by Morgan Hawke
My prince wrapped my sash around my waist, leaning close to tie it in a simple bow at my hip. The heat from his body pressed against me, making my heart beat faster. His breath burned against my cheek. “Lying will get you punished, Julian, you know that.”
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, and my voice. “Can we go now?”
Alberic chuckled and turned, waving a hand at the door. “By all means.” That was my cue to open it for him.
I did so.
My prince swept past me and practically danced down the hallway toward the elevator, looking entirely too smug for anyone’s comfort.
I followed him with my teeth clenched and my heels thumping hard on the carpets. I was furious, though not quite sure what to do about it. I had only two weeks to come to terms with being my prince’s bed-warmer, or find a way out of the kingdom. Maybe I could take a ship...?
At the elevator gate, he stopped and held up one hand. “Oh, wait!” He turned to face me with narrowed green eyes and smiled, sweeter than sugar. “I almost forgot.”
A shiver ran up my spine. I knew that smile all too well. He was up to something. I narrowed my eyes at him in deep suspicion and took a half-step back. “Forgot...what?”
Alberic lunged at me, lightning fast.
I threw up both arms to guard against a punch. Truthfully, I’d been expecting some sort of retaliation for hitting him earlier.
“Relax. I’m not going to hit you.”
I lowered my hands a little and peeked past them. “You’re not?”
He grabbed me by the upper arms and shoved me up against the wall. “No.” His gaze focused below my nose and his voice rumbled low and deep like a purr. “I want a kiss.” His head lowered, clearly aiming for my lips.
A...what? I turned my head sharply to avoid him. “What for?”
Alberic’s lips brushed right under my ear. “Because I want one. Do I need any other reason than that?” His hot, wet, skin-tingling tongue swept under my jaw.
I’d never felt anything like it, so I was completely unprepared when the strength drained right out of my body and my neck arched back all by itself as though someone else inhabited my skin. “But I d-don’t...k-kiss.” I’m ashamed to say that my voice actually wavered with breathlessness.
“Hmm...?” He lifted his head from my neck and his brow lifted. “You do know how to kiss, don’t you?”
I winced. “Uh...” Actually, no, I didn’t. I’d never kissed anyone. I’d never wanted to kiss anyone. I looked away, avoiding his sharp green gaze. “I don’t want to play this game.”
Alberic’s eyes widened. “You’ve never been kissed?”
I shot him a glare and curled my lip in a scowl. “Hello? Hiding my gender! Kissing would give it away, yes?”
He frowned. “You could have kissed a girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not attracted to girls.”
He lifted his brow and smiled. “Then why didn’t you just kiss a guy?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want anyone to think I was interested in men!”
Alberic snorted and rolled his eyes. “Well, there’s no avoiding that. The entire court thinks that I’ve been giving it to you up the ass since we were kids. Theo is the only one that knows that you’re untouched.”
The entire court thought...what? Ice filled the pit of my stomach and the breath literally escaped my lungs. Suddenly the sly looks and comments I’d heard from certain visiting dignitaries began to make an awful kind of sense. Not to mention the pitying looks the chambermaids had been giving me all along. “Oh my God...”
Alberic rolled his eyes. “Julian, pay attention when your prince is speaking.”
“What...?” I stared up into his hooded cat-green eyes, suddenly reminded that I was trapped in my prince’s embrace. My heart slammed up into my throat, almost choking me. I stiffened. “Eh...”
“Kiss me.” His perfect lips curved into a smile that stole my breath. “Because I’m not letting you go until you do.”
I hissed in an angry breath. “You’re a complete bastard, you know that?”
His tongue darted out to flicker against my bottom lip. “So?” His lips captured my bottom lip, then his teeth. He tugged ever so gently.
Tingles of shock and feminine alarm raised the small hairs all over me, and I’m ashamed to say that a small whimper escaped. I would like to say that it was from fear, but I would have been lying. I had been longing for a kiss from his lips for almost as long as I’d known him. He was that damned beautiful. I licked my lower lip in reaction and brushed against his tongue.
He responded with a soft sound of pleasure, then tilted his head to cover my mouth entirely with his lips, his chest pressing up against me.
Startled by the pressure of his body against mine, I gasped.
His tongue surged past my parted lips to engage my tongue with an aggressive, sliding caress.
In pure self-defense, I parried his tongue with mine. I couldn’t help but notice that he tasted of fresh, clean water and something else, something musky and interesting.
His moan of pleasure was loud. His tongue redoubled its efforts while his hands slid up my arms, and into my hair. Holding my head firmly in place, his lips captured my tongue and suckled on it.
Shivers erupted all over me, and my thoughts began to shred. A warm melting sensation began to pool low in my belly and moisture dampened my drawers. My knees weakened. I grabbed onto his coat sleeves to keep from collapsing.
While his tongue worked to conquer mine, his knee slid between my legs, his thigh pressing up against my crotch. He rubbed intimately against me.
Something deep in my belly tightened deliciously, triggering a strange, powerful urgency that pulsed deep inside me. A moan erupted from my throat.
Abruptly, Alberic pulled back, releasing me.
I slid down the wall to sit on the floor utterly dazed, yet at the same time wound tight as a spring. An urgent ache throbbed in my core. I’d gotten mildly excited in my prince’s presence before when I’d dressed him, or bathed him, but nothing like this. I had to clench my hands at my sides to keep from diving into my own pants to find relief.
He leaned down and smirked directly in my face. “I think you rather enjoyed that.”
My temper flared enough to glare at him, but it didn’t help the frustrated hunger boiling in me. In fact, it actually aggravated it. I pushed against the wall and rose to my feet with as much dignity as my wobbly knees would allow. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. He was right. I had enjoyed it, but I had no intention of admitting it.
Alberic snorted, then turned away to open the elevator gate.
I followed him into the elevator and rode it to our floor without looking at him. I didn’t need to look at him to know that he was more than pleased with himself. By the time we arrived on our floor and headed up the hallway toward my prince’s suite, I had my...problem under control, more or less.
Just in time for yet another complication to appear. At the door of my prince’s chamber door was a young page dressed in a bright yellow over-tunic and sporting a white crown.
Both of us stopped dead staring at the small boy in the oversized tunic. We traded fleeting glances. Apparently, the king wanted to see Alberic. That was never good news, for either of us.
I dashed into my prince’s rooms to collect his formal coat from his wardrobe and dashed back out just in time to see my prince whispering to the nodding page.
I frowned at them.
My prince straightened and held out his arm, waiting for me to help him into his coat.
I did my best, but unfortunately, my hand was still too numb to button it, or tie the burgundy sash. “I’m completely useless, you should leave me here.”
Alberic turned to glare down at me.
I cringed back and swallowed hard. “Or not.”
Alberic snorted and tied the bow on his sash. “This summons concerns you too.” He turned on his heel and led the way to the elevator.
I followed after him and the little page. “Me? How does this concern me? You’re the heir to the kingdom, not me!”
My prince opened the gate to the elevator and turned to smile sweetly. “Anything that concerns me, concerns my minions by default.”
Clearly, that was just an excuse to keep me at his side. I stepped into the elevator car and fisted my hands at my sides.
My prince closed the door to the elevator with a loud clang. “My guess is that he’s found another kingdom he wants to add to his, by way of marrying me to their princess.”
I rolled my eyes. “In the hopes that you’ll bump off the legitimate male heir and inherit through marriage?”
He smiled and grabbed the brass lever to pull it down. “I see you know the king well.” The elevator car began to lower.
I should, I’d sat through more than my share of the man’s lectures to his son on politics.
“There is absolutely no need for concern that he’ll succeed in finding me a proper bride.” My prince scowled. “The king has abysmal taste in women.”
I looked away and snorted. “Rather like your own?”
My prince turned sharply, his brows lowered in definite suspicion. “What was that?”
I opened my eyes wide and gave him my most innocent smile. “He should leave you to find your own.”
Alberic rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’d have to wait until his death for that.” He blew out a sigh. “Pity he’s even more resistant to poisons than I am.”
It was a pity. Seriously. The man was practically insane, though he was smart enough to leave law-making and actual governing to his council.
On the other hand, if I wanted to save myself, finding a suitable bride for my prince might be my only hope. It wasn’t that my virginity meant so much to me; it was more that his kiss had shown me in no uncertain terms, that once he’d taken me to his bed I might not ever want to leave it.
I needed to get him a bride, and I needed to get him one fast.
~ Four ~
One would think the king’s private chambers would be quiet, subdued, and genteel. Nope. It was a madhouse of over-dressed lords and ladies with servants rushing back and forth carrying drinks, snacks, documents, and the occasional small pet.
Resplendent in his gold silk frock coat embroidered with cream roses, my prince followed the young page beyond the wide-flung doors.
I stepped to the side, perfectly content to wait out in the hall, or rather, perfectly content to be left out in the hall long enough to make an escape.
My prince promptly ducked back out and snagged me by the lapel. “Oh, no, you don’t! If I have to go in there, you’re coming too.” He hauled me in behind him, diving straight into the crush.
The crowd parted around him with wide eyes, choked off whispers, and almost unseemly haste. Clearly, no one wanted to bump into him.
I sighed heavily. I couldn’t say that my prince was misunderstood; he was rather temperamental. However, while my prince very much enjoyed scaring the living daylights out of people with his pranks, he didn’t believe in killing anyone that wasn’t actively trying to kill him first. Though he had absolutely no compunction about sending them to the palace dungeons to be entertained by the royal guards for a few weeks, or months.
Eventually he released me, but by then I had no choice but to follow at his heels. Unfortunately, kicking and screaming in protest in front of the nobility was out of the question. Anything I did would reflect badly on my prince. Not that my prince wasn’t perfectly capable of making his own bad impressions.
I followed Alberic to the far wall with its monstrous balconies and glass doors that shed light on the tall throne draped in red velvet and trimmed in white ermine atop a six step dais. It was the only chair in the room, and upon it sat the king.
His royal highness was a flushed and corpulent man who had taken to wearing floor-length robes to hide his steadily increasing waistline. Extravagant curling white horsehair wigs hid his utterly bald pate. His jaw line, almost completely encased in rolls of moist flesh, was brutally square where my prince’s was gracefully rounded, almost pointed. His nose was squashed and a bit crooked where my prince’s was delicate and defined. Thick black brows rose and met in the middle over bulbous black eyes. My prince’s eyes, however, were almond-shaped and tilted slightly upward, the green of cut emeralds.
There was absolutely no trace of bloodline similarity between my golden prince and the king. I often wondered how such a beautiful prince could possibly come from that man’s seed.
The king’s fevered and bloodshot black gaze locked onto my prince, and his smile twisted into an open leer dripping with absolute malice. “I found you a bride, my son.”
Alberic’s lips twisted into a smile that was equally malicious. “You do remember what happened to the last one you found me, yes?”
That would be Princess Isolde, also known as Princess Snow. She died from eating her own poisoned apple. It hadn’t exactly been her idea to eat it; she’d intended it for my prince. However, my prince was a little too familiar with poisons not to recognize it on the first taste, if not by scent alone. From that moment, her fate was sealed.
My prince can be very...persuasive, especially when wielding the cold hard evidence of an attempted murder. However, the cold hard evidence of a previously successful murder didn’t help her case one bit. According to my prince’s spies, err, sources, no one knew what had become of her royal father, but Isolde had put her royal mother to death in front of a few too many witnesses by having her dance her life away in red-hot iron shoes, which was of course how she’d gained a kingdom. A murderess was never a good choice for a queen.
The king waved his hand in dismissal. “That was then, this is now. The kingdom of Swanstone is hosting a unicorn hunt. The one who succeeds in capturing a unicorn will be awarded the hand of the princess Rosette, and become heir to the kingdom.” The king leaned close to the prince. “Bring me that kingdom.”
Alberic’s smile widened. “Do you happen to have the princess’s measurements?”
The king blinked. “What?”
“Hips, waist, bust-line...?”
The king scowled. “Hell no, I don’t have that!”
Alberic rolled his eyes. “What’s the point of winning a less than satisfactory princess?”
The king swatted at his only legitimate heir with his long and pointy scepter. He missed, of course. “I could care less what you do with the princess, I just want that kingdom! So go and get it!”
My prince promptly launched into a lecture on the importance of princesses being physically worth marrying.
The king naturally, had to launch into a counter-lecture on the greater importance of expanding the kingdom.
Meanwhile, I ducked back into the crowd and made my escape. Weaving and dodging lords, ladies, and servants, I hauled ass as fast as politeness would allow. If I could get to the attics and hide myself long enough, my prince would be forced to leave without me. This would allow me to make a nice clean escape to the nearest faraway place with my virginity—and my sanity—intact.
I made it out the double doors and into the hallway, only to be brought up short by a hard, choking jerk on my coat collar.
A very amused yet deeply malicious voice whispered in my ear. “You wouldn’t be thinking of hiding until I was gone and then escaping, would you?”
I swallowed hard. “Not at all, my prince. I was rushing off to pack our things for the journey.”
I was patted on the head rather heavily. “Good peon. Let’s get to it.”
It was then that I realized that the Fates truly had it in for me.
* * * * * *
Back in his suite, I packed my prince’s saddlebags with spare traveling clothes and weapons, making sure that his black-powder horn was full and fresh, and the bag holding the lead balls for his pistol was full. I also ordered traveling provisions from the kitchens, arranged for maps to the kingdom of Lyoness, and notified the grooms that our
horses needed to be saddled.
All with Alberic practically hanging over my shoulder.
My only chance for privacy came when he started stripping down to change into his riding attire. As soon as his back was turned, I slipped through the small door from the prince’s room into my room to change my clothes and pack for traveling.
I hung my sable velvet waistcoat and frock coat neatly on the wall pegs and grabbed my saddlebags. With extreme haste, I changed out of my silk shirt and neck cloth to don sturdy cream muslin. My velvet breeches were swapped for a pair of deep brown deerskin. Luckily, my hand had finally recovered, so I was able to button them, as well as my matching deerskin waistcoat. I stomped into my thigh-high riding boots and then set to packing my saddlebags. I tossed in clothes, weapons, powder, ammunition, my compass, and the small journal I kept during my travels, which included an annotated list of inns I’d visited.
The necessities handled, I slid into the shoulder-harness for my throwing knives and strapped my gun-belt around my hips. I took a moment to check my pistol to be sure that it was in working order. It was; I cleaned it regularly. Then I shrugged into my dark brown deerskin riding coat with the plain horn buttons. I grabbed my bedroll, which also held my rolled up foul-weather coat, and collected my broad-brimmed hat.
Time to go.
Knowing that Alberic was bound to come through the door to check on me at any moment, I grabbed the handle to the outer door to make my escape into the hall.
The handle moved, but the door didn’t budge.
I pushed.
Nothing.
I shoved.
Still nothing.
I tried everything short of slamming my foot into the door, which would have made a horrendous amount of noise and given me away.
Big fat nothing. I couldn’t open my door. “Shit!”
“Something wrong, Julian?”
I whirled around.
My prince was leaning against the rounded doorframe of the small door that led into his suite. He was already dressed for traveling, his white cotton neck cloth neatly tied around the collar of his white cotton shirt, and his sleek black leather frock coat buttoned over his red leather waistcoat. His sword belt and gun belt were buckled over his knotted red sash, and his black breeches were tucked neatly into his gleaming thigh-high riding boots with their wickedly sharp silver spurs. His smile radiated as much amusement as it did annoyance. Not a healthy combination.