I won’t appear to her as the cardinal again, that game is dead. But for the next forty-eight hours I have to keep an eye on her, be near her or I’ll lose my ever-loving mind. No problem, I can watch her from afar while the sun is up but it’s not going to be easy.
After all I’d tried to do, in the end she was the one to change her fate. As my balls calmed down I limped into the bathroom for another frozen shower, wondering why everything seemed stacked against us. Why all that could possibly go wrong, suddenly was. A cacophony of fucked up shit. Now even the water was too much against my skin. Fuck this!
I calmed myself as I turned off the water with the thought that I’d walked with her in her dream, had spent the last couple of days with her in some way or the other, and though I’d been shielding, she knew part of my essence now because of the bird and was somewhat familiar with it.
Not to mention my mark on her neck that was even now helping to forge the bond between us. I guess I’d bitten harder, deeper than I’d intended, because I barely stopped short of breaking the skin. Any harder and I would’ve left my permanent mark on her before we’d even fucked.
Just the thought of her and fucking in the same breath was enough to set my cock throbbing again and I looked down at my disobedient member in disgust. “Would you quit that shit?”
“She’s not someone we can just fuck and bounce, she’s your new owner, but if we don’t do this shit right she can fuck us over royally. There ain’t enough icepacks in the world to fix what she can do to us.”
He seemed to calm his ass down in fear and gave me some peace and quiet so that I could think about what I needed to do next. I’ve been trying to get myself use to her as well, trying to become familiar with her scent and being close to her so that when the time came for me to take her I’d have some reserve.
Even when I slept with her in my arms the night before as hard as that shit was on my cock, I still believed that I could handle things for both of us if it came to that. But sensing her body readying itself to breed has put all my efforts to waste.
There’s nothing that can stop me taking her now, not that there was much choice of that to begin with, but now that I have her scent, now that I’m already halfway to gone over her because of our chemistry makeup, knowing that she’s in the prime position to take my seed is like adding gasoline to a full blazing fire.
I pulled my mind back fast when my thoughts were making me edgy. If I give into those thoughts too often it might spell disaster. So instead I thought of something else, like the days after our first mating and all that will follow. The tiring task that awaited us both as the crown prince and his princess consort. I’m going to need to keep my mind filled with all of that to help me out here or she’s fucked.
I feel almost sorry for her because even though we’re nowhere near where I wanted us to be, her time has run out. I’ve got to put her under me soon before I go into total fuck mode, while I still have some semblance of control left, for her sake. Because right now she’s in imminent danger. Her damn egg had dropped while I was on her shoulder!
I didn’t hardly sleep it felt like before I was rolling out of bed again. My dreams had been filled with her so I was restless when I woke up, restless and hard as fuck. My dick was at the end of his rope and I know any minute now he’s going to start showing his ass.
I was in a pissy mood and I knew it but it couldn’t be helped. For the next few days my life is going to be a special kind of hell with her body betraying me like that. She’d be lucky if I don’t take her down and mount her on sight.
I sat on the side of my bed with my head in my hands as I tried to organize my thoughts without sex interfering with my every thought. The fucked up thing is that I can’t find release elsewhere, not now that I’d found her. My mind retreated in revulsion at the thought before I got to my feet to get the day started.
I could feel the restlessness of the others before I even made it downstairs a little while later and the way they stayed well away from me, just watching my every move as I made my way around the room like a caged tiger told me that they too knew the time was near.
Their whispers were like a swarm of bees buzzing around my head, as if they forgot I could hear them. I mind rolled my eyes as I played with the glass of cognac Dennis had slipped into my hand before disappearing again.
“Get away! I don’t need you to monitor my vitals. She’s my mate, I won’t hurt her.” My uncle jumped at my harsh retort and I began to wonder if they thought I’d already lost my mind. They went back to their whispering, this time trying to judge if I was more terse than usual. No need for any more guessing as to who sent them here.
“Would you lot stop that shit?” I couldn’t order them to leave like I wanted to because I was now aware that it was my grandfather the reigning monarch who’d been the one to send them here. Anyone else I could overrule, including my own parents, but not him; more’s the pity.
The call to dinner was a welcome relief only because it meant that the sun had finally gone down completely and I would soon be able to go out into the night after her without fear of singing my ass in the recalcitrant sunlight.
I didn’t touch the alcohol that was now sitting next to my place at the table and barely picked at my dinner while I waited for darkness to cover the sky. Vespasian was the youngest and the only one who wasn’t afraid to approach me at the table while the others sat way at the other end like they were expecting me to do something; what that something could be I have no clue. Old people!
“Uncle…how long?” He looked around at the others before whispering that question to me. Oh to be young and dumb. He’s about a hundred thousand years old and green as a new mowed lawn. “They can hear you buddy!” I wasn’t about to tell him that I only had forty-eight hours left instead of ninety-six.
At least twelve of those forty-eight hours were already gone and now I’m starting to second-guess myself. Maybe I’d left it too long after all. Maybe instead of appearing to her as the bird I should’ve gone to her as her man from the very beginning. Too late to worry about that now though, the die has already been cast.
I called out to her in my mind and found her sitting alone in the window of her room. She was startled at my invasion but I did my best to calm her. ‘Are you okay?’ Shit, she felt like two separate beings. One was shy and reserved and the other was peeking out at me from around the corner. That would be the nymph.
“Did you really imprint on me?”
“Yes!” Her eyes widened at my straightforward no nonsense answer and she breathed in hard as her panic started to rise. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, you know how this works right? If you die I’ll be in pain for the rest of my life. Do you really think that I’ll hurt you?’
I could see her giving thought to my words but the fear was still there. ‘But the last time…’
‘We’re not them; I won’t harm you, but Natalia, I can’t give you much time…I’m going to take you soon…’ She slammed the door shut but I guess she’s not too aware of my powers because she didn’t seem to know that I could still see her. Something I just might keep to myself for now.
I let part of my mind idle there, keeping an eye on her, while with the other part of my consciousness I thought of the best course of action. Every once in a while she would spike and I’d feel that shit. I could see that damn egg just floating around in there, teasing me, egging me on, pun intended.