Page 25 of The Royal Curse

I howled with laughter, curling up and quivering, hands over my face. I couldn’t fucking help it. Nothing hurt right then, nothing whatsoever, and every cell in my body sparked with magic and pleasure and warmth. And my guard had come inside me and then tried to repair a ruined piece of fabric that couldn’t possibly be put back together without…

Magic.Mymagic, which theoretically included such things as the fusing of torn objects that had once been whole. I hadn’t had the chance to use it in so many years. Barely even then. Could I make it work without lighting the bed on fire or killing myself?

“Your Highness?” Andreas sounded cautious now, wary. Well, not too surprising. He’d come in my ass and then I’d gone completely hysterical. “Please tell me you’re all right, and that wasn’t for nothing.”

I smiled into my hands. I’d show himfor nothing, and I’d graciously ignore the implication—obviously false—that neither of us had gotten anything else out of what he’d just done to me besides the cessation of my symptoms.

Focusing on my magic took serious effort—at first. I had to close my eyes again, hold perfectly still, and reach for it cautiously from within, the sensation something like trying to seize a solid handful of a spiderweb, only with a part of my mind that ached and throbbed, a mental phantom limb.

And then it fell into place, viscerally satisfying, like a deck of playing cards shuffling into a perfect stack between my fingers.

Warmth and energy suffused me, focused in a spot under my breastbone and radiating out, much as the pain had done a few minutes ago before Andreas temporarily relieved me of my curse. Everything around me had its own presence in the world of magic, too, so that I could almost see shapes and colors even with my eyes closed.

Andreas shone like a beacon, impossible to ignore. My breath caught as I turned my attention to him directly; he was so beautiful, so alluring, so full of life and strength, drawing me in irresistibly. Even with my back to him, he glowed.

But I had to focus on my torn trousers. I could bask in Andreas once I’d properly impressed him with my abilities.

And once I’d proven to myself that I had them at all after so many years of atrophy and neglect.

First I had to get out of the trousers, though, because the way they clung to my sweaty thighs felt fucking awful and I wouldn’t be able to get the edges together like this. I shoved at them, grumbling curses, and after a moment Andreas’s hands joined mine, tugging them down and away along with my stockings. I rolled onto my back and sprawled there, looking up at him through my lashes.

Any thoughts of repairing my clothing, of using my magic, or of anything else evaporated into the ether.

Damn it, he’d taken a moment to put his cock away. I forced my eyes up from the bulge in the front of his trousers to the rest of him. He knelt there without moving, my clothes dangling from his hands, staring down at me as if mesmerized, lips parted and brows drawn together. The hem of my shirt didn’t cover much. His gaze seemed to be fixed between my legs.

The weight of it made me want to squirm, and I clenched my fingers in the quilt to keep myself still.

Gods. He’d fucked me and come inside me. My magic had been cleansed for the moment. That ache shouldn’t be starting all over again, pulsing deep within where I could feel the slick evidence of how he’d filled me.

And then I froze, a cold shudder working its way down my back…

What if it hadn’t worked?

My potion had been slowly becoming less effective. What if it wasn’t the fault of the potion, and it wasme? Because this didn’t feel like satiation: the heat gathering in my low belly, the renewed sensation of emptiness, of need.

“Your Highness, you look like you’ve—I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I hurt you, or—staying or going seems equally wrong, so tell me what to do, please.”

Fuck, Andreas. When my eyes refocused on him, I found him still kneeling there, but with his knuckles white where he gripped my clothes and his face nearly as pale under his tan.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said at once, because I couldn’t possibly let him believe that even for a moment, no matter what else might be wrong. “You saved me so much pain. The opposite of hurting me.”

Andreas let out a long sigh, his eyes fluttering closed for a second.

They popped open again as I added, “And please don’t go anywhere, because I think you need to do it again.”

Chapter Ten

Andreas stared, eyes wide, his gaze flicking down between my legs again and then up while his cheeks went from pale to red again in an instant. “You what?” he said blankly.

My chest tightened. That was far from the enthusiasm I’d been hoping for. He’d wanted me—or at least I’d thought so. And that had given me a glorious few moments of confidence. But suddenly, I realized how I must appear to him: sticky and sweaty and flushed and blotchy, my legs akimbo and my torso half-covered with a shirt that hung all askew. And which was also damp with sweat.

Oh, gods. I probablysmelled.

Perhaps it didn’t matter if something was even more wrong with me than I’d thought, and if I needed him again to prevent my magic from killing me—because I couldn’t possibly try to seduce him now.

Begging him to fuck me when I’d been in the throes of the worst of my symptoms hadn’t felt shameful; I hadn’t had the leisure for shame.

But now my magic had settled enough that I could fully appreciate how humiliating this truly was.

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