The Fated Fire Princess

Prague

Milo’s POV

We’ve been to Prague before. About three months into Nell’s pregnancy, we decided to travel the world while we still could—before the responsibilities of parenting took priority over everything else in our lives. It was almost like a honeymoon, and it was an experience I’ll never forget as long as I live. We went to hundreds of cities, and one of our favorites of all was Prague—at least, until we learned who lived there.

We had wondered, for those first few months, where Kenton wound up. We hadn’t seen him since he unleashed the bombshell on us and we told him never to speak to our child about it or anything else. Then, right in the middle of the Charles Bridge, we saw him.

We exchanged pleasantries, though neither of us did much to disguise our lingering distaste for the ex-elf. We asked him if he was visiting or living in Prague, and he answered that he, his brother Benji, and a group of their people had moved into a hotel that allowed them to work to pay off their rent.

A hotel, Nell thought to me when he told us that. The Lords of Hyatha, working as receptionists and cleaners.

Even I had to admit it was a bit tragic.

We have no real way of knowing that he’s still in the hotel, but when we see Benji at the front desk, it seems likely.

“Nell,” Benji greets in surprise. “Milo. Welcome to Hotel Domov.”

“Thanks,” I say shortly. I should really be nicer to the guy, I know; he’s done nothing but help us. But he’s related to that scumbag. “Is Kenton here?”

He shakes his head. “He left a few weeks ago. Said he wanted to talk to you, actually, and that he might be a while. Did he find you?”

“Yes.” I cross my arms. “But it wasn’t exactly a lengthy conversation.”

He glances at the receptionist next to him—sensing, most likely, that this is about to be a very lengthy conversation—and murmurs something to her in Czech. She nods easily, and he slips out from behind the counter to guide us to a free corner of the lounge area, where we cautiously take our seats.

“He just wants you to tell her,” Benji says quietly. “As do I.”

I’m not sure who stiffens more sharply, myself or Nell. She’s the first to speak. “He told you?”

“Yes, but he didn’t go back on his word to you; he told me over a century ago. I am the only other person who knows—that is, besides your sister Senses.”

“None of your people?” I ask him. “In two hundred years, no one else?”

He shakes his head. “To speak of the second prophecy would have meant to speak of the first, which he guarded with his life.”

That much, I know is true.

“He’s been following Harper,” Nell tells him with an icy tone. “Our daughter. Her best friend, too. They noticed him.”

He looks pained. “He doesn’t intend to tell them, I assure you. He wouldn’t betray your trust again, Nell. He probably just wants to know what she’s like—what decision she might make when the time comes, based on her personality.”

“Based on her relationships, you mean.” I didn’t connect the dots until now, but if Kenton was following Jack, it’s because he’s an Earthling, and that scares Kenton. A close relationship with an Earthling is a reason to stay on Earth.

“Based on many things,” Benji admits. “But again, I assure you—he doesn’t intend to tell her.”

I’m not sure I buy it; even if I trusted Benji, I still wouldn’t trust Kenton, and won’t ever again. 

But I don’t think interrogating his brother is going to get us anywhere further.

“If you talk to him,” Nell says—“tell him to knock it off, would you? Spying on teenagers is as creepy as it gets.”

I love when Nell shows this side of herself—the same bold, bright, funny woman I fell in love with when she showed up in my backyard almost seventeen years ago. I laugh, rising to my feet when she does.

“I will,” Benji promises us. He hesitates, frowning. “Would you like to stay the night? It’s a lovely hotel, and our honeymoon suite is free tonight.”

“Honeymoon suite?” I repeat, raising an eyebrow in Nell’s direction.

“We shouldn’t.” She sounds as tempted as I feel. “We’re trying to save our money.”

“On the house. As apologies for my brother’s ‘creepy’ behavior, as you so eloquently put it.”

She blushes prettily. “But… you… can do that? I mean…”

Benji laughs. “I manage the place now. Kenton and I, anyway. Moved up pretty quick in the promotional ladder once they saw all the Farnethian business and media attention we brought them.”

I’m curious how much “Farnethian business” has come their way. No one at the HQ has ever come to stay there, to my knowledge. Then again, we don’t have a lot of ex-elves at the HQ, and there were a whole lot of elves on Farnethia.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “We’ll take it.”

- - - - -

I’m not expecting anything when we step inside the room. Don’t get me wrong—I want her. I always want Nell. Since the first moment I laid eyes on her—that wide-eyed, confused Earthling phoenix girl with the unicorn familiar at her side—I wanted her. That night in the tent when she confessed to having dreamt about me and I kissed her for the first time… I’d never felt that kind of desire for someone. Not even close.

But it was just the two of us then, and things were simpler. We were younger. Things are different now. The lust is still there—for me, at least—but the responsibilities are there, too. The weariness—both mentally and physically. Being together isn’t as simple as it was back then.

“You know,” she says as she closes the door behind us and turns to look up at me, “I can’t remember the last time we had a night alone like this.”

A small smile creeps onto my lips. “I can. It was our last wedding anniversary—fifteen years.” 

Fifteen years, she links to me. She shakes her head. “It feels like just yesterday that we met, doesn’t it?”

My smile softens as I reach out to touch her hair behind her cheek. “Yes, and no. You still make my heart skip a beat every time you smile at me. You still amaze me with every step you take and every decision you make. But it also feels like forever, in some ways.”

She takes a step toward me. Her cheeks are the tiniest bit flushed, and it’s the prettiest thing in the world. I’m overwhelmed not only with the desire to make love to her, but also simply to hold her. “What sort of ways?” she asks me.

“I know you so much better than I did then. I know Ash like my own mother. I know the world you come from like it’s my own. I know what songs make you cry; what desserts make you drool; what books you can’t put down. But most importantly, I know your daughter—our daughter.”

She wraps her arms around my neck, smile widening. “You’re right. I’m glad for all the years we’ve had together. Who needs new and exciting love? Ours is way better.”

“Plus,” I add, wrapping my own arms around her waist, “I’ve had sixteen years to learn how best to pleasure you.”

She probably has something witty to respond to that—she usually does—but I don’t give her the chance. She’s pressed herself against me fully now, fingertips curling into my hair and leg wrapping around mine, and I know she wants me every bit as much as I want her.

I’m still not entirely sure how that’s possible, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I kiss her with a reinvigorated passion that I should never have let wane, and she responds just as feverishly, wrapping her legs around mine and pressing her s*x deeply against my erection. A gentle, desperate moan escapes her lips when my tongue slips its way inside her mouth, and a deeper, more guttural one escapes my own when I taste the familiar, yet utterly delectable, taste of her tongue.

You might think s*x would eventually become monotonous after sixteen years, but it never did with us. It only ever got better. I’ve learned exactly how to ready her—slow and teasing, at first, as my fingers and lips slowly remove her clothing and explore her body—then faster, gradually, as my fingers, then my tongue, make their way down toward her already glistening s*x and turn it to sopping. By the time my lips and fingers are working together on her, she’s squirming with pleasure and begging me to take her.

I press myself against her entrance, but hesitate before working my way in, bringing my face to hers. I cup her cheek with my hand, pressing my thumb against those perfect, little lips of hers.

“I love you, Nell Rivers,” I tell her softly. “More and more every day.”

I didn’t let her or Harper take my last name, as much as she wanted to. Drexel is my father’s name—the name of evil and darkness. I kept it, though, as a reminder of what I refuse to become.

“And I love you, Milo Drexel,” she whispers back. “And I always will.”

And with that, I make love to the woman that I love to the deepest, darkest depths of my heart and soul.