Page 24 of Straw and Gold (A Realm of Revelry #2)

Killian

The woman could scream.

And buck her hips.

And learn.

All it took was a little guidance and encouragement with my tongue and Morella had herself figured out. Within five minutes of sucking, and tasting, and licking, she’d taken me to the floor, riding my tongue and cursing in pleasure.

If I hadn’t been so Goddessdamned turned on, I might have counted the number of times fuck came out of her gorgeous mouth, often followed by my name.

As she ground herself over my face, crying out, screaming, and moaning, I withdrew my cock, fisting it with one hand and keeping her body pressed to my mouth with the other.

Her moans grew higher-pitched and I readied myself to end with her. One final slide of her over the flat of my tongue and she was there, practically collapsing on top of me as I finished in my hand, grunting in the effort it had taken to give her just this.

Only this.

“ Killian ,” she breathed, collapsing onto the floor beside me.

I wasn’t sure what to do. It was over and I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t pull her into my bed and tuck her into my arms, kissing her hair and trailing my hands over her soft feathers.

The pleasure we’d shared began to shift into panic and I sat up quickly, tucking myself back into my pants and bolting for the door. I checked the lock, pulling on the handle and pressed my ear to the wood, listening for movement.

She couldn’t do that again.

My Goldling was loud in her fucking, but if Céad had spies who thought we were?—

“What is it?” she whispered next to me, pressing her own ear to the door in a frown.

“Nothing,” I replied, moving away and brushing my hair back from my face. I smelled like her. And I wasn’t washing it away tonight.

I pulled her from the door, guiding her back to her bed. She leapt in, sighing in the soft sheets and stretching as I pulled them over her shoulders. “Goodnight, Morella,” I whispered, brushing away the hair on her cheek and blowing out the candle.

She was fast asleep in minutes.

The nightmares began the same.

Golden sun.

Blood.

Screams.

Guilt.

Years and years of guilt for the women who had been slaughtered by the insane Goddess of the Changelingfae.

By the time I recognized I was dreaming, I understood that this dream was different. Feathers tipped in gold and marred by thick red blood pooled in my bed. A form lay under the sheets that I couldn’t bear to see.

It’s a dream. It’s only a dream.

With the force of a rope tugging at my waist, I stepped across our room, barefoot and leaving prints of blood in my wake. I stood over my bed, slowly reaching for the sheets to pull them back and witness what I’d seen thrice before.

But not like this. I’d been a young king when the women I cared for were murdered. I hadn’t cared for one since, choosing instead to remain alone outside of the occasional trip to town to find quick pleasure in a woman’s mouth.

The body under the sheets didn’t move. A stain spread slowly across the soft white and even though I screamed in my head, telling myself to stop, still I reached down to see what I’d caused.

What I’d caused again.

“Killian!”

The shout of my name came with a slap on my cheek and my eyes flew open. The room was dark, but moonlight fed through the curtains billowing from the open window. I recognized Morella hovering over me with fear.

“You were dreaming,” she urged, shaking my shoulders, slick with sweat.

I bolted from the bed, pushing her behind me, my eyes searching for signs of the body I’d just seen there.

“It was just a dream,” she murmured softly, brushing her hand over my forearm.

I raced to the open windows, shutting them soundly before lighting a candle. I rubbed my face, taking a moment to breathe deep.

It was just a dream.

There was no body.

There would be no body.

I heard her light steps over our floor, bringing herself to me. “Dè…das…ur omh a dhèana?” she whispered, pulling my hands from my face.

What can I do?

I took my hands gently from hers, replying, “Amar.”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment as she thought. “Water? Wait, no…a bath!” She took my hand again excitedly, leading me to the door of our bathing chamber.

“Oh,” she said as she led me to the wood tub. “There’s water here already.” She dipped her hand in. “But it’s gone cold. Let me see if I can get?—”

“No.” I grabbed her arm. “The dreams come often. The cold water helps clear my head.”

I set the candle on the basin sink and let my cotton pants slide to the floor, not caring if she saw me naked. She watched in silence as I slid into the cold water, instantly relaxing and coming back to the space I knew.

In the dim light, I breathed deeply.

It was only a dream.

It was only a dream.

“Do you need anything?” she whispered somewhere behind me.

“No. Thank you. Please go back to bed, Morella.”

Her hand brushed across my head in a soothing gesture and she left, closing the door softly behind her.

I waited in the silence, searching for the calm reassurance of my steady heartbeat.

It did not come.

Morella was there, a doorway away, and as much as I wanted to relax, something prickled in my mind. She had agreed to stay in our room instead of spinning, and she’d done it with little argument, which wasn’t like what I knew of her at all.

With cold water splashing over the sides of the tub, I threw myself out, barely wrapping a towel around my waist before I tossed open the door connecting the rooms. “Morella!” I called, throwing back her sheets to find her bed empty.

“Killian?”

I darted to the other side of her dressing screen, finding her there holding a bundle of sheets in her arms. “What is it?” she asked, tossing the sheets on her trunk and gripping my shoulders.

I hung my head, taking more deep breaths. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, that I knew. “Nothing,” I said, pulling a hand through my hair. “It’s nothing. Please get some more rest. I won’t bother you again.”

I headed to my drawers for fresh clothes, searching for something lightweight to wear by the fire I’d build for the rest of the night. I couldn’t go to my study as I typically would. My fear wouldn't let me leave this room until daybreak and Morella rose in a few more hours—of that, I was sure.

She headed back towards her bed, calling, “It’s no bother, Killian, truly. I can’t imagine having recurring nightmares. I hardly remember my dreams at all.”

“You are Goddessblessed then, to sleep so peacefully.” I dressed in loose cotton pants and shirt and bent at the fireplace, adding the kindling.

Checking on her again, I found her fluffing the pillows on my bed and rolling back the sheets, slapping at them until they lay flat and pristine. “What are you doing?”

“Changing your sheets, of course. They were rather damp and fresh bedding is one of the best comforts in all of Revelry, if you haven’t noticed.” She threw a softer woven throw up into the air, taking care to pull it up just so—swiping her hands across the soft threads.

“Thank you,” I said, lighting the fire. “But I won’t be sleeping the rest of the night. Please go back to bed. Dawn is only a few hours away.”

I sighed deeply, falling back into my chair and picking up one of the books on faekind Fedir had left me. Seconds later, I heard her own long sigh as she settled into the chair across from mine, hair tied back on top of her head and legs folded up into her seat.

I watched in rapt fascination of this creature who had flipped my life upside down in the past three weeks as she settled herself with the blue woven throw wrapped over her lap.

Without so much as a glance in my direction, she opened volume two of Céaduah, Language of the Changelingfae , and began to read in silence.

“Morella,” I called, in a trying tone.

“Hmm?” she answered, keeping her eyes on the book over her lap.

“I told you to go back to sleep.”

She shrugged in indifference, still not looking up. “So you did.”

“You needn’t stay up on my account. I’m fine.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t,” she replied flatly.

Vexing woman .

A low grumble left my chest. I decided on another tactic. “If this is a ploy to stay up until I doze in my chair so you can sneak off to spin straw, it won’t work. I won’t be falling asleep and have excellent hearing.”

She snorted at that, her eyes finally lifting from her book to glance behind me. I turned in my seat, following her gaze, squinting at three spools of golden thread stacked on the small writing desk by the door.

“ Morella ,” I scolded.

“We’re even tonight, husband. We’ve both kept to our bargain.”

Goddess, her face. Her black hair bundled in a frizzy bun atop her head. The soft brown of her eyes with shimmers of gold and the narrow slant of her nose. Her high rounded cheeks and beautiful lips flushed with delicate red.

I remained silent, keeping her stare, her challenge, and her crumbling hold on what I couldn’t afford to give her.

Her lips parted slowly and she swallowed, gently closing her book. “I’m curious…”

“Yes?” I replied instantly.

“The way you kissed me tonight…”

The way I’d kissed her.

Flashes of her body perched over my mouth ran through my thoughts.

“You regret it?” I asked tentatively, setting my elbow on the arm rest and my chin on my fist.

She shook her head quickly, unfolding her legs beneath her. “No, that’s not it at all! I’m just curious if—if I could do to you what you…I mean not the exact same, of course, but could I also…kiss you like that?”

I stared in stunned silence. “You wish to?”

She rose from her chair, folding the blanket into pristine, even squares. “If I did…”—her eyes rose to mine—“would you teach me?”

I cleared my throat, doing what I could to remain calm. “Brekkan Dioltry did not teach you?”

She shook her head, stepping closer. “I did not wish to ask.”

I snapped my jaw tightly, my nostrils flaring as she continued to move forward, closing the gap between us.

Her neatly folded blanket flopped to the floor and she followed on her knees before I could react.

She leaned in, settling her chest between my legs, keeping my gaze as she slid her hands down my cotton pants.

“You wish me to teach you, Goldling?”

Her fingers brushed closer. “I’ve wished for you to teach me many things, husband. I see now I need to be more direct with what I want from you, and right now, I want you to teach me about this…”

Her hand lay flat against my cock, stiff and throbbing, though I kept the rest of me taut. I inhaled in a deep shudder, my breath releasing in a low grumble through my chest as her thumb stroked the underside of my dick.

Goddess, she had the power to destroy me and she didn’t have any clue. The night was dark and we’d already explored the attraction between us, so what was a little more in the lessons of pleasure?

I shook my addled head, still deciding, running a hand over my mouth when she leaned further still. “I’m a quick learner, if that is your hesitation. It will not take long for you to teach me this skill.”

“You believe my hesitation is that you will be bad at this?” I laughed low. “Morella, you could merely breathe in my direction and I would use such a sweet sound to please myself for decades to come.”

Her eyes widened and mouth parted again. Shit .

I adjusted myself slightly in the seat, forcing my hands to stay on the armrest where they needed to stay.

Another of her smiles bloomed across her mouth. “I’ll take that as a compliment number six. What is your hesitation, then, husband?”

“That I’ll want more,” I whispered honestly.

She took her own moment to think before shaking her head, her bun of hair waving in the movement. “This is just a kiss. Just my kiss, Killian. That’s all it needs to be, if you’d like.”

Making my decision, I tapped my lips. “You start here, Moh Dhóches. Your kiss tonight starts here.”