The Prince With No Heart (7 page)

The sound he made must have warned her he was losing control. Clever girl that she was, she wrapped her right hand around his base, pushing it toward his groin. Her hold was snug enough to stretch his skin even tauter along his length. The trick pushed his nerves closer to the surface. When her tongue lapped his glans, her taste buds rasped it deliciously.

A curse tore from him. She did it again and suckled at the same time. The side of his fist thumped the wall behind him.

“Don’t stop,” he said before she could ask him if all was well. “I’m just ... not used to waiting.”

Her lips curved as she sank on him. From what he’d seen, she wasn’t used to waiting either - which didn’t mean she was going to rush. She wound him up in tormenting stages, pulling him ever closer to destruction, until he simply had to bury his second hand in her hair again. She’d combed her locks at some point, and the strands were pure silk.

He wanted to whimper, or perhaps just to weep. Pride alone kept him from succumbing.

“Keep your hand on my root,” he warned, his throat so tight with strain it was hard to speak. “I need to thrust now. I don’t think I can stop myself.”

To his amazement, though she didn’t release her grip, she pushed it closer to his torso, allowing her mouth access to more of him. He drove forward with a sound that wasn’t strictly manly. Humming with approval, Violet sucked him as he went in.

The hot suction could have tumbled fortresses to the ground, it was that pleasurable. Her tongue was genius, her palate a marvelous sleek hardness to push his cock across. He groaned as her cheeks pulled on him, and gasped when her tongue fluttered. They both began to move faster, her swallowed cries an oddly close complement to his. The wetness of her mouth created a clicking sound. When Augustin’s cods drew higher, her cupping hand followed them.

“
Violet
,” he growled, his hips snapping forward for his next thrust. He was going to come. He could feel the giant wave building at the base of his spine. “Violet, if you ... don’t want me pouring down your throat, you had ... better let go now.”

She wasn’t going to. The heel of her palm pressed firmly over his balls. The extra pressure excited him behind bearing. He snarled, and thrust, and Violet’s cheeks hollowed.

He needed the wall, after all, if only to brace and push. Knees locked, he came in a flood of heat, as hard as he had this morning, pouring his ecstasy down her throat just as he’d warned her. Selfish though it was, coming in her mouth was almost as good as coming in her pussy. He was surrounded, sucked on and wrapped in warmth. The orgasm peaked incredibly, then let go. Peace washed through him, the claws of his hands relaxing in her hair.

She released him sooner than he wanted, but when she pressed a kiss to his hip and let her cheek rest there, he forgot to mind.

* * *

Violet loved the feel of his graceful fingers combing through her hair. She was aroused, of course, but curiously content. The groan Augustin had rumbled out when he climaxed still echoed in her ears.

The taste of him in her mouth was amazingly intimate.

“I think I need to sit,” he said, laughing shakily.

She smiled as he slid down the wall. When he was settled, he pulled her into his lap. His arms wrapped warmly around her, one hand nudging her head onto his shoulder. Since this was where she wanted it anyway, Violet didn’t resist.

“There,” he said. “That’s better than fighting.”

Had they been fighting? If they had, Violet didn’t want to dwell on it. She dragged her face up his neck, enjoying the salty smell of his skin where his shirt left off.

“Don’t start me up again,” he said drowsily. “I’m enjoying being replete for once.”

He didn’t seem to want her to move otherwise, so Violet relaxed. She knew a bit of men, obviously, but couldn’t remember snuggling so peacefully into one before. With a grunt of pleasure, he stirred a bit under her.

“Violet,” he said, “why are you traveling alone? What happened to your family?”

The fairy had warned her he had a horror of noble females, so Violet answered cautiously. “My parents were stolen by the seal people.”

“Stolen?”

“We think they may have been taken to that race’s kingdom under the sea. The local fisherman couldn’t track them. Wherever they’re being held -”
if
they were being held “- it’s too far away for rescue.”

“But why? What use could the were-seals have for a few peasants?”

Because he probably didn’t mean to insult her parents, Violet shoved off a pinch of anger. “I couldn’t say, your highness.”

The prince rubbed his jaw against the top of her head. “I like when you call me Augustin. And I am sorry for your loss.”

He sounded sincere - and a bit surprised by himself. Perhaps he was surprised. To him, her position could not have been humbler. Violet wondered if she’d have expressed an equal sorrow for someone lesser born. She hoped so. A future queen ought not to think her pain more important than everyone else’s.

Seeing how he did this so easily, she asked herself if the fairy might not have underestimated his decency. Augustin might not need to be tricked into helping her. If she could gain his aid honestly, Violet knew she’d rather.

“What is it?” he asked as she tilted her face to him. “What do you wish of me?”

Violet told him everything.

* * *

Prince Augustin had been girding himself to accept an unwelcome truth. The orgasm he’d had that morning after watching Violet frig herself had not been a fluke. Tonight’s was just as potent, even taking into account her skill with her mouth.

He told himself he wasn’t jealous of the men who’d experienced that skill before him. Jealousy required one to have a capacity to care. Nor was he going to allow himself to become obsessed with plunging into her hot pussy. Every woman had the right to preserve her virtue. It shouldn’t matter to him that the maidenhead in question belonged to a beggar girl. So what if his mind spun with ways to convince her to give it up? He had no reason to be unsettled by his response to her.

Her answer to his question was as good as dashing ice water on his prick.

Then again, maybe it was the empty cavity in his chest that had frozen over. Everything she’d done since arriving in Madrigar had been calculated to lead him here. Her friendly smiles. Her feats of magic. The soul-shaking bliss that even now reverberated through his body. Maybe she’d been aware of him watching her in that loft. He’d known women to try such ploys.

He’d simply never been seduced for his sword arm before.

He eased her off his lap as gently as he could while simultaneously boiling. He didn’t watch her as she came to her feet. He might have felt compelled to offer her his hand. Instead, he tied his hose up with stiff fingers.

Thus braced, he met her deceptively worried eyes. He spoke as coolly as rage allowed. “As much as I admire your loyalty to a kingdom that allowed your parents to be carried off, it is your rulers’ place to seek champions.”

Violet’s breath trailed out on a sigh. “Augustin,” she said, her use of his Christian name even then giving him a thrill. “I
am
Arnwall’s ruler. My parents were our king and queen. I’m Princess Violet.”

For a hanging moment, the prince could not shut his jaw. This got worse and worse. Violet, his succulent beggar girl, was yet another damned princess. So much for his delusion that freedom was a leap away. He wondered if the were-wolf she claimed was preying on her people even existed. The journey to her kingdom likely would provide opportunities for closeness. If Augustin could be cozened into taking her maidenhead, he’d be caught handily.

Far from needing a wife whose nature was more like Violet’s, Augustin now prayed the Lord would keep such serpents away from him.

That there was a flaw in his logic he was too furious to examine.

“Did my mother put you up to this?” he demanded.

Violet’s mouth formed an annoyingly tempting
O
. “Your mother! I swear, your highness, I’ve never met the woman!”

She seemed truthful, but really how could he tell?

“I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive me,” he said, stooping for his discarded tunic. “I won’t be available to hare off on your little quest. I’ve plenty of dragons to slay close by. Never any shortage, as it happens.”

Violet pulled herself straighter, her diminutive dignity irritating him all the more. “That’s your answer? You’re not willing to help my people?”

He fought the twinge of guilt that flicked through him. “You said yourself your were-wolf has slain no man. My time is too valuable to waste rescuing sheep. What’s more, I think you should leave at daybreak tomorrow morn. If you are a princess as you say, you’ve no need of Madrigar’s charity.”

Violet’s eyes narrowed into slits his mother would have been hard-pressed to outdo. “Believe me,” she said, her iciness matching his. “Charity is the last thing I want from you!”

She spun away, her clear attempt to storm off spoiled by the fact she had nothing better than a loft ladder to stump up.

Only when she disappeared at the top did Augustin remember he ought to leave as well.

* * *

Violet knew she’d let her temper run away with her. She sat on the sleeping bench, swiping off angry tears as she alternated between fuming over Augustin’s arrogance and furious shame at herself.

She was Arnwall’s ruler. She should have shown more control. A few dozen slaughtered sheep might not impress him, but to her people they could mean the difference between a lean year and one they could not survive. What did Augustin know of hunger, with his fancy slippers and his big castle?

Her hand clenched on an object she didn’t remember picking up: the fairy’s tied silk bundle with its single remaining charm. Violet scowled at it, reminded anew that she’d brought this bitter disappointment upon herself. She’d been warned not to tell Augustin who she was.

She started to fling the charm away but stopped. Yes, the prince had refused her, but could she afford to accept his answer?

Bojik had killed no man ... yet. Giving him what he wanted would not guarantee that stayed true. The were-wolf was volatile. Violet had only to displease him once, and he might consider lashing out justified. Indeed, every hour she was absent from her home could be one in which he rampaged among her people.

Violet covered her face, horror at that idea at last drying all her tears.

No matter what her pride preferred, she
had
to follow the guidance the fairy had given her.

Despite his anger at Violet and himself, the prince had slept a few hours. Being rested cleared his head enough to concede one point. Violet wasn’t trying to lure him to her kingdom in hopes of seducing him on the journey. If all she’d wanted was for him to deflower her royal virtue - and thus oblige him to marry her - she’d have done it already. The were-wolf who was thinning her people’s flocks probably did exist.

Which didn’t mean his other complaints against her were baseless.

He enumerated them as he strode to the stables, grumbling under his breath. Without question, she was deceitful, possibly an evil sorceress, and only interested in what he could do for her in his monster-slaying capacity. She’d led him to believe she liked him for
him
. If he’d had a heart, which she had no reason to know he lacked, this would pile the sin of cruelty atop the rest. She seemed to have no compunction about wasting his time on a trivial threat, though admittedly were-wolves did in many cases move on to human prey.

Augustin pressed a fist to his sternum, the spot behind it aching like he’d swallowed a stone. No woman should have to bed a monster, not peasant and not princess. A temporary reprieve from Bojik’s sheep-killing habits wasn’t worth the sacrifice. Her other faults aside, Violet was wise to assume the were-wolf’s restraint wouldn’t last. The way he’d cursed her proved he had no honor. He’d hold her hostage to his beastly standards of right and wrong, her kingdom punished for every imaginary infraction. The pain within the prince’s ribcage intensified. What was the matter with Violet’s people that
they
wouldn’t band together to protect her against this man?

“Sire?” inquired a voice beside his shoulder.

He’d been joined in the empty yard by the stable master. Geoffrey looked half asleep, no surprise considering the sun was just then breaching the horizon. The castle walls cast the yard in shadow, a few dim stars still visible overhead.

“Do you need something?” Geoffrey asked.

Tell me the beggar girl hasn’t left. Show me any way to earn her forgiveness that doesn’t involve saying I was wrong
.

He hadn’t been wrong ... or not more than partly.

“Is Balthus awake?” he asked, reluctant to check his stallion’s new stall himself.

“Ah,” Geoffrey said. He shoved his coif back to scratch his silver hair. “He seems to have eaten something that disagreed with him. That’s why I’m up. I don’t think he’ll be in a shape to be ridden for a few days. Shall I saddle another mount for you?”

Augustin pressed his lips together. “Is Violet with him?”

“No, your highness. The beggar girl appears to have slipped away. That sort do, you know. Itchy feet. Rather be out on the open road.”

Augustin fought a frown at Geoffrey’s obvious sympathy. Did all the servants know he’d taken a shine to the girl?

The princess
, he reminded himself. Violet was a princess.

“Saddle any horse who’s awake,” he said. “I’ll ride out through the gatehouse.”

“Would you like an escort?”

Augustin shook his head. A man with an untiring sword, whom no weapon forged by man or fae could harm, hardly needed protection.

Geoffrey took the prince at his word about saddling any horse who was up. Destrier was the laziest gelding in the stable - that is, when he wasn’t spooking at butterflies and bucking off his riders. Augustin grimaced as the sleepy stable master passed him the reins. The way his head was hanging, Destrier didn’t look any more alert than his caretaker.

“Right,” Geoffrey said, waving vaguely as he turned away. “Have a safe ride out there.”