Page 20

CHAPTER 20

Seraphine

When I woke, the sky on the other side of the diamond paned window was black and stars twinkled with a silver streak of moonlight across the bed and floor.

Korven was gone and in the absence of his warm body I’d fallen into, utterly exhausted and sated, I was bundled in blankets.

I pushed up from the bed, calling his name—bleary, and a bit disoriented. I didn’t need food or water to live in this state apparently, but I felt the lack of it in the way my limbs felt so suddenly heavy.

I yawned and closed my eyes, bringing myself back to focus.

Yes, I had ground myself over Korven’s mouth and hands in the library.

No, I didn’t regret it.

Yes, I was falling harder than ever for him.

No, I didn’t expect any returned feelings.

The Duke of Riche was kind. Interesting. The perfect man on paper. And by the way my body was returning so rapidly, he was also the best option we had to break this spell.

We had six more days. I’d have sent him directly to Castle Havenshire that night if I thought Prince Urik would let him in.

Goddess be, I didn’t want to know the condition of my body in that castle or what had been done to it. Fiola said she’d keep me safe there, but I had little trust in the Prince of Havenshire.

So, I had one chance with Arthur. I would be honest with him at our next meeting and explain that my heart could not be his, but if he would break this curse, I would be so grateful. It would have to be a strong man who felt he could love me most, but would be denied anything in return from the woman he saved.

I untangled myself from the sheets and picked up the note on the table, written in Korven’s messy scrawl.

Gone to the bath in the cellar to soak. If you’re reading this before I return, then yes, I am a shitty chaperone, and will make it up to you.

Yes, in that way if you’ll let me.

-K

I chuckled to myself and let the note fall to the table.

The note fell to the table.

From my hands.

I’d been so worked up on what I was feeling and what had happened, it took me all of two minutes to realize I had hands .

I still only had a waist to the base of my breasts, but sometime during that sleep, once again, more of me had become tangible and real. I had fingers, wrists, and forearms. That’s where it ended. Floating parts of my arm waved out in front of my face and I shook.

We could really do this.

The curse could fully break and we were getting close, so very close.

I needed to spend more time with Arthur. I needed him to understand and agree to help. Now I could.

With hands, we didn’t need Korven to interpret any longer.

I could write.

* * *

It wasn’t easy wrapping Korven’s cloak around half of my body, holding it to me in such a way that it appeared that a Wildefae or child was pushing through the busy tavern instead of the waist and legs of an adult woman.

I managed to fold the wool to look as if I was smaller than a human with a shadowy hood to hide my face. I received some long-lingered looks, but brushed through the dinner crowd, past the usual drunks, and made it to the cellar door. I waited in the shadowy corner for it to unlock and the maid to leave with what was hopefully the last bucket of hot water she’d delivered.

From what I remembered on my first night when I fell through the booth and saw the cellar below, there was one bath sunken into the tiled floor, surrounded by boxes and barrels of ale.

I slipped through the door as the maid left, descending the stone steps quietly and coming to another door.

I knocked three times to hear Korven shout back, “I need nothing more, please go!”

I leaned in and called, “It’s Seraphine. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I thought you might like to know that?—”

The door flew open to reveal a dripping wet Ravenfae Prince holding a towel bundled at his waist.

Eyes wide, I took all of him in. Candles were lit behind him, creating a halo effect around his black feathers and his dripping black hair. Rivulets of water slid down his muscled chest, slipping along his skin to the towel he held over his hips. I followed the beads of water with my eyes, wishing I had a tongue to follow them with instead.

“How in the name of Revelry did you get down here without being seen as half a woman?”

I reluctantly looked away from the deep V and black hair that led from his navel downward. “Huh?” I uttered.

“Phinie,” he sighed, then reached behind me, coaxing me through the door and locking it with a loud click.

I looked around to see a full bath buried in the ground, elliptical in shape with candles lit around the edge. This room was definitely also a supply room because barrels of ale and bags of flour and sugar were stacked and slumped against the walls. Even a crate of carrots sat near the door.

“What were you doing coming down here?” he scolded. “You could have been seen and then we’d have some explaining to do.”

He shuffled away from the door, walking to the edge of the tub and dropping his towel.

Goddess be damned, his wings hid anything I’d wanted to see from his backside. The depths of the bath hid everything in the front, except for his chiseled chest, and I’d seen plenty of that. He swiveled to the edge of the water and motioned for me to come to him. “You might as well get in. Come here and I’ll help you with…” he trailed off, actually noticing me for the first time.

I dropped his cloak and waved.

“When, Phinie darling, did you get hands?”

“I woke up with them.”

A grin broke across his face. “I suppose it’s one reason to thank the duke,” he muttered. “By all means, please join me in a soak. I’m sorry you woke up alone. My shoulders ached a bit from…ah…our earlier festivities and I needed a moment to relax.”

“I can go, if you prefer to be alone. I just wanted you to see?—”

He flicked water my way from the tub, splashing over my legs. “You’re already wet now, you might as well get in.”

I gasped with a laugh, teasing, “How dare you get me wet, Your Highness.”

“Tell me just how wet you are, Seraphine.”

My lower belly knotted, anticipation rising and overtaking my senses.

There he was, the only man I’d ever really cared deeply for, naked in a steaming bath surrounded by candlelight.

If these were to be my last few days—as they might be—I wanted to spend them touching his skin, his wings, his mouth. I would take what earthly delights he’d let me, damn what that meant for the future. I was possibly a dying woman, though evidence of myself returning would say otherwise, and I would live the next few days as well as I could.

“Seraphine.”

My eyes shot from his chest to his face and I smiled at his raw, hungry gaze.

Oh, yes. He wanted to live with me just as badly.

“If I’m to join you, I need a knife,” I said sweetly, padding in my stocking feet to his clothing.

He laughed and glided through the water to the other side of the tub, watching me rifle through his things. “No need for violence. I won’t touch anything you don’t want me to. I won’t even look.” He covered his eyes with his hands, peeking through two of his fingers.

Finding what I needed, I shook my head in a laugh. “I’d prefer you look.”

He dropped his hands and watched as I cut away the raw hem of my gown. I had no undergarments underneath, no shield against any look he gave me as I pulled and cut away swaths of material. I cut the threads attaching the skirt of the gown to the corseted top. When I’d shredded enough away, I yanked at the threads, dropping what was left of the skirt of my gown to the cellar floor, flicking it to a corner with my foot.

His mouth parted and his eyes drifted slowly up my body, all the way to my face, ethereal and untouchable. Unkissable.

I tossed his knife back toward his boot and took two steps to the edge of the inlaid tub, just as he moved across the water to meet me there.

He rose, revealing just how much I affected him, too, and lifted his hands from the water. “May I?” he asked, gesturing to the stockings he’d made resting at my mid thigh.

I nodded and he began the slow, teasing work of rolling each down my leg. His wet fingers slid beneath the hem, his mouth leaving light kisses down my thighs and knees. He lifted each foot at the final roll, laying my stockings to the side as gently as he’d pulled them down.

His fingers trailed across my skin, his mouth hot near the top of my thighs, and I felt the chill and excitement that surged through my veins at what pleasures the night held for us both.

“Are you cold, Phinie darling?”

I nodded and raked my fingers through his black locks. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back with a smile.

“Keep me warm, Korven,” I murmured low in the candlelit cellar.

“Done.”

He kissed me once, twice, his lips once again gentle and soft between my legs. He grabbed my hips and pressed me down to sit at the edge of the tub. My long legs slid over his shoulders, resting across the vast expanse of his black wings. I admired how they reflected in the candlelight, taking in their beauty as Korven began to abide by his promise.

Warm and wet, I pushed myself up against his mouth, my hands running through his hair, gripping him tightly as his tongue swept over every pleasurable surface of my body. He explored everything, everywhere, and I gasped when his fingers joined his tongue in pursuit of what ways he could make me moan, make me cry out in delighted surprise. But it wasn’t until I called his name, harsh, urgent, his mouth sucking, his fingers pulsing, that he looked up at me with that smoldering grin I’d now seen enough of to know I’d never be rid of it.

All the days of my life I had left to live, regardless of how few, I’d remember his face laced with raw hunger in the way he watched me come undone. Our eyes locked as I called his name again in the night, slick over his fingers and face, marking him with the scent and taste of me.

As I caught my breath, gulping down heaps of air, he kissed my thighs gently, once again with his promise. “Whatever you want me to do, Phinie darling, it’s done.”

“I—” I swallowed hard, ready again to take what I wanted. “I want you inside me, Korven. I want you inside me every last night of this fucking curse.”

His cock thrust hard, slipping into me with ease the moment the last word left my mouth. I whimpered, holding onto his shoulders for dear life as he pleased us both without hesitation—without the slow down of a lesser man who could tire with ease.

No, not this Ravenfae Prince.

He fucked, and groaned, and gripped my hips like a dying man, starved and bereft of anything so delectable as me. I’d done this to him. I’d gotten under his skin as my own formed along my forearm, revealing elbows, up the length of my biceps, revealing shoulders, across my ribs to the base of my breasts.

His wild fucking slowed, both of us attempting to catch our breath, my body pulsing, needy and ready for more. His lips met my shoulder, his tongue sliding across my skin. “There’s more of you.” He bit the top of my shoulder and stared into my eyes face-to-face, no running from the heat of his gaze as the head of his cock withdrew from me and slipped in to the hilt once more. “Why is there more of you, Seraphine?”

The peak of my nipples ached, irritated against the stiff corset of my dress. He noticed at the same time I did. My breasts were full, heaping over the top of the ridiculously sized bow, heaving from the breath leaving me so quickly.

“I-I don’t know,” I stumbled, digging my nails into the skin of his back, asking for more, needing more.

“You do know,” he said in a deep rumble, withdrawing from me completely, catching the pained cry when his hands left my hips only to yank down the top of my corset, pulling the taut peak of my nipple into his mouth.

“Please,” I begged, “get this off me.”

In a growl, he had me turned, flipping me to my stomach, halfway in the bath, half across the tiled cellar floor. His knee separated my legs and his hard cock, slick from me, was filling my body again, rising a desperate moan from my lips.

He pulled the back of my corset strings, bringing me upright, his teeth again at my shoulder, my breasts bare as he held my back to his chest.

“You ask me to free you fully from this cage.”

“Yes!” I cried, touching myself and lifting a leg to the edge of the tub.

“I require something in return,” he purred between strokes over the swell of my breasts.

“Anything,” I answered in a raptured daze, ready to lay down whatever he wanted so we could get back to that mindless place of pleasure.

I heard the grin in his voice as he pressed me back down, pulling on the knot, flicking the first bundle of strings loose from the corset. “Tell me the curse saved you.”

I gasped, grunting as another string flew loose and he pushed himself deeper.

“Tell me I saved you.”

Another string. The tight bodice began to loosen, and I could finally take a real breath.

“Tell me your body returns for me.”

Thrust.

“I see no duke here.”

Withdraw.

“Only a prince.”

Thrust.

I cried out in an urgent unrest. I’d tell him. I’d give him the words he wanted and more, Goddess only knew what would spill from my lips as long as he stayed inside me.

The vice across my torso fell limp and loose as he pulled out the last of the strings, tossing them across the room at the same time I pulled away from the boned corset, throwing it hard against the wall.

“Tell me?—”

He stopped mid demand for the payment of this act of freedom. His fingers trailed down my spine and I stiffened.

I knew what he touched.

In my lust and longing for him to fill me, I’d forgotten.

In my pleasure-addled mind, I’d become negligent in what I’d hidden from anyone for so, so long.

A chill swept through what parts of me it could as he stepped back, slipping out of me completely, still holding me in place, still tracing my back.

“What is this, Seraphine?”

Him.

It was him and he knew it.

It was a lonely young woman holding onto and chasing that one glimpse of care she’d felt fifteen years before.

His fingers traced the lines of my feather tattoo, sweeping across the downy barbs, the hollow shaft, inked in perfection along the spine of my back in remembrance and reminder of what I had found once and never again.

“Phinie…” he murmured and I turned, backing as far away from him as I could.

He stopped me before I could climb out and cover myself in the shame I felt at having inked my skin with his memory.

“It’s nothing,” I said, breathless.

His fingers pressed into my bare hips, locking me in place. “It’s not nothing. Why is one of my feathers inked across your back?”

“I just liked it,” I lied.

He jostled me, calling me on it instantly. “Bullshit. You had this done for a reason. Goddess knows where you even found someone in Moonstone Wood to?—”

“He was visiting. From Songbird Cove. Said he tattooed all the pirates there and was traveling Revelry, adding art to his trade.” I gulped, wild eyed in his piercing gaze. I rambled on. “Said he’d ink me for a few jars of salve that heals inked skin quickly. I didn’t know what to get, so, I got this.” I reached behind my back, tracing what I knew to be the point of the feather.

“Seraphine…” he breathed, leaning close, close enough to kiss if he’d been able to touch my lips.

“Don’t. Don’t pity me. Don’t touch me in sadness for something that is mine. It was a choice I made. It means nothing.”

His fingers dug into my skin harder. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care if you believe me.”

“You do.” His hand reached up to my face, unable to catch the tear that fell.

Goddessdamn him. Goddessdamn how quickly, in the pursuit of pleasure, I’d forgotten what he’d find when he tore the last remaining piece of my wedding gown from my skin.

“It’s just a feather. I like feathers.”

“It’s not just a feather.”

“It is! Stop trying to make it about you!”

“It is about me.”

“I did not tattoo myself for you, Korven.”

“You did. That’s the same feather I gave you.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes and trying to squirm away from his hold on me. “How would you know?”

“It has the notch cut out on the barbs. The exact same feather I left for you that day under the tree when you didn’t fucking come back.”

He stunned me into silence. His fingers slid up my sides, his thumbs caressing the pebbled skin under my breasts.

“H-how would you remember that exact feather?”

“I left you the first feather of mine you’d ever touched. After you woke up from sleeping in my arms one day, you smiled and reached out to touch one. It was that one. As imperfect as it was, you chose that one. So don’t tell me this isn’t personal.”

I couldn’t deny just how personal it was any longer.

He knew.

I knew.

He knew I knew he knew.

“When did you get it?” he asked softly.

“Five years ago.”

He shook me, his voice rising. “You’ve been missing me for five years?”

“I’ve been missing you most of my life!” I spat, mirroring his tone. “There. I said it, and I hope you're happy. I hope you think of it often if we’re still alive in a week, and I hope memories of me haunt your dreams just as they've haunted mine. You want me to say I wanted this? I’m thankful for this ?” I gestured to his body and he stilled his hands on my skin. “I’ve lived more true to myself in the past four days than I have in the past ten years, and, yes, I am glad. I am glad that it was you with the curse. That you have been forced to break it with me. I’m glad I have the courage to take exactly what I want for the first time in my life. I won’t be summoned again to visit the Forestfae court and end up bringing home a stranger. If this curse breaks, I will live. I will love. Because I deserve it. And yes, I tattooed the feather I lost onto my skin and with every prick of every needle, I remembered you. Every fucking one.”

Something broke on his face. Lust? Anger? A confirmation of knowing what his memory had done to me over the years?

He spoke softly, firming his grip and keeping me in place with one hand, trailing up the new skin of my reappearing neck with the other. “You love me, Phinie darling?”

I couldn’t do it. As cowardly as it made me, I wasn’t ready to confess my answer. “I remembered you,” I said in partial truth. “I always remembered you.”

He nodded, his jaw ticking. “I will help you break this curse.”

Anger rushed to the surface and my chest heaved in frustration. “I doubt I need you further. I can manage to get to the library on my own now.”

He caressed my neck. “No fucking chance. I’m sticking to your ass like the freckle I just found there.”

“I don’t want you on my ass.”

He chuckled in that soft sultry way, leaning in to whisper, “Then why the fuck are your legs still wrapped around me?”

I dropped them immediately, but he was ready, catching me under the knees. He tsked, shaking his head. “You want to live, Seraphine? Then let’s live.” His kiss was back on the swell of my breasts, the hollow of my throat, and I found myself pushing into the hard length of him, my body begging to finish what we’d started.

A guttural growl came deep from his chest and he picked me up, settling my clit over the head of his cock, a question ready in his next breath. “Do you want me to put you down, Phinie darling?”

I squirmed, wrapping my legs tighter around him. “Put me down where?”

His chest rumbled in response. He cupped my ass with one hand and trailed down my tattoo with the other. “Whatever you want me to do, it’s done.”

I reached down between us, my hand following the dark hair of his stomach, over the hard planes of muscle, reaching, stroking. Our eyes locked as I touched him. Desire filled his eyes, deep and haunting. I couldn’t look away. Neither could he from me as I wrapped my hand around the base of his cock, lining myself up to slide down on top of him.

He sucked air between his teeth as he filled me and I began again to ease myself up and down, returning to that ache that begged to be released.

“No confessions, no commitment,” I said, repeating what I’d told the duke just hours before. “Just live these last days with me. Fuck me in every one.”

His fingers pressed harder to my tattoo and he settled me back on the edge of the tub, laying me down and lifting each of my ankles up to his shoulders. He kissed the pad of my foot before beginning again where we’d left off, his breath hot on my skin. “Done, my darling Seraphine.”