Lia stood in a meadow on a hillside, her bare feet sunk deep in the softest green grasses. The sun hung low and red in the sky. She turned around, orienting herself to this new world and saw, at the top of the hill, a palace that shone bright as polished ivory, with gold columns and silver stairs. She walked through a carpet of wildflowers in the fading sunshine. She paused at a stream and gazed into the water. There she was... Eros. Goddess of passionate love. Her hair fell in ringlets of chocolate brown around her face and a diadem of pearls sat upon her brow. The gown she wore was the finest satin. And from her back sprang two wings of silky white feathers.
“Oh my goodness,” Lia said to her reflection. “I’m precious.”
She turned her head to gaze at her hair in profile and got a face full of feathers.
“Right, wings,” she said, pushing the wing back down and into place. “I was warned. Watch out for the wings. Wait. Wings. I can fly.”
It was just like every lucid dream she’d ever had. Once Lia realized she was in a fantasy world and wearing wings, she pushed off the earth and flew up into the air. Freed from the bounds of gravity, she rose higher and higher to watch the sun sink into the ocean.
Night was almost upon them. Her wedding night.
Lia’s immortal ears heard footsteps wandering in her palace.
No one was ever to be allowed admittance into the private chambers of Eros, therefore it could only be Psyche, the young prince she’d loved at first glance and had summoned to her home.
She flew to her palace but kept herself hidden behind an ivory pillar, waiting for the prince to appear in the hallway. She held her breath and listened to the approach of two lovely feet.
Would he like the palace? She had made it just for him. For weeks, she’d eavesdropped on the people of his kingdom to learn anything she could about the prince. She knew he loved to ride horses, so she’d filled her stables with gray mares and brown stallions. She’d heard he’d laughed with a child’s delight at a traveling circus and the panthers and tigers that walked on leashes like dogs, so she had every room in the palace painted with exotic animals—elephants, lions, unicorns. She’d heard a rumor that his grandmother had made him a wool blanket for his bed and had it dyed a rich rare violet, and he loved it so much that—even though it was faded and tattered—he kept it to use as a horse blanket when he rode. No surprise that she’d put a blanket of the finest silk dyed the rarest purple on their bed. Silk coverlet, cotton sheets from Egypt, a dozen pillows full of the softest feathers... She lived to please him. But would she?
For the first time in her immortal life, the little goddess worried the corner of her wing in her fingers.
She was nervous.
His shadow rounded the corner before he did, and the goddess held her breath again and made herself as small as possible as she slipped behind a tapestry.
Oh. There he was!
She grinned and bit her wing tip.
At the first sight of him she almost laughed. The part of her brain that remembered she was Lia and he was August did laugh. August had transformed himself into a teenage boy, all youthful beauty, long limbs and awkward energy. He was so lovely he made her nervous. And how silly for a goddess to be so nervous at the sight of a mortal boy of eighteen winters and seventeen summers.
Oh, but he was the loveliest of all the boys in all the world. He had black hair that waved like a nighttime ocean and a smile bright as the noon sun in autumn. He spoke rarely, taught to hold his tongue in the presence of his elders, but when he did speak, he spoke well and wisely. He always took time to pet any dog that wandered his way. Even as a boy, he’d never pulled the tails of the mouse-catching cats in his home. He blushed in the presence of pretty serving girls but never talked to them out of turn. He was happiest on the back of a horse, riding on the beach at sunrise and sunset.
If she hadn’t decided to marry him, he would have joined the army. So she had summoned him to her palace to spare her sweet prince from that bitter life. She wouldn’t allow him to get so much as a scratch on his knee.
“Hello?” the prince called out as he made his way slowly down the long hall. He looked up and all around him and sometimes even smiled at the sight of a mosaic chariot race on the floor or the dancing leopards on the walls. He had dressed as if for a wedding, in a fine linen chiton belted with blue leather and a simple gold circlet in his hair.
She bit her wing again, to stop herself from calling out to him. Not yet. Too soon. But almost time...
“The oracle of Apollo sent me here,” he said. “I was told I am to meet my bride. I obey the will of the gods. Is anyone there? I wish to obey the will the gods.”
Goodness, she thought. Goodness gracious he made her quills quiver. He wished to obey the gods. And she was a god, therefore he wanted to obey her.
How nice of him.
The eager goddess plucked a feather from her wing and blew it into the hallway. She peeked around the edge of the tapestry and watched the feather dance in the evening breeze toward Prince Psyche. He stood up straighter, and she delighted in how tall he was and how trim. She delighted in the red sunset shadows in his hair and the way his eyes tracked the feather dancing around his head. And oh, when he laughed as the feather brushed his cheek, she delighted in that, too.
He reached out, trying to grab it from the air but it darted out of his grasp. Her doing, of course.
The feather danced again in front of his face and the love-struck goddess blew a breath and turned the feather into a tiny white hummingbird. He gasped at the magic that had taken place just before his eyes. The bird alighted on his shoulder and nipped at his hair. Lucky bird. Then it took off, and he seemed to understand—oh, clever Prince Psyche—that he should follow it.
The hummingbird darted this way and that, but the young prince followed its lead up the spiraling stairs. Eros flew straight out the nearest window and up to the bedroom she’d prepared for them so lovingly on the highest floor. She arrived there before the prince and hid herself in the shadows. Oh, she prayed he would admire the room she had made for them. The walls were painted with murals of wild forests and silver lakes and pretty nymphs bathing in winding streams, hiding themselves behind the dancing branches of weeping willows. The bed was big as a sailing ship with posts made of oak carved like climbing ivy. On the ceiling, she’d had painted horses running across the sky.
Too much? Probably too much. She did overdo it when in love.
She gasped. There he was.
He stood in the doorway of their bedroom peering in, his eyes wide with wonder, his posture fearful.
And then she knew she must speak.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
He looked right. He looked left. He did not find her. She’d slipped into the mural of the nymphs and hidden behind the one with the widest hips. He’d never see her there.
“Who said that?”
“I did,” his goddess said. “I mean...your bride did. That’s me. Your bride.”
“Where are you, my bride?” he asked. “I would like to meet you.”
“I can’t show myself to you,” the goddess said.
“Are you shy?” he asked.
Shy? Her? The goddess of passionate love? She who had coupled with gods and satyrs and, once, even a cloud—shy?
Nonsense.
“I’m not shy. Not in the least.” She dropped her voice to sound sultry before breaking into a girlish giggle.
“Then why do you hide yourself from me? How can I be your husband if I’m not allowed to see you?” As he spoke he walked around the room, peering into corners, behind columns, even under the bed.
“Do you wish to be my husband?” she asked, chewing again on her wing tip. She really ought to stop that. Nasty habit.
“I wish to obey the gods. If the gods will our marriage, then yes, I wish to be your husband. Though why the gods would want the likes of me for one of their chosen ones, I can’t imagine.”
Handsome and humble? He was perfect. Oh, she had such good taste in husbands.
“What’s so wrong with you that you think the gods strange to favor you?” she asked.
“I’m a minor prince of a minor kingdom,” he said. “And why me when I have older brothers still waiting to find brides?”
“You’re prettier than your brothers,” she said. “I checked.”
“Is my bride so shallow to be swayed by a pleasing countenance?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” he said. “I suppose the gods know what they’re doing.”
“Not really. They’re just winging it.”
Ha! That was a good one. He didn’t laugh. Oh, he didn’t know she had wings. That’s why he didn’t laugh.
“Can you please come out?” he asked. “Please?”
“I can, but you can’t look at me.”
“Why not?” he asked. “If you are...disfigured or something, you should know I am not as shallow as my bride seems to be. If the gods want us together, then we shall be well and content if we honor them and each other.”
She put her hand over her heart and sighed. She loved him. Oh, she loved him. So sweet, this young prince. Why wasn’t he naked yet?
“I’m adorable, I’ll have you know,” she said. “Too adorable. Puppies faint at the sight of me and kittens weep with envy. Aphrodite herself said I’m cute as a button and you know she’s shallow as a puddle in dry season. I’m so attractive that if you saw me, you’d fall madly in love with me at first sight, and I’d much prefer you loved me for my personality before I showed you my face.”
“Can you come out and let me meet your personality, then?” he asked.
“I will,” she said. “But you have to put the sash over your eyes.”
“Sash?”
She untied the white ribbon from the hair of the wide-hipped nymph she stood behind. Then she took the ribbon and dipped it into the dark sky, dyeing the fabric the deep blue of midnight, and festooning it with silver crescent moons and golden stars. With a single breath, she dried the night-wet silk and sent it flying toward the prince. He caught it out of the air.
“This is all very mysterious,” he said, not unkindly, almost enchanted.
“I have my reasons. Put it on.” She waved her hand to hurry him up, though he could not see her gestures.
He wrapped the sash around his head, over his eyes, and neatly tied it in back and so he bound the night about his eyes.
“I’m coming out,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. I’m very nice.”
“I’ll try to be brave,” he said, a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.
The little goddess slipped out of the mural and stepped barefoot on the tile floor of their bedchamber.
At the first sound of her foot on the floor, the prince turned toward her, lips slightly parted in trepidation. Her immortal heart nearly stopped in her immortal chest. She had never loved anyone so much in her long, long life.
“You must promise,” she said, “you won’t try to sneak a peek.”
“Sneak a peek?”
“No sneaking, no peeking.”
“I promise I’ll neither sneak nor peek,” he said.
“Good, good, good.”
“I can tell from your voice you’re quite young,” he said. “Are you my age?”
“I’m older than you are,” she said. “A year or two...” Or several thousand.
“Are you of royal blood?”
“Oh, yes. I’m the daughter of a queen.”
“Do you...” He paused, searched for the right words. “What do I call you, my lady?”
“Good question,” she said. She tapped her chin as she walked circles around him. She couldn’t tell him her real name—Eros. That would give away the whole game. But he had to call her something other than “hey you.”
“You may call me...Ophelia,” she said.
“Philia?” he repeated. “Your name means ‘love.’”
She smiled. She hadn’t thought of that. “Yes, it does. A good sign. But you could call me ‘Lia’ for short.”
“I like that... Lia...”
“That’ll do nicely,” she said. “Would you like to touch me?”
He had better say yes.
“Yes, Lia.”
Good answer.
She took a deep calming breath. Finally, she would get to touch him, this beautiful prince she’d dreamed of for days and days and days. She took his wrists gently in her hands—his skin was so young and smooth and warm, and she could feel his nervous pulse beating rapidly.
She brought his hands to her face.
“You’ll find I have the appropriate number of eyes and noses.”
His fingertip tickled her skin as he traced the lines of her face. He touched her forehead and cheeks, her nose and even her eyelashes. Then he came to her lips and touched them tenderly. He caught a curl of her hair between his fingers and brought it to his nose.
“You are a beauty,” he said. “I can tell how fine and graceful your features are and your hair smells of heaven.”
“I told you so.”
“You’re quite cocksure for a lady.”
“Am I? I’ll try to do better.”
“No, I like it,” he said. “Makes me feel less scared that you’re so confident. Are you a maid? Or a widow?”
She saw a deep blush suffuse his face.
“Is there a third choice?” she asked.
He smiled.
“I...” he began. “I’ve never...”
“Never?”
He shook his head.
“Never,” he said. “Not even a kiss.”
“Not even a kiss?” she asked. Better and better.
“The girls I know, they’re all servants in my home. My father said it was wrong and ignoble for a prince to chase a serving girl. Even when they flirt, he said, it is because they are frightened of losing their place in the household and are willing to do anything to keep it. It wouldn’t be right or fair, my father said, to force myself on a frightened girl even for a kiss. But I’m afraid I come to you with no idea what to do or how to do it.”
She warmed at his words. Her heart danced. Such a considerate and gentle prince. Why weren’t there more considerate and gentle princes? Perhaps they would conceive one tonight. And perhaps in time she would give birth to an entire army of considerate and gentle princes who would conquer the world—but considerately and with great gentleness.
“It’s fine,” she said, pleased beyond words. “I’ll teach you all you need to know.”
“Good,” he said. “Thank you.”
Thank you? He thanked her? Oh, she would love him every day and every way for the rest of eternity.
“Would you like me to teach you now?”
“Yes, my Lia.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the bed.
“Sit,” she said as she gently turned him so that the back of his thighs touched the bed.
He sat and sank his hands into the soft covers.
“It’s nice,” he said.
“I had it made for you. I had everything made for you. There are horses for you in the stables, and a hound waiting to walk with you every day and the foods you love to eat and all the wine you wish to drink.”
“You will spoil me.”
“Every day,” she said as she placed her hands on his face.
She tilted it up and stole a kiss from his lips, a deft theft she repeated a dozen times. At first as they kissed, he did nothing but sit there with his lips parted to let her kiss him. But as the kisses grew deeper and hotter and heavier, he began to pant, and his hands reached up to the hands that held his face. He found her wrists, her arms, and stroked them.
“Your skin’s like silk,” he said. And she wanted to say, I know, but she didn’t. She was learning.
“Thank you, my prince,” she whispered, and stole another kiss or ten.
As the kisses went on and on, he inched closer to her and even closer and dared to press his legs against hers. She ran her hands through his hair and removed his golden circlet, tossing it over the top of the bedpost.
She caressed his neck, his throat, his shoulders, all through his linen shirt.
“The shirt has got to go,” she said as she tugged on the fabric.
“Of course, my lady,” he said, and tried three times to untie the knot at the neck. She batted his hands away.
“Let me.”
“I don’t mean to be so nervous.”
“I like that you’re nervous,” she said. “It’s lovely to me, your modesty. To see a boy covered in maidenly blushes is a joy. More painters should paint virgin grooms, but all they care about are virgin brides, and frankly, I’m a little sick of them.”
“I’m no Hercules,” he said. “I fear I won’t impress you.”
“If I wanted Hercules, I would have married Hercules. I wanted you.”
She lifted his shirt and he raised his arms to let her pull it off. He was thin, of course, but not sickly or weak, only young. His arms, however, were sinewy with new muscle and his chest was beginning to broaden as he neared full manhood.
“You please me very much,” she said. He smiled. “But what is this?”
She touched a mark on his stomach.
“A birthmark,” he said. “They say it looks like a butterfly. That is why I am called Psyche. Does it displease you?”
It didn’t look like a butterfly to her. It looked like the imprint of a kiss made by burning lips. Did it displease her? She answered that question by going down onto her knees in front of him and pressing her own lips to the mark. He inhaled sharply at the touch of her mouth on his skin and she saw his long fingers dig deep into the bed.
“My lady,” he said, his voice pained. Against her will—and better judgment—she pulled away from him and rested back on her knees.
“Yes?”
“I nearly... I was almost undone. Forgive me.”
“You’re allowed to enjoy your bride making love to you,” she said.
“I don’t want make a fool of myself.”
“If you spill your seed from one of my kisses, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“You will?” he asked, sounding relieved.
“You are young. In time, you’ll learn to control yourself. But you don’t have to do anything tonight but let me touch you and kiss you and please you. And know you cannot displease me as long as you lie there being sweet and lovely all night long.”
He grinned. “I’ll do my best,” he pledged.
“And I will do my worst. Now let’s get you more comfortable,” she said as she untied the straps of his sandals and tossed them aside. His skin bore crisscross marks, and it gave her great pleasure to rub his calves and massage the marks off his skin.
He breathed hard as she caressed him. He enjoyed her touch, that was plain. How wonderful to please her prince. And to think she didn’t have to prick him with one of her arrows to make him like her or desire her. Even now, as she soothed the skin of his strong calves, she felt his heart turning toward her like the face of a morning flower toward the first rays of sun. All she needed was for him to love her, truly love her, and then it would be safe for her to reveal her true self to him. She pressed one long kiss on the top of his thigh and he inhaled again so sharply she thought she’d hurt him.
“Too much?” she asked.
“I...don’t know. Everything’s so new. Your hair tickled me.”
“You liked it?” she asked, letting the tips of her curls brush his knees and thighs again. He laughed. She didn’t want him to laugh. She wanted him to moan and groan and writhe and scream her name.
She pushed her hand under his chiton.
He stopped laughing. His entire body tensed as she slid her hand up his long inner thigh until she touched his organ. She didn’t grasp it, not at first. Lightly, carefully, she ran her fingertips over the length of it while her prince went as silent and still as a fawn startled in the woods.
From the corner of her eye she watched his hand on the bed, watched his fingers tighten in the sheets as she lightly stroked him. His cock was stiff and thick and warm to the touch.
She was dying to see what her fingers felt. She shoved his chiton up to his hips.
Out of embarrassment or instinct, her prince tried to tug it back down again.
“Don’t do that,” she said, swatting his hand away. “I’m allowed to hide myself from you. You’re not allowed to hide yourself from me.”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said.
“You’re shy. I like shy princes.” She touched him again with her fingertips. Beautiful cock sitting at the apex of two long, muscled thighs. Dark with arousal and so sensitive that he flinched with her every littlest touch. She touched the base of the shaft and stroked a vein that throbbed under the wide tip—and the tip she gave extra attention to, especially the wet slit where his seed was beginning to pool.
“Do you...do you like it?” he asked, his voice nearly breaking in nervousness.
“It’s perfect.”
“Is it? I mean, I wouldn’t know. Never shown it to a girl before and you always wonder if it’s what it’s supposed to be and—”
She put her mouth on him and that brought an end to his nervous chattering.
All he said then was “Uh.” The most beautiful sound ever whispered by a young prince on his wedding night. Uh...
She wrapped her fingers around the shaft and held it still as she lavished attention on the tip with her tongue. He gasped softly, gasped again, and she thought she’d die of joy at each and every one of his tiny inhalations.
And the taste of him...salt and sweet. And the scent of him, like he’d just bathed in the clear cold waters of a high mountain stream. And the feel of him deep in her mouth. And the sight of him fighting against his modesty with every lick and flick of her tongue.
She took her mouth from him, though she still held him in her hand.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Is it...are we allowed to do that?”
“We’re married. We’re allowed to do anything we want together.”
“It feels like it shouldn’t be allowed.”
“So you don’t like it?”
“No, I like it too much. My father, the king, says the pursuit of pleasure leads men astray down evil paths.”
“Your royal father is mostly right,” Lia said. “But he was speaking of idleness and drunkenness, gambling and chasing serving girls. It’s a man’s duty to please his wife. You know that.”
“Does this please you?” he asked. “Putting my...me in your mouth?”
“I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t please me,” she said. “You’d be the best of husbands if you let me continue.”
“And the worst, I presume, if I made you stop?”
“You’re a very wise prince,” she said, and was glad he was blindfolded and couldn’t see her laughing at him. Since she didn’t want him to hear her laughing, either...she put him in her mouth again.
She drew him deeper, past the tip and down to the shaft, and once she had him where she wanted him, she lightly sucked on him as she stroked underneath his cock, the testicles and the sensitive patch of flesh behind them. If there were a painter in residence, this would make quite the mural. A winged goddess on her knees in front of a mortal prince wearing the night tied around his eyes. And his lovely thick organ in her mouth and his fingers twisting in the bedsheets and the muscles of his flat stomach twitching and his head falling back as he moaned...
No matter. She didn’t need a mural to commemorate her wedding night. She was a goddess. People would be telling the tale of her marriage to Prince Psyche until the world ended.
As well they should...
“You have to stop,” her shy prince said. His voice sounded pained, pained from the pleasure. “Or I’ll spill.”
She raised her head and smiled, though he could not see it.
“I want you to. You must.”
“I must?”
“You absolutely must.”
“Oh, well...if I must.”
He collapsed flat on his back, in utter surrender to his bride’s erotic ministrations. Soon he was lost in the ecstasy of her mouth on him. She rose up higher on her knees to take him deeper in her mouth. His back arched on the bed once and then again as she pulled harder on the shaft until it nudged the very back of her throat. Her shy prince wasn’t so shy anymore as he neared climax. He breathed heavy and hard, and groaned with every breath. His cries filled the room to the rafters and she imagined that the whole world could hear the sounds of their lovemaking in the far distance. What would it sound like to them? The cry of a hawk swooping down on a dove? A coming rainstorm? An army marching to war?
Or would they hear and know the truth—that Eros had at last been felled by her own arrow and this was the sound of Love Itself falling in love?
With a final cry, almost loud enough to be a shout, the young prince grasped the sheets and came in her throat. His head lifted off the bed as every muscle in his body contracted in his coming.
She swallowed every last drop of him and would have taken more if he’d had it to give. When it was done, she remained on her knees between his thighs as he lay panting on the bed. She gently kissed his fluttering flat stomach and the butterfly birthmark received a thousand tender kisses all its own.
“How is my prince?” she asked, resting her cheek on his hip.
“Happily married,” he said, chuckling.
She laughed with delight and she delighted in his laugh. She rose from the floor, still delighted, still laughing.
“You should lie on the pillows,” she said to her smiling Psyche. “And rest a moment.”
“Will you lie with me?” he asked as he moved carefully to the head of the bed, finding his way by touch until he lay back on the pillows and stretched, happy as a black cat caught by a sunbeam.
“My lady?” he whispered.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I was staring at you and forgot I should be speaking.”
“It’s hardly fair you’ve enjoyed me so much and I’ve barely gotten to touch you.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m a selfish monster. I’ll simply have to join you in bed and let you touch me. Would that help?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
Ah, clever boy. Lovely boy.
She straddled him. This seemed to please him. He inhaled deeply when she rested her bottom on his lower stomach. She unbound the bodice of her gown and lowered it—well, tried to. It got caught on her bloody wings. Lia wrestled with the fabric and finally managed to get her bodice down to her waist.
“Give me your hands,” she said to Psyche, taking them and putting them on her throat.
He smiled when his skin touched hers again. Smiled and stroked her neck and shoulders. Had anything, she thought, ever felt so good in all the world as this prince’s gentle hands on her body? His fingertips tickled her skin and she shivered and quivered and sighed.
“My dear modest prince.” She grasped his wrists and lowered his hands to her breasts. He inhaled sharply again—oh, he was a sensitive boy—and she held her hands over his so that he would know she wanted his touch, demanded it even.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“You can’t see my breasts. How do you know?”
“They feel beautiful.”
“Do they?”
He nodded. “They’re so soft,” he said, lightly squeezing them. “And hard, too.” He then traced her nipples with his thumbs.
“Would you like to kiss them?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She lowered herself over him and let her nipple dangle at his mouth. He caught it between his lips and sucked it gently, oh...too gently. She would never stop shivering. He slid his hands to her shoulders and that was dangerous. He was far too close to her wings.
The clever goddess knew what to do. She pulled a ribbon from her hair and ordered her prince to place his hands over his head. He obeyed—she’d given him no reason not to trust her, after all—and she tied his wrists to the bar of the headboard.
“You don’t want my hands on your body?” he asked.
“I do,” she said. “Always. But we have all our lives to play all our games together. And it pleases me to see you there, like a gift tied up with ribbons and bows.”
“A gift for you alone.”
“Yes. And no better gift have I ever been given...”
Lia raised her skirts and straddled him once more. Young and virile, he’d grown hard again already. He inhaled sharply as her wet flesh came to rest on his stiff organ. She moved on it and her folds parted. Her prince was as eager for her as she was for him. He raised his hips off the bed, lifting her with him in his need to bury himself inside her. She shifted and spread her thighs wider until the tip found the entrance of her body.
“Uh...” he breathed. Beautiful sound. Heavenly sound. She wanted to hear it again and forever. She pushed down onto him and he slid into her slick passage. In his male instinct, he lifted his hips again to push all of himself into her and then cried out in pleasure as he fully penetrated her.
Her shy prince lost his shyness then. He took her hard from beneath her, entering her with long slow strokes as he pumped his hips. He shivered against her, and his breathing was ragged. She balanced herself on his chest, her fingers digging so hard into his skin she knew she would bruise him. She gasped, suddenly—shockingly—so aroused she could have come simply by willing it. She pushed her hips into his and he said, “More,” and she did it again. She lay on his chest, pressing her breasts against his warm skin as they consummated their marriage, silent after his “more,” though she could hear his cock moving in her wetness. She meant to kiss him once and quickly, but as soon as their lips met, the kiss turned wild, hungry. He bit her lips, sucked on her tongue.
She rose up again, and rocked on his cock, riding him, riding him hard, and as she did her wings began to spread on their own. They spanned the room and cast a shadow over the bed. She couldn’t help it. She kept her heart in her wings and they spread as her heart filled with unbearable, impossible love for the prince inside her.
Her head fell back. She called his name. With a soft sob she came and came and came.
Beneath her, her new husband shuddered with his own coming, and when he came into her, he gasped her name.
Ophelia...
She collapsed onto him. Her heart kicked against her chest like the hoof of a wild horse. He must have felt it.
“Gods,” he breathed. “I love being married.”
“So do I,” she said. “I married very well.”
“I wish I knew who you were.”
“I can’t tell you. It’s against the rules.”
“Tell me something, then,” he begged. “Tell me something that tells me who you are.”
“I am she who loves you,” she said, touching his face. “My prince.”
“Ah,” her shy prince said with a brazen smile. “That tells me all I need to know.”