Reshina
There was no cold.
No frozen winter crystalizing my wings.
No icy feathers melting from the heat of his body over mine.
Only fire.
Only flame.
Only the one who could ease my fever.
Who could tame the rapid pulse and pull such sweet pleasure from the wound at my wrist.
I tossed and turned when he left me.
Frightened, fretting, calling for him to return and calm the scorching blood in my veins once more.
He’d leave and I’d moan.
He’d return and I’d moan.
The pain of his loss, the pleasure of his mouth returning to my skin.
I’d not changed in years, but I bloomed beneath him.
A dark flower waiting for the breath that could soothe me, summon me, coax me into opening, and I did not see a way out from this place.
I did not see a way out from under him.
I woke in a bed that was not mine.
In a realm that was not mine.
Under an arm that was not mine.
The pleasant weight drew a sigh from my lips as I blinked slowly, the color red flooding me. Red drapery around his bed. Red sheets, red tapestries around the room—I didn’t dare move. I only took it in.
He’d done it. He’d even somehow spoken it, and though I had new questions for Arthur, the time had come to heal and leave this nest to begin the plan I’d been concocting for two weeks.
I turned my head, careful not to disturb him next to me. He held my left hand in his, his other curled across my waist as he slept. His nose pressed to the underside of my wrist. The heat of his breath brought a numbness to the wound that had mostly healed.
“Arthur,” I croaked, remembering the scratch of my throat from the last time we’d done this.
The inhale of his lungs was long and slow as he nestled into my wrist, placing a kiss there that sent tingles through my body. “Yes?”
“I need…” My voice trailed as his lips left my skin and both of my bite marks stung in his absence.
Finding my gaze, he returned with the most delicious of grins, spreading soft kisses along the tendons of my wrist. “What is it you need, Goddess?”
I bit my tongue. Water. I needed water.
“I need…” My words left me again as his tongue spread over my skin and he closed his eyes in rapture.
My breath exhaled in a shudder, the wound pulsing in pleasure instead of pain. “Arthur,” I whispered. If he’d asked me to, I’d have lain with him. If he’d asked me anything, I’d have done it under that trance within his rooms, in his bed, under his mouth.
He lifted me to sitting, wrapping an arm around my back and bringing a cup to my lips. I peered at his face over the rim as I drank—gulping the soothing cool liquid and returning to a place of clarity.
“Will you eat something?” He threaded his hand along my neck, holding the back of my head to steady me as he brought a piece of chocolate to my lips, placing it there for me to lean forward and take.
I kept his stare as I pulled it into my mouth, relishing in the smooth texture melting across my tongue. “Piffle fed me broth last time.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
I nodded, leaning forward for more.
He pressed his cheek to mine, whispering in my ear. “I am not Piffle.”
A half-snort left me and he pulled back, grinning so beautifully, my heart leapt at his wide smile, the crinkled lines at his eyes, and the shimmer there in the icy blue. “And here I thought you had stayed to take care of me. Not to sneak me sweets.”
His smile softened. “I’ll take care of you.
” He drew me forward, letting my tired bones settle on his chest as he pulled me into his lap.
“As long as I live. If you’ll let me,” he tacked on, rocking us, shifting his strong hands through the tangles in my hair.
“If you’ll let me,” he whispered again, leaving a kiss on the top of my head.
And for a reason I couldn’t face, a reason I was not allowed to, I wept silently into the chest of the man who soothed away my fever and fed me chocolate.
My daughter was married.
Piffle brought the news that had traveled from the Kingdom of the Citrine Cliffs while he purchased goods at the Heartstone market.
She’d done it. And I’d had no motherly part in it.
The kindest part of me settled, knowing my son’s wife, Seraphine, would have been there to help her choose a dress and give her advice about marriage.
Not that I had any to give. I’d never been married, never binding myself to a man and binding him to my curse.
I’d begun writing letters in my mind. Words to explain where I’d been and why I hadn’t been there to see her off to her new life.
But my words were never good enough. And each time I’d started writing my thoughts onto parchment, I would be crippled with the truth that I could never sign them with love.
I could never even imply the word throughout my writings.
Morella didn’t need me. She had family to love her and a husband who would in time.
They all would do fine without me and until I could free myself from this curse, I decided to keep the truth of it away from their worries.
I’d been in bed for two days with Arthur at my side for most of the time to soothe my wound.
He left once each day for only a few hours, roaming the perimeter of the castle grounds as the Beast, before returning to me where I’d settle with his mouth on my skin.
Piffle had eventually forced me to eat something other than chocolate and by noon on the third day, I was well enough to detail my plans to Arthur.
“Rope, a basket, and a blanket should do. We’ll need to keep the Underfae in a dark room, so as not to kill it with light.” I tapped the parchment on the desk in the library where I’d written a list of supplies. “We’ll need to extract their venom as is done with snakes.”
Arthur raised a brow. “And how is venom extracted from snakes?”
“We will coat a cloth in my blood and lay it over a bowl. When the fae bites into the cloth, it will eject venom which we will collect.”
“You’re very confident about this,” he muttered.
“The Beast’s bite marks and theirs are similar to a snake’s. They must secrete their venom with their teeth, but it must not be as potent as yours.”
Arthur ran his tongue over his canines. “And how will we get the venom into my blood?”
“I’ll have to cut your skin beforehand. We can’t be certain ingesting the venom would do anything to you, but direct contact to your blood should work and slow the Beast.”
“You’ll cut me?” he questioned, raising a brow and tapping his breastbone.
“Not there,” I chided, taking his hand and flipping it over to the underside of his wrist. The tendons along his arm rose and the veins just under the surface of his skin pulsed in a deep blue. “Here,” I said softly, tracing a purple vein.
When I tore my gaze from the beauty of his arm, I found him staring, waiting for me to see the heat in his eyes.
Good Goddess, I wanted him. Memories of those long days and nights in his bed, as he held me and brought out the fever in my body, lingered between us.
But I needed to leave this realm. I had my people to look after. I had a son. A daughter. I had a family that grew, and a life somewhere above, I—
“When you leave,” he started, bringing me out of my daze, “promise me you will not return.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s possible I can find a way to—”
He squeezed my hand, bringing my knuckles to his lips. “Ever.”
“I’ll make no such promise. Now, are you ready to begin?”