A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 27

Days seemed longer when they were consumed with silence.

Duncan worked hard to keep a gruelling pace as we travelled through Durmain’s landscape. I couldn’t speak on behalf of his body, but my feet were numb, my limbs aching to the point of feeling as though they’d given up on me. Not once did Duncan slow. Even if I picked up my pace, gritting my teeth against the discomfort, he always stayed ahead.

Nights were the worst. We were curled into balls with nothing but the jackets upon our backs for warmth. Still Duncan didn’t speak. I wanted to say something to him, to spark a conversation just for the chance to hear his voice; the thought of it was all-consuming. But as time went on, it became more difficult to know what to say.

Duncan was stubborn, which only pulled the string of tension between us tauter. I could recognise that we also shared that in common. Father had once referred to me as a mule; thinking back on it I had the urge to smile. His nickname at the time was a way of mocking my childish, stubborn tendencies; now the memory warmed my chest. Stubborn as a mule , he would say through fits of laughter. I wished I laughed alongside him. I would’ve given anything to hear him say it again.

So far, the weather stayed mild with clear skies, but the chill of winter was persistent nonetheless. It didn’t bother me, but I could see it effecting Duncan, chipping away at him slowly.

We had stayed clear of any villages or towns we had come close to. With the threat of more gryvern, it was best we didn’t bring them to the doors of humans who were unknowing and undeserving. Which meant food was limited to the little that Duncan had brought with him in the pack draped across his back. And no more alcohol. It was a reckless mistake, one of many.

I wouldn’t make them again.

Even when he offered me something to eat or drink, it had been without words, just an extended hand, held out long enough for me to silently take his offering. In hindsight they were perfect opportunities for me to say something to him.

To thank him at least.

I kept quiet and so did he.

The third day had been particularly full of persistent walking. Most of the terrain had been through woodland, rarely opening up to a rolling hillside that looked over Lockinge miles away. The previous two nights of short, broken sleep had at least been under the comfort of trees which gave some protection from the weather.

As night fell upon us it was clear our luck had run out. I’d been kept awake, from both the howling winds that tore over the exposed landscape and the rasping breaths that came from Duncan who was buried beneath his jacket in hopes of some protection. I felt his physical discomfort to the exposed elements as my own internal uneasiness that’d haunted me through the long days.

I crawled across the frost-claimed grassland and placed myself neatly behind Duncan. He was far taller than me, but I nestled my crotch into his behind and wrapped my arms around his side. Even through his leather jacket and thick tunic I could feel the violent shivers that overcame him.

As I had in the attic of Nathanial’s church on the first night we arrived, I used my magic to draw out the cold from his bones. Duncan stirred. It was a wonder how he even slept in such conditions without magic flowing through his body.

His deep voice broke the night and shattered me into countless pieces. “Finally.”

I held onto him tighter, fingers gripping into his chest as I clung to him as though the winds would simply tear him away from me. “You’re so cold.”

“I have never f–felt better,” Duncan rasped, teeth chattering. His hands, frozen like ice, laced within my fingers and held me close. “Don’t you dare l–let me go, Robin.”

Pressing my face into his back, my smile tugged at his leather jacket, relief warming my insides.

“Tell me you don’t see me with the same hate those in Ayvbury did,” I pleaded, having convinced myself that was why Duncan had not spoken to me for this long. “I need to know.”

Duncan groaned, pulling himself free of my hold as he rolled over to face me. Even in the dark I could see his features. Deep, forest-green eyes. Scarred, handsome face. I laid my arm over him as he snuggled so close to me that his nose was inches from mine.

“Is that what this has all been about? Your distance. Your attempts at pushing me away?”

“Says the man who hasn’t uttered a word to me,” I replied.

Duncan released a tempered breath, a misted cloud forming beyond pale lips. “Something you need to learn about me, Robin, and fast, is that only I can decide what lingers in my mind. And hate for you is not a possibility. Not anymore.”

It was at that moment I realised that Duncan believed I had been ignoring him. Instead of facing the tension, we had let it consume our minds and fill them with negative thoughts about one another.

“Then what?” I asked.

“I worry for you, day and night.”

Duncan didn’t need to say it, but I knew the origin of his concern. Because the closer we got to Lockinge, the more dangerous it was going to become. “If what you said about me being a royal, and the Hand’s interest, is true, I should be safe.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Duncan said.

“What about the Below? Surely if the fey are all still alive there, they are somewhat safe?”

I hadn’t questioned the Below in a long while, not wanting Duncan to know the new reason I was using him. It hurt to even admit that was what I was doing.

“Death would be kinder than a lifetime beneath Lockinge castle, in a prison where you are treated like cattle.”

Shock creased my face, noticed by Duncan, who trailed fingers down my cheek. “You have me. No matter what happens, I will find a way to get you out.”

“You should hate me. You have hated me. I represent the very people who took everything from you, just as I was the cause of destruction in Ayvbury. Why look at me any differently now?”

Our noses touched as he leaned into me, sleep narrowing his eyes into slits. “I see you, darling. Not how you see yourself in the reflection of those who don’t know you. You are gentle. You are concerned. In all my years I’ve never come across a person able to shift my mind and beliefs, but here I lie in the arms of a fey. Your arms. Robin, you’re no monster. I’ve seen monsters, I’ve faced them. But when I look at you, I see the vulnerability of humanity. That’s it.”

I lowered my gaze, shocked by the fingers that found my chin to hold it in place as I tried to break eye contact.

“Don’t look away from me, Robin. See the truth in my eyes. Go on, I dare you to look beyond what you think people see and learn what they actually see. What I see.”

My entire soul quivered beneath his touch. A touch I had fought hard to stop thinking about these past few days. “I don’t think I’m brave enough to pretend.”

“Try. Do that for me,” Duncan said, holding my chin in place. “Tell me what bothers you? What fills that mind and punishes you? Let us face your inner demons together. You may be scared of them, so allow me to be fearless for you.”

I paused, the intake of breath shuddering as I readied myself to reveal my truth. And slowly I let it out, one terrifying word at a time; it didn’t hurt as much as I believed it would.

“When I am with you, I feel close to them,” I said, voice buried beneath the winter winds that raced across us.

“Who?”

“My father and mother.” It hit me, the reality of their story intermingling with ours. Maybe that was why I drew so close to Duncan, like a moth to a flame, ready to burn in his fire. Because it was my grief making history replay itself. “There’s so much of their story I don’t know nor will have the chance to ever understand. But my father, like you, fell for someone they had been taught to hunt and hate. You both changed your way of thinking. Being with you makes me feel as though I understand them more than I would have if my father had the chance to explain it to me more. I have to believe, that if my father can change, you can change – the humans can to.”

“You think I have fallen for you?” Duncan asked, making my cheeks burn red. His forefinger and thumb still gripped my chin, touch gentle and caressing.

“By the sounds of it I don’t think I want to know your answer to that question,” I replied, wanting nothing more than to change the subject for fear of hearing how wrong I was.

I was in the midst of punishing myself internally when Duncan leaned in. He pressed a kiss upon my lips, and I melted instantly. They were dry and chapped, but the connection was nothing less than pleasurable. I closed my eyes, enjoying every second of his touch. His fingers let go of my chin and instead cupped my cheek as he held me close.

When he finally pulled back, I could’ve cried out in frustration.

“If I admit that I’m falling for you, then I almost accept that the ground I’m to meet will be terrible and unforgiving. But yes, Robin Icethorn, I have fallen. For you. All of you, despite the inner voice that screams in protest. I know better now and ignore it for you are far superior to anyone I could’ve ever imagined. Which is why I don’t want to do this – why I want you to change your mind and turn back.”

My stomach jolted at his revelation. “But that will never happen.”

Duncan’s gaze darted across my face, eyes searching my reaction with keen interest. “Vengeance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Robin.”

He still believed I did this for Doran. In a sense, I did, but not to the extent Duncan first believed.

“Do you hear yourself, Duncan? It seems like a lesson you should heed.”

“It is.”

Silence, once again, clashed between us, threatening to draw us further apart like a vicious tide receding. But this time Duncan refused the distance. He was the one to speak first, shattering the quiet with loud, demanding words.

“Don’t hide from me anymore. Say something, Robin,” he begged, fingers tracing my cold cheek. “No more silence between us.”

I couldn’t fight the smile that tugged at my cheeks, or how my chest warmed as his words still spun through my mind like an unrelenting hurricane. “And what is it you want for me to say?”

“Well.” Duncan traced his thumb down my face until his touch ran across my lip. “If there was any time to tell me how you felt then there’d be no better opportunity. Or are you afraid to bare yourself to me, Robin? There’s no one listening. Just me and you. Not even the stars will judge you.”

I looked skyward, taking in the glowing balls of light speckled amongst the night sky. “Are you too ignorant to see what happens to those I care for? Think harder and you will understand why I keep my thoughts to myself. I don’t wish to see another person I care for used as a weapon against me.”

Erix had been on my mind a lot over the past days, haunting me with happy memories, burying the monster he’d been forced to become.

Duncan lay there, fingers still upon my face as I spoke, brows raised above his dark, all-seeing gaze; he hardly blinked for fear of missing the way my face changed during my confession. “So, you do care for me?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” I said softly.

“Not a single detail. Robin, stop fearing what could be, and enjoy what is. Doran, Erix, those are names which you can forget in time. I’m not as expendable as you may be used to. I will never allow myself to be used to cause you harm or pain.”

“You say that now.” Erix hadn’t wanted to be used by Doran, he had no choice in the matter. I certainly never saw it as a possibility, until his hands took the life of my father, controlled by the bidding of a crazed man. “Time will tell what’ll become of you and me. We are both equally foolish to keep pretending that our… whatever this is, will carry on when we reach Lockinge. Even Father had the chance to tell me how terrible it is for a Hunter and a fey to fall for one another. He gave up his life, his physical appearance and who he was, just for the chance of being with my mother. And look where they both ended up.”

Six feet under.

I shivered, and not from the cold; from the honest and scary fact that our feelings were nothing but trouble. This would never last.

It was Duncan’s turn to be lost for words. He let go of my face, hands falling beside him. I lay still as he turned onto his back, staring up at the dark skies. I was ready to hear him agree with me, to tell me that I was right and this stupid, childish relationship we’d found ourselves entangled in would have to stop before it ended in death.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Duncan did what he did best and surprised me. “I never had anything to lose before you. No family. No friends beyond the ones I used to get the position I’m in today. Then in a matter of days, all that changed. I cannot speak for how you feel or how you wish to guard yourself from the world. But I know, with such burning and irrefusable fact, that I’d do anything not to risk losing the one thing of importance to me.” Duncan turned his head, dark hair falling across his cheeks but not enough to obscure the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “If you tell me you want this to end, then it ends. Here and now. No matter how it will hurt, I will do it for you. But if you are brave and wish to face the risk ahead by my side, then I will do it too.”

I couldn’t deny him, nor myself; even if my mind told me to refuse him, my heart demanded the opposite. “Do we have a plan then?” I asked, voice meek.

Duncan exhaled through a smile, tongue tampering with his lower lip as he rolled back over to face me. “We?”

I nodded slightly, wanting nothing more than to take him right here, right now, with the winter frost sprinkling over us. “A wise man once told me that having someone to fight beside is as great as having something to fight for. You are that someone. So, about that plan?”

“I have ideas.” But those never came as Duncan’s lips crashed into mine, his cold touch frantic and desperate. He rolled me onto my back, strong arm holding himself up above me. Drawing away from my mouth, he replied. “We have time for plans. For now, I want you.”

I giggled, hardly caring for how exposed we were, or the clear discomfort the cold had put upon Duncan. “Now? Here?”

“Let the stars watch. I will give them a show, one they have never seen before.”

He dipped back down, body brushing my own as he kissed me deeply, my mouth spread open by his tongue, his hands rubbing up my sides, tugging my jacket upwards.

I found my own hands moving without command, gripping long, dark strands of hair, fingers buried through them. My legs wrapped around his waist as he bore down on me, pressing me into the damp earth we rested upon. Breaking away, I gasped for breath with tender and wet lips.

Duncan pressed his forehead to mine, equally flustered and breathless. “Roll onto your front for me.”

Duncan’s voice was full of command; he could have controlled the stars themselves.

I did as he asked, welcoming the return of his monstrous power which I’d craved since our last encounter back at the church. His expression was smooth as he watched me turn over. When our gaze finally broke apart, I felt a fiery thrill course through me. With my cheek pressed to the crisp grassland beneath me I could not see him, only feel him.

“Is this what you do? Pour your heart out and then fuck?” I asked, voice muffled by the ground.

Duncan’s greedy hands ran up my legs, gripping into my skin through my trousers as he reached my arse. “I fucked those who meant nothing to me. You deserve far more than that. I will worship you with every inch of me. Devour you entirely. But first you must tell me, Robin… do you want me?”

I raised my arse upwards, pressing it into his crotch, his hard cock greeting me instantly upon contact.

“I will take that as your answer,” Duncan muttered, hands grasping the length of my body.

I writhed beneath him, rubbing myself across the hard length restrained within his trousers. It dragged a tempered groan from him, one that gave me nothing but pleasure. There was an enjoyment to be had, knowing the reaction I could conjure in him.

Duncan took me with nothing but the night for cover. Tearing my trousers off, his cold fingers shocked my bare skin as they brushed across it. His actions spoke of his hunger for me, the way one hand pressed down on the back of my head, whilst the other hand wet the sensitive part of me with spit laced across his fingers.

“Speak to me,” Duncan moaned as the tip of his finger pressed deep within me. “I want to hear your voice.”

I opened my mouth and my own groan of pleasure spilled into the quiet night, the prolonged sound joining the winds that danced around us. “Wha – what is it you want to hear me say?”

At once his finger pushed deeper. He leaned into me, teeth grazing my ear as he replied, “There would be no fun in telling you what I wish to hear. Figure it out yourself.”

Another finger joined the first, slick with his spit. There was the unmistakeable pop of buttons as Duncan worked his cock free. He was excited, rushed and quick-handed as though he did not want the moment to end before it truly begun.

“Duncan.” I used his name with the power it deserved. “I – I want to feel you, entirely.”

A warmth spread up my spine as the wet, soft head of his cock replaced his fingers all within a sudden moment. He held himself, with wonderous restraint, hard cock on the verge of entering me. “I love when you speak my name. Do it more. Louder, so the stars and the realms beyond hear.”

“Duncan,” I moaned, pushing my arse back upon him with desperation. “Fuck me.”

“Do you lack manners, Robin?” His hand gripped my shoulder and squeezed, the feeling of his hold a thrill of lightning through my body.

“Please,” I exhaled, needing him with a burning desire that overwhelmed me.

“Beg me.”

And beg I did. My mouth dripped with lust and desire, cheeks prickling with excitement at the thought of pleasing him; for when Duncan became this version of himself, I wished nothing but to please him. “Give me all of you, Duncan.” The stars were a witness to my shouts. There was nothing but empty rolling hills and endless landscape around us. I took full advantage of our lack of surroundings and opened myself up to the primal desire that made me want to scream to the heavens for the man who mounted me.

Duncan entered me with a slow, gentle stroke of his cock. The sound he made as he pushed every inch of himself inside could have torn the ground in two. “Robin,” he groaned, pushing my lower back downwards. “You’re divinity. Pure, honest bliss.”

It was the last thing he spoke to me, for we let our bodies converse without use of words.

Duncan made love to me, thrusting with surprising, sudden changes of his movements. For the most part I simply lost myself to the feeling, until I felt him wane with energy and I took over, throwing myself back upon his length until my arse clapped into the leathers of his folded down breeches.

It was a miracle the entirety of Durmain’s realm didn’t hear us.

“I never want for this to end,” Duncan called, hands gripping my hips as he worked within me – faster, harder .

The pitch of his deep voice told me he was close to his end. And the power it made me feel had me working harder for him. I’d not once felt the need to pleasure myself as he took me. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, I was too occupied with riding the storm of pleasure and indulgence his sex gave me.

“Come for me, Duncan,” I bellowed as his cock pounded against the sensitive place deep inside of me.

His reply came as a guttural grunt, but then his movements slowed as his panting reached new heights. Duncan finished just as I knew he would, climaxing with gripping hands and laboured breaths. The moment was so sudden. He rode within me, his pace slowing as his rasping cry of pleasure filled the night sky. When he was done, I could’ve sworn I felt his legs shake.

I slumped to the ground, my own brow drenched with beads of sweat, no matter the frozen chill of the world around us. Here, in his place, we’d carved out our own world, and I was not ready to leave it.

It seemed that’s what we achieved with one another. No matter the place, attic or rolling landscape, we claimed it as our own.

Duncan fell beside me, eyes closed and hands blindly fumbling to pull his trousers over the throbbing shaft lying across his lower stomach. He finally tucked it away, the imprint still more than a memory in my mind.

“Better?” I asked, rolling on my side.

Duncan’s tired eyes studied the indent the grass left upon the side of my face. He nodded – twice – mouth agape as he still gasped for breath. “Better doesn’t even cut it. I do not believe there is a word available to describe how I feel right now.”

Duncan raised an arm, welcoming me to snuggle into the crook of him. I too lifted my trousers, hardly caring for the dampness that still coated my skin from his sex.

Effortlessly, he ran his fingers up and down my arm all without opening his eyes. “Forgive me, Robin, but I must do what a terrible shag does best and give into this tiredness. You’ve exhausted me, my darling.”

I laughed, the sound so terribly loud, even compared to the ruckus we had both just created. “It is a well-deserved rest and far from a terrible shag.”

“I feel as though my work isn’t done. A real man should never sleep until he saw his partner satisfied.”

“Duncan,” I breathed, nestling into his body and inhaling deeply. “With you beside me there is no need to discuss satisfaction. Just hold me tonight and don’t let me go. That is enough.”

He turned his face, pressing a kiss into my hairline. Duncan pulled back slightly, whispering for only me to hear, his words far too precious for the star-filled night to witness. “My love, you are my weakness. I could not possibly ever let you go. I am many things, but a fool is not one of them. Not when it comes to you.”

Everything about what he told me was a melody to my ears. But the one word that stood out amongst the rest could have shattered my reality entirely. It was frightening, giving in to the giddy and wonderous feeling that overcame me in that moment, yet there was no stopping the current as it swept me from my feet.

Love .