Chapter 30
Thirty
A queen does not have time to play.
We should have game night every week.
- King Richard
“Don’t kill him just yet!” Arienna shouts, easily heard from out in the hall. As we arrive back at the room, the guards all straighten, trying to look sharp despite the laughter pulling at their lips.
“But isn’t the game –” Jace asks as we enter.
“Why kill him when you can cut off his penis!” Fabia says, her eyes so full of malicious glee that I’m instantly grateful she wasn’t the one trying to kill me. If she’d been working with Arienna from the start, I don’t think I’d have got off so kindly, with just a last-minute poisoning.
My queen turns towards me as Fabia reaches forwards to snatch the figurine. She pulls its penis off with a cackle of delight.
“Nicholas!” Arienna squeals as she jumps to her feet and races towards him. Barreling into his chest, she hugs him tight. “I’m so happy to see you!”
He stands frozen for a second, his eyes wide as he looks at me. How long has it been since he’s had a hug?
Slowly, his arms come around her, and my heart nearly bursts with love for my wife. She’s healing our home one person at a time.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t realise she was kinkshaming you at the start,” she murmurs against his chest. “You know you have nothing to be ashamed of though, right?”
He stiffens. She hugs him tighter.
“You’re perfect exactly as you are.”
“Ah…” he chokes out. “Need I remind you of my face?”
My beautiful queen pulls back just enough to peer up at him. “You’re perfect exactly as you are,” she repeats, staring him in the eye.
He glances away as he clears his throat. His gaze lands on Fabia. She’s placed Karl back down, penis-less.
“What she said,” she says gruffly, then launches the dick at him. “Now come on and play. It’s impossible to be sad if you’re holding a severed penis.”
“That’s… No.”
She laughs, but us three men share a look. Though I do have to admit, I wasn’t sad when I cut off Karl’s actual dick a few weeks ago.
Giggling, Arienna pulls Nicholas and I over to the table.
I take a seat beside her on the sofa, then pull her onto my lap as my brother settles in on the floor between Fabia and Jace.
Wriggling her butt against me, she picks up her glass of wine.
Most of the bottle is already gone, but Fabia doesn’t seem to have drunk much of it at all, and I know Jace would not have touched a drop while on duty.
“How drunk are you?” I ask her.
“Why, not at all!”
Fabia snorts as she explains the game to Nicholas.
Grabbing Arienna’s hips, I hold her still. My voice lowers as my lips brush against her ear. “Until you’re sober, my queen, nothing of mine is going inside you.” If she got drunk this fast, she wasn’t in the right headspace long before she poured that first glass.
“Of course,” she says with a giggle that tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
But despite how much she’s going to tease me, I won’t punish her while she’s drunk either.
If she can’t consent to sex, nor can she consent to any of the other stuff.
Making a note to discuss this properly when she’s sober, I lift her off my lap.
“Hey!”
“Peace treaty,” I murmur to her as Fabia explains the game to Nicholas.
Her eyes sober a bit as she turns her head to me. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.
“Yes. But I want to see your beautiful clear eyes cloud with desire when I fill you with my cock. Not because of a bottle.”
Fabia chokes on the sip she just took, nearly spraying it across the board. With a hand over her mouth, she starts to cough. Nicholas whacks her on the back, and she waves her hand at him to tell him she’s fine.
“Right. Someone roll for Karl.”
Jace picks up the dice –one four-sided, one six-sided– and tosses them across the colourful board.
I didn’t pay attention to the rules at all, so I do my best to follow along.
The four-sided die seems to decide the direction Karl moves in.
The six-sided one is the distance he travels, minus one for each body part he’s missing.
“This is our gear,” Arienna says as she shows me three cards. The knife makes sense, but –
“Why do we have a giant dildo? And what the fuck is a paraplegic toad?”
“You got what?” Jace asks.
“A giant dildo –”
“No, that makes sense.” He waves at me, then reaches over and snatches our cards.
“How does a giant dildo make sense?”
“They’re not as giant as the ones in the forest,” Fabia says, waving at said forest on one part of the board. They’re just weapon-wielding size.”
“But you can also use them as bait,” Arienna says. “If you place them down and Karl runs across it, he’ll get distracted and masturbate for two turns.”
Jace shakes his head as he stares at the toad card. “Okay, you’re going to have to explain this one.”
“That’s Toadal Badass. I thought she was still a tadpole when I found her, but it turns out she just lost her arms and legs.”
“And of course you had to bring her home. So… is she terribly poisonous or something?”
“Not at all! You have to carry her around and just point her at Karl so she can eat him with her tongue!”
“So this is the only instakill card in the game?”
“Nope! That’s the slipper.”
“What?”
“Yeah, read the fine print when you see the card. It says, ‘This game was invented by an Asian.’”
“What does that even mean?”
Arienna shrugs and looks at Fabia.
Lifting her chin, her bestie says, “I researched Earth stuff for a book once, and the slipper is the most feared weapon in Asia.”
“A slipper,” Nicholas repeats, not convinced.
“Did you research it like you did monster fucking?” Jace snickers. He looks at me with a wide grin. “Did you know she was a monster fucker?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Makes sense.”
“Oh my gods! I am not a monster fucker.” She throws one of the mini dildos at Jace even as she glares at my wife.
“You’re not?” Nicholas asks in surprise.
She grits her teeth.
“Wait, why are you glaring at me!” Arienna asks.
“Because you told everyone I was a monster fucker at dinner tonight!”
“No, I did not!”
“‘She’s very experienced in monster fucking,’” Fabia says flatly.
“‘I once caught her going at it with a yondu,” Jace quips. “‘Can you imagine her rolling around with one?’”
“I wish I hadn’t,” my brother mutters, and Fabia turns bright red.
“Wait, you imagined her having sex with a yondu? I meant she was fighting it!”
The whole room falls silent.
Then –
“You did what!?” Nicholas roars. “Do you know how dangerous that is!”
“Not very! Because I fought off six of them, and I won.”
“Oh my gods, woman! You have the survival instinct of a zombie ant!”
“You have the charm of an asshole.”
“Oh, wow, what an insult,” he says sarcastically. “A lot of people like anal.”
I cough, not having expected that to come out of my brother’s mouth.
“Not because it’s charming!” Fabia fires back.
“I think assholes can be charming,” Arienna says with a raise of her hand. “Especially if I get to peg it.”
I cough again. My queen winks at me. “It’s almost our month anniversary. I can’t wait to peg you.”
Jace laughs as I try to frantically remember what the fuck she’s talking about.
Nicholas, thankfully, is too busy arguing with Fabia to have heard her.
But I did promise to let her peg me in a month’s time in order to get her to marry me. And a fairy doesn’t go back on their word.
Fuck, karma is a bitch.
“But wait a sec.” Jace cuts into the arguing couple beside him, elbowing Nicholas as he holds up a card with a slipper on it. He’d gone through the deck to find it. “You’re not even Asian, so ‘This was invented by an Asian’ doesn’t even make any sense.”
Fabia opens her mouth. Closes it again. Then she shrugs with all the air of a criminal who isn’t admitting to nothing. “Look. I was drunk when I made it. I can’t explain the high workings of my mind unless you are also drunk.”
He grins. “Fair.”
“Now come on. Let’s play. I want to herd Karl into the gaping asshole cave and block the exit so it crushes him in a very uncharming way.”
“What the fuck kind of game is this?” Nicholas whispers.
“The best game ever!” Arienna shouts as she picks up the dice for her turn. Together, we hunt Karl across the board, cutting him down limb by limb until he drags himself into a dark cave.
Its walls slowly start closing in.
And he can’t crawl out fast enough.
In another turn, he’s crushed to death by some giant’s ass.
Sitting around the coffee table, with Arienna back on my lap and seeing Nicholas laugh until he cries – fuck, I don’t want this night to end.
This is what I’m fighting for.
My wife screeching with laughter.
My brother away from that toxic bitch.
And Jace – He still has that darkness that always lingers in him. But maybe once Raza becomes what Aurelia wanted it to be… Maybe… Just maybe... he can find some peace too.