Chapter 18 #2
Daire hums, squirming around on the blankets; he rudely dislodges a cushion to the floor. “Looks like royalty get better mattresses.”
“And softer blankets.” Freya rubs her cheek against a golden one.
I stoop to pick up the cushion from the floor and toss it back at Daire’s head.
He chuckles, batting it away.
“We may just move in here.” Daire ruffles his feathers.
My heart leaps. “Is this you moving back into my nest?”
That’s…huge.
I deliberately keep my expression emotionless.
I can’t ask if they are forgiving me. I don’t deserve that.
“It’s calling you a bloody idiot,” Daire grumbles.
I step closer to the bed, ignoring Tarquin’s small shrine, which is shaped like a silver dragon. A crown with twin dragons rests in front of it.
Tarquin’s crown.
I almost destroyed the shrine in my rage when I returned from the Guild of Assassins after Lanlin told me the truth.
Yet I couldn’t go through with it.
Tarquin is still my brother. I have grieved for him on my knees for too many hours before that shrine.
I can hold both emotions inside me at once, the loss and the betrayal.
Yet it is harder to ignore the fresco, which is painted on the wall above the shrine. It is a grand fresco of Tarquin as I remember from my childhood: charming, laughing, and handsome.
How much of that Tarquin had been a lie? Or had it been real, only he had another side that he hid from me? A darker side that could commit genocides and plan the coldblooded assassination of his own brother?
My bedroom is simple and uncluttered apart from my bed. It is a windowless room to maintain my privacy from Maximinus’ spies.
Beeswax candles flicker on a desk in the corner.
A chest stands next to the desk, which is ornamented with flames of gold on each of its sides.
I hide my treasure inside like the golden wooden dragon and amethyst feather that my mates bought at the carnival.
I glance from the chest back to Freya. “Are we…? Have you thought about…?”
Freya sits up, and the light dances across her beautiful curves. “I sneaked into the Guild of Assassins. I spoke to Lanlin.”
Worriedly, I glance at the closed doorway.
Then I march to the bed. I climb onto it, kneeling next to Freya. I cup her cheeks.
When I hush her, my lips grazing hers, I am surprised at the way she claims mine in a kiss.
“Be careful talking here,” I murmur, reluctant to be parted from her lips even for a moment.
Then, praise the Shadow Gods, she kisses me again.
Daire transfers Five onto the pillows at the top of the bed, cushioning his head on his arms to watch us with half-hooded eyes like we’re putting on a show for him.
“He said that you were friends now,” Freya whispers, covering the words by kissing down my neck.
I struggle to hold back a shiver at her touch but don’t immediately reply because to talk about this here is dangerous. I have already allowed myself too much weakness about Lanlin.
When my gaze catches on the shrine, my lips thin. “But I made a blood oath to my brother.”
“Oaths are as much tricksters as prophecies are.” Daire distractingly drops his long fingers to stroke up and down his cock as he watches Freya and me together. “What were the precise words?”
“Am I meant to concentrate?” I demand.
“I thought that you would have better self-discipline.” Daire palms over the head of his cock and moans.
He’s doing that on purpose.
I don’t want to remember the night in the Silver Tower, when I was stained in Tarquin’s blood. I rocked my brother’s body in my arms, before I made the blood oath in desperation.
It is even harder to remember now that Tarquin had planned for it to have been me who died in a pool of blood that night.
Yet it is helped by the way that Freya cups my crotch through my tight breeches and presses.
I hiss out a sharp breath.
“To lead my army as the best warrior,” I manage to get out.
“And you have.” Freya licks the shell of my ear, before tugging on my lobe with her sharp teeth.
“To conquer the fae, as Tarq always dreamed.”
Daire’s eyes flash. “You bloody did. Why am I here?”
When Freya edges her hand into my breeches, pulling out my cock, I buck into her hand. “What oath did you make about Lanlin?”
When she leans up and grips the base of my horn, my eyes shoot open.
A dragon’s horn is even more intimate than their wings or their cock.
More sensitive.
Freya strokes from the horn’s base to its tip with one hand, while stroking my cock with her other hand.
I am defenseless before the onslaught, and as a warrior, I have never wanted to lay my weapons down before anyone but her.
Does Freya understand how strong a claim she is making by stroking my horn? She is proposing all over again, re-affirming her claim on me.
I raise my hands to the sides of her face, holding her still. Then I kiss her, claiming her as fiercely as she is me.
She whines into the kiss, clawing down my horn.
I rumble a growl at the sensation.
“To take revenge on the vampires,” I murmur between kisses.
My cock pulses between her clever fingers.
“Well, job done.” Daire crawls across the bed, gripping my other horn.
Suddenly, I am overwhelmed, caught between my two beautiful mates in our nest that now smells of them.
It is my head that is now held still, as my King and Queen stroke my horns.
I am panting.
“You forced the vampires’ king to prostrate himself.” Daire speeds up his teasing of my horn, and pleasure climbs up my spine, making my toes curl. “He submitted his kingdom to you. He’s your captive. You took your revenge, as bloody misguided as it was. Your blood oath is complete. You’re free.”
Free?
The thought is foreign to me.
Revelatory.
Suddenly, I am flying.
Daire and Freya exchange a wicked glance, before they bend forward and lick down each of my horns from base to tip.
I cry out at the intense and unexpected pleasure.
And it is like flying.
Somewhere, far below, I can feel that I am coming.
But I am lost in the ecstasy of the sensation of being free, claimed, and loved.
“I’ve got you.” Daire wraps his wings around me, as I slump forward.
He lays me down amongst the blankets, cuddling down on one side of me.
I am too dazed to avoid his searching gaze.
When Freya deliberately raises her cum covered hand to her lips and licks the sticky liquid off, I shudder.
“I know how important it is to you dragons to keep your uniforms clean and tidy.” She gives her fingers a final lick, before tucking my cock back into my breeches.
“And that’s not us admitting guilt for messing you up.” Daire winks.
Five stands and stretches, before she wanders down the bed to curl up again on Daire’s lap.
My tongue feels too heavy in my mouth. “Will you officially move into my royal nest? I don’t want you sleeping in the room across the study. It has been agony having you so close but still having walls between us.”
For a dragon, an invitation like this is as special as either a proposal or bonding.
Say yes.
Damn the Shadow Gods, say yes…
“I thought that us turning up naked in your nest would be enough of a clue.” Freya rests her head on my chest. “It’s been just as hard for me.”
I smile. “It’s decided. We shall spend every night together from now on.”
“Hmm, I made that same vow to another Alpha.”
I frown. “We can work on one problem at a time.”
“We shared his royal nest first.”
“And now you’re in mine.” I sling my arm possessively around Freya. “Also, I have something for you, my King.”
I slip my other hand under my tunic to the ring that is hanging around my neck on a leather cord.
I pull out the ring, which Daire entrusted to me before he left for Blood Kingdom — his father’s ring.
I don’t understand why it’s so important to Daire, but then the candlelight catches on the heavy gold ring that I still wear. I inherited my ring from my own father, despite him wanting me locked up.
Did Daire’s parents fear him like mine and Lanlin’s did? Or did they love him?
As soon as Daire spies the ring, his expression becomes serious. His breathing speeds up, and he appears unable to look away from the warped bronze and emerald ring.
Then his hand moves like he’s about to snatch the ring from me, before he catches himself and stills. “Are you giving it back to me?”
I snap the cord from around my neck. “Of course. A king’s heirlooms are his own. Why else would I keep it safely against my heart? Hold out your palm.”
Daire mechanically does, and I drop the ring into his palm.
When Daire closes his fingers around the ring, he instantly clutches it to his chest, as if he’s shielding his Winter Court and not a relic of a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
“What was your father like?” I can’t stop myself from asking.
Daire glances at me in shock, before his expression softens; he looks younger like this.
“Reckless, like me. He was the most beautiful of the fae. He had a way of making everyone around him smile. He understood that a single moment of freedom is worth more than an entire lifetime lived underneath the yoke. He was the best king, and the best bloody da. And he died…” He breaks off.
He traces over the ring. His eyes are wet. “I lost…more than you can understand.”
“I want to try.” For the first time, I realize that I mean it.
Shocked lavender eyes meet mine. “Aye, maybe you do.”
Suddenly, the door bangs open.
I grab a blanket and throw it over Freya to cover her.
“Who dares…?” I bellow.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” Ignatius drops his gaze to the floor. He is sweating, and his temple is bruised. “But your uncle and some members of the Council have forced their way into the study. I couldn’t hold them back…”
I launch myself off the bed, straightening my uniform.
“Stay here and don’t come out, no matter what happens,” I command Daire and Freya.
Before they can complain, I march after Ignatius back into the study, slamming the door shut behind me.
Fuck, War is still at the barracks.
I have let down my defenses too much. I should have known that Maximinus would have seized this opportunity.
I glower in outrage to see Maximinus slouching in the seat behind my desk.