Page 51

CHAPTER 51

POV: Briar

"I didn't think heat was possible during pregnancy," I manage, my voice rough and unfamiliar in my own ears. The words sound absurd the moment they leave my mouth—as if normal biological rules still apply to the vessel I'm becoming.

"It's not," he confirms, pupils blown so wide his eyes look like midnight pools. "This is Wild Magic completing your transformation. The final stage before the little ones arrive."

Of course. Always one more metamorphosis, one more shattering of what I believed possible. The universe hasn't finished its cosmic joke on the blacksmith's apprentice who just wanted to save her friend.

His hand cradles my face, thumb brushing my lower lip. When I instinctively bite, my new fangs pierce his skin. The scent of his blood—winter frost now laced with undertones of all four seasons—sends a hunger through me that has nothing to do with sustenance. Something primal awakens in my core, something that wants to tear and taste and claim.

"I need—" The words catch like metal shards in my throat. How do you articulate desire when your body is part human, part fae, and entirely impossible?

"I know what you need," he says, voice dropping to a register that reverberates through my bones like hammer strikes on anvil. "What we both need."

His lips find mine with a hunger that tastes of winter snow and ancient power. My newly pointed ears catalog sounds that never existed before—his quickened heartbeat, the subtle crystallization of frost where his emotions affect the air around us, the whispered currents of magic flowing through ancient stone. The palace itself seems to inhale, waiting.

When his tongue meets mine, I taste his essence in ways my human senses could never perceive. The metallic tang of blood where my fangs scratched him. The ancient magic in his transformed body, cold and sharp like the first breath on a winter morning. The rut building in response to my heat-scent, his control fracturing like ice in spring thaw.

Seven centuries of perfect restraint crumbling against the need to claim me here, now, in the heart of everything he once represented.

His hands find the elaborate court garments they've dressed me in, tearing the fabric rather than bothering with clasps and ties. I should care about destroying something that probably cost more than my entire village, but all I can focus on is the desperate need to feel his skin against mine, to complete this final transformation under my alpha's touch.

My alpha. The thought no longer makes me want to spit. We've moved beyond the simplistic dynamics of claimed and claimer into something more intricate—each transformed by the other, each drawing power from the connection between us. A closed circuit of shared magic that grows stronger with each shattered boundary.

As the last of the formal court garments falls away, leaving me naked except for the cillae covering my skin like living runes, Cadeyrn lifts me with otherworldly strength. My swollen belly and newly heated skin don't deter him, his transformed body more than capable of supporting my weight. Not so long ago, being carried like this would have made me fight like a cornered animal. Now it feels like completion.

"Where are we going?" I ask, breathless as another wave of heat surges through me, making my skin luminous with need.

His answering smile is pure predator, fangs gleaming like polished daggers. "Somewhere fitting for what we're about to do."

He carries me across the throne room toward the Winter Throne itself. The ancient seat of power sits on a raised dais, carved from a single massive piece of ice that never melts, its surface etched with the history of the court in elaborate cillae. Seven centuries of Winter Court power condensed into one symbolic object.

"Cadeyrn," I say, sudden understanding making me laugh despite the desperate need flooding my system. "Are you seriously going to?—"

"Claim my mate on the Winter Throne?" he finishes, midnight mischief dancing in his eyes as he ascends the dais steps. "The throne that represents seven centuries of the very control and tradition we're breaking? Yes, Briar. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Something wild and reckless surges through me at the thought—the village omega being claimed on the sacred seat that has known only the most powerful Winter Court rulers. The ultimate desecration of everything that once oppressed me and my kind.

He places me on the throne, the ancient ice surprisingly responsive to my overheated skin—neither painfully cold nor melting beneath my touch. The seat that has known only Winter Court rulers adapts to my transformed body, welcoming rather than rejecting. As if it recognizes something in me more ancient than court protocol, more legitimate than bloodline purity.

"I want to honor you first," he says, kneeling before the throne with reverence that borders on sacrilege. "The true power in this room."

The Winter Prince kneeling before a village blacksmith's apprentice. If Fergus could see me now, he'd laugh himself into an early grave—right after he tried to gut Cadeyrn with an iron poker.

Before I can respond, he guides my legs apart, spreading them wide across the arms of the throne. The position should make me feel vulnerable, but instead I feel powerful—a queen receiving tribute from a conquered kingdom. The sensations of my transformed body, heightened by the magical heat coursing through me, make even the cool air against my exposed flesh feel like a physical caress.

His mouth finds my pussy with practiced precision. The contrast between my fire-hot core and his winter-cool tongue creates a sensation so intense I cry out, hands gripping the ancient armrests. Frost patterns flare beneath my fingertips, responding to the surge of pleasure.

"Gods, you're burning," he murmurs against my folds, the vibration of his voice adding another layer to the building pleasure. "Like summer captured in winter ice. So fucking wet for me already."

I want to form a clever response, something wry about forges and blacksmiths knowing heat, but his tongue finds the exact spot that makes coherent thought impossible. All I can do is arch against him, head falling back against the throne as waves of magic pulse through me in time with his movements.

"Yes," I gasp, threading my fingers through his hair, pressing him harder against me. "Right there—don't stop?—"

The throne itself begins to respond, ancient ice warming beneath me, cillae shifting to match those covering my skin. With each wave of pleasure, new patterns emerge—not just winter's geometric precision but spring's spiraling tendrils, summer's molten rivers, autumn's organic curves. The magic responds to our joining, to the unification of what the courts have kept separate for millennia.

I'm close to release when Cadeyrn pulls away, leaving me gasping and frustrated on the precipice. His eyes, darkened with rut, meet mine with predatory focus. His lips glisten with my arousal, and he licks them deliberately, savoring my taste.

"I want to claim you properly," he says, voice roughened by desire. His cock stands proud and rigid, the size of him almost frightening in his transformed state. "Turn around."

The command in his voice bypasses any thought of resistance. I rise from the throne on unsteady legs, turning to face away from him. Before I can question the logistics with my pregnant belly, he guides me to straddle the throne facing outward, toward the empty court.

"Perfect," he growls, positioning himself behind me. "The queen on her throne, looking out over her domain."

The symbolism isn't lost on me—me facing the court, him supporting from behind. Not an alpha displaying his claimed omega, but a partner elevating his equal. Not the traditional arrangement where the omega exists only as reflection of alpha glory, but something revolutionary.

With careful attention to the babes I carry, he guides me down onto him, entering me from behind in a position that accommodates my swollen form. The sensation of his cock filling me sends another wave of magic cascading through my system, cillae flaring bright enough to illuminate the entire throne room.

"Fuck," I gasp as he begins to move, each thrust sending dual currents of pleasure and magic through me. "The throne—it's changing."

Beneath us, the ancient seat of Winter Court power transforms with each movement. The ice—pristine and untouched for centuries—fractures with color beneath our joined bodies. Verdant green veins spread where I grip the armrests. Molten gold flares wherever my sweat falls. Rich amber spirals bleed upward from depths that never knew warmth before.

The whole scene feels impossibly symbolic and incredibly profane simultaneously—the omega and the Winter Prince dissolving the rigid court protocol right out of its sacred seat of power.

"Look," I manage between gasps, watching magic reshape the symbol of everything I once hated. "The throne—it's breaking—transforming?—"

Cadeyrn's rhythm falters momentarily as he follows my gaze. His chest resonates against my back, the sound more beast than man. "Yes," he hisses, fingers pressing deeper into my flesh. "Take it. Change it. Destroy what was."

"Harder," I demand, pushing back against him, wanting to feel every inch of him. "Make me feel you, Cadeyrn."

He growls in response, his cock driving deeper, reaching places inside me that eclipse coherent thought. My skin burns everywhere—not the sick-burn of fever but the purifying heat of a forge fire, burning away impurities. The cillae covering me pulse so intensely I have to squint against my own radiance, my shadow dancing wild across walls that no longer stand still beneath our shared magic.

"You feel so fucking good," he growls against my ear, one hand sliding around to rub circles against my clit. "So tight around my cock. So perfect."

My teeth ache for something I can't articulate, a need I don't fully comprehend but feel in my marrow. My pointed ears attune to sounds I've never heard before—the whisper of magic through ancient ice, the groan of a palace awakening from centuries of rigid slumber.

"I'm going to fill you up," he promises, his thrusts becoming more urgent. "Going to pump you so full of my cum that every fucking court noble will smell me on you for days."

"I can't—" My voice breaks into something between sob and growl. Pressure builds inside me—not just where he fills me, but everywhere. Under my skin. Behind my eyes. Between my newly sharpened teeth.

Cadeyrn leans forward, chest slick against my back, lips brushing my ear. "Let go," he commands, and the words aren't just sound but alpha-power wrapped in ancient magic. "Come on my cock. Show them what we can become."

His teeth find my shoulder, exactly where he first claimed me in the forest. This time, the bite shatters something fundamental inside me. Pain and pleasure intertwine into a sensation I can't separate or name. His knot swells, binding us together while his teeth break my skin, and everything inside me erupts outward.

I come undone with a cry that begins human but ends as something else entirely, something with harmonics that shouldn't emerge from a human throat. Magic tears from me in waves, each pulse synchronized with the throb of his cock inside me. Winter frost surges across the floor, but transformed—beautiful and wrong—laced with colors no Winter Court magic has carried in millennia.

Vibrant green spirals up pillars like hungry vines. Summer gold melts through floor tiles that never thawed in centuries. Rich amber bleeds through windows, staining pristine light with sunset warmth. With each clench of my pussy around Cadeyrn's knot, with each pulse of him emptying inside me, the transformation spreads further, faster.

"That's it," he groans against my neck, his cock pulsing hot cum deep inside me. "Take every fucking drop."

The throne room—that perfect ice museum—shatters into something alive. The walls breathe. The ceiling cracks open to reveal the crimson moon, the same blood-red witness that watched him claim me the first time. Air that once felt sterile with cold now swirls with scents—spring soil, summer heat, autumn decay, winter ice—all blending where only one belonged before.

I collapse forward, undone with pleasure, barely aware of anything but Cadeyrn still pulsing inside me and the answering ripples of magic reshaping everything around us. My sweat falls onto the throne beneath me, each droplet blooming into new colors where it lands.

"Look," Cadeyrn murmurs against my neck, his voice wrecked. "Look what we've wrought."

The throne beneath us continues changing even as my vision clears. No longer the stark symbol of Winter Court isolation, but something wilder, truer. Ice veined with living color that shifts like slow lightning beneath the surface. The entire chamber transformed beyond recognition—walls swirling with aurora colors, ceiling partly dissolved into open sky, air thick with magic that tastes of all seasons at once.

"We broke it," I whisper, feeling his heart hammer against my back. "We broke everything."

"No." His arms tighten around me where his knot still binds us together. "We restored what was already broken. Reminded it what it should have been all along."

Somehow that seems even more profound than intentional destruction—not the tearing down of the old order, but the regeneration of something ancient that predates the courts' artificial divisions. A healing rather than a shattering.

His palm slides up to cup my breast, and I hiss at how responsive my skin remains—every nerve ending raw and reborn, as if the Wild Magic has unmade and remade me all at once. The ache in my new fangs pulses in time with my heartbeat, with the sensation of him still locked inside me. Some instinct suggests I should bite him back, complete a circuit we've initiated, but the timing doesn't feel right—I barely understand what I've become in this new form.

As his knot gradually recedes, allowing our bodies to separate, Cadeyrn turns me in his arms. His eyes—still ice-blue but with pupils dilated from satisfied rut—search my face like he's memorizing each detail.

"You're magnificent," he says, tracing my pointed ear with one finger. The simple touch sends aftershocks cascading down my spine, my body still hypersensitive. "Half-wild."

I catch my distorted reflection in a nearby wall that's now more mirror than ice. I hardly recognize the woman looking back. Still me, but heightened, intensified—like someone took every aspect of me and sharpened it beyond what should be possible. My copper hair now liberally streaked with silver. My skin luminous with cillae that pulse with my breath. My eyes gleaming with tiny flecks of magic visible in their depths. My ears delicately pointed. My smile revealing fangs that would look natural in a predator's mouth.

Not a village blacksmith's apprentice anymore. Not quite fae. Something in between that has no name yet.

"Wild Magic has claimed me as thoroughly as you did," I murmur, legs still trembling as he helps me stand.

His mouth curves in satisfaction, but there's something deeper than mere possession in his gaze. "Not claimed. Awakened what was always there."

I gather the tatters of my court clothes around me, not from any real modesty but because the transformation has left me shaking with a bone-deep exhaustion that makes me suddenly crave warmth.

"The other courts will feel this," I say, sensing how far the magic has already spread from the throne room. It races through the palace walls like wildfire, changing everything it touches. "They'll know?—"

"Good." His face splits in a feral grin that reminds me of the predator who hunted me through the forest. "Let them come with their armies and their rules and their fear. Let them face what they've tried to destroy for centuries."

The arrogance should irritate me, but I can't deny the thrill of his conviction. The blacksmith's apprentice who spent her life hiding what she was now stands in the heart of the Winter Court, transformed by Wild Magic beyond recognition, with a changed prince ready to wage war for her sake.

He wraps an arm around my waist, steadying me as we descend from the dais, both of us staring at the throne that continues its metamorphosis even without our direct contact. Cadeyrn may be helping me walk, but there's nothing subordinate in the gesture—we're supporting each other after what we've unleashed.

My heat recedes like a tide pulling back from shore, leaving me drained but altered in its wake. My skin still runs several degrees hotter than before, as if my body has permanently reset to accommodate the wild fusion of magics now flowing through me.

"Soon," I murmur, hand instinctively finding my belly where the little ones rest quiet after the magical storm we just created. "Soon they will come into this world."

In less than two days according to Lysandra's latest assessment. Four lives that shouldn't exist, carried by a woman transformed beyond what court doctrine thought possible, protected by a prince who abandoned perfect control for messy, complicated devotion.

Cadeyrn's expression shifts from satisfied lover to strategic ruler in the space between heartbeats. "The birth chambers will be ready. Our allies will hold until then."

Reality crashes back with his words—a cold shock after our magical joining. Three courts gathering armies at our borders. Our forces outnumbered. The birthing of the babes marking both our greatest vulnerability and our greatest potential.

"And if they attack before then?" The question I've been swallowing for weeks finally emerges. "If they won't accept what we're becoming?"

Cadeyrn sweeps his arm to encompass the transformed throne room—the living magic still spreading visibly through walls and floor and ceiling. "They'll face this. Wild Magic doesn't need permission to exist."

His certainty should reassure me, but I'm too practical for blind faith, even in power this raw. "The children will still be vulnerable. I'll be vulnerable during the birthing."

"Which is why we prepare for attack," he admits, gathering his scattered clothes with more composure than I can manage.

I turn back to the throne, drawn to how it continues shifting, veins of Wild Magic flowing through ancient ice like blood through a newly awakened body. The way it responded to my heat, my magic, my very presence—it wasn't just accepting me. It was recognizing something.

"The throne," I say, sudden understanding clicking into place. "It knew me. It responded to the babes I carry."

Cadeyrn follows my gaze, cillae shifting thoughtfully across his skin. "Yes. More than it should have. More than a mere symbol of court power would."

"Because it's not just a symbol." My fingers trace the still-thrumming patterns in the air. "It's older than the court divisions, isn't it? From when Wild Magic flowed freely."

His expression changes, a flash of ancient knowledge passing across features now transformed by rut and Wild Magic. "The archives mention something—a protection spell embedded within the throne itself. A failsafe to shield the royal family during times of crisis."

My heart quickens, the little ones responding with synchronized movement. "Would it protect four lives carrying Wild Magic while three courts gather at our borders?"

"I'm certain it would." Cadeyrn's touch traces the transformed patterns flowing through the throne's ice. "The birth chambers are the obvious choice—the public plan everyone expects. But this..."

"A contingency," I finish, tactical mind calculating possibilities like measuring metal for the forge. "If the birth chambers are compromised, if we need a fallback..."

"We use the throne itself," he confirms, voice dropping lower. "It contains ancient protective magic designed to shield royal blood, no matter the cost."

The idea settles into my bones with surprising rightness. The throne that has known only Winter Court rulers for centuries, now transformed by our claiming into something balanced and whole—the perfect vessel for children carrying magic from all four courts.

"Let them think we're making our stand in the birth chambers," I say, mind racing ahead. "Let them focus their forces there. Meanwhile..."

"We prepare this room as our true sanctuary," Cadeyrn finishes, a predatory smile spreading across his face. "Hidden in plain sight, protected by magic older than the courts themselves."

The audacity appeals to the part of me that survived the Hunt through deception and strategy. Let them expect us to follow traditional protocols. Let them think us predictable when we've been anything but since the moment he claimed me in the Bloodmoon Forest.

"But remember what they truly fear, Briar," he adds, expression darkening with ancient satisfaction.

"And what's that?"

His smile turns predatory, all teeth and primal hunger. "That we've already won. That what they feared for centuries has already happened and can't be undone."

The palace shudders around us as if agreeing, walls shifting and corridors rearranging as Wild Magic continues to pour from the throne where we claimed each other. The ceiling opens wider to the crimson moon rising higher in the night sky—the same blood-red eye that watched over our first meeting at the Gathering Circle.

I lean against him, suddenly weightless with exhaustion. "Two days," I murmur, the words a countdown, a promise, a challenge.

His arms tighten around me, fierce and protective without constraining. "Two days to prepare," he corrects. "For the birth that remakes everything."

The certainty in his voice steadies me as we leave the transformed throne room. Behind us, winter ice continues its metamorphosis into something balanced and whole—spring growth, summer heat, autumn change, and winter stillness all coexisting where only one season ruled before.

Just like the children I carry. Just like what Cadeyrn and I have become—no longer just alpha and omega, predator and prey, fae and human, but something altogether new.

Wild Magic rushes ahead of us through palace walls, preparing the way for what comes next: a birth that will either shatter the courts entirely or forge them into something true. Something balanced. Something free.