Page 73 of Artemysia

“Delphine is my only weakness.” - Riev

Three months later

“Y our scent is in the air, my little demon,” Throg hollers out into the thicket of trees.

His deep voice echoes among the sparse sunbeams streaming through the dark forest. He and I approach the Artemysian gateway.

At Limingfrost, Throg declared it unseasonably hot and peeled off his shirt, and he hasn’t put it back on since.

We’ve dismounted, about to walk our elk through the giant split oak covered in enormous glowing fungi in all shades of the rainbow.

My pulse spikes at the thought of seeing Riev after our last two-week stint apart, and at the even more anxious idea of my new life in Artemysia.

I grasp at the thought of my crimson cravat hanging with my Academy uniform in King Foss’ palace.

I will wear it when I travel to Stargazer to attend meetings in the war room.

Riev’s soft blue flannel hangs beside it. I don’t plan on ever returning it to him.

A familiar roar that ends in a shriek pierces our ears from a tree above. A blur of auburn hair and a flash of steel later, Throg lies flat on his back on the mossy earth of the forest.

Ivy sits on his bare chest, her dagger to his throat. “I missed you so much , you fucker.”

She shaves off a patch of stubble along his throat with her blade and prods him with the tip of her knife, drawing his laughter.

“How long were you waiting up there, Morrigan? You’re going to pay for this later.”

“Why wait?” she challenges him.

“You know Elphie is uptight about seeing people fuck,” Throg says, jerking his chin at me.

Ivy glances up, her violet eyes once again darkening to the color of currants in the shadowy forest.

“I missed you too, Captain. Your Syf prince is stressed out, making sure everything you need for your move is here. He’s been cleaning all morning. The Lindwyrm took a small bite out of him when he tried to fold your old shirt that you left for it.”

Throg chuckles. “Doesn’t he have people to clean and fold for him now?”

“No one does it to his standards,” Ivy says. “Are you here to stay this time, Captain, er, Colonel? Or should I call you Ambassador?”

I started my position as a liaison between Stargazer and Artemysia, and will be able to see my father on my travels back and forth.

The elk he raises are becoming known as the fastest, best-trained elk in the country, and are highly sought-after.

My father will trade to both Stargazer and Artemysia, since the Artemysians only breed horses.

The Syf claim elk can outrun and outjump horses and are better on rocky terrain, but horses have better temperaments and can bear a heavier load.

“Of course. I’m here to stay,” I reply. “Who else dares to tell Riev when he’s being an a-hole?”

“Yess!” Ivy pounds Throg’s chest with a fist to celebrate. “His uncle thinks it all the time but holds his tongue. In fact, he holds his tongue so much around Riev that his dark hair is becoming ‘touched by starlight,’ like yours.”

I smirk. “Riev is driving him stark raving mad, huh?”

Throg speaks up, his hands gliding up Ivy’s thighs. “Syf age the same as humans, right?”

“Same lifespan as us, Eira said. She also told me that humans made up all sorts of lies about Syf. Like how they live forever, steal sugar and dreams, and can’t touch coins or garlic. Not true.”

Ivy curves over Throg and kisses him. His hands are already massaging her breasts. I turn away, but not before she adds, “But I think King Foss’ hair turns white because he’s anxious about the Rok gryphons threatening at the borders of the mainland.”

Rok gryphons . I’ve been studying Syf history, but still have a lot to learn about the world.

“You look nervous, Fancy Bird.” Ivy narrows her eyes at me. “Do you need me to fight you?”

She launches off Throg’s chest and sprints toward me, a wild look flashing in her eyes.

I shift a foot back to brace myself.

In her last few steps, she hurtles through the air, kicking her legs as if leaping over a stream. She seizes me in a suffocating embrace, her cheek pressed into my collarbone.

“Thanks, Ivy.”

When she finally releases me, I grab the reins of Throg’s elk and glance up toward the gateway, just in time to see a dark-haired, gray-eyed figure ride out from between the split tree branches.

He wears a stunning silver crown studded with diamonds and opals, his black cloak collar turned up around his neck.

His boots are polished to perfection, as always.

He feigns a somber expression, his jaw tensing as if he will utter a command at me, but promptly breaks into a familiar look of joy.

He no longer forces down his deepest emotions around me.

I grant him the same privilege.

He’s grinning like an idiot. No wait, that’s me.

“Prince Riev Aeros Wolfgang,” I say to him, knowing the effect his title and full name has on him in our bed at the Artemysian palace, when our limbs tangle around each other for hours at a time.

It only takes those four words uttered softly from my lips, and he ravishes me like the predator he is, unhinged, wild and raw whenever I come for a visit.

And now, I’m here to stay.

I add a deep curtsy for good measure, bowing my head—but peer up at him with one eye to watch his reaction.

A grin tugs at one corner of his mouth. Behind him, his half-grown wings twitch.

His regal bearing indicates he’s already used to his role as a ruler.

The new power he holds over his own life suits him. He straightens his shoulders and puffs out his chest, posing for me as I pretend to roll my eyes. Gone is the shame over who he is, who he might become. Gone are those who seek to control him. He controls himself, and his future.

I bite my lip to stop the overeager grin and the almost-squeal I’m fighting back—because that’s not me at all.

“Still haven’t taken to horses yet?” I ask instead, stroking the long neck fur of his loyal copper elk.

“They’re too slow. Can’t jump as high.”

“Tell her your weakness, Prince,” Ivy chimes in from Throg’s arms, directing him toward us as he carries her bridal style, her hands locked around his neck.

“Delphine is my only weakness.”

“No, why you can’t ride horses…”

“They smell funny.”

“Nice try. His eyes swell up, red as a monkey’s ass!” She convulses into laughter, almost toppling out of Throg’s grasp. “He can’t stop sneezing when he’s on one.”

“I’m allergic,” Riev says gruffly.

My face scrunches. “To horses?”

“My elk stamps and paws if I dare ride a horse in her sight. I’m not going to deliberately distress her—”

“You’re effin’ adorable.”

In one elegant move, he swings off his elk. His footsteps thump across the forest floor, and he gathers me up, clutching me in his iron grip.

His warm, clean juniper scent reminds me where I belong .

Here. Now. With him.

His natural frown deepens. “Don’t say things like that, Elphie. Don’t force me to change your mind,” he growls.

He grasps me by my arm to spin me to face away from him, his hot breath on my neck.

He pulls back on my braid, exposing my throat.

I gasp at the coarseness of his touch, but he bands an arm around my waist, securing me to him, and whispers, “I’ll take you right here on the moss if I have to.

Claim you in front of everybody. To remind you I’m not cute or adorable.

Do you need a reminder of the beast that I am? Did you forget?”

His heat, his body, his voice engulf me, threatening to pull me under the spell of his lust and the pinch of his fangs nipping at the sensitive skin of my throat. Sparks tingle from my toes up to my scalp where he grips my hair.

As much as I like him there, I catch him off guard and fold forward, using my hips to control his center of gravity and throw him off balance. As he stumbles backward, I spin around and use his momentum to back him into the nearest tree, grasping his wrists and pinning him with my body.

“I don’t ever forget.” I rise up as high as I can onto my toes, so we are nose to nose. “But I’ll call you what I want. Because you’re mine.”

His nostrils flare, lust swirling in the gray of his eyes. The tips of his growing wings wrap around his shoulders, enveloping me in a possessive, sheltered embrace even as they grip my ribs. They glide along the swells of my breasts, drawing a gasp from me.

His cock jerks to life, engorged.

I grind against it, letting out a ragged moan. At this, his breath hitches.

“I am. Yours, that is. Even when my heart stops beating in my chest—and beyond. I’m forever yours, Elphie.” His eyes glisten with the threat of tears.

He has let me in to glimpse his deepest fears and to live his darkest hours. The bond we share burns away any remaining doubts he has over who he is.

I know this because he tells me often.

He tells me not only with words he has never expressed to anyone before, but with the way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking.

He shows me, begging me to be in his arms every night as lovers do, before holding me tight and muttering my name in his sleep.

Sick and tormented by his love for me, he confesses, when I am away.

He blinks rapidly, and my lips are on his because I can’t wait any longer.

An unnerving screech comes from a nearby cypress besieged by glowing rose and apricot-colored mushrooms sprouting up its trunk.

“I brought a friend.” I turn my eyes up at a tufted copper owl perched on an overhanging branch, clicking his beak. “I lured him out of the clock tower with some jerky, and he followed me to Artemysia. I think he realizes I’m moving and wants to come.”

“Welcome to a whole new world, Owlfred. Welcome home, Elphie.” Riev doesn’t give me a chance to speak before his lips possessively find mine again in a way that makes me forget where I am.

The sharp points of his fangs scrape my tongue.

His love could be deadly.

But I love it.