**DAPHNE**
“Are you done being hypnotized by the glow of the rocks,” Petra asks, sitting next to me on the soft silver pillows of the window seat.
“What glass is this?” I say, running my fingers over the slightly chiseled surface pulsing with blue light.
“It is crystal, not glass.”
“And the walls? Is it all built from the mountain?” I ask in awe, standing to make my way toward the gleaming door next to the large bed covered in lavender flower petals. “And where does this door go?”
Petra laughs, “Where do you think?”
I try the knob, but it is locked. “Where is he, Petra? Do you think he is alright?”
As if he heard us speaking of him, the chamber door opens with Ash on the other side. I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face, but I stop myself from leaping forward and into his arms the way I want to.
His eyes meet mine, yet he speaks to Petra. “Your mother awaits you in her home. Do not keep her waiting. It’s been too long that she has dreamed of your homecoming.”
Petra doesn’t move. “I won’t leave just so that you can bully her.”
He glares, “I am not going to bully her, damn it. You may return tomorrow. Go.”
Although Ash still doesn’t smile at me, somehow, I am not afraid. I can see longing in his eyes as he steps inside the chamber. The way his gaze attempts to look away from my breasts and fails, pouring confidence through me.
“I will see you tomorrow,” Petra says, grabbing me in a fierce hug.
I hug her back as Ash steps past us and into the center of the room. “Until tomorrow,” I say as she leaves, closing the door behind her.
The moment she is gone I turn and face Ash. He is sitting on the corner of the bed, his powerful thighs open as if inviting me to sit. But as I approach him, he raises his hand, urging me to stop and I do.
He eyes my body as he begins to remove his cloak. Unbuttoning the sleeves of his shirt, he watches me, his jaw clenched. “I have been warned against the lies of mortals,” he says. “So I beg you, do not lie to me tonight.”
“I have never lied to you,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears.
“So, you say,” he chuckles, removing his shirt completely to reveal his golden skin covered in markings and spirals of ink. His muscles are tense, and my chest burns with the way he looks at me. As if he cannot help but have me, despite his anger.
“I knew it,” I whisper, my mouth falling open as my eyes study his chest. “Once in Hadimere Palace, I thought I saw markings on your skin and-”
“Do they trouble you?” He glares, unlacing his boots and allowing me the magnetic view of his shoulder muscles at work. “Do you find them hideous?”
I shake my head no, dropping to my knees in want of him. “They are beautiful.”
He jerks his body upright, a muscle in his jaw ticking and his eyes growing heavy with lust. “You trouble me,” he hisses and before I can protest, he shakes his head. “We will discuss nothing of it tonight, for it has been far too long since I have touched you.” He smirks. “Take off your gown.”
“Wh-what?” I ask, my body beginning to heat from within.
“You heard what I said, Daphne. Take off your clothes.”
My eyes fall toward his lap and the ever-growing bulge behind his trousers. My cheeks heat, and I untie the dress from my place on the ground. Letting it fall from my shoulders, my nipples pebble instantly and I do not know if it is from the chill in the air or the heat of his eyes.
“Come and taste me,” he urges, undoing his trousers and revealing his shaft. “Kiss me the way you did the night that I made you mine.”
My mouth begins to water, and I slink toward him on all fours, reveling in the way his eyes fall dark, and he leans back at my approach. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Dragging in a harsh breath, his hands slip behind my head to guide my mouth toward his pleasure. “Did you?” He moans once my lips are on him. “Show me.”
I slide my tongue over him, pressing lightly at his base with my fingertips. He is so large - I can think of no way to adequately guzzle him the way I want to. Sliding up to stand on my knees, I kiss his chest first, my breasts tingling as they caress his shaft with the movement. His hands leave my head to grope and fondle my bosom as he sighs in delight.
My hands graze him, massaging and squeezing, up and down as I kiss his rigid abdominal muscles with my wet mouth. Placing my lips over the head of his pleasure, I swallow him as far back as I can take him. He shivers, gripping my head and guiding himself past my throat. “Goddess,” he hisses, pumping greedily past my lips.
I am choking on him but loving the uncontrolled grip of his hands in my hair. Stroking his shaft in time with my kiss, it begins to harden and shudder against my tongue.
Ripping me from the floor and onto his lap, he plunges into my core within the breath of a second, his mouth latching onto my breast. The invasion is painful, yet pleasurable, his hands covering my rear to bring my hips up and forward. Grinding himself against me, the friction teases my center and I begin to lose myself.
“Ash,” I moan, so loudly that I feel it echo against the walls. Urging me into a speedy tempo he groans nearly as loud as I do. My muscles tense around him. Tighter and tighter, they wind until my head is falling back in bliss and my nails are scraping the skin of his shoulders. “Ash, please,” I whimper and beg as his arms come around me, holding my body to his as I come undone.
His lips find my throat as he pumps into me viciously. Exquisite sounds of pleasure erupting against my skin as he spends himself deep within my core. We fall together against the lavender petals, complete. His shaft shudders inside of me, and he moans into my mouth, bringing my lips to his in a long-awaited caress.
“I’ll not share you with anyone,” he says. “No one.” He rolls over top of me to gaze down into my eyes with storms of gray in his. “Tell me, love. Tell me that what Hayden has birthed in my mind is only that, a seed of lies.”
I nod, reaching up to caress his face. “I have not lain with him. I swear it. I only want you.”
The gray irises of his silver gaze light with gold fire, and I feel the spark of pleasure my words create within my body that he is still deep inside. “Then it will not bother you when I say, I must go back to the Mortal Realm and kill him.”
Fear engulfs me at the thought of him leaving and I push him down on the bed, away from me as I shake my head. “N-no! Please! Stay with me. I don’t want to be apart from you any longer.”
He smirks up at me, one muscled arm gripping my waist and the other stroking my hip. “My sweet little peasant. So long as you remain here, you shall never be apart from me. Is that truly why you worry? Or perhaps, do you fear for your human prince’s life?”
I glare at him. “I do not care what happens to him. You should know this. Especially after what he tried to do to me. Do you think so little of me? That I might have given myself to him? Do you really and truly think that?”
He studies me, his jaw clenching, but he doesn’t answer me. Bringing my body down on his so that my face is pressed against his shoulder, he sighs.
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe me. I have never laid with Hayden.”
“So, when I ask you to remain here, with me, and never to return to the Mortal Realm, what will you say?” He whispers into my hair.
Sadness washes over me as I think of my sisters and whether or not they will join me here. I sit up and take a handful of lavender petals in my hands and sprinkle them atop Ash’s powerful chest. “I will say yes.” Lifting my gaze, I find his eyes full of wonder. “But I have one request.”
He hisses, “Anything.”
“My sisters. I must go back for them. I want them here, with me.”
He clamps his eyes shut, his jaw tightening. Sitting up, he sets me away from his body and stands, drawing his trousers up and over his delectable bottom. “Come Daphne, we shall bathe. We will discuss your sisters after the Midnight Banquet.”
“But why can’t we discuss them now?” I ask, leaping up to gather my dress.
He turns toward me, his eyes full of worry. “What I have to tell you may change the way you feel about me, for I have been keeping secrets beyond that of my origins.”
“Nothing,” I say, knowing full well I speak the truth, “Nothing can change the way I feel about you. I-I love you. So, I beg you, tell me now. Please.”
His body jolts with shock at my admission, silver orbs going dark. He shakes his head, “You say that you love me, but it may not be so after this. For you will certainly hate me for keeping it from you.”
My eyes narrow, my mouth falling open in sudden understanding. For the first time, my mind begins to piece together the events of late. The massacre, Hayden’s confusion when I mentioned my sisters, the king’s devotion to finding the killers. It is all falling into place and at the same time tearing into my heart. “No,” I whimper, tears falling from my eyes. “No.”
Ash stares down at me, nodding his head in slow confirmation.
“The massacre?” I choke out, holding my dress against my naked form as if to shield from the chill that has burrowed itself into my bones. “Where was it?”
He swallows thickly, closing his eyes as if remembering what he saw. “Where it was, no longer matters. For the place no longer exists.”
“It matters,” I screech, anger blossoming inside of me for all that I’d hoped to accomplish since the day I stepped into the Hadimere Palace Court. “Where?”
He lowers his gaze. “I’m sorry, Daphne.”
“Tell me where it was!”
“Your home. Your family’s farm. It is all gone. Your father and one sister are dead. Killed by Baeoul warriors. Fae. ”
I swallow the sob lodged in my throat, my ears catching on each of his words. “One sister,” I say, dropping my dress in a pool at my feet and standing there completely bare, which is the way I feel. “What of the other?”
His eyes lift to mine as my body rages. The tears that once filled my eyes, burning away. “The other has been taken.” He says, and I whimper.
“By whom?” I shake out.
“A bone comb was found near the River Gate in the Mortal Realm. And since then, it has been confirmed that your remaining sister is already here, in Faery. She was taken on the night of the murders to lands in the North. By the Queen of Winter Fae.”