Claiming the Prince: Book One (44 page)

Her straining knot rubbed up and down against him, inside and out, slick and hot and winding with a rising, shuddering energy, abrading against his rigid iron shaft, at once fraying and tightening . . . until, at last, it broke.

She arched back as the gasps of ecstasy released through her, quaking and trembling.

He roared as she clenched around him. His fingers burrowed deep into the soft flesh of her thighs. His hips thrust upwards as his heat unleashed inside of her, pumping and swelling.

She collapsed against the slick planes of his chest, his heart pounding hard against her breasts.

His muscles twitched. They both moaned together as the last of him was spent. He fell slack under her.

For a moment, there was only their hammering pulses and quick breaths and ebbing currents of intertwined fervor.

As the blinding corona of her Shine receded, a clawing spark of panic formed in her.

What if he thought this meant she’d made her choice—him? She hadn’t chosen anything. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t been in her Shine. Everything would be so much more complicated now. Why had she tied Kaelan up?

Kaelan . . . her heart sank.

What would he do when he found out?
If
he found out.

She wasn’t going to tell him. She wasn’t going to tell anyone. This had been a mistake . . . a fluke of her damned Rae instincts.

Before her logical mind succeeded in pulling her from the mire, Endreas rolled her over.

Gently, he kissed her forehead, her lips, her throat, the hollow between her breasts, the downward slope of her belly.

Each soft brush of his lips spoke to her in that silent language of his.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

He kissed the curls over her mound. His tongue parted the folds and lapped up the wetness he had left there. He watched her from the top of his eyes.

Mine.

And then he delved in, lapping and devouring, chasing away the pesky nits of rational thought as her Shine brightened, blinding her.

T
HE ROOM WAS DIM.
Seconds passed before she recalled where she was. Many more went by before the memories of what had happened between her and Endreas surfaced through the lingering fog left by her Shine.

Twisting in the sheets, she found the bed empty beside her.

No trace of Endreas except the musky aroma of their time together. Although just how much time that had been, she couldn’t say. Thinking about it ignited a terrible burn under her skin.

Finally, she shoved aside the bedclothes. Finding her body naked, muscles loose and responsive after days of love-making, made her tense.

Hurrying to the bathroom, she started filling the tub. While the water ran, she checked herself in the mirror. No glow. The Shine was burnt.

She said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods that, even though her body went into a mating frenzy every few months, pregnancy was not possible until after she had claimed a Prince.

She ran her hand down her neck, searching, but Endreas had left her skin unmarked.

Once convinced no outward evidence existed, she retrieved her knives from her shadow’s vault and trimmed her hair, which was a tousled mess. She could just hear her mother clucking disapprovingly for using her daggers to cut her hair. But Magda had other things to worry about.

The biggest among them, Kaelan.

The thought that he might discover what had happened between her and Endreas sent a cold tremor through her.

Once the bath was drawn, she sank in and scrubbed herself again, attempting to slough off every bit of skin Endreas had touched, at least on the outside.

Though her thoughts kept tugging towards Endreas, she restrained them with two mantras.

The first,
I do not love Endreas.

The second,
No one has to know.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, she found the bedding changed and remade, the curtains drawn back, food steaming on the table under the triptych of stained glass windows—red dwarf cap mushrooms in a green meadow—and new clothes laid out on the bed.

Did Meer know?

The brownie had to suspect.

No one could’ve mistaken the lingering scent of sex in the room and certainly not on the sheets. But would she tell the others that Magda had been with someone? And what if she’d seen Endreas? Would she have known who he was?

Magda’s stomach churned wondering and worrying, but she ate everything Meer had left—because she knew the brownie would give her hell if she didn’t. She washed it all down with many good strong cups of spiced tea and cream.

Palms sweating and heart hammering, she dressed. The new clothes fit even better than the ones Kirk had brought her. The trousers were gold-hued, the knee-high boots fine Pixie-cloth, a proper brassiere, a soft cream-colored tunic, and a dark brown jerkin with delicate bronze buckles up the left side. A satchel was provided, in which she stowed the Enneahedron.

She hovered by the door for countless minutes, chewing her lip.

I don’t love Endreas.

No one has to know.

She pulled open the door and headed downstairs.

The house had been transformed. Surely, more than a couple of nights had passed. The woodwork gleamed, not a spider or a dust mote in sight.

Unsettled by the quiet, she donned her daggers again. With their weight reassuring her, she moved through the downstairs hall into the gallery.

The dining table had been relieved of its shroud and buffed to a shine. The moth-eaten curtains had been replaced. The windows sparkled, offering a grand view of the terrace and the gardens beyond. Sparing Cae’s portrait a guilt-ridden glance, she passed through the kitchen, where pots boiled and steamed on the ceramic stove and the buttery aroma of bread baking told her it was, indeed, morning. Every tiled surface shone. The copper pots gleamed in the low light.

Out through the kitchen door, she rounded the barrier of a now tidy hedgerow and found the stone table on the terrace prepared with a cornucopia, the pond cleared of scum and excess vegetation, and the stone-lined garden beds mostly bare for all the weeds that had been uprooted.

“Good to see you are finally awake,” Meer said, popping up on one of the wooden terrace chairs. “You must be starved.”

She tensed. “Why must I be?”

The brownie lofted an eyebrow. “You’ve been locked in your room for six days.”

“Six days?” She touched her head. Had she been with Endreas the whole time? “Listen, Meer. You mustn’t . . . whatever you may know about what happened in my room, you can’t tell anyone.”

Meer’s nose turned up. “I would never speak to anyone about anything that occurred within my household.”

“Not even to the other brownies?”

Meer thrust her fists downwards. “Absolutely not! What do you take me for, a gossipy little sprite?”

She let out a relieved breath. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s only . . . anything that transpired in my room must never be spoken of.”

Meer straightened a fork. “Of course not. Though a week of much needed sleep hardly seems worth all this fuss. But as you wish, Mistress.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your discretion.”

“Is there anything else you require?” Meer asked.

“No, thank you.”

“The others are at the sparring grounds,” Meer said, gesturing towards the path leading to the training shed. “They have all been quite anxious for you to wake. Of course, I did not allow them to disturb you. In addition to the barriers on the entrances and exits, I also created a muffling spell around the room. No sound could pass inside . . . or out.”

The strangling tightness in her chest returned—Meer
did
know.

She took another deep breath to still the panicked tempest brewing within her.

Brownies were unfailingly loyal to their masters, but Meer wasn’t bound to Magda. Rather she’d been lent to them by Flor’s brother. She just had to hope Meer would be true to her word. Or she could kill the brownie. But saving herself a fight with Kaelan was hardly worth taking someone’s life . . . she guessed.

“Thank you again.”

The brownie bowed and then vanished.

Recomposing herself, Magda strode out to the sparring grounds.

They, too, had been tidied. Fresh sand covered the training yard. The shed had been repainted and the broken windows repaired.

Damion and Kaelan, as Cae, sparred with wooden wasters, both shirtless and plastered in sweat and sand. Flor sat behind a food-laden table under a crisp white sunshade. Her gray hair was cut short, though still longer than Magda’s. After the initial shock of it, Magda found the look quite suited the matron. Beside her, Honey gazed on placidly. Hero huddled near a half-eaten rind of melon, eyes glazed from overindulgence. Gur reclined in the shade under the old walnut tree.

“Well, look who it is,” Damion said.

Kaelan took the opportunity to knock Damion flat on his back.

“Ha!” Flor’s laugh startled a couple of green sprites who had been sneaking away on their spindly legs, carting a hunk of cheese between them. They dropped their ripe plunder and dove into the grasses.

“Never take your eyes off your opponent, Damion!” Flor said. “Good show, Cae!”

Kaelan bowed with a flourish.

Damion pushed himself up. Kaelan strode towards the edge of the training grounds, away from Magda, and dipped a cup into a bucket there.

She slowed as she skirted the edge of the practice yard and approached the table.

“Looks like training goes well,” she said.

Damion swiped his arm across his sweat-soaked forehead. “I have to give it to Cae. He’s taken all of my beatings remarkably well.”

Kaelan scooped up some more water and flung it at Damion, splashing him across the cheek.

Damion licked the water from lips, smiling.

“So . . . everything’s been all right?” she asked, waiting for Kaelan to look at her or meet her eye, but he did neither.

“I’m quite pleased,” Flor said, pushing out of her low-slung chair. “Our campaign is well underway. The Crown has refused Lavana’s request for early requisition of the family title. But only a short month remains for you to vie. Arrangements in the family quarter at the Spire have been made and I am assured that everyone awaits your return with bated breath. Every day word of your heroic journey spreads, and I’m told all versions paint Lavana in quite an unfortunate light.”

“That’s . . . good.” Her gaze pulled from Flor, bounced off Kaelan, who had bent to fill his water cup again, and then to Honey. The nymph wore a distant kind of smile on her serene face. “How are you, Honeysuckle?” she asked.

Honey blinked as if pulled away from some daydream and refocused on Magda. A strange ghostly haze muddled the nymph’s eyes.

“I’m very well,” Honey said. “How kind of you to ask, Magda.”

The soft intensity of her voice unsettled Magda’s stomach again. She wished she hadn’t forced herself to eat so much.

“Yeah, all right,” Damion said, stabbing his wasters into the sand where they lodged upright. “Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, can we discuss the plan?”

“The plan is quite simple,” Flor stated. “We travel to the Spire. Magda and Cae stand before the Crown with the Enneahedron. Once their case is presented, Lavana will obviously protest, and then the Crown will deliberate.”

Magda’s guts continued to twist. “Quite simple,” she repeated.

“When do we leave?” Damion asked.

“Tomorrow,” Flor announced and then turned to Honey. “If that’s acceptable?”

Honey smiled. “That would be fine.”

“It’s only a pity that Cae had to spend two days indisposed,” Flor said. “He’s accomplished so much in the last four. Really, Magda, you’ll be quite impressed I’m sure.” Flor plucked at her chin and then turned back to Honey. “Join me on the terrace for tea, Honeysuckle?”

“That sounds lovely,” Honey said, putting out her arm. Hero scurried up its length and settled on her shoulder. Flor and Honey departed towards the house.

“Two days?” Magda said in a hush to Damion.

“How much longer did you expect them to keep me tied up?” Kaelan asked, turning towards her finally, transforming back into his true self. Green eyes lit.

“You’re not supposed to change—” Damion started.

“It was for your own good,” she said to Kaelan.

A sharp smile edged his lips. “Is that so?”

“I think I’ll just . . .” Damion tromped away, leaving Magda and Kaelan glaring at each other. She’d expected him to be angry, but she hadn’t expected a hot flare to be licking up her own spine.

He tossed his wooden swords lazily into the sand. “It would’ve been nice to have a little warning that I was about to be imprisoned.”

“It should’ve been six,” she said hotly. “You don’t know what it’s like when a Rae is in her Shine. I did it to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From doing something we’d both regret.”

His gaze pushed away. Every lean muscle on his sand-encrusted torso flexed.

For as angry as he appeared, she kept expecting his emotions to reach out and impact her. Yet they remained elusive.