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The princess’s naked thighs spread around my waist, her soaked pussy grazing my cock like the worst sort of tease. Holding me fast, she lowered herself, straddling me to the ball sac. The walls of her cunt flared around my erection, coating the flesh in her arousal.
My control snapped. I lunged my hips off the mattress and pitched into her, my dick splitting her folds wider. The princess’s spine curved, so far back those locks of red hair brushed my knees. She seized my waist for balance, opening as I charged at her, drawing me deeper, deeper, deeper.
She cried out, the moans desperate as I fucked harder into her. Lying prone beneath the princess, I watched her nude body jostle from the rhythmic brunt of my cock, her hair a messy, fiery curtain on either side of her face. Those eyes pierced through the darkness and glittered with rapture.
On a growl, my lips parted. Her name teetered on the wet edge of my tongue. “Bri—”
My eyes flickered open, a groan humming from my lips. Instead of haunted, this time I awoke on the verge of bliss. Condensation glazed my naked skin, the sheets of my bed tangling around my limbs, and blood rushed to the head of my rigid cock.
I ripped off the covers and panted into the room, lust and longing coursing through my veins. That, and annoyance, which segued to anger. I had pumped my dick to thoughts of her so many times, ’twas a wonder calluses hadn’t formed on my palm.
Launching upright, I knifed my fingers through my hair and stared into the darkness. “Where are you, sweeting?” I snarled, the sound coming out furious and lustful.
Summer, a hard nay. Winter, unlikely. Spring, foolish.
Jinny would offer sanctuary, but crossing kingdom lines into a Season from which Briar was outlawed was a recipe for disaster. Autumn had evicted the princess from its castle limits, not its borders. By contrast, Spring indeed had. Defying that order wouldn’t sit well with Basil and Fatima, a catastrophe if we wanted to reach a truce with them.
Briar was too smart to be obvious, much less reckless. If I knew my thorn, she felt responsible for the fates of everyone around her. Assuming Briar wouldn’t face a Spring trial, she still wouldn’t put our campaign in jeopardy. Never mind dragging Eliot and Cadence with her, when both were now considered traitors by their origin Season.
Nor would Briar place Jinny in the position of being an accomplice, no matter how much experience the elder woman had in committing treason—and how few fucks she’d give about the dire consequences.
Nay, Briar’s conscience would allow none of this. Hence, she was in Autumn. For this nation flowed through her veins like a life force.
She would go somewhere enshrouded by nature. Somewhere that encompassed the written word. Someplace where no one else would dare to go.
Pride over her ingenuity clashed with several irksome emotions. My fists curled as I succumbed to a new form of obsession. The more she evaded me, the harsher these impulses became. Oh, but my sweet thorn would pay for making her jester suffer.
When I found her, the princess had better be in one piece. If not, I’d shred whoever had touched her and make them beg for death.
Or if she was all right, I’d direct my vengeance toward her, tie the woman down with a dozen scarlet ribbons, and make her spine curl so far off the mattress, the blood would rush to her head. I would make my latest erotic dream a reality. I’d fuck her so thoroughly, make her come so violently, she would feel me inside her every time she moved. From then on, the princess would never know any other sensation than raw, hot bliss.
Pressure built in my temple. A growl scraped a path up my throat.
But as I held back, denied myself the sound of her name, a thought struck me. I recalled the verse I’d recited for Nicu, the one from Briar’s book series. It had been about a ruler falling to ruin, then rising to power. But during the interim, that ruler had bided her time by living amid folkloric trees, forging that place into her own makeshift castle.
From the sacred wild, she will reign.
In the hidden trees, is her domain …
I picked through my memory, going back to the first night on Briar’s balcony, shortly before I gave her that earth-shattering climax. My thorn had pointed out the geography of Autumn, citing a place where no one ventured.
A realm born of lore and myth, like the pages of a dark fairytale, akin to the one she loved to read. An enclave with historical significance. An abandoned place.
My heart galloped like a beast. I gripped the blankets and crushed them in my fists.
And then I knew.
I fucking knew where to find her.
10
Briar
When I was a child, I loved playing hide and seek. The thrill of tucking myself away somewhere. The excitement of nestling into a secret recess. The comfort in knowing I was safe, no matter what niche I stashed myself into. Because my parents would play along and search, I loved the challenge of outsmarting them, reassured that the ones who cared would always find me.
Like the nightly expeditions with Father through the halls, when we used to explore the castle’s labyrinthine passages, I relished being lost and then found. For a time, grief had accompanied those memories. But now in this veiled forest, I welcomed the recollections.
Hunched over, with my knees in the dirt, I closed my eyes and let the visions enfold me. Father would insist we seek out every burrow of this landscape. Mother would appreciate the lore and history. Nicu would be awed by the colorful leaves. And …
