With his taloned hands cupping my ass, his black tongue slithered into my tunnel, hot as the heating pads I used for period cramps.
And what couldn’t have been more than a piddly hill of timeglass sand later, I was screaming, sloppily grinding against his eager mouth as I came undone.
By the night of my shadow punishment for the pre-sunsrise handjob, my Stone Fae King had discovered—after lots and lots of investigation—that this was the absolute best way to get me ready to take his insanely large, thick staff.
That eve, he crashed me down on his length and sank his fangs into my neck. I’m still not entirely clear on the science behind fae blood drinking, but apparently, it feeds him with “the kind of sustenance even food cannot provide.”
It also floods both our systems with endorphins and a bunch of other brain chemicals I (again, only half-jokingly) call “party drugs.” Like, there’s no biting if either of us has anything on our nighttime agendas or needs to get up early the next morning.
He must have cleared his schedule, because I ended up taking and taking and (Oh moons! Yes! Yes!) taking my punishment until the suns came up.
I’m pretty sure that’s when I got pregnant,I write in the diary.Either way, my period hasn’t come since, and my belly has swollen big with…
Again, my shadewing pen stills.
The truth is, I don’t know what’s growing inside my womb. Yerivian and Veyrion believe it’s an egg. My father and I can only hope it’s a live baby.
Either way, I’ve kept an important difference between humans and fae to myself:
Veyrion has never heard of a mother dying in childbirth—or even of miscarriage.
But human history is full of such tales.
I keep my worries from him, and mostly from myself. I still haven’t stopped living like I only have three days left.
And it shows in the way I practicallyjumpon Veyrion as soon as he returns from his meeting with the chamberlain.
I won’t go into the details of how thoroughly I distract myself, but at the next suns-set, Rinthiah comes looking for me.
“The goats said you never made it outside. Are you sick with one of those colds you humans—oh no, Sovereigness,not again!”
“I’ve told you to call me Sallie Rose,” I remind her—with as much dignity as I can manage while trapped inside the granite embrace of his arms while we both sit in obvious mid-coitus upon his throne.
At least I’m comfortable with my legs wrapped around his stone waist (thank goodness I learned my lesson not to ever,eversit on top of him in a kneeling position for throne sex after the last time the suns caught us out).
And thanks to him beinginsideme, his staff remains untouched by the rays of the two suns setting on our side of the castle. That means, whenever I get too bored during the hours it takes before he can release me from his stone embrace, I’ve diverted myself with several rounds ofCan I move my hips enough to get both myself and my mostly granite husband off?
The answer to that question isyes.
Rinthiah tuts after she climbs the shadowed side of the throne stairs, where the sunlight doesn’t reach, and finds the mess we’ve made where our private parts are still very much joined.
“I avow, you two have made me happy to have mated with a female. The state of you!” She stomps back down the stairsto bring out the bath, which has become a permanent fixture in our room. “Youandthe king's seat will require a most thorough cleaning, and there are tens of people waiting outside the door to meet with you for throning hours!”
“How many of those people are requesting garlands?” I shoot back with a Veyrionesque lift of my eyebrow. “Because I absolutely refuse to hear one more complaint from those whiny nobles.”
Rinthiah drags over the bathtub. “Alright then, you haveninepeople wishing to meet with you—don’t you dare, Sire!”
Proving how much less obsequious she’s become since my ascendance to the throne, she rushes up the stairs to bat at the king when he tries to immediately resume where he left off the moment he uncasts.
So, that eve we’re both impatient and horny.
And get this, only five of the throne meetings are legit. The other four are nobles with frivolous requests like more taarhorn soap in the castle stores—immediately followed by an offer to give me coin I don’t need in exchange for a flower crown, since their Door Gravels are charging them outrageous prices.
I don’t want to call the Door Gravels petty. But they’ve taken what I taught them and started bartering with their nobles for things like better treatment contracts, weekends off, and back-to-back vacation for half a moonscycle now that we’re no longer banned from tourist cities like Pridehaven.
Veyrion is rather amused by what he calls “the nature jewelry economy,” but nonetheless, he cancels throning hours for the duration of my pregnancy.
“I do not wish to cause you any more undue stress,” he tells me after trying and failing yet again to get me to talk about our upcoming delivery.
