“Now you know the truth,” he said, gnawing at a rabbit leg. “You should thank me for not fucking you years ago. It’s my right, after all. You’re not my daughter; you were always just a burden. Hardly worth the coin I took for your care. Worthless cunt.”
I glanced at Bors, whose nostrils were flaring like an angry bull’s right before the charge.
“Don’t you fucking speak to her—” He spat back already pushing to his feet when I reached over and gripped his wrist.
“Bors,” I said. “Do not attack him again.”
“As you wish, your highness,” He grunted, his body hard but he shifted his weight back, and took an angry bite of his meat glaring at my father.
I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Disgusting as he was, my father was feeling talkative and I aimed to make the most of it. “So, father. Tell us. What was your plan? How did you intend to take me for yourself?”
My father cleared his throat, then spat a fatty bit of gristle from his mouth. The noise of it hitting the dry leaves made my stomach roll.
“Well, I may as well tell the truth, since I’m damned either way. If this brute doesn’t kill me, he’ll only be sparing me for the hangman’s noose.” There was a glint of truth in his eye as he watched me across the fire, and I knew he was right. For what he’d done, a hanging would be a merciful end, and there was precious little I could do to prevent it, even if I wanted to. “Your mother was standing in my way to take you as I deserved. It would have worked, the nightshade I’d started to sneak into her food would have worked within weeks.”
I had never liked him, but now I was finding my way towards actual hatred. To think that he had caused my mother so much pain in order to have me for himself was awful to consider. She had never been kind to me, but no one deserved to suffer so much at the hands of her spouse.
I pressed on with my questions. “Who arranged for me to come to you? Who’s been paying you off?”
My father sucked at the marrow from the rabbit bone. “The traveling minstrel that would come through the Cock and Bull each month. Bardo. He was the go-between. As for who arranged for you to be taken, I don’t know the answer to that. Knowing too much can be dangerous.”
The more information I got, the less I understood. I knew the man he meant, though. I had heard him sing. He had a good voice, but his presence was unpleasant. Weaselly… almost ferret-like. I’d always felt he wasn’t to be trusted and now I knew I had been right. But that still didn’t make anything clear. “Why? Why would anybody do anything like that?”
More bone-sucking ensued, and then he replied, “Don’t know. Don’t care.” He patted his knee. “Why don’t you come on over here, Princess, and sit on Daddy’s lap?”
Bors grunted beside me. “I told you to shut the fuck up, didn’t I?” He said and a low growl rumbled in his chest before he paused, looked at me then finished, with, “My apologies, your highness, for disobeying.”
And then he rose, took three long strides around the fire pit, and walloped my father with a knock-out punch.
“Sleep well, your highness,” Bors said, rolling away from me to face into the darkened forest. I stared at the rope-like lines of his back and shoulder muscles, feeling angry, rejected, and frustrated.
How dare he. First he unleashed my desire and now he denied it.
I took a moment to try and collect myself, but I was unable. There was so much tension between Bors and me that I thought I was going to burst. We had to sort things out or I’d lose my mind. Fortunately, for the moment, we had time to ourselves. My father had regained consciousness after Bors blow but now slept. Snoring loudly and bound to a tree on the other side of our camp. It was time to seize my chance.
I grabbed Bors’ massive shoulder to get him to roll back over to face me. He met my gaze and I eyed him with all my fury. He studied my face and his pupils widened. I could tell he wanted me as much as I wanted him, but he was still refusing to touch me. “Stop it, Sara. I will not be the one to ruin you.”
I gripped him harder. “You will. You will be the only one.”
He leveled me with a stare. “I fucking will not.”
I didn’t know if he was trying to anger me in order to get me to reject him, or simply trying to end any further discussion, but either way it wasn’t working. The angrier I got, the more I wanted him inside me. I was just going to have to force him to treat me as he had once done.
“Enough. I refuse to have you and the rest of the world telling me who I am and who I am not.” As if I was mounting a horse, I swung one leg over him and pinned his huge legs beneath my body. “Take me. Right now,” I said.
He shook his head, but his body betrayed him. Again, I felt his cock begin to respond and I ground my hips into his.
“Take me,” I said. As he began to shake his head yet again, I pinched his jaw in my hand. “Do it,” I said. “If I am truly the princess, you’re honor bound to serve me… or service me. As I choose, you will obey.”
“No fucking way,” he said.
“Yes, fucking way.” Now I gyrated my hips even more, shifting side to side so that he could feel my wetness. He still wore his britches, but they were only lightly secured. Using my body and my desire, I worked the tip of his cock free from his pants. I felt its head, smooth and warm against my slippery thighs. “Fuck me right now or I’m leaving you the first chance I get.”
Now, at long last, I had his full and passionate attention. “Never threaten me like that, princess,” he said, his voice gruff with danger tipping each word. He grabbed my hips hard as I pressed my pussy against his cock, pinning it between my body and his lower abdomen. “You’re mine,” he said, gripping me hard. “That hasn’t changed. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to defile my future queen. Fucking you would be treason.”
I laughed. “You’ve already fucked me.” Shifting my hips around his pelvis, I gave him ample chance to enter me, but he only maneuvered his cock away from my opening. I wasn’t going to stand for it. Not now, not ever. And so, I flattened my hand, drew it back, and connected with his cheek in a stinging slap. “Obey me.”
He thrust me off of him and got me on my knees, then returned my slap with a shocking spank of my left butt cheek. His physical strength startled me and in turn inspired a rush of wetness that made him growl when he touched it. With his erection between my legs from behind, his shaft sliding against my wetness, he enveloped my body with his.
He placed his hand on my throat, hard enough that I could feel my pulse against his palm. I wanted him inside me so badly it made me whimper. I tried to guide him to my throbbing slit, but he tightened his grip on my throat and drew my face back closer to his.
With his lips right up against my ear, he said, “Before I give you the gift of my cock, let’s get one fucking thing straight, princess. You obey me. Not the other way around.”
Bors
I bit the curve of her ear, hard enough to make her gasp. I could tell she liked that sting of pain from the way her pussy poured out its juices onto my aching cock.
While I had her on her knees, my hand on her throat, I felt her body rise up from behind. I wasn’t gentle and I wasn’t soft. I gripped her tits like handles on an unsteady ship, and rolled her nipples between my thumb and forefinger, one after the other.
Moving back down again, I slid my palm over her belly, her pubic bone, and then made a V with my first and second fingers to part her hidden lips. With every gesture, I told her she was all fucking mine. I treated her like the possession that she was, and I made her know, made her feel, that every fucking perfect inch of her belonged to me. In my hands, she wasn’t fucking royalty. She was my whore, my cum vessel, the love of my fucking life.
Still with one hand against her throat, I tightened my grip on her windpipe. With my other hand I pressed the shaft of my dick against her slit and clit-fucked her with slow, intense strokes. “What do you want more than anything right now?” I growled into her ear.
She purred and I felt the vibrations of her
breath against my palm. “Your cock inside me.”
I smiled to myself as I ground my cock against her clit, so that my balls tickled the sides of her inner thighs. Her predictability was fucking adorable. “Tough shit, your highness. I’m calling the shots tonight.”
She bucked against that a little, and I held back my inner chuckle at the knowledge that I’d already spoiled her for anyone else. She’d make a damned fine queen one day, stubborn as she was. But I was and would always be stronger than her. It was my fucking duty to prove it, and to keep proving it, so that she would know where she belonged. Where she was safe.
I took a handful of her gorgeous hair in my fist and drew it back. It made the most beautiful arch of her body in the firelight. Her ass was high, her waist was low, her shoulders were lifted. She’d never looked more fuckable.
Just as I started to feel her get comfortable on her knees, I flipped her, and she landed on the blankets on the forest floor with the fire making her eyes glint. I straddled her, one knee on the side of each thigh, and stroked my cock against her wetness. Then I dipped the head just inside her opening to lubricate it and slid it over her clit. She gazed up into my face with so much fucking adoration it damn near took my breath away, but not for long.
Once I had given myself a few long strokes against her, I took her hand and put it around my cock. He grip wasn’t nearly as strong as mine, but her tentativeness was a fucking turn-on all the same.
“You won’t hurt me,” I told her. “Harder.”
She did as she was told, smiling when I started to groan up at the trees above.
Then I positioned myself so that my balls were nestled in the sticky wet crease of her thighs as she stroked me. “Make yourself cum with my cock,” I told her. “Fucking use me like I use you. But don’t you dare put me inside you. Not yet.”
She smiled up at me, naughty and blushing, with her tongue pinned between her teeth. Young and inexperienced though she was, she was confident enough to be able to switch control with me. I fucking loved it.
She laid my shaft on her slit and then wetted her hand with her own juices. As she jacked me off, she stimulated her clit with the sensitive head of my dick, growing more and more aroused as her grip tightened. Still, not half as tight as I wanted, but she’d fucking learn.
“Yeah,” I growled at her. “More. Fuck yes.”
Her eyes fluttered shut and she took over, jacking me off like she was born to do it while also pleasuring herself. She used her thumb to increase the contact against her clit and I pinched her nipples to heighten her pleasure.
Her orgasms were becoming more and more familiar to me, and I knew that when she started to hold her breath, she was getting close. I paid exacting attention to her every breath and movement, letting her build and build. Her cheeks flushed red and I saw a sheen of sweat on her forehead in the firelight.
“Oh Bors…” She panted. “I’m…. Bors I’m….”
Hold. Like an archer waiting for a command to loose his arrow, I held steady. Hold. I waited one second, two, three. She took one more deep in breath and held it. I knew I had my chance. Hold. Her body shook with the effort of trying to come with such minimal stimulation, which was exactly how I wanted her.
Fire.
Right as she was rounding the corner into her orgasm, I covered her mouth hard with my palm and simultaneously deep-dicked her with all the power I had in my fucking body. As I plunged inside her, her eyes opened wide and she screamed in pleasure against my hand. She came so fucking hard it was like she was possessed. She writhed, and her back arched up off the forest floor. I rammed her then with so much force that my balls ached with the repeated, ruthless, ass-slapping contact. The best kind of pain, bar fucking none.
“Keep coming,” I snarled in her ear. “Take it all the way to the end. I’m right here with you.”
She managed to nod against my hand and rolled into another tidal wave of pleasure. I slipped my palm under the small of her back and drove into her again and again, until finally I found my own release, in a mind-blowing orgasm inside her. One pulse of cum, two, three. I filled her pussy so full that I fucked my seed right out of her.
Even though I came so hard I thought I’d black out, I still stayed hard inside her. I could’ve gone all goddamned night, but she was spent. “I love you,” she whispered sleepily against my ear.
“I love you too,” I told her, and gave her a long kiss to say goodnight.
She wrapped her arms around me and drew the blankets up over us, hugging my hips with her legs, and I held her close, letting her fall asleep in my arms. Then very carefully, I drew my head back, just to get one last glimpse of her beautiful face before I let sleep claim me as well.
Looking down at her, I knew for certain that no matter what came next—what crown she wore on her head or what jewels decorated her body—she’d never be more beautiful than she was right then, half asleep with my cock inside her.
Bors
I woke to the sound of a scream. I shot up and saw Sara across the camp, wrapped in a blanket and barefoot. I was halfway to her before I was even fully awake, ready to set upon any thief or attacker that had found us. It was morning, I knew that much, just barely after dawn by the way the light filtered through the trees. It was still cool, morning dew collecting on all things green.
But beyond that I was groggy and struggling to find my bearings.
My snarl caught her attention as I ran, but no sooner had she turned her eyes to me than I realized there was no danger. Sara hadn’t screamed because she was being attacked, she’d screamed because of what she saw.
She knelt in front of her father, pushing and tugging at his unresponsive body. But Milo’s lips were blue, his eyes cloudy, and his tongue bulged from his mouth.
Fuck.
Dead.
One glance at the situation told me what had happened. I wrapped my arm around Sara. “He twisted himself up in his bindings,” I said, freeing his cold dead hands from under the rope he had slipped around his neck. I laid him out on the dry forest leaves and closed his eyelids.
Sara pressed her hands to her lips as tears tumbled down from her dark lashes. “We killed him, didn’t we?”
I understood her grief, but she’d seen too little of the world to understand that not everything was within our control. I couldn’t have her blaming herself for the rest of her life for what had happened.
“He did that himself,” I said. “His bindings were secure but safe. This was deliberate. He chose to end his own life rather than face the consequences of his actions.”
“I never meant for him to get hurt,” Sara said, kneeling beside him, smoothing his dirty shirt as if her touch might bring him back to life.
I crouched beside her and drew her soft forehead to my lips. “If he’d lived, it would only have been for a public execution later. It’s a coward’s way out, for sure, but he spared himself the humiliation of that.”
She sniffled and, after a while, nodded in agreement. “I know. And I know he was awful, but he was the only father I ever knew.”
My heart broke for her, for so many damned reasons. She’d had a hard life, no doubt about it, but I could tell that grief was new to her. What a bastard grief was, as I knew too well. It could take the fight out of any man, no matter how strong. And it angered me to know that the only protective, fatherly love she’d ever had was actually just a transaction. Nothing unconditional about it.
Though she had seen him as her father, she’d been his commodity. She deserved so fucking much better than that. None of it lessened the pain she was feeling now, though.
I knew we had to get back on the road quickly, but I didn’t rush her through her shock and sadness. After a few minutes, she looked up at me. “We can’t just leave him here. I can’t imagine leaving him to the animals and the elements.”
For a brief instant I flashed back to the night before, and him asking her to come sit on his lap. Calling her Princess and himself Daddy.
F
ucker. Let the vultures and raccoons have at him.
But I got my head on straight again. How we treated his body in death him wasn’t about him at all. It was about Sara. My Sara. And so, for her sake, for her peace of mind, I set to work digging a shallow grave in a clearing beneath a stand of poplars.
Once it was done, we set off again for the castle, now with Sara on my stallion—whose limp was all but gone, despite the hours of riding—and me behind her on the bay mare, so that I never had to take my eyes off of her.
Our progress, already slow, was made even slower because word had begun to spread that the missing royal had been found. In every village and town, banners and posters bearing the star and moon of her birthmark were to be seen, and the people gossiped. As we made our slow progress through one particularly busy village, bustling with market day, I heard snatches of gossip about how she looked; her age, her hair color, her eye color, even her first name.
Thankfully, the news was tangled by distance, and confused rumor made for confusing details. Some said red hair, some chestnut, some jet black. Some swore that the returning princess had been raised by dragons and her name was unutterable by men’s tongues. But even so, I knew it was only a matter of time before the details got straightened out.
We left the King’s Highway and wound our way through the countryside, taking side roads and forest trails. But it was impossible to avoid people completely, and the closer we got to the castle, the more I worried that someone with more than a passing interest would spot Sara and ask questions.
I clicked my tongue twice for her attention, and she turned to face me. I ordered my stallion to hold and came up alongside her. She wore a simple gray cloak with the hood drawn up over her head to cover that beautiful hair, but it wasn’t enough. Pretending to adjust her bridle, I bent low between us and told her softly, “We need to cover your face.”
With a quick nod, she let her hood drop and then drew her shawl up, wrapping her face so that only her eyes were visible, then drew her hood up once again.
The Stolen Princess (Fated Royals Book 1) Page 9
