Page 32 of Royal Fate

Inhaling deeply, I placed my hands on the washi plant and began to mumble, willing the words to come to me. Suddenly, like a torrent, they did, from somewhere I didn’t recognize, a spell I’d never heard myself.

“Fazia demonia jellenia dui,” I rasped.

“What are you doing?” Zen interjected, and I waved him away without turning, a power surging inside me as the leaves of the washi plant came alive. Bolts of electricity spiked out of me, the charge unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Every pore in my body tingled. All around us, fireflies erupted, setting the landscape aglow, and Zen fell silent, realizing that my words had an effect.

He stepped back to let me finish my spell.

“Eassa china coy,” I concluded, caressing the illuminated leaves and abruptly plucking one out of the ground.

More fireflies swarmed us, the entire area aglow now, the need for our flashlights gone as I turned to Zen.

“Eat this,” I urged him. “Quickly now.”

Warily, he took the leaf, his eyes wide with skepticism, but I nodded. “Quickly, Zen, before it dies!”

Without protest, he gobbled the piece of the plant down, his face twisting at the bitterness, and the fireflies buzzed, their wings the only sound against the night air now. There were no howls or chirps of night creatures, the nocturnal beasts keeping their distance in the wake of my spell. A buttery sweetness tinged the air, and I exhaled, steam and glitter falling from my mouth as I did.

Zen gasped and choked, causing my eyes to widen in shock.

“Zen, are you okay?” I asked, not knowing what to expect, as I had never performed a spell like this.

Suddenly, his body began to morph, his clothes ripping away as gray tufts of fur appeared. It took me a second to realize what was happening, muscled limbs falling onto all fours, paws falling to the forest floor. A fusion of relief and fear overtook me as his smoky eyes bored into me, and he glowered in my direction.

He has no use for me now,I realized.He can shift again.

As if reading my thoughts, he pounced, and I whimpered, my arms barely managing to rise over my head and protect myself, but the effort was futile as he pinned me to the pine-needled ground.

“Zen—” I wheezed, his fae form returning, his expression unrecognizable.

He didn’t let me finish my plea. To my shock, his mouth crushed to mine, the gratitude pouring from his naked form into my body before I understood what was happening.

Confused, I didn’t resist, but I didn’t return his kiss, either. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening, what he was doing.

He raised his head and peered at me.

“Thank you,” he rasped, and my heart pattered wildly in my chest.

“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered, still unsure of his intentions.

His answer came in the form of another kiss, this one more intense than the last, his lips crushing to mine with such intensity, it stole my breath away.

I understood now that he didn’t intend to kill me, that these past two days had been just as hard on him as they had been on me. My arms reached up to encircle him, drawing him against me tightly. His form melded against my body, his surety growing, and I arched up against him in the mulch, legs rising on either side of his hips.

Zen’s mouth uncurled from mine, his lips trailing along the line of my neck toward the swell of my throat. I tucked my head back, allowing him lower, his hands roaming over me like he’d never explored me before.

His face found the swell of my breasts, fingers stripping away at the buttons of my shirt without much care, some of them popping off in his haste.

The fireflies continued to flock around us, casting his perfect form in a beautiful light, the curve of his ass under my hands, the gentle buck of his hips over my pants as he worked to undress me.

Hot breath trailed lower over my body, and Zen groaned loudly, pausing at my exposed nipple, tongue jutting out to taste it softly.

“I missed you,” he mumbled in a tone so low, I almost didn’t hear him.

“I missed you, too,” I mewled, sadness overtaking me. “I never wanted it to be like this.”

His mouth latched onto me, sucking and sampling until goosebumps exploded over my entire body. Continuing his journey along the curves of my torso, he paused to kiss and lick every crevice.

My center was wet from arousal already, the frustrations of the past days fully pent up inside me and ready to be released in exactly this way.

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