by P. Mattern
I looked at the Prince’s face, trying to discern his expression. His face was impassive, but he began speaking again.
“It happened in here, during a celebration of my great great grandfather’s birthday. They were dancing, my relatives. There were even children and pregnant women present. Almost all of them were slaughtered where they stood. My parents tell me the massacre was over within 90 seconds, many of the slain torn apart so swiftly that they never had a chance to realize what was happening to them or cry out.”
I stood closer to the Prince and slipped my hand in his.
“I am so sorry,” I said, meaning it.”I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to see this.”
The Prince turned his head and smiled at me, but it was a sad smile.
“I come here often,” he told me ”It helps me to remember that we have enemies and that I need to rule with unwavering resolve and strength. It was a miracle that our entire line wasn’t wiped out, that my parents and my Host Mother were able to escape. My mother’s younger sister was slain and she’d been expecting through a Host Mother also.”
I forced my eyes to look around me at the detritus of the attack. I could understand why the Prince was drawn here. It was his tribute to his lost relatives. As immortals they would still be alive if the attack had never happened. I shivered at the thought that whatever had wiped them out of existence, the enemy that the Prince had referred to as the ‘Dark Ones’ must be very deadly and immensely powerful.
Powerful enough to take out vampires. I couldn’t even imagine it.
“Time to go,” the Prince finally said, offering me his arm. I think we can sightsee for a while longer, and then I intend to take you into my chambers, Tristina. Your touch is soothing to me, and your charms are many. I have need of them.”
Although it seemed to me that the entire group was more somber on the ride back, I was glad to see Theda and managed to whisper her request to the Prince, who readily consented to the match of Theda and Lysander, and said that he would make it official as soon as he returned to the Silo. I turned and smiled at Theda and winked, and received a grateful smile in return. I knew that she understood that her request had met with approval.
THEDA
Once the Prince and I were back in his chambers he stripped off his clothing, being careful to blindfold me carefully after he had done so. He tore at my clothing eagerly as he kissed me with ferocity. He was forceful without hurting me, galvanized by the sight of Death he had made a renewed commitment to Immortal Life through the blending of our bodies together. As he thrust himself into my eager meltingness I heard myself cry out repeatedly. And for the first time ever he cried out as he climaxed, a cry born of pleasure so intense that it rode the razor’s edge of pain.
I was barely recovered when he began again, this time more slowly and tenderly. As he bent his head I basked in the feel of his silky dark shoulder length hair between my thighs. I yearned to see his face, and traced it with my nimble fingers many times during the course of our lovemaking.
“Tristina,” he kept repeating as he pleasured me. The sound of his voice repeating my name drew me ever deeper into the vortex of our pleasure. All my doubts, reservations , memories and yearnings evaporated beneath the press of his firm, muscular flesh. That afternoon was spent in hours of pleasure until I felt that even my very bones had dissolved and I was reduced to a pleasure pool that he kept returning to .
Finally he murmured in my ear.
“Satisfied my Princess?”
Words seemed inadequate to describe what I was feeling, but I had to try.
“I have never felt this way…never felt so close to another before. The way you have touched and awakened me surpasses any sensation of pleasure or happiness or satisfaction that I have ever experienced, supersedes anything that I ever even HOPED to experience in this life. I was dead before you touched me, and your touch-your lips, your hands, your….manhood,” I continued, blushing even though I was still warm from the heat of our lovemaking, “Have brought me to life.”
Even though I was blindfolded I could FEEL his smile of immense pleasure at my response.
“Soon I will let you pleasure me with your mouth, Tristina,” he told me, ”And I will not make you wear the blindfold, though I will not be wearing my mask. But for that to happen you must promise that you will kneel before me and never look upwards. Do you think that you can do that?”
I gasped and contemplated his offer. A wave of desire and longing welled up from within me.
“I would like to please you that way,” I told him shyly, playing with his nipples as I spoke. It seemed like a privilege to be able to have these intimacies, but my greed for him had grown and I found the idea of becoming even more intimate enticing.
“Then you shall have the opportunity,” he told me, playing with tendrils of my hair as he spoke.
For long moments we rested, spooning. I marveled at the feel of skin touching mine and the feeling of absolute connection. Suddenly he reached down and grabbed me possessively between my legs.
“Who does this sacred part of you belong to, Tristina?” he asked, ”Tell me. Say it!”
“You,” I responded , my voice hushed to a whisper and my heart pounding with excitement
“Say it LOUDER,” he commanded me, “Who do you belong to now, body and soul? Who has access to your most intimate places at all times. Who do you open the gates of your lily white thighs for willingly?”
“YOU!” I said, more forcefully this time, realizing as I said it that it was completely true, and that my anima was rising and making me want him again.
He didn’t waste any time. Within a few seconds he was inside me again from behind, grinding against me as he repeated my name over and over.
After that, I knew nothing until the next day.
Theda came bouncing into my quarters the next day, even before I was finished dressing, or rather being dressed. The Prince had not only granted her request to be quartered with Lysander, her Protector, but she had been granted time off for a ‘honeymoon’ or sorts. Because I had made the Prince acutely aware that she was my best , and only friend within the Silo compound he had also put her on the short list of those who were able to see me without being announced.
We giggled like typical schoolgirls over her improved situation , and she was anxious to tall me about Lysander.
“You have to see him!” she chortled, as an attendant brought in a tray of toasted bread, butter, jam and honeycombs along with a carafe of tea.”He is tall, almost 6’4”, and powerfully built, with hugely muscular arms and a rugged handsomeness that thrills me! I am so fortunate to have such a Protector. None of the other soldiers dare to even cast a glance my way now—he would hand them their own heads in the wink of an eye!”
I smiled happily at Theda. Tody she was wearing a red silk eye patch that matched her red silk shirt and black suede trousers and boots. I was glad for her improved situation but at the same time finding it odd that she often managed to include references to eyes.
Maybe subconsciously she still keenly felt the loss of her eye. But she was still undeniably sexy and beautiful without it.
“Is he a good lover?” I had to ask, though the roses in her cheeks indicated the bloom of a young woman well satisfied in that department.
“Oh Tristina, YES, a thousand times yes! He is a wonderful lover. Kind and gentle and always trying to please me. AND…” she said, pausing significantly, “He is talking about applying for permission to breed me!”
There was something discordant in her phrasing that gave me pause. I gave her a skeptical look.
“BREED you? Theda you aren’t livestock! Have you forgotten that we were members of human society once? Women haven’t been chattel for centuries!”
“It’s only the way they refer to it here, at the Svalbard Compound…don’t be upset for me. ‘When in Rome’ as they say. I couldn’t care less how they refer to it. It means a vacation for me…I won’t have to train or fight for ov
er a year! They will give me leave time while I am carrying the baby and also 5 months off after he is born!”
“HE?” I teased her, ”What if the baby is a girl?”
Theda’s face seemed to drain of all color.
“We are praying for a boy. If it’s a boy, we get to visit him weekly after the fifth month and when he is 4 years of age he can come to live with us and train with the other soldiers’ children. If it’s a girl…well, she will be taken away immediately, I will return to soldiering, and I will never know what happened to her. If I am lucky she will be given away to childless nobility.”
My face must have betrayed my shock at her pronouncement.
“Oh Tristina how can you look so surprised?” she said, reaching over to my hand into hers, ”There are few options for females born into this Silo. Being adopted out into a noble family is the best one could hope. Otherwise a little girl is raised in the collective nursery and then apprenticed out to be a servant, a soldier or a prostitute for either the nobles—if she is pretty—or for the soldiers---if she is plain or unattractive in some way.
“Soldiers are not known to pay attention to the faces of those that service them!” she added. I recognized Theda’s last comment as an attempt at humor, but I was still scandalized. I had long recognized that life was cruel here, but hadn’t realized how stark and unkind it could be for innocent children who didn’t seem to have any say in the manner in which they were raised, or any choice in what they were to become.
I voiced none of my inner commentary to Theda, merely squeezing her hand in return.
“I am always happy when you are happy,” I told her ,”And I will talk to the Prince about anything else that you need. I love you Theda. You have been a true friend, my ONLY friend here in fact. And someone that I feel I can trust.”
“I feel the same way about you,” she confessed, taking a square of toasted and buttered bread spread liberally with jam and popping it into her mouth, then happily chewing. I wondered what kind of food the soldiers were fed, and made a mental not to ask the Prince for some special foodstuffs for Theda and her Protector.
A servant came in and bowed, then told us, “The Prince has suggested that you ladies may want to pick some of the snow berries making an appearance on the Southern side of the Silo. They are profuse this year and we have provided baskets and some of the Guard will watch over you as you pick them if you are so inclined.”
Theda and I looked at each other, and I was sure that her look of delight was reflected in my own face. Ever since our outing to the Ice Palace I had been craving the outdoors. Theda seemed to feel the same way.
Turning my head I told the servant,
“Yes, we will go and pick berries at the Southern port. Have some of my attendant accompany us and they can pick berries also!”
A short while later Theda and I found ourselves in the bright sunshine. In front of us stretch a broad expanse of snow, glittering like a field of diamonds. Confused, I looked at Theda.
“Where are the bushes ?” I asked. “The berries must grow on bushes, right?”
One of my attendants, the cheeky one named Pam stepped off the outdoor terrace and began kicking away the snow.
And there they were,
The bushes had bright green leaves in spite of the snow and the 15 degree temperature, and I saw berries the color of rubellite garnets growing among the leaves. These were the Norwegian “Tyttebaer”, known as ‘lingonberries’ in Swedish, the hardy berries that grew even in the dauntingly cold weather. I couldn’t stop staring—the berries were beautiful against the white surroundings.
Theda pressed a few into my hand.
“Taste,” she encouraged me.”They are quite nice. The snow protects them you see, they thrive under the surface, and it would be a shame to waste them.
Carefully I placed one of the berries in my mouth. It tasted to me like a cross between a cranberry and a blueberry, the initial tartness tempered by a component of sweetness.
“Delicious!” I exclaimed, greedily stuffing the other in my mouth and eyeing the acres of low lying shrubs before us ,”Let’s pick as many as we can.. I am dying for pie!!!”
The snow was up to our knees and we grabbed flexible and cleverly constructed baskets and fit over both our arms and provided a basket in front of our waistlines. I put all my energy into picking—and eating—the beautiful berries. They seemed like treasure hiding under the snow. The thought that they would be used not only for the nobles but also passed on to the cooks feeding the servants made me feel happy and delighted to be contributing in some way to their welfare.
Theda and even Pam the servant girl were laughing at me, causing me to stop picking for a moment.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh Tristina you actually LOOK like a vampire! Your mouth is so red from eating the tyttebaer and you even have some of the juice running down to your chin,” she told me, giggling, ”Here is a kerchief, please wipe it off before it stains you!”
As I did so, some of the other servants tittered. I didn’t mind at all. I was feeling the camaraderie that existed between us all as we focused on the simple task of picking berries.
How long we stayed at the task I wasn’t sure. The perpetual daylight of the strange Norwegian summer prevented me from having a definite sense of time. But when every basket of the dozens we had brought with us was filled, a feeling of satisfaction stole over me.
The baskets filled to the brim with the delightful berries filled me with joy. They also made me remember being human, and suddenly I wanted pie.
“Please distribute these fairly among the cooks for the nobles as well as the servant population,” I instructed Pam ,”And tell the Prince’s chef that we want the biggest pie that he can manage, piping hot and served to the Prince and I in our chambers for Tea today! And please hurry at your task because I am absolutely dying for a taste!”
Pam nodded and gave instructions to the others laden with the baskets chock full of berries.. I took pride in what we had accomplished and I couldn’t wait to tell the Prince how well we had done.
Theda and I kissed goodbye and I hurried with my attendants down the long corridor to my chambers, looking forward to a hot bath. I had a plan to surprise the Prince before teatime. Ever since our conversation I had been looking forward to the encounter he had detailed. It sounded intriguingly intimate because neither of us would have eye coverings—I would be allowed to go without my blindfold, and he had promised that he would wear no mask, as long as I agreed not to raise my eyes to him.
The waterfall from the heated springs that were piped in throughout the Silo felt wonderful pouring over my body. As I bathed I imagined again the Prince’s hands caressing me, relived the incredibly sensuous intimacies we had shared. I wasn’t entirely sure that I loved him, but I knew that he had awakened me in ways that were exciting and all consuming. In felt like I had the biggest crush I had ever had in my lifetime on the Prince.
Even bigger than the mad crush that I had had on Johnny Depp in my previous incarnation as a geeky human teenager.
It occurred to me that my birthday had passed since I had been taken…that I had missed it during the chaos of the first few days in the Silo. I was 17 now. I was immortal now, so I supposed that my chronological age was beside the point. Never the less I began humming the ‘Happy Birthday’ song to myself.
I wondered how old the Prince was. I knew that he was an immortal, but I also knew that he had been carried by a Human Woman chosen as a Host /Surrogate, and from what he described he hadn’t been ‘born’ into this world all that long ago….
I wondered exactly HOW long ago. It seemed to me that the Prince and I must be very close in age.
After my bath I asked my attendants to leave, even my personal maid Pam, and wandered in a leisurely fashion down the arched and cavernous stone hallways of our personal wing of the Silo. My excitement mounted as I approached the door to his chambers. I had sent one of my attendants to spy earlier and
she’d overheard the Prince telling his entourage that he would be resting in his chambers and was not to be disturbed. I was sure my timing was perfect and my unexpected appearance would delight him.
I was surprised that the door was slightly ajar, but that allowed me to push the huge arched door inward soundlessly in spite of its size.
Nothing could have prepared me for the scene that appeared before my eyes…and it lingers in my memory to this very day.
The first sight to greet my eyes was the Prince’s completely nude backside as he stood at the side of his bed.. I had never seen his naked body with my eyes before, only my hands, and I marveled at his muscular back and arms, his finely planed derriere and his massive thighs. His physique reminded me of a Greek Adonis. The only light in the room was provided by a few low burning sconces and a fire blazing merrily in the oversized hearth, but I could see him perfectly ,from the back, his long dark hair swinging against his shoulder blades. As I watched he reached forward and pulled something across the bed towards him, and a pair of long white legs appeared on either side of his hips. He then began thrusting forcefully and rhythmically, with a kind of frenetic precision. I heard a woman moaning as he did that, stopping only briefly to hoist her hips up higher against him, as he made a harsh animalistic noise in his throat.
“You are my property,” I heard him say to her, ”The First Night is my Privilege and I shall have you before your husband. You are wise to open your legs to me so readily!”
“Yes my Prince,” I heard the woman say. There was something familiar about her voice. Both of them were breathing so loudly they hadn’t noticed me, as I stood there in the open, too shocked and frozen to the spot to move.
After an eternity of watching both of them grinding together like dogs in heat the Prince gave a shout and stopped moving other than a few final convulsive movements. As if he suddenly sensed that someone was behind him, he turned quickly. Even though he was wearing his mask I saw his jaw drop in surprise.