The King of Hearts (The Dark Kings Book 9) Read online

  The silence between us stretched and grew, seeming to take on a life of its own. I bit my bottom lip as blade tipped butterfly wings shredded my insides up. Had I offended him?

  “I know you have questions. And I wish I could answer them all. Truly, my Psyche…”

  My heart fluttered at the sound of my name upon his tongue. My Psyche, he’d said. Was I already his? Did he truly see me as such?

  “…but to tell you more would place you in great harm.”

  Those words snared my attention. I frowned. “Harm? Why? I rarely left father’s palace, I have no enemies. Who could possibly wish to—”

  He squeezed my hand. “So long as I live, you will never know harm. All I ask is that you trust me. With your heart. With your body. With your soul. And I, in turn, will give you every part of me.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  Could it really be this simple? Was it possible that even with the guise on me, and the fact that I could not even see who my husband truly was that somehow, we might be able to build a future together? A happy one?

  “What do you say, Psyche? Will you live happily ever after with me?”

  Growing up I had one truth instilled into me, I would never be my own. My entire path in life would be dictated to me by the whims of my father, that whatever I was told to do I would do. Even my own sweet mother had told me that no matter who my father choose for me, it was important that I always smile, always seem pleased by anything and everything my husband told me I should do. That my worth was simply in my body and nothing more.

  And yet, here I was now, sitting before an invisible man who was asking me whether I would love him just as deeply as he loved me.

  A smile more radiant than the sun and coming from deep within me, poured out of my soul. “I will love you forever, my mate.”

  I heard his deep inhale and in my mind’s eye I imagined that he had his eyes closed and a grateful smile gracing his full, lovely lips.

  “Then you may call me by whatever name you choose.”

  I laughed. “You wish me to name you? Are you serious?”

  Suddenly a plate of delicious delicacies popped into existence before me. I squealed at the juicy ripeness of the figs and the thick wedges of various cheeses and cured meats placed before me. A pot of gently smoking tea sat to the side.

  He pushed the plate closer toward me, then the mug was lifted into the air and he poured us both tea.

  “You really would allow me to just name you?” My laughter was incredulous.

  “I do not like mine. Mine has been a name that has come to mean pain. Harm. Shame. I wish to be reborn. To have my new name symbolize something altogether opposite.”

  His voice was soft, but there was a pain threaded through it. I shook my head. My curiosity to know more about him only continuing to grow.

  “Well, I suppose before I can name you, I should know more about you. What is it you like?”

  I took the cup of tea and sipped. It was amazingly delicious. There were notes of vanilla, and apricots, the sweetness of honey, and sharp notes of pepper. I smiled, sighing softly to myself as I pressed it against my chest.

  “You. I like you.”

  I laughed. The sweet sincerity of his voice made my insides feel mushy and hot.

  “What?” he asked, a soft chuckle in his words, “it’s true.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile, I felt like it stretched from ear to ear. But I was delighted with my partner. And I could never have imagined in a thousand years that I would feel as I did for my mate. Maybe drinking that potion had been the best thing I could have ever done. Father never would have consented to handing me over to a “beast” otherwise.

  “While, I love hearing that. I need just a little more.”

  “Like?”

  I one shouldered shrug. “I don’t know, like what is your favorite color?”

  He was silent for several long moments. “Auburn, with hints of gold in it when the sun bounces off of it. Moonstone flesh.”

  I rubbed my hands over my arms, feeling goosepimples. Suddenly a lank of my hair slid through his fingers. I jerked, realizing that he was no longer sitting in front of me, but now standing beside me. I didn’t move, but my body felt liquid. Molten. I’d never experienced anything quite like this. I’d always thought I wanted to be alone, that I didn’t want to be hindered down by responsibilities of marriage. But maybe I’d just never met the right male before?

  His hands were suddenly on my shoulders and I moaned as his thumbs rubbed deep into my muscles. Leaning my head back, I felt his strength behind me.

  “I love birds,” he said, “I can listen to them sing to me all day and night. I love the smell of the land after a strong rain. I love nature. I love to be in it. I love the stillness of its quiet. I do not find isolation terrifying, but soothing. The skies are my home.”

  He’d flown us here. Was he part bird? A male harpy? Did they exist? Weren’t harpies supposed to be hideous? But that was only females, no? I’d heard rumors that their males were the exact opposite. But then I’d also heard male harpies did not exist and thus why females kidnapped our males, to force them to breed.

  Or, was he like Icarus, the son of a god gifted with wings of wax? But if that were the case, why did he shield himself from me? Was he hideous to behold? I’d seen him first with a paunch, pockmarked flesh, and a balding head. I’d seen him second with beautiful mahogany skin, a bald head, and a big, imposing build.

  He’d never been anything that the world would call beautiful and I’d begun to fall for him then. Did it matter if he had a beak? Or if he were part of the harpy family tree? The answer was simple.

  No.

  It would not matter, so long as his heart was kind. So long as he treated me like an equal and not his subordinate, none of that mattered to me.

  “What is my name, princess?”

  I sighed, feeling stupidly happy in that moment.

  “Aris, I think. I’ve long thought it a—”

  “No,” he said quietly, but with an edge of steel to it. “Not that name.”

  I cringed, feeling foolish and like I’d done something wrong. Mortified, I began to stammer an apology, trained since birth that I was never to insult a male. That I as a female was always their inferior and subordinate.

  “I’m…I’m so—”

  Suddenly his warm hands were framing my face, and I knew he had to be kneeling before me. I could feel the tickle of his breath slide against my mouth. “Forgive me, my Psyche. You do not know. You have done nothing wrong. But I can never bear that name. It is anathema to me.”

  I desperately wanted to ask him why. I suspected that there was so much more to my mate than what he would ever share with me. But shame was a hard grip to shake and I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head.

  “Oh, my precious, bride. Please forgive me. I feel I have done wrong and I cannot bear it. I can only share this with you, in this palace, in this place it is just you and I. With no shackles to hold us back. No wounds inflected upon us from others should ever manifest in itself here. This is a quiet place. A place of rest. Of healing. A place where our love can thrive. With all my soul I beg you to forgi—”

  I knew I probably wasn’t leaning into his face, that I was likely to kiss air, but I closed my eyes and I leaned forward and in less than a second his hot mouth was on mine.

  We kissed.

  But it didn’t stop there. There was no one around us. No one to spoil this moment. And I did not fight him as his deft fingers undid my robes. I smiled when they puddled down around my feet. And my smile only grew wider when I felt him slip the pins holding my hair in place out.

  I was nude now. And I did not know if he was too, but when he gently cradled me into his arms, I did not fight him. I melted into his body. Expecting at any moment that he might lay us down upon the verdant grass of the garden. But instead we began to float and I squealed in shocked delight.

  But then he was kissing me again. His tongue in my mout
h. He tasted of red wine. Of dark secrets and sweet pomegranates. I’d never been touched like this by another, I’d had my fair share of stolen kisses growing up, a quick press of mouth to mouth, a soft caress in the dark. But this…

  His hand slid up my waist. Slowly. Leaving a trail of fire in its wake. I was desperate to learn who he really was. Desperate to solve the mystery, but I also thought that even if he had a monstrous form no one in all the worlds had ever made me feel like he did now.

  I yielded to his touch, feeling molten and awakened. As though I’d been slumbering all my life, but hadn’t known it until just now.

  One of his hands landed on the back of my head as he pressed me in deeper.

  Every inch of him was like stone. Hard. Unyielding. He was powerfully built. I sighed into his mouth and he drew my tongue into his mouth.

  I’d never experienced anything so lurid, so provocative, so…so… wonderful in my life.

  My body was alive with the sensation of energy, making me feel powerful and weak all at once. I clung to his powerful shoulders, inching my hands slowly downwards, mapping an image in my head of what my new husband must look like.

  His flesh was hot. So hot I felt burned by it. I trembled.

  “Do I scare you,” he whispered?

  “No,” I quickly assured him. “No. It is only so new to me. Touching you. Having you touch me.”

  He sounded humored as he asked, “Should I quit touching you, then?”

  And he squeezed one of my cheeks he held palmed firmly in hand. I squealed with delight and shook my head. “Gods, no. Never that.”

  We laughed for a moment, but soon that humor turned shivery with threads of fire through it.

  “Touch me, Psyche. Touch me everywhere.”

  Then I felt him grab one of my hands that rested on a wing and place it upon his chest. I gasped, feeling anxious with excitement and wonder. Anxious because I wanted to do it right. I wanted him to like what I did. Wonder that I could. That I had the freedom now to do so. I’d wanted to do this almost since that moment I’d met him on the beach.

  But as I moved my hand down his body, my own began to incite with waves of longing and liquid heat. The man at the beach and the one in the garden had been older, a little softer around the middle.

  I scored my nails down hard as iron abdominals and he hissed. This was the body of a young and powerful lion. Not one beyond long in the tooth, but one just at his prime.

  “You do not feel as you looked,” I whispered, honestly. Heart racing and palms sweating because what I was feeling…it felt not just beautiful. But almost fantasy like and it was strangely making me both want him and repulsed by him. Because this was not the body of the man I’d fallen in love with.

  There must have been something in my tone that gave away my true thoughts, because he held my chin in his hand, his thumb was tenderly brushing against the little dimple inside of it and he said, “Hey, look at me.”

  “Where are you?”

  He turned my jaw just a little. I saw nothing but air. Clouds. The waning rays of liquid sunlight turning the world a bright canvas of buttery yellows and pastel apricots.

  “I’m right here with you, my bride. I always have been.”

  My heart thrilled at those words. “Are we truly wed, Phineas?”

  Nerves ricocheted through my body as I waited on bated breath to hear what he thought of my new name.

  “Phineas. Is that my name, my love?”

  I nodded softly, still firmly held by him. “Do you like it?”

  “Does it have any special meaning to you?”

  I almost blushed to tell it, but he had asked. “It…it was the name of my most treasured pet… frog.”

  Suddenly the world erupted with his laughter and I couldn’t help it, I laughed too. My life had taken a turn for the bizarre. I was wed to an invisible man. One who made my body feel like fire and my mind come alive with the wonder of a world I’d never known had existed before. I felt like I was both in Elysia and in Tartarus.

  “A frog. Wonderful. I’ll take it then, so long as you as smile when you call me so. Just like you are now.”

  His thumb brushed against my bottom lip and the laughter instantly died on both our tongues. Replaced by the combustible heat that we created when together.

  “I want to lie with you as a man lies with a woman,” he said, voice tight and scratchy.

  My nerves shot high and I almost wilted in his arms, a fall from this height would be lethal. But I trusted him. A man I’d never actually known. A man who wouldn’t even tell me his true name. A male who I couldn’t even see.

  None of that mattered though, because where it counted, where it really counted, he was the best male I’d ever known.

  “I want that too.”

  Then his mouth was at the side of my neck and he was suckling and gently biting, inflaming my need to a frenzied pitch.

  I felt his hands cradle me from behind.

  “Wrap those beautiful legs around me, woman,” he whispered hotly in my ear.

  So, I did.

  Seconds later I felt him, thick, and long, and wide, pressing at my virginal entrance.

  I’d always been told it would hurt. I tensed for that pain, but when he pushed in, I was so wet I felt nothing other than stretched. I grinned.

  “You like it.”

  “Move,” I commanded.

  Laughing, he said, “As my queen commands.”

  Then he began to move and I forgot everything but the pleasure. We soared so high we went above the clouds. Nothing could see us, but even if they could have spotted me from the ground, I would not have cared.

  Phineas took me to heights I’d never imagined in my wildest dreams. The pleasure of feeling a man inside of was only the tip of the iceberg with him.

  We made love five times that night.

  In the sky. On the ground. On the bed. In a pond. And finally, in the shower. I was sore all over and I knew he must have been too, for his touch was softer than usual. Tender. Feather light.

  We moved in synchronicity. Slowly up and down, finding our perfect rhythm. He was curled around me, his hands were fitted to my breasts and he was gently massaging them as he rolled his hips round and round, stretching me even further. I’d be sore tomorrow, but it was so worth.

  I moaned. “Where do your wings go when you lie on the ground this way?” I asked him.

  “I’ve got my cock in you and you’re wondering where my wings go, I must be doing a poor job indeed if my female can wonder at a time like this.”

  I laughed, and then I groaned when he swiveled his hips in such a way that it added a whole other level of friction.

  “Mmm, yes,” he said with a husky purr, “I like it when you sound like that.”

  “Phineas,” I moaned, “I cannot believe I’m so close to another orgasm.”

  He chuckled. “I’m just that good.”

  I snorted. I already knew he hadn’t ever made love to another woman; he’d told me so. But if I wasn’t inclined to trust him, I wasn’t sure I would have believed him, he moved with a confidence that only a learned male could have.

  His long, thick cock kept stroking areas deep inside of me he hadn’t touched before, it was like each position he flipped me into opened up a whole new world of wonder to me.

  “Truth is, my bride, being able to bring you pleasure is part of who I am. I can sense your disquiet. You wonder if I told you the truth, or a pretty lie, but I did not lie. I have never been in bed with another. Not a woman or a man or even a beast of the fields. You are my first and you will be my last.”

  I clutched at his arm, digging my nails into his flesh, wishing I could keep him with me forever. I’d never though myself a jealous woman, but the thought that he’d never shared this part of himself with another and that he was even n ow promising me that he never would, it was a heady sensation.

  “I love only you, dear Psyche. Forever. And always.”

  Those words were the spark I needed. I
felt my body clench down around him. I was physically exhausted, wrung out and completely spent and yet I felt that spiraling bloom of the little death grip me once again.

  I moaned, from deep within my chest.

  “Gods, the sounds you make.” And then he gasped and I felt him tightened up around me.

  By the time we’d finished we were both breathing heavily. I stared up at the stars in the sky with a smile of wonder.

  “I will always remember how you look this night. Right now,” he whispered, his warm breath curling sweetly against my lips, so that I knew he was right above me.

  “I wish I could see you,” I whispered. “The only thing that would make this night anymore perfect was if I could have that memory too.”

  “I wish you could too, my wife. I wish you could too. But you never can. Not if I wish to keep you safe and believe me when I say, Psyche, I would kill to keep you safe. You’ve made powerful enemies, but I promise I won’t let them touch you. I won’t let them ruin us.”

  I wish I knew what enemies it was that I’d made. I wish I could have apologized to them, shown them that I was no harm in any way. I was simply a humble woman.

  “Do you think I could have my family over one of these days?” I asked and felt his great body tense. Then I felt cool air above me and I knew that he was gone. “Phineas? I…I am not unhappy, if that’s what you thought. I simply wanted them to see how good you are to me. How beautiful our home is. That I am well and I am so happy.”

  “Oh, my Psyche. You must think me a mad man. Whisking you away as I’ve done. Can we just be together, for now? Just us? Nothing else? It is safe for us here, my queen. Safe for you.”

  I didn’t understand that, but he was right, we needed our time together first. I was just so proud and happy to know that cursed or not I had managed to find my perfect love, just as he’d promised me that day at the beach that I would.

  I nodded. “Of course. I did not mean right this minute anyway. I simply meant at some point in the future.”

  He took my hands in his and once more I felt the cage of his warmth shielding me. He must have been on his knees before me.

  “Then yes, maybe someday in the future. Just not tonight. Not right now. Be with me only, Psyche. We have waited for this moment for so long.”