I heard a man’s laugh, then my father snarled: “You shut the fuck up!”
The hard thumps of boots on the floor told me that there were a number of men with him. For years, I’d been nothing but a nuisance, but now that I’d begun to grow into a woman, here he was with a mob of drunkards trying to take me back. It made me feel disgusting and ashamed.
“Speak, whore!”
“Twenty, then!” Angelica strained; her voice was hoarse and shallow from what I imagined was my father’s hand around her throat.
She was tough as nails, but one woman was only so strong against a group of men. I remembered then the knife that Bors had given me. It was heavy and cold in my pocket, its bone handle solid and intimidating in my palm. But it was useless to me and to Angelica both, and she wouldn’t thank me for revealing my hiding place.
“Where’s my daughter, cunt? Where have you put her?”
“She’s not here,” Angelica croaked. “She left at daybreak.”
“To go where?” My father asked.
Angelica gasped for a deep breath—he no longer had his hand around her throat, thank goodness. As she gasped, I felt like I was able to breathe a little better too, but only a little. “She’s gone to Westerville,” Angelica said, her voice gruff and strained. “Said she wanted to make a new life for herself. She said she never wanted to see her piece-of-shit father again.”
There was a laugh again from one of the other men, but my father’s voice cut across it. “She’d never, you liar. She’s got neither the wits nor the guts. You’ve got her here. I know it. So, where the fuck is she?” I heard the ominous sounds of everything being swept off the table as Angelica screamed obscenities.
But then a loud clang resonated through the house and I heard my father scream in pain. Through the floorboards trickled the tincture that Angelica had been simmering on the fire.
“You bitch,” my father said. “I’ll see you pay for this!”
“Get out of my goddamned house,” Angelica said. “All of you. Right now. Or I’ll slice the balls off every single one of you and feed them to the hogs.”
There were grunts and muttered curses, but eventually the heavy footfalls moved towards the door. For a long moment, I held perfectly still, neither breathing nor moving. Then, after what felt like an eternity, I heard the sound of the rug shifting above me and a patch of light made me squint in the darkness. Angelica knelt down and offered me her hand. As I emerged from the hidey-hole, I saw her hair was mussed and her clothes crooked and disheveled, but I was grateful to see, otherwise unharmed…thanks to the gleaming meat cleaver that lay beside her.
Angelica and I spent that day and the next laying low in her house. I pitched in around the cottage in order to help pay my way, and she complimented my cooking and my housework, thanking me for being such a help.
When she did, I realized just how desperately I had ached to be appreciated—how much I needed not only the passionate love that Bors inspired in me but also the simpler and less complex affection of friendship. Over dinner, Angelica observed that I was starved for warmth and affection. And I knew she was exactly right.
A second night passed, then a third day, and by the evening of the fourth I could tell Angelica was growing worried for Bors, too. She never said so aloud, but from her concerned glances at the window and the way she perked up anytime hoofbeats neared, it was clear to me his safety was of as much concern to her as it was to me.
“The garrison is only a day’s ride away. He should have been back by now, shouldn’t he?” I asked as I worked my way through a pile of potatoes that needed peeling.
Angelica nodded, worried, and untied her apron. “Let me see what I can find out,” she said as she gathered her things. “I have many sources of information around town. If something has gone wrong, word would have spread by now. You stay here, you understand?” Over her head she slipped a simple amulet that she wore on a thin leather strap. It nestled comfortably in her bosom. She wound her hair into a twist and fastened it at the nape of her neck.
“I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”
She eyed me knowingly. “No matter how curious you get, you must stay here.” She tapped the table for emphasis. “I won’t be more than a few hours. But in the meantime, don’t you dare leave this house.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
With that, she packed a satchel and I listened as the hoofbeats of her dappled gray mare bore her down the road, leaving me completely alone.
But as the sun began to make its way back towards the horizon the following day, she still hadn’t returned. I was worried for Angelica and terrified for Bors. Staying there one more minute in the cottage was unbearable, and I decided to break my promise. At nightfall, hoping that the cover of darkness would protect me from any prying eyes, I braided my hair off to the side, and set out for the village in search of answers.
The village tavern was called the Cock and Bull. From several hundred yards away, the raucous noise of revelers’ voices and the clink of glasses spilled out from the half-open windows. I knew it was risky to show my face there, since my father or any one of his friends might spot me, but it was a risk I had to take. All information about happenings in town were known there by Charmaine who tended to the liquor. And so, I conquered my fears and stepped through the door.
The room went quiet when I walked in. Aside from the barmaid, the room was full of men. As their eyes fell on me, I saw a new expression—one that I was very unaccustomed to seeing: hunger. The hunger of he-wolves and bucks and stallions. The hunger of desire.
“High time this village got a fresh pussy for us men to enjoy,” one of the men at the bar said as he laughed. The rest of the men in the pub seemed to grumble their agreement.
Most of them were locals, but as my eyes drifted around the room I spotted a single table of five men, all unfamiliar to me, wearing the colorful garb of city folk, probably from one of the provinces closer to the capital, not like the well-worn drab linen and sackcloth that passed for clothing around here. The men stared at me with an air of arrogance that made me swallow hard.
I could barely talk. “I’d never…”
“I like a little protest when I pay for it,” one of the city men said. “If it’s too easy, it’s no fun at all.”
His companions guffawed drunkenly, nodding their agreement, and a few of the locals twisted their lips into grins.
I looked to Charmaine for help. I had known her most of my life if at arm’s length, but now even she looked at me with a new coldness in her eyes.
Still, it was nothing compared to the way the men stared and I sought some comfort from her as I approached the bar. “We don’t allow your sort of women here.” She spoke as though ice had formed on each word.
Suddenly, the logic of it all became clear to me. Angelica had tainted me by association. Because I was staying with the village prostitute, they thought I’d followed in her line of work. I was outraged for so many reasons—not least among them that I’d come to see Angelica as a kind and caring friend. What did it matter what she did to survive?
Yet again, I knew my youth was against me. Appearances mattered and I’d tarnished mine.
“I’m looking for Angelica,” I said to the barmaid. “Have you seen her?”
“’Course I have.” She wiped down the bar with a dirty rag. “You’ll find her in the sheriff’s holding cell, getting no better than she deserves. She’s awaiting trial.”
“Trial?” I gasped. “For what? She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s a good woman. She gave me shelter when I had none, she gave me…”
Charmaine cut me off. “Save your excuses, child. She’s being tried for witchcraft. They’ll burn her if she’s found guilty.”
I could see I’d get no help or support from her, no matter that she was a woman, and I turned to go. But when I did, I found my escape was blocked by a half-circle of the city men that had gathered around me.
Instinctively, I reached for the knife that
Bors had given me, but I was too slow and the men too experienced for me to surprise them. One of them stepped forward and pinned my arms to the bar. “Please,” I begged. “This is all a misunderstanding. I’m not selling my body. I’m not a whore!”
It was as if they couldn’t hear me at all, blinded as they were by frenzied lust. A second man hiked my skirt up and I felt his rough, greasy fingers on the inside of calf, then my knee, then my thigh, and I screamed at him to leave me alone, but it did no good.
As they handled me, the barmaid’s voice rose above the hammering of my heart. “It was us who took Angelica to the sheriff. Everyone said she’d worked her dark magic on you. How else could something that had been so pure become so wicked?”
Desperately, struggling against their grip as I begged them to stop, I searched for a means of escape, but I could find none. A third man stepped forward and clapped his hand over my mouth, then tore my blouse from my chest. My eyes filled with tears as I fought with all my might, screaming against his palm for help. But when I looked through the men, the barmaid had abandoned me, and the pub had emptied except for these strangers.
These five men meant to take me by force, and I was utterly and completely powerless to stop them. I tried kicking them between the legs, but the fifth man grabbed my ankles. “Lads, this is going to be a fun ride!” He crowed as he reached down to undo the buttons on his britches.
One of them grabbed hold of my breasts and forced me back onto the bar so that I was completely exposed to them all, and in that moment their lewd comments ceased, the pub falling silent.
“Fuck me to hell, look at that—” The one who had me over the bar pulled his hands from my breasts like they’d been burnt.
I felt the others fall back all at once. They scattered from me like cockroaches fleeing the light.
“Get the fuck away from her, before she gets us all killed,” a second one said, his eyes wide. He looked like he might vomit at any moment, and the five of them moved in unison.
I slumped as they scrambled for the door, leaving me alone and half-naked in the filthy pub, the tears streaming freely down my cheeks as I sobbed into my trembling palms.
It took me mere moments to collect myself, straightening my torn skirt back around my legs as best I could, and as I did I tried to make sense of what had just happened, but it was impossible.
One instant, they were heated with desire to take me against my will. Then the moment they saw me, I had repulsed them. I was grateful that they’d let me go, but also ashamed by how truly hideous I must be for my body to inspire such a change in five drunken men.
Once I was able to stand, I did, and gathered up my torn blouse, pressing it to my bare chest as I ran back in the direction of Angelica’s, letting myself sob freely and openly under cover of night.
Sure that Bors must have been repulsed. After his lust faded, his need for release sated, he found an excuse and rode away desperate to be released from what was not clearly just a cunning man’s conquest of yet another virgin.
He’d used me. Toyed with me when he asked me to marry him in jest.
As the tears burned down my cheeks, I could almost hear his laughter in the wind.
I truly was now a whore.
Bors
It had been one hell of a long ride. Muddy roads from the recent rains slowed my pace and my stallion went lame just as the garrison came in sight beyond the next valley.
After I tended to my business and secured what I’d come for, I borrowed a bay mare from the stable master, who owed me a favor, and rode back with my stallion in tow. Every fucking minute away from Sara felt like an eternity.
Now, as I rounded the corner and closed in on Angelica’s cottage, I slowed for what felt like the first time since I’d left her. Instead of the warmly lit windows I expected, the cottage looked cold and dark, and I knew there was something amiss. “Fuck.”
I hopped off the mare and tied the horses to the post on the roadside. Then, approaching the house, I called out for Sara and Angelica, but got no answer. I drew my blade and went around the back of the cottage, keeping my steps centered and silent, listening for any sound at all.
I entered the house from the rear door and lit an oil lamp in the corner. The kitchen was just as I’d left it. A check of the bedrooms revealed the same. A window on the first floor had been broken, but it had been covered with a board and there were no fresh shards of glass. There were no signs of struggle, but the house was empty. The whole situation was fucking eerie and it gave me a very bad feeling.
Whatever had happened, it had caused both Sara and Angelica to abandon the safety of their home. A wave of panic and anger rolled through me. Sara’s father was behind this, I was sure of it. That son of a bitch. If he’d laid a single finger on Sara—or Angelica, for that matter—I’d kill him with my bare hands.
Outside the window, a twig snapped. I kicked open the back door, blade brandished. I thought I was ready for anything, fucking anything, any fight, any confrontation…
But I wasn’t ready for what I saw—not even fucking close. Starting down the garden path was Sara, barely illuminated by the weak moonlight. Her clothes were torn, her hair was a mess, and her shoulders were bare. Even in the dim light, I could see she’d been crying. Someone had attacked her. That much was crystal clear. And I swore to myself there and then, that whoever it was would beg for mercy before I cut them down.
I slid my blade into its sheath, closed the space between us in three long strides and took her in my arms. “Tell me who did this to you. Tell me what happened.”
“You’re back,” she said, her hand pressed to her lips, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Thank goodness, you’re back. I thought it was all a cruel joke…” She was unsteady on the uneven stones of the path and looked as though she might be about to fall.
I dropped my blade and scooped her up in my arms. “What happened? Tell me. What happened to you?”
At first, she tried to be strong for me, but I could tell from the way she embraced me that something, or someone, had terrified her. “I’m fine. Really, I am. Please don’t worry. I’m okay,” she said. She wiped away her tears with her small palm but still her lips and chin trembled. “I was sure you’d left forever.”
She was reassuring me too much for it to be the truth. Her words sounded forced... “Never. Now, don’t lie to me, my angel. Tell me.”
Sara shook her head. “Never mind me. I’m worried about Angelica. They’ve taken her—the sheriff is holding her on suspicion of witchcraft. They’re planning to try her. They’re out for blood, Bors. We have to help her.”
Angry though I was, I wasn’t surprised. In this place, a woman who used her mind or her body was damn near guaranteed to be labeled a witch. But I’d known Angelica a long time, and I knew the sheriff, too.
The situation wasn’t quite as bad as Sara might think. “If the townspeople are after her for witchcraft,” I told Sara, “the safest place for her tonight is in that holding cell.” What she didn’t know, or could not have known, is the sheriff had been a discrete paying customer of Angelica’s in his days before he found his wife and from what Angelica confided, he was always decent as well as satisfied.
She blinked up at me, as if searching my face to see if I was just trying to make her feel better.
“Honest,” I reassured her. “The sheriff won’t harm her. She’ll be okay for tonight. So, now tell me what the fuck happened to you.”
“Tell me what happened with the clan first, please,” she said. Still she evaded me. The more she dodged my questions, the more worried I got. “Are we getting married?”
I realized I hadn’t even told her the news. There was much she needed to know, much I had thought about while I was away from her. But for now, I kept it simple. “We are. I have the decree.”
She wrapped her arms around me and nestled her cheek against my chest. “Thank the good Lord,” she gasped. “Something good at least.”
I carried her across the kit
chen and laid her down on the daybed, kneeling beside her, with my arms still wrapped around her waist. The oil lamp illuminated her, so I could see her better; I saw no sign of injury, but she was clearly upset and her clothes were a mess. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said, barely containing my anger. “If you don’t tell me what happened, I’m going to take it into my own hands. And I’m not responsible for who gets hurt if I do.” I traced the cupid’s bow of her lip, forcing myself to be calm for just a few moments longer. “So tell me what the fuck happened.”
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and nodded. And finally did as she was told.
My rage wasn’t red any longer. It was black. They’d put their fucking hands on my woman, my possession, my future wife. The thought of men anywhere near her made my blood fucking boil.
I’d already sworn to myself that I would kill them—and I would fucking kill them. I’d tear them limb from limb and feed them to the wolves for what they’d done. But first, I had an even more pressing need: to claim her as mine, once and for all. What I was feeling was the most primal of all human impulses. It was only thing that mattered:
Breeding her to make her mine forever.
When I’d settled her, her arms looped around my neck. Her sweet, warm breath at my ear.
“I want you inside me, my King. I need to feel all of you.” Her words echoed my own thoughts, her eyes flickering like green flames. “I want you, Bors. Feeling you filling me with your iron cock will make me feel better. It will make me feel safe.” Her words were hard, sure and they ignited a flash of the animal inside me, and there was no more holding back.
I grabbed her roughly, flipping her over on the bed and pulling her up onto her knees in front of me. No other woman had ever or would ever exist; it was as if my past fell away entirely. In her, I had discovered both my purpose and my pleasure.
The Stolen Princess (Fated Royals Book 1) Page 6
