Chocolate brown hair tickled my face as Jules leaned over me, his hand tracing gentle circles on my chest. My body melted into the mattress, savoring the warmth of his lips as they moved against mine. All too soon, Jules pulled away, a shy smile playing on his face.
His lips traveled from my forehead down to my chin, capturing each inch with a soft kiss. He kissed me like he’d never let go, and I was grateful for it.
It wasn’t until his tongue meandered along my bottom lip that I finally had the courage to say something.
“Jules,” I whispered, my voice trembling with anticipation. He stopped and looked up at me, his dark eyes inquisitive as he waited for what I had to say.
I reached out and placed a hand on either side of his face, pulling him closer.
“I love you,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “And I swear, for the rest of my existence, I will never love any other.”
His face softened, and he leaned into me, pressing his forehead against mine. He kissed me again, harder this time, and I felt the heat radiating from him as we collided together.
My hands trembled as I touched every contour of his body. Our mouths opened, and I tasted the sweetness of his lips. Jules was like a drug that I wanted to devour, one that was as addicting as feyrie dust.
“I love you, too,” he panted.
I grinned, and wrapped my legs around his, effectively spinning so that he was on his back. Perching on top of him, I removed the only article of clothing that remained between us.
I gazed down at him, taking in all the details that I had memorized. Every crevice, every line—the way his eyes danced as he looked up into mine. His lips tasted like honey and nectar and all the sweet things I’d ever wanted in life.
I’d finally found my place in the world, and it was with Jules. His touch electrified me, brought me to life.
Our hips rocked together, and I felt my body quivering with pleasure as I moved. His hands roamed along my back, gliding across the base of my wings. I flexed them out like a shield over the both of us.
Jules inhaled sharply, looking up at me with admiration, as if I were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He reached up again, and I stiffened, a giggle on my breath.
“Uh uh,” I said as I pumped myself into him harder.
He moaned, letting out the most adorable plea for mercy as I moved faster and faster. “I’m not through with you yet.”
I rose above him, arching my back as I did. His hands gripped my hips tightly as I quickened my pace. His breaths came in short gasps, never taking his gaze away from me.
My skin tingled with pleasure as I felt myself on the brink of something wondrous. With one final thrust, he belted my name and grabbed the base of my wings.
I came completely undone, and we both erupted in euphoria. I collapsed on top of him, unbothered by the mess we’d made.
We lay there in bliss, the sound of our heavy breathing filling the surrounding air. After a while, I rose and wandered to my dresser. I cleaned myself first, then sashayed back toward the bed and helped him wipe away the sticky evidence of our fun.
He pulled me close, his lips brushing against my neck and sending shivers down my spine. “You know we should probably go.”
I heaved a sigh, falling into the bed next to him. “Do we have to? I don’t give two fucks about the Prince. He’s a stupid royal dickwad that’s feigning interest in Phylix’s cause for political gain.”
He chuckled and rubbed my back. His laugh turned into a cough. “Yes, love. We have to.”
I groaned as I rolled onto my back and looked up at him with a pouty expression. “Fine. But let’s make it quick, so we can come back and do this all over again.”
I could see the twinkle in his eyes as he grinned at me. He leaned forward and captured my lips with his, gently sucking my bottom lip before letting go.
“Deal,” he said softly, pushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. “Now get dressed.”
Reluctantly, I dressed myself in the official Hunt attire and Jules in his. He was a vision, all dressed in black. His dark eyes shimmered against his dark brown hair, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
When we stepped out of the house together, snow had already begun to fall. Though the cold didn’t bother me, Jules shivered, and he pulled his jacket tighter around him.
“Weak human,” I said, kissing his cheek.
We’d been living in Oread together for the past twelve months, inhabiting a tiny cottage that we had purchased with our earnings from the Hunt. It was small and unassuming, but it was more than adequate for the two of us. Despite its simplicity, it was home.
I scooped him up in my arms. “You ready?”
He beamed and nodded. Jules loved to fly. I couldn’t even count the amount of times he’d mentioned how lucky I was to be born with a set of wings. The sky was our playground, and I loved to show him the beauty of soaring through the clouds, free of gravity’s constraints.
I quickly unfurled my wings and revelled in their strength. The cold air felt good against my feathers as they moved with grace in search of the updrafts needed for our ascension into the sky.
Jules held onto me tightly as we made our way up to the clouds. I could feel his heart racing with excitement, and it filled me with joy to see him so happy. As the air became thinner, I heard Jules gasp in awe at the sight before us. A blanket of white lay beneath us, contrasting sharply against an indigo sky that was streaked with glowing bands of light.
Oread wasn’t far from where the Hunt liked to camp. That was one of its many attractions, coupled with the fact that it was one of the few places in Etherean that both fey and humans could coexist.
He’d tried once to introduce me to his parents, but that hadn’t gone over well. I’d even visited a shop in town for a glamour potion, but his mother saw right through it. They wanted nothing to do with him, and when they’d realized he’d been with a feyrie, they disowned him completely.
Jules had taken it well, though. It had been harder on me, if I was honest. I’d known how utterly disappointing his parents were through his stories of childhood, but seeing how they rejected him — I knew my mother would have loved Jules. Even though he was human, she would have seen the kindness radiating from him and welcomed him with open arms.
In the sky, Jules was suddenly overcome with a spasm of coughing. His whole body tensed up and shuddered as he hacked out breathy coughs. Luckily, we were nearly at the camp, so I held onto him tightly and descended. Placing him gingerly on his feet, I patted his back.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded between coughs, and I released my hold on him. By the time Phyre came to greet us, his coughs had eased up.
“Think I swallowed a bug,” he said, catching sight of the concerned look on my face.
Phyre threw her arms around Jules, pulling him into a tight hug. “My favorite person in the world!”
“Hey,” I joked, nudging her in the side. “What about me?”
She laughed, releasing Jules and looking me up and down with an appraising eye. “I stand by what I said.” Then she made a disgusted face after sniffing the air. “Dammit, Kol. You couldn’t shower first? I can smell the sex radiating off both of you.”
Jules’ gaze met mine, a hint of pink now present on his cheeks. I couldn’t help but to smile at the sight. I liked how my scent clung to him. Almost like it was some sort of claim that he belonged to me, and I belonged to him. I didn’t mind if everyone in the world could smell it.
Phyre wrinkled her nose, but a warm smile spread across her face. She grabbed Jules’ hand and drug him along behind her. “C’mon, lover boys. Let’s go meet the Prince.”
I followed behind them into the main tent. I’d expected royal guards to be standing at attention, and a bustling crowd of attendants to be running errands. What I hadn’t expected was the Prince himself to be standing alone in the middle of the tent.
His hair was a wild mane of white, long and disheveled. His eyes were an endless sky blue, the same beautiful color as the cloudless sky I love so much. He wore no regal clothing to denote his station, instead opting for more simplistic garb; a plain black shirt and jeans clung to his tall frame.
Despite this, there was a sort of power radiating off him. A power so strong I couldn’t help but feel it, like the pulse of the universe itself.
The Prince’s eyes seemed to come alive when he saw us, something like amusement. “Hello.”
Jules and Phyre both exchanged greetings, but I hung back, observing him. He seemed to notice, and his smile widened.
“I’m Elm Thistlebriar,” he said in a gruff tone.
I didn’t like him. The way he said it, it was as if he were expecting us to bow or something. I snorted at the thought, and he raised a brow.
“Something funny?”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “I’m not bowing.”
Jules nudged me with his elbow. He grinned between us, and I knew that he could scent us on each other. “I don’t expect you to. I might be a prince back in Dul, but here, I’m just a feyrie.”
I rolled my eyes, not buying into his nonchalant attitude. Jules stepped up, clearing his throat like it was still bothering him.
“I’m Julian, but everyone calls me Jules.”
Elm regarded him with a steady gaze. “You’re a human.”
Jules shifted nervously. Unlike me, he actually cared what people thought of him. First impressions of someone as high in status as Elm meant a lot to him.
He coughed, nodding his head. “I am.”
Elm looked past him and right at me, his brow creased in a slight frown of discomfort. I found myself smiling at the thought. “And you’re—together?”
“Got a problem with it, Princey?” I demanded, stepping forward. “If you can’t handle interspecies relationships, then there’s no place here for you at the Hunt.”
His eyes widened, and he shook his head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just—” His words seemed to die on his lips and his blue eyes dimmed. “I’m aware of what the Wilde Hunt represents. As much as my father says he wants to unite our people with humans, he doesn’t seem to have a clear understanding of how to accomplish it. The Hunt has made important strides in the right direction. That’s why I’m here.”
I glared at him, but said nothing in response. It didn’t matter what this fool said, he was a royal. He didn’t understand what it was like to live in poverty, to have everything he ever loved taken away from him. He’d lived his entire life in comfort, never knowing a single moment of hardship. He could sway everyone else with his pretty face and flowery words, but he couldn’t sway me.
Phyre stepped forward, bowing her head slightly. “My brother, the General, is out on a mission at the moment, but Kol and Jules live in Oread. They can show you how much we’ve accomplished.”
I flicked my head at Phyre, pure rage in my eyes. “Absolutely not,” I said at the same time Jules said, “Of course.”
Betrayed by my own lover. He grabbed my arm, disappointment in his dark eyes, and he pulled me outside of the tent.
“Give us a moment.”
Once we were out of earshot, he looked at me and spoke. “Why are you being so difficult?”
I shook my head, wanting to scream. “He doesn’t care about us. He’s probably just doing the most rebellious thing he can think of to piss off his daddy.”
“Kol,” Jules said, his head hung low. “He’s the Prince. He has resources we can use. Besides, you shouldn’t judge so harshly. You never know what someone else has been through.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I still don’t trust him.” But I sucked in a deep breath when he finally met my gaze. Those beautiful puppy dog eyes that I could never resist.
“Ugh, okay. You win, Jules. But I swear to gods, you are far too trusting.”
He leaned forward and placed a kiss on my cheek. “I thought that was why you loved me.”
By the time we’d made it back to the tent, Elm and Phyre were standing outside. They both greeted us with a nod when we approached.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not flying us all to Oread, so if we’re going, we should probably get going.”
Elm smiled victoriously, and it pissed me off. But one quick glance at Jules reminded me to keep my mouth shut.
“I can glimmer us all there,” Elm said casually. Glimmering was a common power among the fey. Any with magick abilities could transport themselves anywhere they wanted to go, but it was rare that their glimmering magick were strong enough to glimmer multiple people at once.
I supposed that was just another perk of being a prince.
Elm stretched out his hand, and Jules took it into his own, before extending an invitation to me as well. His strong fingers embraced mine in a firm, yet gentle grip.
Black tendrils of shadow embraced all three of us, and I inhaled sharply. The cold darkness felt like a winter chill, but rather than biting the air around me with icy promises of silence, it welcomed us warmly.
In moments, we were standing on Oread’s grounds. As the shadow dispersed, Jules was overcome with another cough attack. I grabbed his shoulders, my grip tighter than I intended.
“Jul,” I said worriedly, “Are you okay?”
He nodded, still coughing. It was a deep cough, a hacking that seemed to reverberate in his chest, each shuddering breath like a rattling echo of sickness. His face was drawn in pain as the relentless coughing took its toll on him.
When it subsided, he smiled dimly, avoiding my eye and turning to face Elm. “I’m fine. C’mon, let’s go.”
He walked ahead of us, leaving me with an aching, heavy heart as I watched Elm and Jules march onward towards the residential sector of Oread.
We made our way along the cobblestone path, looking up at the towering elm trees that lined the entrance.
“We currently have twenty-six humans, including myself, living in the village. It isn’t much, but it’s progress. Many of them, like myself, found themselves hopelessly and desperately in love with a feyrie. When their relationship was rejected by both their families, they found solace here.”
Though Jules was trying to disguise his pain with a smile, I saw straight through it. Elm seemed to have sensed it, too, because he placed a hand on his shoulder and gave a light squeeze.
We showed the prince around the village, introducing him to everyone that cared enough to greet him. There weren’t many, but the ones that did were won over easily by his kind words and beautiful smile. Even Jules seemed to believe the shit he was spouting about wanting to protect his people.
But it wasn’t until three months later that I truly believed him, too.