Page 20 of The Princess's Chosen

I could taste it.

It was like the humid and charged flavor of the air before a storm hit, but tinged with violets, and it was pulsing from the orchard down the hill. I traveled there automatically, ignoring Cresswell's murmur at my back.

The orchard was one place that still looked relatively untouched. It was overgrown, the old hanged grooming of the apple trees having given way to new growth that stretched upwards, the grass rich with oxeye daisies and echinacea, but all of it still a kind of wild that seemed honest.

"Ohhh, yes."

Soft and whimpering and sweet, my courage faltered halfway down the hill at the desperate sigh.

Did you expect her to wait for you?Charlotte's voice asked in my head, a little teasing, a little sympathetic.

I swallowed hard and walked slower, heart sinking as they came into view. A sky blue blanket spread over the ground, the trees draped with gauzy netting around them that obscured but couldn't really have been intended to hide them.

Bryony was pressed between the handsome pale ambassador and the golden dark-haired prince, all three of them naked. Her hands combed through Wendell's blond strands, holding his face to her breast as she rocked between them, their hips tightly fastened to hers. I couldn't see Thao's face, it was tucked into her neck on the other side, but his grip on her hips was proprietary, moving her between them in an unmistakable act.

Bryony's high moan made my cock jump as I bit down on my tongue until a metallic bite filled my mouth.

I'd been holding her in some strange place in my head that was more than innocent and less than blatantly sexual, and the balance was broken now. I wanted to duck beneath that netting and drink up her crying pleas for more, force my hand between her and Wendell, and pinch her clit until she screamed and came and begged for my cock next. To pull her out from between them and pin her to the ground and stay buried inside of her, feeling her clutch and gush and cling to me until she was too weak to move.

Wendell's head lifted, and Bryony dove down, fucking his mouth with her kiss and making him groan, making both men buck into her.

I hated them. I hated myself.

Had I really meant to set her on a pedestal out of everyone's reach including my own?

She was exquisite. I knew the moment she would come, saw the tremble and clench of her thighs pinching around Wendell's hips, their fingers tightening on her as her own hands flew away from them.

Her face tilted up to the dappling sun through the trees as she let out a bright cry of anguished relief, body rocking erratically as they fucked her through her finish.

Magicexplodedin the orchard.

The trees trembled, curled and browning leaves flourishing into fat glossy green fans, a sudden burst of white blossoms appearing and then cascading down to the ground as apples swelled from pebbles into beautiful shining red and green fists.

This was not a master magician at work, manipulating their tools and mining power for technical uses.

This wascreation. Raw magic at its wildest.

Thao and Wendell moaned, and Bryony's arms embraced them, one draping over Thao's shoulder, as they bucked and stiffened and settled, the three of them so close they might as well have been one strangely beautiful form.

A twig snapped behind me, and the lovers looked up. It was a curious reaction. They didn't look startled, not at first, almost as if they expected to be joined, but when they saw me…

"Oh!" Bryony shrank in their embrace, her eyes wide and the flush in her cheeks growing darker as she turned away, their arms rising to shelter her. I didn't bother to look at them, spinning and finding Cosmo not far behind me, frowning and glaring at me as if it wasmethat interrupted them.

No, you just stared on like a voyeur. That was true. My cock was half hard and my pulse hammered, and even in the moment I couldn't quite decide what I wanted to do—storm away, or run down to the blanket and kiss the shame off Bryony's cheeks.

"Inside, Aric," Cosmo said, dark and inflexible.

Storm away it is then, I thought as I whipped past him, marching back to the palace, ignoring the tremulous whimper from the grass behind me.

7

Bryony

“Bryony, wait," Wendell called at my back, his hands just managing to catch me around my waist before I raced up the hill to the palace.

He spun me in his arms, his pants fastened around his hips, hair mused and lips swollen. Thao was shimmying into his own trousers, although he didn't seem to share our haste. I was dressed in a slip, one of Cosmo's shirts, and a skirt I hadn't finished buttoning at my back. I couldn't decide if I wanted to fall back into Wendell's arms and down to the ground or go chasing after Aric to explain myself. My legs were still shaking from my pleasure and the rush of the Hunger, but the ecstasy of the moment had been stolen away the moment I'd seen Aric and his glare focused down on us from the hill.

"You've donenothingwrong," Wendell murmured against my scalp. "I don't care if he's too stubborn to see it, that is the truth and the rest will mend."

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