“Well,” I said. “Being a prince has its perks.”
“If you like bossing people around, you’ve come to the right place.”
“I really don’t…”
“You might come to enjoy it on occasion.” He suddenly scooped me up into his arms. I wasn’t expecting it, and in fact, it agitated my wounds, but I didn’t tell him that. He carried me into his bedroom and put me down on the bed. The crow tried to follow us, but he nudged it out and shut the door.
“It’s true, isn’t it? You make friends with animals.”
I shrugged. I could have told him they were the only friends I’d had for many years, but how pathetic did that sound?
“‘Well tended to my wounds’?” I inquired.
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know what exactly you’ve endured since we parted—but no one should suffer like this. And you don’t even complain. Which says to me, more powerfully than anything you could tell me about your stepmother’s cruelties, that you know how to bear such treatment. All of that ends today. You will want for nothing. You will never suffer, if I can help it. I lost the two most important women in my life when I was a boy. You are so precious to me, Ellara…”
He climbed into bed beside me, leaning over me. My whole body itched to touch him, but I knew he meant to touch me instead, and I wanted to know how he would touch me, so I held myself back. My eyes drank him in, every inch of him. Being so close to him brought back vivid memories of last night, of the way he felt inside of me, and I was already growing wet for him. How quickly the work house seemed a distant memory! His hands moved to the laces of my bodice.
Then he paused.
“Do you think some of this is still…the after effect of the love spell?” I blurted.
I don’t know what on earth possessed me to question this moment.
“Maybe we’ll never know,” he said. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Do I seem like a stranger to you?”
“No,” I admitted. “Not at all.”
“I feel the same. But I also can’t help but think…you would not normally have chosen a goblin…”
“Ellara, you’re not a ‘goblin’ here. You’re a girl. Nor do I want to be a prince. Not when we’re alone. Just a boy and a girl…”
“ A boy? Hardly.”
He grinned and pushed my bodice off my shoulders. He tried to help me take my dress off. I winced.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Just stay still.” His hands gripped Gwyn’s filmy gown in two hands and tore the fabric. He ripped it all the way down to the hem, so now it hung off my shoulders like a robe, and my body was bare. I wet my lips.
His brows drew together as his eyes raked over the damage. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I had bruises absolutely everywhere from all my attempts to fight. My wrists and ankles were chafed from when I had struggled against being tied up while my horns were cut, and of course I still had all the welts from before.
He gently traced my bruises with a finger.
A servant knocked. “The healing potion, your majesty.”
He kissed me lightly, and said again, “Stay still.”
He sprung to his feet and opened the door a crack. Then he returned to me with a small amber bottle. He set it down on the nightstand and slowly pushed the dress off my arms the rest of the way. He had told me to stay still, so I didn’t help him. I was pretty happy not to move anymore. I knew he was going to take care of me now; that there was nothing left to fear, nothing left to do. I couldn’t remember when I had last experienced such a moment, knowing I would not be expected to clean any ashes, scrub any tubs, fix any hairstyles, tiptoe around anyone’s cruelty. It was the most blissful feeling I could imagine.
He tipped the bottle toward his palm, filling it with a bit of the oily liquid, and rubbed it between his palms.
Then he started to rub the potion down my aching arms. The healing potion was warm, and it seeped under my skin like the magic it was, soothing my pains. He dabbed just a bit on his fingertips and stroked my face. I shut my eyes, already feeling blissful. My arms still felt warm. The potion was invisible but felt like a protective coating, and smelled vaguely herbal.
He moved, then, to my legs, lifting each one to work the potion into the welts on the back of my legs. His hand moved up the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, quite near to my sex. His fingers explored down the hollows where my legs met my body, and then his fingers played with my nether lips, his touch light.
“Ithrin,” I whispered. “Oh, please—more than that. It’s ticklish—too light.”
“You are already so wet,” he said. “I had no idea women got aroused as easily as men do.” He sounded amused.
“We hide it better.”
“Not right now, you don’t,” he said. “All the more reason not to put too many clothes on you when we’re alone together. Hmph,” he added. “Listen to me. I sound as bad as Wrindel. You do things to me, Ellara. Love spells that can’t be broken? Love at first sight? Yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed in any of it. Today, all I know is that I feel reborn.” He gave my clit a little tug and I arched my back, already crying out with desire.
“Not yet,” he said. He spread my legs wider. “But let me see. I want to see just how wet I can make you before you come.”
I dug my fingers into the bed. “Oh, no,” I gasped, in a voice that meant quite the opposite.
He dribbled more potion into his hands and teased his fingers around my nipples in little circling motions until I was panting. Then he stopped and worked the potion into my stomach and chest, around the edges of my breasts. Oh, how I yearned for him to touch them! The moment seemed endless until he finally put his mouth to my nipple, licking and sucking at the tender tip until it was so tight I could hardly bear it. And then he moved on to the next. The rush of sensation that coursed through me was so wonderful that it seemed to make up for everything I had ever suffered, as if everything had been building to this moment.
He moved downward, to my parted legs. His tongue slid between my nether lips, parting them further, sliding up and down across my sex. I had never dreamed of such a thing! I whimpered as he set my sensitive skin alight. His tongue could explore me in such a way that a hand never could, slipping into every hidden place. The sensations this produced were the strongest I had ever felt, moreso than anything on our first encounter, and yet I was not sliding into that release. I just seemed to be getting more and more tender and helpless, agitated by the persistent caress of his tongue against that bud of intense pleasure.
He sucked on it and the sensations surged. I shrieked with the strength of it, and how quickly I suddenly slid into an orgasm. I groped for the pillows behind me, grabbing one against my chest.
“That was faster than I meant for it to be,” he said crossly.
“I can’t help it!” I cried.
“You taste so sweet, I don’t think I’m done with you,” he said, and he very lightly grazed the tip of his tongue over my swollen clit until I was outright screaming. I hoped these stone walls blocked the sound. Then he thrust his tongue inside my entrance. I pressed my thighs against his shoulders, shuddering, begging. “Please, Ithrin, please…”
“Please what?” He grinned. “I like this very much, seeing you like this.”
He got a little more healing potion dribbled onto the tips of his fingers and slipped them inside me. “What about here?” he asked. “Are you aching inside?”
I stiffened against the penetration. “A little.”
“Not too badly, though?”
“No.”
“Good.” He reached for his trousers.
I clutched his wrist. “Take off your clothes. I’ve want to feel your skin against mine. I want to feel all of you.”
I watched, mesmerized, as he unfastened the clasps of his jacket, unbuttoned his boots. His skin was as perfect as a statue, every muscle and line graceful and perfectly formed. His pale skin didn’t have a single freckle or blemish of any kind; it was almost unearthly. I am
not sure he realized how beautiful he was as he impatiently wrestled his ankles out of his trousers with a little muttered, “Damn it—come on—there we go.” He acted like a man, imperfect—but he looked like a god. I knew we were about to make love again and yet, strangely, I was already anticipating the next time, and the next…all the ways we would get to know each other in months and years to come.
I smiled. “I can’t believe…I get to do this,” I said.
“I can’t believe that stupid ball actually worked out,” he said.
He climbed on top of me, dwarfing my little body beneath his long one…and that cock, to match. I’d already taken it once but I felt like I’d forgotten how deep and thick it was going to fill me. He ran his hands over my arms, lifting them above my head, tangling his fingers with mine.
“My little darling girl,” he said. “With those bright golden eyes. This is where you belong. Safe and sound.”
“Am I safe?” I teased. “I think I’m about to be impaled.”
“That you are.” The corners of his mouth lifted slightly and his eyes narrowed in a very satisfied way, and that was the last sensible thought I had before he took me with his mouth and his cock at once. My clit was still extremely sensitive, and that sensitivity seemed to soak all the way down inside me to where his manhood stroked and filled me. His tongue explored my mouth simultaneously, the taste of him sweet. His mouth muffled my helpless moans. I was overwhelmed with bliss, pounding toward another peak.
“Ahh…ahh…”
“You come so easily,” he said. “I wonder how many times I could get you there in an hour? There’s a goal we could keep striving to beat.”
I whimpered. He stopped driving into me and went still for a time, his hard cock resting inside me, plucking and rolling my nipples between his fingers, forcing me back into rapid arousal. I wasn’t sure I could bear it anymore, but I wanted to know how much I could withstand. I succumbed to his touch, his plundering tongue, his teasing fingers, whimpering with sweet agony.
Then he started fucking me again, and this time he was the one who came inside me first. I clenched around him, coming for a third time, hoping that he had already planted the seed of our first child. I knew we had both been lonely, and I could hardly wait for a whole pack of sons and daughters to fill the palace with joy.
There was a knock on the door. “Prince Ithrin; my lady. Mrs. Lumin and her daughters have been brought back to the palace.”
“Very good,” he called. “I’ll be there once I have finished tending to my betrothed’s wounds.”
“Should I do something about this crow in the hall, sir?”
“No, let it be!” he called. He shook his head at me, with a half-smile.
But I was seized with a sense of dread out of pure instinct. “They’re here…my stepfamily…”
“You don’t want them to see you as a princess?” He brushed a thumb across my face, smoothing back one of my curls, which were now so short. “The bruises are already looking a lot better.”
“I do, but…I suppose a part of me would rather not see them again. Ever. I keep thinking of the cruelty in their faces when they left me there at the work house.”
“I want them to see you,” he said. “And I want to see them. I want to look in the eyes of the people who hurt you.”
He turned me over. I was so spent by this time that I just flopped face first into the pillows before I was forced to turn my head to breathe. Now he was rubbing the potion on my back.
“I haven’t even gotten to properly enjoy this angle yet,” he said. He nudged my legs open again.
“You’re not going to…not again?”
“Not yet. But the hour isn’t up yet. I still want to see what I can do with you in an hour. Your stepfamily can wait and wonder how they will be judged. Every time I bring you to climax, you seem to glow a little brighter. I want you on fire by the time we leave this room.”
He started to work the potion into my tender backside. I could have stayed there forever. I felt like I was practically levitating at this point, with all the soothing potion working its way into my wounds, and the touch of his fingers marking every inch of me. Even when his hands left, it was like echoes of memory remained on my skin.
He shifted position behind me, sliding his hands beneath my stomach, down to my sex again. He slipped down, pushing two fingers inside me, and then three, before he started circling my center of pleasure with his thumb. His hand started fucking me, firm and hard. I was already three orgasms in and it was starting to feel like too much, and yet I couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop him. This combination of agony and satisfaction felt cleansing after all my trials.
My hips bucked. His pelvis pressed against my ass, keeping me from going much of anywhere. I struggled to push myself up onto my elbows but my whole body was trembling and quivering. He placed his knees on the inside of mine and shoved them open wider, so his fingers could fuck me even deeper. I couldn’t go anywhere now, except to scratch at the pillows.
“When your claws grow back in,” he said, “you’re going to have to be careful. The kingdom is on a budget. No money for new sheets.” He slid his tongue along the sensitive ridge of my ear. “If you hurry, we might be able to make it to five.”
“No,” I cried. “No, I can’t bear it!” But the very idea of it made me climax again, as his thumb made quick little strokes on my clit.
“Wrindel always told me that girls can be hard to please,” he said. “So far it seems like you’re the exception to the rule.”
“Maybe it’s the love potion…,” I said weakly.
“I think we’ve moved past the love potion. Stop thinking of it. I think you were meant for me. You were meant to break me out of the gloom I’ve been in, give me something to search for besides death. I want you to know that, Ellara. I don’t care if you have money. That isn’t why I chose you. You have given me something worth more than gold.”
“Good sex?”
“I was thinking something more like…”
As he searched for a lofty way of describing it, I repeated, “Good sex.” I laughed gently.
“Well, that too. But you’re my first, Ellara, so I don’t have much comparison.”
“Am I really? Wrindel never steered you into a courtesan’s room some drunken night?”
“I never get drunk,” he said, “for precisely that reason.”
“You’re pretty good at it yourself, considering that,” I said.
“I have an inspiring subject,” he said. “And—well—I’ve stolen plenty of reading material from Wrindel’s collection.” His cock nudged into me from behind now, his hands steering me back onto his shaft, and I am proud to say I made it to five before the High Court’s clock struck the hour.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ellara
I remained in bed while he found a smaller dress for me to wear. He tugged me out of bed and helped me dress in a simple but lovely gown of red silk with an inner lining of pale pink that showed in the sleeves and the panel of the bodice. Then he adorned me in gold, as he had promised before: gold bracelets, a gold necklace with rubies and pearls, and a gold circlet. Finally, he put the blue cloak over my shoulders, and led me to the mirror.
The bruises were not gone, but they had faded so they probably wouldn’t be the first thing anyone noticed when they looked at me anymore. My cropped hair didn’t look so bad with the circlet, although I still would be glad when it grew back. And indeed, I had a languid sort of glow. I could have just stayed in bed.
“Now, you look very much the pampered princess,” he said. “Ready to take care of business?”
“I guess I am,” I said. “It’s my stepsisters I’m worried about, more than anything.”
“Why? They have no power over you now.”
“Well, I know my stepmother murdered my father and attempted to murder Mr. Hassari. So she can get what she deserves under the law. My stepsisters? I don’t think they were complicit in murder, but they have tormented
me on nearly an hourly basis for the past six years. I know they share all of my stepmother’s taste for viciousness. I know I shouldn’t fear seeing them now, but I do.”
“Ellara, my dear, you have all the power now. They will lose their mother and any money they have left is probably legally yours. I expect they’ll have to go to the work house. Aren’t they lucky I’m about to crack down on abusive conditions in work houses?”
I glanced down, clutching my arms into a shiver. I knew they would suffer now, and they deserved nothing less. I knew I would be their princess, and they would have to live with that bitterness all their lives. But I still felt a strange mix of fear and shame and absolute fury. They had gotten to me in ways I would never shake. They had stolen things from me I would never get back. And I had no recourse to get the revenge I really wanted. I had to be noble now.
“No,” he said. “Whatever you feel inside, don’t show it to them.”
My crow flew back onto my shoulder. Ithrin took my hand. I straightened up, clutching his fingers. He was right. I deserved this moment.
We returned to the hall. Luckily, I spotted Fersa before anyone else, and she ran toward me and hugged me like we were old friends. “Thank you,” she said.
“I couldn’t have escaped without you either,” I said.
“Pshaw.”
And then I saw them, standing in the back of the room. The flock of crows was gathered around them, the birds’ beady eyes glaring. The crows seemed unusually aware of my situation, I considered. When they saw me, they started muttering and squawking. My stepmother was clutching a shawl close around her, looking wary and annoyed. My stepsisters looked like they had already been crying furious tears, their eyes red and puffy and their mouths pursed.
Mr. Hassari gave me a small bow, like he was giving me permission to do something.
“You tried to murder Mr. Hassari,” I said to my stepmother. “And you murdered my father…didn’t you?”
“I did no such thing,” she said. “I am innocent on all counts! Perhaps Mr. Hassari and your father have indulged in the same rich foods. You are blaming me for a heart attack!”
The Goblin Cinderella Page 12