The Emerald Prince (9 page)

“Have you read every book? Watched every play? Learned every song in all human history?”

“Pleasing women, especially women of noble birth, requires a great deal of study.”

“I refuse to believe every slave in Fezam is this well educated.”

“No, Mistress. We each learn what we must to serve our function and no more. Pleasure slaves are expensive to train, so at a young age we’re disposed of if we are unattractive or slow to learn.”

Victoria hated when he spoke of the barbarities he endured as if they were no trouble at all. “You mean they murdered children.”

“Yes, Mistress, they murdered children.”

“How can you say it like that? How can you not be enraged?”

“For the same reasons you aren’t.”

Victoria’s brow drew together. “What do you mean?”

“You are the eldest, yet your brother will rule. You must remain a virgin until married while men of you country may have as many women as they want. From my perspective, you should be enraged. Your blood is noble but you are not treated as such. My parents were probably strangers bred together based on their physical and mental attributes. Much like you, I am the person I was born to be. Why would I be angry about that?”

“But the way you were treated…”

“I was treated as well as any slave could hope to be. Have you been treated as well as any princess?”

The question made Victoria cringe. In her own palace, there was a princess being treated with greater respect. “For a slave you certainly are argumentative.”

“I am the way my Mistress would have me be.”

She growled. He was right.
Again.

There was a knock at the door. Marla let in two servants carrying midday meal. Victoria glanced over at morning meal which had sat untouched for hours.

Marla groaned as she picked up the tray. “I don’t care what you two are doing in here, you have to stop skipping meals.”

“We were just talking.” Victoria explained defensively.

“That’s fine, but why not talk while you eat?”

Victoria had no intention in missing yet another meal, so Marla’s protests were pointless. “We will eat every bite. I promise.”

Marla shuffled out the door with the servants. Since Victoria had stopped leaving her chambers, her protector had very little to do, and uselessness seemed to make Marla cranky.

Lorr was busy laying out the food when Victoria took a seat. The palace chefs took great pride in their work, so every meal ever placed before Victoria had been well prepared, and her current meal was no exception. The princess finished her prayers and then picked up her fork. She noticed Lorr picked up his at the same time, even though Fezami didn’t believe in gods, he waited for her. She thought back on the meals they had eaten in the past. He’d always waited. His manners were those of a refined gentleman.

“Lorr, back when you were a slave, did you eat like this?”

“When I was still in training,” he subtly corrected because he still believed himself a slave. “I ate better than most slaves because my health and vitality were of great importance, but I have never eaten this well, Mistress.”

They continued with their meal, and after finishing the last bite of roast, Victoria fell back in her chair. The day was hot, and she was stuffed.

“Let’s go for a walk in the garden.”

Lorr stood up and reached for Victoria’s hand. “As it pleases you…”

The pair walked hand in hand, fingers intertwined, through the small hedge maze in Victoria’s garden. A slight cramp sent the princess stumbling towards the nearest bench.

“Mistress, what’s wrong?” asked Lorr, his voice rising with concern.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a tightness in my calf. I’m sure it’ll pass in a moment.”

Lorr knelt before her, showing no concern for the nice clothes she had bought him. His hands worked their way up her skirt in search of her discomfort. When he pressed the right spot, she winced.

“The pain is here?”

Victoria nodded.

Lorr pressed harder, massaging the soreness in her leg. “You need to go outside.”

Victoria gave a low groan in response to Lorr’s touch. She let her head fall back, staring up at the midday sky. “I am outside.”

Lorr grumbled as he kneaded her flesh between his hands. “I mean you need to leave the palace grounds. Go riding, swim in the river. This kind of pain comes from lack of exercise.”

The princess bit her bottom lip as she watched Lorr lovingly attend to her with more genuine concern than she was accustomed to receiving. “There are other ways to get exercise. Some exercises don’t even require me to leave my chambers. I believe you’re familiar with several of them.”

Lorr looked up meeting her lustful gaze. “I live at your pleasure, my Mistress.”

“You know, I believe the pain in my leg has risen higher.”

Lorr’s hazel eyes flickered in the sunlight as his hand slowly moved up the princess’s leg, resting behind her knee. “Is it here that your pain has risen?”

Victoria’s breath became shallow. Her bodice was far too tight. Another problem she hoped Lorr would soon be helping her with. “No, I fear my discomfort is higher still.”

His hands moved up, wrapping around her thigh and, with a quick tug, forced her to the edge of the bench.

She yelped at the unexpected pull. Her hands grabbed for the bench to steady her, which put her in a suggestive position. Half perched with her back arched, her breasts thrusting out. She imagined how she would look to others, lustful and wanton. She was the clay beneath his hands, and he knew his craft well.

Rubbing her thighs, making her ache with desire, he asked, “Have I reached the spot now, my Mistress?”

His little game was torturous, but she had been the start of it. She was half hoarse as she answered, “No, touch me higher still.”

Lorr’s hand slipped past her undergarments like they hadn’t been there at all and cupped her between her legs.

Her thighs trembled as a finger slid inside her. Lorr caressed that part of her as expertly as he had any other part of her body, if not more so. And the position she sat in, half hanging off the edge of a bench, made his every touch more intense because she was very much rocking on the edge of a precipice. Her reputation was already greatly damaged. Bedding a slave would end her. But the truth of the matter was, she didn’t care. Didn’t care about politics or her future. If the two of them spent the rest of their lives in her chambers, she knew she’d be happy. All she wanted was to be taken in the grass by this slave boy, like some peasant girl in the fields.

“Make love to me.” The words came so easily. Words she expected to say to no man but her husband and certainly not to a pleasure slave.

Lorr stood up, lifting Victoria to her feet. He was only a few inches taller than her, so they were eye to eye when he leaned in and kissed her. Even though her lids fluttered closed, she still saw light. His every touch was a blazing imprint on her soul.

As her bodice came loose and slid down her body, it was a sweet release. She hoped the first of many as she dug into his bronze skin.

“I love you,” she declared between fevered kisses.

Lorr seemed to hesitate until finally he stopped. “I can’t do this.”

Victoria’s eyes flew open. “What do you mean you can’t do this? Earlier, it was what you were made for!”

“No, I can do that. I would love to do that. I often dream of doing that.”

Victoria cocked her head to the side. “You’ve lost me.”

“When Princess Zariya bought me, it was to serve her, not you. I was to seduce you, make you fall in love with me, and then get you pregnant.”

The princess’s brow narrowed. She took a step back, almost tripping over her dress which was bunched around her ankles. “But you can’t get me pregnant. Sex slaves are sterilized.”

“She had it reversed. The tonic that causes fertility is made from the same plant that stops it.”

Victoria needed to sit down. She imagined a future where she was unmarried and pregnant with a slave’s baby. Some would consider the child a slave also, while others would simply consider her a whore.

Either way, both her and her child would be removed from the succession and all public life.

“She’s after my father. She’s getting rid of his children to make room for her own. I hope you understand, no matter what my feelings are towards you, I can’t let you ruin me.”

“Then you forgive me?”

Victoria clasped his hand. “I will never have to forgive you because you would die before doing me harm. You’ve proved that today.”

Lorr sat down on the bench next to her. She could only imagine how she looked, disheveled, half naked, frustrated. His fingers played along her palm as he said, “You know there are many pleasurable things we could be doing that have no chance of getting you pregnant.”

Victoria gasped in shock, but as the possibilities began to play in her head, her lips couldn’t help but curl up into a smile.

Chapter Twenty

Rain poured from the sky in thick sheets. Elliot couldn’t see anything. He had to lower his head and suck in gulps of air in order to breath. His boots sank into the mud with every step. He pulled his horse along, hoping the vague shadow he was following was still Blaine.

They weren’t too far east of Raven’s Flight, and the knight’s family had a hunting lodge nearby. A place where they could take refuge until the rain stopped. The prince sputtered, wondering if any man had ever drowned in the rain before, or it he’d be the unfortunate first.

He’d only spent a few days in the wilderness, and already he missed the carriages, the tents, the servants. Lost in his desire to be important, he’d completely forgotten how much he enjoyed being comfortable.

The sight of the lodge was a welcome relief, though with the rain it was mostly a brown blur, but it was a roof, and that was enough for Elliot. At first, when Blaine changed course, Elliot didn’t understand why, they were so close, but then he was able to make out a smaller brown blur in the distance - a barn.

After the horses were tended and fed, Elliot followed Blaine back out into the storm, heading for the lodge. The place was smaller than his chambers, but had the basics: a bed, a tub, supplies, and a fireplace wide enough to cook big game.

The moment the knight had a fire started, Elliot began stripping off his wet, smelly clothes. Never had he felt so disgusting in his life. “I don’t know what we did to the Holy Mother to deserve this, but I’m betting we’re sorry for it.”

Blaine knelt before the fireplace, stoking the fire. “You think Arye is the reason for the storms?”

Elliot, now naked, searched through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for. He wrapped himself up in the blanket, then stepped closer to the fire. “Don’t you? She is after all, the goddess of the sky.”

“But Ephron rules over water, wouldn’t he be the one to bring the rain?” Blaine grabbed three massive stew pots and sat them outside the front door.

The gust of cool wind chilled Elliot, making him shiver. “The water may be his, but the clouds are her dominion. First this sweltering heat, now pouring rain. I’m telling you, Arye is angry about something.”

Blaine shrugged. “I’ve just never pictured the Holy Mother as the type to punish her children.”

Because of the heavy rainfall, the pots filled in minutes. Blaine emptied all three into the small wooden tub in the corner and sat them outside the door again.

“What are you doing?” Elliot snapped, more irritated at his day than anything Blaine had done.

“Filling a bath. I’m cold and rank.”

Elliot watched in bundled up amusement as Blaine set the last three pots over the fire, bringing the water to a boil before filling the tub.

When he was finally done, he hung his clothes up to dry and sunk into the tub. The look of complete bliss on his face inspired Elliot to join him. He tossed aside his blanket and padded over to Blaine. The water stung his legs as he slipped into the tub, which was already a tight fit for Blaine. Together, the tub was impossibly small. Water sloshed on the floor as Elliot positioned himself in Blaine’s lap. He bent his knees so he could sink deeper into the tub.

Blaine tensed against Elliot’s body. “So, what is it that you want this time?”

Elliot took Blaine’s hand, entwining their fingers. He had smooth skin for a fighter. Elliot wondered if those hands had really destroyed as many enemies as people claimed or if Blaine’s reputation had been exaggerated. “Why are you being so cold? I thought you loved me.”

“I do. And I know the feeling isn’t mutual, which is why I don’t trust your intentions.”

A wiry grin spread over Elliot’s face. “You just looked so happy a moment ago. I thought maybe we could both be happy.”

“Oh, so that’s what you want this time. Sex. Well, this time it’s my turn to negotiate. Tell me what made you cry on our wedding night, and I’ll do anything you like.”

Elliot released his hand. Blaine’s mood was as foul as the weather. “I told you. I don’t want to discuss that.”

“I know. Which is why I do. Nothing seems to touch you. You married a man you knew planned to have you murdered, and you had no problem with it. But there is something that matters to you, something that brings tears to your eyes. If I have any hope of earning your love, I need to know what matters to you.”

How could he tell him that he was thinking of someone else? That what mattered to him was Zariya? Elliot got out of the tub and dried himself off. “Fine, if you don’t want what I’m willing to offer then we won’t have anything at all.”

Blaine jumped up, water dripping off his hardness. Elliot had barely touched him, and he already responded. “What you’re willing to offer?” Blaine growled. “I am willing to do anything for your happiness, no matter how childish and idiotic. And all I want is to know is why you were crying. One question. One simple question.”

Fury boiled up inside Elliot. Childish? Idiotic? “I will never love you because I already love someone else. That’s why I was crying that night, because I knew I was doing something that would reduce Zariya to my second wife, and I couldn’t stand the thought of dishonoring her.”