Trick (Foolish Kingdoms, #1)

by Natalia Jaster

“I’m a future monarch, not a mermaid.”

One, how dare these ladies speak so freely in my presence. Two, how dare I take part in voyeurism.

That trickster would pay for humiliating me. Perhaps not tonight, but soon.

A pose both lazy and intentional, sinister and sinful. A devil who carried himself like a dancer.

“I know what you’re doing. Spare me the comely words.” “But I saved them just for you.”

“I cannot recall. The landscape had distracted me.” “Which landscape? Mine or the countryside’s?”

“Ah. What is this? Have words forsaken you, sweeting?”

I will boot you to the dungeon myself, and for good measure, I will find my own candle and shove it down your throat. Mark my words.”

“Life is hard. But during the kiss, my cock was not.”

“A jester doesn’t corner a woman. He snares her in the middle of the room, where she belongs.”

“What precisely do you have against fuck? ’Tis a lovely word. I do have a fetish for lovely words.” “I don’t trust you.” “I don’t recall giving a shit,”

“Just because you make a speech sound pretty, that does not make it true.” “And just because you’ve replied, that doesn’t make it an answer.”

“Have you ever imagined being naked and breathless, clasping someone who’s as rampant as you are? Ever opened yourself for a man or woman, spread yourself so wide they could reach every deep, tight, and moaning part of you?”

“Was the ribbon I gave you not enough? Do you want more of me?” His whisper deepened, rustling over my lips like black silk. “Careful what you ask for, Princess.”

I sighed loudly, dramatically, and inconveniently.

She seemed to have that expression prepared in advance, as if everything and everyone would inevitably make her scowl—or make her uncomfortable.

apart from the Autumn Princess whose scowl lingered in my head and refused to vacate the premises.

How easy would it be to dismantle the braid, to unravel it like a brushfire and tangle my fingers in that blaze?

Because sometime between last night’s hall and this night’s garden, she found her nerve. And I lost mine.

“Now, now,” I husked. “You haven’t begun to learn what my tongue can do.”

When she laughed, the sound crept into me like a vine—a cord that could easily take root and germinate all over the forsaken place.

Splendid. We were back to criticizing my methods.

So because we were alone, I did something phenomenal. I knelt beside the sleeping woman and stared at her. Truly stared at her. And this was how I began to feel …

It hadn’t been a chore to comfort her. Indeed, the latter had been a privilege.

I won’t take this step lightly.” I nodded. “I never take any steps lightly.” “Of course not. You would fall.”

“He’s my heartbeat. He’s my greatest achievement.”

“Need something to wet your tongue, do you?” he inquired, then lowered his voice to the faintest whisper. “So do I.”

shall only say this. Had we been alone in the cottage, that night would have turned out differently. Had the princess given me a trace of permission, the counter would have been swiped of its dishes. Had she given the slightest indication, she would have been hauled off the ground—and that fucking water glass would have shattered to the floor.

There was Poet, utterly enamored with his son. There was me, utterly stricken by it.

Unexpectedly, something had changed. I had witnessed happiness here—the brave kind, the sort I didn’t have any longer but missed.

I liked this version of Poet. I think he liked this version of me.

A fool is a man who sees his worth in a mirror, and in the faces of a crowd, but is oblivious to it elsewhere—where it counts above all, in the eyes of those who matter the most to him.

“Frankly, denying your effect on me is getting old quickly.”

“We’re finished talking, sweeting. So very fucking finished.”

“What are you doing?” “Everything,” the jester husked. “And if you wish, everything I wanted to do to you last night.”

“We can’t,” I said, the protest barely audible. “Sweet Thorn,” he whispered. “We both know better. Give this another few seconds, and neither of us will give a fuck.”

And I didn’t say you needed fixing. I’m denying you’re broken to begin with.”

“She began as the jester’s target but ended up tricking him instead. That’s what makes her stunning, and that’s why I can’t stop myself from obsessing over her. Too bad for the world, she’d rather let people believe her as cold as a block of marble.”

“My excuse is three feet tall and has my eyes. What’s yours?”

“I’m not trying to change you,” Poet bit out. “I’m trying to unearth what’s already there. You’re the tragedy who doesn’t realize it.”

At some point, the corrupter had become the corrupted. The seducer had become the seduced.

I could kiss her until we both passed out. I could make her come whilst doing so.

I wanted to drag her to a shadowed corner, wrench up her skirt, and take her until she combusted. I wanted to make her beg, to make her plead for more. I wanted to ply her slowly, deeply. I wanted to shred her moans to pieces. I wanted to make her come long and loud with my name on her lips. I wanted to show her just how much I was capable of. For

I linked my fingers behind me and paused on the stair below her. “I enjoy looking up to you like this. Do you enjoy looking down on me?”

Protectiveness curled my knuckles. If anyone wounded her, I’d be forced to do bodily damage to them. Inflict the slightest harm to Briar, and I would tear them to shreds.

“The only person who gets to laugh at the princess—” his voice dripped with venom, “—is herself.”

I didn’t care if I tripped. Because if I did fall, I would simply pick myself up.

When the princess didn’t restrain herself, she still moved with a clunky lack of rhythm, but her awful coordination hardly mattered. For the dancing made her happy, and that happiness made her the brightest fucking thing in this garden. Enthralling woman. Hypnotized jester.

Me, the renowned trickster who terrified and seduced everyone. Me, who got hypnotized by no one.

Wicked hell. One more twist of her hips, and I’d be scooping my t...