As I did, I felt his hips hitch and his balls tighten. I might have been the most powerful woman in the land, it was true. But nothing, nothing, made me feel as powerful as the way he groaned when I overpowered this beast of a man with my own inner strength.
“You’re going to make me come, princess.”
“So then do it,” I said, with another squeeze.
Another primal growl. “I never want to stop fucking you.”
I liked the sound of that, but not as much as I liked the sound of his pleasure. “Breed me, Sir Bors. Breed me right now.”
And with that, he released his seed deep into my womb and claimed me as his once again.
Sara
Epilogue
Our wedding was on the first day of summer that year. The afternoon was warm and sunny and it seemed as though every flower in the land came into bloom to celebrate with us. The week before the wedding there was a festival of feasts and games, bringing together all the clans and regions of the kingdom for the first time in a generation.
Beneath my dress that day, with its layers of handmade lace and exquisite needlework, hidden from the prying eyes of the massive celebrating crowds, I had just begun to show with the baby that Bors had put inside me. As I said my vows to him and he to me, we both glanced down more than once at our baby, both of us giddy with dreams of the future.
And that future didn’t disappoint. On our wedding day I was carrying what would be our first child of three—two princes and then a princess. Bors doted on all of them, but our little girl, Angelica, perhaps most of all. Lately, his favorite thing to do has been having the boys hang from his biceps while rides on his shoulders.
Each Saturday, we load the children onto Bors favorite old Percheron and take them to the river for a picnic. Every week, the children fall sound asleep after a day of playing in the water and eating too many sugared orange peels. And every week, Bors and I steal away into the high grass to make love again and again. Every time is like the first time; every time, he gives me more of his heart and I give him more of mine.
He is happier now than I have ever seen him. The royal stables have the finest breeding stock in the kingdom, and kings and queens from far across the seas come to visit, to see the special royal stock of studs and mares and marvel at the brilliance of their master.
I am happy too—happiest of all when I am with Bors and the children, happiest at home in our palace, where I insist on making my own bread and picking my own flowers. When the Lenten roses are in bloom, I collect them, dry them and have them throughout the house all year.
We have a nanny for each child, but they are more my friends than the children’s keepers. Through the years, I’ve brought many women to the castle to speak with my father, the king, about life in the countryside. Angelica herself has been among them, and she too is prospering as a healer. No woman has been tried as a witch since I came to the palace. Such foolish fear of women has no place in our world.
Angelica spends many Sunday afternoons with us and the children. She’s left behind her years of entertaining men and on one spring afternoon as we rode back to the castle, one of Bors now personal guards, Seamus, met us at the gate. He’s gained my respect and my thanks as if it were not for him allowing Bors past the gates the day he rode to save me, I would have surely perished.
When his eyes cast upon Angelica, all I could think of was how Bors had looked me that first time. They have danced around a courtship for a year since but I finally believe Angelica believes he motives are true and they eloped under the oak trees once early morning the following fall.
These have been good, peaceful, prosperous years for everybody. King Rowan’s reign will be praised for generations. The infighting that plagued my father when Queen Beatrice was alive is no longer a problem; after she confessed, named all her co-conspirators and fell on my father’s mercy, she was granted a partial pardon, and lived in exile for several years in an opulent and remote palace by the sea, guarded at all times by men loyal to the king.
I don’t think King Rowan had the heart to see her executed, and when he asked my opinion I told him I was happy for her to be shown leniency. But she died through natural causes, and was buried with her own people near Sedgwick. The mother that I knew, who my adoptive father had so long mistreated as well she did me, has come to see us from time to time, but she has never warmed to me, nor have my sisters. Nor have I warmed to them. But I treat them always with the graciousness and respect that they so long denied me. I remain grateful to them for keeping me alive, even if I was not always happy under their roof. If not for them, I would never have met Bors. And for that, I remain always thankful.