Chapter 2: Crown and Candlelight
The door was still bolted. The candles had burned down to oily puddles of wax, their flames sputtering in the drafts that crept through the ancient stone walls. Outside, the city of Aetheron was finally quieting, the last of the celebratory fireworks fading into distant pops and crackles. The kingdom had toasted its new king and queen until their throats were raw, and now the streets belonged to stray dogs and the occasional drunkard singing off-key ballads about the royal couple's beauty.
Inside the royal bedchamber, Ray was still catching his breath.
He lay sprawled across the crimson velvet coverlet, one arm flung over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm that was slowly returning to normal. The sweat on his skin had cooled, leaving a faint chill that raised goosebumps along his forearms. Every muscle in his body ached in a way that was deeply, profoundly satisfying.
He felt rather than saw Amber move beside him. The mattress dipped, and then her weight shifted, and then—
Her hand closed around his wrist and yanked his arm away from his face.
He blinked up at her, momentarily disoriented. She was kneeling beside him, her auburn hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, her green eyes burning with a hunger that should have been impossible after everything they had just done. Her skin was flushed, marked with the evidence of his mouth and his hands—bruises blooming on her hips, a red welt on her collarbone where he had bitten down harder than he'd intended.
She didn't look like a queen. She looked like a goddess of war and lust, and Ray felt his cock twitch despite the exhaustion weighing down his limbs.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.
He hadn't moved. He was fairly certain he couldn't move.
"I wasn't going anywhere," he said. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw from shouting her name. "I was resting. There's a difference."
She smiled. It was not a gentle smile. It was the smile of a predator who had cornered her prey and had no intention of letting it escape.
"You can rest when the sun comes up," she said. "Right now, I'm not finished with you."
She pushed him.
It wasn't a violent shove, but it was firm, insistent, her palms flat against his chest. He fell back against the pillows, his breath leaving him in a surprised huff. Before he could react, before he could even process what was happening, she had swung one leg over his hips and settled herself on top of him.
The view was spectacular.
She sat astride him like she had been born to do it, her thighs clamped around his waist, her spine straight, her chin lifted. Her auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders, curling around the heavy swell of her breasts. The candlelight caught the red in the strands, turning them to flame. Her lips were swollen, her pupils blown wide, and she looked at him like he was the only thing in the world worth conquering.
"I've been waiting for this," she said.
Ray's hands found her hips automatically. His fingers dug into the soft, warm flesh, and he felt her shiver in response.
"Waiting for what?" he managed. "We've been at this for hours. I'm fairly certain I've already—"
"Shut up."
She leaned forward, her hair falling around them like a curtain, and kissed him. It was a slow, deliberate kiss, a stark contrast to the frantic collisions of the past hours. Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and when he opened for her, she slid inside like she owned him.
Maybe she did.
When she pulled back, her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them. She rolled her hips, grinding her slick, wet cunt against his hardening cock, and he groaned. She wasn't just wet—she was soaked, dripping with the evidence of everything they had already done and everything she wanted to do again.
"Feel that?" she whispered. "That's what you do to me. Every time. Every single time I look at you, I get wet. Do you know how many years I spent hiding that? Sitting across the dinner table from you, feeling my thighs stick together under my skirts, knowing that if anyone looked closely enough they would see exactly how much I wanted my step-brother to fuck me?"
Ray's grip on her hips tightened. A low sound rumbled in his chest.
"You think you suffered alone?" he asked. His voice was rough, barely recognizable. "I spent every meal imagining what you tasted like. I couldn't look at you without imagining your mouth wrapped around my cock. I couldn't be in the same room as you without getting hard enough to ache."
"I know," she said. "I noticed. You're not as subtle as you think."
She reached down between them and wrapped her fingers around his erection. He was already hard, already aching for her, and she stroked him slowly, her thumb sweeping over the sensitive head.
"You never said anything," he said, his breath hitching.
"Neither did you."
"Because I couldn't."
"Neither could I."
She lifted herself up, positioning the head of his cock at her entrance. He could feel the heat of her, the slick wetness. She hovered there, not quite lowering herself, and the anticipation was almost painful.
"Amber," he warned. "If you don't—"
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"What you told me earlier." She held his gaze, unblinking. "You said I was always meant to be your queen. That I was always yours. Say it again."
He swallowed hard. The words had come out earlier in the heat of the moment, a growl torn from somewhere deep and primal. But saying them now, with her poised above him like she was deciding his fate, felt different. Heavier. Truer.
"You've always been mine," he said. "Since the moment your mother walked into that ballroom with you trailing behind her, looking like a lost angel in a blue dress that made your eyes look like the sea. I saw you, and I knew. I knew I could never have you, and it almost destroyed me."
She didn't blink.
"And now?"
"Now?" He laughed, a broken, ragged sound. "Now you're sitting on my cock like you're about to ride me into the grave, and I've never been happier in my life."
Something shifted in her expression. The hard, predatory edge softened, just slightly, and for a moment he saw the girl he remembered from the beginning. The girl who had looked at him with wide eyes and trembling hands, who had whispered his name in the dark like a prayer.
Then that girl was gone, and the woman took over.
She lowered herself onto him in one slow, deliberate motion.
The sensation was exquisite. Her cunt was hot and tight, gripping him like a fist. Inch by inch, she took him inside her, her hips rolling in a fluid motion that made his vision blur. When she was fully seated, when he was buried to the hilt in her slick heat, she paused. Her thighs quivered. Her breath came in short, sharp pants.
"Promise me something," she said.
"Anything."
"Promise me you'll never let anyone else have me."
The words hit him like a physical blow. He stared up at her, at the fierce possessiveness burning in her green eyes, and felt something crack open in his chest.
"It's my duty to protect you," he said slowly. "It's my right."
"No." She began to move, rising up and then sinking back down, setting a rhythm that was slow and torturous. "That's not what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"I mean this." She ground down hard, her hips circling, and he gasped. "I mean the part where you tie me to this bed and fuck me until I can't remember my own name. I mean the part where you leave marks on my skin so everyone knows exactly who I belong to."
"Amber—"
"Promise me, Ray."
Her pace quickened. The slow torture gave way to something more urgent, more desperate. She was riding him now, her hips slamming down with each thrust, her breasts bouncing with the force of her movements. The bed creaked beneath them, a rhythmic counterpoint to the wet slap of their bodies.
"Promise me," she gasped, "that you'll never let me go. No matter what happens. No matter what they say. No matter what we have to do to keep this."
He couldn't answer.
Not with words, anyway.
He surged upward, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest. The change in position drove him deeper, and she cried out, her nails raking down his back. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, the sweat and salt and something floral that lingered from her bath hours earlier.
"You're insane," he muttered against her throat.
"Yes."
"You're impossible."
"Yes."
"And you're mine." He bit down on the curve where her neck met her shoulder, hard enough to bruise. "You've always been mine. You'll always be mine. And if anyone tries to take you from me, I'll burn their world to the ground."
She came.
Not quietly. Not discreetly. She came with a scream that seemed to shake the very stones of the castle, her body convulsing in his arms, her cunt clenching around him with a grip that bordered on violent. The sound echoed off the walls, off the gilded mirrors, off the embroidered linens that carried the ghosts of their parents' marriage.
Ray followed a heartbeat later.
His climax ripped through him with the force of a summer storm, violent and consuming and utterly beyond his control. He spilled inside her with a roar that was just as loud as her scream, his hips bucking upward, his fingers digging into the flesh of her back.
They collapsed.
She fell on top of him, a boneless heap of quivering limbs and tangled hair. Her breath was hot against his chest, her heart hammering against his ribs. He wrapped his arms around her and held her there, feeling the weight of her, the reality of her.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she started to laugh.
It was a breathless, giddy sound, a laugh that bubbled up from somewhere deep and uncontrollable. She pressed her forehead against his collarbone and shook with it, her body quaking against his.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Everything," she said. "We just—we just fucked in the king's bed. Our parents' bed. The bed where they probably conceived us, or at least conceived the idea of us. And we did it while the entire kingdom is sleeping off their wine and dreaming about how perfect and regal their new monarchs are."
He started laughing too.
"You're right," he said. "That's objectively hilarious."
"I know."
"I think I love you."
It wasn't the first time he had said it. Earlier, in the heat of the moment, he had let the words slip out. But saying it now, with her warm and sated and tangled around him, felt different.
She lifted her head. Her hair was a mess, her face was flushed, and there was a smear of his blood on her lip from where he had bitten her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"I know you do," she said. "I've always known."
She kissed him, soft and slow, and then she began to move again.
"You can't be serious," he said.
"I'm always serious."
"I need to sleep. I'm only human."
"Then sleep later." She sat up, her hips rolling in a sinuous motion that made his spent cock twitch with renewed interest. "We have a whole bed to christen. You promised me every corner of this room, remember?"
He had said that. Hours ago, when he had still possessed the ability to walk. Now his legs felt like they were made of jelly, and his brain was functioning at approximately half its normal capacity.
But she was looking at him with those eyes. Those damn green eyes.
"Fine," he groaned. "But if I die of exhaustion, I'm haunting you."
"Deal."
She leaned forward and whispered against his ear, her lips brushing the shell of his ear.
"But first," she said, "I want to do something we never dared to do."
His breath caught.
"What?"
She pulled back, her smile wicked and bright.
"I want you to tell me every dirty thing you ever imagined doing to me. Every fantasy. Every dark, shameful thought you had while we were supposed to be siblings. And then I want you to make them come true."
His cock hardened instantly, as if it had been waiting for that exact sentence.
"You're going to kill me," he said.
"Probably."
She laughed at his expression. He grabbed her hips and flipped her onto her back, pinning her to the mattress with his weight. She gasped, her eyes going wide, and then she laughed again—a bright, joyful sound that was utterly at odds with the depraved promise in her words.
"In that case," he said, his voice a low growl, "I hope you're prepared for a long night."
She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer.
"I've been preparing for this my entire life," she said. "Now shut up and fuck me like you mean it."
He didn't need to be told twice.
MORNING COMES.
He didn't know when exhaustion finally claimed them. The candles had all guttered out long before, and the first gray fingers of dawn were creeping through the gap in the heavy drapes when consciousness finally, reluctantly, returned to him.
His body ached in ways he hadn't known were possible. His back was covered in scratches. There was a dull, pleasant soreness in his thighs and his shoulders and places he couldn't quite identify. He was tangled in the sheets, one arm asleep beneath Amber's head, his other hand resting possessively on the curve of her bare hip.
She was still asleep.
The morning light painted her in soft strokes of gray and gold. Her auburn hair was spread across the pillow like spilled wine, her lips slightly parted, her face peaceful in a way he had never seen before. She looked younger in sleep.
He should have let her sleep.
Instead he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"Morning," he said.
She blinked at him, her pupils adjusting to the pale light. A slow, lazy smile curved her lips.
"Morning," she murmured. "What time is it?"
"I don't know. Early."
She stretched, her breasts arching toward him, and he felt his body respond despite the exhaustion.
"Did we sleep at all?" she asked.
"An hour. Maybe two."
"Worth it."
He laughed. A real laugh, warm and unguarded, something he hadn't done in years.
"Absolutely worth it," he agreed.
She shifted, curling into his side, and he wrapped his arms around her. They lay there in comfortable silence, listening to the sounds of the palace waking up around them. Servants in the corridors. Guards changing shifts. Somewhere in the distance, a bell was tolling.
"They'll come soon," she said.
"I know."
"You'll have to be the king again."
"I know."
"Me too."
"I know."
She lifted her head, looking at him with serious eyes. "What we did last night—"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't regret it. Not for a single second. I don't care if the whole world thinks we're monsters. I don't care if they write ballads about our sins. I would do it all again. Every single thing."
"I wasn't going to say I regretted it," she said quietly. "I was going to say I'm not finished."
He stared at her.
"Amber—"
"I can be quick." Her hand slid down his chest, her fingers wrapping around his half-hard cock. "One more time. Before the world gets us."
He was already rising to her touch. It was impossible, an absurdity, a physical impossibility, and yet there he was, growing hard in her hand, ready to go again.
"You're a witch," he said.
"A queen."
"Same thing."
She laughed and pushed him onto his back. This time, she didn't ride him. Instead she slid down his body, her hair trailing over his stomach, until her lips met the head of his cock. She took him into her mouth in one slow, wet motion, her tongue swirling around the tip, and he groaned and fisted his hands in her hair.
"Fuck," he hissed.
She hummed in response, the vibration making his hips jerk. She took him deeper, her mouth hot and wet, her lips sliding down his shaft until he hit the back of her throat. She swallowed, and he nearly came right there.
"Amber, I'm going to—"
She pulled back and looked up at him with a wicked grin.
"You're going to come in my mouth," she said. "And then you're going to fuck me one more time. And then we're going to get up and pretend to be dignified."
"This is insane."
"Shut up."
She went back to work, her head bobbing, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked. Her fingers wrapped around the base of his shaft, stroking in rhythm with her mouth. The wet, obscene sounds of her ministrations filled the room, mingling with his ragged breathing.
He tried to hold back. He really did. But she was relentless, her tongue pressing against the sensitive spot just below the head, her hand working him with expert precision. He felt the pressure building at the base of his spine, a tidal wave of heat that he couldn't stop.
"Close," he gasped.
She didn't stop. She just looked up at him, her green eyes meeting his, and took him deeper.
He came with a shout, his hips bucking off the bed, his fingers yanking her hair. She swallowed every drop, her throat working, her lips never leaving him. The orgasm was so intense it bordered on painful, and when she finally pulled back, licking her lips, he felt like he might actually die right there.
"Good morning," she said.
He couldn't form words. He could only stare at her, this woman who had just swallowed his come like it was honey, this queen who was currently crawling up his body with a look of smug satisfaction.
"You're going to kill me," he finally said.
"Probably."
He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her up, positioning himself at her entrance for the third time that night—or morning, technically. She was still wet, still ready, her body slick with everything they had already done.
He thrust into her in one smooth motion.
She gasped, her back arching, her nails digging into his shoulders. He didn't give her time to adjust. He set a brutal pace, his hips slamming against hers, the sound of their bodies colliding echoing off the walls.
It was quick and dirty. A frantic, desperate joining that had nothing to do with technique and everything to do with need. He fucked her like he was trying to imprint himself on her bones, to leave his mark so deeply that she would never be free of him.
She came first.
Her body clenched around him, her mouth opening in a silent scream, her eyes squeezed shut. The sight of her, the feel of her, sent him over the edge. He followed her into oblivion, emptying himself inside her with a guttural growl that seemed to come from somewhere primal.
They collapsed together.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant clatter of the palace waking up.
"I need a bath," she finally said.
"I'll call for the servants."
"After you."
He laughed weakly. "I don't think I can move."
"Then we'll lie here until we rot."
"That seems impractical."
"Mm. You're right." She stretched, a satisfied cat in a sunbeam. "I suppose we have to be king and queen today."
"I suppose we do."
She sat up, looking down at him with a smile that was soft and possessive and full of promise.
"We should do this again tonight," she said.
"My body needs to recover."
"I'll help you recover."
She leaned down and kissed him, soft and lingering, and then she slid out of bed and padded toward her dressing room, naked and unashamed. He watched her go, the sway of her hips, the tangled curtain of her hair, the smooth curve of her back.
The sun was fully up now. The palace was awake. The world was waiting.
But for just another moment, Ray lay in his parents' bed, filled with his wife, marked with her scratches, and smiled at the ceiling.