By this time tomorrow, he might be my Dark Companion.
I can’t wait for him to sleep in my bed, to see what human decor ideas he will bring to my apartments. I might actually need more rooms so he has everything he needs.
But for now we enjoy the maze, with walls of branches traced in delicate white lace. The snow is powdery, and when Nate brushes his shoulder against a stray leaf, it sheds tiny crystals into the air.
We can still hear the distant music, but it’s merely background noise to the crunch of snow and frozen gravel under our feet. Somehow, this place appears larger in winter, without the distraction of blooming flowers and songs of birds nesting within the hedges, but its geometry is just as confusing, and I laugh when Nate huffs out a cloud of vapor when we stumble upon another dead end.
“We should be using threads to mark our path,” Nate says, then proceeds to tell me a human legend about someone called Perseus, who got locked up in an underground labyrinth with a bloodthirsty bull-headed monster. Perseus’s lover gave him a bundle of thread, which he then used to exit the trap and survived.
“For creatures with such soft hearts, you humans have very violent stories.”
Nate’s hand twitches around mine as we backtrack and take a different path.
“Yes. Especially the very old ones,” Nate tells me. “I think it’s to remind us what happens when the normal order collapses.”
“What would this ‘normal order’ be? Attempting to court cows? I’ve heard of some people trying their luck with kelpies, but they’re kind of sentient.”
He laughs so sweetly I end up pressing a kiss to those smiling lips, but confessions of love will have to wait for a more romantic moment. I want it to be as perfect as he is.
“Noo, nothing like that,” he says and starts climbing me like a tree. This time, we’re alone, with only the statue of a horse to judge us, so I pick him up, and he wraps his legs around my hips. We soon find out his train is long enough to get under my feet, but once he pulls it up, I continue through the winding path while he speaks. “Order is… when people follow laws. When you understand the rules and can reasonably protect yourself through that.”
“I’d say we have more stories about not going into the woods, or to be careful what you wish for since it might just happen,” I say in an ominous tone as I think about his wish to break our bond. If that came true any sooner, we might have been apart and miserable by now. “Something you wish for right now?” I tease and squeeze his ass.
He snorts, pressing his forehead to mine. “We have those too. But I think the wish I have right now is actually very, very easy to fulfill,” he whispers, and his hand drifts down my chest.
It might be cold, but I’m yet to find a temperature in which I’d be unwilling for a quick bit of fun. Since I know this maze, I turn into a corridor leading us farther away from the ball. “Oh, no…” I say theatrically. “But what if someone comes?”
“You’ll just have to hide me,” he rasps, and I almost lose balance when his kiss sends a hot jolt all the way to the tips of my fingers.
“My cloak is wide enough. Or I could do it with my wings,” I say and spread them out, then move them forward, to wrap themaround him. I love how wide and shiny his eyes get whenever he sees them.
Once we reach a far corner of the maze, I put him down and go in for a kiss, still shielding him with my wings as if it’s a cocoon made for us. “Are you sure you’re warm enough?” I ask breathlessly, but I’m already pulling open the ties at the front of his pants.
I want him now-now-now, and I won’t settle until I taste his cum.
Nate laughs, his hands insatiable on my chest. “Oh God,yes, Tristan. Cold won’t ever keep me away from you.”
I don’t even need fire, because his words alone are enough to make my skin nice and balmy. When he slides his hand over my hardening cock, molten heat flares up in me from the inside. He is so sweet, so playful, so eager, and I will never take any of this for granted.
As soon as his pants are open, I kneel in the snow, thankful for my thick leather pants. I’m already missing his hand on my cock, but I can wait a bit longer if that means I get to feel his prick pulsing with heat in my mouth.
He gasps when I pull out his cock and taste its rock-hard curve.
Nate puts a hand over his face to stifle a moan, as I bob my head to prove that the one blowjob I’ve given him so far was not just a lucky score. I love pleasuring my lovers and could spend hours worshipping him like this, but I can’t ignore the sound of voices getting louder on the other side of the wall of bushes.
“No one without an invitation is allowed.”
A shrill male voice answers. “But you don’t understand. I was supposed to meet with the prince. He was to visit me—”
“So youdon’thave an invitation,” a man who must be a guard says sternly.
“It is a matter of urgency! I haven’t come here to nibble on free food and romance royal blood. Though, I admit, that would make for a pleasant evening—”
“Be gone!”
“I am Merethis Nightscribe, a renowned astronomer, and I willnotbe dismissed like a common peasant!”
I reluctantly let Nate’s cock slip out of my mouth, and our eyes meet when I look up.
