The Beast Prince

by Marian Perera

  When it happened, the figure hadn’t moved, and she felt sure it was Marus. Apparently not doing anything, and she couldn’t imagine anyone from the town just standing in the rain.

  The lightning made the land look bleached and unreal. She couldn’t make out why he stood there, so close to the steep edge of the hill. If the rain loosened the ground to the point where it crumbled away beneath his feet…

  Was that why? A memory flashed across her mind—what Dr. McKay’s predecessor had done, leaving a note to say he couldn’t endure any more losses. Surely Marus hadn’t reached the end of his rope too.

  Oh, it had definitely been a mistake to think of rope.

  “Marus!” She didn’t want to say his name, but how else to attract his attention? She could hardly yell “Hey, you!” and his title stuck in her throat. Naturally, the thunder rumbled and drowned her voice.

  She hurried down the stairs, though she was careful to keep her footing: a broken leg wouldn’t help either of them. Then she took a lantern, though her rifle stayed dry and safe inside. She’d walked through a waterfall by the time she reached the gate. Rain streamed into her eyes and trickled through her hair like cool fingers.

  She stopped within the gate and called out again, but there was no reply. In the near-darkness she wasn’t even sure Marus was there, and she set off blindly with the lantern held before her, until she bumped into him and stepped back fast.

  “What are you doing?” She tried not to make it sound like an accusation. This was the kind of situation she dreaded; difficult enough keeping people safe without trying to protect them from themselves.

  “I thought I’d walk in the rain.” Marus sounded mildly surprised she’d needed to ask. When his head dipped and then straightened, it was clear his gaze had just traveled over her from face to foot. “You’re getting wet.”

  For a moment Kat had no idea what to say. It was a relief he wasn’t suicidal, but what now? Go back in as though nothing had happened, leaving him alone?

  “And you’re not?” she said. He was thoroughly soaked; stitches had to be kept dry, but perhaps he was enough on the mend for it not to matter now. “Why are you walking in the rain?”

  “Never done it before, thought I could use a wash, thought I might like it, and couldn’t see anything bad happening as a result, unless your Farlander assassins are mad enough to be out in this weather.”

  “Oh, you think it’s the Farlanders you have to worry about? I don’t give a damn if you’re struck by lightning, but if you catch a chill I’m not nursing you all over again. Get back inside.”

  She led the way, struggling to tamp down her annoyance, though she supposed the lantern swaying in jerky arcs from her fingers gave her away. He followed her, and they left a trail of water all the way to the dining room, by which time she was chilled through. She sat on the bench closest to the fire and pulled her boots off before she stood and unlaced her jerkin.

  Marus came over to the fireplace, undoing the buttons of his shirt. She hadn’t thought to bring oilskins, because it had never occurred to her that any sane person would stroll about in a storm. He’d thought he would like it, he’d said. She pulled off her jerkin, wondering if he had.

  Probably. He enjoyed everything that came his way, from fine tribute to an unexpected fall of rain. Whereas she was so busy with her duties, or preoccupied with planning for the future, that she rarely paused for moments of sheer self-indulgence.

  She turned to tell him to undress before he caught a cold. The words stopped in her throat. He looked at her as he’d done when they’d stood in the rain together, his gaze moving slowly over her, and she knew her shirt clung to her skin. She felt every inch of the fabric against her breasts as if they were as sensitive as a fingertip, and her nipples, hard already from the cold, tightened even more. They ached where the wet cloth of her shirt rubbed against them.

  Water trickled down between her breasts, but that time it was as warm as if she’d sunk into a steaming bath.

  An urgent need sang through her body until it gathered between her legs, throbbing strong as a pulse. And worst of all, she couldn’t look away from him. His shirt was a second skin, hiding nothing, and his bare chest gleamed wet in the firelight, muscles standing out in hard ridges. Though not as hard as the shape of his erection, pushing against his trousers.

  She lifted her head, unable to believe she’d actually looked, and yet when she dared to meet his not-eyes again, there was no amusement or mockery in his face. Only desire, and that too felt unreal, as if the rain had washed away everything except the two of them in that room.

  Of course, if none of this was real, it didn’t matter what she said or did.

  “You should take those clothes off.” Her voice was hushed. “They’re wet.”

  It was the most practical, ordinary thing she could have said, and it made him smile. “If you like,” he said. “Help me.”

  She moved closer before she could think twice, lifting her hands to peel his shirt off—except his hand came up as well, his fingers beneath her chin, raising her face enough for his mouth to find hers. And then she gripped his shirt to hold on, because she was leaning against him. He kissed her with a ruthless hunger, tasting and taking, and the world swam dark and trembling around her as she kissed him back.

  She didn’t realize he’d backed her towards the furs until he put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her down. Before she could do more than gasp, she was sprawled on the furs. He lowered himself to a knee and she grabbed his shirt to pull him down. Cloth tore under her fingers, but she didn’t care, not when she felt his body on hers, heavy and hard. Her skin was cooled by rain, but where his mouth touched, she thought it would scorch her.

  She yanked off what was left of his shirt and spread her fingers against his shoulders, ran her nails down his back. He worked a hand between their bodies and undid the buttons of her trousers one by one.

  Those were a man’s fingers slowly stripping her, the muscles of a man’s back tensing as she teased them with her nails. That was a man’s erection hard and hot against her, and how she wanted it. If she kept her eyes closed, nothing would shatter the illusion, so she did that, all the rest of her body utterly responsive to what he wanted, what they both needed. She lifted her hips to let him tear both her trousers and panties down at the same time, pulling them off. Strong fingers closed around her wrist and drew her hand to the front of his pants.

  She worked the buttons free, though not in the leisurely way he’d undressed her. It wasn’t just that she burned for him. It was that the longer they waited, the more likely the illusion would burst like a bubble. The more likely he was to notice her eyes were shut. She slid her hand into his trousers, fingers wrapping around the swollen heat of his erection to draw it out.

  “Please—” she whispered.

  That was all she had time to say before he spread her legs wide with his own. The tip of his cock touched her and then he thrust in, parting and filling her in one smooth implacable thrust, sheathing himself in her. Lights flared before her eyes.

  He went still on top of her. She tried to shift, to arch her hips and push back, to relieve the ache of being filled so completely, stretched around him. She might as well have tried to move a mountain, and she bit back a whimper as he kissed the soft hollow behind her collarbone.

  “You’re getting wet,” he said, his voice rough. That time she moaned, helpless to stop herself. And as if to reward her for that, he began to move, drawing back and thrusting in again, deeper than before. Over the crackle of flames and the faraway pelt of rain, she heard the slick soft pull of her flesh against his, and his harsh breathing as he worked her.

  A hot prickling sensation ran up her legs. She clung to him, moving with him now, everything in her drawing tight around his cock, and then he bent his head to suck greedily on the place where her neck and shoulder joined.

  The tightness
released in wrenching spasms that slammed into her, one after another as relentless as the way he rode her, no time to recover. She fought for breath, lost it in a cry, and shuddered beneath him before her flesh clenched around him for the last time and he groaned, the sound muffled in her shoulder and heat spilling deep within her.

  He pressed a last kiss to the throbbing spot he’d sucked, and then slid off her, panting and sated.

  Aftershocks rippled through her flesh as he withdrew, but what made her shiver wasn’t the echoes of pleasure, or the coldness of her wet shirt. If her eyes hadn’t already been closed, she would have wanted to sew the lids together like a dead person’s. She didn’t want to see him again, or for him to see her. As if everything she’d known about the Princes wasn’t enough, she’d learned at least one of them had used women for a vile purpose. She’d allowed Marus to rut her on the floor anyway, her body still trembling with the passion they’d shared.

  And it wasn’t enough. She wanted him all over again, on her, in her as if he belonged there, pleasuring her even as he possessed her.

  Act normally. Act as if everything is normal, and it’ll be like this never happened.

  She sat up and found her trousers. They were wet, and she’d just have to take them off again before she could sleep, but she didn’t want to be naked in front of him a moment longer. She stuffed her panties into a pocket, rose on still-unsteady legs and yanked her trousers up; they clung and fought her, but she won. Not bothering to button them, she strode over to her jerkin and picked it up, holding it before her in a way she desperately hoped looked casual.

  Then and only then did she allow herself to meet Marus’s eyes. He sat with one knee drawn up, his arm resting on it, and if anything, he looked far more casual than she felt. Except for the alert, intent way he watched her.

  “Sleep well,” she said, and let herself out. She couldn’t get into the barracks quickly enough.

  Chapter Ten

  Marus stripped off the rest of his wet clothes. That had been unexpected. No other woman had been in such a hurry to leave his bed, or what passed for it.

  Then again, he’d never known a woman quite like Kat. He dried off in front of the fire, spread another fur before that and lay down.

  He would have given a great deal not to be so drawn to her, especially after she’d shut him out by not even looking at him. He would have given even more to have her back in the room, because what they’d done had been nowhere near enough for him.

  But it wasn’t likely to happen again. They’d both been taken by surprise, giving in to desire before their better sense—or her hatred and fear of his kind—could surface. He told himself that once he regained his earth form somehow, he’d go back to having his pick of women and wouldn’t need her any longer, but he had a feeling that even if those other women were strong and lean-limbed, they wouldn’t have her dark eyes. And they certainly wouldn’t have her ability to stand up to him, not if he had his earth form.

  He couldn’t help smiling a little, though, because this time she hadn’t responded to him because she was afraid of him or needed his protection. This time it had been because she’d wanted him.

  He finally slept. When he woke, the rain had given way to light that looked subdued, as if part of the sun had been washed away in the downpour. Kat said nothing over breakfast, and it was clear she didn’t intend for last night to have made any impression. Though once the meal was done, he began to miss talking to her.

  “Are you all right?” It wasn’t the greatest conversational start he’d ever made, but it was the closest he could come to asking if she had any regrets.

  She nodded. “Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She finished the hot drink she’d poured for them: it was made from ground roasted roots and tasted bitter, but he supposed he no longer rated actual tea. “Nothing’s happened since we found the girl, and I keep expecting Ractane to come after her. I’m trying to think what we could do to prepare for it.”

  Well, that was one way to put him back in what she probably thought was his place. What had he expected her to say, that she couldn’t forget how they’d made love?

  So he shrugged. “We might never see him. The town is out-of-the-way, and if he has a harem, there are others to take her place.”

  Kat stacked their breakfast dishes. “But why would he want any of them?”

  She had a point, since a Prince raising mostly-human children made an incongruous picture. “I wondered that myself. We’re immortal—in earth form. We don’t need heirs. Or rivals, for that matter.”

  “I’m not sure they’d be rivals. From the look of that girl, she walked here—which she wouldn’t need to do if she could take earth form. If his children have no such power, they’re not his rivals.” A furrow appeared between her brows. “So either he’s having children out of sheer curiosity, or he gains some advantage. And he sure as hell doesn’t need an advantage over us, so it must be against you.”

  That one of his brothers wanted an advantage over the others was the most normal thing in the world; that a little girl might be used to do so was the exact opposite. “You think his children have something to do with my being like this?”

  “I don’t know. These are both unusual things, a Prince losing his power and another Prince having children. Just wondering if the two are connected, but I suppose it’s far-fetched.” She got up as if physically moving on to something different. “How’s your arm?”

  “Healing, I suppose.” Even in flesh form, the Princes tended to recover quickly, but Kat came to take a look and unwrap the bandages, while Marus tried to ignore her being so close. She smelled of rainwater and fresh straw, clean and earthy. He wanted to breathe her scent in deeply, fill himself with it.

  She was deft and impersonal as she wrapped linen around his arm, but she was gentle too, more so than he might have expected for hands rough-skinned and callused from work. He thought of how she’d touched him the previous night—not so gentle then, but he’d loved it. He felt faint scratches on his back, as if she’d marked him, and he hoped those didn’t heal fast at all.

  Damn it, he had to stop before he got hard again. To his relief she finished bandaging his arm, and he fetched more water; the cistern was almost full after last night. Kat mended the tear in his shirt, and over their midday meal, she suggested they could see to the rest of the outpost. “Clean out that pigsty of a kitchen,” she said, “mix mortar for the gaps in the walls, make new shutters. The place wouldn’t be so bad to live in if we made repairs.”

  Marus hoped that meant she’d be staying. Surely even a human wouldn’t be so altruistic as to put backbreaking work into a residence that would be turned over to someone else. Not that he was any expert when it came to humans. They’d been systematically decimated over the past thirty years, yet they weren’t eradicated from the land and at least some of them didn’t seem crushed by defeat. All they needed was a breathing space, and they got their hopes up again.

  Half of him wanted to tell her not to waste her sweat. The other half wanted to say he’d defend whatever she did. He managed to strike a middle ground and said he’d start on the kitchen after they ate.

  Except when he took the pots outside to scrub them with sand before she washed them, a shrill whistle sounded from a small human—little more than a child—who waited at the head of the trail, keeping some distance from him. The child whistled again, the sound loud and piercing.

  Kat hurried out, and Marus supposed the whistle meant news. He also guessed that if she wanted to tell him what had happened, she would, so he scoured the pots and waited, though it took a long time before she came back. Not with her usual brisk stride, but the way she’d first come to see him, walking to her execution.

  She sat on a bench as if her legs had given way. “The girl woke. She said Prince Ractane sent her to find you and ma
ke certain you weren’t able to take earth form. If you were, she had to absorb your power.”

  During the torturous weeks of his journey to the outpost, Marus had once stepped on a loose rock as he made his way down a slope. He still remembered the terror of solid ground moving underfoot, too fast for him to regain his balance until he slammed at speed into a boulder. That knocked his breath out, and left an agonizing nausea behind. He remembered the metallic taste of blood on his tongue.

  He felt more sickened now. It would never have occurred to him to be wary of a human, especially a little girl, or to be concerned a human could strike so deeply at him. The world had upended around him.

  “How?” he asked.

  “By having sex with you.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.” Marus wondered if the girl was still fevered; he’d seen unreal visions when he’d been ill, after all. “I bedded you and I sure as hell don’t feel any worse for it. I’ve had plenty of women. A man, too, and nothing’s ever—”

  “You took a man to bed?” Kat stared at him.

  “I wondered what it was like.” Actually, that was the reason he’d done a lot of things. “He was attractive and willing, so why not?”

  For the first time since she’d come back into the dining room, impending doom seemed forgotten. Instead, she leaned forward as if fascinated. “So what was it like?”

  “Not bad, but on the whole I prefer women.”

  “I suppose you were on top.”

  Marus grinned. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

  Her face went preoccupied, as if a lot of thought was happening behind it, and he wondered if she was picturing him naked with a man. Actually, Kat imagining him naked under any circumstances was very appealing.

  Then she brought her fist down on the tabletop hard enough to rattle the tin mugs. “Damn it, I was telling you how one of Ractane’s daughters could do this to you.”