Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“Roll over, Laura. I have coffee,” Aleksei said.
“I can’t.”
I heard his chuckle.
“Seriously,” I mumbled into the pillow. “I was there, but still, how hard did you fuck me?”
His chuckle turned into a laugh.
I heard two coffee cups hitting the nightstand, then I was moved, pillows were adjusted, fluffed, and I was positioned to partially upright but draped into Aleksei’s side as he rejoined me in bed, propped up on pillows.
With no other choice, I let him take my weight.
“Do you want your coffee?” he asked.
“In a minute,” I mumbled.
“You didn’t get your work done last night,” he reminded me.
“Ugh,” I moaned.
“I’ll go make you an energy lift smoothie in a minute,” he murmured.
That might help.
Might.
I felt him sip coffee.
Then he set the cup aside and the edge of a tablet came into view.
“Beauty and the Beast,” he said like he was reading something.
I put superhuman effort into tipping my head back to look at him, and yes.
He was reading.
“Yesterday evening, as if they were intent to give us a preview of their upcoming engagement announcement but were determined to outdo themselves with their spectacular flight, His Royal Highness, the True Heir, Prince Aleksei took to the skies with his mate, Laura Makepeace.”
I pushed up further, breathing, “Oh my gods.”
I focused on the pic that accompanied the article.
A perfect telephoto shot, in color, of my beast gliding, neck intwined with his creature, against a backdrop of a gleaming crescent moon and the pinprick of stars in the night sky.
“No two beasts could seem more incongruous, thus more perfectly matched, than the mightiest of all dragons, and the most uniquely stunning. Crafts ground to a halt. Beings stopped on the streets or ran to windows, Palms raised, as a fairytale played out in the skies. It is a surety that the words ‘Long Live Prince Aleksei and his Future Queen were not only on this writer’s lips.”
“Stop reading,” I begged.
“They got the ‘Beauty’ part right, I’m a little stung by being the ‘Beast.’”
I looked at his face and was relieved to see he was teasing.
“People saw us,” I said.
He was smiling when he replied, “Of course they did, darling. You nearly ran into twenty buildings and about a hundred crafts.”
I buried my face in his neck.
My beast tittered.
His surged and settled.
Okay, those two reacting to each other took no time getting used to, not to mention understand completely.
It was easy.
And perfection.
Aleksei dropped the tablet to his lap and curled his fingers around the side of my neck.
“Uniquely stunning,” he said into the top of my hair. “It’s not only me and my creature who think so. It’s all over the news, all over the tapes. I’d say you’re back in the nineties for your rating, darling. Germaine is probably doing back flips in the admin wing.”
“They like her.”
“Did you miss the ‘fairytale played out in the skies’ part?” he asked playfully.
“They like her,” I repeated.
His fingers tensed at my neck.
And his voice was vastly different when he vowed, “I will tear them apart.”
I lifted my head.
And yeah.
His expression was vastly different too.
“Aleksei—”
“Not physically, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
“I’ll get used to it,” I promised.
“Medical science bested the removal of scars over a hundred years ago,” he stated. “The kind you have never disappears. Not unless you have your memories scrubbed.”
“I don’t…I can’t.” I shook my head. “It made me me.”
“I don’t say that because I advise it, Laura. It should only be used for the most traumatic of traumas, because you’re right, any scrubbing alters a being, and I’ll take you any way you come, but the you I have in bed right now is perfect, and I want to keep her like she is.”
“Oh my gods!” I exploded, pushing away from him. “Lancet’s perfect princess gown. Getting her back last night. The Jupiter thing. Stop it. I can’t take any more. Don’t make me cry again!”
His brows rose. “Perfect princess gown?”
I slapped his chest.
He wrapped both arms around me and pulled me to it.
“First, you captivated a realm with your bravery,” he said. “Then you set it alive with your compassion. And you’ve done it again with your beast’s beauty.”
“You’re not helping me not to cry,” I warned.
“How’s this? Your vid won’t have any costumes if you don’t get your ass in gear.”
“That’s better,” I mumbled.
“Drink your coffee. I’ll get your tablet. Work in bed while I make breakfast. I’ll bring it up.”
I was seriously down with this plan, and because I was, I reached beyond him to my coffee cup. “You could also stop being so awesome, it’s giving me a complex.”
He pressed his lips to my temple before he said, “You weren’t called the ‘Beast.’”
He got out of bed.
I took a much-needed sip of coffee and asked his departing back. “Is that really bothering you, drahko?” When he turned to me, I added, “Because I think he’s handsome. Scary as farg. But handsome.”