“Kai,” he called to announce his arrival, though he halted in his tracks at the sight of the transformed chamber. A trail of candles lit with magical, green-tinted flames led the way from the entrance of the king and queen’s royal suite through their parlor, curved out of sight, and vanished into the bedroom. The sensual aroma of spices and night-blooming flowers hung in the air.
While none appeared to be in danger of burning the palace to the ground, the bewildered king paused to blow out several before following their line down the hallway. “Kai? What are you doing? This is a fire haz—”
His wife had passed out across the bed in the smallest scrap of material that counted for undergarments he’d ever seen gracing her body. It was all black lace and minuscule panels in dusky rose silk, a contrast of modest and revealing. The sound that he made was just shy of animalistic, and he hated his lack of control when Kai stirred and opened her eyes. She deserved the chance to sleep, but his rousing cock convinced him that awakening her wasn’t too bad of an idea.
Her languorous stretch shifted lace and pulled silk over her breasts. His heart caught in his chest, then she fixed him with a lazy smile that tightened his balls and reminded him too long had passed since he’d last had her body writhing beneath him in ecstasy. His gaze followed her long legs and the silky stockings attached by straps to the low-worn belt around her hips.
“Finally. Mm. I wondered if you’d ever come home.”
Manu was the world’s biggest idiot.
Humans lit candles for romance.
“Finally?”
“I’ve been waiting hours for you,” Kai replied, crawling off the bed to approach him with a sexy little saunter that ended when she reached him and took ahold of his belt. His pulse skyrocketed, and his hands automatically went to her waist. “How was everything? Fae situated?”
“Yeah, they’re—”
Her fingers traced the thickening girth of his erection, distracting him from whatever nonsense he’d intended to say about his duties with the military and her master plan. How the hell did she expect him to give a sensible answer when her fingers were pressing and kneading him intimately, following the outline of his cock with mischievous intent. He pushed against her hand and dipped his head down to inhale the scent on her skin. Coconut and vanilla, wild and exotic spices, and the scent of her arousal filled the air.
Manu seized her by a handful of hair and drew her head back, baring her throat to the hungry nibbles that followed. Her skin tasted sweet as the fragrances on her skin and glittered with gilded sparkles across her plump bosom.
“Undress me.”
Catching her up on military activities could wait. Arousal charged him with energy, fresh vitality surging through his veins to the pulse of his beating heart. She peeled clothing down and bared his urgently throbbing dick to her touch, skimming along the veined length with light fingertips.
Manu found that the longer she teased him, the less patience he had.
“Your mouth,” he muttered. “I want your mouth. Then I want to taste you. I want…”
Kai knew his mind and had him in her mouth soon after before he could finish. His hips involuntarily bucked forward, then he hissed a soft, “Fuuuuck,” between his teeth.
Their wedding seemed years ago, as did the attack led by Narkissa. The dilemma of their treacherous Myrmidons, the disloyalty of Thalia and Aegaeon—it all vanished beneath waves of simmering lust. All that mattered was the gorgeous merwoman who knelt before him. She worked him over thoroughly, unrelenting, mouth gliding back and forth to a breath-stealing rhythm that filled the bedchamber with the suckling sound of her wet lips on him.
“You’re the best,” he murmured, caressing her hair. Her response was to practically fill her throat with him, taking him in so deep he saw stars. She brought him close to the point of orgasm only to stop and lean back on her heels, gazing up at him with adoration.
“I missed you.”
“I’ve been right here.”
“Not really. You’re present, but you’re not here, Manu.”
When they were together, his mind was everywhere but where he thought it belonged most—her. Now, as she placed her lips on the sensitive tip of his cock, it was all but impossible to let his thoughts wander to the impossible task ahead of them. He shuddered, on the brink of climax, and then Kai stopped again.
“You’re driving me mad,” he murmured, tugging her head back by a handful of hair. Her impish smile told him she’d accomplished exactly what she meant to do.
“Then maybe you should take me to bed, my king, and teach me the error of my ways.”
She trailed her fingers over his length, up and down in tantalizing teases before he reached and plucked her from the floor. Her body hit the expansive mattress of their bed, then he covered her with his heavier frame. Kai bent one long leg and hooked her heel behind his ass, drawing him in closer. The silk and lace covered nothing, and the heat of her body invited him. Manu dragged one narrow strap down her shoulder and peeled down the lace cupping her breasts, replacing it with his hand and rolling his thumb over the quickly stiffening tip.
“Where did you get this thing?”
Her mouth quirked. “The lingerie?”
“Yes. Whatever it is.”
Kai curved a hand around his nape. With the other, she pushed his hair back from his face and tucked one lock behind his ear. “It was a wedding gift from my sister to you. Like it?”
“Love it.” Because he definitely wanted to see the hot little scraps of fabric stretched over her body again, he released its many fastenings and buckles with as much care as he’d devote to unwrapping a beautiful gift. His mouth watered for a taste of her and a longing to trace her every inch with his tongue. He claimed the tender nipple in his mouth, teasing it further until it beaded tight, then he lavished affection on its bared twin.
When he fit the underside of his cock against her pussy and ground against her, he was delighted to realize only bare skin met him. A gap existed in the fabric, a delicious slit that exposed sweet and glistening skin. “I want to fuck you without removing it.”
“It was made for that.”
“The gods are indeed wonderful, to inspire humankind to design such wonders.”
Kai laughed, but Manu meant every word. Committed to his promise to taste and kiss her every inch, he slid down her body, tugged her silk-encased legs over his shoulders, and kissed the hot, slick center of her. Her moans sent a pulse directly to his dick each time he found her clit and circled it with the tip of his tongue.
It wasn’t enough when her fingers gripped his hair.
It wasn’t enough when she tugged his scalp and trembled on the bed. As much as he wanted to experience her climaxing around his cock, he withheld each time her supple frame drew taut until, at last, even he could take no more and the desperate urgency of the moment took over.
She went limp against the bed when orgasm finally released her from its grip.
“I’m not remotely close to being finished with you.”
Kai tried to articulate a response, but fell short of making more than a few inelegant, partially incoherent sounds. Manu grinned.
That was precisely how one’s wife should sound during and after a wild bout of lovemaking. Then Manu resumed by dragging her toward him again and propping her heels over his shoulders, calves supported on his chest.
He entered in a single thrust, groaning as the welcoming grip of her pussy sheathed him in perfection. Long, deep, and slow defined their start while Kai caught her breath. Then she began moving her body to the rhythm, stirred to movement again the moment his thumb brushed against her sensitized clit.
Though so long had passed, they moved together as one, their lovemaking a perfect synchronization of moving bodies, her hips rolling up to meet him stroke for stroke with frenetic energy. Kai had never been a passive lover, the competitor in her coming out as she rolled him beneath her in bed. Beneath his wife, he gazed into the face of a goddess.
I love her more than I love my own life.
He was drowning in a pleasure so pure, and so long overdue, that the moment a second climax rippled through her core, it swept him away on its turbulent tide as well.
“I want a baby.”
Manu wanted to know if she was fucking kidding him. “You want what?”
“A baby.” Kai raised her cheek and peered at him, eyes reflecting the dwindling candlelight. “Watching Amerin, Cosmas, and Atalanta made me realize I want to start a family with you.”
He had to utter words he never thought would come from his mouth. “Kai. There’s no rush.” Once, a long while ago, he’d wanted several children. He’d wanted a brood to raise alongside a woman he thought he loved, only to realize they had far less in common than he’d originally thought.
“Yes, there is.”
“A baby,” he echoed. When she fell silent, an inkling of intuition, those surface feelings and emotions he seemed to persistently skim from her, told him he’d screwed up. When Amerin had volunteered to take the foundling, it had certainly lifted a mountain of stress from his shoulders since Kai had fallen in love with the tyke on sight. Now, he wondered.
“Don’t you want a child with me?”
Ah. There it is. “Yes, of course I do. Under any other circumstances, I would be delighted. But these are dangerous times. We’re at war, our people are divided, the nobility want you dead, and my sanity can’t take worrying about you and a baby right now, love. I can wait.”
“You thought I meant now?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No! I meant—well, exactly what you said. I was bringing up the desire for a child. I’m not an idiot, Manu. Honestly.” Despite her words, her eyes twinkled with humor, making him feel more like a fool with each passing second. A lucky fool, at least.
Tension eased from his shoulders as the smile he longed for surfaced on her perfect mouth. He kissed her lips then let his mouth trail down her chin, following an invisible path that reached the warm pulse of her throat. “When this is over—”
“If.”
“When this ends, angelfish, nothing would make me happier than conceiving a child with you. Let us put out one fire before we begin planning another, hm?” As she laughed and leaned forward into him, he framed her waist with both hands and smoothed his palms up and down the curvy silhouette of her body, following her hips. He tried to imagine her round with child and found the longer he pictured it, the more he craved a reality where they raised the next generation of Atlantis’s rulers together.
Rulers?
The thought had manifested on its own.
Manu shoved the bewildering notion aside in favor of gazing up at the woman he loved. “Ride me. We may have a long morning ahead of us, but we have even longer to make up for.”
23
Mightier Than the Sword
When Kai woke the next morning, with her husband still beside her and his strong arms holding her close, it was too easy to forget about the strife affecting the rest of the city. She nuzzled her cheek against the warmth of his beard, and she breathed in the scent of his skin. At some point they’d crawled into the bath together, where they luxuriated for more than an hour, made love a third time, and lingered until they were at risk of falling asleep. Kai still preferred a mattress beneath her, and didn’t understand how some mers happily slept underwater upon beds of seaweed in their rural homes.
Maybe one day, Manu could take her beyond the dome on a camping trip, just the two of them in the wilds—and Heracles and whatever other guards were unfortunate enough to have to accompany them, of course.
“What amuses you so?”
“I was just thinking of how much I want to camp with you somewhere.”
He gave her a look, forehead creasing in confusion. “What?”
“I want to go into the wilderness with naught but tridents, nets, and whatever other survival equipment we’d need. I want to hunt and live like the farmers in the rural zones, eat what we catch and sleep among the anemones.”
Manu’s genuine laughter warmed her heart. “We do that during Myrmidon training. For weeks at a time, we’re forced to swim in formation, hunt for our own food, and survive off what we can capture in the ocean. It’s not fun.”
“Most things are enjoyable when you’re with the one you love.”
His expression softened. “I suppose it would be. Is this something humans do on the surface?”
“It is. A couple weeks before I left for boot camp, Sunshine took Sadie and me to a campsite. She even borrowed a friend’s RV—her camping vehicle,” she explained, realizing he wouldn’t know the term. “Anyway, we built a tent, and we hiked by day, caught fish in the evening, and she taught us to clean them. We tried all kinds of crazy things, even making snares for rabbits.”
“Did it work?”
“Fuck no. We didn’t catch anything.”
While Kai explained the finer points of backwoods camping and how she thought they could adapt the hobby to the Atlantian lifestyle, they tidied and dressed for the day. The smell of smoked salmon and freshly baked bread lured Kai to a dining room already occupied by her dearest friends.
Cosmas waited for them at the table with Atalanta in his arms while Amerin wheeled around the kitchen. One day, that would be Manu. Demetrius’s news put a bitter taste in her mouth, seated at the table and holding their child.
She only had to cut out Thalia’s cancerous influence over the Myrmidons, destroy two dark demigoddesses, and unite the kingdom.
“One of these days, you’ll have to let one of us make breakfast, Amerin.”
“I like to cook for all of you. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I were the one at the table waiting.”
Kai wrinkled her nose. “Liar. You did just fine when I took you out for a night in the city.”
“Different circumstances. Those waiters were paid to provide a service. It doesn’t count.”
Which meant that Amerin stared them down until they were seated, then she brought over each platter balanced on her hands while directing her automated chair. Kai didn’t know much about the Atlantian technology that powered it, but more than once she’d thought of how much humans would benefit from their underwater inventions.
“How are things with the wee nymph?” Manu asked. “You’re looking a little ragged.”
Cosmas laughed. “Only a little? Haven’t slept a full night in what feels like ages. I don’t think last night’s dinner sat well on her stomach. All seemed fine for the past week or so, then suddenly, after we put her to bed, nothing would soothe her. She screamed for hours.”
A flash of guilt snaked through Kai. “Really? I’m sorry. Next time, bring her to me, and I’ll be happy to sit up with her.”
And examine her for Gloombeast tentacles. Vitalis’s first test results had been inconclusive. He had instead sent out blood samples to another laboratory in the city without indicating to whom they belonged. Such things were not his realm of expertise.
“Couldn’t ask that of you,” Cosmas said.
“You all need your rest more than I do right now.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Amerin said.
“Agreed. We asked for this.”
“Still. There’s no shame in needing a break for an evening, a few hours, or even a few minutes. The offer is there. I—”
A heavy fist thundered against the panel of one open double door as a Royal Guard appeared within its frame. Kai jolted in her seat, as startled by the sudden arrival as Amerin and the baby. Atalanta immediately shrieked and cried, prompting Cosmas to swear under his breath.
“Urgent message, Your Majesties. Begging your apologies for the interruption to your morning, but Captain Demetrius has come and he needs to speak with both of you in the war room. General Loto is already en route.”
Whatever appetite Kai had for her porridge, jam, and bread was gone despite the herbaceous aroma wafting off the latter. Her stomach twisted with apprehension, and she wondere
d what new horror had happened in the city for Demetrius to come to them.
“We’ll be right down,” Manu said, pushing away his plate. “Another delicious morning meal, Amerin. Thank you.”
Cosmas rose from his seat and passed the baby to Amerin’s waiting arms. “I suppose I better move with you all. Excuse me, Amerin.”
“Of course. I’ll wait a few minutes before I clear the table, in the event that you’re all able to return.”
“I’m not holding my breath,” Kai muttered.
They hurried down from the northern wing and descended two levels to the predetermined meeting place. No one spoke. Kai imagined they were afflicted by the same anxiety ravaging her gut. The war room was just off the palace armory, the private room occupied by a stone slab upon which leaders spread the map of the great Atlantic realm and all of its corresponding colonies in the old days. Now, technology ruled. A holographic Atlantis floated above it in miniature.
“There you both are. Please, come inside.
“Sufficient evidence has been gathered to call for the arrest of Lady Thalia, Lady Nammu, and Lord Aegaeon. You’ll want to review these, and then place your signature at the bottom, unless you prefer to write your own decree, Your Majesty.”
For crimes against the crown, I, Queen Kailani, hereby order all forces within Atlantis to locate and apprehend the mers known as Lady Thalia of House Ironscale, along with her cohorts Lord Aegaeon and Lady Nammu. They are to be considered armed and dangerous.
“You need me to authorize it?”
“We do, Your Majesty.
Since her return to Atlantis, the military leaders and Aegaeon himself had asked many things of her. She’d sent people into underwater war zones and knowingly approved of desperate missions with no guaranteed success, but she never thought she would be the person to approve an operation against her own uncle.
She paced the room, torn and emotionally divided.
Would Aegaeon fight when the keepers arrived? Unlike Nammu, he was trained in battle and able to hold his own. She’d seen him spar numerous times and hadn’t forgotten how swiftly he’d removed her from harm’s way at the Hollow.
Goddess of Sea and War: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 3) Page 19
