Chapter 20
Iwoke up with my head in Kier’s lap and an ocean rocking our bodies, the water’s jostling rousing me from a deep, dreamless sleep.
“Are we drowning?” I groaned.
“Unlikely, wife, since we’re in a carriage.”
I let out an ungodly sound and curled tighter into Kier, my neck stabbing me with a sudden reminder in the form of pain. My hand flew up to my nape, but he caught my wrist before I could make contact.
“Did you get it out?”
His lips feathered across my knuckles, warm and reassuring. “It was killing you.”
“Yeah, I know—”
“Zaba,” he interrupted gravely enough that I sat up.
Woah, dizzy. Shit. I grabbed his sturdy shoulders until the world stopped spinning.
The carriage rocking from side to side didn’t help.
We were the only ones in it, though, which was a relief.
If I was going to feel like shit and, undoubtedly, also look like shit, I’d prefer to do it alone.
“Removing the parasite was killing you.”
I fixed my eyes on my husband and my heart skipped. Nothing physically had changed since the last time I saw him, but he looked exhausted. Wrung out. There was no joy, no peace, not even humour in his downturned mouth and bleak eyes. He looked utterly miserable.
“It’s still in me, isn’t it?”
He nodded. Swallowed.
I sighed and threw my leg over his, settling on his lap and wrapping my arms around his neck. Kier fell into the hug like he was in dire need of being held, his arms cautious and timid when they came around me, like he was afraid of breaking me.
“It’s okay,” I rasped, my throat swollen. “We’ll figure it out.”
“It’s not okay,” he argued, his stare rolling to the roof of the carriage. “Nothing about this is okay. The Greenheart ruler compels you. She could make you do anything, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.”
His wretched, twisted voice made my chest hurt. I held him tighter, lowering my head until our foreheads touched. “You can bind my hands again. Or I can carry that sword around everywhere. You did bring it, right…?”
He angled his head towards the padded bench beside us, where a sheathed sword rested, recognisable by its silk-wrapped handle and the sapphires in the pommel. In the light of the glowing topaz above us, I could see that the crossguard was etched with tiny dragons in a repeating pattern.
“There’s only one way to remove the parasite without killing you,” he said in that strangled, gravelly voice. I brushed my lips over his, a glance of comfort, the softest, affectionate touch I was capable of. “We have to kill her.”
“Then we’ll kill her.”
“And start a war,” he rasped, his arms tightening around me, something dark and dangerous entering his blue eyes.
“And put everyone left in the Bluescale kingdom at risk,” I sighed. “So that option’s out then.”
His jaw clenched, eyes faraway, full of fantasies of blood spilling, necks snapping. “My kingdom’s decimated thanks to the Haar. I have no idea where he sent them. And I’m selfish. I’ll risk the whole kingdom if it means saving you. I’ll let the entire goblin lands burn if it means keeping you.”
Butterflies. A whole riot of them, charging through my stomach like a tornado. I grabbed Kier’s face and kissed him hard, instantly deep and filthy.
“I shouldn’t like that,” I panted before sucking his tongue into my mouth for more kisses that set my body on fire.
“Me willing to sacrifice everyone to save you? You already knew that, mate,” he groaned, a hand sliding into my hair to angle my face so he could kiss deeper, raking his tongue over me until I began to tremble, my hips jolting.
“I’ve made no secret of loving you more than everyone else in the continent. ”
“Oh, so there’s someone on another continent?” I quipped, moaning when he kissed me to shut me up, his other hand diving between us, nimble fingers making miraculous work of the laces on my trousers. I needed both hands to unfasten his; not all of us could be show-offs.
“There’s no one else in any land, as far as the sun shines and the moon glows. And I refuse to lose you, Zabaletta Kollastus.”
“You won’t.” I rose up only high enough to guide the hot, throbbing length of him to my core.
“No,” he agreed in a deep rumble, shoving up my shirt so his hand could mould itself to my bare hip, driving me all the way down the moment his tip was inside me. “I won’t.”
The sudden burning stretch made me gasp. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders, breathing through it.
“Touch yourself for me,” he ordered, but it came out strained and raspy like a plea.
I immediately complied and he groaned, staring down the thin sliver of space between us, watching ravenously as I drew slow circles on my clit.
“Mother’s breath, I love it when your eyes grow heavy like this,” he moaned, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth with obscene pulses that I felt much lower, like he was the one touching me.
I rolled my hips, starting with slow circles that made me gasp and made Kier kiss me harder, scraping his teeth down my tongue. My thrusts quickly grew out of control. It wasn’t slow or romantic or patient. This was hot and sweaty and desperate. Unapologetic.
“I love you so fucking much,” he groaned into my mouth, controlling my pace now, faster and harder with every thrust. “I’m not prepared to live in a world without you. There is no world without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised, gasping when the carriage jolted, angling Kier’s cock into the most explosive spot.
I came without warning, the orgasm hitting me like a bomb, and for a long, blissful moment nothing else mattered.
No green ribbon of magic compelling me. No wicked queen issuing commands.
No spark of war. No rebels. No friends lost. All that mattered was this moment, with my husband sighing against my mouth as he crashed over the edge with me, both of us clutching each other close for long, long minutes.
Until the carriage rocked again, sending a bright explosion through nerves too sensitive to take any more, and I climbed off his cock with a groan.
“That was…”
“Yeah,” he agreed, watching me through hazy eyes. “The best yet?”
“Definitely.” I kissed him, slow and loving this time. “Next time, let’s try it with your vibrating cock bubbles.”
“My—” He burst out laughing, his head thrown back, and after such fraught fear, it was damn good to hear him laugh. I kissed the underside of his jaw because I could, an answering laugh shaking my chest. “I’ll never think of them as anything else now. I hope you know what you’ve done.”
“My sincerest apologies to you and your vibrating cock bubbles.”
He snorted, his eyes creased and beautiful.
He helped me fasten my pants, and I returned the favour.
There was nothing to clean up with here, the one downside of carriage fucking.
“Take that look off your face,” I warned when I caught him smirking.
“There is nothing sexy at all about your fluids sloshing around down there.”
His smirk widened into a cocky grin. “Of course not, Zaba.”
I rolled my eyes, but the thought of his fluids and what they could be doing inside me shot straight to memories of Natasya’s taunts.
Or whatever had actually taunted me on the way down to Gaia’s tomb.
Some old, ancient magic probably. Maybe a monster that fed off our worst memories.
The only one of us who’d appeared unaffected was Aerona, and my theory was she dealt with those memories every day so she’d gotten good at hiding them.
Hames, who I’d thought was completely fine, had become jumpier throughout the day.
“What is it?” Kier asked, skimming my cheek with his thumb.
I shook my head, still a little too fragile.
“Just—the staircase fucking with my head, I’ll be fine.
Where are we?” I peered out the carriage window to see us rattling down a smooth, paved road under a natural archway.
No, wait it wasn’t natural—this was goblin-made.
There were four high arches carved into what must have been a mountain, between them a verdant view of a lush forest made of ferns and tall, many-branched trees whose enormous leaves were threaded with purple.
“It’s an old goblin court on the very edge of the forest near Lazankh, built before Bluescale and Greenheart formed. It’s been abandoned for hundreds of years. Don’t change the subject, Zaba.”
I waved a hand. I’d definitely been subject-changing, but now that our surroundings had caught my attention, I couldn’t look away.
There were ruins of buildings framing the road we puttered down, relics of a city that had been forgotten.
What remained was intricate and detailed, clearly chiselled by a master.
Up ahead, I saw two dragons with winding, scaled bodies hewn from a deep blue stone, guarding the pass as the road passed between them.
It was a shame that something so beautiful had been lost.
“I saw my sister,” I admitted, watching those dragons come closer, wondering if Gaia was real, if she was watching over us.
“She was… unpleasant. Nothing like she was when she was alive. I think—everything I know about her now has warped how I see her. After everything she did… I know if she was still alive, she’d say that shit to my face. ”
“Zaba,” Kier murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Tell me what she said.”
“A load of shit I don’t believe, like me betraying Lucre and being a traitor to the entire human race. That might affect me more if the entire human race wasn’t a sack of shit.”
“Not the entire human race,” he disagreed, his eyes soft on my face.
I smiled against my will. “Most of them.”
“Most of them,” he agreed. “What words got in your head?”
“That I’m a whore and broodmare, basically a baby factory for goblins.”
Rage turned his expression thunderous in moments, the storm moving in with a violent speed. “That is not how I see you. You are my wife, my mate, my pride, and my happiness—”
I cut him off with a swift kiss. “Honestly? I know there’s nothing wrong with liking sex and being a mother, that’s not what’s bothering me.
It’s… the way she said it. Like it was a dirty thing to be ashamed of.
It’s not that she planted an idea, more like a feeling.
And I don’t know how to get rid of it. Because I—”
Kier remained quiet, letting me think through my words, his hands gentle on my face.
“If we ever have children, I would hate for even an ounce of shame to poison me. Before I heard that bullshit in my sister’s voice, before she spat it at me like an accusation…”
“You would have been happy,” he murmured, thumb caressing my temple, “to discover we were expecting.”
“Yeah. Not that I want kids right now; everything is far too chaotic and turbulent for that, but…” My shoulders slumped and I gazed at him with a silent plea, asking him to finish my thought again, because I wasn’t brave enough to say it.
“In the future?” he asked, so softly. I nodded. “You want a family with me?”
“We already have a family, dumbass,” I said with a smirk. “Me, you, my troupe of sarcastic shitheads, your two snarky best friends. But yeah. When everything settles down, when there’s no longer a fucking worm in my head…” I didn’t have the nerve to say it. “Is that something you’d want, too?”
“It would be the honour of my life to have a child with you,” he said with reverence. “Although, my contribution is much less work than yours.”
“Yeah, on second thought it seems a lot of hassle, so let’s not.”
He pinched my hip. Smiled so wide I could see all his pearly whites. “When?”
“A couple years? Maybe five? I’m still very young and I’d like to live a full life of crime before I settle down.”
“Forgive me if I doubt becoming a mother would stop your rebellious, criminal ways,” he drawled.
“Shut up,” I muttered.
“Make me.”
With fucking pleasure. I sank my fingers into his hair and gripped tight, kissing him with overflowing passion, with excitement, with hope for a future full of laughter and teasing and really great sex.
And just maybe, a tiny Letta I could teach all the fatal points on a person’s body to, and all the fastest ways to kill a person.
When they were at least eight, obviously. I wasn’t a complete lunatic.
Kier and I had just begun round two, hands wandering hungrily, when the carriage came to an abrupt stop.
“What the hell?” I demanded, seeing nothing but trees and the road outside.
“We’re not due to stop until we reach Lazankh,” Kier said, tensing. He fastened my trousers with hurried attention and jumped out of the glossy door. “Get the sword, Zaba.”
“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I sighed, wrapping my hand around the cool fabric of the sword’s handle. A weapon like this must have a name; it was too old, too pretty, too steeped in legends and stories not to.
Cool power rushed up my arm as the weight of the sword pulled on my arm, followed by relief that Cleodora couldn’t reach me if I held it.
I jumped out after Kier, too focused on the sight before us to realise he hadn’t told me what he saw on the way down to Gaia’s tomb.