Capture the Moon

by JL Merrow

  At last a hoarse cough sounded from the dungeon entrance, and they turned to see Ned returned to them, embarrassed but determined. “I’ve told his Majesty young Adrien simply felt himself unworthy to wed the princess, and he was greatly cheered by the news. My orders now are to have Adrien released from his cell and made ready for the wedding with all haste,” he told them with a broad smile.

  They released one another with reluctance. Selene pressed one last, chaste kiss to Adrien’s lips, leaving them tingling with desire. “You must go. And I must find myself a gown to wear! Until later, dear heart!”

  * * * *

  A great cheer rang through the guardroom at Adrien’s entrance and meaty hands clapped her on the back until her shoulders began to feel quite sore. “Enough!” she cried. “For I’ve a suit of wedding clothes to find and a ring for my bride, and a thousand other preparations to make!”

  “If the captain gives us leave—which I’m sure he must—I’ll muster a few of the lads to form an honour guard for you,” Ned promised.

  “I cannot ask that favour of you, good Ned!” Adrien protested.

  But Ned took her hand and looked her in the eye, and with an unwonted solemnity to his gruff voice, said, “You saved the life of my dearest friend, and so there’ll be no more talk of favours asked or offered, Adrien Weaver.” And then he tipped her a wink, at which Felix smiled in a fashion most unsubtle, and she saw to her great relief that her secret was known to him, also.

  “Then I’ll thank you, Ned, and I’ll accept your escort right gladly,” she told him, pleased beyond measure that Felix had found himself a man with yet more than strength and good humour to recommend him. “Felix,” she added, turning to the monk, “will you stand up with me and be my groomsman? For there’s no other man in all the world I hold so dear.”

  Felix’s face flushed with pleasure. “I’ll do it proudly, good, ah, Adrien!” He grinned.

  Most of the castle staff, Adrien was amused to find, viewed her more as a hindrance than as one having any part in the events of the day as they bustled about their business. There was a hall to be decked with flowers, guests to be assembled, and a great feast to be prepared. No one had time for one so irrelevant as the bridegroom.

  Adrien kept Ferkel close by her while she made her own preparations, lest the farmer’s joke prove prophetic and he end up playing a greater part in the feast than merely disposing of the scraps. The king’s own tailor came to see her with a fine, rich suit he had hastily altered to fit the dimensions of her father’s clothes from her bundle. The royal jeweller brought her a ring. A valet came to shave her and help her dress and was gently but firmly shooed away.

  At length all was ready, and with Felix at her side and flanked by an honour guard of six brawny soldiers, Adrien walked into the Great Hall. It was packed with courtiers, and Adrien felt strange and out-of-place in her borrowed finery. She walked with measured tread to the front, although her heart was pounding as if she climbed a mountain, and there she waited impatiently for her princess to arrive, her palms damp lest someone jump up and call her an impostor.

  But all was silence until the king’s musicians struck up a stately tune to announce the arrival of the bride. Unable to resist, Adrien turned and felt her breath catch in her throat at the vision that glided softly towards her. Selene was dressed all in white silk strewn with diamonds, the brilliance of her costume contrasting strikingly with the darkness of her skin. Her hair was unbound, and its glossy ebon tresses floated about her shoulders like the wings of a raven about to take flight. The smile upon her lovely face lent it such radiance, as if any help were needed, that Adrien felt she must be blinded by the sight. And the king, too, beamed with transparent joy as he led his daughter to the altar, although the tear in his eye led Adrien to suspect some part of his mind was on his own wedding, so many years before.

  The service, as befitted a royal wedding, was long and solemn. Adrien felt sure the guests must have been fidgeting upon their seats long ere it was over, and it seemed Selene had a similar thought, for as their eyes met, they both had to stifle their giggles. For herself, Adrien almost wished the service would never end, for it brought her such joy—but she recollected that the sooner it was over, the sooner she would have Selene in her arms once more. From then onwards she wished heartily that the aged minister would hurry his words up, lest he drop dead from old age ere they were wed.

  At last—at long, long last—the minister pronounced them married. Selene and Adrien kissed, and the guests all sighed, some remembering their own wedding days whilst others dreamt of those yet to come.

  The king rose and embraced them both. Then he fixed Adrien with a mock-stern glare. “Now, young man, will you tell me why you led us all on such a merry dance? For I see you now with my daughter, looking as happy as a man married to such a beauty should, and I cannot fathom why you should at first have refused her.”

  Adrien looked at her wife, a question in her eyes. And those dark eyes seemed to answer, and so Adrien lifted her head proudly to the king. “There was a problem I thought insurmountable, and it took the insight of a princess to make me see that it was nothing of the kind. Sire, it grieves me that I have deceived you. I am a woman.”

  “And I love her dearly,” Selene added fiercely, clinging onto Adrien and glaring at her father as if she dared him to try and separate her from her beloved.

  “But my dear,” the king said, sorrow and shock warring in his regal gaze, “you cannot marry another woman.”

  The princess spoke up defiantly. “Where in our laws, Father, is it written that marriage can only be between a man and a woman?”

  The king looked around helplessly, but the congregation sat as if turned to stone and not a courtier among them came to his aid. “My child, everyone knows that only a man may marry a woman, and vice versa!”

  “Begging your pardon, sire,” Adrien spoke up, “but knowing a thing is so does not make it so. There’s many a man knows that to swallow a live spider will rid him of an ague, but I’ve yet to meet a single person cured by so wriggly a remedy.”

  “And anyway, Father, Adrien and I are married. So if it is against the law for one woman to marry another, why then, I’ve broken the law and must be thrown into jail!” Selene’s voice was fierce, and her chin pointed straight at her father.

  The king’s heart melted, for he truly loved his daughter and wished her to be happy. “Well, then,” he said, rising from his throne. “I’ll not have a princess of royal blood called a common criminal! Come here, my daughters both!” And he embraced Selene and Adrien once more, and there was great rejoicing throughout the castle, and not least in the guardroom.

  Indeed, the feasting and festivities went on so long that Adrien began to fear she might never get her new bride to herself. But Selene saw her discomposure and said, “Patience, my love! For my father has only one daughter to marry; we must let him make the most of it.” And soon enough, the king’s eyelids began to droop, and midway through proposing another toast to the newlyweds, his head dropped upon his velvet-clad chest and he began to snore. Selene took Adrien’s hand, and laughing, they stole away together to their chamber.

  The maids had decked Selene’s room with sheaves of wheat and baskets of fruit so that the air was heavy with the scent of apples, pears, and sweet berries. Fronds of ivy trailed from the bed hangings and twined around the posts. The bed itself was strewn with fragrant herbs from the kitchen gardens. “Should we sleep on it, do you think, or use it to stuff a goose?” Adrien asked, her eyebrows fair disappearing under her cropped hair.

  Selene’s delighted laughter rang through the room like a fairy taking to the air. “You’re the goose! We shall do neither, of course.” So saying, she stood on tiptoe and cupped Adrien’s face in her hands.

  At once Adrien shivered, for all that the room was warmed by a low fire against the autumn chill. “I’d as soon not sleep tonight in any case, for fear I might wake tomorrow to find this all but a wondrous dream,” she
whispered.

  “Then we are in accord,” Selene whispered back, “for I do not mean to let you rest for a long while yet. But you shiver, my love, and I like it not. I feel sure that I can warm you.” She began to loosen ties and unfasten buttons, and Adrien found it was true indeed that the fewer clothes she wore, the higher the heat rose in her body. Soon coat and shirt lay strewn carelessly upon the floor, and all that remained was the cloth binding her breasts. As Selene pulled at it, Adrien spun to ease the unwinding. She sighed in relief when at last the restricting band slipped from her to hang freely in Selene’s grasp.

  With trembling hands, Selene held the cloth to her lips, kissing it reverently. Her long, dark lashes caressed her cheeks as she closed her eyes for but an instant, then opened them swiftly as if unwilling to lose a moment more of the vision in front of her. “Oh, but you are beautiful, my love,” she breathed. The cloth now falling to the floor, unheeded, she pressed soft kisses to Adrien’s breasts, which tingled at her touch as though on fire.

  Awhirl with sensation, it took Adrien a while before she was equal to acting on her impatience to see her lover likewise displayed. “And yet,” she said at last, her voice uneven, “I still feel a shiver upon my flesh. I fear there’s only one thing can warm me now, and that’s the touch of your soft skin upon mine.”

  “Ah, but my love! That’s nothing to fear.” Selene smiled and turned her back. The fastenings of her gown were so delicate and so numerous that Adrien thanked the Lord for her woman’s hands, for to be sure a man’s rough fists could never have managed them. She undid them slowly, one by one, and as each button gave, a fraction more dusky skin was bared to her hungry gaze. Adrien kissed every inch, wondering at its softness and breathing in its fragrance of honey and spice. At length the weight of the jewels that adorned the gown carried it to the floor in a whisper of silk, and Selene turned, stretching.

  Selene’s small, dark breasts jutted proudly from her slender form, pointing so directly at Adrien’s lips that she could do naught else but drop to one knee and suckle upon those pert brown nipples. She marvelled as they hardened on her tongue and felt her own breasts tingle with heat in response. Selene gasped and threw back her head, her unbridled locks tumbling down her back like a waterfall. As Adrien caressed the curves of her soft hips, she shivered.

  Adrien chuckled. “And now ‘tis you who needs warming, I think.”

  Selene stamped her little foot, still clad in its delicate slipper of snow-white silk. “And is it any wonder,” she said with a toss of her head and a pout on her pretty lips, “when my lover kneels before me still half clad? My skin freezes for the lack of you, my love.”

  So with a smile, Adrien stood and unbuckled her belt. She kicked off her boots and let her breeches fall to the floor. And then she knew a moment’s qualms, for her hips were not so full, nor was her skin so soft as Selene’s, or of such rich, beautiful colour. “I feel half-baked beside you, love,” she admitted ruefully.

  “Silly goose,” Selene chided her, and she stepped forward to entwine their bodies together. “Does the snow fall half-baked from the sky, or the dove flit half-baked from branch to branch? You are perfect, my love—and oh, but you warm me so.” Her arms around Adrien’s neck, she pressed soft kisses to throat and shoulder, each one seeming to sear Adrien with its heat. “Now take me to bed and warm me some more!”

  Adrien laughed. “As your Highness commands.” And she swept Selene up in her two strong arms, bestowed upon her a ready, cheerful smile—and if her manner was not entirely calm and sensible as she approached her marital bed for the first time, who could blame her? She swept the herbs from the coverlet in a cloud of sweet fragrance and laid her lover down.

  She took a moment to admire Selene’s dark form as it writhed sensually upon the fur of the coverlet, and then she covered that graceful body with her own. Breast to breast and hip to thigh, they pressed against one another. “Oh!” Selene cried softly, her tone awestruck. “I shall never be cold again.”

  “Nor I,” breathed Adrien in wonder. She slid a hand softly along her lover’s side, then allowed her fingers to creep daringly to the darker triangle that marked the juncture of Selene’s legs. A soft hand joined hers to press her fingers into those moist depths—so hot, Adrien felt her skin might scald at the contact.

  “Yes,” Selene breathed as Adrien penetrated her further and further still. “Oh, yes!” She pulled her lover down to seize her lips in a desperate kiss, her quick little tongue darting inside Adrien’s mouth even as Adrien’s fingers moved inside her. “Oh, my love!”

  Adrien marvelled at her little princess, so undone by a simple touch. Leaving her fingers where they were, in the hot, wet embrace of Selene’s body, she moved her thumb in circles around the little bud that stood sentry at her lover’s entrance. Selene’s breath came faster and her cries grew more desperate, until at last she gasped aloud and shuddered, long and deep, as her body clutched at Adrien’s fingers in little ripples. “Oh, my love,” Selene breathed again, and this time her voice was heavy and languid. “I think you have unmade me.”

  Adrien kissed her tenderly. “No, love. You are too perfect to be unmade—but as for me, I feel quite undone.”

  Selene smiled, and of a sudden there was something mischievous about it. “Oh, no, my love, you are nowhere near undone—and that is something that must be attended to directly.” So saying, she slithered down upon the coverlet to kiss Adrien’s breasts once more. Her little teeth teased at Adrien’s nipples, which were so hard and full they felt like to burst. And as Adrien groaned aloud, Selene slithered further down to press more kisses to her lover’s belly and hips and finally—oh, how long anticipated—to the place between Adrien’s legs that ached with need.

  Adrien gazed down upon that ebony hair cascading over her own pale hips, the feel of it like cool silk upon her heated skin. As she felt the first touch of Selene’s tongue upon the part of her where all sensation united, she wondered for a moment how she ever came to have such luck and whether it could all be real. And then all thoughts fled as Selene’s sweet mouth teased and suckled at her, taking her to such heights she feared she might not survive the fall. But fall she must, in a giddy rush of exhilaration and ecstasy and love. Adrien cried out her lover’s name as she swooped down from the heights, her body trembling and her fingers all entwined in Selene’s soft, dark locks.

  They lay curled around one another afterwards, Adrien tasting herself in the sweet kisses Selene pressed to her lips, and though the night turned cold, the warmth between them only grew.

  * * * *

  And so Adrien and Selene lived their lives together, and full and happy ones they were, too, filled with love and laughter. Felix never did return to his monastery to take his vows as a monk, and instead took a post as Royal Astronomer, a position which necessitated (so it seemed) having a personal bodyguard to dwell in his chamber and accompany him at all times. For this task, Ned Longbow was found to be eminently suitable.

  It was Ferkel, it must be said, who had the most surprising end of all. For he lived to a ripe age, for a pig, and sired many fat piglets of his own. But then one day, it happened that a child who had a soft heart and a fondness for animals—one of the many royal children to whom Selene and Adrien were fond aunts—kissed him upon the snout. At once Ferkel turned into a handsome young prince, freed from an enchantment.

  But that, of course, is another story altogether.

  THE END

  ABOUT J.L. MERROW

  J.L. Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

  She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and the paranormal, and is frequently accused of humour. Find her online at jlmerrow.com.

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