I scrambled to my feet, holding the cloak out to him as if its touch stung me. He took it with a wry and twisted smile that did not reach his eyes. Somehow it gave me my courage back. "You visit a room you’ll never see Aruna in when she comes to your castle." I smirked in the knowledge of my own superiority. The prince rose so fast I leapt backward only to be stopped by his hand under my chin. He tilted my face upward so I had to meet his eyes and they swallowed me. It almost felt as if his lips brushed mine but I knew that could not be. Instead I heard the sting of his words. "You bore me with your assumptions, princeling. Mayhap I come here only to feed my people and not to wed at all. Do your nightmares not tell you as much?"I found my voice with an effort. "It’s a long way from the Western Wall to my father’s court. Were there no peasants or barbarian ladies you might have tasted along the way with greater ease? Or is the throne of this ‘sty’ temptation enough?" I hated him more in that moment than I had ever hated anyone before and my hands trembled with the strength of my anger. "Perhaps it might be. If I wed Aruna," his lips twisted, "I shall live here in this delightful castle with her equally delightful family. I might even come to their chambers on moonlit nights to sample all they had to give me. What do you say to that?" "Let me go. They say you do not take unwilling victims. My sister is willing to give herself to you. She should be enough." My anger cooled just enough for me to feel afraid and I hated myself for it. "What do you know about it, Princeling Beast?" I flinched. How kind of Aruna to share the family’s nickname for me with this thing. He ran his thumb over my lower lip, tugging it downward and leaning in close to whisper in my ear. "I think I will always call you that. It suits you." "Am I to call you ‘Beauty’ then?" I snorted as I jerked away. "Begone, monster!" I fumbled at my neck for the old silver cross that my grandmother had given me and yanked it free of my clothes. The vampire prince looked at me and laughed. It was a hearty laugh, one that showed his fangs and made me shudder. Then he turned and left the library, still laughing. I shivered and shuddered at the heat coursing through my veins and the anger that filled me from head to toe. And yet…I could feel such sensations within me that I could scarcely bear to contemplate. My lip burned where his finger had touched it and my ear echoed with the sound of his whisper. Some part of me longed to encounter him again. My senses reeled with confusion. Clearly he was a monster and nothing more, and yet he laid his cloak on me while I slept. He had a servant start a fire or had started it himself so that I would be warm. In a life unaccustomed to kindness, he had shown me a little and it was more than I could bear. I flung myself into the chair by the fire and gave vent to my anger in silent weeping until my hunger sent me to the banquet hall for dinner. There I sat in my distant corner and ate my usual fare of the King’s leavings. I watched the prince and tried to hate him more than my father who sat at his side. But I could not find it in me since I had hated my father far longer. A voice pulled me from my thoughts. "The Prince sends this with his warmest regards." Cheeks flaming, I glanced up at one of the prince’s servitors. He set the tray he carried down on the bench next to me and vanished as silently as he appeared. For a moment, I thought about throwing it to the dogs. But there was Kriun watching me askance and a plate of food finer than I had ever eaten set before me. I ate, sharing it with my father’s jester, fearing that my father or Aruna had noticed this strange act of kindness and would make me pay for it later. Or that the prince himself sought only to fatten me up for his own future meal. Still I ate, savoring the sweetness of the roast bird and tried to ignore all that it might mean. My father called Kriun to entertain his guests but I could not bear to stay and watch my friend play the fool. Too often I had helped to ease his bruises when the King or one of the courtiers did not find him amusing enough. My intervention would only mean more punishment later for both of us so instead I slipped quietly from the hall. This time, it was Aruna and not her prince, who found me in the corridors. She slipped up behind me, wrapping a meaty arm around my throat and squeezing until I flailed the air with my arms, trying to get free. "I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Beast and I won’t stand for it. He’s mine and I won’t have any of his misplaced sympathy for our mother’s mistake interfering. You are to stay away from him or I will have you brought to the dungeons and tormented until you beg for death." "Father would never permit it," I gasped, barely able to get the words out. Aruna laughed, a harsh cruel sound that echoed off the stone walls. "Father would help heat the irons. You’re none of his get, fool. Surely you’ve realized that by now. You live only because our mother protected you. Now that she’s gone, it’s just a matter of time." I flailed harder, breaking her hold as the sound of approaching servants came up the corridor behind us. She watched me scamper away, her look burning its way through the back of my tunic. So the King was not truly my father? This was almost too much to hope for, despite my terror. I ran up the stairs to my tower, barring the door and barricading it with the old bureau. My sister was quite capable of carrying out her threats, as I knew of old. I spent a sleepless night turning what she said over in my mind. True, she might have lied but her words had the ring of truth. When the sun rose the next day, I had decided on a plan. It would take me several days to steal all that I needed but once I succeeded in that, I would leave the castle of my father and go out into the world. It could be no harsher than my family and there would be no monsters to haunt my sleep or baffle me with periodic kindnesses. The decision brought me some peace as the day passed in a blur. I darted from hiding place to hiding place, taking an apple here, a pack or a waterskin there. Ever since I’d been able to walk, I had explored every hidden cubby, every secret passage in the castle until I could vanish for hours, completely undiscovered. It was in one of these that I hid what I found, confident that no one would find it there. When I thought I had purloined all that would not be missed in a single day, I went openly to the kitchen and begged some bread and cheese. This I took once more to the library, though trepidation filled me at what I might find there. I would say that I didn’t think of the beautiful, monstrous prince during the long hours of hiding and stealing but there would be no truth in it. I imagined his thumb on my lip, his teeth in my neck, until it seemed as if he might emerge from any one of a thousand hidden corners. I berated myself soundly for this sickness of mind that seemed to hold me whenever I thought of him but to no avail. Still I was relieved not to find him in the library. True that meant no fire and no warm cloak but the cold was a small price to pay to be at peace for a time. To my surprise, there was enough wood in the hearth to make a fire myself so I indulged myself in this small luxury and sat watching the flames and warming my half-frozen feet. Idly, I found that the flames reminded me of his eyes and I wrinkled my nose in disgust at the quality of my own dreams. At the time, I thought that this was how he was able to appear so noiselessly at my side but then I was not so used to his powers. "Little Beast. We meet again." His voice was dry, richly amused and I started a little from my chair, heart pounding. "My sister has threatened my life if I speak to you again, my lord." I was afraid of Aruna but I said it mainly to ruin her chances. I would be gone long before their betrothal was announced, surely. And he should know that he had found his match for brutality. I looked up at him, noticing the open neck of his shirt and the lean muscles it exposed, and I tried to look away. He knelt before me with a soft crackling of wool and leather and black silk so his eyes were level with mine. They went on forever and I was not surprised to feel his gloved hand on my chin. "Are you afraid of your sister, beautiful little Beast?" I nodded, unable to take refuge in a brave lie. Part of me wondered about his new name for me; no one had ever thought me ‘beautiful’ before. I wondered then if he spoke to all his meals this way and I shuddered. "Then I’ll speak and do you keep silent," he murmured. I tried to tug free of his hand, his eyes, but found myself immobile, frozen. He fastened his mouth on mine, leaving me to howl my protests into the muffling softness of his tongue. I flailed, trying to free myself from the awful pressure of his mouth but he held me in a grip like iron, pulling me close to his cold flesh. I made the futile gesture of shoving at his breast, gasping for air as his mouth relentlessly claimed mine. I could feel the edge of his fangs against my tongue and wailed in pure terror. He broke off his terrible kiss then and reaching his hand up into my hair, bent my face backward so that my neck was exposed. "Let me go, monster!" I found my voice in a single burst of sound."I could take you now and make you one of us. I can tell that you are not completely unwilling." He murmured the words against the skin of my neck, sending shivers all over my flesh. I could feel his fangs rest against me like a dagger’s edge and I writhed to get away but he held me fast. He opened the neck of my tunic to bare more of my shoulder and he showered me with obscene, burning kisses, agonizingly slow. Then his hand found its way down between my legs, cupping what it found there. To my shame, I hardened at his touch and he laughed at my flesh’s betrayal of my spirit. He lowered his face, still holding me in place and kissed his way down to where it strained at my leggings. He kissed me through my clothes and I moaned, a small tortured sound. I burned with sickened desire, feeling it engulf me like a wave even as I fought it with all my strength. He murmured, "Such a beautiful boy should be immortal. Don’t you agree?" © 2006 Catherine Lundoff |
