Page 107 of Amidst the Insidious Courts
Mate her?
I blink at the thought, then push back at the wolf in rebuke.
We definitely can’t just mate her. She’s a Nicnevin, she needs a proper mating ceremony, with witnesses and Kitarni at the high temple. A huge dress and a thousand fae watching her blood exchanges with her full Guard. Yet, to my wolf’s mind, that’s the only solution. The only way we can always keep tabs on her and know that she’s safe.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “No one has really approached me inthatway since my fever.” A painful pause. “I know men—males—have needs. Did I do something wrong? Was I…?” she trails off, but I hear the unsaid plea.
Her fledgling confidence in her sexuality is waning, and now that she’s brought it up, it’s obvious why. All the work we did to make her feel comfortable before her fever hit was abandoned as soon as it was over. We were waiting for her to make the first move. Normally, a fae female spends a few days after her fever healing, and it's up to her to re-initiate sexual contact after that.
I assumed her guides or Kitarni would’ve said something, but apparently, they haven’t. Which has given rise to mortal ideas about male ‘needs’ being the only important ones in the relationship.
Bree’s outraged hiss makes her flinch back, her touch disappearing from my arm.
She thinks we don’t want her? Is she mad? My wolf wants me to throw her down, shred her skirts, and fuck the daft notion out of her head.
Shit. I have to get out of here.
Bram, perhaps sensing this is a conversation Rose needs to have with her mates in privacy, slinks away with awkwardness written into every line of his face.
“Needs?” Drystan spits out, but Lore is already there.
“Feeling needy, pet? Remember what we said, you’ve got to ask for what you want. Your fever was divine, but if you want to reenact it without the deliriousness and cramping, I’m at your service.”
“Rhoswyn,” Drystan snarls. “Fae males do not use their ‘needs’ as an excuse to pressure a female for sex. Especially one whose only interactions with them were driven by biological necessity.”
“What he means to say,” Bree cuts in, saving Drystan’s ass once again. “Is that no one wanted to pressure you.”
“And Jaro?” Those too perceptive violet eyes are boring into me. I can feel them on the back of my head.
I open my mouth, but the words to tell her I’m fine won’t come out. Shame, sharp and sour, coats my tongue as I realise I’ve just tried to lie to my mate.
Shit. How did everything go so wrong? Her scent is filling my lungs, making it hard to think past the panic beating beneath my skin. The wolf has started pacing, pushing for a shift. His demands circle my brain on repeat.
Mate her. Mate her.
“I need some air,” I mutter as I flee the hold, headed anywhere, as long as it’s far away from my stricken mate.
Thirty-Three
Rhoswyn
The graceful archway that forms the foundation for the capital of the Summer Court looms slowly closer as the ship's sails flap above us in the breeze. The sun is just setting, framed perfectly by the hole in the rock, making the entire city glint with gold.
So beautiful. I soak it in along with the salt of the sea air and do my best not to think about the conversations my Guard has been avoiding having with me. Ever since Jaro fled, they’ve been even more careful, which isn’t what I wanted.
I went down into the hold after Maeve interrupted Mab’s report on the worsening conditions inside Elfhame to tell me my Guard were holding a secret meeting without me. I hoped that confronting them about their lack of interest would open up a conversation, but then I got down there, and they were already talking about me… behind my back.
“I get the sense that you’re thinking too much into it,” Mab mumbles, from her perch on the ship’s taffrail between Maeve and Titania. “Your Guard will always be there for you.”
Grimacing, I turn my focus beyond my three guides to the sunlit city. Eero is in there somewhere, along with a hundred other fae. By all accounts, the summer king keeps an impressively large court, and this time he’s extended an invitation to stay in the palace. Kitarni accepted it, because without my fever as an excuse, there was no reason to stay in the temple.
“There’s an escort approaching,” Captain Byrne mutters, hooking his spyglass onto his belt as he clops up beside me. “Flying royal colours.”
“The king?” I ask, nervously.
“Nah, it’s the standard of the crown princess.” The captain shrugs. “If you don’t mind me saying, you should probably change into something more… queenly, Nicnevin.”
I glance down at the tunic and leggings I put on this morning. If I’ve learned anything in the last few days, it’s that skirts simply aren’t practical on a ship. Still, they’re fine clothes, and we’re still a ways from Siabetha.
