Page 29 of The Fae Queen's Captive
I take the heart from her hands and lift it to my mouth. It’s still warm, and heavier than I think it will be, andsoft. Softer than steak. Blood drips onto the leaves and crushed ferns underneath me as I take a long breath, smelling the metallic tang of fresh blood. And then I take a bite, having to pull to tear it free.
It’s tender between my teeth, and it tastes like blood, and it’s shockingly delicious. Like a rare cut of meat, like tartare at a fancy restaurant. And for a moment, long and lingering, I taste something more than meat, more than blood.
I taste the forest. I tastehere. Faerie. History and magic and cruelty and wonder and depth.
I taste what I wanted to taste my entire life, until I made myself stop wanting it.
I swallow the heart meat and then lift my eyes to the queen’s. Her stare is shining with something I don’t understand, but I don’t have to wonder for long. She takes the heart from my hands and sets it carefully on a pillow of ferns. And then her bloody hands are twisted in my dress, dragging me close to her for a hard, crushing kiss.
She tastes of blood and, past that, like she did last night, like lust and hope and promises I’ve broken to myself only to find that someone else was keeping them for me.
She tastes like fairy fruit. And I choose each and every lick of it.
I open more to her searching tongue, melting against her as it strokes against mine, flickers, devours. Our lips are slippery with blood, and when she lifts a hand to hold my face in place for her pleasure, I feel the blood on my jaw and on my cheek.
The entire world is inside of me and inside of her, and between our mouths is the truth of living, dying, wanting.
The truth is that I want to swallow it all whole, come what may.
I hear the excited baying of the hounds and then the whistle of the hunt master, very close, and the queen breaks off our kiss. Through the dizzy fruit feeling, I’m gratified to see she looks very annoyed at the interruption.
“Your Majesty,” the hunt master says, sounding out of breath as she kneels. “Well shot.”
“Thank you,” the queen says, rising easily to her feet and then helping me up with firm fingers wrapped around my hand. The dogs sit obediently near the hunt master, but their noses work with avid intensity, smelling the deer and the spilled blood. “I trust you’ll make sure our prize is ready for the feast tonight?”
“I will, Your Majesty,” the hunt master says, already pulling out her own knife to dress the deer. “Would you like me to save the rest of the heart for the others?”
“Yes.” The queen smiles sharply. “Morven shall have the rest. And will you have someone see to our horses as well? I think we’ll take the long way to the pavilion.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” answers the hunt master, and after stopping by her horse to sling a bag over her shoulder, the queen leads me away from the stag and deeper into the forest.
Chapter12
Idon’t know how long we walk, not only because the fruit of the queen’s kiss is sweet in my blood but because the sun doesn’t move across the sky in the same way here, and so what feels like an hour might only be a few minutes in fairy time. But we stop by the burn, which is shallower and wider here, and wash with rose-scented soap from the queen’s bag.
After the blood is cleaned from our hands and faces, the queen gives me a leather costrel of water to drink, and then when I’m done, she runs a thumb along the edge of my lower lip to catch a stray drop of water.
Her eyes are as hot as they were when she was kissing me with the heart between us, and the answering heat inside me arrows straight to my clit. An ache—hot and full—throbs along the narrow length to the small, needy glans, and my entire pussy responds.
Just from her stare.
“Would you like me to be your pet now?” I whisper. It doesn’t even occur to me to be shy about it, to try to hide how much I want her. Or to hide how much I want her to want me back. I could blame it on the fruit, of course, and pretend I’m too stoned to keep up the pretense of Easy Janneth, but I won’t.
Even without the fruit earlier today, I felt the same—like keeping hold of that flimsy, colorless version of myself had become impossible overnight. Impossible once she told me that everything I did would be pleasing to her.
And she seems pleased now, or at least aroused, because her eyes flash as she leans in to kiss me again, and her hands are demanding, eager, pulling me close and then finding my hips, my ass, my breasts. “Yes,” says the queen finally, shoving up my dress to curl her fingers over my clothed pussy. “Now. Always.”
I moan into her kiss as she plunders my mouth and then give a surprised exhale when she pushes me onto my back. I’m cushioned by ferns and leaves, and so it’s not at all uncomfortable, only a bit cool and damp, and that’s no bother when I’m running so hot all over.
She’s kneeling over me with her knife once again in her hand.
I have a moment of cold, clear worry, which simmers into something so molten I can’t help squirming as she slides the point against the soft fabric of her breeches and then cuts them open with an impatient flick. She tosses the knife aside and tears the fabric even farther apart so that her sex is bared to the open air.
She moves over me, swinging her knee easily over my head so she can straddle my face. She reaches down to drag her fingers to my chin, parting my lips, and then she lowers herself to fuck my open mouth.
I’m not prepared—could never have been prepared—for the unmediated taste of her. Sweet and warm, almost citrusy. With that deep flavor only pussy has. And then, just as with her kiss, just as last night, there is the taste under the taste, and if her kisses were enough to get me stoned, then licking her cunt is enough to send meflying.
I feel every thread of life around me, every breath and whisper of stirring leaves and searching tendril of mycelium. I feelher, strong, hot, the muscles in her thighs and hips quivering, her blood rich as an entire universe in her veins. I feelmyself: the quick pants swelling my lungs, and the twist in my belly, and the restless kick of my legs as my body searches for friction that isn’t there.
