I let out a long sigh as the Snow Hag stood.
She said nothing as I instructed Check to send several of our men with her, but merely turned and walked out the door, still silent.
I bit my lip, suddenly very tired. With The Wave Catcher’s sudden sinking, the disappearance of the Fae on board, and now this, the day had been exhausting. I settled back on the sofa and Rhia sat beside me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
“It will be all right. Everything will work out.”
“There will never be an end to it, will there? There will always be some terror, some mystery to throw life into turmoil. I thought when I returned to New Forest, I could put all of that behind me. That maybe, I could just settle in and breathe. I spent my life running from one problem to another, and I hoped…” I stopped, a sudden realization sweeping over me. “This is life, isn’t it? I always blamed Krystal for the drama and the worry, but no matter where you go, no matter who you are, or where you live…there will always be some disruption, won’t there?”
Strict had edged over and now, he sat down in a chair opposite me. He was as his name implied—definitely strict, but he also had an understanding nature that had come out more during the past year. Now, he cleared his throat and leaned forward.
“Your Majesty, no matter where you go, or who you are with, life will always throw curve balls—as the yummanii put it. There is no safe haven where you can hide away from the world. In fact, I would say the only place to escape what life has to throw at you is in death.”
And there it was. Black and white. There was no happily-ever-after because, until you died, after always kept coming. Even during moments of great happiness, something would shift to tear down the joy. And in sorrow, joy would lift us up again. A continual cycle.
“I suppose you’re right. I kind of hoped that once we were married and took the thrones, that once Myst was dead, everything would be okay, and life would play out without any more issues. I guess that makes me a fool.”
“It makes you a dreamer, is what it makes you.” Rhia stretched and yawned. “I thought I was the optimist of the group, but honestly, as screwed up as our lives have been—yours more than mine, I grant you that—I think…I think I’m happy things have happened the way they have. I miss my mother, but look at what I have.”
I kissed her softly on the cheek. “You’re right, of course. Life will keep coming, and it brings both sorrow but also joy. I guess I’ll learn as I go. You journey safely home. My men will see you to the Twin Hollies where the portal lies. Do you have security waiting on the other side?”
She nodded. “We do. When we get home, Edge will make the announcement about the ship. I figure, at midnight, respectively?”
“Midnight it is, then.” Both Rhiannon and I kept clocks in the Barrows. Even though time ran on a different scale here, it gave us some sense of what time and day it was in the outer worlds, and provided us with a frame of reference.
As the guards escorted them out into the hall and toward the front of the Barrow, I longed to go with them, to wave good-bye, but that would break decorum.
I turned to Grieve as the door shut behind them. “So, Rhiannon and Chatter are going to have a baby.”
“And they already have the tyke they adopted.” Grieve’s voice held a wistful note, and I wanted to hug him, to promise that I would get pregnant right away. But the truth was, I had no clue why we weren’t there yet. It had been almost a year. A little part of me worried that, perhaps, when Myst had turned Grieve, it had changed something in his body that might interfere with our abilities to conceive. I had spoken about it to one of our personal healers, and she was looking into the subject. Until she had an answer—or the hope of an answer—I didn’t want to bring it up to Grieve, though. I didn’t want to make him feel bad. For all I knew, my body wasn’t being cooperative. I was waiting on test results for that, too.
As if reading my mind, Grieve held out his hand. “Why don’t we go work on the issue?” A light shimmered in his eyes, and my body burned under his scrutiny.
“I would like that.” I turned to Strict. “Make the announcement when the clock shows midnight. Field all questions for us till morning. Make sure the men going with the Snow Hag return. If there’s a problem, rouse us from our chamber.”
And with that, Grieve and I headed toward our bedroom, Check following behind us to make certain we got there safely.
It had taken some time for me to be comfortable with the constant security force surrounding me, but now it felt second nature. I finally had come to understand that a part of my discomfort came from the misplaced feeling that it was self-indulgent. Maybe even a little arrogant. But as the realization that assassination attempts were an actual threat hit home, I quickly shifted gears. Having bodyguards wasn’t self-important. The fact was that I was a queen, and that meant I held vast power in my hands. And that meant that there would always be someone wanting to either co-opt that power, or to oust me from the throne because they didn’t like the way I did things.
As we reached the door of our bedchamber, Check motioned for us to wait with Shelter while he went in. This was our routine every night. The pair would escort us to our chamber, and Check would scout the bedroom and bath for any signs of problems. Druise would be waiting inside. Then, Check would return and we would go in. Druise would undress me, brush my hair, and then she would go to her small room, which was right next to ours. Check and Shelter would be on guard during the first hours of the night, then trade off with Fearless and Wonder partway through the night.
As Druise bid us good night, I turned to Grieve. I was wearing my robe, but now I let it slide off my shoulders to drop to the floor. Grieve’s eyelashes fluttered softly as he looked at me, then his clothes were gone. Full Cambyra Fae had the ability to dress as they would at a moment’s thought, though they dressed for their stations. They could be wearing the finest robes in the land, then the next second, be thoroughly naked.
Grieve leaned against one of the posters on the bed, lean and muscled, his skin gleaming with a soft olive glow. His hair draped over his shoulders. With his dark, star-dappled eyes, he looked altogether alien and yet, totally familiar. And he wanted me.
I let my gaze trail up his body. Grieve was hard, his cock thick and firm. I couldn’t tear my gaze away—just being near him drove me out of my mind. He was like a heady wine, intoxicating. I trailed my left hand over my body, lingering on my breasts as I stroked myself with my right.
“Don’t stop.” Grieve’s voice was strangled as he watched me.
I slid one finger over my clit and swirled it gently, letting out a soft moan as I pinched my left nipple hard. Shuddering, I shifted my hips to one side.
Softly, my words a whisper—”You know what I want.”
“Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it.” He took one slow step forward.
“I want you to fuck me. I want your tongue driving me wild. I want you to throw me on the bed and drive your cock deep inside me. I want you to fuck me till I scream, to fill me up so there’s no room for anything else.” I let out a slight sob—Grieve always affected me this way. He was my match, and sometimes it was almost too much to bear.
With a low growl, he was suddenly in front of me. He seized me, carrying me to the bed where he tossed me on the soft pile of quilts and covers. I stared at the ceiling, a sparkling mosaic of iolite, sapphire, amethyst, and clear quartz. They glowed, creating the sense of being under the stars. The dark yew of the furniture was polished to a high sheen, creating a heavy Old World feel. The four-poster bed stood on a cobblestone floor, a tapestry to protect our feet.
Now, Grieve was on the bed, looming over me, a feral smile on his face. When he lowered his lips to my breast, I gasped. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him into me, into my core and center. As his shaft penetrated my sex, I moaned. He was thick and wide, and as he drove himself deeper, I let out a shriek and squirmed beneath him.
“Fuck me, please, fuc
k me.”
I rose to meet him as he plunged, every thrust stoking the fire, every shift and swivel of his hips forcing a cry from my lips. My need grew into a blazing fire, overshadowing anything else in my world, and I slid into the haze of desire. And then, he slipped a hand between us and reached down. As he stroked me, rough and hard, the pain shot through me, mingling with the pleasure, and I came—sobbing and laughing as the floodgates opened and all my worry and concern and responsibility ceased to exist.
There was only Grieve, and only me, and we were the only people to exist in this one moment, captured in the rush of orgasm. As the wave pushed me higher, he began to thrust faster, and then—arching his back—he cried out, calling my name. I came again, this time in a shower of stars and snow. Everything stood still for a moment, and then—with a soft shift, he began to thrust gently, loving me with his body, loving me with the soft murmur of his words, and we continued, long into the night, weaving a world with our bodies, a world where only the two of us existed. Where missing passengers and vicious enemies vanished from thought, and love and passion were the sun and the moon.
Chapter 3
Morning came all too early, and earlier than usual when Sweet Pea landed on the bed and started licking my face. I laughed, blinking, as I forced myself to sit up. She rolled over for a belly rub and I wondered how long her kittenish nature would last.
As my head cleared, I found myself wondering what my men had found out at the village of the Wilding Fae. I realized I didn’t even know if they had named their village—and while it seemed a small thing in the scheme of things, it was a detail that I should know. Strict’s constant lessons were drummed into my head, and one of the most prominent was, “A Queen shall always know the details of her kingdom—and she will always know how the mood of her people runs.”
I rose and tugged on the long, velvet rope pull. Within less than a minute, Druise tapped quietly on the door and then entered. She was ready—always waiting for me.
“Your Majesty, good morning.”
“Morning, Druise. Will you take Sweet Pea to be fed and cared for.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Are you ready to bathe?” She moved toward the bathroom.
“Yes, please.” When we first took over the Eldburry Barrow, I had insisted that the Cambyra Fae responsible for outfitting the structure of the place rig up a bathtub that provided instant hot water. I didn’t care whether it was via magic or they had to import technology from the outer world. Two things I refused to relinquish were a bathtub and a flush toilet. Three, actually: an espresso machine. I wasn’t sure how they had managed it, but they had come through on all of them.
Druise carried the lynx away to her room, then returned to draw my bath as I pushed my arms through my robe. I could smell the lemon bath salts.
Grieve was still asleep. He snored, though not loudly, and looked very much like a little boy as he curled under the covers. I leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, then quietly padded into the bathroom, where I hung up my robe and climbed into the big claw-foot tub.
“What would you wear this morning, Your Majesty?” Druise deftly placed a bath cushion behind my neck and handed me a soft cloth and some soap. I bought my soaps and bath gels in New Forest, a holdover from my own life.
With a glance at her, I began lathering up. “I don’t know yet. Druise, do you think it’s odd for me to hold onto parts of my old life? The bath gels and espresso and…other things.” I missed my car most of all. Books, I could easily bring into the realm. The same with food and trinkets. Movies—not so easy, so now and then I went into New Forest to hang out with Peyton, a good friend who had helped destroy Myst, and we would spend all afternoon watching movies and I would get my fill of TV.
“I don’t rightly think it odd, Your Majesty. I would miss so much if I were asked to go outside the realm, to live in the outer world. I suppose I’d want a bit of home with me, too.” She vanished into the attached closet. “What about your spring blue corset and the navy skirt?”
Druise was forever trying to steer me toward skirts. I knew that Strict had put her up to it, trying to encourage me to dress more the part, and some days I deliberately refused just to annoy him. But today, I refused because I wasn’t sure when I’d be called out. A lot rode on the shoulders of what the men found at both the Wilding Fae village and the site where The Wave Catcher had sunk. Speaking of…
“Have people been discussing the ship?” I called to her. “I’ll take my blue corset and a pair of jeans. Boots, not heels or slippers.”
After a moment, Druise reappeared, clothing in hand. “Yes, Your Majesty. There is little else being spoken of.”
“And what are they saying?” I was hoping not to hear what she said next, but I wasn’t surprised.
“That perhaps Myst is back, her spirit returned. That perhaps…the Vampiric Fae have a hand in the disappearance of the crew. There is much fear, Your Majesty, and very little trust that we will find out before whatever it is comes for the Barrow.”
And there it was. They still didn’t trust me. Their Barrow had been taken from them once, and they feared it would happen again. While I had led the fight against Myst, and we had killed her, they didn’t trust me to rule them and keep them safe. I was an outsider. Every day, in some way, I was reminded of that one fact. And every day, I tried to make inroads on it—to do something to bring the people closer to me.
Some were welcoming, but others were openly hostile. Oh, no one was deliberately rude to my face—Check would gut them for it, and he was always by my side when I was out and about. But the looks…the whispers…I knew what people were saying. And I also knew that barring assassination, they had little choice but to grudgingly accept me.
“I know they don’t trust me, Druise. But it still hurts when I hear it.” I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do about it, either. They were stuck with me, and I was stuck with them. I couldn’t abdicate. If I did, I’d start to age immediately and have to journey to the Golden Isle. And I just wasn’t ready for that.
“Oh please, Your Majesty—I didn’t mean it like that.” The look on her face made me jump to reassure her.
“I know, Druise. I know you didn’t mean it—please, don’t worry.” I had learned the hard way that Druise had an extremely soft heart, and she also had a deep sense of responsibility, which meant she often assumed guilt that wasn’t hers to assume.
I let her lace me into the corset after I slid on my jeans. She brushed my hair and fixed on my crown as I put on my makeup. Grieve was still asleep, but given we always had to appear at breakfast together, I motioned to Druise.
“I’m ready now. You can go. Thank you.” I never forgot to say thanks, given how roughly I knew some of the nobles treated their servants. That was next on my agenda—creating a special set of rules for how servants and workers were treated, though I knew that would go over like a lead balloon and there would be a lot of backlash. The Fae were not the most congenial of people to begin with, and the Winter Fae? Even less so.
She curtseyed, then quietly withdrew from the room. As she closed the door behind her, I leaned over Grieve and kissed his cheek. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We have to get down to breakfast and check on how things went at the village of the Wilding Fae.”
He blinked, then flashed me a lazy smile and held out his arms. “Why don’t we take a break first?”
“As tempting as that is, I don’t think we have the leeway this morning. Not with the way the news about The Wave Chaser has gone over.”
As he pushed back the covers and slid out of bed, I told him what Druise had said about the rumors going around. “We have to quash the idea that Myst is back. I don’t want wholesale panic.”
Grieve stretched, his naked body an invitation to run my tongue along his chest…and other places. But I restrained myself. “But…is it?” he asked.
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it a rumor? Could there be any truth to the idea? I think that
before we go blowing smoke away, we’d better make sure there isn’t truly a fire to worry about in the first place.” The look on his face terrified me. He was actually considering the chance that Myst might have returned.
As he dressed—the clothing that appeared were his royal togs, which told me he was taking this seriously—I wandered over to the mirror and stared at my reflection. Myst, the Queen of the Indigo Court, had been my mother in a different life. My soul still bore energy from the Vampiric Fae. Grieve and I had been on opposite sides in that lifetime, but we had still met and fallen in love, and we had died for our love. The thought that the cruel queen might have returned stabbed my stomach like the tip of a sharp dagger.
“I can’t believe that she might be back. I can’t let myself believe it. I destroyed her heartstone. I killed her. She has to be gone because I don’t know if I could take her on again.” My voice was barely a whisper.
Grieve took me by the shoulders, pressing against my back as he nuzzled my neck, then turned me around for a full-on kiss, deep and passionate and darkly reassuring.
“I don’t think she’s back, but we must make certain. We have to look into all possibilities. What happened to the hundreds of people aboard The Wave Chaser—we can’t let any stone go unturned in our investigation. So, we will look into the chance that Myst has returned, or that someone among the remnants of her people has taken up the banner. We won’t assume it so, but we will check it out to eliminate the possibility.”
His voice was no-nonsense, and his practicality cut through the haze of fear that had risen. He stroked my cheek as I took a deep breath.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For being you. Come on, let’s get down to breakfast.” I took his hand and we headed out of the room. Check was waiting outside—he slept in shifts and was always with me when I went about the Barrow in public, but today instead of Fearless, he was with a guard whose name was Truce.