Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Ella, wait! Stop!”

You hear the prince’s shouted command at your back, but you keep running. 

He may own you, for now - bound by some Fae law that governs this place with a power far behind your understanding - and you know he will chase after you and hunt you down. Your constant attempts for freedom insult his pride and incite his anger. He is used to instant obedience, constant obsequence. You know that you will likely pay in some way for this insolence.

But at the very least, you will make him work to catch you.

If he truly wants to stop you, he would do it. He could command your legs to grow roots, or to freeze your body into ice. He's the Ruler of All Fae, and it's still his reign for a few weeks more.

Yet, for some reason, he does not do it. For some reason, despite all you know him capable of, you do not think he would be that cruel.

And so you run. 

You don’t even know why you’re running. Not this time. You stopped trying to run since you discovered Prince Kieran’s curse. And this time you aren’t even truly attempting to escape him. You know he'll catch you; the terms of your sentence aren't up yet.

You just can’t bear to let him see you like this, with this ridiculous swell of emotion. You need to be alone to process what in the world is going on. You just have to be away from here, away from all these strangers, away from him…especially away from her.

You crash blindly through the quiet glade, hardly even seeing the glowing flowers whose rare beauty, even if this realm of full of beauty, inspires a whole festival. You hear the prince’s boots behind you, steady on your heels, calling your name.

He’s tireless. You are not. 

Finally you can’t run anymore. You stop, chest heaving with great, gasping breaths, and hear his pursuing steps slow, without turning to face him. His footsteps become soft, muted by the moss underfoot, and you sense him coming near. But he’s coming nearer carefully, as if you might spook like a wild horse. 

You expect to be scolded, but hear nothing except his own breaths. He isn’t even winded.

“I know there is nowhere I can go where you won’t find me,” you say, hating how tremulous your voice sounds. “But please, my lord, I beg you. Leave me be.” 

“Ella.”

Your name on his lips is so soft. Disappointed, confused, hurt, commanding, all at once. It hurts. 

You don’t turn to face him; you can’t. So Prince Kieran takes matter into his own hands. 

His grip on your shoulder is careful but insistent, and it’s pointless to resist his will, his iron strength, as he makes you turn toward him. You can only take in his expression for a moment before stubbornly turning your gaze away, but he seems puzzled and concerned more than angry.

“Tell me what I’ve done to upset you,” the prince commands. 

You make a small sound, like a scoff. Even in this, he makes commands. He had no idea how to speak to anyone of lesser station. Fae, in general, did not understand humans, and did not care to try. 

But it’s more of an attempt to understand you than he’s tried before.

What would you even say? How could you put your feelings into words?

You had spent such a lovely day together, you and the cold, unfeeling Moon Prince. He’d invited you here with him, gifting you a beautiful Fae gown suitable for the occasion. He’d let you drag him from one incredible sight to the next, enjoying all the food stalls and booths, the magical performances, the menagerie - even gave in to your childlike request to purchase treats to feed  the creatures. 

It had almost seemed like you were becoming…friends. 

You’d nearly come close to understanding - if not yet forgiving - the prince keeping you captive in his castle. Aside from a few outbursts, which you had admittedly provoked from him on purpose, he had not been cruel. If anything, he’d been indifferent to your presence. You’d slept in a lovely room, eaten as much wonderful food as you’d wanted, and your chores seemed like more busywork than anything, for no mortal servant could have been more useful to Longclaw than her own magic. Feeding ravens, baking bread, hanging the laundry, all to be done at your own pace, and no consequences if you failed. You’d worked harder in one busy night at the tavern back home.

As shameful as it felt, you had become…accustomed to the Moon Palace. And perhaps even to the Moon Prince, himself. 

The way he’d looked at you as of lately…he’d begun to notice you in a different way. The way he spoke to you at times felt not like the way a prince spoke to servant. He’d shocked you more than once with how personal he’d been, how he pushed back against your challenge to his authority. 

You still shivered sometimes, late at night and trying to sleep, thinking of how he’d sunk his fist into your hair, taken it by the roots, and dashed you to the floor at his feet, pinning your head to the carpet. It had been terrifying, infuriating . You’d felt so full of shame and righteous indignation. His absolute power over you was evident; he didn’t hesitate, didn’t break a sweat, and you could no more have lifted your head an inch than you could have toppled an iron wall with your bare hands.

What was wrong with you, that now, reliving it in your memory brought a rush of unfathomable heat to your cheeks? The memory of his inhuman strength, being so utterly powerless. How he’d looked down at you with a mix of smug satisfaction and a simmering fire. How quickly you realized you’d made a mistake in angering the Ruler of All Fae past his breaking point. For all his warnings, he’d done nothing of any consequence to you at this point - even dumping a pitcher of wine onto his lap had gotten you little more than a tense moment of heated glare and an order to clean it up. Which he could have done himself with magic in an instant, if he’d chosen. 

But no…in that moment, the fraction of a heartbeat between standing upright before the prince in a battle of wills, and finding your cheek held down against the floor, you’d remembered with awful regret who this man truly is. The Ruler of All Fae. And finally, you’d gone too far.

Maybe it was something about this realm, but your head was feeling all topsy-turvy now. You could look back on that moment with the clarity of experience, and see it from Prince Kieran’s point of view. Now that you understood him – understood all Fae a little better – you realize how lenient he had actually been with you. You had been like a willful puppy, nipping and barking at much, much larger wolf. The leader of the pack couldn’t allow a mere puppy to push him around. It’d make him seem weak to the other wolves, and he’d risk losing his power, his place. 

So he’d done what any wolf would do: he took you by the hair and bore you to the ground, pinning you until you’d cried out for mercy.

And even in that, you realize now he had been careful. You’d felt the absolute strength in his body, how he could have crushed you between his fingers, and yet you were not even bruised. As soon as you’d stopped fighting and given in, his own fire had burnt out, his menace became almost a soft tease. 

Shame suffuses you now to think on it. Why had you felt even a sliver of enjoyment in being held down? Why did the sheer effortlessness with which he’d put you down now seem…attractive? Perhaps because you’ve now seen him use that strength and skill in defense of you.

But the way he’d looked down at you, on the ground…the way he’d stroked your cheek with his thumb, almost with affection…

He’d subdued you. And found pleasure in it. You could see it plain as a full moon on a snowy night. He’d enjoyed overpowering you. And, for a moment, you’d thought you’d seen a darker, more sensual turn of his thoughts, as though imagining you…some other way. 

But then it had gone. He’d released you. And he had not touched you with anything other than kindness, ever since. Had he thought he’d gone too far? Or had you simply been a well-behaved little mortal ever since who hadn’t needed “correcting”?

Things had been different since you’d learned of his curse. It had felt more like the two of you stood on equal ground. You’d helped him, and it was obvious you’d earned some of his trust, perhaps even his respect. 

He even listened to you, of late - trusting you in your mission to negotiate the heart piece away from The Magpie, letting you convince him to explore the festival when it was clear he was doing it only for your benefit alone. 

And, heavens, the way he’d touched you…

Pretending to be his fiancée in front of The Magpie had been such a wild and dangerous idea, and yet for a man who couldn’t lie, Prince Kieran had been so smooth with his improvisations. You had shamelessly goaded him, sitting upon his lap, nuzzling his neck.

And he’d taken it all in stride, to your surprise. The way he’d squeezed your thigh…a single fingertip stroking across the side of your breast…the things he’d said that you knew were not a lie.

If i had my way, she would wear nothing but jewels…discarding them only when she warmed my bed. 

 It had been a game, and yet…

Yet the way he’d consumed you on the carriage ride home in the brief, dizzying afterglow of his heart piece returning, you’d barely had a chance to come up for air. His hands had been all over you as if he was a man famished, and only the warmth of your skin would sate him. But as hungry and as powerful as he was, the prince’s touch had been reverent, cautious. He had asked for your permission. Perhaps it was simply the courtesy that was inborn of all Faekind - they may be immoral killers, but none would ever even consider disrespect – or maybe…maybe it was something different about him .

For you, a tavern girl well-used to mortal men who felt entitled to taking callous liberties with your body, that gesture alone, and from a prince, had burned itself into your being.

Had you deluded yourself into thinking he could have cared for you, in any way beyond carnal pleasure? Fae were infamous seducers of mortals, goading them into love and servitude like it was a game.

But you felt the truth of it, somehow. There was such a gentleness in the infamous Moon Prince. Well-hidden, to be sure, but you had glimpsed what sort of man may lay beneath the imperious, cursed shell of ice and sharp teeth. He’d protected you during the Grand Hunt with the gallant expertise of a man who knew both his horse and his forest like the back of his hands. He’d watched you clean blood from his wounds with the wide-eyed suspicion of a cornered, pained animal that expected you to betray his first fragile scrap of trust. He’d gaped at you with pure shock and wonder when you’d produced the piece of his heart he had thought to be lost. 

You…were falling for him. 

And just now, after you’d spent such a lovely outing together, you’d run to him, bursting with pride that you’d gotten the amulet you’d come for all by yourself - navigated a tricky Fae agreement without needing his help - you’d caught the tail end of the man you’d begun thinking of a your prince. His cheek caressed by the ivory hand of a Fae princess who hated you…while he stood stock-still and done nothing to stop it. 

And it all had come crashing down. This whole silly fantasy you’d built in your head. You were the prince’s mortal servant, nothing more. An annoying thorn in his side that he barely tolerated. He’d touched you with brazen intimacy in that carriage, but he hadn’t kissed you. He’d teased you about your virginity when you’d happened across him naked and asleep in his bed, and he’d ordered you about like a child. Made you dress him, to show you your place. 

He’d loved the princess for decades. They had lived together – in true Fae fashion, brazenly flouting conventions of mortal propriety.  She’d slept in his bed, known him intimately, in ways you did not. She’d touched him with an easy familiarity, and he’d allowed it…almost as if he’d missed it. 

Their relationship was so far beyond your experience, a young mortal woman too poor to garner the interest of any of the village suitors. Their relationship was older than even you. You knew nothing of the world, and very little of men. The things Prince Kieran had known and seen were surely more than the sum total of your earthly experience. 

The gowns in your wardrobe were gifts of the Moon Court; your own mortal rags were an embarrassment. Compared to the perfect, glittering sun princess, with her wiles and power, you couldn’t ever hope to gain any of Prince Kieran’s true interest. Lustre had been correct: you were just temporary. A momentary passing fancy to the attention of a Fae prince who could not care about you in any meaningful way.

You. Were. Nothing. 

It didn’t matter that Princess Lustre was the snake who had cursed him, betrayed him. He had loved her, once, and it was clear that her poison barbs still knew precisely where to pierce him And as far as he was still able to be hurt, she had hurt him with those words. At the very least, he had risen to her bait. Perhaps he hated her, but she still had some hold over him. 

It was impossible not to feel like an insignificant and disgusting insect in comparison to the perfection of her beauty. Insignificant in the face of her power. Her voice was musical even when it was cruel, and as much as you hated her, even you could appreciate how pleasing it was to look upon her. That was the sort of creature that could ensnare the heart of a Fae prince.

Not you. The impoverished orphan mortal with rough hands from toiling over dirty dishes and dusting-cloths all her life.

“Please, my lord,” you gasp, a sprinkling of tears escaping. His gaze darts to your tears, sharp, confused, demanding explanation. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing you need concern yourself with. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.”

Kieran’s gaze narrows, and he steps closer. His voice is quiet, with a chill like the autumn air. “Why don’t I believe you?” 

You can’t speak. You’re caught in those intelligent eyes. Dark and cold and beautiful, but soft now, just for you. 

You wonder if you should be afraid.

“If you will not speak, then simply listen,” Prince Kieran commands. His voice is still severe. “Lustre came upon me by chance. I had no idea she would be here. She has no reason to be here. Except to further twist the knife in my back.”

He watches you warily. You're still waiting for more.

“It upset you, finding us like that,” he guesses, correctly. His brow furrows. “Why?”

“You may do whatever you wish, Your Highness.” Your voice is icy.

“Is that so?” he arches an eyebrow. His voice holds dry sarcasm. “I thank you for the permission.”

Anger and hurt rises in you. “Are you mocking me?”

He looks taken aback. “You’re angry with me.”

“You made me feel a fool,” you admit bitterly, voice a harsh whisper. “You never told me Lustre was the princess who cursed you. So when I saw you…” You shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut, forcing a few errant tears to escape. Maybe if you just keep your eyes closed, he won’t see your embarrassment, read the reason for your brief moment of jealousy on your face, and he will leave you alone to your misery.

“Ella…” 

No such luck.

“Look at me.” Not another command, but this time, a gentle entreaty. 

You open your eyes to Prince Kieran’s face, his eyes full of contrition. 

“Yes, it's true I did not tell you who Lustre was to me when we met her at the Grand Hunt. But not to purposefully conceal the truth from you, if that is what you are imagining. I did not tell you…because I did not want to grant her so much as even one single, wasted breath.”

The sudden sharp hatred in his tone is frightening. You would shudder to be the target of it.

“Her very name tastes of bile on my tongue,” the prince continues with visceral disgust. “Each time she forces her way into my thoughts is an invasion, one more violation heaped upon countless other offences already committed. She wormed her way into my deepest confidence, into my home .”

Into your bed, you think, but are not foolish enough to say.

Still his eyes flicker darkly to yours, as if he can read your thoughts. 

“I lost friends, almost the last of my court, my very heart. That she served a mere century for her crime… She now walks free, as if she did not attempt to overthrow my rule, while I am yet caged to my curse. That is not justice.”

“How did she get away with it?”

Prince Kieran scoffs. “Radiance was soft on his cousin, and I was in no shape at the time to dispute the sentence.”

“Do you think he was party to it? What was she even attempting?”

He shakes his head, bitter. “I torture myself with such thoughts. She claimed a desire to ensnare my heart. I am sure that is true; but to what aim? The Sun Court decided to claim her actions as lovesick and ill-advised. But she spent years studying how to undo the many protective enchantments I had warded myself with. But I awoke before her ritual was completed, and, in our magical struggle to gain control of my heart, it shattered.” He winces and rubs absently at his chest, as though recalling the pain of it. “Whether Radiance had foreknowledge of her plans, I do not know. I cannot imagine he knew nothing…but how far did it go?"

"That's why you didn't trust me around Prince Radiance," you breathe.

He gives one slow nod. "The two courts maintain a delicate balance, but it's no secret the Sun Court has strength in numbers. I would not put it past Radiance to have worked with Lustre to weaken me or my court a century ago, but I cannot prove it. Until my heart is restored, I can do little else but seek to end my curse." He looks grim. "I do not know what he wants with you. Perhaps he sensed my latent claim before it was fulfilled, and wished to undermine me, make me appear weak. A cheap shot, but nothing is beneath him. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps your beauty is enough to draw his eye, and it is nothing to do with me at all."

He reaches for your cheek as if he means to touch you, to trace a stray lock of hair, but pulls back before making contact. 

So many thoughts swirl through your mind, but all you can focus on is how much you wish he would have touched you. 

"I'm sorry," you say again, faintly. "For making you speak of her. I feel as though my presence at your side at the Hunt infuriated her. That she came here...specifically to hurt you, and taunt me."

"Indeed it did," Prince Kieran says with a ghost of a smirk. “Well worth the trouble to see the look on her face. I would not invite even the briefest passing thought of her, if I could help it, but you did not cause any of this."

“You…truly sound as though you hate her.”

He can’t help sneering. “With every fibre of my being.”

“It did not appear that way,” you can’t help but say. “When I came upon you.” 

His eyes narrow. “I could not cut out her heart for the crime of appearing before me in the marketplace. According to law, she has served her punishment, no matter how vehemently I may disagree. It took every ounce of self-control I have honed over a lifetime to not crush her with the full and concentrated power the Crown grants me. Magic responds to emotion and intention; in Fae it is as natural and unconscious as breathing. Since being cursed I have felt little else save rage and pain. I’m sure you can imagine both my emotion in that moment, and my intentions.”

His gaze flicks away, somewhere low. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, uncharacteristically restless. And then a cold fury overtakes his expression as he returns his gaze to you. 

“I prefer to forget her existence entirely.” His words end in a growl that chills you. He takes an unsteady breath to calm himself, and then his eyes soften somewhat. “It was not my intent to harm you. In truth, I – I did not, for a moment, think it would matter to you at all.”

“Of course it matters, my lord,” you whisper, unsteadily. “You…I know I am but a mortal, and troublesome to you, but I…you could have confided in me, if you wished. I thought perhaps we…were becoming…”

You can’t finish a single sentence. It’s terribly frustrating. Kieran watches you, waiting expectantly for you to finish that sentence as though he wants very much to know what word you were about to use.

When you give up, he sighs. “I am not accustomed to sharing such things. With anyone. Let alone…”

“A human,” you supply, sadly.

He grasps your shoulders, lifting your chin gently with his knuckles. “With anyone, ” he repeats, slowly, laden with meaning. His voice is kinder, like one might speak to a child. “Sir Montgomery is mortal, as you well know. He is the only mortal left alive, besides yourself, who knows me as anything but a heartless beast.”

“Everyone knew about Lustre? Except for me.”

“Sir Montgomery and Longclaw have been part of the Moon Court since the days of my mother’s rule. They witnessed my very birth. Yes, they know everything. They witnessed the events of my ill-fated courtship and the aftermath of my curse. And no, they never approved of Lustre. No one who truly cared for me did. If only I had listened to the wisdom of true friends.” He shakes his head, disgusted at his past self. “But I was young, newly of age, and crowned too early. I listened to no one but myself.”

He’s still watching you closely. His hand hasn’t left your shoulder, and you start to feel his warmth seep through the gossamer threads of the diaphanous flower gown. It feels more comforting than confining, now. 

You can hardly believe how open he’s being to you. Showing himself, his faults, as though he thinks you worthy of knowing them.

“You need not explain yourself to me, sire,” you say with some venom, attempting to sound haughty and disaffected, but your voice trembles, giving you away. Surprised, Kieran’s hand drops from your shoulder, and you regret the loss of it, cutting down the bridge he’d been trying to build. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Ask.” His face is a chilled mask now, wiped free of expression, as if preparing himself for the worst.

“Did you ever care for me at all? Even in some small way?” Again you try to sound like you don’t care, and again you fail. Your voice sounds girlish and pathetic with tears, so instead you fill it with righteous anger. “Or did it simply amuse you to tease and torment me and order me about? Was I just another hand around to dust the floorboards and polish silver – or was I some sort of pawn you used in your little games with the Sun Court?”

You feel suddenly so foolish, standing here in this breath-takingly gorgeous grove, beneath a soft cascade of glowing flowers, wearing the gown and tiara he gave you, thinking it suited you. That you ever felt special to a Fae prince…that he had ever noticed you, seen you. No, you were a toy all along, like a cat batted around a mouse before eating it.

“What? ” Kieran snaps, indignant and offended. "No."

But you’re too angry to stop, even more so at being interrupted. You’re on a tirade now. “Did you steal me out from under Prince Radiance’s nose to get in some little snub, some bit of revenge for what Lustre did to you?” 

Your voice rises in pitch as you speak, growing stronger and more forceful with each accusation. Kieran’s face twists into surprise, then dark, dangerous anger. He opens his mouth as if about to shout, and you brace yourself, taking a half-step back in fear.

All at once, the anger and the color drains from Kieran’s face. He looks suddenly tired; his eyes go from fierce to defeated, and they leave your face, looking down at the soft ground. 

“Perhaps,” he finally admits. “Perhaps…yes, at first. I did have claim to you before you ever happened across the Sun Court. You yourself spoke it aloud: “I owe you my life.” Yet I’d no intention of calling in my claim when we said our farewells. If you had not returned to the forest that night, we likely never would have met again.”

Your heart twists. “But I did. And I met the beast.”

He nods slowly. “When the sun arose that morning and I returned to my senses and found myself not in the tower room as was my usual habit, but in the middle of the woods, I knew something must have prevented the beast from bringing me home. And so I went looking – and found you, ready to throw yourself once again into the jaws of a far more dangerous predator.”

“Radiance.”

Again, he nods. “Fae have a very profound sense of justice, Ella. It may not be the type of justice familiar to mortalkind, but it is absolute nonetheless. I could forgive a life debt to an unlucky mortal who happened to chance upon me in the woods and had done me no wrong – scaring away the wolf had cost me nothing but a moment of time, and taking up a mortal’s debt is to take on a responsibility over them. What could I have gained from it? I had no need of another servant, and without my heart, I am without desires of any kind. I would gain no pleasure from enchanting your mind, toying with you, as others of my kind would. But finding you in Radiance’s clutches, half-gone to their enchantments, stirred my anger. You were mine by rights. And thus I would have you, if for no other reason than to keep you from him. If you could not keep yourself safely out of harm’s way, at least you would be safe in my care.”

So many things burn through you. In turns, you feel used, demeaned, meaningless, and then…cared for, in some strange way.

“Lustre is Radiance’s cousin. You were almost family, once.”

Kieran looks surprised, and then he scowls with disgust at the thought. “Never.”

“She was never your betrothed?”

“It…is complicated.” Apparently you wouldn’t get more from him tonight than that. 

“So you meant it, that first night?” you whisper. “That you didn’t care what I did. You only wanted me out of the way.”

He looks pained for a moment, but then his jaw locks.  “Yes.”

“I was an annoyance to you.”

A ghost of a smile. “At first. But that was your intent, was it not? In your position, I would have done far, far worse."

“But no one’s going to take you prisoner anytime soon.”

He smirks without humour. “No. I am simply cursed to live without feeling for eternity. Life is fair to no one.”

He steps closer, and you stand your ground, though you tremble. “I saw in you a wayward lamb who could not stop running headlong into danger. I thought you no different from any other hapless mortal who finds themselves in such tales. But then…then you looked me in the eyes with such boldness, and spoke to me as no one has dared to in an age.”

You stare at him, wide-eyed. He says it like it's a compliment. Like it’s a trait he admires instead of one he’s punished you for. 

The way he’s looking at you has changed; the air between you feels charged. Something churns low in your belly, a sense of approaching danger. A wild storm bears down on you, and you yearn to see its destructive force and unrestrained power with some kind of twisted curiosity.

“You hated that I challenged you.”

“Of course,” the prince says, with a brittle laugh. “I am the Ruler of All Fae; it is in my blood. But somehow my ire changed, slowly. Annoyance became amusement. Your teasing became endearing. And I became proud of my little spitfire." 

Your eyes widen as he smirks with true amusement. You aren't sure how to feel. Surely you should be angered at this condescension, not glowing from within at the praise. 

"Do you know how long it has been since even a fellow Fae has dared to challenge me? Not even Radiance would be so bold to speak to me outright as you had done. And yet here was this little mortal, utterly powerless, yet braver than the lot of them. I became fascinated by you. How does an otherwise unremarkable mortal come by such strength? And then I realized...you are, remarkable, indeed."

Your breath catches as he comes even closer. His voice grows low and soft with something akin to menace, something that should warn you away, but instead is utterly magnetic.

“Can you even fathom, as a mortal, the tedium of immortality, when nothing ever changes but the seasons?" Prince Kieran's voice is quiet, nearly a whisper. "Knowing you are cursed to outlast everyone and everything that matters to you? For a century my palace was a cold tomb for the undying, the few remnants of my court resigned to bearing witness to its decay. Powerless to bring me out of my torpor, stop the slow death of the Moon Court. And then you arrived, full of fire and life, a breath of fresh air. Defiant and uncowed. You provoked, instigated, lambasted me – and deservedly so. You awoke in me that which I thought long dead.”

“What?”

His eyes flash. “Desire.”

The prince is so close now that his breath syncs with yours, the details of him come into sharp focus. The strands of his hair. His dark lashes, lowered. His pupils dilate as his gaze caresses the outline of your face. The curve of his lips, the gleam of teeth, the lustre of his skin. Inhuman perfection, just different enough from a human to be ever so slightly unsettling. 

Yet instead of being off-putting, you only find more to desire.

“Few dare to cross me. It's tedious to be forever surrounded by false smiles and fake agreeableness; I am utterly bored by constant groveling and sniveling. It’s a rare thing to meet someone with the courage – and the wit – to match me. Rare for anyone to intrigue me as you have. I'd forgotten how much I missed the exhilaration of a real contest of will...how much I missed the thrill of someone daring to test me. How much I once relished a challenge,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to your lips. "And how satisfying it is, rising to meet it."

Your pulse is thudding hard like a drumbeat in your neck. You can only stare at him, wide-eyed. 

The Moon Prince – the Ruler of All Fae – locks eyes with you. “Ella, you know I cannot lie, and so hear this: I want you. You, and no other.”

His eyes blaze with intensity that’s hard to meet. You take a stumbling step backwards, and he pursues, not letting you escape. 

“Ever since I met you in that grove, I felt an overwhelming need to possess you,” Prince Kieran says, his voice low, eyes hooded. “To claim you entirely as my own. I feel more alive when I am around you than I have in a hundred years. You infuriate me, insult me, entice me – and I can ignore it no longer.”

You’re as frozen as an icicle. 

Because I carry a piece of your heart, you realize, your heart sinking to your feet. That must be what he means. He feels emotion around you because his heart piece is so near, and it's overwhelming him, just as it had in the carriage. 

You open your mouth to tell him, but he charges forward in a fevered rush. “I’ve spent a century caring little for anyone or anything. And yet my desire for you has overtaken me.”

“My lord,” you cut in, heart clanging with nerves. “Surely this is – perhaps what happened in the carriage has led you to–”

But Kieran is shaking his head, vehemently. “The moment I laid eyes upon you in Sun Court’s revel, a fire was lit within me. I could have let you go free once – but not twice. Not when you were entirely ignorant of the danger you were in, Not when you were mine . The spark ignited that night has only grown to consume everything in its path. My thoughts are filled with little else but you. I wake each morning hoping again to catch you ogling me, wide-eyed in your innocence. Such dangerous curiosity. You feel it too, do you not? The pull between us.”

The heaviness and heat in his eyes threatens to suffocate you. An answering desire bubbles up within you, side by side with fear. 

You find yourself nodding, and his lips curl in satisfaction.

What would it mean, to start an affair with a prince of Fae? What would happen to you?

Nothing good, that’s to be sure. Nearly every fairy tale you've ever heard has told you this story has a disastrous end.

But all good sense has fled as you look into his eyes. All warnings feel far away. You want nothing more to give yourself to him, to please him.

“My reputation for selfishness and cruelty is well-earned, as I’m sure you’ve seen by now,” the prince continues. “I know my faults well. I do not deny I have been…monstrous to you. I am not accustomed to lording my power over helpless mortals."

He pauses, and only now do you realize his breaths are heaving just as yours were, nostrils flaring, a blaze in his black eyes. 

“Something about you brings forth all my darkest impulses,” he says, his voice a menacing purr. 

You’re panting, awash in a mix of fear and desire, feeling like you’re drowning, like you’re a rabbit caught in the sights of a slavering wolf. You back up until you can’t anymore, stopped by the solid grooved bark of an ancient tree. Its leaves rustle overhead like waves lapping at a shore, and the soft scent of the blossoms – the scent that secretly reminds you of Kieran himself – make you feel drunk on sensation.

You make a small sound, air leaving your lungs as you thud against the trunk, and a spell seems to break in Kieran’s eyes. He realizes he has been stalking you like prey and takes a step back, releasing you from the arresting enchantment of his gaze as he turns his body halfway away from you. You can breathe again, just a few lungfuls of air to help clear the daze.

“But you…you are innocent in this,” Kieran mutters, almost to himself. He seems disgusted by himself, distracted by his own thoughts. He glances at you, and then into the trees. “And I…I must make amends.”

“Sir?” you manage, confused. At first it seemed like he was about to kiss you, and now he cannot even look at you.

He shakes his head, irritable, his hands restless, fingers clenching. He stalks away from you a few paces, then back. Back and forth, and then he stops again in front of you, his mind made up, his face a scowling mask. 

He stands ramrod-straight, shoulders squared, his hands at his back like a soldier. “For all the numerous ways I have misused you, Ella, I must apologize. I took your freedom. It was my right and my responsibility under the law - but Fae morals are not yours, I know. From the moment I saved you from the wolf, you pledged your life to me, and to allow you to be harmed by Radiance would have been a forfeit of that duty. I could not have protected you any other way. For that, I cannot and will not apologize. But…” His voice softens. “I have hurt you, unwittingly or not. I have used you. And I have…taken advantage. For that, I am sorry.”

This is so out of character it breaks you from your reverie. “You’re… sorry? ”

He stares at you, eyes like flint, hard and stony. 

You swallow, feeling some of your sense returning. You pull away from the tree to stand on your own two feet. “Then you are forgiven.”

A crease forms between his brows. He absolutely does not understand. It’s rather adorable. “You’re…forgiving me? Just like that?”

“You asked for it, did you not? That’s usually what happens after apologies.”

He still can’t seem to accept it. “How can you grant forgiveness so easily?”

“Because you can’t lie,” you say simply. “So I know you meant every word. You’re sorry. You explained your motivations, and I see now the position you were in. I’ve seen how you’ve tried to do better. So yes, my forgiveness is easily given.”

His lips part but he can't seem to speak for several moments. Then he closes his mouth and scowls, expression stormy and unreadable, his voice a low dangerous murmur. “Your goodness begs me to corrupt you.”

A bolt of fear and desire darts through you, leaving warmth in its wake. You’re torn between both, unsure whether to lean into him, or make another attempt to run.

But you feel caught, ensnared. Some part of you desires him just as deeply…wants to follow this dark and winding path to its eventual end, ignoring all signs of warning, to see where it leads. 

His next words are a whisper, tortured, as if he speaks them to himself alone. “What the devil are you doing to me, Ella?”

Prince Kieran’s hand drifts to the charm that binds you to him, his fingertips gentle and cold as they ghost across your throat, brushing over your rushing pulse. You’re suddenly aware of every single, shallow breath…how easily he could wrap those fingers around your throat, whispering words of magic that would muddle your mind so easily that you would offer it to him willingly.

A shiver runs down your spine. Is that what he’s doing now? 

But no. He let you run in the first place. Your feet are frozen now because you don’t want to leave.

Even that tiny scrap of touch has you lifting your chin, silently pleading for more of his touch.

“What are you doing?” you manage to whisper, your voice hoarse.

He thumbs the little moon charm dangling from the velvet ribbon. “I imagine Radiance told you this charm allows me to track you. He would have been able to sense the enchantments, same as I.”

Not looking away from his hooded eyes, you nod. “A collar. For your pet.”

There’s venom in your voice at last. 

His gaze flicks up from the charm to meet yours. He winces. “A symbol of ownership, yes. As a warning to mischievous Fae that you are claimed, and not to be touched. But it is also imbued with the most potent protective spells I know. So long as you wear it, you’re safe from all curses and enchantments that are within my power to oppose.” His eyes soften, somewhat. “You were never in true danger from Lustre. Even when I am not near, this necklace protects you, as if by my very own hand.”

“I still can’t take it off,” you manage, finding that spark of defiance deep within. “And I have no desire to be caged.”

Prince Kieran’s face falls. “I know.” His thumb moves over the moon charm, his lips form silent words, and then a flare of white light swirls upward, fading like frosted breath. “And now you are the only one who may remove it.”

“Sir…?” you exhale.

Finally, his hand drops from you. “You may leave…and this charm will keep you safe.”

You stare at him, uncomprehending. “You’re…releasing me?”

“Yes.” He takes a half step back and turns away, giving you room to breathe. 

“But…why? I thought…the laws of Fae? It isn’t Spring yet.”

“You are still bound by your vow. You still wear my charm, and with it, my protection. But I am the Ruler of All Fae. If I am to be punished for breaking the Law, that will be for Radiance to decide. And seeing how he wants you for himself…” Kieran shrugs, an oddly forced-casual gesture, then looks over his shoulder at you, his eyes hard. “Your life is still mine until Spring. I am simply choosing now to let you spend it where you will.”

You're still mustering up indignation for the maddening literal-ism of Fae law – what's the point of laws when you can twist them into any interpretation you desire? - when you hear a startling noise in the distance.

Without so much as a word or a signal, there’s a soft clatter of hoofbeats and carriage wheels over tree roots, and then the prince’s carriage appears at the edge of the clearing, the door opening. Kieran doesn’t look up from his intense study of the ground. 

“My carriage will take you home. The charm will lose its protection once you cross the boundary of iron in your village walls, and I will no longer be able to sense you. Go. And if you are wise, do not return.”

Now you truly can’t breathe. Absurdly, tears fill your eyes. First you thought he was about to kiss you – to declare his passionate love – and now he was sending you away?

“You want me to leave?” you whisper, heartbroken and confused. It’s so odd that you feel worse than before…even moreso that you don’t feel any urge to run into that carriage to return home to safety. 

But even that isn’t true. You weren’t safe at home. Your parents are gone, and the widow Tamara is elderly. When she passes, you will have to find a way to run the tavern and survive…all alone. 

You think of Arthur the town drunk, and what might have happened to you if Kieran’s beast had not found you that night.

The mortal realm was hardly safer than Fae. A single cruel man with a dagger was just as much of a threat as the mildest-mannered Fae.

“I cannot abide this any longer,” Kieran bites out, purposefully not answering your question straight. “I can no longer live with this pain that I bring you. You do not deserve to be trapped in my cage – in a crumbling palace with a broken, heartless monster. Spend your goodness on someone more deserving of it, and be happy.”

You take one hesitant step closer. “That isn’t what I asked.”

His jaw works, muscle jumping in his cheek, as he glares into the surrounding trees. You can only see his profile, and he seems like he is battling a tempest within, his knuckles white as his hands clench into fists at his side. “You are my prisoner no longer.”

You take another step, and then another. It truly seems like he means what he says, that this is no trick. He means to send you home. 

But your feet do not take you to the carriage. 

Instead, you stand before the prince, watching. Searching.

He purposefully does not look at you, scowling. “What are you waiting for? Do not forget, time passes more slowly here than the mortal world. If you leave now, perhaps you will have only been gone from your village for a season.”

“I don’t wish to go,” you say quietly. “I promised to help you find the pieces of your heart. I meant it. Vows carry the weight of magic in Fae, don’t they?”

“I release you from all obligations,” he says, quick and irritable. 

“That isn’t your decision to make anymore,” you say, smiling. 

His stubbornness refusal to look at you breaks, his gaze flicking to you sharply. 

“Tell me you dislike me,” you murmur. “That I disrupt your life and offend your manners. That I’m an annoyance and a bother. That you’re sick at the sight of me and you want me out of your home immediately. Tell me this, and I will go.”

Prince Kieran gaze snaps back to the trees like one of his ravens, surprised and aghast, and you smile inside. 

“I cannot,” he finally admits, through gritted teeth. 

You’ve caught him, your Fae prince, in his one weakness.

You know I cannot lie.  

You step around the prince so that you’re toe to toe again. 

“Send the carriage away,” you say quietly. 

He doesn’t. “The longer you stay, the faster time will race ahead in your village. You may return to find those you love dead, your home a ruin.”

“I have no one,” you admit. “My home and my family are gone. I care for my village, and they care for me, but not enough to miss me. They have likely already mourned me and moved on.” 

His breathing is labored as he looks at you, grief and pain etched there. “I will not take advantage of one who cannot refuse me.”

“Since when have I had a problem telling you no?” you ask, your voice a low tease. 

Your heart is still pounding, but you are calm, at peace. He’s giving you back your freedom, and this is what you choose to do with it. 

Just then, a saucer-sized blossom breaks free from an overhead bough and floats like a feather on the breeze, catching both of your attention. Kieran lifts his hand, beckoning it toward him with a small gust to catch it mid-air. You both gaze at its deeply glowing petals…and then Prince Kieran gently lifts your wrist, upturns your palm, and places the flower in your hand. 

“You’re…giving it to me? But…” 

This is the flower that Fae give to their lovers.

The prince watches you with deep sadness, brow furrowed. You gaze at each other as he cups the fragile, fragrant blossom in your hands…before he turns from you again with great effort of will. 

“I do not understand myself of late,” Prince Kieran says quietly. “The things I want from you…torment me. And I am not a man who restrains himself from what I want.”

“Why must you restrain yourself now?” you ask, just as quietly. 

You hear him, audibly, release a tremendous breath. “Stop, Ella. You do not know what you ask.”

“I want to know.”

“I have not wanted anything in an age…and never with such a fever in my blood.” He bows his head, his shoulders rising and lowering with several slow breaths, like he’s trying to contain himself. "I am not a mortal man, Ella."

"I know. I can feel your power in the air, like a glowing crown. Sometimes it frightens me."

You put your hand on his shoulder, and feel all the air leave him at once. 

"What I want from you would frighten you far more." He watches you warily, muscle jumping in his cheek. “Why do you not go?” he grits out. 

"Perhaps I enjoy being afraid. When it's with you." Both of you breathe shakily in and out, but you feel oddly certain, deep within. Sure of your choice. "You make me feel alive, as if I have never lived before I met you. With you, I have glimpsed other worlds within my reach. And I'm so painfully curious. Will you show me?"

"Ella..." You can see his resolve shuddering. His hand grips your hip, hard, in ownership. "You could tempt the devil himself."

Taking a leap of faith, you cradle his cheek in your hand, feeling the stiffness in his jaw at your touch, how he resists you. “I want you, too. Broken hearted, bad-tempered and all.”

“You will leave when the last piece of my heart is restored,” he declares, almost angry already at a future you, at his belief that you will inevitably abandon him like everyone else in his life.

“If that is what you want,” you whisper, coaxing him to look at you, tilting your chin up to meet him.

Finally the prince’s resolve shatters, and his feverish gaze finds yours again, locking you to him. 

“ No, ” he snarls, decisively. “That is not what I want.”

And you crash together, the dam of his will finally breaking as your lips meet at long last, in a rush of hunger so primal and feral and desperate, it's as if he means to consume you, body and soul.

Chapter Text

It’s all you can do to return the prince’s ardour. To simply keep your head above water. Yet still you feel yourself slowly drowning in him.

At last he breaks from you, black pupils overtaking the grey of his eyes. 

He breaks from you suddenly, looking wild but concerned. “Before – when I asked you –” he pauses, glancing down your body as if he might find the answer in your clothing. “Tell me truly, as you did not answer me that morning in my chamber. Are you yet a virgin, Ella?”

There is no modesty in him. The Fae don't have use for such things.

You bristle somewhat, offended. He senses the stiffness in your and clamps his hand around your hip to prevent your withdrawal. 

“Does it matter?” you ask, evoking the slightest scowl of frustration from him at once again evading the question.

“Not to my desire for you,” he says, fervent and cross. His gaze darts to your lips, as though he wants to return to them - but then forces himself to meet your eye. “But I must know…how much care I must take. Else I may hurt you without intention.” 

A quiver of fear darts through your belly. 

“I want you regardless of your answer,” he adds impatiently, seeing the look on your face. “But I must know.” 

He asks this in a voice that is honey-sweet, almost tender, melting the stiffness in your muscles.

He leans in again, pressing his lips below your ear and sending shivers down your skin. 

His other hand traces light fingertips over the nape of your neck, against the bare skin, running along the edge of the dress he gave you, a gentle counterpoint to the demands of his mouth. Of his question.

You feel yourself begin to tremble. 

The things I want from you torment me.

You know very little of men. That was one of the most important things Tamara raised you with: treat all men as though they are wild dogs, for even if they seem kind and gentle, they are dangerous beasts at heart. You'd had to grow up very quickly after losing your parents, and Tamara knew she would not always be there to protect you. She'd chide you, just as your father had, about your gentle heart. Too prone to giving the benefit of the doubt. To readily given to granting second chances. 

Under her watchful eye, you had never entertained any of the young men who'd come to the tavern to sweet talk you.

But the Moon Prince is not one of those charming young men. 

He is far, far worse.

You cannot imagine the power within Prince Kieran’s fingertips. Even without his magic, the strength and speed of his body outmatch your own a thousandfold. You've felt it before. You've seen the damage his beast can do beneath the moonlight, overtaken by single-minded animal instinct.

He commands rule over the entirety of Fae. He has lived for over a hundred years at least. 

Worst of all - he, himself, seems to fear hurting you.

Perhaps there’s a tinge of fear in your eyes too. 

He sees it. 

“My Ella,” he whispers, fervent and lovely, no longer demanding but entreating. Adoring. You fall for it utterly. “Tell me. It makes no difference if you have loved before. You know that I have.”

His Ella. In a sense it is true. Though he has released you in one respect, he claims you in another.

Prince Kieran cradles you cheek gently, long spindly fingers sliding through your hair with tenderness.

“I can be gentle. I want to be.” He leans in close, his whisper caressing your ear. “Let me prove it to you.”

“There's never been anyone else,” you finally admit. 

His breath is ragged as his pupils flick to yours, and then he's kissing you again, hard and fierce, with some new level of restraint.

“Please don't hold back,” you plead. “I won't break.”

He laughs against your lips, and the joy in it brings lightness to your heart. “Oh, my sweet Ella. You shall.” 

He kisses down your neck, and you feel drunk, woozy, the world’s colors brighter.

“Though I will endeavor…” He stops short, tries again, more decisive this time. And you realize he stopped himself because he couldn’t lie. “I shall not hurt you, my Ella - you do know this, don’t you?”

You nod frantically, not wanting him to slow, to stop, to give your rational mind any opportunity to object.

“Please,” you whisper, and no sooner does the sound leave your lips but he is on you again, tasting you with a far more measured sweetness, his hand cupping your cheek. Gentler than before, but still hungry.

“How?” He murmurs. “How is it that you ease my curse? When I touch you, I feel more than I can even remember possible. Ella…” 

He takes hold of your hair with both hands on either side of your head, strands tugging light at your scalp - not harsh but electric, claiming - and stare at him. His eyes are half lidded, his shoulders heaving like he's struggling to contain a riot of emotion. 

Your heart arches with your hidden secret.

You know why. The last piece of his heart is mere inches from his grasp and yet he cannot have it without killing you.

He holds you to him as though he still doesn't trust you not to run. “Do you still fear me?”

You could lie. But what would be the point?

“A little,” you admit on a breath. 

His fingers dive into your hair, holding you in place, his lips pressing into a minutely disturbed frown. 

And then something occurs to you. “Do you…fear yourself?”

His pupils dart to you in surprise, then insult, then a grudging acceptance. You expect a dressing down or a dismissal, but instead he's decided to be truthful to you in return. “Yes. But that will not stop me.

And then he is kissing you again, your reason and caution flying away on the wind.

Kieran's hands are rough and hungry, stroking across the petals of your dress, and then you realize with a sudden tremble of fear that the flowers of your gown are falling away from your body.

“Kieran,” you gasp, pushing away from him to see the last of your clothing shatter and fall. 

You stand nude before him, the light breeze that heralds earliest spring casting the remnants of your gown to your feet and caressing your bare skin with the silk of its petals.

The intensity of his gaze drives you to cover yourself in self-conscious reflex, and he catches your wrists with a small, gentle command. “No.”  

When you make a small sound of helpless indignation, unable to pull your hands from his grasp, he ducks his head to kiss your lips, sweetly, entreating. Then, his lips traverse along your jawbone. 

“Let me admire you, my treasure,” he murmurs sweetly in your ear. “Why do you hide from me?”

“I am not so beautiful as–” you stop in an embarrassed huff as Kieran pulls back with a sharp gaze at what you’re about to say. 

He’s angry – no. He’s offended on your behalf. 

Not so beautiful as Lustre . The words nearly left your lips.

It sounds terribly jealous, even if it is true. You can't help it. Fae are endlessly perfect, and you are a flawed mortal, short and graceless, hands calloused. You spend your days laboring over laundry and supper and dusty floors.

And you have never felt it more keenly than this moment. 

You shiver at another breeze; it's incredibly odd to feel fresh air across every inch of your body reminding you how very exposed you are, even with Kieran at your front and the tree at your back. The festival is too far to hear anyone now, but at any moment…

He's still staring at you as if trying to understand, confused and taken back.

 Then his gaze darkens and he presses his lips to yours again.

“There is no one to rival you in all the lands,” he growls, fervent, accenting his words with a firm grasp of your hair. “None who could awaken such passion in me. I will repeat myself as many times as I must, so that you understand: I burn for you alone.”

You swallow, throat dry. Every word is heavy with the gavel that is his undeniable truth.

Caught in his black gaze, you can’t move your head to nod, not until he releases you.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he eases your wrists down from your chest, pinning your arms to your sides, and you swallow nervously. 

Surely some part of you knew this act required disrobing, at least a little .

But somehow you didn’t realize how very exposed you would be, in the daylight, outdoors. 

Your heart pounds as Kieran's heated gaze drinks you in, and when his eyes return to yours he has the look of a dangerous creature, the dark and naked desire both very real and entirely alien. Something you are entirely unfamiliar with.

And yet you are giving yourself to him.

No teasing anymore. Your body barely understands what’s happening, but yearns for him with the same eager desire.

Before you can form another thought, Kieran’s kissing you with sweet hunger, his hands engulfing your hips, roaming up your bare back as though he’s luxuriating in the feel of your skin, and you shiver as goosebumps break out under the soft rake of nails. 

“You are my precious, delicate flower, aren’t you?” Kieran murmurs, a gently teasing lilt in his voice. “So tender in my hands. I should take care not to crush you.”

Suddenly, his hand is on your breast, a gentle cupping that becomes a a tight squeeze until you inhale sharply and then relents - as if he's seeing how far to go. What your body can take.

You whimper into his mouth which sets off a growl in his throat and an increased fervor. Between your legs something tightens with exquisite need as his fingertips lightly pinch and massage your nipples, and you can't help the wanton moan.

“Mm, yes,” Kieran praises. “How I have wanted to hear you make such sounds. How the men of your village did not realize your beauty was so far above them - but I am glad for it, selfish as I am, for now I can have you for my own. No mortal man deserves to touch you. Sweet Ella...how desperate I am to debauch you entirely.”

His words make you dizzy.

“What if – the other festival goers –”  you gasp between kisses.

He pulls back, smirking, to meet your worried gaze. “You do not wish an audience?”

He knows bloody well. “No!”

Especially not if Lustre is still around.

He doesn't need any more explanation than that. His hand flings behind him without breaking your kiss and you sense a shift, a change in the air, shimmering now like you're inside a very large soap bubble.

He smiles at you as you gape in awe. “Your modesty is safe, my bashful virgin. You are for my eyes - and hands - alone.” 

He eases you to the ground somehow, kissing the breath from you, until your eyes close and you feel soft tender moss at your back. Your bones have gone lax somehow, muscles weak under his onslaught, but his hands are strong, catching you

With sudden shock, your eyes open as you realize you’re suddenly touching his bare shoulder instead of the wool of his suit coat. He’s smirking, the smug bastard - half atop you - and you’re caught by the expanse of pristine bare skin, how he gleams as if lit by moonlight from within, and  how there is no longer any type of barrier between you. 

Only one thing is on your mind - consternation. “If you can disrobe so easily, why did you order me to dress you that one time?”

His smirk becomes a wicked chuckle that shoots straight to your core. “My poor, innocent Ella. Why do you think? ”

You reach to touch him and he captures your wrists instead, pinning you to the forest floor, trapped beneath him. You’re helpless and open to his heated gaze, dark and fathomless, willingly letting him take control.

“Wait, Kieran–” A sudden thought, and a stab of fear takes hold. He sees it in your eyes instantly, and the grip around your hands eases as though he expects you to recoil from him and is granting you your escape. 

You see in his eyes - he’s confused at what’s he’s done, but he’s done nothing wrong, and you don’t move away. Instead, you pull one hand away to touch the charm at your throat. “This charm. Will it protect me from your magic, as well?”

Something disquieting flashes across Kieran’s expression. Surprise. Confusion. Offense.

Then all at once he understands why you must ask, and something resigned and faintly horrified fills his eyes. 

"No,” he says, the word weighted with shame. “Whatever I create, I can unmake. It is made from me, and thus cannot guard you from me. No spell can shield its bearer from the hand that spun it.”

For a heartbeat, he gazes down at you with grief in the knowledge that he is a danger to you, and you are rightful in your hesitance. 

“I cannot protect you from myself. But on my life, Ella, I have not ensnared your thoughts with magic, nor shall I ever use my power to force your will to mine. I have no desire to enchant you into false longing or steal your clarity of mind. The very idea is repugnant to me. What you choose, you choose freely. Your will is your own. And it ever shall be.”

His face is anguished. He thinks himself a monster, and now, he believes you do as well. The terrible thing is that he understands why you have every reason to fear.

Gingerly, you reach up to brush your fingertips across his jaw, and feel the tense set of his muscles, his teeth grinding. 

“I trust that you mean it,” you whisper, and you nearly feel his relief. 

Past him, all you can see are the outstretched branches of the purple willows, fragrant flower petals cascading down in a whimsical flurry. 

“It’s like a dream,” you murmur, lightheaded as Kieran bends to kiss your throat. 

“The reality of you is sweeter than any dream.” He lifts his head, casts his gaze to the branches above, and directs the breeze with but a nod. 

A swirl of buttery soft petals flutters across your skin, making you gasp. “That tickles!”

“Perhaps you will prefer this instead?” Still keeping your wrists pinned, he kisses a path across your chest, covering one nipple with his mouth. You gasp again and your body jerks, but he straddles your hips, keeping you from twisting away. Lips and teeth spark strange new sensations that you’re helpless to resist, alternating between sweet and hungry and sharp. He does the same on the other side, the cool air against wet skin giving way to exquisite sharpness as your nipples pebble.

He doesn’t stop there. He switches hands, holding both your wrists in one, then takes you by the jaw, eyes boring into you. “Do you trust me, Ella?”

Caught in his grip, you say the only thing you can. “I do.”

He leans in to kiss your lips, softly, lightly. “Then be good for me,” he whispers, light as a raven's feather against your cheek.

You start at him, unsure. What does he mean, be good? Despite how defiant you have been as his servant, when he treats you with such commanding tenderness…you find you want to please him. Not just touch him, make him happy, but…to make him proud of you, somehow. 

And you have no idea why.

There’s a soft noise like crackling of leaves, and then you startle and glance up to realize vines are encircling your wrists where Kieran is holding you fast. You glance back at him, questioning with your eyes.

“Trust,” he urges, a hint of wicked smile gracing his lips. His hand slides away once your wrists are confined by the vines, and he takes your chin in hand and kisses you deeply. “You are safe. Let me have you this way.”

“I want to touch you,” you breathe.

His smile widens. “When I command it. Not before. Perhaps later you may ask me nicely for the return of your hands. Until then, your body is mine.”

You shiver with his words as he drops his head to kiss you, slow and simmering. You don’t understand why he is like this, other than that he is Fae. And, worse, you don’t understand why you like it, too. 

His free hand slides between your thighs. 

As if he’s anticipating your reaction, he muffles the surprised sound you make with his mouth, when his knees part your legs and his fingertip grazes lightly over the entrance to your body. 

Pleasure surges hot and sudden, foreign and fierce, and your hips stutter, unsure whether to press into him or shy away with the intensity of it. 

“Shh, sweetness,” he murmurs, stroking with a touch more pressure as you whimper, your sense rapidly fleeing in the face of such lovey overwhelm. “I will not hurt you. Don’t close your legs, or I shall tie those down, as well.”

A shocked exhale escapes you - and a dart of anticipation spikes low in your belly. Briefly, you consider willful disobedience.  

His fingertip rubs gently over a spot between your legs you have never felt fill with such extreme pleasure before, and in moments you’re gone to it, a willingly helpless puppet to whatever Prince Kieran wishes to do with you. 

Then he slides lower, your skin slick with want, probing to find the source. You gasp in a new, slightly frightened pain as he explores you gingerly, teasing at your untouched entrance.

“Kieran–"

“Shh, shh,” Kieran urges tenderly, easing up a little on the pressure, then curses under his breath, his voice heated through with lust and rough with wanting. “How innocent are you, my dove? Do you even know all the myriad ways I want you? The depths of my depraved desires? No; of course not. Don't tense, my Ella. Do you know…” his fingertip presses a little harder into you, breaching your body at the barest minimum. “You know you are meant to take me here?”

Your cheeks burn but you feel drunker than you ever have truly been. Words are lost to you. All you can do is nod - with a touch of indignation. You are not a child, no matter how you must seem so to this Fae prince who must be centuries old.

“Relax,” Kieran whispers, his dark eyes locked on your face but somehow softer; his lips parted, his eyes glittering with hunger. “You are like a skittish doe. Is it so strange? Then let me accustom you to my touch. There’s no cause to fear. Breathe easy.” 

He leans in to your throat, and you gasp to feel the hot touch of his tongue along your pulse

His voice has gone dark and dangerous when he adds, with a self-pleased smirk: “I know very well what I'm doing.”

You do try. Your breath is shuddering in and out of you, every nerve attuned to where his fingertips slide against heated, sensitive flesh, testing delicate places, every now and then eliciting a sharp sound from you as you shy away from the first hint of being stretched.

Prince Kieran’s mouth is on your throat again in a flash of growling hunger, heat against your pulse.

His finger pushes inside your vulnerable opening, a swift and sudden intrusion that burns against sensitive and untested flesh, filling you completely at once. You cry out wordlessly and twist in shock at the utterly alien sensation of something inside you for the first time, the oddness of internal muscles clenching against a resistance they've never met before. 

The digit within you stills, immovable as your hips twist, not knowing if you are trying to dislodge him or urge him deeper. 

His voice rumbles deep, like something from a midnight dream, electrifying. “Good girl.”

Your eyes open through tears and see him above you, heated gaze trained on your face, watching your every expression with dark, fervent hunger. Observing your reaction like it's the only thing he has or will ever want to see again. 

It isn't pain that has you in its grip, but shock at the intimacy of it. To feel him inside your body. It’s odd and maddening and frightening and you need more while at once being afraid of what more might mean. 

You feel owned.

When your restless twisting against the vines that trap your limbs doesn't abate in a moment, his eyes briefly flash wider in surprise. 

“You are fully an innocent,” Prince Kieran realizes quietly, his voice drunk with desire. As though he's surprised.

Even with this realization, he doesn't withdraw from you.

“I did not lie .” Your voice is strange to your ears, half breathy whine, half offended hiss, and he breaths a quiet laugh. You squeeze your eyes shut, forcing tears from the corners, swallowing hard. 

"No, little dove. The fault is mine,” he murmurs, brushing a thumb over your cheek to wipe the tear away, followed by his lips - like an apology. “As I have never been so innocent as you. Nor have I met another like you in all the realm."

It burns inside you still, the slightest ache - hardly even worth the full weight of the word pain -  but the discomfort is bleeding now into need.  

Kieran's mouth is on you suddenly, his lips hot at your throat, your ear, his voice husky and wanton but still gentle, trying to soothe his earlier roughness. “Be still, love. Does even this pain you?”

“A little.” A whimper escapes, half whine half want, as his finger crooks ever so slightly, changing the sensation within you into something more urgent and shocking. A pressure you never felt until now, and never realized until now how desperately you needed it. “But don’t stop, please.”

His lips turn softer at your throat, sweet kisses of reassurance, slow and warm as he coaxes sensation from you along with cries and whimpers. 

Then he whispers an entreaty in your ear. “Shh, my sweet one. Give up the fight, for once. Grant me your trust and I will prove I am worthy of it. Be easy, and I will show you how it need not hurt to take me inside you.”

His words melt you to your core, laced with adoration you can almost believe comes from someplace other than pure lust. It's far easier to forget the untrustworthiness of Fae when they whisper so sweetly and press themselves with such gentleness inside your body.

You take some shaky breaths but they help steady you, and you concentrate on releasing the tension of your muscles. Gradually you feel a coil of tension unwind in your belly, and relax your death grip on the vines that pin you to the soft earth. You risk a glance at Kieran’s face once more hovering above hours and are rewarded with a look of darkly pleased approval.

You close your eyes again as you're overcome with feeling. He pulls out of you ever so slightly, leaving you bereft, only to push forward again, a decisive rhythm that stops just short of pressing too far and too hard, to a place you instinctively know would hurt terribly to touch. Muttered entreaties fall from your lips as the tension begins to rise again, this time utterly beyond your control and leading you somewhere you do not know.

“You take instruction well,” Kieran murmurs smugly above you, but you can't even find it in you to smart back to him. “My little dove. How unfathomably unjust that you have never been granted such pleasure before. But, selfish as I am, I must tell you how much I enjoy knowing that I am the only man to have ever touched you. That I alone have the privilege to despoil such tender innocence. I will make you mine in ways you do not yet even understand.” 

You can barely hear him, your heart pounding so, your hips now tilting to chase the feeling of him moving with shallow but steady thrusts inside you. Kieran can’t seem to stop his fevered praises as your blood races ever onward toward some peak you can’t name.

“Ah, that's so good, little dove. Your body clutches me so sweetly. But I want more from you. Open for me even more, my sweet one. Endure it for me. It should not hurt but briefly. And even in pain, there can be pleasure. Don’t fear it. Just allow me…”

You barely have time to react before he's gently pressing against you with two fingertips now, twice the width, making your body stretch more than it ever has. You cry out again and lift your head in reflex, and he's there, soothing against your cheek instantly.

“Shh, shh,” Kieran whispers, easing your head back down with his free hand. “You can take it. Breathe. I will take every care of you, my treasure, I swear it.”

You lay your head back down, struggling to breathe normally and not clench tight around him, that odd feeling of being stretched traveling further and further within you. Deeper.

Your instinct is to resist the odd, threatening intrusion, fearing pain, in an attempt to protect yourself. But you do as he says and force your muscles to relax as he presses both fingers as deep as he can go, slowly and carefully, as promised. And, as promised, he doesn’t hurt you. 

You both groan as his incursion can go no further. There is a threat of pain within you, an instinctive knowledge of vulnerable and delicate places, easily hurt. 

But Kieran seems to know these places as well as you, and despite you bracing for it, there is no pain. Rather, the pressure deep inside seems to gradually thicken, opening you wider than before as deep within you as it is possible to be, an intense visceral sensation that you think is pleasure but aren’t quite sure.

You can't control your reactions. The sounds you make, pleas or whimpers, your fingernails digging into soft fragrant soil and the vines that hold fast. You can't decide if it's odd or the most exquisite pleasure, as it feels impossible to be so full inside with only two fingers. Two. 

You know that the part of him designed for this is even larger still. You have seen it. And even then it was not the state it is in now, branding against your hip through his silk underclothes like a hot iron. 

You shiver. He is preparing you.  

His mouth is on yours suddenly, hot and needy, a fevered counterpoint to the measured and purposeful movements of his fingers inside you; a glimpse of the true passion he's barely keeping in check. You whimper against his mouth as he scissors his fingers within you again and now pumps them slowly, in and out, staying deep - the strength of his Fae-born body like iron against the tense and untested muscles that resist being parted. 

You're soon beyond reason, beyond sense. And that is when Kieran’s mouth finally breaks from yours, giving you a moment to breathe before he shifts down your body, and his mouth instead covers the tiny aching bud he has only lightly brushed with a fingertip until now.

The wet heat of his tongue and the expert pressure combined with the thickness of his fingers unerringly thrusting deep, short strokes within you are a quiet but unavoidable command. 

Pleasure rises within you so quickly it makes you feel you've lost your senses, and before you can even get breath to speak a word to tell him to stop, it's too much – you are shattering. 

You lose control of your muscles; clenching around him, your hips rising and twisting, your arms fighting the bonds in an attempt to dig your nails into his back like a wild cat. Your thighs try to close but can't as he forces them down, pinning you, drawing out every last drop of pleasure your body is capable of feeling, until it ebbs enough that you collapsed sweating and exhausted. 

He does not even begin to relent from the dual assault of tongue and fingers until you are limp beneath him, shaking with aftershocks, coming back to yourself as though your soul is returning to your body from the heavens above.

You've never known a pleasure like this. You never knew a pleasure like this could exist between two people, ever. And you realize, exhausted and sore as you already are…your body still hungers for more than fingers alone.

Kieran's mouth finally lifts from you the moment you become too sensitive to bear it, his fingers slipping from you with slow care. You are soaking wet, but it's hard to find in yourself any sort of shame.

You imagine Kieran will be unbearably smug,now that he's proven his prowess and driven you to such heights.

But he isn't. Instead he cups the back of your head and presses his lips to your forehead, your cheek, your throat, in slow and patient kisses, brushing aside a strand of hair from your sweat-tacky skin. “Good girl. I love seeing you take your pleasure from me. You fall apart so beautifully. Catch your breath, little dove, I am far from finished with you.”

You’re barely aware of your body as he positions himself between your thighs, your muscles lax and pleasure warming every sense. There is not even a thought of resistance in you anymore.

His hand is tight around the nape of your neck as he brings his lips to yours, kissing you with overwhelming force.

You break from him with a gasp of shock as you feel the hot shape of him press against slick intimate skin, silken and hot and far too big for your untested body to accommodate.

Something inside goes taut with sudden nerves. He senses it somehow, and bends to claim your mouth as distraction.

“You can take me inside you,” he says, confident and patient, as though he knows what your body can handle while you do not. His tongue dips into your mouth in a claiming kiss, a smirk briefly curving his lips. “Yield to me, for once, my Ella. Let me conquer you. You know that you want to.”

The blunt pressure against you is steady, not bullying, but still threatening. Your body doesn’t want to allow it, doesn't know how it may even be possible, fears the implications. Every muscle trembles finely like quaking aspen leaves. 

Kieran reaches between you, stroking you intimately, notching himself at the vulnerable opening that still feels tender from his earlier ministrations. 

“Look at me,” Kieran commands softly. 

Your eyes flash open to look up at him, overwhelmed and panting, to meet the patience and tenderness in his face, behind the dark hunger. There's a stark, open vulnerability in his eyes that you've never seen before. He's beautiful. 

And there's a rush of such tender feelings in you that you don't wish to name, beneath the low roar of awakened lust - trust and a desire to be close to him, to grant him the privilege of giving yourself to him, the way you've never felt safe enough to grant any other. The pain you know he's endured. The love and losses that broke him. The way you know he's tried, so many times - if often clumsily - to connect with you, protect you, understand you. 

There is a moment where you both seem to see each other, past all the artifices, straight through into souls.

“You are mine,” Kieran says. It's both a command and yet somehow, feels like a plea.

You've forgotten how to speak. All you can do is nod. 

And then he is pressing inside you. 

You bite your lip and throw back your head at the overwhelmingly strange sensation of being opened, filled , in a way that is both alien and also something you’ve realized in this moment you have been missing and wanting your entire life. 

“Good girl,” he praises, filthy and hoarse, his hips tilting toward and restlessly as though he wants to do far more. 

You whimper at each heavy pressure deep inside, twinges of sharp sensation that are both pain and pleasure.

There is a smirk in his voice, a dark urging, almost menacing tease as if he knows his words make you squirm. “Take me inside you, my sweet little virgin, and let me ruin you. Take every inch of me.” He takes hold of your chin, this thumb pressing against your lips and then past them, wedging open your jaw and onto your tongue. There's a fervent in his eyes, a heated obsession, his words beautiful and shockingly filthy. “Open fully to me, my Ella. Let me conquer you at last.” 

You whimper some entreaty, and your last shred of resistance crumbles.

Kieran groans, and then his hips push harder, faster than you’re ready for, and then he’s suddenly fully inside you as you cry out at the shock of it, struggling against the vines that bind you to the forest floor. You want to hold onto him, or perhaps push him back, keep him at bay - you aren’t sure.

Kieran’s head bows, and you can’t help looking down at the sight of his body against yours - within you - before he’s kissing you again. 

You’re whimpering, writhing, and his lips are at your ear, nipping.  

“I know, I know,” he murmurs, fervent, breathless, and darkly pleased. “Bear it for me, my darling. You've done so well. You feel like heaven itself. Am I hurting you?”

“No, sir.” The words fall from your lips, and a flicker of dark pleasure curls in his eyes at your obedience. He swoops to kiss you, open-mouthed and breathless.

He is so big, and hard, it feels like it should hurt more than it does. 

“No,” you say. “Kieran, please – my hands –”

The vines release you instantly, and you throw your arms around his shoulders, locking your bodies close. You can’t seem to get close enough, and Kieran seems to feel the same, burying his face in your shoulder, driving into you with an abandon that steals your breath.

His heart beats within my chest, you think, with sudden, startling clarity. This is the closest he’s felt to anyone in a century.

It’s the closest you’ve ever felt to anyone. 

Then your thoughts flee entirely - nothing matters, nothing exists but the two of you. The ache of him inside you, carving space for himself, making the pleasure rise within you again unexpectedly. 

You grip his shoulders, unable to help the sounds you make, unwilling to care. 

Suddenly he pulls himself up to his elbows, his reckless abandon fading into a steady, deep rhythm. His eyes wild but fierce as a wild animal; he almost glowers. “Tell me you’re mine,” he growls. 

“I’m yours,” you gasp, unthinking. “My prince, I am yours alone."

Words carry the weight of magic in Fae. 

You don’t care what you have just sworn to the Ruler of All Fae. It’s the truth.

There’s teeth in the kiss that crashes down upon you, elegant hands on your hips and breast squeezing you closer, until you forget that you are not one being, and his breath is not your breath, and that there is a piece of his heart in your chest, endlessly calling to the beast within his, and then the earth shakes beneath you both.

—

You lay your head on Kieran’s chest, listening to slowing heart as you watch the flowered canopy above drop like snowflakes. Prince Kieran brushes petals off your damp skin with idle tenderness, and a dreamy quiet befalls you both.

What have we done? you think, biting your lip. How will we go on like this? 

You have no idea what this means, the two of you. It’s impossible. A Fae only has dalliances with mortals. All the old stories say so. The happiest end a mortal could hope for is being spirited away to faerie-land, never to be heard from again. 

Why, then, did he command you to say yourself “his”? 

Fae are greedy, you tell yourself. They are selfish, and they do not share. You’re his favorite plaything for now - but you’re a novelty. And only because he feels drawn to the piece of his own heart within you and doesn’t understand why. 

There is nothing fascinating about you, not truly. Fae do not love the way mortals understand it. They conquer, they lust, they possess. And then they grow bored and move on, leaving their mortal lovers to fade into dust without another thought.

Kieran seemed different from the rest, but you musn't allow yourself to fall into such traps. 

You won’t regret this, though. If this is the singular moment of happiness you have together - if this is the course the two of you have been crashing toward since the moment you met - then you tell yourself you’ll be content with it. No matter what becomes of you in the end, you can tuck this moment away for yourself, and enjoy it for what it is.

Temporary. 

“Ella…” He lifts your chin, making you look up at him. There’s a storm brewing in his ageless eyes, scouring your very soul. His brow furrows, confused or concerned. “I…”

“What is it, my lord?”

He winces. “You need not cling to formality, Ella. Not after this.”

You suck in a breath. You’ve no idea what you were hoping to hear him say. “What’s wrong? You can trust me, Kieran. You know that, don’t you?”

The flash of melancholy passes, and he smiles and presses a kiss to your forehead, but something seems changed and distant. “Only thinking how i’ve not felt this at peace in an age. Almost…complete.”

The evening comes with a chill in the air. Kieran keeps you warm, but as the daylight fades, so too fades the glow of what you shared. An uneasy silence takes its place. 

“The hour grows late,” Kieran notes at last, somberly. Somehow, you feel him pull away from you, even while still in his arms. 

“And…we must be home, before the moon rises,” you realize. 

When the beast takes over.

Kieran’s lips thin in reply. 

You both rise and dress, but try as you might, he does not meet your gaze again. You’ve somehow become awkward and unsure of each other. 

He leads you to the carriage and hands you inside. But he does not join you. 

Instead, he closes the door, and you lean out of the window, concerned. “Are you not accompanying me?”

Kieran fixes his gaze toward the woods. “I will make my own way home. I…must take time to consider what this means.”

A fist of fear grips your heart. You knew this couldn’t last, but must it end so soon? And so suddenly? “But…”

Could he truly have used your body for just some momentary entertainment? Some escape from the monotony of his curse? 

You didn’t think him capable of such a thing. But then, you know little of men or Fae. 

Kieran murmurs to the horses. “Take her home.”

Before you can speak another word, the noble beasts obey their master, galloping off to deliver you home without him.

Chapter Text

Ella's distraught face as the carriage stole her away haunts Kieran as he heedlessly stalks, fists and teeth clenched, through the woods. He crushes the glowing flowers beneath his boots, seeing none of the beauty around him.

None of it compares to the beauty he had just sent away from him with such callous cruelty. 

With Ella gone, the world is empty of colour.

What have I done?

He’d ruined a naive and innocent mortal, that's what he'd done. A servant in his care, under his protection, who, even now, wears the collar he'd crafted for her. 

Even though he had altered the magic, offered her her freedom, and she had foolishly refused - of course she had, the headstrong fool - he should have made her go. Ordered her away. He had the power; why had he not done so?

She is the mortal, and he the prince. She is his responsibility. 

That she refused to return home when he commanded her to go, that alone proves she is too innocent, too trusting to survive this realm. And Kieran had taken advantage of this misplaced trust.

She doesn't understand, even now, the danger she is in every moment: from Radiance, from himself, hell - from every living thing in this realm. Kieran had taken on responsibility for her at the moment he called in her life debt. Doubtful Ella is even aware of the fact that the laws of Fae which bind servant to master also charge Kieran to protect her from harm. It is a matter of both law and personal duty. Even ensconced within the walls of his palace, she is not safe. The danger of the beast that lives inside him - both the very literal one, and the one that he cannot blame on a curse, but on his own faults alone.

She doesn’t understand this world. She doesn’t know what is best for her, nor who to trust. 

And yet he gave in to his worst impulses. Surrendered to temptation.

Despite how low Kieran had fallen, he had once thought himself better than this. 

He had tried, at first - to scare her, keep her at arm’s length, keep her busy inside the palace so that she would find no time to escape its walls.

Apparently she lacks all instinct for self preservation. And he is no saint.

A naive girl. An innocent.

He had crossed the boundary between prince and servant, between mortal and Fae. Destroyed it, utterly. He hadn't cared at the time, of course. Quite the contrary; her innocence inflamed him. Knowing that he was the first to touch her? To see her unobstructed beauty laid out beneath him on a bed of flowers, eyes wide and trusting, giving of herself to him utterly with no concept of what heights he could bring? In all his memory, he had never wanted someone so desperately as in that moment. Had never been so hungry.

He is a monster. In every sense of the word.

Why can he not control himself around this one girl? This one silly, foolhardy, good-hearted mortal? 

Because of her lovely face? Every face in Fae is one of stunning perfection. Kieran had seen nothing but faultless faces in all his years; one could even grow bored of such beauty. Fae are drawn to beauty as ravens to a shiny bauble. It is a fault in their blood. Faekind’s endless fascination with lovely mortals, with their odd quirks of features and their fleeting little lives, are regarded as a natural, forgivable fault. A bit embarrassing, perhaps, but a fact universally understood. Every Fae is susceptible, and prone to succumb, at some point in their long lives, to that one mortal that inflames their entire being.

Perhaps Fae are drawn to those with a beauty bestowed by nature or skill instead of glamour; perhaps it is the novelty of knowing their beauty will change and fade despite any power Fae holds. That a mortal is changeable and temporary is part of what makes them so endlessly, insatiably interesting.

But then, Kieran has always been drawn to the imperfect. Sir Monty’s age-lined face, wrinkles etched from laughter and knowing smiles, the gradual whitening of his long beard, has ever been a comfort to Kieran. Longclaw’s kind eyes translated through the eyes of a ferocious bear are somehow less threatening than that of a fellow Fae. Even the vines that grow and blossom through the crumbling walls and foundations of his palace hold a wild beauty that holds a certain appeal. It’s why he’s never troubled himself to remove them. 

Kieran has never been wont to act as the others of his kin, taking in wayward mortals that wander like guileless children into the realm, entrapping them with honeyed words like silk from a spider’s web, using them up for their beauty and naivete, amusing himself as the Sun Court so often did, enchanting them to humiliate themselves as courtly entertainment. In the past, Kieran had barely deigned to conceal his disgust for the things he had seen at Sun Court revels. 

Kieran has never considered it possible that he is just as base and low as Radiance. Until now.

No. He refuses to accept the truth in front of his face: that Ella is more than just a temporary mortal orbiting his crumbling palace.  

But why?

He stalks through the forest in no particular direction, furious with himself, the crushed flowers he leaves in his wake encrusted in frost despite the mild evening. 

He has no answer for himself. 

She is lovely, to be sure. She is kind, to a point he finds almost grating. But Longclaw is kind. And Kieran had even found Lustre beautiful, once. 

So why has his every thought turned to Ella these past days? Ever since the moment he had stumbled across her in the woods, about to become a meal for a hungry wolf, his thoughts fly to her each night, taunting his dreams.

The Moon Prince does not make it a general habit to go gallivanting through the furthest reaches of his woods, rescuing damsels in distress. Kieran avoids the border of his lands unless trouble called.  But his beast had driven him there to the border of her village night after night, restlessly seeking a heart piece he has yet to recover. 

If it had somehow been taken into the mortal villages, inside their iron-studded walls - built by ancestors who had learnt of the Fae weakness after much battle and bloodshed, and apparently forgotten by their descendants - it would be lost to him. Even his accursed beast cannot cross a circle of iron.

The sky darkens. Soon the moon will rise and his thinking mind will be overtaken by a mindless beast, his body transformed against his will until the damnable moon retreats at the first rays of dawn.

The irony has never been lost on the Moon Prince, how the Moon is his prison guard, and the Sun, his saviour.

It is partly why he had to send Ella away alone this evening, though he knew it would cruelly wound her. If they had ridden home together, and been delayed on the journey even a half-hour, what would become of her, trapped in a carriage alone in the woods with his beast? 

No. He could not have risked it. 

But there is another reason, his traitorous mind whispers.

These past days, Kieran had tried so hard to keep his guileless lamb of a mortal from the walking heedlessly into a violent death. And yet, it was not his dark inner beast that had proven to be most dangerous to Ella; it was his true self. His selfishness. And a spark of desire that had been banished to cold, dead embers for century. 

He had taken advantage. That was without doubt. He had allowed a sliver to show of his most base nature and darkest needs, to dominate and wholly possess in every way a Fae could 

And yet he had not felt that desire in an age. Why her? He can only keep asking himself the same question. There is no answer. 

He had seen many mortals before, of course - the Moon Court once boasted an entire host of mortal servants, though his mother had always made a point to note that her court employed only the willing, and did not enslave the unwilling. Kiearan had only ever taken his pleasures from other Fae. Never a mortal. It was allowed, of course, by their laws - of course it was, Fae were never in the habit of denying themselves pleasures of any kind. But his mother had taught him respect for mortals, drilled into him the inherent imbalance of power in such relations. And Eisa made sure her son knew that just because he is a prince - especially because he is a prince - he must never use this power over those weaker than himself, unless they meant him harm. 

It is shameful. Beneath his station.

And he never had. Until tonight.

Had he forced her? No, he does not think so. She has her free will; he made sure of it. No one could enslave her with Fae magic. Her mind is, and had been, her own. And her body…she had offered willingly.

But had it truly been free will? Or had he, unknowing, used his power to sway her in nonmagical ways? Coerced? Beguiled? How much could such a naive, inexperienced mortal truly refuse her Fae master?

He knows his faults well. His mother, tutors, Sir Monty, Oleander, and even Lustre had never let him forget how arrogant, stubborn, demanding, and intimidating he could be when he put his mind to it, nor how beguiling and coercive he could be when he wished it.

Kieran replays the night’s activities in his mind, not allowing himself the pleasure of reviewing the more pleasant of the memories - not yet, anyway. 

Had he, even in some small way, coerced her?

She had been afraid. He could see it in the trembling of her fingers, her wide eyes, those parted lips. He had raised his voice and been forceful. Yet she had advanced on him all the same. Practically dared him to tell her he did not want her. 

Of course, he could not lie.

“Perhaps I enjoy being afraid. When it’s with you.”

Damn it. 

He is no better than any mortal man. 

But…she had asked him to show her other worlds. 

No. Kieran shakes his head. He should have refused. It is his responsibility to look out for her safety when she could not. 

Yet he had not been strong enough to refuse. Not strong enough to resist the enticing pull between them that had only grown stronger the more she challenged and baited him. She had sat on his lap mere days before, flirting, touching him, pretending to be his fiancee. He had felt the slight weight of her body, the heat of her skin through the thin silk skirts, felt the shape of her through the ribbed bodice. 

He had dreamt of her. More than once, starting from the very night he had brought her home. Vivid, wicked dreams, where there was no charade of a divide between them, no issue of rank or class, just her bare limbs and loose hair against the sheets, her breathy whimpers as he touched her in ways he could not in the daylight.

She had been an innocent, and he had tied her wrists with vines. He had injured her - if not in body, than surely in mind or pride. Surely she’ll wake with bruises, sore. 

A twisted part of him deeply enjoys the thought of her body bearing the marks of his possession.

What must Ella think of him now? A selfish ass. A brute, surely, no better than Radiance.

Especially after sending her away.

But it is done, and it cannot be undone. 

Darkness casts the glowing forest around him into an even more magical sight. Blossoms pulse softly, like lavender fireflies in the quiet, cold air. 

But it is lonely. Without Ella, what is the point? He hasn’t enjoyed beauty, or warmth, or anything at all since the night his heart was broken. Only those few minutes with Ella had he felt any reprieve from this cold, colourless century.

If only Ella could see this grove at night. How her eyes would have lit up at the sight of it. He imagines it now: the awe of her expression, the reflection of the glowing flowers in her dark eyes like a sky full of stars, the matching flowers of her gown transforming her into the fabled Akari herself. Perhaps through her eyes, he could find enjoyment in it.

Something about her eases the hollowness inside, anytime she is nearby. That is why he can’t stop thinking of her, wanting to touch her, to find more of that sensation which is always so maddeningly just out of reach. Whiffs of what it might feel like to be whole again, anytime she is within his presence.

And it cannot be.  He shakes the thought away. He will lose her, come Spring. He spoke true: She still does not deserve to be trapped in this realm with a heartless prince.

There is nothing that can be done for it. Her desire to help break his curse is kind, but naive. She can be no more help to him in this than she was in the Grand Hunt. Worse, it would only put her in more danger.

Flashes of memory kept breaking through his furious self-hatred and despair. Flashes of her bare, unblemished skin, the way she'd shivered at his touch. Her wide, trusting eyes as she watched him take liberties with her and did not try to stop him. The blush in her cheeks. Her fingers dancing shyly across his skin.

The way she'd felt in his arms afterward, spent and overcome. So lovely. So fragile.

He had not done that with anyone in an age. Not since he realized that he felt nothing from the act of love anymore. 

But with her…

Why? What is it about her? Is he truly so close to finally piecing together his heart that he is now gaining some limited ability to feel? 

And yet it is only in her presence. She is the only thing in his life with the power to part the clouds of his endless night.

But whatever it had been, it is already fading now that she is gone. The madness that overtook him gives way to cold clarity.

He had seduced this innocent, kind-hearted fool. She truly must think him a monster now, to take her as he had and then send her cruelly away 

Or, worse…he had conned her into believing he could give her something he did not yet have the ability to give.

Kieran tore at his hair. “Damn it!”

What is he to do now?

He has not wanted anything more than vengeance and to be while again for a hundred years. But in that moment, holding Ella's beautiful, vulnerable naked from in his arms, he had been overcome by the trust she had in him. The faith she had put in him. Her fierce, if misplaced, loyalty to the man who had trapped her. 

And in that moment he had come to a sickening revelation.

He does not want Ella to return to the mortal lands. He wants to keep her. His, entirely, for the rest of her short life. Selfishly, he wants to keep her all to himself, each moment of her fleeting life his to enjoy. Sating himself with her body once would not be enough. He had not satiated himself tonight; rather, he is now all the more impatient to possess her, again and again, a thousand different ways to debauch her.

She could be both earnest sweetness and sharp as steel. She both submitted to him and challenged him; he wished to subdue her, punish her, and praise her in equal measure. 

He wants to be worthy of the trust she placed in him this night. Wants to show her that he was once not the broken man she sees before her. That he is a man of his word, that he is strong enough to protect her from this world. He longs to impress her. To shock her into silence. To command her to her knees and watch her obey.

Prince Kieran, all-ruler of Fae, wants to prove himself worthy of this orphaned mortal’s devotion.

He desires to show her every wondrous corner of his realm and uplift her from her small, mundane world, to see it all new and miraculous through her eyes. He wants to evoke the childlike awe and delight he had seen in her today at such simple delights as the festival could boast. He desires her.

The way she has looked at him… from beneath lowered lashes in deference and glaring in well deserved rage, to burning passion, to fragile, open-hearted trust. The way she looked up at him from her knees, cleaning the wine she had spilled on him on purpose. He could still recall the moment he had challenged her to dress him or leave his rooms - the eyes had darted to the door, the way her teeth bit her lip just briefly, before she gathered her indignant courage and took up his challenge quite literally.

He had been delighted, amused - then briefly, dangerously furious that a mere mortal dare mock him so. He could have crushed her skull. But he did not want to hurt her - he wanted to make her submit to him. He had wanted to own her. To coax submission from her, carefully, tenderly, forcefully - to make her want it as much as he did. To earn her submission.

His darkest urges, never far from the surface these days, surged forth like never before. He needed to get own, to possess, to jealously guard that which was his and keep it all to himself. If she had given that look to Radiance, he would have damned the laws to get revenge.

But there was no sport in owning a terrified, innocent mortal who begged for mercy; it made him feel unclean, no different than Radiance; disgusting. With Ella, he felt some answering call within her, when his desire to possess her rose and peaked. As though she wanted him to take her..

If he could prove himself worthy of her.

This is the spark that makes Ella like no other. In all his years and all his travels, no other partner had responded to him in such a way; not with artifact and falsehood, pretending to give the prince whatever experience he desired from them. No, Ella made no move to appease him. She was always wholly and stubbornly herself. Even against her better judgement, she could not help not hide the way her body reacted to him.

And then, at the Magpie’s…her in that dress, the way she had so boldly placed himself in her lap as though he were a tame pony and not the heartless, ruthless high king of all Fae.

A temptress without even realizing what she was doing. In over her head, but delightfully, amusingly so.

He wants to see her look at him like that every night of his life. To rise to the challenge in her eyes, show he is worthy of her surrender - steady enough for her trust, faithful and strong enough to protect her. To prove himself better than others of his ilk.

But she would have to choose that life herself, for there is nothing in him that desires a mindless, curse-addled slave in his bedroom each night. He wants Ella's fire as much as her sweet surrender, her nervous and hesitant yielding. 

It means something only if she should choose him, and life in his cold and crumbling palace, his failing Court.

And she will not. 

And she should not.

Above, a raven caws. Kieran does not even look up.

“Go!” He barks the order with bitterness.  “I need no escort. I will find my way alone!”

“Alone,” the raven mimics gutturally in acknowledgement. There is a lilt of mockery in it.

A haughty flapping of wings marks Kieran’s solitude once more. 

The sky grows dark. There is not time to return to the palace. 

With a howl of frustration, Kieran feels the feathers break out across his skin, as always an unsettling prickle like a thousand minute thorns piercing through his flesh at once. His hands twist into talons. 

The monster is clawing its back back to the surface to steal away his body and his mind.

Kieran stalks off in the opposite direction of the carriage. He must put as much distance as possible between Ella and the beast before he loses all sense of himself.

I will find you come morning, Kieran promises the image of Ella’s forlorn face in the carriage window, haunting his memory. 

Kieran has hardly known the feeling of guilt in all his many years – indeed, he has only vaguely memories of the heavy weight of it, his cursed heart unburdened by any emotion of its kind for a century. The emotions of a child, humbled before an angry mother, chastised and shamed for misusing his power on someone weaker than himself. The emotion is foreign now, though the memory remains.

And yet, curiously, it is this particular memory that bubbles to the fore in his last sensate moments, just before his thinking mind is subsumed beneath the wave of raw, vicious instinct of the insatiable beast within, before it takes off into the night in search of the last pieces of its heart.