Page 38 of The Fae Queen's Captive
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” she says. “I cannot hurt you here.”
Not incredibly reassuring, but I find I’m not that afraid anyway. Not with Morgana here. Her presence is as palpable and reassuring as a hill at my back. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Acanthia moves her hand to my hair and leans down to kiss me. I open my mouth obediently for her, allow her inside my mouth. I find her kiss floral and a little bitter too, but not in a bad way. More like fresh herbs, newly plucked, or maybe grass in the summer sun.
The fresh dose of fruit hits me hard, sending heat to the fast-slickening place between my legs.
The Thistle Queen doesn’t kiss me long, but I didn’t expect her to. This is about testing Morgana’s patience and evaluating whether her feelings for me would make her stupid, and with the lusty fae, there seems to be one surefire way to do that. Acanthia pushes my head down, her intention clear. She hasn’t raised her skirts for me, making me be the one to lift the heavy velvet enough to expose her need, and when I glance up to make sure I’ve pleased her, I find her staring at Morgana with an amused expression.
Her hand tightens in my hair, and I can’t see anymore as she pushes my mouth to her cunt, but I’m certain she’s still giving Morgana that same look. Daring Morgana to place her feelings for a temporary mortal pet over the future of her court.
Acanthia’s sex smells of honeysuckle and fairy fruit, and at the first lick, I am tumbling headlong into ecstasy. I lap eagerly at her furrow, parting her to get to the slickness inside, and once I get there, a slow-rolling orgasm detonates just behind my clit, making me tremble and clutch Acanthia’s pale green thighs to keep myself upright. I don’t stop giving head, though, unable to stop, unable to bear not having just one more hit.
“I forgot how wonderful mortals are,” Acanthia croons, not to me but to Morgana. “They thrill just to taste us, don’t they?”
Even through the fruit haze, I feel a little smug to hear that her voice is unsteady at the end, a little breathless, because yeah, I’m pretty fucking good at this.
I push a finger into the queen’s entrance, and then another. And then, with both hands in my hair, she pulls me tight to her and starts rocking against me. I give her the flat of my tongue to rub her clit against, and there’s velvet spilling over my head, and I wonder if Morgana’s watching, if she’s jealous, if she wants to come over here and haul me off to use me like she did in the forest, riding my face until every breath smells like her.
The thought wrings another cataclysm out of me, and I whimper against Acanthia as she also tumbles over the edge, fast and quick. Her inner muscles move around my fingers, and I taste the fresh fruit of her release. And though she doesn’t cry out or moan, her breath does hitch. Her body curls over mine the slightest bit.
When I pull back to look at her over the tumble of her velvet skirts, she looks a little stunned. And now I’m alotsmug. I mean, mostly horny and stoned, but smug too.
But she recovers quickly, pulling me up for a long kiss, which she trails to my jaw and to my ear.
“Little pet, you are quite something,” she murmurs. “I can see why she adores you. Not so much that she won’t pay the tithe, but it will hurt her to do it, be sure of that.”
I turn my head, and I don’t know if it’s to look at her or to taste her mouth again. “The tithe?” I ask, a little confused. “Hurt?” All I can think of is Tam Lin, of the little rhyme-y words. They dance in my fruit-soaked thoughts.
At every seven years, they pay a tithe to Hell.
And I’m so fair and full of flesh, I’m feared ’twill be myself.
“Oh, I thought you knew,” she says, voice hushed and full of sweet concern. “It’s up to the Court of Stags to pay it this time. Up to Morgana.”
The queen had said as much before we came here, but I must have missed the part where it wouldhurther to pay the tithe.
If it’s a tax, then can’t taxes wait? Is there a fairy IRS she can complain to about this?
I want another kiss. I want to dive under Acanthia’s skirts again. Magic swirls in the air, pulses through me. But the magic pulls at my thoughts too, pulling them down to the earth beneath my knees, pulling them down to this very moment.
Think, a voice in my mind whispers.Ask.
“Can’t she just not…pay it this time?” I ask dazedly.
Acanthia laughs. It reminds me of wind on the hills, of days that look like they should be warm but are somehow cold as shit instead. “The tithe is what holds our entire world together,” she tells me, still too low for anyone but me to hear. “If the tithe isn’t paid, then Faerie unravels. And then all the realms that use fae magic to tether them together unravel too. If the tithe isn’t paid, the veil stays open, and it will be as it once was in times of old. Death, famine, war between all the realms, all within a year. Maybe sooner.”
I want to protest, I want to tell her that can’t be true, that all these worlds can’t just fall apart because of some unpaid fee…but Acanthia can’t lie. About anything.
“And you know how we pay the tithe, right?” She kisses my cheek, my jaw again. My neck. Her kisses feel so good, everything feels so good, even as my mind struggles against the fruit to think. Morgana watches us, her eyes dark, her shoulders tense, like she’s keeping herself from leaning forward to hear us, since Acanthia is speaking for my ears alone.
“I don’t know,” I mumble, my eyes fluttering at the pleasure of her mouth behind my ear.
“With the life of beloved things. Belovedones. Consorts, lovers, kings and queens. Pets.”
When beloved things bleed, the land sings.
My eyes open. “What?”
