The Black Prince: Part II (46 page)

H
e’d caught her out in the the library, where she’d gone to escape him.

He slid his hand up the back of her neck, into her hair. His grip was like a vice and she felt herself being drawn to him. Slowly, inexorably. Even as she pushed back, trying to escape. She didn’t want this right now; she was still furious. Still on the knife edge of tears.

He bent his head slightly as his lips met hers. His kiss was surprisingly soft at first, almost gentle. For all that he’d forced her into this position. He tugged gently on her bottom lip with his teeth. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Indeed it was anything but. Which upset her, because she didn’t want to feel what it was making her feel.

His grip tightened on her lower back as he crushed her to him, molding her body against his own. He used his tongue to force her mouth open as he explored her. She felt invaded. Owned. She felt faint.

There was something so carnal in him, so full of need.

He pushed her against the wall, pinning her there with his weight. His erection ground into her as his hands, now free, began to explore. She moaned softly into his mouth.

He cupped her breast through her dress. His thumb slid up, hooking around the embroidered edge of her bodice, and tugged gently. She squirmed. And then his hand was inside her dress. Testing the weight of her breast. Pinching her nipple and rolling it between his fingers.

“Don’t,” she said.

She gasped as he twisted it cruelly. “Don’t tell me not to,” he breathed. “You’re mine.”

His gaze was heated. He was drinking in her reaction. Savoring it.

He tore her dress with a sharp tug, letting it fall. The sound of ripping fabric was loud in the empty room. Isla could only pray that, now, one came in. He hadn’t, to the best of her knowledge, barred the door. But then again, there was no reason for him to have done so. He enjoyed exhibiting her. He enjoyed exhibiting himself. And why shouldn’t he?

Dress gone, her breasts were exposed. She shivered, both with cold and with anticipation. She was wearing silk stockings, a popular new convention. They were a beautiful green, the color of new grass, and matched her shoes. She’d loved how both had peeked out from underneath her skirts. A flash of color against gray, like flower petals scattered into the rain.

Tristan eyed her with frank appreciation. And something else. Hunger.

“Turn,” he said. “Let me see you.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“But you do.”

She turned. Letting him see the rounded curve of her rump. Her breasts.

He caressed it, and then gave it a sharp slap. She jumped. “So responsive,” he whispered into her ear. “I like that.”

The flesh of her rump burned.

He slapped her again.

“I can’t wait to spank you until you scream.”

She stiffened. “What?”

He slid one hand around her, pressing down firmly on her bare stomach, and then his other hand appeared, cupping her breast, lifting it, testing its weight in his hand. She stilled, half upset and half aroused beyond belief. She leaned against him, letting him do as he pleased.

“Now,” he said, stepping back, “I want you to undress me.”

She turned. “Here?”

“Yes. Here. Unless you wish to walk naked to our chambers.”

She colored.

“You have no reason to be ashamed,” he said. “Would that all the world could feast upon you, for you are the most beautiful woman on earth.”

She stepped forward and began to untie his laces.

She made slow work of the task because he never stopped caressing her. Toying with her. He slid a finger down between her legs and she couldn’t help but think of what she’d heard at lunch: that a woman’s passion took longer to kindle, but burned twice as hot. Her own passion was quickly overcoming her anger. She thought, to the extent that she was capable of thinking at all, that she’d like to have him now and resume being angry with him later.

“Kneel,” he said.

She did so because, as little as she wanted to, she also knew that following his directions would eventually bring her release.

Her husband, the blademaster, stood before her. And Gods, did he look every inch the part. With his muscled stomach, trailing down into the hair that surrounded his cock. Which was truly rampant, and looked enormous. The man who was good at everything he tried, or worked relentlessly at it until he was. Blademaster, bowmaster, duke.

“Give me your hand.”

She did, and he placed it on himself.

He smiled down at her, like a cat might smile at a mouse. It was an expression that didn’t reach his eyes. Which were alight with a dangerous heat. A heat that almost seemed cold.

She reached forward and kissed it.

The heat in his eyes intensified.

Then, taking a step back, he sat down on the padded bench where Isla had been reading. One of two, placed on either side of the map table. “Come,” he said. She stood and, taking her time, letting him see, joined him. She knew that was what he wanted. Knew that that was what
she
wanted.

She let him pull her up and onto his lap, where he kissed her again. Then, leaving her mouth, he kissed his way down her neck and chest, finally taking her nipple into his mouth. His tongue flicked against her and she felt herself harden as, everywhere, she began to tingle. She pushed herself against him, desperate for even the tiniest bit of friction.

He pulled away. “Later,” he said, his eyes on hers. She felt a spike of disappointment. And hurt, that she’d been rejected. “Now,” he continued, “I want you to lie down across my knees and put your hands out in front of you. On the bench.”

“But—why?”

“Because I’m going to spank you.”

Her eyes widened.

He caressed her cheek. “There is nothing to fear. This will help to bring us closer together. To sublimate your will more fully to mine and, in turn, allow me to open up more fully to you. It is…an exercise I have been anxious to try, with you.”

This must be the training, then, that he’d alluded to.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Now seems like an odd time.”

“No, darling. There is no better time to remind you of what you mean to me. And of how desperately I wish to possess, not merely your body but your soul.”

So she laid down, as he asked.

He helped her into position, her bottom directly over his slightly spread legs. His thighs dug into her as she stretched out, face buried in the cushion. It was tapestry, scratchy and uncomfortable.

He slid his hand between her thighs, forcing them apart ever so slightly. She felt her face burn with renewed shame. From this position he could see everything, touch everything. He ran a finger lightly along her cleft and she bit her lip. He was her husband, she reminded herself.

The first slap caught her by surprise, making her eyes water and her flesh sting. He slapped her again, without giving her a chance to recover, and again. There was no particular pattern to his strokes; he hit her randomly, so she never knew where to anticipate the pain.

And then he stopped and, very gently, began to stroke her. She squirmed, unable to help herself. She couldn’t deny it, she was beyond the point of reason now. He’d managed to work her into a state where she only wanted release and didn’t care how she got it. She might have, had the opportunity presented itself, fucked one of the grooms just to release herself from this torment.

He slapped her again.

She moaned again.

He turned her over, stroking her. The tapestry was agony against her abused skin. Agony and ecstasy. “I want to see you,” he said.

She swallowed.

“Do you want me?”

It took her a minute to work up an answer. To remember how, even to speak. Then, “yes,” she breathed.

He gave her her wish.

Pressing herself against him, she forgot that they were in a near public place. That half the castle might walk in on them at any moment. That she had no dress and, thus, no means of leaving the library without causing herself a serious problem. No, for a few precious moments at least, she thought of nothing at all. Simply felt.

After, curled up in his arms on the floor, where they’d somehow landed, she decided she had a question. “What’s it like? Having women throw themselves at you?”

“Dull.” He stroked her hair, which must look a sight. “They craved my wealth, darling. Or my power. Never me. Although they thought me incapable of noticing.”

She looked up at him. “Not again. Promise me. Not again.”

“There was nothing of enjoyment, however casual, in our coupling. For either of us.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “If I’m yours then you have to be mine.”

He seemed bemused but also, somehow, pleased. “As you wish.”

“I do wish.” She leaned against his chest. “Although I must confess something, I suppose.” It was, after all, only fair. “In your position, I likely would have done the same.”

“And that, fair one,” he told her, “is part of why I love you.”

A
sher wanted to be alone.

Everyone else seemed to be having a grand old time, but he wasn’t. Drinking and laughing. He missed his uncle, especially this afternoon. Hart had been gone from the castle for a full two days now, not deigning to make an appearance at his own homecoming feast. From which Asher had fled, finally. After he reached the point where he knew that, if he didn’t leave, he’d start to throw things. Or maybe just scream incoherently. Some gaggle of doctors, all of whom looked to have both feet in the grave, were thus the only guests of honor. Them and
Solene
. Along with Rowena. Aveline was right: it was a toss up which one of those two was worse.

But Asher didn’t care about humors and he didn’t care about the war or what either his aunt or his aunt in law thought of it. In truth, at the moment, he didn’t care about much. And so he’d pretended that he needed to use the garderobes and then, when no one was looking, made a dash for the woods.

If he’d told Aveline, she would have followed him. She was alright, he guessed. If kind of a baby. And a girl. But right now no one would have made a suitable companion. Not even Bragi and all the Valkyries, if they’d descended from the heavens and offered to teach him how to fight.

Among the trees, he felt like he could breathe again. The constriction in his chest was easing. He wished, sometimes, that he could be like the gnomes, living in the woods. Alone.

He found himself, without even really intending to, walking toward the barrows. He hadn’t been back since…before. So when he looked up and saw his mother again, he thought for certain that he was hallucinating.

She was standing right where she’d been before. A beautiful apparition in the sunlight, all in green. Like the new growth surrounding her. Fresh.

He blinked, expecting her to disappear. But she didn’t. Only smiled.

He felt a stab of fear.

And also of…confusion.

He knew he should run. As fast as he could. Part of him was urging the other part of him to do just that. To the point where the urge was all but overpowering. He had to put everything he had into staying rooted. Because he wasn’t a coward and because he needed answers.

Answers only she could give.

“Hello, my child.”

She was still beautiful, but with not precisely the magical effect she’d had before. Where before he’d seen a goddess, now he noticed the fine lines around her mouth. At the corners of her eyes. She didn’t look old so much as…hard. Like clay that had been left too long on the workbench.

Isla said that people’s choices eventually began to show on their faces. If that was the case, then Maeve’s face was cracking. But whether from the strain of surviving all she’d claimed to have suffered or…other things, he didn’t know.

And that was his problem: for all that he’d been told one one thing and another, and by one person after another, he still didn’t know. Not really. Not for himself.

He felt disloyal again, thinking that. Not to his mother this time, but to his father. To Isla.

Still, he didn’t run.

He took a step forward, and then another. He stopped before her. Part of him wanted to throw his arms around her. To throw himself at her feet and beg for her forgiveness. This close, a little of the old magic was back. It threatened to overwhelm him again, as it had before. Even if, whispering through it like an undercurrent, was something else. Something bad.

He forced himself to look her square in the eye. “You cursed me,” he said.

“What?” Her eyes grew wide.

“With the stone.”

“But, child, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The stone was a trinket; nothing more.” Her expression softened. “Walk with me.”

It was a request, so he did.

There was no sound, for several minutes, but that of their own feet. No birds called, and nothing moved through the undergrowth. It was like the last battle had been fought and the world ended, leaving behind only them with the trees and the other inanimate objects. Like the dead, lying in their barrows. Clasping their swords in withered hands and staring up at nothing.

“I have no magic,” Maeve said. Her tone was conversational. “If I did, then I’d be using it to reclaim my kingdom.”