anthology Once Upon A Prince (Ellora's Cave)

by james

  Her thoughts shocked her into stillness. Kanin raised his head from her chest to look at her.

  “What is it, princess?”

  I’m not a real princess because he isn’t a real prince. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t.” Tears threatened to sting her eyes, but she blinked them away and hoped in the darkness Kanin hadn’t seen. I want to travel, see places, visit the King’s Castle, and Kanin is only prince of the forest. I cannot allow myself to be lost in him.

  The cottage door opened. “Amelle,” her mother’s voice cut through the air.

  Amelle and Kanin went still.

  “What’s going on out there?” Daria asked.

  “Nothing,” Amelle asked. She glanced beside her, and instead of a virile man, she saw a large wild rabbit. She wrapped her hands around it and picked it up. The creature squeaked. She pressed the creature to her chest and rose to her feet. “I have the rabbit, mother.”

  “Kill it.” Her mother’s sharp words split the air.

  Amelle looked down at Kanin, who was now in his hare form in her arms. I can’t kill it. It’s just a bunny, and when it’s not being a bunny, it’s Kanin. After all that he had made her feel, she couldn’t kill the rabbit. Dread filled her. “Oh, Kanin,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He bit her. His teeth sank into the tender flesh of her forearm. Pain shot through her arm, and she stared in shock at the creature in her arms.

  Amelle shrieked, dropping the creature to the ground. Kanin landed on his feet, then bounded into the forest. She saw the flash of his white tail before he disappeared into the forest. Blood dripped from her arm, and she held her hand to the wound, walking towards the house.

  “You lost it, you stupid girl,” her mother said. “Let me bind your wounds.” Daria grabbed her daughter’s arm and hauled her inside.

  Her mother’s rough treatment contrasted with Kanin’s gentle touch in the yard. She stared out the window at the forest and hoped he was safe. He may not be a real prince, but he can take me away from all of this. Amelle refused to let her mother’s behavior bother her. I’ll be gone soon. Kanin should be safe in the woods. Tomorrow night, she hoped he would come again, for this time, she knew what her answer would be. I’m sorry, my prince, I’ll never hurt you again.

  * * * * *

  Throughout the day she did her chores, but her mind wouldn’t stay confined within the four walls of the cottage. With every thought she worried about Kanin. Surely he knows it was my mother that made me act that way. I would never harm him. I don’t think I could have killed him anyway. She knew that once night came again, her mother would send her out into the yard to try and kill the rabbit again.

  She sat there in the grass, the soft blades cushioning her through the thin material of her dress. Night birds warbled. The sound soothed her. Already, the moon had moved across the sky, and she hadn’t seen Kanin. Had her mother scared him off, she wondered. She glanced down at the wound in her arm, and knew he had a right not to come. Rising to her feet, she stared at the forest. Dark shadows moved beneath the limbs of the tree, but Amelle didn’t care. She strode purposefully forward. If he won’t come to me, then I’ll go to him.

  The darkness of the forest called to her, concealing her from the house. She stepped onto the path, glancing into the darkness. Slivers of moonlight filtered through the trees, giving her just enough light to see by. Even so, she moved carefully along the path, careful lest a tree root or other obstacle trip her. She moved into the forest, glancing behind her until she couldn’t see her mother’s cottage any more.

  “Kanin,” she called, careful to keep her voice from carrying. “Kanin.”

  Silence answered her. Please Kanin, I’m so sorry that I threatened you.

  She stepped forward, bolder now that she was out of sight of her mother. Her skirt snagged on a low bush, and she yanked at it. The material tore, the rent stopping mid-thigh. She glanced at her skin, milky white beneath the light of the moon and smiled. She yanked on the skirt again, satisfied to hear it rip to the waistline.

  Someone watched her. She felt it in the darkness. The path ended in a clearing, and she thought it had been the same place where she had met Kanin. She felt eyes, hundreds of pairs of eyes on her. Stopping, she glanced around and saw no one.

  Off to one side, the brush rustled. “Kanin,” she said, stepping towards the source of the sound. “I’m here.” She yanked her tunic over her head, revealing her bare torso to the night. A sound suspiciously like a groan came from the brush. She stepped out of her skirt, feeling as if she had gone too far to turn back. Naked, she stood waiting for her lover.

  He emerged from the trees, as naked as she. She let her eyes hungrily gaze over his chest, to his lean hips. She glanced away from his hardening cock, instead trailing her gaze over his long, muscled legs. Only then, did she rest her eyes upon him. His rod was hard, a phallus meant for a God. It was thick and long, and Amelle felt her body grow damp just from looking at him.

  She stepped forward, her lips parted. “Kanin,” she said as he halted in front of her. “I’m so sorry. You know I—“

  He pressed two fingers against her lips. “Shhh. I know. I’m glad you came,” he said and kissed her. He stepped back, touching her arm with the wound. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. Sometimes the rabbit takes over and I can’t stop myself,” he said, lifting her arm to his lips. He nibbled along the inside of her wrist, towards the wound he had made. He laved it with long strokes of his tongue that Amelle felt deep to the core of her. “Stay with me,” he said, “be my bride.”

  “Yes,” she replied in a breathy voice. I’m sure Kanin will take me places I’ve never dreamed.

  “Are you sure?” The hesitancy in his voice warmed Amelle and cemented her position.

  “Yes, Kanin, my prince. I’m sure.”

  Kanin released her arm. He stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her and crushing her against him. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and she felt the thrust of his hard cock against her stomach. He kissed her, not a gentle, sweet kiss, but a kiss hot and hard and full of hunger. She moaned as his hand drifted down to cup her buttocks and bring her into even closer contact with him.

  A need to touch him bore through her, and she ran her hands over his back. She clenched at his shoulders, holding onto him, as his tongue stroked her lips. Rocking against him, she wanted him to touch her all over. Her body ached for the touch of his fingers, and she felt wet and needy.

  Kanin pulled his lips away, and she whimpered with need. He trailed kisses over her neck. He kissed the center of her collarbone, dipping his tongue into the hollow. The sensation made Amelle shiver, and she clung more tightly to him. His lips trailed down, until he took the turgid peak of one of her breasts into his mouth. Amelle cried out.

  She slid her hand over his chest. Kanin suckling at her breast evoked sensations she had never felt before. “Oh,” she said when he nipped her, then used harsh strokes of his tongue to enflame her even higher. She rocked her hips against him and smelled the musky scent of her arousal. His ministrations made her forget all about her mother’s cottage and the abuse she suffered there. She wanted to be with Kanin, have him make her feel like this forever. Wrapping an arm around him, she tangled her fingers in her hair and held him to her breast. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with him.

  She ran the flat of her palm over his nipple, feeling Kanin shudder in response. He switched his attentions to her other breast, bringing up a hand to caress the one he had just kissed. His free arm wrapped around her waist, crushing her against him, and she made little mewing noises, as his fingers tormented the nipple his tongue had just touched.

  She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his shoulder. She bit him lightly, drawing a growl of pleasure from his lips. His hands swept behind her, one at her shoulders, the other around her waist. He pulled his lips from her breast long enough to pick her up, then he was kneeling, and she felt a soft, down comforter beneath her.

  Amel
le glanced up at the trees above her, then reached out and ran her hand over the comforter on the ground. She had no idea how it had gotten there. Kanin had conjured it for all she knew. Then his lips were on her again, trailing between her breasts towards her navel, and she clenched handfuls of the comforter. He paused just above the curls between her legs and looked up at her. She saw the naked desire in his eyes and shuddered.

  “Do you want me?” he asked, his husky voice caressing every nerve ending.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice a husky sigh. “Make love to me, Kanin.”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said a moment before he slid his tongue along the outside of her folds. She arched, feeling his tongue slip into her wetness. He lapped at her, coaxing cries of pleasure from her lips. When his tongue found her clit, she screamed, her cries of passion echoing in the forest. He suckled it, drawing it into his mouth. She writhed against his face. Her fingers tangled in his hair. Intense pleasure rippled through her.

  Again and again, he nibbled and suckled her clit, and she bucked against his face. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to contain the pleasure building within her body. Suddenly, release overcame her, pounding wave after wave of ecstasy through her. She sighed, her hands sliding from his hair. He lifted his face, and Amelle saw his smile of pure male satisfaction.

  He moved over her. Her eyes grew wide as she felt him press against her entrance. He slid in slowly, her wetness enveloping him like a tight sheath. He groaned, and Amelle gripped his shoulders. She felt his iron control. He slid in further and stopped. His eyes flew open.

  “You are a virgin?” he asked. His voice held reverence.

  Amelle nodded reluctantly, afraid he would pull away and deny her the pleasure of making love with him. “Don’t stop,” she urged.

  He pressed a quick kiss against her lips. “I will try to make the pain brief,” he said, then claimed her lips in a hard kiss. He moved forward.

  She felt a pain as he pressed through her barrier, and instinctively, she stiffened beneath him. Kanin held himself still. His muscles trembled with the effort, and when Amelle thought he could restrain himself no longer, he pulled out slowly. He paused again at her entrance and then slid forward.

  Amelle braced herself, expecting another pain, but this time pleasure shot from her center. “Oh,” she cried out as he surged into her. He pulled out, and this time, when he speared her, she arched up to meet him. Her hands trailed over his back to his hard buttocks. Her body felt on fire. Her nipples ached where they brushed against his chest, and the sensation of his shaft moving within her made her clench her inner muscles against him.

  She clung to him feeling lost in a maelstrom of desire. She came again, passion exploding within her. Her body rippled, tremors cascading through her. Her cries filled the forest.

  Kanin stiffened above her. With a guttural cry, he came. His hot juices bathed her insides sending little tremors racing through Amelle. She felt his body shudder above her. He looked down at her and brushed his lips across hers.

  “You are mine,” he whispered then he gently moved to lie beside her and held Amelle in his arms.

  A while later, after their breathing had returned to normal and they felt the urge to move, Kanin rose to his feet. “We will go to my house now.”

  Amelle smiled. She rose to her feet and dressed, noticing that Kanin’s leggings were lying beside the blanket. She knew he had come out of the forest naked, but shrugged her shoulders. The blanket had appeared out of nowhere, so why couldn’t his leggings? He took her hand, and his grip felt warm. Tingles shot through her fingers at the contact, and they smiled at each other.

  “It isn’t far,” he said, and led her down a trail.

  She walked along a manicured path, noticing several rabbits bounding out of the bushes to see them. She glanced from the wild bunnies to the man beside her. “Do you know them?” she asked, not quite comfortable with the idea of her lover as a shape-shifter.

  Kanin laughed, the chuckle radiating warmth throughout her. She could have sworn she heard twitters coming from the forest as if the rabbits too were laughing at her comment. “They are my subjects. They brought the blanket for us, just as they brought me my pants. I am King of the Logos. You are their queen. They want to see their beautiful queen.” He stopped her then, turning her to face him, and kissed her. His lips moved across hers, as hungry and possessive as they had been in the clearing, and Amelle felt her body respond.

  She pulled away, breathless. “But how can you shape shift?” she asked, and then remembered her mother warning her away from the forest because of the creatures in it. “Are you why my mother wouldn’t let me into the forest?” It seemed odd that her mother wouldn’t want her around a bunch of rabbits. She nearly chuckled aloud.

  Kanin brushed his fingertips across her cheeks. “My beautiful Amelle. I am special, a creature of the Gods. There are those of us who turn into great stags, and those who become birds in the sky. My kin and I become the creatures of the earth. The Horned God and Earth Mother have blessed us in this way so that we might be closer to her. Your mother is a healer, is she not?”

  Amelle nodded.

  “Then your mother has the old blood in her too, the blood of the children of the Gods when they walked the earth before man took over. Only one with the old blood can be a mate to us, as you are to me. Your mother did not want to lose you to the old people like she had lost her heart to them so many years earlier.”

  “Her heart?” Amelle asked. Things were starting to make sense in her mind, her mother’s affinity for herbs, the reason why the cottage was so close to the forest. A possible reason for her mother’s intense bitterness.

  “Yes, my father tells the tale of a beautiful woman Daria, and how she fell in love with a Logos male. She wanted him to return to the city, to live like a man, but he refused and she refused to come live with him. So, she went back to the land of man to bear her child. That child is you, Amelle, and now you have come back to the Logos. Had your mother stayed, she would have been our queen.”

  “Then –” She stepped back, thinking that Kanin’s father must have been king before him. They couldn’t be related.

  As if he read her mind, Kanin chuckled. “No. Our new King is chosen when the previous King passes on. We are not related.”

  She sighed with relief.

  “My home is just around this bend. Come.” He held out his hand, and Amelle gratefully took it. He led her around a bend to a small cottage. Wildflowers grew out front and a vine covered with bright, purple flowers climbed the walls of the stone building. She saw a bench out front, where someone could sit amid the riot of color and enjoy the beauty. A vegetable garden, not unlike her mother’s, grew to one side, and she noticed it was full of cabbage and carrots, with lesser amounts of other, common vegetables.

  “It’s beautiful,” Amelle said. Her mother’s cottage sat like a blight in the middle of the meadow. The garden looked like someone ripped into the earth to plant it instead of working the plants into nature as they were here. It looked like the cottage she would want to have, if she could have planned such a thing on her own. She turned to Kanin and kissed him on the cheek.

  She tried to stifle a yawn, but their earlier activities combined with the walk made her tired. Kanin scooped her into his arms. “I have a soft feather bed inside,” he said, “and it’s perfect for the two of us.” She murmured her appreciation and laid her head against his chest. Beneath her ear, she heard the steady pounding of his heart.

  Once inside the cottage, Kanin stood her next to the bed. He quickly stripped her of her skirt and tunic and then laid her down on the bed. It was dark inside the cottage, giving her little chance to look around. On the path, the moonlight had lit their way, but here the bed sat in a corner away from the windows. Kanin had drawn a curtain around it, and she thought of the little bunnies that had followed them. Apparently the Logos were curious about their King’s activities.

  He smoothed his hand down her right leg, paus
ing to circle his fingers about her ankle. He wrapped something around it, fastening it tight. Amelle yawned sleepily. He moved to the other ankle, wrapping cloths around it as well, and she pulled her leg back, but the rope held taut.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her eyes flew open and panic threatened to overwhelm her. She lay in the middle of his large bed with her legs spread open.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting next to her. Amelle felt the bed dip beneath his weight as he stretched out beside her. He gathered her hands into his own. “You are my Queen. You cannot return to your home.

  “So you bind me here?” With her legs parted, her sex was exposed to the air, and she felt it grow damp. The sensation focused her attention on her pussy, and she wiggled her hips to try and alleviate some of the pressure. Kanin’s eyes followed the movement and he bit back a groan.

  “Do not move,” he said splaying his hand on her hip. “I would like to taste your sweet honey again, but you were a virgin, and if we enjoy ourselves too much you will ache.” Even as he spoke, his hand slid over the fur covering her quim, and she gasped as his fingers stroked her wet outer lips. Amelle tried to be mad at him, but with him touching her, she found herself wanting to see what would happen. She shivered.

  He kissed her temple, then stretched her arm above her head and fastened both hands. “I cannot have you running away. Not before the wedding ceremony.”

  Chapter Three

  “Wedding?” she squeaked. The motion of her arms above her head pressed her breasts forward, and between her legs, heat burned.

  “Yes. We are to be married according to Logos custom.” Kanin picked up a blanket and tucked it around her shoulders. “Sleep, Amelle. You will need your strength.” He brushed his lips across hers, and then she felt him shed his leggings and stretch out naked beside her.

  She ached to touch him. Pulling at her bonds, she could only move her hands a few inches at the most. “Please,” she said, her quim still burning from his earlier touch. “Make love to me.”