by Ann Jacobs
Her intuition had served her well. Her Master was literally starving to be touched, treated as though someone still found him worthy—desirable. Bending, she touched her lips to his stump. Nuzzling his warm flesh as she moved inward, she found his right nipple buried in his dark chest hair and laved it with her tongue. “Mmmm,” she said, lightly tracing along the web of scars on his upper arm with a finger, “this must have been terribly painful.”
“I don’t want to think about that now.” He laid his hand on top of hers, his fingers lacing with hers. “It feels so damn good when you touch me this way.”
She straightened then climbed over his body and straddled his torso. His cock felt good—incredibly good—warm and rigid, yet velvety soft where it nudged her swollen cunt lips. “Touch me, too,” she said, watching his expression change to one of wonder—of lust—when he looked up and finally met her gaze. “And let me fuck my Master.”
“Untie me and I will.”
Emerald slipped the silk scarf down over his large hand. “I believe I’ll leave your legs tied so I can have my way with you.”
Arik’s balls tightened. His cock throbbed. Once his hand was free he wasted not one moment before impaling his mate, his beautiful Emerald whose wet, swollen cunt told him better than words how much she wanted him.
She wanted him as he was now, not as he’d once been before his father had commanded his death. And he wanted her. His only regret as he stroked her satin skin and took her nipples between his teeth was that he couldn’t turn back time, be the perfect lover for his perfect love.
But he could. Somehow it no longer seemed important to Arik that he continue making his father pay on a daily basis for having tried to kill him. He’d seek out Pak Song and let the surgeons and the cyborg maker remake him.
Later. Blood slammed into his groin when Emerald leaned over and laid soft kisses on his ravaged cheek. Her plump ass cheek filled his hand, firm but woman-soft. Steadying her with his stump while she fucked his cock, he slipped two fingers up her ass and gently fucked her there. When she took his mouth and sucked his tongue between her lips, her tight, wet cunt contracted around his cock.
He swallowed her little scream, answering with a harsh bellow when his climax slammed into him. Gods but he loved her. He even loved his father for having contracted the match between them. Without thinking, he cradled her to his body with his naked stump—an act he’d never imagined he would do.
Chapter Six
At first he stayed in his chamber with Emerald, sharing meals with her when previously he’d dined in solitary splendor, enjoying her companionship as well as her gorgeous body, but gradually he started venturing into his father’s court.
With his princess at his side, accepting him as he was, Arik began to venture out of the shadows. Not all at once, for he’d spent too much time in darkness and despair. During the next weeks he shed the all-encompassing leather in favor of an opaque, hooded robe that left most of his face visible but allowed him to hide the ravaged side from impressionable women and children.
His impulsive resolve to restore himself as much as possible had weakened with the realization that his mate accepted him as he was, for he dreaded the months of recuperation from surgeries he’d been told were so complex they couldn’t be performed using modern laser techniques. Though he’d softened toward his father, Arik still felt a bit of satisfaction that the king was paying emotionally for having caused his ruined face and broken body.
That afternoon, after they ate lunch in the palace dining room and retired to their tower, Emerald took Arik’s hand. “My lord, I would like to go to the city and visit my father and sisters. I want you to meet them since the king refused to allow them to attend our mating. Would you…”
His first reaction was to refuse, for he cringed at the idea of leaving the palace now that she’d become his constant companion. He didn’t want his father’s subjects to gawk at him but couldn’t imagine himself going out without being covered.
I would be a beast to refuse her time with her family. I can’t expect my princess to live in the isolation I crave. He hated hearing the hesitation in her voice. “If you wish it, although I’d prefer that they come here. Do you truly want them to see the monster who is your Master?”
“You are no monster. You’re my Master, a lover beyond what I hoped for in my wildest fantasies. And you’re my friend as well.”
“As you are mine.” The look she gave him warmed his heart. She had given him back a life he’d thought was over. He could do no less for her. “I have decided to do what I can to remedy this.” Lifting his arm with its wicked-looking hook, he gestured toward his face. “You deserve better than to spend your life confined within the palace walls because of my affliction. I will tell my father I’ve decided to see the surgeons and the cyborg maker, and listen to their recommendations.”
She reached across the table and took his hand. “You’ve suffered too much already. Please don’t do this for me.”
Arik attempted a crooked smile. “I will be king someday. I don’t want my subjects to run away in terror every time they see me, and I shouldn’t hide myself in the palace, away from their curious eyes.”
“You’ve been hurt enough already, Master. If your subjects don’t like the way you look, they can avert their eyes. Anyone who knows you as I do will love you as you are.”
“Quiet, my tenderhearted darling. I want to explore the possibilities. Whatever I do, it will be for me.” He lifted the communicator and said a few words to the king.
* * * * *
The next morning Pak Song and a renowned restorative surgeon called at the palace and were shown directly to Arik’s tower. When Emerald invited them in, Arik showed them his back. Only when she took his hand and turned him around did he lower his robe. It broke her heart to see him so reluctant to reveal his scars.
He riddled the two men with that dark, pained eye. “I can tell by your expressions that you believe I’m a lost cause.”
The wizened Asian man shook his head. “No, your highness. What cannot be repaired can be replaced. Bionic forearm and hand are simple. Did one successfully a few months ago for an Earthling exile. Can provide his testimony as to way bionic hand works. Doctors here can get rid of most scars.”
Arik shook his head. “The scars don’t bother me, except for the ones on my face. What can you do with this?” he asked, lifting his hook to nudge his empty eye socket.
“If you sit, I will take closer look. Did bionic eyes for an Earthling, the first cyborg I created. They work better than originals. Even better than I imagined they would. Patient was blinded in starship explosion. Now he can see very far away, even through walls. Only problem is, bionic eyes are red and they glow. Must research matter. He says they distract those around him. Beats not being able to see, though.”
Arik sat on a padded bench and waited while the cyborg maker examined him. He couldn’t help noticing Emerald move close by, as though determined to protect him.
When Pak Song probed the shattered right side of Arik’s face, he was unable to keep from wincing. “Please, Master, don’t allow them to hurt you more,” Emerald said, distress evident on her beautiful face.
Arik took her hand and pulled her onto the bench beside him.
The old man stepped aside and consulted with the surgeon. Finally they turned back to Arik. “We can rebuild crushed bones in face, sire. Can also give you bionic eyes but can only do that as a set. Will have to remove uninjured one.”
“No!” Emerald sounded as though she couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing the love in his solitary eye. When she rested her hand on his left thigh, though, it distracted him from Pak Song’s painful probing.
“What do you think, your highness?” the cyborg maker asked.
“I agree with the princess. I don’t intend to lose the sight I still have.”
The cyborg maker shook his head. “Never tried doing a single bionic eye. Will give it thought, maybe try it on someone who’
s completely blind before offering it to my prince. I do recommend the bionic hand, though. That will look and work like real thing, I promise.”
Arik didn’t answer right away, but finally he met the cyborg maker’s expectant gaze. “I’m a little hesitant to become a cyborg. As for this ugly thing,” he said, holding up the hook, “I’ve become used to wearing it. I realize it’s primitive, but I’ve managed to learn how to use it to a certain extent.”
Pak Song wrinkled his nose at the sight of the prosthesis. “I make bionic forearm and hand. I promise you will like it—you won’t be able to tell it from this one in any way.” He reached out and touched Arik’s uninjured left hand.
He turned to Emerald. “You will like, too, highness. Hand and fingers will feel just like your lord’s other one, even move the same. I make skin you cannot tell from his own.”
Arik saw Emerald’s smile, imagined the enhanced pleasure he could give her if he had two good arms. He closed his eye, daydreaming for a moment how it would feel to walk down the Street of Pleasure without feeling the stares, the pity. “I’ve decided, gentlemen. I’m putting myself into your hands. If you can repair my face so I won’t make grown men scream with terror, do it, but I will wear an eye patch rather than lose my good, remaining eye. As for the bionic arm, I look forward to it.”
The surgeon cleared his throat. “If my colleague will permit me, your highness, I believe I can use synthetic material to rebuild the shattered bones in your face, even the eye socket. That way you can use an artificial eye if you wish, rather than the patch.”
“What about the scars?”
“They can be greatly reduced, but not completely erased. Still, I feel certain you will be pleased with the results. With the bone structure repaired, the scars will not be so noticeable. Another benefit will be that you will feel less pain after you heal. Obviously it is also possible to laser down the burn scars elsewhere on your body, but if they don’t concern you, I wouldn’t recommend you do it. The recovery time would be long and painful, and the procedures on your body would serve no purpose other than to improve your appearance in places ordinarily covered by clothing.”
The surgeon shook his head. “It’s a wonder you survived at all, burned as badly as you were. I promise you I’ll do my best to give you the improvement you want.”
Arik heard Emerald’s sharp intake of breath, knew she’d meant it when she said she didn’t want him hurt. He met the surgeon’s gaze. “As I said, the scars on my body don’t particularly trouble me, as my princess and my body servant are the only ones likely to see them. How my face looks is more important, as one day I will be Obsidion’s king. I can hardly go around swathed head to toe in leather and still command my people’s respect.”
“As you will, your highness. When will you want us to attend you?” Pak Song bowed, while the surgeon merely inclined his head.
Now that he’d made his decision, Arik saw no need to delay. “At your earliest convenience. Thank you for coming so quickly when you were summoned.”
Pak Song’s wrinkled face lit up with a smile. “It is our pleasure, sire. With your permission, we will leave, but I wish to speak a word to her highness first.”
“You have news?” she asked the cyborg maker, her face lighting with obvious anticipation. Arik vowed he’d do whatever he had to, so she wouldn’t be isolated much longer.
The wizened old man grinned. “Your highness, we will soon be relatives. Meredith has matched my son, Pak Lin, with your youngest sister.”
“Pearl?”
“Yes, highness. Mating to be in two years. Your honored father says Garnet must go first.”
Emerald bent and gave the old man a hug. “Do you know who she will marry?”
“The Aurelonian, Romulus, has been chosen for her.”
Arik smiled. From what Emerald had said, he gathered that her sister, Garnet, lusted for wealth. She’d get it in huge measure from Romulus, the slave emporium owner who had settled on Obsidion and made a huge fortune. “When will that mating take place?” he asked, hoping there would be enough time before it for the two men to finish restoring his face.
“Next year, sire. Eli say can only afford one daughter’s mating per year.”
“Father has always complained that we pauper him,” Emerald said, her green eyes sparkling. “It is he who insists on weighing us down with precious jewels, though—a matter of pride in his work, I’m sure.”
Arik didn’t doubt it. He’d seen the exquisitely crafted gold boxes Emerald had given Hikaru and his brothers as attendants, encrusted with sparkling tanzanites and the smooth, mottled lavender and cream stones from Earth that were said to restore virility. She’d also gifted his father with a new, elaborate diamond coronet set in platinum. His own gifts, thousands of carats of loose, beautifully faceted emeralds and diamonds, filled a solid gold trunk so heavy it had taken two strong slaves to carry it upstairs to his tower. Emerald’s father had sent her to him with a king’s ransom in dowry, though he chuckled when he recalled his father’s admission that no dowry would have been necessary to arrange their match.
“I’m glad,” he told her. “The time it takes your father to amass huge dowries will let me make myself presentable before I must escort you to your sisters’ mating ceremonies.”
* * * * *
Since it would have been unthinkable for Obsidion’s crown prince to be treated outside the palace, Arik’s tower room had become a hospital room, and Emerald’s former chamber had become a well-equipped surgery.
It had only been two weeks since Pak Song and a team of restorative surgeons had moved in, along with skilled nurses and technicians. Already Emerald could see changes in her prince, though she grieved that he was enduring terrible pain.
“It’s not so bad, my love,” he told her when she lay beside him carefully so as not to jostle his arm, bandaged where Pak Song had peeled back the skin and implanted dozens of bionics a week earlier. “The drugs help. Not as much as you do, though.”
She looked into his eye and smiled. “I love you, Master. I loved you as you were, but I’m glad, for your sake, that you decided to let the surgeons restore your face. Not because of how it looked but because it caused you so much pain.”
“I’m anxious to see what they did.” He raised his hand halfway to his face then laid it at his side once more.
“I know. So am I, Master.” Just yesterday the surgeons had reconstructed his facial bones, so he was still groggy from painkillers. “We must be patient. The bandages will come off soon enough.” She looked at his head and neck, swathed in heavy dressings that left only his nostrils, mouth and eye uncovered. “I understand how annoying it must be, much like the hood you used to wear. You should be grateful that you can eat, even if the food must fit through a straw.”
“Six weeks seems a very long time. I could take the hood off to eat and sleep.” He sounded like a petulant child, but Emerald saw the way his mouth turned up in an effort at a smile.
Using one gentle finger she traced the smooth line of his lips. “Be good. Would you like another sip of broth?”
“I’d like to taste your luscious mouth, love.”
She bent and kissed him, though the dressings kept her from getting as close as she’d have liked.
* * * * *
Six weeks later Arik held his breath as the surgeon snipped away the last of the dressings from his head while he sat before a mirrored wall. “I think you will be pleased, sire.”
Pak Song had installed and adjusted the bionic arm and hand a few minutes earlier. By all the gods, it felt real, as though it were a part of him. He felt Emerald’s hand on his shoulder, inhaled the sultry, flowery scent of her as his nose was freed. Slowly, with wonder, he raised the hand across his chest and found her hand. Felt it. Small, soft and delicate—like her. A tear rolled down his cheek.
The dressings finally were gone. He closed his eye, felt both lids close. “I am afraid to look.”
Emerald squeezed his shoulder then en
twined her fingers with his. “All but the deepest of the scars are gone, Master. The surgeons have performed a miracle.”
He’d never been more frightened, even when he lay in that hospital bed on Eastphalia, not knowing whether he would live or die. Clutching his mate’s hand, he made himself look closely in the mirror for the first time since he’d beheld his monstrous image soon after his maiming.
His face was symmetrical…smooth but for one faint, jagged scar that ran from his hairline to the spot where his neck met his shoulder. It wasn’t perfect, or even as near so as his undamaged left side. But he no longer had a sunken cheek or a gaping hole where his right eye had once been. His eyelid opened and closed to reveal a white sphere, though, not a working prosthetic eye. With an eye patch…
“You said you wanted to wear an eye patch, sire,” the chief surgeon said, sounding as though he thought Arik might order him punished for not having done a good enough job. “Her highness refused to allow me to do further surgeries to reconstruct muscle functionality that would have let the prosthesis move in synch with your good eye.” He stepped up, dangling a black leather eye patch from his trembling hand.
When Arik grinned he noticed his mouth no longer tightened around the right corner. “Hand it here. And stop shaking. I am very happy with what you’ve done. The king will also be pleased.”
Very pleased indeed. He will be able to look at me and not see the full result of his brutality. “Emerald, have Hikaru summon my father. He will want to see the results of Pak Song and the surgeons’ efforts.” When he let her go he tried out his bionic hand, using it along with his natural one to position the patch over the prosthetic eye and adjust the elastic band at the back of his head.
When the king burst in, Hikaru at his heels, Arik turned to face him while the members of the medical team, from chief surgeon and cyborg maker to lowliest technician, prostrated themselves. Emerald is right. There is too much obeisance going on around here. “Get up, all of you. King Gawain should be bowing to you. You have saved him from the misery of looking, for the rest of his life, on the results of his fearing a war, should he have died leaving more than one legitimate heir to the Diamond Throne.”