King Ostern returned on his Sabersythe, trailed by his two youngest sons—Cadok and Tyroth—both here for The Great Flurrt celebration. It’s the first I’ve seen the male I’m to bind with since the slumber I set foot in his pah’s kingdom.
Call me untrusting, but I took one of the dragonscale blades Kaan had shown me how to forge and kept it close to my body. Until the moment Tyroth corralled me in a hallway and tried to shove me into a darkened corner. Then I pressed it against his throat.
He laughed. Said his sister had been a bad influence on me. My response was that I felt her influence was quite the opposite. He told me I wasn’t allowed to speak yet, so I told him he could eat dragon shit and that I hoped he choked on it.
Wishful thinking.
At feasting, I was made to sit beside him, donned in my veil, awkwardly eating the food that had been served for me like an animal. Hard with a clothed mouth. Even harder when all the food I’d been given was either too rich or spicy for my palate and I wasn’t allowed to speak—to ask for other things stacked farther down the table.
Kaan kept his stare firmly locked on Tyroth while I suffered in the silence expected of a princess unless she’s either bound or given herself to the Creators. Like Veya.
Speaking of which, Veya was strangely silent—closed off, eyes downcast—as she ate beside her nephew. I didn’t understand why until her pah started pecking at her, harping on about all the ways she’d disappointed him.
With each of his scalding words, she shriveled a little more, until he said he regretted the slumber he’d sown her in her mah’s womb.
A tear slid down her cheek—the first I’d ever seen her cry.
I snapped.
I ripped off my veil, climbed on the table, and charged to the other end. I slammed my fork through a pile of colk meat that I’d been salivating over since the meal began, then I proceeded to sit back in my chair, stuff my mouth full, and toss King Ostern a fake smile.
The fuck.
He glared at me as I chewed with my mouth wide open before plucking some blanched muji beans off Tyroth’s plate, stating that I’m certain he didn’t mind sharing with me since he was currently ruling my kingdom.
He glared at me, too, and I could see in his eyes that he was pushing down the urge to backhand me across the face for my bad behavior.
Wish he had. I desperately wanted an excuse to slam my fork through his thigh.
I was just sucking the meat juice off my fingers when King Ostern announced Kaan and Veya would be leaving with Cadok and Tyroth after The Great Flurrt so they could help rebuild a village torn apart by a rabid Sabersythe.
Everyone looked shocked except the King himself.
Kaan joined me in our home later and took me so slow and tenderly, speaking a million words through every touch, every kiss, every desperate clutching embrace. I soaked in his presence until the aurora rose like a burst of silver ribbons woven across the entire sky, and we spent The Great Flurrt tangled beneath the sheets in our quiet bubble of delusion and denial.
In thirty cycles, I turn twenty-one. Preparations have already begun for the binding ceremony in Arithia between myself and Tyroth.
For my coronation.
I think Kaan and I both feel as if ignoring the future will prevent it from coming …
If only that were true.
Istare at Kaan’s immense, beautifully tattooed back as he moves through the kitchen space, rinsing a bowl of berries, slicing a globe of copperdew melon into juicy segments that spritz the air with tangy sweetness.
Every confident, fluid shift of his body reminds me how well he broke me down into a trembling, begging mess of corrupted thoughts and short-term decisions.
Chewing the inside of my lip, I strum my fingers on the tabletop, stuck in this strange limbo. Half drunk on lusty satiation while also welling with a ball of static energy that’s flicking at my ribs, urging me to leap across the room and wrestle the male currently filling two bowls with a vibrant cacophony of freshly foraged fruit.
He wraps his fist around a gongnut and cracks it, plucking the shell away from the pale insides he then crumbles atop both servings.
I shake my head.
A fully stocked cupboard with a handful of options to break our fast, and the male knows exactly what to serve me. Not that I asked for a meal, or a spring water served in my favorite mug. Or for my soul to be cradled while he was so deep inside me there was no place to hide.
Yet here we are.
Him, half naked, moving with the mirth of someone who just stepped off a battlefield, blood barely blotted from his skin before dashing a cloth over his shoulder and preparing food he personally foraged. And me, festering in the aftermath of our emotionally charged coupling, hair askew, mind mulched. Trying to work out how I went from winning the most important game of Skripi I’ve ever played to sitting at this table, wishless, boggled, and annoyingly aroused.