adrenaline crept up on me without warning, sinking its talons into my nervous system. A flash of teeth and gills passed through my head, then vanished. I shook myself from the vision and flared my nostrils, making sure to exhale deeply.
If I yielded to these feelings, they would only increase. And she would see it happen.
Deprived of my vial, I lacked options. I continued to breathe, rationality cycling in my head. No need to panic. This was not the ocean, the whirlpool, or anywhere close to the beach.
At last, the sensations abated. Though, this might have been attributed to the figure in my periphery.
Having learned nothing from her near-death experiences, she pranced around the grotto and dove, plunging in headfirst before I could seize her. Shaking my head, I watched the little beast forget I existed. Her figure flew back up, dark hair spraying the vicinity with twinkling particles of water. She spritzed fluid, and her mouth parted with a laugh. For several minutes, I inspected the area while she tumbled with the agility of a mermaid, her body rippling under the surface.
A fleet of small, coiled creatures appeared from the notches and launched toward her. Cursing, I snatched the beast’s arm, about to yank her out of the water.
With an excited huff, the female batted away my knuckles. “Calm down,” she lectured like I was an imbecile.
My brows smacked together. “What are they?”
“Seahorses.”
I hesitated before squatting and examining their tails, muzzles, and S-shaped bodies. Certainly, I knew about sharks and many ocean creatures including jester fish. Yet marine biology hadn’t been my primary emphasis of study. Therefore, I hadn’t come across these creatures in books.
The fool splashed, which entertained the horses. Encouraged, she arched into the water and proceeded to play with the fauna. Paddling through the grotto, she dodged their movements as they chased after her.
The muscles of my face tightened. How I loathed her carelessness. And how I envied it—that blithe and uninhibited felicity.
Done with carousing, the female scooped liquid into the crater of her palms. Resilient hands. Resourceful fingers. The view sidetracked me to the point where I neglected to intervene, to insist that I test the water before she drank from it, which couldn’t be hygienic anyway with those seahorses taking up residence.
As she swallowed, my joints tensed. Agitated, I waited to see if the fluid had a contaminating effect. Yet her eyelids shut in contentment.
Following her lead, I sniffed the surface, then took a sip. Clean. Pure. As usual, not what I’d expected.
By the time I resurfaced from that thought, the beast had finished disrobing. Wadding to a shallow end, she wiggled her hips and peeled the chemise over her head, then dropped it with a loud splat. Standing only knee-deep now, her flesh glistened, beads riding across her collarbones. Pert breasts and dusky nipples that I’d briefly tasted. Rounded hips and a patch of dark hair shrouding her vagina.
Prominent ribs. Flat stomach.
Belatedly, the latter details snared my attention as they’d failed to do last night. Despite the mollusks and fish, she was hungry, a fact that did something unnerving to my system. I didn’t care to see her go without food, as I hadn’t cared for it in Autumn. Although Poet and Briar had been supplying the dungeon with ample fare, I’d ordered extra for the beast. No one had known this. I had threatened to sever the guards’ tongues if they spoke of it. And conveniently, the beast must have assumed the provisions had come from the jester and princess.
My retinas boiled as she doused water over her hips, arms, and legs. Unconcerned. Immodest. Amid the half-light, the beast bathed herself in front of me, stroking each curve and drenching every indentation of flesh.
I knew of Summer’s customs. Their endorsement of nudity. Their public baths. Winter offered as many luxurious sanitariums as Rhys and Giselle’s court, however our conduct was far less exhibitionist. Though, this minor infraction paled in comparison to the anarchy we’d raised while hate-fucking each other.
The fool glanced up, sensing my attention. She scowled and lifted her chin, daring me to watch. To stare not like a scientist, but as one person to another. That searing gaze challenged me to see her that way.
If she only knew. My expression remained neutral while all hell broke loose inside me. But so long as I didn’t focus on her strong fingers, I would not have a problem. By Seasons, those hands were distracting. I would not see this mad woman the way she provoked, no matter how well her body had fit to mine last night.
I was hardly reputed to be squeamish, yet inevitably I turned away, giving her privacy and consuming my own fill of the pool. As splashes resounded from her end of the cavern, I did not think about her dripping skin. I did not picture a lone bead dangling like a ripe fruit from one of her nipples. I did not envision the slickness between her thighs. While listening to the sounds of her bathing, I coped by devouring the pool’s contents like a glutton, soothing my parched tongue.
Stripping off my shirt, I washed my face and torso. Not seconds later, the noises from the woman’s side of the pool ceased.
My head swung her way. At once, her guilty pupils jumped from the span of my chest to my eyes. We locked gazes, the impact fizzing like a chemical reaction. Directness. Frankness. Despite the temperature of her stare and the havoc it wreaked to my dick, I appreciated the candor between us. It provided a refreshing break from the vapid females and males who burdened me with tedious sexual innuendos and pitiful contests of intellect.
We dunked our clothes and scrubbed them against the rocks to leach out the grime, including my calf bandage. The woman wrestled with a stubborn stain on her chemise. Frustrated, she puffed out her lower lip. From any other maiden, the scene would have been rather cute.
Well. What female liked to be called cute, a classification associated with pups. A word I had never uttered or assigned to anyone. Notwithstanding, the description ill-suited her. She was many things. Hotheaded. Dauntless. Fanciful. But not cute. Those golden irises and calamitous hands were hardly fucking cute.
After we laid our garments out to dry, I debated about my pants. Timidity wasn’t the issue. Unlike the lighter garments, it would take longer for the article to dry.
Noticing my uncertainty, the beast smirked and crossed her arms. Another dare. The nerve of her. Then again, if this woman needed a reminder that she didn’t affect me, that she didn’t count, I would oblige. Now that I’d grown confident about the water, let us see who won this round.
Tossing her an impassive look, I responded in kind. A test for a test. I stood, removed my boots, unbuckled my belt, and set my hands on the waistband.
Her lips parted. Pink burst across her cheeks.
The pants fell. Instantly she whirled, pretending to scratch her arm as my phallus sprang into view. At which point, my lips quirked. Much better.
I descended, stifling a groan as the warm fluid soothed my aching joints. The beast dunked herself moments later, and a rhythmic lapping sound accompanied my breaststrokes, both noises echoing off the walls. With every sweep of water against my flesh, I sensed her furtive glances.
Unfortunately, that caused my triumph to backfire. However involuntary, the brunt of her gaze incited a hot flood to my balls. Knowing this water licked the same places across our bodies—my cock, her cunt—injected me with adrenaline.
Shit. I needed to get a hold of myself.
The tips of my hair floated on the surface like slate blue paint. My movements scattered lambent strands of light along the crusted walls. One particular streak quivered across my companion’s wrists. I would have paid closer attention to that, but the seahorses vexed me, the bothersome clique following my trajectory.
The mirthful female perched on an underwater ledge and watched the scene. She compressed her mouth to keep from laughing. “Seems you’ve got a fan club. They like you.”
“Then you entertain them,” I remarked. “You’re used to feral things, are you not?”
Water sprayed in my direction and smacked my profile. I jolted, wiped the droplets from my eyes, and peered at the beast as she lowered her kicking foot back into the pool.
“Oops,” she chirped. “Apologies, Your Highness. How clumsy of me.”
The assault achieved two things. One, unadulterated retaliation. Two, it encouraged the horses to flit around me with increasing enthusiasm, having mistaken the splash for an invitation to revel.
Refusing to engage, I slit my eyes at the creatures. “Be still.”
The tone of my voice accomplished the rest. The seahorses gave up and vacated the premises. Once they’d fled, silence filled the cavern, apart from water lashing against the rocks.
The beast feigned interest in the ceiling. Obscured from the waist down, I reclined against several tiers of rock and bracketed my elbows on its grooves. “Such bravado. Yet now you avoid the sight of my body. That’s out of character and Season for you.”
That did it. Her gaze swatted toward me. “I’m surprised you care.”
“I question everything a fool does. A second ago, you displayed the immodesty of a whore.”
She raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Tell me all about whores, if you know so much.”
Frankly, she would get a more illuminating answer from Poet. I had no experience with courtesans. Nevertheless, a sudden thought lanced through my mind. The possibility set my teeth on edge, particularly when I recalled how the tower guards had handled the beast, then leered at her thighs in the courtyard.
Rage spiked my tongue. “Did any of them touch you in that tower?”
Her eyebrows crinkled. “Do I look like someone who’d have let them?”
No, she did not. My claws retracted. “Based on your countermove with my knife in the castle quad, as well as the mayhem from last night, you don’t fit the description of an inexperienced female. Though dry-humping a cock and seeing it in the flesh are two different circumstances. Is that why you turned away?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t want to lose my appetite. And by the way, I know what a cock looks like. Living in a cage doesn’t mean I was sheltered.”
Not sheltered. What the fuck did that mean?
I couldn’t say what got under my skin more. Her insolence or the implication that her knowledge of sex exceeded mine.
A warning snaked from my lips. “Be careful how you respond to me. I’m keeping track of everything you say and do. Plus, every way in which I’ll seek retribution once we get to Winter.”
“By the time that happens, it’s going to be a very long list.”
“Precisely,” I said, my voice husky from the bath.
The beast swung her legs in the water. “I don’t know much about Winter, but I do recall there being two queens who outrank you. Who says you’d be the one calling the shots?”
“My grandaunts have other pressing matters. They rarely deal with the born. That jurisdiction falls to me.”
Her scowl could have lit a furnace. “So they condone torture. The icicle doesn’t fall far from the glacier.”
“Do not speak ill of them,” I gritted.
That gave her pause. Her eyelashes flapped as if she’d spotted a chink. Slanting her head, the beast stared for a solid thirty seconds until I shifted.
“What?” I demanded.
“They matter to you,” she mused. “Everyone says the Prince of Winter has a frozen heart, yet you sound protective.”
My jaw went rigid. I glanced sideways, hating to appear transparent. Nonetheless, I looped my eyes back to hers. “I am not ashamed to value my kin more than my station.”
Curiosity alighted her features. Her mouth softened. “Are you supposed to be ashamed?”
I wavered. Some inconceivable force had compelled me to speak. Although I would defend my grandaunts to the death, I also didn’t like this beast thinking poorly of them.
A vignette of memories flashed through my mind. “Silvia and Doria ascended the throne as a love match when I was a child, then appointed me after my parents could no longer uphold their titles.” I glimpsed the beast listening intently. “My mother and father are sick.”
This was no great secret. Rather, the true illness my family kept from this world had nothing to do with them.
A discomforting pang jolted through my sternum. I cleared my throat, ridding myself of the sensation. “Because of my parents’ incapacity, the queens raised me. They’re good women.” My eyes leveled on the beast. “Do not judge what you don’t know.”
Sarcasm twisted her features. “Funny you should say that.”
Indeed. I should have seen that coming. Although I would argue it wasn’t the same thing, she wore her passions and idealisms so openly, half the time I didn’t know how to respond.
Case in point, why the devil was I telling her this? Why did those metallic eyes have the power to lure such confessions out of me?
A year ago, if someone had predicted I’d be bathing with one of the mad and sharing the intimacies of my family with her, I would have laughed in the offender’s face. Then I would have amputated their tongue for the insult.
All the same, a declaration crept past my mouth. “I would do anything for them, tradition and rules be damned.”
“Then your heart thaws, after all,” she said. “I had a family once too. I know the sound of devotion.”
“Do you know the sound of a threat?” I bit out. “Don’t assume you can use this against me later.”
Disillusion contorted her features. “Unlike every self-serving courtier and politician on this continent, I’m not an opportunist. And unlike my king, I’m not vindictive. You mistake me for someone who sees your feelings as a weakness and a bargaining chip.”
“You mistake The Dark Seasons for a place that agrees with you. In my world, family must be secondary.”
“If that’s true, you’re rebelling.”
“And blood relations aside, a Royal’s duty is to put their subjects above all else.”
“If that’s true, you’re failing.”
The accusation pricked me like a needle. “On the contrary,” I leaned forward, unhinging my arms from the bracket. “Thanks to the sacrifice of fools, I’m succeeding.”
A rock lobbed past my head like a cannonball. The projectile grazed my cheekbone, slammed into the cavern wall, and shattered.
I glanced over my shoulder, then whipped back around. She could have split my fucking skull.
Insolent beast. For smaller crimes, I’d tortured fugitives twelve times her size.
Slowly, I rose. Again, she avoided the sight of my cock and feigned interest in the glinting water.
After exiting the pool and stepping into the pants, I slid my belt into place and dropped the shirt over my head. “I’m not an opportunist,” I mimicked. “I’m not vindictive.”
She bristled and spoke to the grotto. “You’re heartless.”
“Nonsense. If I was heartless, I would leave you here.”
And then I left her there.