Chapter Six. Fallon
SIX
FALLON
Days passed without me needing to spend time with Etan, confirming my assumption that we would have a marriage in name only.
Any man who actually cared to know a thing about the woman he was set to marry would have spent his time getting to know me, not actively avoiding me.
I was grateful that he was matching my energy and going about his business as if nothing had changed.
It soothed something within me, the part that resisted the notion of another cage.
The last thing I wanted was a man who thought to contain and control me, keeping me caged in a court that I had no desire to exist within.
I would be free to do as I pleased, and so would the male that was too handsome for his own good.
I made my way through the grand entry that led to the throne room, ignoring the warmth of his brown eyes as they wandered to me briefly. Just as quickly, he shifted his attention back to Rheaghan and dismissed me from his focus.
Good.
The King of Summer smiled at me, his expression warm and unguarded.
He’d come to me sporadically in the last couple of days, showing interest in knowing his sister’s daughter, but even the knowledge that I would be spending more time with my uncle couldn’t make me embrace the concept of a relationship with him.
Not here, not when Mab would so readily use it as a weakness. If I was to return with him and Etan to the Summer Court, we would have plenty of time to get to know one another.
The doors to the throne room were closed, indicating that whatever Mab was doing within the closed space, she had no desire for company at this moment.
I sighed, glancing around the hall and debating what to do with myself in the meantime.
It was no secret that Mab wanted me to be available to her whenever she dictated, but the closed door offered me a rare bit of freedom, and she had no care for what I did with my time when she didn’t require my presence.
My eyes once again strayed toward Etan. His hair was the deepest auburn, so dark that the red was almost drowned out by the depth of the brown undertone.
He continued to ignore my presence in favor of socializing among the Gods who were present at the court.
It should have pleased me to avoid his notice, and on some level, it did.
I wanted the freedom that came from being ignored, but that freedom would mean nothing to me if I allowed the bonds of our betrothal to keep me controlled regardless.
I was not a woman who would fall quietly into subservience.
I was not a woman who would ever allow herself to be owned, especially not by a man who could not even be bothered to publicly acknowledge me.
It wasn’t Etan alone who needed the reminder of exactly what this was; I did, too. We were both free to do as we pleased.
Imelda would tell me I was being petty and defiant to my own detriment.
Fortunately, I hadn’t seen the witch in days, and that voice in my head was barely a whisper of warning.
I turned my attention to the males he spoke to, tipping my head to the side as I observed them.
The man on his other side, opposite Rheaghan, had hair the color of deep night itself.
His eyes shone out of his fair skin, a pale silver with the slightest hint of pink to them.
His gaze trailed down my body where I stood in the gown Pax had dressed me in, believing it would please Mab to see me in the colors of the Shadow Court so willingly.
I felt that gaze rake over me from head to toe, snagging at the line of cleavage the deep neckline left open to his perusal. I smirked when those pale eyes finally found mine once more, gliding forward as he stepped off the wall where he’d stood beside my betrothed.
He met me in the center of the entryway, his playful grin making my own mouth spread into a matching smile. “Princess,” he said, bowing his head forward in a show of respect that we both knew I hadn’t earned.
“I’m at the disadvantage of not knowing you,” I said, cocking my head to the side as I reached out with a single hand and patted his chest, adjusting the collar of his tunic where it had folded over the line of his dress coat.
“Soren. God of Twilight,” he answered, reaching up to grasp my hand in his. His fingers and palm were cool to the touch, making me gasp lightly with the shock against the continued heat of my skin.
“I’ve not seen you at court before. Has word of my existence truly spread through the court so quickly?
” I asked with a chuckle, curling my fingers so that they wrapped around his hand in turn.
He pursed his lips as he raised my hand to his mouth, touching his lips to the back of it gently without ever taking his eye contact from me.
“How could people not speak of a beauty like yours?” he asked, that poisonous tongue filled with charm.
I laughed, but the sound was missing any venom I might have otherwise had for a man who thought to bed me by delivering half-truths that lacked any and all passion or significance.
While they were clearly true words, else he wouldn’t have been able to speak them at all, I felt certain they were the kind he spoke to every woman who crossed his path.
That suited me just fine.
I didn’t want a romance that would last a lifetime. I just wanted a passion that would last a night.
“I bet all the girls fall for that line,” I said, feeling it necessary to make him aware that I was onto his game.
That I did not take him to bed for some naivety he could take advantage of.
In this, our relationship could be mutually beneficial, and I could use him just as much as he sought to use me.
“Not all of them,” he said, having the decency not to attempt to hide his rakish charm.
I smiled, painted red lips spreading over my teeth as I drew my hand back from him slightly.
He didn’t release it, instead turning with me as I faced the direction that would lead to the stairs and, ultimately, my bedroom.
I would not relegate Pax to her tiny room tonight, hoping there was another place she could go to occupy her time if I gave her the night off.
While I was more than comfortable with an audience after all the times I’d fucked in the hot springs buried in the tunnels of the Resistance, I didn’t think the shy woman had any interest in knowing what noises I, or Soren, made when deep in the throes of passion.
“I don’t need pretty words that we both know serve a single purpose,” I said, leaning in to whisper the words as I took the first step.
Soren tucked my hand into his arm, following along with my gait as I made my way toward the stairs.
“In fact, I don’t even want them. I’ve no desire to belong to any man, let alone a God. ”
“Then what is it you want, Princess?” Soren asked, those odd silver eyes gleaming as he stared down at me.
We moved to the stairs as he released me to allow me to gather up the length of my dress so I could climb the steps without issue.
The lights of the chandeliers played off his hair, bringing out the subtle purple notes beneath the near-black color.
“I can think of far better uses for your mouth, Soren,” I said, watching as his brow rose in surprise. He huffed a soft laugh, wrapping a hand around my waist and guiding me to the alcove that rested on one of the stairway landings.
I giggled as he tucked me into the wall, leaning his height over me and smiling down at me. “Is that so? I would love to hear what these uses might entail.”
He raised his hand to my face, catching my bottom lip with his thumb and tugging it down to reveal my teeth and tongue.
“It doesn’t involve my mouth,” I said, grabbing him by the wrist. I guided his hand down over the front of my throat and through the line of my cleavage, drawing a path over the fabric that covered my stomach.
Lower.
Lower.
“Ahem.” A male voice interrupted the moment, and I dropped my head back onto the stone wall in irritation.
I’d been so close to sneaking away.
“A little busy,” Soren said, not even bothering to tear his eyes from mine. But I’d already released his hand, pressing my palms flat into the stone behind me
“I see that,” Etan said, and his form appeared as he stepped out of the shadows at the top of the stairs, seemingly having taken another stairwell to head us off before we could reach my rooms. “Given that you have your filthy hands all over my soon-to-be wife, I thought it prudent that I interrupt your little seduction.”
Soren backed away a few steps, raising his hands as if he were innocent.
“I’m not sure who you think is doing the seducing here, but I can assure you it wasn’t me,” he said with a laugh, throwing me entirely under the carriage to be trampled on by the Summer Court Fae, whose eyes were no longer filled with warmth.
They’d cooled considerably, hardening like molten lava as I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t be pathetic. It doesn’t suit you,” I snarked at Soren, watching as his gaze bounced between me and Etan as he tried to make sense of the situation.
“Is it true? Are you betrothed to marry him?” he asked, raising a brow as if marriage mattered to any of the Fae. It was nothing to them, a business agreement meant to uphold political alliances until a mate bond came and ruined them all anyway.
“It isn’t not true,” I said, injecting exasperation into every word.
Soren grinned, shaking his head as he backed away.
Etan glared at him as he made his way to the stairs that would take him back down to the entryway, and the probability of finding another toy to play with.
“Let me know if you two figure out what this is. I’m happy to join in whatever capacity you like. ”
I quirked a brow, my interest piqued. Glancing at Etan, I found his own features still twisted into a scowl, and him uninterested in the blatant offer of the other man.
Dammit.
That could have been fun.
Soren disappeared down the stairs, leaving me to push off the stone wall and make my way toward my room.
Etan filled the space Soren had vacated, pressing his hands at my waist and pushing me back once again.
He too towered over me, leaning into my space as he glared down at me.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked, and I’d have been lying if I said my gaze didn’t wander to the tension in his forearms where he’d rolled up his tunic sleeves.
The muscles bulged there, and the stupid, unrelenting desire to drag my tongue over them was unwelcome.
“A girl has needs, Etan,” I snapped, forcing myself to glare. “He was available to tend to them. It’s not that serious.” I would not admit that Etan would have likely been my first choice for a bed partner if he hadn’t come with all sorts of complications.
I didn’t do those.
“If only you were spoken for and had a man who was capable of meeting those needs for you,” he snapped back.
“I’m not interested in that offer. I wanted him because I could forget his name by morning,” I said, watching the way Etan’s jaw clenched.
I was playing with literal fire, his eyes blazing as he pressed his torso into my chest and pinned me into the wall.
My words weren’t entirely untrue, letting me speak them.
I might have been interested in Etan, but this kind of possessiveness was exactly why I would not be interested in his offer.
“Do not tempt me, Sunfire. I swear to fucking Gods, I will cut off his cock and feed it to the Cwn Annwn before I allow him to touch you with it,” Etan snarled.
“Well, that would be a waste of a perfectly good cock,” I teased, grinning up at him in an attempt to ease some of the tension that didn’t serve me.
It didn’t work.
“Fallon.”
“Oh, first names. I must be in trouble,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I don’t do complicated, Etan, and you, my lovely soon-to-be husband, are the very definition of complicated.
I have to tolerate you beyond fucking you, and at this point in time, I’ve yet to determine if that’s possible, even without knowing how you feel inside me.
We do not need to add the layer of sex to this dynamic. ”
Etan growled, a warning rumbling in his chest as I touched my hands to it and pressed up onto my tippy-toes.
The motion put us even closer, my breath wafting over his throat and his lips brushing the tip of my nose.
He tilted his head down, putting his mouth so close to mine that I could practically taste him.
He slid a hand beneath the curtain of my dark hair, grasping a handful of it and holding me still.
“Let me tell you how this is actually going to go, Sunfire,” he murmured, trailing his nose over my jaw as he turned my head with his grip on my hair.
His lips trailed over the side of my neck, lighting a path on fire as he moved.
“I am going to fuck you until no one doubts who owns you, not even you. It is only a matter of time before you beg me for it, and while we wait for you to come to your senses and stop resisting whatever this attraction is between us, just know one hard truth.” He pressed the hard length of his cock into my belly as he snipped at my throat.
“What truth is that?” I whispered, my voice failing me.
“I will fucking slaughter anyone you think to play with until you come to me. We are either celibate or we own one another, no other option exists,” he said, releasing his hold on my hair and stepping back from me finally.
He left me panting there, driven to the point of near madness even though he’d barely touched me.
“You don’t fucking own me.”
Etan only grinned. “I think you’ll find that I do actually, wife,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers and leaving me to gape at him as he went to join in on whatever festivities had occurred since we’d left.
Motherfucker.