Page 39 of Blackwarden
Keres
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The sun rose too early. In my delirium the night before, I hadn’t bothered to pull my canopy curtains and light flooded across the bed, turning the midnight blue of the covers a strange shade of green. Rosalin’s hair tickled my arm. She’d stayed in my bed the entire night. I turned my head to see her better, a smile creeping onto my lips. This was true bliss. My fingers itched to trace her bare shoulder, but instead I cherished the way it rose and fell with each of her precious breaths.
My smile faded with the moment of happiness. I’d be forced to take her through the portal today. We had no more time. I’d wasted too much of it pushing her away when I should have been trying to figure out how to let her in. I’d been cursed for so long, unable to find the will to try and break it, but now that’s all I wished I’d done. She was the hundredth maiden I’d take to Bevgyah, Hag Queen of the Unseelie Court, and what the Hag didn’t know was I’d found a loophole in my original punishment.
After five hundred years, I could choose to have my punishment changed. I’d been given a choice when I was sentenced for treason: death or to be stripped of all my freedom and submit asBevgyah’s consort. Now, after serving five hundred years I could make a different choice. I could choose to be put to death rather than endure another five hundred years chained to her. I swallowed my sorrow. How ironic that I’d found the will to try and break the curse after I’d finally managed to find a way to end it all.
The memory of Rosalin’s face in the throes of pleasure flooded through me, settling low in my stomach. Her voice as she whimpered my name in ecstasy would echo through my soul until I ceased breathing and perhaps after. She wasn’t the type of woman I was once attracted to. I’d wanted perfection and power and cared little of how it was obtained.
Fake...I’d been charmed by fake. I’d been attracted to lies and simple lust. But Rosalin? She was genuine and real. I couldn’t look away from her. The moment I saw her standing at the doors of my Gatehouse, I was shocked that such a creature existed. I’d found all the tiny things that made her imperfectly perfect, and I cherished them. Her curiosity and confidence were something I hadn’t realized I craved so desperately until she was right in front of me.
With a sudden rush of dread, I realized I hadn’t imbued her portrait. I hadn’t finished it at all. I swept her hair away from her neck to see the mark I’d left when I bit her. How many times had I been a complete idiot since she’d come to my Gatehouse? Opening my heart when I knew I wasn’t allowed. I knew better than to leave a mark on her—something Bevgyah would notice immediately. I had hoped it would fade, but it was just as dark as it had been the day before. It wasn’t a bruise or a bite which was even more concerning, reminding me of ancient stories of magical markings. It had taken on a dark purple color, like a tattoo, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it looked like a serpent curled in on itself.
She looked up at me with a sheepish grin before nuzzling against me. The feel of her skin pressed to mine sent a shiver of longing down my spine. How could I satisfy this when I’d be forced to see her day in and day out in the Hag’s palace without being able to so much as talk with her in private?
If Bevgyah knew what we’d done...
She’d torture and destroy Rosalin and force me to witness the consequences of my infidelity.
I took a sharp breath as her hand slowly smoothed down my chest to my navel, then lower. Fuck, her hands were so soft—such a careful caress. There was so much tenderness in her touch that I wasn’t used to. I was used to forceful hands, cruelty. Pain. This was gentle curiosity and it drew a desperate moan from deep within me. She pulled herself over my stomach, the blankets falling away from her naked body as she straddled me.
There was a question in her eyes, a familiar yearning I’d felt in her emotions the night before. She was as starved for this as I was. I leaned up and kissed her, pulling her down against me, the heat of her almost more than I could take. I must have answered her question because she gently rocked her hips until she’d eased me inside of her. I couldn’t stifle the whimper that escaped as my head fell back. She felt so fucking good. The whisper of her hair across my skin, her fingers on my neck, my chest, over my shoulders. I hadn’t made love like this in five centuries—slow and intentional. I’d been fucked, abused, and made to perform acts I was too ashamed to admit. My body had been used in ways I wished I could forget.
But this?
This was pure, ravenous pleasure, so soft and sensual. Maybe it was because I hadn’t felt this connected to another living creature in so long, but I couldn’t get enough of her, of this, of the breathy noises she made. The way she watched my face, watched me,saw all of me. I wanted to devour every second I had with her until she was ripped from me forever.
It took all my strength to hold out as her rhythm increased. She was a hunter, and I was her very willing prey. She took me without restraint. We came together—fast and perfect, then lay on the top of the blankets for several minutes in silence as our thundering hearts slowed.
The quiet consumed any words I might have said and for a long while we were content to be swallowed up in the silence. I couldn’t pry my eyes from her, mesmerized by the way her face glistened, her hair damp against her forehead. She smiled sweetly as her eyes fell closed.
“I’m not your first,” I said. She was far too good at understanding her own pleasure, and mine, for that matter.
Her cheeks turned a brilliant shade of pink. Humans held such strange principles when it came to sex, and I worried I’d insulted her.
“I was married.”
There was something about the words that didn’t register at first, and I was about to ask more.
“He died a year ago. Killed by a Dark Fae who came to my village to meet with the Magistrate. I'm told there were words said the Fae didn’t like, and he put a dagger in my husband’s ribs.” She turned toward me, and we lay there in silence, facing one another.
So much more of her fear and anger with me, a Dark Fae, made sense. I understood this pain. I was forced to fuck the monster who had tortured and killed my beloved in front of me, and I knew how much I despised Bevgyah for it. I took a deep soothing breath, letting my hatred for the Hag wash away. This was my time, and I’d enjoy every second I had left with Rosalin.
If I hadn’t just been thinking of the queen, I might have said something more conventional, but instead, I blurted out the name of the man her emotions had been tangled around so tightly. “Bastion.”
She closed her eyes for a moment then met my gaze again. “Yes.”
An ache bloomed in my chest. “I’m sorry I showed you his face.”
“Are you?” She smirked, but there was an edge to her voice. Her humor was a shield.
“Truly. I hadn’t known.” I’d dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’d only wanted to make you more comfortable in this strange place by showing you something familiar.”
She narrowed her eyes as her smirk faded. “If you could change your appearance, why would you choose horns and blue hair? Why not something more human?”
I took a sharp breath across my teeth, wondering if the curse would let me answer, if I was even going to attempt.
