Page 43 of The Kingdom's Crown

What kind of artist am I if I'm only interested in one subject?I thought, and I was only really surprised to find there was no note of bitterness. I would never say as much to Bryony. She wouldn't accept it. She still visited me in the studio I'd fashioned in our suite, poking about and quizzing me on projects I had less interest in than she did.

She would balk if I told her the truth. I was hers, her Chosen. I would sketch and sculpt to pass the hours where she was busy wrestling for the reins of Kimmery, just as Owen would tend horses and sneak down to the beach. Wendell had a purpose now that Bryony had positioned him onto the council. Aric spent his time sneaking around the castle for one reason or another. Even Thao was helping navigate Bryony through the public role of being princess and eventually queen. But Owen, Daniel, and I, and probably Cress too, now that he'd surrendered the grip he'd had on his role as her guard, we were Bryony's Chosen in the more traditional sense, waiting for her to call on us for comfort or sex or just company.

I watched them take their turns with her, Thao and Wendell hurrying to take Daniel and Cresswell's place when their will to resist joining Bryony as she came apart failed. Owen returned from the bath, kissing Bryony so senseless, she barely noticed as Aric helped himself to her magic and fashioned vines around her wrists and ankles, suspending her in Thao and Wendell's embrace. The vines bloomed with Bryony's ecstasy, breathed at half-time from her gasps.

I still waited, undressing slowly, kneeling at the edge of the bed, barely able to feel the movement as Thao and Wendell collapsed in heaps and Aric claimed Bryony for himself, urgent and consuming, fucking her to the precipice and then pulling away for Owen to chase her there again, the pair of them taking turns back and forth.

"Please! Please, both of you," Bryony begged, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.

It was the first sensible words she'd managed since she had mounted Daniel, and Aric and Owen both raced to obey her, thrusting into her cunt together. Daniel gasped at my side, but Bryony's own shout was obviously one of satisfaction, and Aric and Owen were too close to their own finish to stop once they knew she was fine.

"Why are you abstaining?" Thao whispered in my ear, his arms circling my chest. One teased down to where I was half-hard, and I sighed as his fingers circled my length, stroking me. Aric and Owen were both moving wildly, near their finish.

"I'm not abstaining. I'm just patient," I answered Thao, turning my head and stealing a kiss from his swollen lips.

"He's smart," Wendell added, stretching on the bed and grinning at me. "He's done the math and realized if he's the odd man out, he'll have her to himself."

Thao scowled, and we laughed as Aric let out a great bellow, Owen's own voice swallowed in Bryony's kiss. They lowered Bryony down to the bed with kisses on her skin, limbs still tensing and quavering with aftershocks.

"Wa-wait, where's—" Her voice was slurred, but it pulled my smile higher.

"Here, little muse," I answered.

Bryony sighed and shivered, tried to lift her head, and then immediately gave up. Her body was splayed out, release leaking out of her and painting her inner thighs glossy. I stroked her legs gently as I knelt between them, balancing on my palms to hover over, finally feeling the shine of her smile beaming up at me.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Watching."

Bryony pouted, and I leaned down, kissing her swollen bottom lip gently. She was almost never sore, even after demanding more from all of us, but I wanted to bring her down from the high she was drifting on until she was grounded back in the moment with me.

"Was it inspiring?" she teased.

I laughed and sank against her, stroking my cock against her soaked sex and watching her arch and moan. "Very."

Bryony was always inspiring, in any number of ways.

"You look tired," I said, watching the slow blink of her eyes. She was either sinking under pleasure or exhaustion, but she tried to widen her gaze and look alert at my words, struggling to raise her hand to reach me.

"I've been told I sleep poorly without you," she murmured, and it was stated in a dazed honesty that gutted me, an exquisitely sweet blade.

I'd wanted to draw this out, tease Bryony to begging, but the compliment of her confession left me pressing myself into her swollen and sensitive cunt, my arms circling her back to hold her to me.

Bryony gasped, her sex clenching and sucking me in as she came immediately. I buried my groan against her throat, wrapping my lips over her pounding pulse and sucking on the spot as she rocked weakly into me from below. The bed shifted slightly around us as the others moved, but I was absorbed in Bryony's cries as I pulled nearly out of her and then let gravity and her fluttering walls do the work of drawing me back in again.

"Oh, Cosmo, I love you," Bryony breathed out, voice hitching, and one hand clutching at my back.

You possess me, I thought, but I knew Bryony well enough to know the words would unsettle her. I kissed her instead, tenderly probing, swallowing her sighs. The others had worked her body into an unending loop at the edge, every stroke of my cock making her spasm and gasp. I wouldn't last long with her body demanding I join her this way, but I moved as slowly and steadily as I could, drawing the minutes out. I'd wrap myself around her as she slept and claim those hours, but I wanted this too—this moment of being Bryony's entire world, as she was now and forever mine.

"Mine, little muse," I gasped, a strangled half-version of the thought.

"Yes!" Bryony whimpered.

Her legs wrapped around my hips, heels hooking together to hold herself in place, and the fire of the Hunger licked between us until the heat was burrowing at the base of my spine, shooting warning shots of lightning into my sac.

Bryony's nails dug into my skin as she came again, and I followed her, my teeth claiming her lip as I buried my groan in her kiss, hips finally bucking out of the rhythm I'd set.

If I could've, I would've sculpted this—the mindless moment where I didn't know my own edges, so wholly joined with the woman I loved. I'd seen her tangled up with the others, but I'd always seen the lines of shadow between their limbs, and at that moment I couldn't imagine them between us.

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