Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,77
still dry. Only my face and hair got splattered.
“Any other time,” he mutters darkly, concern overshadowing the madness and beauty that so often call to me from within his long-lashed gaze, “I would be tempted to ravenous by your challenge for dominance. But right now, you need to preserve your strength.” Igniting his blue magic, he uses the strands like a fan’s rotary blades to dry himself and me. “Someone capture the baby’s playthings and salvage the cradle!” he grouses to our attendants.
The sprites shake themselves off and putter about the room, bumping into one another in a rush to straighten the mess my wayward monsoon left behind.
“Fetch more clouds!” Their combined shouts tingle like a clatter of coins.
Chessie and Nikki appear with a mop to clean up the puddles. A few sprites assist with sponges. Others use miniature nets to scoop up the toys and return them to their box. Our attendants’ glimmering bodies reflect off the wet floor and form rivers of stars, small and distant. Disorienting.
I moan and close my eyes to fight a surge of nausea. My magical hair slaps my face, taunting me. Morpheus captures the long waves with his fingertips and wrestles them into a braid to contain them. It would be easier if he used his magic to do it. But he always insists on managing my hair with his hands. It’s his “honor and distinct pleasure to tame my tresses with his touch.”
A residual water droplet wriggles from my hairline, down my temple, and stops at my jaw—a benign itch that’s oddly grating against the backdrop of the electric currents racing through my torso.
“Little plum.” My king’s knuckles sweep across my eye markings and swipe away the water—leaving a gossamer trail as delicate as a spider’s web. “Let nature take its course. Stop fighting it.”
My eyes open to narrow slits. The candles have spontaneously relit.
“Nature?” My voice is earsplitting and terrible, the one I reserve for disobedient subjects. “I’m ready . . . you’re ready. Our entire kingdom is ready. But no. He’s too busy flying around in there. He’s the one fighting it. He doesn’t want to leave! Nothing about that is natural.”
Hues of purple and gray glisten through Morpheus’s jeweled eye markings. He drops to his knees on the damp floor and sculpts his hands around my swollen abdomen beneath the sheets. “All right, Trouble.” His term of endearment for the baby incites an irascible arm or leg to jut from inside. “Stop playing games. Wrap up your wings. ’Tis time to meet your subjects. Your mum is tired.”
Our son reacts to his father’s voice in an excited tizzy. The flapping intensifies, stirring more contractions. I glare at Morpheus. “You just had to teach him to use his wings. You couldn’t have waited a few more weeks until he’d actually need them!”
Morpheus’s head bows, a blue curtain hiding his features. With a trembling hand, I push back the strands, regretting my harshness. He’s on the opposite end of the same situation as me. He has no idea how to act, what to do.
“Forgive me,” I whisper.
He clasps his fingers over mine and meets my gaze. “No need. I would’ve already taken off the heads of everyone in this room were I being tortured like you.”
With all the magic my king and I have between us, neither of us can control what’s happening to my body, or appease this lightning storm that brews within me, refusing to come out. But the pain doesn’t quench my maternal desire. My longing to see our prince . . . to cradle his tiny, magical body to mine, nuzzle his downy blue hair, smell his scent. To love him eternally. Unconditionally.
It’s overwhelming to consider how important he’s going to be, to more than just me and Morpheus. He’s going to improve our way of life here, by teaching the netherlings how to dream so they’ll never again need to rely on humans for that rare resource crucial for peace among the restless spirits in the cemetery.
Innocence and imagination, the components of dreams, have been missing in the fae lineage for so long, no one can even remember when they possessed such traits. Ivory once told me that it’s why Wonderland’s occupants don’t have childhoods. The nether-realm is founded on chaos, madness, and magic. Innocence and imagination fell by the wayside long ago, replaced by manipulation and murderous intent on their children’s playgrounds.
But Morpheus experienced innocence through me, each time we played together in my dreams,