Page 81 of The Midnight King
“Now I need to heal you,” I tell her.
“Please,” she whispers. “And quickly. I have to go in a few minutes.”
It’s an invitation to come in her lovely mouth again, but my body won’t cooperate. I’m too full of rage and sorrow—there’s no room for lust.
“Fuck.” I tilt my forehead against hers. “I’m so angry with your stepmother… I don’t think I can get hard enough to do this.”
“Please.” She kneels in the snow, in the lovely gown, with the wings glittering at her back, and she places her slim fingers over my crotch, caressing me through the fabric of my pants. A tingling response runs through my cock, a glimmering arousal that spreads and increases as she continues to stroke me.
Despite her pain, there’s a grateful tenderness in the way she touches me. Her caress is affectionate, and that, more than anything else, fills me with a heady blend of lust and hope.
She exposes my cock to the cold air for only a second before sheathing it in the warm, wet tunnel of her mouth andthroat. Her soft sigh of pleasure drives me mad and stiffens my cock to almost painful hardness.
She’s enjoying me.Me, not the King.
After several seconds of enthusiastic sucking, she murmurs, “Sorry for using you this way.”
“Don’t fucking apologize,” I tell her. “I would give you much more of myself if you’d let me. I’d give you anything—” I break off with a gasp as she picks up speed, her head bobbing as she thrusts my cock faster into her mouth, and I groan aloud. “Fuck yes… just like that.”
The damn girl has magic in those pretty lips, magic in her dancing tongue. I come hard in her mouth, and she sucks on me greedily, drinking every drop of my healing cum.
She drains me so well I can barely stand upright when she lets me go. My legs nearly give way as I’m buttoning my pants. “God-stars, that was exquisite.”
At her request, I lay a second glamour upon her, intended only for the eyes of her step-family, so they can’t perceive that I’ve healed her and repaired her dress. To their eyes, she will remain damaged, and I smile darkly as I imagine how confused they’ll be when the Prince and his guests continue to treat Celinda with respect and admiration.
As it turns out, there is something I must fetch from home, after all. Celinda’s stepmother has commanded her to be rude to the Prince, and I must find something to prevent her from offending His Highness tonight. While I cannot subvert the command, I can control how the Prince perceives Celinda’s rudeness—if I can steal the right spell from my father’s shop.
Over the past several decades, Finias has grown more meticulous in his record-keeping. The spells he designs are far more precise and complex than the ones he used to create, and they often require specific amounts of very rare ingredients, so he measures carefully and keeps track of every gumdrop, every stick of licorice, every cookie, tart, or piece of candy he creates,along with what magical effects they have. His reputation as a master spell-crafter has grown exponentially since my sister was born, and his name now appears in several tomes of magical lore and Fae history, sometimes with an entire chapter devoted to him.
With that notoriety comes unwanted attention from spies, thieves, and black-market dealers of magic, which in turn has made Finias more cautious with his wares. The unfortunate result is that he gets very upset when Úna or I purloin anything from his stores. We still do it occasionally, but we try to ask first, unless we need something urgently.
In this case, I need something urgently.
When I portal into the spell shop, it’s dark and empty, and the adjoining studio is also shadowed and silent. My parents are probably somewhere in the residential part of the house. I create two floating orbs of light to dance over my head and illuminate my search.
“If I were a flattery spell, where would I be?” I mutter, walking behind the counter and pulling out the small drawers one by one.
Before I get very far, Finias appears in the doorway, his hair ruffled and his eyes snapping with golden fury. Judging by the cobweb of pink leather straps he’s wearing, he and my mother were involved in one of their games. When he sees that I’m the intruder in his shop, he sighs and conjures a purple silk robe which he swirls around himself.
“You know I have alarms now, Killian,” he says.
“To keep out thieves and scoundrels, not your own son.”
His mouth twitches as he struggles not to smile. “You wouldn’t be my son if you didn’t have a bit of the scoundrel in you. What are you looking for?”
“Something that will make a person hear only flattering words, no matter what is said in their presence. Just for a few hours. I think you created something like that last year.”
He nods, fluttering his wings and rising to a shelf near the ceiling, from which he takes a small jar. “I did indeed. I handed out these chocolates at a very dull meeting of the High Court and spent a most delightful afternoon insulting everyone without them realizing it.” He chuckles at the memory.
“Can you spare one?”
“For yourself?” He lands lightly, his eyes piercing mine.
“For a friend of mine who’s in trouble.”
“It seems you’re willing to do a great deal for thisfriend. Is this the person you were willing to kill for?”
I chew my lip and glance away. It’s as good as an admission.