by Fiona Wilde
"You mean giving them a good cry by spanking them can prevent the behaviors that might earn them a more serious one later?" Quentin asked.
Kier pointed at him. "Exactly, brother."
But will it not cause resentment? Ivan asked, thinking of his wedding night with Luna and what he'd hoped to be doing instead of spanking. They might withhold....favors from us if we spank them.
"Brother," Kier said assuredly. "Reminding your bride that she is under your control will also remind her that she is a woman, and make her see you more as a man. Remember, a woman responds most passionately to the man claims and tames her. We claim them today, but we will be taking these women the rest of their lives. I think that is why they challenge us so; I think they want us to meet that challenge with a firm hand placed hard upon their bottoms."
The brothers mulled this, discussed it some more and decided that the eldest - again - was right. Once the nuptials were over, the celebrations had ended and they were in the privacy of their individual wedding chambers, the men would begin their lives as husbands by spanking their brides soundly simply to prove that they could.
As the sun crept higher on their wedding day, trumpets began to sound, announcing to the kingdom that very soon the five princesses would wed the five princes who would one day serve as the rulers of Ardonia.
Five coaches with silver streamers waving behind pulled up to the castle and the five princes assembled in the hall to wait for their princesses. When the young women began to make their way down the stairs, the princes were stunned by the vision they presented. Never had the daughters of Elgar looked more exquisite. Never had dresses framed shapely bodies so deliciously. Each prince was suddenly thinking ahead to the evening, when they would enjoy the delights hidden under all that silk.
"My prince." Lenora curtsied prettily and the other princesses, standing now before their men, did the same. Each prince offered his princess an arm and escorted them to the waiting carriages. The day was cool and brisk, the sun bright. Beyond the castle grounds they could hear the sounds of flutes and pipes and laughter from subjects already in celebration mode.
Those subjects lined the road from the castle to the chapel, yelling good wishes and blessing and singing songs of love. Parents held children aloft so that they could one day say they caught a glimpse of at least one bride and bridegroom through the glass windows of the royal coach. Women cried from the emotion of the day; men nodded in approval as they spoke of the good character of the sons of Salazar.
The crowds thickened as they approached the chapel. As the carriages pulled up to the stone steps, the king's guard lined either side of the steps, ensuring safe passage from the throng eager to touch the five couples. As each princess and her betrothed exited the carriage, the well-wishers cried out messages of support and expressions of admiration.
Only royals and dignitaries were allowed inside the chapel. But even the eyes of the rich opened wider in appreciation for the handsome vision the couples represented. Heads nodded approvingly at how demure King Elgar's notoriously spiky daughters looked on the arms of their handsome, self-assured escorts. At the head of the church, the priest was the only one who would not allow himself to look impressed, for he was too busy hoping he would get the long ceremony exactly right for his God and his king.
When the five couples were assembled before him, he looked them over and then launched into the explanation about the holy duties of marriage between a man and a woman. He spoke of children and the added responsibilities of royal couples to their subjects.
"You are shining examples," he said, "chosen by God to rule, protect and inspire. God has touched your life with his hand and expects you to extend that touch in his name."
The princesses all kept passive faces, but inside they were thinking the same thing: "Hurry already!" There was dancing to be done and food to be consumed and wine to be tasted. The castle would be full of people they'd not seen since they were children, men and women who would look on them not with the admiration of the subjects who were impressed by almost anything, but by peers whose envy would be something to be savored.
As the priest droned on, a couple of the princesses began to fidget, and were reminded to stay still be a warning squeeze on the arm by their mates.
Finally the vows began. The priest approached the eldest couple first.
"Prince Kier, son of Salazar and now heir to Ardonia, do you take this woman, Lenora, daughter of Elgar to be your wife? Do you promise to love her, protect her, cherish her, love her, train her and guide her all the days of your life together?"
"I do," Kier said.
"Princess Lenora, daughter of Elgar. You are joining in matrimony with Prince Kier, son of Salazar who now will hold in trust the fate of Ardonia. Do you promise to love him, serve him with loyalty and faithfulness, submit to him, obey him honor him all the days of your life together?"
Lenora thought about that for a moment. It was just words. She would try, but she knew it would not be possible to honor Kier every day. However, she could not say that, so she simply said, "I do."
The other princesses following suit answered in kind. Each one had the same problem answering the question with certainty, except for Angelica, who always lied sweetly and easily. After the Leo and Lark had taken their vows, they couples were given permission to kiss and were pronounced man and wife. Then all five couples turned to face the guests, and were then presented as the Princesses and Princes of Ardonia. The guests cheered with happiness, and outside the crowd, hearing that the nuptials had been completed, roared in unison, the sound growing and spreading like a wave through the kingdom.
Getting out of the church was not as easy as getting in. The crowds pressed closer now, giddy with excitement. More guards were stationed outside to hold back the wall of admirers. The couples were hustled to the coaches, where the princes stood outside each door of each coach for a moment to throw gold coins to the assembled masses.
The princesses were relieved when they finally headed back to the castle. The princesses were ready for the festivities, and were more focused on being fawned over and admired than they were on their husbands. But the princes still could not stop looking at their mates, or congratulating themselves on their good fortune.
Kier crossed his long legs and smiled complacently to himself as he looked out the window at the throngs that lined the road to the castle. Subjects, his subjects one day. He thought back to how stubborn his beautiful Lenora and her sisters had been when he and his brothers had laid eyes on them. He and his brothers had tamed them, won them as wives and had won something else along with it - a new homeland, respectability, power.
"I suppose the festivities will last all night," Lenora said, interrupting his thoughts.
"For the subjects, beyond that," he said. "But we will not celebrate all night, at least not with everyone else. We shall take our leave early enough, for I should enjoy my victory in private."
Lenora looked at him angrily. "Victory?" she asked.
Kier fumbled. He'd not meant to say that, or at least not out loud.
"I mean victory in the sense that this occasion spent so much planning..."
"Liar," she hissed. "You still see me as a prize that was won," she said.
"Lenora.." he began, feeling suddenly defensive. "That's not what I.."
"Don't even try to explain," she said. "I see you look at the kingdom beyond these windows as a cat looks at cream. But let me warn you, husband. You are not king yet, and I can still embarrass you and hurt your reputation."
"He leaned forward. And I can still spank your bottom until you scream for mercy. Would you like me to do that now, sweet princess? Would you like me to upend you across my lap in this coach and give the subjects a real show? Imagine your distress at knowing that everyone along this road can see your fair, royal bottom reddening under my hand as we travel to the castle. News of that would not take long to spread. It would travel like a blaze."
Lenora glared. "You would not
dare..."
"Test me, my bride," he said. "Test me and you will find out that I am a man of my word."
Lenora sat back against the seat of the carriage. She would not test him, for she knew that he would do as he threatened. But her happiness had turned to anger now, for it was dawning on her that her husband seemed to think that marriage had somehow neutralized her somehow.
For his part, Kier dismissed Lenora's anger. Once they were in the castle, he decided, she would be so caught up in the festivities with her sisters that her good mood would return. Some good food and some good wine would relax her, and by the time he took her up to the wedding chamber she would offer no resistance, but only passion. In the morning, bloody sheets hanging from the window would further attest to the virility of the princes and the willing submission of the princesses to their advances.
Lenora did not speak to Kier as they exited. She did not smile as she entered the castle hall on his arm, even though he tried to coax her to. Her cold demeanor worried him, for he knew that regardless of what he told himself his work was not over. If she rebuffed him publicly tonight then that would start tongues to wagging. He could see Quentin and Fiona laughing, and it worried him that his brother already seemed to have won the respect and love of his fiery bride while he was clearly losing the love and respect of Lenora. What if the guests saw Quentin as the stronger prince because of it? He began to wish he'd done as he'd threatened and spanked Lenora in the carriage.
He was now even more determined to spank her that night, and to make sure his brothers did the same. They had to be unified in this. If even one prince failed to spank his bride, it may cause resentment and even more tension.
But there was no time to remind the brothers now. They were in the hall, and the banquet table stretched and stretched before them laden with more food than any of them had ever seen in one place. Exotic fruits sat piled in silver bowls. Roast goose with glistening golden skins sat fat and waiting to be carved. Already, servers were filling goblets with fragrant wine. Music and laugher were everywhere.
"We are husbands!" Kier turned to see his brothers, drinks already in hand, raising a toast. He took a goblet off a passing tray and joined.
"Now your work truly begins." King Elgar had joined them. "Now is not the time to rest on your laurels, for being a husband can be as fraught with danger as being a warrior."
The men all laughed. "We have readied our battle plan if that be the case, your majesty," Kier replied. In fact, we discussed this last night and have all agreed to remind our wives of our mastery."
"Well good luck with that," King Elgar chuckled. The sound of it did nothing to encourage Kier. Neither did the expressions of his brothers, who looked like smitten school lads as they took in the sight of their lovely wives huddled together in a gaggle of ladies from the court. He completely understood; how could a man look on such loveliness with anything other than complete and utter adoration? But Kier knew that underneath the beauty lay a very real challenge to their authority. How he and his brothers exercised their rule on the wedding night may very well indicate how they would rule their new kingdom they'd won through marriage.
Chapter Eleven
The Wedding Night
The wedding feasts and merrymaking were over. The guests had either gone home while the privileged ones had staggered - drunk on too much good wine - to their lodgings in the castle. The five couples bid one another farewell before retiring to their respective bedchambers.
The princesses were visibly nervous. Even Princess Lenora, usually so self-assured, was unusually quiet as she pondered her wedding night. On this pitch, her husband would have the advantage, for she suspected that he - like most handsome young men - had tumbled a wench or ten while she was yet a virgin.
"In the morning we can all meet for breakfast," said Lark, her eyes shining with happiness and a bit too much wine.
Kier put his arm around Lenora. "No, I think in the morning we shall all be more willing to stay abed. The night is far from over..."
The other brothers nodded knowingly and the sisters blushed, except for silly Lark who just giggled innocently. Leo, who was equally innocent although he'd never admit it to his brothers, tried to look as confident as his siblings.
The couples ascended the stairs one by one, the sisters stopping at the top to exchange kisses before joining their husbands in a night that everyone would remember.
Kier and Fiona: In Love and War
"Well then." Kier stood looking at his new wife, which he believed to be the most beautiful woman not just in the land, but surely in the entire world.
He walked over and took one of the silken curls in his hand and studied it. Her hair was like spun gold. She was living treasure, and it was now time for him to fully claim her.
"It is just you and I now, Princess. Wife."
"That it is," she replied. "And now I suppose you seek to enjoy the prize you have won."
There was a slight mocking tone to her words. As so often was the case, Kier could not tell whether she was joking or being serious.
"Is it not my right?"
"I do not cease to own my own body, husband," she said.
"A wife should obey her husband in all things," he said. "Even in the bedchamber. Once married, her body is no longer her own, but his."
"And his body is hers as well, is it not?" she asked.
"Indeed," he replied.
"So if he wished her body to yield and she wished for him to withhold his ardor then it would seem they'd be at something of an impasse, correct?" Her eyes glittered in the candlelight, and Kier got the feeling that she was using his own words to weave another web in which to trap him.
"Only a disobedient wife would put her husband at such an impasse," Kier said, tiring of his bride's game. "And her husband would be wise to keep such a wife compliant."
He sat on the bed and pulled her across his lap.
"And how exactly would he do that?" she asked, wriggling her bottom provocatively through the layers of her silk wedding dress. Kier's eyes widened. The little minx had been teasing him.
He stood her back up.
"Well, the first thing he would do would be to conquer the layer of fabric that lay between him and her," Kier said as he turned her and began undoing the long row of pearl buttons that held her gown closed.
"I could have a maid come do that," she purred.
"And deny me the joy of unwrapping the greatest gift I've ever gotten? Not a chance, Princess."
She stood smiling as he unfastened each and every button and the gown fell to her feet in a puddle of silk. Lenora stepped out, clad now in her stocking and stays. She smiled as she presented herself again to his nimble fingers, patiently waiting while he expertly undid the laces. He sat her on the edge of the bed, kneeling, and took her stockings off one by one, his mouth trailed the top of each stocking - kissing the skin high on each thigh and all the way down to her toes.
Lenora was naked now and Kier sat down beside her on the bed and pulled her across his lap.
"Now, wife," he said. "Tell me again of this 'impasse?'"
"I was simply saying, my lord, that a wife can decide whether to fulfill her husband's needs based on her discretion."
He raised his hand and brought it down on her bottom, not hard, but hard enough to illicit a little yelp.
"And if a husband disagrees with that philosophy, then he would be remiss in not reminding his wife of her place." He began to spank her now, teasingly, striking first one plump buttock and then another as Lenora's moans became sharp little cries of passion.
He did not want to hurt her, only to force her to travel that frenzied line between pleasure and pain. When her bottom was sufficiently pink, he lifted her and tossed her on her back and pinned her beneath him. He was still in his wedding clothes and felt a burning need to feel her soft skin against every inch of his own. He raised himself to his knees and she followed and began to feverishly work the fastenings on his clothing as he'd done on
hers just moments earlier.
A fierceness was in her eyes that delighted and intimidated him. Lenora was going to be more than a match for him, he realized and when he was naked and ready he found she was as well. They collapsed on the bed and she opened her legs and trapped him between amazingly strong, soft thighs. He could feel her pulling him into her.
"Slowly, my love," he said, his voice strained with passion. "The first time will hurt."
"Not as much as the wait," she said determinedly, and he gasped as her hand found the base of his throbbing manhood and guided it between her thighs. She was wet and tight but thrust up to meet him as he shoved into her. He heard her gasp and closed his mouth over hers as innocence left her body in the form of one, sharp cry.
They were still for a moment but then he began to move, slowly, and Lenora's eyes widened with amazement as she began to move with him and reveled in the most exquisite of sensations.
"I love you!" she said, and he repeated it back as their eyes locked and the careened, together, into a swirling precipice of their own making and were united - finally - in every sense of the word.
Justin and Fiona: Manipulating Love
Justin paced the bedchamber, waiting for his wife's maids to leave. How long, he wondered, did it take women to change into their nightgowns. He walked to the table in the corner and poured a glass of ale. He'd not had much to drink at the wedding feast, preferring to keep his wits about him. But now he was seized by an uncharacteristic nervousness.
He told himself there was no need for the way he was feeling. He'd bedded his share of willing lasses. Fiona would be no different. Once he had her on his back and mindless with pleasure, she'd be just like any other female - quick to give into the sensations and begging for more.