by May Dawson
His lips brush mine in a sweet, tentative kiss, as his hand twines in my hair. His kiss is tender, but his hands on mine whisper of a need, a hunger, and I kiss him back with that same wildness.
Then I remember that I said I was going to bathe first—there’s nothing romantic about the state of a woman who has just escaped a dungeon—and I push him away, laughing. “You can’t distract me. There’s bubble bath.”
“Are you telling me bubbles are more exciting than I am?” Rian gives me a confused frown—he’s just teasing—before he sweeps me off my feet and carries me to the tub.
He eases me gently into the big tub. I lean back lazily against the cool porcelain edge and watch him as he pours in the bubble bath, then stirs it with his hand. Shimmering pink and gold bubbles slip up from his hand’s winding course through the water as the magic activates, until the tub is thick with foam.
“May I?” he asks, picking up the wash cloth from the side of the bed.
I lean forward as I slide across the slick bottom of the tub. Then the prince of Avalon tenderly washes my body. His touch is tender and caring. But even though his touch is not sexual, every time his fingers brush my skin I feel a spark.
“Lean back. Let me wash your hair.”
I tilt my head, and he runs his fingers through my hair, shampooing and massaging my scalp. He rubs thick, sweet-smelling conditioner into my hair and then combs it through. The gentle tugs on my scalp both awaken desire, and leave me feeling lazy and relaxed. I want to stay here a while, feeling cared for and desired and content.
Then he withdraws. I let myself float in the water and open heavy-lidded eyes, wondering where Rian has gone.
He’s watching me with a look I can’t quite read.
“I thought for a second I’d lost you,” he says finally, softly. “I thought I’d lost Devlin. I thought we’d lost the war.”
“The war?” I ask, easing myself up, resting my arms on the edge of the tub as the warm water laps around me. I’m touched by the obvious sense of loss on his face that accompanies that memory.
He nods. “Avalon and Vasilik will go to war, sooner or later, unless Devlin and I take the crown. But the true war is within each country.”
“You and Devlin are close.” I’m still not entirely sure about Devlin after everything I’ve gone through in the past few days. Every time I relive that moment when I thought that Airren, Cax and Croft died in front of me, my body tenses so tightly that my muscles tremble. Maybe it was the only way to get us all out alive. It was still a cruel moment.
But I want to believe in Devlin, with his smirking mask and the glimpses of a genuine, strong man behind it. If Rian trusts Devlin, than I think I do too.
“He’s my brother,” he says simply. “There aren’t many people I can trust. My sister Alia. Devlin. You.”
His words send a throb through my chest. How did I get lucky enough to end up on his list?
He holds out a thick, fluffy towel. “Do you want to get dressed for dinner?”
“No, Rian.” I stand, the bubbles sliding away from my body. “I don’t want to get dressed.”
He’s at my side in a few quick strides, lifting me out of the water. I slip an arm over his muscular shoulders. He’s cared for me so tenderly, and apparently the whole time he’s been restraining great passion, because his lips sear to mine. The way Rian kisses me takes my breath away.
He carries me to the bed, my wet, naked body soaking his fine clothes, and lays me down, pressing wild kisses over my chest and throat.
I run my hands over the lean planes of his body and feel his breath give in his chest at my touch. A wicked smile touches my lips at the power I have over him in this moment. I sit up so I can push him down on the bed beside me. For a second, he resists automatically, and then he lets himself fall.
As the ship sways on the water, I straddle his lean legs and lean forward, bracing a hand on either side of his narrow hips. He watches me with half-lidded eyes as I unbuckle his fine leather belt and slip his trousers down his hips until his long, thick cock springs free, bobbing over his taut lower abs.
I run my tongue over his tip, and his breath stutters in his chest. He leans up on his elbows, watching me with half-lidded eyes as I run my tongue over his shaft over and over, flicking and teasing, before I take him in my mouth and he gasps. I plunge down his shaft over and over, taking him as deep as I can.
He watches me, his face alive with pleasure, until his breath changes and his eyes drift shut. I take him deeper, flicking my tongue across the sensitive tip each time I come up, enjoying the pleasure I can give him. Heat flames between my thighs at the sight of him on the brink of his own orgasm.
Then he suddenly rises, coming alive, shaking his head. He reaches for me. “Come here.”
There’s rough need in his voice that arouses me even more.
He wraps his strong arms around my waist, pulling me close and covering me with his kisses. His lips across my décolletage drive me mad when I’m already wet from torturing him, and I grind down on his hips, seeking the hard throb of his cock against my thighs. He brushes against me, then takes himself in hand and brushes himself purposefully in circles around my throbbing clit until I gasp.
“Rian,” I murmur, wanting him inside me.
“Mm?” He looks up at me innocently, but his hands wrap around my hips and then he rolls his hips up into me. His cock glides against my wet heat, then pushes inside, filling me up. I toss my head back at the sense of being filled so completely when I was so hungry for him.
The two of us move in tandem, our hips rolling together. His hands on my hips are hard and possessive. Even though I’m on top, riding him, he claims my body, and I love every second of it.
Heat flushes my body, and I bite my lip as I look down at him, my hair falling around my face. He looks like he’s near too, his face stern with concentration as he holds himself back even though his eyes are still fixed on me like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.
Then the world shatters around me. The ridiculous gilt room around us glitters as waves of pleasure roll over my body.
He stills, clutching me tight as the two of us come together. Then, with my core still pulsing around his cock, I lean forward and rest my head against his shoulder. He holds me tenderly, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“And you said I was impossible to please,” I murmur, feeling the faint sweatiness of our skin against each other, as I lie against the hard planes of his chest. He begins to massage my back with firm, sweeping strokes as I lay against him, easing the last of my tension.
“It’s a good thing I’m up for the impossible,” he said. “In fact, I think I’d like to devote myself to the impossible.”
Chapter 7
I wake when it’s still dark outside. My head is nestled on Rian’s shoulder, and Penny’s eyes glow in the dark, inches away from mine.
I sit up with a jerk, my heart pounding. Penny tilts her head, watching me reproachfully. She’s on the floor, her paws on the coverlet. Of course she’s mad. She usually sleeps with me.
I rub my hand across my face groggily. “Sorry, Penny. Are we near Minsk?”
She tilts her head more. Dragons are surprisingly bad at geography.
I pet her between the ears as I swing my legs out of bed. She eyes me judgmentally, as if she notices that I’m naked with the prince.
“You’re naked all the time, you know,” I remind her. I hurriedly yank on a clean pair of trousers and slip a blouse over my head, then press my mask onto my face.
My crew might know who I am now, but I’d like to keep my identity a secret to anyone else. A restless prickle crawls up my spine. There’s nothing wrong that I can hear or see or even feel in the way the boat rocks, but something feels off.
“What’s going on?” Rian asks. He rubs his forehead with one hand, but his eyes are bright and clear. Those gray, lively eyes are the Fox’s eyes, ready for trouble.
“I don’t know.”
; He’s out of bed in a second, then slips his own mask on before he hurriedly dresses. “We’re close enough to Avalon now that maybe I’d better be the Fox, not the prince.”
The three of us are on our way above deck when one of my crewmembers comes sliding down the ladder. He turns to me with his face frantic.
“We’re being hailed by the Avalon navy,” he says.
“They’re going to board us,” Rian says without hesitation. “They’re looking for me.”
“For you?” The crewmember looks perplexed at why Avalon’s own navy would be hunting their prince.
“It’s complicated,” Rian says. He squeezes my shoulder, and there’s a flash of sympathy in his eyes. “Your crew will be fine. As long as we get out of here.”
“My crew will be fine,” I repeat, trying to decide if I believe that or not. I owe them a lot for their faithful service these past few months. “And my boat?”
“It’s pretty ugly, to be honest,” Rian says, which tells me exactly what I need to know.
Avalon’s always trying to take everything from me. Once it was my freedom, my dignity, my name. Now it’s my damned yacht.
“When I’m king, I’ll get your boat back,” Rian promises. “Survive to fight another day, Tera.”
The crewmember eyes me watchfully. I’m not going to send sea monsters after my own countrymen. The way he’s looking at me sends a prickle of guilt up my spine, and irritation flares after. He thinks I could be a monster.
“Another day,” I agree. To my crew, I say, “Thank you for all your help. Avalon will be grateful. Maybe not today, but someday.”
“Be well, Lady Fox,” the other man on my crew says, the one that Rian spoke to yesterday.
The other one still looks uncomfortable. He’s someone who liked me, who respected me, who doesn’t trust me now that he knows my name even though he’s seen me fight for everything that’s good. It makes a thin edge of despair cut into my chest.
The love and respect of my men had better be enough, because no matter what I do, most of Avalon will always only see me as the dark lord’s daughter.
Rian and I ride Aeroywn from the boat as Penny soars alongside. I look down to see several Avalon ships spread out, surrounding my little vessel. Anxiety for the crew I left behind spikes through me, and Rian gently squeezes my waist.
“They’ll be fine,” he promises. “My father won’t go against anyone tied to the Fox, because of what it’ll cost him. People love the Fox.”
“People love you too.”
“Not like they love the Fox.”
“I’m rather fond of you in either incarnation.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I think for a second that I’ve gone too far. Maybe Rian likes to chase me, but he realizes how impossible it would be if he caught me. I can never be queen of Avalon. Maybe now that we’ve been intimate, he’s not that interested anymore.
Then he kisses my neck, his lips devouring, and I smile as I realize I’ve completely misunderstood why he fell silent.
Our future might be impossible, but the moments between now and impossible are too good to miss.
Chapter 8
Devlin
“Prince Devlin.” The young woman who kneels next to my throne has a winsome smile and long dark hair like silk. “My friend and I hoped for a private audience.”
She holds her hand out to another girl, her hair just as dark, her skin pale with red lips and equally red cheeks. She smiles up at me more uncertainly than her friend. In the distance, the band plays on merrily.
I moved to my second castle after Tera destroyed my favorite, but the band still plays, wherever we are. On the polished floor in front of me, the favored young lords and ladies of the court drink and dance, as always.
Some of them are my rebels.
Some of them are my mother’s spies.
I reach for her hand, and her eyes light up.
“You’re very beautiful,” I tell her. Gods, what would I have said a year ago? I certainly didn’t always say yes. There were always women trying to work their way into my bed. And there were—far more painfully for all involved—even plenty of women who thought they could love me. “Both of you.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” she murmurs.
“But my heart belongs to another.” I say it simply, and I don’t try to smile.
Love is nothing to smile about.
Before I can dismiss them, my courier kneels at the foot of the dais. “Your highness.”
“Yes?” Save me from the beautiful women, please. It’s awkward having to reject so many.
“Your mother requests an audience.”
That is the opposite of saving me.
I hesitate as I scrub my hand across my face. It’s no secret in the court that my relationship with my parents is strained. Many in my generation wish they’d just die already, not that many are foolish enough to voice that sentiment.
My mother’s never been reluctant when it comes to killing.
“Thank you,” I tell the courier. “Excuse me, ladies. Please enjoy the party, even if I can’t personally attend to you.”
All three of them bow as I stand, and it ripples through the crowd as everyone marks my departure, sweeping into a bow or a curtsey. The music changes to Devlin’s Walk, which my mother commissioned from her favorite composer for my eighth birthday.
Do you know what eight-year-olds want for their birthdays? Toys. Ponies. Puppies. Paints. Adventure books. They do not want their own private musical composition to be heard eighteen times a day as they leave or enter a room.
I raise my hand in a wave as I sweep across the ball room and head to my own chambers. The non-stop parties give me a way to communicate easily with my rebel forces, who come and go without a slip of paper that my mother’s spies could get their hands on.
Also, they’re a lot of fun.
In my bedroom, the fire glows in the enormous stone fireplace. The walls are hung with scarlet and gold tapestries, and the bed is enormous—it’s big enough for my Tera and her men, if they were so inclined. It’s easy for me to imagine Tera, her caramel-blond hair falling around her pale shoulders, smiling at me from that bed.
But it will be a long time and a hard fight before Vasilik is safe for her.
And I’d leave it all behind if I could have her. But my country’s future matters more than my heart. There’s no hope of freedom for me or for Vasilik until my parents have been deposed.
Or killed. I’m not picky.
I pull my knife out of my boot and lay it on my dressing table, then remove my belt and with it, the jeweled dagger that everyone can see I carry. No weapon is going to make it through the portal to see my parents. They’re evil, not stupid.
Then I put on the damned crown and glance in the enormous gilt-edged mirror that hangs on my wall. The crown makes my head ache, and I push it back so it won’t hurt my forehead so damn much. When I wear it for more than a few minutes, the crown leaves a mark. There’s a metaphor.
“Coming, Mother,” I mutter, sure that she’s watching me. I swipe my fingers over the mirror, sparking my magic, and what should be glass instead ripples under my fingers.
I step through the glass. Cold washes over me, so intense that it feels like burning, and then it fades. I blink, and the room around me has changed. I stand at the edge of my parents’ reception room in their quarters. Their desks are side-by-side. My mother never lets my father go far.
The two of them both rise as I enter. My father’s face brightens genuinely as he hugs me hello. I hug him back. It’s always an odd thing that he simultaneously loves me and doesn’t protect me—or his people.
“Devlin,” my mother says. She touches my shoulder, the two of us leaning in toward each other, and brushes my cheek with a chilly kiss.
“You wanted to see me, Mother? Is everything alright?”
“I’ve been so worried about you since the Fox destroyed your castle.” She takes her seat, indicating that I should take the lea
ther club chair by the fire. It’s too warm there—I know this game—and I push the seat across the thick carpet to sit close to her desk, as if I want to be near her.
“It’ll be rebuilt.” Easier than rebuilding a kingdom, but my father and mother have been tearing ours apart with their cruelty and their unfair taxation and their wars.
“How did Tera Donovan escape?” she asks. As if she wasn’t there. She’s looking for the chink in my story.
“She was rescued by the Fox, apparently.”
“The true Fox?”
“The true Fox.”
“Do you have any idea who he is?”
I meet her eyes evenly. My heart rate never rises when I lie anymore; there’s no tell-tale sign for her magicians to pick up. I’m warded against their spells. “If I knew who he was, Mother, he’d already be dead.”
“Of course,” she smiles.
She almost came undone after the destruction of our navy, but now she’s back to her usual, tightly-controlled self. Her glittering eyes remind me of mine, and the thought makes me swallow as I glance away.
“I need your help, Devlin,” my father says. He might as well be reading from a script.
“Yours to command, as ever,” I tell him, leaning back lazily in my chair.
“You know how bad the rips have become,” he says. “We must seal them. To do that, we must gain the Shield of Everlach.”
There’s a way to repair the rips? I need to get my hands on that shield. “Where is it?”
“Earthside.”
My heart jolts in my chest at the thought of escaping Vasilik, and my mother’s watchful eye, for a while. “I’ll go.”
“Not alone,” my mother warns. “You’ll have enemies there. You’ll take my best magician and his men.”
“I have my own men,” I correct her.
This time, the smile she flashes my way could freeze a man’s flesh. “I’m aware.”
So I get to escape Vasilik, for a while, but with her goons in tow. Better than nothing. And with luck, there’s a way to save my kingdom from its other great threat.
