by Plum Pascal
She swats my bicep and it’s a pitiful attempt, like the mere brush of a butterfly’s wings, any brief sting it might have had stolen by the thick layer of her gloves. Someone needs to teach her how to throw a punch. Chosen or not, she can’t be prancing around Fantasia too attractive for her own good and unable to defend herself properly.
“You’re a… a beast!”
My smile is brief and full of mischief. She’s easy to rile. I don’t think I can recall being quite so amused in the last decade or so, with Draven and Kassidy gone and only sourpuss Sabre for company.
“Yeah, that’s sort of the point.”
She purses her lips, not willing to concede defeat and drops her facade of prim manners to insult me further. Does she know any curse words? She’ll need schooling. It’d be entertaining to hear the word fuck fall from those pretty lips.
Especially if I’m inside her.
Fuck, Titus, get ahold of yourself.
“That’s not what I meant,” Carmine continues. The wind picks up and she finally gives up her fight against propriety, slipping my shirt on over the remnants of her clothes.
It’s so large, it swallows her slim frame whole, looking more like a shift dress than a shirt. Give her a belt to accentuate her waist and it wouldn’t look half bad. I reach for mine and her cheeks turn positively ruddy.
“I don’t need your pants too!” she gasps.
I can’t help the rumbling belly laugh. It’s loud enough, I’m afraid it’ll wake Draven or drag Sabre back to investigate.
“Calm yourself, Princess. I’m not taking my pants off, just giving you the belt to secure the shirt around your middle. Can’t give you my pants. I’m not wearing anything beneath them and I doubt you want me to stroll about with my cock swinging about. If you want to see it, you’ll have to ask nicely.”
The Princess’ mouth works like a caught fish, too shocked to even draw in a full breath. “You arrogant...” she starts, but can’t seem to find the right word.
“Prick? Cock? Bastard? Rouge? Cur? Son of a bitch? Pick one, Princess, they’ll all do.”
“How can you speak like that?” she hisses, snatching the belt from my hands, wrapping it around her middle quickly before cinching it at her waist. “You don’t know me! And, yet, you let your tongue run wild and say the worst things!”
“You don’t have to know someone to fuck them, Princess. It’s just nicer if you do. And I say so because you’re beautiful. And as for my tongue? It’s built to be between a woman’s thighs or latched onto a woman’s breast. When I’m not telling it like I fucking see it, that is.”
Without my conscious permission my hand moves, brushing one of her nipples that still manages to show beneath the heavy fabric. She bucks in surprise and a soft moan gets caught in her throat. Her thighs quiver, the scent of arousal punching through the night air. Not for Draven this time. For me. My beast stirs, pleased, urging me further. But I’ve made my point. I let the hand drop.
She squirms away from me just a little. “I came over here to apologize, you brute.”
“For what?”
“Monopolizing the bedroll. I wanted to tell you to take it when your watch is over. I hate that you and Sabre are constantly uncomfortable.”
“We’re not.”
“But you’re always sleeping against a tree.”
“It’s not uncomfortable and we can be stealthy that way. Find an Aspen and the dense leaves will cover even a bird shifter roosting in the branches. Trust me, Princess, we’ve had worse perches.”
Her gaze whips up to the trees. “Is that where Sabre is now?” she asks, searching for the blue-white shape of him. He’s not up there, and I’m grateful. If he heard half of what I’m saying to Draven’s lady, he’d box my ears, just the same as he does Kassidy. It fucking hurts.
“Why is he so... distant?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “He looked dispassionate before, but ever since the cottage... I feel like I’ve upset him.”
“He’s not upset. He’s angry. We’re fucking pissed we didn’t know about Bacchus sooner. We swore an oath to kill him.”
“Then Sabre’s…”
“Chewing on the horrifying thought that Bacchus is destroying more cities, stealing more lives and we haven’t been there to stop it. Sabre... had it worse than me. His whole family’s gone. Mine isn’t. I've still got living cousins, even if we don’t speak.”
“Why don’t you speak?”
I pause. I don’t like getting into this. Even if my brothers already know my filthy secret, we rarely speak it out loud. I keep my fears to myself, the fear that the evil is within me too and one day I’ll be the one who needs to be cut down. Blood will out.
“If you want that story, you’re going to have to do something for me.”
“What?” she asks, instantly suspicious. Smart girl.
“It’s embarrassing and I don’t speak of it to outsiders. You want to hear the story? I want you to make a concession for me.”
“What concession?”
“For the duration of the story, touch yourself. And when you’re through, give me your hand. Don’t wipe it clean. I want to see your juices.”
She stares at me in open-mouthed shock again. Her cheeks are as red as her hair now. I realize then that she doesn’t know what I mean.
“I can show you how,” I say with a smirk. “It’s easy when you get the rhythm.”
Her mouth snaps shut and she glares her defiance at me. “I know how to do it!”
Ah, so I was wrong. It’s my turn to be shocked, though the shock wears off quickly. The maid is saucier than I thought.
“What do you think about when you pleasure yourself, Princess? Tell me your tale and I’ll tell you mine. What had you writhing in the sheets at night?”
For an instant, I’m certain she’s going to tell me no. Crawl back to her bedroll radiating disgust and tattle on me to Draven in the morning. She surprises me again.
“I think of Draven,” she murmurs. “Of him... catching me in my chambers, moaning his name. That he’ll take my hand and...”
“Touch you?” I venture. “Finger fuck you to orgasm and then take you in any position he pleases?”
“Yes,” she breathes.
I lean in. “Touch yourself for me, Princess. Spread your legs and let me see your pretty pussy while you moan his name.”
I hope Draven is listening to every fucking word of this. No dancing around the idea she wants him now. Fuck, I wish I were the center of those fantasies. He’s the luckiest bastard in all of Fantasia.
The Princess mulls my words over for a few seconds and then, to my surprise, removes one glove, slides her dress up, hooking her long fingers into the waistband of her smallclothes, drawing them down her shapely legs. What I see between those legs knocks the breath out me and I’m suddenly containing a moan of my own.
She’s bare, as hairless as her legs. I know that can happen sometimes with night hags. But aside from her eyes and the smoothness of her skin, she doesn’t look like a night hag. She looks like a damn work of art. Her pussy glistens in the last rays of the setting sun. It’s fucking mesmerizing to watch her part her folds and expertly find that little bud at the apex, stroking herself lightly. She does this often, to know that place so intimately. I’ve met whores who don’t know to manipulate their clit so skillfully.
Her head rocks back a little and her back arches. She makes a soft, pleased sound. Gods, maybe this was a bad idea. I’m already straining my self-control as it is. I’m going to cum in my pants like a fumbling teen at this rate.
“The story,” she prompts in a breathy voice.
I’m suddenly self-conscious. What the fuck is she doing to me? I’m not a shy man. I decide to start with an easy question. “Do you know what bird I am when I shift, Princess?”
She frowns and examines me properly, scanning my face with more than professional interest, pausing her ministrations for a moment. At a pointed glance,
she resumes, letting out a soft moan.
“No, I... ooh... suppose I don’t. I know Draven is a...” Another protracted moan, drawing out Draven’s name. So easy to picture him driving into her, drawing those sounds. I’d kill to watch it. To have her instead. Or fuck, to have her jointly. Anything. So long as I can watch or participate.
“He’s a raven,” she manages to gasp. “Sabre is a jay. I’ve never seen a Corvid bird with brown and red markings.”
“That’s because there aren’t any.” I swallow convulsively. Gods, I can’t look away from her. “I don’t know what my bird shape is either. I’m a bastard half-breed. Orders of Aves don’t ordinarily mix. I shouldn’t exist. And I fucking hate the other half. When most people ask, I tell them Order Accipitrine. They assume I’m a red-tailed hawk.”
“But that’s not true, is it, Titus?”
This time my name comes out on a moan. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I should tell her to stop. At this rate, I’m going to slip inside her and Draven will never forgive me for it.
“No. It’s worse than that. My grandfather was a Gryphus huntsman.”
She stops, stares, and then resumes. “I... ahhh... see. You’re worried about facing your cousins.”
“Gatz in particular. He threw in with Morningstar, led the whole fucking faction to get one woman. Belle Tenebris. He’ll be with them. He’s in love. It’s why I’m a foul little whoremonger, Princess. I don’t risk falling in love. A fuck is all I can ever give.” I take a breath. “That’s my story. You can stop, if you wish.”
But she doesn’t. Can’t seem to, at this point. She arches her back, thrusting those small, perky tits forward and rolls her hips desperately, moaning Draven’s name. She’s lost to the fantasy and Gods, it’s fucking nice to watch, even if it’s not my name.
And then she’s coming, a little breathless scream coming from her. I slap a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Can’t wake Draven or give our position away. She shivers beneath my hands, then, to my shock, uses the hand not on her pussy to take my free hand and shove it into her hair. Getting the picture, I pull it tight, giving her an edge of pain with her pleasure. She bucks her hips against me, her warmth maddening against my thigh.
One thrust of her hips gives her enough friction and then she’s at it again, bowing under the force of another, more intense orgasm. I can’t help it. I remove my hand, instead swallowing the fresh moan in my mouth, tasting her sweet lips.
Her eyes are half-lidded and glazed with pleasure when I pull away and release my grip on her hair.
Where did this woman come from? She barely resembles the shy, unassuming Princess I just met. Out of bed, she’s a nervous, twitchy thing. In it? She’s a Queen, demanding what she wants.
She lifts the hand to show me the juices that glisten on her fingers. I take her wrist gingerly, avoiding the poisoned patches on her palms. Then I lick each finger clean, watching her face as I taste her.
Good. So fucking good.
My cock is painfully hard, demanding I slide into her.
Her blush returns and she squirms, still half on my lap. The question slips out before I can stop it.
“Do you want more, Princess? Do you want me to fuck you?”
I don’t hear the answer, though. Because the shrill call of a jay splits the night, giving me a crucial second’s warning before I hear the tell-tale sound of an arrow splitting the night air. Without thought, I seize the Princess by the waist and drag her twenty feet in the opposite direction. A crossbow bolt sticks in the tree, precisely where her head would have been moments before.
Then another hits, closer, just shy of my boot. No time for delicacy. I kick Draven lightly in the ribs. He rouses with a sound of protest.
“Up!” I shout at him. “We’re under attack.”
TEN
CARMINE
The shaft of an arrow comes to a quivering halt in the trunk of a tree very near my head. I stare at it for a stunned half-second as it stills, my breath catching in my throat.
Someone is trying to kill me.
Titus’ bulk crushes me into the tree. I have to brace my hands against his back to keep him from pressing me flat as a flower against the trunk of an aspen. I’m momentarily distracted by the corded muscle of his back against my fingertips. Gods, there’s no trace of fat on any of them, is there? Will Draven look as delicious out of his clothes?
The stunned second passes and I yank my hands away from his skin with a yelp, remembering the patches on my bare palm. Being speared through the heart with an arrow is an easy death when juxtaposed with any number of toxins that could reside in my flesh. It was much, much easier when I believed the patches on my hands to be unattractive sweat spots.
Draven comes alive with a thick sound of protest. He shakes off the stupor quickly when another spear comes flying into the clearing. In a move that’s hard to track, he’s on his feet, seizing the spear from midair, and launching it back in the direction in which it came. The dark shape that stepped into the clearing topples.
He casts a glance around the clearing, panic clear on his face when he can’t immediately locate me.
“Carmine! Is she…”
“Got her,” Titus grunts, stooping low to avoid another crossbow bolt. “Make yourself fucking useful and get my scythe. They jumped us while I was cleaning my weapons.”
Draven doesn’t question him, just lopes across the clearing, casually gutting the next man to step into the clearing. His eyes fix for a second on my abandoned glove and smallclothes, the muscles around his mouth and eyes tightening infinitesimally. He shelves whatever he’s feeling and stoops to retrieve one of the many sharp implements Titus had been occupied with before my interruption and the following interlude.
The very, very inappropriate interlude. I still can’t believe I took his bargain. Had I truly needed to know his past so badly?
Yes... or maybe... I simply wanted someone, anyone to speak to me as a woman, not a little girl who needs protecting. I know I can at least count on Titus for that. Of the three, he’s come closest to treating me as I wish to be treated. As a common woman who can do her own thinking and doesn’t need to be coddled. All my life I’ve been told what to say, what to wear, who to court.
Taboo as it was watching Titus watching me... it was also freeing. The undisguised want in his eyes... it was exhilarating. If I’d said yes, Titus would have entered me. I’m sure of it.
Draven whips a weapon toward Titus, and he catches it easily, fingers curling lovingly around the polished oak handle. There’s a sound like the peal of discordant bells as the rest of the weapon settles, chain links settling in loops like a lazily coiled snake. The wickedly curved tip of a scythe bites into the ground a few feet away from us. Titus jerks it up from the ground without effort, swinging the scythe around as more bodies spill into the clearing.
I watch in horror as the blade slices with ease through the necks of several men, sending their heads toppling from their bodies like popped corks. Blood spurts from the severed necks in a fountain of gore before they list sideways, their legs folding easily.
There are more men coming, but I can’t stop staring as blood runs from the severed necks of the men Titus killed. The thick scarlet pools grow wider and wider, sinking into the packed earth at last, as the ground absorbs the liquid offered. Nature is a cruel mistress and doesn’t truly care what waters her garden. I’ve known that in theory. But watching it play out in practice is another thing entirely.
I need to move, need to make myself useful, but I can’t seem to unlock my frozen limbs. What sort of Chosen one am I if I can’t defend myself or the ones I love?
There has to be some mistake. There’s no way fate can thrust this responsibly in my weak, shaking hands. I’m not built for this! I’m not! I’m just Carmine. I was never meant to be anything more than the spare heir. And now with Uncle at the helm? I’m not even that.
The shout draws the attention of several nearby men to where Titus and I stand. Now that he’s give
n me space, I recognize the sigils on their armor. These are men at arms from Ascor, trained to guard my mother and then, after she perished, my uncle. Now they’re made to be my killers.
The leaves above us rustle and then an enormous shape emerges from the bottommost boughs of the aspen, sending leaves tumbling down in a verdant rain between us and the line of attackers. I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing until the shape alights on the ground, spreading its magnificent wings wide. I blink at it in shock.
“Sabre, nice of you to join us,” Titus grumbles.
It’s one thing to know these men can turn into ravens and rooks and the like. It’s another thing to see it.
Sabre’s plumage is nothing short of magnificent. It’s the purest blue I’ve ever seen, like the azure of a perfect, cloudless summer day. It’s only broken up by dark stripes of black here and there, delineating subtle shifts in color that make up his pigmentation. His breast is snowy white, his head crowned with more ebony. And he’s enormous—a bird the size of an elephant.
Sabre extends a wing toward me, shifting it impatiently in a sort of “come on” gesture. Titus gives me a shove toward him.
“Time to go, Princess.”
I balk, planting my feet still more firmly. “No! I can’t leave you and Draven here. And what about Ia? She’s still recovering. We can’t…”
“We’re grown men, Princess,” Titus snaps, swinging the scythe back into his grip. It’s slathered in crimson and a few flecks fly off the blade to pelt my cheek. I flinch away from the warm spray. “You’re the one who needs protecting. Get out of here and make our jobs easier!”
I don’t think he says it to be cruel. He doesn’t seem like a man who is cruel on purpose. Still, the words cut at me like a blade and I drop my eyes to the ground to disguise the tears that spring up.
Stupid, useless Carmine, crying at a time like this. Titus is right. I’m no good here.