by Morgan Hawke
An electrical buzz sounded and the car began to rise.
I suppose one could consider being rolled down the three-story master staircase in a rug worse, or being shoved off a horse when riding pillion, or stabbed during sword and knife practice, or even kicked just for the hell of it. Then there was the time he hung me sideways from a tree to make a swing... I straightened against the back gate and eased away from him. “Can’t you find someone else to...play with? There are plenty of females a lot more attractive than me.”
Alberic turned to face me. His brow lifted and the corner of his mouth tilted down. “I assure you that I only play with extremely attractive females.”
“Huh?” It almost sounded as though he’d given me some sort of backhanded compliment.
Alberic turned and stalked toward me. “Would you like to know your most attractive feature?” He smiled, and it was heart-stopping in its cruelty.
I cowered back in the corner. “Um, not really.”
He reached out and cupped my jaw in his black gloved hand. “What I find most attractive about you...” He tilted my chin up, forcibly raising my face to meet his heated green gaze. “Beyond your ocean blue eyes and blue-black hair, is that you are utterly and completely mine.”
Ocean blue eyes and blue-black hair...? Was he complimenting me again? Then the rest of what he’d said sunk in. I glared at him. “Yours...?”
Alberic nodded smugly and released my chin. “As my personal body servant, it’s your job to cater to my whims.”
My mouth fell open. Okay so he had a point. It was my job to cater to him, but bed-warming was taking things a bit too far, even for me. “Fine then, I quit! Get someone else to be your...body servant.”
Alberic blinked and gave a small tight laugh. “You can quit if you like, Julian, but if you leave, I’ll only drag you back.”
I scowled at him. “What the hell for?”
His lips curved into that gorgeously cruel smile. “Because what’s mine stays mine.”
A bell rang, and the elevator stopped.
Quick as an adder, Alberic grabbed hold of my neck cloth bow. “Time to become my love-slave.” He shoved open the gate and dragged me out into the mortared stone hallway of the castle’s tallest tower. The alchemist hated the smell of the smoke from the gas-lamps that lit the rest of the castle, so the windowless hallway was lit with small glowing baubles connected by a cloth-covered wire. Theo called them electric lights. The shadows cast by the small yellow-white lights made my prince look positively demonic.
I grabbed onto his wrist with both hands again and dug my heels in once more. It still didn’t do a damned bit of good. “But I don’t want to be your love-slave!”
Alberic chuckled while dragging me down the hall. “Well then, don’t you think you should have escaped from my clutches long before now?”
“I didn’t have a reason to escape your clutches!”
He stopped dead.
I froze in surprise. What the hell had I said this time?
Alberic turned slowly to look at me with narrowed green eyes and a puzzled frown. “You can’t tell me that you honestly like being my personal punching bag?”
“Sparring partner.” It was an old argument. “You may be better with a gun, but I’m your equal at sword and dagger, and better at hand-to-hand. I might have been your personal target, but I was never your punching bag.”
It was true, actually. He’d never punched me. I can’t say he never swatted me upside the head for no apparent reason whatsoever; he did, all the time, although lately he’d been smacking me with his gloves rather than his hand. I’d also worn the occasional bruise on my shins and my butt from random kicks, but never a black eye. Not from him, anyway, and he stopped kicking me when I finally got pissed off enough to kick him back.
My prince waved his hand. “Semantics.” He leveled a hard glare at me. “And what about all the crazy games I made you play and the work I make you do, caring for my clothes, dressing me, picking up after me, caring for my horse, delivering dirty sonnets to my lovers, paying my informants...?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m your personal servant. I’m supposed to play your games. As for the other stuff, all valets take care of their masters the same way.”
His frown deepened. “They do not.”
“They do so.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I asked.”
His gaze narrowed. “Asked who...?”
I lifted a brow. “Considering the sheer number of nobles living in this castle, not including all the visiting outer kingdom dignitaries, do you have any idea just how many valets are running around in the castle?”
“Um...” His gaze slid off to the side, then he looked at me and smiled. “No clue.”
I sighed. “Why am I not surprised?” I waved a hand. “Never mind... Suffice it to say that when I first started acting as your valet, I asked several of the other valets exactly what I should be doing for you. What I didn’t know, I had someone teach me.” Learning how to wash and iron silk had been a total pain in the ass.
His eyes widened, and his jaw slackened. “Why would you do that?”
I glared at him, and the shout came leaping out of my mouth. “Because somebody had to care for you!” The stone hallway amplified my voice rather nicely.
He actually flinched.
It might have been from the sheer volume of my shout, but it also could have been because I hit a sore point. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, went anywhere near Prince Alberic if they could avoid it — except me. The servants were all scared to death of him. I brought him his meals, cared for his clothes, kept his chambers tidy, carried his bed linens and curtains down to the laundry, and collected them afterwards... In short, if it had anything at all to do with the prince, I was the one who did it.
I sighed and dropped my voice to a softer decibel. “I owe you my life. Looking after you was the least I could do to return the favor.”
His golden brows lifted. “In that case, you shouldn’t mind looking after my physical needs, too.” With that, he turned and started hauling me down the hallway again.
“What?” I continued with my struggles. “How the hell did you come to that conclusion? You have plenty of bed-partners!” He did, dozens, in fact.
“None that I can trust.” His voice was so soft that I almost didn’t hear him. He raised his voice a little louder. “Sneaking all the way into town at night to get laid, and then sneaking all the way back before dawn is tiresome. Why go through all that when I can just do you?”
It was such a typical answer from him that I merely rolled my eyes. “You have lovers in the castle too.”
He sniffed. “I’m bored with them.”
I groaned, still dragging my feet. “You’ll get bored with me too!”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I doubt you’ll ever be that lucky.”
I frowned at him. That almost sounded like another backhanded compliment, except that I knew for a fact that it was a bald-faced lie. He never kept a paramour longer than a week.
We reached the end of the windowless hall and Alberic kicked open the door to alchemist’s private lab. “Theo! It’s time!” He dragged my struggling body through the doorway and slammed the door closed behind us.
~ Three ~
Magister Alistair Theodoric, court alchemist and royal physician, sat up behind the broad oak desk where he’d apparently been perusing some monstrous book. He swept his long elegant fingers through his long sleek mane of silver hair and his brows rose over his coin gold eyes. He looked from the grinning Alberic to my heated and furious face and rose from his red leather chair. “Alberic, have Julian take off that coat and roll up a sleeve. I need to do a blood test to make sure I have the right one.”
I frowned, suddenly confused. Had I missed something? “The right one...what?”
Theo smiled warmly and tugged on his lapels to straighten his black velvet robes. “The right contraceptive for you.”
I stared at him slack-jawed
. “You’re in on this?”
Theo snorted and his smile tightened. “This is merely to keep you from getting pregnant, should an assault occur.”
“Pregnant...from an assault?” I was suddenly more confused than ever. I understood that there were those who’d attack me simply because they couldn’t touch the prince without lethal repercussions, but that kind of an assault...? “You’re kidding, right? Who would want to...assault me?”
Alberic grabbed my arm, turning me to face him, then tugged my red sash from its bow at my hip. “You’ve been drawing entirely too much attention to yourself lately.” He started unbuttoning my sable-brown frock coat at an ungodly speed. “And everyone knows that you have no head for liquor whatsoever.”
“Of course I draw attention. I’m your valet! And what does liquor have to do with anything?”
Theo chuckled. “When was the last time you looked in a mirror, Julian?”
I looked over at Theo, still thoroughly confused. “When I brushed my hair this morning?”
My prince groaned loudly and rolled his eyes. “Thick as a brick.” He jerked off my coat, dropping it and my sash on the flagstone floor. He pulled on my neck cloth, jerking me against him, chest to chest. “I have no intention of losing you to some lowly peon that knocked you up simply because he got you drunk enough to find out what was really under your clothes.”
I winced. Unfortunately, one of the laws of the kingdom stated that any unmarried man that impregnated an unmarried woman had to marry her and care for his offspring, whether either wanted to be married or not. Suddenly, contraception sounded like a really good idea.
His lips brushed against my ear. “If you get pregnant, it’ll be because I want you pregnant. Understood?” He reached down with his free hand, cupped my ass cheek, and squeezed.
My temper exploded. Son of a bitch...! Screw the penalties for hitting my prince! I slammed the heels of both hands against the center of his chest, hard.
Alberic tripped back, gasping for breath, the wind knocked from his lungs.
I curled my lip baring my teeth in anger, while rolling up my sleeve. “If I get pregnant, it’ll because I want to be pregnant. Not because someone wants to breed a half-royal bastard on me.” I turned to stomp toward the archway leading into the far room.
Okay, so I could have just slapped him, but that was a female thing to do. I hadn’t been female in any way other than anatomically since the day my mother started dressing me in my brother’s clothes to help with the farm chores. Punching him was right out. It would have left a far too visible mark.
Standing by a small table that held a few oddly shaped bottles bubbling over small flames, the alchemist pulled on a pair of black, stretchy gloves and presented me with a small silver lance. “Hold out your middle finger.”
I did so, curious in spite of myself.
He stabbed my finger with the lance. A small bead of scarlet welled up. He collected the bead with a small eyedropper and released it into a flat-bottomed round beaker half filled with a yellow solution. The solution turned pale green. He nodded. “It’s a match.” He set down the eyedropper. “Roll your sleeve up to the shoulder, and follow me to the chair.” He strode through the archway into the next room.
I followed him into a room that was brilliantly lit with large blue baubles suspended from the ceiling. Along the far left wall was a large, oblong metal counter and sink. In the very middle was a leather and steel contraption that only vaguely looked like a chair. It looked far more like what one would strap a criminal into for extremely painful interrogations. Leather straps hung from the chair’s arms and legs.
Theo waved his hand toward the chair. “Sit here.”
With extreme suspicion, I climbed up and sat in it.
Theo wheeled over a small decorative cart covered by a linen cloth that held a delicate scalpel, an ornate syringe filled with a clear liquid, and five tiny slivers of...something. With a cotton ball, he daubed rubbing alcohol all over the bend of my elbow.
My prince tromped over to my side while rubbing the center of his chest. “Hitting your prince is a crime in this kingdom.”
Yes, it was, but I was too damned pissed to care. I shot a glare at him. “So is human slavery.”
Theo took that moment to stab me in the arm with his syringe.
I winced.
Theo smiled. “This is to numb your arm.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great, you cause me pain to remove my pain?”
Theo snorted. “Would you rather I cut you open without it?”
I stared at him. “Cut me open...?”
The alchemist lifted the scalpel and pointed at the five tiny slivers. “To prevent pregnancy for the next five years, these need to be inserted in your arm.”
I frowned at the small slivers. “What are those?”
Theo shrugged. “It’s from the noir plant. Something I collected from the neighboring world.”
I looked up at him in awe. Our land of Nod was ruled by magic, but right next door was the extremely dangerous world ruled by science. It wasn’t a place anyone wanted to live, but the clever alchemist had been known pilfer a marvel or two, such as the bulbs in his quarters that lit up like candles without using live flame, the plans for the cable-lift elevator, and the indoor plumbing system. He also set up the huge ice box in the castle kitchens that didn’t need ice blocks to keep the food cold, and in fact made small chunks of ice all year around. Theo was a very brave man. “How often do you cross over?”
Theo lifted one of the slivers, examining it closely. “I cross a few times a year. It’s where I get my extremely rare pain-numbing anesthetics novo-cane and ether, as well as other rare medicines such as perry-ox-hide and penny-sullen, both of which prevent infections. The noir plant was a special request.” He nodded toward Alberic.
My prince looked away. “I didn’t want to use an enchantment on you. They work fine on men, but they tend to have nasty side effects when used on females.”
My hands clenched on the padded arms of the chair. “Side effects...?”
Theo shrugged and set the sliver back down. “Magic tends to take the shortest route to achieve its goal. When one uses magic for female contraception, there are far too many options a spell could take to ensure results.”
Alberic curled his lip. “Such as extreme ugliness.”
Theo smiled. “Or changing their gender.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind changing genders.” I was already masquerading as a male, why not go all the way?
“Julian...” My prince lifted one brow and a particularly cruel smile curved his lips. “Are you absolutely sure you wouldn’t mind taking it up the ass?”
I flinched back from him. “What...? I thought you didn’t like...doing men?”
Alberic leaned over me, his smile widening to include teeth. “For you, I would most definitely make an exception.”
I stared at him in horror. I so did not need to know that, especially since my twin brother should have been his companion rather than I.
Theo poked at the inner side of my upper arm. “Is your arm getting numb yet?”
I stared down at my arm. I had only known that he poked me because I had seen him do it. I hadn’t actually felt anything. “Wow... That’s some potent stuff.”
The alchemist nodded and raised his scalpel. “Hold your arm flat and do not move.”
I held my arm as requested and watched in fascination.
Theo made a very tiny incision on the inside of my upper right arm. It bled only a small amount. He set down his knife and then pushed the slivers into the small cut one by one, until all five rested just under my skin in a fan pattern.
I didn’t feel a thing.
Theo then held two fingers above the cut and chanted out a small line of words. The cut knitted closed. Magic was occasionally practical. Occasionally...
Alberic leaned over my chair to catch the alchemist’s eye. “When will it take effect?”
Theo turned away to pull off
his stretchy black gloves and wipe his hands with a cloth that stank of rubbing alcohol. “Two weeks.”
Alberic nodded. “Excellent.”
I jerked my sleeve back down and shoved my prince out of my way, practically flying from the chair. I left the inner lab and grabbed my coat and sash from the floor, heading for the door. I was in dire need of a nice quiet corner in one of the attics where I could tear apart a few old feather pillows and scream my head off in complete privacy.
Alberic was leaning against the door with his arms folded across his chest.
I jerked to a halt. Crap... I kept forgetting how fast he could be when he set his mind to it. Clearly, someone among his antecedents was a witch. There was no way in hell he could move that fast without magic.
My prince’s smile radiated feline satisfaction, the kind where the cat has already digested the canary. “Going somewhere without me, Julian?”
I shrugged into my sable frock coat while dredging my brain for a good excuse to gain some privacy, then I remembered. “Breakfast!”
His golden brows lifted. “Hm?”
“I haven’t brought up your breakfast. I need to go get it.” I was so proud of myself, I even smiled. Unfortunately, my hand was too numb to work my coat buttons.
Alberic sighed and reached out to jerk me toward him by the lapels. His fingers practically flew up my buttons. “You realize I’m doing this for your own good?” His green gaze caught mine. “And I don’t mean your coat buttons.”
I knew damned good and well what he was referring to. “Oh, really?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “How is being your bed-warmer good for me?”
He blinked then the most god-awful smile graced my prince’s lips. “Surely you know that denying yourself sexual release is unhealthy?”
I turned my gaze away. “I can take care of myself.” As I said before, I had a hand and I knew how to use it.
His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Oh? Do you think of me when you touch yourself?”
I stared at him in shock. “What? No!” My face heated and I looked away. “I don’t think of you in that way.” I was lying of course. He was the only man I’d ever fantasized about. Seriously, there wasn’t anyone as beautiful—or as terrifying—as my prince.
