Chapter Twelve
Ayala
A TRAY IS SENT UP TO Cian’s rooms, saving me the necessity of trying to find something to eat in the kitchens, or worse, in the Great Hall where the nobles dine.
The events of the day have left me so shaken, I can barely pick at the acorn pastry, which is normally my favorite and the best perk of working for the king.
Er... well, before. Before I became his plaissance and everything changed.
I nibble at the crust but quaff the mead, needing the warmth it sends to my bones.
I’ve become the most hated person in Cerf-Biche. I don’t blame any of them. I’d hate me, too, for poisoning him.
I’m just pushing the plate away when a sudden atmospheric change in the room makes me look up.
“I ordered you fed. I didn’t realize I needed to order you to eat, too.” Cian crosses towards me on silent feet, radiating even more power than before.
“Fail in the details, fail in the whole,” I quip. Anything not to run to him and throw my arms around his waist. The urge to let him placate my fear and loneliness is too overwhelming.
I may be the least in the kingdom, but I’m better than that.
“What ails you, Ayala?” he asks softly, ruffling my hair with gentle fingers. “You were crying earlier.”
“How do you know?”
He smirks.
“Right.” He’s the king. He probably received a hundred reports before he crossed the threshold. I shrug, balling my hands so I don’t drag myself into him. “Everything. Nothing. Nothing for your consideration, certainly.”
“Everything and nothing are my job description.” His fingers shift and trace the line of my cheekbone. “What happened today?”
“I’m surprised your spies didn’t tell you.”
“I need better spies.” And in one quick motion, he scoops me up into his arms.
A sigh goes through me. Despite the fact that I don’t want to be that doe, the one who clings to her stag and uses his strength to hide from an unkind world, there’s solace in being held by him.
His breath is soft against my neck before his lips pillow onto my flesh.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I burst out, trying to pull away.
With long strides, he crosses into the other room and tosses me onto the bed.
“No. In fact, it’s such a bad idea that I returned home with every intention on setting you aside.
I thought to find you a nice home on the edge of the city and give you a respectable income to free you from work.
But here we are, little one.” He climbs over me, making a bridge of desire to which I long to cling.
His lips graze mine. “The moment I breached the doorway and saw you ignoring your food, all my good intentions faded. You need me.”
I reach up and stroke his cheek: the hard bones, the angled edges.
He’s magnetic, beautiful, and wild in his beauty.
Fathomless dark eyes, chiseled features, a body carved by the god himself, and a kindness that’s impossible to ignore.
.. were he the lowliest stag in all of Cerf-Biche, I would still melt to him.
Had he been the lowliest stag, I could have been happy.
“Ayala. Tell me what happened. Please?” He nuzzles into my neck, taking my reason.
“They hate me.”
“They’ll come to love you.”
“Not if you set me aside.”
He catches my eyes again. “I’ve decided against it. Apparently.” But he looks grim, like he’s fighting a war with himself.
“What happened to you today?”
Another quixotic smile crosses his face. “Everything. Nothing.”
Despite my mood, I giggle. He’s possessed of a wonderful sense of humor. I like that about him. I like everything about him. “Beast.”
Magick tingles around me, washing my skin, as he displays a ghost image of his rack. A tremor sharpens through my body. I could have been destroyed on his rack.
But his smile fades with the image. “What is this between us?”
I don’t know. I don’t know why he’d think I would.
He sifts magick into me, peeling back layers, trickling tiny fingers through my brain, my body, my blood. And all the thrumming tightens my core and settles between my thighs. “You want me.”
“Was that ever in question?”
“Why do you want me?”
“I don’t... are you asking me if I only want you because you’re the king?” Why would he have any moment of self-doubt? He is who he is. “Is there a doe in the kingdom who doesn’t want you?”
“Let’s take a hypothetical: suppose a stag challenged me and won? Or if I lost half my strength and became a middling-level stag? Would your body still liquify for me? Would you part your legs and take me into you with joy, or would you do so only out of some sort of loyalty?”
I’m about to make another quip, but the seriousness of his expression, the naked need in his eyes, stops me. “You want honesty from me, Cian, but I’m already at a great disadvantage here.”
He sighs and drops his gaze to my lips. “Yes. I know. It’s not fair of me to ask you.”
I don’t know if it’s instinct or stupidity, a weirdly brave streak or just the need to make him happy, but I lift his chin so he looks straight at me once more.
“I was just wishing you were the weakest stag in the kingdom so nothing could come between us. The truth is, I don’t understand what I’m feeling for you, whether it’s a matter of biology or something more, but I wouldn’t mind if you were half.
And I definitely wouldn’t mind if you weren’t king. ”
I expect a smile or a quip in return. Instead, he closes his eyes and exhales before burying his face back in the crook of my neck, this time kissing me with a passionate need that scalds.
Everything in me winds up tight. Everything in me empties to make room for him.
We’re still dressed in simple robes, his crimson, mine pink—my new favorite color, but my thighs part at a touch of his.
In one stroke, he slips his cock inside me.
I’m still unused to his width, but I’m so wet, there’s no resistance.
“You’re so fucking perfect, love. Like you were made to hold me.”
“I was. I am.” And I believe it.
And then the world shifts, melts, and reforms as he thrusts in and out.
Each agony is met with ecstasy. My body folds to him, becomes part of him, sings his songs, and dances his dance.
When he places his thumb against my clit, the world explodes, taking me with it into an inferno of bliss.
His cry quickly follows as he pulses within.
Without withdrawing, he rests his elbows beside my head, trapping me face to face with him. “I can’t... I’m sorry, I...”
It’s the first time I’ve seen him at a loss for words.
“Tell me what happened today.” I lift my fingers again, this time to smooth back his dark locks that curl about his forehead, damp as if from a recent shower, which he probably took when he shifted back into human form.
“Fuck.” He angles down to press his lips back to my neck. “This feels so right, so true. But I’m the god’s toy, and I know what he needs me to do.”
My fingers still, clasped in his dark locks. “You just said you weren’t going to send me away.”
“I did. I don’t want to.”
“But.” There’s always a but, at least for me.
I’m not even surprised, though it feels as if I’ve just swallowed daggers.
I clasp my walls around his cock, still hard inside me.
But for how long? How long until I miss it forever?
“If you’re going to send me away, at least explain to me what’s happened; otherwise, I’ll live my entire life wondering. I hate not knowing.”
“Me, too. More than anything.”
“That’s one tangible strand of the connection between us.”
Slipping down to lie beside me, he presses me close, his thigh over my hips, his cock still inside me. “Did you know that a stag who marks a doe of significantly lower strength will lose half of his strength to her?”
“No. Does it matter?”
“If I mark you—mate you—I’ll have to give the throne to Hunter. That’s the best-case scenario, because at least I trust he’ll rule with justice. But he isn’t the best choice. I am, and I swore my allegiance to Cernunnos when I took the Antler Throne. I swore that his will would be mine.”
His frown is built on thorns, all torn, even desperate.
“Did I slip into a time tunnel? When did we discuss marking?”
His hand slips to my ass and squeezes. “Tell me you don’t want me to mark you. Make me believe it, and you don’t have to leave.”
“I—I’ve never considered it.” Which is the truth. “I’m not given to flights of fantasy.”
A sudden smile creases his face. “No. You’re a survivor, a realist, and brave. Strong in the most unlikely of ways.” He moves as if to withdraw from me and leave the bed, so I stop him with my hands cupping his face.
“Stay with me. Fuck me again. Make me feel things I never thought I could feel. I don’t want you to mark me. I don’t want anything but your cock inside me and your taste on my tongue. And when that’s no longer enough for you, then send me away. There’s time enough tomorrow.”
And though my heart nearly tears in two as I say the words, they’re true enough. Plus, I can’t bear to let him go. Not yet.
He searches my face before his shoulders relax.
Deftly, he thrusts up into me once more.
“Maybe I’m chasing worry, being frightened by butterflies.
Mad monks and their talk. You’re right. The only worry I should hold at this moment is how best to satisfy you, which,” he adds, his fingers trailing over the line of my waist, “I intend to begin doing immediately.”
It takes a little while to pull the story of the day from him, but he tells me, bit by bit, while stroking desire into my skin with his fingers and lips.
It’s easier to hear how even the monks want me gone from his life while he’s bringing me to another shattering orgasm.
I contract around his hardness as I disintegrate, and I know again he’s real, solid, and mine. For a time.
He hisses before he pulses inside me again. With a groan, he pulls me into him, spreading kisses all over my face and hair. “What is this? What the dubnos is this?”