Page 58 of Boundless
Len groaned, but he was getting alarmingly used to how Daega talked about sex and pleasure. He couldn’t help picturing some distant, hypothetical future self who casually excused himself from a meeting of state because he was in desperate need of getting fucked into a pile of well-pleasured goo by his great big wife. And why did hestirat the thought of that?
Fenris opened his mouth to say something, but Ravost jumped in, the unscarred corner of his mouth twitching with a grin. "Aye, I'll make sure it's repaired quickly. And again, my apologies for my panic, but when your mother was carrying you girls she was a fierce thing, and I feared the worst."
After a bit more time, the conversation fizzled out, everyone’s limits met, and the other men left, leaving Len and Daega alone once again.
"I meant what I said earlier," she murmured sleepily, burrowed close against him in the dark as they settled in to sleep.
"I know. And I love you f-for it." He pressed a kiss to her brow between her horns, breathing in the smell of her skin. "But let him live long enough for us t-to find out h-how deep this goes, a-alright?"
"No...promises..." Len smiled as her breaths deepened and turned to snores, carrying him off to dream.
TRUE TO HISword, Ravost had one of the tanners out to fix their door the next day, and it was a couple of days after that—almost a week exactly since he’d sent his letter— when Len received a response from his father via messenger bird:
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Lenlethael,"the letter began without any preamble,"but the physicians I consulted have all been quite sure that reproduction between our peoples is impossible. I fear that peace was a desperate dream, and that perhaps it is time we rethink the treaty.
Luckily, I have some glad tidings of my own—I am to wed in two weeks' time, to Priscilla Gildwallaen, eldest daughter of Councillor Gildwallaen, and it is absolutely essential that my heir be in attendance.
All my best,
King Haedelon"
"Wooooow," Daega breathed once she'd had a chance to read over the letter as well. She handed it back to him with a curled lip and a wrinkled nose, as if the crisp cream-colored parchment reeked. "He's a monster, that one. I'm sorry, sweet."
"I think this sudden m-marriage is f-far from sudden," he mused, rolling and unrolling the letter absently. "I-I think he thought I was dead already. Someone gave him bad intel. He d-doesn't want me at the wedding, he—"
"He just wants you back on the road to have another chance," Daega finished softly at his silence. She took his hands, stopping his nervous fidgeting. "One good thing to come of this is that it tells us he's a shite conspirator, and he can't get to you easily here. And now that Mum and Da have put out the alarm and set a heavier guard at the perimeter he'll have even more trouble."
"He might try and d-disown me, Dae," Len murmured, his eyes stuck on the floor.
"For what?"
"Fornothing. B-because I'm incon-inconvenient to him. I'm not the tool he needs, s-so he's going to try and make a n-new one." Len swallowed, feeling sick. "It's not a good feeling. B-but if he's successful, if I'm n-no longer the heir..."
"Salerah's fires," Daega swore, pulling Len into her lap and cradling him close—something she couldn't seem to do often enough when they were alone like this, now that Yollyn had said she was finally healed enough to use her limbs freely. "The treaty."
He nodded, pressing his cheek into her chest to feel her heart beating against it. "Yes. I've actually wondered often why it was thatIwas the one to marry you when he's not c-currently married, either. I'd concluded it was an age thing, but now I—I think m-maybe it was because I was always meant t-t-to die. To v-void th-the t-t-treaty..."
"Gods, what a horrid damn thought," she spat, holding him a little tighter. But she didn't try to refute it, he noted. "You're mine, and I'm not letting you go," she reminded him. She took his hand and placed it on the gentle swell of her belly, to the life growing there that was half his—he could actuallysensethat now, between the training he’d been doing with the healers and the fact that the pregnancy was further along. "And this isours. This peace is ours, too. And that miserable bastard won't take any of it from us, aye?"
Len leaned back to look into her pitch-dark eyes, her features blurring with his tears. "Aye, wife," he replied in Draka, his smile wobbly but heartfelt. "B-besides, there's too many Istariin-elf couples to go back n-now. How many are we at now in the c-camps?"
Daega chuckled, cocking her head as she thought. "Sweet Delenaa, I've lost count. There's Gran and Mal, Tesse and Sev—who has completely failed in his assisstant duties, by the way—erm…Fenris and my uncle, and I think I heard a rumor that Aevel had been absorbed into a polycule, the cheeky thing. Like I said, you elves work fast once given the chance."
He sat up in Daega's lap, his hands sliding to her waist. "Can you blame us? Nothing but s-stuffy elves to choose from all our lives, and then these g-great sweet, sexy, s-strapping creatures swagger into our lives l-looking good enough to eat..." He leaned in, licking a stripe up from between her swelling breasts to the hollow of her throat to illustrate, his pain at his father's deadly schemes receding as he focused instead on the beautiful woman in his arms. "Walking into s-sacred church halls wearing n-nothing but lace and the f-flesh the gods gave them..."
Daega chuckled throatily, squirming as he nibbled at her pulse point. "That was a misunderstanding, as you well know."
"Mmm. But given the c-circumstances, the fact that I waited an entire evening before bedding you speaks volumes of my self-control, d-does it not?" His hand pushed up the edge of her skirt and traced along the delicate skin of her inner thigh until he found his prize, his mouth slanting over hers so he could swallow her gasp when he eased his fingers into her wet heat and began to stroke into the rougher spot he knew felt best for her. Her legs eased wider, giving him better access, and he rearranged himself so that he could continue to pleasure her without straddling her lap like he had been. He'd barely touched her, and she was already so wet for him, a phase of the pregnancy that he was equal parts baffled and excited by. He found that there was an extra edge to things knowing that she was gravid with his young, some extra instinctual male smugness, like a claiming had been fulfilled in all ways, that made her cries of pleasure even sweeter than they already were. It made him want to be a little bolder, a little more forward with her, and it was doing interesting things to Daega as well.
"Please, Len," she begged, writhing against his hand, her hooves digging into the edge of the bed, "Please, I want to feel you inside me. I want you to fill me." She'd been wanting that a lot more recently, when before she'd been more interested in penetratinghim. He didn't really care either way—it was all good, when you got down to it—but he did like how much more sensitive she was. He was able to make her come several times in a row when he wanted to. And naturally, he always wanted to.
"I will, gorgeous," he promised, nuzzling his nose against hers before using his thumb to work her clit, making her choke out a shout that he swallowed up with another kiss. She shuddered, pressing up into him, before he felt her sex throb and tighten around him, her scream swallowed down into his throat.
She ripped her mouth from his, her dark eyes dazed as she grinned at him. "You fuckingtease," she chided, the grind of her hips into his hand, still working her, trying to coax another orgasm from her sweet cunt. "I asked for your cock."
"I know," he murmured against her lips, getting to his knees so he could press her back into their bed. "And I will give it t-to you. I'd have to be a f-fool not to. But let me have my fun, wife."
One white fang dug into her plump lower lip as she began to flutter around his fingers, encouraging him to work her harder, his mouth dropping to her throat to nibble and suck her where she was sensitive.
