Healthy Progress, page 21
I swallowed loudly. “It wasn’t like—”
“Where?” he growled in anger but not at me. The situation maybe?
The jealousy and worry were thick in his eyes. He fully believed he would be pushed aside too often if I ever had a relationship with Neldor, my real fairy mate and all of that crap I didn’t believe in.
“My hips. Lower back. Arms. Face.”
“Where did he kiss my agra?”
I swallowed even louder the second time. “My ears and neck. My cheeks.”
He attacked my right ear. “Here?”
“Yes, yes, there,” I moaned as he nipped the lobe.
“Did he touch these tits that are mine?”
“No.”
“Were they pressed up against his chest?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to punish you for that.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded so fast my head was about to pop off. Fuck, yes, Darby could do whatever he wanted to me. I was so into all of this I didn’t care what he did. I trusted him more than enough to not worry.
He turned me on my side and pushed my knee up, thrusting in me harder than he normally did to start. There’d been more than enough prep with all the toys and fun but yeah, it was rougher than Darby normally was, and I loved it.
I gasped when he pulled my hair and growled I was his and only his. The next several minutes he fucked my brains out while saying the most jealous and possessive everything that I would never have thought he would. I was agreeing to all his demands and begging for more while desperate to climax.
He finished but didn’t let me. I couldn’t even hide my shock which made him smirk at me as he gasped for air.
And then he moved me to my other side and did it all over again.
Still without letting me finish.
We’d gone for hours and hours by then, and I could feel how tired Darby was. I had a moment to wonder if he was really going to leave me hanging in the end even after all of the attention I got.
He flipped me onto my back and spread my legs wide, smiling down evilly at me. He pinched my clit harder than I would have thought after all our sex, almost to the point it hurt. “Climax.”
Instantly I did. My body arched off the bed as I screamed my head off in pleasure. I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going nor feel most of my body. Darby got what he wanted, and I ended up passing out while in the middle of my orgasm it had been so good.
Wow.
Just wow.
The next morning I woke a bit sore and used a healing rune before climbing on my sleeping mate and taking him inside of me. He woke with a groan, his eyes flying open and full of shock as I started riding him.
“Payback can be a bitch and so am I.”
“Show me, agra,” he panted, growling when I smacked his hands away when he tried to touch me. He moved his hands behind his head and resigned himself to simply enjoying the fun.
We went twice with me on top. I didn’t even slow down after his first climax. It was so fucking good that I collapsed on him and couldn’t feel my body when it was over.
“That was the best revenge I’ve ever had,” he purred, hugging me tightly when I burst out laughing. “Let’s shower. We have the meeting with the co-op.”
“Shit, I forgot.”
We raced to shower and get dressed, out the door ten minutes before the meeting, which was fine with portals, but I didn’t like cutting it so close. I hated keeping people waiting. I opened a portal for us to arrive right in the party room of the main location for HAVEN.
I was still too tired and everything in me spinning—especially since I was starving—so my mouth worked faster than my brain when I saw Neldor. “We should go dancing again soon. I mean, you can crash when we go.”
He did a double take. “You’re not angry.” He couldn’t hide his shock when I shook my head. “I’m glad you had fun too. I did. Yes—I mean, sure, I’ll crash when you go dancing and—”
Darby’s loud laugh cut through what he was saying. It echoed in the large room, and the conversations all around us died off as they focused on what was going on with us.
When I realized what he’d pieced together and found so amusing, my face flushed lava hot.
“So you want a repeat of last night, agra?” Darby murmured as he hugged me from behind. “Yeah, I bet you want to dance with him again.”
I wanted to melt into the floor. Seriously, just disappear right then in front of all the eyes.
Neldor frowned as he glanced between us. After a few moments I practically saw the light bulb go off over his head. “Glad I could help your sex life. Truly, I’m glad that’s what I’m here for.”
“Well, it’s one way for you to get into her bed even if it’s just your name being brought up,” Dalyor taunted Neldor. He was beaming when the prince gave him a look of death.
“How good?” Stefanie teased me.
“She had a sound barrier up for hours after we got home. I went to get some water from the kitchen and I felt it still up,” Izzy said brightly.
“You’re getting much better at sensing what type of barriers are being used around you,” I praised, trying to change the topic.
Except I’d just confirmed she was right about the barrier.
Fuck.
“Yes, yes, Darby is a good mate and treats the princess well,” Liluth said as she joined us with a bunch of the hobgoblins from the co-op. “We have a tight deadline.”
“You’re my favorite today, Liluth,” I called over, dragging Darby with me to take a seat so we could get started.
Stefanie gave chase and sat next to me. “How good?”
“Un-fucking-real,” I said under my breath.
“Well done, Darby,” she praised, setting everyone off all over again.
After that we got down to business, and there was a lot of it to handle with the spring line coming out.
But yeah, well done, Darby.
19
The next couple of weeks were without drama and really nice. School was great and I was learning a ton. I loved the material and was excited to listen to the lectures. It was what I’d thought college would be.
More and more fairies were being woken up and on board with the agenda, so a ton was getting done. Like ridiculous progress and way more than I could ever have hoped. Fairies were capable of amazing things when they got out of their own way and focused on the real problems.
For instance, that whole shit area of Theripolis was completely overhauled. There were now a few dozen nice shops and three buildings that were low-income dwellings. That’s how fairies referred to multilevel homes that multiple fairies lived in, but really with the redesigns and upgrades to be more like what humans had, they were nice apartments. Basic, but nice.
And while the buildings didn’t look so big, they really were because of the cute facades. It reminded me of walking around Italy and all the houses and buildings were all attached in town. That’s what the outside seemed like with different personalities, but really it was a lot of apartments. The biggest building had five hundred one-bedroom apartments.
That was amazing. It was amazing for a family who had been living in hovels and shit.
The first ones had moved in a few weeks ago and now that they had water, electricity, and working bathrooms. Their lives were completely changed. No more walking down the street to fucking pee or using all of their magic to simply survive.
When people started to truly see the progress, anything negative the nobles tried to say about me was met with fierce upset. The average fairy was shutting them down.
And hard.
Now that some had real hope for a better future, the goodness of fairies that people had talked about was shining through. I got reports all of the time that people were using their magic on the groves or farms after their own jobs were done for the day to help get the food production up. People were getting extra food from that and then putting more energy into Faerie so the planet could heal.
And it needed a lot of healing. The darkness was all gone, but that didn’t mean our world was just all better. We had issues all over the place with too many animals having died and even a list that people were worrying went extinct. So it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, but people were stepping up as they should have.
Ten cities were now completely open and being worked on for a better future. Faerie Guardians were constantly helping with construction crews after their shifts, mostly using the time as their training and exercise. It put most of the projects way ahead and soon the holdup would be the funds, not the rest.
So that was a lot of pressure on me. We were eating through the budget for the whole year with my pushing for more and more to be fixed up. I’d done about half of Theripolis with my own money since it was my family lands… Except I’d taken over a lot of other territories. That meant I needed to do the same because the realm couldn’t afford to handle it all.
Not at the rate I was pushing to upgrade and revamp all of Faerie.
It put me in a tight place and made me have to push up plans much faster than I had expected.
And me staying up at night writing lists of other ideas and ways to make my vision of a better Faerie work.
But that was just part of me being the boss. My life was really going well, and I was appreciating it every second of every day. I had much better control over my dreams, and only once in the past couple of weeks did I need Julian to help me. He was always there ready to catch me but yeah, it was amazing progress.
And so were things between us. I didn’t forgive him—I didn’t know if I ever could—but we were working together well and it was… Easy. No, not easy. Comfortable? I didn’t feel the need to hurry from him or feel pressure from him. I was pretty sure he was taking a page from Lucca’s playbook and realizing that being my friend was about the best he could ever hope for.
Realistically.
Hudson and I were still iffy and kind of in a holding pattern until he got more settled. But at least he was talking to me about what was going on. He’d done a real number to himself and especially his bond with River.
River was doing better now that I was spending time with him and I’d told him all about how Juan had been a jerk to me and it wasn’t Hudson’s fault.
In response, the damn dragon had gone after Juan and lit the asshole on fire in the middle of the quad. I had panicked until I saw everyone else laughing.
“Dragons don’t catch fire,” Lucca had explained to me. “River is being a shit, not trying to hurt him.”
I still didn’t understand until the fire died down and Juan was standing there completely naked. His clothes had turned to ash, everything he’d had on him, but he was fine. Not even his hair smoking.
“That’s fucking cool. If my house is ever on fire, I’m not worrying about Hudson then.”
Lucca had found that hysterical and had laughed even harder when River had come over to me and practically flopped onto his back to show me his stomach like a dog asking for forgiveness.
Yeah, I laughed then too. It was so damn goofy that I couldn’t resist giving love to the pushy dragon.
So yeah, things were going really well, and I was excited for the warmer weather. The winter had been rough and as much as I loved snow, there had been too much freezing rain, sleet, and ice. My mood was bright with spring on the horizon and how great things were going.
Which meant something had to fuck it up.
Of course and big time.
I was walking to lunch with Lucca when I saw Neldor in front of us with several women trying to flirt and get his attention. He had on his super fake prince smile to be nice, but I could see how dull his eyes were.
Seriously, I need to get him to teach me how to do that. I can’t ever hide what I’m feeling and be so diplomatic.
Horror filled me as a scream tore from his lips that I felt all the way down to my soul. His bag fell off his shoulder, and he reached for his back as if something was wrong there.
It’s his wings.
I knew it instantly. I’d never forget the pain I’d felt when they’d come in, worrying I’d been shot in the back it hurt so much.
I was there before I even blinked. “Back up!”
Throwing up a barrier when people didn’t listen, I forced them to move as I widened it. I opened portals to all my fae dog packs as I opened more to all the commanders and healers. The dogs came through immediately and I focused on them.
“Secure the school. Get people away and burn any who try to come onto campus.”
Chief barked that he understood and then took charge of my other packs, giving orders to the Alphas sworn to me. That wasn’t normally how fae dogs worked, but after explaining to the other packs that I needed Chief to be my right hand, they agreed to listen to him giving orders for me to save time in an emergency.
But they were the Alpha of their own packs and he’d better not step on that line.
Fair enough.
Neldor let out another scream and started to fall. I darted over and slid with one leg folded under me just in time to catch him.
“I got you,” I whispered, mentally wincing when he gripped my hand like a vice. “I got you, Neldor. Your wings will be beautiful.”
The fear lessened in his eyes. Most might think he was stupid for not figuring it out when he grew up knowing about wings, his wings late even, but no one could think clearly through that kind of pain.
I certainly hadn’t been able to.
I pushed my magic into the school’s barrier and strengthened the wards, my vision wavering when I did. His screams focused me back on him, but I felt like I couldn’t sit up much longer.
“Your Highness, please let him go,” Onas bellowed, snapping me out of my haze. “We have him.”
“Why is Tamsin gushing magic?” Lageos demanded.
“She opened over fifty portals at the same time to all of us, you, and her dogs,” Shael answered.
“But she’s still using so much magic,” he argued.
“The wards,” I groaned.
“Tamsin, he’s in no danger,” Lageos whispered as he moved behind me to help. “He’ll be fine.”
“This is when I would attack,” I mumbled.
“You’re right and I’ll handle the wards. I promise. Stop and rest.” He shook me when I argued. “Tamsin, you did too much too fast. You’re not even being effective.”
Well, fuck. I shut down my magic and leaned heavily on him, my ears ringing with Neldor’s next screams. I realized he wasn’t on my lap then and tried to reach for him.
“He’s fine, Your Highness,” Onas promised. “You can’t touch him. The healers know how to move him safely once his wings come in.”
“Block people,” I ordered.
“Already done,” Iolas promised. “I covered your protection barrier with an opaque one.”
“Father!” Neldor bellowed. “Where’s my father? Why isn’t he here?”
I glanced over just in time to see him pass out, tears filling my eyes that he couldn’t have his dad around when he needed him. “At least it’s over.”
“It’s just starting, Your Highness,” Iolas argued.
I blinked at him and then flinched. “Right, you guys said I kept screaming. I only remember this part and feeling like I was going to die. Then it was blank.”
“That’s normal, but this is far from over,” Onas said, his face grim.
“We can move him,” one of his mother’s healers that I recognized said. “Fast. Where?”
“He hasn’t told us,” Onas sighed. “He wouldn’t talk about it.”
Yeah, but he’d already given us the answer. “Did his father sleep in a separate room from his mother?”
“Yes, that’s standard for the queens because…” Onas cleared his throat and looked away.
I ignored it and focused on the healer. “His father’s room in his family’s castle.” I held up my hand to the objections. “He can’t have them, but he can have the comfort and familiarity of that room when he needs it most.”
“I agree with her,” Commander Talila said when others seemed to waiver.
“So do I,” Taeral declared firmly. “Yes, that’s the answer. Move.”
“Iolas, take her, and I’ll get us safely to the portal,” Lageos said as he stood with me in his arms.
“Dad, I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Iolas sighed as he took me. “You panicked and opened all of your magic, Princess. Yes, you did a lot, but you’ve done more easily before. Your fear tied in with your magic and you let way too much out.”
I simply nodded, not able to feel what they could. It was probably the same as when we’d had to seek sanctuary at the Vogel’s castle and I’d overreacted.
Hey, I wasn’t perfect, and this was still all too new to me and freaked me out.
“The portal here is downstairs and the path narrow. We need an easier portal,” the healer told Lageos
Except I was the only one who could open a portal in my barrier. I took it down when Lageos said Iolas’s was strong enough and he opened a huge portal. It was the size of a few garage doors so we could all go through at once and easily. I watched as the healers used minimal magic to move Neldor.
“The gloves?” I asked Iolas.
“You catch everything,” he praised as we moved towards the portal as well.
“Wait, Tamsin, call your dogs,” Lageos said.
“Once everyone is through and Iolas can take down the barrier,” I said after a moment. “Just protect the portal until we’re through.” I looked at Iolas for the answer as people moved fast.
“They’re filters. It’s like layer upon layer of water purifiers so it’s completely clean before you have it. Same with the magic. It’s the only way any magic can be used on someone in such a delicate state. We did the same when you had your wings.”
Right, people had said no one could touch me, and I hadn’t been able to get myself home. I’d never asked about how it had all gone down. Then again, I’d been so out of it, and the mess that had come after would have distracted anyone from thinking on something so small.
