“You’re going to make me come, princess.”
“So do it,” I said, squeezing again.
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.”
With that, he released his seed deep into my womb.
And for the first time as a knight of the realm, he claimed me as his.
Sara
Epilogue – Ten Years Later
The night was cold and the winter frosts were again upon us as Bors placed another log on the roaring fire, and joined me in our bed. It had always been the tradition for princesses and their consorts to have separate bedrooms, but he and I wouldn’t hear of it. We would always rather be together than otherwise, no matter if we were sleeping or awake.
As he slid next to me, his hand running over my already pert nipples, my thoughts drifted to what brought us here. How the last ten years had unfolded in ways I thought were only true in fairy tales.
Our wedding was on the first day of summer after Bors rescued me at the castle.
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 my belly, 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, Princess Angelica, perhaps most of all. Lately, his favorite thing to do has been having the boys hang from his biceps while she rides on his shoulders, all of them giggling and screaming with joy.
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. 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. There is peace at home in Clan Mackay lands, and he hasn’t been required to fight since my return to the castle. 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 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. On one particular spring afternoon as we rode back to the castle, one of Bors’ personal guards, Seamus, met us at the gate.
He’s gained my respect and my thanks, since, if it were not for him allowing Bors to pass the day he came to save me, I would have surely perished.
When his eyes cast upon Angelica, all I could think of was how Bors had looked at me that first time. They danced around a courtship for a year after, but Angelica finally acquiesced, and they eloped under the oak trees one 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.