The Prince With No Heart (3 page)

She groaned as she frigged herself, tugging both pearl and labia as hard and fast as she could. Beams of cathedral light spoked through the evergreen canopy as she thumped her hips on the ground. Despite her efforts, her arousal spiked higher, not breaking into climax as she needed it to do. She was grateful no one could see her, for she would have seemed a soul bedeviled.

“Please,” she begged to the sky. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

Maybe some spirit heard her. The quality of her excitement changed, her arousal gaining momentum in a new way. Grunting, Violet pulled out the dildo and rolled onto her belly. The mossy ground was soft as velvet, its hummocks as firm as a man’s body. Knowing she needed more stimulation than her fingers were giving her, she twisted around to press the head of her toy to the pucker that pierced her crack. The dildo was very wet. Her sphincter woke as she pressed it, throbbing fiercely with blood and heat.

“Ah,” she cried as she pushed it inward, the fingers on her clitoris moving ever more frantically.

She couldn’t reach well enough to push the ivory phallus in all the way, but the best nerves were in the outer reaches of her passage. She jiggled the part of the dildo that resembled a pair of balls. The deepest possible sensations radiated outward from the other end. She was going to come. She could feel the peak rising. She seemed to see a face in her mind - not Bojik’s, thank the Lord - but a man’s face lowering from a great distance to kiss hers. Her tongue curled out in longing, the blood from her cut lip dripping to the ground. Her sex began to tingle before she could distinguish the man’s features.

Her pussy clenched sharply in warning. The climax was upon her, breaking like a hundred bells ringing.

She must have been so maddened she was seeing visions. Light seemed to burst from her in brilliant rays, as if her body had turned into a sun. She groaned, the orgasm so good, so hard she couldn’t have remained silent to save her life. It rolled over her in honeyed waves, like bliss or love - though she was alone.

The intensity of the cataclysm exhausted her. Minutes passed before she opened her eyes. Her body was at peace for the first time since Bojik had bespelled her. The dildo had been jostled from her, but she didn’t need it now.

A purr of sensual relief trailed pleasurably from her throat. She turned limply onto her back to enjoy her lassitude.

It was then she realized the twisted tree above her was bursting with new green leaves.

Violet sat up amazed. No longer clinging to life, the tree had regained its youth. Every twig was sprouting, every branch cloaked in emerald. Small white flowers twinkled from the foliage, no doubt on their way to fruiting. Violet knew this transformation had to be the result of magic, but who could have performed it?

“My friend would like to thank you,” said a gentle, whispery voice.

Violet twisted around to see who’d spoken. A hunched old woman stood an arm’s length away on the mossy ground. Her clothes were ragged brown burlap, loose and hooded to cover all of her. Violet should have been afraid or embarrassed, but what she experienced was a deep wonder.

“Are you saying
I
did this?” she asked.

“Pleasure and blood are tried and true offerings. The energy they release can work miracles. You’ve earned a boon from me for this one - if you wish it.”

Violet lost her last doubt that a fairy addressed her. Though a boon would be useful, the fae were notoriously tricky.

“I have need of aid,” she confessed, “but I don’t know what to ask for. Could I explain my situation and leave the cure to your great wisdom?”

The fairy laughed at her ploy, her voice suddenly younger. “Tell me your troubles, child. I promise my solution will not lead you to misery.”

Violet could ask no fairer, so she confided her travails.

“You have my condolences on the loss of your parents,” the fairy said, once her tale had concluded. “Stories of their goodness were known even in fae lands.”

Violet’s throat tightened to hear this. Her parents had indeed been wonderful people.

“Well,” said the fairy. “Spilled milk cannot be returned to the cow. We must do what we can with the cup before us.”

From the pocket of the dusty rags she wore, she produced a bundle of wrinkled silk. A wave of her hand untied it, revealing three objects. Both Violet and the fairy had sat on the ground while she shared her story. Now Violet leaned over the space between them to see what the old woman had brought out.

On the square of creased brown silk lay a snarl of gray thread, a walnut still in its shell, and a golden bit much too small to fit in a horse’s mouth.

The crone laughed softly at her confusion. “Listen closely, young Violet, for a fairy’s guidance must be followed to the letter. The land of Madrigar is your destination, beyond the Western brink of the Wailing Wood. There lives a prince by the name of Augustin, and he is your champion.”

“Does he know he’s my champion?” Violet asked doubtfully.

“Assuredly not.” The fairy sounded amused. “Nor would he be eager to come with you if you asked. He has plenty of beasts to battle right where he is. You being a pretty young princess would also do you no favors. Augustin has a horror of well born females.”

“Then, if you please, dame, how am I to convince him?”

The fairy nodded in approval of Violet’s manners. “First you must disguise yourself. Hide this clump of thread somewhere on your person, and you will immediately be clothed as a beggar girl. Thus garbed, you may proceed to the king’s stables, where I chance to know they will need a horse charmer. Murmur ‘Violet loves you’ into any horse’s ear, and the most rambunctious stallion will calm for you.”

The fairy continued in this vein with her instructions, requesting Violet to repeat them at intervals. When she was satisfied the princess had them by rote, she retied the bundle of enchanted items and handed them over. Violet accepted it carefully.

“One warning,” the fairy added - as fairies were wont to. “The prince suffers from a condition similar to your own. His appetite for coitus cannot be quenched. To make matters worse, the beauty and vitality with which he is blessed guarantee that his seductions are almost impossible to resist. Even direr -” She paused to pin Violet with her gaze. “Even direr, to allow the prince’s sword within one’s pussy guarantees a woman such flagrant pleasure that she cannot help but swoon as she releases. You must not allow him into that part of your body, no matter how he tempts you. The worst possible madness would overwhelm you both. You would forget your people and your honor to stay with him. As you know, without your protection, great evils will befall your lands.”

“I’ll do as you say,” Violet promised, though in truth she wondered if she’d be able to. The fairy’s description of the prince’s troubles had her fighting not to squirm in her cross-legged pose. Within her sex, muscles clenched against each other, the flesh they moved tender and swollen. Her cream-drenched pearl felt three times the size it ought to have been.

“See that you keep your promise,” the fairy said, rising gracefully despite her hunched appearance. “Of all my instructions, refraining from intercourse with the prince is the most important to follow.”

Violet regained her feet awkwardly, remembering to curtsey once she was up.

“Good,” said the fairy. “My raven will lead you safely through the forest. Time is of the essence. Do not stop for anything.”

Then, before Violet could thank her or ask questions, the fairy vanished into thin air. All that remained of her presence was a slowly descending sparkle of fairy dust.

The fairy’s raven, the same bird Violet had startled from the fruit tree, cawed at her as she stood gaping.

“Well.” Violet bent to retrieve her things. “I suppose I’d better follow you.”

* * *

Two days later, having been led by the raven through the Wailing Woods, Violet felt like a beggar girl. Magical disguises were not required. They’d traveled without food or rest, and she was dirty from head to toe, her long hair a mess that was more a memory of a braid than the braid itself. She’d walked through the soles of her slippers, her feet stinging now with cuts. She was hungry and tired and one snapped twig away from weeping.

On the bright side, she was too exhausted to be aroused.

When the raven fluttered down to a boulder and cawed at her, Violet plopped next to it.

“This had better be it,” she said.

They sat atop a low promontory beneath a dark gray sky. A pre-dawn mist shrouded their surroundings, but she discerned rolling hills. The raven fluffed its wings as she tried to find a comfortable position on the rock. Because it hadn’t rested either, Violet poured it a drink from her water bag. The bird dipped its beak and drank, then sidled closer on big black claws, only stopping when it leaned wearily into her side.

Violet laughed and stroked a gentle finger around its glossy head. “Are you a prince then? Enchanted to take bird form by some cruel fairy?”

If it was, it couldn’t answer. Instead, it tucked its head low and slept. Violet watched the sunrise alone, the shadowed land around her gradually brightening.

Her first clear glimpse of the castle caused her breath to stick in her throat. Madrigar crowned a broad hill across the valley she overlooked, the numerous windows on its upper levels beginning to flash gold. Arnwall’s seat was a hovel compared to this. The structure was almost too big for her to take in. No less than eight stone towers protected the stone fortress, all of them bristling with ramparts. The bailey alone enclosed more than an acre, its walls sheltering many strong buildings. Grass rolled like a lush green carpet up to the moat.

Violet was pretty sure the ambling flocks of sheep who cropped it were more populous than her whole kingdom.

“Good Lord,” she muttered under her breath. How was she going to talk her way in there?

But there was nothing for it except to try. Surely the fairy wouldn’t have sent her here if her quest were impossible. Resigned, she dug the snarl of thread from the bundle the fairy had given her. Once she’d retied the rest, she tucked the thread between her breasts next to Etta’s small charm bag.

As she did, the clothes she wore tingled on her skin. Startled, she watched the stained silk grow coarser, thicker, until it was as heavy as a potato sack. A weight flopped against her back, and Violet realized her old gown had grown a hood. Taking this as a suggestion, she pulled it over her hair and face. Her soft hands disappeared beneath drooping sleeves - not that they would have given her away in their present state. To her delight, a worn but sturdy pair of boots blinked into being on the ground before her.

At least her feet would be better off.

The magical clothes seemed to have returned a bit of her strength, enough that she could face walking the final distance between her and her goal. She stood carefully, not wanting to disturb her sleeping companion.

“Goodbye,” she whispered to the raven. “Thank you ever so for your help.”

Prince Augustin’s stallion, Balthus, had gone mad. Two stable boys had been bitten, and another kicked senseless. Finally, the warhorse had to be shut up in one of the smaller buildings they used to separate ungelded stallions from mares in heat.

Augustin watched Balthus there, trotting angrily back and forth across the room that contained him, snapping his teeth at anyone who approached the rails. Stallions were temperamental, but usually he settled for Augustin. This morning, the prince’s attempts at soothing were rebuffed along with the rest.

“Did someone tease him?” he asked Geoffrey the stable master. “You know he doesn’t like that.”

“I’d whip any boy who did,” said the older man, a tasseled piece of barley wagging between his lips. He was a head shorter than the prince, and as lean as the whip with which he’d threatened his young charges. “Theory is a pair of Cook’s cats chased a mouse through his stall.”

“He ought to be calming down.”

“Don’t know why he’s not,” the stable master replied.

Two of his boys broke into giggles. The prince looked at them with his eyebrows up.

“The beggar girl can charm him,” they spluttered between laughs. “One whiff of her and proud old Balthus will freeze in horror!”

Augustin ignored this second claim to pierce the heart of the matter. “What beggar girl?”

Geoffrey pulled the barley tassel out of his mouth. “Some poor wench who turned up this morning. Claims she’s a horse charmer. Plunked herself down beyond the drawbridge and says she won’t leave until she’s let in.” He shrugged. “Probably hoping to cadge a meal.”

The hair on Augustin’s arms gave an odd prickle. “Did she beg for food?”

“Not that I know of, sire.”

“Bring her here,” Augustin commanded one of the stable boys.

“Here?” the boy he’d singled out repeated, his jaw hanging.

“Yes, here. None of you has calmed Balthus. Why shouldn’t this stranger try?”

He sent the second boy off for bread and cheese. Even if the girl was shamming, she deserved a meal for boldness alone. Geoffrey shook his head at him, probably thinking he’d been gammoned.

The girl who was escorted back was as short as the stable lad, and so slight the prince’s ribs contracted to imagine her tramping the roads alone. Thank the saints he’d dispatched those trolls, or she’d never have arrived safely. Aside from her size, her looks were a mystery. From head to toe she was bundled in gray rags.

To be fair to the stable boys, she was a bit odorous.

Augustin doubted Balthus would mind. He was an animal, after all. The girl was a different matter. She eyed his restlessly trotting stallion with unmistakable wariness.

“Well?” Augustin said. “Can you help or not? Don’t lie now. I’ll feed you no matter what.”

The girl pulled herself straighter and turned to him, her air of dignity surprising. A deliciously carnal ripple ran down the length of his cock, lifting it to semi-erectness.

Oh, really
, the prince chided his unruly prick. This pushed the boundaries even for him. The girl smelled, and - though he wasn’t fussy - she wasn’t at all the buxom type he preferred. Given how little he could see of her, she might not even be old enough to decently lust after.