In the deep tunnels beneath Marcas' castle, darkness encroaching against the light of a few sparse wall torches, Lorcan paced the floor, the knuckles of his fists livid red against white as Marcas confirmed the truth of the rumor Lorcan had been adamantly disbelieving. "She acted without orders, Lorcan!" Marcas yelled. "I - didn't – authorize – that!" Several chips of stone fell from the stone wall as he slammed his fist into it with each world. "She acted like a jealous, love-struck fairy and cost us a decade of carefully laid plans. Jareth chose her on a whim, so I had to do the best that I could with simpletons!"
"What the flaming Tech Duinn are you telling me, Marcas? Our only spy is dead? How in the thrice-damned corpse of Donn are we to proceed in our plans, Marcas, if the only tie to intelligent action has been brutally exterminated by the king himself?"
Marcas flinched as the sarcasm, harshly intonated, ricocheted off the walls. . News of Cara's death had spread far and wide: Jareth had made an example of her, according to the hushed whispers, and while the details were murky, his informants reported that it was said to have been particularly brutal.
"This wasn't my plan, either, Lorcan!" Marcas made a conscious effort to relax his fists, which were spitting purple sparks of magic. The other man didn't answer, his voice an incoherent tide of rage and oaths. "There are still ways, ," Marcas said loudly, his clipped tones rising impatiently over Lorcan's furious curses. "Nothing is impossible; you know that. We'll alter our plans and find another way. We've encountered blocks before, and we have overcome them. This is no different. From what my sources tell me, Jareth's little pet had agreed to rule beside Jareth's side when she accepted her magic from the Labyrinth. She has not, however, accepted anything else, including marrying my brother. This presents a unique situation."
Lorcas grabbed one of the torches and flung it against the opposite wall, splattering slick oil and clay in a cacophony of echoing shards. " 'Another unique situation?' Jormunand's molding scales! Am I to trust the squeaks of your wide-eared little rodents yet another time, Marcas? It was your little pet – Cara, was it? – that was ripped to shreds, after all, and she was supposed to be highly trained and obedient! Instead of staying hidden and sniveling behind those walls, she bungled the crudest of assassination attempts. And, don't forget, had she succeeded, our only weak link to Jareth's magic would have been exterminated! By a mouse! Trust your sources? Ha!""
Lorcan clenched his hands in his dark hair. His normally attractive, heavily chiseled face was twisted in a rictus of agony, and there were beads of sweat on his face, highlighted by the firelight. His eyes were cat slits of anguished fury. "My people are dying under the Seelie Law, Marcas. DYING! Do you understand this at all?"
Marcas recalled the day that their father signed that degree. All magic stemmed from the Labyrinth, and by exiling the Unseelie beyond the reach of the Tohu Mountains, it was effectively a mass execution. What little magic the Unseelie possessed as their meager birthright had been slowly rebelling against their bodies into uncontrollable chaos, and eventually, the vastness of unmade space. It was a slow Unmaking, with no cure and no immunity. Not even for children.
"We never disrupted or attacked the Seelie court before the Decree!" Lorcan yelled. His boots shattered a wobbling shard of clay as he made another abrupt about-face down the cavern, but his punishing pace continued. "And yet they sentenced us to a slow, painful death by pushing us away from not only the light of the Sun but the Moon as well? It is nothing short of genocide, not that anyone in the Royal Court cares," he added bitterly. "Not as long as they live comfortably with families and hope."
"You think I don't care?" Marcas interjected. "My entire life has been dedicated to this, ever since my 'all knowing father' let the stupid child's game of a maze's dictates rule the entire Underground! This is not my fault"
"I don't fucking care, Marcas," Lorcan hissed. "You have your pretty pride and golden scepter up-your-ass heritage. We need to live within the Underground, which means we must succeed in this if we are to live! We couldn't care less about your father – or you, if you fail us!"
"My father was the entire one who set this idiotic Decree in motion, and I—"
"I don't care! Don't you understand? You are the only one who will listen to us, and with us, we die! There are families and clans at stake! If you cannot deliver your vows to us, we have no choice except to try to survive by war. War! Massive, bloody, war! Our sons are barely strong enough to stand in the dawn. And you tell me now that you've staked all our hope for a – damn it all, moderately - peaceful resolution upon a lovestruck simpleton serving the King's human mistress – and try to mollify me when she is summarily executed for an unauthorized assassination?"
Patience, patience, Marcas told himself. He has the army you need. Without him, you are one. With him, you are a legion. Control his temper. Feed his anger, make it useful.
He laid his hand on Lorcan's shoulder. "Which is why, my friend, we must not lose hope. We have lost so much. Our future is still within reach. This is a minor setback, nothing more. Do not lose the light of the stars!" He patted the tensed muscles. "Calm yourself. All is within control—"
"Control? Your weakling of a brother has more control over his minions than you do. At least he doesn't count their deaths so cheaply! I would have better luck appealing to him than to you, it seems," he spat. "Perhaps the young son is the worthier vessel after all."
He turned to walk away, but the Seelie Fae slammed him up against the wall. The scones flared white-hot, making Lorcan's Unseelie dark-accustomed pupils shrink painfully in the heatless dazzle of light. Marcas was very still, his forearm unforgivingly rigid against Lorcan's throat and his eyes suddenly as cold as his father's. "You forget where you are, Lorcan. You forget our allegiance will only bring success if we maintain a certain level of trust. That trust is the mutual hatred of the Usurper, my brother, and my people – not only the Fae – suffer under the same lash and therefore the same yoke. We pull together, or not at all. It is because of Jareth that I lost my throne. A freak of nature disrupted my plans to finally bring justice for your people, and my own. No one should be discounted because of their inability to control chaos. It is my sole purpose to restore balance and equality among us, and to carry out the birthright of harmony and balance between my people as was always intended!" He paused, breathing heavily.
"Yes," the prince breathed, "Jareth no more knows how to rule than that human puppet, and yet he is decreed monarch in a single day while I, and my training from infancy, am spurned? Ha! My 'little mouse' suffered a lamentable lapse of self-control, but she was but one pawn on the chessboard. She was ultimately meaningless. Her information, however, was not. I am still trying to obtain communication with Lavena, Jareth's former lover. If there's anyone who hates him more that I do, it is she. She has power and connections, Lorcan, and we can fan that smoldering hatred into an inferno of our own directing. She has seen the abuse of power, for the sake of more power, firsthand. She knows what it is to be cast away simply because a more highly-cut jewel has been thrust under another's nose!"
Marcas caught himself and looked at Lorcan, whose pale face was still deathlike and pained in the torchlight.
He abruptly released the rigid grip on the other man's shoulders, walked three steps away, then three back.
He replaced his hands on Lorcan's shoulders, this time in a firm, brotherly clasp. "A monarchy should not be decided by power, but by legitimate capacity to rule. This is what I promised you, Lorcan, and it is to that vow I hold. Do you truly think Jareth will be more merciful when you cannot even stand in the full light of day because of your mother's heritage, let alone hold your own in the Royal Court amongst those who have been accustomed to favoritism and elitism?"
Lorcan's upper lip drew up in contempt and his eyes hardened. "Three thousand years you have promised me these things, Marcas," he said, his voice low and soft. "For three thousand years, there have been naught but empty words. Jareth's past lover has protection almost as impenetrable as his own. You've been trying for over a millennia to pass a simple message to her. Very few of the servants of the Seelie care for themselves, Marcas, let alone dare to climb above their station and fight for their past-kin! A decade's worth of planning at the crucial moment of weakness has moldered and utterly disintegrated within a few days. Marcas, you lost a pawn from the board while your opponent has quite literally gained a queen. Meanwhile, the corpses of my family's children fall to dust before the first fingers of flame can touch their bodies! Tell me how this benefits us!"
After a tension-wrought eternity in which Marcas made no reply, Lorcan began to pace again. Marcas realized that there was now a sharp dagger in the tenuous strand of unity he had worked so hard to achieve with his cautious and jaded ally.
It was undeniable. They needed a new strategy and a new line of access to my brother's "co-regent."
It suddenly hit Marcas like a charging war horse. It would certainly be more dangerous, yes, and more difficult to execute, but it would certainly work.
"I have an idea," Marcas said quietly. The plan was forming in his mind, a master builder's wet dream of false doors and unexpected twists. One might even call it labyrinthian in its cunning. There was an irony; would the maze of the mind outweigh the trickster's illusions?. "Now that Sarah has accepted her magic from the Labyrinth, we cannot force it from her. However, it can be given freely."
"And how do you supposed we do that?" Lorcan asked, bitterly.
"Why, Justice and Liberty, my friend" Marcas said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "The Abovegrounder's have razed countless empires to their foundations. Why oughtn't history repeat itself now? With the most noble of intentions, naturally."
Lorcan dared hope. "Justice and Liberty."
"For all," Marcas confirmed. "For the children."
Sarah opened her eyes in what was, she decided, her new favorite way to wake up: limbs tangled with the Goblin King while he slept completely vulnerable beside her. She ruminated on that thought for a moment: this all-powerful, magical being (who, for some reason, was interested in her) let his guard down completely while near her.
The concept quickly turned sour when she thought about all the other women that had shared his bed. All of the women who had been exactly where she was at the moment. It turned her stomach in a sudden rush of jealousy. She knew she had no right to feel that way, but she couldn't help it. He'd said he wanted to marry her. He said that he'd want to have children with her.
But he'd never told her that he loved her.
Those words had never been spoken to her, even though she'd said it to him. Only once, her brain reminded her.
Still, he'd told her that he hadn't touched a woman in the ten years that he'd known her, and she had no reason not to believe him. That thought was a little more comforting than she wanted to admit.
He stirred then, hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her closer; Sarah hissed as her muscles protested the sudden movement. Jareth's eyes flashed open, and then the corners of his mouth slowly curled up. Sarah felt the sudden urge to scrub that smirk off his face with the blankets.
"And how are we feeling this morning, Precious?" he asked lazily. His tone made the question obscene rather than courteous.
"Sore," Sarah admitted, then frowned in surprise at how hoarse and raspy her voice was. She'd screamed quite a bit the night before, but still!
"I could fix that," he said lifting himself up on his elbow, slowly pulling at the sheet that had tangled its way around her body. "I could make that delicious ache disappear…" He trailed off as he examined her creamy skin. He ran a finger across a particularly dark bruise that had formed in the spot where her shoulder and neck met where he'd bitten her.
Sarah winced, and the faint smirk on Jareth's face turned into a full-on grin.
"Something funny, Goblin King?" she asked, closing her eyes and unconsciously giving a moaning purr as he ran a finger lightly down the column of her neck.
"Not at all," he whispered, pulling the sheet lower on her body, exposing her breasts. The new expanse of skin showed more dark smudges; he'd been rough with her the night before and her body told the story of how rough. Through the entire night, she'd screamed his name, but then again she'd never asked him to stop. "I enjoy seeing my mark all over you – much more than I'd thought was possible."
Sarah opened her eyes and looked down at him dazedly; his eyes were almost black when she finally met them. "Your mark?" she asked, semi-incoherent. He growled, something primitive and feral and possessive that vibrated in his chest; she could feel it in hers. He lifted her hand to show her the bruises around her wrists from where he'd held her down. He moved the sheet lower, taking in her long legs, looking especially happy when he revealed a bruise in the shape of his teeth peeking out from the inner portion of her thigh.
Sarah's eyes widened as she took full inventory of her body. Some viscerally female emotion stirred in her belly, something fierce and satisfied. She – she – had driven this wild, roaming Fae insane and caused him to paint his unequivocal stamp of mutual ownership all over her body. She bit her lip to keep an answering, smug smile from forming there.
"Oh dear, I was terribly thorough, wasn't I?" he murmured, his voice still a low, dangerous rumble. "Are you angry? I can apply a glamour over them or heal them directly."
"No," she answered slowly "People are definitely going to talk, but, no, I'm not angry." Sarah didn't want to admit it, she was brought up thinking this kind of thing taboo - some illicit thing that wasn't spoken about, something that good girls didn't do, but she was perfectly fine with the way he used her body the night before. She was perfectly fine with the evidence of his passion in the story written all over her body. Anyone she came in contact with in the next few days would, if they didn't already, know that she was his. The night before was an exercise in trust – and she did trust him. Implicitly.
Though she wasn't exactly sure when she'd started referring to herself as "his".
"Good," he growled, re-situating himself on his back against the pillows. "Because you are mine," he growled, as if he had read her thoughts. "I would also prefer to leave them in place so that everyone in this kingdom knows you share and belong in my bed. But that is not a look becoming of a queen, and so I will heal them. Later. As for right now…" he trailed off, his eyes raking across her body. "Right now, I need to be inside you." He sat halfway up on his nearer elbow, his hands making a slow, hemispherical track from her shoulders to rest on her hips.
Sarah was surprised at the small moan that escaped her lips: he'd barely even touched her. Her body seemed was already tensing in delicious coils, ready to be coaxed to explode. She shifted, rising to her knees, and straddled him. When his erection brushed her opening, Sarah took a moment to torture him by tilting her hips away and instead rubbing her moistening folds over his length. This was payback for the night before: he'd driven her crazy, and she saw no reason not to exact a little vengeance. She ground down on him, the pleasure sparkling like fireworks from the friction, even as she denied him the same.
"Sarah," he growled. He'd used her name, the command for her to move implicit in his voice.
"Slowly, Jareth," she cooed, grinning. He sat up then, his grip on her hips bruising as he forcibly lifted her up, and, reaching between them, fit the head of his erection to her entrance without further delay. Sarah gasped but still did not relent, denying his demand, instead opting to hover over him, swirling her hips in circles around the sensitive head of his erection until he could take no more. He bucked his hips up, while simultaneously using his grip on her hips to yank her down onto his considerable length.
Sarah moaned loudly, her head thrown back, her long hair brushing the backs of his hands. Despite the insistent beginning, he allowed her to choose her own pace. She slowly lifted her hips, like slow-motion riding during a trot gait, then centimeter by gleaming centimeter, taking him back inside her again. Her hands rested on his stomach, nails digging a little every time he filled her. Jareth, in her opinion, did his novel best to be gentle, to keep the slow, languid pace she'd set, but Sarah could tell he was reaching his breaking point as his grip tightened on her hips every time she lowered herself, sheathing him inside her body.
Sarah grinned and slowed down even more until even she could barely register the slick rasp of skin against skin.
"Sarah," he growled again; this time, the warning in his voice was much more dangerous.
"Yes, Jareth?" she asked innocently, her hands sliding to his shoulders to balance herself as she leaned forwards to hover her lips above his. Her jet-black locks created a curtain around them, and Jareth took the opportunity to coil one around his finger.
"Are you directly disobeying an order from your king?" he asked, voice quiet and a flush on his high cheekbones.
"My king?" she echoed with a grin, deliberately riling him up. "I haven't sworn fealty to any monarch that I can remember."
That, apparently, did it.
The rumble in Jareth's chest wasn't unexpected.
The voracity of his attack was.
He sat up, arms wrapped around her back, gripping her shoulders to hold her in place while he lifted his hips and pounded into her. His head dipped to the same spot he'd admired earlier, and nipped her there again. Sarah yelped, which gave him the perfect opportunity to cover her mouth with his. His pace quickened and so did her moans, only to be immediately muffled with his mouth.
Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck, hands tangling in feather soft hair as she wretched her mouth away from his, placing kisses along his jaw, his neck and shoulder. Her voice dropped to a husky whisper in his ear. "Harder, Jareth... I'm so close," she begged him.
"Your Majesty," he growled back at her.
"What?" she asked through the haze of her impending orgasm.
"Harder, please, Your Majesty," he demanded with a sharp thrust of his hips. Sarah screamed with what was left of her voice; she was sure that entire wing of the castle could hear her. He kept his pace, slamming himself inside her. "I want to hear you say it, Sarah-mine, or I swear to the gods I'll stop right this minute," he threatened. Sarah panted against his shoulder, not answering, until he stopped moving completely.
Sarah lifted her head from his shoulder to scream or beg or cry, but he was unrelenting. "I want to hear you say it, Sarah."
Sarah, chest heaving, realized he was not kidding. He wouldn't move until she complied. She cupped his face with both hands and never broke eye contact with him.
"Please," she whispered, dropping a soft kiss to his lips, locking her knees at his hips. She tried to lift herself, but he had already anticipated that and held her in place. Another soft kiss, which he returned, smiling against her lips. "Please, Your Majesty," she begged again. He didn't move, his face impassive as he watch her through hooded eyes, but he did loosen his grip on her hips, allowing her to lift herself slowly and lower herself onto him again. She shivered, repeating the action a little faster, hands gripping
his shoulders for balance. It wasn't long before Sarah was ready to implode, not getting enough friction, too slow, not deep enough, she whimpered and dropped her head back to his shoulder.
And bit.
Hard.
There was a brief moment where neither of them moved. Other than ragged breathing, there was no sound. Then, quicker than Sarah could track, she was on her back, Jareth above her, driving himself inside her almost violently. "Jareth, please," she begged, digging her nails into his shoulders, down his back, anything to get him closer.
"Anything for you, my Queen," he replied, driving into her until their hips met, his hands lifting her to meet his thrusts until she screamed his name, not caring about anyone in that wing of the castle or throughout the entire kingdom hearing her.
"Jar-" she didn't even have time to get the word out of her mouth again before she exploded, her magic pushing out against him with enough force that Jareth gasped before following her over the edge.
It took all of his strength to sit up, pulling her against him before running his finger across the newly irritated bruise, he leaned in and kissed the purple spot, healing it. He lifted her arm, kissing her wrist, while Sarah watched the dark shadows disappear; he repeated the action on her other wrist. She could feel his magic caressing her skin like a soft breeze as he ran his fingers down her torso, fingers brushing the outside of her breasts before stopping at her ribs; Sarah didn't need to see, but felt him healing her from where he'd gripped her tightly the night before. She watched lazily while his finger traced a trail down to the spot on the inside of her thigh before she grabbed his wrist, looking up at him. "Leave that one," she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes.
"I do like this side of you, Precious," he said, surprised and clearly quite pleased.
Her face flushed, a small smile playing across her lips. Jareth reached out and lifted her face, so their eyes met. He placed a very gentle kiss to her lips before frowning. "As much as I would like to stay here, we both have a very busy day ahead of us."
Sarah wrinkled her nose. "What do I have to do today? And are you sure that I can't persuade you to stay?" she said, tracing her finger down his chest. Jareth's eyes widened, only partially faking his shock.
"Sarah, have I corrupted you completely?" he asked, covering his mouth with his hand.
"Shut up," she said with a laugh, swinging her hand as though to slap his chest.
Jareth caught her hand, eyes gleaming. "Assault against a monarch? You are in a mood this morning."
"I thought you said we have a lot to do today," she said, changing the subject.
He placed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. "We do. I have meetings all morning, you have a history session with Earnon, and I have to meet with planning committee so that we can present you to the court. Afterwards, you have magic training with our healer and fencing with me. As I said: a long day for both of us," he said, and sighed. "Although I must say that I've never in my life wished for an opportunity to skirt all of my responsibilities more than in this moment. Nor have I wanted to spend an entire day in bed with someone." He smiled. "Alas. Come on, Precious. Time to do Queenly things."
Sarah groaned, shifting off the bed, and Jareth after her. He stretched like a cat and Sarah watched, head tilted, committing every muscle to memory. He grinned when he caught her looking and gave a lewd, playful wriggle of his hips before striding toward his bathroom. Sarah gasped when she saw the state of his back.
There were red marks from the back of his shoulders to his waist, some deep enough that dried blood was around them.
"Jareth! Your back!" she yelped. She stumbled after him and ran a finger across a particularly nasty welt.
"What of it?"
"It's … did I do that?"
Jareth shrugged. "I can't imagine how anyone else could have done it. In fact, I would have anyone else beheaded for such an attack." The corner of his mouth quirked up to take any possible rebuke out of the words.
"I… How do I… My magic," she stuttered, both an apology and plea to know to heal him fighting for first priority.
He placed a finger over her mouth, silencing her. "To answer your questions: no – you can't heal me. Not yet. That's why you have training with the healer today. Yes, I did feel it – it would have been impossible not to. Yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I could heal myself. If I wanted to," he said raising his eyebrows at her. Sarah nipped his finger, something he'd done to her several times and smirked.
"I suppose I should go, then. I'm sure Aine is waiting," she said, scrunching up her nose.
"Undoubtedly," he said dryly. "I'll see you this afternoon, Precious," he said before disappearing behind the door to his bathroom.
Sarah sighed and limped her way to her chambers, trying to rehearse what she would say when her handmaid recoiled in shock at her appearance. No, Aine, I wasn't mauled by a savage tiger in the night. Just your prim and proper King. Discussing protocol with your prim and proper Queen. She tried the words out in her brain. We came to a mutually satisfactory arrangement of the, erm, assets we bring to the table.
Damn, she thought to herself. I should have paid more attention in Foreign Affairs.
