The Forbidden Everything
A new chapter featured in the upcoming Remastered Edition of ✨Heir of Oberon✨, the second book in the ✨Song of the Sidhe✨ modern epic fantasy romance series
Her hands shook too hard to fit the key into the lock.
Meilyssa took a deep breath. Rested her brow against the cool wood of the familiar door, the solid and tangible “portal” to her private rooms safe within the palace.
In Baronane.
Not some random world light-years away in a galaxy uncharted by her kind.
Here, in the Otherworld.
Safe.
Her fingers slowly steadied just enough for her to finally push the key in and unlatch it. Could she have simply teleported to the other side, like her brother always loved to do? Of course. Her other siblings barely touched their own keys at all for that same reason.
But it came with considerable risk. Nothing was ever guaranteed to work exactly as planned. She could intend to enter the drawing room but land five feet above the outer balcony and break her neck. The last time she attempted a short teleportation from one room to another, with the door wide open, she found herself buried in that room’s closet.
Unstable.
Fractured.
Alone.
She locked the door behind her and tucked the key back into her dress pocket. There was no need for any servants or slaves to attend to her, and after what she’d just witnessed down at the market docks, she wasn’t sure if she could stomach looking at the chains and collars around those she once regarded with such ignorant indifference.
You didn’t know.
No. I didn’t want to know.
Which made it worse. She was supposed to be a healer, a protector, with her speciality in gestational sciences and pediatrics matching the tender compassion in her heart. She’d always been like this; always the little girl who cried over stomped ant hills and begged her parents to help her nurse birds with broken wings back to health.
So why did it take a woman from the Outworld, a stranger to this realm, to show Meilyssa the very nature of everything she’d been surrounded with her entire life?
Because it’s easy to ignore. Easy to pretend nothing’s wrong.
Which is exactly what nearly killed Conor—and then her.
They used to pretend nothing was wrong. He laughed off the teasing over his inability to successfully teleport like their older siblings, joking instead that Mei was probably just tripping him up through the ether. She used to pretend like she didn’t hear him struggling in the quiet places around the palace, or in one of their vacation homes, grunting and straining to open even just a sliver of a portal so he could prove to himself and their family that he wasn’t broken.
They used to lie to themselves that one day, it would all get better.
For her, it kind of did.
Only…the way it did, just a few short months after Conor disappeared, made her swear she would never open another portal again.
Defective.
Dangerous.
The look on Devon’s face when he saw her step through into the war council room flashed in her mind and brought the tremor back to her hands. He knew. She didn’t need to say a single word. He’d known the moment she appeared—and the portal closed quickly behind her, giving him a fraction of a second to see the slave market at the river docks—that something had gone terribly wrong.
Their father had asked questions. Started barking orders at Gardaí.
But Devon didn’t waste any time because he understood what it took for her to break the vow she’d sobbed over their youngest brother’s dying body—and the immense focus, the forced strain, she’d pushed through to ensure her aim would be true.
The evidence of such dripped from her nose; dark crimson staining the bodice of her dress.
Meilyssa now felt the tears spill down her face before she felt the wall hit her back and her legs gave out from under her. The tremor grew from her hands into her whole body, meeting the sobs which now shook inside her ribcage and her soul.
A new kind of fear began to tendril through her mind. Tightened the grip around her heart. Squeezed each tear from her eyes. It whispered accusations and pointed out the terrible duality of being a dutiful princess who honored the laws of her realm…and being a compassionate healer who would need to break those laws for the sake of actually saving lives. Of saving all those who lived in her realm, regardless of who or what they were.
A snort escaped her at the thought.
She couldn’t save her own brother. He’d been the only one who shared the same instability as her, the same brokenness in their gifts which had sent him to the furthest reach of the kingdom and kept her buried in her books. She’d cried for him when they dragged him away to that cursed outpost, and wept harder when their father firmly reminded her that all things needed to be done for the good of their realm.
Now, slumped on the floor of her ornate room—her gilded cage—Meilyssa felt those dark tendrils of fear stroke her tears and whisper to her that sometimes, “the good of the realm” might require chaotic disobedience.
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The late afternoon sunlight slid along her arms as she stepped out onto her private balcony for some air. As luxurious as her suite was, it felt suffocating to stand in there while the powerful energy still thrummed beneath her skin.
She’d broken her vow. There would be no going back from that.
Which began to feel…exhilarating.
The overhanging wisteria and thick clusters of indigo grapevines concealed the balcony from curious eyes which might have caught a glimpse from other rooms in the palace. Meilyssa glanced around to see if anyone could peek through, if there were any servants or family members passing through windows nearby.
Then took a deep breath.
Lifted her arms.
Let the simmering energy flow through her fingertips until she felt it focus into a single point a few feet in front of her.
Then expanded it into a long, silvery sliver and slowly, carefully widened.
The portal opened easily. Too easily for her own comfort, but that didn’t stop her from prying the ethereal doorway wider until it grew large enough for someone her size to step through.
Red mountains lined the horizon beyond the portal door. A dark cave nestled within what must have been a steep cliffside sat only a few yards away from Meilyssa; no signs of any inhabitants as far as she could tell. The vegetation around the rocky terrain seemed sparse but healthy, suggesting a water source somewhere near enough for rains to cycle through.
Overhead, in that plum sky tinged with streaks of flashing gold, the gravelly shrieks of scaled beasts and their flapping wings warned of dangers to any who dared tread below.
“I don’t remember seeing that on any maps.”
Meilyssa nearly jumped in surprise. Her soul, however, immediately recognized the voice of her intruder and calmed her pounding heart—so she pretended not to be instantly flushed by his sudden presence and instead kept her focus on the portal. “That’s kind of the point.”
“New territory?”
“New realm.”
“I’m guessing not somewhere here. In the Otherworld, I mean.”
“As far as I can tell, it’s not. I don’t see anything that indicates Ithandriian presence there. Or fae, for that matter.”
“Do your parents—”
“No.” She swallowed hard. Forced her voice to remain much calmer than she felt at the mere suggestion. “No one knows about this. They can’t. I…I can’t…”
Michael stepped out of the shadows from behind her and offered a gentle, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. No one is going to hear of this from me.” When she swallowed and nodded, he shifted his gaze back to the open portal. “How long has this been going on?”
The curiosity laced with concern and absent of judgment made it both easier to answer freely, but difficult to do so through the sudden lump in her throat. Of all the people she’d been afraid would discover such instability, he was at the top of that list. So again she swallowed, took a deep breath, and shrugged. “All my life. Ever since I began my training.”
He nodded. Studied the shimmering edge of the tear. “Same location? Or is it random every time?”
“I don’t know.” She appreciated his academic approach. Focus on the science, the logistics, the data. Not what it might mean. It helped her straighten her back and square her shoulders, her nerves calming. “What I mean to say is, it could be the same world or realm or planet, just difference locations of it. Or I’m always seeing the same location but lack an understanding of its seasons. And its creatures,” she added when one of the flying beasts called to its companions directly above the cave.
Michael eyed the winged lizard with calm apprehension. “Anything ever try to come through?”
“No. Not to my knowledge.”
He slid his gaze to her.
Again, she shrugged. “I can’t say with absolute certainty without possessing a full taxonomy of that ecosystem. It’s not the same place Conor opened, from what little he told me,” she quickly added. “Those things came from somewhere else.” The shiver that rolled through her at the memory of his description of an endless void—composed of utter darkness, pierced only by the invading light of the Otherworld when he’d ripped the tear open—made Michael take a concerning step toward her. But Meilyssa shrugged that off as well and ignored the knot in her stomach. “Here, though…bacteria? Fungi? I don’t know. Those things?” She pointed at the plum sky. “Definitely not. We’d have noticed by now.”
That made him snort a short laugh before he covered it up with a discreet cough. “Yes. Of course.”
They stood together in a long breath of silence, both staring at that unknown world. True to Mei’s assessment, nothing seemed eager to take advantage of the doorway left open, if anything or anyone was aware of it.
“There are no rules over there.” Her words came out quiet. Almost as if she feared someone might hear them. “None of ours, anyway.”
“Probably not.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Definitely not.”
“Like you said, we don’t possess any maps of this place. Which means it’s completely unknown to our people.”
“That’s certainly a sound assumption.”
“So if I stepped through…” Meilyssa took one step forward. Slowly outstretched her hand to the center of the portal. Noticed the way Michael tensed and shifted his weight between his feet as if preparing to grab her. “It would be impossible to find me.”
“If you stepped through,” he responded slowly, carefully, each word ground out between a warning and a plea, “I’d have no choice but to follow you.”
His words should not have cut as deep as they did. No choice. A different kind of ache clenched her heart and threatened to break her open all over again, and gods above, she did not want him to see her dissolve back into the mess she’d hidden in her room earlier.
Maybe it would be best for her to utilize this doorway into somewhere absent from all the rules, all the regulations, all the “duties” which bound her to a limited life. Ironically, not unlike the chains wrapped around the slaves who served that very life. She possessed an intelligence and sheer iron will which would see her through the initial stages of survival and exploration until she could settle down somewhere secure and peaceful enough to carve out a new way of living.
No more fear of what her parents might say or do in the face of her powers’ instability.
No more anxiety over failing the realm she once felt called to protect.
No more secrets haunting her nightmares, whispers and threads of things she still needed to figure out for the sake of her family and their collective future.
No more lying.
To herself, or…anyone else, that tendriled fear whispered when she almost stole a quick glance at her favorite Garda.
If she looked at him, she might not take another step closer to that new world.
So step she did. Once. Twice.
Her fingertips brushed the surface of the portal and felt the exhilarating nothingness of a barrier successfully penetrated.
Freedom.
She pressed in.
Michael’s hand wrapped around her wrist and stopped her. “Mei,” he muttered, her name low and gravelly in his throat.
It tightened the knot in her stomach…but in a slightly different way. She took a deep breath through her nose and willed herself to remember the things she was allowed, such as royal authority, in this moment. Ignore the forbidden. “You would stop me?”
“No.” His thumb brushed over the pulse in her wrist. Just once. “Only ask you to be certain. Completely certain.”
Damn him. Fresh tears pricked at her eyes. She blinked them away. Then lowered her hand, feeling the hum beneath her skin dissolve along with the portal as it closed before them. “I am certain of what it means to stay. Besides,” she sniffed, still avoiding the intensity of his gaze, “I’d hate to force your hand.”
She’d meant it metaphorically, of course. Which is why it surprised her to feel his literal hand squeeze, then tug around her wrist when she tried to pull away.
When their chests collided, Meilyssa swore she could feel his heart pounding as hard against his ribs as her own. Michael’s dark irises dilated, the bright ring of hazel around them almost glowing with something he dared not name and she dared not guess at.
“Careful, princess.” He lifted her hand to his sternum and pressed it there, solid and warm and practically shivering at her touch. Was she truly losing her mind, or did he suck in a sharp breath before calming it again? His lips parted as if he wanted to say something more, but words seemed to fail him.
Meilyssa felt her own tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. Gods, she could stare at him all day and never once feel the need to avert her gaze. Not like she always did whenever she felt that pull, that ache to just once catch him looking at her the way she did him whenever he was too distracted to notice.
All I am is careful.
Nothing quantifiable explained why she suddenly arched up on her toes. Felt her lithe body rub against his in the most delicious way.
Pressed her soft lips to his.
It was the barest, briefest of seconds, but she didn’t feel him kiss her back. She quickly broke contact with a fresh pang of terrifying regret piercing her heart. “Gods,” she muttered under her breath before she pushed herself away from him. “Gods, Michael, I’m so sorry—”
The world tipped end over end.
All she felt, swift and sudden and completely out of nowhere, were his hands in her hair.
His warm mouth slanted over hers.
The air leaving her lungs in one solid rush.
Whatever self-control she possessed a millisecond ago slipped through her fingers, replaced by the silken waves of his thick hair. Michael groaned, low and deep and wonderfully reverberating into her at the same moment her lips parted for the intoxicating taste of his tongue.
Every inch of her skin lit up like fire. She could barely feel her feet skim across the balcony as they moved; she hardly registered the cool marble column against her back where he pressed her with the whole of his incredible body and deepened their kiss.
The proper princess in her mind whispered a warning, an echo of his exact words, “Be careful.”
The fae blood flowing through her veins only added to that torturous fire and demanded more, more, more.
Michael growled when she sucked gently on his tongue; his fingers tightened in her hair at the nape of her neck to the point of almost tugging. Which made her whimper, a kind of soft keening sound neither of them had ever heard come from her body until this very moment.
Oh.
Oh…that did things to him.
Wonderfully powerful things which resulted in something just as wonderfully, promisingly powerful rubbing into her right where she needed there to be exactly zero fabric between them.
“Mei…”
He froze.
Squeezed his eyes shut.
Then let go of her, tearing himself away as if the fire in her skin literally burned him.
Something cold sank in the pit of her stomach. “Michael?” She hated how her voice squeaked his name, almost as much as she hated the way he suddenly spun away while wiping his mouth with the back of his clenched fist.
But before she could feel the full horror of his rejection churn harder in her gut, Michael held up a finger with his free hand. “Hold on,” he practically wheezed.
Silence.
After another beat, he cleared his throat. Kept that finger up so she’d stay where she was, but turned his head enough so she could hear him better without looking fully at her. “It’s your brother. He’s…ah…” Michael used that same finger to tap the side of his head.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Another pause. Another clearing of his throat. “Right. Just…one second.”
Meilyssa took the opportunity to smooth out her dress, feeling a different kind of heat touch her cheeks when she saw how much their…activity…had nudged the collar a bit lower than it needed to be.
Something wickedly delightful and somewhat vengeful for this interruption made her leave that plump cleavage exactly as it was.
Finally, Michael turned back around with a sheepishly apologetic smile on his flushed face. His eyes darted to the sight of her still leaning against the column, hair mussed from his ravishment and her dress doing nothing to hide the tempting mounds his fingers twitched to touch. “I, ah…sorry. Devon had some follow-up questions and, ah…well…”
Meilyssa nodded with understanding. “You needed to attend to your duties.”
“I needed him to not see what’s burning through my mind.”
Oh.
That smile twisted into something of a satisfied smirk as he slowly sauntered over to her. He kept his hands to himself, but the way he positioned his solid bulk made it clear any attempt to slip away might result in one of those chiseled arms wrapping tight around her.
Tempting…
“Everything okay?” Mei whispered, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. He’d always towered over her, but this time it felt…different.
His head inclined to one side, studying her. “Is it?”
“I meant with—”
“I know what you meant. Yes, everything is fine with them.” Unable to resist touching her, especially after finally tasting her, he lifted a hand to play with the ends of her hair. The fact that this particular strand rested on the fullest part of her breast was not lost on either of them. “He’s pissed, but they’re fine. He’ll get over it.”
Which was good. Good to hear and good to know. Except it felt wildly inconsequential whilst Michael’s knuckles kept innocently rubbing over her suddenly very sensitive curves. She knew she should pull away. She also knew there was no way in all the realms she would do that.
Unless he changed his mind about her. He definitely wasn’t returning to where they left off, and that seeded a worry in her chest. “What about us?”
Again with that tilt. That slight smirk. But he, too, held a worry in his eyes. “What about us?”
“Are you going to…” The words dried her mouth all over again. She could barely squeak them out, dreading the answer. “Are you going to do that? Get over it? Over us? This?”
Something in his gaze hardened. “Do you want me to?”
Her own gaze narrowed, the frustration over his double-speak boiling over in the wake of the other kind of heat. “Oh my gods, Michael! Can you answer just one question without asking me another?”
His other hand braced against the column next to her head, his arm effectively boxing her in as he took a step closer. Not enough to press his incredible body against hers, but just enough for her to feel the heat radiating from him in the very few inches of space between them.
“Fine,” he murmured. “Ask away.”
Make it good. “What do you want?”
She saw the temptation to dodge her question by repeating his own version of it dance through his mind, but he resisted. Instead, he seemed to war against something else that fought for control of his tongue until it finally won and took over.
“You really want to know?”
Mei nodded. Slowly, carefully, but sincerely. “Every detail.”
Michael snorted at that. Not derisively, though. More like a man who knew the truth might end at the edge of an executioner’s blade. “Every detail. Fine. Okay. What do I want?” His eyes studied her lips for another moment before meeting hers again. “I want you, Meilyssa. You. Every heartbeat, every breath, every inch of you inside and out. I want your dreams and your nightmares. I want your wishes and desires, and I want to be the one who lays them all at your feet.”
Whatever coldness that had sunk itself deep in the pit of her stomach earlier now melted at his words. At the way he looked at her; as if her very presence was the only thing anchoring him to the earth, as if he starved for her and needed her to only give him a scrap of herself for him to survive. A begging, a pleading, and a determination to deal with the consequences that assuredly meant his damnation should he enjoy her heaven.
“I want to hear you laugh because of me. I want to see you smile brighter than all the stars in the heavens because of me. And yes, Mei, I want to hear your moans and cries and the way my name sounds on your sweet lips when I sink inside you. I want you in my bed, in every possible way our bodies can bend and fold until we’re no longer two people. And God help me,” he bit back a scoff as he shook his head, “I want to see you grow with our child in your womb. I want to know every inch of your body, the way you taste and the way you feel, so deeply seared into my memory I could go blind and it wouldn’t make a difference. And I want the whole fucking world to know, to see without a shred of doubt, that I’m the one standing by your side and warming your bed and planting every beautiful babe inside you. I want everything, Mei. Everything.”
Silence hung in that small space between them. Meilyssa’s mouth opened, but no words came out. What in the world could she possibly say to that? What wouldn’t ruin this electrifying, core-melting moment by sounding as stupid as, “Me too”?
Thank the gods he seemed to understand the reason for her silence. Michael smiled and studied every part of her face for signs of rejection, clearly finding none. “Can I ask you a question?” He broke the silence with such gentleness, even as a bit of mischief quirked his mouth. “It’s been itching at my brain for quite a while, since we’re being perfectly honest here.”
“Perfectly.” Meilyssa could only nod and utter that one word. It wasn’t the one she meant to say, but…oh, well. She counted her blessings that she could speak at all.
His brow furrowed slightly. A seriousness weighed on his tone, and his body shifted as if he needed to prepare for a sudden departure. While also refusing to let her leave. “Why are you still at The Academy? You graduated three years ago.”
What? Mei blinked. “…What?”
“You. The Academy. You keep enrolling every semester even though we both know you graduated, with honors, three years ago. You passed the residency requirements a year and a half after that, the youngest and fastest to do so in five hundred years. Yet you’re still a student.”
Her brow arched. “You’ve been keeping track?”
“I was there the first day of class, Mei. I attended every ceremony and conference and graduation, even the ones you hid from your parents.” His finger gently touched her chin and turned her to look at him when she glanced away. “Yes, Meilyssa. I’ve been keeping track.”
Again she wanted to say something, but this time her mouth snapped shut when a sudden realization struck her. And narrowed her eyes at him. “My thesis on Outworld pharmaceuticals. The one I swore I’d left on my desk—”
“You actually left it on the counter at that café on Monmouth and Fifth. There’s no way you were going to make it to your presentation on time without some…help.” He tried and failed to bite back the smug smirk. “Your little stammer is cute, by the way. That thing you do when you get nervous.”
“I…I don’t! I don’t stammer—”
His lips brushed her ear. “It’s also on the list of things I want. Hearing you stammer when I make you tell me exactly what I’m going to do to your beautiful body right before I obey your every command.”
Oh, sweet merciful gods…
Michael cleared his throat and pulled away just enough so he could admire her blushing face. “My apologies. You were about to answer my question.”
“Huh?”
At least he didn’t chuckle, even if it looked like he really, really wanted to. Instead, he lowered his hand from her hair to rest on the curve of her waist. “School. You. The fact that you definitely don’t need it anymore.”
“Yes, I do.”
They both stilled at the way her words rushed out in a breath. Like they had every semester, every year, during every argument with her parents and Great Houses who repeatedly implored her to “just give it a rest and move on.”
“I have to.” Meilyssa bit the familiar words. “I have to stay in there. I can’t leave. They can’t make me leave.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Michael’s fingers pressed into her waist just a fraction more. “No, I don’t.”
She wanted to keep arguing so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud. “It” was the one secret she’d never dared utter, even in her sleep. To do so would cost her everything—including him.
But to deny him the truth felt horribly unfair after his own confession.
So she took a deep breath. Closed her eyes. Then reopened them when she felt him lean in even closer. “Because it’s the only way I know how to avoid An Rása. It’s the only way they’ll let me…not…run.”
His brow ticked upward. “Hmm. Interesting. You do know that The Race is the best way to find a husband, right?”
Meilyssa snorted a laugh. “The hell it is!”
“Oh?” His thumb rubbed an arc along her stomach. Slow, lazy, and distracting. “None of the young lords strike your fancy? No one has caught your eye?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Again he stilled. Tensed. “I see.”
“Those were two separate questions.”
His gaze snapped to hers.
“None of the high lords or their sons hold any appeal to me because someone else has already caught my eye.” She sucked in a deep breath and rested her hand on his. “Quite a long time ago, since we’re being perfectly honest.”
The expression on his face, the emotions blazing in his eyes, were simultaneously unreadable and immense. Hope, joy, relief, elation, fear…and sorrow.
She was all too familiar with the blend. She’d been hiding it behind her perfectly proper princess mask, her books, her lectures, even her siblings’ drama because hiding it seemed easier than confronting it. But now that she was, now that everything was out in the open between herself and the one man who made her soul sing in a way no other ever had or ever would, she felt a surprisingly soothing balm on that ache with the confirmation that she was not alone in her torment.
Which itself seemed so twisted.
“Ask me what I want.” Meilyssa felt the words slip from her lips without a thought. Nothing but instinct, the kind which never got permission to play and recognized this might be the only moment it’d ever receive, pulled at the controls in her mind and heart. “What I really want.”
His face hovered an inch from hers. His mouth so dangerously close to her own. “Tell me. Everything.”
Words felt insufficient. Pulling him into her arms, into her searing kiss full of desire and longing and love…that felt much better. The way he sank into her embrace when she gave it to him told her he agreed.
Still, there was no avoiding the inevitable sorrow which dampered what could have otherwise been a flawlessly beautiful moment of passion between them.
“I want our fates to be different.” Her voice caught on that word, fate. She hated it with a passion only matched by her love for this man. His fingers wiped away unshed tears before they could fall and only made it harder for her to hold them back. “I want, so much, to be able to give you everything you want. All of it. Without constantly feeling terrified I’m going to lose you.”
Michael pressed his brow to hers. “I know.”
“It’s why I did it. At the market.” Meilyssa sniffed. Pressed her hands to his chest so she could feel the solid steadiness of his heart beating for her. “I didn’t open the portal for her. I did it for you. We were outnumbered and I…” She choked back a sob and shook her head. “I couldn’t lose you.”
His arms wrapped around her. His warmth, his strength, his love enveloped her in a cocoon she never wanted to leave. She felt him cradle the back of her head, pressing her face into his chest, and her one intrusive thought decided that now would be the perfect time for some random guard’s arrow to pierce both of them through their united hearts.
At least their deaths would be swift and painless.
And together.
“I should go.” Michael mumbled it into her hair, very obviously hating the taste of that sentence as much as she hated the sound of it.
“I know.”
Neither of them moved.
“The day it stops?” Meilyssa turned her head so he could hear her without her needing to pull away. She wasn’t ready to feel the cold of his absence just yet. Or ever. “The day my plan fails?”
His arms tightened around her. “Yes?”
Now she did pull away, only to lean back enough for him to see how serious she meant this. “I’m opening that portal. I’m walking through it. With or without you. But preferably with you.”
“The day your wickedly brilliant plan fails…” Michael rubbed his hands down her back to her sides, easing her away from him so he could admire her from head to toe. “I’ll carry you through it.”
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