Page 105 of Artemysia
With a wave of her hand, Elodie beckons me to sit at a vanity along a side wall. She stands behind me and begins to brush out my braid so that my hair flows over the shaved sides.
I grasp for the brush in her hand. “You don’t have to do all this. I can dress myself.”
She dodges my grasp and ignores me. “I’m a master of disguise. I help our spies look human, hide their Syf features. Now it’s my job to get you looking like a marchioness from the north.” She dabs some color onto my cheeks. “You’ll be the perfect spy. You have a sweet face, for a human. I bet your kind underestimates you a lot.”
I have a lot of hair, and she decides to leave it unbraided, using a poker warmed close to the fire to hot-iron my waves into dramatic curls that cascade around my face and down my back.
She fixes and fusses with each curl. I’m worried she’ll burn my hair off, but she says Syf and human hair are alike, and insists she knows what she’s doing.
I stare at myself in the mirror. I rarely wear my hair down, and I love it.
The large, loose waves accentuate my cheeks. I feel elegant, like one of the ladies of the court I’d see having tea in the garden when I was called to High King Galke’s war room.
She steps back to check her work and smiles. “The Syf say that when someone young has lost all color in their hair, they are touched by starlight.”
“That’s poetic. My father says I worry too much.”
“Yes, well,touched by starlightmeans you’re stark raving mad.”
I laugh so hard that I choke and start coughing. Elodie pats my shoulder. “A human brave enough to face as many rabid Syf as you, the king has said, must betouched by starlight.” She chuckles, and I thank her for helping me with my hair and makeup.
Touched by starlight. Her words blaze in my mind.
I know I’m stark raving mad.
I must be.
Because even though I don’t understand Riev’s behavior, nor do I trust his intentions and loyalty, an anxious thrill lances through me, knowing I’ll see him soon.
Clearly, only a madwoman in my situation could feel this way.
As a finishing touch, Elodie winds a satiny brown ribbon up my arm in a beautiful, complex plait. “It’s a popular North Kingdom trend among the nobility these days, to declare and flaunt your title. Brown for marchioness,” she says before sending me on my way.
My pulse is elevated, nervous anticipation lancing through me as before any mission. I click and clack in my dress heels all the way down the marble hallways toward the side entrance of the Syf castle. In my mind, I repeat Elodie’s convoluted directions to go down the tower, turn past the third hallway on the fifth floor, and through the statue garden in the middle of the second floor.
It wasn’t how we were led upstairs, but I suspect she wanted me to see the outdoor library on the way out since I’d mentioned I loved poetry.
Halfway down the first corridor, a door is ajar, and the curses and grunts of fighting compel me to glance through the entrance. Does someone need help? The Syf don’t seem to fight each other here. No one’s lost their temper as far as I’ve seen. King Foss himself is the epitome of patience and stoicism. I hear Riev’s voice in my head warning me not to get involved.
The door is ajar, so I peer into an elaborately decorated bedroom, white and seafoam green with gold trim and ornamental fixtures, likethe one I just left.
On a white loveseat beside the bed, a larger male Syf knocks a smaller female over the gold armrest in a tumble of wings cocooned around each other, their limbs tangling. They land on the tufted cushion of the loveseat and gaze at each other intently, breaths heaving. That’s when I realize I shouldn’t interfere. They aren’t fighting. Once their wings retract, I’m shocked to see that they’re stark naked, their skin radiant with a sheen of sweat. They’re both beautiful, as is the norm for Syf, from what I’ve seen.
Lithe bodies. Symmetrical, refined, portrait-perfect features. Even more beautiful now when they aren’t trying to kill me.
The male’s wings, soft and flowing like silken fabric ties, grip the female Syf’s ankles and yank her legs wide apart. She grins and clasps the nape of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss as his fingers on her breasts squeeze and roll her nipples. With her next moan, his long, thickly ridged erection enters her in one rough thrust. She shrieks into his mouth, and as she arches her back, her wings push her upright, lifting her chest to him.
She throws her head back, and he lowers his lips to clasp around her nipple.
He thrusts harder and suddenly spreads his wings, the tips still gripping her ankles. Her legs are pulled into the air as she falls back. It’s as if she’s hanging upside down with her hips and backside suspended in the air.
In this new position, his tail tucks under his legs, between hers, swishing between her cheeks before delving deeper in between, focusing on the rim of her ass. As he presses the tip into her backside, she cries out, but as he pushes in slowly, she hisses and pants in what seems to be an effort to relax, and she’s filled by him, front and back, legs hanging from his wings, her head and shoulders against the seat of the loveseat.
His hands continue to play with her breasts, and her body jerks with each thrust of his cock, his tail. Her eyes roll back as she rasps loudly to him, “Next time, I’m on top. Next time, my wings spread you wide, and it will bemytail fucking you—”
Her lust-filled voice echoes over the high ceilings and crashes into me. I shouldn’t be watching or listening. Ashamed that I’ve intrudedon their intimate moment for this long—too long—I pry my eyes away and try not to think of the wet heat growing and throbbing between my own legs as I hurry down the hall. Once around the corner, I press my back against the cool marble wall for a few uneven breaths.
Gods help me. That was intriguingly erotic. I’ve never had anyone try to pleasure meback there. To be penetrated in both areas at once… My thighs clench, imagining myself in that position.
