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Chapter Twenty-Three

Could the past and future ever be ignored?

I would try

For this goodbye.

T he lounge room had not closed before See shoved me against the stone wall beside the doors. We both yanked at my dress, and I could not have cared less about its beauty. Beads scattered on stone. Silk tore.

Then his fingers were inside me. “At last,” I said on the air, and the sharp pinch of my virginity barely registered through my utter desperation to have more.

“At last,” echoed See in a guttural tone.

I cried low and hooked my outer leg around his hips to grant him better access. See took it, and quickened his hooking pace.

“See.” I moved my hips.

“I cannot,” the king roared nonsensically, occupied in his own inner war. He was undone.

We both were.

I was lost in the feeling of his hands. Whatever small sharpness had existed was long gone. The friction of stone sliding against my back did not register until See set his mouth between my thighs. I was high on the wall, but that did not matter because my world crumbled under the feel of his tongue and fingers.

My toes curled. My legs trembled with the booming force of what this would be.

His mouth was as large as the other joints of him, and it covered me completely, from inner thigh to inner thigh. Nothing was untouched. Nothing was allowed to recover or hide for a time. My arms swept either side of me, and then above, too, searching for a handhold so that I might move my hips without falling. I thumped my head against the stone a few times when I could not find anything.

And then falling faded into the insignificant fear that it was. I hooked my legs around his neck and ground my hips against his mouth.

His growl was muffled as he buried his face to feast on me, one hand supporting me and nothing else. See dropped to his knees, and I slid down the wall with him. The arm I had flung out caught at a body of armor, and metal crashed to the floor around us.

See hooked an arm behind my back and guided me to the floor. His snarls were terrible and entered me as his tongue and fingers did too. I could not scream. I was locked in the frantic end already.

I needed this beyond anything I had ever felt.

I screamed then, in anger, and launched at See, shoving him on the floor. His hands reached and guided me as I straddled his face.

My movements were furious and desperate, and I used his face in that moment, and nothing more or less. I blurred in my rocking, and he kept up the same monstrous pace.

It was here.

I screamed all the way through it, my movements not slowing, and when See pressed his large finger against my ass, and then inside, I rocked against that too. So full.

The pleasure rocketed through me, and it was towering and it was fierce and terrible and terrifying.

“’Tis not enough,” I told him fearfully.

I could already feel it was not enough. What if there was not enough? What we had started had to find its end.

As panic rolled over me, See picked me up while loosening his belt with the other hand.

Then he paused and rested his forehead on my chest. He moaned, “My chambers.”

His chambers? Why? No, I meant yes. Yes, we should go there. I wanted to go there. Out of the hall. “Where are they?”

See muttered, “I cannot recall.”

I laughed. “Perhaps if you remove yourself from my breasts.”

The king did so, but only to stare at my glistening thighs.

“Perhaps if you set my dress to rights too,” I murmured.

He did so.

I waited.

“I recall,” he eventually said, holding out a hand. “This way.”

I did not laugh at him more. I would not dare when he strode so quickly. The shattering pleasure I had just experienced had barely taken the edge off, and See had not had any pleasure at all.

I hurried with him, hand in hand.

King See opened the door, nearly ripping wood from iron hinges. He pulled me inside and slammed the thing shut.

I started to pull my dress overhead, but my body paused in its work.

His chambers.

I had never visited them. I had woken from slumber in another chamber, that in hindsight had been the chamber for his mistress or future princess. Back in a time when those things were possible. His chambers were… him.

My hands lowered as I took in the large bed—not the bed I had seen in the long days he had shared with Princess Take. This was a bed made for a towering king. The sheets and cover were as white as his skin and milky eyes. The bed was set high to account for his height, and I would need to climb up. The ceilings were very tall, of course, as was the entrance to what I assumed was his wardrobe or bathroom. A rug softened the stone floor.

A huge fireplace.

A tapestry artwork on the far wall opposite the bedroom.

A naked painting of me. I approached the painting that was of a Perantiqua long ago. One who was more Patch than Perantiqua, really. She lay on the stone floor in a lacy bodysuit. Her hand was nearly between her legs and her back was arched. She was in pain. She was unsure. She was overwhelmed with the need induced by the silence of a seeing king.

She was beautiful, and though I might like to think she was no longer, that was not true. For I felt everything now that I had then, and though I understood more and could withstand so much more of See, the problems that plagued us now were more intense. Deadly.

This woman was me. I should not forget that I would never change from the essence of myself, despite ancientness and power.

King See had not moved from the doorway, and I dared to think that he could not move for fear of stealing this moment from me.

This chamber was warm in a way that I could not have guessed. There was something in See, as apparent by his surroundings, that wished for happiness. I felt stability in this chamber. I felt… staidness and a purposeful softening of his vices and failings. His character and inner growth called to me and scared me. Could these qualities survive in the storm of us?

“I do not wish to think of what might have been between us,” I said softy.

His voice was harsh. “The past is closed. There only remains what you are doing and what you will do.”

I closed my eyes. “I do not wish to think of the future either.”

See spun me and dragged me tight against him, tilting back my head with a grip on my jaw. “Then do not. Tonight is ours. We have it.”

Our touch had felt too much and too prized since we had become able to do so. To think a truth, our touch still did feel that way. Too much to experience and hold and bear. The reason I felt unsatiated was because I could never get enough of him. We would always be depraved and addicted.

I slid my hand over his, which gripped my jaw, and then slid my hand down his wrist and forearm to trail my fingers up the back of his arm. Towering strength. These arms had held entire ages. They would hold me for the rest of time, but I could not lose myself in the beauty of us beyond tonight. Not after this gala. This would be the last time I could feel such things.

I opened my eyes. “Ups and downs. Ins and outs. Such tangles fated for us forever. I love you, See.”

King See froze. His wide, milky gaze was fused to mine, and I regarded him, still in the trappings of his hold.

He dropped his hold. “Perantiqua, we cannot love. We cannot. ”

There was a studied dismissiveness in him that was frustration. His body was coiled tight. He did not wish to speak on a subject that had no hope in it. He wished to sink inside me and forget as I wished to forget. As we would. For two nights.

I hummed. “We have decided not to speak of the future tonight. Tonight, though, we love.”

He curled his hands to huge fists. “That is a dangerous twist on fate. I cannot entertain it.”

A V of chalky white skin was visible in the neck opening of his black tunic. I rose on tiptoe to kiss it. “Not even a little?”

He snarled and stepped back. “You will grow more ancient in connection. I will be as I ever am. I must only do what I can return from. You need this of me. We need this of me.”

I erased the distance again. “I am only willing to spend the next two nights with a monster who loves me, See. Is that monster you?”

He stopped breathing, and the king was afraid. I could see his fear. He was afraid not to have my body. He was afraid to do what I asked too. He was more afraid of the latter. “I cannot. I will not. Our future?—"

“Our future,” I mocked. “A king who sees too much is immobilized.”

See snarled and hooked his fingers into my dress. “A king who sees too much is careful .”

I tilted my head.

He snarled again and tore the top of my dress in two. The ends of it fell around my beaded hips, and my underthings were revealed. His rage was stolen away.

The “underthings” behaved more like a frame behaved for a painting. Thin, red straps framed my breasts and curves, cutting into my skin in a way that must drive a king wild, for I was the painting. I plucked a trailing thread of the beads around my hips and drew the onyx strand between my framed breasts.

See fell to his knees with the fall of the beads over my stomach. He gripped my hips over the torn remains of the dress, then buried his face against the flat of my stomach. His groan was robbed of hope.

I liked that he attempted to withstand me. I enjoyed using his emotions against him too. I had decided to drag a confession of love from him, so he was powerless, really.

I drew a fingernail around my hips, and the ragged remains of the midnight dress fell away to reveal the rest of my painting and frames. King See would encounter no fabric resistance wherever he may choose to go, but I imagined the underthings would end up torn, nevertheless.

I circled him and sliced away his tunic. “I have need of a careful king, but not tonight.”

“Perantiqua, hear me when I say that nothing else could stop me from choosing your body. Nothing else, but ensuring the ruin of our future. Give me any other choice, and I will make it gladly. But I cannot speak words of love to you.”

Anger rose in me. I pushed it down, and after casting his tunic on the floor, I padded up to the painting of me.

He sucked in a breath at the sight of my naked back and feathered skirt.

I looked at the Perantiqua who had first undone him. She had not known it, but after that, King See had become my creature. Glancing back at him, I lay down on the stones in front of the painting. I arched my back as she had done. I swept my hand across my stomach.

She was dressed.

My chest was bared.

She could not stand to look at him—and could not have if she had tried.

I looked directly into a milky gaze.

He was shirtless and on his knees and hopeless, and his focus darted between the painting of me and the reality of me. He had existed in all versions.

See exhaled as if in pain, and moved forward onto hands and knees as if he might crawl to me.

“There has only been you, See,” I whispered, pushing my hand further down.

His gaze lifted to the painting, and then dropped to me again. See fell forward and dropped his head into his hands on the floor. “Torture me no longer. I cannot! ”

See slammed his fist onto the floor and his palace rumbled.

He was coming undone. But so was I.

“Stand,” I commanded as I rose.

See did so, and I walked to him. I regarded him, then trailed the same forefinger to the front of his pants. “Shall I slice these off?”

His lips curved. “That would depend on what you intend to slice.”

My lips curved. “I love you, See. What is your answer?”

I sliced through belt and his pants. They separated like dirt drawn upon by a stick. I sliced down and the front of his trousers gaped.

I had never seen him in fullness. I had never seen his cock, but I was about to cut his cock off to draw a confession of love from his thin lips. His length was tucked inside the parts of his trousers still intact, but I could see his hardness.

I set my forefinger under his cock, and the feel stole my breath away. “Do you love me, See?”

“How would you know it was true if you hear it in such circumstances?” he snapped, and his palace squeezed.

A king was entirely too confident when a queen could slice off his favorite body part on a whim.

King See lowered his head. “You will not slice off the cock you need.”

I nicked his skin, and he cursed low.

“Not as calm as you wish to be,” I smugly said.

“Never as calm as I wish you to believe,” See said roughly. “Never as collected! Never as all-seeing. Never as sure or capable or strong.”

His kingdom was in an uproar. So was I.

I would have my answer.

He cupped my face in his shaking hands. They were so huge that my head must have seemed small within them and very crushable. I did not care what we looked like and never had. I cared that he was mine and that I was his.

I searched his milky gaze and waited. He was close. He was so close, and I longed for the words that I might cling to. “Just tonight. Just for tonight.”

I love you.

Say it . I silently urged him with my gaze and my body that was frozen and strained with waiting for his confession. I reversed the pressure of my finger to press against his balls. “I might need your cock, but these are disposable.”

A smile flickered on his lips before it faded. “You ask too much, my queen. I have been clear on my views of love from the outset. If you have fooled yourself otherwise, then I am sorry for it. We must go on.”

A breath away from having his balls sliced off, but he would not speak three words. I closed my eyes, then withdrew my slicing threat to shove his hands off my face.

I whirled away. I was no fool. He did love me—the monster who caught my tears in a glass vial. The monster who threw a royal gala and then ignored his guests to ravish me. The king who could not recall the location of his chambers.

He was the monster who had helped me and twisted us and warned me and claimed me. Only See had explored me and held me as we shared amusements and sat beside me on a rooftop to speak of matters.

He loved me, and he would not give me three words.

I had hoped. The glowing moon must weep for she had known how much I still hoped. Why did you hope, you fool. He had been clear from the outset. And yet.

I was spun away from the window I had stormed to.

“Enough!” I shouted up in his face.

See was shoved back a few feet by my power, but he did not release my hand, so I was dragged with him.

“Enough!” I shouted again.

See was forced to his knees, and made sure to drag me with him.

I gathered my breath to shout again. I would not stay in his palace. What expectations I had formed. What foolish, dreaming, pitiful dreams. He who had warned me many times that he would…

My gaze flew to his. “Break my heart. You are breaking my heart.”

“But I cannot do that either, as it transpires. So what will become of us,” he said darkly and so hopelessly that my breath was stolen.

His palace shook with it. The chandelier rattled and clinked. He was furious. Despairing. He was undone.

“I love you,” he said simply. Three words were uttered.

I love you.

My lips trembled. They trembled, and I did not smile.

I lowered my head into my hands and wept. Three words. I had them, and I was happy for them and only felt despair otherwise. “Sir, you have broken my heart anyway.”

“Good,” he said coldly.

I supposed that it was. I lifted my head. “Do you not wish to catch these tears?”

“These shall fall to the floor and be forgotten,” See replied. “As shall the words I just uttered.”

I placed a hand on his cheek. “Do not forget them yet, my See. You have uttered them, and so they will float about in this chamber until our eyes close for slumber. Be brave enough for that.”

His jaw clenched under my hand. “’Tis not about bravery. ’Tis about weakness in everything when it comes to you.”

His palace squeezed and swayed terribly. The warping echoed the feeling in my heart. I had expected to feel elation and validation or…

Not this terrible weight. The futility of our feelings that could mean nothing. “I am thankful for this weakness in the hours before dawn.”

“Do not thank me for it, for I shall not thank you for forcing the words from me either. Carry the words as you wish, though, but hear me, Perantiqua, you will never hear them again. Not now, nor in ten thousand years.”

I did not answer. I did not need to because I believed him. He would carry a glass vial of my goodbye tears as a memento and I would carry his simple confession.

I rested my cheek against his chest. He loves me.

His arms came around me, and gradually the palace stilled. The clinking of the chandelier came to a rest. Our hearts thumped in tandem. Boom. Boom. Each thump was the firing of a cannon.

See brushed a loose curl off my bare shoulder. “Come, my queen. This night grows shorter, and I would not waste a second.”

I whispered, “Only a fool wastes time.”