Crown of Salt, page 9
part #4 of Faerie Lords Series
“I’ve called ahead,” Cecilia’s voice said stiffly. “There’s a room made up for her.”
“No need, Sissy dearest,” Percy told her blithely. “She’ll be staying with me. Unless you’ve yet to shed your Victorian-era sensibilities?”
Valentine thought about protesting, once again. But she was so tired, and it seemed like an awful lot of effort to expend just to end up separated from him before she could talk to him properly.
“…we’ll speak tomorrow, Percival,” Cecilia said finally.
“I’m sure that we will,” Percy replied, in that way that suggested he would probably speak an awful lot, but end up actually saying very little. “Goodnight, Sissy.”
He carried Valentine up a very short flight of stairs, and down a longer hallway. Oliver’s claws clicked neatly next to him, keeping a soft metronome on the wooden floors.
Finally, Percy nudged open a door and settled her down onto a very soft, very spacious bed. Valentine suspected that if she ever found the energy to open her eyes, she would discover it was just as ostentatious as the chairs in Cecilia’s waiting area, though clearly much more comfortable.
“…utterly perplexed,” Percy was saying to Oliver. He had a fond tone to his voice as he said it. “You’ve normally got a much better head on your shoulders than to go running after me on one of my misadventures. I admit to being impressed, Oliver.”
A long, feline yawn was his only response.
“Well. I’m sure you’d rather another Atheling didn’t take an interest in you. It might be best if you snuck out the door with that in mind — I’ll get you a bit of pocket money.” Percy sighed heavily. “I’m already going to have a devil of a time making sure Sissy doesn’t peel my other guest away from me for extended questioning. Perhaps it’s best she thinks we’re otherwise engaged, as it were. Sissy really hasn’t left the prudish old days behind quite as much as she’d like to think, so I’m sure she won’t interrupt. I tried to get her to come to Woodstock, you know, and it was a marvellous failure—”
Percy yelped. Valentine slitted her eyes open, and saw him rubbing at his hand where Oliver had nipped at him in annoyance.
“Er, yes,” Percy mumbled. “Quite right. Let me find my pocketbook.”
Time got away from Valentine again after that. She was next aware of Percy’s hands delicately helping her out of her coat and tugging her shirt up over her head. He hissed in his breath, and she felt him press something against the bullet wound in her shoulder.
“Normal people would be dead,” Percy mumbled. “This is terrible, my dear Valentine. You didn’t even complain.” He sighed, and brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. “I ought to at least try fixing you the normal way. But I despise seeing you like this. And all over Sissy’s foolish tantrum with me, too.” He paused uncomfortably. “Perhaps I played a part in causing that, as well. I’m very sorry for that, if so.”
Percy’s fingers curled against her skin. “I have never been so upset with her before,” he murmured. “Influenza. If I had gotten there too late…” He shivered, and for the first time, Valentine heard a hint of real fear in his voice.
“You didn’t,” Valentine mumbled. “An’ in case you don’t remember, I was th’ one that showed up an’ knocked down the door. I knew what I was gettin’ into.” She felt oddly uncomfortable, knowing that he’d been afraid. Percy was normally so perfectly composed, so immune to the things that normally rattled everyone else. She especially didn’t like that he had been afraid for her.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. The contact burned with the rich, liquid warmth of his gift. Valentine shivered at the delicious feeling — though part of it, she thought, was the scent of wintergreen, the closeness of him, the brush of his fingers through her tangled hair and over her shoulder. The distant, pounding ache of her injury subsided beneath his hands. She slitted her eyes open again, and saw him leaned over her. His eyes were a rich, deep red, and his breathing was harsh with exertion.
He traced his thumb lightly over her collarbone, holding her eyes. “I cannot remember the last time someone went to so much trouble for me,” Percy admitted softly. “...I’m not strictly sure that I deserve it.”
Valentine blinked at him languidly. “I wanted stitches,” she mumbled at him. “You weren’t home, is all.”
Percy’s lips quirked upward. He leaned down to press his forehead against hers. “And I still owe you six favors, of course, the last time I checked,” he murmured. The simple nearness of him made her feel warm inside, though his skin was cool to the touch.
“Seven,” Valentine corrected him. “You just apologized again, you stupid knob.”
Percy’s other hand cupped Valentine’s cheek. His thumb caressed her collarbone again. She became very keenly aware that she was not, in fact, wearing a shirt. “I think I’d like to kiss you, my dear Valentine,” he breathed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Valentine swallowed. “Terrible idea,” she told him hoarsely.
“Is it?” he asked. His fingers trailed down her naked shoulder, and she shivered in surprised pleasure. “I really must, then. I am famous for terrible ideas, after all.” His red eyes fixed on hers intensely. “But I am still a gentleman. I would like you to say yes before I do.”
Valentine closed her eyes. A bullet wound had barely pierced the veil of the Deeps. But somehow, the very lightest touch of Percy’s fingers made her tremble with pleasure. She couldn’t have told him no if the Drowned Lord himself had ordered her to do it.
“Yes,” she whispered. Tears burned behind her eyelids, for no reason she could discern. “Please.”
Percy’s lips dropped from her forehead, down to the tip of her nose. She blinked in surprise as he lingered there for a moment — then, with another smooth descent, he captured her mouth with his in a painfully gentle kiss.
It was the first time that Valentine had been kissed in a very long time. The last man to kiss her had been Sidney, in fact. But while that kiss had seemed entirely adequate to an impressionable young girl, it was nothing compared to the teasing, delicate way that Percy grazed his lips over hers. He seemed to savor each small moment of it; the way that slow, melting pressure between them steadily increased. His tongue darted between her lips, and she whimpered breathlessly at the taste of him, reaching up to tangle her fingers in his hair.
Perhaps he’d meant to stay slow and gentle and teasing — but there was a deep hunger just beneath that careful kiss, and Valentine’s desperate response stoked it further. He shifted overtop her, pressing her down into the bed with his body. His half-buttoned shirt brushed against her naked skin; she fumbled with the remaining buttons, sliding her other hand up the smooth skin of his chest. His teeth closed sharply on her lower lip, and she tasted a hint of copper in her mouth. A soft moan escaped him, and she felt it vibrate through her entire body.
A moment later, he seemed to remember himself. Percy dragged himself back from her, his eyes deep red with a desire that wasn’t entirely carnal. His fingers trembled on her shoulder. His breathing came ragged. “I’ve gotten away from myself,” he murmured. “I may be too hungry for this—”
Valentine tightened her fingers in his hair, and yanked his lips down to her throat. “No one asked you to stop,” she said in a rough voice.
A shudder wracked through him at the words. His fingers dug into her shoulder. She felt his breath on her neck — his lips slowly tracing along her pulse. Hot anticipation raced through her, the instant before he gave in and sank his teeth into her skin.
Ecstasy blossomed from the injury. Her body arched into him of its own accord. An eager whimper escaped her, and she shifted to allow him to settle more fully between her legs. Everything was dizzy and overwhelming, in the very best sense. A long, low groan of pleasure went through him, and she lifted her other hand to his hair to join the first.
Slowly, his hands began to roam down her body. His fingers ghosted along the side of her naked breast, teasing lightly. Valentine gasped and writhed beneath him, hungry for more. She found herself saying as much, pleading to him in tight whispers: More, please, more. Percy grazed his thumb over her nipple, and she let out a strangled cry, pressing into his hand.
He lifted his mouth from her neck with a low, satisfied groan that set fire to her nerves. But his lips descended further, soon enough, and she felt the rasp of his teeth along her collarbone. Soft, shocking spikes of pleasure followed where he nipped at her skin, licking at the blood that welled up with his hot tongue. His thumb continued to stroke at her aching nipple, but she found her attention far more consumed by the trail of his mouth as he scraped his teeth gently over the swell of her breast.
“You know you taste different, depending on the place?” he murmured against her skin. “It’s subtle. I’m trying to decide where I like it best. You don’t mind?”
“I might hurt you if you stop,” Valentine managed in a strangled voice.
His mouth descended again, and he tugged down the waistline of her pants so that his teeth could scrape at the hollow of her hip. His hand slid down between her legs, where an impossible ache had grown. He slowly opened the button on her pants. As Valentine begged again — more, don’t stop — his lips curved up against her skin, and he slipped his clever fingers down inside her panties. One of his fingertips pressed firmly against the place where she most wanted him, dipping into her wetness, and she bucked against him again.
Very distantly, Valentine became aware that this was exactly the sort of thing she should have been doing on her wedding night. In a better frame of mind, she might have wondered whether she ought to tell him the embarrassing news about her unconsummated marriage — but his finger pressed more deeply inside her, and she lost the thought entirely. Her body became a glorious mess of confused pleasure, with his teeth at her hip and his fingers stroking inside her.
Slowly, he began to tug her pants away entirely. She heard them discarded on the floor, just as his breath began to tickle along her inner thigh. A wickedly delicious pain stung at her there, and she knotted her fingers in his hair with a sharp gasp. His tongue licked along her skin, and she realized with embarrassment that she desperately wanted his mouth where his fingers were, only a few inches away.
“Mm,” Percy sighed. “You’re most delicious right here, I think.” His teeth dug more deeply into her inner thigh. The warm pleasure that spread from his lips stoked the heat between her legs, heightening her awareness of his fingers inside her. A soft sob of pleasure slipped free of her throat, and she felt his smile broaden against her skin.
“Please,” she mumbled desperately, though she wasn’t sure just what she wanted. “Percy, please—”
He ran his tongue over the stinging bruise on her thigh. “I’m shocked,” he murmured. “You’ve used that word more in the last few minutes than in the entire time I’ve known you.”
She swallowed hard. The sight of him looking up at her from between her legs, with his mussed hair and that satisfied glint in his eyes, struck her as so fantastically, sinfully inappropriate. Her body tightened with approval, even as the last stubborn vestiges of her upbringing insisted that she was doing something wrong.
Percy slid his fingers free, and forced her legs further open. He pressed a very light kiss over the bruise he’d made. “I think I’ll see if I can make you say thank you next,” he told her with a languid smile.
His tongue licked along her slit then, and she couldn’t find the words for much at all.
This, Valentine thought, was not something she would have expected even on a proper wedding night.
He sucked and licked at her with all the same hard-edged hunger he’d displayed while feeding on her blood. That incredible heat built up beneath his tongue and fingers, until she began to think she might burn up in reality. Finally, that pulsing pleasure hit a peak, and she cried out loudly, grasping at the sheets with her fingers.
Percy nibbled at her thigh again as her body shivered beneath him, quite satisfied with himself. The red in his eyes had yet to abate though, and he slowly pulled himself back up her body to claim her mouth. There was a hint of her own blood on his tongue, and the taste of other places he had licked. Perhaps she should have been repelled, but instead she found herself enthralled.
“None of this is very polite,” he breathed against her mouth. “But I do at least insist that the lady should come first.”
Valentine tore his shirt away from him with shaking hands. She tried to fumble with his belt; he had to help her undo the buckle. But soon, it was just his naked skin against hers, and his very obvious erection pressed against her entrance.
Percy met her eyes. There was a dark, hungry desire in him now, but his hands still touched her gently, and he pressed his lips to the tip of her nose again with a slow smile. “Still more, my dear Valentine?” he murmured to her.
“God, yes,” she breathed.
He slid inside her then, and for just a second, absolutely nothing else mattered.
She was so slick and ready that her body accepted him without complaint, though her muscles had to stretch to accommodate him. He watched her face with rapt captivation as she whimpered beneath him, lifting her hips to take him more fully.
Perhaps there should have been pain the first time — but if there was, it was buried far beneath the satisfying blossoms of pain he’d left elsewhere on her body. Percy ducked his head to nibble at the other side of her neck now, just hard enough to lick a few drops of blood from the skin. It was a lazier, more relaxed hunger, but she felt his cock twitch inside her as he indulged in it. She gave a breathy, encouraging moan that made him shift his hips to take her with another delicious stroke.
“You taste divine,” Percy groaned against her skin. He slid his hands down around her thighs, to pull her harder against him. “You feel even better.”
Valentine ran her hands back around his shoulders, trailing her fingers along his back, savoring the sudden freedom she had to touch him. Every inch of her was flushed and tingling, but still, she needed more of him, needed to be somehow closer to him. “Are you callin’ me appetizin’?” she mumbled.
Percy moved inside her again, with a languid smile. “Delicious,” he assured her, with a murmur next to her ear. “Enticing. Exquisite.” He pressed into her deeply enough to elicit a moan, and brushed his lips along her earlobe. “My beautiful Valentine,” he whispered.
Her body tightened around him at that. Her muscles trembled. For some reason, she felt like crying, though she wasn’t precisely upset. She turned her face away from him, swallowing hard. He kissed the exposed side of her neck tenderly, but he didn’t break the skin this time.
“Would you moan for me again?” he murmured. “I can’t hear it enough.”
Valentine dug her fingers into his back as he buried himself inside her again. This time, she let her voice escape her in a low, wordless vocalization. The next stroke came more quickly — his teeth nipped at her shoulder, and she knew she would have a multitude of tiny black bruises later for his troubles. He whispered her name tightly, taking her harder, faster. She held onto him desperately as the pressure inside her built, gasping and whimpering for him without shame.
That rising pleasure inside her broke then, and she cried out beneath him, throwing her head back into the pillows. Percy captured the sound with his mouth, as though he could swallow it too. He groaned into her, and she felt all the tension in his muscles release at once as he twitched and came inside her.
Still, he kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders. Valentine lay beneath him in a beautiful haze, too overwhelmed to grasp the implications. Eventually, he shifted to pull her back against him, winding his arms around her from behind and settling his chin atop her head.
“Still a terrible idea?” Percy asked her with a sleepy bemusement. His fingers threaded through hers, just over her heart.
Valentine blinked back the tears that had threatened all day. “Very terrible,” she whispered. But she tightened her hand on his.
“Good,” Percy sighed. “Then it bears repetition.”
Wild, frantic thoughts chased themselves through her mind. As terrified as she had felt while thinking that he might have been hurt, that fear now multiplied a hundredfold, mixed with a sickly sweet thud in her chest that she deeply suspected to be love.
Chapter 8
“You’ve attached yourself to a woman without a soul, Percival.”
Valentine woke to the sound of Cecilia’s voice filtering in from the hallway.
“Not at all, Sissy,” Percy said softly, just outside the door. “She has a soul — as well you know. She’s simply carrying a bit of spare baggage with her.”
“That spare baggage is a very jealous faerie godling,” Cecilia observed coldly. “I highly doubt he enjoys sharing his things.”
Valentine shifted in bed, slowly untangling herself from the sheets. Much of the previous day’s injuries seemed healed, though she noted a number of small, telling bruises on her skin that had developed over the course of the night before.
“I didn’t realize,” said Percy mildly. “How fortunate I am that you thought to inform me. Was that all, Sissy dearest?”
“No,” Cecilia gritted out. “But that will be all for now.”
“Excellent,” Percy sighed. “I’m holding you to your word. I’ll be headed back to Hull once the sun goes down.”
The door opened, and he headed back into the bedroom, haphazardly redressed in his clothing from the night before. His eyes fell upon Valentine, and she flushed, tugging the sheet back over her body. It was a stupid instinct, given how much he’d seen and felt of her just hours prior, but she didn’t quash it quite in time.
Percy covered a smile, but she caught a hint of it from behind his fingers anyway. “Well,” he said softly. “There’s a sight.”
