by Plum Pascal
“And how do you know she’s one of the Ten?”
“Rumors are… spreading. The only… reason you haven’t… heard them is because… you’re isolated here.”
“Then you don’t even know this to be true? You’re basing it all on rumors?” he demands.
“You’re a fool,” I whisper. “Morningstar will set… sights on you next. If you… don’t give the Ambrosia to us, he’ll… take it for himself. We—the Guild—are the… only reason he didn’t pursue… you more ardently… during the last war—because he… was too busy trying… to decimate our armies.”
“Perhaps,” Leith says, a bitter smile twisting that handsome face into something just a little less pretty. Suddenly, I can see the weight of years on his frame, years of bitter hardship and disappointment. “Perhaps I’ll get lucky and your so-called champions will put in an appearance before it becomes an issue, eh? But without the prophecy of the Champions proving true, you are little more than a band of believers.” He pauses and takes a drink of his wine. “And that’s not enough for me.”
We fall silent, and he starts eating his now thoroughly shredded roll, dunking the salvageable chunks in the raspberry glaze. I slump in my chair, stewing as he finishes his dinner. The walls of my full stomach are stretched uncomfortably against the bodice of this fucking corset, and nausea threatens to bring the whole meal back up again.
I stand, when it appears the conversation isn’t going to resume. “I’ve had enough,” I say.
“You’ve barely eaten.”
“I can barely… breathe in this… fucking outfit!”
He looks at me and chuckles. “I must admit, I do prefer you in your trousers. It’s easier to see the swells of your ass.”
I ignore the comment and the way it makes me want him even more than I currently do. Instead, I cast him one final look. “You should… have more faith. The… Champions are coming… I know it.”
“I don’t put stock in miracles, Goldilocks. Diminishing returns and all that.”
“Maybe that’s… exactly what… you should do,” I insist. “Expect… miracles because… without them, what’s… the point of living?”
His face is as blank as a winter sky. I can’t explain why, but I don’t want to leave him with things the way they are between us. He’s a good man and he’s a good king. He just is stubborn. But, he’s also been kind to me and I don’t want to overlook his kindness. Were it up to Nash, I’d be dead by now… probably.
I approach Leith and he looks up at me in question. When I reach him, I lean in and give him a chaste kiss on his cheek. His hands seize my biceps and he pulls me to him. Without my powers, I’m only as strong as the average woman my age. I can’t resist him. And the truth is, I don’t want to resist him. I savor the warm slide of his mouth over mine. A sort of feminine pride swells in my chest when I feel his hardness pressed against my thigh. I’ve never had a man want me. It’s strangely gratifying.
I break the kiss after several seconds, and he allows me.
“I’m tired… and I can… barely breathe in… this fucking thing,” I say as I glance down at the dress.
He chuckles.
“Will… you think about… what I’ve said?” I ask.
“Yes, Goldilocks, I will.”
I nod and then start for the door. I’m not sure where I’m going to sleep—if I’ll have my own room? Hopefully one of the maids will be able to tell me.
Regardless, I have to get the Ambrosia, even if I selfishly condemn the bears to take part in a war they want to avoid. Too much is at stake. Leith will see reason, eventually. And if he doesn’t, that’s on him.
I stride out the wide set of doors, feeling his heated stare on my back.
EIGHT
Sorren
The little bird preoccupies my thoughts more often than not these days.
I frown down balefully at the jumble of gears and wires in my hand. What a great pile of troll toss this project is shaping up to be. I’m never going to finish the device at this rate, not while she dominates my thoughts so thoroughly. Such a tiny thing to cause such a stir. Even in my human form, I can crush her easily.
I smile a little to myself at the thought. She has a body meant to take pain. I’m eager to see how much of it she can take.
Leith and Nash will never allow me to hurt her though. Not until she does something unforgivable. They’re both too attached to the little dove. Even Nash, who won’t admit as much, even to himself. But when I get my turn in the Rite of Three, I will see to it that she learns the line between pain and pleasure.
She’ll jump, gasp, possibly scream when I drip molten candle wax down the contour of her back. Her pale, creamy skin could pinken so nicely beneath a cane. She’ll get the lashing Nash promised beneath a crop. Perhaps, if I can manage it, she’ll feel the sting of ginger root in that pert little ass of hers. All while my cock pumps in and out of her tight wetness.
I set the mass of gears and wires onto the long, unvarnished workbench that dominates one wall of my little lair. Leith has gifted me many trinkets, hoping to keep me locked away with my books and experiments, instead of mingling with people. He’s ashamed of me. Ashamed of what I’ve become. And, because of what transpired with Vita, I can’t even bring myself to feel anger at his scorn.
I know what I am, what I’ve become. And Leith isn’t wrong for hating me.
There’s nothing inside this hollow chest except cold. Nothing can change that now.
The lair truly is enormous, as large as any cathedral built for that newfangled religion coming out of Wonderland these days. The Church of the Seven Joys. It’s hogwash, plain and simple. Everything that comes from Wonderland is poppycock or madness. Still, I have to admire the craftsmanship of their buildings. High, vaulted ceilings, not unlike this place, but built with steel and glass instead of craggy stone.
Many would consider me mad, I suppose. I no longer operate strictly along the strange mores and etiquette by which humans and shifters live their drab, little lives. I see no need for it any longer. But it’s not insanity that plagues me. Not like the March Hare, Hattie, or even that damnable cat who pops in every now and then to pester me. He seems to enjoy the experiments I’ve done on mice. At least, that’s what he says.
No, my disease is too clear-cut and dispassionate to be true madness.
When I step out of the lair, it’s evening. The sky burns with a million spheres of white light. It’s theorized by some astronomers that the heavens are bitterly cold; I would very much like to find out if such is true.
Winter winds whip my hair into my face and the cold worms its way past my coat, easily cutting through the shirt and jerkin. I shrug both off and stride into the wind. Cold doesn’t bother me much anymore. It simply brings my outside level with the temperature of my inside.
I’m going to find her and, somehow, I will convince her to agree to the Rite of Three. I need to have time alone with that comely body. It’s strange, really, that she should compel me so. I haven’t felt the stirrings of sexual desire in a long while.
No, it’s not sexual desire I feel. It’s fascination—desire is too warm an emotion. Still, no female has held my attention for long since the incident. I fuck, on occasion, if I find my mind too full. Release has a clarifying effect on my overburdened head.
Will this obsession clear when I’ve fucked the little dove? I can only hope so. I have designs I must tend to, and she’s impeding them. And that angers me.
It’s a mile walk to the castle, and another mile to wind my way to Leith’s room—the one he sleeps in. The chieftain of our clan has more rooms than he knows what to do with. Silly really.
As regards Leith, he’s had her, with his fingers and tongue at the very least. I’ve caught wind of the gossip on my brief forays to the castle for supplies.
I’m pleased to hear it. She seems to like him, for some reason I can’t fathom. Still, it opens the door to the possibility she’ll agree to fuck Nash and me.
Bu
t when I arrive at Leith’s room, I don’t find either of them inside. I do find that the clever dove has fashioned a rope from the bedsheets and anchored it to the hooks that hold the drapes back.
A chilly smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. Clever female. Her persistence is quite amusing. Totally futile, but amusing, all the same.
I balance on Leith’s window ledge. He prefers quarters near the ground floor, so it’s only a piddling four-story drop. It barely rattles my bones when I hit the ground. Raising my head, I sniff the air and find the warm waft of her scent lingering like perfume. Her fear is a sweet aroma.
I follow the trail around the side of the fortress, expecting it to veer toward the wall. Instead, it loops around twice, wandering toward the edge of the garden, around our factories, the small school building on the periphery of the compound and then back again. My face breaks into a genuine smile. Oh, she’s clever, using our noses to keep us spinning in circles while she conducts whatever business she’s up to now.
She can’t fool me, though. I find her new trail eventually. It’s muted, yes, but still detectable. She’s scrubbed herself thoroughly in one of our fountains, erasing the sweat from her skin, the musk of fear and arousal she’s feeling even now. I doubt Nash or Leith will pick up on it. The scent of their own anger or anxiety will cloud her subtle aroma. Not an issue I have to deal with, thank the Gods.
If they, in fact, exist.
I locate her in the small rectangular building that hides in the shadow of the castle’s west side. She’s found the aviary. The calls of the doves therein sound weary, even to my ears. She murmurs gently to one as I approach.
“Come on… stick out… your leg for me,” she says and I can tell by her speech that something’s off about her. It’s then that I spot the necklace. Leith has disarmed her of her powers, how interesting. I actually prefer her when she could put up more of a fight.
“I know… you’re tired,” she continues, addressing the bird who blinks up at her in confusion. “But it’s important.”
The sooty gray dove obligingly extends its leg and allows her to attach a message to it with a piece of twine. I lean against the doorway, my bulk barely squeezing through. I make an effective door, caging her in with the birds. It’s fitting. A little goldfinch among doves, so much smaller and fragile than she believes herself to be.
“They can’t talk back, you know,” I say dryly. “This isn’t Wonderland.”
The little dove lets out a breathless squeak and rounds on me, hand slipping into the folds of her gray dress. It’s the uniform of a servant, but I quite like it on her. The bodice lifts her modest breasts and the neckline highlights them to their best advantage. I want to bite the swell of flesh, mark her with my blunt human teeth as a signal to other males that she’s mine.
But Leith shall be quite angry if I do that, so I stay my desire.
Her eyes go round in her face and she backs away from me. Her fear doubles, the scent of it filling the interior of the aviary. My cock twitches. Pretty, pretty goldfinch doesn’t want to play. I’ll have to convince her otherwise.
I rip the message from the dove’s leg, without injuring the beautiful creature. I’m the only one who comes here, to feed the birds and talk with them. They know I won’t hurt them—it’s the reason why they all fly towards me as soon as I walk in.
I unroll the small piece of parchment and read: “Dear Neva, I’m trapped in the werebear fortress near Delorood. Please send help if you can. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last. K.”
When I look back at her, she’s pulled a cleaver from the inner folds of her dress. I smirk. Oh yes, I like this feisty little bird. Not a shy squeaking mouse, this one.
“Who is Neva?” I ask as she watches the birds circle me and come to land on my shoulders as they’re wont to do when I feed them. Unfortunately, I haven’t any of their birdseed with me at the moment. “And why have you signed your name with a K?”
“None of your… fucking business, asshole,” she growls, eyes glaring at me, even as she struggles to catch her breath.
I smile. “It is my business. You are our prisoner, little dove. We can’t have you pleading for rescue, now can we?”
I rip the parchment in two. She makes a small sound of protest in the back of her throat but says nothing as I let the scraps fall to the floor.
“Why do… you keep… dragging this out?” she whispers. “I’m not… going to give… myself to… any of you.” She takes a breath. “I’d rather… fucking die.”
I take a lazy step forward and she stiffens, backing as far as she can go, startling violently when her back hits the wall.
“Seems a silly choice?” I ask with a shrug. “Leith will treat you gently. Nash is more spirited, true, but he’s not cruel.”
“But you… are cruel,” she counters. “They’ve… told me… as much.”
I smile wanly. “Yes, they would be correct.” My eyes travel down her pert and luscious little body. “Your body is a canvas, little bird. Beautiful and unblemished. I want to mark it, want to teach you that pleasure and pain balance on a knife’s edge.”
“You get… the fuck away… from me,” she says, eyes blazing with emerald fire. There’s an underlying tremor in her voice. “I will… gut you like… a fucking trout, do… you understand?”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” I say.
She looks at me in confusion and I shrug off my coat, all the birds on my shoulders returning to their roost. I allow the heavy woolen garment to drop to the floor. Some poor maid will have to clean the hay and birdshit from it, but it’s not my concern at the moment. I strip off the shirt and jerkin next so she can get a good look at the ruin of my chest.
My front is crisscrossed with whip scars and brands from Vita’s torture. A horizontal line stretches across my navel, where they spilled my guts onto the floor. The wound was sealed since then, of course, but the scar is a livid pink to this day.
But the worst wound is on the left side of my chest, directly over my heart. It looks as though someone took a spoon and dug until they reached my ribs. The skin has barely closed over the bone, and it leaves my left side misshapen, damaged forever.
“Oh, Gods,” she breathes, taking an unconscious step forward. Her unoccupied hand flutters anxiously, as though she wants to touch me. I pull back. “What happened?”
“The war happened.”
Her brow furrows. “But... Leith said...”
“That we didn’t join the war? No. The werebear clan didn’t participate. I did.”
“You did?” she asks, eyeing me narrowly, as if searching for a lie. She won’t find one.
“Yes.”
“Why… would you join… our cause?”
“I wasn’t always… like this,” I answer with a shrug.
“That doesn’t… answer my question.”
I breathe in deeply. Even disarmed of her powers, she’s still so incredibly ornery. I like it. I like her. “It seemed the right thing to do.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I was a mere bastard, never to claim the leadership of the clan. My father warned me that if I ever left the clan, I’d be exiled. Stripped of any rank I’d achieved and left penniless. I left anyway.”
Pity washes over her face. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the expression from her. “I... I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “I’m not sorry. I can’t be, actually. Not after what Vita did.”
She shoves the knife back into the folds of her dress, keeping hold of the handle but apparently feeling confident enough to sheathe it for now. Those emerald green eyes rove over my chest, pity softening her entire face. If I were still the man I’d been then, her pity might anger me. But anger, like passion, is too warm an emotion for me to feel it now.
“The incident… that Leith… mentioned,” she murmurs. “He said… it wasn’t his… story to tell.”
“Ever honorable, Leith is,” I drawl. “Do you want to hear the tale?”
She n
ods mutely, eyes fixed on the divot gouged into my chest. I trace the puckered edges of it absently.
“On one condition,” I start.
“What?” she demands.
“I want to touch you,” I answer and I glance down to her thighs.
“No.”
“I won’t hurt you,” I say. “But if you want something… personal from me, I want something personal from you.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. I motion to the blade in her apron. “You can hold that to my throat, if you wish.”
“You won’t… try to fuck me?”
I shake my head but I can smell the proof of her arousal in the air. She wants me to touch her, much though she might say otherwise. “I want to feel you… the inside of you.”
“With what?”
“This finger,” I say and hold up the index finger of my left hand.
She reaches for the blade and pulls it out of her apron. I smile as I approach her. “I was captured in the war,” I begin as I reach forward and pull her dress up to her thighs. She holds the tip of the blade to my neck but I’m not worried. If I wanted to, I could rip the blade right out of her hands and break her in half. But, I don’t want to. “After my capture, I was taken to Morningstar’s camp,” I continue as I trace the line of her inner thigh until I reach the searing heat of her pussy. I brush my fingers across her undergarments and find them soaking wet.
“You’re wet,” I breathe onto her face.
She closes her eyes as I rub my fingers across that sensitive little nub.
“The story,” she moans.
“Ah, right.” I take a deep breath. “The bitch goddess, Vita, requested me to be her newest experiment,” I continue as I push her panties to the side and run my finger up and down her soaking wet cleft. She immediately throws her head back and moans. My cock is swollen and demanding but I won’t give it what it desires most. I promised her I would not.
“She tortured me for a fortnight and then,” I continue as I circle her opening with my finger and she rocks against me. “Look at me,” I demand when she closes her eyes.
They immediately pop open and grow wide as I push my finger into her ever so slowly. She’s so incredibly tight. “Mmm such a tight and wet little dove,” I breathe the words. She moans.
