Page 40 of Crowned By the Fae King

"Shitless," he said, with a brilliant smile.

That startled a laugh out of me. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Cass leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. "I looked, that first day, while you were sleeping. Mercy is enormous. Most of that land isn't densely populated, but there's still several million people in the Court." He exhaled through his nose, his expression going tight. "You're the only one, Quyen. My only soulmate. You're my one chance."

With the way he said that, it was clear that "soulmate" didn't have the same uniqueness in Faery as the idea did in the stories I knew. But apparently that didn't matter. In all the millions of people in the Court of Mercy, there was only me for him.

"No pressure," I said, a little dazed.

"I wish that was true," he said wryly. "Given that I almost certainly can't leave the Court of Mercy, and that I doubt anyone's going to want to move to the Court of Mercy while I'm in it, I'm feeling significant amounts of pressure towards not fucking this up more than I already have."

I gave his ottoman a shove, not budging it a single inch. "We made a bargain about that, splendor," I reminded him with a mock-frown. "Starting from zero, remember?"

His mouth curled up into a catlike smile. "I didn't bargain away my guilt."

"Rude," I said, frowning a little more. "The whole point was to start out on even footing, not with you trying to make up for things and me holding it over your head."

Cass huffed a laugh and leaned back. "Your generosity is a great boon, but it's not a simple task for me to grant myself such understanding for my behavior." He laced his fingers together and stretched them over his head—then spread his wings with the song of a drawn sword, moving with easy grace.

His shirt rode up, and I didn't even have the wherewithal to look, utterly captivated by the sight of his gleaming wings. The dark metal shone with undertones of bronze, each feather perfect, without scratch or kink. He could have been an illustration, too perfect to exist, except that I felt the movement in each feather deep in my soul, as if I could close my eyes and be the man across from me, my wings spread and tension in my powerful frame.

"I can feel it when you do that, now that I've touched you," he murmured. Instead of pulling away, though, Cass put his hands behind his head and tilted his wings for me, showing off their strength. "It's like you're reading over my shoulder, except my body instead of a book."

"Does it bother you?" I asked absently, watching the light shining off the deadly edges of his feathers. I traced my fingers through the air as if I could feel them under my hands, imagining.

Cass beat his wings once, sending a gust of wind across me, then folded them neatly behind him. "It's not unpleasant," he said, which wasn't quite an answer. His mouth tilted up. "Pleasurable, even. It does draw my magical attention to you, though, so if you'd prefer my awareness not linger in your body, perhaps refrain."

Memories of how very aware of his body I could be – of drowning in his pleasure, feeling his hand wrapped around his cock like it was mine, and of being able to fall into lockstep motion with him – flooded my mind. My cheeks heated at the thought that he might do the same to me. Fuck, what would it be like if we had sex like that? If we did anything like that?

"That seems fair," I said, somehow managing to say the words without sounding like I was on fire with lust. "You, uh. Have my permission. For what it's worth."

One brow lifted. "I do?"

I shrugged one shoulder, trying to ignore how warm my face was. "It seems like I have an all-access pass," I said in as nonchalant a voice as I could muster. "If you don't get any bodily privacy, it feels like I should give you the same, uh. Liberties. So. Permission granted."

"That's…" Cass paused, tilting his head as he considered. "Kind," he said after a moment. "It's not my intention to be a voyeur, but I appreciate knowing that I have explicit permission."

"Not much to voyeur about," I said, smirking at him, starting to regain my footing. "Whatever you're doing to lock down your sex drive is obliterating mine. It doesn't seem like I'm capable of going past 'sexual attraction' to 'actively turned on,' let alone doing anything about it."

He winced and rubbed at his cheek with his knuckles. "I knew that was likely to be the case," Cass said uncomfortably. "I'm affecting you much more strongly than I even affect people when I'm blood-linked to them, but you did say we could do chastity for a while, and chastity is much less difficult when my body isn't, ah, demanding something else."

"It's fine. Seriously," I added, when he gave me a wary look. "It's not exactly the same, but I'm used to having next to no privacy. My family lives in a two-bedroom that's about eight hundred square feet. The boys get one bedroom, Bà gets the other, Auntie has a twin behind a screen in the living room, and I sleep on the futon couch." I paused, then said, "Slept."

That loss tugged at me, a heavy pang of pain. I would never see them again. I knew that—had known it, really, from the moment I woke up in Faery with a blood-sealed promise binding my life to a fae master.

It didn't make it any easier to bear.

"I know you can't turn off the link, but are you actually okay with me listening in?" I asked to fill the silence. I bounced my foot, trying to burn off the anxiety and grief. "A lot of it I can't ignore, but there's a difference between overhearing and eavesdropping."

Cass blinked at me for a moment, then breathed a quiet laugh, his shoulders and wings relaxing. "People rarely ask that when they're linked to me," he said. His ears leaned towards me, shifting the loose waves of his hair. "I generally don't mind the scrutiny, but it's also always been temporary before. Our entanglement is likely permanent. May I think about it?"

"Sure." I flashed him an easy smile. "You can also change your mind. Forever's a long time."

"I appreciate that." Cass rolled his shoulders and got to his feet. "I suppose we ought to get ready for dinner. That hour delay is vanishing faster than I'd hoped."

I made a face. "Yeah, I guess."

"Chin up, Quyen," he said with a playful smirk. "After tomorrow, we get to start dealing with a whole new set of horrible problems. Isn't that exciting?"

---