Chapter 32
One moment, I was deliriously happy and tipsy on fae wine, and in the next, I’d immediately sobered at the sight of Diedre.
When the room fell silent and all matters of celebration ceased, Diedre clacked her teeth. “Oh, by all means, don’t stop the party on my account.”
Throwing my hands out, I launched icy walls down the length of the carpet, shielding everyone in attendance within them.
Jack was quick to coax me behind him. Nanok and Fintan barreled through the crowd. Nanok growled, the fur along his spine bristling. Fintan scraped his hooves, his antlers poised for attack.
“You call off those animals, or not only does the guard get his throat sliced, but I’ll make bear jerky and glue out of those two.” Diedre pinched the dagger closer to the guard’s neck, making him whimper and bleed slightly.
We gave our animals calming gestures to stay put, and I folded my wings defensively at my back.
“Diedre, I half expected you to crash the ceremony right as I was to put the crown on Sylvie’s head. How thoughtful of you to wait,” Jack said through gritted teeth, holding me to his side tighter.
Diedre shrugged one shoulder. “I would’ve come sooner, but you keep quite the defenses up. It took me some time to break through the shielding spells. What sorcerers do you employ anyway, Jakzair?”
“As if I’d tell you.” Jack gripped my waist before stepping closer to Diedre.
She tensed, the elbow holding the blade poised higher.
“I’m going to ask you one final time, Diedre.
I’ve been gracious to you, and there are far too many people I care about at risk now that I’ve run out of patience with you. ”
Diedre’s glossy black eyes narrowed. “Ask me what?”
“Are you going to be a problem?” Jack’s commanding voice was like thunder rattling the rafters, his ice creature poking through his face, the accompanying lightning strike.
Diedre’s resolve wavered when the ice monster started to reveal itself. She backed away, taking the guard with her. “I will never stop going after what should have rightfully been mine.”
Jack sighed, his right hand turning into crystallized magic. “Then I hereby revoke your kingdom, Diedre.”
His words were met with such shock and animosity that Diedre let the blade fall away from the guard’s neck. “You can’t do that. You don’t have the right, nor the power.”
Taking the small window of opportunity, I curled my magic around the guard’s torso, tugging him toward me and ushering him behind the shield wall.
“You’re right, I didn’t when you cursed me.” Jack lifted his icy fist, frosty vapors misting from it. “But now that it’s lifted—” His eyes glowed, the creature taking them over until they became icy hot.
“No, no. All I ever wanted was my birthright. You were created to ensure I never got the throne.” Diedre spoke with venom dripping from her tongue, the black liquid that never ceased leaking from her eyes streaking her cheeks and dripping to the floor.
“Well, it’s a good thing destiny has its way of working things out. You spoiled your chances with this kingdom the day you succumbed to the darkness.” Jack thrust his arm forward, aiming his open hand at Diedre. “I’m banishing you to that very darkness you hold dear.”
Diedre’s eyes went wide, her fists shaking violently at her sides. “No. I will never let you live this down, Jakzair. Do you hear me?”
“You are hereby banished to the Outerwoods and stripped of your kingdom on the mainland. Though I can’t take away your title, perhaps you could become—” Jack smirked, his wrist twisting, fingers curling. “—queen of the goblins.”
Diedre set her jaw tight and lifted her chin, her gaze roaming the throne room of fae folk, peeking over the icy walls.
“Any last words?” Jack asked.
Diedre clicked her long, pointy, onyx nails together. “It may take me a thousand years to conjure a spell, King Jakzair—” She paused, her soulless eyes darting to me now. “—but I will find a way to get my revenge.”
Glaring at her, I flared my wings, lightly flapping them to show Diedre I wasn’t afraid of her.
“Then I guess we have a thousand years to make our wards impenetrable. Have a nice life, Diedre.” Jack snapped his fingers, and she vanished with a wailing shriek.
Launching for my mate, I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight. “Jack.”
“She left me no choice, Sylvie. I gave her every possible opportunity,” he mumbled against my neck.
I peeled back and searched his half-icy face. “I know. She was a threat to the kingdom, its people, to me, and our animals. All of it. You did the right thing.”
“I’m not sure I could ever convey to you in words how much that means to me. How much finding you means to me.” Jack rested a hand on my nape, his shoulders sinking from the effort with Diedre.
“Then make this royal affair official and show me how much, Jakzair.” Rising to my toes, I kissed him—deeply, profoundly, and with so much heat behind it that it melted the walls I created as shields for our people.
Jack’s arm curled around me, bending me backward with his own passion that he poured into that kiss.
He grunted, pointing at someone, then to our animals for him to tend to them.
In a shimmer of snow, we appeared in a massive bedroom, my back flopping onto the oversized kingly bed, ice-blue satin soft against my skin.
Jack’s mouth was still pressed to my lips, his tongue diving in to swirl with mine. I dug my fingers into his hair, gripping it, tugging it, before slipping a hand to his pants and greedily pulling at the belt.
Jack snatched my wrists and pulled away, gazing down at me hungrily, like a lion who’d caught his prey. “Considering we’re not in any rush, there are matters I need to attend to that got neglected.”
A flutter whooshed through my core, surging to my clit and making it throb.
Jack trailed his touch between my breasts, dragging over my stomach, and at the center of my hips.
The dress misted away in mystical spirals of snow and iridescent sparkles as he went.
Jack tugged my hips, inciting me to open my eyes and look at him.
The creature still played in his gaze, the ice forming over his forehead.
When he smiled, those devious canines extended, and the long, dark blue tongue flicked out.
Winter’s blessing.
The rest of him remained in his fae form, and he swirled that tongue around my navel, flicking it from one hipbone to the other.
He curled his arms behind my thighs and hoisted my ass from the bed, bringing my pussy within an inch of his mouth.
His icy breath pooled over the sensitive flesh there, and I gripped the sheets, already crying out from the sensation.
And then Jack licked. One torturously slow lap of his tongue over my center, the coolness of it seeping into my skin and giving me a euphoric shiver.
Jack licked several more times from top to bottom, pausing only long enough to suck on my clit and making me scream. Pulling his tongue back into his mouth, he kissed my inner thigh and smiled against it, grazing one of his fangs over my skin.
“Do you want more, faerie?” Jack’s monster surrounded those words, gravelly and deep, but it was still entirely him. Both sides of him had always been him, and now it felt like a union between all of us.
Panting, I sat up on my elbows. “Yes,” I growled out, imagining if I had my own inner monster what she’d sound like.
Jack pushed me back to the bed with a firm hand on my chest. My wings fanned out, cradling me as I nestled into the duvet again.
Jack plunged his tongue inside me. I tensed, gasped, and my back arched from the bed.
It was wet, it was cold, and it moved inside me so erotically I couldn’t think straight.
It twisted, writhed, licked, and when it reached that sweet spot deep inside, it flicked there repeatedly.
Jack had pushed his tongue so far in that his lips met my center, morphing from his softer fae mouth to his colder, harder creature.
Everything altogether was so overwhelming, I writhed on the bed, my knees trying to hitch, my hips attempting to rotate side to side.
But Jack held onto me, not allowing me to do any of it as he ate me out like a snow cone covered with the elixir of fucking life.
Flick. Flick. My muscles were already tightening, the release building, but when Jack tipped his nose to my clit, rubbing there with it, I came completely undone, screaming into the rafters.
Jack slowly slid his tongue out and kissed each of my thighs, a smug grin still poised on his lips. “I saw the way you looked at my creature’s tongue that day, Snowflake. How could I possibly not give you precisely what you desired?”
An icy sheen of sweat coated my body and face.
Laughing from the barrage of endorphins rocketing through my veins, I sat up enough to curl a hand around Jack’s neck and pulled him on top of me.
“Finish the ceremony, Jack. I need you inside me.” Clutching his shirt, I made his clothes disappear in the same fashion he made mine.
Flashing one canine, Jack positioned himself between my thighs.
While he kissed me, he used one leg to hitch under my knee, spreading me wider for him.
The tip of him teased my entrance, and as slow as a melting iceberg, pushed himself inside.
He’d done it this way when he took my virginity so that I didn’t endure any pain.
This time, he did it so we could savor the moment, because now we could.
He pulled away from the kiss, staring down at me and sharing the same breaths with me.
In and out he rocked, slow and delicious enough to make me quiver, my nails digging into his back.
My winged mark on his arm glittered and pulsed, making the sensations more pronounced.
Jack was my mate, my husband, and now I was his queen.
Jack pressed a light kiss to my forehead, his fingers grazing my hair. “Sit up for me.” With his hand guiding my back, we sat facing each other, him still buried deep inside.
His rock-hard muscles were on full display without the icy ridges of his creature. I played my fingers over his abs, traced the underside of each pec, and squeezed his bicep. Jack pressed a hand to my ass and guided me forward and back, encouraging me to rock myself over him.
“Tell me, faerie,” Jack started, reaching for one of my wings. He gave a feathery touch to the top, making me shiver, and moved it toward the center of the forewing. “Which part is the most sensitive?”
Sucking in a shaky breath, I swallowed and answered, “The central point between them. Right at my—” Before I finished, Jack found the spot, his fingers grazing up and down over my spine.
I clenched around his cock, the sensations from his touch on my wings making me see stars behind my eyelids.
No one had ever touched me there. For faeries, it was more intimate than even our breasts.
It led to a nerve ending that traveled nearly the entire length of our torso, including where Jack was buried now.
“Too much?” Jack asked, still lightly stroking behind my wings.
Wrapping an arm around him for leverage, I bucked on and off him, making our hips slap together with each stroke. “Keep doing it, Jack,” I whispered, my head lulling back from the electricity sparking beneath my skin.
Jack lowered his lips to my nape and grazed his fangs over my skin, nibbling and sucking.
We worked in tandem now, thrust for thrust. His hand tantalized my wings, and I dug my nails into his back, scratching him because I damn well couldn’t help myself.
Jack sank his teeth into me, but not as deeply as when he claimed me.
This time was for pure pleasure and fun.
My insides quivered around him, a surge I had never experienced building within my core.
When it went taut, my magic burst from my hands and mouth, filling the room.
Jack growled against my throat and released inside me in icy hot spurts that prolonged my orgasm.
Jack chuckled, light and carefree. “You’re a marvel, Syl.” His lips pressed to mine. “And clearly, you want every room to look like your ice castle.”
My eyes flew open and panned the bedroom. Ice coated the floor, the ceiling, the chandeliers—everything had been frozen. “This is exactly why they were afraid of me. I’m unpredictable, I—”
Jack shut me up with a kiss, his hand kneading at my jaw. “Sylvaria, my queen, my mate, my eternal love, you’ve done nothing but turn our room into ice. Nothing. You are not a danger here.”
My eternal love.
Tears blurred my vision, and I pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his thrumming heartbeat against my palm. Heat pooled against my skin. Not icy warmth like everything else Jack exuded, but actual heat. “Jack, your heart.”
A knowing, cocky smile quirked Jack’s lips. He brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my knuckles. “Only for you, Snowflake.”
I’d come a long way from the faerie lands buried deep in the Norwegian mountains. Arcane Cove found me, and with it came lifelong friends who understood me and accepted me. Now, because of a magical small town, I’m forever bonded with my mate, and I melted Jack Frost’s icy heart.