Page 24

Shy

I start to bring my hands up but something catches my wrists. Flowering vines. Purple buds seem to wink at me as they caress my skin. Those vines of night-blooming flowers hold my hands slightly out while another, thicker vine snakes it’s way to the top of my bodice. I see a wicked-looking thorn there.

“Rhys Donovan-Quinn, what am I supposed to wear tomorrow?”

I ask even as I feel the delicate material begin to tear.

His lips curl up. “Cassie has clothes with her. You’re not hiking in that dress.”

Cassie does not have my breasts, but he’s right about one thing. The ethereal gown I’m wearing isn’t going to hold up against the tunnels and then the forest. I’ll find something that fits me properly when I get to Lee’s village.

“Now hush and let me see you.”

He stands back and looks so much like the prince he is. Slightly arrogant. Wholly in control.

The thorn tears through the fabric like a knife through butter, leaving my gown gaping open and my breasts on display. Cool air tickles my flesh and my nipples peak immediately. While the air is slightly chilly against my skin, there’s another place that’s warming up.

My arms drop and the vines allow the dress to pool on the floor before catching me again in their embrace.

The vines wind around my arms, and they’re so soft I know he’s manipulating them. Flowers bloom along my skin, wrapping me in his power. This is Spring worshipping me in his way, and I am surrounded by him. They wind up my arms and over my torso, curling around my breasts, and I wonder what I look like to him.

“Fuck, you are so gorgeous, baby.”

Rhys’s eyes take me in, roaming my body like I’m a work of art he needs to study. “I knew you were beautiful, but you are so much more.”

“How do I get you out of those clothes? I can’t exactly have spirits rip them off you.”

A brow rises over his eyes as he approaches, careful to step around the glossy green vines covering the floor. “Rip? I assure you it’s far more delicate than that. See.”

He twists his hands and two thin strands of the greenest ivy climb my legs and wind under the undies I’m wearing. It’s the only thing I have on that’s not Fae approved, but I do like my cotton bikinis. They’re dragged down my legs, and I step out of them. “You are still fully dressed.”

“I’m not as pretty as you.”

A lie. He’s a Greek god. Or rather a Fae one. He could be a marble statue in any number of art museums. I’ve watched women fall over themselves to get a look at him.

And he never noticed. Not once. Oh, I’m certain he thought women were attractive, but this man has never given me the slightest indication he wants anyone but me.

My fears are my own, and I let them go in the face of his love and devotion.

His expression falls and his hand comes up, fingers brushing away a tear. “Shy, if you’re…”

“I was thinking about how much I love you.”

He takes a shaky breath. “And I love you. I’ve loved you from almost the moment I met you. I knew very quickly I was made for you.”

I have to smile. “Someone taught you right.”

“Well, my mother would have put it that way.”

“And I was meant for you,”

I reply. It was odd. I meant to say made, but it didn’t feel right on my tongue. Like I was made for something else, that part of me that sees the dead. But the part of me that loves and lives is meant for him. Since walking into Faery, I can feel parts of myself coming to life. Or rather coming online after a long, dormant sleep. “Rhys, something is happening to me.”

He nods. “You are coming into your power and that power is Fae.”

He kisses my forehead and both cheeks. “I do not know what would have happened if that bastard hadn’t thrown my parents to the winds and murdered your own. I have to believe that at some point you would have shown your powers and they would have brought you to the Council and we still would have met but without all of the trauma between us.”

He’s right. My family was well known to the Council. When my power started showing any signs beyond what they understood, they would have brought me in to help understand them. When they realized the powers were Fae, I would have been brought to Devinshea Quinn, who would have taught me and introduced me to his son.

We were always meant to be, and there is nothing Myrddin Emrys can do about it.

“And if my powers are dangerous?”

It is the only thing I fear now.

“Listen to me, love. There is nothing dangerous about you. The power would only be dangerous if you were. I spent my life being told it was dangerous to be around me.”

“Only if you didn’t want a bunch more kids,” I reply.

He hushes me with a kiss. “I was a child and I couldn’t control it, and no one wanted to be around me. Adults would see me coming and walk the other way. You did not have to endure that, and I am grateful. Your power is coming to you at a time when you can handle it. When we can handle it. If we find out that you can blow out the world with a thought, I’ll sleep easy knowing it won’t ever happen.”

He’s wrong. There are reasons I might. If I lost him. This. This is what I feared because I’m already so deeply in love with him I can’t imagine a world without him. What would I do if he was the one down in the dungeons?

“You would find a safe way to save me. You would trust that I could handle it until you could come and get me,”

he says, his mouth hovering above mine.

I didn’t realize I spoke the question aloud. And I wasn’t sure he was right. I can be reasonable about many things. He is not one of them.

But the thoughts fly out of my head as he kisses me, his tongue sliding against mine. The vines that hold me tighten deliciously, and one of them runs down to my thigh, coming dangerously close to the apex of my being right now.

“We have a war to fight, Shy, and I promise I am going to stop being an overprotective ass. I’m going to trust you and be calm and have faith in your abilities,”

he vows. “I will trust my wife, my love, my goddess.”

He steps back, and I’m suddenly raised in the air, my feet leaving the ground as those seductive vines carry me toward the bed. It’s the oddest feeling. I’m floating like I weigh nothing at all, and I know damn well I do. I feel delicate and airy and precious, and when I’m laid out on that soft quilt and Rhys stands between my outstretched legs, I feel something I so rarely do.

Powerful.

Rhys stares at me for a moment and then drops to his knees. He’s positioned me perfectly. I know this is technically both of our first sexual experiences, but he doesn’t need a lot of tutoring. His brother might have had to practice to become good at pleasing a lover, but it’s in Rhys Donovan-Quinn’s freaking DNA. His jaw tightens and the vines ease my legs apart again, giving him more space. He reaches up, hand trailing from my throat over my breastbone and down. He runs his palm over my belly, an act of pure possession, and moves again to right above my pussy. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?”

I do. As long as I have. “Forever.”

“Forever,”

he agrees and then he lowers his mouth to my pussy and I can’t think anymore.

Pure sensation flows through me, lighting up every nerve in my body. Even as I feel the warm caress of his tongue on my most sensitive flesh, I sense something happening in the temple. The lights around us seem to pulse, and the wave of Rhys’s unique magic breaks against me, body and soul.

I am not ready to be pregnant. I have to tell my body because that magic of Rhys’s is very seductive.

But I can handle it. So much of his overwhelming power flows from me and I give him control and take it for myself. We can enjoy this magic, share it with the people and beings who need it, and only use it for ourselves when we choose. We are in control together in a way we never were alone.

His tongue runs over my pussy again and again, each stroke sending waves of pure pleasure through my body, and I can practically feel myself glowing with it.

When I look down my body, I see that he is the glowing one. His eyes are pure emerald orbs, his skin sun-kissed, forming the most beautiful contrast to mine. The sun and moon. Starlight and sunbeams.

The world as it should be.

I let my head fall back and give over to the pleasure. The first orgasm hits me when he sucks my clit between his lips as his fingers slide deep inside my body, caressing some spot I never knew existed. I fall over the edge, breath stopping for a moment as the whole room is bathed in a golden glow that seems to come from the walls themselves. Like the temple is connected and the heart has found the rhythm of our own.

Rhys gets to his knees, chucking his clothes in an eagerness that brings a smile to my lips. The vines have slid away, caressing me one last time as though they love me, too.

But now is Rhys’s time.

For a moment he’s the teen boy I met, the one who had been slightly shy. Already a soldier and confident in battle, but he hesitated when it came to me. The boy who followed me in those first days, standing far away as though he knew I was nervous but he would not allow me to be unprotected.

He knew before I did.

We are in a foreign land. An alien time. Surrounded by enemies, his parents in danger. And I will not allow this to be anything but joyful.

I hold out my hand, my naked body on display. A comfortable display because this is easy and magical between us. “Tell me the words to give you.”

His head shakes slightly, and he looks so gorgeous in that golden glow that bathes the temple. “Someone in my grandmother’s court would have to do it for it to be legal.”

“Rhys, you are not of your grandmother’s court. You are the High Priest of the Earthly Fae and will never live and serve in a sithein. You are the authority of your court. I don’t need my marriage to be acknowledged in any Faery court but our own. I assure you the brownies and trolls and huldrefólk who worship you as much for your kindness and love as your power will accept it.”

His shoulders come back, and there’s that bit of sexy arrogance I love so much. “Then in this temple, I affirm that I want to marry you, to bind my life to yours through this world and time and all the others. What say you, goddess?”

He climbs on the bed and offers me a hand. It takes a lot to get my focus off his… Gods that is a beautiful cock. It’s thick and long and seems to be pointing my direction. I should probably be nervous but there’s this silky magic flowing off my soon-to-be husband that curls around me like a warm blanket of lust. I get to my knees, not caring for a second that my pussy is so wet I can feel it on my thighs. His hands are still soft with my orgasm, but I slide my fingers around his as we kneel, staring at each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I see more pixies have joined us, covering the walls with their winged beauty.

“In this temple, I affirm that I want to marry you, to bind my life to yours through this world and time and all the others.”

He brings my hand to his. “I don’t have…”

He smiles suddenly. “I was going to say I don’t have a proper binding ribbon.”

I know exactly where he’s going. “But you do.”

A vine of deepest green suddenly flows from the open window, winding around our arms that lay together forming the handfasting part of our wedding.

Rhys’s eyes sparkle as moonlight joins the golden glow, coating him briefly in silvery light. “Do you wish to be my goddess? You will be the maker of my magic, the keeper of my spirit, the protector of my heart. You will hold nothing back from me and give me every piece of you, the good and the bad, the light and the darkness. You will be mother to my children. You will be my partner, my love, my goddess in all things. Are these vows you enter willingly and with an open heart?”

“I do,”

I say, the words forming a promise, a warmth in my soul.

I feel him squeeze my hand before he continues. “You are my true goddess. I will be your protector, your defender, your lover. I will pour my magic into you and be grateful, for that magic flows only from you. I will hold nothing back from you but give you every piece of me, the good and the bad, the light and the darkness. I will be father to your children. I will be your partner, your lover, your god in all things. These are vows I make with a willing and open heart. I love you, Shy.”

The vows are said by the soldier, the leader of the Earthly Fae. The last by my best friend. Tears spring to my eyes. “I love you, Rhys.”

He leans over and brushes his lips against mine. “Wife. I have known I would use that word for you since the day we met. I am so sorry I don’t have a Goddess Chain for you. We will make our own traditions.”

“Because your mother is still the Goddess of the High Priest of the Seelie and Unseelie.”

I am unbothered, but I know he feels like it’s not complete. “I assure you we can find…”

A gray dove flies in from the window and drops a delicate gold necklace over our bound hands.

I stare at it for a moment and know that necklace belongs to me. The vines that bind us flow away and Rhys holds up the same chain I have seen around his mother’s throat. A large pixie flies to his shoulder, bending in and covering his ear. His eyes widen and then he nods and bows his head as the pixie takes to the air once more before settling in with the large kaleidoscope.

“She says it should have been Zandra’s, and since her own son didn’t inherit the Green Man powers, she wants you to have it. The king has tarnished their magic, and this is their thanks for giving it back to them,”

he explains. “The temple is pure once more, awake to them and all who worship with an open mind and heart. The temple, she says, will call to those who wish to fight, will be a beacon of freedom and love once more.”

The last words are whispered as he drapes the Goddess Chain around my neck. It’s gold, and the amulet hangs just over my breasts.

Then he is kissing me, taking me back to the softness of the bed. It’s easy to open my arms to him, spread my legs for him to make a place there.

“Shy, are you sure?”

he asks as I feel his cock slide against my labia.

I don’t think he’s sure I have the power to cancel out that fertility magic of his. I give him a smile. I am coming into my own powers. I am death and rebirth, and both happen at my will. “Make love to me.”

He stares into my eyes as he gently enters my body.

I wasn’t expecting pain. One doesn’t receive pain sexually from a Green Man. Even this first time is pure pleasure, but the care he takes warms me. He works his way inside, kissing me the whole time. His body against mine, skin to skin. Like we are one flesh.

And we are.

He groans as he fully breaches me, his cock as far inside as it can go. “It feels so good. So fucking good. So fucking right. This…this is right.”

It is. This is sheer perfection, and there is nothing between us. No worry or fear. No self-consciousness. No one else in the world can come between us here in our place of love and power. I can feel the very walls breathe with us, like the whole temple is coming back to life as my husband works over me. I let my nails dig into the strong muscles of his back while I lock my ankles around his waist, not wanting to give up an inch of him.

He finds a rhythm that matches our beating hearts, our breath, the pulse of our souls against each other. It isn’t long before I scream out his name, the orgasm so much stronger this time because he’s with me. I can feel his pleasure. It joins my own and sends me to a place I never expected to see. A place where I am not alone.

Rhys falls on top of my body, and I wrap my arms around him.

The sky seems so much closer now, the moon and stars shining through the window at the top of the temple, and then I realize. The shine isn’t simply coming from the night around us.

It’s from us. Our bodies glow, gold and silver weaving together.

“Love you, Shy,”

he whispers as he starts it all over again.

All in all, a hell of a wedding night.