59. Keldarion
59
Keldarion
T he music envelops me like a lover’s embrace, awakening my senses as I wander through Cryptgarden. My eyes drift to the drink table, every corner filled with brightly colored concoctions promising freedom. I take three bubbly shots before grabbing two more drinks in my hands to take back to the willow tree.
Now, where is that tree? My vision fades in and out. The only thing I can focus on is the twisted thorns and the throne above it where he sits.
“What are you doing out here?” a stern, metallic voice cuts through the din.
I spin. Wavering before me are Rosalina and Ezryn. They’ve got their arms around each other.
The strangest joy blooms in my body at seeing my best friend holding my mate so protectively. I realize I haven’t even been worried about her; I knew she was with him, knew he would protect her as fiercely as I ever could.
A deep desire to get closer to them cuts through everything else. I drop my drinks and stagger toward Ez, clasping his hard shoulders, feeling his solid weight support me.
I’m so happy he’s here. He’s never here. He loves to leave. Because he hates Castletree. Hates me. But he always comes back.
“Ez, I missed you.” I think I might be speaking loudly, but it doesn’t matter. I place a kiss on the front of his metal helm. Still using him as support, I lean down to the woman wrapped around his waist.
She blinks up at me, the most adorable expression on her face. I’ll kiss her, too. I snatch her jaw, and she sighs, the sound igniting my body.
No. I pull away from her, my eyes cutting across the courtyard to the staircase of thorns. I’ll never let him have her.
“I think he had more drinks while we were gone,” Rosalina says.
Ezryn gives a deep sigh. “I’ve never seen him this drunk.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” I tell them. But my words don’t have the desired effect because Rosalina giggles.
“We’ve stayed long enough.” Ez tightens his grip on me and the three of us are moving. It must look odd to an outsider that Ezryn is dragging two stumbling people through the party. I’m sure I could walk if I wanted to, but I happen to like leaning on him.
The familiar glowing branches of the willow tree rustle, and Ezryn deposits us on the soft cushions. I topple down, somehow finding myself on my back and Rosalina lands beside me, her hair falling in dark waves. She has one leg up, and the skirt melts away, revealing her beautiful thigh, the smooth curve of her calf.
I want to taste every inch of her body.
“Keldarion.” Ezryn’s harsh voice cuts through my hazy mind, and I blink up to see him standing above us. “Where are Dayton and Farron?”
I search through the clouds of my mind. “I think they went to find somewhere to fuck.”
“Of course they did.” Ezryn sighs. “Where?”
I shrug.
“I’ll find them, and then it’s time to go. We’ve more than fulfilled Farron’s bargain,” Ezryn says. “Rosalina, you’re in charge.”
She sits up, nodding obediently. “So, I can boss Kel around?”
“Do whatever you wish. Just do not leave here. Understand?”
She smiles and nods, and he gently bends to caress her cheek, then turns to me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“When have I ever done that?”
After another long sigh, Ezryn leaves Rosalina and me alone.
And I’m certain it was him who did something stupid.
“Ez left me in charge,” Rosalina purrs, and she draws nearer to where I’m still sprawled on the pile of cushions.
Her beautiful breasts are covered only in inky thorns. Her knees push through the panels of her skirt with each movement. And I know there’s nothing between that bit of fabric and her pussy.
A deep groan rumbles through me at the thought. She is perfection. The night she came into my room, sensing my pleasure, was the first time I ever glimpsed her truly bare. Every part of me ached to touch her, to bury myself inside her and never leave.
I know the mating bond makes her crave me too. Makes her crave a monster. And each day it’s getting harder not to give in to this need.
She rests her head on my shoulder, pressing the softness of her breasts against my side. One leg drapes over mine.
“Ez said I could do anything I wanted to you,” she whispers.
“Hmm.” I drift a finger down her spine until I cup her ass. “I’m sure you’re planning something devious.”
She pushes her bottom into my touch. My hand slips through the panels of fabric and caresses her bare skin.
“Fuck,” I groan, and then I can’t stop myself. I pull her on top of me, her thighs spread on either side of my hips, her bare heat pressing against me. “Do you feel that, Rose? Do you feel how weak I am for you?”
A sound of deep desire ripples through her, and she rocks along my cock. “You know what I want, Kel.” She presses her lips to my jaw. “But I’ll start with a kiss.”
I angle my face toward hers, lips a hair from mine. “Tell me what you were doing with Ez. His scent is all over you.”
Her eyes widen, and she flushes. “We were—”
“I hope he was good to you, Rose.” The thought of my best friend satisfying her in a way I’ll never be able to fills an ache in my burning chest.
“He kissed me,” she says huskily. “He kissed me here.”
Then she grabs my hand and pulls it between her skirts. My fingertips graze her hot core. So soft and wet. I need to be inside her. “Rose—”
“Well, isn’t this the most delicious sight in all the Below,” a smooth voice says.
I sit up, cradling Rosalina in my arms as I take in Caspian leaning by the entrance of the alcove. “Careful, Kel, or you might just break your twenty-five year streak.”
He’s all mocking smile and sharp angles. Twenty-five years. Has it really been that long? But it hadn’t been hard, not at all. Not with knowing the harm it would cause.
That is until Rosalina entered Castletree. The answer to my curse. And the doom of my realm.
“Room for one more?” Caspian sits down beside us.
Rosalina fixes him with a glare. “What are you doing here?”
“Why, I do believe you mentioned you had a present for me.”
“You don’t deserve it for being a pig.”
He pouts his full lips. “But it’s my birthday.”
She wavers, whether it’s from her unyielding kindness or she’s just as weak to his charm as everyone else. “You can have it if you promise to stop sending fae you fucked to Castletree.”
“How can I promise that? I may be a prince, but I’m also a man with certain needs.”
“Find a new kink other than offering up naked people.” Rosalina slides off my lap, and I instantly miss her touch.
“Something new,” he muses. “Want to help me discover it?”
Thorns wriggle out from the ground. Almost affectionately, they encircle her wrists, connecting them together, and lifting them above her head. Two more vines snake out and bind each ankle.
Caspian gives her the slightest poke in the sternum, and she falls among the cushions with a peep.
“Let her go,” I warn.
“That’s the thing, my dear Kel,” Caspian purrs. “She is able to tame these briars, the same as I. You can break free, can’t you?”
Rosalina seems to test them, chest heaving. The only emotion pulsing through the bond between us is… lust. Damn him.
“Sometimes it feels good to surrender, doesn’t it, little princess?” Caspian licks his lips. “Because deep down you know I’m not going to hurt you. That I’ll only bring you pleasure. Thought about my proposal? I can offer you the answer you so desperately seek.”
“You think this is how you’ll get your present?” she bites out, but her voice is raspy, low.
“I be nice to you. You be nice to me.” The briars holding her ankles move, opening her legs slightly. Her skirt shifts to the side, and through the panels, I glimpse her bare pussy, the light line of hair before her dripping center. The smell of her arousal is intoxicating.
I fly closer to them in a fury, grabbing his shirt. “She’ll never be yours, Cas.”
“You’re adorable, Kel.” A sly smile crawls up his face, and instead of fighting my hold, he melts into me. His legs drop to either side of my knees and his hand glides down my chest, my stomach, then a featherlight touch over my cock. “You’re aching for her.”
He speaks like he knows my very soul. Maybe he does.
“You shouldn’t be touching me,” I growl. “The last person who did that got thrown across the room.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind.” Caspian flits his gaze toward Rosalina. She’s shimmied out of the vines and now digs in her bag.
Rosalina rolls her eyes. “You know, the only reason he hasn’t thrown you across the room is because he’s hopelessly drunk.”
“And what will you do?” Caspian takes his hands off me and hangs them limp in front of himself. “Go on, tie me up with your thorns.”
“Here.” Rosalina holds out a wrapped package.
Caspian slinks onto the cushioned ground with the fluidity of a black cat.
“I told her not to bring you anything,” I say, searching the table for another drink.
“Of course you did,” Caspian says, inspecting the simple brown package.
Rosalina sits down on his other side, also reaching for a drink. “It’s not right to go to a party without a gift,” she says. “Besides, it’s nothing much.”
Caspian’s long fingers tear at the paper to reveal a small leather bound book.
Rosalina’s flush deepens. “You see, Farron and I crafted these notebooks to help organize our research. But I made an extra one.”
The front has an inked drawing of a thorn and his name written in handwriting.
“Back home, whenever I got sad, I would write in my journal.” I note her nervous rambling. “Not that I think you’re sad. Well, that’s a lie. I do think you’re sad.”
Only the flicker of amusement crosses his features. He carefully opens the book. On the top of the page are the words: Things that make me smile.
He raises a brow at her, and I lean closer to see what else she’s already written: Dancing to beautiful music Fine clothing Competitive board games Annoying Keldarion
Caspian flicks his dark gaze to me. “I suppose I do enjoy the last one.”
“It’s good to remind yourself of what makes you happy,” Rosalina says. “You can fill out the rest yourself.”
I take a moment to admire her, the ability to show such kindness to someone so undeserving of it. He’s holding her home hostage, and yet she’s filled with empathy for him.
Caspian thumbs through the blank pages of the rest of the book, then carefully places it on the table. “How quaint.”
Rosalina’s features dim as he coldly disregards her gift. But she doesn’t see his veiled vulnerability: the slight quiver of his lip, the glimmer of tenderness in his gaze. She has reached a place within him I didn’t think existed anymore. My heart rages as I stare into his eyes.
Believing that, seeing those traits in him, is what got me into this mess to begin with,
My eyes meet his, and a flash of fear shatters his face. Like I have caught him wide open.
“Oh, what happened?” Rosalina touches the crown of thorns on her head. Except it’s not just a crown of thorns anymore. Brilliant black roses bloom around it. She gently lifts it off, smiling at the flowers. “Pretty. Thanks, Caspian.”
Caspian looks down at his hands. “No… I didn’t do that. My thorns may be the briars of a rosebush, but they don’t bloom with flowers.”
Delicately, Rosalina touches the silken petals. “But it wasn’t me. It feels like you.”
Before I can ask how she knows what Cas feels like, she places the crown atop his head then grabs his hand. He stiffens beneath her touch, but she guides their fingers down to the thorns that still lace along the floor.
“Relax. You’re trembling,” she whispers, then looks up at him with a smirk. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Oh—” He swallows. I’ve only seen Cas nervous a handful of times, and every time it was adora—
I grab another drink and down it in a single gulp.
Rosalina holds their hands above the thorn. She gasps as light flickers beneath their palms. “Can you feel that?” she breathes. “It knows we’re talking to it.”
Caspian looks over at her, brows lowered. “We’re… talking to it?”
Then slowly something sprouts from the light. A tiny bud.
“Caspian,” a stern female voice says. Looking in from the entrance to our alcove is a fae woman. A dark hood and a mask shield most of her face, and a cloak covers her body.
Caspian rips his hand away from Rosalina and stands, prowling over to her. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Caspian doesn’t look back as he grabs her arm and drags her from the enclosure.
“Who was that?” Rosalina asks.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “I’ve never seen her before.”
Rosalina creeps to the edge of the willow tree. I follow, leaning my body protectively over hers. “I wonder what he did to upset her,” she says.
Caspian and the woman stand in the shadow of the thorn staircase. She has her arms crossed and glares up at him. They seem to be in a heated argument.
Finally, the woman throws her hands up and storms away through the crowd. Caspian stands still for a moment, running a hand through his hair. Then he turns toward us.
Rosalina tugs me inside, and we fall back to the cushions right as Caspian steps through the sheer curtains.
“What was that about?” Rosalina asks.
He’s silent for a heartbeat, something softening in his expression as he gazes down at her. “A minor disagreement on tonight’s entertainment schedule. Nothing to be—”
A clamor sounds at the entrance, and Ezryn and Dayton walk in.
“Why are you here?” Dayton growls at Caspian.
Caspian bends to swipe the book Rosalina made off the table. “Collecting my present.”
Ezryn crosses his arms. “We’ll be departing shortly. Have we satisfied our end of Farron’s bargain?”
“Oh, yes. Where is he, anyway?” Caspian asks.
“Getting one last drink,” Dayton says.
“You finally left the little pup alone. You two were hardly separated all night,” Caspian says slowly, then something dark flickers in his gaze. “Well, enjoy the rest of the party.”
Rosalina crawls to me, grabbing my hand. “We did it,” she says. “See? Not so bad.”
Ezryn looks out at the revelry. “We’re not home yet.”