“You’re the one who shoved me into an alcove.”
“You provoked me.”
“I’m going to keep provoking you. Fair warning. I will provoke you every single day for as long as you let me stay in this castle.”
I reached up and touched the collar. The silver was warm against my fingertips, still carrying his vibration, and I pressed my palm flat against it and felt the hum settle into my skin.
“Pip.”
“This is the sexiest thing that has ever happened to me,” I said, grinning up at him. “Definitely don’t want it to stop.”
Something happened on his face, something that wasn’t quite a smile, but a slight easing of the jaw, the way a soldier stands down from attention before he’s been formally dismissed.
He took the chain in his hand. Wrapped it once around his fist.
“Come,” he said. “I have training this afternoon, and you’re not leaving my sight. But first we need to change those… shorts,” he said, using the word with distaste, but I didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on my ass.
I pushed off the wall, adjusted my ruined shorts, and my gaze dropped down to his erection. “I can’t leave you like that, now can I?”
Smiling, I shoved him back against the wall. His trousers were a challenge, but I got the buttons undone before he could protest. Not that he tried. His hands tangled in my hair, his breath hitching as I took him in my mouth. He was close, and he let me feel it, his hips bucking against my face until he gave a low groan and gave me my favorite treat.
Chapter 13
Pip
Bytheseventhdayof my life as the Commander’s fucktoy pet, I had developed a routine.
I woke in Aeldryc’s bed, showered in Aeldryc’s shower, then fell to my knees and sucked Aeldryc’s cock while he washed himself, because I needed my morning cum and he needed to get his hard-on under control before we went anywhere public. Usually he’d get me off, too, because we’d quickly discovered that Aeldryc tended to lose control of his decision-making abilities if I was left too horny for too long.
Then we’d eat breakfast in the officers’ kitchen while Aeldryc read reports and pretended not to watch me steal extra bread. After that, Aeldryc had responsibilities, and I had nothing to do but follow him to whatever meetings, briefings, or patrols the day required.
Then we’d have dinner, and we’d have sex that rearranged my understanding of the human nervous system before passing out in a sweaty heap. On paper, it was the best routine I’d ever had: hot water, regular meals, spectacular orgasms, and a man who looked at me like I was both the most infuriating and most necessary thing in his world. Compared to my life in San Jose, this was better by every metric.
The problem was the middle part: the hours between breakfast and sex, when Aeldryc was the Commander of the Queen’s Grey Guard and I was just a human accessory sitting on whatever surface was available. Today, I was perched on the wooden fence at the edge of the training grounds.
I had dressed for the occasion: my newest pair of shorts and a waistcoat that I’d turned into a crop top, showing a stripe of stomach between the hem and the waistband that showed off the chain, which I’d started looping around my waist like a body chain. It went quite well with the silver beaded aetherwoven bracelet that was my favorite of the translation objects. Aeldryc had given up on the leash concept by day two, because it was clear that I wasn’t about to voluntarily put any kind of substantial distance between myself and his cock.
I was particularly proud of this outfit, especially when Aeldryc hadn’t been able to let me out of his bedroom without a sound spanking, which had led to a very nice orgasm for me, which had led to him burying a load of cum deep inside me.
We were late for things quite often.
The training grounds were a wide, flat yard of packed earth behind the barracks. For the first thirty minutes, it was pure, uncut, military-grade eye candy. Aeldryc had stripped to a sleeveless undershirt that clung to his shoulders like I did, and his soldiers, all built on a scale that made professional athletes look small, moved with a beautiful, deadly precision. They warmed up, stretched, and ran drills.
Then they ran the drills again.
And again.
My legs swung against the fence. The sun climbed higher. I watched a bird land on the gallery railing, seemingly as bored as I was. I tried to remember the words to a Dua Lipa song and got stuck on the bridge, feeling a sharp pang of missing my phone, of missing the easy answer to a stupid question.
Then Aeldryc yelled something, and my attention fixed on him, and I couldn’t think of any reason to want a phone more than I wanted him.
A shadow fell across me. I looked up to find a young fae man, not one of Aeldryc’s elite unit, but a lower-ranked guard, carrying a water bucket toward the field. He was maybe six-two, which was practically petite by fae standards, with light brown skin and brown hair pulled back in a loose knot.
“Morning,” he said, with a smile that suggested he was either brave or new. “You’re the human, right? Pip?”
“That’s me. The human. On the fence. Watching the thing.” I gestured at the training field with maximum enthusiasm. “Very exciting stuff.”
He laughed. It was a nice laugh.
