I wasn’t a cruel incubus. I didn’t make my lovers beg.
Much.
“Please,” Midnight breathed. “Bite me, please…”
I bit the juncture between Midnight’s neck and his shoulder.
Lysander made a choked sound. When I looked up, marking Midnight with a deep hickey (because an incubus had to mark his property), Magenta met my gaze with dark eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, and she rubbed absentmindedly at her own throat.
Lysander coughed, before clasping his hands smartly behind his back and deliberately not watching Midnight and me. “Entertainment, that’s what…” He might not be watching, but the hard-on in his pants told a different story. “Fae balls always start with music, and most certainly not orgies.”
Magenta sighed. “Well, how thoroughly disappointing. That’s my Lady Godiva costume out then.”
Sleipnir chuckled.
My answer was to suck a path from Midnight’s neck to his chocolate treat of a wing.
The taste exploded through me: every rich taste that I’d been denied, all at once racing through my senses.
And drawing my balls up embarrassingly fast.
Hadn’t Serenity said that it created endorphins? Why didn’t they call it Cum Chocolate?
What a missed marketing opportunity.
Midnight writhed underneath me.
“I want in on this.” Fox stumbled to the couch, perching next to Midnight, before gripping his hand. “Chocolate Vampires have always been my favorite sweet.”
“That’s lucky, seeing as mages are mine.” Midnight drew Fox in for a lingering kiss, before Fox drew back to nibble at a feather.
Then his eyes shot wide and he covered his lap in the time honored hiding you’re about to cum in your pants move.
“Ehm, has anyone told you that you’re sex on wings?” Fox blushed adorably. “Or is it…?”
“Cum Chocolate,” I explained.
Lysander coughed again, and Willoughby patted him on the back. “The Committee business is music and not cum.”
“I can sing,” Willoughby offered.
“Nope, I have it covered.” Sleipnir swaggered to Magenta, strumming on his guitar.
When he serenaded Magenta with Tenacious D’s comedy rock “Fuck Her Gently”, she melted, mesmerized, as my Slippy unleashed his full godly talent on her.
“Ah, romance,” Magenta smiled.
Lysander, however, reddened and spluttered at each crude lyric of cock, ball, hump, which were all sung to the sweetest melody.
Sleipnir winked at me, as I attempted to smother my snickers in Midnight’s feathers.
Lysander pointed at Sleipnir in outrage. “Stop singing this instant! Are you serious? Is this what counts as courting to the non-fae? A love song about…?”
“Shagging,” Serenity supplied, dreamily.
“Do you take requests?” Fox called out. “How about “Barbie Girl”? “Who Let the Dogs Out”? “Livin’ La Vida Loca”?”
Willoughby’s eyes lit with hope. ““Let It Go”?”
Seipnir blinked. “A World Tree of no, but if you’re more of the rocking out kind…”
The serpents on Sleipnir’s arms coiled, and his eyes flashed. Sleipnir came alive like the café was his personal stage.
That was a fine sight.
He rocked us all to Skillet’s “Monster”. His voice became lower and gravelly. It did all sorts of funny things to me; my nerves were on fire from his voice.
I needed him to touch me, and yet, he was touching me with his music alone.
Sleipnir’s Soul was flayed by the song and each blistering word. Fox and I leaped up, dragging Midnight after us. I steadied them both, feeling their exhausted tremors. We headbanged, laughing as Magenta caught on and whipped her hair from side to side.
Near enough.
We chanted monster, monster, monster along with Sleipnir because if we said it, we were reclaiming it.
It was our word now. We’d changed it into something of our own.
Now it couldn’t hurt us again.
Willoughby caught Lysander by the waist, and the two Princes twirled around in what looked suspiciously like a waltz.
They looked beautiful together.
I cast them a cheeky glance through my long hair (for once, I only cared a little bit that my hair had the rocky bed hair look, rather than sleek perfection…carry on you, it’s true). Fox would have to teach them his moves.
Rebels knew how to rock.
Mist galloped around the room, neighing along and shaking his tail in time to the music.
“Take me, godling,” Serenity breathed, “just shag me silly.”
When Sleipnir stumbled over the words, I grinned.
Who could blame the AI for her crush?
Sleipnir hurriedly finished the song. “And no encore.”
“To what end is all we’re risking?” Lysander asked, unexpectedly. He was still caught in Willoughby’s arms. “You laugh still, despite the danger you face, dance even. But tell me…”
Magenta pushed her tangled hair behind her ears, before carefully approaching Lysander. He pulled back from Willoughby, folding his wings around himself. Magenta placed her hands on both his cheeks, and his startled gaze met hers.
“I’ve spent decades weeping. I’m with the men who I love, and what we face, we do so together. I wouldn’t spend a moment longer crying.” Her thumb swept along Lysander’s high cheekbone. “You understand, don’t you? How many years have you grieved?”
Lysander let out a shuddering breath, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Magenta’s. “Too many.”
“The feather on your pillow…?”
I had the sudden memory of the silk pillow with a black swan feather sewn on the front that’d been on Lysander’s bed, which I hadn’t been stealing to make a nest with (honest, snicker).
What did that have to do with grief?
Lysander’s eyes fluttered shut like he couldn’t voice the words with them open. “One warned you that there’s always something or someone else that my guardian can take. After I’d refused to execute the Rebel tribe, but they’d been massacred anyway in front of me, and I’d been sentenced here as punishment…” I clasped tighter onto Fox because he’d jolted like he’d been ready to dive to Lysander and cuddle him, and Lysander was lost in the past right now. He needed to get whatever was festering inside out. Hadn’t I buried the darkness of the Duchess’ training and my brokenness for too long? “…my noble self was foolish enough to believe that I’d lost everything. Then they brought in my best friend, a shifter.” Now it was Fox clinging tighter to me. “As a prince, I was granted a sacred swan shifter, who grew up alongside me. He was my best friend and he’d only recently become the man who I loved.”
Finally, Lysander opened his eyes, and Magenta’s gaze was crushingly understanding.
“Titus took away my lover and best friend in the same way,” Magenta whispered.
Lysander swallowed. “He ordered… One was forced to watch the swan shifter, who I should’ve protected, kneel and offer his neck to the ax. My royal personage is a killer because I failed him. Isn’t it my worst fault to never take responsibility?”
“What dreadful nonsense!” Magenta’s pink wound around the walls, until they glowed. “Blame rests on Titus alone. In this academy, it’s always rested on the Principal. And we stop it tonight. I believe that they call it rising up, united in revolution.”