Royal Fae Bodyguard (Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls Book 1) Page 10

  Dayen swallowed. He wished he had something to hold onto while he spoke, just a cup of coffee would give him something to do. But Cara took his hand and that helped.

  “He was just so strong and he had very strong casting abilities. Brute force.” Dayen spoke quietly now. He could see it all happening in his head. “He stormed our castle down by the beach. That was where we used to rule for generations. He cast a fire that could burn the stone. Our sorcerers finally bound him and exiled him to another dimension where he would be trapped. They said they had a better chance of succeeding in that than killing him. But by then, it was too late. He’d run my parents through with a sword as big as me. I was fourteen. It was in the throne room. Aela was nine but she was up in her room… I was always grateful she didn’t see it. But I...I did. He killed them and then sorcerers cast Gallios away.”

  He shut his mouth and frowned. There were other details to be sure. Other people Gallios had killed in his quest to rule. But none of those mattered to him. In all though, it was a short story. It seemed absurd that he had been so resistant just to tell it.

  “I had nightmares about it for years,” Dayen said. “I still do on occasion.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cara murmured. She wrapped her arms around him and he let her hold him. Though he didn’t feel weepy or frightened about it now. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted off his chest.

  Dayen kissed Cara’s hair and said, “When I thought he’d killed you…”

  “I know, Day.” She pulled away and held the back of his head, pulling him down to kiss him, long and tenderly.

  “I don’t want to shock you,” he whispered. “But I think you might be my mate.”

  She shivered at that. He kissed a peck to her lips and saw her eyelashes flutter. “I think you’re right.”

  The confirmation sent giddiness rushing through his blood. “You’re mine,” he said.

  “As long as you’re mine too,” she replied, “it’s fine with me.” She was beaming at him. That stubborn, seemingly touchy, brilliant, gorgeous, brave, strong fae girl looked absolutely delighted to be his mate.

  I’m going to spoil her rotten, he thought.

  “You’re going to be a queen, you know,” Dayen said.

  “Oh no,” Cara groaned, rolling her eyes. But she looked as if she were mostly amused at herself. “I hate royals.”

  Dayen threw his head back and laughed at that, long and loud. He stood and held out his hand and she took it, letting him lead her back through the park.

  “Let’s get our coffee,” he declared. “And then get back.”

  “What happened to working out?” Cara asked wryly.

  “I want to make love to you,” Dayen said. “That’s a work-out.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  11

  Cara

  Cara had thought she knew what Dayen’s body looked like since they’d made love once already and since she’d seen him in the well-fitted silky suits the fae court favored. But those suits hid a lot and their design made Dayen seem more lithe than broad. They’d made love, but it had been hurried; a blur of passion and the desperate need to feel one another in the most intimate of ways.

  Now Cara and Dayen stood naked before each other. He had stripped himself of every last thing including the solid silver pin that held back his long, silvery blonde hair that hung around the shoulders, now looking much broader than they had seemed before. Dayen was a powerful-looking fae but he was still lean and his height made him seem more slender, even as Cara’s breath caught while she slid her hands along his considerable abdominal muscles.

  Cara felt small next to him and even though she was a little short for a fae, she was not accustomed to it. But she didn’t mind it now as she looked up at her mate, feeling loved and safe as he leaned down to kiss her, his hands resting at the curve of her hips.

  They made love slowly this time, even as Dayen teased Cara that she might run away when it was over. She deserved that, she thought. But she didn’t think that he was holding it against her, at least not when he lay her down on the bed and took his sweet time covering seemingly every inch of her body in kisses. She didn’t scramble to get on top of him this time. He seemed to be taking his pleasure in her and it wasn’t exactly a chore to lie back, her arms over her head, and let him have his way with her, which in this case meant murmuring little endearments as he licked and sucked one breast or caressed her thighs as if they were precious things.

  Dayen politely asked if he could taste her again and the question made Cara burst into giggles. She blushed, trembling both from the overwhelming emotions and from her laughter. “Go nuts,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I think I can take it.”

  Dayen tossed her a wink but when he ducked his head and plunged his talented tongue inside her, she cried out, heedless of servants who might have been passing by outside. She threw her head back and gripped the pillow behind her, unconsciously spreading her legs wider to give him easier access. She had already been so aroused and now he seemed to be milking every last bit of pleasure from her, bringing her right up to the point of helpless bliss.

  “I love the way you taste,” he whispered, breathless and hurried before he dove in again. Dayen made out with her core as easily as if it was her mouth, first delving and passionate and then sweet and soft, kissing her folds almost chastely. The idea of that would have made Cara laugh if she hadn’t been quivering from an overwhelming blanket of sensation. When his nails dug into her thighs, stinging just a little in juxtaposition to his tender tongue, Cara cried out and bucked up into him. He laughed into her and she felt her cheeks burning, just a little bit mortified at how much she was enjoying this. And she hadn’t even fallen off the precipice of pleasure yet.

  Dayen seemed to know just when to slow things down and pick them up again. He kept getting her so close to coming, only to back off again until Cara was clenching her fists, tears sliding down her cheeks, as she shook in his grasp.

  “Day!” Cara said, gasping. She was almost unable to speak. She was starting to wonder if Dayen had learned this particular skill set somewhere or if it was a talent that merely came naturally. “Day, I-I want to come with...with you inside me…”

  Dayen stopped what he was doing and pulled away. Cara shivered at the sudden little draft, already missing the warmth of him buried between her thighs. But she breathed through it, her chest heaving and licked her lips, looking up at him.

  “Your wish is my command, my lady,” Dayen said. He grinned at her, taking nothing but pleasure from serving her, and she threw her head back again, giddy as she squeezed her eyes shut and writhed in his bed. He slid his hands ever so softly along the backs of her legs, from her ankles to the meeting of her thighs and her bottom. “You’re my queen. Someday you’ll be the queen.” He leaned down and tenderly kissed her right knee cap and the top of that thigh, working his way up while lazily drawing little circles on her skin. “Do you know how hot that makes me? My queen. Of the entire realm…”

  “I’m…” Cara struggled to speak. She swallowed and said, “I’m a warrior.”

  “You’re both,” Dayen whispered. He crawled up the bed and hovered over, gazing adoringly into her eyes. “You’re going to be both. Don’t worry. You’ll still be that warrior. I would never stifle you.” He grinned, stroking one long finger along her rosy cheek as she gazed back up at him. “I know how talented you are. I know how hard you’ve worked at Brunswick. I would never let all that go to waste on silly balls and royal etiquette. I’ll take care of all that boring stuff. You can go off and save the world whenever you like.” He ducked his head and kissed the tip of her nose and the apple of each cheek and the point of her chin.

  Cara bit her lip, overcome. She cradled Dayen’s chin in her hands and forced him to look back at her. “You know me,” she said wonderingly. “You really know me?”

  “Yes, my perfect mate,” Dayen murmured, before kissing her again.

  She looked down between them and saw his
cock, thick and solid, looking painfully hard. “Come here…”

  He nodded and pressed her knees back and kissed her before sliding into her, groaning as he entered her. She clutched his shoulders, tugging as he plunged in as deep as he could get. She muttered nonsense, shivering at the sensation of the cool air striking her sweat slicked body. Dayen rocked into her a little experimentally and she nodded wildly, urging him on.

  He picked up his pace and they groaned into each other’s mouths, sloppily kissing as they stumbled toward climax. Cara saw Dayen trying to hold back, fighting to keep their shaky rhythm going as long as possible. The very thought aroused her more, if that were possible, and her orgasm struck her without warning. It was the particular way he thrust into her, nudging her now throbbing clit just enough to send her spinning into ecstasy.

  “Yes, my love,” Dayen said, driving into her wildly, and now pulsing as he came inside her, the two of them clinging to each other as they held on for dear life.

  I’ll be his queen, Cara thought. When he said she could be a warrior queen, she believed him.

  He knew her. She’d always felt as if nobody quite knew her but he did, this prince who had seemed so cocky and typical. It would just figure, she thought, that he would turn out to be the love of her life; her fated mate.

  Minutes later, Cara sighed happily as she cuddled up to Dayen, happy to rest easy in the bed with him for a bit before they began their day.

  There was so much to do. She’d hardly come down from the euphoria of her orgasm before she was running through it all. She needed to find the royal sorcerers and hear everything they’d discovered about Gallios. She needed to take a look at the ballroom herself and see if there were any clues left behind. Gallios had obviously come from another dimension. But could the sorcerers trace any residual traces of that portal and find out which dimension? And what exactly had he struck Cara with?

  It had felt something like interdimensional power to her. She knew what that felt like. She had not died, she knew, because she possessed that power herself. That was an important detail that she hadn’t told Dayen about yet. Though now was as good a time as ever.

  “We never did get that coffee,” Dayen said. He leaned over the bed and pulled the velvet cord that would call up a servant before Cara could stop him.

  That meant a servant would come in and see them naked in the bed like it was nothing.

  “I need a robe!” Cara said, already blushing at the thought. She liked to consider herself to be tough and uncaring of the finer points of silly etiquette. But she was naturally a little modest about things like that. Dayen groaned as she climbed out of the bed and grabbed one of his robes from a hook on the stone wall.

  “Aw.” He stuck out his lower lip, pouting. “All that pretty skin covered up.” She chuckled and ambled back to the bed and he wasted no time reaching under the robe to absently caress a thigh as she leaned down to kiss him.

  “I think you’ll live,” Cara said. She sat down beside him where he lay half-covered by a sheet. She’d intended to say something and get into a serious conversation about her powers, but she felt stupid with love as the two of them stared at each other with rather dopey smiles on their faces.

  “Your Highness?”

  Cara hadn’t even heard the door open and now a young male servant stood at attention in the middle of the room. Cara squinted, trying to place his name. She knew him as Loyle. She was starting to feel a shade more sympathetic to the smug royals she’d once derided. Dayen knew everyone’s name outside of a couple courtiers who he disliked (though she suspected he knew their names and pretended not to). Of the hundreds of servants who worked in the castle, she had never seen him stumble to remember a single one of them. It made her feel yet dopier in her love sickness.

  “Loyle!” Dayen said, sitting up in bed. “We require coffee. Actually...I would like a latte, I think.” He winked at Cara. “You’re always going off to your precious Starbucks but we do have a coffee maker and espresso machine in the kitchens now.”

  “It’s not the same,” Cara said, rubbing her eyes. “But okay.”

  “Oh, lovely, I’m glad my life of absurd luxury is good enough for you, my queen.” He laughed and nodded at Loyle, still waiting patiently. “Two lattes. And pastries, please. We’ll be breakfasting here. Rose bread.”

  Cara gasped at that, and felt a little silly. But after Loyle nodded and took his leave, she threw her arms around Dayen, laying little kisses along his neck. “I haven’t had rose bread since I was a little girl. And only then because the royals were visiting our village.”

  “I wonder if I saw you when we came through,” Dayen murmured, shifting around to face her. “Perhaps I saw your face in the crowd and thought, there is my warrior queen.”

  “I would have been sticking my tongue out,” Cara said.

  “All the better.”

  “Dayen,” Cara whispered. She took a deep breath. She hated talking about her powers. She hated even admitting to having them, they scared her so. “I have powers I haven’t told you about. They’re the reason Gallios wasn’t able to kill me. Though he definitely would have killed you.”

  “Yeah?” Dayen smoothed back his normally immaculate hair, now disheveled from sex and raised a quizzical brow. “What am I saying? Of course, you have mysterious powers.” He tapped her nose playfully. “You’re always full of surprises. Your prismatic eyes and all…”

  “Yeah,” she said sheepishly, and ducked her head. “Anyway, I have these...interdimensional powers. Beyond just being able to teleport like anyone else. I can capture the power of the fabric between universes and use it to...do things.”

  “Wow. What, for instance?”

  “Like...I could be in multiple dimensions at once. I could teleport someone else by pointing at them, even against their will. I could use the power itself as a casting energy… I suspect Gallios has this power too and that’s what he used to strike me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had this power before?” Dayen asked, though he didn’t seem angry about it, only laughing and fondly shaking his head. She sighed and reached out to softly trace the shell of his fine ears and delighted in watching him shiver at the sensation.

  “I’ve always been afraid of it,” she whispered. “It’s...it’s an intense power to have. I told one of my professors about it, Ms. Friar. She taught me how to handle it, how to contain it. I’ve never told anyone else. Not even my parents know.”

  “I’m glad you told me,” he said, kissing her sweetly. “You know, I’d like to meet your parents soon? If we can. I’d like to see your village. Or rather, I’d like to see your village again.”

  “I’m sure they looked all the same to you,” Cara said, smirking.

  “I wasn’t paying very much attention when I was that small,” Dayen admitted. “But I do now. I think it’s important to know the villages. There are differences between them. You have to know your people and what they want, what matters to them.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Cara said. “You’re going to be such a good king.”

  “Ugh.” Dayen groaned and fell back into the blankets, just in time for Loyle to enter with the breakfast and then he finally rose and dressed in a robe so they could eat.

  Minutes later, they were stuffing their faces with rose bread and sipping their lattes and Dayen swallowed and said, “So you think Gallios has interdimensional powers now? That’s what Cade said. If you say so too, I’m sure our sorcerers will confirm it. But he didn’t have those powers the last time he tried to rise to power. How could he suddenly have attained them and from where?”

  Cara frowned and reached over to dip the tip of her finger in a dish of cream. She’d missed fae delicacies. She hadn’t realized how much. Once a year at Brunswick she would go to the realm and visit her parents in their village and a couple of other times of year they’d visit her. Her mother would always make honey cakes and ambrosia tea and it had always made her almost tearfully desperate to be home again. They�
��d never been able to afford something like rose bread though, unless it was for an occasion as special as visiting royalty.

  If she were a queen, she thought, then her parents would be living in the castle too. She thought of her sweet, modest and hardworking village mother being served hand and foot for the rest of her life and dressing in the finest gowns the realm could produce and the thought made her smile to herself.

  “What are you smiling about?” Dayen asked, nudging her.

  “The thought of being a queen, oddly enough,” Cara said, and her mate laughed and kissed her hair.

  12

  Dayen

  Dayen had the oddest kind of battle going on in his head. Since the death of his parents, he had been terrified of Gallios ever returning. It was why he could barely speak of their deaths, even beyond not wanting ever to confront them. But now that it had finally happened, there was a sense of feeling free. When the worst thing you could ever imagine happening finally happened, there was a kind of liberation to it. He had no choice but to confront that terror now. With Cara by his side, he was feeling confident in his chances.

  She had stepped between him and death. He had no doubt she would have done the same for Aela or Cade or perhaps any innocent person at all. Because she was good and brave. But she had done it for him. If she had died, it would have been the heartbreak of his life. But, he realized, she never would have died. The fates knew what they were doing when they had made Cara his mate.