A/N: Here be Jack/Raisa smut. I ship these two like mad, but if this (semi-crack ship) pairing squicks you out, feel free to skim or skip this chapter.

Chapter Three: The King's Bride

Wondering what the lady's maids had forgotten – perhaps they meant to steal the babes back to their crib and thought she would be asleep already – Raisa sat up to find the king a few steps from her bedside, his silver wedding raiment glittering in the firelight, regarding her with something halfway betwixt hunger and sorrow.

"Your majesty," she gasped, and tugged her nightgown clumsily closed over her swollen breasts. Somehow it was mortifying that he should find her in such a state, and he still arrayed in his own finery after the grandeur of the day's events.

And why were the babes not hungry? They should have drained her breasts a quarter-hour ago, not drowsed the night away while she ached beneath the weight of rich milk.

The king gazed down at her but spoke no word in reply.

"Have you come for the princess?" she asked, the likeliest reason for his presence at this moment. Perhaps he longed for his late spouse, as she did, and the princess was the nearest thing he had to her, as Peeta was to Janek. Perhaps they could all share this bed tonight and soothe each other's grief with their presence.

"No," he spoke at last, and hoarsely, but he did take his daughter away; carefully, as an object of spun glass, to lay in her crib, and then Peeta, held every bit as tenderly in those deft royal hands.

Raisa's heart tumbled over itself in terrified elation. "She will need milk soon," she said, a little desperately. "And the boy too."

The king returned to the bedside but made no move to touch her, nor to draw nearer. "I do not expect to disturb you for long," he replied, and his voice was so filled with sadness that it made her heart clench with grief. "Or indeed at all, if you do not wish it."

She looked at his silver eyes, so weary with weeping, and his wide, soft mouth in its nest of black beard, grown thicker since she kissed him in the bakery and still untrimmed, even on this, his wedding day. She took in the strong column of his throat above the milky moonstones that trimmed his collar and his hands, slender and dusky and so unlike Janek's solid, oven-scarred brawn.

"I do wish it," she whispered.

His wedding raiment was held together by countless ornate buttons and hooks and clasps and she climbed from the bed on trembling, boneless limbs to aid in divesting him of each heavy piece, almost as she would a child. The king wore silver but his body was gold by firelight, and only when he stood naked before her did he finally raise a hand, so hesitantly, toward her nightgown.

He was so beautiful that Raisa ached at the sight: his form tall and leanly muscled, all smooth olive skin dusted with fine black hairs that looked soft as down, and every part of him exquisitely shaped. His member, slimmer than Janek's, was long and lovely – fancy, that such a thing could be handsome to look on! – but lay limp in its nest between his magnificent legs, and Raisa caught her lip betwixt her teeth at a moment of worry. She had only rarely done anything to encourage that – a quick teasing grasp at the front of Janek's breeches, and typically well in advance of the act – and the thought of doing any such thing to this figure of angelic perfection was nothing short of horrifying. But perhaps this king, so halting in his touches and full of sorrow, was not intent on lovemaking tonight.

"I have no expectation, Raisa," he said softly, brushing his fingers against her sleeve. "Not for either of us."

Raisa loosed the breath she had not realized she was holding. She could do as much, and gladly; could lie beside this beautiful man and let him do whatever made the grief lessen.

She stepped forward to press a kiss to the hollow of his throat and felt him shudder.

She was reluctant to shed her own clothing, to show her too-mortal mother's body to such a radiant being, but those deft golden hands drifted to her remaining, ineffectual laces and, with a glance to approve the action, opened her nightgown to the waist.

"Beautiful," he whispered, and with a gentle tug the featherlight peach-flesh pooled at her feet.

She had never simply stood naked before Janek and something in the king's gaze – something that could not be, and yet felt like, adoration – made her flush everywhere. She climbed quickly back into bed and held up the coverlets for him to join her beneath, but he didn't want that: instead, he drew the covers back till she was as unshielded as she had been at the bedside then carefully lowered himself beside her.

When his mouth touched her breast – a damp kiss, rough with whiskers, pressed just above the nipple – a cry tore its way from her throat.

"Have I hurt you?" he panted, raising his head with a stricken look, and his very breath was musical, like a dance against her skin.

"No," she whispered – pleaded, rather – and raised a trembling hand to guide him back. His black hair was silky as raven's feathers beneath her fingers and this time his mouth found her nipple in a hot moan and a wet stroke of tongue that wrought a surge of slippery dampness between her legs.

She wondered if he merely wanted her breasts, this king who had likely seen more of them than he had of her face and, indeed, asked her to marry him as a result. Heaven knew Janek had liked them well enough. Shortly after Luka was born he had discovered, quite by delicious accident, that a hungry infant was not the only one who could suckle milk from a breast, and it had brought a heady new dimension to their midnight interludes that rapidly led to conceiving Peeta.

But no, the king cupped her breasts in his hands – or rather, as best he could in their heavy, swollen state – and anointed them with a flurry of kisses, at once gentle and wild, interspersed with delicious languid nuzzles of his bearded face against their curves and ragged, plaintive moans, then without warning he moved up to kiss her mouth. His lips were both hesitant and a little desperate against hers and it was the most wonderful thing Raisa had ever felt in her life.

"I should have kissed you in the bakery," he groaned against her mouth. "Oh, my brave bride. I have relived that moment in my dreams every night since and longed without hope for it to have ended some other way."

"What other way?" she whispered in wonder, and he raised his head to reply.

"I should have taken you in my arms and told you that you were magnificent," he murmured, closing her eyes with a kiss to each one. "A blazing beacon of hope on that cold and bitter day. I should have thanked you for saving my life as well as my daughter's and begged you to become my wife, not merely proposed that you should sit on a cold throne beside me."

"Your majesty," she breathed, overcome by his words and the tremulous ardor with which they were spoken.

"Jack," he insisted, making her shiver with pleasure. "Alyssum's death shattered my heart and I cannot promise it will ever mend sufficiently to carry love for another, save our child. But I can and will promise you a life of tenderness and devotion as my wife and –"

"That is more than I dared to dream of, Jack," she assured him, and leaned up to capture his mouth with a whimper.

This kiss was lingering and slowly, warily mutual, and Raisa wound her arms about him as it went on, moaning at the feel of bare skin against her own for the first time in what felt an eternity. It was rare that she could be fully naked with Janek – since the boys had come along, quite impossible – and twining with this glorious king, all warm dusky skin and lean muscle and fine soft hairs, was almost more than she could bear. Her thighs fell open of their own accord and the king sank between them with a grateful moan, his member stirring against her with hopeful instinct and nosing blindly down her cleft toward the damp heat below.

A burst of foolish joy sprang from her heart in a wild little laugh, making the king draw back in confusion. "We need not," he reminded her with a gasp, in direct opposition to the swollen shaft rearing suddenly, proudly, between them, its tip already beaded with anticipation, and the sight of it made her laugh again, but jubilantly. So long had it been since she and Janek had enjoyed such a moment – had they ever enjoyed such a moment? – and here was the newly widowed king of the land, who but days ago would take nothing but bread and water in his grief, whispering words of tenderness and devotion and poised erect at her very portal.

"No, we need not," she agreed with a smile she could not quite restrain. "But I would, and gladly, if such is your desire."

To her astonishment the king laughed in reply; a sharp, lovely sound, like the cry of a startled songbird, and as surprising to him as to Raisa. "It is," he said, almost in wonder – that he could desire anything, or anyone, so swiftly after his terrible loss – and with a careful shift of his hips he brought the tip of his member to her hollow and slid slowly inside – cautiously, watching her face for resistance or pain, but Raisa could scarcely keep her eyes open at the bliss of feeling him inside her.

Even fully engorged his member was slimmer than Janek's, but Janek had always seemed a little too big, especially when months had passed between their intimate encounters. She loved the breathtaking fullness of taking him inside her, especially from behind, when she could bury her moan in the pillow as he pressed toward the front of her womb, but the sheer breadth of him had sometimes – almost – felt like too much.

But the king, it seemed, had been made for her in this regard. He fitted inside her as though he had always dwelt there, as though he were a part of her that had simply gone away for a time, and his return was a thing of overwhelming joy, of ecstasy and relief all at once. She felt her body hitch and tighten the moment he was fully sheathed – a sensation Janek had wrought on a handful of occasions, but never so swiftly nor with so little effort – and then he began to move, slow sinuous strokes that made the sun itself burst behind her eyes.

The pleasure crashed through her in a sob as she clenched about him, startling the king to stillness, and he took her face in his hands, so gently, seeking the source of her tears, but she shook her head and begged him to continue. The place where he moved in her was slick with release and he slipped in and out in patience reverence; fluid, pulsing glides that made her spent thighs loll wider still, eager – even in the aftermath of bliss – to receive every stroke. The urgency was building in him, a delicious thrum from his member deep inside her, and his movements grew quicker, firmer, punctuated by soft grunts and gasps that were as musical as any song and more beautiful still.

This, she thought wildly, was what women meant when they spoke of being made love to by fairies or demons. This beautiful man moving inside her, whose sweat smelled of chrism and amber and whose groans fell on her ears like a psalm, was so much more than mortal, and suddenly she feared that he would vanish as soon as he'd spent himself in her; would soar from the chamber on heretofore hidden wings to find another mortal vessel for his glittering seed.

And then he did spend himself, with a sharp arch of his back and a soaring cry that split her heart with its impossible beauty, and he sank over her with a laugh, a dazed, euphoric sound as his mouth, pleasure-clumsied and far too wet, clambered up to cover hers. "Raisa," he sighed, "oh, precious Raisa, how have we endured all this while?"

One of the babes gave a determined wail then – the princess, Raisa realized amid tears of raw joy, ready for her milk at last – but the king clung to his wife with an indignant chuckle, trapping her in his arms and pinning her with his full weight. He was still inside her, albeit slim and soft once more, and the thought of losing that missing piece again, however briefly, was sufficient to keep Raisa beneath him, and content with it, when in any other circumstances she would have leapt up at once – indeed, moved heaven and earth – to respond to the princess's merest coo.

"Mine," he grunted with stubborn, blinding happiness against her throat. "My bride. My wedding night."

"The one who is crying is also yours," she reminded him with a ragged chuckle. "And thus you know she will only cry louder and longer if you delay in answering."

Duly chastened, he gave a grumbling laugh and eased out of her with a little sound of dismay, only to pause and linger there, his spent member wet and heavy on her thigh. "I did not anticipate this," he groaned, resting his brow on hers. "That a babe's needs should be so…importunate."

Raisa laughed riotously and reached between them to give his flaccid, forsaken member a conciliatory pat. "This, importunate, your majesty?" she teased. "I had a babe bawling for my breast while the one in my womb perched upon my bladder and still my husband and I managed to steal a little pleasure together."

He sat up a little, brows raised. "Jack," he reminded her, and she motioned toward the crib. "Fetch me the babes, Jack," she ordered playfully, "and if you wish further pleasure, I will show you how it might be obtained."

The king sprang to obey like a scolded scullion and returned with a babe cradled in either arm – the squalling princess to one side and stubbornly sleepy Peeta to the other – and Raisa caught her breath at the image they presented: her dusky husband, lean and lovely and unabashedly naked, clasping two infants to his chest. "Would I could feed them thus," she lamented. "For you make a pretty picture indeed, and one I am loathe to ruin."

The king tipped his head in thought then bade her move a little ways, so he might prop himself against the pillows at the head of the bed, and Raisa inched back on her knees to oblige, only to shake her head in puzzlement once the three were settled. "Her Highness is like to find your own breast in a moment," she observed, with a nod at the impatient princess now rooting furiously against her father's chest. "Have you room for me in this fine nest?"

He nodded at the space between his arms, and the cradle formed by his legs. "You can hold and feed the babes while I hold you," he proposed with the happy air of a child who has simply solved a perplexing riddle. "Or…will that not suffice?" he wondered, his smile faltering.

"It will more than suffice, Jack," she whispered, and quickly fitted herself into their midst, easing the babes from his arms and guiding each to a breast. The princess's shrieks turned to coos before the first drop of milk struck her tongue, and Peeta gave a timely yawn and latched on as well, albeit lazily, when to his surprise, his wide little mouth closed around a nipple.

"You are magnificent," the king murmured against Raisa's neck, snugging his arms about her waist in a lush and lingering embrace. "You are certain the babes will not be…hurt, if I should touch you while they feed?"

She turned her head to brush a kiss across one worried cheek. "Off-put, perhaps, if we cause them to lose their latch," she conceded. "But the midwives tell me there is nothing…unwholesome for a suckling babe in the pleasure-seeking of their parents. At home, such were often the only quiet moments to be found," she explained with a blush, "and the mother of an infant seizes and savors every opportunity for intimacy, no matter how awkward or brief."

He leaned down to kiss her mouth, so softly, and she admitted, "I do not know, however, that we can…fit together while I feed two at once. I fed both Luka and Peeta for a time but…I was damaged by Peeta's birth," she explained feebly, "and-and angry, and my husband died soon after –"

Another kiss stopped her words, this one somehow, impossibly, gentler still. "There is no need for you to do anything at all," the king murmured. "Simply hold the babes and lie back against me."

This, she thought, was more than enough, to feel his chest against her back and his arms about her waist while a babe suckled happily at either breast, and she sank against him with a sigh and let her eyes drift closed, only to open them again with a little gasp at the feel of strong, slender fingers probing gently between her legs. The king was opening her, spreading the folds between her legs as carefully as petals of a delicate bud. Janek had never done any such thing; never shown any interest whatsoever in the thatch of ruddy curls that extended from the lower half of her belly down over the mound of her groin, and she wanted to twine her legs together, to hide this place the king had found, that her husband had never so much as looked for.

One fingertip slipped into the hollow between the folds – she was wet there too; how had she never known this? – and stroked from bottom to top, light as a butterfly's wing, but the sensations evoked had her bowing forward with a strangled cry.

It felt wondrous.

There was no other word for it. The king's careful touch in that place, most especially over a tiny nubbin of flesh at the heart of that slippery hollow, felt like Heaven; like the purest sort of pleasure, pulsing from that hidden place in brilliant white-gold waves, and so intense it was almost edged in pain.

She wanted to look and not look all at once, to see this thing the king had found at the secret heart of her own body that he touched like a fragile treasure. She wanted to close her legs and to spread them wide; to have no more of this and have nothing but this for the rest of her life. Above all she wanted to stop the exquisite torment of his hand, but both her arms were fully occupied with babes and she could do naught but continue to recline against him, gasping and writhing and aching with pleasure.

The king's bearded face sank into the curve of her neck and he sucked wetly at the tender skin, a startling counterpoint to the infant mouths at her breasts, and still he caressed between her legs: a steady, constant flicker, almost relentless in its gentleness. "Raisa," he moaned, and she felt his member stir a little against her backside. "Oh, lovely Raisa…"

"What are you doing to me?" she cried softly, and the king's finger stilled against her.

He lifted his face from her neck, but not far; only to press a kiss to her cheek, then the tender hollow behind her ear. "Your husband," he rasped, and he sounded quite as overcome as she. "He never…he did not…?"

"He had no interest in…that place," she panted. "Nor had I."

"Oh Raisa," he sighed, and there was both pity and compassion in his beautiful voice as he caressed between her legs once more, soft and gentle yet rhythmic, a weightless feather-strum across a celestial string. "You lay a treasure before him every night and all he cared for was spilling his seed inside you."

"He was…a good husband," she insisted, but weakly, as sweet, searing pleasure closed her eyes and flared behind them in bright white bursts. "A kind lover, but I think he knew naught of this. Who taught you?" she begged. "Who showed you this wonder?"

She thought she would die if it had been the queen.

"The monks at the abbey," he murmured against her cheek with a ragged chuckle, never ceasing in his touch. "Their curriculum of anatomy is exemplary for a body of celibate brothers. They could tell me little enough of the sacred bud, as they called it," he said, circling the nubbin with a fingertip, "save that it existed and where, but I daresay that is more than an uneducated man might know."

"We must bring them gifts," she gasped. "Stock their treasury to its rafters and outfit their every chapel with gilding and stained glass."

The king laughed huskily and gave a playful nip at her earlobe. "Why do you suppose I visit them so frequently?" he teased. "With gold in hand, no less?"

"Because you are pious," she retorted through her bliss, because this much was too widely known to be façade, and the king nuzzled soothingly at her neck.

"Forgive me," he placated, stilling his hand and cupping it over her, as he might comfort a frightened wild thing. "I meant no impiety. There is true holiness in the lovemaking of husband and wife, so often ignored in the pursuit of base pleasure."

"Is there?" she wondered, for such a thing this angelic king would know. There had been pleasure with Janek now and again and some of it had seemed lovely beyond measure – leastways, until she became this man's wife.

"It shall be my honor to show you," he replied, and his hand stirred against her once more, a gentle stroke of one fingertip across that tender bud, but this time she felt another fingertip as well, this one dipping into the slick hollow his member had but lately quitted.

"May I?" he whispered and she nodded dizzily in reply, uncertain what he could wish to touch in that place but equally overcome by anticipation for it.

All at once his mouth engulfed her earlobe in a hot wet suckle as one long finger slid inside her and another took up the careful stroking at her cleft, and Raisa's very being convulsed at the pleasure. She moaned so loudly she was sure she had terrified the babes – but no, they carried on, undisturbed and content at their feeding as the king caressed her secret parts, inside and out, his deft fingers dancing and delving through her slickness as he devoured her earlobe in slow laps and fierce, hungry suckles. His finger glided in and out of her in the semblance of his member – now shallow, now deep, now curling a little inside her as he withdrew – and it should not have felt so wondrous but it did – oh how it did! The world swam in a blur of firelight on sunset-hued coverlets as she buckled against his fingers, sobbing at pleasure so sharp and heady and spiraling that it must shatter her heart – how could it not? Surely her mortal body could not survive such a maelstrom of impossible sensation.

She felt her arms give out beneath the babes as she slumped bonelessly against the king and heard him whisper her name like a prayer.

"Your late husband has much to answer for," murmured the king against her brow, surely an eternity later, and Raisa started at the absence of babes in her arms, which lay limp at her sides, but no, they suckled on – Greedy single-minded pups, she thought indulgently – cradled securely to her breasts by the king's strong arms, wrapped around her. "Was this stolen pleasure of which you spoke his alone?" he wondered sadly.

She shook her head against him; a feeble loll, so pleasure-spent was she. "He was…a peasant baker, your majesty," she panted. "Not a king, with learnèd monks to teach him of hidden treasures betwixt a woman's legs."

"Treasures which might be found and savored by any patient or devoted lover," the king remarked, but gently; so gently, with something like regret. "The monks taught me little enough – and my name, as I will beg you to recall, particularly in moments such as these, is Jack."

"Jack," she sighed without hesitation, and was rewarded with a tender kiss to her neck.

"I love my name on your lips," he groaned, nuzzling her with greedy relish. "It is like a treasure for which I must plead and labor, again and again. How might I entice you to say it again, and freely?"

"I require no enticement to obey my king's command," she assured him breathlessly. "Nor, I think, could I survive it."

"I do not command you, Raisa," he murmured. "Nor have I any wish to. I supplicate. I entreat. I implore."

"Give me the babes," she said hoarsely, and without hesitation he eased them into her arms once more. This being done, she turned in his arms and found herself cradled to his chest, with the princess, half-asleep at her suckling, held between them.

"This is what you want," the king realized softly and not a little sadly, raising a hand to caress his daughter's cheek. "I knew it – indeed, have known it all this while – and was the veriest fool to wish otherwise. No new-made widow weds for want of a man, let alone a new-made widower –"

Raisa leaned up to kiss the frown from his mouth and eyes. "I want your daughter, Jack," she conceded in a whisper. "I have loved her as my own since I first heard her cry and wanted her for my own since I took her to my breast. But I could just as well have been her wet-nurse," she reasoned, but tremulously, for all at once her mother's cruel words echoed in her mind, and she feared the king might see, too late, the wisdom in another course. "I might have been merely another maid in your palace," she said, "engaged solely to suckle the princess, and little trouble or expense it would have cost you. There was no need to offer your hand, nor for me to accept."

"There was every need," he breathed. "For my part, at least."

He did not elaborate, but in that moment there was no need for it. "And for my part as well," she replied with a broken little laugh. "I knew not what you wanted of me, nor what you would allow –"

"Anything," he told her ardently. "Half my kingdom is yours by right, and my name and my hand besides. Ask anything of me and you shall have it."

"I wish to love you," she whispered and dropped her eyes swiftly to the suckling princess, for she could not bear to witness the king's response to such a demand. "For I do already," she confessed, "and have done since you sat by the ovens and took cider and cheese from my hand. I know it is unthinkable, and I unworthy even to –"

The king's mouth covered hers, hot and fierce, and held fast till her lips ceased in their feeble protests. "Say it again," he implored. "Say it outright, I beg of you."

"I love you, Jack, son of Ashpet the Huntress-Queen," she said, and caught her breath at the wonder in his silver eyes. "I will call you by name so long as you grant me leave to do so, and I will never again speak my love aloud unless you wish it –"

"I wish it," he said at once and drew her to him, babes and all, and kissed her again and again. "Oh, how I wish it," he sighed. "Your heart is a greater dowry than any treasure of silver or gold, and one I can never hope to deserve. I shall do everything in my power to make you glad of the gift; only tell me –"

"I love you, Jack," she replied, laughing through her tears, and together they tumbled into the coverlets, a mass of eager kisses and laughter and indignant drowsy babes.

A/N: This is the part where I make a token apology for the preceding and promise never to write anything like it ever again. ;)

Also: Jack isn't magically "over" the loss of Alys, of course, but he and Raisa are incredibly good for each other (and each other's kids) in this universe, which will help the grieving process a great deal.

Finally, I'm fairly certain I'm going to find a loophole to save/redeem Raisa from the wicked stepmother fate because I love her so stinking much, especially in this AU context with a devoted husband and wealth/comfort and a beautiful little daughter.