Chapter 4
Four
A fairy’s promise is magically binding.
Never make a deal you can’t win.
- King Richard
Fuck. I need to teach Arienna how to lie. Deirdre might look like a warm, caring hippy, but her heart is as twisted as the magic she practices. Once she gets a whiff of something she can potentially blackmail someone with, she digs until she finds their bones.
And we have a lot of fucking bones.
If Jace can’t convince Deirdre there’s nothing to find the next time they play throwing knives, I’ll have to deal with her in a way no one can bring her back from the dead.
With her hailing from one of the richest families in Raza, from the strongest line of necromancers our kingdom has ever known, that means I’d have to kill her inside a fairy ring.
But if I step into one again, there’s a damn good chance I won’t come back. Even though Deirdre is only an average fighter, relying on necromancy to make her name, I have pushed my luck in the ring too many times.
Entering a fairy ring once is a high risk.
Only one person can leave; the other gets their soul trapped inside it for all eternity.
Entering it twice is fucking stupid as the soul of your previous fight attacks you too.
Entering it a third time is nothing short of a death wish.
Every soul in it will try to drag you down.
If I step into one again, it will be my fourth time. But I’d risk my very soul to save my queen. If she’s the reason her best friend gets executed, it’ll break her.
Feeling the crows already circling around my wife, I look at Jace. I signal to him, telling him we will see three more people before we leave. I want to check the security at the market to make sure it’s safe before I arrive with my queen.
He nods, and I turn my attention to the man who enters. After he says his piece and leaves, Arienna glances over her shoulder at me. “So… you and Jace, huh?” she says as she wriggles against me. “Is that a common thing?”
My eyes narrow on the bastard. Although he’s standing at the other end of the Throne Room and she whispered her question, he has the ears of a fucking bat. They’ve saved my life more than once, but they’ve been a pain in my ass even more.
Running my hand up her thigh, I think about bending my queen over my knees and spanking her. Then I think of a better punishment; she responds so well to edging. My lips curling, I lean in to whisper against her ear. “No. I never lose at throwing knives. They fuck while I stand guard.”
Jace won’t continue otherwise. Although the head of my security jokes he can’t come without me watching, the truth is, he wants to make sure I’m guarding us if he can’t. Then again, he’s managed to save my life twice now while balls deep in someone.
As the next person enters, I trail my fingers between my queen’s thighs. I play with her as I talk to the woman below our thrones. Nudging Arienna’s head to the side with mine, I run my lips across her neck. She shivers. Her breathing turns shallow.
“Do you want to watch Jace fuck someone, my queen?” I ask as the woman leaves.
She nods as a small noise emits from her. Trailing my hand down her leg, I reverse its path once I get to her knee.
“Would you rather see him with a man or a woman?”
My hand feathers up her thigh. I want to push inside her to see if she’s wet. I want to tie her up to the same beam I had her under last night and test how much she trusts me.
Is she afraid of me after what I did to Lief?
She says she isn’t, but brownies hide so much shit under their smiles. She hid her desire to kill me under hers. When she thought I was a monster, she still let me touch her. Fuck her. She still laughed with me. Still looked at me like I was her fucking world.
My chest tightens, and that pressure bleeds out through the touch of my fingers. She sucks in a breath, and I know I’ve hurt her. But she doesn’t tense in fear, and that eases some of the terror inside of me. At least for now, her heart is still mine.
My eyes on the man who’s come to see us, I watch him stop at the bottom of the stairs.
Cupping her pussy, I press two fingers between her lips. The fabric of her jumpsuit rubs against her. She sags against my chest. Another one of her delicious whimpers meets my ears. I wrap my other hand around her throat. “I asked you a question, my queen.”
Her head falls against my shoulder as she peers over at me.
“Don’t make me ask again.” My palm applies pressure to her throat.
“Your Majesty,” Gnox says as he bows at my queen. His voice comes out slightly strained. Coughing, he bows at me and repeats the greeting, but my attention is on my wife.
Her gaze full of arousal, she wets her lips. “A woman.”
My eyes narrow even as a smile pulls at my lips. She’s earned herself another punishment. “So you can imagine yourself in her place? I think not, my queen. The only one touching you will be me.”
Now and forever.
Even if Raza tears her from me and makes her hate me, if she ever wants to come again, it will be with me.
No one fucking else. I’ll order every male to be castrated, their hands cut off, and their tongues pulled out if I have to.
I’ll order all the toys to be destroyed.
All the vaguely phallic items too.
Fuck.
I’ll have to figure out a way to get rid of all the bi people and lesbians as well.
Squeezing her throat tighter, locking her to me, I rub my palm over her pussy with my other hand. She jerks her hips, her eyes fluttering shut. “Or have you forgotten who this pussy belongs to, my queen?”
She shakes her head. My hand on her throat relaxes. I kiss the side of her neck.
“Jace with a man then,” she breathes as she arches her head to the side.
My lips flatten. “So you can imagine me in his place?” I apply more pressure to her pussy. “As a top or bottom?”
“Top,” she breathes.
Finally, a right answer.
“How about we make a deal,” I say, running my fingers back up, then down her lips, really wishing her clothes were not in the fucking way.
I can almost feel her wetness sliding against me, almost feel a damp patch beneath the pads of my fingers.
My cock straining against her ass, I watch the flush on her skin spread from her cheeks down her pretty, little neck.
“If you don’t come by the time Gnox leaves, I’ll let Jace do one thing to you tonight of your choosing – within limits. ”
A soft moan escapes her, heating every part of me. Then her brows furrow, and she blinks. “Gnox?”
I nod at the man patiently waiting for us to greet him. His cock is straining against his clothes almost as much as mine is.
She lifts her head to follow my gaze. At the sight of him, she bolts upright. Or tries to. I hold her tight against me with the hand I have around her neck. Once she stills, I drop that hand to her breast and squeeze.
“Greet him, my queen. He’s being so good standing there.”
Her mouth opens and closes a couple times before she manages to get out, “Hello, Gnox. What… what uh, can we, uh –”
Gasping, she falls flush against me as my hand slips into the overlapping folds at the top of her jumpsuit and touches her bare flesh. I palm my queen’s breast beneath her bra. I stroke my thumb across her nipple, which is already erect and waiting for my teeth to claim it.
“Don’t leave him waiting, my queen.” Nudging her head to the side, I kiss the base of her neck. She’s so sensitive here, I’m certain I can make her come from teasing this spot alone.
Rocking herself shamelessly against my hand, she raises an arm and threads her fingers through my hair, holding me to her.
Jace slips outside. In another few seconds, he’s back in again, but the line behind him is dispersing. His teal eyes land first on me, then drift to my wife.
“… do for… you?” Arienna finally breathes.
Gnox stares at us, his eyes half-lidded.
I trail my hand up from between my queen’s thighs to the front flap of her jumpsuit.
With nothing tying the sides together, the design relying solely on the overlapping of two triangular pieces of fabric to keep her covered, there’s nothing to stop me from pulling the fabric all the way off to one side.
I bare her left breast to the air, to Gnox’s gaze.
To Jace’s, the bastard. But I’ll let him see what he’ll never have.
I brush my thumb under the RM I’ve etched into her flesh.
Mine. Now and forever.
She gasps, her heart beating wilder beneath my palm just like I knew it would.
After freeing her right breast too, I push up her bra.
Cupping both her tits, I hide her perfection again from view.
Her nipples push against my palms as I massage her.
She spreads her legs and rubs herself against my thigh.
She isn’t going to last long at all. I smile.
“Gnox, why don’t you come back at another time,” Jace says smoothly, his voice husky and deep as he keeps his eyes on my bride, “when you can vocalise what it is that you want.”
My eyes narrow as Jace gestures at the door. I should’ve whispered our deal quieter. His hearing is fucking mental.
“Ah,” Arienna breathes, quickly catching on because of course she would when it comes to sex. Growling, I grab her chin and force her to look at me. Taking her lips before she can dismiss Gnox, I slide my tongue into her mouth.
She moans. Her tongue dances with mine. Releasing her chin, I slide my hand down to her stomach. Further still.
She whimpers into my mouth, and I swallow her every sound, not letting Jace hear a single one. I’ve already gifted him with the sight of her breasts; that’s all the fucker is ever going to get.
I slip my fingers along her pussy. Holy fuck is she wet. By the time we finish our kiss, she’ll be shaking all over my lap, and the deal I’ve made with her will be won.
Then later tonight, I will tease her with my victory – a fitting punishment for her looking at Jace like she wants to feel him above her. Moving inside her. Stroking her. Making her come.
Growling, I nip her bottom lip. I push my fingers inside her while rubbing my palm against her clit. She screams as her pussy clenches tight around me, claiming me as the winner just like I knew I would be. I never make deals unless I know I’ll win.
Shuddering against me, my beautiful queen tightens her fingers in my hair. My kiss turns soft, victorious, lazy. Her grip slowly relaxes as she sighs against my mouth.
Removing my fingers from her pussy, I stroke the outside of it. Lifting my head, robbing myself of her taste, I look over at Jace smugly.
But my smile quickly falls.
Leaning against the closed doors of the Throne Room, Jace digs another gosberry out of his tunic. Raising it to his lips, he licks it like he would a breast, his eyes shining.
“My king?” Arienna breathes, no doubt feeling me tense beneath her. Or perhaps she’s feeling my fingers digging into her soft skin. Sitting up, she looks at me in concern. And then her eyes slowly travel the distance to where I’m staring.
My fingers dig in harder.
My eyes narrow on Jace.
But a deal is a deal.
Gnox, the bastard, has left.
And if I ever see him again, I’m feeding him to the fucking birds.