Chapter 7 : - The Party

Ayda's POV

His mouth dragged down to my pulse point, tasting the ebb and flow of my heart as he did things with his fingers that made me keen. I tried to close my legs to the intrusion pretending that I wasn't enthralled with his touch, but he would have none of it.

He flicked his wrist, thumb circling my cl*t in tight circles that had me crying, my nails clawing into his broad back as I rushed to my release. There was no lying to him; it was as if he knew my body as well as I did.

Then he pulled away, laughing as he did.

"Not yet," he panted, biting my earlobe. I could feel the texture of his stubble against my cheek, making me shiver at the masculine touch. "I want to feel you cum around my cock. I want to feel your sweet cunt ripple with pleasure. Could you do that for me? Will you do that for me?"

I couldn't speak, trapped between his hot body and the chill of the silk red sheets, so I nodded instead.

He bit my shoulder hard before kissing it.

"I want to hear you," he begged, snaking his hand back between my silky inner lips. Strumming digits against that hidden place within me. The one that made me feel like I was made of stars. "Will you do what I ask? Will you cum for me?"

"Yes," it had come out in a scream. I was so close to the edge, the final plunge into ecstasy. My thighs shook around his hips, toes curling above the round of his buttocks. "Anything for you, just please don't tease me!"

He kissed me filthy, tongue invading my mouth, demanding my surrender to him. Mimicking what he wanted to do to me below.

I yielded, laying back, hair spooling out into inky tendrils on pillows that smelled like him. I let him have his way with me, fingers loosely secured to the nape of his neck to tether me to his embrace.

He cupped my breast, thumb swiping over my sensitive nipple, and slotted our hips together.

He took me none too gently, the bed frame shaking with each thrust. A great staccato rhythm matched in time to the airy moans that consumed the air between us.

I was far too gone to last long. I scrambled to hold him close as I shook apart, not wanting to forget this moment.

But, when I sought his face, it was not my phantom lover spilling within me, but Prince Sebastian of the Obsidian Moon pack.

***

"What's eating her?"

I was in the kitchen eating a shepherd's pie in the corner, looking every bit the part of the lovesick fool. Seven days—one whole week—that's how long it had been since I had my debacle with Sebastian.

Consequently, it had also been that long since last I'd seen him. Physically, I mean. His essence still lingered in my dreams and on the seat of my knickers when I awoke in the morning.

I speared a carrot with my fork and tried not to think of how phallic it was.

How much of a poor substitution it was.

"I don't know; she's been like this all day. Maybe she's homesick?"

I left the kitchen staff talking about me as they peeled potatoes and baked eggplants for the endless demand of Moussakas that kept coming from the demands upstairs. It was all in preparation for the bridal shower, and I had been informally invited by Narcissa to come, if only for the promise of keeping her looking effortless.

I'd almost agreed until Sebastian peeked his head into her chambers, asking her if they were to match for the event. I'd fled before he even stepped a whole foot into the room.

And that was the sport, wasn't it? The game we were both playing, where we kept dodging each other instead of confronting what had happened that night. It seemed so foolish when I gave it thought, but I knew I'd never stop.

For one, he was still marrying Narcissa; that much was certain. Even if the thought of them together made me, dare I say, jealous. Political marriages were as commonplace as air among wolf society and hardly discriminated against if you were a peasant or part of an illustrious peerage.

Two, I was still reeling from his propensity toward violence. Granted, Prince Sebastian had explained the reasons for his outburst in a well enough fashion, but the run-in still had me shaken. However, it was hardly fair to associate all the trauma with his doing, not when Alaric had sown the seeds so well. If this ever was to work between us—

I paused, a chunk of roasted chicken propped against my lips.

That's what I wanted, wasn't it? That's what these dreams were about, weren't they? I yearned for him so deeply that he'd become the personification of my sordid fantasies. He'd even become the face of my own child's mysterious father. Sure, Prince Sebastian was handsome, almost impossibly so, but there was more to him than that.

From what I could gather (spying, I'd been reduced to spying from afar like a besotted schoolgirl on the cusp of womanhood), he was indeed the rich paragon of just that the servants claimed him to be. He'd often, swiftly and without an ulterior motive, come to the staff's defense should they incur High Alpha's Kostas' wrath.

He took time delegating between the different nobles to enter his castle, giving ample time to have them speak of their concerns and to quell arguments before they reached shouting levels. He wasn't arrogant, assuming he knew everything based on his title.

No, Prince Sebastian delighted in learning, asking pertinent questions, and showing extreme patience when some of the older scholars would prattle endlessly. He did it all with a smile on his face and a likable affection, a casual coolness that dissipated any ungainliness in a room.

I swallowed the bit of chicken, licking at the trails of gravy that remained, and tried not to remember the distinct way his lips quirked up when he grinned. Or how it made his amber eyes twinkle.

"Oh Goddess, why me?" I slid off the crates of cheeses that I was using as a makeshift chair as I ate, my skirt hiking up to an indecent mid-thigh. "Why must he be so pretty?"

"Oh, so it's love sickness."

"Oh, but to whom?"

"Well, I think—"

And I let the women gossip as I walked back to my quarters, fretting about what to do with this unseemly crush.

***

"August, as your mother, I think it is best if we had a serious discussion about your flatulence problem."

"Bleh!" Gus gummed at the foot in his mouth, bare-assed and still needing a good powder. I took the offending diaper away, making sure it was as far away from my nose as humanly possible. Peas—sweet Goddess take me—were always a mistake! "Bleh nah nah neh!"

"I know, you think it a most wondrous gift," I powdered him, tickling his little pot belly that sent his foot careening out of his giggling mouth. "But I am of a different mindset entirely."

"Geh feh!" He raised his arms, grasping at nothing, and who was I to deny such a sweet request? I kissed his forehead, both his cheeks and finally, his nose. He cooed, drooling on the tip of my nose as a sign of childish affection. "Mleh!"

"I'm glad we are in agreement," and then Gus farted on me, loudly, thunderously, one might even say.

The smell was inexplicably bad.

"No more peas!" I gasped, fanning the air as my eyes watered. Gus had erupted in a series of high-pitched chirps, kicking legs enthusiastically. "Never again! Oh Goddess, where is the clean diaper!?"

***

I looked down at August sleeping peacefully in his clean bassinet; his hair was coming in more and seemed to be darkening a bit, matching my locks. I kissed his cheek once more, enjoying the way his nose wrinkled in his sleep. All that fuss, but he was still my perfect little boy. When I thought about how close I'd come to losing him, how I'd almost given him away, my vision blurred with unshed tears.

I wiped at my eyes, determined not to let such dreary thoughts plague me as I made my way back to the kitchen. The bridal shower had commenced, and the euphoric sounds of drunken noblewomen and howling men drowned out the jubilant neoclassicism of the orchestral symphony.

I had half a mind to join the revelry when I caught sight of two men in the alcove next to the great hall doors in the throes of lovemaking. Their bawdy laughter followed me as I lifted my skirts and quickened my pace to a less amorous spot in the castle.

Not that the buttery, the large cellar where so many foodstuffs were stored, was any better, I soon found out.

Most of the staff that was not needed upstairs had decided to start their own merrymaking in the buttery, where libations could run free without risk of nobles' ire. It surprised me that shy Nicolette was there, wedged between several stable hands, butlers, and maids.

She was dressed casually in a layered tea gown in buttery saffron that made her dusky skin glow. She'd kohled her eyes which made the lilac of her irises even more doll-like. Her curls were half down, a couple of periods out of fashion, but still befitting for her frame.

I wasn't the only one who'd noticed her, it seemed, as I realized Darius was the stable hand she was talking to. He cleaned up well, hair freshly shaved down into a working man's low fade. He was fitted in a thick light blue linen shirt and black meidanogileko, with his furred capelet tied around Nicolette's shoulders. Oh, was he perhaps the secret admirer?

I didn't want to impose upon the scene, but then Marisa found me.

She'd worn a fitted skirt with an oddly patterned tartan lampshade tunic that seemed to match the green of her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed with drink as she held two mugs of beer, the froth over spilling the lips of each aloft.

"About time you showed up," she shoved a beer into my hands, some of the liquid staining the front of her gown with the force. "Thought I'd have to drag you out of your moping hole like a little vole."

"I do not have a moping hole!" I protested, putting the beer down on an unoccupied crate. Marisa frowned, picking it up and placing it in my hands again.

"Yes, you do! You mope all day now! Ever since Lord Shit Heel squeaked his zillion Orichalcum boots all up and down the servant's wing last week. I mean, I'm glad he paid you. I'm even flattered that you spread the goodwill to everyone here. I've wanted these here...." She turned her head to the side, showing off a lovely pair of copper-plated crescent-shaped earrings at me.

"For more than a year now, and I ain't even known you half as long. So thank you, truly, for the early Yule—sorry—early Dionysia present. It means quite a bit."

"It's no trouble," I took a sip of the beer, surprised by how sweet it was compared to the bitter dregs I had to make do with in Eventide. "By the Goddess, this is good!"

"I know, right!" Marisa pointed at Maud, who was dancing with Mr. Galanis, smashing the poor flustered man into her heaving bosom. "She doesn't look it, and she's got that grandmotherly charm to her, but there's a saucy minx trapped in there. She reminds me of a lot of my choir mistress when I lived in the Isles."

"Really? Do you ever think of going back?"

"All the bloody damn time," Marisa paused, drinking half the contents of her mug before continuing. The head chef had finished tuning his fiddle and was motioning her over.

"Oh! They're calling my card. Now, stop moping about moaning about menfolk and live a little. Life's already hard enough without the pining, yeah? Now listen to Dr. Marisa and finish your beer."

And with that, she lit away, a melody already on her lips.

I watched Marisa sing and the room break into a dance, drinking quietly to myself. A shadow appeared over my shoulder, and I didn't have to guess who it was.

"You know you don't have to check on me. You can enjoy the party."

"I could, couldn't I?" Nicolette picked up Marisa's beer, drinking the remainder. She made a face and put it back down. "I was actually going to ask if you wanted to head out with a couple of the other girls and me."

I noticed she was capelet-free, and Darius was nowhere in sight, "Everything alright?"

"No," Nicolette rubbed at her eyes, smearing kohl a little. "But it'll be okay. Not everyone can be Marisa, right?"

Ah.

"Nor should they be," I said, giving her a hug when she sniffled, fat tears landing in her beer. "Nicolette, you're wonderful, and if Darius can't see that, then he's a fool."

She hummed half-heartedly, finishing the beer even though it made her

grimace.

"I appreciate that, Ayda; thank you. You're—you're kind, you know that?"

"The feeling is mutual."

"She really is quite good, isn't she?" Nicolette motioned as Marisa belted out a beautiful high note. "So…want to come out to my pity party? Everyone who's anyone is going to be there..."

"Well," I thought of August, napping alone in our room. I looked down at my mostly full mug. "It's not that I didn't want to; I just didn't want to be one of those mothers that barely spends any time with their kids.

I didn't want to miss any of the special moments with him, ones I wouldn't get back. The price of being a young mother, I had to sacrifice my youth to do the noble thing. "I'm sorry, Nicolette, but—"

"If you say you're staying inside, I'm going to punch you square in the mouth," Marisa danced back in, snatching my beer as she gave herself a break between sets. "Please take her. Maud and I can watch the little tyke. That's an order."

"But I—"

"Will. Punch. You. In. The. Mouth." Marisa cracked her knuckles threateningly at me. "And you," she leveled a finger at Nicolette. "What did the ass say?"

"Nothing! I—that is to say—Darius—"

"I'm a lover of women just so you know," Marisa said, pinching the butt of a milkmaid that passed. The look the other woman gave wasn't disappointed in the least. "Men just don't strike my fancy is what I'm saying. So, I don't want your horse, boy. And even if I did, I was friends with you first, and that would be shit of me to f*ck him knowing how you felt. I'm loyal and all that."

"Oh," Nicolette tried to find what to say. "It's not like—I didn't think you were—"

"So stop," Marisa crushed Nicolette's head between her palms, making the girl's lips perk out like a duck's bill. "Stop sacrificing your happiness for others! You're too cute for that shit!"

"C-cu-cute?" Nicolette squeaked, face brighter than a lighthouse beacon.

"Positively buttons!" Marisa cheered, bopping her on the nose. "Now go!" She swung her arms around us, manhandling us to the back door. "Be young, party, and stop brooding the both of you. And if both of you aren't late come morning call tomorrow, complaining of sore hips, I will be very cross." She shoved some cloaks in our hands and winked, kicking the door open. "I know mine will be."

"I—" the night's air pricked at my shoulders. "I suppose that's one way of getting us out."

Nicolette beamed, affixing her cloak securely about her person.

"Agreed, but then, what else are friends for?" She held her arm out for me to take. "Shall you accompany me to our carriage and enjoy the best night of our lives?"

To Tartarus with it! I looped my arm around hers, drawing Nicolette to me. I wasn't entirely dressed for a night out, but I could fix that easily by letting my hair down and loosening my scarf.

"To the best night of our lives!" I cheered, and we walked to the coaches, where some of Nicolette's friends were already gathered.

Try as I might to sound lively, I couldn't shake an ominous feeling in my gut. Like someone was watching me. As we walked past the gardens, I looked up at the balconies where the royal chambers were, hoping to quell my paranoia.

But there, in the dark of the double doors, hidden behind the white curtains billowing, was the figure of a man.

Gone before I could even so much as blink.

My anxiety increased tenfold.