Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (11 page)

Whoa.
Awesome.

I got over my awe, finished with his bread
then put it on the side of his bowl and started on mine.

“So,” I began, “I need royal instruction.
I’m not hip on this princess gig.”

“Pardon?” he asked and I stopped slathering
butter on my bread, dropped the knife to the board and brought the
slice to my face.

“This princess gig. You’ll need to explain,”
I told him and then took a bite of the bread.

It was chewy and full of flavor. Lush.

“Well, you can start with never asking the
proprietress of a pub to drink with you,” he stated.

I swallowed. “What? Why?”

“She’s common,” he informed me and my head
jutted back with not-so-mild affront.

“So? So am I.”

“You are not.”

“I so am.”

“Cora, your father is an Earl.”

I was sipping at cider and I choked at this
news. I managed not to spew it across the table at him and instead
swallow it but my mirth was not spent. Not by a long shot. At the
thought of my hippie Dad being royalty in this world, well, I
couldn’t help it.

I lost it.

Totally.

I threw my head back, wrapped my arm around
my middle and laughed myself silly.

“Cora,” Tor called.

“Hang on,” I choked between giggles, my
other fist on the table was banging it repeatedly.

“Cora.”

“Just a minute.”

“Did you not understand me before?”

That sobered me. My mirth died away but my
stomach still ached. I held on, chuckling and wiping tears from my
eyes, then I looked at him.

The laughter ceased as I caught the look on
his face.

He was not pissed, annoyed, irritated or
impatient. He was staring at me like he’d never seen me before in
his life. He was staring at me like a movie star would stare at his
movie co-star when he saw her for the first time and was instantly
intrigued by something that would mean he’d soon become lovestruck.
But Tor did it better because he was hotter by far than any movie
star and he was real and sitting across a table from me.

Holy crap.

“I’ve never seen you laugh,” he told me
quietly.

“I do it often,” I replied quietly.

“You should do it more.”

“If you’d quit being a jerk, I would,” I
returned.

“That was worth not being a…
jerk,
”
he said the last word cautiously, like he was testing it out.

I liked that so smiled at him.

He smiled back.

My skin tingled all over and I felt my lips
part.

God, he was gorgeous.

He lifted his spoonful of stew and asked
before putting it in his mouth, “Why were you laughing?”

“My Dad’s an Earl.”

He chewed, swallowed and grinned. “That’s
amusing?”

“My Dad’s a hippie in my world.”

Something shifted on his face, like a
shutter closing but not completely. “A hippie?”

“A love child. A child of mother earth. He’s
kind of a loon. He’s liberal. Like,
way
liberal. He smokes
weed. He gets down to Grateful Dead albums. He wears tie-dye, kid
you not, to this day and he’s fifty-five years old.”

“Sweets, you know I only understood half of
those words but I didn’t understand the meaning of any of
them.”

I grinned at him, leaned my elbow on the
table so I was closer to him and took a bite of bread. After I
chewed, I swallowed but in that time, I hadn’t come up with any
answers.

“I haven’t been in your world long enough to
make a like comparison.”

That shutter closed further, he looked to
his stew and muttered, “Right.”

“Tor?” I called, he took a spoonful of stew
and looked at me while he chewed, brows up. “Is everything okay?” I
went on.

He swallowed then without hesitation he cut
me to the quick and pulled the rug right out from under me, I
landed flat on my back, winded and wounded.

“It would be, if this was Cora sitting
across from me, having learned to be a decent person. It isn’t
because you’re playing your bloody game, you’re good at it and I’m
annoyed that I’m half enjoying it.”

Uh.

Wow.

Ouch.

“Tor –” I whispered.

“Cameras, pollution and hippies. Yes, love,
you’re good. I should just let go and allow myself to fully enjoy
it. Hell, who knows how far you’ll take it. You might eventually
give me something I’ll
really
enjoy, like a bloody heir.” I
felt my breath stall and he went on. “And you might play it so
well, I’ll enjoy creating that heir. But, gods curse me, I can’t
let myself enjoy it because I know it’s all a game to get your way
and, as hard as I try, I can’t stop it from annoying the bloody
hell out of me.”

I felt tears sting my eyes because for once
in this cursed (literally) world (at least since the very beginning
with Rosa and Aggie) I was enjoying myself and he just reminded me
that I could not and why.

To hide my tears, I looked away.

“Crocodile tears, even better,” he
muttered.

Great. They had the saying crocodile tears
here. Perfect.

I sucked in breath through my nose, focused
my attention on my stew and ate it.

It didn’t taste as good as I remembered it
being not five minutes ago.

I emptied my bowl and was picking at (but
not eating) my bread when I plucked up the courage to call,
“Tor?”

“Yes, love.”

I took another breath and my eyes slid to
him.

“Can I ask one thing without giving you a
kiss for it?”

“You can ask it but that doesn’t mean I’ll
give it.”

Of course.

I nodded. Then I asked it.

“Can you please not call me ‘love’ or ‘my
love’ when you obviously hate me so much?”

It was small, I almost missed it, but I was
pretty sure I saw him flinch.

“Cora –”

“Men call women who they care about that. My
Dad calls my Mom that. He loves her. Deeply. He has for nearly four
decades. Please don’t sully that by using those words, words you
don’t mean, on me.”

He held my eyes and I let him. Or, more
accurately, I couldn’t tear mine away.

Then he said quietly, “No.”

I pulled in my top lip and bit it. Then I
nodded. Then I looked out the window.

“I need to make some enquiries,” he told my
profile.

“Of course,” I whispered to the window.

“Don’t leave this table,” he commanded.

“Right.” I was still whispering.

I felt him move but didn’t look then I felt
his heat at my side.

“Cora.”

I closed my eyes. Then I turned my head and
tipped it way back to look up at him. When I did, his hand lifted
to cup my cheek and he bent low and touched his mouth to mine.

I felt a tiny tear split through my
heart.

When he lifted his head, he murmured, “For
my people.”

That loving gesture was for the crowd.

“Right,” I whispered.

“Don’t move from this table.”

I nodded but made no further retort even
though he was being bossy and repeating himself to boot. When I
didn’t speak, his eyes examined my face as his thumb tenderly swept
my cheek.

That tear split deeper into my heart.

“Gods, I wish this was real,” he
muttered.

It is, you stupid man!
my mind
shrieked.

But my mouth didn’t move.

“I’ll be back,” he stated.

“I’ll be waiting.”

His thumb swept back and his eyes held
mine.

Then he let me go, straightened and he was
gone.

I’ll Hand You the World

I woke half on and totally wrapped around
Tor again.

But I woke to the dark.

It was still night and the fire had gone
out.

I slid away from him and out from under the
covers. Then I pulled on my flowy top that dropped all the way down
to my upper thighs, covering my silky, lacy underthings. Then I
slipped on my satin slippers.

Then I went to spend time with a being that
I was pretty certain actually liked me.

Walking on tiptoe and being careful to be
quiet, I ducked under the pelt curtain and approached Salem.

“Hey boy,” I whispered as I got close.

He jerked his head up, greeting me but being
quiet like he knew Tor was sleeping and he didn’t want to wake
him.

I got close and he let me curve an arm under
his jaw and stroke the length of his nose.

“I’m not sure he’s this kind of guy, so I’m
not certain Tor has told you, but you should know from someone that
you’re unbelievably beautiful,” I whispered.

He gave a gentle snort, nuzzling his nose
closer to me and I smiled.

I moved to his side, stroking him along the
way and I leaned into him, snuggling his neck and stroking his
chest. I could swear he took a teeny horse step sideways to get
closer to me too.

I liked that.

“I want to go home,” I whispered to him.

This got me a soft whinny.

“It’s beautiful here but I don’t like
it.”

A careful jerk of the head, done so as not
to dislodge me.

“I
should
like it. I’m a princess
married to a handsome prince and the rivers are clean and the
horses are sweet…”

Another soft whinny and I smiled then
sighed.

“But I wish I could get home,” I said
wistfully.

Another gentle snort to which I replied with
another quiet sigh.

His head moved to the right and then he took
another teeny sideways horse step into me as I gave him a horse-hug
and kept stroking his chest while looking out into the moonlight at
the mouth of the cave.

Then out of nowhere a steely arm closed
around my ribs and another one closed around my upper chest as I
felt a face bury itself in my neck.

Holy crap!

“Noctorno?” I whispered, let the horse go
and my hands went up so my fingers could wrap around a hard
forearm.

“Stroke me like that, I’ll take you to a
castle,” he murmured into my neck.

I closed my eyes tight.

Jeez, how did he get across that stone
without making that first freaking noise?

“Please, let me go.”

His mouth moved up to my ear. “Let me stroke
you, swear to the gods, sweets, you loosen up just a hint, I’ll
make you come so hard you’ll think you’ve exploded.”

Oh God.

I bet he could do that. He was a good
kisser. If he was half as good with other things, I’d definitely
think I’d exploded.

“Please,” I whispered but his hand at my
side drifted up and his thumb slid out and caressed the side of my
breast.

Whoa. This had to stop mainly because it
felt so good. Too good.
Fairytale
good.

“Noctorno –”

His teeth nipped my ear and I shivered.

I liked that too, way better than Salem
shuffling closer to me.

“You’ve been calling me Tor.”

I had because he was becoming a Tor. But I
had to remember he was Noctorno, always, always,
always.

“I –”

I stopped talking when his arms squeezed and
his tongue traced my ear. I stopped talking because my body
trembled and heat rushed to very specific parts of me.

“Forget what I said in the village. I’ve
changed my mind. Play this game, my love, I want you to,” he
murmured. “Let me take you to my castle where you can play it. Let
me make you heavy with my heir and I’ll treat you like a queen
while you play it. You give me an heir, you can name your price, a
bigger house, more land, jewels, whatever you want, by the gods,
it’ll be yours. Just open your legs, convince me you’re enjoying
it, settle a son on me and, before you leave, I’ll hand you the
world.”

My body started trembling but for a totally
different reason.

“Before I leave you’ll hand me the world?” I
asked quietly.

“Anything you want,” he assured me, his arms
getting tighter, his body pressing into mine.

“Leave you with my son.”

“
My
son,” he stressed.

“
Our
son,” I corrected.

His teeth nipped my ear again and he
whispered, “
My
son, Cora. My heir. My country’s future
king.”

Dear God. Was he serious?

For sanity’s sake, I moved to another
subject. “Convince you I’m enjoying it?”

“Yes.”

“So I won’t?”

“You let go, I’ll make you enjoy it. That’s
a vow.” His thumb moved in, stroking closer to my nipple and I bit
my lip. “Let go, sweets,” he coaxed into my ear.

“Let go so you can fuck me, get me pregnant
and take my child?”

His head came up and he asked, “Fuck
you?”

“Screw me. Boink me. Nail me. Tag my ass.
You know, have sex with me, sex with no meaning, no love,
fuck
me,
” I explained acidly.

He turned me in his arms to facing him and
one hand sifted into my hair, clenching gently but making a
statement nonetheless while his other arm caged me in.

“I take it…
in your world
… that’s not
a nice thing to say,” he remarked.

“Nope,” I agreed.

He was silent but he didn’t let me go.

Finally he sighed and said, “You’re clever,
I’ll give you that.”

“So clever, you’d think I was from a
different world,” I noted sarcastically.

“Now, wouldn’t go that far, love.”

No, of course he wouldn’t.

“Whatever,” I muttered to his shoulder.

“I think you missed it, Cora.”

“Missed what, Noctorno?”

I heard him pull a sharp breath in his nose
then he stated, “The part where I gave you permission to play
me.”

“That’d be hard to do since I’m not a
player.”

I watched him tip his head back before he
muttered, “Gods.”

“Got that right,” I muttered back.

He tipped his head down and his eyes locked
on mine in the moonlight.

“You know, love, I go to bed and lay awake
before sleep claims me wondering what it would be like to have the
other half of my soul in Rosa.”