Page 155 of Crowned By the Fae King

Love warmed my soul as Cass sauntered over to the lounging pillows and sprawled down across them in a half-reclined seat, taking care with his wings. He patted the meat of his thigh. "C'mere," he said, tipping his head back to smile at us, upside-down. "You, too, ladies, if you like."

"Cuddle puddle, huh?" I asked, finishing off my own wine before getting up from the table.

"Why not?" he asked with a heart-stopping smile. "I have a lot of time to make up for. Might as well start now."

Vad took Cass' leg pat literally and sprawled down across him like a cat, one arm wrapped around his thigh and his head on Cass' lap. Dani joined him as Cass started petting Vad's hair, tucking herself up along her soulmate's chest with her head on Cass' thigh.

If Vaduin could have purred, I was pretty sure it would have been loud enough to hear back up at the Clement Palace.

I settled myself up along Cass' left side, his arm around me and his heart beating under my ear. He made a low rumble of contentment, an almost silent vibration of pleasure.

Happy Cass? I asked him silently. He made that sound again, so like a giant cat that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

"I know this should feel bittersweet, given that two of my dukes and both my mother and sister are dead, but I'm nothing but happy," Cass said in a low voice. His fingers rubbed across the undercut of Vaduin's long hair, making our friend hum with pleasure. "I never expected loyalty from Shamais or Alair, and I said goodbye to my blood kin a long time ago." A smile touched his mouth as he looked back over at me. "You're the family I chose. Everyone I love is right here."

"We love you, too," Dani said in a low murmur. "Both of you."

I huffed a laugh and reached over to ruffle her hair. Vad nipped my fingers like a needy cat, so I ruffled his hair, too. "Generous with your affection, huh?"

"Of course I am. Vad's my soulmate, and he loves to love," she said, earning a sleepy hiss from him.

We stayed sprawled there together, watching the fire and exchanging comfortable words. Vaduin fell asleep on Cass' lap within the first ten minutes, with Dani following him maybe fifteen minutes later. It left Cass and I cuddling, the timeless night stealing across us and total ease settling into our bones.

Nothing had ever felt as right as his arm around me and the sound of his heart against my listening ear. His thumb stroked along my side with slow affection. Bit by bit, the fire died down into embers, and no one came to ask us to leave.

"Was it worth it?" Cass asked as the night turned towards midnight, his voice pitched low and his expression warm.

"Of course it was." I cuddled a little closer, smiling up at him. "I don't think it's going to get easier, though, splendor. You're still going to have to deal with that shitshow, come sunrise."

A slow smile spread across his face, as warm as the fire. "I don't think I care."

"Oh, really?" I nuzzled him. "Why's that?"

"We'll do it together," he said. Happiness suffused me, the sort of contented banked-fire emotion that lasts a lifetime. "You, me…" Cass glanced down at where Vaduin was softly snoring. "These menaces."

I barked out a laugh and sprawled up against him. "Our family, huh?"

"Yeah," Cass murmured. "Our family." Cass tipped my face up and kissed me, soft and sure, his lips moving with aching demand. My lips parted. My mouth wetted. I didn't care that Vaduin was asleep on his lap. I was willing to climb right on there, too. Cass had plenty of lap to go around.

Greedy, he purred into my mind.

V-E-R-Y, I wrote back on my inner thigh.

He nipped my lip and broke the kiss, making me pout. "Be polite, dove," he said in a low croon. "If we wake them up, they might want to join."

"Tch. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." I burrowed my face up against his chest. Might even be fun, I offered shyly through our bond, looking up at him through my lashes.

"Maybe so." Cass ran his fingers through my hair, the contact making me shiver. "But I want you all to myself for a while." In beds, he continued silently, leaning into our connection, an image of him sprawled out under me sliding into the forefront of my mind. In ropes. Cass on his knees, hands tied above his head and wings bound behind him. Against walls, and on counters, and in alcoves where we might get caught. A flicker of each, more experience than image, ending with me pinned in a corner in the waiting room for the revels, fancy dress shoved up around my waist and panties yanked to the side as Cass fucked me with desperation.

I let out a low whine, pressing my thighs together. Cruel.

V-E-R-Y, he traced along my throat. "So, my Queen," he murmured, wickedness in the firelit gleam of his golden eyes. "What do you think about planning a honeymoon?"

Epilogue

Unsurprisingly, a series of events that included high treason, attempted regicide, the secession and re-conquering of two duchies, and the deaths of both royal heirs had a lot of fallout. My time fuckery meant that there were a bunch of naked fae in the fucked-up wilderness, to whom we dispatched medical aid via war-dragon—and then who we had to incarcerate as our humiliated spymaster conducted the world's most thorough investigation. We also had to deal with the displaced people who'd once called the Buzzing Castle home, because the beasts and monsters I'd summoned had turned the place into hollow wreckage.

What little was left of the Misted King and the King of Flies was put into ornate caskets for interment. There was no reason to deny them that. We laid them to rest with their families, as much victims of Daesarys Omahice and the Court of Mercy as those who'd been slain during the first conquering of their Courts. We left offerings and incense for all of them, those lost in the name of the Court we now ruled, and left them to their eternal rest.

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