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Twenty-Four

CIANA

“ I t’s happening to them too!” Dawn gasped, grabbing Rha’s arm.

I wasn’t sure what she meant by “it”, but something was definitely happening with Kurai.

He roared like a wild beast. His features distorted in a tortured grimace as he clung to me like to a lifeline.

“What’s going on?” I turned to Dawn in desperation, unsure how to help him.

“You must be ovulating,” she said the most bizarre thing in reply.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

I haven’t had my period for many weeks now. Being abducted then half-dying in the desert seemed to have temporarily shut off the reproductive function in my body. But even if it didn’t, why did it matter?

“They can’t do it here.” Dawn tugged Rha by his arm. “Just look at this place. Ciana deserves better for their first time together.” She turned to me. “It is your first time with him, right? He hasn’t had a mating fever yet, has he? ”

“I don’t think she knows what you’re talking about.” Rha stepped back out of the cell with a gesture for us to follow. “Ciana, you don’t have much time before he’ll lose his control completely. Come, I’ll move you two to the queen’s quarters.”

“Ooh, the queen’s quarters are gorgeous,” Dawn approved. “It’s an entire mansion built specifically to accommodate the queen and her court when she visits, which hasn’t happened yet and is unlikely to ever happen.” She waved her hand vaguely. “But it'll be perfect for you two to…um…”

Kurai groaned, bending over and propping his hands on his thighs.

“Come, we’ll get you to a more comfortable place.” I climbed to my feet and grabbed his arm in an attempt to help him up from his knees.

“It’s best if you stay away from him for now.” Dawn grabbed my hand and pulled me to her.

“Ciana!” Kurai bellowed, lurching after me.

“Quickly now,” Dawn speed-walked down the corridor with Rha, dragging me after her.

Kurai stomped behind us. His head down, his shoulders hunched over, he looked like a predator on the prowl, tracking his prey. And by the looks of it, the prey was me.

“What’s happening to him?” I hurried along the corridor out of the dungeon, tripping over my feet.

“You know how the shadow fae don’t have any dicks?” Dawn explained. “Well, he’s about to get one. And not just one. These guys have lots.”

“Lots of dicks?” I tried to keep up with both our dash out of the dungeon and the new information she was imparting on me.

“Yes. Lots and lots of dicks. A whole cluster. And they will all want to fuck you.”

“Fuuuuck!” Kurai bellowed behind us, speeding up as if the mention of sex added strength to him.

“That’s how they reproduce,” Dawn clarified.

“I have to reproduce? ” My voice came out in a shriek.

I’d always wanted to have children. Dylan convinced me to wait until he was done with his studies. I’d also thought it’d be a good idea for me to get a college degree before starting a family. But secretly, I always wished I could start a family sooner rather than later.

But not like this.

Running down a dark corridor in a dungeon from a man I’d just confessed my love to? This was not how I had envisioned it.

“Tell me you don’t want to be with him,” Dawn said.

“One word from you, Ciana, and I’ll have the guards detain him,” Prince Rha assured me.

“And then what? What will happen to him?”

“If his mating fever is not tended to. He’ll probably die.”

“Probably?” I froze on the spot, unable to make another step away from Kurai.

“Well,” the prince said. “No one knows for sure, since so far, the only mating fever between a shadow fae and a human happened between Dawn and me, and…it was well tended to.” He smiled, sliding a warm glance at Dawn.

Kurai caught up with us in two wide leaps. He grabbed me around my middle and tossed me over his shoulder.

The prince drew his sword. His guards did the same, surrounding Kurai as far as the space in the narrow corridor would allow.

Clamping a hand around my thigh, Kurai growled and bared his fangs.

“Wait!” I pleaded with the guards. “Please don’t hurt him. I want to be with him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I’m just…”

It all had been happening so fast. Kurai’s transformation had been too sudden. My head was spinning. And now, I was hanging over his shoulder with blood rushing to my brain as he marched along the corridor toward the exit of the dungeon.

The guards flanked him but didn’t stop him without an order from their prince.

“Okay, listen carefully…” Dawn ran after Kurai, giving me last-minute instructions. “Mating fever is brutal for shadow fae. They feel no pleasure from sex, just an overwhelming need and a lot of pain. Um…” She glanced at the matte spots on his upper arms. “What happened to his tendrils?”

I pushed my hands into Kurai’s back, lifting up to see her face. It wasn’t easy to have a conversation in this position.

“I cut them off.”

“You did? But why?” Dawn stared at me in confusion.

“It’s a long story.” I waved her off. “I’ll tell you later. But what do I do now?”

“Right. Well, without the tendrils, he won’t be able to connect to you. Which means he won’t feel your fear or your pain. He can hurt you and wouldn’t even know. It’s not good, Ciana. Maybe we should lock him up in here after all?”

We passed through a room with the dungeon guards sitting around a wide wooden table. Spears and axes hung on the walls, along with chains and various restraints.

Kurai grabbed a thick chain with a pair of rusty manacles on both ends.

“A chain will not hold a fae in mating fever,” Prince Rha warned.

“I’ll make sure… it holds…” Kurai rasped through his hard, labored breathing.

Hearing his voice gave me the reassurance I needed. His transformation might alter him in some ways, but it couldn’t possibly change the man into a beast completely. He was still the Kurai I knew, the man I fell in love with, the fae who vowed to cherish my love and my trust.

“I want this, Dawn,” I said. “ I want him. Just tell me how to ease his pain.”

“The only way is for him to come. Like lots. Many, many times. And he would need to come from all of his…um, feeler-dicks at once. Do you…like anal?”

I coughed at that question. My elbows bucked, sending me dangling along Kurai’s back. My mind reeled at the fact that my baby cousin would ask me something like that. Some part of me would never accept the fact that Dawn was a grown woman now, older than me.

“Um, not particularly, no.” I winced, trying not to think about Dylan and all the cruel ways he had used sex as a punishment for my “mistakes.”

“This way.” Rha directed us across a wide courtyard with geometrically arranged flower beds between mosaic walking paths.

The guards opened the metal gates for us, and Kurai barged into a grand hexagonal hall. Even from my upside-down position, I could tell the queen’s mansion was beautiful. But I got no chance to admire the marble walls or the gold filigree over the wooden window shutters.

“The bedrooms are down these stairs.” Rha led us to a circular opening in the middle of the hall. Surrounded by the railing shaped as a honeycomb, the opening held a wide spiral staircase.

On the level below, Rha opened the ornate double doors leading to an opulent bedroom fit for the queen.

“I’ll leave the guards at the door. If you want to stop what he’s doing to you at any time, just call them in,” he said to me.

“Do you want me to stay here too?” Dawn offered, helpfully.

“No. I’ll be fine.” The last thing I wanted was for my baby cousin to listen to me having sex, which judging by everything that had happened so far, promised to be wild and likely loud. “How long does this mating fever last?”

She drew in a long breath, gazing at me with worry and uncertainty while Kurai hauled me into the bedroom, rattling the chain in his hand.

“Three days,” she said. “I’ll make sure to send you food.”

Kurai kicked the door closed, shutting us in the room and away from the rest of the world.

I expected him to drag me to bed at once. But he put me down by the door, then roamed the room, inspecting the six wide pillars that surrounded the hexagonal platform with the bed on it.

“Help,” he rasped, glancing back at me, then quickly averted his eyes as if just looking at me would make his body combust with lust.

Opening one of the manacles on the chain he’d brought with him, he locked it around his left wrist.

I came closer, apprehensive but not really scared. He still seemed in control, and as long as that was the case, I knew I didn’t need to fear him.

“Lock this.” He slammed his back against the pillar and brought his arms around it behind him.

“You want me to chain you to it?” My heart squeezed with compassion.

He rolled his head my way along the pillar, meeting my gaze.

“Please.”

The tenderness in his eyes wrapped around my heart like a velvet ribbon.

Under normal circumstances, I’d never restrict his freedom. But nothing about this situation seemed normal. I promised to trust him, so I did what he asked me to do. I lifted the manacle, brought the chain around the pillar, and locked the restraint around his left wrist.

“Like this?” I asked, holding his hand.

He nodded.

“Place your hand on the chain…repeat the spell…” he said in a low, strangled voice, then started to recite a spell.

I repeated the strange sounding words that I only partially understood. The meaning of what he was doing was finally clear to me as the spell progressed and the metal under my hand heated, sparkling with gold .

“A chain will not hold a fae in mating fever,” Prince Rha had said.

And maybe a plain, ordinary chain would not. But Kurai was making it stronger by using his magic. He needed me to do it with him, so that he wouldn’t be able to release himself once his self-control was gone.

Trepidation prickled down my spine with icy needles. I had put on a brave face for Dawn, but maybe she was right insisting on having the guards by the door. I said I trusted Kurai, but how could I trust a man who did not trust himself?