a large circle, and we’re not far from Kilkenny Keep at the end. We walk the horses back along a country road after the hard ride to give them a chance to cool down. At the barn, there are stable boys waiting to take the horses. After dismounting, I immediately loosen the cinch so Flynn can be more comfortable.
“I’ll take him, ma’am,” a stable boy offers politely.
If I were at home with Northstar or one of my horses, I’d unsaddle him and brush him down myself. But I’m not home, and this isn’t my horse, so I hand over the reins and give Flynn a parting rub on the nose. “We should have won. Thanks for a great ride.”
I turn to the stable boy. “He got spooked during the hunt and reared up. Please check him carefully for any sore spots or pulled muscles.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the stable boy responds with a bob of his head.
When I leave the horse barn, Ash is waiting for me outside. “I heard you took a tumble.” He brushes some dust off the shoulder of my black jacket. “Are you hurt?”
“Good news travels fast,” I mumble. “My pride took a beating, but other than that, I’m fine.” I fill Ash in on what happened in the forest with the seven-tailed fox.
“You think it was Kyoko?” he asks.
I give him a duh stare.
“Is she turning into a problem that needs solving?” Ash puts his arm around my shoulders, and we start back to the castle.
I loop an arm around his waist. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. And don’t forget, she’s a council member. She’s basically untouchable.”
“No one’s untouchable.” Ash’s ten-mile-wide alpha-male protective streak rings in his voice. “Seriously, are you sure you’re not injured?”
“Just my ego. That should have been my win.”
Ash puts his hand over his heart. “Oh, the worst pain of all.”
A giggle escapes me. He’s taught me how to laugh at myself. “Did you bet on me?”
“I’ll always bet on you, Seraphina. Every time.” His voice is deep and gravelly, and for a second, he sounds like Archer. “Why don’t we go up to our room, and I’ll run you a hot bath. That’ll help make sure you’re not too sore tomorrow from your fall.”
I rub my neck. “And I think I need a massage, too.” Ash’s massages always end the same way—happily, for both of us.”
He smiles knowingly down at me. “A massage can be arranged.”
“During my massage, are you going to do all the things I like?”
“Is that even a question?” He tucks me closer to his side.
“Are you going to do all the things you like? The things that make me blush but I secretly love?”
“Those things?” Ash traces his tongue around the rim of my ear. “I’m going to do those things again and again.”
“Between your promises and these tight riding pants, I’m going to have my first orgasm before we even get back to the house.”
Ash steers me off the main path toward a small covered pavilion overlooking a serene pond where a couple of swans lazily swim. “I don’t want to miss that. There’s a screened-in gazebo right here. Let’s put it to good use.”
“We can’t have sex outside in a gazebo in broad daylight. Someone will catch us,” I say, trying to sound responsible at the same time as I pick up the pace and pull him toward the gazebo.
Ash laughs and tugs on my hand. “I’m not talking about the main course. I’m just talking about an appetizer. Something to whet your appetite.”
“I’m plenty hungry already.” My fuck-me voice reinforces my words.
“Then this won’t take long at all.” Ash leads me into the gazebo and closes the swinging screen door behind us.
I look out over the pond, listening to the drone of the bumblebees and the wind rustling the cattails. Ash comes up right behind me, the heat of his body warming me through my riding jacket and breeches.
“Undo your pants,” Ash whispers into my hair.
“What if someone sees us?” I glance over my shoulder with lowered eyelids. Voices of the riders still milling around after the hunt float toward us on the breeze.
“They’ll just think we’re looking at the birds and the pond.” Ash cups my breasts over my jacket, and my nipples strain against the layers of fabric, demanding a firmer touch.
“Unbutton your pants. Do it now, Princess.”
The muscles in my legs tremble at the command in his voice, and I unbutton my breeches and pull down the zipper.
Ash skims a hand under my shirt and across my abdomen before sliding it down into my open pants.
To give him more access, I shimmy my tight pants down a bit lower on my hips and widen my stance as much as I can. Some people do meditation or yoga to center themselves; I do Ash. And I know that soon, the hunt and my loss will be a distant memory.
His fingers tease me, lightly moving over my pussy in a feather-soft caress. The stomp of riding boots on the main path; the threat of being caught makes it all the more thrilling. I flex my hips forward, looking for more pressure.
He parts my folds and dips a finger just inside my opening, probably only a knuckle deep. “You’re right. Your appetite is plenty whet already.”
Trying to get his finger deeper inside me, I move against his hand, but he keeps the penetration shallow, building my desire, driving me to distraction. I’m so close. If he would touch me with a little more force, I’d pop off.
He presses his finger all the way inside me before removing it completely, leaving me bereft and begging for the feeling of fullness again.
“Shush. You can’t be so loud.”
Completely under his spell, I didn’t realize I’d made any noise at all. “Stop playing with me.”
“Playing with you is my favorite thing to do.” His finger tip circles my clit, grazing it but not stroking it dead-on.
Placing my hand over his, I try to move his hand where I want it.
“My impatient Princess. Is this what you want?”
He spreads me open before the soft pad of his fingertip flicks up over my clit. The bundle of nerves is now partially outside of the hood, and he taps it perfectly, catapulting me into an orgasm that is both sweet and violent, a sharp cry escaping me. With my eyes closed and my head resting on his chest, I only have one thought.
He owns me.
My body, my heart, my mind, my very essence—are all in his hands. The depth of my love for him is all consuming, frightening in its magnitude. I don’t think he knows the influence he wields over me and how much I need him.
“Who would have guessed the Queen of Avalon is such a bad girl? Allowing herself to be debauched in a gazebo in the middle of the day.”
“No one, probably. Besides our friends and family, no one else knows the real me. The universe, certainly everyone here,” I say, casting my eyes up to the castle, “thinks I’m a spoiled little rich girl. Or an ice queen, frozen to the core.”
“There’s a world of emotion in you. A world you don’t share easily with others. You’re all fire—passionate and determined. And when you love something or someone, you love them hard. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for the people you care about,” he says low in his throat. “Let’s go back to our room. I promised you a hot bath and a massage.”
I do up my riding pants before turning to face him, my love for him shining in my eyes. “Thank you for seeing me. Understanding me. For not giving up on me even when I did my best to push you away.”
“Giving up on you never crossed my mind.” He lowers his mouth to mine.
I smile into his kiss and throw my arms around his neck. I’ll never allow anything to come between us. If something were to separate us, I would kick, scratch and bite to get back to him.
For him, I would most definitely fight dirty.
Despite a bath and very thorough massage, I’m bruised and sore the next morning. My hip, lower back and even my chest are tender, and protest getting tossed to the ground like a sack of cement by Flynn.
Lying in bed, I hear Ash in the bathroom getting ready for the day. Edmund has arranged for everyone to go deep-sea fishing. I’ve never been before, but I do love the water, and this will give me a chance to talk to some of the other council members.
I’m gingerly rolling over to get up when my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach a hand out and grab it.
Gia: Thought you’d want to see this right away. FYI: Sorry, but all the negative PR about you guys is gaining momentum.
I click the link in the message and bolt upright in bed, all my aches and pains forgotten. Staring back at me from my phone is a photo of Ash. He’s standing butt-ass naked beside a female’s bed. You can see a bit of her arm. The rest of her is out of the shot or covered by a white duvet.
The image is posted to the same Instagram model’s account as the edited video—the one deliberately chopped up to make it look as if Ash had been about to take her phone number. She captioned the new image “Look who spent the night.”
I rub my eyes. A wave of nausea rolls up from deep inside me.
He’s standing slightly turned away from the camera, but I’d know the long line of his hip and curve of his butt anywhere. How did she get a naked photo of Ash? There has to be a reasonable explanation for this. The image is most likely photoshopped. That’s it. Or it’s an old picture that was taken before we got together. My jaw tightens with the same feeling you have when you wake up from a bad dream about your mate cheating on you only to find him asleep in bed beside you. You’re still unaccountably vexed.
Ash walks into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He stops when he sees me. “You’re pale as a ghost, Princess. What’s wrong?”
I clutch my phone against my chest. “It’s a picture of you. And a female.”
Ash crosses the room and comes to stand on my side of the bed. “Show me.”
I hand him my phone. “That’s you, right?”
Ash looks at the image. Then snaps his eyes to me. He looks at the image again and then looks back to me again. “It’s me,” he says, handing me back my phone.
“Do you think the picture’s been photoshopped?”
“No, doesn’t look to be altered.”
“It must an old photo then.”
“No, it’s fairly recent.”
My world stops rotating as my head and stomach spin faster. I stare at him for a moment with my mouth agape. “I know you would never—”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Ash takes my phone back and points to the arm just barely visible in the photo. “That’s you.”
I snatch my phone back. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you recognize the room? Or maybe you don’t remember the night we consummated our binding.”
“Of course I remember that night. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“That’s the room where it happened, and that’s your arm. Believe me, I’d know that bony elbow anywhere. It’s been digging into my side every night for a year now.”
I look at the photo again. Holy fuck. Is it my arm? In my shock at the image, I only saw Ash’s naked body. “It has to be a still from the video of our consummation.” My mother and I were not close in those days, and I’d rebelled against my arranged marriage to Ash. She’d insisted on “proof” that I held up my end of the bargain and slept with him after the month-long reprieve I’d negotiated had come to an end. Someone is posting stills from that proof. “It has to be an inside job. That video evidence is stored in a highly protected server on Avalon. A secure standalone server that’s not connected to any other servers and can’t be hacked from the outside.”
“That limits the suspects then, doesn’t it?” Ash asks.
In my mind, there’s only one person it can be. “It has to be Thane. So very few people would have had access to that video or even knew of its existence. He’s trying to cover his tracks by having someone else post it, but it has to be him. It’s not one of the Gorm. They would never betray me like this.”
Some people sit on the sidelines of your life and instead of cheering you on or even just being a silent observer, they stick their foot out to trip you up, to intentionally hurt you. That was always Thane’s role in my life. “While he never made an overt move against me while my mother was alive—she would never have stood for it—he systematically undermined and belittled me at every opportunity.”
Ash gives me a serious look. “The last I heard, Thane returned to his home court among the fae. I’ll have to petition the Faerie Lords to release him into our custody and then send a squadron of Gorm to collect him. It may take a few days, but I’ll get him back.”
“It’s Thane,” I say again. “He’s the only one who’d do this to me. My gut is telling me he’s probably behind the videos, too. I don’t know why he’s doing this, but I know it’s him. He’s trying to hurt me for some reason. In the meantime, I’m going to ask Kat to pay that Instagram model a visit and see what she knows.”
“If Thane’s behind this, I’m going to kill him,” Ash says through gritted teeth.
Or I am.
