Chapter Six

The hallways immediately around the main hall were busy as servants scurried in and out with wine and platters and in the shadows, knights from the academy flirted drunkenly with maids and minor noble ladies who had managed to escape their protective families. Aien put his arm around my shoulders, draping me in the folds of his cloak, and walked with me nearest the wall. From behind, tucked tightly against Aien’s body, I would have been all but invisible.

It was cosily warm within Aien’s cloak and very pleasant to feel his body move against mine. Boldly, I slid my arm around his waist, and was relieved when he did not object. In fact, he tightened his hold on me, encouraging me closer to him.

I was almost entirely sure that I was not mistaken and that Aien… Well, that Aien felt about me the same as I felt about him. I felt the flush heating my skin. I had seen the knights and the maids kissing in any semi-private place they could find so many times, breathless, moaning exchanges frantic with motion, and my parents weren’t reserved in their affections, nor Ecaeris and Akyran shy about exchanging a kiss or caress in passing, but I had never been part of such things before, and my heart raced and breath caught in my lungs at just being so close to Aien… What would it be like if he kissed me?

We were nearing our rooms and Aien’s step slowed. He was tense, nervous, casting his eyes around us before looking down at me. Our eyes locked and our feet stopped. His hands lifted to cup my cheeks, his thumb tracing my bottom lip, his eyes watching its path before meeting mine again, the expression in them aching through me.

“Aien,” I whispered.

“I… Ah,” he eased back slightly and smiled, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders. “You should go to bed, Daethie.”

“Yes,” I was horribly embarrassed. I had put my arm around him and snuggled up to his side wantonly during the walk. He probably thought the worst of me, I thought miserably. I had utterly misunderstood the situation, and he would probably laugh over the lovesick princess once he was alone.

“Daethie,” he said the name very quietly. “Your maid… Does she… Um,” he looked away towards my bedchamber door. “Does she sleep in your room?”

“No,” I frowned, confused by the question. “Hen sleeps with her husband.”

He nodded, his chin lowering to his chest. “And… so… you sleep alone?”

“Don’t you?” I was bewildered by the question.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, but I’d like to… Change that. We won today,” he added looking up and meeting my eyes. “Titles, and lands.”

“Yes, I guess we did,” I agreed.

“The King said that he would…” Aien’s hands stroked down my arms, to my elbows. “Let us know the details soon.”

It was important to him. I realized that, of course it would be. Although he was the only son, the only child, what did he stand to inherit? A decaying mountain bound castle filled with statues of the unfortunate victims of his father, and one that, in his own words, he had been relieved to leave. That he might now possess his own lands and title would be vitally important to him as a result. Such things would mean that when Akyran had no further use for a hostage, Aien would have his own place, and perhaps his own income.

Whereas to me, anything I had won would just be a small addition to my generous dragon-horde dowry, to Aien, it would be life changing.

“I’m sure he will,” I told him. “He is Fae, they cannot lie.”

“It’s… a significant development, Daethie,” he said in echo of my own conclusions.

“I know, Aien,” I was breathless under his intensity.

He nodded slowly, his eyes searching mine for the truth of my statement. “Daethie, I’ve… Well,” he said softly. “I never had dreams before coming here. I never had… goals. Things I wanted for myself, outside of myself. It sounds… insane and presumptuous, I know. But ever since I came here, just a couple of crazy days, and I…” He laughed under his breath. “Ever since I watched you run that nightmare of a gauntlet and fall… I’ve…” His expression shifted and became intensely pained. “I’ve wanted more for myself. Do you understand?”

“I… I guess?” I didn’t but it seemed so important to him that I did, that I couldn’t tell him otherwise.

“Today,” he said stroking back my hair. “It was… luck. But it was also the start. It made me realize that my life was changing and these things… These things that I want, I can, maybe… Maybe,” his eyes seemed to dig into mine and read the secrets of my soul. “Maybe… Maybe I can? Have,” he breathed the word heavily. “Maybe I can… Can I have what I want? If… If… She… Also wants me?”

I nodded, not understanding but unwilling to admit that.

“So,” he caught my face in the palm of his hands again. “So, Daethie…” He leaned his forehead down to mine. “Sleep well.”

He released me and went to his door, standing there with the air of expectation, so that I went to my own and opened it, meeting his eyes before I stepped inside and closed the chamber door behind me feeling both as if I had been party to something far more momentous than what had taken part.

I leaned my shoulders back against the door, my heart racing.

“That was… Odd,” I whispered to myself as I undressed and washed my face in the washbowl. The moonlight spilled silver over the chamber through the open blinds as I crawled into the cold bed.

I had lain but a few minutes when the door opened and my eyes were dragged to it, watching hypnotized as Aien crossed the room dressed in nothing but the voluminous folds of his shirt, his legs thin and bare looking beneath the cloth.

He paused by the end of the bed, the moonlight touching the darkness of his hair, the point of nose, cheekbone, and chin.

“Tell me to go,” he whispered, his long fingers wrapping around the bedpost at the foot of the bed. “Tell me, Daethie, if you don’t… If you don’t want me here?”

I sat up in my bed, throwing back the covers and extended my hand in invitation. He sighed heavily as his hand met mine, and I drew him towards me, so that his body met mine under the covers with only the fine cloth of our bedclothing separating us.

“Daethie,” his breath was sighed out against my cheek, his hands gathering up the cloth dragging it off over my head. I sought to do the same, pulling at the fabric that covered him. He scooped it off and cast it off over his shoulder, the moonlight picking his lean body in tones of silver and shadow, the muscles bunching in arm and chest as he adjusted his weight, his hair falling forwards in a dark curtain.

His skin against mine was bliss, so that I moaned, my eyelashes fluttering as I surrendered to sensation, my hands stroking up his back in encouragement, knowing where he was meant to be against me. There was a primal recognition as he obliged, moving his weight onto his knees between mine.

Our eyes met.

“Daethie,” he breathed my name out against my lips as he found home against me, his weight behind his hips pressing himself forwards into me, so that my exhale was trembled and heavy against his jaw. His hand cupped my hip, lifting me as he sank deep.

My nails dug and I groaned as gravity sunk him beyond muscles, beyond bone, so deep that it seemed as if we fused into one. His inhale was wet and stuttered against my cheek, dragged in on a moan pulled from deep within him as he began to thrust, following instinct so deeply ingrained that it could not be denied.

I gripped his hips in both hands, tightly, seeking to hold him still as I processed what was taking place within me. Our eyes met as he paused, his expression tight and wild. “Daethie,” was a plea and I forced my hands to release him so that he could follow nature, thrusting into me, my thighs and hips spread wide to receive him, my head thrown back and eyes closed as I lost myself to sensation.

His final cries were brutal, and his lips stole mine as I tumbled over the edge of pleasure, surprised breathless by it.

He sank heavily over me, letting me feel the fullness of his weight upon me, the solidness of him weighing me into the action that I had let take place, greedily, seeking satiation like a man without regard to the consequences of being a woman.

It did not matter, I told myself. Not every woman caught the first time, and… I might have many times before the results of such deeds caught up to me. And I wanted there to be many, many times between us. It had been… intensely amazing and I wanted to feel that over and over again.

As he lay heavily over me, his breath wet against my shoulder, I stroked my fingers through his hair.