Prince of the Night Court x female reader (nsfw) *commission* (Patreon)

The third commission from a lovely patron! This time I was asked for something from my Fae Realm, and of course, I went nuts on this one, with world-building and whatnot. They asked for the prince of the Night Court, tall, seemingly cold, and a female reader on the curvier side, who's a craftsperson. So, I'm delighted to present this, 9200+ word story for your enjoyment! 

Next up is January's kelpie boy, and February's story will be not too far behind that one either!

Dull, grey light filtered in through the leaded windows behind you as you chiselled and punched the design into the damp leather which sat on a slab of granite on the workbench in front of you. It would make a beautiful cover for one of the older and more battered books in the royal collection that you had to rebind, and with the design that you’d painstakingly invented - one of interwoven leaves and vines, studded with flowers and tiny bees - it would indeed be a book fit for the hands of a king. At least, you hoped it would.

It seemed a long way off that as it sat on your table, but you weren’t one to get disheartened easily when it came to your work. Your hands were rough and callused from the years you’d spent in your apprenticeship, but now you had a workshop of your own, working with the archivists here in what had to be the greatest human palace ever built. 

Taking a break, you rolled your shoulders out and stood, pushing the heavy wooden chair with its squashy, threadbare cushion back and easing out the building tension in your neck and spine. Your mostly sedentary life had meant you were carrying a little more on the hips than most women your age at court, but then again most of the women at court your age were noblewomen, thinking about ensnaring good husbands and making good matches. You, the daughter of a country farrier, who had grown up tooling leather saddles and bridles, were hardly the centre of anyone’s attention. There was a rather attractive scribe who worked on the floor below, but you didn’t run into him all that often. Besides, he had what might have been called a rather ‘fae’ look about him, and everyone knew that even the slightest drop of fae blood in someone meant trouble, if not outright danger. 

You shuddered at the thought of the Fae, knuckling the small of your back with a grunt and heading for the door that would take you down a winding, spiral staircase, through the archives, and out into a small courtyard where you could get a breath of fresh air, even if it was admittedly a rather grey, misty day. 

As you paced through the familiar warren of labyrinthine stacks, the hairs on the back of your neck suddenly rose, goosebumps prickling along your arms, and you paused, feeling horribly like a trapped rat in a tunnel for absolutely no discernible reason. A glance behind revealed nothing but the empty rows of books. 

A shadow moved up ahead, and you glimpsed a figure holding a scroll in one hand and a light that was definitely not a candle flame in the other. The light remained steady, with none of the guttering and flickering of a naked flame, and, aside from that, it was a shimmering green. Magic. 

“Fae,” you hissed under your breath, eyes going wide as you recognised the silhouette of the scribe. “You are fae…”

His voice rose audibly, murmuring something in a regular, lilting rhythm, and before you could react, a gaping, nebulous, bright green web opened up in front of you. With a scream, you tried to pull back, but it drew you in and in the blink of an eye you found yourself hurtling through a portal amid a cascade of archival material. 

Shooting through the tear between realms felt horribly like falling off a rearing horse, except that the ground took an awful lot longer to smack you in the back than it had when you’d fallen off an untrained gelding when you had been a young girl of seven. Your landing, when it came, knocked all the wind out of you, and your head rang from the impact on the rocky earth. Books and scrolls rained down around you, one catching you on the side of the head and making you yelp. 

A second later, the scribe landed beside you, and let spill a string of curses. Finally reining himself in, he pushed himself up on shaking limbs, took one look at you and the scattered books lying around you like grain for chickens, and simply said, “Oh… shit.”

You cocked an eyebrow at him, unable to conjure any words from your spasming, winded chest, and he stood up and backed away from you as though you had the plague. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he chanted, wringing his hands and pulling up the cowl of his brown, archivists robes. 

“What?” you wheezed, standing shakily and taking in your surroundings for the first time. “Where are we?” you demanded.

Ghostly silver birch trees formed a wide ring around a woodland clearing, with tendrils of eerily dark mist creeping from the shadows between them towards a jagged standing stone in the centre of the mossy glen. The sky overhead was a clear and endless blue, and the air was warm, incongruous with the perpetually coiling mist.

“Home,” he said, a smile creeping into his voice despite his obvious nerves. “I’ve finally done it, after years of failed attempts.”

“And where exactly is home?”

He turned back to you, and the look in his unnaturally bright green eyes told you that you already knew the answer to that.

“The Fae Realm,” you murmured, horror billowing in your gut. “We’re in the Fae Realm.”

“Yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his head through the hood of his robes. “And I’ve brought a human into the heart of the Night Court. Shit,” he said again. “I’ll be in so much trouble if anyone finds out.”

You shot him a look and put your hand on your hip. You had to tilt your head to look up at him, but then again, you had to do that with most folks. “So just send me back,” you snarled. 

He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t just make portals,” he said. 

“But…” you sputtered, “But… then what the hell was that?” you asked, jabbing your thumb over your shoulder to the empty space where there had most definitely been a portal.

He sighed and he actually seemed contrite as he said, “I fell through a tear in the worlds nearly ten years ago. I found myself in the Mortal Realm, with no way out, and no access to what limited powers I have. I’m not some noble fae’s son,” he went on. “I can’t just create whatever the hell I like out of thin air, or whatever it is that their powers let them do. I’m just an ordinary fae.”

“But how did you do that just now…?” you pressed. “Can’t you just do it in reverse or something to get me back?”

“I have some magic,” he said a bit defensively. “All fae do. All I needed was to track down the spells that would allow me to create a gateway from the Mortal Realm to a waystone here.” He turned and laid the flat of his pale hand on the granite monolith behind you. “That’s why I found work in the royal archives, and why I’ve spent the last ten years searching desperately for a way out. I can’t send you back because I don’t know the spell to open one from this side. It’s… forbidden anyway,” he said. 

You’d been about to open your mouth to retort that he could bloody well find a way to send you back when a female voice cut through the soft susurrations of the forest around you, and the scribe froze, a look of horror etching itself deep into his pretty features. “It is indeed forbidden,” crooned the high, even girlish, soprano.

As a tall female stepped from the trees, clad in armour that rippled and shivered oddly even as you tried to look more closely at it, the scribe let out a whimper and dropped to one knee, head bowed, and murmured, “Princess!”

Princess? 

Not knowing quite what to do, you simply stood there and watched as the beautiful, porcelain-faced woman paced towards the quivering scribe with a look of pure malice that was completely at odds with her almost doll-like body. 

She laughed softly, the loose waves of her midnight hair shimmering. “We have not felt this waystone activate for decades,” she said in her lilting, sing-song voice. “And so when my brother felt its magic once again, he sent me to come and investigate.” She snorted and stopped in front of him. “But you can imagine how disappointed I am to find only some bottom-feeding creature with no magic to speak of and a human here.”

Her body was slim in the extreme, emphasised by the harsh, form-fitting, black armour and the flowing cape of what looked like liquid night that poured down from two intricately carved, glittering, jet brooches at her shoulders. She raised a moon-pale hand to the scribe’s chin and tilted his face upwards, though he still refused to meet her eyes which were, you saw on closer inspection, a vivid, violet blue. Her rosebud mouth twitched in a nasty smile, almost ruining the effect of her beauty with its venom, and she forced him to his feet as talons extended slowly from her nails. They pricked his skin enough to draw blood, but he only gasped and obeyed without a word. 

“It is forbidden to travel between the realms, wretch. And yet here you are.” Her eyes suddenly flashed to your face and you felt a thrill of cold terror shoot down your spine as the full force of her immortal regard was turned upon you. “And you have brought one of them with you! Did you hope to keep it as a little pet?” she sneered, forcing him right onto his tiptoes as she held him like a falcon with a mouse in its talons. 

“I… Please… Princess… I didn’t know… I didn’t mean… She… I didn’t know she was there until… until we were here and it was too late. Please, you must believe me…”

“Must I?” she snickered. 

“Please, Highness, I only meant…” She cut him off and flung him aside with a strength that her tiny arms should not have possessed. He did not get up. 

Your knees turned to water, and you bowed your head as she stared at you. “What he said was true, Your Highness,” you croaked. “I had no intention of coming here. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time - I got caught up in his portal by accident.”

She kept her strange, otherworldly gaze on you and then stepped closer. The princess then encircled your upper arm with her bird-like fingers, talons now nowhere to be seen, and said, “Is that so?” Then she sighed dramatically and whispered, “Well, unfortunately, my brother will have to decide what to do with you, not I. If it were up to me, you’d end up like him -” she turned your chin roughly towards his prone body and snarled “- as food for the mist wraiths.” 

“Please,” you hissed. “Just let me go home…”

“Oh no,” she laughed. “You’re coming with me, human.” 

With a whirl of darkness that made your stomach flip over, you found yourself standing in a high, hammer-beamed chamber, with huge braziers burning brightly on the walls. Every piece of stonework, from the floor to the upper storeys of the hall, was made of sheer, black marble, veined with gold and silver. The floor was polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the painted ceiling between the ancient timbers. Constellations winked down from a shadowy night sky, while the thin, pointed arches of the windows on either side of the hall were filled with midnight blue glass cut in dizzying, swirling patterns that seemed to move like water if you stared too long at them. 

At the far end of the cavernous hall was a throne carved from the same black marble. It had been sculpted into the form a sweeping bank of cloud, swirling upwards in a dramatic, ‘C-’shaped wave into the seat and back of the chair in a series of billowing, marble curves. It was a work of genius craftsmanship, and in the pounding heartbeats that you stood staring at it, you forgot your terror. You were not allowed long to marvel at it, because you suddenly realised that the hall was full of strange creatures - some beautiful, some terrible - and every single one of them was staring at you. 

Seamlessly, they parted as their princess strode down the middle of the gathered throng, drawing back as though afraid of this tiny, beautiful creature that dragged you along in her wake. Having seen what she had done to the poor scholar who had only wanted to return home for the past decade, you didn’t blame them. 

Some of them, you noticed, had grey skin and huge, bat-like wings folded neatly behind them, while others had shimmering gossamer wings, and, still stranger yet, there were tall folks bent forwards, hunched nearly double, their skin like cracked and drying bark, with large insectoid eyes and long, crooked fingers. These were the kinds of fae you had been brought up to fear, and here you stood in the middle of them, tugged along by the princess of one of the legendary twelve courts of the Fae Realm. The Night Court, the scribe had said. 

A door at the far end of the chamber opened, and at the arrival of this new figure, every fae bowed their head, or heads you noted with horror in the case of one particular creature. A murmur ran round the room, and as you and the princess passed the front rank of gathered fae, you heard them whisper, “My Prince,” and “Highness,” in tones of reverence and fear. 

The Prince of the Night Court had arrived, and you risked a glance towards him. Tall, imposing, and silent, he stood on the dais above you and glared at his sister as she towed you along to the foot of the raised platform. He wore a long robe the colour of ink which trailed on the floor, and his collar and cuffs were adorned with gold filigree embroidery that sparkled like sunlight on snow. Other than that, there was almost no colour to him. His black hair was cut relatively short in a severe style with a faint sweep across the front, and his face was pale and flawless as fresh parchment. High cheekbones, strong brows, and a sharp jaw made him possibly one of the most beautiful beings you'd ever seen, but it was his eyes that caught and captivated you utterly. 

Where his sister’s eyes were an almost sickly violet, his own were the colour of the sky at the height of summer; a deep, rich, lapis lazuli blue. 

He stared at you in the moments that the court remained with their heads bowed, and he fixed you with the strangest stare. Then he gave a tiny, almost resigned sigh and his face hardened into a cruel mask reminiscent of his sister’s expression back in the clearing. 

“You may rise,” he drawled nonchalantly at the chamber in a warm baritone, and after the rustling of wings and settling of clothes had died down, he stood in front of that incredible throne and glared once more at his sister. “Sister, what business do you bring before me?”

“You asked me to investigate the waystone, brother,” she smiled, a gesture as sickly as rotten fruit. “I am merely doing your bidding. I thought you’d be pleased at what I brought back?”

“Like a cat bringing a dead mouse back to its master,” he snarled through gritted teeth, and perhaps only you and the princess caught the muttered sentiment. 

In that moment, her clutch on your arm tightened so hard you gasped, and she dragged you right before him, flinging you down onto your knees at his feet. Terror flooded through you and you couldn’t help the intense trembling that swept through you. 

“Please,” you hissed, head bowed, palms pressed to that icy floor. It was so shiny you could see your own horrified face reflected in the blue light from the windows. “I never wanted to come here… It was an accident.”

“An accident?” he asked without moving from his position atop the dais. “Do elaborate, Kinethara,” he added, turning to his sister and you flicked your gaze briefly to him. “What is going on? I’m growing bored and impatient of this already…” His eyes flashed suddenly like lightning over the sea on a clear day.

“Ugh, fine,” she drawled. “Some low-life found a way to get back from the Mortal Realm via the waystone. From what I heard before I showed myself, he’d been trying for some time to get it to work.”

“He’d been trapped for ten years, and you killed him!” you exclaimed, suddenly wishing very much that you had kept silent. The room took a sharp, collective intake of breath as one, and the princess slowly turned her head to look at you, that same light now flickering in her eyes. Like an owl surveying a mouse, she stared unblinkingly at you as the blood drained from your face. She was a true predator. 

Before she could take more than a single step towards you, however, her brother materialised in a cloud of roiling shadows between you two, making you jump, and said, “Take her to the slave quarters and let her live out the rest of her life here. She cannot return now that she has seen the inside of my court.”

“Aw, can I use her as my own personal practice dummy then?” she pouted, eyes glittering with malice.

You sensed the enjoyment of the rest of the room, watching the two royals sparring for control of the situation, of you. 

“Please,” you whimpered. “I never asked for any of this. One moment I was walking through the archives, and the next I was here. I have no idea what spell he used to get us here, and I don’t know any magic anyway. Please, just let me go home and get back to my life…”

The prince turned to regard you.

He stood tall, at over six foot, and you swallowed thickly, craning your neck to peer up at him and trying to force your legs to stop shaking. “The archives?” he quizzed. 

“I… I work there,” you faltered. 

“You’re a librarian?”

“Book binder, your highness,” you said, thinking it might be a little late for polite titles now, but that it couldn’t hurt anyway. 

He blinked slowly, and you could have sworn that a tiny, curious smile danced at the corners of his intense, blue eyes, but it was gone before you could even register it. “Send her to the library then. She can work there,” was all he said before summoning a figure from the back of the room with a curt gesture of his pale, elegant hand. “Ghosrin will take you.”

You turned and found one of the winged creatures staring down at you, and you sucked in a gasp of horror. If you’d even entertained the vaguest thought of fighting back, it was quashed at the sight of him. He was colossal, with massive, rolling shoulders, and his slate coloured torso was bare to the waist, showing incredible musculature that supported the expansive, bat-like wings which hung neatly behind him. He wore a thick belt around his waist, and loose, linen trousers that stopped at his knees. A quick glance at his legs, however, had your eyes flying wide with shock once again. Instead of human legs, he had the legs of a hawk, though the skin remained a dark, smoky grey all the way down to his taloned toes. His black hair was shaved short on one side, and his dark eyes bored into you as his lips peeled back into a nasty growl. 

“This way, human,” he sneered at you, bowing a polite nod at his prince before nudging you in the back with one of his wings to get you moving. It had a massive, onyx talon at its tip that looked sharp enough to disembowel a dragon with no difficulty whatsoever, so you found your feet moving in obedience, even as tears tracked down your cheeks. 

At the door you glanced back over your shoulder, vision blurred with tears of despair and terror, to find the prince staring after you, a strange expression on his face. Then he turned away and addressed his court, dismissing you utterly as you were shoved out into the dark hallway beyond and guided none-too-gently through the corridors of the royal palace by the hulking, silent creature who had been set to guide you to your new fate. 

“Where are we?” you asked him in a terrified whisper. 

“Prince Naeryn’s palace, in the heart of his territory. You aren’t going to be able to run, little rabbit…” he chuckled grimly. “So don’t even think about it. This whole place is surrounded by a moat of pure night. You fall in that, and there’s no coming out. Not sane, anyway…” he added with an amused snort.

You shuddered and let out another sob. “What happens to me now?”

“You work here now, I guess,” he shrugged. 

He held open the door for you as you reached the end of another immensely long corridor, and you gasped at the sight in front of you. If the royal archives at home had been impressive, it was nothing compared to this. 

Like every other inch of the palace you’d seen so far, the walls, floor, and ceiling were carved from black marble, but here there was colour in the form of the millions of books that lined the shelves. Glimmering coloured balls of light hung at intervals along the shelves which eventually retreated into blank darkness; there seemed to be no end to this library at all. 

At your arrival, flanked by a huge, winged warrior, a few of the library’s occupants looked up curiously, and a moment later a creature came scuttling out of a room off to one side and stopped in front of you. 

Wings like those of a mayfly rustled and fluttered gently, and the insectoid fae tilted its face curiously at you. It was like nothing you’d ever seen or imagined, and you had a hard time not recoiling from it in horror. But the longer you looked, the more you saw beauty in the strangeness, and tried to steady your breathing and your racing heartbeat. 

The fae’s skin was pale jade, flecked with gold, and it had six skinny legs which ended in delicate little hooked talons upon which it walked like a ballet dancer. Two additional limbs with tiny pincers, like a finger and thumb, hung from its slender shoulders, and as it clicked its mandibles, you heard a strange, reedy voice emanating from it. 

“What’s this, Ghosrin?” it asked irritably. “Why are you bringing humans into my library?”

“Prince’s orders,” your guide muttered, sullen as a stone gargoyle. “Apparently this one knows books or something. I dunno, Olinn, he just told me to bring her here.”

“Slave?” 

Ghosrin nodded, and you felt your heart crack under the force of the panic you were barely keeping contained. As if able to sense it, Olinn turned to you and then back to the winged figure beside you. “Thank you. I’ll take her from here.”

The library, it turned out, was almost like a city in itself. It went back into the mountain on which the Palace of Night had been built, and, Olinn told you as they showed you around, like every city, this one had its open plazas and hidden gems, and its dangerous regions where you were warned not to go. 

“This place has a life of its own,” the strange, insectoid fae informed you casually. “Now, are you hungry? Thirsty?”

Even if they were just being kind, which you honestly did appreciate, you knew better than to eat fae food. If you did that, legend said that you’d never be able to get back to the Mortal Realm, so you simply shook your head politely. Not eating would keep you from becoming a part of the Fae Realm, but it also gave you a very narrow window in which to find your way out and back to the Mortal Realm.

Olinn sighed. “Very well. Perhaps you can begin by helping me re shelve some of these then…” and they waved a delicate limb towards a monstrously large wall of books. “They’ve just been added to the catalogue, and need shelving.”

Two days later, you were lightheaded and nearly doubled over in pain from lack of food, but you had refused to eat so much as a crumb. You’d had to drink of course, but you’d made sure it was only water, and you hoped there was no magic in that. There was the unspoken rule about not eating, but if it also extended to drinking, then all that had been for nothing, and you were doomed anyway. 

As you trudged along the shelves of a remote, upper corner of the section of the library that Olinn had assigned to you for the time being, you came across a figure reclining a chaise longue, bathed in soft, late afternoon sunlight. 

You froze as you recognised him instantly. 

The prince lay there, one arm having slipped gracefully off the cushion to hang in the space beside it, a book on the floor where it had clearly fallen from his fingers as he had drifted into sleep. If you’d thought him beautiful awake, he was even more attractive like this. The harsh lines of his face had melted into an almost gentle expression, his long limbs stretched out along the elegant, pale, silk-damask couch, his head tilted softly to one side, full, pale lips parted, chest rising and falling slowly with sleep. 

The hilt of a jewelled dagger glinted at his hip, and you wondered if you could somehow free it and threaten him somehow into taking you home. But even as you thought it through, you knew it was ridiculous. You’d never get it free before he woke up, and then you’d have to face the wrath of the prince. You’d heard what others in the library had said about him, and their words had made your blood run cold. 

Deciding not to disturb the sleeping fae prince, you backed away from him until the deeper shadows of the shelves swallowed you. You returned to your task, but perhaps five minutes later, you felt a horrible, creeping presence looming behind you. 

Whipping around, you screamed.

The rows of shelves between you and the window had vanished completely into a vast, gaping, black void, the tendrils at the edge of which were creeping along the floor towards you like hunting vipers. You staggered backwards, dizzy and weak, but they rushed forwards and enveloped you in a heartbeat, leaving you sitting on the archives floor in utter darkness. 

The light of the window that had been no more than twenty paces from you had been utterly extinguished, and it made no difference whether your eyes were open or not. You fumbled for the shelf on your right and found its solid presence beside you. Letting out a shivering sigh of relief, you pulled yourself to your feet, trying not to give in to your blind panic. 

Something trembled in the darkness, travelling through it like vibrations through spider silk, and you heard a soft whimper of pain. Frowning, you froze, listening, straining your ears in the blackness. It came again, followed by a sob, and then a choked, scraping voice that whispered, “Please. Not like this… Don’t lock me away. I’m not… I’m not mad… please…”

It was the voice of the prince. 

Was he in some kind of trouble? Was this one of the ageless entities that Olinn had warned you about? Had it come to prey and stalk the very prince himself? 

Another suspicion lurked in the back of your mind, and you began to move towards the end of the shelves, fumbling in the dark with every step. 

You knew you’d found your way to him when you bashed your shins against the low sofa, and you dropped to a crouch, finding the prince’s body rigid as stone beneath your touch. He was shaking, his muscles locked in a rigour of terror. 

This was not some lurking creature in the darkness. He had created this darkness, and he lay there, locked in a nightmare. Taking a deep breath, you began to shake him. 

Seconds later, he gasped, the darkness rippling and quivering around you, and he sat bolt upright, scrambling slightly. Then, as though it was all sucked into a single pinprick in space and time, the darkness shrank back with a snap, and vanished to reveal the prince. 

The prince was even whiter than when you’d last seen him, his beautiful blue eyes wide and glassy with fear. Then he swallowed and blinked, seeing you properly. “Thank you,” he rasped. 

“What the hell was that?” you murmured. 

“I… What do you mean?”

“One minute I’m standing in the stacks, the next there’s darkness pouring along like a flood down a dam slipway towards me.”

“Ah,” he said, raising his trembling hand, palm up, and creating a small pool of black liquid in the hollow of his palm. “One of my gifts,” he said, his breathing starting to settle again. “I create darkness around me. Here,” and he took your hand in his free one, raising it to pour the viscous night into your hand. It wasn’t anything like you’d expected it to be. It felt warm and soft, and you couldn’t help smiling, despite the slight blurring of your vision. Two days was a long time without food, and the exertion of dragging yourself through the darkness of his aura had drained you. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, recalling the little drops of darkness to his hand with a swirl of his fingers and swinging his long legs down so that he could sit upright on the chaise longue.

“I… nothing,” you said, turning away. “I should get back to my work.” The despondency in your tone seemed to move him deeply, and he shot out a hand, grabbing your wrist in strong fingers. 

“Wait,” he murmured, standing. 

“What?” you asked, half sob and half sigh. “What more do you want to do to me? You’ve already trapped me in here and subjected me to a life… a life away from everything I’ve ever known. All I want is to go home.” You stared him down, and to your surprise he sat back on the sofa behind him with a heavy grunt, shoulders sagging. He did not release your hand, but instead cradled it softly between his fingers. 

“You think I want to keep you here?” he asked in a whisper. 

“You’re the prince,” you spat. The brief sympathy you’d felt for him in the wake of his frightened whimpering had evaporated. He was a fae. “I think you do whatever you like. I’ve not been here long, but I’ve heard what they say about you here; that you’d do better in the Winter Court, with your heart of ice. The’ Prince Without Mercy’, they call you.”

To your surprise, his deep eyes suddenly teared up and he looked away, releasing your hand as though your touch had burned his flesh. He stood and crossed to the window, drinking in the weak sunlight as though he were an empty vessel. Perhaps he was, with all that darkness inside him. 

“I come here often,” he murmured, gazing out at the mountains beyond. “It’s peaceful here. I like to read.” His fingertips traced idle patterns on the glass. “I like to escape.”

You couldn’t help the sour laugh, and he lowered his head. 

“Didn’t seem like you got all that much peace just now… What was your nightmare about?” you asked, unable to contain your curiosity. 

He didn’t reply for a few moments, and just stood there, breathing gently. Eventually, and without turning round, he said, “My father is insane.”

“You’re all insane,” you hissed. 

“That’s as may be,” he said dryly. “But my father is truly mad. It started when my mother died giving birth to my sister, and it only got worse over time. I had to lock him away.”

“And you’re afraid you’re going to end up like him,” you said. Despite yourself, you felt that creeping sense of sympathy edging back into your chest at the sight of his sagging shoulders and bowed head.

“Yes,” he said, little more than a whisper. 

You took one step towards him and snorted, “Well, I think it’s your sister who’s in danger of going mad, not you.”

The prince didn’t respond to that, and perhaps he knew. “What is your name?” he asked. 

When you didn’t tell him, he turned to glance over his shoulder at you, the shadows and contrast of the light behind throwing his sharp features into high relief. He looked like a marble carving: beautiful, unmoving, immortal. And yet he had sentenced you to the rest of your life as a slave, for something you hadn’t even been involved with. You ground your teeth and stared him down. 

Perhaps he knew that too. 

“I am what I have to be,” he said, sounding resigned, as if responding to your thoughts. “I do not expect a human to understand what governing a province of the Fae Realm is truly like, but as you can imagine, there are some creatures here who thrive on the darkness, who hunt and prowl in it, and it falls to me to rule them and keep them in line. It is not their fault that their nature is thus, but I must create and keep my laws in order to protect my people, and…” he added, smiling softly, “And yours.”

“Mine?”

“There are cracks in the veil between realms, human. The fae who brought you here, whoever he was before my sister got her claws on him, knew that too.”

“He said he fell through one, over a decade ago.”

“Perhaps he did,” the prince sighed. “And who knows what else may have slipped out with him. But he created one to bring himself - and you - back with him.”

“So you believe that I didn’t come here willingly then?” you asked, taking a tentative step closer to him. “Why can’t you just send me home?”

Pain, clear and unmistakable as daylight, flashed across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Once a human has been here and -” he broke off, his brows pinching in the middle as he regarded you anew. “You haven’t eaten any of our food yet, have you?”

“No,” you whispered, swaying on the spot. Not now, you told yourself. Don’t pass out now. Not when you’re at his mercy… 

“Sit down,” he said, striding over to you, but before he could steer you onto the couch, the edges of your vision went black, lights danced before your eyes, and your knees crumpled from underneath you. 

You woke to a cool touch on your forehead, and the sound of trickling water not far off. Blinking dazedly, you tried to sit up, but a flicker of movement beside you made you look round. 

The prince smiled at you, a look of genuine relief in his handsome features. “You’re awake,” he said. “Good. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” you admitted, trying again to sit upright. 

“Easy,” he murmured, helping you and sliding a pillow behind your back. It was only then that you realised you were in a bedroom. His bedroom. The moment he saw the epiphany on your face, he laughed. It was a rich, warm, rolling sound that made your stomach flutter, and sent a light shimmering through his dark blue eyes. “You’re quite safe here, I promise,” he said. “My word as Prince of the Night Court.”

“Can I leave if I haven’t eaten your food? Or is it too late for me now?” you asked immediately. Your throat was parched, your tongue thick in your mouth. Seeing this, the prince sighed and pushed himself up from where, you realised with a jolt, he’d been kneeling on the floor beside the bed. 

The sheets were impossibly soft, black silk, and the hangings around the windows were made of a heavy black material, pulled aside by cords of gold rope. The room beyond was black, with black furniture, black walls, and a black, marble floor. Three sets of double doors opened out onto a stone courtyard beyond, and a fountain could just be seen splashing gently at its centre.

“Is there no colour in this place at all?” you whispered. 

He turned back to face you, a jug and a crystal goblet in his hands. “Only you,” he smiled sadly. “Drink.”

“What is it?”

“Water. Drink.”

You obeyed, too thirsty and too empty to care. 

He sighed. “I will take you back,” he said. “You clearly had no designs on my kingdom or my people, unlike a few of the other humans I’ve known to try and sneak in.” He let out another breath and added, “Though I will be breaking my own laws, I will take you back to your archives.”

Relief flooded through you and you sobbed. “Thank you.”

He held out his hand to you and helped you out of bed, steadying you as you swayed and the darkness swirled in your vision. “Careful,” he said. “This might be easier if I carry you.” Years of physical work sitting at a workbench had hardly given you the figure of a light little faerie, but he only smiled. “May I?”

Too weak to do more than nod and shrug, you allowed him to slide his right hand beneath your arms, and then he stooped to pick you up with his other arm beneath your bent knees. He carried you as easily as though you weighed almost nothing at all, and when he saw your surprise, he laughed that lovely laugh again. 

“Hold on,” he said. “This will be… unpleasant at best. Now think of home and of nothing else…”

Before you could ask him more, you experienced a most peculiar sensation; it was as though someone had latched a hook to your belt and yanked on it as hard as they could. A second later, you were still in his arms, but he was standing in front of a very familiar wooden door. 

“How…? How did you know…?” you asked. “This is my workshop…”

“You brought us here,” he said. Something about him seemed different here. Pain pinched the corners of his brilliant eyes and his mouth was a hard line, as though he were fighting not to show his discomfort. 

“Are you alright?” you asked as he set you down and he staggered slightly. 

“The Mortal Realm isn’t… isn't’ a particularly welcoming place for me to be,” he said. 

“Wait, how will you get back?” you asked. “That other fae was trapped here for a decade!”

He snorted, amusement flaring to replace the pain in his expression. “My powers here may be no more than a shadow of what they are in my own realm, but all I have to do is step sideways through the veil, and I will be back amongst my kind in a heartbeat. It’s sweet of you to worry…”

“I’m not worried about you,” you retorted defensively. “I just don’t want to be stuck here with you still.”

He laughed again and brought his hand to your cheek. You let him, to your surprise, and the tenderness in his touch almost moved you to tears. Perhaps it was just the exhaustion though. 

“You’re so strong,” he murmured. 

“I don’t feel it,” you replied sourly. “I didn’t think it was possible to feel this empty; this hungry.”

“Go,” he said with astonishing kindness. “Go, and please find something to eat before you pass out again. I should not linger here. And…” he added taking a step back as your hand moved to the latch on your workshop door. “Do not speak of what happened to you…”

A snort escaped your nose and you stared flatly at him. “Trust me, publicising the fact that I’ve spent the last two days starving in the Fae Realm is the last thing I’m likely to do.”

“Right, of course,” he said. “And… I’m sorry for the way you were treated. If it means anything at all, I’m sorry.”

You believed him. “Listen, thank you. You broke your own laws to let me go, to bring me back here. I’m… beyond grateful to be home again.”

His lips curved into a graceful smile and he bowed softly to you in a courtly gesture of true respect. “I’m pleased to know that at least one soul has glimpsed the person I wish I could be. It… It was refreshing. And I wish I could return here and see you again, but I do not think that would necessarily be wise.”

You thought for a moment, eyes narrowing as you stared at him. You turned and opened your workshop door, revealing the heady scent of leather inside and the sight of all your tools lying exactly as you’d left them two days ago. You looked back over your shoulder at him and smiled. “I think I’d like that,” you found yourself saying. 

“What?” he gaped.

“That’s the most undignified sound I’ve heard you make yet,” you giggled. “I said… you could return here to see me if you wanted to. If you needed to get away. It’s the least I can offer after you risked so much to return me.”

“Alright,” he said with an almost roguish smile. “I will.”

In fact, though, there was no sign of your prince for weeks, and you began to think he’d simply abandoned you. Hardly surprising, you mused, sliding the stippled punch along the incised line of the crescent moon you’d cut in the dark leather that morning with an unfathomably sharp knife. You lost yourself in your work, enjoying the forms taking shape beneath your fingers, and almost didn’t hear the soft knock on the door. 

You glanced up, and your eye was drawn once again to the depths of the shadow in one corner of the room. It had always been dark over there between the bookcase and the stone wall of the castle, but lately it seemed denser somehow. You wondered if your time in the Night Court had made you more aware of the shadows, but you didn’t have time to ponder any more because the door swung open and a castle servant stepped in. 

“Message for you,” he smiled. 

“Hi, Ben,” you said, recognising him as one of the head archivist’s servants. He often delivered messages to you. “Thank you, just put it there.”

He blushed as he stepped over and laid the folded piece of parchment on the corner of your workbench. When he saw the leather you’d been working on, his eyes widened and he breathed, “Wow, that’s gorgeous…”

“Thanks,” you grinned. “I’m pretty pleased with how this one is going, actually.”

He was standing very close as he gazed up at you, and you noticed he had thick lashes and very dark, doe-like eyes. “Would…?” he began, licking his lips nervously. “Um… so I was just wondering if… if maybe… you’d like to… um… get a drink or something at the Gull and Lantern in town after you finish work…?”

No sooner had Ben uttered his request than the darkness in the corner of the room rippled and a pale figure dressed all in black stepped silently out of it behind him. You tried not to react as he brought a finger to his lips and smiled, but it was a surprise nonetheless. After all, it was the Prince of the Night Court himself.

“Uh…” you said, trying to scrape your mind back to the moment. “Look, Ben, you’re sweet, and I like you, but… I’m not looking for… you know…”

He took a deep breath, and thanked you for letting him down gently before leaving and closing the door without even seeming to have noticed the Prince of the Night Court standing in the corner of your room. 

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” you said, turning to stare directly at him. Your eyes slid back to the door, and then to the prince’s face. “Some kind of fae glamour, I take it?”

“That,” the prince nodded, “And the fact that he looked like he’d taken a metaphorical kick in the nuts from you. He was far too distracted to notice me.”

“Sure. Well, what are you doing here?”

He seemed taken aback that you’d speak to him that way, and when you said as much, he chuckled, eyebrows raised. “You cannot imagine how refreshing it is to be spoken to like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m something you just scraped off your shoe,” he said dryly, wandering over to your workbench and trailing his fingers over the wet leather on the bench. “I should admit that I’ve watched you work a few times now.”

Something playful twisted inside you, and you rounded on him. “Creep,” you snarled. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to show myself, but…” A playful light glinted in his blue eyes. “You had a very sharp instrument in your hand. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself if I materialised out of the shadows.”

“I didn’t think fae could lie,” you retorted. He was shy, plain and simple, and you could see it now. The lord of the Court of Night, the one they’d all feared so blatantly, was nervous of speaking to a mortal woman. It was almost funny. 

“We can’t lie,” he said flatly. 

“But you can leave out bits of the truth…”

The prince offered you a wry smile in answer. “I mean it,” he said instead. “You’re very talented.”

“Thanks,” you said, joining him beside the workbench. “So…” you said, standing close enough to him that your feet almost disappeared in the pool of night that drifted absentmindedly about the base of his long coat. He shifted slightly, tilting his face towards yours, the light dancing along his high cheekbones.

“So?”

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”

The prince’s expression softened, and he sighed. “I had to get away. I tried that spot in the library, but it reminds me of you now, and the kindness you showed me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that from anyone. I didn’t mean to intrude, and I’m sorry if my presence is unwelcome. I can leave…”

“Did I say it was unwelcome?” you said, reaching impulsively for his arm. 

He turned his vivid blue eyes on you and brought his elegant fingertips to your chin, tilting your face up towards his. A light burned in him and he bit his lower lip, staring intently at you. 

Slowly, allowing you every chance to pull back, he leaned down and, without breaking eye contact with you, kissed you. 

His kiss was tentative, explorative, slow, as if he were savouring the taste of you. He drew back after a little while, his breathing irregular, his eyes rolling closed, one hand on your waist, the other behind your head. 

“Naeryn?” you asked, and a slow smile crept across his face at the sound of his name. “What?”

“I like that you call me that,” he smiled. 

“What?” you snorted. “You’re not my prince. Don’t tell me I should still call you ‘your highness’.”

He laughed, the sound rippling out around you, rich and warm with amusement. “No,” he said. “No, I wouldn’t like that. I am yours, however,” he said. “Oh spirits help me, I’m yours.”

“You hardly know me,” you protested, taking half a step back and colliding with your desk behind you. 

“I told you that this isn’t my first visit to your workshop,” he admitted, looking shy. 

“Mmm hmm,” you chuckled, raising an eyebrow at him. Gods, but he was beautiful. 

He shook his head, smiling, clearly recognising his own reticence to speak, to reveal too much of his emotions. 

“So it took some other guy coming and showing a bit of interest to stir you into action? What a brave and gallant prince I’ve found!” you chimed sarcastically. 

He growled softly, surging forwards and capturing your jaw in both his hands, kissing you hard, rocking his hips against you as he asserted himself again. You broke the kiss, laughing, and he ran his fingers through your hair. “I may not be your prince, but I am yours.”

“You are?” 

He nodded. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Have you ever bothered to look?” you fired back playfully. “You spend all day among the elite, or enforcing your laws. Have you ever just walked through the streets of a town and spent time with the people who make the things you use and wear?”

He thumbed an arc along your cheekbone and smiled at you. “No,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to before.”

“Oh, so it’s the allure of the ‘new’ with me, is it?”

“No, dammit,” he snarled. “It’s you. The second you woke me from that nightmare full of madness and prison cells; the moment your hand touched my skin, I was yours. I came here to get to know you better.”

“What about the rules?” you said coyly. “What about your kingdom? What if they find out you’re slumming it with a mortal?”

He kissed you in response, and you couldn't think for a few pounding heartbeats as the sensations of his hands on your neck, shoulders, and waist, distracted you from everything. Fae were dangerous, but this… this felt right in a way you’d never dreamed. You couldn’t imagine wanting to be with a human after this. 

He picked you up and sat you down on the edge of your workbench, running his hands up your thighs, admiring the soft feel of them beneath his palms, moaning quietly as he explored you. He started to raise the simple skirts you were wearing that day, and glanced up at you, a question in his eyes. 

When you nodded, he smiled, and the Prince of the Night Court knelt before you, kissing up the inside of your thigh on each side until you were shaking all over, hands braced behind you, tools scattering as you reached back to steady yourself, spine arching, head tossed back, as he drew your underwear to one side and licked tentatively at your clit. 

At the jolt that went through you, he laughed, his tongue circling and laving over you, savouring you, worshipping you, until you were left gasping and desperate. 

“Please!” you gasped. “Oh gods, please!” 

He didn’t change what he was doing at all, keeping you right on the edge, even as the soft tendrils of night began to creep up your legs, coiling round your ankles like dark, warm, safe hands, working their way up the inside of your legs until they held your hips down, caressing you as gently as his tongue, until you thought you might just break apart with want. 

Naeryn slid his fingers inside you and crooked them just so, pressing his tongue against your clit as his fingertips hit that spot inside you that made you see white, and you came hard, crying out, gasping, clenching around him, folding forwards under the force of your release. He remained inside you until the peak of your orgasm had passed, and he slowly withdrew his fingers, nudging his thumb against your throbbing clit as he did, making you jump and groan. 

“Beautiful,” he murmured, remaining between your legs, and sliding his fingers into his mouth to taste you. With a final, lingering kiss over your wet, over-sensitive sex, he stood and ran his other hand up your neck, cupping the back of your head and tilting your face a little so he could see you. “Beautiful,” he said again. 

Then his face seemed to darken, and he half turned away from you. Unsteadily, you slid off the desk and reached for him. “What is it?” you asked. 

“I wish you could return with me,” he said, voice gravelly and harsh with emotion. 

You looked around the room at all the things which made up your life there: tools, leather, books, the flowers in the chipped, ceramic jug on the windowsill, the light outside, the stones of the castle itself… “I wouldn’t be free, would I?” you asked. “I’d have to be a slave…”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what would become of you. To begin with, you could be my… ‘pet’, I suppose; my mortal toy… No one would harm you, and I would never allow you to be treated poorly, but it wouldn’t be as either you or I would wish.”

“Let me think about it,” you said. “I’m not going to lie, being with you is…” you rolled your eyes dramatically and smiled, “Amazing, but I’m not sure there’s a place for me in your court… It’s all too sudden…”

Another flash of pain crossed his face, but he nodded. “May I come and see you again here though?”

“Any time you like,” you smiled. “I should probably tell you where my cottage is, shouldn’t I? So that you don’t have to keep coming here and risking my hands and fingers on my knives…”

“I don’t know,” he grinned, knocking the wind out of you with the sheer force of his joy, “There’s a certain something about having you here…” After another few moments, he chuckled and added, “But I can’t deny that I’d like to do this properly next time.”

“Well then,” you said, letting the words ‘next time’ ring through you as loudly as a temple bell, and tugging on the collar of his long coat as you made for the door. “Follow me, my prince.”

At that, he bit his lip, eyes flaring with that wild, fae light again, and he nodded. A second later, he glimmered into a faint shadow that trailed your footsteps as you left the workshop and headed through the castle, out into the grounds and towards the woods where your small worker’s cottage sat, surrounded by a small vegetable garden. 

A cat that had been hunting amongst the cabbages spun and hissed at you before darting away, tail bristling. You ignored it, knowing that the fae trailing you was nothing to be afraid of. Naeryn was your prince now. 

As you shut the door of your humble home behind you, you felt hands on your waist, and a ghostly breath on your neck. 

Smiling, you turned to find him standing there, gazing at you with fervour in his eyes and a smirk on his beautiful lips. 

You jutted your chin towards your little bedroom, and he vanished in a rush of shadow, darting towards the door and leaving you standing, breathless, in the main room of the hut. By the time you made it across the room, he was slowly removing his clothes, revealing his pale, flawless body for you. 

Vulnerable, and almost naked, he turned and raised an eyebrow questioningly. 

In answer, you closed the door behind you and began to remove your own clothes, leaving a trail between door and bed as you stepped into his open arms and let him kiss you senseless all over again. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as I did writing it! If you want a commission of your own, you can find the info you need either here in this announcement post, or on my commissions page on Tumblr (it says they're closed, but they're not closed for you folks). Come and talk to me - here in messages or on Tumblr - and we can work something out for you!