Page 18 of Six Burning Candles

She squinted at me suspiciously. “Uh-huh.”

“If I’m being quite honest, I remember rubbing your back as you spilled your guts on the floor. Your father whisked you away to heal you and…I do not remember even considering making someone else clean it up. I simply grabbed a mop and a bucket.” I eyed her right back as she slouched in her chair. Those wondering orbs of hers studied every inch of my face then fell toward the desk.

“You do that a lot…” she murmured.

“Do what? Clean up messes? I fear that is a part of my title,” I grumbled mostly to myself. Half the Lunar Cleric’s duties were picking up after people. When a cleric was unable to complete a duty, it was my job to see it done. When blessings went awry, I was the one to fix them. When someone needed to bring ointments to villages on the edge of the kingdom or deliver goods from the Cathedral, I was the one in a traveler’s cloak. And when the Hierophant Rex went on ‘sabbaticals’ or saw to the goddess’ wishes, it was me who kept the church upright.

“My…messes…” she murmured, peeking up again. “Like the first time you met me.”

“Ah,” I snorted, tracing some of the cracks with my fingernail. “You remember that?”

“You mean the time the cleric who walked in on me getting eaten like a holiday feast, turned around and stalled with my father till I could get the knight out that window right there?” She jabbed a thumb at the massive glass pane at the end of the room. “Yes, I remember.”

“Well…” I trailed off, finally at a loss for words.

“I just don’t understand you, Keida,” she sighed, climbing to her hooves. Melrose plucked her dinner plate from the deskand turned toward the door. I ripped back up onto my feet and impulsively took the plate from her. She blinked at me in bewilderment as I sat it back down on the desk.

I swallowed hard, lost in her gaze for a moment before the words fell out of my mouth.My confessional.“This church is all I am, Melrose. This? This cleric you see before you is all I am. I was raised in this order. I know nothing else.”

“And you think that scares me?” she scoffed.

“It should!” I blurted out. “Or at the very least make me unattractive to you.”

Melrose crossed her arms, head cocked to the side in disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

“You should…” I scrambled for words that evaded me. “Want something more than this? Find a prince who will whisk you away to a foreign kingdom where you’ll live a glamorous life.”

“I donotlike men that way,” she snapped.

I inhaled sharply through my nose, pinching the bridge in order to ground myself. “Alright, fine,a princess.”

“I do notwanta princess. I do not wish to be one. You want to know what I want, Keida? No one seems to care about what it is I want but have all these thoughts and ideas on what Ishoulddo with my life. My. Life.”

I caved, shaking my head in defeat, “What is it that you want in life, Melrose?”

She seethed for a moment. The fire in her eyes steadily softened to a candle’s burn, her lips quivering.Oh…I never thought about it like that.Melrose St. Augustine, daughter of the Hierophant, chained by the order but never by choice.

“I want to make dresses for people, even if they’re egregiously overdressed to wear in their living room. Because every single person deserves to feel pretty.” The words slapped me in theface as she lowered her arms from under her chest. Her eyes welled with tears that didn’t spill, but I could hear it in her voice. “I want to help out in the Order. I like feeding the less fortunate and organizing events. I like talking to the clerics, reminding them to be people and not just emotionless mages who do as they’re told and nothing else. I want to be a pillar of this community, of this kingdom, not because I’ve married some princess…but because I do good. And I want you, most of all, despite how endlessly you try to dissuade me. I wish I didn’t, Keida, but I do. So there.”

She snatched up her skirt, but I didn’t let her leave. My hands found her waist, walking her back into a bookshelf.You should not want me, Melrose, you could do better. You deserve a princess. But fine. If you do not want one. You’ll have me…until your father beheads me for it, that is.All the words I wanted to say fell away as my lips crashed onto hers. I hoped it would speak louder for me as my fingers fisted up the heavy fabric of her skirt.I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. I clean up your messes because I enjoy that you’re not perfect, and it reminds me that I am allowed to make mistakes.Her lips matched mine, palms cupping my cheeks. I swallowed her light mewl that turned into a moan as I molded my body against hers.

“Keida,” she breathed, breaking the kiss for only a moment. “What is ityouwant?”

I laughed, breathless and without thought, “You, Trouble. I justwantyou.”

Chapter Eleven:

~Melrose~

Ididn’timagineI’dbe making out with Keida in my father’s office, or that I’d end up perched on the edge of his desk, but…well…there I was. My dress tossed over my chair, my dinner plate gone by some magic, and my hooves hooked behind Keida. Fingers in her hair, our lips crashed over and over as her hands roamed my body. It was the second time I’d fucked in my father’s office, but comparing the two instances, this went far better.

The first day Keida met me, she burst in on me making out Knight Bernstein, a pretty brunette woman with a pixie cut. If I was flirty, Peony Bernstein was a floozy. I’d never met someone who outmatched me in charisma. One day, I walked the cathedral halls with her, explainingsomethingabout the order, when she pushed me into a wall and kissed me. It was hot and heavy and delicious. It ripped me out of my head. Somehow we ended up in Leonardo’s office, pieces of my attire falling to the ground. Peony’s hands were far rougher than Keida’s, a little less forgiving. They weren’t searching or teasing or playing. She roughly pressed them inside of me, and for a moment I wondered if I liked the directness. I didn’t even have time to decide if it was a turnoff or on, because in the blink of an eye, Peony’s lips were all over my nipples and Keida was bursting through the door.

I replayed the moment over in my head a thousand times since that moment. How I rushed to push Peony out the window, and she didn’t seem to want to go. How Keida flat out stopped the Hierophant Rex to talk to him out in the hall till I was dressed enough to pass. How when he entered, he found me in my usual chair, fussing with my hoof like I’d gotten a rock in it or something.

Sat on that desk, bare and enveloped in Keida’s touch, was a completely different experience. For one, there was no rush. No threat of Papa walking in on us, or a random cleric finding us in the confessional booth. But worst of all was, where Peony had been rough, nearly ripping buttons off my clothing or biting cruelly against my throat…Keida was affectionate.

Even when she was rough, her fingers danced over my skin like she worshipped it. I wasn’t an object to her. I sighed dreamily as Keida kissed down my jugular. “Naughty, wicked girl, we’re desecrating his office.”