Page 100 of Feral Guardian
She cups my cheeks. “But you’re my husband.”
I smile sadly. “In our hearts only. We will need to go before the gods and have them recognize us, and we’ll need witnesses, paperwork.”
“We’re only weeks from Fynren. Any child that would grow in me would not be noticed before we would get to all that,” she says with a smirk. “And plus, the fertility-blocking potion is good for months at a time.”
“It isn’t always effective. You know that.” I rise, caging her against the tree. “And if we’re right about the queen, the fight for the throne is not going to be an easy one. Do you want to risk being pregnant through that?”
She blinks, worrying her lip. “I didn’t think about it…”
I pull her lip from between her teeth and kiss her. “I would love to fill you and watch you grow with our child. I would adore stroking your belly and fulfilling your strange cravings. I would lavish you with affection and be there for every moment.
“I don’t want to be worried about your mother trying to assassinate you, or our child, through what is supposed to be a joyous process. I don’t want even the slightest risk to either of you. Do you understand?”
She nods. “Yes, I was being silly, thinking maybe we didn’t want the same things, but it turns out I just didn’t ask you what you wanted and I assumed because you kept coming anywhere but in me, yet it turns out I was just being stupid me, leaping and not looking, just trundlingforward—”
I kiss her hard, stealing her next words. When I release her, she’s silent. “I want to make you happy in all ways. Let’s discuss it in detail before our wedding ceremony.”
“Yes, we have plenty of time on the way,” she says breathlessly, blinking hard.
I love that I’ve knocked the sense out of her with a single kiss. I kiss her again, more gently this time. Kor’Tar stomps and flaps his lips insistently.
“If we don’t hurry to the next town, Kor’Tar is going to wander into the forest tonight to mate anything with four legs he can find,” I mumble against her lips.
She giggles. “He’s going to leave a trail of bastards all across Seter.”
I grin and my thumb idly strokes her cheek. “He’s left them everywhere else, too. Who do you think made all those foals in the palace stables?”
“Mother would be furious if she knew,” Lily says.
She turns her face into my hand and nibbles my finger. Her teeth grazing the pad of my thumb send pangs of need to my well-spent cock. It has me ready to back her into the tree once more, but Kor’Tar whines insistently behind us.
She laughs and pulls away from me. “Yes, Kor’Tar, we’re getting underway!”
I grab her arm and twist her around, cupping her sex as I pull her against me. She gasps, holding my wrist tightly as I lower my lips to her ear.
“After just one more.”
Despite needing to stop frequently, we manage to make good time to the foot of the mountains. I’m constantly on guard, but there’s no one waiting for us at the well-traveled pass. None of Trask’s pirate goons, none of the queen’s soldiers, just other travelers and adventurous merchants.
Lily crafted all that we need, and though the journey is hard, even for me, she never once complains. We keep each other warm all night in our tent on a bed of furs, with Kor’Tar shacked up in his own collapsible, weather-stable Lily made him. The snow calms as we make it down the other side of the range, and Fynren Kingdom sprawls into view.
The tall, gold- and crystal-tipped spires of the white palace sit in stark contrast upon a hill overlooking the rest of the city. The Upper Kingdom glimmers and glows in concentric, colorful rings around the palace, leading down to the towering gray wall that separates them from the serfdom.
Stretching south in a wide cone configuration is the dark, mismatched, and misshapen buildings of the lower city, the Underbelly, and the seven gang lords that rule over it. I can see three of the lords’ headquarters from here, easily discernable amongst their surroundings.
The tall, gold-crested gambling hall for the Shadow Lord of the south end, Salazar. The towering black Nest of the Spider Lord, Zane. And then the massive agricultural parliament building that the Bloodletter, Scarlett, took from the queen years ago. The queen never saw fit to take it back because the Bloodletter ran things betterthan her own staff—and for a minimal tax on the goods her district provided. In the end, it was more profitable for the queen to surrender the district to the gang lord than to keep employing her staff to run it.
Lily shivers in my hold and I snap back from my thoughts.
“Are you cold, princess?” I ask as I wrap my arm around her more tightly to ensure my heating shield encompasses her.
“No,” she whispers, her fingers digging into her forearm. “I’m scared.”
I kiss her cheek. “I’m right beside you.”
“But you’re behind me,” she says, the corner of her lip curling up.
My hand trails up her stomach to her chin and I turn her face to meet mine. “Yes, a very advantageous position for how I plan to help you relax.”
