45. Chapter 45

Chapter 45

C yril tried not to read too far into the unease that lingered in Mikael’s eyes when he left her side and started to pull back the covers of his bed. But the sliver of happiness she felt being in his presence again vanished, something sickening and anxious sinking its claws into her instead.

Was she…not wanted here? No, of course not.

Mikael said he didn’t want her, didn’t he?

His invitation was entirely based on obligation.

She should have said no. She should have gone back to her room, alone.

But she didn’t feel safe alone, she wasn’t safe, alone—

Cyril took a slow breath and pulled off her boots and socks, leaving them by the door. She walked back to the bed, trying desperately to anchor herself to the feeling of the cool, stone floors on her bare feet. Her hands shook by the time she started loosening the laces on her pants, and it took remarkable effort to slide them down her legs.

“Cyr?”

She couldn’t brave looking back over her shoulder at him.

“Yeah?”

“Do you…want something else to wear? Something more…comfortable? I can get you—”

“I’m fine.”

Her shirt was as good as anything right now, and she just wanted to lie down. Or run. She didn’t really know.

But she crawled into Mikael’s bed anyway and felt the mattress dip with his weight a moment later.

She tried to breathe, counting through each breath in and out—like the only person who ever really cared about her taught her to do—as she curled up into the tightest ball she could manage. She focused, too, on the soft sheets as their weight settled on her bare legs, and how much they smelled like Mikael. How that earthy, clean scent made her want to feel safe.

“What’s going on in there?” Mikael murmured, easing himself in behind her. Every bit of warm muscle of his body melded to her back and her legs and he snaked an arm around her.

Cyril didn’t want to answer him.

“You can talk to me, Cyr.” His nose and his breath ghosted up her neck and he pressed a kiss behind her ear. Her own breath came in uneasy waves. “Don’t shut me out again.”

Cyril didn’t want to talk.

She didn’t want to argue, not with him.

But Mikael wouldn’t accept her silence.

“Cyr, please. Just talk to—”

“You don’t have to pretend to care, Mikael.” The whispered words just tumbled out of her, and Mikael stilled. “I know you don’t want me either.”

“ What ?” he breathed.

Cyril didn’t have any fight left in her when he set his hand on her shoulder and pulled her onto her back. She didn’t have any tears left in her either, when she looked up at him, even though her eyes ached. It was probably for the best that the room was so dim that his face was just a moonlit outline.

“Cyr, how could you think I don’t want you?”

“You said you didn’t.”

That much was simple. The four words that came out of him those few nights ago in her room had taken every shred of will from her. She could even hear it now, cycling through her head over and over.

I don’t want you.

“I did not mean —” Frustration crested in his voice and he swore. “Please don’t twist my words, Cyril. I just didn’t want to bed you when you didn’t have a clear mind. I didn’t want to take your damn virginity when you were angry as all fucking hells with a couple bottles of wine in you.”

She sighed.

“You always have an excuse.”

Cyril was so fucking tired . She wanted to curl up and go to sleep, Mikael be damned, but when she tried to roll over, he held her firmly in place.

“Please don’t do this, Cyr.” His fingers brushed her cheek, skimming just below where her face throbbed. “It scares me how badly I want you, okay? You mean so fucking much to me that I don’t know what to do about it.”

Mikael’s words made her chest ache, but Cyril only had one thing to say to them. She looked him right in those glacial eyes and said, “Show me.”

His fingers stilled.

“Show you?”

“Show me how badly you want me. No more excuses.”

“Cyr, I…” Mikael loosed a heavy breath. “Is that a good idea right now?”

“I need to have a say in this, Mika.” Cyril found a kernel of quiet, fleeting courage and held on to it. “It feels like I…I don’t have a say in anything… Not anymore.”

Silence fell and Mikael was deathly still.

Just like that, she crossed some other invisible, arbitrary line he’d set out.

Cyril let her eyes fall shut and tried to muster the energy to get up, get dressed, and walk out. Maybe she’d just keep walking right to the stables or the city, or…or gods . She needed to pack. She had a plan, and she had to focus on—

Mikael tipped Cyril’s face up and kissed her with the sort of languidness that drew a pathetic, whimpering noise from her.

“No more excuses,” he murmured against her lips. “You’re mine tonight.”

Cyril’s spiraling thoughts screeched to a halt.

The broad span of Mikael’s hand cradled her jaw as he kissed her again, angling every bit of his warmth and hard muscle over her. She didn’t know just how badly she needed the weight of his body to ground her, to tether every fiber of her being to here, to now, to him .

A brush of his tongue against hers, and everything else just slipped away.

There was no slow, honey-like drip of heat like he so often drew from her. No, a desperate and aching need tore through Cyril like a fucking wildfire, and she sought every bit of contact she could get with Mikael’s body. A haughty, rumbling groan left him when she tangled her legs around his waist and pulled his hips to hers.

“You’re impatient, wrath.”

Mikael was all breathless amusement when he pulled away from her, and Cyril whined at the loss of everything . Of course, she was fucking impatient. It had been weeks upon weeks, upon fucking weeks of him dangling this in front of her, and she wanted—

The prince sat back on his heels and tugged off his shirt in one fluid motion.

Cyril’s mouth went dry.

Seeing Mikael shirtless wasn’t a novelty, but she had never seen him like this before. Her gaze roamed, taking in the lean expanse of his chest and shoulders that she was aching to dig her fingers into. It wasn’t the first time she’d admired the toned V of muscle sweeping in along his hips and the trail of auburn hair disappearing with it below his night pants either, but the view of it had never warmed her so thoroughly before.

The man was a fucking moonlit masterpiece.

Nothing but an unrestrained, masculine sort of pride settled into his features when her eyes bounced back to his. He knew just how much she was enjoying the view. Mikael leaned forward, his hands mapping a torturous path up her thighs and hips and under her shirt.

Roughly, he muttered, “Take this off.”

Cyril didn’t need to be told twice.

She sat up enough to tug her shirt over her head, and Mikael gave her all of a half a second to toss it before he eased her back down. And he dared to give her shit for being impatient.

His fingers were already making quick work of the ties holding her breast-band closed, and Cyril had little control over the way she arched into his touch.

“If any of this is too much…” Mikael said much more softly, his lips and breath a warm ghost on her neck. “If you want to stop, we will, even if it fucking kills me. Okay?”

“Okay,” she breathed, even though she knew there wasn’t a chance in any of the damn hells she would want to stop.

Mikael’s glacial eyes flickered up as the simple, black band of fabric fell away from her chest, and he smiled at Cyril in a way that made her heart hurt. She didn’t want to think about that right now, about happiness and feelings and things that existed outside of the way her body ached.

But his head dipped, and his lips met the swell of her breast, and that thought vanished. Every pore of her body came alive with something hot and saturating under his wandering mouth, under the testing grazes of his teeth.

Cyril didn’t know how to process the sort of intensity and reverence he worshiped her body with. She tangled one hand into his auburn waves and the other in the sheets, fighting to contain her shuddered gasps and half-broken groans. Every damn ounce of aching need and want and merciless heat she’d ever felt for Mikael pooled in her core.

Cyril felt like she was going to fucking combust , and he’d barely touched her.

The prince grazed his lips along the angles of her hip bones, his fingers hooking in her underwear, and he paused. Waiting for her to change her mind. To say no, it was a mistake. That she didn’t want this, didn’t want him.

But Cyril lifted her hips, a silent answer to a question asked in the absence of words. Mikael made quick work of the last scrap of fabric separating all of her from him.

Cyril was certain she should have felt some twinge of embarrassment, some need to preserve her modesty, being laid out in front of him like this. Every damn bit of her on display as his hands spread her legs wide, as his eyes roved her body with a sort of hunger that made it hard to breathe.

But she didn’t feel embarrassed at all.

No, she felt fucking powerful .

Mikael’s tongue grazed along the points of his canines and he shook his head, like he was in disbelief of whatever he saw laid out before him.

“Gods, look at you.” His voice sounded like roughed-up silk as his fingers skimmed up her thighs, his thumbs dragging through the crease of her hips. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Cyr. Every fucking inch of you.”

“I think we both have a good view.” Cyril hadn’t trusted her voice, with how her chest heaved with uneven breath. It was worth it for the flicker of amusement that danced in the haughty darkness of his eyes.

Mikael huffed a shade of a laugh and lowered himself down, mapping the same path up her thighs with the warmth of his mouth. Cyril tangled her fingers in his hair as he kissed up one thigh, then the other.

She bit back a ragged moan when his tongue grazed her core for the first time. The touch was light, testing, but pulled a ripple of tension through her, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. His eyes darted up, assessment written plain on them, but Cyril just sagged back into the bed.

This man was going to kill her with his gods damned mouth .

“Don’t stop,” she breathed.

“As my lady wishes,” he murmured, and the prince devoured her.

It could have been hours or days, really, that he spent anchored so comfortably between her thighs, with how Cyril lost all sense of time and space and self. All that mattered was Mikael’s mouth and his fingers in her and on her, wringing every ounce of bodily bliss he could from her flesh.

But by the time he’d worked her over the edge for the second or third time and showed no sign of stopping, her legs trembled and waves of pleasure came laced with undercurrents of discomfort.

“Mika, it’s…too much, I can’t…” Cyril whined, her body spent and oversensitive.

Her fingers had never left his hair, and she tugged weakly at him.

The prince looked far too pleased with himself when he finally came up for air, drawing Cyril in for a kiss as he settled in beside her.

And that was… her , that she could taste in that sweet heaviness on his lips. Her cheeks heated and her body ached for more.

“You want to stop?” Mikael’s breath came in uneven bursts as he traced circles across her stomach, her muscles tensing and rippling under his fingers.

“No.” Cyril pulled his mouth back to hers, and Mikael made an appreciative noise. She wanted to taste herself again, steep in that brief surge of confidence that came from it before she asked, “Can I…touch you ?”

“So polite,” Mikael murmured with an edge of amusement.

He splayed his hand over hers, where she tethered it to the warmth of his chest and the thrum of his heart, and guided her down to where his cock was hard and straining against the soft cotton of his night pants.

Cyril’s fingers wandered, raking up the full length of him, and Mikael’s entire body shuddered under her touch. The groan that slipped out of him was more intoxicating than any spirit she’d ever put in her body. But she wanted to touch him properly. No more barriers or boundaries between them.

“Take these off.” Cyril tugged on his waistband.

“The lady is demanding too,” he chuckled as he eased away from her and slipped everything off.

Cyril had no short few ideas of what he might feel like in her hand—her mind had run rampant, and often at that—but her mouth ran dry when she finally wrapped her hand around him. So warm, and hard, and…

A tremor of nerves ran through her.

“Mika, I…I don’t think…” She swallowed thickly, looking up at him with wide eyes. Her damn fingers didn’t touch around him. “You’re…”

“You flatter me, wrath.” Mikael settled his hand around hers, guiding her into slow, languid strokes. He brushed his lips against her jaw, adding, “Should I show you how well you’ll take me?”

Heat tore through her entire damn body, and some indignant noise left Cyril.

She tipped her face to catch his lips, and Mikael was already easing himself back overtop of her, nudging her legs apart for him again. He knew what her answer was, what she wanted all this damn time.

But his eyes still met hers, lust-addled and appraising, and he asked, “You’re sure?”

A smile tugged at her lips.

“Positive. But, ah—” She stroked his cock again and Mikael groaned a half-breath of her name, rocking into her touch. “Tell me what you like. I…I want to—”

“Fuck what I like,” Mikael rumbled, the broad strength of his hand ensconcing hers again, guiding himself lower, and lower, and— Oh. He notched himself against her entrance, and Cyril’s breath caught at that first moment of fullness. But Mikael stopped, just barely pressed into her, and she wanted nothing to do with the sort of restraint he was showing. “ This is what I want, Cyr, so fucking badly. I want you , I want your body, I want your heart, I want—”

An eager roll of her hips, and Mikael slipped out a guttural groan.

“Fucking hells,” he mumbled as he rocked his own hips once, twice, and his body sank flush to hers.

Cyril couldn’t help the soft gasps and ragged breaths that left her.

The sudden fullness and warmth that seeped through her took on an edge of discomfort, of unfamiliarity, but Cyril fucking loved every second of it. Especially as Mikael nestled his face into the crook of her neck and pulled her close, a slew of vulgar praise rolling off his lips and onto her flesh.

Nothing else mattered.

Every problem she had, every worry about what would happen next, even the crippling weight of her reality—they all just fell away into nothing. It was just her and Mikael and the grounding presence of his touch pulling her away to a place where none of that existed.

Cyril never wanted to leave this bed.

And when Mikael started to move, the pumps of his hips slow and deep, Cyril slipped a breathy moan of his name. She couldn’t be bothered to hold back, not when it felt like Mikael’s body was made just to be inside hers.

“Feels good?” Mikael murmured, his voice thick like honey, as he ghosted his lips over her throat and jaw, and finally her mouth.

Cyril didn’t have words for Mikael.

Good didn’t even scratch the surface of how she felt—how he was making her feel. The bodily pleasure had her head drifting in the damn clouds, but there was so much more than just the physical connection of their bodies. She’d never be able to string together the words to do justice to just how sated her soul felt with him.

So instead, Cyril nodded and hummed her breathy agreement.

In the dim outline of Mikael’s face, a flicker of pride lit up his eyes, and a smirk tugged at his mouth. She only let him bask in it for a moment before she pulled those lips back to hers and kissed him until she couldn’t breathe.

Whatever last fleeting sliver of restraint Mikael had seemed to dissolve into nothing, and he took her hard and fast.

Cyril couldn’t get enough of it.

Every rough snap of his hips drew some broken, lewd noise from her, and she still wanted more . She wanted him to make good on that bygone threat of fucking her until she couldn’t speak. Hells, all she wanted was to never be sure of where she ended and he began.

But it felt like just as soon as Mikael had settled into his punishing pace, he eased back into something far more languid. He braced himself on his forearms, putting mere inches of space between their bodies, and Cyril whined in protest.

“You’re taking me so well,” he said with an almost whispered reverence, and it went right to Cyril’s head. Straight between her legs too.

And when Mikael eased a hand down her body, his fingers sliding over their joining and circling that delicate bundle of nerves that just ached for him, Cyril nearly sobbed. She was so fucking close . All the tension coiled in her core was almost unbearable.

Mikael strung her along the edge of release, though, slowing his pace even more every time her body tensed in anticipation. He wanted to fucking torture her.

“Mika,” she panted, her fingers dug into his back, “ Please , I—”

A soft rumble left him before he ghosted his lips across hers.

“Are you going to be a good girl and come for me again?”

And just like that, Cyril came apart.

Heady and blissful release rolled up her spine and set every nerve in her body alight with it. The tide of euphoria that washed over her left her dazed and clinging on to Mikael like he was the only thing tethering her to this plane of existence. As she drifted, her heart thundering and lungs fighting to breathe the same air as him, the steady tempo Mikael set faltered. His thrusts became ragged, desperate things.

“Gods, I— fuck .”

He fell over the edge right behind her.

Some strangled, bitten-off noise left Mikael, and every fiber of his muscle tensed. His hips surged forward once more, burying himself to the hilt, and Cyril had never heard such a guttural, satisfied groan.

As the tension eased from Mikael’s body and he looked at her, his eyes were hooded and heavy. His lips sat parted with ragged breaths, and the insufferable prince laughed .

“Fucking hells, wrath.” He shook his head and slipped his arms under her, settling his weight down. “That was…” He blew out a breath.

Cyril’s eyes slipped shut, and she smiled.

In all his years—in all his encounters— Mikael had never struggled with the itch of a primal urge consuming him like this. Even as the rolling aftershocks of his fucking mind-blowing orgasm trembled through every inch of his body, pulling the sweetest fucking noises from Cyril, he couldn’t wrench himself away from her neck. She smelled like sex and sweat and cinnamon, and it was gods damn intoxicating.

Mine mine mine mine mine —it was all his fucking lust-addled, blood-drained mind would spit out as he grazed his mouth over that soft, delicate spot of flesh in the crook of her neck. All he wanted was to mark her, claim her, make her his . He wanted every person who saw her to know that she was his , that he would protect her, and he would keep her safe from—

Mikael took a slow breath and brushed his nose up Cyril’s neck.

He needed to will some semblance of reason back into himself and calm the fuck down.

“Mika?” Cyril’s soft, breathless voice ghosted his ear.

Her chest still heaved beneath him, and no small amount of pride coursed through him at that. Even her legs were still wrapped around his waist, keeping him buried in her, and he had no complaints about that.

“Mm?”

“Is this…” She fucking laughed , and the pull of the very depths of her muscles had him groaning. “Is this when you…drink my blood?”

Mikael blinked.

“Is this when I… what ?” He pushed himself up on his forearms. One look at the flushed skin and kiss-swollen lips of the woman below him did nothing to help how painfully hard he still was. “Drink your… blood ?”

A lopsided smile peeled across her lips.

“Back home, they…well they say that moon-fae, that you…” Her nose wrinkled and Mikael wanted to kiss her again, badly. “...Drink blood, and…sacrifice virgins, and—”

“Mm. Guess you’re no good for sacrifice now, are you?” Mikael rocked his hips for emphasis, a half-scandalized squeak leaving Cyril. “No blood drinking, though. We…we mark our mates, our partners…” He lowered his head, pressing his lips to the crook of her neck again. “And the urge to mark, to bite and claim, is…strong, sometimes, after really good sex.”

A lie. Sort of.

Mikael had been treated to some pretty fucking mind-blowing sex in his life, but the urge had never felt like this before. Cyril just didn’t need to know that right now. Not the details of his past exploits nor the knowledge that marking was supposed to be something special between two moon-fae, a sacred sort of act not taken lightly.

“You’re flattering me now.” Cyril, the wicked fucking woman she was, tangled her fingers in his hair and tipped her head back, baring even more of that perfect, snowy flesh to him. “You can, if you want. I think I’d like it… Your teeth…”

This woman was going to be the death of him.

He grazed his teeth along her neck, just to revel in the shudder that rolled through her, before he said, “You never mark someone the first time you sleep with them, wrath. Terribly bad manners.”

Cyril laughed again , and Mikael groaned. He was holding on by a damn thread.

“Do manners matter now ?”

“Of course they do.” Cyril’s eyes flared as Mikael hooked his arm under her knee, angling himself deeper than he dared before. “It’s the difference between me telling you I’m going to have you again, and me asking nicely if I can.”

Something wholly bashful settled into Cyril’s face as she said, “I think I like it more if you just tell me.”