No Fury

Now: Twenty One

Night falls and I debate, fighting myself, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes.

After his temper this afternoon, I don't want to go to him.
But I am not sure I can stay away.

With a knife in my stomach and need in my heart, I return but far later than usual, only when the night is a heavy black curtain cast across the castle grounds.

At his doors, I halt, hearing voices coming from inside.

"Where is she? Fetch her!" the prince roars.

"I will not. She was not meant to become a lover."

I close my eyes, pressing my back to the cold stone of the hallway.

"Well, she has." The prince speaks with the entitled honesty of royalty.

"It should never have been her," the steward says, his voice turning quieter, and I imagine him pacing the expansive floor of the bedchamber. "It should have been another. Any other. Your body needed only to learn a woman."

"You brought her here, Douglas. You knew she could do what others failed to do."

"But perhaps now that you've been with Cathryn, another wouldn't fail."

"Are you jealous?" the prince asks, his voice laced with menace. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Please don't confuse my concern for you with any confidence I've shared."

"I don't want one of your house girls in my bed," the prince spits, voice raised in indignation. "I will not discuss it anymore."

Something inside me, a sharp blade, melts at this.

And another piece sharpens at the mention of another woman warming his bed, spreading her thighs for him.

"My Lord," the steward begins. "Your father would not want this to contin-"

"Leave me, Douglas."

After a heavy pause, the great doors groan as they open, letting out a burst of warm air from the roaring fire within.

Douglas walks straight to me, regarding me as he would a dog begging for scraps at the kitchen door.

My life was fine before this. Suitable. Known. The ale house, Mother and Da, Mary and the future of Liam. My friends, the family of servants at the castle.

I loved the prince from afar. It couldn't be any other way.

He changed me and I can't deny that I would give my innocence to him every lifetime I could, and that he has forever ruined me with each taste of his touch. I will never be the same.

But where the prince has learned to touch me with tenderness, Sir Douglas dragged me here, tossing me into the bed like an animal.

He wanted me to be a scrap of meat. He brought me to this bedroom to be something to defile, something on which to practice. Douglas simply wanted me to train the prince how to use his shaft, to prepare him for a future queen.

I hate him.

He steps close, smelling of boiled meat and wine, and grabs my arm, yanking me into him. With a sneer, he shoves his hand up my skirt, rooting into my clean knickers, long nails digging into my freshly scrubbed skin, and puts his lips right up against my ear. His tongue sweeps out, slick along my ear lobe.

I gag, working to keep from crying out, striking him.

"Do not spoil him with your lust," he hisses. "His hunger for you is fleeting. Do not show him wicked, sinful pleasure. Do not let him do everything he asks. I've seen. I watched you soften under him, grow wet until you're begging like a whore."

I jerk my head away, shoving at his arms as hot tears pierce my eyes.

"If you require a throttle, a proper rutting, or a shaft deep in your cunt, you come to me. His wife-to-be will be a lady, and a lady will not enjoy him the way you do. Do not let him hope for a whore like you when he weds." Pulling back he adds, "And if you let him fall in love with you, if you ruin him for this kingdom, I will kill you."