and curled her lips slightly up. “Is anyone’s life truly their own, bello?”
“Not just anyone has to confront the Beast,” he replied.
“This is troubling you,” she muttered, causing him to blink very slowly.
“It doesn’t trouble you?” he asked.
“My love, even if we were not prophesied to confront the Beast, we have no control over the lives we lead. You know that.”
“I like to think I have some control,” he grumbled.
At that, his wife grinned fully.
“Yes, well, you are king,” she teased. “So, I suppose you have more control than most everyone else, outside of other kings, of course.”
“Of course,” he murmured, his own lips twitching.
The humor in her lovely topaz eyes changed to warmth when she shared, “I have faith.”
This was True’s issue.
The things he had seen. The things he had done. The things he had lost. All of this dogging his every moment, even following him into his dreams.
He lacked faith.
“True,” Farah called.
He focused on his wife.
“We have different gods, no?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I do not know a great deal about your gods. Though I know they look after you. They give you wisdom and power and magic. My gods give energy and balance and clear-headedness. If we listen, if we believe, they guide us to where we need to be. They give us the gifts we need to see things through.”
She pushed up to her knees and moved toward True in a manner he opened his legs, and she settled between them, her hands on his thighs up high, close to his groin.
“My gift is you,” she whispered, her words taking his mind from her touch so close to his groin.
He took her jaw in both is hands and whispered in return, “Darling.”
“I have to have faith in my gods that they did not guide me through my life…to you, only to take you away. But True?”
“Yes, my beloved,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth not only to watch her speak, but because her hand had moved to cover what was stiffening between his legs.
“Even if we only have our now, what we have shared…” Her fingers moved to the string of his sleep pants and pulled it, diving in so he had her, skin-against-skin at his shaft. “I could not wake up in the morning, and I would have lived the life I needed, having fallen asleep at your side.”
“Farah,” he growled.
She surged up, pulled her dressing gown off her shoulders and let it fall, pooling at her feet.
She then lifted the long skirt of her nightgown to her hips and pushed down her panties, so they fell to her ankles.
She kept her nightgown up as she stepped out of her panties and climbed astride him, knees to the bed on either side of him.
He held his cock ready for her to lower upon, which she did, and when he had her, he groaned, a noise mingling seductively with her moan.
She touched each of his eyes with her lips before she rested her mouth against his, not to kiss, to be close to mingle her breath with his, her gaze with his as she curled her fingers around the sides of his neck and moved atop him.
“Does this not feel like it is the life we need?” she asked.
He curved his fingers in her bottom, digging the pads in, answering, “I will not argue that.”
“Every minute with you is a treasure,” she whispered.
At her words, automatically, his fingers dug in harder.
She started moving faster.
“I have earned you,” she said fiercely, squeezing him with her sex, making him grunt and use her arse to urge her to go faster. “I fought in this life, and I won,” she declared. “You are my victory. I have that and I will never lose it. No matter what happens.”
“And you are mine,” he replied, moving one hand to clasp her about the waist and take over, drawing her up and slamming her down.
“We have already won, True.”
“Yes,” he groaned, his balls contracting, his orgasm imminent. “We have won, my darling.”
“Yes,” she hissed against his mouth.
He was about to close his eyes with his climax, knowing with the way she tightened like a fist around his shaft, she was on the verge of hers…
When he caught the topaz of her eyes fading to vibrant leaf green.
And the instant she cried out her climax, he shot his seed inside his wife.
Prince Cassius
Bedchamber of the Prince Regent, Sky Citadel, Sky Bay
AIREN
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to collect Theodora and Aelia,