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She glanced up, marveling. “This is the first time I’ve beheld the wonders of this timberland. I thought I knew everything about Autumn. Yet reading about the kingdom, touring it on occasion, and harvesting only got me so far. I’ve never interacted with the wild this way. Not beyond the castle boundaries.” Briar extended an arm overhead and strained her fingers toward the leaves. “Perhaps I needed to be banished,” she wondered. “If only to become a tangible part of my home.”
“Perhaps,” I said absently, riveted by her.
Out of nowhere, Briar gasped. The noise snagged my attention from her profile, my head craning toward the source. One of the twigs—almighty Seasons—stretched toward her like a finger.
We froze, staring as the offshoot brushed the tip of her digit. “If I didn’t know better,” I began, then raised an eyebrow. “And really, the knave in me rarely knows better, but I’d say it’s reacting to your speech.”
Briar tilted her head. Her throat pumped as though swallowing a lump of rocks. “It has been a long time since I felt like I’ve earned something, rather than believing I’ve ruined it. But since leaving the castle—with the oak tree plaiting its leaves in my hair and now this—the former has eclipsed the latter.”
The princess lowered her voice, her tone secretive whilst she spoke to the branch. “I’ve come here later in life than I should have, and purely for refuge. I sought and took what you would give me. When truly, I should have considered what I could give you. So humbly, I extend my gratitude and beg your pardon. Thank you for your protection. And I swear by my Royal oath, I will honor you as you have honored me.”
After a moment, the twig curled around her finger. When it did, Briar smiled.
“Sweet Thorn,” I muttered, then leaned in from behind and ghosted my breath into her ear. “If you ever needed proof of who you are—” my lips slanted, “—you have it now.”
Her spine lifted. I sensed her committing those words and this moment to memory.
In the final hours before dawn, my body screamed for hers, eager to make Briar come repeatedly until the sun rose. Instead, her joints loosened to putty not long after, and her eyelids fluttered with exhaustion. Lo, the desire to give her more than an orgasm—or a dozen—exceeded other cravings. In the treehouse, I stripped the princess down, washed us both in the shower, and gifted her the final book in her series, which she hugged to her chest. After reading a chapter together, I nested Briar under the blankets and fell unconscious to the rhythm of her sleep.
The following morning, I fucked my princess deeply into the mattress. With her ass tipped upward and curled into my pelvis, and my cock pistoning into her slick cunt from behind, and our shouts hitting the roof, I made sure the first thing she felt at dawn was our bodies locked and a climax launching from her throat.
Before we left the colony, Briar penned a note and tied it to the branch from last night. This missive was intended for the enclave’s next guest, whoever that might be. “It might help them,” was all she said.
Always instinctively looking out for her people. That was my princess.
We armed ourselves, packed the essentials, and mounted our rides whilst leaden clouds floated through the firmament. The four of us savored one more prolonged view of The Lost Treehouses, then kicked the horses into a gallop.
Aye, poets tended to exaggerate for the sake of it. Be that as it may, the journey passed in seconds and decades. Shockingly, it was less eventful than it had been getting there, for myself as well as their party. The stab-happy criminals, lethal crops, and rabid animals were nowhere in sight, the days and nights flying behind us in a montage.
Cadence kept up the banter, Eliot played for us at night, and I recited a few graphic verses to liven things up. To no avail. The closer we got to our destination, the quieter Briar became.
Indeed, the only time she made noise was when I pressed her against the trees at night, far from our various encampments, and fucked my cock into the wet clutch of her pussy. Lovemaking, in addition to the moments when I succeed in getting a laugh from her, became the exceptions.
Finally, the forest receded, giving way to a panorama of wheat and corn beneath a dome of stars. The Wandering Fields sprawled across the hills, stalks burnished and swaying in the breeze. The lower town’s steepled roofs clustered together, and the statuesque maples rose into the sky. Laced in thickets of fog, the brown masonry and flat towers of the castle materialized, its bronze pennants slapping the wind.
Halting our horses on the brick road leading through the fields, we studied the fortress. Cadence slanted her evergreen head. “I know it’s supposed to resemble a grand library, but maybe next time, paint the castle in a more cheerful color.”
“Rose gold,” Eliot joked mildly. “Like my soul.”
“I rather fancy the brown,” I boasted. “The contrast brings out my eyes.”
In a perfect world, we would have chuckled. Sadly, even jesters as skilled as I had their off days.
A tendril of red hair feathered Briar’s cheek. Her voice drifted across our group. “Orange,” she whispered, gazing at the stronghold. “Happy Orange.”
Nicu’s favorite color. As my son’s face manifested from the princess’s answer, my black heart exploded. The princess would make it inside. She would reunite with him if I had to dismember every soldier on duty.
We tethered the horses at the forest border and drew handsewn garments from our packs. One of the advantages of Spring. Our culture got creative with attire, and not merely for role-play kinks. As a nation of artistry, our court excelled in performance as well as sin and sex.
Whilst making camp last night, we’d gone to work on scraps of old abandoned clothing from the treehouses, fashioning them until they resembled lower ranking councilors’ robes. Nonetheless, I sulked at the bland, unembellished panels of suede, each yard the color of fresh turds.
“If anyone cares to stay on my good side, you’ll never bring this up after today,” I warned.
“Says the man who’d look good wearing mud,” Cadence remarked while tying a belt around her waist.
Briar fastened the toggle closures that scaled my chest. Despite herself, she repressed a sudden grin. “You do realize she’s right.”
The lady could be right about anything as long as it alleviated Briar’s anxiety. Matter of fact …
