Page 81 of The Kingdom's Crown

"Oh, stars! Cosmo, yes!"

Cosmo grunted, his speed picking up, patience finally breaking. My hips knocked against the table, barely cushioned by the muslin draped over. The legs squeaked against the floor, hushed beneath our grunts and cries.

"Come for me, little muse, make magic in that clay," Cosmo hissed, leaning against my back.

There was clay drying along my spine and on my breasts, smudged from and smeared from my interruption of Cosmo's work. I'd only come to see if he would join me for the afternoon of cards I'd arranged for the visiting nobles. He'd been scowling at his work, and I'd wanted to kiss into smiling again.

Half an hour later, and my dress was hanging down my arms, skirt rucked up around my waist, and it would surely all be ruined—the fabric, the start of Cosmo's sculpture, crushed in my fingers. He'd insisted, in my defense.

Cosmo's bucking grew wild as he gave up on me, more determined for his own finish, and the rare selfishness thrilled me. I fell with him, crying out his name, rocking back to meet him roughly until he was collapsing on my back, nudging me gently through the quake of my finish.

In my hands, clay roughened and grew hard, spindling around my fingers like a cage. I moaned and shuddered, landing on my elbows before I could fall into whatever I'd wrought.

Cosmo's arms circled my waist, dragging me back a little as he nuzzled into my neck. "We'll put it in the royal gallery."

I hadn't even noticed my eyes squeezing shut, but I opened them now and snorted. "We certainly will not."

"I like it. Sensual and scandalous."

I untangled my fingers from the strange globe made of twining rose vine and bryony blossoms and orchids. Inside, equally tangled, were two figures, joined but holding themselves open for the viewer to see the explicit union clearly.

"Not quite us," Cosmo said, kissing my cheek, reaching out to gently turn the globe.

One of the woman's hands was gripped tight around a vine, the other on her own breast. Her head was back, eyes shut and mouth open in obvious bliss. The man had his feet braced against the base, face furrowed in effort and determination, eyes fixed to where he penetrated the woman, his fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs.

I shook my head as arousal spiked in me.

"It's very good," Cosmo insisted.

"It's just magic though," I said. "That's like cheating, I think. There's no art in it if there's no effort."

"No effort! I object to that claim. I put forth a great effort." Cosmo rocked his hips against mine in demonstration, and I laughed, twisting to face him. He stepped back, grinning, and then pulled me toward the chair at the corner of his bright studio room. "I see your point, little muse, and I appreciate the reminder."

I leaned back against Cosmo's chest and stared at the strange object I'd made from across the room. Light filtered through from the large windows, casting strange shadows on the table and floor. Cosmo brushed at the dried clay on my chest, chuckling and straightening the bodice a little.

"I've made a mess of you. Might be time to go for a swim. Geese free," he murmured in my ear.

I hummed my agreement, although I would just as happily have fallen into a nap on Cosmo's lap in that moment. He pulled me up, tidying me as much as was necessary to move through the suite, and we headed for the bedroom. Owen entered at the same moment as us through the door leading from the main room, and my steps stalled at the frown on his face.

"We were just going for a bath. Do you want to come? Owen…what's wrong?" I asked, stopping still and holding firm until Cosmo paused too.

"Jack McCallum is here, he wants to speak with you. He says something's happened in the north. I just feel…trouble."

I swallowed hard and nodded, scanning the empty bedroom, Cosmo already ahead of me, snatching up one of Thao's sweaters from a bench and pushing it over my head.

"You have clay on your cheek too," Cosmo muttered, reaching a dusty thumb up as if that might help.

"It's fine," I said to him, already heading for the door. "It's not a state meeting."

Nora and her brother were together by the window, heads bowed and voices lowered. The viscount's shoulders were high, and his boots were splattered with mud. Wherever he'd come from, he'd done so in a rush and not bothered with the formality of redressing to present himself to me.

"What is it? Is it Griffin? Sam?" I asked. I'd heard so little from my friends in the north recently, and I was swamped by a sudden panic that the conflicts I'd left in Griffin's hands had left her in danger. I'd killed Emory in show, certainly, but what of the men who'd supported him?

Jack's head whipped up, and he looked almost surprised to see me for a moment. "No, Your Highness. It is…it is to do with the two-natured in general. There was an accident at a mine in the north this week."

"Oh!" Relief for Griffin and a new worry for these unknown shifters warred in me at the same moment, and I gripped the back of a chair as Jack moved away from his sister slowly.

"A cave collapsed with workers inside. Shifters are asked to work under dangerous conditions for a wealthy man's profit too often, Your Highness," Jack said. It was not quite a condemnation in his tone, but I could tell Jack had run out of patience. Not with me, exactly, but with the entire circumstance that had brought the two-natured into such regular danger.

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