Page 28

ONE YEAR LATER

Morning light filtered across Seraphine’s face through the diamond paned window, casting a rainbow of pastel hues along her cheek.

“Phinie, my love,” I whispered in her ear.

She groaned and yawned, turning in our bed, wrapping her arms around me and snuggling into my neck.

I slipped my hand under her silky nightgown and brushed my fingers along her tattooed spine. That always worked.

She groaned again, stretching her legs to tangle with mine and mumbling against my skin, “Why do you wake me, Ravenfae Prince?”

“The Cursed Moon is tonight. I have a lot to prepare and the morning is all I can give you.” I kissed her hair, breathing in her scent of dried herbs and fresh dew she collected for her tinctures.

“There’s more than the morning you can give me, Prince,” she cooed, pressing herself to my cock.

“You’re insatiable,” I laughed.

“Kettle, meet pot.”

I chuckled into her hair. “I have something for you. It’s been a year. One year I’ve gotten to hold you every night and wake with you every morning.”

Her head snapped to mine and she blinked blearily. “Is that all? It feels like it’s been a lifetime.”

I agreed. From the moment I carried her in my arms out the window of that tower, we’d been mostly inseparable. I’d brought her home to the cottage in Moonstone Wood and the world believed her dead. The story went that her curse remained unbroken and the Prince of Havenshire took his own life in the tragedy of his betrothed never returning to him—a story told and fueled by none other than the Duke of Riche. Or King of Heartstone Castle, I should say.

Fuck that duke. He was still an asshole.

“It’s been one year and before I make love to you at least twice, I have a few gifts.”

She snorted into my neck and I raised her chin to steal a kiss.

“You brought me gifts?” she said dreamily.

I stroked a thumb under her bottom lip. “Raven, remember?”

I slid the package from underneath my pillow, pulling her up with me and placing it in her hands. I’d taken great care to wrap it neatly in rose stained parchment, a pink peony fresh and bound in twine over the wrapping.

She brought the flower to her nose. “It’s beautiful. Where did you find one that bloomed so early in the season?”

“I know a gardener who owed me a favor.”

She eyed me with a knowing grin and set the flower on the small chest of drawers at the foot of our bed. She unbound the twine and carefully unwrapped the package, gasping and holding up blush colored stockings. She laughed in glee, “I love them! They’re beautiful, Korven!”

She shimmied out of her worn stockings, long overdue for her lover to knit her new ones, and pulled them up her legs. She hopped out of bed and spun in a circle. “How do they look?”

My eyes wide in disbelief that she was fucking mine, I nodded, a raspy, good , coming from my chest. I leaned forward and pulled her back to bed, handing her the other part of her gift. She settled in, folding her legs underneath her and carefully opened the black box.

A sound of shock left her as she gently picked up the book bound in black cloth and opened to the first page. “Cursed Goddess of the Veil?” she whispered, gently flipping through the brittle pages.

“The first copy ever penned. By my mother herself.”

“Korven…this is incredible.”

I slid my fingers up her leg, taking her hand and kissing the ring that had been there almost an entire year. “My mother was glad to be rid of it. I told her you’d be its keeper if she ever wants it back.”

Seraphine shook her head. “I will. I will keep it and cherish it. Thank you.”

She closed the book gently, adding it to the chest next to the flower she didn’t yet know would never stop blooming. She wrapped her arms around my neck, settling herself over my lap as I leaned against the stone wall.

“I do love you,” she said, kissing my chin, my cheek, my brow. “My husband, my lover, my Prince.”

I slid my hand behind her neck, slipping my fingers through her golden hair, one hand lifting her nightgown to cup her ass grinding on my cock.

“Be mine forever,” she whispered, adjusting her entrance over me, pulling a growl from my throat. “Love me most.”

I settled her hips over mine as she began to move so sweetly. I brushed my mouth across hers, lifting her body and setting her down beneath me, thrusting deep, just as she wanted. I lived in her cry of pleasure, sealing my kiss with my promise. “Done.”