Page 65 of Somber Prince
When I opened my eyes, he rose over me on his arms, staring at me in shock and wonder. His golden eyes opened wide, his black hair streaming over us like a shroud of darkness.
“Dawn, what was that?” he demanded. “I have no word for it. What did I just feel?”
How was I supposed to explain to a man nearly three times my age what an orgasm was?
I blew out a breath. “Well, we need to have this conversation, don’t we?”
Rha sat up on his haunches between my open legs. I adjusted my clothes back in place, but when I tried to shift away, he drew me back to him. Sitting on his floor cushion, he placed me between his legs sideways. I leaned with my shoulder against his chest. The slit of his skirt opened, exposing his leg with thick corded muscles on his thigh.
My hip fitted snugly against his crotch, too snugly, meeting absolutely no resistance. There was no hard ridge of an erection between his legs, not even a softening one. No post-orgasmic wetness. Nothing.
I had a lot of questions. The topic was awkward, but we should be past any shame already. He’d witnessed me come twice now, including that time on the altar with all the Joy Guardians present.
“Tell me, Rha, do shadow fae have sex? I mean, you have to reproduce somehow.”
There were many ways for that, other than sex. They could lay eggs, like fish, and fertilize them outside of their bodies. Or they could just multiply in their shadow form by dividing into two, like amoebas.
To my relief, he said, “Yes, we have sex.”
“How?” I pressed my hip a little harder into his crotch area. There definitely wasn’t anything there. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I don’t believe you have…um, the necessary equipment.”
He blinked his long eyelashes at me. “What do you mean?”
Clearly, being vague got me nowhere.
“Rha, do you have a dick?” I asked him straight on.
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and then…he laughed. It was a deep sound filled with mirth—my mirth because we remained connected through his tendrils.
“And you said you didn’t laugh,” I muttered, stunned.
Shadow fae could be happy. Or at least they could feel happiness, provided someone allowed them access to that emotion.
“Not normally, no.” He shook his head, looking a bit shocked himself. “I believe this is the first time I ever laughed. So many firsts with you, my treasure.” He kissed my cheek. “To answer your question, no, I do not have the organ you call ‘a dick’ at the moment.”
“Does it like…come and go?”
He grinned. I understood the hilarity of it. After all, he fed off my humor. But I was genuinely puzzled too.
“Rha, just explain it to me like I’m a kid. When two shadow fae love each other…”
The smile slid off his face. “Love has nothing to do with procreation, Dawn. It’s best if it doesn’t.”
“That’s right. I forgot, you can’t feel love.”
He looked taken aback by that. “Of course we can.”
“How? Isn’t love one of the highest pleasures out there? It’s definitely higher than content.”
“For humans, maybe. For us, it’s one of the cruelest tortures known. Love means debilitating fear for the lover when they’re well and devastating anguish when they’re hurt. I’ve heard that the agony of losing a loved one is worse than death. People have lost their minds and ended their own lives over that. I would not wish love on my worst enemy. It’s more terrible than a curse.”
“I think I understand,” I said.
Love was thought to bring the highest pleasure. But it could also bring agony. For those incapable of feeling pleasure, agony was all that remained.
“Procreation, however, is just a physical function,” Rha continued. “If a man spends enough time with a woman, his body reacts by creating all the ‘equipment’ necessary for when she enters her fertile cycle.”
“And how often do your women enter that cycle?”