Chapter Text
“Blacksmith! Come and entertain us!”
Clyde winced and set his jaw before turning to face the prince, already deep in his cups and surrounded by the empty-headed idiots he called friends. He bowed low, folding his left arm until the glinting metal of his hand met his shoulder.
He didn’t await permission to rise.
“I fear myself a dull source of entertainment, your highness,” he said, careful and steady.
The prince tilted his cup and frowned. “More wine!” One of his cronies snatched the tall pitcher from the servant before he could approach. Soft steps in the hallway signaled the passage of the queen and her ladies, and perhaps among them—
“OPHELIA! COME!”
Clyde stared straight ahead, even though he could feel her approach, the stirring of air as she passed, and he smelled a sweet blossom scent as if she carried spring wherever she went.
“Husband.” She curtseyed to the others, all titled nobles of the Winter Fey court, and extended her hand for a perfunctory kiss. Clyde tried not to frown. She was Princess-Consort of the Winter Court; she should bow to none of them. She shivered, delicate wings buzzing lightly with it where they were folded against her back.
“Cold as always, my Ophelia,” the prince said sourly, face pinched. “Come, sit on my knee. The Blacksmith is to be our entertainment.” He tugged her down, his low sprawl leaving her to either twist awkwardly or stretch indecently across him. She opted for twisting, one of her delicate wings bent slightly in a manner he could only imagine painful.
Prince Hamlet waved a hand. “Well, on with it.”
“Not sure what you want of me. My trade is metals, not jocularity or song.”
“Hm, a story then! Tell us of your travels!” He paused, a wicked smile gleaming in the firelight and Clyde knew the words he would speak. “Regale us with the tale of your false hand!”
Ophelia gasped and frowned, shaking her head just slightly. Prince Hamlet laid his hand alongside her neck, tugged her down until she was draped across him, and he could press his lips to her ear, though he bothered not to lower his voice. “What was that, my wife? No?” Her lips pressed tight and flat, color fading to nearly white with the force of it. The blaze of Hamlet’s jealousy matched the way Clyde’s anger flared. The fire roared behind the nobles, sparks flying as a log fell and sap popped and hissed. One of them swore and batted at an ember singing his doublet.
“It’s rude,” Ophelia whispered, shrinking in on herself in defeat.
“Rude she says. Is my wife correct, Blacksmith? Have I offended your delicate sensibilities?”
“Personal story,” Clyde said. “I’ll tell it if you want, but then, you’ve heard it before, highness.”
“Indeed.” Hamlet settled back, releasing his hold on his bride but not allowing her to return to an upright state. One of the courtiers leaned, peering down her dress, and another dared touch her wing, stroking the edge as she tried to contain her disgust.
The fire roared again, and a chill wind swept through the room. Torches flickered, two guttering out completely. Wine sloshed to the floor as an ember swirled and danced as if borne on the fingertips of a sprite to hit the man stroking Ophelia’s wing, landing on the back of his neck and falling inside his collar.
Ophelia’s eyes widened slightly, only for a moment, but Clyde saw it and bit at the edge of his tongue. The queen’s ladies passed by again, and several of the prince’s retinue took their leave, seeking softer company for the cold of night.
“If it pleases you, Highness, I should turn in myself,” Clyde attempted.
“It does not please me, Blacksmith.” He stroked absently at Ophelia’s side then cupped her breast, in full sight of the room. She let out a distressed mewl as he pinched and smirked at Clyde. “Tell me, Blacksmith, have you a wife at home?”
“I’ve not been so blessed as yourself, highness.”
Hamlet sat up, crushing the tip of Ophelia’s wing momentarily. She winced but stayed quiet. “No wife…a lover then? Perhaps more than one. Tell us of that. How does a man so rough as yourself fare? Or do you prefer the company of other men? It is no matter.” Clyde shifted his weight, unconsciously echoing the way the princess squirmed in hope of attaining a more comfortable position.
“Again,” Clyde said, “Personal. Private. But I’ve had no complaints,” he paused, couldn’t help an arch of his brow, an arrogant smirk as he added, “and several requests for an encore.”
“And in your experience, do they just lie there, cold as fish?” Ophelia stared at the floor as the men around her laughed and mumbled.
“A wise man pays attention to what his lover does and does not like,” Clyde ventured. “And he does the former.”
Hamlet shoved the Princess-Consort off his lap and too late Clyde realized he’d blundered into a trap. “Show us, then.” Hamlet leaned back in his seat again, gestured lazily and two servants carried a chair to the center of the room before slipping away in silence. One of the prince’s cadre protested and stormed out. Another followed but stopped short of leaving, then turned and barred the door. “My wife enjoys nothing. I challenge you to prove otherwise.”
Ophelia covered her face with both hands, wings sticking straight up for a moment before falling forward in a translucent curtain.
“Sit, Blacksmith, and teach us!” Hamlet gestured to himself and the other men in the room. The prince stood abruptly and wrapped his hand around Ophelia’s arm. “Come along then, dearest,” he tutted, half-dragging her to where Clyde sat, resigned to their shared fate.
The Prince of the Winter Court was not known for his even temperament. Brash, impulsive, and even cruel. Those were the whispers across the seasons and all the way to the Isle of Boone, just off the coast of Summer.
Clyde bit back his own protests and steadied the prince’s wife as she tumbled into his lap. She trembled, half from the chill air so far from the fire with no braziers to warm the rest of the room. Clyde allowed himself a moment of indulgence, and the Princess-Consort gasped slightly as the metal of his left hand warmed at her back, the heat suffusing through her until her wings no longer drooped and she relaxed her jaw. “Won’t hurt you,” Clyde mumbled.
Ophelia glanced over her shoulder then back to Clyde. “Survive.”
She turned, arranged herself in his lap, movements short and stiff—angry. The scents of lilac and apple blossoms filled Clyde’s nose, and the barest hint of something sharp and fresh, a smell that just made him think green.
The scent of Spring, from Winter freed.
The flowers tucked in about her hair unfurled, tiny blooms fresh and new. He sucked in a breath as she hooked her legs over his thighs and began to tug at her skirts. Clyde didn’t need to see her face to know she glared at her husband, the other man’s cruel smirk all the proof he needed.
The fire roared up again, a smaller piece of wood rolling free of the fireplace and not stopping until it reached the prince’s booted feet.
The man laughed and reclaimed his cup, staring over the top of it as he sipped.
Clyde lifted his left arm, used the weighted warmth to press Ophelia back against his chest.
Survive, she’d said.
They would.
🔥🔥🔥
Woodsmoke.
He smelled of fire and man, and not at all unpleasant.
Few of the Winter Court had ever seen a mortal before, so the arrival of a mostly human blacksmith was a novelty at first, but three months into his term the interest had waned, particularly when he did not avail himself of the favors offered by most of the queen’s ladies.
She watched him, sometimes, in the heat of the forge, bent over his work. There was a window in the royal apartments, near the queen’s bedchamber, where Ophelia liked to escape. Sometimes she sought only a moment of quiet thought. Others she would sit and read, occasionally even reduced to needlework.
Little had changed upon her once-secret marriage to the Winter Prince, not even after the secret was found out. She loved the boy Hamlet had been, saw glimpses of him still, but they were fewer and farther between with every passing Season, until she barely recognized the man who called her wife.
By the season of the Blacksmith, the months that Winter once again reigned supreme over all the fey, she supposed his transformation finally complete. Her Hamlet was gone, a changeling left behind.
Still, she had the life she had chosen. Service to Queen Gertrude was pleasant enough, and Ophelia was, well, perhaps not happy but mostly content. Her husband was thoughtless and cruel with his words, but she did not believe he would truly harm her as she had heard whispered in hallways and behind closed doors.
She’d been told she wed too young, and was even starting to believe it herself, but there was no going back. Then their Season began, bringing madness and a human man called Clyde.
A man who smelled of woodsmoke and warmed her with a touch of his hand.
Or sometimes a simple lift of his eyes when he paused to drink and spied her in the window. Sometimes, he even spared her a smile. Beyond that, they had scarce interacted more than a polite bow or nod of acknowledgement in passing.
She settled more firmly against him, all the anger she could muster leveled at her husband.
How dare he humiliate her so? Bad enough that he let others touch her wings, implied that once she bore an heir she would be theirs for the having, but this new cruelty was more than she could bear. No hate could burn brighter than that born from the ashes of love, and as Hamlet watched her over his cup, the last vestige of affection she had for him died.
Survive.
Her own voice rang in her head as she spread her legs wide and lifted her skirts. Her stockings had slipped to just below the knee, and she braced herself a chill that never came. A pocket of warmth, their own Spring in the midst of snow, surrounded them, and it had to be the man, for this was not one of the meager powers she could wield. She watched a burning bit of wood roll and weave, flame bobbing merrily until it came to rest at Hamlet’s feet, flaring impossibly high before it went out and settled into charcoal and ash.
Interesting.
Movement startled her, and she gasped as warm fingers settled solidly against her thigh. His hand was callused, though not so rough as she would have imagined, and his touch was solid and sure. Clyde dragged his fingers from her knee to the top of her thigh, stopping just shy of where her leg met her body. He did it again, on the outside of her thigh, a firm pass back to her hip and Ophelia felt a different warmth, the one that sometimes settled upon her when their eyes met or he offered a small smile.
He moved to the inside of her thigh, fingertips barely brushing against the hair between her legs, just enough to stir and tickle, and she felt as if something low inside her belly jerked. Instead of lifting his hand away and starting back at her knee, he gripped her other leg, massaging the meat of her thigh and she made a sound, breathy and surprised.
His other hand, the gleaming gold imbued with magic by the High Queen herself, slid down her belly to rest atop her left thigh, and the skin of his right palm and fingers rasped lightly over the fine wool and embroidered silk of her dress.
He chuckled and she realized her wings had unfurled once more. She had folded them carefully, so they draped around her rather like a cloak as she normally did for sitting, but the squeeze to her left thigh had startled her enough the upper set had opened and spread, straight out to either side, and she gasped as the movement of his arm brushed against the delicate underside.
Never had someone else touching her wings felt good. She leaned forward slightly and concentrated until they folded in again, once more draping along her back and (hopefully) mostly out of his way.
Clyde’s fingers were hot on her belly, and a pulsing heat built between her thighs. He pressed lightly, just below her navel, and she shivered. Ophelia listened once more to the rasp of skin over fabric, breath coming out in quick little puffs through her parted lips as his touch trailed up, and up, so close—
And he stopped just below her breasts, which felt strangely heavy, like her skin was too tight. “Patience, Princess,” he whispered in her ear, as a low whimpering sound escaped her and she shifted uncomfortably.
His manhood poked her bottom and the back of her thigh, and she was struck with a sudden desire to see it, to look and touch and hold, perhaps even taste. Her tongue dragged across her lower lip, and her eyes fell closed, only to fly open as Clyde dragged his hand up and over, somehow covering both her breasts at once. He pressed and rubbed, flexed his fingers to squeeze, and Ophelia slumped down and lightly kicked her feet, simply because she needed to move.
Clyde’s teeth pressed into the side of her neck, just under her ear, and she trembled so hard she nearly slid from his lap as the sensation echoed in a pulse between her legs. He sucked at her skin, and she wondered if something inside her had broken, because it didn’t hurt. Not at all. She even tilted her head so he could do it again, lower, as his fingers traced up to the top of her bodice and dipped inside, toying with her nipples until she wanted to shout.
Instead, she whimpered, whining as he left her, but then he settled his hand between her legs, cupping the pulsing, coiling heat that had become her body. He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Look at your husband, Princess,” Clyde whispered only for her ears. “Let him see what I do to you, show him how it makes you feel.”
His fingers moved, pressing in, tips tracing that line where her body opened, spreading her apart for his touch, and he hissed and whispered in her ear about heat and wetness as he stroked her, up and down, touch light yet still firm.
Was this what the queen’s ladies whispered about? The thing that made them giggle and smirk, that secret knowledge that they held themselves superior for learning?
If it was, she could hardly blame them.
The pressing, stretching sensation of something pushing inside her body made her gasp, and her head lolled back to rest on Clyde’s opposite shoulder as he put his finger inside her, thrust it like the part of him she wished it were, and she clutched at his arms and locked her feet behind his calves.
There was a sound, wet and almost sucking, as he pulled his finger out of her and plunged it back in, and she rocked in time with it, breath coming in pants.
“Ophelia! OPHELIA! WIFE, LOOK AT ME!” Hamlet roared, and she lifted her head almost lazily, smiling at him where he stood in front of his usual chair, fists clenched.
Clyde chose that moment to slide his finger free of her only to return with a second and she cried out. He pressed his palm against her, and she leaned slightly forward, rocking and rolling her hips as her wings unfurled and stretched wide. Clyde grunted into her neck and she felt that hard part of him slot against her backside, almost between her cheeks only her bunched up dress and his trousers were in the way.
Ophelia clutched at his left arm, fingers scrabbling at warm metal from just below the elbow, as he leaned forward and changed the angle of his hand, fingers pushing into her and thumb pressing higher, rolling over and over the place that made her eyelids flutter and her wings buzz. She stared into Hamlet’s eyes as whatever was building deep inside her burst apart, and she screamed and convulsed in the blacksmith’s arms.
Hamlet grabbed a dagger off one of his men and leaped forward in a rage.
“I think not,” Ophelia whispered, and a wall of berry brambles sprang to life between them.
Clyde groaned, long and low, and she felt a curious twitching against her.
The fire roared, a ball flame rolling to the ceiling, and the brambles shuddered and turned to ash.