41
Flare
But no, that couldn’t be it. Although this discovery felt promising, there was a problem.
My shoulders collapsed. Racing to get my quill and paper from where I’d left them by the door, I penned two words. We can’t.
When everyone balked at me, I shook my head and kept writing. We can’t let the continent know about the ruins.
“Why not?” Aspen galled.
But after a second of contemplation, Poet’s gaze flickered. He knew what I would say. “Fucking Rhys,” he hissed.
Jeryn had caught on as well, his features sharpening. “He would demolish these ruins. He would destroy this proof before it had a chance to circulate.”
Briar’s chin set. “Giselle could oppose him. She’s one half of Summer.”
“We cannot take that gamble. The odds are slim that we can protect the ruins.”
The prince might as well have read my mind. The risk couldn’t be taken if we only had one shot, and that shot would be taken in the dark. Giselle might spurn her husband, but that didn’t mean she disagreed with his intolerance.
She would leash the king to avoid war. But she wouldn’t stop him from decimating the ruins, if it meant the continent kept its so-called property. Even if her heart had softened a fraction, the queen would fear the consequences of a liberated society. The breakdown of her nation.
No, we had to preserve this fortress and its history. Which meant our clan had unearthed proof we couldn’t use.
But there had to be another way, a different key. Maybe it was connected. Maybe I was supposed to bring this knowledge back in another form, without telling people about this rainforest’s location, without revealing the map or the ruins.
And if there was, I would find it.
***
For a precious week, we lived in a dreamscape. Jeryn and I introduced our clan to the forest’s magic, including its treasures and dangers and rainfall, the better for everyone to protect themselves. I also presented my fauna pack to them, thrilled when the animals pranced around Aspen’s legs and made her chuckle, the spectacle tipping Aire’s mouth into a fond smile.
We combat-trained throughout the ruins, using every level as a mock battleground. Poet switched between his staff and a set of daggers, his sculpted chest dripping, his body twisting and spinning as if he was made of liquid. Briar challenged him by throwing a series of thorn quills, the couple’s movements syncing. Their eyes magnetized to each other, the fight akin to a mating dance, the princess’s gaze on her husband’s elastic muscles, his eyes fixating on every part of her. I predicted their clothes wouldn’t stay on for very long after practice.
Aire flew through the ruins with his broadswords, his body moving like a gale. He crossed blades with Jeryn, who brandished one of the ancient swords from the armory crypt. Both men stood as shirtless as Poet, the vision stunning as the jester cut into the fray, skewering his staff between the two fighters. Skin and sinew glistened with sweat, the alpha energy palpable.
Aspen had traveled to another level, to throw her axe at targets. She’d left the moment Aire had stripped off his vest and fretted over the girl staying out of harm’s way. To which she had flipped her middle digit and sashayed in the opposite direction, a blush nonetheless tinting her fingers.
I waited for my turn. Gulping water from a canteen, Briar panted beside me and feasted on the jester, while my gaze clung to Jeryn’s marble torso, the contours hard and smooth. His movements were more systematic than the other two, aloof and direct and cutthroat.
That body had been inside me. Those hips had snapped with abandon between my thighs.
I clenched my thighs, then got sick of waiting. I needed to move, to stab something, to throw a punch. Leaping between the men took them off guard. Instead of using Poet’s old dagger—it gratified him to discover I still had it—I switched to my parents’ machete, which I’d polished after retrieving it from the underwater boulder.
Ducking beneath Aire’s broadsword, I twisted and used my weapon to block Poet’s staff. Then I swerved the other way and threw my fist toward Jeryn’s jaw.
Because I’d learned plenty from my brawls against the tower guards, and the prince had witnessed one of those matches, he saw this maneuver coming and blocked the move with his bent forearm. We paused, our gazes colliding. I felt that look down to my core, which had grown wet from watching him wield that knife in nothing but loose pants, his mane affixed into a bun at his nape.
Our companions dissolved into the background. Aire strode off while muttering something indecipherable. Poet and Briar disappeared, likely to have their way with each other.
Jeryn and I careened forward. My weapon crossed with his, our exhalations ramming together. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and mine did the same.
I realized the group had left us alone on purpose. And this was real. This marvel between us was so very real, and there was no going back.
Exhilarated, I called him out. “Stop holding back.”
Jeryn blinked. He hadn’t been going easy on me, because he knew what I could handle. Yet those pupils blackened, because he also knew one other thing as I broke our stance and sidled away. I hadn’t only been talking about the training.
***
We swam in a jeweled pond. Or rather, four of us swam. Jeryn and Aspen elected to watch, one wary of siren sharks and the other picking at the ground.
Outfitted in a skimpy one-piece garment meant for bathing, Briar rendered Poet speechless. The dark green material gleamed like an emerald, and the low V dipping down the front offered scallop-edged hints of her breasts.
I wore nothing, my unshod heels kicking up sand as I dove naked into the waves. At my exposure, Jeryn’s jaw tightened, mayhem storming in his pupils. His mercenary gaze checked Poet and Aire’s reactions. But hailing from Spring, with a sexual history that outdid every citizen on the continent, and having eyes only for the princess, Poet wasn’t fazed in the slightest. In fact, he would have stripped as well, were it not for the youth in our midst.
Aire averted his eyes out of discretion, his discomfort having less to do with Jeryn’s scowl and more to do with Autumn propriety. Instead, the knight monitored Aspen as she roamed the shore gathering cockles. Ever the watchful soldier, her safety remained his priority.
Maybe this penchant had to do with the little brother Aire had lost—a born soul who died at a young age, a tragedy the soldier had confided about during one of our fireside meals. Maybe Aspen reminded Aire of that boy. Or she reminded him of Poet and Briar’s son, Nicu, whom the knight also guarded in Autumn. Either way, he’d taken to looking out for Aspen, regardless of how often she tried to dissuade him.
Unable to rip his gaze away, the jester prowled his wife through the water while she chuckled. At the chase’s end, Briar wrapped herself around his toned body, and he gripped the back of her head, their mouths clutching in a heated kiss.
My eyes stole toward Jeryn, who swerved his gaze from my own. We hadn’t touched since the ocean, much less allowed ourselves to occupy the same space alone, avoiding the subject of where to go from here.
Until him, I had never feared the unknown. Yet the memories of every moan and shudder kept me awake at night, as I stroked the cleft of my body and pictured his face. Each time, I wedged a fist into my mouth. Crying out against my knuckles muffled the commotion, the noises detectable only this man could hear, the short distance between our chambers a punishment and an enticement.
Our clan plotted, envisioning a future continent with all Seasons united. Over firelit talks, the princess would recline her back against the jester’s chest, his arms linking around her middle and his chin resting on her shoulder. Aire would sit opposite them, and Aspen would perch on low branches or window seats. As for me and Jeryn, we took up chairs opposite from one another—whether to keep our distance or soak up unhampered views of each other, I couldn’t say.
***
I ventured to the fountain room at dawn, eager to dip my toes into the stream—only to stall in my tracks.
Briar’s naked spine jutted against the central column while Poet stood between her spread legs. Naked and drenched beneath the shower, the pair rocked into one another, the jester’s bare ass pitching leisurely into the vent of his wife’s thighs. While the fountain poured streams down their entwined limbs, they panted and feasted their gazes on one another.
For an instant, I marveled. Briar’s freckled breasts rubbed into Poet’s rippling chest, and his irises flashed like crushed bits of jade. With a low growl, he seized the back of her head and pumped slowly, sinuously. Their open mouths grazed, and their eyes clung, and private groans echoed through the space.
That’s what it looked like to mate while in love. That’s how it looked when two people knew one another’s bodies, as they knew one another’s souls.
That was passion. That was eternal.
It looked so beautiful. They looked so beautiful.
After a spellbound second, I whirled behind the threshold. In the corridor, I flattened myself against the wall, astonishment stapling my feet to the floor. Liquid moans drizzled into the atmosphere, in cadence to their deep lovemaking.
“Poet,” Briar whimpered. “I love you.”
“I love you more,” Poet hissed. “And I’m going to fuck you that way.”
Guilt pinched my throat for stumbling in on them. Yet a tender smile curved my lips, their passion filling me with light. If only two people could grace this wild with their happiness, I felt glad it was them.
Poet and Briar had earned the freedom to consummate in every corner of this continent. And I hoped they would.
As their moans grew louder, thoughts of Jeryn holding me, kissing me, fucking me, tugged a wistful sigh from my throat. Thankfully, my friends couldn’t hear it.
But the man standing in the shadows did. My gaze staggered across Jeryn idling halfway down the hall, those eyes piercing through me. He must have come up here to quench his thirst, the fountain being our main drinking source.
The prince’s orbs simmered with awareness. He heard them too. The sensuous noises caused him to tense, his fingers seizing the flagon he’d brought with him.
While Poet’s groans and Briar’s cries shook through the ruins, the prince and I watched each other in the half-light. While they celebrated their bond, we remembered the night when lightning rain had fallen, when he’d knelt before me, and when we let loose in a thrashing sea.
We sucked in forbidden gusts of air. The crux of my legs warmed, and his nostrils flared, yearning gripping us by the throats.
But swiftly, Jeryn’s features creased. Then he turned, his tall form dissolving into the passage, the vision blurring as my eyes stung.
The breathtaking sounds continued, resonating from that breathtaking couple. Like a balm, it eased the longing. And so I smiled through unshed tears, then left my favorite couple to their pleasure.
***
We danced in a lush copse where raptors whistled a tune. It was the type of sultry but energetic music that thrived in Summer’s culture, meant for people to lash their hips and spin in complex patterns. Partners gyrated in a fast tempo while pressed against one another. To heart pounding rhythms, citizens would dance to break a sweat.
In this rainforest, the elements replaced instruments. This sacred copse emitted its own percussion and acoustics, like drums pounding while birds of prey added their own song, and vibrating twigs replicated guitar strings.
Poet had been the one to find this place. And despite having no Summer roots, the jester was a paragon of movement. He knew the steps, as he knew the dances of all Seasons, keeping up with me as we joined hands.
We twisted one another into a dizzying pattern, our arms whipping about like fluid. Jubilant, I ducked and spun around Poet while our hips matched the pace.
Aire bowed like a gentleman and offered Aspen his hand. Although I couldn’t see her expression under the hood, I sensed the corner of her lips tilting. Naturally, their dance was innocent, using measured steps one would find in a ballroom. Still, the interaction was endearing.
Briar and Jeryn indulged in a similar formal dance. However, their heads routinely craned toward me and Poet.
The princess basked in the sight of her husband, who donned a sheer vest, his torso rippling under the mesh. Whereas his wife had chosen a gown of bronze and scarlet, which fell to the floor like water and revealed a plunging back. I had overheard Poet growl seductive notes into Briar’s ear when she’d first stepped into view.
As for the prince, he watched me with an intensity that burned my flesh. Trussed up in a short dress woven of ivory and gold, my body glowed like a candle. But it was his sizzling gaze—not the dancing—that had me sweating.
Without warning, things got sneaky. Like matchmakers, Poet and Briar circled past one another and switched partners. With seamless motions, the jester slid my hand into Jeryn’s while the princess did the same to the prince. Forcing us together, the clever pair wrapped their arms around one another and continued dancing through the enclosure, as if this had been choreographed.
The prince and I halted. In the glowing light, our gazes fused.
From a few feet away, I heard Poet murmuring against his wife’s mouth, “She likes to lead.”
“So do I,” Briar flirted before the couple got lost in one another.
The heat of Jeryn’s body simmered against mine. Our breathless pants mingled. And yet self-consciousness gripped his features.
“I don’t know how …,” he began.
I heard the rest of his confession. He didn’t know the steps to this type of dance.
My mouth lifted into a grin. Proving the jester right, I took Jeryn’s hands and guided them to my waist. Follow me , my expression said.
And the look on his face declared, Anywhere. And I lost the ability to exhale.
Sinuously, I whipped my hips from side to side, demonstrating the tempo. Gradually and patiently, he mirrored the cadence until we moved like water.
Then we were dancing. Then everything sped up.
My arms journeyed up his chest, and my fingers swam in the blue strands of his mane, and his fingers dug into my flesh. Our foreheads landed together. Damp air thickened between us, the music growing heavier, its thump resounding.
I pivoted, whisking our joined hands overhead, then whirling beneath them. My body spiraled around his, my feet kicking with the rhythm. Aligning my back with his, I ground my ass into Jeryn’s, tremors wracking his frame.
In a sudden motion, he whirled, his torso abutting my spine. We swayed, the prince’s chin hovering over my shoulder, his arms enfolding me. Those hard fingers splayed over my hips, searing through my flouncy linen dress.
When his mouth brushed my jaw, I gasped and rotated. Resuming our original dance, I clutched his nape and revolved my body with his.
The mesmerized prince made good on his vow. He followed me wherever I went.
***
The time came to say farewell. Armed with our plans and promises to reunite, we said a temporary goodbye while the stars animated the sky.
At the shoreline, Briar and I gripped one another tightly. I hadn’t told her what I’d seen in the fountain room, although I knew this pair well now. Once rumored to be a prickly Royal, the princess had changed. If I admitted to having walked in on the scene, Briar would blush and chuckle sheepishly. Whereas Poet would make a sinful remark, devilish amusement glittering in his eyes.
Nonetheless, that memory belonged to her and Poet, likely among numerous others. For I was certain they’d found plenty of nooks in this forest, in which to make each other shout.
“Soon,” the princess whispered into my hair.
“Soon,” I pledged over her shoulder, although she couldn’t hear me.
We would see one another again soon. Along with the plans we’d made, the jester and princess had sworn to negotiate for my tower mates when they arrived in Summer’s mainland. They would bargain to get Pearl and Lorelei and Dante out of Rhys’s clutches, then into the safety of Autumn.
They had also agreed to monitor the wellbeing of Jeryn’s family remotely. While the Queens of Winter and his parents couldn’t be told of his whereabouts, much less that Poet and Briar had seen us, they would at least make sure his kin were alright. Also, they would send us tidings on the states of our kingdoms.
“Come here, sweeting,” Poet said, sauntering our way and opening his arms.
I strapped myself around the jester and gave him a mighty hug. As we broke apart, I plucked a leaflet and quill from my pocket, then wrote, Behave yourself.
His lips slanted. “I make no guarantees.”
As the rest of our clan gathered by the tide, Aire read my words and grumbled. His bronze cloak flapped in the wind, and the breeze combed through his hair as he regarded Poet. “Since when would you ever behave yourself in any situation?”
“I wouldn’t. Not unless it impressed my equal,” Poet murmured, tucking his wife into his side. “I’m at her service.”
Aspen mock-huffed. “I cannot with this man.” She tilted her gaze to Briar. “You’re one lucky bitch, you know that?”
“I remind her every day,” Poet said fiendishly. “And on every surface.”
“Whatever it takes, do not let him elaborate,” Jeryn commanded with a stony expression.
As the prince strode toward the gangplank, Poet leaned into me. “He looks at you when he thinks you’re not aware.”
The words clutched my heart. I scribbled, You notice that?
“Sweeting, everyone does.”
So did I. Constantly, I felt Jeryn’s eyes on me.
“Perish the thought of me encouraging you with that one,” the jester continued. “However, he’s not the same bastard we met in Autumn.” Intrigued, he arched an eyebrow. “You possess magic.”
A lump budded in my throat. I gestured between us to illustrate my words, then scripted, We all do.
Poet raised my knuckles and kissed them. “Make him grovel for a little longer. It’ll do the man good.” Lowering my hand, he smirked. “As for the rest: Let’s stir shit up, shall we?”
Before our kin left, we stood at the edge of the ocean and watched the moon blaze through the darkness. We would stand like this again someday, united with the rest of the clan. Briar’s ladies, her minstrel friend, and her mother.
Jeryn and I stared as Autumn’s ship cut through the sea. When the vessel dissolved into the horizon, all went silent. And we were alone again.