We were Ysvelda's Four. Her favorites. Her confidantes of the night and her consorts. It was not an easy job, nor a hard one. We merely gave her our loyalty and she, our queen, gave us everything.

Midmorning dew settled on the panels of my bed curtains, adding a dazzling ethereal glistening to the saffron silks. It looked as if Queen Mab herself had been to grace the fabric with fae magic.

I smiled, pleased with the night's dream and of the prospects of the day that would follow my morning wakening. Stretching out from under the soft cashmere of my coverlet, I heard a slight tapping at my bedchamber door.

The air outside of my curtained bed was chill and brisk, evidently Alice had slept in again. Opening the door softly, and seeing a lad dressed in Ysvelda's livery, I smiled, careful to put as much charm into it as though he was my queen.

"La-La-La-Lady Wy-Wy- Wynter," he stammered, his eyes flitting from the polished stone floor to my breasts, which were standing quite out from the air.

"Lad, might you come in and start the fire? It is so dreadfully cold in here. Perhaps then, after some warm tea and bread, you might speak with me? I am sure your captain would not mind your helping me." I shivered for added affect and he nearly rushed in and headed to the fire place.

He was a light blonde haired lad, perhaps a foot messenger …. That would make me 6 years his senior . . . he wasn't bad looking either, I mused, tying on a sheer over gown over my amber sleeping gown. Yes, he would certainly prove a delight to have around, once he got over the stammering… Plus, a pair of strong arms, a well formed body, and his youth would help fight the cold on wintery days.

I leaned over his shoulder, careful to let my breath touch his exposed neck, "Might I have your name, kind sir?"

He turned slowly, nervous, the hairs on the back of his neck on end, towards me. He looked at me briefly and turned away, swallowing thickly, "I am no knight, Lady. I am just a messenger for the queen."

"Just a messenger? You seem a good deal more than that to me. And I would like you to call me Wyn. You are?" I smiled, sitting beside him at the hearth.

He sat down more firmly, allowing me to draw nearer, "Lark. My name is Lark."

I briefly traced the insignia on his forearm, the silver stitching bore the hammer of a blacksmith. "Lark, are you from a blacksmithing family?"

He nodded," The youngest of four brothers."

"Well, I am glad. If you were the oldest you wouldn't be here and since you are the youngest, you are here. What color are your eyes?" Asking these questions, I worried, might make him guarded, but what do boys know of guarding themselves from women. Women like us, women like me.

"Lad-Wyn, you ask many questions, why? Why do you want to know about me?"

He spoke to the coals in the fire, his hands twisting his gloves slowly, revealing a small singlet.

I sighed, "Honestly, Lark? I am lonely. And you, I like you. You're not like everyone else I meet- not caught up in titles and the like. And honest. I've overheard people say that about you."

He smiled, glancing up through his hair with his simple brown eyes towards me and back down to the floor. I stand and offer a slice of bread from a platter perched on a table of iron. He stands and takes it with a soft giving of thanks. Our hands brush and I take the moment to draw his head down to mine, fingers deftly tangling in his flaxen hair. I whisper in his ear to meet me later, the chambermaid shall let him in.

He smiles broadly, knows my meaning as I seal the promise with a less than chaste kiss to his lips and a nearly wanton pressing of our bodies.

Alice enters the room and he clears his throat, his hands firm upon my waist. His eyes flicker towards her and its clear enough, he is shy.

I release him and draw away. "Thank you for your help, Lark."

In Ysvelda's chamber, I enter upon a scene of her and the others.

Camden hangs upon her, draped nudely across her sheet wrapped body. He twists and pulls her breasts kneading and nipping her throat as she coos in a coy manner. It is the same nearly every time.

Brayen leans against a wall post, his only stitch of clothing a pair of pants that tightly grip him in an external skin of chocolate. Dark brown hair and matching eyes match my own, as he is my half-brother and he seems pleased to have me arrive.

And Lucian, he sits upon Ysvelda's bed, silent and almost brooding in a loose shirt of ink. Lucian was set to be killed a year ago and has since charmed his way into Ysvelda's bed.

She smiles limply and shakes Camden off, sauntering towards me with a hunger that only I can satisfy. She wants a woman and that much is clear. Her green eyes seem to bare me on the spot, despite I have come dressed in a gown of saffron and walking over gown of sheer black. I pull her to me and allow her head to fall towards my breasts, as she presses her mouth there probing and nipping and suckling through the fabric.

I pull her to a side chamber, our chamber, with a view of the gardens and a small servants' hall to my room. She follows me, her hands drifting from breast to lips to hips to bottom in a frenzy of want.

I smile, Camden may be the favored man, he may bring her to this point of unexplained, unvocalized want, but only I can do this to her. Only I can finish her off and bask in her arms, receive her adore. That is the gift I have as her favorite.

In my chamber she nearly tears off my gowns, and does in fact destroy the outer gown as I kiss her fully on. Her mouth is warm, wet and soft. Her hands are soft, yet rough in her ministrations and they are everywhere.

I lay her there, in the pooling sunlight of my terrace, on top of a cushion of gauze and admire her beauty- the flecks of gold in her brilliant red hair, the deep green of her eyes and the pale, freckled skin that is soft, pliant, and womanly. She is aging, it's beginning to show in the elasticity if her skin and the lightening of her fiery mane, but it makes her more than the wanton waif she was when we were younger. It makes her mine, 12 years mine.

I stoke her legs, and gently trace the curvature of them. I watch her rapt expression as she gazes at the flowers I have had fixed so that none may see our dalliances here outdoors. Her breast glow in the light, like freckled milk and the nipples are peaked in rosy areolas and they look like they will soon need attention.

And I note, as I lean over her exposed body, that her body is ready, she merely awaits me to pleasure her. She looks up at me, a gentle smile tugging her lips. "Wyn, I will never get over that look you get when you see me. That look of absolute wonder."

I look into her eyes and smile, "Ysvelda, I know you worry about you age. But I must confess, every moment I am near you I fall further in love. I love your body, your hair." I lay a hand across her hips and dip down towards her vagina, aflame at the scent of her sex oozing like nectar from a flower. "and," I whisper, " every time I do this, I want you more."

My fingers dance lightly, tracing her warmed vaginal lips , like one entranced by the overt rosiness of it all. The lips are swollen and the slight curls glisten in her nectar as my fingers part them and press up and down along her entrance, feeling the slightly bumpy skin. Her sex quivers as I take her bud in my mouth and draw on it slowly and lightly nipping it. My fingers find her vaginal hole and enter her, feeling her clench against them like a vice. She is soaked and warm. I lick and nip and twirl the bud in my mouth, tasting her salty nectar and swallow it, creating suction on her bundle of nerves.

She rises off the gauze and locks her knees around my head as she quivers and shakes like an earthquake. A flush of her sex-liquid rushes out, like a damn that comes overfilled and takes over all in its path. She screams out a fraction of my name, and falls back limply, her breath heavy and moist.

Ysvelda looks dazed, as she gazes skywards and her body trembles in aftershocks long after I have left her entrance to lie beside her. She continues to shake after I cover us with a light blanket and I hear a soft song escape her lips. And her hand reaches to pet my body as she coos, "Wyn, my Wyn. My love."

And I grin as I pull her close under the fabric because I know I am her love. I have been long before her husband's death. I killed him, I should know.