by Kiki Leach
“So long ago…” I nodded. “While here to see Belarus, he also visited the square in search of a common whore for a night. I came across him when I tried to steal the money from his carriage, but his men caught me and he threatened to turn me into Belarus unless I serviced him.” I stopped and turned to wipe the tip of my nose. “I was certain it would only be once, until the next time he visited. And he came searching for me, seeking me out until he found me inside my cottage. He went to everyone within the village, forcing them to tell what they knew of me, as if he had planned to hang me himself for one reason or another. I begged for him to go when he found me, but he wouldn’t leave until he got what he wanted.”
“Oh, Cinder.” Her voice cracked and her face reddened.
I sighed and dropped my head in shame. “For six months, I was his whore without compensation of any kind. I threatened to kill him each time he came to me, to cut off … but it never deterred him. He was aggressive sometimes, mean. Whenever I tried to fight back, it only seemed to make him want me more, want it more.”
“What finally pushed him away?”
I was silent for a moment, and then exhaled. “I learned I was carrying his child. I informed him and he demanded I rid myself of it, but…” I stopped.
“But what?”
“I woke up one morning covered in blood and realized with the help of his physician that I had miscarried. Once he learned the child’s fate, I never saw him again.” I got up from the bed and went over to the window. Brigita followed. “I pushed that time of my life out of my mind, refusing to believe it had truly happened to me. I never wished to hear the name John Devereux again, even on the night of Norvack’s battle against the king. So foolish of me, but I was certain I wouldn’t. And I dare not speak his name then or ask questions of any kind as Norvack recovered, lest it be revealed to all. I swear to God it wasn’t until this morning when all of those memories of that time came flooding back to me. And now, he’s going to be side by side with my husband. Riding alongside him, battling alongside him… I don’t trust him to protect Norvack in battle, nor do I trust him to keep quiet of our time spent together.”
“The prince isn’t aware?”
I spun around facing her. “Are you mad? He only knows I have been with one other man, he was never aware of their identity and this is why!” I clasped my hands together and violently rattled my head. “My God, of all the men--”
“It may not be as bad as you believe it will be, Cinder.”
“No. In fact, I believe it can get worse. And it will.”
“But you were a child then. He threatened and intimidated you!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It will matter to Norvack,” she said.
“It won’t to his father.”
A knock on the door disrupted us. I straightened the front of my gown and went over to it, pulling back and taking a deep breath when I saw that it was Norvack. He passed me in anger and Brigita had escaped the room before either of us could ask her to do so. As I shut the door and turned to Norvack, he was staring directly at me. His expression was almost emotionless, which was unnerving.
“You left in quite the hurry,” he said. I shrugged, glancing down. “Enjoy your walk with Brigita?”
“Hm?” I thought for a moment and he arched a brow. “Oh, no, we never left the room.”
“Why not? It’s a wonderful day for winter.”
“And as she reminded me, one of the coldest.” I shrugged again. “What do you wish for?”
He lifted his brows and pulled his head back in what appeared to be a sort of surprise to my question. “What do I wish for?” His tone was patronizing, arrogant in the manner of his father. He slid his hands into his pockets and raised his shoulders. “Certainly a different feeling from the last time we were in here, is it not? Perhaps I wish to spend some time alone with my wife. Perhaps to make love, as we almost did this morning, yet haven’t in weeks.”
I looked aside. “Ah--”
“Of which I haven’t questioned out of respect.”
“Of which you haven’t questioned in fear of hearing the answer.”
He tightened his jaw. “I’m asking now. Perhaps a few questions in fact.”
“A few?”
“One or two,” he replied with a smirk.
I breathed deep and prepared myself for the worst. My eyes drifted from his and I grit my teeth.
“I noticed a strange look upon your face when my father mentioned John’s name.”
I leaned my head and furrowed my brows. “Did you?”
“Yes. It was a look I had never seen from you before, one quite new to me. A sort of mixture of fear and loathing. In all the time I’ve known you, that isn’t a look I ever recall seeing.”
“Perhaps before we married you turned your back on me one too many times, my future king,” I said jokingly.
“Perhaps.” He grinned in a mischievous manner. “Or, perhaps not.”
“My God, Norvack,” I snapped in frustration. I spun away from him, facing the other side of the room. “You infuriate me like no other man ever has.”
“And you puzzle me more than any woman, my future queen.”
I nervously twisted my hands around each other. My breathing increased and I gulped, and in that moment I cursed that man knowing me better than I almost knew myself. No longer was it romantic as much as it was a potential liability.
“You had a look upon your face, my favorite girl.” His voice grew in anger as his feet glided across the floor. “As if…”
I groaned. “As if, what?”
“As if you are aware of this man.”
I stepped around him and laughed nervously. “You’re mad,” I shot back. “Completely confused.”
He cocked his head and his green eyes flickered. “Am I?”
“Yes. Quite, in fact. Everyone in Denmark is aware of John’s status. Even more so aware of his extremely close relationship with the King of England. You yourself asked, why on God’s green earth would that man choose to leave his side and join your army? It’s quite the miracle he hasn’t already been beheaded for betraying him in favor of you and your father!”
“No,” he replied, turning and clutching my arm. He whirled me around and I slammed my free hand into his chest. I tried avoiding his eyes, but he took my chin between his fingers, lifting it until our eyes were forced to meet. “I don’t believe so. Your reason is impractical and doesn’t explain why you reacted as you did, Cinder.”
“Impractical? This man is your enemy, Norvack! I don’t trust him or your father.”
“Neither do I. However, I am not so sure I can trust you anymore either. At least, not in this very moment.”
My heart sank into my stomach and I froze in his arms.
“You don’t mean a word of what you say.”
“I’m certain I do.” He clinched his jaw and clutched my arm a little tighter. “Does he know you?”
“Are you losing your mind?”
“Are you? Would that explain your reaction at breakfast when my father mentioned his name? Would it explain your reaction to me now?”
I violently shoved myself away from him and he stood straight, unaffected. We stared at one another for a long while before I broke away from his glare.
“Does he know you, Cinder?”
“No! Your mind is…” I stopped and exhaled. “I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I only believed it odd that he would choose to leave England, despite the scandal, and come to you and the king.” I straightened the sleeve of my gown, once again attempting to avoid his eyes.
He stared at me in silence. It was as if he were evaluating my answer, trying to suit it to his liking. And then he reached for his temples and shook his head.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said, attempting to crack a small smile and erase what had just occurred. It made me uneasy, but I obliged. “Perhaps I imagined it,” he continued, knitting his brows, “that panicked look in your eye the moment you h
eard his name.”
“Yes, perhaps you did.”
He didn’t believe me, and was aware that I knew it, but refused to go any further.
“Per the king, he is to be here Saturday. My father wishes for a banquet in his honor.”
“Of course he does.” I walked over to the mirror and reached for my hairbrush. “I presume we’ll be forced to attend.”
Norvack came up and pressed himself against me. “You presume correctly, as always, my favorite.”
We looked at one another in the mirror and I became uneasy again as he slid his arms around my waist. His fingers traced my stomach and he moaned, leaning down and pressing his face into my hair. He inhaled my scent and it made me shiver.
“You smell of lilacs.”
“Only for you,” I said. “Always.”
“Is it?”
I lifted a brow, and then frowned. “I…”
He wrapped his arms around me even tighter. And for a moment, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
“I wish to know why you haven’t touched me in weeks,” he whispered against my ear. “Why you haven’t allowed me to touch you, to please you in what feels like forever.” He moved his lips to the side of my throat and kissed me softly. I felt the tip of his tongue fluttering against my skin. “How did we go from making love each morning and night to near strangers in such a short amount of time? I don’t remember what you feel like anymore, Cinder girl. What I feel like inside you.” He slid one hand down my thigh, caressing. “I miss you. My God, how I miss you. We share the same bed, but I miss touching you, tasting you.”
“I miss you too --”
“Do you?” He paused. “Why have you stopped?”
“I need time, as I informed you weeks before --”
“And still yet to inform me of why you need such time away from me.”
“Not away from you.”
“From us?”
“No.”
I looked away for a moment before returning to his eyes. If I told him the truth, informed him of why I had truly pulled away, I feared he would not recover from it. He would in time, I knew he would, but time was always the issue more than the issue itself. From our wedding to the battle to our first time together, time always seemed to present itself in such an odd pattern. Something wonderful, often followed by something tragic.
“Cinder, I’ve respected your wishes, but I can no longer seem to abide by them.”
His voice was gruff, demanding, shaking me from a daze. He peeked at me in the mirror once more and lifted one side of his face into a sinful grin, forcing my breath to catch as I inhaled. As he slid his hand around my throat, lifting my face a little, he exhaled between my lips, his cool breath hitting me like a strong wave from the ocean. I hadn’t even realized he had dropped that same hand inside the top of my gown until his fingers crawled across my skin and reached for my left breast, squeezing hard. I bit down on my lip, hard enough to draw a tiny amount of blood. My sweetest spot ached.
I wanted him. And there was no denying how much.
“My favvvvvvorite girl.”
When I looked to him, his mouth came closer to mine and I felt his tongue first. He circled it around the inside of my lips and my mouth dropped open completely, welcoming his tongue deep inside, but he teased me instead. He danced his fingers around my nipple until it grew in size and pressed my arse against his hardening cock with his other hand.
Oh God, how I missed his cock inside me.
I reached around for his trousers and loosened the string. They fell to the floor and my hands traveled around and slipped down to his arse. I gave a slight squeeze and he spun me around to loosen my gown. The top fell below my breasts and after I removed each sleeve from my arm, Norvack lifted me from the floor and carried me across the room, placing me on a desk in the corner. He hurriedly lifted every layer of my gown, shoving it up to my waist, and I spread my legs. He looked into my eyes with such lust and desire -- I wanted him, I needed him to taste me again. My lips begged for his and as he moved in, I lifted myself up and readjusted. As his tongue slipped between my lips, his thick cock spread me open like a blossoming flower in spring, and I bloomed.
Ferociously.
He thrust into me harder and harder with each stroke. Pictures rattled on the wall, one even fell to the floor, shattering the glass, cracking the frame. I slid my hands beneath his tunic and caressed his back. He searched for my lips again, kissing me deeper and deeper until I couldn’t breath, but he wouldn’t let me turn away. I wrapped my legs around him even tighter, pressing him into me as deep as his cock could go. Before reaching climax, he grabbed my hands, taking them in his and shoving them against the wall.
“Look at me,” he whispered as he entwined our fingers. “Look at me, my favorite girl.”
His face was sweaty and his eyes shined like the sun.
“You will always be mine,” he said, thrusting once more. “You’re mine.”
And it was the way he said those words to me, the way in which he spoke them, harsh and almost insincere, that suddenly made me feel not as his wife, but as someone he owned. In times past when he spoke such words, I felt as if we belonged to one another, as if he were mine and I was his equally. And now I felt as if I were his and he was someone else, someone who never belonged to me.
The longer he stared into my eyes, the more I realized that what we were doing had more to do with the circumstances at hand, and less to do with missing me, missing us together, as I believed he had prior to breakfast, prior to learning that John was arriving, prior to his fears of who I was and what I had done (and with who), before we married.
I snatched my eyes from his in that moment and removed my hands. I shoved them into his chest as hard as I could and leapt from the desk. As I crossed the room, I lowered my gown and lifted my bodice, shaking my head in anger and disbelief and shame and guilt. I slipped my arms back into the sleeves and gagged. He made me feel soiled and apprehensive instead of wanted and desired -- instead of as I should have felt as his wife.
Norvack hadn’t said a word. I turned to him and he lifted his trousers, looping the strings with such ease and grace -- he knew what he had done, and didn’t seem to care that I had realized it as well.
I walked over and looked up at him, but he refused to look at me this time. I grabbed his face the same as he had mine, between two fingers, and glared. His eyes seemed distant, cold now. No longer warm and comforting, or even loving. I yanked my hand from him as if a bolt of lightening had struck it. I didn’t know who he was in that moment -- I didn’t wish to know. I felt the tears coming but refused to let them fall.
“You wished to prove I was yours in this manner?” I asked, my voice trembling in absolute anger.
“You are mine--”
I struck him across the face as hard as I could. His cheek reddened and my hand stung as if a thousand bees had pricked me simultaneously. But I was determined not to show pain, not in this manner. I tightened my jaw and shook my head.
“My God. Whether I had been with John or any other man before you doesn’t disprove that, it never did! To use me in this manner to make a sort of point regarding your over inflated egotism --”
“I missed you, and you knew that. But no one else shall ever have you, Cinder girl.”
I raised a hand to strike him again, but he reached for my wrist and lowered it to my side.
“I never believed you of all people would treat me in such a way.”
“No one else shall ever have you,” he said again.
“No one else has had me.”
“What is the name of the man you were with?”
I was taken aback. “What?”
“Before we made love for the first time, you informed me that you had been with a man. What was his name? How many times did he have you?”
“Stop it.”
I backed away and went over to the window.
“Were you in love with him?”
“I have never loved anyone
but you, my future king. A fact you know all to well. Though at the moment, you’re making it quite difficult for me to admit so aloud, and to myself.”
He came up behind and exhaled. “Have you been with him, Cinder?”
I remained silent and gulped.
“Have you?” he asked again.
I lifted my shoulders and squeezed my eyes tight. “What difference does it make now?”
“All the difference!” He looped his hand around my arm and whirled me around. His eyes enlarged, his face darkened. “The man is to stand beside me, inside my court! He is to be at the right of me at all times. A man I am imposed to trust with my life, and he has had the one thing I treasure most. He has been inside you --”
“Stop!” I hollered, attempting to jerk away from him.
“He has had you,” he said again, his tone more calm. “More than once.” I jerked myself away and gripped my arm in the same place he had, soothing it. “And now he shall have my place on the throne. I am no fool, my favorite girl.”
“I never proclaimed you a fool.”
He nodded. “I shall not lose my place on the throne. Nor shall I lose you.”
“You --”
“No one else shall ever have you,” he interjected. “Never again.”
“John has never had me.” I paused. “Never as you have.”
He shut his eyes and grit his teeth, infuriated as the words began to sink in.
“Would you sacrifice the throne to keep me?” I asked.
He lifted his eyelids immediately. “I would sacrifice my life to keep you, Cinderella.”
He headed for the door and I moved to the center of the room. I called out to him and he stopped but didn’t turn back.
“I will never not be yours. But what you did… What you are doing to me, Norvack…” I held my breath for a few seconds and then exhaled. “This is an approach your father would have taken against your mother and we both know it would not have been for love. I am not Eliza and you are not the king. I have stood beside you no matter the circumstances and if for that reason alone, I deserve the entirety of your respect. I am your wife, not your property. And you shall never own me in this manner again.”
He sighed and looked at me one last time. Sadness filled his eyes and covered his face, as if he were silently agreeing and acknowledging what he had done wrong. And then he left, never saying another word to me as he closed the door. I stepped back a little and looked around the room. It was so beautiful and so clean, except it wasn’t anymore. It looked different to me now, colder, more harsh and soiled than ever before. I lay my hand across my chest -- my heart began to beat so fast and loud through my ribs; the now cold room started spinning and my head began to ache. I could no longer stand, could no longer imprison my feelings, and collapsed onto the floor in a fit of tears.