by Jaide Fox
“We must wait upon that a little, though,” King Talin continued after a few moments. “The man children are preparing for war. It will be difficult to retrieve her belongings before they have abandoned the castle.”
The carpenter’s brows rose. “The man children are warring?” he asked with interest.
“Aye.”
“If I may be so bold as to ask, Sire, with whom?”
“Us,” Talin said dismissively. “Finish up and move along. This will do for now. I must go to the dungeon and see if the princess has cooled her heels long enough to feel more reasonable.”
Stunned as he was by the announcement that they were at war with the kingdom of Anduloosa, the last remark was enough to galvanize the master carpenter. “Cooled her heels?” he muttered when he was certain the king was out of earshot. It was all well and good that King Talin’s temper seemed to have improved, but it wasn’t likely to last once he reached the dungeon and discovered just how mistaken he was in his belief. “More likely she is thinking of ways to murder him in his bed.”
Turning to his crew, he gauged their progress and decided they were close enough. “Make haste and finish. We do not want to be here when the king returns. I assure you, his mood will be foul, most foul!”
Chapter Five
The first thing Talin noticed as he descended the stairs into the dungeon was an ominous quiet. More accurately, he became aware that there was no noise, as he’d more than half expected, no curses, no wailing--not even so much as the scurrying of tiny rodent feet or the flutter of an insect. He did not, in fact, notice until he was halfway down that the silence was not the quiet of peace, but rather the pregnant pause before a storm of staggering magnitude.
Reaching the bottom, he held the torch high and glanced around.
No one was in sight and he frowned, wondering which cell Reyhan had placed the princess in. He glanced back up the way he had just come and then around the open area at the foot of the stairs. No one magically appeared to show him the way, but as he glanced down the narrow corridors leading off to the right, left and before him, he saw a flickering light at the end of the one on his right.
The interrogation room.
If that numbskull had taken her there, he decided angrily, he was going to take the hide off the fool!
Shoving the torch he’d carried down into a holder on the wall, he stalked down the narrow passage, coming to an abrupt stop at the other end as if he’d just struck an invisible wall.
He felt much as if he had, and that the concussion had not only knocked the wind out of him, but rattled his brain in his skull at the same time and scattered his wits.
Princess Aliya knelt on the opposite side of the room, her arms chained to posts on either side of her.
She was also the next thing to naked.
Like a sleep walker, he woke to find himself staring down at her, having no memory of crossing the room at all.
Saliva pooled in his mouth as he studied her stunning perfection, nearly strangling him when he recalled the need to swallow. He had thought from the moment he saw her that she was beyond compare, but he had not dreamed that the gown she wore hid as much of her lush beauty as it displayed. Her limbs were long and shapely, the skin seemingly as smooth and unblemished as fine silk, instantly conjuring an image in his mind of those arms and legs entwined about his body.
The imagery set his blood to a slow boil in his veins, pulsing in his skull and groin until he soon felt as if one, or both, would explode from the building pressure.
Her waist was tiny, curving outward below to form rounded, womanly hips, and tapering upward to breasts that looked far fuller than he’d at first thought, unfettered now by the snug fitting gown that she’d worn.
He had been staring blankly at her face for several moments, fighting the urge to mount her right then and there when it finally penetrated his heat fogged brain that the heat in her eyes was not the desire his mind had conjured as desire but one of pure rage.
A cold douse of water could not have more quickly, or thoroughly, dashed the fire in his blood.
It left him so quickly, in fact, that the rush was almost as dizzying as the rush to his brain and cock had been, and far less pleasant.
Slowly, as his brain kicked in and began to function once more, rage began to seep into him. “Reyhan!” he bellowed, so loudly that the sound ricocheted deafeningly off the stone walls, floor, and ceiling.
“Sire?”
Whirling, Talin fixed the hapless guard with a narrow eyed glare. “Come here.”
Looking like he would’ve far preferred to make a dash for the door, the guard approached Talin and knelt.
Talin reached down, grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him to his feet. “Where are the princess’ clothes and why is she not wearing them?”
Reyhan’s jaw sagged. He glanced from Talin to Aliya and back again. “We always strip the prisoners,” he stammered weakly. “To … uh … search them for weapons.”
Talin ground his teeth. “Did I tell you she was a prisoner?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft now.
“Uh … Sire? Uh … no, Sire. But you said put her here. I thought … I thought....”
“And the manacles?”
Reyhan blinked several times as the words pelted him in the face. “You said to make certain she couldn’t injure herself.”
“Which led you to believe this was necessary?” Talin ground out, releasing his hold on the man’s throat and gesturing toward the manacles.
The man’s eyes were bulging from their sockets. “She fought me like a wild thing when I tried to remove her clothing--took off half my hide with her nails and teeth. She injured herself injuring me! I thought the manacles would be bes--”
The last word remained incomplete. Talin belted Reyhan in the mouth with his fist so hard the man flew backwards, slamming into the wall behind him. Blood spattered the wall. Several teeth ricocheted off the wall and pinged onto the floor. Apparently satisfied when the man slumped to the floor and went still, Talin stepped over to him, bent down to retrieve the ring of keys from his belt and moved back to unlock the manacles.
Stunned by the turn of events, Aliya’s anger vanished the moment Talin’s erupted, tamped by a well developed, and heretofore unknown to her, instinct for survival. More than half fearing his anger would spill over onto her, she merely watched warily as Talin unlocked the manacle from first one wrist and then the other. A cry of pain was wrenched from her before she could prevent it, though, as her arms dropped limply to her sides and the blood began to flow through them in a stinging, burning tide.
Kneeling in front of her, Talin took one of her hands and gently massaged her arm. When he was satisfied, he lowered that arm and repeated the process with her other arm. More than a little disconcerted, Aliya watched him warily as he rose, looked around and finally strode to the corner where the guard had discarded her gown. After studying it critically for a moment, he shook his head and returned with it, helping her to her feet.
Pain shot through her knees and ankles the moment she rose, for she’d been kneeling on the hard stone for what had seemed like hours and hours. Gritting her teeth, she locked her knees and stood docilely while Talin pulled her gown over her head, adjusted it and haphazardly laced the back.
She was still trying to decide if she could actually walk without hobbling around like a crippled elder when he scooped her into his arms and turned toward the corridor. She stiffened. She wasn’t certain she quite dared display her anger over her treatment at his hands now that she’d seen his temper, but she saw no reason to delude him into thinking she was anywhere near forgiving him for what he’d done to her--and ordered that son of a pig swiller to do.
She supposed, if she were to be reasonable about the matter--which she wasn’t particularly inclined to be--she would have to admit that he did not appear to have had any notion of what the man would do. On the other hand, if he had cared to check before now she would not have been tortured fo
r hours upon hours with her knees grinding into the hard stone and her arms withering from blood loss.
“I can walk on my own,” she muttered through gritted teeth as he reached the main level of the castle and stalked down the corridor that led to the great hall.
The words were hardly out of her mouth when he dropped her feet to the floor. Resisting the urge to glare at him, she focused on trying to keep step with him as he grasped her by one arm and strode to the middle of the hall.
“Solly!” he bellowed, his voice still eloquent of fury even if his rigid countenance and heightened color hadn’t been enough to assure anyone that saw him that he was in a towering rage.
Aliya clapped her hands over her ears, but jerked them down again when he sent her a searing glance.
“Sire!” Solly, ashen faced, knelt hurriedly, having virtually run across the hall at the bellowed summons that had made the crystal in the overhead chandelier tinkle merrily.
Talin gestured in the general direction of the dungeon. “Seize that fool, Reyhan, take him into the courtyard, and remove the remainder of his hide with a whip.”
Guilt coiled tightly in Aliya’s belly as the guard flicked a quick glance at her, nodded, and rose, summoning several guards and heading purposefully toward the dungeon and the unconscious man who lay there--unless he’d come around and had the presence of mind to flee while he could.
She didn’t know why she felt guilty! It was not her fault the man was a fool, or his master so ill tempered!
She forgot the discomfiture of guilt, however, when Talin turned and headed toward the tower stair they’d descended before. In vain, she tried to put on brakes. She’d had more than enough time to relive those moments in the tower many times and she could only conclude that the fear had, temporarily at least, turned her mind. She knew very well that, as a princess, she should embrace death before dishonor, and if she could think of some way to do so short of taking a leap off the tower balcony she might be able to gather the courage to do so, but she rather thought she would prefer that he kill her now than to take her up there again. Everything inside of her clenched at the thought of being surrounded again by sky and space. Even the stone walls had seemed shaky and insubstantial when virtually all that met her gaze in any direction she looked was clouds
and air.
She could not endure it, she thought a little wildly. She would die of pure fright.
Talin halted when he finally became aware that her feet, instead of moving, were skidding along the stones. Turning, he frowned at her curiously.
Aliya threw caution and dignity to the wind. “Kill me now! Just kill me! Do not torture me. I can not bear it. Truly, I can not!”
Talin looked as if she’d slapped him. The moment the look of stunned incomprehension left his face, though, he reddened with both anger and embarrassment. Hauling her against his chest, he glared at her nose to nose. “If you screech at me one more time, wench, I might well be tempted to throttle you!”
“Do it,” she babbled, far more fearful of the terrible height than she was of his terrible temper. “I won’t go up there! I won’t!”
Uttering a growl that was one part anger and two parts frustration, he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her over his shoulder. Stunned, the breath knocked from her by the hard shoulder she landed on, Talin was halfway up the spiral stairs by the time she recovered enough to begin to struggle.
“NO! You fiend! You animal! Put me down! Put me down this instant!” she screamed, pounding on any part of him she could reach.
He smacked a hand against her buttocks. The sting wasn’t nearly as potent as her stunned surprise and dawning outrage. However, before she could vent her indignation, he reached the top of the long, winding flight of stairs, crossed a short corridor and stepped through an arch, setting her abruptly on her feet.
She was in the tower room, she knew, and squeezed her eyes shut, afraid even to move. The slamming of a wooden door against stone frame work sent a jolt through her and she opened her eyes as she felt herself wavering and in danger of falling. To her stunned surprise, the room was cloaked in gloom save for branches of candles placed here and there.
It was night?
Feeling slightly better, Aliya pivoted slowly where she stood, her gaze searching the walls for window embrasures.
Shutters, she discovered, had been fastened over each and there was a door leading to the balcony where before there had been nothing at all! Relief flooded her that was so profound it brought stinging tears to her eyes and nose. She sniffed them back, glancing around warily for Talin when she remembered she’d fought him all the way up the stairs.
He was leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his broad chest, an indecipherable expression on his face.
Feeling sheepish, she sent him a faintly apologetic look. “I thought … I thought....”
His lips thinned. “I know what you thought.”
Surprise went through her. “You do?” she asked doubtfully.
Shoving away from the door, he moved slowly toward her. “Yes.”
Abruptly, Aliya realized he must think she’d been fighting for her virtue, when the truth was that her maidenhead was the furthest thing from her mind. She’d already opened her mouth to inform him of that when it occurred to her that she didn’t especially
want to disabuse him of the notion that she preferred death to ravishment by man beast.
She knew she should.
She was ruined now, whether he took her maidenhead or not, for no one would ever believe he hadn’t and no one would want her. It would have been bad enough if he was merely a man, but he wasn’t and that would make it that much worse.
She wasn’t completely certain of how it could possibly be any worse, but she knew it would be.
“You are not as repulsed by me as you would have me believe,” he murmured, halting mere inches from her and brushing the backs of the fingers of one hand lightly along her cheek.
He’d noticed that? She thought, feeling embarrassment pulse in her cheeks, flushing them with heat--which she very much feared he would notice and misinterpret as desire. “Your arrogance is only surpassed by your ego, Sire,” she murmured tightly.
“And yet you didn’t deny it.”
Aliya gave him a look. “You would be deaf to it,” she said, discovering that she felt vaguely breathless by his nearness.
He caught her hands, pushing them behind her back and drawing her closer. She twisted her face away, presenting him with her neck. “I suppose you think that you have only to kiss me and I will swoon and beg for more,” she gasped, trying to swallow when her mouth had gone dry.
He nipped her earlobe, his heated breath teasing her ear and sending currents of sensation through her that seemed to sharpen her awareness of him. His scent filled her nostrils, teased her tongue with his taste. His heat cloaked her. The hard muscles of his body tantalized her, barely brushing her with each frantic breath she took. “You may keep your kisses if it pleases you to withhold them,” he whispered against her ear, catching both of her wrists in one hand and lifting the other to push the shoulder of her gown down. “I had something else in mind.”
Feeling strangely weak and light headed, Aliya was scarcely aware of any purpose to the stroke of his hand along her skin until she felt him dip beneath her bodice and cup one rounded breast. She gasped then, stiffened, trying to draw away as he lifted it from her bodice, but it was too late. His mouth settled over the distended tip, closed tightly upon her flesh. Her belly clenched as he sucked it, teasing her nipple with his tongue. Heat, like molten fire flowed through her, pouring into her lower belly and spawning a strange sense of excitement and need.
“S..stop,” she finally managed to whisper shakily, although by that time she wasn’t at all certain she wanted him to stop.
He ignored the command, continuing to suckle and tease her breast until she’d begun to feel as if she would faint. When he finally lifted his head to look at her, disappointment flo
oded her and it took all she could do to lift her eyelids to look back at him.
“As you please,” he murmured, straightening.
Aliya stared at him blankly, feeling curiously bereft that he’d stopped.
“No doubt you’re tired. I will send a maid to help you to bathe and prepare for bed,” he murmured, releasing her and stepping away.
Still confused, feeling achy and oddly discomfited, Aliya merely stared at him. Finally, uncomfortable beneath his gaze, she turned away, looking around the great room at the sparse furnishings--for it contained little besides the huge bed in the center, an odd assortment of chests and tables, and a single chair. “I have no clothes,” she murmured, feeling suddenly lost and more alone that she could ever recall in her life.
“I will send for your belongings in a few days. In the meanwhile, I’m sure the maids can find something for you. Are you hungry?” he asked abruptly when she merely turned and stared at him blankly.
“You will send for my belongings?”
He shrugged. “Aye. When the army your father is amassing moves off. I’ve no desire to lose good men gathering your trinkets.”
Aliya felt her jaw sag. He had dismissed her father and his army as with no more than a shrug for the inconvenience to himself? Abruptly, all of the emotion she’d been holding at bay flooded into her in a chaotic storm. She was too enraged to think of anything to say, however.
Turning away when she remained mute, he strode toward the door they had entered but paused there, turning to glance at her again. Abruptly, as his gaze raked her bodice, Aliya became aware of her dishabille and grasped the shoulder of her gown, straightening the bodice and covering her breast. His lips thinned. “The shutters are bolted as well as yon door.”
Aliya glanced at them, realizing belatedly that he had not covered them for her comfort but to make sure she couldn’t make another attempt to destroy herself.
The arrogant cad!
“I don’t care for them,” he added thoughtfully. “Perhaps over the next few days you can entertain yourself with creating a design the carpenters can carve into them?”