Bonds: A Cursed Six novel (The Cursed Six Book 1)

by Clarrisa R. Smithe

  "P-please don't stop..." She muttered and she prayed it would convey the desires of the flesh, which indeed were genuine. It would be a lie if she was to claim that she did not wish to enjoy this, yet there were greater concerns. "You're just so big."

  For some reason, her response upset him. Encouraged his fingers to make like claws as they gripped to the flesh of her thighs, his thrusts more punishing than delight, even as he made the noise she'd been told men made in the thralls of sex.

  Then his other hand caught the rope of her hair and yanked, the prince burying his face in her neck. "I liked you," he grated. "You were mine to tend to. And they dare shame me for what started off innocent?!" Anger coiled around the words, seemingly from oblivion or a place scarily similar.

  "Liked?" In the past, not the present. She furrowed her brow in confusion despite her agony and the yelps of torment that kept passing her lips. "Liked?"

  He froze. Gazed down at her. "I was under the impression you knew more words. Or have I broken you already?"

  The word pierced through her comprehension more sharply than any thrust the prince could have offered.

  Broken.

  The room around her abruptly crumbled away, and the familiar voice to cut inside her mind threatened her to madness.

  —Leave her, focus not your attention on a broken little thing.

  —She's touched in the head. Broken.

  —A broken failure of a girl. It pains me as a mother to have birthed such a faulty child. Just look at her cracks.

  Just now, through those cracks came a flood of uncontrolled hysteria as she saw and heard Mother. Berating her. Degrading her. She was... "I'm not broken!" she shouted in his face and felt as spittle flicked from her lips. "I'm not broken!"

  His words had been the key to the chest of torment she had tried her very best not to expose to him, yet here it was. Open for him to see.

  She was not broken.

  "Stop saying that! Stop it! I'm good!" She had gotten him into bed. She would have a child that would create an unbreakable bond between Thellemere and Redthorn and her mother would see she was incredibly good.

  Through the heartache, it became hard to discern his face, but she felt it. The room shrinking, his accusation growing bigger. The heat of his body fed into it, even as the prince took up total and absolute stillness.

  "Well, clearly I've broken something," he said sarcastically, bewilderedly.

  Her maidenhead. He was talking about her maidenhead.

  The hysteria, for a moment, died away.

  And Astrid burst into laughter. "Yes! Yes, I'm broken!" The pain did not matter, neither did anything else. He had taken her virginity and it hurt, by the gods it hurt, but it did not matter. Nothing mattered apart from her plan in that moment. She had done it. She had snared him. "I am broken!"

  She made a sound of ecstasy and arched her back, bringing her lips to his in a clash of determination. "No going back now! More! I want more!"

  It was a moment before he continued, his lips unresponsive, his silence pouring into her. Stunned. But then he was moving into her with renewed vigour, a multiplied bliss. His kiss was fervent, his hands everywhere at once.

  His length glided out for a fraction of a moment before charging back into her. "Louder."

  "I want more! More of you! More! I want you!" She was sure her voice had never reached such volumes. The whole world could know for all she cared. The whole world would know when she carried his child and she became his bride.

  She purposely allowed her expression to calm as she gazed up into his molten pools. Delicate, gentle. The picture of innocence. "I want you to fuck me, please." She spoke in a gentle flow, the opposite side of the coin compared to who she was seconds before. Polite, asking properly of course.

  He turned his face from her, eyes closing as his thrusts slowed and his body shuddered. "Do not do that, female." Positively shaking, as if he were resisting something inevitable, holding back an explosive release.

  She was exhausted and it may have been easier for her to sit back and take it, yet there was something enjoyable about this. Tristian was moved to the brink of pleasure and irritated by it, yet it felt good. She had caused him to feel this way and that was a feat in itself.

  "Do what?" Her digits traveled to thread her curls around her fingers as she gave a little pout. "I'm being good because I want you to like me."

  He looked at her fingers.

  He looked at her.

  And then he flipped her onto her hands and knees.

  Before the smallest sound could escape, she found the familiar taste of his sodden shirt twisted and jammed between her teeth, its ends wrapped around her head and clutched along with her braid.

  He fucked her.

  Not the slow, hard thrusts of before or the quick, shallow ones. But the prince pounded into her without abandon. A brutal force some may have pleaded to evade, but she grunted sounds that turned into moans against the material.

  Then she could not help the laughter. Over and over again, as relentless as his mounted actions. For once in her life she had succeeded at something. She had surpassed the actions of all her siblings.

  An alliance was being made at this very moment as the prince did as he pleased.

  This was easier than the grueling months of negotiation. She just had to remain still and take it.

  The fact that her body was becoming more responsive and pain had gradually began a slow ebb was a bonus. The icing on the cake.

  With no warning, his weight bore down on her back, his torso lined with the arch of her spine. He tugged her hair, the shirt digging into the corners of her mouth, his length now humping into her no different from that of breeding dogs.

  "I..." he said slowly at her ear, his heartbeat lashing into her shoulder blade, lost in the drum of her own.

  Then his true weight hoisted onto her, forcing her to brace against the arm of the sofa. Pitiless of the fact, he growled into her shoulder, tried his teeth at the skin. And, as though reading the need of her, his free hand wandered down her belly, fingers finding the tender nub between her sex and stroking it incessantly in time with its tantalising pulses.

  "I want you to come on my cock," he whispered. "Can you do that or would you like me to keep you here all night?"

  She gave a muffled answer in the affirmative into the cloth while her head bobbed twice in a nod.

  "Still no?" he panted, the extent of his manhood burrowing into her to the hilt. He troubled the wet pound of her sex, flicking the nub in punishment or amusement.

  A low sound, deep and dark. He was laughing softly now, asking, "Even if I were to say I'm going to take you there, against that wall and not let up until the candle's burned? Or...perhaps if I were to say you are to come to me every night of the remainder of your stay, to spread your thighs and please me?"

  "Yes!" Surely he heard that.

  Though, it did not matter, for the next moment she was crying out and craned her back as she felt her orgasm tear through her, her stomach contracting viciously with each spasm as her juices coated his member.

  It felt incredible, sex and success.

  He continued to feed himself into her, having abandoned her sensitive nub to drive into her freely, her walls still closing around him, inviting him whereas before it'd wished for anything but.

  "Surely," he said through the gravel of painful pleasure. "It is a sin for a woman to feel this good and be this tight. But then surely..." His voice cut down to an indiscernible rumble, incoherent mutters and grunts as he took his fill of her, reaped every rivulet of pleasure she had to offer him in that moment, and gave that one final thrust that shifted the sofa audibly.

  Warmth spilled into her. The prince had ejaculated.

  She had done it. The future secured. Failure would not occur for even if there was no child created from their coupling she could rely on A'zur to finish the task. The prince did not have a clue he was within his future wife and he never would until the news reached that s
he was pregnant and he had to marry her.

  The moans against the shirt continued until she flopped forward, her face protected by the piles of cushions as she caught her breath.

  For once in her life she had done something right.

  13

  ~ RHENAN ~

  The prince stalked down the guest estates in full armour, clanking all the way up until he was nose to nose with the Misseldon girl's chamber guards.

  "Where is he?" Rhenan demanded, though he already knew.

  The guards were true to nature, frozen ice glaring him down. "We know not of whom you speak."

  "My brother. See, I just returned from his bedchambers to find him absent. So I know he is here or has come here. Be good stone-faced gargoyles and tell me where the male has gone. Or at the very least, tell me where he has taken that girl."

  "We do not know."

  "And gargoyles do not speak."

  Rhenan turned to the new voice and saw the stoic form of Prince A'zur. Only, the male did not look as serious and in need of laughter as he had all the other days of his stay. There was a relaxation about him as he stood in the tall arched doorway. Like him, he had yet to rid of his day's attire, but unlike him, he appeared awake and ready to be presented to the public at any moment.

  Rhenan hitched a thumb at the guards. "These ones do."

  When the male came out into the hall and closed the door behind him, he lifted a questioning brow.

  A'zur's jaw muscle twitched in what may have been an exhausting attempt at a smile.

  "Careful not to hurt yourself," Rhenan warned with a daggered smile that came as easy as drawing his sword. One in the same, really.

  "You're just the man I've been meaning to see," said A'zur.

  Which took Rhenan completely by surprise. He blinked, eyes shifting rightward to the guards. "Surely you must be speaking to the gargoyles." Though in truth, Rhenan had been meaning to talk to this male specifically since the day he'd seen how he worked amongst the nobles and royal court. The genius mind that lay dormant behind his eyes.

  Prince A'zur began to walk away, down the hall, hands clasped behind his back as he expected Prince Rhenan to follow. And how could Rhenan not, especially when the man asked, "We were to have drinks, were we not?"

  He caught up to the delusional, bronze-haired younger male and hooked his thumbs through his dagger belt. "Mocking my loss? Is that the way of you northerners?"

  Rhenan had never lost a game of hide and seek, ever since he were old enough to participate. Hunting people was a game he played frequently, though often the prize was not ribbons, but heads. It'd been a blow to his sack and pride when the elegant, composed Prince of Thellemere had shown up and bested without even getting his hands dirty. The man was not obligated to carry out his end of the bet.

  Grey eyes looked from their corners. "I want to."

  "Want to, eh?" he pestered. Where was the male taking them anyhow? Nowhere, apparently, for A'zur had somehow slowed his pace without Rhenan noticing, to where he was the one leading the two of them.

  In that case, to the parlour!

  "Yes, want to."

  "Mm, and would you happen to want to tell me where my brother has taken your sister?" He watched the man's face for a response, but A'zur had one those faces. The kind that even a skilled torturer would have an arduous time deciphering for information.

  "My sister is in bed," he said without the slightest lift in tone. "I mean only to have a drink to clear my head. Something tells me you know which drink might best accomplish this?"

  He gave two hard claps to the man's back. "Learning my language, are ya?"

  A'zur stumbled, righted himself, and cleared his throat.

  "Oh, not used to being touched?"

  "Despite my lineage," A'zur drawled. "physical attacks are not a common occurrence in my life."

  "Attacks? It was a mere tap of camaraderie, I assure you! Would you prefer a hug? I'm rather good at them, but your poor, meek frame might crumble under and," He whistled. "I can see the gargoyles now, laying into me with their faces of stone as they clobber me. The murderer of their prince."

  The male looked sleighted. "You've a very brute tongue, Prince Rhenan."

  "Killing mercilessly will do it to you. Should try it sometime. Might loosen yours."

  "Words are to be used carefully and precisely, for they are far more effective than any sharp utensil, as I hear you're fond of."

  Rhenan followed his gaze to his jiggling 'utensils' and took total offence. "Can words skin a man alive? Can they bleed an organ and kill a man at a set pace? Can you lick them in the night, hold them beneath your pillow and wake to it in the morning? I think not. There is a reason they say actions speak louder than words."

  "Silence can prove just as deadly as tumult."

  "Pity, you sound like my brother. Which, by the way, have you seen him? Perhaps with your sister, who is 'sleeping'?"

  "I have not."

  They'd made their way through the corridor, the connecting pavement to the castle's west gate, where they walked in the silence that came with men so unlike one another that neither knew where to begin to bridge their worlds of conversation. The firelight and shadows licking against the stone walls had a more lively discussion than they. He was tempted to join them when the quiet became unbearable.

  But the prince was speaking again as they drew near the parlour, observing its imported extravagance. "Thellemere was never so promoting in its wealth."

  Rhenan laughed, a small one. "Are you insulting our personality?"

  "On the contrary, I'm insulting my own."

  "You do not like your home country, then?"

  Creepy how long the steel gaze could watch him from its corners without so much as a blink, only intense calculation.

  "It is my home country," was all to be said.

  The parlour was that of expressive, beige oakwood and a high-beamed ceiling, stained with the blood and sweat of the thrilled builders who brought the royal and nobles' place of commerce and socialisation to life, the painters and glassblowers who fashioned the ceiling to murals of leaping deer and cheery-eyed chipmunks. White clothed round tables were placed throughout the gold, refractive floors, the king and queen's high seat of luxurious brown, black and white furs on one side of the room, high scaled windows on the other, overlooking the endless grassy courtyard.

  The moon was behind rare bulbous clouds, the wall sconces placed on each mullion casting bloody circles of dim light when mixed with all the gold of the room.

  Rhenan took up one of the candles and walked it to a table.

  He dropped heavily into the nearest chair, placing the candle in a holder and slinging his blade holster onto the table next. He stretched, then he shouted, "Guards! Guards! I know you hear me out there!" There was simply too much enjoyment to be had watching Prince A'zur's sudden pained expression deepen into dismay, as though his delicate ears had never been subject to such voluminous assaults. "Please tell one of this castle's beauties to fetch us some ale! Fizzling and hard!" He listened a moment. "Guards!"

  A'zur sat down far more gracefully than him, lips pulled tight, brows even tighter. "Surely they must have heard you."

  "Are you sure?" he teased.

  The male scowled.

  "Ah, lighten up, will you? It is only you and I. No watchful eyes here to judge your every breath. You can let wind rip, I wouldn't mind."

  Was the male's cheeks actually heating a slight pink? A trick of the light, surely.

  Rhenan relaxed. "You wished to speak with me or are we to drink in silence?"

  But there was something more pressing he needed to pass by the prince's ear. Matters of greater quality than searching for their no doubt eloping siblings.

  A'zur, whose hands were likely to be folded upon his crossed knees as he held his gaze, watched him blankly. "I wished to speak with you. The last we spoke, it was in passing and a quarrel of puerile gamblings—"

  "You mean my horse. A puerile gamble?"


  Fist to mouth, he cleared his throat. "Forgive me. I mean only that the matter I crave to bring to light is of separate origin."

  "And what origin might that be?"

  "The trade route my sister and I have come to discuss—"

  "Still with that lie? No man comes with a girl so visibly appealing with wishes to propose trade negotiations. The two of you came seeking purses, coin, any southern household that could provide for House Misseldon during the hard winters."

  Rhenan turned to the side and threw his legs up on the neighboring chair, arm propped on the table as he looked out the windows into the dark night. "Who, I wonder, could you possibly be after? Half the houses think you all are magic wielding demons, the other half as poor as yourself."

  A'zur frowned. "We are not poor."

  "Not yet, but I hear your father is funding a war against its big brother, Pyracea. The Thornstons here loathe both Lymereans and Pyraceans. They would never help fund either kingdom's cause, let alone marry into their 'poisonous blood.'"

  "You know little about us. True it may be, our intentions are not singular, but it is no question of Thellemere's need for coal, of which Pyracea has stifled."

  Shitting on the lead coal production kingdom would do that. "My advice, tell your father to make peace and open trade between your two kingdoms again."

  "My father is no reasonable man."

  I'll trade you.

  "Prince A'zur, you are well aware Redthorn does not condone smelting, which is no doubt why you would wish for the coal."

  While Redthorn was renowned for their rich roses, they were notorious for banning the reduction of the rose such as Pyracea and Thellemere were so fond. The gold was distributed in spherical denotes of value, and smelting simply opened too many doors for replicating and falsifying roses on the ever fluctuating market.

  The male said nothing.

  The doors opened then, a servant girl, beautiful and of blonde curls, carrying a silver tray with two glasses and an ovate carafe filled with dark ale, whose alcohol taint Rhenan could smell from a kingdom away.

  She set the tray down with a shy way about her. She was a small girl who shifted away from the Misseldon male, obviously having heard the rumours of dark magic and whatever other foolish tales existed within the castle walls. Still, she filled their glasses quickly and efficiently.