“Me, too.” He lets out a contented sigh. “This is a good place to die. Perhaps bury me over there and plant an oak.”
“Oh, Dad, can we change the subject? I hate to even think about that.”
But he just takes my hand and says, “We all have to die sometime, Rosie, and you gave me such a good last act of life. You have nothing to feel sad about when I’m commended to Sylvos’s garden.”
My eyes flutter open as I wake from that bittersweet dream to find my wrists unfettered and the room not just speckled but drenched in sunlight.
And something cold on my arms, upper legs, and—perhaps most disturbingly—my nether regions.
With a gasp, I pull back the blanket to find my arms, thighs, and sex coated in a bright-blue adhesive paste. I’m still puzzling over it when I spot a notecard, written in delicate cursive and propped beside my pail.
Do not be alarmed. I’ve applied this special taarhorn tape to ensure you can garden on your last day. It peels off easily.
—Your Friend, Rinthiah
Gratitude floods my heart, even brighter than the sunlight.
I don’t remember Rinthiah coming in to tend to me, but her sweet note explains why I woke fully bathed, with no soreness in my muscles, despite what passed last night.
NowthatI remember.…
Excruciating images inundate my mind. Flashes of Veyrion taking me everywhere. The throne. The throne’s arm. Propped against a stone wall, his taloned hands cupping my breasts as he rocked between my legs. Pressed against the window with my breast smashed to the glass, his shadows binding my heels to the back of my thighs.
Oh yes, I remember—especially the part where I kept climaxing again and again, like one of those actors in that adult play the real princess once made me sneak her into (despite the trouble I’d have been in if her parents ever found out).
But last night, I hadn’t been nearly so circumspect as I was hiding in the temporary tent that niche troupe had pitched just outside our kingdom’s borders.
My desperate cries of“Yes! Yes! Give it to me! I need it!”echo through my mind, along with all my “Oh, moons. Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
And, of course, there was that bit where I actually thanked my future murderer for ensuring I didn’t die a virgin.
My mind threatens to collapse under the shame of acting so wantonly. But my clit throbs at the memory—totally traitorous. And greedy for more.
Moist, what is wrong with me?
I blame it on some kind of end-of-life delirium.
And I absolutelydo notallow myself to look at the statue standing by the window as I rise to my feet and begin peeling offthe taarhorn tape that saved my muscles—and nether regions—from what likely would’ve been a crippling amount of soreness had Rinthiah not intervened.
She even left another dress for me, folded neatly beside the blankets. And this time, it’s been cut and hemmed so the sleeves and skirt are much shorter.
More gratitude floods my heart as I pull it on.
I’m almost ready to go, but I can’t help casting one last glance toward the Stone Fae King’s statue before I leave.
Not so I can sneak another look at those seriously muscular buns I clung to last night when he took me on top of his throne.
At least… that’s what I tell myself.
But then I pause. The statue is gone, and the space before the window is empty.
Did he decide to stone up somewhere else?
But no, I don’t find him in the hall or the courtyard, where several of his soldiers are standing in what appears to be a formal formation, Commander Skorrin included. I notice at least one seems to be missing. Kinnarick, though—the soldier with midnight-black hair tied in a distinctive topknot who stood just behind the commander when he promised to clear the brambles—is nowhere to be seen.
Nor is the missing soldier in the garden, where even more of the servants have chosen to stone up, Rinthiah among them.
But I do find Brelliard, who has brought even more goats with him this time—at least triple the amount.
