**ASH**
*She is the one to whom the Whispering Leaves speak...*
*Fucking riddles. Damnable witch! Is it too much to ask for a straight answer?*
I must learn more about my peasant’s birth. What secrets does she hide? Besides that she may carry Prince Hayden’s child.
*Bloody stop it.*
*She says she hasn’t lain with him!*
But can I believe her? What if I am simply at the mercy of her charms? Even now as I make my way outside of the mountain to reinforce the wards around the kingdom proper, I wonder.
She has no fear of me.
I want to sleep in your arms and wake with you inside of me...
Goddess help me. I will carry that statement in my heart until I wither in my grave and afterward in the Valley of Great Rest. If it had not been for the witch’s arrival, I’d have woken the entire mountain with screams of ecstasy.
From her freckled nose to her pale rose tinted skin - her long silken hair, the color of dark oak to the butter of her flesh. The weight of her breasts in my hands and the glimmer of green eyes under thick shaded lashes. Her lips that feel like heaven on my flesh! All of these things - are the spell that is Daphne. She is wanton, and each time I touch her, every tremble of her skin feeds my beast.
I must find out why these witches do not want me to rescue her sister! Surely there is a reason. With all the riddles they spill, you’d think one or two might grant me a truth.
It must be a trick of some kind. It has to be.
Yet, I know there is nothing to gain for witches of a mortal sacrificed to the Fae. What is in it for them? Why have they visited me twice now?
If I deny Daphne permission to join me on my quest and lock her away - she will try and escape. This I am sure of. I cannot risk it. I won’t.
I return to the castle and order it locked up tight. Most of my enemies cannot set a foot into my home without frying up like sizzled pork skin. The Winter Queen included.
It is the enemies that I cannot see - that I am not aware of - who worry me now that Daphne is here.
I need answers, but not at Daphne’s expense.
Climbing the stairwell, I see Dionie is asleep against the door. “Get up, fool.”
He jolts, grabbing for his scabbard clumsily. “I have spent too long on two legs.”
“Perhaps find a wench and spend time on your back instead,” I laugh. “Go to sleep, friend. The witch is gone.”
He nods, not wanting to hear any more of it tonight. The shadows of sleeplessness caressing his normally jovial face. With a wave of my hand, the door unlocks, and I step inside. Despite that Daphne sleeps, her body hidden beneath the heavy velvet dressings of my bed, I am instantly alert. Power thrums in the room.
Klyesque sits in the corner, a heavy ancient tome on her lap.
*The book. It is already here...*
Bright eyes flit to mine. “It was in her cloak,” she says. “She’s had it all along.”
“This is good news,” I reassure her. “It saves me a trip to the Mortal Realm. I thought I left it there in my carelessness.”
She stands easily. If Klyesque is tired, it does not show. “She is attached to the damn thing for some reason. Despite not being able to read it. She swears it belongs to her.”
I sigh, “Someone indeed left it for her. So, in a sense it does. Wrap it in a black cloth and lock it away until I decide what to do with it. We can’t risk the King of the Meadow finding out that it is here.”
Klyesque nods, grabbing for the fabric on my nightstand and hiding it away. “Is this to become a regular thing? The sharing your chamber with your lovers?”
I chuckle as she leaves the room. “Only if it is her.”
Glancing back, she smiles. Eyeing Daphne’s back with fondness. “That girl loves you. No matter what she has or has not done - remember that.”
I lock the door behind Klyesque and sigh. With a wave of my hand, I put out the lanterns and light the hearth in one motion. Undressing under the soft golden light that bathes the room, I wonder if Daphne is too tired to open her legs and welcome my staff that pulses with life just from looking at her.
Pulling back the covers, I admire her pale, rose touched skin, and slide a hand under her gossamer skirts. Peeling the garment from her body, I reach down to kiss the flesh of her hip before climbing into bed next to her and holding her close.
With her back against my chest, I nestle my pleasure between her thighs and smooth my hand over her breasts to rest upon her stomach.
Something stirs inside me. A pulsing of life rests inside of her womb. I can feel it. It is there.
I gasp, feeling my chest go tight.
She, in fact, carries a babe.
*But - can it be?*
A cold realization settles over me as I recount the witch’s words.
*‘You have lifted your curse as well, I see.’*
But it is impossible. I am vexed and have been for eighteen years. Since the day Hadimere murdered the Queen of Hidden Fae and the unborn princess in her womb.
The unborn princess was my betrothed. Granted to me by the King of the Meadow. A bargain sealed in Fae blood. But - even then - there were rumors.
Stories passed from witch to Fae. From pixie to nymph. Whispers that told of a mad King that had chased his beloved queen away from his bed and into the arms of another. Gossip that implied the unborn princess was in fact a lovechild made from the rift of two different marriages. Implying the Queen of Hidden Fae had fallen in love with another and had taken refuge in the mortal realm to hide from her husband... the King of the Meadow.