From Nereus’s bedroom window (don’t ask), I saw Furie, trapped at the bottom of the ocean. She’s alive and doing as well as can be expected—i.e., cataclysmically bad. I assume you and the Valks are going to bring the pain to Sargasoe soon? P.S. We sure could use some foresight up here in the Skye.
With all those letters written, Lanthe had struggled with a more lengthy explanation for her sister. She’d started—then wadded up—more than a dozen of them. She hadn’t been able to decide how much to reveal of her past with Thronos.
It was one thing to tell her big sister to her face: “Well, I kind of misled you for centuries.” It was quite another to write it out.
How to explain what Thronos had come to mean to her?
Yesterday she’d decided to start from the beginning, the day she’d first met him. Now it was late afternoon, and she’d only just gotten to the—heavily edited—faux Feveris part. She’d given herself a deadline of one more day. . . .
She gazed up from her desk, scanning the sky for Thronos. He’d be home soon to take her to the bastion for dinner.
He’d been meeting with his knights, tirelessly strategizing their defenses and implementing their new evacuation plan. Yesterday they’d organized their first drill. There’d been some hiccups, so today, they planned to “calibrate” things.
His body was paining him until he could barely conceal the agony in front of others. The stress of leading a realm on the brink of war wasn’t helping anything. He was exhausted from all his duties, exhausted from his conflicted grief.
In Pandemonia, he’d told her that when he’d realized his father had killed her parents, he’d looked up at the man and seen a stranger. He felt the same way about his brother—
She heard the now familiar swoop of Thronos’s wings. When she was with him and they were able to close out the world, life could be sublime. When she wasn’t with him . . . not so much. Unable to hide her customary jolt of excitement, she leapt up from the desk. “You’re home—”
He seized her hand. Without a word, he headed straight for their bedroom to fall face-first atop the bed—his big body was like a tree gone timber.
“Your day was that good, huh?” She climbed onto the bed, rucking up her skirt. “Scooch your wings.” When he parted them, she straddled the small of his back.
He turned his face to the side. “I had more fun with the pest.” Clearly, he was not in the mood to go dine with others right now.
Oh, darn. They’d have to miss eating in the grim dining hall? Not a problem. She’d been stockpiling fruit, surprisingly tasty breads, and divine cheeses—for just such an occasion.
When she began to knead his muscles, he gave a deep groan. “You’re a gods-send, lamb.”
“I know,” she said though she’d just gotten ink prints all over the back of his shirt. Oops. “Um, how did the calibration go?”
“The alarm does work. Unfortunately, the only place to trigger it is in the Hall. Every island needs this ability to sound the alarm.”
“It’ll come.” She pressed her thumbs round and round into his fatigued muscles.
“Tell me your day was better than mine.”
“Mine was okay.” Lanthe found it funny to be having this “How was your day, dear?” conversation with him. As if they were a long-wed couple.
But the two of them had started to fall into rhythms. Each night after dinner, they assailed each other—even if he’d managed to drop in a few times over the day. During those stolen daytime trysts, he’d take her hard against the wall or atop her desk, with his hand over her mouth to mute her desperate moans. He’d sink his fangs into his forearm to stifle his own bellows.
Every time he brought her release, he grew more sexually confident. More cocky.
Which was hot as hell.
If he came before her, he’d drop down and use his mouth to bring her over the edge. The first time he’d done this, she’d cried, “Oh! Ohhh . . .” and felt obligated to say something before he tasted his own seed.
He’d answered, “It’s unavoidable. Throughout every day and night, I will fill your sheath and kiss it at every opportunity. Besides, it’s me mingled with you—never deny me that.”
Wicked, pervy Vrekener.
Once the worst of their need had been slaked, they would read correspondence together. He always wanted her opinion on things. More than once he’d told her, “When you said you wanted to co-rule, I took that very seriously. Tell me what you think. . . .”
Now he asked her, “Did you pick up your new clothes?”
“I did!” Her second day here, she’d realized that she needed lots of new garments, and that they should be fabulous since she was a queen and all. Even if her subjects were lame.
After giving designs for metal garments to the smithy, she’d crashed a group’s sewing circle with instructions for strapless dresses. Lanthe figured she would split the hemline difference with Thronos—mini instead of micromini.