[Fae Scandals 1]Prince of Submission (17 page)

“How l–long have I b–been here?” he asked. He was soaked in sweat and shaking like a leaf. He felt dirty, like he hadn’t had a bath in weeks. His memories were all hazy as if they’d been put into a soda bottle and shaken up together.

“Almost two weeks, Corrin. You’re in the Sexuality Rehabilitation program. I’ve told you this before. My name is Trig Destine. I’m the Anima assigned to help you through this difficult time. You’ve got to stop fighting us, Corrin. This will be much less painful if you cooperate.”

Pieces of the past two weeks were like shards of glass in Corrin’s mind. They’d been invading his sleep, manipulating his dreams. They’d been taking him to a “therapy” trying to get a positive reaction while Anima stood watch and manipulated his reaction when he was awake. He vaguely remembered his parents coming to visit when he was in a bad place psychologically, and he had snapped and raged against them both like a madman.

“Where’s Adrian?” he demanded, suppressing the urge to beat the Anima to death with his bare hands. Violence welled within him like he’d never experienced before. He felt the trickle of calm invade his mind, and he screamed. “Stop it! Stay out of my mind!” He growled, going to the corner of the room defensively, huddling in the white space, and trembling.

Trig looked at him with sympathy. “As I told you last time you asked, your lover has abandoned you. He escaped the night you two were found together and has returned to the Unseelie court. He didn’t care about you, Corrin. He left you.”

“You’re fucking wrong!” Corrin denied. “He’d never abandon me! He loves me! He fucking loves me!” He knew he was hysterical. His heart was pounding, and anger boiled up in his body like a stovetop pot.

“I’m sorry, my prince. If you don’t calm down, I will be forced to make you sleep again,” the Anima said calmly. It was the same tone they always used. They talked like he was a child or a crazy person in a human hospital.

Corrin spat at him. “Fuck you, you son of a bitch!”

With a sigh the Anima’s magick rammed into him like a battering ram, and he dropped into unconsciousness.

* * * *

Another week passed. Then another. Four weeks he’d been in hell, and Corrin’s spirit felt like an old and withered thing. He was extremely withdrawn now, neither fighting nor reacting to their “treatments” any longer. He just refused to participate. If the world was as they said it was, he didn’t want to live in it.

He must’ve dropped fifteen pounds since entering the program, and three days previously he’d cut his hair off. It was now two inches long in the longest place on his head. He knew he looked younger with the weight he’d lost. He saw it in the mirror when he took showers. His eyes were huge on his face. His parents sat across from him looking miserable. But they had no right to be. They put him here.

His mother reached out and tried to take his hand. “Sweetheart, your doctors say you’ve stopped responding to treatment.” He drew it back and tucked it into his lap, staring down at the table between them. His parents exchanged a look of pain, and Corrin couldn’t help the spark of resentment as he saw it. Did they expect him to be happy? Did they even know what the hell went on here?

Corrin felt dead as he spoke. “It’s like being mind-raped over and over, Da.” Marietta covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. Corrin nearly growled in disgust. “They come into my mind and change my fantasies. Do you know what it’s like being manipulated by an Anima, Da? It fucking sucks.” He shuddered and continued to stare down at the table between them, the muscle above his right eye twitching. “I feel so fucking filthy.” He looked up into his mother’s eyes. “I’m so dirty that I’ll never be clean.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I won’t be surprised if Adrian doesn’t want me after this. I wouldn’t want me after this…” He burst into tears, covering his face as his body shook with silent sobs.

Marietta was crying as she reached for him. “Sweetheart, we didn’t know—”

He drew back out of her reach. “Just leave me alone! Goddess, haven’t you done enough? Leave me the fuck alone!”

* * * *

The king drew Marietta away as she started to weep in earnest now. “Come along, sweetheart,” he said, his own countenance stony.

“I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand it. We have to get him out of there. He’s withering away. Goddess, my baby…” Marietta sobbed into his hard chest.

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” the king said, rocking her back and forth. “I’ve already gone to the magistrate, and he won’t budge on his decision. He has to go through the last two weeks of the program.”

She looked up at him. “He won’t last another two weeks. I don’t care what you have to do, you have to save our baby!”

Their bodyguards fell onto either side of them as they exited the therapy center and made their way to the carriage. Gael helped the two up into the carriage and then followed them inside. The others would jog beside them on foot.

“I will find a way, Mari. I don’t know how, but I will find a way to get our son out of that place,” the king promised. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he would, even if his whole kingdom fell apart afterward. “I’d rather see him with an Unseelie lover than dead inside. I wouldn’t care to have him hate me if he was eventually happy, but…this is stripping his soul. I can’t stand it either. I just don’t know what we’re going to do. As a royal my hands are tied—”

“My lord, I have a solution if you are willing to listen to it,” Gael interrupted.

The Seelie king turned and gave him his full attention. “I’m listening.”

Gael cleared his throat. “I’ve been in contact with the Unseelie Prince Adrian Cadence over the past weeks. I know it was forbidden, but I was afraid that such a thing would happen to Corrin on the inside. He’s always been such a gentle boy, and the program is, uh, vigorous. The dark prince has been trying to penetrate our kingdom for some time with little success. If his lordship could arrange for him to have a brief window to get in, he will get Prince Corrin out of that place.”

“You did this behind my back?” the king asked. He should’ve been angry about it, but instead he felt only relief. Someone had a plan.

Gael bowed as much as he could in the tight confines of the carriage. “Forgive me, my lord. But I care a great deal for your son. I’ve been with him since his birth, and I wanted to have all options open in case such a thing occurred. Adrian cares a great deal for him and is willing to fight for him. I’ve been cautioning him to have patience to prevent out-and-out war, but his patience is wearing thin and it will be violent if I don’t present him with a positive option soon.”

Marietta smiled shakily and took the bodyguard’s shaking hand. “You always understood him better than anyone, Gael. I knew from the first moment you held him that you were the best guard we could ever give him other than Richard.”

“You know if you do this, if you are caught allowing him inside our kingdom, you will be punished for it,” the king said carefully. Gael had to be aware of the possible complications before he jumped into this headlong.

Gael swallowed and nodded. “I’m willing to take the risk, my lord.”

Relief washed over the monarch. “Good. You are a fine warrior, Gael. I wish you luck, and you have my blessing. When this is done, will you act as our emissary to carry our correspondences to and from our boy?”

Gael nodded once more, and King DeMarco shook his hand firmly. Their son was going to be saved.

Adrian stalked through the forest with a single-minded purpose of retrieving his lover. It was well after two a.m., prime time for the Unseelie Fae but downright ungodly for the Seelies. The reports Gael had been giving the past few weeks had horrified Adrian. He was afraid of the extent of the damage Corrin had suffered. Adrian was fully healed from his ordeal, but his soul was still raw from being pulled from his Seelie lover. His band mates from Desire had come as soon as they’d heard that Adrian’s lover was being held against his will by the Seelie people. Adrian was grateful that he had friends willing to fight for him and his lover.

They broke the tree line as one unit, dressed in black leathers and armed with guns sporting iron bullets. God and goddess help anyone who got in their way tonight. Corrin was leaving this place with them one way or another. Adrian didn’t hope for bloodshed, but he wasn’t above causing carnage to get him out.

On his mark they approached the front door to the rehabilitation clinic. It looked so harmless from the outside, just an ordinary white building with tall Grecian columns gracing the entrance. It was just like any other building in the Seelie court, except for its chilling purpose.

Gael had given them a map of the structure and Corrin’s position in it. It took his drummer all of two seconds to pop the magick on the lock and get them inside. At this late hour, the clinic was empty, and their footsteps echoed on the stone floor. This place felt cold.

“His cell’s coming up on the left,” Adrian cautioned. “It may be guarded because he’s a royal.” But when they got to the painted white door, the hallway was still empty. As Gael had promised, he’d taken care of most of the details, for which Adrian was grateful. There were twenty locks that stretched the entire length of the door going in two-inch increments top to bottom. Adrian unlocked each one, his heart thundering.

“Hurry up, man,” Parker said, clearly uneasy being in this place. He turned the last lock and swung open the door.

Corrin was curled in a fetal position on a small mattress shoved in a corner. He was so pale he was almost translucent, and he’d lost a lot of weight. His long pale locks had been cut short, and Adrian’s heart broke at the sight. Even in the dim light he could see how frail Corrin looked.

He took three determined strides inside and knelt beside the bed. “Wake up, beauty,” Adrian said, gently stroking his lover’s forehead and face. He didn’t want to startle him. Corrin’s pretty green eyes eased open. The circles under them were prominent. His gaze was so mournful that Adrian felt his heart trip in his chest.

“This is sick even for you people,” his beauty whispered, his voice cracking. “Wake me up, you sick fuck. I mean it, Trig, you turn him into something with breasts I’ll rip her apart with my bare hands.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows in confusion. “If I grow breasts suddenly, you and I both are going to have a problem with it.” He chuckled at the image. “Though if truth be told, I’d hope you’d still love me anyway.”

Corrin sat up, nearly banging his head with Adrian’s. “Please, Trig, stop this. Please, goddess, have mercy.” He sobbed quietly. Adrian brought him into the cradle of his arms and let him cry on his shoulder.

“I love you, beautiful. Please don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart,” Adrian begged. He didn’t know what they did to him, but if he had his way he would burn this place to the damn ground in protest. “Shh, beauty. I’ve got you.”

“Please tell me you’re real. Please. I can’t think anymore. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.” Corrin sobbed, clutching him like he’d never let his lover go. Adrian probed gently at his mind only to find it ravaged by an Anima. The touch was more identifying than a fingerprint, and when he found the butcher who had torn his love’s mind apart in hopes of “curing” him, he was going to kill him.

“Give me a blade,” he said over his shoulder. Without hesitation, Davy handed him over a short knife. Corrin whimpered and drew back in fear. Adrian brought the knife to his neck where his throat column met his shoulder. He nicked his skin without hesitation, and he felt the blood well up. He knew the instant the smell of his blood hit Corrin’s nose. His eyes flared, and he licked his bottom lip, eyeing the wound.

“Take from me, beauty,” Adrian commanded. Still, his lover hesitated, as if he were still wary of Adrian’s presence. “You still wear my token, Corrin. You are my submissive. Do as I command.”

“They couldn’t get them off,” Corrin said quietly, moving a bit closer to the tempting smell. “The magick you infused in the hoops can’t be removed by anyone but you. That’s what they told me.”

Adrian nodded. “That’s right, lover. No one can take you away from me. Now who is your Master?”

“You are,” Corrin said instantly, coming into his arms and wrapping his legs around his waist.

“That’s right. Now do as your Master commands.”

Corrin wrapped his arms around his neck and brought his mouth down to the wound.

“Perfect,”
Corrin thought.
“I’m actually awake. Thank goddess.”

Adrian’s mental chuckle filled his mind.
“Good boy. Are you all right?”

“I feel better already. Why is that?”

Adrian held him close.
“It is because I’m reaffirming our bond. Grounding you, so to speak, and taking away some of the damage that butcher of a therapist inflicted.”

“How long have I been here?”
Corrin asked.

“Around four weeks.”
His friends shifted restlessly. They needed to go.
“Hurry and finish, beauty. We’ll talk more when we get somewhere safe. We have to get out of here.”

Corrin sealed his lips more firmly over the wound and began to suck in earnest.

“Can we move as he drinks?” Jamie asked, darting a nervous look at the door. “We don’t know how long Gael can keep them busy.”