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The King climaxes to my words, penetrating me, stabbing deep to the hilt. He braces. His eyes widen, pupils dilating. Neither of us could ever hope to hold our breaths. But we don’t have to.
I don’t fade to evanescence.
I don’t slip into the fabric between worlds.
Death’s icy fingers don’t close over my body to reap my lost spirit into the River Cryth.
I am naked blood and flesh and bone and heart.
And most of all...I am here.
The next moment I gaze at Allysteir, I lurch, I gasp, I almost scream. No corpse gazes back at me. Now, an Ithydeir man, handsome and young and virile, stares at me. His flesh and blood hand roams to my cheek to brush away strands of my silver flame hair.
A bone-deep chill shivers through me when he proclaims, “Isla, it’s me. And I knew you were the one.”
Swept into the moment, in the lingering endorphins flooding my flushed body, I sink my shoulders in utter relief, welcome Allysteir who gathers me into his arms, kisses me with his full mouth, and makes love to me all night long.
For the first time, no shades haunt our bed.
“Isla, Isla, my dark rose...”I breathe again and again in the aftermath of our latest shared climax as she rakes her nails into my back from her desired position. All night long, we have remained in bed. Our true honeymoon.
Gasping, heaving, my breath hot against her face, suffused with a blush to mirror her breasts. Thanks to my renewed and hungering mouth, those tiny stones of buds are puckered and swollen. I brush my knuckles across her cheek where her holocaust of waves cleaves to her sweat-ridden skin. “Dawn is coming, and I must leave for Death business soon. Please tell me you are spent,” I beg her, my cock twitching inside her velveteen walls. A wonder it hasn’t fallen off by now.
Isla cups her forehead and blows a sigh of pomegranate and wine-fragrance?her only sustenance this long night?while closing her eyes. She offers a feeble nod. “My sex is sore, my breasts are sore, my muscles are sore, and you’ve left little love marks all over my thighs and belly.” She points out while plumping her lower lip into a fervent pout.
Chortling low, I rub my nose to hers, thrilling in how my restored locks cascade onto her burning cheeks. Not dark like Aydon’s inherited from the former Corpse King but a rich cinnamon hue which led the King to suspect Mathyr’s affair.
“Don’t fault me. I wished to sleep hours ago,” I remind her and eject myself from her inner chamber.
She gives a little whimper. “Sleep is overrated. We have eternity to sleep. And...you are beautiful, my Corpus King.” Isla sighs, head sinking into the pillows as she studies me, fingers roaming the ridged muscles of my chest and lower. I was never overly packed but prided myself on my leanness thanks to climbing the White Ladies’ hidden depths to unearth their recesses and endless caverns. With my being restored, I have returned to the strength of my youth. And I could not appreciate my bride more?for her flattery and her fortitude.
“Thank you, my Lady Queen,” I express from my heart with a gratified smile.
Isla whimpers into my mouth when I kiss her lips?a mere brush before rubbing my mouth along the center of her body until I arrive at the marks she referenced. How often lust coincides with the need for blood and flesh. Maintaining stamina through the night to match my bride’s required more sustenance. Isla did not give me beyond a second or two to brush bone powder over the marks.
I love how her plump, little belly pulses from her frazzled breath. A few corpus rose petals have strayed across her pale flesh, and her thighs part when I open my mouth to bestow a warm kiss upon each mark, summoning the power of Death’s shades. Sweat mars my brow as it requires more effort. No longer a prisoner to Kryach, I do not bear his essence despite housing a fraction of his power. After five hundred years with the accursed God of Death haunting my mind and soul, I’d say I’m damn well entitled.
Finished with her belly, I pause before descending to her thighs and trace my fingers across her soft flesh, heat in my chest as if a thousand fireflies have raided it. “I imagine what your birthing marks will look like, my bride. Rest assured, I will never heal them.”
All Isla’s muscles tense. Brows knitting in confusion, I tighten my chest and glimpse at her as she nudges me away and curls her legs into her chest. I do not care for the glower pillaging her otherwise sensual lips, swollen from my mouth’s ministrations.
“What do you mean “birthingmarks”, Allysteir?” Her tone is contemptuous.
Tilting my neck, I reach for her, puzzled when she flinches. I hover my palm above her knee before settling my fingers there, too aware of my dark rose’s heated temper. “Isla, I am the Corpse King. The Curse is not yet ended. You merely survived as my mother survived. Kryach has found favor with you. But the cycle must begin anew.”
“Why?” Her brow furrows and she binds her arms around the underside of her thighs, lowers herself so her legs press to her breasts as if she could conceal their magnitude. “We are immortal.”
I sigh, rubbing my eyes, attempting to explain. “If Mathyr had not killed the last Corpse King?what I mean is...yes, we are immortal.” My hand strays to the right one nestled on her thigh, grateful she does not flinch. Grateful her hold relents, and she allows me to pursue her, to gather her nude form onto mine. Our chests and brows touch in a bonding moment between husband and wife. “But our greatest immortality will be reserved for the spirit dwelling beyond the Nether-Void. For the halls of my ancestors.”
She crinkles her nose, lips parting. Before she may respond, I cover them with my fingers, delaying her despite her brow furrowing, so I may continue, “Please fret not, my bride. We will live long lives. Beyond my grandparents’ happiness. They lived for two hundred years beneath the White Ladies, Isla. I aim to surpass them. I aim for five hundred to restore what was lost to me. We will live to watch our wee bayrnies grow to their fifth generation.”
Again, Isla tenses. Spiny thorned roots grow from her skin. Her eyes turn icy, those amethysts hardening to royal diamonds. Hoping to placate her, to restore the peace and joy we have shared this night, I open her mouth beneath mine, roam shade power along her spine. I remember how she appreciated such a touch to calm her. Mouth dry from eagerness and gratitude, from my love for her, for her strength, and how she’d survived Death, I pray my next words calm her. They will offer her hope as they do me. “By then, whichever son or grandson or great-grandson chooses the Curse mantle will be fully prepared...unlike me.”
The moment I draw my lips to her quickening pulse, Isla pushes my chest, forbidding me from kissing her. “Allysteir...” Puzzled, I meet her eyes. She closes hers, sighs through her nostrils, then deeply inhales. Her breasts nudge me from her expanding chest. Finally, her eyes open. Resolved, they are deeper and darker and more adamant than our Underworld mines. “I. Do. Not. Want. Children.”
I blink. My throat constricts. Not once but multiple times. My heart plummets into the barest recesses of my being. “Isla...” I cup her cheek, striving for rationality, but she flinches. She stares me down with those adamantine amethysts.
“No, Allysteir. You have played into the gods’ hands too long. This is why the Curse continues. You grant him too much power.”
