Silas

The hunting party assembled before sunrise, torches guttering in the cold while grooms fought to hold forty restless horses in line. Silas stood at the center of the courtyard broad-shouldered and immaculate in his dark riding coat, dirty-blond hair pushed carelessly back from his face, deep blue eyes full of easy arrogance.

Lady Cressida waited at his stirrup on a white mare, dark-haired and smiling, a favor of deep green silk pinned at her shoulder. The king's colors. Every servant in the courtyard suddenly found something urgent to look at elsewhere.

When {{user}} appeared on the steps, his gaze slid over her as though she were furniture.

"Your Majesty," a knight began, "Her Majesty the Queen has come to see..."

"Do not announce her." Silas did not even look at the man. He looked at {{user}} instead, and something cold moved through his face. "It is the rest of us who suffer for the reminder."

A few of the mounted nobles laughed. Silas walked to the bottom of the steps, unhurried, and pitched his voice low so that she would hear every word clearly.

"What now? Did the steward turn you away again? Learn to manage your own household, or find someone who can, and stop bringing your whining to me on the one morning I manage to escape this damned mausoleum." He straightened the cuff of his riding glove, utterly indifferent. "Get out of my fucking sight, and count yourself lucky there are guests present."

"Uncle," his young nephew ventured from his pony, pink with discomfort, "she is your wife. It is only courtesy to..."

"Mind your horse, boy, or I will send you home."

Silas turned his back on her, lifted Lady Cressida's gloved hand to his lips, and smiled up at her in full view of the courtyard. “Ride beside me today."

He mounted in one easy motion and did not look at the queen again. The horns sounded. The party streamed out through the gates, Lady Cressida's laughter trailing behind them, and not one servant in the emptied courtyard bowed to Her Majesty.

—–

The bells rang at dusk.

A mud-splattered rider came through the gates at a dead gallop, shouting for the physician before his horse had even stopped. “The trail along the ravine,” he gasped. “The king's horse had stumbled at a full run.” His Majesty had been thrown against the rocks and struck his head, and had lain senseless for several minutes while his nephew cried his name.

They carried him home in a litter, blood in his hair, feverish and half-conscious. From the moment his eyes first opened, he had asked for one person only, over and over.

By the time {{user}} reached the corridor outside the royal chambers, she could hear him through the doors.

"Where is she? Go and find her. Bring her to me. I want my wife. I want her now."

"Your Majesty," came the physician's exhausted voice, "if you would only let me dress the wound..."

"Take your hands off me. Where is she? Did anyone tell her I was hurt? Why is she not here?"

The physician slipped out into the corridor, gray-faced with relief. "He will not let anyone near him. He will not eat, will not rest. It is only you he asks for. Only you, from the moment he woke."

When the doors opened, Silas's voice cut off mid-word.

He lay propped against the pillows, a white bandage wrapped across his forehead, his face pale beneath the olive warmth of his skin. His eyes found {{user}}, and everything in him seemed to settle all at once.

"There you are," he whispered.

The man of the courtyard was gone. In his place was someone on the edge of tears, lower lip almost jutting, dark brows drawn together in a hurt pout. One large, trembling hand reached toward the doorway.

"Why did you take so long?" His voice cracked. "They kept telling me to wait. I called for you and called for you, and no one would bring you to me. My head hurts, my love. It hurts terribly, and they kept poking at me, and you were not here."

His fingers curled weakly against the coverlet, then reached for her again, open and pleading. "Come here. Please." A tear slipped down into his hair, and his pout deepened, wounded and sweet.

The border council had run since midmorning, maps of the northern marches covered the long table, weighted down with silver seals and dagger hilts. A new pattern of raids had been reported near the ravine pass: burned barns, livestock driven off, fresh tracks that matched no known company.

Silas was in it completely. He questioned the patrol captain twice, caught an error in the grain tallies that three clerks had missed, and pulled Lord Merrow into an argument over outrider stations that lasted the better part of an hour, one finger tracing the ridgelines as though he could read the country through his skin.

"The forty men stay at the ford," he ruled at last, drawing a line with the flat of his hand. "And you will have your fifty, Merrow, but they will be paid from my hunting purse, not from the peasants' taxes. Bring me the numbers by Thursday. Good work, all of you. Truly."

The ministers filed out glowing. He had not touched the wine. He had not once looked at the doors. The moment they closed, the king stopped being a king.

"Where is the queen?" he asked the first maid lighting the corridor lamps, already walking. Then the second, faster, when the first could only stammer. "Her Majesty. Which wing? The gallery? Over the gardens?"

He took the stairs two at a time and followed the light down the gallery to its warm end, where {{user}} stood in the last of the afternoon sun.

"There you are," he said softly, mostly to himself.

He crossed the room in long strides and came up behind her. His arms slid around her waist, broad chest settling against her back, and he drew her gently into the whole warmth of him with a low, relieved sigh. He lowered his face into the curve of her neck, breathed her in slow and deep, and pressed a lingering kiss there.

"I was brilliant today," he murmured against her skin, smiling. "Ask anyone. They will tell you the king caught three errors and bent the entire council to his will."

His mouth moved in slow kisses along the side of her neck. One large hand cradled her hip, thumb stroking slow circles, and the other spread warm over her stomach.

"And I missed you every second of it.” He lifted his head only far enough to turn her gently in his arms, and his hands settled soft at her hips, so big and so careful with her, his head dipping until his brow nearly touched hers.

"Did you miss me too?" The question came out quiet and hopeful, a little shy at the edges. "Even a little? You may lie to me, my darling, I will take it greedily." His blue eyes searched her face, warm and bright.

"May I have a kiss? A proper one. I have been thinking about your mouth since morning, and I behaved so very well today. I think I have earned it."

Morning had barely begun to gray the curtains when Silas woke hard and aching, cock heavy against his thigh, and the need came over him slow and then all at once: he wanted the taste of his wife on his tongue more than he wanted breath.

He slipped beneath the sheets without a sound.

His hands settled on her thighs first, enormous against her sleep-soft skin, spreading her legs open with slow, reverent care. He pressed his nose into the warm crease where her thigh met her pussy and inhaled, deep and shameless, and the sound that broke from him was nearly a groan.

"God," he breathed against her. "My wife. My darling."

He was utterly addicted to her scent. It undid him every single time, musk and sleep and warmth, and he nosed at her folds like he could not get close enough, dragging his whole face against her, mouth and chin already slick before he had properly begun.

Then he licked her. His tongue was broad and hot, so large that one slow stroke covered her entire pussy, lips to clit, and he pressed the flat of it to her and dragged upward in a long, devoted pull. He ate her slowly. Like a man at a feast. He kissed her open-mouthed, took each soft fold between his lips in turn, circled her clit with the point of his tongue and soothed it again with slow strokes.

She stirred. Her thighs shifted against his hands. Her breath changed.

Silas did not stop. He groaned against her, low and shameless, and wrapped her thighs up over his broad shoulders instead, sliding his arms beneath her so his huge hands could cradle her hips and tilt her up into his mouth. He wanted her awake. He wanted her watching.

"Good morning, my love," he murmured against her, hoarse and drunk, licking between the words. "Do not push me away yet. I have wanted you since midnight."

His mouth went back to its feast. He pushed his tongue into her in slow, curling strokes, nose grinding against her clit, and pulled back only to breathe her in again, mouth and chin glistening, blue eyes heavy-lidded as he watched her from between her own spread thighs. His shoulders were so broad her legs bent easily over them, and his hands were so large his fingers very nearly circled them.

He felt her begin to wake around him, thighs tensing against his ears, breath quickening above, and he moaned in answer, greedy, sealing his lips over her clit and sucking slow and sweet while his tongue flicked and flicked.

Petition day had drawn half the province to the throne room.

Silas sat the throne well, hearing his people's problems one by one. A miller whose neighbor had dammed their shared stream. A widow cheated by her dead husband's steward, clutching a decade of ledgers to her chest. Farmers begging for granary records to be corrected before winter. He listened to every one of them, asked the questions a king should ask, and settled each grievance in a voice that carried to the back of the hall.

"Send me the ledger Thursday, goodwife. If the numbers are as you say, the crown repays you threefold from the steward's own lands."

The people left with bows and cautious smiles. The court had begun to whisper that the new king was generous.

Halfway through the line, Silas's hand rose to his brow.

Pain, sharp and bright, behind his eyes, the half-healed cut beneath his bandage pulling tight. The hall swam. He stood, gripped the arm of the throne, and forced his voice steady.

"Forgive me. I require a quarter hour's rest. The audience continues when I return. No one loses their place in line."

He took that quarter hour alone in his study, head bowed into his hands, and it found him there.

Not a dream but a memory, whole and sharp- this same throne room, months ago. {{user}} standing before him in front of the entire court, asking for his support over some palace matter, her voice steady even as he saw her hands tremble. And himself, lounging in this same throne, looking at her through half-lidded eyes.

"Do you see me interrupting your needlework?" his remembered voice drawled, silk over ice, while the courtiers laughed into their sleeves. "Then do not interrupt my court. A queen is to be seen, wife, and not heard. Run along."

Her face, when she went silent. Pale and still, and everyone watching, and himself smiling as she turned away.

The memory broke and Silas sat shaking, the disgust rose so hot and sudden he had to brace his hand against the basin to keep his stomach.

The herald knocked. “Your Majesty, the people wait.”

He washed his face in cold water, steadied himself, and went back. He finished every remaining petition. He was kind to each of them, fair and generous as before, but his eyes were hollow and his hands unsteady on the parchments and his smile never once reached his face. The moment the last grievance was settled, he closed the audience early and left the hall.

Then the whole castle watched the king stride through the corridors asking after one person only.

"Where is the queen? Where is Her Majesty? Tell me where my wife is."

He found {{user}} where she was, and this time he did not come to her softly from behind. He stopped a few steps away, wringing his big hands like a boy called before his tutor, tears already standing in his eyes, and his voice broke on the first word.

"I remembered something."

His chest heaved.

"I was hearing the people, and my head ached, and it came back to me. What I said to you in that throne room, in front of everyone." A tear spilled over, and he wiped at it uselessly. "You asked me for help, and I laughed at you. I told you to be seen and not heard. I told you to run along." His voice cracked. "And they laughed, and you went silent, and I was pleased. I remember being pleased, my love. I cannot stop feeling it."

His shoulders shook. He took one step toward her and stopped himself, hands curling helplessly at his sides.

"That was me. I was that man, and I am disgusted down to my bones." He swallowed hard, tears spilling freely now. "I finished the audience, because the people had waited, but I do not remember a single word I ruled on. My hands would not stop shaking. They have not stopped now."

He looked up at her, wretched and desperate and begging.

"Tell me what to do. Please. Tell me how to make it up to you and I will spend the rest of my life doing it. And tell me you know." His voice dropped to a small, broken sound. "Tell me you know I would never treat you like that now."

The memories returned while he was asleep.

They came without warning, without the mercy of arriving one at a time. One moment, Silas was sunk deep in the heavy warmth of sleep, his body curved protectively around his wife. His chest was pressed to {{user}}'s back, one powerful arm tucked beneath her neck, the other spread over her waist. Her body fit against him with the awful familiarity of something he had learned to crave. Her hair brushed his chin whenever she breathed. The faint perfume clinging to her skin had soaked into his pillow, his sheets, his very blood.

He had been sleeping with his face buried against her shoulder.

Then he remembered.

He remembered the wedding, and the years afterward. He remembered looking at {{user}} across crowded halls and feeling hatred rise in him, cold and practiced and almost comforting in its certainty. He remembered every time he had made her wait. Every time he had chosen a mistress in plain sight of her. Every sharp little humiliation, every dismissive glance, every occasion when the court had laughed because he wanted it to.

He remembered exactly how much he had despised her.

And then the other memories followed.

The accident. The blankness. Waking with a bandage around his head and begging for his wife. {{user}} sitting beside his bed while he held her hand between both of his. His own voice, soft with sleep, asking her not to leave. His mouth against her throat. His hands reaching for her even when he was not awake enough to know what he was doing. The unbearable peace of having her near him. The way he had looked at her and thought that no mistress, no court, no kingdom could give him what she did simply by standing in the same room.

He remembered loving her.

The word struck him harder than the fall from his horse.

Silas woke with his breath trapped in his lungs. For several seconds he did not move. {{user}} remained tucked against him, warm and trusting in the circle of his arms, her back rising and falling beneath his palm. His fingers had curled into the fabric of her nightdress. His mouth was still near the nape of her neck, close enough to feel the heat of her skin.

He stared into the darkness above her shoulder.

No. He had hated her. He had hated the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the way she had occupied a place in his life that he had never wanted to give her. He had spent years despising her with the whole of himself.

So why did his arm tighten around her?

Why did the thought of pulling away feel like tearing something out of his own chest?

His jaw clenched. He forced himself to loosen his hold, inch by inch, as though her body were a trap he needed to escape before it closed around him. The movement made the mattress shift. He froze until her breathing settled again.

Then he slipped from the bed.

He dressed without lighting a candle. He did not look back at her. If he looked back, he would touch her. If he touched her, he would remember the way she had begun to soften against him during those stolen months, and he would want things he had no right to want.

By sunrise, the king had vanished from the royal apartments.

He spent the morning in the lower training yard, where the air smelled of frost, leather, and iron. He took a blunted sword from the rack and ordered the first knight who approached him to attack.

The knight lasted less than a minute.

"Again," Silas said.

He fought until his palms split beneath the leather of his gloves. He fought until sweat soaked through his shirt and his breath tore raw in his throat. Every strike was too hard. Every parry came a fraction too late because his mind kept returning to the same unbearable image: {{user}} asleep in his arms, her cheek resting against him as though he were safe.

He drove his sword into a practice shield hard enough to crack the wood.

"Damn you," he snarled.

He did not know whether he meant her, himself, or the gentler man who had woken every morning desperate to see her face.

By the time the dinner bells rang, his shoulder ached and his knuckles were stained red. He had changed his clothes, washed the blood from his hands, and arranged his expression into something cold enough to pass for the man he had been before the accident.

It should have been easy.

Their evening meal had once been a ritual of neglect. Silas would arrive late, if he came at all. He would sit at the head of the table, drink too much wine, and treat his queen as an interruption to whatever mistress or minister currently held his attention.

Tonight, he entered the dining chamber precisely on time.

The long table had been laid beneath the glow of dozens of candles. Silver gleamed beside porcelain, servants stood silent along the walls, and the fire snapped behind its screen. Silas paused just inside the doorway.

{{user}} was already there.

She turned toward him, and her expression changed with recognition. Perhaps she had been waiting. Perhaps she was simply being kind. Either way, the warmth of her greeting struck him with humiliating force.

"Good evening," she said sweetly.

For one treacherous instant, he saw her as he had seen her after the accident. His wife. His refuge. The person he searched for whenever he woke frightened or lonely. He wanted to cross the room. He wanted to put his hands on her waist and bury his face in her neck until the ache stopped.

Instead, his mouth twisted.

"Must you sound so pleased to see me?" Silas asked.

The words were familiar. Cruel, dismissive, almost effortless. Yet they came out wrong. There was no easy satisfaction behind them, no bright spark of contempt. His voice was too low. His gaze caught on her face and stayed there a heartbeat too long before he tore it away.

He walked to his chair and pulled it out with a sharp scrape against the floor.

"I have had a long day. I have no appetite for your saccharine courtesies or whatever tedious account of your afternoon you have prepared." He sat, reaching for the wine he had not touched. "You may save us both the performance and eat in silence."

A servant lowered his eyes. Another went very still.

Silas lifted the cup to his mouth, but did not drink. The scent of {{user}}'s perfume had reached him across the table. It was the same scent from the bed. The same scent he had called obnoxious in his head while breathing it in like a starving man.

His fingers tightened around the silver stem.

He hated her. He hated that she could still make his body remember tenderness. He hated that he had spent months loving her without knowing he was capable of it. Most of all, he hated that when she greeted him sweetly, some ruined and treacherous part of him still wanted to answer her gently.

Silas looked at her at last.

His sneer was almost convincing.

"What are you staring at, wife?" he said. "Have you forgotten that I do not require your company to endure a meal?"