The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) (22 page)

But this god was voracious and hungry, and she was more than glad to oblige.

She curled her fingers into the long stalks of jeweled colored grass and stared up at the nighttime sky that looked ready to tear itself apart with its fury and waited for the first touch of him.

Fable didn’t have to wait long.

His hot tongue slid from top to bottom in one long, smooth, cat-like stroke.

“Holy gods,” she squeaked, nearly dying from the electric caress of that velvety tongue.

But then he was latching onto the jewel at the very center of her and sucking in hard as he swirled his tongue, and she swore that she’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe.

The world was splintering apart around them, and she could have cared less if she’d died in it. All she knew was she would die without his mouth on her bringing her to a type of frenzied climax she’d never experienced in all of her days.

“Owiot. Owiot!” she moaned his name incoherently over and over, tossing her head from side to side as she screwed her eyes shut and chased the little death threatening to kill her.

But then he brought his thumb into play as well, and that was her undoing. She climaxed so violently and brutally that she shifted into shadow against her will, clinging tightly to his body with all her might, terrified and afraid that if she didn’t she’d never find herself whole again.

When she finally felt safe enough to open her eyes, Owiot was grinning down at her, and lightly rubbing circles onto her back. He looked content, but she was far from it.

With a hungry cry, she shoved against his chest, tossed him down and then said laughingly, “Did you really think you were done?”

His eyes were wide but laughing. “What did you have in mind, my darkness?”

“More. More. More.”

She slammed her mouth down to his, violently, shivering as he accepted that aspect of her so easily. She clawed, bit, and knocked teeth with him, and he was right there with her. Raking his fingers down her spine, making her bow her back in almost pain but all of it mixed up with so much pleasure.

His hot, hard length poked her in the arse, making her squirm with delicious need. He grunted, gripping her lower spine and holding her still.

“Keep it up, my feral one, and I won’t last much longer.” He grunted.

“Oh, but you will.” She singsonged. “You are a god after all.”

He chuckled. “Not of fertility, even I have my limitati—”

“Ssh.” She nuzzled his nose, then stole a kiss, swiping her tongue along the seam of his mouth until he automatically opened to her. “Too much talking,” she mumbled, before dipping in and tasting of the starlight he was made of.

Kissing Owiot was like sucking in the cosmos. It was infinite and unfathomable—stars, and planets, and the never-ending delights of creation itself, a beautiful universe of chaos and shifting lights and colors. She was addicted to his taste.

Needing him inside of her now, she rose up just slightly on her knees and then impaled herself.

He howled. Literally tossed his head back, elongating his neck—causing the cords of his tendons to stand out—as he gave into his animal form. He did not shift into an animal, but he was more than merely human now.

Owiot bristled with the divine. His skin glowed, his hair gleamed, his eyes burned, and he was all hers. Every last gorgeous inch of him.

He broke away from her kiss then, staring her in the eyes and she felt herself falling, sliding into that tunnel of stars, but she wasn’t ready to lose herself just yet.

Fable grabbed his head and forced his mouth to her left breast. Like the good boy he was, he knew exactly what she wanted and sucked her nipple into his moist heat.

“Oh gods,” she groaned as his tongue swirled around and around, “I’m coming, Owiot. I’m coming.”

Just a little bit more, one last swivel of her hips would get her there. He slammed his hips up just as she slammed down and then she could no longer fight it. This time, Owiot didn’t give her a choice. This time, he grabbed her face.

“Look at me, darkness,” he grunted.

And it was the tone of his voice that forced her to open her eyes. Because when he spoke she heard the eagle, the coyote, the crow, and the mountain lion shiver behind each word.

She was fracturing, splintering into a thousand tiny pieces of herself, but he was right there to catch her. Even as she slid into that endless, yawning chasm of starlight, he was there. He was everywhere.

And Fable knew, deep in her soul, that what they’d done tonight...there’d be no coming back from that. Ever.

~*~

O
wiot, was sadly, not a fertility god. He’d only managed to make love three more times before he’d been forced to collapse from exhaustion.

Though she couldn’t really complain. Her body was nothing but jelly and ached in places it had not ached in for years, but only in the most glorious way, of course.

They still lay in the field of night and flowers, curled around one another. The sky had settled back into a peaceful, quiet solitude full of ethereal white clouds.

He was strumming her back, staring up and wearing a small smile.

“Owiot,” she said after watching him in silence for ten minutes.

Finally, he turned to her, and she returned his grin to see the starlight dancing through his milk chocolate eyes.

“Yes?”

“Why do they call you the god of children?”

He chuckled. And the sound was nice.

Actually, there wasn’t anything about her male that wasn’t nice. He had a sexy voice, a hypnotic voice, and smelled great. Amazing really. Like musk and wood smoke and earth and woodsy cologne mingled with something a little more exotic, though she wasn’t sure what. All she knew was she couldn’t get enough of him.

Snorting, he shrugged, watching as she leaned up on an elbow to run her fingers across his smooth chest. No hair. None at all. Most men she’d been with had at least a little, some had a lot. But not Owiot. He even had very little leg hair. It was like all that hair had decided to grace the crown of his very gorgeous hair instead; she’d never seen a man with such thick head hair.

God, she had it bad.

“It was Aiyana’s doing.”

Fable frowned. “Your wife? But I thought she was human. How was she able to give you a—”

“No.” He shook his head. “She did not bestow the title upon me. She visited Mother Buffalo, who told her that I was the god of children.”

She lifted a brow. “That’s it? Just like that. Oh, by the way, Aiyana, your lover, he’s the god of children. So go make babies.”

He laughed heartily at her words, and she couldn’t help but chuckle too. She felt so carefree and easy with him, so unlike her normal self. This was a side of her few rarely were privileged to see, a side she thought she’d never reveal to another. The fact that the Evil Queen actually had a sense of humor would likely have rocked the Enchanted Forest to its very foundation and caused many to die of shock.

“She wouldn’t go deep into details about it.” The laughter slowly faded from his eyes and his mood turned pensive.

Fable sensed the shift in him immediately and stilled, wondering if she’d said or done something wrong.

“I believe that in my heart, it was that conversation exactly with Mother Buffalo that caused Aiyana’s heart to turn from me.”

He was staring broodily off into the distance, and the sadness that he always kept wrapped so closely to himself, began to disperse to the winds. And suddenly everything looked a little more sad, a little more gloomy and melancholy. The burden of carrying that emotion all alone, it must have been horrible for him. She couldn’t help but wonder if anyone at all during his life had ever helped share in the pain of it.

“Look at me, Owiot,” she murmured, lightly trailing her finger along his chin, noticing for the first time that he had a silvery scar that ran from the base of his neck to the very tip of his chin.

It was thin now, and not very wide, but based on its length alone she knew it had to have been extremely painful when he received the wound.

He looked at her, holding none of his anguish back from her and all she could do was smile softly, letting him know she was here, and he wasn’t alone.

They stared at one another for several long moments, neither speaking, simply content to be exposed and vulnerable to each other as they’d never been to anyone else before.

Owiot framed her left cheek with his callused palm, and she cuddled into his touch, body growing hungry again for more of him.

“Did she not want children?” she asked softly. Thinking of her own situation, and the potion she’d drunk when the Blue had revealed George’s plans to her. It wasn’t that Fable hadn’t wanted children, she just hadn’t wanted them with him, and now she was doomed to never have them at all.

And it had never bothered her before meeting Owiot because there’d never been anyone she’d wanted children with. It was a terrible thought to bear, the burden of knowing he was the god of children, and she could never give him any.

She frowned, but he still looked away and hadn’t noticed.

At some point, she’d have to tell him. And though she worried he might not like it, might even decide she ultimately wasn’t worth the hassle, he deserved to know the truth.

“No. She did not. Aiyana was vain and feared losing her beauty to childbirth. She began to resent my coming to her, and eventually refused to lie with me at all, fearing I’d trick her somehow. Though I vowed that was not my way, and I would never do anything to her she did not want, Mother Buffalo’s words haunted her till the day she died.”

His hand had dropped and was now casually resting on her hip as his thumb rubbed idle circles on her flesh, making her tingle down low. But this conversation was important to her.

“Do you like children?”

He blinked, staring at her as though trying to understand the strange turn of her questions. Though he seemed clearly confused, he answered her anyway. “I suppose I do. They petition me frequently. What I like most about them is their innocence. Their laughter and verve. There is no deceit in a child; they simply are who they are. And that is refreshing.”

She swallowed hard, feeling a knot of unease gathering in her belly. “Would it bother you if you could never have any?”

Realizing that she was slyly trying to ask him a roundabout question, he sat part way up, resting his weight on his forearm. His eyes were thinned and looking at her with a question burning through their depths.

“Darkness?” he asked softly.

She was going to be sick. She knew he knew; he had to know. No woman asked a man if he wanted children, especially not after such a fun and fierce tussle, unless there was a reason for it.

“Yes,” she squeaked, hearing her word echo through the canyon like a death knell to her heart.

“Do you have a child already? One I do not—”

Blowing out a relieved breath, because he hadn’t sounded so much terrified of her asking him those sorts of questions, as confused, she gave a bitter laugh.

“No. Well, I mean...I don’t know. Maybe.” She tossed up her hands and then chuckled at the perplexed expression on his face. “Did I confuse you? Let me start over.”

“A little,” he grinned. “And I’d like that. Do you or don’t you have a child?”

“I do. And I don’t.” She shrugged, holding up a hand when he opened his mouth. “Let me get this out before you ask more questions. Otherwise, you’re liable to confuse me.” Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves with, she pressed on. “George and I never had any children.”

At the mention of her husband’s name, Owiot’s jaw clenched tight. She’d known when he’d taken some of the demons from her soul that he’d seen her memories of George and Brunhilda. The only good thing that came of that was that she didn’t have to explain to him just what kind of a tyrant her husband had been.

“I took a...potion”—she wet her lips in a nervous gesture—“to ensure I could never bear his children. Or anyone else’s...” She clenched her back teeth, hating how reed thin her voice had sounded just now.

“Ah. I see.” Was all he said.

Her heart squeezed like a fist in her chest at the thought that he might be disappointed that she was sterile and unable to give him children, no different than Aiyana choosing to do the same to him. Because ultimately Fable had chosen her fate.

“But...but you have to understand,” she held up her hand, “he was a monster. A horrible, evil man who would have ruined our children the same way he ruined his Snow White.”

“Snow White,” Owiot murmured, saying her name slowly. “The child who wishes you dead.”

There was no censure in his words, but she flinched all the same.

“Yes. Her.”

Drawing a knee up, so that he could rest an arm over it, he sat in a casual pose, looking as regal and majestic nude as he did with his leggings on.

“You love her still, don’t you?”

She said nothing, only turned her face to the side and stared at the blades of grass curling like delicate stemmed jewels along her ankles. Mixed in with the hate was love still, he was right. But she couldn’t forget the fact that she’d also had every intention of ending Snow White’s life just a few days ago, so disgusted and heartsick over what the girl had done to her throughout the years—the lies, the constant threat of war and attacks on her person, not to mention the people under her employ, and worst of all...the death of Sterling—that at some point along the way all that love had turned to hate.

His thumb brushed against her cheeks, wiping up the silent tears. “I saw the truth of it all when I tapped into your soul. You do still love her, though she’s wounded you deeply.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned deeper into his touch. “Yes, but she hates me now. And blames me for the death of her father. She cannot see reason, cannot see beyond that night, refuses even to try and see things from my point of view.”

“My darkness, I wonder if you’ve ever considered the fact that just as the witch cursed you, she too may have cursed the daughter.”

Her eyes snapped open. “I have considered it, many times. Always hoping to find evidence of my suspicions. But I have studied her at length and have never noticed a cuff on—”