by May Dawson
His eyes glittered down at me, and after a few seconds, I said, “Be brave, Azrael.”
His lips grazed my hair as he leaned down close to me, his arm going to the wall to brace himself so that his body was just barely held away from mine. Despite myself, when he was this close to me, my breath stuttered in my chest.
He breathed into my ear, “You are the worst.”
I met that smoldering purple gaze. “Tell me what I’ve done, then.”
“Sometimes I feel sorry for you,” he said, each word dropping like a bomb. “But the truth is, you made this dark and horrible world, Alisa. You were a part of it, and now the monsters you created are dragging you down, and you make me feel sorry for you—”
I grabbed the front of his shirt, fisting it in my hand. “Straight line, Azrael. Start at the beginning. You’re a smart man, you can do it. Tell me about the day you met me.”
“The day I met you, you were a liar,” he breathed. “And I shouldn’t expect anything else from you.”
Funny how when he insulted me, I felt as if I were the one in control. It was when Azrael was kind, when he was nostalgic, that I felt sick and dizzy about the past I didn’t understand. Then I spun out of control with my desire for him.
“You can call me a liar all you want, but in my memory, you lied to me from the first time I met you, too.”
He shook his head. “Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean you aren’t guilty.”
“Who the hell am I now, Azrael? You can’t admit that, can you?”
“You’re the same person.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. And the truth is, I’m not sure you believe there’s anything wrong with the person I was, or the person I am. When Duncan called me a Fae bitch, it pissed you off. Why?”
“Because you’re the princess,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Heir to the Fae realm, whether you deserve it or not.”
“No,” I accused. “Liar.” My own voice was growing heated. “Because you love me, Azrael. You still love me.”
“And you don’t love me,” he said, his voice mocking.
“Because I don’t know you.”
“Because you aren’t capable of loving anyone else.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not true of the old Alisa, and it’s not true of me.”
“It is.”
My hand was still fisted in his shirt, and I shook him a little with it, as much as I could move his big, intractable frame. He quirked an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“Some part of me still loves you, you insufferable, miserable asshole who somehow understands even less than I do, even though almost all of my life is a black hole to me—” My voice was rising.
His lips crashed down on mine. I made a small sound of surprise as his mouth conquered mine, and then I started to push him away with that hand on his chest, but I couldn’t. He was unmovable.
He kissed me with heat and fire, kissed me breathless. He always looked so cold, but there was passion in those deep, smoldering eyes and certainty in his kiss.
And then I didn’t want to push him away anymore.
His tongue teased against my lip, parting my lips, opening them up. I swayed against him, and his body pinned me to the wall in all the right ways this time, his knee sliding between my thighs. He kissed me, against that cold marble wall, our bodies grinding together. Everything about that kiss was rough and punishing.
His hand cupped my cheek, claiming, possessive, even as he pulled away. He studied me with glittering eyes.
“What were you bitching at me about?” he demanded.
“I think I said I loved you,” I said.
“You are the worst,” he said again, and then his lips were on mine again.
I twined my arms around his neck, and he lifted me easily up the wall. The bed was so close, just a few steps away, but he pinned me against the wall and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
My fingers dug deep into the powerful muscle of his shoulders. When his lips left mine, I reminded him, “I hate you too.”
It was the ghost of Alisa, the ghost with the memories, who still loved him.
The woman I was now wasn’t entirely certain of him.
But I did know my nipples ached against the slick material of my gown, my clit was sore and aching, that I throbbed with desire for him.
“Same, princess. Same.” He murmured in my ear, right before he nipped it. His sharp teeth teasing against my lobe ignited a firestorm of want and need that rippled through my body.
I pushed off the wall, propelling him toward the bed. He yanked at the bodice of my dress, and the string of my corset pressed painfully into my skin before it exploded. The dress slipped down my shoulders.
His mouth roamed my body, his skillful mouth exploring the exposed flesh of my shoulders and my décolletage and then my breasts in ways that made my back arch with desire.
When the tip of his tongue circled my nipple, my hips jerked forward against him. He drew my nipple into his mouth, teasing it as he stroked the other nipple with his thumb. He seemed to know just how to play my body, because no male had ever done that before in my memory, but longing rippled through my body, wanting more of him.
I yanked the hem of his shirt up over his head, and he raised his arms, letting me yank it off him As I drew his shirt off, Azrael’s body was a feast for the eyes; broad, powerful shoulders, defined pecs covered in tattoos, chiseled abs.
I fumbled with his trousers as he pushed my dress down around my hips. His warm palm slid across my lower back, up my spine to nest in my hair as he cupped the back of my head. My thighs tightened around his waist.
“I struggle sometimes to remember how wicked you are,” he murmured, before nipping my earlobe with his teeth. He stepped out of his trousers in one smooth movement, revealing his muscular thighs and a long, straight cock that bobbed in front of his taut lower abs. His thumb slid between the waistband of my panties and my skin before he ripped those off me too.
The two of us fell back onto the bed together, Azrael still holding me lightly.
I straddled him. “Then let me remind you.”
My thighs were on either side of his lean waist, pressing against his washboard abs, as I pressed his cock between my thighs.
His fingers caressed my ass, his thumbs sliding over the indentations of my hip bones, as he gripped my waist. He paused, his cock teasing against my center.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
My body still wanted him—still seemed to adore him—even if my mind hadn’t quite caught up. It was good of him to stop and check, and something fractured in me a little more.
“Yes,” I said. “Shut up.”
“Lovely girl,” he muttered, his hand sliding across the back of my neck.
He jerked me down to kiss him. His lips met mine and he kissed me hard, his grip on my neck unyielding. I smiled against his lips. That’s right, Azrael. Keep control…we both know it’s a lie.
Azrael was as much a fool for me as I was for him, at least.
I pressed my hips down on his, taking his cock in one hand to guide him in, I brushed his tip over my throbbing opening. He looked up at me—this complicated, dark-eyed gaze in that unspeakable handsome face—and I didn’t know what to make of his face.
Then his hands tightened on my hips, drawing me down his cock. As he filled me, I gasped. He paused as if he was worried he’d hurt me, but I was already rising on my knees up his cock, then driving down again.
“Gods, you feel so good,” he muttered as the two of us began to move together. “I missed you so much, Alisa.”
He hadn’t missed me solely for the sex, and I knew that, and that was the truly terrifying thing between us.
He gripped my hips to steady me as I rose up and down his shaft, my movements languid. When my thighs met the hard muscle of his sides, I rolled my hips forward and was rewarded with the give of his breath. He bit down on that plush lip above the hard angle
of his jaw, his purple eyes falling half-lidded. I enjoyed the way his face shifted as he fell under my spell—he already knew what my body loved, and maybe some part of me remembered him too.
Heat spread across my shoulders, flushed my cheeks, as the world grew warm. The constant throb I felt for Azrael turned into an all-out, wildfire.
As if he couldn’t bear it anymore either, he suddenly caught me with an arm around my waist and turned us both, rolling on top of me. He buried his face in my neck, peppering kisses and then nibbles that made me bite my lip at the intensity of the desire that burned between us both, as he thrust inside me rhythmically.
My fingernails dug into his shoulders as the world went to pieces, as I flushed hot and then that heat turned into a warm glow that suffused through my body as I relaxed.
I moaned as he shattered inside me, his arm tightening around my waist, his lips parting as he was lost to pleasure.
When it was all over, when I was lying with my head on his shoulder and his fingers drifting up and down my bare skin, I said, “I don’t want to fight again. But I have to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice guarded.
“I understand you think that I betrayed you somehow, that I did something terrible to you,” I said.
“Not just me,” he said. “I could forgive that.”
“Right. Not just to you, but to your court.” I was just barely beginning to understand what a court even meant in this world. His people. The people he ruled, that he was responsible for. Perhaps they were even his kin, in a way. I sighed. This confession felt weighty, only because I knew he wouldn’t believe it.
I went on, “But I don’t think I could have betrayed you. Or them. That isn’t who I am, Azrael. For all my faults.”
“Well, the autumn court is in ruins. The winter court, destroyed completely, hunted to the ends of the earth by Herrick’s monsters because they rebelled.” His words were dark, and yet I felt his gaze on me was kind, as if he didn’t want to say these things. “And I’m the one who gave you the key to the autumn court. I didn’t give it to Faer or to your father, Alisa. Only to you. I would only have given it to you.”
“A literal key?” I asked.
He nodded. “An enchanted key, so that we could be together although it was forbidden. So you could come into my castle, unseen.”
Then he added, “Just as your father’s men did, before they murdered mine.”
“But you don’t know for sure that I gave my father the key.”
He sighed. “No. I don’t know for sure that you gave your father the key. But there are undeniable, inconvenient facts here.”
“You’ve hated me so much and it could have just been a mistake. A…misunderstanding. Maybe they got in some other way.”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” he said, “but I wish it was.”
My lips parted, but before I could say anything else, he kissed me again. It was a deep, soulful kiss. At first, I thought he was trying to shut me up again, and then I realized that he was kissing me slowly, tenderly. There was so much affection in that kiss.
Sometimes he kissed me as if the past didn’t even matter to him.
But maybe his lips could lie.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Duncan stopped in the doorway, his nostrils flaring as he met Azrael’s gaze. Tiron closed the door behind them both as Duncan dropped his bag of weapons with an ominous clank on the marble floor.
“What is it?” Azrael asked impatiently.
“The two of you had sex,” Duncan said. “You love to complicate things endlessly, don’t you, Azrael?”
“What is wrong with you?” Azrael demanded. “How can you possibly know that?”
“I know you,” Duncan returned.
“Both of you, let it go,” Tiron demanded.
The two of them turned to him, raising their eyebrows. Tiron raised his hands as if in appeal.
“Wait,” I said, glancing between the three of them before I said to Tiron, “If Azrael and Duncan are both princes and knights, does that make you their squire?”
“We don’t talk about that,” Tiron said wearily.
“How are we getting out of here?” I asked as Tiron headed past me for the balcony.
“By sea,” he said. “Just for a little while. We need to clear the water before Faer realizes what we’re up to, and Raile can send his storms and monsters after us.”
“Raile can control the weather?” I asked skeptically.
“Only on the sea,” Duncan said. “Why, are you reconsidering marrying him?”
“Not a chance,” I said. “He’s not my type. I’m really just attracted to big, senseless brutes of men.”
I winked at him. Duncan snorted.
“So wait, are we swimming?” I asked.
“Do you remember how to do that?” Duncan asked me.
“I know how to swim,” I snapped.
“We’re not swimming,” Tiron said, his voice exasperated. “Though swimming is an important skill set in case things go awry with our current plans.”
He hummed, and a few minutes later, there was a fluttering sound as a wing brushed the railing.
I almost jumped back. “That looks like an enormous swan.”
“Not everything here is some twisted version of what you knew in the mortal world,” Duncan grumbled as he headed past me.
“He’s just mad because if it weren’t for him and Azrael, we could fly,” Tiron confided to me.
“I don’t even like flying,” Duncan snapped back.
“Because he’s not good at it,” Tiron whispered. “If he could fly, he’d love it.”
“I should have left you where I found you,” Duncan grumbled.
Tiron leapt onto the back of the swan, then settled in between her wings, which forced him to fold his legs up. He held out his hand to me, and as I straddled the balcony, Azrael steadied me with a hand on my back. It was completely unnecessary, but sweet. Typically confusing for Azrael.
I slipped off onto the swan’s back—it was alarming to walk across its light bones, to feel its muscles ripple under foot—and quickly sank to sit in front of Tiron.
Azrael and Duncan joined us. Then Tiron whispered to the swan, and the four of us sailed on its back across the water, leaving the bright lights of the castle behind.
I glanced up at Faer’s balcony, afraid I’d find him hard-eyed, watching us go, but the lights shone from empty windows.
And even though we were heading into danger, and I was trapped in this Fae world where I was lost without these ridiculous males, as we traveled across shimmering black water, I felt freer than I had since I was carried through that portal.
I had these three unstoppable knights by my side—truly by my side now. They were mine.
And I was going to find my past.
Then I would really be free.
Hi! May Dawson here.
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Ready to explore the other worlds connected to the world of the Fae? Turn the page for a look at Avalon in One Kind of Wicked, a complete five book series.
Thanks for reading!
Best,
May
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An Excerpt from One Kind of Wicked
After my father almost destroyed my world, I was exiled from the land of mists and magic. I was just a child when soldiers of the Crown dragged me through a portal to your world, and I’ve been trying to get home ever since.
When I’m invited home to attend the academy of magic, I know there are strings attached.
T
hose strings may have something to do with three handsome, alluring men who befriend me.
I can’t trust them, but I can’t resist the pull I feel for them, either. It’s been a long time since I had friends.
My chance to stay home is tied to how useful I can make myself. My father’s henchmen, the True, want me to restore his wicked glory. The Crown’s spies wants to use me to destroy the True. I’ll have to pick a side, and fight, or I'll be exiled again. Or worse.
And in the midst of all this swirling intrigue, I’m failing both Calculus *and* Casting.
These men seem determined to tutor me, fix me and most of all, protect me.
But my deep, dark secret is that the dread magician’s daughter…doesn’t have her magic anymore.
When they realize how useless I am, will they still stand by my side?
Welcome to a world where redemption is possible, where friendship and adventure and magic abound, and where love means never having to choose.
One Kind of Wicked is the first in a complete five book university-age academy reverse harem series. It first appeared as Three Kinds of Wicked.
Click here to read One Kind of Wicked now, or read on for an excerpt.
Chapter One
Tera
The smell of rain almost overwhelms the stench of garbage as I head back to the rooming house, and the thin handles of the heavy plastic bags I carry bite into my fingers. My shoulders ache, but I walk with my head held high. It’s the way I was raised.
I’m going home today.
The filthy sidewalk and the buildings that close around me are all gray. I bet in Avalon, the sunrise floods the sky with pink and orange above the trees. Avalon is still half-wild in a way things aren’t here. Vibrant cities stand bordered by forests, and the air carries the scent of wildflowers.
Or maybe that’s all bullshit. Maybe I remember home like someone who’s been exiled for five years. I don’t trust my memories anymore, and I sure as hell don’t trust my feelings.
