Lily sat with her father at breakfast the next day, full of guilt. She'd told Jack that she would meet with him that morning, but knew that she could not face him. Excuses ran through her head, I'll tell him I was ill, or that father asked me to go riding with him, but realizing that she was deciding what lies to tell her most trusted companion only made her feel worse. She'd never lied to Jack before, and now, after everything they'd been through together…
"Lily darling, what troubles you so?"
Lily started, looking towards the man at the head of the table. "Nothing, father. I haven't been sleeping well."
"Then what troubles you so that you cannot sleep? I will not have my only daughter wandering my castle looking so glum, it tears my poor soul to see it."
"I'm sorry, father," she said, putting on a small smile for him.
He smiled back at her, perhaps a bit sadly. "You look so like your mother these days," he said. A long sigh escaped him then and he folded the fingers of one hand under his chin, looking at her thoughtfully. "When did you become a woman, my little princess?" Lily's smile faded.
"Father…"
"Lily, I know that a young woman your age will start to crave more than the halls of her childhood. I've kept you isolated since your mother was taken from us, and that may have been a mistake. I know that you sneak into town, and out to the forest beyond." Lily tried to respond, but he raised a hand to stay her. "Truly, Lily. I'm not angry. It's my own firm hand that led you to disobey me. Your mother's adventurous spirit is what I loved best about her, and here I sit stifling that spirit in you. It shames me to think on it. "
Lily was at a loss for words. They sat in silence for a moment before the king continued, "It seems high time for a ball, don't you say? We haven't had a ball since before your mother died."
"That sounds lovely, father," she said, trying very hard to mean it. She'd always loved the big courtly parties, but something in her father's tone twisted her gut.
"I think, my dear, that we both need something more."
"More?"
He sighed deeply once again, running a hand over his lightly graying beard. "My daughter is a woman grown. You'll marry soon, Lily, and I have no other children, no sons to inherit my land." Lily's heart thrummed an anxious tattoo behind her ribcage. No, no, not this, she thought, but hadn't she known it was coming?
"And if I don't wish to marry yet? Or if I wish to marry for love, or remain in my home?"
"Lily…"
"You wish to be rid of me now, so that you can remarry. I would be in the way."
"Lily stop," he said sharply, then softened his tone. "I wish for both of our happiness. You have been melancholy, confined here, and I have been lonely. I'd wager you have been also."
I have Jack, she thought at once, but in the same moment realized that she had been lonely, for some time now. Jack has always been enough, she thought desperately, how long has Jack not been enough?
"Though you protest, I believe well that once all is said and done you will be glad for it." Her father laid his hand atop hers, and she did not pull away. "In any case, you need not marry immediately. I'm only asking that you consider suits offered. I've already had Lord Chedrick's eldest ask for your hand-"
"Father!"
"-and I've replied that he may attend an upcoming event so that you may evaluate him for yourself. I will not force anyone upon you, Lily. I only ask you to be reasonable."
Lily sat, taking calming breaths. He was right, she realized. She didn't want to spend her life on these grounds. She was lonely. And, looking at her ageing father, he was a powerful man with much to lose and no companion but his ornery daughter who had less and less time for him as she grew older.
"I'm sorry, father. You're right. I'll attend the ball, I'll consider my suitors. I don't mean to cause you grief." She turned her hand and clasped his, squeezing.
"Thank you, Lily," he said, relieved. "I love you. You are even more precious to me since your mother was lost." He leaned towards her, "The heart that has been broken loves more fiercely because of it. You will find a great love, I know it."
Lily's breath caught as dream images flooeed her mind, images of crimson flesh and curving ebony, images that she desperately trird to stifle.
"But Lily,"
"Yes, father?" she choked out near a whisper.
"Lord Chedrick has very large tracts of land and several prolific copper mines on them."
Lily laughed. She couldn't help it, the tension of the morning ending on such a banal note pushed her into a slight fit of hysterics. She laughed in short, staccato breaths that left her eyes misty and when her father joined in she laughed harder. They finished their meal quietly, companionably, and the rest of Lily's day passed quietly also.
As soon as Lily starts to feel herself drifting in the inky sea that has been her only dreamscape for months, she opens her eyes and he is there.
He is looking at her with such intensity that she nearly feels herself blush, the fire in his eyes restrained as he stands and waits for her reaction to him. She stares at him for a long moment, all of a sudden unsure of what she had wanted to say. She had wanted to say something.
"You are here with me in truth, are you not?"
"Yes," he replies simply, and though it is not proof enough, she knows it is as he says. She has known since the beginning, she realizes.
"You terrify me," she says suddenly, honestly. "And you confuse me. I don't understand you, I don't understand any of this."
"I think, Lady, you understand more than you admit to," he says, and he is stepping slowly towards her, tilting his great, monstrous head close to catch her eye. The way he stands with one arm behind his back, at a bow to level himself speaks of nobility. There is elegance in him, grace in the gestures of his fearsome hands.
"I don't understand myself with you."
He is silent at that, but his long fingers sweep her jaw and his warm breath ghosts along her lips. She should be horrified at his proximity, just as she should have been before, and yet she leans closer. Something in her wants and though she knows that it isn't, she repeats to herself only a dream, only a dream, only…because it gives her the strength to lean in just a bit more until her lips brush against his in the softest of kisses.
He is all fire and sin, and Lily's gentle touch stirs his hunger in ways that startle her. He returns her kiss with ferocity, enveloping her in hard flesh as his arms band around her. His embrace is overwhelming- the heat, the sheer animal need of it.
Lily clings to him to ground herself, to keep herself steady as her head swims. His lips are persistent, desperate, the barest tip of his tongue seeking hers, curling into her mouth. She feels feverish, dizzy, intoxicated by him. Lily finds herself squirming in his grasp, not to get away, but to pull him closer, to press more of herself against him. Her feet dangle as he lifts her and her legs wrap around his waist, and she is shocked by the heat of his bare, sculpted abdomen against the core of her. She cannot help squeezing her thighs tighter or rocking her hips just a little against that heat, the vibration of his answering growl sending pleasant tingles through her.
His arms are moving, touching her all over. Hands tipped in sharp claws grasp at her flesh, pulling her closer, greedy for her softness. Lily is vaguely surprised at her own behavior, but something in him calls to base desires she barely knew were within her. Only a dream, she thinks again, aware that she is lying to herself. Repeating it helps her push past her hesitation, helps her forget should not while her arms tighten around his neck and her ankles lock more securely around his middle. It helps her forget her guilt as she kisses this Lord of Darkness as she has never kissed her forest boy, while she strokes his solid shoulders and allows him the leverage to shift her pelvis down as he pushes up and suddenly the heat is so much more.
Her moan is sharp, startled as she feels the hardness between them. His mouth moves down, kisses at her throat, sharp fangs dragging, tongue laving a burning path to her collar bone. He mouths away what might be a garment- there are only shadows here, clothing them both- and nips hard at her shoulder, sucking at the skin and moving back to her lips.
His tongue is more forceful this time, drawing hers out in a passionate dance. Somehow he has snaked one hand between their chests and his palm is pressing up on her breast. His fingers shift until a thumb grazes her nipple, flicking over it until it tightens and the nerves are singing and she moans again, prompting another movement from his hips that steals her breath. The hand on her breast moves to her thigh, stroking upwards, shifting a skirt that she has never noticed is as light and ephemeral as smoke.
It is all too much, far too much, though she cannot seem to get enough of him. The hand on her thigh moves further and just brushes the piece of her that aches the most and she jumps, whimpering. His raw sensuality, the bestial masculinity that calls to a primal womanhood that she is only just discovering in herself is suffocating her, trying to swallow her up. Lily struggles to pull back enough to whisper, "Wait," and there is only enough time for her to catch his dilated eyes before she feels herself pulled away. His look is pained, and the noise that echoes after her into consciousness is frustration and lust and sadness...
Lily awoke before the sun in a sweat, sheets tangled around her legs. Immediately she pressed her hands between her thighs, trying to push down the ache there. She clenched her knees together, feeling the slip of her slick skin and trying to ignore the pounding of her heart.
She lay like that for several long minutes, willing her nerves to calm without success. When finally she gave in and touched herself in the way that her body screamed for, she tried to think of Jack. Lily had done this before, always thinking of him, imagining how his touch would make her feel, hoping that one day they would be so intimate with each other, chasing something that she didn't understand and never quite found. This time, she could scarcely keep his face in her mind before her thoughts slipped back to strong arms and a hot tongue tousling with hers, to that brief touch where her hand was now.
At once Lily stopped trying to picture Jack and let her mind wander to her dreams of the dark king crowned with horns and bathed in glistening ruby. She thought of his scorching mouth on her skin, the gentle prick of his claws. She rocked against her hand as she remembed rocking against him and had a spare thought for just how much larger than her he was. It was frightening and thrilling and drove her to push herself harder, faster, following sensation towards something until she was breathless and tense.
Such strange thoughts to be having, and yet she could not conjure an ounce of shame.
Something inside of Lily coiled and released, the peak she had always been chasing, what the sense of urgency that drove her questing fingers had ever been pushing her towards. She squeezed her coverlet between her knees as she rolled to her side, her hips twitching subtly. It wasn't fair, really, she thought as the pulsing in her belly subsided. She'd wanted her happy ending with her hero. Tears slipped from her tired eyes before her body calmed.
When Lily rose, she stared at herself in the looking glass until she saw the bruise on her shoulder, angry red scratches framing it on either side, a jaw's width apart. Only a dream, she thought ironically.
She refused to let her maids dress her that day.
When Lily refused Jack's greeting kiss, he was immediately concerned. She told him, softly, that her father wished her to marry soon.
"Lily," he objected, holding up his hand. Her ring was still on it, snug on his left pinky. "You said-"
"I know what I said, Jack, and I meant it. With all my heart, I meant it." She placed her hand on his chest and he covered it with his own, though his eyes refused to lift to meet hers. She had meant it, when she'd said it. "But I speak rashly, often. My father would never allow it. He is lenient in some ways, but not enough to let me marry outside of the gentry." She winced a bit and stuffed down the guilt yet again. She was very nearly certain that that was still true. "Remember what I told you that day in the meadow, when you returned it to me?"
Jack looked down at the ring, thinking of her words and how now, they sounded like goodbye. "To remember you by," he said resentfully, understanding.
"Yes," she replied softly, "I didn't realize then that we'd have to part this way, but I should have. I suppose I did in a fashion, after everything. Life is rarely so considerate of our desires."
Jack looked suddenly uncomfortable at her mention of their harrowing adventure. He never wished to speak of it. Lily sighed.
"Would you be happy, Jack, living in a palace, dressed in finery?"
"Lily…"
"No, Jack. Truly. Consider it. Your wild heart would break over the years and it would be my doing." He was silent, still looking downwards.
There was something else she'd told him that day. Something else that she'd known but refused to look too closely at. Something proven by her mistake with the unicorns, and shown to her again and again every night in dreams. I learned something about myself, she'd said, and something about you.
"You belong here," she whispered, kissing his temple. "I don't."
"Lily, wait," he implored, looking up at her for the first time since their conversation had begun, "I love you."
"I know you do, Jack, and I love you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she choked out, falling against his chest. He held her as she sobbed, rubbing her back until her guilt finally pushed her away. Lily turned back towards the town without looking at him, ignoring his protests and shaking him off easily when he laid a gentle, staying hand on her elbow.