Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
It takes everything in me not to laugh. Maxian frowns furiously, and I feel a thrill. Not of desire but of the game. If I cannot spill the blood of those I hate, why not heat it? There is a little death in that still, and their shame ensures I can get away with absconding their control.
They take and take and take. Perhaps I should take, too. My genius hums at the very idea.
“I can do other things besides play dead,” I venture, then glance to Maxian, remembering the official laws that contradict the private behavior of fae and faeries alike. No pledging to the same sex, no public displays, no asking, no telling.
He shrugs, fighting a smirk. “It’s not illegal to play with each other. Only to marry.”
Male desire is so predictable.
“Besides, you’re the king,” I say. “You can play however you want. Even as a spectator.”
His gaze narrows.
“What do you mean?” the fae asks, her expression wary. Maybe they want someone to messy them so that they can indulge without claiming responsibility.
“Come to me,” the king commands.
“Ladies first,” I reply. “Then, if you’ll still have me, I will.”
A small rumble in the room, yet from the flash in the king’s eye, I know he likes the pushback.
It riles him, makes him feel stronger when he’ll get me to submit.
Like thinking me a scrappy opponent in the ring, the Ruthless daughter.
But here is what he gets wrong: Just because I serve him does not mean I submit.
After everything the king has done and allowed, I will never submit. Not to him. He has not earned it.
“I don’t want you to touch me, if that’s what you’re saying,” the fae says.
“You don’t?” I rise forward onto my knees once more.
She jerks back. “What are you doing?”
“Do I have your permission?”
The plane rumbles again. The fae won’t look away from me.
“For what?” she demands.
“To ruin you.”
Her cheeks deepen in color.
“No,” she sputters.
“A lie,” the king says.
“That’s okay,” I answer. “You can look, if you prefer. But if you want to feel, you say so. And if you want to stop feeling at any point, you can say a word.”
She watches me. “Even after we’ve started?”
Again, my heart twists for the fae in front of me, for the oppressed oppressor.
“Especially after we’ve started. It is all up to you.”
The room groans with the vibrating of the plane, a mingle of all our magics, the flicker of a thousand candles.
The king’s ire spikes my own, but his is not a true anger.
It’s a desire to be acknowledged. So I look at him, and he is brimming.
Brimming with frustration, with tension, with hatred and lust.
“See those drapes behind you?” I say. “Tie your hands in them.”
One side of his mouth tugs up. “No.”
“Fine. As long as all you do is watch until I decide you can join.”
He gets everything he wants, he gets to win every time, everywhere, outside this chamber. But not in his own bed. Not anymore.
The fae surveys me. “You cannot speak of this to anyone.”
“I am blood-bound. The king will confirm.”
“It’s true,” he grumbles.
She flicks her gaze to him, then back to me. She swallows, her throat bobbing.
“I heard…I heard the faeries fuck like animals.”
Desire sings in my veins, and I loose my genius, drenching the plane with the scent of spring rain. They both startle, look to me, the air heady and heavy.
This. This is power. This is control, if even for a moment. This is that feeling I have been chasing ever since Jeremee died. This glorious and painful reality, like the shallow nick of a blade against skin. Something to remind me of my own body. Something to reclaim.
So reclaim I do.
I prop my elbows on the edge of the mattress and take in the gorgeous fae sitting cross-legged before me.
“Your word?” I ask. “Utter it once and everything stops.”
“I-I’m not sure,” she stammers.
I glance at the king. “How about ‘apple’?”
Heat glints in his half-lidded gaze, his cock flexing.
“ ‘Apple’ it is,” the fae says.
Taking a breath, I search for someone, an ex-lover, a beautiful stranger, to envision as I service the fae once more. But as my mind flicks through the possibilities, it keeps landing on the same one, no matter how much I abhor and abate the image.
My mind magnetizes to a silver-haired female.
Something twinges low in my gut. I push down the panic, the self-hatred that comes with this realization. You cannot slip once, not even for a second.
So I stoke the fire of my own desire that I will never share with another.
I think of her in her nightdress, the neckline slipping down one shoulder.
I think of her sleek skin, the cutting glances, the sharpness of her tongue.
I imagine it on me. I imagine those blood-red dagger nails scraping down my sides as she gets on her knees before me, this time in her lingerie of gems.
When I open my eyes, I drink in the pink fae, imagining a silver one in her place.
I know my gaze exudes lust. And the fae knows it, too.
She sits up straighter, her breath catching, her own eyes widening.
Has anyone ever looked at her like this before?
A creature to worship. For her sake, I hope so.
For her sake, I hope this is not the first time someone will break her apart with care.
“You wish to be ravaged by a faerie,” I hum.
She hiccups.
The plane vibrates around us.
“Shall we make it so?” I ask.
“I…” She wets her lips. “I don’t think so.”
But she does not say apple.
“You do.”
Sinking hands and knees into the mattress, I crawl toward her. She shifts. As I slink closer, she leans back on her hands, her expression both terrified and thrilled. When I reach her crossed legs, I wrap delicate fingers around her ankle.
“What are you—”
I kiss her ankle bone, unfolding her leg.
She gasps in disgust, jerking. But she doesn’t signal me to stop, so I do not.
I pin the limb to the mattress and brush kisses up the inside of her calf, her knee, then her thigh.
She squirms toward me. My face descends to her upper thigh, my mouth sucking in her stunning skin, my left hand holding down her other leg.
I kiss and inhale and lick the area around her hip bone. Her pelvis bucks and I brace my forearm across it, strapping her down. Trailing fingers over the shivering skin, I bite her round hip. She gasps again. Heat radiates from between her legs, as she tilts her sex toward my mouth.
I do not indulge. Not yet.
She whimpers as I plant gentle kiss after gentle kiss along her navel, up her center. When I reach her chest, I prop an arm along her spine, brace my hand on the back of her neck, holding her in place. Into her skin, her luscious stomach, I murmur:
“You will not make a sound.”
She whimpers again. I give the sides of her neck a small squeeze.
“What did I say?”
“To be quiet.”
“Good girl.”
Then I lick the space between her breasts. Her body heaves. With my free hand, I trace circles around her nipple, never touching it. She tries to push it into my palm, and every time, my touch turns to a whisper. Goosebumps bud across her breast.
My mouth descends on her other nipple, warm and wet, as I will my fingers to cool. My magic shimmers along the plane, earthy and strong. The fae groans as I work her, icy fingers coaxing one peak, and enveloping my mouth around the other, teeth tugging.
I feel it building, deep in her throat. She fights it, and so I push more.
“Quiet now,” I say.
But she moans, a deep, guttural sound that vibrates against my palm on her neck. I squeeze, listening as her breath hitches, and roll her in my mouth, tease her, drive her higher and higher as she moans lower and lower and lower.
I slide my legs over hers, use my weight to hold her down, so that her torso is suspended, only held up by my touch, as her lower body moistens beneath me, bucking and bucking and bucking—
She cries out, body spasming. I pinch harder, tighten my grip on her neck as her orgasm rolls through her, all-consuming and messy.
I keep going as she shudders, my grip more a reminder than a hindrance, as I know this feeling; the nerves sparking throughout her body, everything sensitive and raw and reeling.
The last of her spasms cease and she goes limp in my arms. I lower her to the mattress, the fae gasping, eyes closed, a stupefied grin on her face. Then I reach for the king, still not looking at him. His hand guides mine low, but I grip his wrist instead, tugging him forward.
“Again,” I say. “You’re going to come for me again.”
She throws an arm over her eyes. “I can’t.”
“What’s your word, then?”
She just shakes her head, and heat gathers between my thighs.
When I glance to the king, my fingers still clasped around his wrist, he is staring, mouth agape. The veins in his neck bulge, and his other hand is fisted around his throbbing cock.
“You ready?” I ask him.
“They’re golden again,” he breathes. “Your eyes.” Then he leans forward, as if to kiss me. My head turns to the side on instinct, heart pounding. My breath hitches as I realize my mistake.
“Avery.” The plane creaks with fury.
You should’ve just let him! I yell at myself, but my chest hurts so much. There is only one male I have ever wanted to kiss, to let kiss me, to run tattooed fingers through my hair. And while I will give any other part of myself, I somehow cannot give away this.
“What’s going on?” the fae asks, shifting her arm.
“Don’t move,” I tell her.
She huffs in mock protest, then shimmies deeper into the mattress, nipples hard. I drag my gaze back up to the king. He frowns, biting his lip. I tighten my grip on his wrist to ground him, then catch his other hand, the two of us knee to knee, his arms in my grasp now.
“What are you doing?” he murmurs, but the anger in his voice falters.
“Asking you to join.”
He raises a brow. “You seem to have it handled.”
If this were another male, I’d roll my eyes at his petulance. But it’s not, and besides, Jae would’ve never said something so inane.
“Your hands are bigger than mine,” I say placatingly. “They’ll feel better.”
The plane rumbles in pleasure.
There you go, I think.
He says nothing as I guide his palm to cup her wet pussy. The fae moans.
“One finger, first,” I say.
We sit between her legs, side by side. The violet of the king’s eyes flickers, darker then lighter, as he gets to working her. Perhaps powerful creatures react like this. Perhaps I am one of them now. As he slides a finger inside her, I brush his thumb over her clit. The magenta lover shivers.
But Maxian grinds in his thumb.
“Lighter,” I say, pulling it back. “Softer. That’s how you build, and you have to build until she’s ready to burst.”
He turns his face to mine, inches apart. “And then?”
“Then you go harder.”
When he drops lips to my shoulder, I let him, eyes slipping closed. It’s easier to see who I want this way.
“Open your eyes,” he demands. “I want to see the gold.”
I blink, swaying. “It’s the candlelight.”
“It’s your strength.”
This is getting away from me; he’s getting away. I can’t allow it. I nod to the fae grinding against his hand, his thumb pressing her clit and finger pushing in. The plane feels hot, heavy like smoke.
“Another finger,” I say. “She can take it.”
The fae whimpers, arching her back. Her breasts push up into the air, and she is a glorious sight, even if she isn’t mine.
“And what are you going to do?” he whispers back.
I slide away from him, crawling across the mattress. His attention is heavy on me, but I need the distance.
“What are you doing?” the fae gasps, pulling back her arm. My thighs bracket her face, and I look down at her.
“This.”
My fingers wrap gently around her neck again, tilting her chin back so that she can see only me. Then I lean down and kiss her. I kiss her through her gasps, through her heaving chest, hand still cupping her chin so she can’t see what he’s doing.
“Apple?” I ask, pulling back.
She yanks on my hair, bringing me down again.
I kiss her as I watch the king, kneeling between her thighs, stroking her how I say. I kiss her as he watches me over the body between us. I kiss her as he grabs himself with his free hand and works himself, works her at the same time. I kiss until my eyes droop closed.
“Look. At. Me,” he grits out, and I do with my strange, glowing eyes, and my sinking heart, my body rocking against the mattress, nothing beneath it, my mouth claiming another lover who never really was mine, and I should not like this, no one should, stealing others.
But I do.
As the plane undulates, as the beautiful fae writhes, I swallow her cries, pet her hair, tell her how perfect and pretty she is, my little slut, listen to them both groan.
I do not stop claiming her, watching him, uttering things that make them thrust harder into his hands, both swept away in a wave I conjured.
Candles drop from the ceiling, the plane sings, my spring scent all around us, until finally, finally, the fae lets out a scream, back arched, and the king doubles over, spilling onto his hand.
I sit back, wiping my mouth as they pant. With another faerie, I would want my due, seek repayments, matching release for release, just as how Jae and I stole prospects from under each other. Normally, he would be right: It would not be enough.
But here, with the High Fae undone and powerless under me, my pride soars. I slip off the mattress, fix my hair. The king stares down at his sticky palm, confused. When he looks up with wild eyes, chest expanding, he struggles.
“You…” he starts, then stops. “You…”
Yes, I think. I fucked you, too, with words and looks alone.
“The pleasure was all mine,” I say.
Then I turn and walk out, leaving my spent lovers alone without a master.