The Dragon King (27 page)

I braced for Faerie to retaliate for the broken vow, but Jonathan had shown my weakness to him, not me, so there were no effects.

Aaron looked at me with sympathy a few seconds, but then his chin lifted and his eyes went hard again. “We
will
find a way to revoke the vow.”

Mabel had gained from the situation, as I’d returned her horse to her, so she couldn’t help. Titania said to ask her again when she was back in power, so I figured we were stuck with it at least that long.

I ate a few crackers with some ginger ale, and we went to spend some time with Titania. She had a hug for me and a polite smile for Aaron, but then our conversation seemed to flow naturally.

I saw the Owl King talking to someone a short time later and tilted my head to show respect to the reigning King of another species, and he returned the nod. I noted Aaron only glared at him, but I’d warned Able it might be harder for him to gain my mate’s forgiveness.

I looked to Aaron and said, “I’d like to make a trip to the stables. Want to take the shortcut with me?” I hadn’t yet figured out how best to ask him if I could teleport us, but this seemed to work okay.

Aaron nodded and I gripped his arm and took us just outside the door of the stables. A few other guests were milling around outside — some engaged in sexual activity while others just seemed to be wandering the property. I noted a few of my Palace Guard not too far away, and nodded at them as I stepped into the stables.

“I have good news,” I told the stable manager, who was working at his desk while a few employees appeared to be rubbing something into some saddles. “I made a deal with the Winter Queen for Snow Spirit, she’s ours.”

I heard a whinny from the other end of the stables and asked, “She understood me?”

He smiled. “They both did. I know you’re busy with the party but I’m sure she’d appreciate the chance to show her appreciation.”

I was barefoot and had no idea where my super-expensive shoes were, though they were probably bloody as I’d last seen them shortly before having sex with Aaron.

However, I didn’t worry about them as I neared the two horses. They both had their heads over the stall, and I touched the outside of both of their muzzles as I told them, “It’s my intention to keep you together. It isn’t a promise because I don’t know what the future holds, but a statement of my intent. When things settle and I’m more sure of my own place, I hope I can make it a promise, someday.”

The juvenile unicorn opened his stall, stepped into the center aisle, and told me, “Even without a promise, they’ll be do whatever is in their power to help you stay Queen. Snow Spirit carried your mother and considered her a dear friend. She sees much of your mother in you, and is honored to be with you.”

I must have looked at the teenaged unicorn as if I needed an explanation, because he told me, “They can understand you just fine, but don’t have the vocal cords or tongue control to speak. I understand them, and can speak, and don’t mind translating when it’s important.” He gave me a shy smile and added, “Though, I wouldn’t mind a quick walk through the party, if you’d like a way to show your appreciation.”

I looked up to his parents and told them, “There’s a lot of sexual activity going on.”

“I know, Your Majesty,” his mother told me, her long lashes almost mesmerizing. “If you don’t object to taking him, I don’t, either. He’s watched your father’s antics enough, I doubt there’s anything going on at the party he hasn’t already seen.”

I shook my head. “Sometimes I’m ashamed to be related to him, but then I don’t know what I’ll be required to do during my reign, so it’s hard to be too judgmental as I’ve already had to…” I shook my head and stopped before I said too much. “Still, I hope I’ll have the decency to keep some level of decorum around young ones.”

“Your father saw us as animals, which is what we are,” the large male unicorn said, his voice so deep I almost did a double-take. “But it’s nice when people can see us as more.”

This was as close to a ‘
thank you
’ as anyone ever got in Faerie, and I merely nodded my head in response.

I turned back to the Snow Twins and told them, “While I have a translator, is there anything else you’d like to tell me? Something else you’d like in the stables? Is the food to your liking? Do you get enough time in the sunshine?”

The juvenile unicorn managed an awkward gracefulness despite the fact he hadn’t grown into his legs yet. “They’re both happy. Our stable manager is good, and on the odd occasion an employee mistreats us, it’s caught and stopped before it happens too often. We didn’t like your father, but we very much approve of his choice of Keeper for us.”

I looked at the horses to be sure they agreed with the unicorn’s translation, and they looked at each other a second and then rested their muzzles against my cheeks, my face between theirs, and filled me with the softest energy. They overflowed me, but it didn’t hurt. It found new places to rest, and stretched inside of me like an overfilled balloon, but I breathed into it and it was
right
.

Tears filled my eyes but I managed to speak without sounding as if I were crying. “What a precious gift. I had no idea it was possible to do it without hurting.”

“It’s not something you should speak of. Not even to your Dragon,” the unicorn told me, and I glanced at Aaron through a window, outside talking to some party guests.

I looked back to the horses and unicorn. “I’m not in the habit of keeping secrets from him.”

The horses looked at each other, and then the unicorn, who told me, “He’s already guessed, and you don’t have to lie to him, just don’t confirm it, either. He especially doesn’t need details, nor should he know about any other time the Snow Twins gift you with this or anything else.”

I looked at Aaron through the window again and said, “I won’t lie to him, but I’ll do my best to keep from confirming, if he guesses. That’s the best I can promise.”

This seemed to satisfy them, and they gave me more energy, until my heart was so filled with love I wanted to cry.

When we were ready to return to the party, I teleported both the unicorn and Aaron, and was surprised when I had more energy upon arrival than I’d had when we left. The juvenile unicorn winked at me, so I didn’t say anything. A huge part of the power of a monarch involved gathering allies to prop up your power base, both literally and figuratively.

Aaron fed the unicorn grapes while I talked to people. Apparently, a lot of people in Faerie had never seen a unicorn, and most had no idea it was possible to domesticate them.

“They aren’t so much domesticated as choosing to live here,” I told an attractive couple who’d stopped having sex in order to pet the unicorn as we walked by. I was getting used to talking to naked people but wished I didn’t have to.

The unicorn didn’t speak, but I thought nothing of it until an hour later when he nudged my arm and then looked in the general direction of the stables.

“You’re ready to go back?” I asked.

He nodded towards the stables again and I looked to Aaron for help. “You’re special,” he told me. “Not everyone is gifted with their voice.”

I rubbed the unicorn’s horn and then the fur on the side of his face. “I didn’t know it was a gift. You must think me an awful Queen. I have so much to learn.” He nuzzled my face and I hugged him. “Do you want to walk back or take the shortcut?”

He began walking and I motioned a Palace Guard over. “See to it he gets safely to the stables with no detours, please?”

We’d been in the castle with Titania, but I was tired of hearing her come to orgasm after orgasm under the Rabbit King, so we went outside to check on the Winter Queen.

It appeared she now had two of her slaves servicing Vincent, who was still bent over the same table, one man at his mouth and another at his bottom. Both of the standing men had their arms bound behind their backs in the same fashion Vincent’s were, though, and Mabel was alternately whipping all three men.

“Fuck him hard and fast. No one has permission to orgasm, if you do I’ll put a dome of flesh-eating fireflies over your cock and balls for twenty-four hours.”

Mabel wore a charcoal corset, a filmy black see-through super-short skirt, and nothing else. Her ample breasts were on full display, and I thought she may have rouged her nipples because I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be quite so rosy.

She saw me and pointed to another flogger, saying, “I’ve decided not to draw blood for a while, but these floggers sting like a bitch. Pick the fucker you want to flog — do you want Vincent’s throat or his ass to take it harder?”

I looked at Aaron, unsure of what I should do, but he said, “Don’t touch anyone but me with your hands, but you’re free to flog them if you’d like.”

I considered the possibilities. If I completely declined it might make me look weak, and yet I didn’t want to flog people I didn’t even know. After talking to Jonathan I could see the benefit in my laying into Vincent, though, and not just handing him off to someone else, so I told Mabel, “I’ll take a pass on flogging your companions, but when you get Vincent back up I think it might be fun to flog his genitals.”

The Winter Queen laughed, and I heard Aaron chuckling behind me. “Genitals?” Mabel asked with a smile. “Call them what they are, dear — his cock and balls.”

She tossed her flogger on the table and ordered the men to pull out and take three steps back. They both did so immediately with no arguments or complaints, and instantly went to their knees, their arms still bound behind their backs, and their beautiful cocks standing at attention.

I looked at Aaron and tried to imagine him doing this for Mabel, but couldn’t see it. Even when I’d been on top and clearly fucking him instead of him doing me, he’d been in control of himself, somehow. He was
letting
me take control, I wasn’t taking it from him.

Had it been the same with Mabel?
I wondered, or had she taken what she wanted whether he wanted to give it or not?

I wanted to know, and yet… I didn’t.

Mabel levitated Vincent into the air, turned him over, and returned him to the small table on his back. She bent his head backwards enough to straddle his face, and ordered him to pleasure her.

“Okay, Your Majesty,” she told me. “Let’s see how motivated he can be to get me off. There’s a small rubber whip on the side table. You can use any you want, but you might have the most fun with it. Stings like a bitch but won’t get you all bloody again.” She shrugged. “Unless you want to get bloody, in which case, go for it.”

I took the Winter Queen’s advice and chose the small, evil looking black rubber flogger, and proceeded to pound the wretched man’s private parts for a few minutes, relishing in the pain I was giving him as I remembered my terror when his hands had been around my throat. I stopped and looked up at Mabel, who seemed not too far from an orgasm while somehow managing to keep her face conversational. I opened my mouth to ask a question, chickened out, and then decided to ask it anyway.

“Is there a way to let my father question Vincent, so my father will be assured he’s getting the truth?”

Mabel nodded, and I turned to look for one of my Palace Guard. When I found him, I ordered, “Bring me my father.”

I went back to flogging Vincent’s penis and testicles, and added the inside of his thighs while I was at it. Mabel had somehow managed to restrain the Eagle King without ropes, and he was forced to lie with his legs spread wide so I had easy access to his most private parts.

My father arrived and glared at me when he saw what I was doing, and I turned to him with the flogger still in my hands, careful to appear regal and unconcerned. My father bowed an acceptable amount and said, “I will address you as Queen Sophia to show respect, and then I’ll speak to you as your father. I’m disappointed in you, young lady! Treating a monarch like this over an imagined attack!”

I looked to Mabel and she waved her hand over Vincent and levitated him to his feet. She touched his forehead and ordered, “Show us your memory of what happened when Raul sent you to fetch his daughter. Show us your memory of the event that has upset Queen Sophia.”

He shook his head no, but it was as if Mabel dragged it from his head against his will, and we watched a small hologram over his head as he and his people set up a block away from the billiard club, black cars and vans parked in the shadows.

I watched his memory as we drove up and they crashed into us, shot at us, and overtook my guards as Vincent strolled through the melee toward me. I could see the fear and terror in my face as he knocked my gun from my hand and wrapped his hands around my throat. They had thirty people to our three, and yet Aaron and Jonathan had taken out most of their people and were working to get to me as fast as possible when Abbott showed up with three more vampires, and then the blood of our enemies soaked the street.

When most of Vincent’s people were dead, the Eagle King shifted form and flew away, not bothering to stay and fight with his few remaining soldiers.

My father looked around and saw how many people had viewed what we’d just seen. He looked at Vincent with hatred and disgust, and then turned and dropped to his knees before me and said, “My Queen, after demonstrating such poor judgment in choosing a friend and ally, I’m not worthy to rule. With your permission, we’ll arrange your crowning ceremony after your wedding ceremony, so my last acts as King will be to give my daughter away and then crown her Queen.”

I looked to Aaron, remembered the lesson of forcing an apology, and told my father, “You’ve hurt me in ways I can’t begin to explain, but I hope we can find a way to heal the rift between us. Will you please stand and give me a hug, as a father to a daughter?”

I was in yet another dress, and he wore breeches and no shirt. No way would we have even
seen
each other with him shirtless before, much less hugged, but we did now and it was
good
.

“I’ve missed you, Father.”

“And I’ve missed you, Your Majesty.” He looked to Mabel and said, “My Queen, when you tire of the prisoner, if there is something in my possession to trade you for him, I hope we can work something out.”