by Bethany-Kris
Ahead on the dirt road that winded through a forested area just outside of the estate’s walls, Eryx could see the current reason for his fury rounding a corner. How Arelle even knew which direction she should take on the roads leading out of the estate so that she would eventually find her way back to the sea, he didn’t know. She’d chosen the right one, though.
She still had a way to go yet.
Unfortunately, she’d thankfully not picked the fastest horse in the stables. And when the guards dared to hesitate to chase after her through the storm, Eryx had quickly lost any semblance of his patience. He took the horse, and he went into the blackness of the night while the rain pelted heavily against his back.
Unafraid.
And entirely fucking angry.
She’d had to know now would be the safest time for her to attempt an escape. How long had she been planning it?
He wanted to punish the guards.
Cage her.
And yet, he was the most enraged with himself.
He’d let fickle emotions distract him from what was supposed to be his plan. She should have been dead by now. Every vision of ending her life and discarding her remains with as much disrespect as had been shown to his mother had become a background thought to the fact that she was there.
With him.
He had her.
She was supposed to be his. His to do with what he wished. His to ruin or keep or end; to make suffer and ache or just to watch her simply lose. Lose anything at all. Something that meant even a fraction to her what his mother had meant to him.
Instead, he found himself chasing after her in a rain that stung his skin with every drop that slapped against him, on the fastest horse he’d ever ridden. And not to get her back so that he could kill her. But rather, because she was not to leave. She couldn’t.
The thoughts made no sense. The emotions, even less. So, he ignored them as he pushed the horse harder. To its very limits, if the heavy panting and snorts that accompanied every stride from the animal were any indication.
Eyrx caught her, though. Right around the bend of that turn, his horse slid against hers, and with a twist of his body and a snag of his arm around her waist, he’d easily yanked her from her horse to his in seconds. He was sure she didn’t even know what had happened at first. Not until the sight of her horse running ahead of them while his slowed.
She tensed, and then the struggle began. Her nails caught his skin; her teeth found his wrist when she damn near fell from his grasp.
Gods.
The horse would kill her when it trampled over her. The thought would have sent him to his knees, had he not been focused on staying atop the horse while subduing Arelle in his hold. It was the only reason he stopped the horse because it was dangerous and fuck …
If her life would end, it would be from his hand. Not because he dropped her under the hooves of a galloping horse. The second it was safe for him to drop to the ground, he did. Arelle went with him, kicking and fighting the whole way.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed.
Yet, even as she said it, her body pressed into his like she didn’t intend to pull away once they were on the ground. She said one thing—did another.
He couldn’t let her go.
Wouldn’t.
The horse trotted on while Eryx kept his stronghold on the now-sobbing woman in his arms.
“You don’t understand what I’ve done,” he heard her say into the wind. “You have no idea at all. Let me go.”
“Stop!”
“Let me—”
“Stop it,” he snapped, the words flying straight from his mouth and into her face.
Never had he been so harsh with a woman. He probably deserved what came next because of it, too.
The slap landed to his cheek with a crack that sent his head flying to the side. The hit had come fast, but he swore he heard her hand pull away from him quicker as she sucked in a hard gasp. Never in his life had a woman dared to put her hands on him. Not even a man would, because they all thought royals were something handed to them by the Gods above.
A joke, really.
Yet, Arelle had done exactly that.
Even as the anger inside him swelled, so did the heat for something else.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her words all rushing out at once. “I—”
“Why?”
Just like that, the fight had left her, and all it had taken was her hand hitting his cheek. Was that because she thought he would answer her in kind, or something else?
“What?” she asked.
She might not have been struggling against him anymore, but Eryx refused to let go of the hold he had with his one arm snug around her middle. He used that to his advantage to pull her closer, flush against the hard lines of his body while his face hovered over hers. Then, all she could see was him while he spoke and nothing else.
He wanted the next things he said to be very clear.
“Why shouldn’t you have done that, Arelle?”
There was something delicious about the way her throat jumped at his demand. He could practically hear the words wanting to come right out of her mouth, but she was a stubborn one. Occasionally, he might appreciate that.
Not tonight, however.
The rain continued to pound down from the sky like paradise had opened up to welcome them home with a flood of tears. The wind had her soaked hair flying out behind her with a wildness that any human woman would have been scared of, from the sheer force alone. Arelle, on the other hand, stood steady and unafraid at the storm and the man.
“I belong to the sea,” she told him softly. “I belong to my pe—”
“You belong to me.”
The sky cracked open with more lightning.
It was his voice that still boomed.
The heat that burst in his chest at the declaration could only be matched by the reflection of him in her blown out pupils. She didn’t even have time for her next breath before his mouth crashed down on hers. There was no fight in her kiss to stop—only an answer when her tongue slashed along his for a taste of her own.
Eryx had no idea where the horses had gone, and he couldn’t find a single shit to give about the fact they were currently on a muddy path that typically had a lot of travel.
In good weather, that was.
Like this, no one would dare to be outside.
Except for them, it seemed.
Her fingers slipped through the low-hanging neck of his nightshirt to scrape across his chest. The sting had his cock daring to punch through the trousers he’d barely managed to pull on before leaving his chambers when he heard the bell ringing to signal her escape.
“You belong to me,” he breathed against her mouth when he finally dragged himself away from the kiss. His hand came up to grab tight to her jaw when he added, “And unless told otherwise, you will behave like it, Arelle.”
The same heat flashed in her eyes as before. Now, he only saw it as an invitation when she flexed her sharp fingernails against the carved muscles of his chest one more time.
“If you claw me like that again, I will bend you over, rip your dress up your back, and fuck you against the boulder behind you.”
That was the only warning she would get.
“You wouldn’t,” she returned.
It almost sounded confident.
Eryx chuckled. “Wouldn’t I? You are mine to do with what I want. And you say it like you might not enjoy yourself—we very much know you would.”
The pink came back to her cheeks, too. It did wicked things for his lust and he wouldn’t pretend differently. His next kiss came harsher and harder. The force of it propelled them off the path and into the wet, cold grass until her back hit the rock he’d promised would be there. He released her jaw from his hold, but only to shove that hand between the silk of her skirt. The sopping fabric molded to the sweet slit between her thighs for him to stroke when she widened her legs for him.
He wished
he cared that she was brazen enough to let him have her like this, but he found he craved it. The wild rawness of it called to him, and before he knew it, Eryx had her turned around on the rock so that her round, pert ass fit tightly against his groin.
He kept another promise when the silk of her dress ripped apart from the seam where the skirt had been sewed into the bottom of the bodice. Her heavy intake of air answered the cold wind that whispered across her naked skin.
The crack of his palm to her ass accompanied his next words when he asked, “Why won’t you wear undergarments? They’re brought to you for a reason.”
All she breathed back was, “But why bother?”
Gods.
She would kill him.
Eryx believed it to be true.
He ripped her dress further. Arelle pushed up to her tiptoes to bare her ass even more. He couldn’t get his trousers pulled down fast enough when she widened her legs and looked over her shoulder at him. Already harder than rock, his cock ached in his palm when he stroked the head along the wet heat of her slit.
He wasn’t expecting her to reach back to grab his cock from him, though. She slid him into her pussy herself, hugging him tight and making him grunt when he settled a little deeper. And then just as fast, she pushed him out, still keeping her hand tight to his base as her thighs closed around him. Only then did she let him go. The soft skin of his cock rubbed against her wet pussy and warm thighs. It wasn’t the same pleasure as fucking her, but it still made him feel like his balls were about to empty faster than he could control them. With her ass pushing into him, all those soft sounds she made and the slickness of her fluids coating him … fuck, it was just enough to make him crazy.
“Come like this.”
With every flex of his hips, the head of his cock slipped over her hand, which was now working fast circles into her clit. When she started shaking and those sounds of hers came louder, he lost what semblance of control he’d maintained.
The sticky heat of his cum coated her fingertips and thighs, and his dick only stopped jerking with spurts as he pushed her stomach flat against the rocks. She widened her thighs, and he buried himself as deep as he could get into her clenching cunt.
“Yes,” he groaned, “now you give it to me.”
Somehow, she’d managed to hold onto that orgasm until he was inside her. He got to feel every muscle of hers work and flex around his cock as he stretched her open and filled her again and again.
“Eryx, Eryx … Eryx.”
That chant of hers echoed in his mind.
He kept fucking her even when he felt the spasms of her orgasm bleed away. She started chasing the high all over again by backing into his fast thrusts.
Eryx couldn’t get enough.
Not of the sight of her.
The feel of her.
The flavor of the skin on the back of her neck, dampened with rain and heated with their fucking when he leaned down for a taste. All of it was like the best drink to have ever slid down his throat. Even if it would kill him, he planned to swallow every single drop.
“You’re going to make me come again,” he told her, his teeth grazing against the top of her ear, “and then you’re going to get on your knees and lick me until I’m clean, Arelle. Do you hear me?”
She answered him back with a moan, but he felt the nod of her head that accompanied it, too.
That worked for him.
He fucked her until she screamed again.
She was all too pleased to do exactly what he demanded of her, dropping to her knees to clean his cock of their mingled cum while his hand threaded into the tangled strands of her hair. Under the wetness of the rain, it somehow shone a brighter red.
But even when she was finished, she stayed on her knees. He kept watching her. The sight of her down there, submissive after all her defiance, was not at all how he’d thought this evening would end.
Once again, she surprised him.
A million questions raced through his mind.
Only one felt appropriate.
“Why?”
Arelle replied simply, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
She’d said that earlier, too. He didn’t think she would explain what she meant, even if he asked.
“You will learn,” he told her.
“Will I—or will you?”
Just like that, he decided she absolutely would learn. He’d enjoy teaching her, too.
• • •
The guards all but demanded they lock Arelle in her rooms and nail the shutters closed on her windows during the days following her attempted escape. Eryx could have agreed—probably should have, if he were being honest—but he just … didn’t feel the need.
The memory of her kneeling at his feet, soft and pleased and submissive, was far more than enough to tell him something had happened with them. Something between them made this different.
He just didn’t know what.
So, no, he didn’t allow the guards to stick closer. He refused to lock her in her rooms, and in fact, demanded everything return to some semblance of normal after the storm had passed. Arelle continued on with her freedom, never seeming as though she might run again but also not seeking Eryx out.
He offered her the same.
Besides, watching her was far more interesting. When she didn’t know he was doing it, and more so when she did.
Like now.
“Like this?” he heard her ask.
The woman who managed the kitchen and cooked for the entire house nodded behind the large oak table. “Knead it like that, yes. Well done.”
“This isn’t so hard.”
“Not if you have a knack for it, and you certainly seem to.”
For whatever reason, Eryx found himself smiling at the sight of Arelle kneading dough for the bread that would be served later at supper. Not because he liked the thought of her cooking for him—although, he did on that side of things, too—but because she was learning something new and seemed to be enjoying it. He had little to no interest in learning the mundane things like cooking or otherwise.
He had people for that.
Always had.
Did she?
“My lord,” came a familiar voice from behind him. “The hunter is here, as requested. Shall I show him to—”
“The den, please,” Eryx replied to the man.
“Yes, Prince.”
He’d not forgotten about the meeting he’d called with Corval. In fact, he’d sent word to speak with the man during the storm, knowing they would get a brief pause in the weather before another would come through to wreak more havoc. He hoped, however, that they would have a long enough break between one storm and the next that Corval would be able to show his face.
It seemed he had.
Thankfully.
Eryx had questions.
And every single one of them revolved around that woman smiling on the other side of the kitchen while she kneaded raisins into the dough.
While he would much rather stay hidden in the enclave leading into the kitchen so that he could continue watching Arelle from afar, he also didn’t want to keep Corval waiting. Even if the man would say nothing about waiting, considering it was a prince he waited on.
Nonetheless, the faster Eryx finished with that meeting, the quicker he could get back here. Perhaps in just enough time to watch Arelle learn how to make his favorite pie.
Hmm.
Spinning on his heels with a sigh, Eryx headed for the den of the large house. The handful of servants moving from room to room nodded and waited for him to pass through before returning to their duties. Corval, to his benefit, was dressed like a man of status for once. And he was standing to greet the prince.
“Prince,” Corval said, bowing a bit.
“Even threw on a waistcoat for the occasion, did you?”
Corval chuckled and took a chair next to the window when Eryx waved at it. “How often does one get called to visit the prince of Atlas during storm season?”
“Rarely.”
“So, the waistcoat was appropriate.”
“It is always appropriate, Corval.”
“Ships would beg to differ.”
Eryx gave him a look. “Ships can’t talk.”
“But the seas can,” the man replied just as fast.
Well …
He wasn’t about to argue with that. The sea certainly seemed to speak to him.
Eryx took the chair on the other side of the window and reached for the glass filled with ale that was already waiting for him. Watching the dark clouds streak through the sky, he already knew another storm would soon be on the way. They would progressively last longer and longer, until it felt like for weeks at a time all it did was rain and blow with winds strong enough to rip the trees right from their roots.
“Did you find out anything I wanted to know?” he asked the hunter.
Corval cleared his throat, but Eryx kept his attention on the sky. It was easier to hide his intentions when he didn’t need to look someone in the eye. Not that they needed to know that. “If you’re asking if I have confirmed that the mermaid is a Blu Sea royal, then yes, I have. The heir, actually, seeing as how she would have replaced her sister’s place in line to the throne after her capture.”
“So, the other one that was caught … she is her sister.”
“Quite vocal, that one, from all accounts. Beautiful, certainly, which was why she was picked by the king amongst the rest of the catches this year. She was added to your father’s collection, but you know how he feels about the noisy ones. We’ll see if she lasts.”
“Was she how you learned—”
“Partially. I have other ways, also.”
Eryx arched a brow, turning to face the man entirely. “Don’t interrupt. It’s rude.”
Even if Eryx did it to others constantly. He could afford to.
“My apologies, but yes, it’s confirmed.”
“Hmm.”
“We assume the people of the sea believe the sister to be dead, given how long it’s been since her catch, and they’ve not attempted to force her return.”