Babel Novel
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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For a moment, I was nothing, no one.
Then we were fused, two hearts beating as one, and I promised myself it always would be that way as he pulled
out a few inches, the muscles of his back flexing beneath my hands, and then slammed back into me. Again and
again.
I broke and broke against him as he moved, as he murmured my name and told me he loved me. And when that
lightning once more filled my veins, my head, when I gasped out his name, his own release found him. I gripped
him through each shuddering wave, savoring the weight of him, the feel of his skin, his strength.
For a while, only the rasp of our breathing filled the room.
I frowned as he withdrew at last—but he didn’t go far. He stretched out on his side, head propped on a fist, and
traced idle circles on my stomach, along my breasts.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he murmured.
“It’s fine,” I breathed. “I understand.”
Not a lie, but not quite true.
His fingers grazed lower, circling my belly button. “You are—you’re everything to me,” he said thickly. “I need … I
need you to be all right. To know they can’t get to you—can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I know.” Those fingers drifted lower. I swallowed hard and said again, “I know.” I brushed his hair back from his
face. “But what about you? Who gets to keep you safe?”
His mouth tightened. With his powers returned, he didn’t need anyone to protect him, shield him. I could almost
see invisible hackles raising—not at me, but at the thought of what he’d been mere months ago: prone to
Amarantha’s whims, his power barely a trickle compared to the cascade now coursing through him. He took a
steadying breath, and leaned to kiss my heart, right between my breasts. It was answer enough.
“Soon,” he murmured, and those fingers traveled back to my waist. I almost groaned. “Soon you’ll be my wife, and
it’ll be fine. We’ll leave all this behind us.”
I arched my back, urging his hand lower, and he chuckled roughly. I didn’t quite hear myself speak as I focused on
the fingers that obeyed my silent command. “What will everyone call me, then?” He grazed my belly button as he
leaned down, sucking the tip of my breast into his mouth.
“Hmm?” he said, and the rumble against my nipple made me writhe.
“Is everyone just going to call me ‘Tamlin’s wife’? Do I get a … title?”
He lifted his head long enough to look at me. “Do you want a title?”
Before I could answer, he nipped at my breast, then licked over the small hurt—licked as his fingers at last dipped
between my legs. He stroked lazy, taunting circles. “No,” I gasped out. “But I don’t want people … ” Cauldron boil
me, his damned fingers—“I don’t know if I can handle them calling me High Lady.”
His fingers slid into me again, and he growled in approval at the wetness between my thighs, both from me and
him. “They won’t,” he said against my skin, positioning himself over me again and sliding down my body, trailing
kisses as he went. “There is no such thing as a High Lady.”
He gripped my thighs to spread my legs wide, lowering his mouth, and—
“What do you mean, there’s no such thing as a High Lady?”
The heat, his touch—all of it stopped.
He looked up from between my legs, and I almost climaxed at the sight of it. But what he said, what he’d implied
… He kissed the inside of my thigh. “High Lords only take wives. Consorts. There has never been a High Lady.”
“But Lucien’s mother—”
“She’s Lady of the Autumn Court. Not High Lady. Just as you will be Lady of the Spring Court. They will address
you as they address her. They will respect you as they respect her.” He lowered his gaze back to what was inches
away from his mouth.
“So Lucien’s—”
“I don’t want to hear another male’s name on your lips right now,” he growled, and lowered his mouth to me.
At the first stroke of his tongue, I stopped arguing.
CHAPTER Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!
3
Tamlin’s guilt must have hit him hard, because although he was gone the next day, Lucien was waiting with an
offer to inspect the progress on the nearby village.
I hadn’t visited in well over a month—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even left the grounds. A few of the
villagers had been invited to our Winter Solstice celebrations, but I’d barely managed to do more than greet them,
thanks to the size of the crowd.
The horses were already saddled outside the front doors of the stables, and I counted the sentries by the distant
gates (four), on either side of the house (two at each corner), and the ones now by the garden through which I’d
just exited (two). Though none spoke, their eyes pressed on me.
Lucien made to mount his dapple-gray mare but I cut off his path. “A tumble off your damned horse?” I hissed,
shoving his shoulder.
Lucien actually staggered back, the mare nickering in alarm, and I blinked at my outstretched hand. I didn’t let
myself contemplate what the guards made of it. Before he could say anything, I demanded, “Why did you lie about
the naga?”
Lucien crossed his arms, his metal eye narrowing, and shook the red hair from his face.
I had to look away for a moment.
Amarantha’s hair had been darker—and her face a creamy white, not at all like the sun-kissed gold of Lucien’s
skin.
I studied the stables behind him instead. At least it was big, open, the stable hands now off in another wing. I
usually had little issue with being inside, which was mostly whenever I was bored enough to visit the horses
housed within. Plenty of space to move, to escape. The walls didn’t feel too … permanent.
Not like the kitchens, which were too low, the walls too thick, the windows not big enough to climb through. Not
like the study, with not enough natural light or easy exits. I had a long list in my head of what places I could and
couldn’t endure at the manor, ranked by precisely how much they made my body lock up and sweat.
“I didn’t lie,” Lucien said tightly. “I technically did fall off my horse.” He patted his mount’s flank. “After one of them
tackled me off her.”
Such a faerie way of thinking, of lying. “Why?”
Lucien clamped his mouth shut.
“Why?”
He just twisted back to the patient mare. But I caught the expression on his face—the … pity in his eye.
I blurted, “Can we walk instead?”
He slowly turned. “It’s three miles.”
“And you could run that in a few minutes. I’d like to see if I can keep up.”
His metal eye whirred, and I knew what he’d say before he opened his mouth.
“Never mind,” I said, heading for my white mare, a sweet-tempered beast, if not a bit lazy and spoiled. Lucien
didn’t try to convince me otherwise, and kept quiet as we rode from the estate and onto the forest road. Spring, as
always, was in full bloom, the breeze laden with lilac, the brush flanking the path rustling with life. No hint of the
Bogge, of the naga, of any of the creatures who had once cast such stillness over the wood.
I said to him at last, “I don’t want your damn pity.”
“It’s not pity. Tamlin said I shouldn’t tell you—” He winced a bit.
“I’m not made of glass. If the naga attacked you, I deserve to know—”
“Tamlin is my High Lord. He gives an order, I follow it.”
“You didn’t have that mentality when you worked around his commands to send me to see the Suriel.” And I’d
nearly died.
“I was desperate then. We all were. But now—now we need order, Feyre. We need rules, and rankings, and order,
if we’re going to stand a chance of rebuilding. So what he says goes. I am the first one the others look to—I set
the example. Don’t ask me to risk the stability of this court by pushing back. Not right now. He’s giving you as
much free rein as he can.”
I forced a steady breath to fill my too-tight lungs. “For all that you refuse to interact with Ianthe, you certainly
sound a great de
al like her.”
He hissed, “You have no idea how hard it is for him to even let you off the estate grounds. He’s under more
pressure than you realize.”
“I know exactly how much pressure he endures. And I didn’t realize I’d become a prisoner.”
“You’re not—” He clenched his jaw. “That’s not how it is and you know it.”
“He didn’t have any trouble letting me hunt and wander on my own when I was a mere human. When the borders
were far less safe.”
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