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He pulled me up so that my back was against his chest, and I was sitting on his cock. He drove it into me again and again, then leaned over and captured my mouth in another sensuous kiss. I was ready to come again. He put his hand over my leaking cock and held it tightly between us, rubbing a thumb over the tip and I couldn’t hold back any longer. He came at the same time with a shout, and I cried out because it was so good. It always was, but this was almost unbearable, and I wanted it to last forever.
I would look back on that lovemaking later and find comfort in it. He had given me the perfect day. Perhaps by wishing for more of them, I’d jinxed myself.
Chapter Thirteen
Lexington
Two more weeks passed after our little outing to the royal gallery in Thalia. It was late in the morning on the day a rider came with an urgent message. He’d been sent by Queen Berinda to give us the news that Rory’s father, King Elam, had passed away two days earlier in his sleep.
The news couldn’t have come at a worse time, because by that time, we knew that Rory was going to have my child. The physicians said he was about six weeks along, and though they gave him a good report, they did insist that he stop riding Sunshine until the baby came and were insistent that the trip back to Igella bouncing around in a carriage would be too much for him. Male omegas never had an easy time with pregnancy. He was having a lot of nausea and some mornings he couldn’t get out of bed before noon. I decided he'd be better off at home with Asher and Wyatt to watch over him. Brandon and I would go to Igella, so I could be installed as Regent, with Rory’s coronation taking place when he was well enough to travel. Rory, who dreaded seeing Berinda and Callista again anyway, didn’t put up much of a fuss.
I think he was even a little happy about me going, because with me being busy in Igella, I didn’t have to accompany my brother on a training exercise for a month. All four of my brothers, including the king, usually attended these bi-annual sessions, and it was a way for us to catch up with each other and get away from our spouses, not to mention keeping our fighting skills sharp.
I didn’t particularly want to get away from my omega; just the opposite, in fact, but if I had stayed at home, I would no doubt have had to participate or explain to Harrison why I wouldn’t be joining in. While Rory hated to see me leave, I should be back in only two weeks instead of four, so he was content enough, though still not pleased.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t come along,” he said, watching me pack. “I can ride in a carriage if you think it would be better.”
“I don’t though, princeling. It will be bumpy and uncomfortable, and besides all that, your doctor has advised against it. Besides, this way, I can get rid of Berinda and Callista before you have to go for your coronation in a few more weeks and make some badly needed upgrades to the castle. Won’t that be nice?”
“I guess so,” he said, looking forlorn.
I kissed his lips and held him close. “Asher and Wyatt will take good care of you while I’m gone—both of you,” I said, patting his still flat stomach. And when I return, you can demonstrate to me all the progress you’ve made learning your religious verses.”
“I hate those things.” He gave me such a pouty look I almost had to take him back to bed, but Brandon was waiting for me downstairs, so I settled for a little slap to his ass. “Be good, because you know Wyatt will tell me if you’re not.”
“I’m not a child, you know.”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart. I know.” I gave him one more passionate kiss and then I made myself leave and go downstairs to meet Brandon.
We were gone for a little over two weeks, as it turned out, because Queen Berinda pulled out all the stops in trying to get me to put Rory aside and take Callista instead. I had to get very firm with her at last, but I sent her and Callista to the king’s summer residence in the end, and gave her more money, because she claimed to have “had expenses,” and have run out of all the gold I’d given her already.
Brandon, who despite his easygoing personality, had a streak of iron running down his backbone, told her she was being put on an allowance. I’d have liked to cut her off and toss her out, but after all, she was the king’s widow, and Callista was my omega’s half-sister. But after this, Brandon told her, if she spent too much, she would simply have to do without. Her tears and remonstrances fell on deaf ears and after a couple more days of stalling, we finally saw them on their way.
I arranged for some badly needed repairs to be done to the castle in my absence, left the king’s council in charge until we returned, and we got on our way back to Morovia. We’d been on the road back home for only a day, when we met a rider coming fast on the way from Morovia. It was Wyatt.
He looked exhausted and even haggard, his usual playful, teasing manner nowhere to be found. I was terrified the moment I saw him because I knew that something inconceivably bad had happened to Rory
****
Rory
It had been three days since I’d been taken from the lodge—three miserable days of trying to answer the incessant questions and respond to the badgering of the court magicians and priests. I was trying really hard not to lose my temper, but it was getting harder with each passing hour. I could feel a pressure building inside my chest again, like it did when Lex and Asher kept chanting their spell over me, and I was afraid it would burst out of me again like it did then. Only if that happened, I knew it wouldn’t be good. Not good at all.
The queen’s guard had come for me just three days ago, though it seemed so much longer. Asher and Wyatt had argued with them when they said they were taking me, but there were too many of them to fight. Finally, Asher told them belligerently that he was going with me, no matter what they said, and they allowed it as far as the palace grounds. Wyatt held me in his arms as I left and told me not to despair, because he was going after Lex as soon as the soldiers left. He said he wouldn’t rest until they got me back home. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t feel optimistic. This was the queen of Morovia. And I was only the son of one of their enemies, and what she called a “warlock” to boot.
They didn’t put me in chains or anything, and I think that was due to Asher’s protection. He rode beside me all the way, his face grim and set in hard lines, right up to the gates of the red brick palace, where he was turned away. He, too, held me close and told me to be brave. He whispered to me to please be careful not todoanything, and I knew he was talking about the way I’d blasted him and Lex into a wall not too long ago when they’d been trying to bind my so-called magic.
Then I was taken before Queen Rozamond herself.
Her throne room, and indeed the entire palace, put our Igellan castle to shame. It was ornate and well-appointed, like the queen. What she lacked in beauty, she made up for with expensive clothing and an elaborate coiffure, topped by a thin, gold circlet, studded with diamonds.
She was like those diamonds, cold, pale and haughty. An uncompromising woman, but with the inner fire that every religious zealot seems to have. Right away, I could see she was afraid of me, and that scared me more than anything.I wasn’t worldly or experienced, but I used to read a great deal in my shadowy hideout in the library—enough to know that fanatics feared any threat to their sacred values and what they considered to be their social identity. If something threatened that, things could get very ugly, very fast. And they’d do whatever it took to eliminate any potential threat.
The queen believed in magic, per the tenets of her church, but she also feared it greatly. And she believed that dark magic, like my mother was supposed to have, came directly from the devil. I knew I was in grave danger from her.
“Your mother was the warlock called Vesper,” she began, fixing me with a cold glare.
“My mother was Queen Vesper, of Igella. Everything else you may have heard is just rumors and slander.”
