“It certainly doesn’t hurt.” I teased back, his loud laughter a greater reward than any star opal could ever be.
We landed at the base of the mountain the fortress rested on and shifted back into our Fae forms. The mining equipment could be seen from here, but it was the huge building formed into the star opal itself that took my breath away.
“You carved the fortress out of the mountain?” I asked, turning to Calix in surprise.
He nodded seriously. “It’s defensive. No one can breach it. Star opal in this form is stronger than any other material we have. However this mountain came about, it’s nearly impenetrable. We have special tools formed with star opal tips just to be able to mine it. It won’t break otherwise.”
I blinked in surprise. What was star opal, truly? This wasn’t a naturally occurring formation. A gift from the gods, maybe? “You have no idea how it came to be?”
“None.” He shook his head, silvery-white hair brushing his chest, and I took a moment to look him over. Drooling over him, if I was honest. A girl had to take what she could get, and he looked absolutely mouth-watering in this attire.
He always did, in truth, but I rarely saw him in full courtly attire. Today, he’d been forced to dress for diplomatic relations. Not as over the top as the outfit he wore when holding court himself, but more so than his regular everyday clothes.
He was wearing a long, black jacket with purple dragon scales affixed to the shoulders and purple embellishments ran down the front of each side of the jacket that resembled a dragon’s body. The back had two purple wings etched in jewels. Silver embroidery decorated the sleeves, from the wrist to the scales on his shoulders, done cleverly to subtly include stars and moons. Sadly, the collar of the jacket partially covered the warrior tattoo on his neck. I loved that tattoo on him.
The black shirt he wore underneath the jacket had purple buttons running down the middle that looked slightly like the claws of a dragon. It was also cut to a V at the bottom, which complimented the three purple lines going down the very start of each pant leg that formed a V at the top, with the middle being higher than the two beside it.
The outfit was topped with his sword belt, the sheath carrying his black-bladed sword, and the dragon hilt with its wings spread sitting on his hip. He’d insisted on wearing it for our arrival, not trusting Aurelia or Arien.
“My father told me once that the mountains predated the Fae,” Calix stated, bringing me out of my quickly forming fantasies of stripping that jacket and shirt off him, exposing every hidden tattoo until I could lick each one. “We’ve all speculated, but there’s unfortunately no way to know what really happened.”
I shook my head to clear it as Calix looked down at me, a thoughtful look on his face. “Are you ready for this?”
I bit my lip, my eyes shooting downward. Unlike Calix, I worried less about protection and more about how I looked when I met them. I ran my hands down my dress, hoping it met their expectations. They were expecting a princess, the lost heir of Day Kingdom. And even as strange as those titles being connected to me was, I didn’t want them to see me and be disappointed.
I’d decided on one of the new dresses Delia had commissioned for me. The dress was light purple, similar to Calix’s eyes, and appeared to almost change color in the light, with bits of green, blue, and yellow shimmering within it. It made me kind of feel like a star opal myself, if I was honest.
The sleeves draped down in waves, and the skirt had light flowing layers. The bodice was cut off the shoulder, in the sweetheart neckline I’d grown to prefer, with small silver dragon scales coming off where it sat on each shoulder. Silver embellishments crossed diagonally across the bodice and down, looking like shooting stars.
“You look gorgeous, my réalta,” Calix said quietly, grabbing my hands from where I was brushing my skirt. “They will look at you and see nothing less than a queen. I know I do.”
My eyes watered as I met his, the Aurora slowly forming in his eyes, echoing the emotions I could feel from him in the bond.
“Calix—” My voice caught, cracking.
He let go of one of my hands, reaching up to brush a lock of dark hair behind my ear, trailing a finger down my cheek. “In truth, that’s all I’ve ever seen when I’ve looked at you. But now, the entire world will know it too.”
“I’m not queen of anything.” I shook my head in denial, but he growled, pulling me bodily into him, until we were pressed together.
“You are the only queen I see. My soulmate, foretold by the gods,” he rasped, and his eyes flashed as I lifted a hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding in time with my own.
“Do you mean…” I trailed off, unsure.
“I was planning to explain later, and I will,” he sighed, watching me carefully. “But what you need to know is that you’re the queen Night has been waiting for. A star queen prophesied to come and bring light to my darkness.”
I blinked, stunned by the thought as a wave of emotion rose in me. I didn’t have time to unravel the whole story now, but I did have time for one thing.
I reached up, grabbing his head, and brought his face down to mine. We let out simultaneous moans as our lips met, a clash of passion underlined by the emotion of the moment. His hands grasped my hair and hip, holding me to him as he devoured my mouth with his own, quickly dominating the kiss as I gave in to the sheer power of him.
I could feel shadows running down my body, and knew he wanted to feel as much of me as he could. I wondered if my starlight could do something similar, and since it had already responded to my emotions and covered me in its silvery glow, I willed it to reach out and caress his skin.
His growl rumbled against my mouth as he felt my starlight streak a line down his chest, and I giggled breathily into the kiss. I could feel his pleasure like it was my own, and I let my tongue run along his fangs as my starlight slipped over the bulge in his pants, teasing him as his cock twitched against the whispered movement.
“You’re killing me, my réalta,” Calix groaned as I put more pressure on his cock. His shadows retaliated, slipping under my dress and teasing across my thighs, before finding my lace panties, already growing wet from his kiss. He let his shadows play around them, skirting the edges before pressing down on my covered slit.
“You haven’t seen anything yet, my dorchadas.” I moaned, but was surprised to taste blood in my mouth. I blinked, running my tongue across my teeth, and discovered the sharp canines I usually had now lengthened into fangs. I smirked wickedly against Calix’s mouth before scraping them across his lip.
“Fuck,” he groaned, gripping me tightly, his shadows becoming like bands across me, leaving me immobile and incredibly turned on. He pulled back to look at me, lilac eyes darkened into a deeper purple, the Aurora dancing through them like a storm.
