Chapter 7
The heat inside the carriage was getting to me. Yesterday, we’d had a breeze come through occasionally, but not today. Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of high temps and direct sunlight, I had to get out of that box for a while.
I knocked on the carriage wall and called out, “Hold up!”
When Frank had us stopped, I stepped out. I could feel Solaris’s eyes on me, but since he hadn’t said a word to me all day, I didn’t bother explaining myself to him first. I left the door open so he could listen.
“Anyone want to ride inside? I need to do something else for a while.”
Red went ahead and got right down from his horse. “I need to get off this horse.”
Pink Nick flexed his back, nodding, and Purple did about the same thing. It had me wondering if maybe they didn’t spend as much time in the saddle as I’d thought they did.
“Alright, how about you all ride inside, and I’ll drive? Can’t be that hard.” I walked around and stood by a wheel, looking up at Frank. “Give me a quick lesson and then you can go in, too.”
“I’ll show you.”
That had been Solaris. I turned to find him standing just behind me with his arms full of chains. No hostility, no frowns. It made me uneasy, but if this was him turning a corner and becoming open to my ideas, I’d accept the changes.
“Okay. Get up there then.”
Solaris put his chains on the floor and climbed up under the little awning. He wasn’t cuffed to anything. He could’ve gathered up the chains and flown away entirely. Something must’ve clicked for him.
I was still wary, but there was a spark of hope, too.
While the color crew tied their horses to the back of the carriage and got inside, I figured out how to get up onto the seat beside Solaris and grabbed the reins. I looked over the horses curiously.
“They seem okay to me, but can you tell when we’ll need to stop next?”
Solaris nodded. “If we’re where I think we are, our next stop should be in about an hour. But we should start heading that way.” He pointed off to the right.
“Were we going in the wrong direction?” I looked around with some alarm. Granted, there wasn’t much to see—lots of crispy fields, some trees that looked ready to become kindling, and distant villages—but we were on a dirt road with clear wheel tracks.
“No, but over there will be a good place to rest.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He was being helpful. I side-eyed him for a moment.
Raising my voice, I asked, “Everyone ready back there?”
“Drive on,” one of them said with a knock on the wall.
Solaris made a gesture that was probably meant to show me how to get the horses to move, but the chains rattled against each other and the wood of the floor, startling them instead. I ended up pulling on the reins to get the horses to stand still again.
“Let’s lose the chains before you start a stampede or something.” I fished the key out of my pocket and handed it to him.
He smiled. I’d figured he would, but it wasn’t the ha-ha I win kind of smile I would’ve expected. No, this was a delighted smile that transformed his usually sour expression. For just a moment, Solaris looked really beautiful.
My unease amped up.
I did the sort of flicking gesture with the reins, and the horses got moving at a nice clippity-clop. Now, I had my breeze. I might be sweating just a bit because Solaris was being weird, but the wind washing over me helped with the heat.
After a few minutes, he said, “I’ve been thinking…”
I grunted encouragingly, trying not to hope too much.
“I may have given up on our efforts to break the curse too soon.”
All I did was nod, not sure if speaking would break the moment.
“Everyone was very concerned in the beginning,” he went on. “We tried so many things. Over and over. We brought in the best spellworkers from every discipline. They tried to increase my abilities. They tried to increase their own.”
I could hear the yearning in his voice and could imagine how desperate they’d become with each failed experiment.
“But nothing happened,” he said, his voice deadening. “Nothing ever happened. Over and over.” He sighed. “And then when I started changing physically, it seemed to make everyone despair.”
I got it. I did. I took a chance and said, “Pushing through repeated failures is one of the hardest things anyone can do.”
Now he just nodded and twiddled with the hem of his tunic.
“How long have you been away?”
“A few weeks.”
Well, fuck. That had me feeling like an asshole. I’d assumed he’d—
“I mean, I stopped trying a couple years ago and came and went, but this last time has been a few weeks.”
And never mind. He’d given up a long time ago. But, maybe it didn’t have to be unforgivable.
“You took a break,” I told him. “Cleared your head. Renewed your spirit. Whatever you want to call it. Now you’re ready to get back to work.”
I could see him look at me, so I gazed back at him and offered a smile.
“It was a rather long break,” he said.
“You’re a rather stubborn bastard.”
Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have—
Solaris snorted a laugh. And nodded.
Phew!
“I was also thinking,” he said, “that they might be quite excited to learn about your arrival. In addition to the spellworkers, we had seers attempting to divine answers.” He grinned a bit. “One of them foretold of a great bear of a man arriving to strike me down.”
I grimaced at him. “Hopefully, that was the part where I tackled you out of the sky.”
“Perhaps. Though by holding me at sword point and restraining me, one could claim you enacted a coup.”
“No, no, no! I was not taking over the country—”
“Court.”
“—I was rescuing you from a band of idiots—”
“Oh, come now.”
“—and keeping you safe on your return trip.”
He smiled so brightly, so genuinely, it took my breath away for a second there. “You’re so full of shit.”
I laughed and nodded because, yeah, I really was sometimes.
“Hold on,” I said some time later. “Am I seeing things? Or is that place up there actually green?”
“It’s a pond fed by an underground spring,” Solaris said with a smile. “I flew over it on the way out and was hoping it would still be here.”
First of all, there was shade. The trees were big and green like trees should be, their branches intermingling and creating a canopy to hide us from the sun’s rays.
Next, it was cooler. So much cooler! As soon as the horses walked into the area, they stopped and heaved sighs. I got the feeling they weren’t going to start walking again until they were damn good and ready.
The boys popped out of the back of the carriage with exclamations of relief and appreciation, all four of them looking sweaty and tired. And despite all of us eyeing the crystal clear water of the limestone-ringed pond, we set about releasing all of the horses first.
“They won’t run off?” I asked as the horses that had pulled the carriage immediately went to get drinks.
Frank snorted. “And leave paradise? I imagine the struggle will come when we try to hitch them up again.”
Their horses were also free to roam and stayed under the trees, drinking and nibbling grasses.
It annoyed me that they’d made these animals race across fields for fun when no one should be running in this heat.
I didn’t say anything about it now since we’d come to a sort of truce, but they definitely wouldn’t be doing any such stupid things going forward.
And when all of them started getting undressed, my annoyances vanished. I’d thought we’d rest. Apparently, they’d thought we’d skinny dip. I didn’t want to be the only one left clothed, so when in Fairyland…
I should’ve kept my eyes to myself, but I couldn’t help noticing that they were all hairless, uncut, and generously endowed.
Aside from their facial features and hair colors, their physiques were nearly identical—it was as if they’d come out of the same mold and just been styled a bit differently to tell them apart. Like their clothing choices.
But Solaris… He was not the same. I’d thought he was revealing a complicated vining tattoo as he got undressed, but no.
Those tiny feathers on his wings were also winding all over his body like a roadmap.
I was only able to see that because he stood right in front of me to step down several large rocks and into the water.
Minuscule iridescent feathers. I couldn’t help wondering if they would feel soft.
I refocused and got myself into the water before anyone could see me reacting to this new information. Good looking men all around me, and I was not immune. But I did have a favorite.
I found a ledge of limestone and leaned back with my eyes closed, letting the cool water wipe the heat of the day away.
And then I heard somebody moan.
Opening my eyes, it didn’t take any effort at all to figure out who it had been because all four of them were paired off and kissing their partners. Hands were wandering, water was rippling, and no one was being quiet about their enjoyment.
I looked to Solaris, but he was leaning back with his eyes closed and seeming completely relaxed and unbothered.
I was not unbothered. In fact, I was becoming more bothered by the second.
And my choices were flying solo while creeping on them, hitting on a prince, or doing my best to pretend nothing was happening.
Solaris chuckled, bringing my attention back to him. He bit his bottom lip and shrugged one shoulder like this amused him and he was powerless to stop it at the same time. I smiled back and felt my face heating.
Then he swam over to me.
I held up a finger, stalling him. “Look, I know we’ve been jailer and prisoner for a while now, so I want to make sure you’re not doing anything you think you have—”
“As if you could order me to service you.” He pushed my hand out of the way and swam right up against my chest. Arms around my shoulders and his cock poking my stomach, he said, “Tell me yes, or tell me no—that’s all I want to know.”
Oh, this is a mistake. My entire body might be on board with sharing every sensation with him, but yeah, this was going to cause a lot of trouble. How? I wasn’t sure yet. Why? Because he was a mess, and I didn’t know what I was doing.
Well, I didn’t know what I was doing in this world. I knew exactly what to do with a hot naked guy rubbing up on me. And I very much wanted to make sure I blew his mind.
I shoved my fingers into his hair and got a grip that I used to angle his head just right. “Yes,” I said before taking his mouth in a kiss.
Solaris twitched, grunted, and maybe wanted to take control, but I didn’t let him. I wasn’t always interested in being in charge, but I’d gotten used to it with him, and that was what I wanted now. When I felt him acquiesce, I licked into him and grabbed his ass as I notched our legs.
In addition to the smoothness of his skin, there was the texture of those feathers vining all over him. I petted a patch of them just above the crack of his ass as the two of us rubbed against each other. I could feel more feathers on his belly adding an unexpected sensation to my cock.
Solaris lifted his head from our endless kiss and gasped a breath only to moan it out again. His forehead was creased, eyes shut tight, and mouth in a grimace of concentration as he undulated against me. I kept staring at him as he moaned and held tightly to my shoulder and the back of my neck.
Letting my one hand wander, I teased his ass and reveled in the groan he gave when I lightly fingered him. Would he let me take him next time?
Would there be a next time?
Suddenly, Solaris cried out and curled against me, coming in my arms. I could see and feel his wings fluttering fast, and then I was coming, too. Somehow, I kept my eyes open, watching him the whole time. He was so fucking beautiful with those bright blue eyes, swollen lips, and flushed cheeks.
He shivered before leaning against me and resting his head on my shoulder. I didn’t think I’d expected cuddles afterward, but I wasn’t going to say no to them. I held him close as our heartbeats slowed back to normal.
I liked him a little more than I should’ve right then.
Across the spring, the others were lounging together, smiling and talking. Politely ignoring us? I’d expected some ribbing at the very least, but not one of them even looked over here.
“Wallace,” Solaris whispered.
I rubbed at his lower back. “Hmm?”
But then I realized he was asleep, all his weight in my arms and gentle breaths on my neck. Just whispering my name and trusting me to keep him safe.
Yeah, I definitely liked him more than I should.