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My tears soaked Poet’s shirt as he panted a rhyme into my temple, his voice a languid caress. I listened while weeping. And after he finished the recitation, the jester promised we were almost there, almost there.
Poet intercepted. He rushed over and scooped up the fae. Or rather, the child bore an alarming resemblance to a fae, especially with the ferret still attached to his scanty shoulders. Not that such beings lived on this continent, as far as anyone knew.
I remember her whimpers against my throat. Oh, how I remember. She’d taken the pain like a warrior, laughed at my racy joke like a nymph, and then swooned like a princess.
Often, she’d proven herself to be divinely unpredictable. 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 …
How much darker could that stubborn mouth become? How much wetter?
As much as I had loathed Briar’s pain, I hadn’t gotten to finish my last joke whilst Old Jinny mended her. A tragedy, since I’d fancied speaking into the Royal’s ear, provoking chuckles between the tears. I had hated seeing her in pain. But I’d enjoyed making her laugh. It hadn’t been a chore to comfort her. Indeed, the latter had been a privilege. For a moment, knowing Briar needed me felt as extraordinary and agonizing
“Poet—” I threw up my arms. “Why does that suggestion get a Poet?” “You’re right. I’m too ancient to be using that dandified court name of yours anyway, Fen—”
I glanced at my son. Guilt cleaved through my ribs, a permanent emotion if there ever was one.
mother, a raven-haired spitfire, had been crossing through the wildflower forest with her nomadic family when we met. Wandering from their camp on that fateful dawn, she had found me practicing handstands on a fallen tree trunk. I’d been bare-chested and cut a decent seventeen-year-old figure. Which was why the spitfire—eighteen, she boasted—stayed to watch. Then she stayed for more after we fumbled past the introductions. We had challenged one another to a balancing competition on that trunk. By the end of it, I’d lost. She had cheated by hitching up her skirt and feasting her gaze on me so
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It would take a dozen more occurrences like this to be certain, but already I knew. In the intolerant eyes of The Dark Seasons, my son possessed a slanted mind.
My son chirped with glee. He lay flat atop my chest, spanning my width with his twig arms and legs. “No, I’ve got you! You’re my prisoner, Papa!” “And I surrender willingly. You have no idea, my love.”
“Yay! I saw a maiden somewhere in the cottage, but she’s gone. She’s hanging upside down from a cloud that Jinny knitted in the sky. The maiden’s hair is the sun when it’s mad. Huzzah.” I couldn’t deny my pride at his storytelling abilities. However nonsensical, they surpassed mine.
Some days, it wasn’t easy with him. Raising him, hoping he would grasp what I tried to teach him, having to repeat myself constantly whilst using the same words. Remembering to keep every object in the same spot, so that he wouldn’t confuse items like a knife and a spoon, simply because one was left where the other should have been. Enduring his fits and flare-ups, his bouts of confusion and frustration whenever he didn’t comprehend something. Bearing his weight as he climbed all over me, no matter what mood he caught me in, when I sometimes lacked the energy to keep up. Not being here for him
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When he came up for air, Nicu rested his chin on my chest. “I miss you when you’re late.” The words punctured deeply. I rubbed my nose against his, unable to muster a response that would do him justice.
Instantly, the jester transformed. The look on his face bespoke of such tenderness that I’d never seen from him.
“Follow the yellow ribbons. Quick now, and then she’ll let you sit by the window. The rain is waiting for your audience.” Giggles bubbled from the child. He skipped off, chortling as Poet smacked his little backside on the way out.
I had the strangest urge to make him appear even less recognizable, to smudge the black beneath his eyes, to turn it into a flaw. It wasn’t about making him less impeccable. No, it was more about disheveling him further and finding out what that looked like.
I took the bowl and spoon. “I can feed myself.” “Please do. I’m too pretty to be doing a thankless job.”
Poet possessed several types of wit. I was beginning to recognize the differences between them. Depending on the tilt of his mouth and the depth of his voice, he exercised that tongue for amusement, seduction, coercion, or annihilation. Or for disguising the truth.
As a Royal, answers were handed to me on a platter at my command. I’d never had to humble myself and earn them—a refreshing change that I welcomed.
Here was the jester, absently touching a particular ribbon at his wrist, which matched the one worn by that child. This whole time, I’d been wrong to assume. I did not know him at all.
A small noise of appreciation curled from my throat. But the instant that sound twined into the room, Poet’s concentration faltered. His eyes sank to my lips, the weight of his attention palpable, like a warm caress, which rose several degrees and simmered across my flesh. My mouth tingled. And when my neck bobbed, he watched that, too.
“Here’s a tale of a kindly child who loves making up songs, whispering to the rain, licking sugar off his pinky, and playing word games. He sees and speaks of this world in iridescence. His sidekick is a rather demanding ferret, his favorite color is ‘happy orange,’ he thinks dust motes are sprites, he’ll eat anything so long as it doesn’t have a filling, he adores fauna and people, and he wouldn’t harm a soul. What else about him matters?”
The people this world calls ‘born fools’ were being treated like abominations. They were forced to fight, with spectators betting on them and cheering as the opponents bashed in one another’s skulls, because the prisoners’ only choices were to either use their fists or lose them on the chopping block.
The jester craned his head at me. “He’s my heartbeat. He’s my greatest achievement.” He narrowed his eyes, slitting them like blades, and his voice sliced through the room. “He’s mine.” His words grew fangs, the implication hard to miss. Nicu was his. Not the Crown’s.
Likewise, those whom our world calls ‘half-wits’ and ‘simpletons’ don’t deserve what they get—no born soul does. Unfortunately, we lump everyone together as property because anything unnatural is unnatural, as the Seasons say.
I have no qualms with the Royals except for this one thing, and therefore, I have a thousand qualms with them. They want my stories, but not my son’s.”
“You play a role.” “Because if not, they’ll punish you.” Our gazes stayed pinned, nailed to one another. Rain smacked the window, and thunder cracked through the sky. A significant amount of time passed, tempting me to say more, because it had felt liberating not to hold back.
Despite this forest’s reputation for inciting naughty behavior, which doesn’t usually deter people, I also convinced the court these parts were haunted.” I peered at him, suspicious. “How did you achieve that?” “I’m Poet,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“I’m a glorious kisser—and even better in bed.” Scandalized laughter popped from my lips. “You are impossible.” “Am I?” His stare verged on explicit. Invasive, as though he was scouring my mind, picking through all the disquieting thoughts I’d had about him.
Poet and Nicu. They slept on the living room floor, wrapped up in each other by the dying firelight. The child’s head rested on his father’s shoulder while Poet breathed evenly into his son’s hair.
And as the world blurred, a dream accompanied the fall. I felt his warmth filling this bed, his body flexing with every movement, his breath panting against mine, and our limbs entangled. I saw my thighs spreading, his waist snapping into the vent between them, our skin beading with perspiration, my back arching, and my mouth hanging open on a silent cry, and his name dangling off the edge of my quavering lips. The montage unraveled, replete with visions of us naked. Him and me in this tight, dark room, away from anyone who could hear me clutch his rippling back and shatter beneath him, my
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Then came images of his eyes, with black lining the rims and an inked diamond cutting through a single orb. The forbidden jester hovering over me, breaking through me, taking me. His hips whipping into mine, his erect length—he would say his cock—pitching into my wet folds, flaring them wide, opening them. His green irises flashing with satisfaction, his pupils on fire, and my reflection coming undone within them. Him, pinning me to the mattress. Me, riding every thrust of that cock. Us alone, charging at each other, wanting each other, tearing each other to shreds.
Her tone softened, reverential and conspiratorial, as though imparting a secret. I had a grandaunt back home, a matriarch I liked very much but who seldom visited. Apart from that, Mother and I only had each other. How long had it been since we shared a moment like this? How long since I allowed it?
“Basil and Fatima offered to give Poet a title?” “Property, too. Upon retirement, that is. It happens when a jester becomes as worshipped as him.
Poet respectfully—and carefully—rejected the offer. So that he wouldn’t insult the Crown, the trickster had made it sound like he couldn’t bear to be away from them, even in the future.”
“But he kept you here. He told you about his sapling, and you’ve seen the runt for yourself.”
She leaned back, musing. “Look at you, picking berries in the mud with me, saying I can call you by your name.” Her gaze probed mine. “You’re a Royal who thinks differently about people. Am I right?” Comprehending what she really asked, I nodded. She nodded back.
He’s got the sexual whims of a satyr, born with a tongue to spice tarts and spread legs, but those things never kept his attention for this long. Dismissing that won’t do either of you any good, so have a care.”
As I chewed, I felt his attention like a tangible, secretive thing. It fixated on the motions of my jaw, the muscles of my throat as I swallowed, and the press of the napkin to my lips.
Merely by opening his mouth, the jester penetrated me everywhere. His pants hung indecently low, baring the shadows of his hipbones, which sloped into the waistband. His pectorals rose and fell, the flesh as smooth as marble. And with that heavy-lidded expression and mussed hair, he looked as rumpled as a blanket—ravished, as though he’d recently exited a lover’s chamber. I had been keeping him awake, he’d said. The notion shouldn’t invigorate me, but it did.
If I had kept my own ribbon, perhaps I’d still be one of his targets. An unbidden part of me wanted to unravel one of those bracelets, to claim it as my own, to throw him off guard. No one marks me unless I want them to.
“Need something to wet your tongue, do you?” he inquired, then lowered his voice to the faintest whisper. “So do I.”
my gaze strayed across his slightly parted mouth. Those soft arches glistened, so very near, so very fiendish. So very wrong.
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.
The jester filled a wooden basin with water, gave Nicu an outdoor bath at the boy’s request, and recited a poem while drying the child’s shaggy hair. There was Poet, utterly enamored with his son. There was me, utterly stricken by it.
The stream rushed across my toes and lapped at the bank. The breeze carried his scent, which permeated my senses. Finally, I was learning how to detect his presence. Soon, I would know how best to avoid him. Or how to catch him before he caught me. While turning to face the jester, the skirt of my dress brushed my thighs. Poet lounged against the column of a tree, his shoulder slumping into the bark. Grass rustled around his scuffed boots. The wrinkled dip of his neckline flapped like a set of wings. With that lazy pose, those eyes smudged in black, and the tousled clothing, this male looked
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“I’ve developed a fetish for your strength of will. It does things to me.” “I don’t want to do things to you.”
I shook my head and grunted, “This is foolish.” “I’ll be the judge of what’s foolish,” he remarked. “That’s what I’m known for. Then again, I’m off duty.” His lips slanted. “Be foolish with me, Briar.”
Poet had seen me loud. And now I’d seen him quiet. Being this honest with someone felt like a luxury. I must have been starved for it, because right then, years of decorum vanished.
