by Morgan King
Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2013 Morgan King
ISBN: 978-1-77130-496-2
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Karyn White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To my beloved sister (who sends me the best care packages ever, just because she’s nice like that). The fact that you love fairy tales means this one is for you and because you buy every book which means the world to me. I promise never to turn you into a wicked step-sister in any of my stories.
NO REST FOR THE PRINCE’S VIRGIN
Naughty Fairy Tales
Morgan King
Copyright © 2013
Prologue
The building was remarkably ordinary, constructed as it was from ash grey brick, and with four square windows and a diamond-shaped door at the front. The curtains with pictures of slowly changing landscapes were a nice touch, giving the property a hint of depth and even mystery, but it still wasn’t quite the sort of abode the king had been expecting. It wasn’t where he’d imagined the Fairy Goodmother living.
What had he been expecting? A tower tucked in a forest maybe, or just something a bit grander. Not a terraced house with a chimney, although maybe the chimney was useful if she had a cauldron to facilitate spell casting.
He opened the carriage door and sprang out, not even bothering to rest one foot upon the step. He was too happy to be hesitant. Today was a day filled with optimism for the future.
As he turned around he held out one hand and helped the queen alight in a rather more graceful and elegant fashion.
“Oh, how quaint,” she said as she nimbly placed one foot on the step and stretched the other down to the floor. In one hand she held the king’s hand, while the other she rested against the side of the carriage, keeping her balance.
The king kept hold of her hand as they approached the door, and he rapped sharply using the wand-shaped knocker.
The door swung open.
A figure approached through the dimness of an unlit hallway, visible due to the contrastingly bright white of the long gown she wore. As she reached the doorway the king observed that the sense of ethereality was not an illusion. Her physical body seemed fragile, skin near translucent, hair long, blonde, and flyaway, as if whipped by an invisible wind. The fragility was only physical though. Her spirit shone through in an outwardly radiant smile. The Fairy Goodmother was beautiful in an undefinable way.
“Come in, come in,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly rich. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Well, we did make an appointment, the king thought but did not say.
They both followed her down the hallway, the king walking between the Fairy Goodmother and his wife. They passed through rooms so filled with furniture, objects, and art there was no time to note the details of any one thing. When they reached the back of the house they were led into a conservatory and over towards a small wicker table surrounded by matching chairs.
The king held out a seat for his wife, and resisted the instinct to do the same for the other lady in the room. He somehow didn’t think she would appreciate him entering her space. An aura, although not visible, surrounded her.
“Tea?” she inquired politely. The queen nodded, and the king followed suit. The Fairy Goodmother poured the steaming liquid into china cups, beautifully illustrated with pink and yellow flowers before commencing the interview. “So you’ve come about your soon to be first-born child?”
“Yes, we’ve heard that if a satisfactory agreement can be reached you will place a blessing of our choosing on the baby when it is born,” the queen said, raising her teacup and pursing her lips to blow ripples across the surface before sipping.
“I’ll even tell you the sex of the child free of charge if you like,” said the Fairy Goodmother with a smile. “What sort of blessing were you thinking of? In the olden days people used to ask for beauty or wealth, simple things like that. Nowadays people are so much more specific, more exacting. They want things like for their child to become a famous knight, defeating a dragon in battle, without suffering any injury, in order that they might rescue a virgin damsel in distress and discover the dragon’s hoard of treasure, containing at least one thousand gold pieces…” The Fairy Goodmother paused for breath. “And while all that is possible, it’s vastly trickier and consequently expensive.”
The king and queen looked at her wide-eyed.
“We want our child to find true love.” The queen had her hands clasped together, as if in prayer.
“Before he or she is thirty,” the king said.
“That’s all,” they finished.
The Fairy Goodmother raised a long finger and thumb, both tipped with sparkly nail polish, to her chin. “True love is never ‘that’s all’, but it is one of my favourite blessings.”
She gave a shake of her hand, and a piece of paper appeared in it. “My fee,” she said holding the paper out.
The queen reached out and took it. She scanned the words written on it and passed it over to the king. They looked at each other, communicating silently, no telepathy involved, just good old understanding of what the other would be thinking.
The queen passed the paper back to the Fairy Goodmother. “You have a bargain, six months from each of our natural lifespans to enhance your own is a small price to pay for our child’s happiness.”
“Be certain. There is no going back when the deal is struck.”
“We are certain.” The queen didn’t even look to her husband again before she spoke.
“Very well, I will collect on your promise now, and when the baby is born I will attend the naming ceremony to bless the child. Did you want to know the sex?”
The queen shook her head. “It is of no consequence to us. The child will be well loved so that it in turn may know how to love others, and that is all that matters.” She looked down as the king rested a hand on the significant bump that was her belly only to have it pushed away. “The baby is signalling its agreement,” she said with a small laugh.
The Fairy Goodmother did not return the gesture. A frown passed across her face, her beauty turned serious. “We will have to make a slight change. Due to how close you are to giving birth I will be unable to collect payment from you, dear lady.”
“No, you agreed,” the queen said, shifting anxiously on her seat. “Can we not make payment after the birth?”
The Fairy Goodmother spoke calmly, addressing the queen. “No, but do not fear. It just means I will need to take full payment from your husband.”
“That wasn’t what we just agreed.”
“Fine,” the king said, his tone of voice leaving no room for discussion, accompanied as it was by a stern look directed at each lady in turn. “Let’s do it now.”
Standing, the Fairy Goodmother cast a shadow, blocking out the warmth of the sun that had fallen on the king and queen as they sat and negotiated. The room became noticeably colder. “You will need to stand and let me place my hand upon your heart,” she said to the king.
“Will it hurt?” the queen asked, her voice not much louder than the shaky breath that followed.
“No, it will not hurt. A mild sensation, a buzzing warmth as energy transfer
s is all that will be felt.”
The king might have been worried, except there was no trace of avarice upon the Fairy Goodmother’s face, just goodwill.
He stood still, his arms hanging at his sides, waiting.
The touch of her hand when it came was delicate, barely felt through the waistcoat and shirt he wore. He felt his heart begin to race, but didn’t know if it was because he was anxious or if it was part of the magic.
When he felt a slight tingling he knew for certain the magic was beginning. There was pressure but no pain. The muscles around his ribcage tightened. He felt his whole chest move with every heartbeat. For a second he wondered if he might be sick. There was that sense of nausea reaching further up his body than his stomach. It passed as his head cleared, and he realised that his vision had become blurry only when he moved his focus away from the face of the Fairy Goodmother.
“It is done,” she said.
“Carlton, are you all right?” the queen asked, her hand reaching to grip the king’s arm tightly.
“I’m fine,” he said, convincing himself as he spoke. “Let’s return to Lerrendor and the castle. I may join you when you rest this afternoon.”
The Fairy Goodmother said nothing else of importance as they departed, but she did smile and wave, wishing them good luck with the birth, before quickly assuring them they would not need good luck as all would be well and she would be seeing them soon.
****
Thirty Years Later
Adrianna Estelle was dying, and she knew it. Her magic was failing, and no amount of borrowed energy was going to sustain her for more than a few additional weeks now. Nearly five hundred years had been good going. Long enough to make her forget she was not in fact immortal, merely living on borrowed time.
Purchased time, that really she had an obligation to complete payment for. It was just that there was so much debt, all building up. Blessings that had been placed years ago, that only now needed magic to fulfil.
She drew the lace blanket she wore more tightly around her shoulders as she sat swinging back and forth in the hanging chair she’d had installed in her conservatory a few years ago. She always felt the cold these days. Her feet were tucked underneath her to try to keep them warm. The stripy socks were not enough.
In her lap lay a bundle of papers, as of this moment all of them blank, the rough surface of the handmade paper taunting her. What difference did it make if she lived five more weeks or just one? She would have to write the cards, invest them with as much magic as she could summon from bones that had lost their integrity, and send them out into the ether, to the furthest corners of the world she lived in and perhaps beyond if need be, hoping that they might complete her unfulfilled blessings. Even a Fairy Goodmother, who had never really believed she might die, craved a good death it seemed.
Chapter One
Prince Wilhelm was sick of having women paraded before him. He might have felt differently on the matter if he was choosing whom to bed for the night. The reality was he was looking for a wife, and, though there were eligible women of many different natures and appearances, none of them really appealed. He was also supposed to be falling in love with his prospective bride, and that certainly hadn’t happened at what was now, for most of them, at least third or fourth sight.
They had hair like spun gold, voices as sweet as any blackbird’s song, and yet none of them had said anything that captured his imagination. There was no connection. No spark of magic.
Outside the castle walls a storm raged as if the elements felt his inner agitation and mirrored it in a physical outpouring of lashing rain and howling gales. Many of the guests had left early on this, the twelfth night of feasting during the prince’s search for his true love.. Others would need to stay the night, and Wilhelm could see his mother busily directing the servants to make all ready.
His father, sitting next to him, indulged freely in the wine and meat laid out before them. Leaning in towards Wilhelm he angled his head and spoke softly by Wilhelm’s ear. “Surely there must be one here tonight that that you could fall in love with. They are all fine ladies. Any would make you a fitting princess. Some would provide fine alliances, not that that is of any consequence. Do you not feel even the possibility of love for any of them?”
“They are fine indeed, Father. I do not know what it is they lack. I just know that if I am to bind myself to another for life I wish to feel something more than a passing fancy, something more than an appreciation for their finer qualities or an awareness of the political benefits the marriage might bring.” Wilhelm crumbled a broken off crust between his fingertips and thumb as he spoke. “I want the true love I was promised, not to settle for less because the Fairy Goodmother is dead and her magic failed. Or, at the very least the belief that love will grow in time between myself and my chosen wife.”
At the reminder of how the prince had been cheated of his destiny a look of anger passed briefly across his father’s face. Not for the first time Wilhelm wondered what his mother and father had sacrificed for a blessing from the Fairy Goodmother. They would not tell him, and he had given up asking after becoming an adult. “I will still find love, Father. I may just have to wait a little longer. There is still plenty of time for me to sire an heir after all. Maybe fate will succeed where magic and mother’s planning with these celebrations has failed.”“Passion, my son, you need to feel passion for them as I do for your mother.”
Indeed the whole castle was used to seeing its king and queen display signs of affection for each other.
“Passion, yes, but not just lust. I want us to be comfortable with each other in all aspects of our life, like you and Mother also are. How can I possibly judge on such short acquaintance when all they see of me is my inheritance?” Wilhelm also had concerns he didn’t voice to his father.
He wanted someone with whom he could be himself. It was a little difficult to judge who might be accepting of his darker passions in the bedroom when the only place he saw these women was in the ballroom. He had always imagined his true love would accept all parts of him.
He didn’t want a bride he would scare witless, and he wasn’t inclined towards infidelity. It wouldn’t be fair to hide his true nature from his wife, either to her or to himself.
“Perhaps this night will give you greater opportunity to observe the ladies you might choose from. Give you time to see their real characters, the parts of themselves they keep hidden. Love often lurks in the most secret parts of people just waiting to be seen and set free. Staying away from home and circumstance may reveal more of people’s true nature, or at the very least how they respond to the unfamiliar.”
The last of his father’s words were nearly drowned out by the sounds of commotion echoing through the outer corridors surrounding the great hall. Footsteps chased down the stone floors, and a banging could be heard as something was repeatedly pounded against the wooden door of the castle.
Wilhelm uncrossed his legs and lifted his body away from where it had been cradled by the cushions nestled in the back of his chair. Sitting up straight he looked towards the open doors through which any visitor would enter the great hall.
It was late in the evening, and no more guests were expected.
After a few moments, when no more sounds could be heard coming from outside the room and noise and activity had once more resumed around him, Wilhelm leapt up from his seat and stalked from the room.
He headed quickly past the grand staircase, which stretched wide enough to fit four men abreast. It also climbed farther than the eye could see at a glance.
As he approached the large entrance hall at the front of the castle he could see a group gathered, his mother and a handful of servants blocking his view of whatever was the focus of everyone’s attention. As soon as he was close enough, he peered over them. At four inches over six foot he was by far the tallest inhabitant of the castle, so looking over presented no problem.
A waif. They were all crowded round a bedraggled waif, huddled
under a blanket that one of the servants must have fetched. This poor urchin was lucky to have reached their castle in the midst of the storm. Most people seeking shelter would head for one of the town inns down the hill.
In fact, how had such a tiny figure found the strength to knock so loudly against the castle door?
He took a step closer, pushing past the bodies gathered in front of him. As he did so he noticed a horse shoe lying discarded on the floor. Ah, that answered that question then. He bent down to retrieve it.
As his eyes lifted from the floor a blur of motion signalled something heading in the opposite direction to his rising gaze. Acting on instinct he reached out his arms and caught the weight of the form that fell towards him. He juggled the body and rose with it cradled against his chest.
It was no boy. The slight physique belonged to that of a young woman. A very beautiful young woman.
As she had fallen the blanket covering her head had slipped down her body, revealing her hair. What seemed to be an endless plait of dark silk now hung down to the floor. It looked incredibly thick, and as Wilhelm studied the weave of hair he saw that the braid had been folded back on itself. The true length would be twice as long as that already hanging down to the floor. Extraordinary!
Who was this beautiful woman?
He gazed upon her face. She had high cheekbones, a straight nose, and wide lips. The latter were dry and cracked from the cold, a worrying shade of blue tingeing the edges.
“Where is the nearest room with a fire?” Wilhelm asked his mother, not looking at her but rather the woman he held as he watched for the soft rise and fall of her chest that would indicate she was still breathing.
He gave a rough exhale himself when he saw the small movement.
