The Academy Volume One

by Maxine Mansfield

  “This one you achieved after the tournament. The story was recounted all across the land for days. This one was from pulling a small child out of the way of a fast-moving cart. If it hadn’t been for you, he would’ve been killed. It was the hoof of one of the horses that caused this gash. The town’s people said you moved so fast you almost made it safely out of the horse’s path yourself. Almost, but not quite.”

  Lizbeth suddenly patted his knee and stood, effectively breaking the spell. “Well, that’s it, your only scars, husband. I’ve won, and I’ll be on my way now.”

  She turned as if to go, but he grasped her and spun her around. Adan schooled his expression. “Before you attempt to make a hasty retreat, my lady, I have just one more question for you. Which do you prefer to spend the night upon, the fur rug here in front of the fire, the bed across the room, or perhaps simply on top of my near-perfect body? Your words, not mine.” He chuckled.

  Lizbeth sputtered. “What do you mean spend the night upon? I won fair and square, Adan Hammerstrike. I can’t believe you would go back on your word.”

  “Oh, but you did not win, Lizard. I did.” Adan raised his left arm and made a production of pointing to faint but distinctive marks high on the fleshy underside. “You missed these.”

  Lizbeth shook her head. “Impossible. Don’t you realize how important you are? Everything you do, everything you say, everything you eat, even how often you have bodily functions is cataloged, studied, and not only reported, but also set in missives to my instructors to be passed onto me. This can’t be. Where and when did you get those?”

  Adan looked her straight in the eye and told her the simple truth. “From you.”

  The sound of Lizbeth’s gasp echoed off the walls. “I don’t understand? I didn’t, I never, I wouldn’t have.”

  Adan grasped her shoulders and pulled her into him. She fit nicely beneath his chin and against his heart. She belonged there. “I know you think I’m nothing more than a sword-wielding barbarian, but remember when I brought the rabbit to you? I really was just trying to impress you.” He slowly ran a hand up her back. “I had no idea he was a pet, Lizbeth, I swear I didn’t. When I placed Horatio’s limp body in your arms like a trophy, you screamed and dropped him. Then it appeared as if you were about to swoon, so I tried my best to catch you. You were beyond grief, though, and you latched so tightly onto my arm with your dainty hand and those razor sharp nails of yours you drew blood.”

  He slid his hand beneath the hem of her tunic until his fingers made contact with skin. Very warm skin. He tightened his embrace and rubbed his cheek against hers. “I never told anyone. I couldn’t take the chance you might be punished for causing bodily harm to the prince when it was more my fault than yours, so I didn’t get treatment for the wounds and they left scars.”

  Once more, he gazed into her confused hazel eyes. “I wasn’t wrong to kill the rabbit, Lizbeth. For rabbits are meant to be eaten. But if it makes you feel any better, to this day I’ve never hunted another for my own table, and I can’t bring myself to eat one. I really am sorry.”

  Adan tilted her chin until she had no choice but look him in the eye. “But being sorry doesn’t change the fact. You lost, and it’s time to pay up, wife.”

  She stiffened in his arms, but her eyes held his and her voice was clear and steady. “I’m ready, my lord. One request, though, if you don’t mind. Let it be on the rug below us please. The thought of your bed makes me…ill. I don’t…like dragons or the color white.”

  He nodded, and slowly, so as to not frighten her, Adan gently brushed his wife’s lips with his own.

  ****

  Fur, soft and warm, against her backside was Lizbeth’s first indication she was no longer standing. And the sight of her discarded tunic and traveling pants lying a scant few inches away on the floor, her second hint she was naked.

  Glancing into the shadowy, deep blue eyes of her barbarian prince of a husband, Lizbeth asked, “How?”

  It was the only word she got out before two very firm, warm, full lips met hers. The taste of need mingled with the scent of desire and wood smoke. His tongue flicked out and plundered the recesses of her mouth. Without thought or regret, she opened to him. Their lips took turns teasing and caressing as they stroked and delved. The very breath they took became one and the same.

  Lizbeth tried unsuccessfully to hold onto the memory that she detested this man. At the moment, however, all the reasons why eluded her.

  Time slowed and finally stopped as Lizbeth’s attention was drawn to goose bumps along the small of her back and down her spine. The pressure of each finger of Adan’s big hands pressed her closer into him, forging them into one being. She quivered, and warmth flowed through her, around her, and inside her. A warmth that grew to a level of heat she’d never known before. Her pussy hummed with it.

  He whispered against her skin and ripples of delight scampered to her toes. “What brings you pleasure, my lady?”

  She stilled in his arms, not sure what to say.

  He nuzzled her neck then nipped the very tip of her half-wood-elfin pointed ear. She shuddered as tingles of excitement scampered down her neck and across her shoulders before landing with a jolt in the pit of her belly.

  “What brings you pleasure? Tell me,” Adan whispered again.

  She didn’t know how to respond. She knew what brought him pleasure. After years of class after class on that particular subject alone, there was no way she couldn’t know. But her own pleasure? It had never been a priority. As a matter of fact, even thinking about it had been discouraged. Sex in all its forms was to serve only one purpose, to please Prince Adan Hammerstrike. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him whatever pleased him would please her when she realized she simply couldn’t. “I don’t know. It wasn’t important.”

  Lizbeth heard his sudden intake of breath and worried for a moment she’d given him yet another wrong answer. “It’s important to me.” The tips of his fingers grazed a nipple, and Lizbeth arched upward, seeking to maintain the exquisite contact. Adan chuckled. “Mmm, I see you like that. It’s a start.”

  He replaced his fingertips with his mouth and sucked, allowing his tongue to swirl around the pebbly hard nipple. Lizbeth had no control over the soft mewling sounds coming from her throat or the rhythmic throbbing that had begun deeper and much lower.

  When he broke contact, she almost cried out, but he chuckled again. “It seems you like that, too.”

  His words brought a smile to her face.

  Adan mumbled something against her skin as he made his way down her ribs and across her belly. She couldn’t pay attention to anything he said, though, as his tongue delved into her navel and the stubble of tomorrow’s beard lightly scratched and teased the skin right above the throbbing that had settled into a steady hum.

  Her entire body pulsed, matching her heartbeat and growing stronger and more persistent with every stroke of Adan’s chin against her skin. It was torment. It was wonderful.

  And then he parted her folds and captured her swollen clit between his teeth. The word wonderful took on a whole new meaning.

  Lights exploded behind her eyes and all sensation centered upon the small nodule. Lizbeth didn’t realize she’d wound her fingers in Adan’s hair and begun to rock. Her years of training disappeared, and all she knew was there was somewhere she needed to get and the only way to get there was with this man. Though she wasn’t so sure if she’d survive the journey.

  She heard herself beg him to stop because it was too much, then in the same breath, plead with him for more. She no longer recognized this stranger she’d become, and she didn’t care. Just when she thought nothing in all of Albrath could possibly feel better than his tongue upon the tender membranes of her pussy, Adan slid up her body and, in a single powerful thrust, entered her.

  Lizbeth couldn’t breath. He was big, oh, God Draka, he was big, and so very hard and hot. The pulsing of his cock deep within her core matched perfectly the combined beat of t
heir hearts.

  Then he moved, and the world tilted upside down.

  Slowly at first, then faster and faster, he rode. Lizbeth held on tightly as she chanced a glance into the eyes of her barbarian. The passion reflected in them gave her the courage to meet his thrusts with her own.

  She ground her hips hard against his with every downstroke and was rewarded with his quick intake of breath. She did it again with the upstrokes, and his eyes crossed in pleasure.

  Lizbeth smiled and was pleased when he offered a mischievous grin in response. Adan’s pace quickened, slowed, and then quickened again. She matched his cadence thrust for thrust, as if they were two halves of a whole coming back together.

  Then it happened. Not a slow building she could’ve prepared for, but an all-out implosion of such sweet, intense pleasure it brought tears to her eyes. Wave after wave of delightful spasms rolled through her.

  A moment later, she gloried in the hot essence and strength of Adan’s release as he plunged one last time deep within her, bellowed her name to the rafters, and then, with a shudder that racked his entire body, relaxed.

  Before her breath could slow, Adan flipped them until he was flat on his back with Lizbeth straddled on top of him. His cock was still buried deep within her. She started to rise, but he shook his head and held her in place. “Not yet, my lady. Lie upon me and allow me the pleasure of your body for a while longer.”

  Lizbeth sighed with satisfaction as she lay her head upon Adan’s chest and listened as the thump-thumping of his heart slowed to a normal cadence. She wrapped her arms about his sides and marveled at how strong-as-titanium muscles could feel so very soft to the touch. For the first time in a very long time, she belonged somewhere and to someone. The thought disturbed her more than it brought comfort.

  She rose just far enough to look Adan in the eye. “This doesn’t change anything, you know. I’m still leaving for the Academy in the morning.”

  He gently pressed her head close to his heart and wrapped his arms about her. “I know, my lady. I know.”

  Chapter Three

  She hadn’t slept more than a few moments all night. Lizbeth lay in the same position she’d been in for many turns of the hourglass. Yawning, she snuggled deeper into Adan’s embrace, the warmth of his arms about her and his breath against her hair a gentle reminder of what had transpired the evening before. Even his cock, now soft and snug against her belly, and the firmness of the rest of his body beneath her had become comforts she was not yet ready to give up.

  She didn’t want to move, although she knew she must. The very faintest streaks of light crossed the horizon and filtered through the window on the other side of the room. It was time to rise. Soon she must go.

  Lizbeth closed her eyes tight to ward off the coming of the dawn a few more moments. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She hated him, didn’t she? She’d been forced to live, breath, eat, sleep, and even pray for Adan Hammerstrike every day of her life for as long as she could remember. Getting up and walking away was supposed to be easy. This span of time before he became king was supposed to be her payoff for the hours, days, seasons, and years she’d spent living only for him.

  Why, then, did it feel as if she were running away from her destiny instead of rushing toward it?

  She didn’t even want to be his wife, did she? She wanted to be an enchantress, and she didn’t want it just a little bit, she wanted it more than anything in the whole of Albrath. It was her dream.

  Ever since she’d been a little girl and had found the old dusty tome full of wonderful spells while playing in the underbelly of her family’s small castle, becoming an enchantress had been all she’d dreamed of. The hope of one day being able to instill magic into ordinary objects and thus make them extraordinary was the one thing that had gotten her through the long years of never-ending Adan Hammerstrike classes with her sanity mostly intact.

  She shifted her weight and Adan stirred. Holding her breath so as not to awaken him, Lizbeth waited. A moment later, he grew still and relaxed. She didn’t wish him to wake. It would be easier to slip away in the space of a few grains of sand if he remained asleep. The thought didn’t bring her much comfort.

  Why weren’t things ever as simple as they should be? The marriage contract had been so straightforward. On the twenty-first anniversary of her birth, she was to become the bride of Prince Adan Hammerstrike, and when he became king, it was her responsibility to be his queen and give him an heir.

  The time between her birthday and his coronation was never covered so, to Lizbeth’s way of thinking, it was her own to do with as she pleased. It was her time to finally be on her own and not have to answer to anyone but herself. Not her brothers, not her Hammerstrike-class instructors, not Adan himself, and, most of all, not his mother Queen Allanna Zanlynn Calista Hammerstrike or those loyal to her.

  Lizbeth shivered, though she wasn’t cold.

  Adan stirred once more, his cock thickening against her belly as his lips grazed the top of her head. “If I’m not keeping you warm enough, my lady, I’d be happy to retrieve the coverlet or a fur or warm you in other ways.” He lifted her slightly and rotated his hips until his cock slipped inside her pussy as if seeking where it was meant to be.

  She smiled against his skin as she squirmed. “Oh, no, you don’t. Take that thing out and go back to sleep, Barbarian. It’s too early, I’m much too tender, and I’m plenty warm just as I am.”

  But Lizbeth couldn’t help herself as she giggled at his antics and tried to pull away.

  In a single motion, Adan rotated them until she was once more beneath him. He slid his cock out then slowly buried himself within her pussy once more, growing larger and harder with every passing second. “I’ll be as gentle as a barbarian can be, my lady. I promise.

  “If you truly don’t wish this,” he whispered against her ear, “or really are too tender for my attention, just say the word and I swear, I’ll stop. Though as I’ve no doubt you know, I am used to getting my way.” He slid out again until just the very tip of his cock remained inside, and then quickly plunged back in, all the way in, and stilled.

  Lizbeth moaned, though certainly not from pain, as heat and sweet pleasure infused her to the bottoms of her feet. Her toes curled of their own accord as all thoughts of the past and promises and dreams and classes were forgotten, replaced with a need for this man to once more move within her. Pressure built from the inside out, and all that existed in Albrath was her body and Adan’s, joined together.

  She opened her eyes and watched him watching her, waiting for her answer. She couldn’t help but smile when he winked and grinned. He truly was magnificent, this barbarian husband of hers. From his golden, bedraggled hair, hanging in his ever-changing, deep blue eyes, to his aristocratic nose, full lips made for kissing, and strong cleft chin, he was every inch a prince.

  Lizbeth lifted her hips, ground them against his pelvis, and was rewarded with his eyes closing and his nostrils flaring. Still, he held himself rigid, the strain of his effort showing in the creases of his forehead. She was humbled by his tenderness.

  Lifting her face the short distance between them, Lizbeth brushed his lips lightly with hers. “Perhaps I’m not so very tender, after all, and I’ve merely allowed you to believe you’re the one getting your way when, in fact, it’s my bidding you are doing.”

  She wasn’t sure if she heard his sigh of relief or felt it against her skin as his body began to move. Over and over, his cock powerfully thrust in and out of her pussy, and she strove to match his rhythm.

  His lips found a particularly sensitive spot on the side of her neck and nuzzled while his fingers teased an already firm nipple to complete alertness. Spirals of pleasure leapt from every area he touched and pooled in the very core of her being until Lizbeth could do little more than hold onto Adan and breathe.

  Faster and deeper, he thrust, and even the act of breathing was forgotten as what had begun as a steady, throbbing need where their bodies met morphed i
nto an all-out necessity, essential for her continued existence.

  She knew herself truly lost when she gazed into his eyes and begged, “Please, Adan, fuck me fast. Fuck me hard.”

  Lizbeth didn’t get the chance to utter another word as Adan’s arms wrapped around her hips, his eyes glazed over, and the speed and depth of his thrusts doubled. It was like lightning on a stormy night as sparks of delight shot through her and landed squarely in her belly and lower. Tiny spasms racked her body, leaving her quaking in its aftermath.

  Her pussy thrummed happily along as Lizbeth answered his thrusts with her own. Her nails scored his back as her legs squeezed tight about his waist. Holding on tight, wanting to make the moment last as long as she possibly could.

  His cock stretched her and filled her, throbbed within her and overflowed her heart. Tears of joy stung her eyes as his balls slapped against her ass, and his lips nuzzled her neck.

  Pressure built deep in her pussy, and her clit throbbed. Not yet, her mind begged as she fought for control. It was much too late, however, as Adan slipped a finger between the folds of her pussy and stroked her swollen nub. Spasms shook her, and she exploded.

  Lizbeth screamed her pleasure, but Adan probably didn’t hear her as he was also in the throes of his own release. Hot liquid coated her insides while the pulsing of his still deeply embedded cock rocked her gently back to Albrath.

  Rolling onto his side a moment later, he gathered her into his arms. “You’re nothing like I thought you were, Lizbeth. You amaze me.” He kissed her forehead.

  She smiled into the darkness. “Remind me sometime to show you what I learned in my Adan Hammerstrike classes. Then you can tell me if I amaze you or not.”

  The sound of his chuckle, then his relaxed snores, lulled Lizbeth once more back into her memories. They should have been good memories, especially considering the experience she’d just had, but they weren’t. Lying here in Adan’s arms brought back other memories, dark memories she would rather forget. Memories of Adan’s mother the queen and the special Adan Hammerstrike classes Lizbeth hoped to never again remember.