Page 19

A Full Cauldron

R oan returned sweaty and exhausted. He had ridden out past the gardens and fields and then continued deep into the wood before taking to the air.

He’d hoped that a flight would calm the boiling in his mind and his revulsion at the idea of being severed like his parents.

There was that other inkling too, the one that told him to wholly embrace the tether he never wanted, but it wasn’t until he was submerged in a bath that his thoughts quieted to a low simmer.

Intending to indulge in only another hour or so more of sulking, he expected his bedroom to be empty when he left the bathing chamber, but the root of his problems stood scowling in its center like the broodiest tree.

It would have been easier to hide just how much he was coming to like that scowl if he were wrapped in more than just a linen about his waist, but fate saw to leave him nearly naked in Maewyn’s presence, and he wasn’t going to object.

By the looks of things, she wasn’t objecting either, glower shifting into approval as her eyes flicked down his length before she shook her head. “Why do you want to have a baby with Jynquil?”

Of all the things he both hoped and feared she might say, that wasn’t even a passing thought, and so he blurted, “I don’t.”

Maewyn’s brows rose even higher than when her eyes had fallen on the only covered part of him.

“That is, I’ve known her so long that she is like a sister,” he admitted awkwardly and leaned against the bathing chamber’s door. “In truth, I’m a little concerned about being able to perform at all.”

Maewyn rolled her eyes so heavily he thought her whole head might pop off—ah, so she was not in the mood for a joke. “I’m not talking about that part. I mean the archfae part. The part where you create and bring forth an entire life and disrupt the balance of all things.”

“Well, I—”

“Because I’ve been researching archfae, you know,” she cut in, arms crossed beneath her breasts, her skin reddening with the pace of her speech. “They’re terrifyingly powerful, and you admitted yourself one’s mere existence could thrust this whole realm into war.”

“Yes, but not a baby , Maewyn,” he groaned. “It will be rather helpless at first, surely! And probably pretty cute too, considering.” He gestured to himself.

She scrubbed a hand down her face. “Yes, all right, but eventually it’s going to get bigger and then what? There must be a real reason you want this all-powerful child. Is there a danger you need to overcome? Are you afraid of someone?”

He scoffed.

“If someone is threatening you, you must tell me so that I can help.”

“Maewyn, you cannot—”

“I can, and I will.” She crossed the room in a few long strides to stand just before him. “You’ve trusted me with everything else, so trust me now.”

Roan stood straight. What was that in her eyes? Concern? “I…I do trust you.”

“Then why?”

Reasons jumbled together as he stared back at her, none of them good enough, and so he whispered, “I just want to see what happens.”

Maewyn looked as though she might break, and then she did—arms thrown overhead as she stomped toward the windows with a screech of utter frustration.

“What?” he called, following after. “You’ve never been curious before?”

She stopped abruptly on her mad march as if she’d been caught around the waist.

Roan eased up behind her and breathed into her ear. “You’ve been curious your entire life, haven’t you? And it never goes away, not without satisfaction.”

He felt the tremble that crawled up her back as she tried to remain still before him, but she didn’t storm off.

“If you’re going to be angry with me, at least turn around so I can admire that scowl of yours.”

She did turn then, leaving only an inch between them, but she wasn’t glaring at him.

Like in the library when she had so gently caressed his hand and like on the dance floor when she had spoken so sweetly about their tether and her past, Maewyn’s warm features were painted with a worry he hadn’t been expecting to touch him so deeply.

“You may not be afraid, but I am,” she said, and the truth cut into him like a cord pulled taut around his neck. “Please, at least tell me where the idea came from.”

He slipped fingers over her hips and drew her up against him, wanting to chase away that fear. “It has been law that I marry a human since before my birth, so of course the alternative is like a shiny fleck on the forest floor ripe for plucking.”

She licked her lips, eyes darting down to his bare chest as her palms came to rest on his arms. “But who told you that you could? That you should ?”

He ran a hand up her back to twist fingers into her curls and grinned. “You think I’m not clever enough to come up with something like this on my own?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid enough to do it.” Her gaze found his again, cutting but playful. “I don’t think you’re cruel enough either.”

And then she was kissing him.

Maewyn’s kiss was a marked improvement on the one Roan had given her. Their meeting had been tainted with shock and subterfuge, but now her lips burned as she bit back at him, dragging him near.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled against his mouth.

Roan gathered her up from behind, lifting her as he consumed her lips. “I am not .”

Maewyn’s arms wrapped fully around his neck. “This isn’t what you want,” came between another bout of searing kisses.

“Lies,” he growled and tossed her on the bed, falling right after.

Maewyn’s mouth tasted of heat and breath and human . Her tongue slid over his as she arched herself against him, nails clawing at his back. “I’m worried,” she gasped between kisses. “About you.”

Gods, her words only fanned the flames. To have someone worry for him was a surprisingly arousing delight.

Roan steadied himself over her and broke their mouths apart. “Funny, I’m worried about you .”

He trailed lips down her jaw and across her throat, wanting her mouth free to make the noises he longed to hear as he rutted his hips into hers.

She was hotter than a summer fae between her legs despite the sheath of her dress and the loosening linen around his waist. He grazed her collarbone with his teeth, and she tugged at his hair and moaned, grinding her hips back.

She felt like molten amber and rich earth, and as he slipped the neckline of her dress down and encircled her nipple with his tongue, she cried out in exactly the way he’d been fantasizing about all this time.

He would have chuckled at those needy noises, maybe even told her to beg for more if she were anyone else, but by gods he was wound so tightly by the tether, by her taunts and touches, by everything .

He’d had her in bed the night before, naked and ravishing, and yearned to be inside her, yet found contentment in simply having her beside him.

It was strange, terrifying even, but it had…

well, it had ruined him, hadn’t it? Perhaps she was exactly right to be worried, even if it was too late.

He rose from her chest and nibbled her throat. “If I could make you mine, truly mine, I would.”

Maewyn stilled beneath him, but his next gentle thrust against the layers between them made her eyelids flutter. “No one is stopping you,” she said, legs falling farther apart.

“You are,” he growled. “You would be tamed by no fae.”

She breathed out heady laughter and gripped the side of his face. “I think you prefer me untempered.”

Roan swallowed, the heat of her palm against his cheek so inviting he leaned into it. Maybe it was a mistake, but he was compelled as if by magic to give her the pleasure she was so desperately seeking by rubbing her hips against his. “Please,” he said, voice cracking, “let me taste you.”

“How could I deny you that request, Your Highness?”

Maewyn let Roan slither down her body, his mouth trailing over bare breasts and then her clothed middle as he pushed up her skirts and drew out another chuckle from deep in her chest. She’d been powerless the moment she saw him nearly naked and still dripping from the bath despite all her determination, but then Roan’s body atop hers and his cock—however covered it was—drawing out her pleasure had made her go truly stupid.

Then his tongue between her legs broke her mind completely.

Roan had said he wanted a taste, but Maewyn was being completely devoured.

Hands wrapped around her thighs and held them steady against her bucking as quakes of pleasure rumbled through her core with the caress of his tongue.

She sank into the softness of the linens with every arch and wriggle, closing her eyes but still seeing the coppery glow of the ceiling in her mind.

Everything was fiery colors and swirling leaves and trembling earth as his fingers clung onto her flesh and he nipped and teased and lapped.

Then it came to a halt just as she was losing her breath. “Please, don’t stop,” she choked out.

Roan was peering up at her from between her legs, emerald eyes glittering in the low candlelight. “I just want to look on you a moment,” he murmured, his fingers still kneading her thighs.

Maewyn had never felt so exposed, locking eyes with a prince hovering between her knees as his chin dripped with her wetness, and yet she felt no need to hide away. Damnedest of all the damns , she thought, I am well and truly lost now .

She reached for Roan’s face and dragged him right to her own, the tangy taste of herself on his lips followed by the spiced cider of his tongue blossoming to life in her mouth with his heady kiss.

“I know you would never allow yourself to be taken by a human,” she breathed, hand sliding between them and beneath the linen he still wore at his hips.

“Take it from me then,” he growled, though Maewyn already knew she would.

She gripped onto him, nestling his cock between her legs still sheathed by the linen around his hips.

They shouldn’t consummate the marriage neither intended to enter into, she knew, but her body insisted she take some satisfaction from his.

He thrust against her as she encircled his crown, his face contorting, then she stilled her hand.

“Not yet,” she strained, squeezing him tight and holding him still as she drew her own pleasure from his covered base. He’d done well to take her to the precipice, and in just a few thrusts, her climax burst against the back of her mind and against him.

Sated and yet not, her legs quivered with release, and she sank into the down of the linens, moaning out a sigh.

Her core clenched around nothing, urging her to slide him inside, but even in her lusty reverie, she knew that could never be.

Instead, she ran a thumb over the velvety skin along his cock and only imagined what it might be like filling her.

“Don’t leave me like this,” she heard him say, and when she opened her eyes, he was straining to hold himself up on his elbows above her, still as stiff as ironwood in her hand. “Be merciful to your prince.”

Floating in the afterglow of surrender, she grinned and trailed a finger up his veiny length. “You’re sure you would waste your spectacular seed?”

Roan shuddered. “Please,” was all he could manage, just as delicious to her ears as the first time.

Maewyn took him in both hands, working at his cock and watching his breath hitch with every slow stroke.

His arms trembled as he held himself up, hands pressing in on either side of her head and gripping the pillow so tightly she was sure it would explode into a mess of feathers.

Crimson hair fell in his face, the muscles along his shoulders and arms bunching and jumping with the strain, and then he lowered himself just enough to press his lips to hers in the most remarkably sweet kiss.

Roan cried out against her mouth then, and spend coated the inside of the linen as she continued to caress him through his release.

The prince may have been a braggart, but he had not exaggerated when it came to quantity, multiple waves swelling through his length.

And then he collapsed as delicately as he seemed able, falling beside her with arms circling her middle to draw her against his chest.

Maewyn’s eyes widened at the embrace as she slipped her hands out of the linen. It was reminiscent of the night before, but he had held her then only to change her back, not…not for comfort, and certainly not because he wanted to.

“Terribly embarrassing,” he mumbled into her ear. “I swear, it’s never happened that quickly before.”

“I’m sure you say that to all the fae.”

Roan’s sassiness was perhaps tied to his seed, suddenly running low as he hummed, “Not the fae. My human.” His effort instead was entirely focused on getting her to nuzzle back into him.

Maewyn turned toward Roan and let him hold on, let him mumble something about being a great prince who would someday be king and would need a queen to match, and then let him fall asleep wrapped in her arms.