Chapter 19

19

When they were finally shown to their room after an eventful dinner—Molly still couldn’t quite believe she’d conversed with the Crown Princess of Eirea, who was staying on in Dundúran through the winter—it took all of her willpower not to slump into the bed, gown, shoes, and all. Her back ached from all the standing still and her face ached from all the forced smiling.

But no, she couldn’t risk wrinkling her gown. It was the only good thing she had, and she’d need it for tomorrow’s council meeting. Molly ate that night’s dinner so slowly and carefully, knowing she couldn’t afford to stain her dress—nor slop in front of Lady Aislinn and Princess Isolde.

Still, she couldn’t help wilting onto the cushioned seat at the foot of the four-post bed. Their room was lovely, the walls covered in richly stained wood paneling, several small tables laid about the room covered in candelabras, and a warm fire crackled in the small hearth. The room was all rich browns, reds, and greens and sumptuously furnished—yet, so tired was she that it could’ve been a haybale and she’d have sunk into it gratefully.

Her overwrought mind snagged on the sight of Allarion unbuckling an obscene number of daggers from his belt. Where had he been hiding them all?

“Are you supposed to have so many weapons in the castle?” She couldn’t remember them being searched, but he’d left his sword strapped to Bellarand, and no one else carried weapons other than the guards. Molly had heard that since the threat of Lady Aislinn’s brother and the condemned Lord Bayard the previous winter, security had been quite tight within the castle walls.

He looked up, seemingly surprised by the question. “I don’t know.” Then, with a frown, he amended, “I don’t really care, either. Most of my magic is tied up at the estate, so these are my best means of defending you.”

“Are you expecting to need to defend me?” she wondered.

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t have brought you had I thought otherwise.” Stepping closer, Allarion brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Your safety is paramount to me, sweetling.”

Blushing, she nodded her understanding. Honestly, it did feel good to know that her fae warrior was armed and knew what to do with the business end of a blade. She’d never seen him in a fight, of course, but he’d regaled her with plenty of stories from his days as a warrior in the Fae Queen’s service, and she’d seen for herself how he could train for hours without relenting. She’d witnessed her share of bar brawls, enough to know that her fae would be quick and deadly in a fight.

Allarion went about turning down the bed as Molly cracked her neck and knuckles.

“Is the room to your liking?” he asked.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, biting back a yawn.

“It’s the one I prefer when I stay here.”

That piqued her interest. “Do you usually keep a room when you come here? Even though you don’t sleep?”

“Indeed,” he said. “I’ve found that the people of Dundúran find my walking about at night discomfiting, so I keep inside. Usually I just read.”

Molly grinned despite her tiredness, imagining how harrowing it’d be to run into him in the wee hours. Especially if he wore his customary cloak.

“I can find somewhere else to spend the night, though, if you prefer.”

Molly frowned up at him, not quite understanding why he’d offer. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to work some of the stinging tiredness from them so she could have an intelligible conversation.

Before her blurry eyes, Allarion knelt on the ground at her feet. “However,” he said, gently picking her foot up by the ankle to balance her heel on his knee, “I would much prefer to stay with you.”

Her lips parted, but no words managed to come out as she watched him tenderly unlace her boot and pull it and then her sock from her foot. Molly’s head fell back on the bed, a lusty moan erupting from her lips when he began to massage her foot, starting with the arch.

“Whatever you want,” she gasped, “just keep doing that!”

A low chuckle filled the room, making parts of Molly stir despite her frayed nerves and exhaustion.

He worked methodically, just as she knew he would. There was always a method to whatever Allarion did—he approached each task with a warrior’s mind, intent on performing his work effectively.

Molly admired his effectiveness.

By the time he finished with one foot and moved onto the next, her leg flopped as if boneless, her toes curling with delight.

He’d managed to work most of the tension from her legs when he went and ruined it by asking, “What did you think of today?”

Sighing, Molly sat up straight. “It was…a lot. Lady Aislinn is lovely, and the princess is obviously smart as a whip. But I just…”

Her gaze fell to her lap, and she had to stop herself from picking at the threads of her gown.

“Just what?” His hands stopped moving as he looked at her in concern, but a poke with her toe got that wonderful massage restarted.

“I didn’t like how much they looked at me,” she admitted, not quite able to keep his gaze when she said it.

“They admired your beauty,” he said, and Molly’s heart ached to hear the sincerity in his voice. He truly believed that.

Molly leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “You’re sweet for saying so. But that’s absolutely not what they were doing. Everyone was wondering why you’d brought a nobody in from the street.”

Allarion’s eyes went wide with shock. “Why should they think such a thing?”

Molly shrugged. “What were they supposed to think?”

“That you are my azai, the new Lady Scarborough.”

She did like the sound of that, but still. “Why should they know that? There you are, looking handsome in your finery.” She traced a finger down the exquisite threading on his sapphire blue tunic. “And there’s me beside you, a nobody in a plain dress.”

The words brought a sudden sob, but Molly kept it in her throat. It was silly to cry over not having the prettiest gown—especially when she hardly wore them. Allarion didn’t seem to mind or notice what she wore around the estate, and Molly had always preferred a pair of trou over skirts.

Still, it was a sharp, feminine sort of pain to know that everyone had looked at her and found her lacking. All the hours she’d poured into the embroidery hadn’t mattered one whit to the likes of Fiona Braithwaite; they saw her unfashionably short hair and simple dress and found her wanting.

While Molly did cling to Lady Aislinn’s compliment and her knowledge that she was skilled in a way that Lady Fiona could never be, such gifts and her plain, common clothes were flimsy armor against that stare.

Allarion knelt in silence for a long while, that fae gaze of his intense as he regarded her. Molly bit her tongue for fear of saying something else to make herself feel even smaller. It all may have been a silly thing to be hurt over, but that didn’t stop the bruise to her pride.

When Allarion did speak, it was low and serious, making her lean forward to hear him properly.

Voice thick, he said, “I fear I must ask for your forgiveness again, sweetling. I sent you into battle without proper kit.” His mouth pulled down in a grave line. “I’ve failed you.”

Molly gasped, hurrying to cup his cheek in her hand. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” she assured him, “you didn’t know.”

“But I did. I understand the importance of presentation and how courts are full of jackals hunting for any weaknesses. Dress is far more than vanity, it is a statement.”

Drawing her hands to his lips, he kissed her knuckles. “I will make this right, sweetling.”

“Allarion, it’s all right. I can make do.”

“You absolutely cannot. Whatever you need, you shall have.”

“What, are we going to beat down the door of a dressmaker first thing tomorrow? The council meeting starts soon after breakfast.”

But by the determined set of his sharp jaw, Molly suspected yes, that’s exactly what they were going to do.

Relief fluttered in her belly, even as she sent whatever unfortunate dressmaker they found tomorrow her well-wishes for a restful night’s sleep.

“We will find you whatever will make you happiest. If we miss the council meeting—well, I was summoned to speak with the princess, not attend the meeting.”

“That’s true…”

Nodding, the matter no doubt settled in his mind, Allarion stood and pulled Molly up with him.

“Now, will you let me make my amends?”

“You have nothing—”

With a crooked finger, Allarion lifted her chin. “Sweetling, I want to make you feel good, to show you how beautiful you are to me. Will you let me?”

A flush of heat cascaded through Molly so quickly, her head spun. Arousal dulled her exhaustion as she plucked at the buttons of his tunic.

Looking up at him from under her lashes, she asked, “What did you have in mind?”

That hungry gaze swept over her, his hands coming to frame her hips. “I’m going to strip you down and finally look my fill of you. Then I will lay you back on that bed and please you until you beg me to stop.”

Her breath stuttered in her lungs. “Is that all?”

“For now, yes. When I sink my cock inside you for the first time, we will be in our home, in your bed. Until then, my mouth will have to suffice.”

“I suppose that depends on how well you use your mouth,” she teased.

One of his fine brows arched with her challenge, and a cocky grin, the likes of which she’d never seen on him before, unspooled on his lips to make her tingle everywhere .

She ate up the sight of that grin as he set about undressing her. First were the laces of her gown, and he helped her step out of the pool of fabric. He laid it with infinite care on the armchair by the fire, ensuring it wouldn’t wrinkle overnight.

His nostrils flared to see her thin stockings and good set of stays, a pretty concoction of soft cotton and silk that molded to her breasts and middle and had cost her months of tips. She’d known it was worth the price for the comfort, as well as the look of any man who saw her in it. Allarion didn’t disappoint.

Those amethyst eyes sparkled as they roved over her curves, and his hands soon followed. With gentle fingertips, he traced down her arms and then up again, leaving gooseflesh in his wake. She could feel the puff of his breath on the tops of her breasts as he loomed above her, and she was flattered by how his breathing had gone deeper.

Molly wasn’t a stranger to having her body admired and lusted after. Even with her soft middle and pockmarks, men always loved a big pair of tits. Yet, having Allarion look at her like that—like she was better and more precious than velvet and jewels and magic—brought a novel thrill.

Despite the day, under his gaze, Molly did feel beautiful.

More damn tears pricked at her eyes, but they were happy this time.

Fates, she wanted him to never stop looking at her like that.

Like with everything he did, Allarion unlaced her stays and stockings with methodical precision, his attention never wavering. Molly’s own breathing deepened as she felt her clothing loosen from her body, and by the time he pulled away her stays, her nipples had hardened, eager for his attention.

Allarion’s lips parted on a needy groan, and Molly stood a little taller, arching her back.

He didn’t immediately grab for her tits, which both impressed and disappointed her, but instead knelt again to unlace her stockings. The knotted strings were nothing to his questing fingers, and he kept her gaze as he gathered them down her legs. She used a hand on his shoulder for balance to step out of them and then, finally, for the first time, she was completely bare in front of her fae.

A shuddering breath fanned her middle as he did as he’d said he would and looked his fill.

He’d barely touched her skin, and yet she burned. When he reached out to touch one of the deeper pockmarks on her upper thigh, Molly nearly jumped.

His eyes softened with tenderness. She’d told him of her beginnings in the village with her parents, and how the plague had taken that all away. Molly had spent many years being ashamed of the marks left behind and often resented the reminder. There were many days she hated the sight of them.

“I have many of them,” she warned him. She’d been lucky at least to avoid scars on her face and neck, but there were still many spots and marks across her lower half.

His fingers were so gentle, his gaze so tender as he said, “Every leopard has her spots. These are yours.”

He kissed the pockmark, and then one at her hip, and another on her other thigh.

Molly carded her fingers through that silvery hair, loving the silky glide under her palm almost as much as his easy acceptance. Yet again, he took her breath away with the boundlessness of his devotion. Sure, he could be sweettalking her into bed—he wouldn’t have to work hard to do it. But as she dug her fingers into his scalp when he turned a kiss onto her lower belly, Molly knew, deep down inside where all her deepest hurts lurked, that he meant it.

Fae don’t lie.

Smiling up at her, he rose suddenly and brought her with him, picking her up only to lay her down on the bed. Molly scooted up to lay on the fluffy pillows, biting her lip in delight to see him looming over the side of the bed.

When he went to plant a knee in the bed, though, she stopped him with a foot on his chest. He looked down at it as she toed a button on his tunic.

“Off,” she said. “It’s only fair.”

He arched his brow at her again, wrapping his hand around her foot. Her ankle got a nipping kiss before he stepped back to undress himself. Molly watched greedily as he shed layer after layer, revealing a little more of his true form beneath. Her pulse quickened when his undershirt was peeled away, revealing pale purple-gray skin pulled taut over densely packed muscle.

He was all coiled strength, not a shred of fat on him. He almost seemed too skinny, his ribs prominent over an etched abdomen. No hair decorated his finely wrought chest, although he did have flat, dusky purple nipples. His shoulders were rounded with muscle, his arms lanky and lean. He looked every bit the fae warrior, stripped down to his most elemental.

His boots and socks went next, but when he tried again to join her on the bed with his trou still in place, Molly stopped him with her foot.

“Those too.” He’d said he meant to focus on her, but Molly wanted all of him.

“Not tonight, sweetling. I need the reminder.”

Molly pouted, opening her mouth to argue, but he was quicker. Levering onto the bed, he was suddenly above her, his starlight hair falling around them. Molly fell back into the pillows, her hands coming up to run over his flanks and feel all that hard strength for herself.

She was easily distracted, his mouth taking hers in a searing kiss.

Molly didn’t know who had the upper hand anymore as his mouth made love to her, confident tongue swirling around hers, teasing lips coaxing her to chase and claim. She wasn’t sure it mattered, not truly, not when he kissed all her thoughts and cares away.

Those kisses moved down to her chin then neck and throat. He lingered there, his body trembling beneath her hands. Her pulse kicked below his hovering lips.

With a sigh, Allarion delved lower. Fluttering kisses rained down on the tops of her breasts, the tip of his nose teasing her sensitive skin.

“The way I have dreamed about these,” he said reverently, plumping one in his big hand.

Molly chuckled as he groaned in ecstasy, his fingers sinking into the plush give of her flesh.

“What have you dreamed?” she breathed, hips already beginning to rock needily.

His purple eyes cut to her, bright and dancing like an aurora. He said nothing but kept her gaze as he swooped down to fill his mouth with her. Molly gasped and arched as the hot burn of his tongue seared her. He caught the nipple between teeth and tongue, rolling it over a fang for a burst of pleasure-pain that throbbed deep in her cunt.

Molly writhed on the bed, reduced to only sensation as his expert hand plucked and plumped her breast and his lips played the other like an instrument. She dug her nails into his flanks, not sure if she meant to push him away or pull him closer.

He released her captive breast with a wet pop before turning his attention to the other. Molly could hardly track all the feelings and sensations, but it wasn’t her imagination when something teased at her well-loved breast other than his hand.

His magic.

As his hand trailed down her middle, his magic pooled on her skin, bubbling like champagne. It teased the underside and circled her nipple, leaving a swathe of sparking sensations in its wake. It was almost too much to bear, especially when—

Those long fingers found their way down her lower belly, past her mons, to delve into her warm heat. Molly parted her trembling thighs, greedy for his touch there.

Another groan buzzed on her skin. “You burn for me,” he growled, the pleasure vicious in his voice.

“Don’t stop,” she demanded, hips rolling as his fingers explored.

“ Never. ” His mouth latched over her breast again, teeth biting down just enough to shred her sanity. Between his mouth and his magic, Molly could hardly breathe, but then those fingers found her clitoris and everything else ceased.

Molly came apart under his care, all of him working to push her up the peak and over. She fell from that precipice into a pleasure so consuming, she forgot who and where she was. She was but a string pulled taut, strummed masterfully to create the perfect note.

She cried out and mewled and made other sounds she’d never made before, hips snapping, chasing every touch and stroke of his fingers. When she fell back onto the bed, forehead damp and chest heaving, though, he didn’t relent.

He buried his face between her breasts, his magic pushing them against his cheeks. “Again,” he said, although Molly wasn’t coherent enough to understand.

But she did when those fingers stroked deeper into her gushing heat, finding her aching cunt and spreading her wide. Her breath stuttered in her lungs—what did he—

Another tendril of magic curled over her lower belly, snaking down over her spread folds and between his fingers. Molly choked on a gasp as the magic swirled around her entrance before pushing inside.

Allarion shuddered above her. His arm pushed beneath her and wrapped around to capture a breast, freeing his mouth to press kisses up her chest to her neck, where he set his fangs at her throat.

Molly couldn’t pay attention to any one thing, her senses overwrought. She filled her fist with his silky hair and scratched her nails at his scalp. With her other hand, she hooked behind her knee to open herself wider to the magic. Her mouth fell open in wonder at the feeling of being filled—her eyes saw nothing more than the air around them wavering like it did above hot pavement, yet she felt that phantom cock shuttling in and out, stretching her wide.

She pinched the pointed tip of his ear and hissed at his temple, “Harder—fuck me harder .”

A growl erupted from Allarion, and suddenly his two fingers joined his magic. He pushed inside, giving her no quarter. His fingers and magic kept opposite rhythms, always retreating and thrusting, thrusting and retreating. Her hips rocked frantically, the pressure pinching her belly until—

With a yelp, Molly came apart again.

When she regained consciousness, sounds came back to her first. Her own breathing sawing in and out of her desperate lungs. Allarion’s strange but enticing keening, the sound piercing as his fangs threatened to do at her throat.

Molly blinked up at the canopied ceiling.

Good gods, I could spend my life doing that.

Her focus narrowed when she felt the point of a fang pinch her skin. Molly’s heart, trying to catch up, lurched— is he going to bite me?

She held still, waiting to see what he’d do—and wondering why she wasn’t more repulsed by the idea. Molly liked a little pinching or spanking, but she wasn’t fond of true pain, with sex or without. She tensed as she waited, Allarion a stiff, coiled thing above her.

“Allarion?” she called his name softly.

One by one, his muscles unlocked. It took several moments, but when he raised his head to look at her, it was her fae staring back at her, not a beast threatening to bite. She thought she saw a glimmer of shame in his eyes, but he was quickly rearranging her in the bed and throwing the covers over them.

“The goddesses have blessed me with you,” he murmured, pressing a tender kiss to her temple.

Rolling onto her side to face him, Molly asked, “What about you?” Running her hand down his flank and hip, it took no effort to find the bulge straining the front of his trou. To say she was curious about him and what he had hidden under there was an understatement.

And while she was certainly still tired from the day and her two exquisite orgasms, Molly also wasn’t a quitter.

Allarion groaned and wrapped a hand around her wrist. “There’s no need,” he insisted. “This was for you. I am content.”

“Fuck that,” she scoffed, tossing the coverlet aside to reveal him to the soft candlelight. “I want to see your fae cock.”

A surprised laugh parted his lips as he watched her sit up. She could see he meant to argue again, so Molly employed one of her best methods to get her way. Swinging a leg over him to straddle his legs, she smiled to herself to see how his gaze riveted on her swaying breasts.

She arched her back and pushed them together slightly with her upper arms as she worked quickly on the ties of his trou. Despite himself, his hands drifted onto her legs, up to her flanks, and up to frame her waist.

When the ties loosened, Molly greedily sought her prize. His hot flesh nearly scalded her as she drew his cock from the waistband of the trou.

She cooed in appreciation at the sight of him. Long but not too long, thick but not terribly so, he had the most perfect cock she’d ever seen. Even if it was flushed a deep violet. And most interesting of all was the gleaming silver ball studded near the head.

Teasing her finger over the piercing, she grinned to see how he jumped and twitched at her touch.

“This will feel amazing inside me,” she mused. “Did you get it just for me?”

“I didn’t know it then, but yes,” he breathed. “Everything’s always been for you.”

She hummed with pleasure. “I like that. I think I’ll like this, too.”

A richly dark chuckle reverberated from his throat, and Allarion lifted a hand to hold her chin between finger and thumb. That thumb pressed into the soft flesh of her bottom lip, his eyes watching rapturously as he eased it into her mouth. “The things that come out of this wicked little mouth…”

Molly smiled, catching his thumb with her teeth. “This all you want to do with my mouth?”

His nostrils flared.

Keeping his gaze as he had hers, Molly lowered herself over his lap. She loved his choked moan when she caught his cockhead on her tongue. As she rolled the piercing on her tongue, she gathered her breasts in either hand to capture the shaft between them.

“Molly…” he wheezed. She smiled around his flesh—he’d never wheezed before.

She set about seeing what other sounds she could have him make. His cockhead stretched her lips, and it took effort to take more of him inside her mouth, no matter how she wetted it on her tongue.

So she did what she could, delighting in his responses as she teased and kissed and nipped the head and piercing. He nearly jumped off the bed when she wrapped her lips around the silver stud and sucked.

Her breasts ached and her nipples hardened as she massaged them against him. Little by little, his hips began to buck, pushing the shaft through the pocket between her tits. Spend leaked down the head and shaft, easing his way.

“That’s it,” she murmured against the head, “give it all to me.”

Allarion bared his fangs in a grimace of agonized pleasure, and Molly shuddered to see the razor-sharp teeth that’d sat at her throat. But it wasn’t a shiver of fear she felt, oh no—a thrill of excitement pierced her in the belly, her cunt clutching on nothing.

Fates, did she want him to bite her?

She lost the thought as his magic teased around her hips. Molly gasped when it found her soaked entrance from behind and began to pool to cover all of her pink, swollen flesh. It rubbed at her clitoris as that phantom cock pushed inside.

Molly sealed her mouth around his purple cock and moaned.

Allarion threw his head back, his great chest heaving. Spend filled her mouth, salt and musk spilling from her lips. When she couldn’t take more, she released him with a gasp, spend spurting to paint her chin and tits.

Another smaller orgasm rippled through her, that phantom cock unrelenting, and Molly pinched a nipple and his piercing to prolong everything.

She rode his shuddering, bucking body through both their orgasms, and when he settled, Molly slipped onto her side beside him, boneless.

They were both a sticky mess and had probably ruined his fine trou, but she really couldn’t care. If this was what awaited her long life with him…

Happy days.

His hands came around her, and she let him pull her up his body to cover him like a blanket. Tucking her head against his chest, he kissed the crown of her head.

“My clever, beautiful mate,” he sighed happily, and that was the last thing she heard before slipping into a deep, peaceful sleep.