Chapter 23
Sebastian
This female is infuriating.
She’s going to get herself killed, and I won’t be able to live with myself if that happens.
I turn to face her as we reach the area between the boulders.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” I ask under my breath.
“No. Have you?”
“I’m trying very hard to keep you safe, but you’re making it impossible. How are you going to leave if you don’t have a horse?”
“That’s just it, I’m not leaving. Not without you. I’m here to talk you out of this crazy plan. You can’t go after Snow on your own. Don’t deny it. You’re planning on trying to defeat her alone, and it isn’t going to work.”
“That’s not what I—”
“You are!” she practically growls. “Give me an ounce of credit, please. I’m not a simpleton. I know it! You’re planning to go out there to face her…alone,” she whisper-shouts, pointing her finger at me.
“Are you suggesting that you should help me? You have some magic, Isla, but you…you need to stay away…that’s all.”
“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting at all.
” She shakes her head. Her hair has fallen loose from her braid.
Tendrils frame her face, catching the light.
“I’m suggesting that you shouldn’t go at all.
You should leave this court now. I don’t care whether you go back to Julienne or if you leave for the deadlands.
It doesn’t have to be with me. I know you still don’t trust me, but I do want you to listen to reason.
You have to leave here while you can. It doesn’t matter where, only that you do.
If you stay and face her, you will die.”
“So will she. That’s all that matters to me.”
Isla shakes her head. “You’ll die for nothing. She’s stronger than you think. She has the power of an entire realm behind her. You might be a king, but you are still just one man against an army of magical ability. You will be doomed.”
“I have the advantage of surprise. She won’t be expecting an attack.”
Isla laughs, sounding frustrated instead of happy.
“That’s where you are wrong. She knows you are still here.
She is no fool. Her wards will have wards.
You’ll be knocked back and then either taken captive or killed outright.
” Her eyes blaze with anger. Her cheeks are bright pink.
“In the end, you will die and all for nothing.”
Gods, but she’s beautiful. Even now. Even furious with me, her face flushed and her hair coming loose and wild, she takes the air from my lungs.
What she says holds reason. I know it does. But the thought of Snow riding into my court, into the kingdom my parents died for, and me doing nothing about it… I can’t stomach it.
There is always a chance. However slim. The realm would be free.
“I have to try,” I tell her. “This is an opportunity that cannot be denied.”
“Please don’t. Please listen to me,” she pleads. “It is going to take every single Lost King to amass an army to stand against her. If even one of the kings falls, it will more than likely be impossible to beat her.”
“The fae are not a united species. We never have been and never will be. The shadowfae and bloodfae have always been kept at arm’s length. The shifterfae keep strictly to themselves. Then there’s—”
“That has to change, Sebastian. Your mindset has to shift. I know what happened to you as a young boy. Julienne confided in me so that I would understand you better. I know how you lost your parents in such an awful way. I understand this need to stand alone. To take on everything all by yourself. You don’t have to do this alone.
You need the others, and they need you, even if they don’t realize it. Please…please don’t do this.”
Something cold twists in my chest at the mention of my parents. That old wound. The one that never healed and never will.
She knows. Julienne told her.
Part of me wants to be furious about that. The other part – the part I try very hard to ignore – is relieved that someone else understands. That someone sees the boy beneath the king and doesn’t look away.
“Why do you even care what I do or what risks I take?”
Why did I ask that? It’s for the good of the realm. It has nothing to do with me as a person. It shouldn’t.
“I wish I didn’t care about you, Sebastian, but I do.” She steps right into my space. I catch her scent of wildflowers. I want to pull her closer. I burn with the need.
I don’t. Instead, I hold my ground.
“I’m a stranger. You can’t possibly care about me, Isla,” I lash out, deepening my voice to mask whatever it is that’s threatening to break through.
“You’re not a stranger to me.” She takes another step forward.
“We’ve saved each other’s lives and more than once.
I broke your spell. Now we’re bound together somehow.
I feel it, even if you don’t. I knew you were the king and not some imposter.
Just like I knew you needed help.” She reaches up, taking my face in both her hands.
Her palms are warm against my skin. Her fingers curl against my jaw, gentle but sure.
“Please don’t do this. You will die and I… I…don’t think I could take it.”
That’s just it.
I do feel a connection. We are bound somehow. Through magic? Something else? I don’t know, only that it is true.
I feel her running through my veins like a second heartbeat. I’ve felt it since the night she broke the spell. Since she wrapped her silk around my chest and hauled me up onto that tower. Since I woke in the dark with her body curled against mine, and didn’t want to move.
“I do trust you, Isla.” The words come from somewhere deep and unguarded.
A place I didn’t know still existed. “I feel the connection you speak of. I asked Belen to get you out of that dungeon. When I found out that it wasn’t him who helped you, but that the order came from higher up, I doubted you, and I shouldn’t have.
I’m sorry I pushed you away. I do struggle with trust. I struggle with a lot of things.
” I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
“In the end, my main reason for doing it was to keep you safe. It was about getting you out of harm’s way. It still is, don’t you see that?”
“Because you always planned on going after her.”
I nod.
She holds my gaze for a long, aching moment. Then she rises onto her toes and presses her lips to mine.
The kiss is soft. The briefest, sweetest touch. She holds her mouth against mine for a heartbeat, two, and then pulls back just a fraction.
“Then please listen to me. Don’t go…” she whispers against me. “Please…”
Her body is warm against mine, the soft swell of her breasts pressing to my chest. My body responds to her immediately, and I harden against my braies. I can’t hide it. I don’t try.
A groan tears from my throat as I close my hands on her hips, feeling the heat of her skin through her clothing.
“I want you more than I have a right to. But we shouldn’t do this.”
She pulls back, looking into my eyes. Searching them. Whatever she finds there must satisfy her because her expression doesn’t waver.
“No. I want this moment. I want you.”
I kiss her. Not softly this time. I kiss her with everything I’ve been holding back.
My hands slide up from her hips, one spreading wide across the small of her back, the other moving into her hair. I tilt her head and deepen the kiss, sweeping my tongue against hers. She tastes warm and sweet, and I want more. I want all of it. All of her.
She kisses me back with a hunger that matches my own. Her fingers move from my face to the collar of my tunic, gripping the fabric, tugging at it. She gets hold of the hem and pulls upward.
I break the kiss long enough to catch her wrists.
My breathing is ragged. “I can’t make any promises about tomorrow. Or…about anything. I can only give you right now.”
She looks up at me. “Right now is enough.” A small, sad smile touches her lips. “There is no future for a half-breed and a king. I know that. You have your path, and I have mine, but right now…we have this. I’m not some maiden. I know what I want, Sebastian.”
I don’t say anything in response. I can’t make her promises, and she isn’t asking for any.
I release her wrists, and she pulls my tunic up and over my head. She slides the fabric from my shoulders, tossing it aside. The cool air hits my bare chest, and I hardly feel it. Not with the way she’s looking at me.
Her hands are on me before the tunic hits the ground. Her fingertips trace the eclipse marking on my chest, following the lines where sun meets shadow. The touch is light, exploratory, almost wondering. Heat rolls through me wherever her fingers travel. My stomach tightens. My breath comes harder.
I cup her face in both hands and bring her mouth back to mine. I kiss her deep and slow while my hands move to the hem of her tunic. I slowly pull the fabric up. She lifts her arms, and I pull it over her head. More of her hair falls loose.
She’s wearing a thin chemise underneath, soft and worn from use. I gather the hem and draw it up, breaking our kiss only long enough to lift it over her head as well. Then Isla removes the pouch of coin, tossing it aside.
She stands before me, bare from the waist up. I keep my eyes on hers for long moments before looking down, and may the goddess help me.
My breath leaves me. Kakara be thanked I have my sight back because Isla is something to behold.
Her skin is smooth, her breasts full and round, her pink nipples are tight.
She’s lean but curved, all softness and strength at once, and the sight of her undoes something inside me that I’d thought was long dead.
I trace the line of her collarbone with my thumb, watching the gooseflesh rise in its wake. She shivers. Her eyes never leave mine.
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper.
She smiles, and it robs me of what little thought I have left.
I take her mouth again while my hands learn every part of her. The weight of her breasts as they fill my palms. She takes in a sharp breath when my thumbs brush across her nipples. I roll them gently, and she gasps into the kiss, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
I find the ties of her hose, pulling them loose, and then work the fabric down over her hips and thighs. She helps pull off her boots, shimmying free of the last of her clothing until she stands completely naked before me.
I step back so that I can look at her.
Isla doesn’t try to cover herself. She stands tall, her chin lifted, letting me look my fill.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Too good for this broken realm. Too good for me.
I gather our discarded clothing and lay it on the ground between the boulders, creating a rough, makeshift bed. It isn’t much, but it’s better than the bare earth, and she deserves at least that.
I lead her there and lay her down, lowering her onto the spread of fabric. Her hair fans out beneath her. She watches me, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling with quick breaths.
I sink to my knees between her legs. I run my hands slowly up the outside of her thighs. She trembles at the touch, and her thighs part for me, her body opening.
I press my mouth to the inside of her knee. Then higher, kissing a slow path along her inner thigh. Her breath hitches. Her fingers find my hair, threading through the strands.
“Sebastian.” My name, breathless on her lips, is the finest thing I’ve heard in a good long while. She shifts her hips, restless and wanting. A small sound leaves her. A sound that makes my blood run thick and hot.
“Please…” she whispers. “I want you inside me.”
“Not yet. I need you ready for me.”
I lean in between her thighs, my shoulders easing them wider. I breathe her in as I edge down toward the heart of her. My mouth is watering for a taste.
“Sebastian.” She sounds shocked. “Surely…surely you aren’t going to—?”
She groans as I suckle on her tight, swollen nub. Her back lifts off the ground, and her fingers tighten in my hair. The sound she makes is low and broken, and beautiful.
I harden even more, my braies feeling overly tight. My skin feels tight, too. Tight with need for her.
“Yes,” she moans. “Oh gods…yes.” She whimpers as I lick and lave at her, in a slow and deliberate way that has her moaning.
I quickly learn what makes her gasp, what makes her hips roll toward me. I circle my tongue on her sensitive nub using just the tip. Her whole body draws tight. Her thighs shake against my shoulders.
I hold her hip steady with one hand and use the other to part her gently, giving my mouth better access. I taste her fully, lavishing attention on the spot that draws the strongest response. She moans in a raw, open sound that echoes off the boulders.
I alternate between licking her in tight strokes and suckling on her. She’s making small, helpless noises now, her breathing coming in ragged bursts. Her hands tug on my hair.
Her moans grow louder, more urgent, her hips moving quickly against my mouth.
She’s close.
Perfect.
I stop.