“You are,” Hoel snapped at her.
“Because you made me one,” she sneered. Hoel had changed that about her not long after he’d found her on the beach twenty years before, healed that part of her no one else in all the worlds could heal, wanting her body to be as innocent of her past deeds as her mind was.
She wished she wasn’t. She wished she could disgust Damen somehow by not having a maidenhead.
“Do you remember your life before us?” Hoel countered.
She shook her head. “No, but that doesn’t mean—”
“If you were married, you no longer are. That life is dead for you. It’s ended. You were rebirthed by the sea, and sent to us, Maili. You are ours, no different than if you were born of our flesh. Damen is your true husband now. Don’t think on the what-ifs or could-bes.”
She turned and wrung her hands behind her back, knowing the question had upset Hoel, just like it had the last time. “I feel like I’m going to be ill,” she said, mostly to herself.
Hoel’s large hand wrapped around her forehead. “You’re fine,” he decreed.
Anwen came forward and took Maili’s hands into her own. “Darling, remember what I told you,” she recited patiently, her voice soothing and calming like a distant wind. “Be a good wife and he will become a good husband. Be patient, be hopeful, and be loving, and you will have a long happy life. Open your heart to him.”
Maili looked pleadingly at Anwen, but didn’t beg. A single tear escaped her eye and rolled quickly down her cheek. Anwen wiped it away, and that’s when they heard the carriage roll into their drive. Maili swallowed loudly.
“Take deep breaths and stand up straight,” Anwen instructed into her ear as she pulled Maili’s shoulders back. “Look like a lady—no, a queen. You’re a queen, Maili.”
Maili supposed that fact should excite her somehow, and maybe it would have had she not actually met her husband before. Knowing ignorance would have been much more blissful, she wished that she’d never met Damen and was just now meeting him for the first time, ignorant of what the man was truly like.
At the end of a ridiculously long procession of army soldiers and horses, the king himself finally trotted in and gave her a cocky smile from his horse, and she lifted her chin in response. “Great Hoel, you have kept my queen as beautiful as the day I met her. I thank you,” he said, bowing his head, and then he pulled a leg over his horse and jumped onto the ground.
She didn’t like Damen’s smile any more now than she had the first time. It seemed too confident to her, too snake-like. He came up to her and brought her hand up to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “I am finally at your service, wife.”
Maili didn’t say anything, but curtsied politely.
“You are most welcome!” Hoel said jovially when Damen finally looked over at him. Hoel embraced Damen like a long-lost son. “I hope you have an empty stomach, my lad, because we have a banquet planned.”
Damen gave a laugh and gestured to his men to get off their horses. Hoel’s stable boys rushed forward to take reins. Damen suddenly had her hand gripped in his own. “Lead the way then, by all means! My men and I are absolutely… ravenous.”
Ravenous was apparently a word that Damen wanted his virgin wife to hear; it seemed his hunger wasn’t just for food. Maili cringed as she walked behind him, drawing her shoulders up toward her ears.
After she was seated at the banquet, unfortunately next to her husband, she noted two maids in the distance, peeking behind a door, swooning at him. She raised her eyebrow and assessed Damen once more: he was handsome with his curly hair and his burning black eyes. But why couldn’t anyone see that it was just a mask? She knew there was a monster underneath; something behind his eyes said it all.
As well as did a groping of her thigh. He dug his fingers firmly into her flesh, through her dress. He leaned in to whisper to her, “Are you looking forward to finally consummating our marriage, wife? I know I am.”
“I bet you are,” she grumbled.
He shrugged and continued in her ear. “You know this obvious hatred of me is just making me rock-hard, don’t you? You’re playing into my hand, my little peach. I enjoy a little resistance in bed; I like the struggle. You might enjoy it eventually, but if you never do it’s your loss, not mine. Your consent is not needed for my seed to take root.”
She paled visibly and crumpled in her seat. She gazed toward Hoel, but he didn’t make any note of her desperate expression. She was lost, and she knew she should have felt more hopeless, but instead she began to feel a fire burning inside of her.
“Just so you know,” she said, hampering a smile. “I have all the power in the world to make your life completely miserable. I assure you that it’s in your best interest to cut this deal.”
He smiled back. “I wouldn’t even if you were only a piece of ass and a pretty face, my queen. Unfortunately for you, you’re invaluable to my rule…” He stopped as if to watch that mystery sink in. “Don’t worry, wife. If you’re good, I might let you out off of your leash now and again. And you will be good—you’ll find that’s in your best interest.”
It was all making sense now. He wanted her for more than an ally with Hoel. He wanted her for something else. “You want my magic, then?” she asked, and he merely grinned at her and drank his ale. She snorted. “Too bad. I’ll have you know that Hoel took care of that. I can’t use my powers any longer.”
As soon as Hoel felt her powers were getting too strong ten years ago, he made a special cuff that wrapped across her upper arm, one that matched her skin more like a tattoo than outlaid gold. She wasn’t sure what magic was in it, but ever since it had stopped her powers at the quick. She couldn’t use her magic to even light a candle any longer.
“Because of that cuff he has you wear? Oh, my queen,” he shook his head and chuckled meanly. “That’s so cute.”
“It can’t be removed,” she assured, although his confidence was making her own waver.
“Not by anyone but a wizard powerful enough to do it,” he replied with a shrug.
“And you just have wizards in your pocket, then?” she charged, her eyes sparking with fire.
He looked at her, and when he did, she could swear for a moment that his eyes turned silver. Just as quickly, they changed back, and his grin remained there. He put his mouth to her ear. “I guess you could say I have a wizard up my sleeve… And down my trews. You’ll see this evening when we’re more… intimately acquainted.”
If he had informed her of what he truly was just to get her to shiver, it worked. The fire in her flickered; there was no escape from a wizard, was there? This was truly going to happen. Damen had all the power he needed to make her do whatever it was he wanted, and if she told Hoel that Damen was really a wizard, Hoel would never believe her. And Damen seemed to know this very well.
An idea came to her just then: if Damen accidentally used his powers in front of Hoel, if she could make him angry enough that he tried to hit her or cast a spell on her… Hoel would see with his own eyes. Hoel was a demi-god, anyway; a wizard was no match for him. Hoel would protect her!
She waited to seize her best opportunity, squirming with impatience. It wasn’t until Hoel pressed Damen to take Maili onto the floor for a dance that she found the opportunity she wanted. Damen was a skilled dancer; it was going to take far more than stepping on his toes, but the punchbowl on the side of the floor—that she could reach if he would only lead her toward it.
“Soon, my queen,” he promised in her ear. “Soon I will re-teach you everything there is to know about pleasing a man.”
Re-teach?
“You know who I was before I came here.” She didn’t ask it like a question; it was a statement. One that was very clear. He knew she was no true virgin, and she doubted Hoel would have told this companion of such intimate details about his adopted daughter.
“Oh, yes. You were a cute, naughty little slut then. You’ll be my naughty little slut now.”
This time she
looked at him, hoping for recognition. There was nothing—she still had no memories of anything before Hoel found her on the beach. Absolutely nothing!
With a hard yank, she ripped herself out of his arms. The music stopped and she heard the sound of gasps around her already. She grabbed the punchbowl, which was far heavier than she imagined it would be, and slung the contents clumsily at him.
It worked, as in he was quite drenched by it. With a look of rebellion, she gripped the empty punchbowl closer to her like it was a shield. She could hear Anwen gasp, “Maili! What’s wrong with you?” from somewhere behind her.
Maili was barely listening; she was focused on Damen, watching him look down at his ice-cold, wet clothing, and then look up at her. He was shaking with anger, and she saw his dark eyes now flame over with red. Hope rose in her throat that he might try to send a lightning bolt out of his fingers or something equally dramatic.
Unfortunately, his eyes quickly returned to normal. Nothing happened; the lights didn’t even flicker! She nearly expected him to laugh, judging from his expression. “No need to gasp,” he told the room politely. “A queen is just a girl, under all. This girl apparently needs a little bit of guidance by way of manners.”
There were some light chuckles around her, and her cheeks blushed crimson. She pouted with disappointment.
“Maili—go to your chambers and prepare for your punishment!” Hoel decreed with a booming, growling voice. She shrank and put the bowl back, beyond humiliated that he would order such a thing in front of so much company!
Damen’s sticky, cold wet hand found her wrist. “I don’t think it’s necessary any longer that you discipline my wife, great Hoel. It’s a duty of mine, as her husband, to correct her.”
Her eyes widened. She looked toward her adoptive parents, but of course didn’t find any sympathy there; only dark, disappointed looks.
“It is your right, and you’re more than welcome to it,” Hoel replied. “She knows where her paddle is kept.”
Maili’s reaction would have been no different than if Hoel had decreed that she be drug outside and hung. “Papa,” she begged as Damen bowed and began to drag her out of the room. “If you love me at all, don’t put me in a room alone with him!” She didn’t care that everyone was listening to her, and her parents were surely growing more and more shamed by the moment. “He’s evil! Please believe me! Please! Papa!”
“You are ridiculous. You think a little ice and juice is going to get me to spoil every ounce of trust I’ve worked to get for half a century?” Damen charged in a low hiss, hauling her in the direction of her bedroom.
She didn’t reply, mostly because she did feel ridiculous.
“Well, now you’ve done it. You’ve given me reason to punish you. Does this please you, my dear? I was nearly dreading that I’d miss the opportunity to start your training on the same night I took you.”
“You’re a sadistic bastard,” she spat, resisting his every pull futilely.
“You knew that already, yet you still angered me. Does this make you a little masochistic? I certainly think so. I guess we’ll see.” He didn’t have to ask her to unlock her chamber’s door—he merely ran his finger over the lock and the door opened.
He yanked her into the room and shut the door behind him, then grabbed her sleeves and quickly pulled them apart, tearing the delicate material until the upper half of her dress was in tatters. She screamed and tried to cover her now bare breasts.
As she stood there in her skirts and shoes, trying her best to hide as much as she could with her arms, he stood back and looked at her like one might a piece of art. “Hoel said that you know where your paddle is kept,” he reminded her. “Pull it out.”
She shook her head and he raised his hand to her. She flinched, expecting him to strike her face, but he didn’t. When she chanced to open her eye, he said, “Do you want me to beat your face, my queen?”
She gave a sob. “No,” she begged. She had a horrible feeling that she wouldn’t even be able to run back to Hoel later on with a bruise on her face; a wizard might be able to quickly heal such injuries. Even so, once their relationship was consummated, which would be soon unless a miracle happened, there wouldn’t be much for Hoel to do.
Damen grabbed her upper arm with a tight, angry grip. “Then do as I say,” he hissed threateningly. “Get your paddle and bring it to me so I can spank you like a spoiled child and then fuck you like a woman.”
Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. “I hate you,” she told him.
He nodded and gave a sly grin. “I know.”
Chapter Two
Maili slowly walked to her boudoir, where her paddle was kept, her knees so wobbly that she worried they’d fold out from under her at any moment. She didn’t want to show her fear to Damen, but by the curling of his harsh lips, she could tell that he was already quite aware of her terror. His face bore an expression that couldn’t be any more pleased with the current situation as he stood by her bed, waiting for her to return to him with an implement to beat her conveniently with.
He was enjoying her fear like it was a sweet dessert, unable or unwilling to hide his sadistic nature from her. And why should he hide what he is? she thought bitterly to herself. She’d been checkmated by him for the last two years, and all she’d done in that time was sit there and wait for him to return and claim her like she was some prize filly at a stable.
She was shaking her head at herself, deciding that she was an utter simpleton. She was so stupid, she decided, that she almost deserved this. She knew Damen was wretched all along, the whole last two years since they’d been married by proxy, and she knew one day that he’d come for her. Why in the world had she not run away by now?
She loved Hoel and Anwen; their unwavering affection and kindness toward her had been more than anyone could have asked for. She was a scramble-minded, half-witted witch that Hoel had taken in and rescued. They could have let her starve to death on their doorstep; they could have made her a servant and still been merciful in her eyes. Instead, they took her in and raised her as their own so that if she wasn’t a witch, she would have thought without question that she was their true daughter.
She owed them much, certainly… But did she owe them all of eternity with this cruel man they’d chosen for her?
“Don’t keep me waiting, pet,” he drawled, a smile still on his lips. She could hear mirth in his tone without even turning around to look at him.
She opened the drawer in her boudoir in a burst of frustration and then spun her heel and faced him, feeling the small slipper-sized wooden paddle in her hand without daring to look down at the wicked little thing.
“I believe you’ve made your point,” she snapped, hating beyond measure the way his mouth flipped up at the edges.
He held out his hand expectantly, asking, “What point would that be?”
“That I can’t cry my way out of this, that you’ve well pulled the wool over papa’s eyes,” she recapped in plain speech. “Very well done. Point made.”
He wiggled his fingers in reply, demanding the paddle, which she placed firmly in his hand and inwardly shuddered when he tested the weight of the wood. “You seem to be under the assumption that I need a reason to do this,” he replied, then grabbed her wrist with a quick movement that made her realize that even though he was also a wizard, Damen was also a warrior with catlike reflexes and a vise-like grip. “I don’t need a reason to punish you other than the way that look that you have on your unnatural little face amuses me.”
She had never heard her face called ‘unnatural’ before, but she was certain of the expression she was wearing now: sheer and utter panic. She felt like the blood in her veins turned to ice. Damen pulled her easily the extra feet toward the bed and then he sat down and upended her with one swift, graceful movement over his bended knees.
She clenched her teeth together, absolutely determined that she wouldn’t beg him for anything. He would enjoy that sort of gesture too much, yet it still
wouldn’t help her. This was a man who wanted to cause her pain.
“I have to admit, I like this new relationship we have,” Damen told her. “You and I didn’t get to have very many heart-to-hearts in your last life. I tried to call you out of your stupid little tower but you wouldn’t step out of it without an escort. At the end, I nearly had to kill you to let you know that I was serious.”
Twenty years ago, Maili would have cut off her right arm to get any sort of information about where she’d come from, who she’d known, and what had happened to her. She didn’t know why she couldn’t remember any of it… How could she be probably twenty years old at that time and have no memories whatsoever of those years?
Now, however, she was only concerned with how he was grabbing the fabric of her skirts and yanking them up. She could feel the room’s cold air breeze across her calves, and in another tug, Damen had her dress flipped up over her back. She could feel heat on her cheeks from her blushing, but she still refused to cry, kick, or squeal, even when he was undressing her.
“I feel like I’m unwrapping a present. I like to see what I own,” he told her as she felt his rough hands run up and down over her panties.
“You’re a pig,” she snapped. Her emotions were already high enough that if she hadn’t the cuff on her arm that kept her from practicing magic, she’d be deadly right now. Though she didn’t know any spells, she did know that witches could sometimes just think something with all their hearts and souls and it would happen. Right now, she could probably say something like, ‘You’re a pig’ and it would have actually turned Damen into one. Alas; there was only one person in the room that had any magic, and it wasn’t her.
Think, Maili! Think! Ironically, given to whose fault it was that she was in her current situation, Maili remembered Hoel telling her that one could get out of any situation imaginable if they had enough brains. Damn it all, though, she knew she wasn’t the smartest thing.
Her Master's Hand Page 2