Tales of Enchantment

by Andersen,Kai

  “Frederick, really,” the queen was scolding, most likely having seen his exchange with the servant, but his gaze had slid to her companion and he froze. He stared hard at the girl, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him.

  Serena.

  What was she doing, serving them like a common servant? She looked as if she was enjoying it too, if that wide grin on her face was anything to judge by. Calling out a cheery “good morning,” she walked nearer, the tray of plates balanced on one hand up and over her shoulder so naturally she must’ve done this before. And often.

  Stunned, Frederick could only gape at her as she placed the tray on the sideboard before removing the plates and placing them in the middle of the table. The sudden silence told him everyone at the table was as shocked as he. By the time he recovered enough to catch hold of her, she had moved too far from his grasp and was out of the door in a second, the tray in her hands.

  His butt was rooted to the chair. He couldn’t seem to get up and demand an explanation for her behavior, for her absence at the table. He didn’t need to see his stepmother’s wicked glee to know what she was thinking, what everyone was thinking.

  Beneath his profound astonishment, he could feel a sinking disappointment that befuddled him. He was so lost in thought that when a hand touched him, he jerked back sharply in reaction and glared at the owner.

  Giselda gasped. “It’s, uh, good that we find out now --”

  Frederick slid back his chair so abruptly that it almost fell over. “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but I seem to have lost my appetite.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode from the room.

  * * * * *

  Five hours later, Frederick had searched every nook and cranny of the lodge, except for the bedchambers (she couldn’t be there, could she?) and the servants’ quarters, and he still hadn’t found her. In fact, he had so startled the servants when he first entered the kitchen that the organized chaos he initially saw became ... well, chaos. They just weren’t used to seeing him in their domain.

  He didn’t know what pushed him, but he felt this driving need to find her, to compel the truth from her, to ... to ... to kiss her until she was mad with longing and desire. Perhaps there was no need to hear it from her lips. His steps unconsciously slowed. Her actions already spoke too well for her.

  Thinking back to her cheerful menial service at the breakfast table, Frederick became even more convinced that she wasn’t a princess. In his experience, there was only one reason maidens claimed royalty in his presence.

  Did everyone know about his search for a bride?

  Mixed emotions churned through him at these thoughts.

  On the one hand, he was glad that she wasn’t a princess. It meant he could take her for his pleasure and keep her until his lust for her had been sated. Oh, he’d make sure that Serena had her pleasure, too. Yes, it was going to be a most pleasurable time for them both.

  At the same time, he felt a nagging disappointment that she wasn’t a princess. Surely, he couldn’t be hoping --? No, he was only disappointed that she wasn’t a virgin, that he wouldn’t be the one to initiate her into the art of lovemaking. A woman as beautiful and luscious as Serena was bound to have had many lovers. A violent urge to erase all her memories of previous lovers surged through him. From this moment on, she was only going to have one lover.

  It was with this intense and passionate emotion running through him that he entered the small library. Though not as large as the library in the palace, this one boasted a huge collection of books on a wide variety of topics. Hence, anyone staying at the lodge could be entertained with his choice of reading selection.

  To emphasize his vow, Frederick closed the door with a small bang.

  The shriek almost blasted his eardrums.

  He looked up in time to see Serena tumbling from the topmost rung of the ladder situated a few feet away.

  Chapter Four

  Serena flew through the air -- not exactly in the way she frequently wished she could, but in a downward movement, as she was pulled by gravity from twenty feet up. She’d always thought flying would be exhilarating, and it was, evidenced by the way her blood was drumming through her veins and sounding particularly loud in her ears.

  But she hadn’t anticipated the loud, scary whoosh of air whistling past her ears or the acrid taste of terror on her tongue, as she realized she could very well meet her end a few milli-moments from now. Or, at least, end up on the carpeted floor in a mass of blood and broken bones.

  A second scream was struggling to escape when her breath was whacked out of her. She hit a very solid object that staggered a step or two backward -- a warm solid object.

  Words of gratitude died on her lips when she saw the hard, unyielding face of the prince. His eyes glinted with a fury that waited to be unleashed, and his heart pounded violently against her arm. Or was that her heart?

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She flinched, his loud voice ringing in her ears. The veins in his throat stood out when he shouted, and she watched with interest as red suffused his cheeks.

  “Don’t you know how dangerous that was? Don’t you have any sense? You could’ve broken your neck!” His fingers dug into her flesh. Even through the dress, it hurt. He shook her, as if by such an action he could shake the sense he was talking about into her. Her teeth rattled.

  Her own fury rose up, matching his. At the back of her mind, she knew she had no reason to be angry, but fright, coupled with his unjust and unfounded anger, was igniting hers.

  “I was safe enough until someone was so rude to startle me! That someone” -- her tone left no doubt who that someone was -- “could’ve caused my broken neck!”

  Her heaving bosom proved to be too much for the too-small bodice. A button popped, hitting him on the right cheek with a small sound. She hoped it hurt like hell.

  He didn’t so much as flinch.

  “You wouldn’t have been startled if you weren’t up there doing Goddess-knows-what!”

  “Put me down!” She struggled and glared at him when his arms tightened even more about her. She was starting to realize just how much at a disadvantage she was in her present position.

  “I’m keeping you here until I can be sure you aren’t likely to do further damage to yourself.” His voice was grim and his chin tightened with determination.

  “What’s it to you?”

  She could see he didn’t like the challenging way she posed the question. She didn’t know why she asked it or what had goaded her to make it into a dare, only that it seemed the perfect rebuttal to his caveman attitude.

  “What were you doing anyway?”

  She didn’t need great intelligence to know what he was asking. “I was dusting the books.” Her mouth set in a mutinous line as she gathered her dignity about her as best as she could while lying in his arms.

  “Dusting --” He broke off, his eyes betraying his incredulity. “I have servants for that.”

  “They’re understaffed.”

  “It’s still their job.”

  “I want to help.”

  “You’re my guest!” he roared.

  “I was bored!” she shouted back. A second later, she corrected herself. “I am bored.”

  “You could read or play the piano or the harp or --”

  “I hate the piano, I hate the harp, I hate music!”

  Their eyes met, her defiance the only thing keeping her from backing down from the fury in his. There was now a different texture to his anger -- deeper, darker and tinged with disappointment.

  The most awful transformation came over his face. If his expression seemed hard and unyielding earlier, it became even more so. Forbidding and grim, he scared her, causing her breath to shorten. His eyes no longer held molten lava, but were cold and empty.

  “So, your true colors are finally showing.”

  Even his voice terrified her.

  What was he talking about? Serena wanted to demand an answer, but her tongue was glued to the
roof of her mouth and black spots were dancing in front of her eyes. He was holding her too tightly. Automatically, she took in several deep breaths, and the dark spots dispersed.

  But it came with a price.

  A second button from her bodice pinged to the floor, but not before grazing his cheek.

  His eyes moved downward fractionally from her face, and yet another change came over him. The stark emptiness in his eyes receded, replaced by a burning intensity. His face softened, the rough angles curved, and his white teeth gleamed as he smiled -- seductive, predatory, devouring.

  Serena shivered.

  The air around them changed. She became aware of his heat -- the heat of his arms around her, the heat of his body as she lay against him, and the heat in his eyes blazing down at her.

  Her breath lodged in her throat.

  His eyes were so blue ... with fire burning in their depths.

  As if in a dream, her hand reached up and curved against his cheek. She was aware that he was moving, carrying her somewhere, but nothing mattered. She was held in thrall, captive to his blue gaze.

  The cool leather against her back doused some of the flames he ignited, bringing her somewhat to her senses. She recalled their anger and the argument. It seemed a lifetime away. What had happened?

  A gentle hand at her ear drew her gaze back to him. There was a strange expression on his face as he tucked an errant curl behind her ear, something like ... tenderness, the way she sometimes caught her uncle looking at her aunt when he thought nobody was looking. His eyes though were intent on her mouth, and she knew he intended to kiss her.

  A thrill shot through her. Her first to-be kiss.

  She cursed the moment thoughts of PB intruded, making her feel guilty and ashamed.

  He leaned closer.

  “Your ... Your Highness ...” she stuttered.

  “Frederick.” His head continued its slow descent.

  “We ... we shouldn’t --”

  “You were complaining about boredom, I believe.” His lids dropped halfway to veil his eyes, giving him a brooding, sensual look.

  Her heart fluttered.

  Then he leaned even closer, until he was but a breath away. “I’ll show you” -- his head moved a centimeter nearer, and her eyes closed -- “a much better way to occupy your time.”

  Serena gave up protesting the moment his lips touched hers. She simply forgot what she was protesting about. All she could feel was his hot mouth on hers, firm and insistent, and his hard body pressing against her so that she was almost lying on the chaise. She even forgot about her torn bodice. Instead, she had the most insane urge to bury her hands in his thick, golden hair.

  So she did. His hair was cool and soft, a direct contrast to his hot mouth and hard body.

  She moaned, weaving her hands through the thick strands and mussing his hair as if branding her mark on him.

  His kiss intensified, becoming hotter and more passionate. His tongue slipped past her open lips into her mouth, stroking and mating with hers. He couldn’t seem to get enough. Even now, he was still pillaging and plundering. She knew how he felt, because it was exactly how she was feeling. She devoured him, tasting his strength and virility. If it were possible, she’d sink herself into him and never let go.

  No sweet and shy first kiss for her. No, this kiss was carnal and lusty and she loved it.

  So lost was she in his kiss that she never noticed his hand creeping up her ribs and parting her bodice, baring her breasts to his touch. When he cupped a breast in his palm, she gasped, started, and then cried out against his lips at the sensation that coursed through her. He kneaded and rubbed the firm mound. Heat shot through her as he toyed with her nipple, hardening and lengthening the tight bud. Her breast felt full as it blossomed to his touch. She felt a suspicious wetness down there and a mysterious longing to clasp him between her legs. She shook her head, not understanding.

  Frederick trailed hot lips across her cheek and nibbled on the shell of her ear. “You’re so beautiful, Serena. So lush and full and sweet. You’re made for me.”

  The sensations coursing through her were so exquisite that she sobbed as his lips continued its assault on her ear. She was swept into a world where nothing mattered but the pleasure of her senses. She knew nothing except that she was burning, and only he could satisfy that fiery need. She wanted nothing else but his lips on her lips, her breasts, her body.

  Responding to an inner urging, she pulled his head down and her lips touched his hungrily. They shared an open-mouthed kiss so hot and torrid that Serena felt the ripple of shock that went through Frederick. Instead of being alarmed, she experienced a decidedly feminine thrill that she could incite such a reaction from a man like Frederick.

  He moved, his lips reluctantly leaving hers to explore her chin and neck, making biting little kisses, sending curls of heat shooting through her entire body. His lips danced lower ... even lower ... grazing the slope of her left breast ...

  A quaver started in her belly at the desperate way his hot mouth captured her beaded nipple. She arched into his mouth and cried out as he sucked strongly. Varied sensations splintered within her, going straight to her core and causing a strange tension to build up in her belly.

  “Sweet ...”

  “Frederick ...”

  “You’re mine, Serena.” His breath feathered her nipples. “Mine. Say it!”

  Her head fell back. “Yours.”

  He continued the sensual assault on her other breast, intensifying her pleasure as he suckled. Delayed, their conversation registered in her brain. With a strength born of alarm, she pushed him away. “No!”

  Her breast popped free of his mouth. Frederick staggered and fell off the chaise. He stared up at her in bewilderment from the floor as she frantically held her torn bodice together. “Wha -- ?”

  Serena tried to sit regally, but she surmised she failed miserably with her hair all tousled and her hand holding her gown together. Gazing down at the man lying at her feet, she wished they didn’t have to stop. She missed his kiss already. But they had to. She had to. “I’m a princess.”

  Just those three words and his face changed back, became hard and unyielding, forbidding and stern. His eyes lost the slumberous look, turning empty and cold.

  She almost wished time would flow back. If it did, she probably would’ve kept her mouth shut and just gone on kissing him.

  He stood up and dusted himself. “Prove it.” His stance echoed the challenge he had just voiced.

  Serena was taken aback at the hard glitter in his eyes. She recognized the distinct disadvantage of her position when she was forced to look up at Frederick. Moreover, his request -- rather, demand -- wasn’t expected. “What?”

  “You say you’re a princess. Prove it.” When she just continued to look at him, he continued disdainfully, “Surely, you don’t expect us to simply take your word for it, do you?”

  His insult was too much. She put on “her princess face,” as her youngest sister used to call it. It was a visage devoid of emotion, cold and forbidding as his. “I am a princess. My word is truth. Whether you believe or not is up to you.”

  Serena delivered her words with indifference, but deep inside, she was hurting. How could he kiss her like that and not believe her? She was startled from her thoughts by the sound of slow clapping.

  She lifted her eyes.

  “I must commend you for that little speech. It almost has a ring of truth in it, as Stepmother said.” His eyes mocked hers. “Who taught you that little trick?”

  Serena felt sick and bewildered. What was he accusing her of doing? “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “Oh, cut out the acting, princess.” She did not like the sneer on his face. “I know who you are.”

  Serena paled. She shifted on the chaise and clutched her bodice tighter. He knew? How did he know? She had been so careful last night ... “Who am I then?” Her tone was carefully neutral.

  “I don’t know where you’re
from ...”

  Serena hid her sigh of relief.

  “But I know that you’re a pretty good schemer angling to be the next crown princess of Mithirien.”

  Stunned silence.

  Then a burst of shocked laughter bubbled from her lips. “Why would I ... want to be a princess ... when I’m already one?”

  Through eyes slitted from laughter, she saw uncertainty cross his face, saw it dissolve into an embarrassed but determined resolve to maintain his stance, if for nothing else but his pride. She understood; she had been in the same situation countless times before.

  “But you’re not.” He held himself stiffly. “You’re a common peasant with your eyes on riches and rank. You’ve learned that I’m looking to wed a real princess and came up with this scheme to trap me. You know, it’s to your advantage if you can prove that you’re a princess. Maybe you can ask someone to pose as your father, the king of some never-heard-of kingdom. If we can establish somehow that you’re a princess, I might even marry you.” He leered at her. “Anything to possess that lovely body. Whoever sent you has certainly studied me very well. They knew I wouldn’t be able to resist a woman as beautiful and lush as you. Few men could.” He murmured the last few words huskily as he slid his hand over the hard bulge outlined by his tight breeches.

  Like a magnet, Serena’s eyes were drawn to the movement of his hand, and everything in her melted with desire. When he reached out a hand toward her, she came to her senses and her head snapped up, desire giving way to a hard, burning anger. How dare he distract her with something like that?

  She jumped up from the chaise, skirts swishing, eyes blazing and long hair flowing behind her like a silver cape. “For one, ‘common’ and ‘peasant’ are redundant. For another, I have no wish to marry you.” In her fury, the words tripped over one another in their rush to get out. One finger pointed at him, jabbing his chest with each word. “For a third, if you’re really a prince, you would be offering me your jacket, instead of taking advantage of my dishabille. For a fourth, if I marry, when I marry” -- a particularly hard jab poked him in the chest -- “he’s going to be someone who’ll love and cherish me, and not someone who wants only my body and acts like he wants to eat me up. Whole. Like a snake.” Her eyes flashed fire. “Lastly, I’m not about to stand here and be insulted. I’m leaving! Right this very minute.”