Page 16 of Beltane

“I love you,” I murmured.

Her grin melted some of the frost around my heart. It reminded me of that eighteen-year-old version of her, so innocent and curious. I had loved her then, and I loved her still. Infinitely and indefinitely.

“Come for me, Little Thistle. Who will love you now? Will they still want you?”

Ivy sank her teeth into the skin where my leg met my pelvis, not enough to hurt, just enough to bring me back to the present—here, in this bedroom, with her.

“He’s not welcome here,” she whispered, running a gentle hand over the inside of my other leg. “It’s just you and me, understand?”

I nodded and took a deep breath, focusing on the way her hot exhale coasted over my skin, a shocking contrast to the air in the room. It was a cool spring night in the Mid-Atlantic, the bite of winter still lingering in the air, refusing to give way to summer’s greedy grip.

“Do you know how long I’ve ached to get you all to myself?” Ivy said, fluttering her tongue over my clit, staring up at me with those penetrating eyes. Wrapping her hands around my thighs, she tugged me closer to her, kissing and holding and loving me back to myself. “You’re so beautiful and so soft and so…mine.”

I shivered at the word, knowing it rang true deep down in my heart. My feelings about Lex and Carter were so wrapped up in my feelings about Ivy that I’d never know where one stopped and the other began. We were meant to be a four, but this connection held its own special place in my heart.

Ivy licked me, sending a jolt of pleasure up my spine and down my legs. She intertwined her fingers with mine on one hand and used the other to hold me down so she could take me the way she wanted. I sagged into her embrace, wanting her harder, yearning for her deeper. I needed to feel her everywhere so that she could burn out the evil rotting away my soul.

There was no progress without destruction, and Ivy could set my heart ablaze like no other. She reached into my molecules and found the pieces that had been petrifying in our distance, incinerating the dead parts so that new life could begin. She sucked and moaned and pushed a finger inside me, rubbing at all the right places to have me melting into the mattress.

“Tell me you love it,” she said. “Tell me you’re still my good princess, my perfect wife.”

“I’m your good princess,” I said, urgency on my lips and in the nod of my head. I wanted her to keep going, to bring me to that special brink like only she could. The pressure built inside me as she lowered her head again, fucking me with her fingers and her face, reminding me why she had always owned me, heart and soul.

I clenched my fists in her hair, the euphoria reaching an apex, and she pulled back to rub my clit, spitting on it so she could go faster. Just when I thought I’d burst with sensation, she leaned down to suck me between her lips. I exploded. My entire world erupted into nothing and everything all at once. My nerves had been electrocuted, and every part of me that had been soiled by the unknown now rang with truth again.

I was meant to be with her. I was meant to be loved by her, by all of them.

She didn’t let me have the aftermath very long. I was vaguely aware of her getting up and going to a dresser across the room, and when she came back, she had a rainbow-striped strap-on around her waist and a bottle of lube in her other hand. She crawled between my legs again as excitement laced through my bloodstream and into my gut. I loved when Ivy fucked me. Sure, the boys could find my G-spot well enough, but Ivy fucked like her soul was on fire.

Cool liquid hit my vulva, followed by Ivy’s fingers smearing it in. She stroked the dildo a few times before lining up at my entrance and inching in, bit by bit. She covered my body with hers, a scalding blanket that comforted me and brought me back to my senses. Her soft breasts pressed against my rib cage, her heart a thunderous riot against my own. When she pressed her forehead to mine and surged the rest of the way in, I sagged in relief. I thought it might hurt. I thought it might bring up memories of whatever had happened to me.

But Ivy kissed my nose and eyes and cheeks, grounding me in the bed with her.

“Don’t ever leave me again, Princess,” Ivy said, rocking into me, finding her rhythm. “I made you a promise, and I won’t be as patient next time.”

A long time ago, I had made Ivy swear never to let me leave her again. If I’d been trapped by my family, she had promised to come rescue me. I never expected to push her away myself. I never expected to one day believe I was a danger to them, to all of them.

“Hey,” she murmured, nuzzling her head against mine while sparks of ecstasy rattled my molecules. “You’re mine. No one’s going to hurt you again. I promise. I swear. You’re mine. You’re mine.” She said it over and over again while she fucked me, as if by repeating it, she could brand it into my skin as a warning to whoever might think to touch me in the future.

I kissed her and met her thrust for thrust, willing myself closer to that edge of climax again. Perhaps I thought that would solve all my problems, that for one perfect moment here in our marital bed, everything else would go away—the king and the queen and what I would do once this was over.

Perhaps I could be strong again. Perhaps I would survive this after all.

5

Ivy

Ifucked Miri into a limp pile of mush, and then I ran my fingers through her hair until she fell asleep again. She’d asked to get me off, but she needed rest. I wanted to remind her why I loved her in the first place. She should have come to us with this from the beginning.

I understood her reasoning for staying away and going along with her grandmother’s plan to put distance between us. She believed herself to be the weak link, the vulnerable one, thereby putting the rest of us at risk, especially after the king had repeatedly altered her memories.

I imagined she felt like she couldn’t trust her own mind, and therefore, couldn’t trust herself. I should have seen this coming. Out in the UK all by herself, shewasvulnerable and alone. Even though she’d been the one to protect us by growing the thistles and keeping the king in Faerie, we were stronger together. Carter visited more often and lived closer, not to mention the luck on his side whenever he traveled.

Miri resided on the other side of the world, her highly visible role in the English royal family making it nearly impossible to get away as much as she wanted. The king had already proved he was capable of manipulating her memories. What more could he have done to her?

Part of me wanted to lower my walls to Alberich’s mind and figure it out for myself. I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but I could guess, and there had to be a reason. However, if I did that, I opened myself up to him, and I had no desire to have another one of our telepathic chats. Regardless, I would never forgive him for this. I would hunt that bastard down and tear his heart from his chest. Perhaps it was even better that he was immortal; I could torture him until the end of time.

I could still feel him there, crawling around in the back of my mind despite my mental shields between us, and when I closed my eyes, his voice called out to me from deep within.

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