Rapunzel and the Dark Prince Page 8

  I was glad they dumped so much perfume on me because my armpits were sweating like crazy.

  And then, Queen Maria told me some things about table manners. At this point, my head was about to explode. I didn’t hear a word. I would just have to watch what other people did.

  The king and queen led the way. Prince Adrian and Princess Luiza and her husband joined us and greeted me warmly. We lined up in the correct order. It was all sort of a blur from there, but I heard an audible gasp run all the way down the room as I entered, my long locks trailing behind me. The ladies had used two small braids to wrap around the loose strands, so they were somewhat contained. They ran almost the entire length of the hall. I stared at my slippers walking down the rug and kept my head down as I was told, but I still felt all the eyes on me. I heard people whispering, “beautiful” and “like gold” and a “poor dear!”

  My cheeks burned.

  I made it through, running through the list of steps in my head. The dais, take Dorin’s hand, the bow, the knife, take Dorin’s hand again, find my seat two chairs to the king’s right with Dorin beside me.

  Our table was at the front of the room, and the rest of the court faced us, so they could all watch us eat. A hundred people, watching me, whispering about me. I squeezed Dorin’s hand tight during the prayer. He squeezed my hand back but projected perfect calm on the outside.

  Food was brought out, and everyone started talking in normal voices. The room filled with a din all the way to the rafters.

  “Everyone’s watching me! How do you stand it?” I whispered to Dorin.

  “That’s just how it is,” he said. “I grew up with it.”

  “And it’s like this every day? Forever? People watching us all the time?”

  “Not all the time.” He frowned as someone passed bread to him. “Where is the butter?”

  I looked around. “Here.” I reached for it but the queen leaned forward and shook her head at me. I drew my hand back and didn’t know what to do.

  “Please pass the butter,” the king said.

  A servant standing on the other side of the table lifted the butter up and handed it to another servant who was behind me, and that servant gave it to the king who pointed at Dorin, so finally the butter made it to him, even though it had been within my arm’s reach to start.

  “This is crazy,” I told Dorin.

  “I tell you, some courts are much worse,” he said.

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better now!”

  “Would you rather be with the King of the Northlands? Trolls probably don’t bother with protocol.”

  “Maybe,” I said, rebelliously.

  I made it through that dinner somehow, even though some people in the crowd kept looking at me throughout the entire meal. I think Dorin was struggling too, even if he refused to admit it. He ate slowly and carefully, unable to see his plate.

  The food was so good I ate a lot despite my nerves, and I drank two glasses of wine. After dinner, musicians came to entertain. Merry music filled the hall, and the mood shifted abruptly to something less formal. As plates were cleared away, some of the court got up to dance and others left their chairs to mingle. Servants started moving the tables back against the walls.

  “Can we go back to our bedroom yet?” I whispered to Dorin.

  “Not quite… Some of the court will have been waiting to meet you. Just smile and say ‘nice to meet you too’ and such.”

  Most Yirvagnan ladies were taller than me. They had dark curls and dark eyes and they looked like they knew everything. And within the next few moments, it seemed like they had all lined up to welcome me to the court. I think all they really wanted was a good close-up look at me. Some of them were friendly, but I was still intimidated by their presence. Some were not so friendly. One tall, dark-haired girl (which is to say, a girl who looked like every other girl) took one look at me and said, “Goodness, I never would have expected a human to be Prince Dorin’s bond mate!”

  But then, at the very back of the line was a slender girl with a black gown, bows tied around her horns, and an apron with several pockets. Her hands were politely clasped. She had calm gray eyes that seemed kind. I immediately hoped she was going to be one of my ladies-in-waiting, although I hadn’t seen her before.

  “Good evening, Princess,” she said. “I’m sure you must be tired…but I wondered if I could speak to you about something?”

  “What is that?” Dorin asked, putting an arm around my shoulders.

  “The witch,” she said. “I’d like to know everything you know about her spell work. I’m Magdalena; the palace healer-mage.”

  “It’s about this curse upon me, then?” Dorin asked. “Jarvin said there was nothing he could do. I would have gone to see you if I thought there was a point, but healing won’t work on something that is clearly black magic.”

  “Yes, I don’t know if I can do anything about it either, but I’d like to ask a few questions, that’s all,” Magdalena said.

  “I’m happy to talk to you, but I don’t know much about the Witch,” I said.

  Magdalena glanced around. “Come by my rooms later, if you can.”

  “I’d be happy to,” I said. I already liked Magdalena. She spoke in a straight-forward way but without any judgment.

  After she left, Dorin said. “I do believe the moment we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. Off to bed with you.”

  “Don’t keep her up all night,” the queen said as we stood, the servants pulling back our heavy chairs. “I am sending tutors in the morning.”

  “Tutors? Tutors can wait until the day after tomorrow,” Dorin said firmly. “Rapunzel will see no one tomorrow except me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Prince Dorin

  “Do you think I was all right? Do you think they liked me? I tried to follow all the rules. I think I might have messed up the fairy bow a little bit, but it seemed like no one noticed. Are any of the girls I met tonight going to be my ladies-in-waiting? I don’t even know what ladies-in-waiting do. Do they just help you get your clothes on, or…?”

  I had swept Rapunzel into my arms, her voice close to my ear as she asked a thousand questions. I put her down on the bed now.

  “Do you think it was okay during that one part where that man—I guess he’s your uncle—asked my favorite pastime and I said ‘birds’? Birds aren’t really a pastime. I blurted it out. He looked at me in a sort of friendly way a minute later, but—” Her breath hitched. “The food really was good. Especially the plum cake. I could’ve eaten even more if I didn’t have this corset on. Some of the ladies are laced so tight I don’t know how they eat a single bite. Maybe it keeps me out of trouble. But—”

  I dropped my trousers and reached for her chin. I nudged my hard length between her lips.

  She stopped talking, her mouth opening wide for me obediently. Gods. I slid my cock into her deeper, inch by inch, the same way I first took her pussy. Seeing how far she could go.

  “Ahhguhh?” she asked.

  I pulled out of her again. “Yes?”

  “Oh, I—I didn’t know…should I do something? Should I lick you like a candy?”

  “Yes. You definitely should.”

  I still had my hand on her jaw and I felt her open wide.

  “Shit,” I groaned, sliding back inside of her. Her tongue started working my length as I slowly pushed my cock in and out of her mouth. I don’t think most girls would know what to do with a cock in their mouth as quickly as she did. I could probably thank the bonding spell for some of that. Its aphrodisiac qualities made her more willing. But maybe it didn’t hurt that she had no idea about anything, and trusted me so implicitly. She had no measure of what the world should be like, except what I told her. (Or maybe, I thought wryly, a mouth so eager to speak was also big enough to accommodate me.)

  “Aooonnn?” she asked.

  I made a frustrated sound and took my cock out of her mouth again. “What is it now?”

  “Will you
take my corset and farthingale off? It’s really terribly uncomfortable. All the boning is digging into my stomach and—”

  “Yes, my sweet. Is that all?”

  “For now,” she said, a little mischievously.

  “Well, think about it. I’ll get back to your mouth in a moment.”

  I slid my hands down to her shoulders. Her skin was so soft and pale, barely touched by the ravages of the outdoors. It pained me to recall the sight of that skin, but since I couldn’t see it, I was even more desirous to touch it. I slid the thin straps of her clothes off her shoulders, running my hands over her slender collarbones. Even the hollows there were beautiful; the way her necklace clung to her tender throat, and then the smooth sweep down to her breasts. I peeled down the ruffles again, letting her nipples peep out.

  She breathed harder, the little hard buds heaving under my fingers. “If I tell you this, you promise not to actually do it?”

  “I don’t know what it is.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’s against court protocol, but after you cut it so close on that horse, I’m not sure what you might do! The whole time we were eating that endless dinner,” she said, “I kept imagining if you reached your arm around me and slid your fingers under my bodice and touched my nipples just like you’re doing now.”

  “That is definitely against court protocol,” I growled. “Unfortunately.”

  Then I had to shake my head at myself. “Do you know,” I said, as I unfastened her bodice, “I was always embarrassed that my parents were so attracted to each other and would flirt with each other in full view of the court. They’re so strait-laced in every other way, but when it comes to each other…”

  “Really? They seemed pretty strait-laced to me!”

  “Well, the first time I became really aware of it was when I was twelve. It was one of the first times they let me stay up very late. My father was playing cards in the evening with some of his friends, and my mother came over to him and straddled his lap. And he called her his little bond mate. My mother! I still cringe. I didn’t want to be bonded to anyone at all. But now I think I see…”

  “See what?”

  I unhooked her corset, freeing her luscious curves. I pawed the thin shift she wore beneath, hardly able to contain myself. “The spell probably helps them be controlled in other areas. It gives them a release. The way some people drink to let go. But this way, I don’t have to seek other escapes. I’ll always find an escape in you.”

  “So, I was perfectly right to think of your hand on my breasts at that dinner,” she said. “That’s how to survive things. Just think of this.”

  The farthingale tied at the back of her waist with a ribbon. I pulled it off her legs and kicked it aside. Then I slid my hands up her silk stockings, clutching her thighs, smelling her sweet musk. I was groping her now, I was clawing at the darkness. I needed to see her face. I needed to see those little expressions, her smiles and wide eyes. Frustrated, I yanked the shift off her arms.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s how we survive.”

  I jabbed my cock toward her mouth again. I wasn’t sure precisely where it was, but I didn’t care. Anger simmered under my lust, driving me. Her teeth bumped into the head and then her lips closed around me again, and when they did I stroked into the warm wetness.

  She kept trying different things, almost getting distractingly experimental and random at times, her tongue flicking the underside of my cock, then licking side to side, then she ventured some very gentle pressure from her blunt little teeth.

  “Don’t be afraid to bite me,” I said. “Have you seen darkling women’s teeth? I can take it rough, my sweet.”

  As soon as I said it I wondered if it was the wrong idea; Rapunzel could be so earnest sometimes that I hoped she wouldn’t bite my cock right off, but thank goodness, she didn’t. Her teeth clamped down like she was marking me as her own, catching me in a vise of pleasure, and she worked her tongue hard up and down the underside of my shaft.

  I shuddered, and reached down. “Lift your knees.”

  She lifted her knees into my palms. I lifted them up higher, yanking her forward to the edge of the bed, exposing her pussy and her ass. I held her knees against my hips.

  “Nn!” she grunted uncertainly. She had to fling her arms back to support herself. “Uhhoooh?” she asked, and pulled her mouth off my cock. “Can you take off your shirt?”

  I think I ripped a perfectly good shirt trying to get back to business.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rapunzel

  I sighed with wonder as Dorin took off his shirt. I felt so little and naked, perched on the edge of the bed with my legs hitched up. But Dorin, even naked, seemed ready to go into battle. I’d read about warriors who fought nearly nude and I thought it was ridiculous, but now I thought, maybe it wasn’t. I could see so clearly now all that lean muscle, a few scars tracing faint lines in his skin here and there. He was tall and graceful, his skin glowing by candlelight.

  “I didn’t know men had nipples!” I said.

  He frowned. “Mm…hm.”

  His tail flicked forward toward my pussy, and I was excited again, seeing it. I could hardly decide which I liked better, the pulsing girth of his cock, or the fluttering length of his tail. He angled his hips slightly forward to take my mouth again.

  “I’m so close, Rapunzel,” he said.

  Now that my hands had to support me, I was having a bit of a harder time moving my head, so I just let him fill my mouth. Sometimes it was a bit uncomfortable and yet seeing the happiness on his face, I embraced whatever sensations came. Dorin had been through so much, and he still wouldn’t admit he was scared. I loved seeing him look so happy.

  He probed my entrance with his tail, slicking it with my juices, but then it slipped lower, poking into my ass.

  “Nn.” I wiggled uncertainly. His fingers slipped inside my pussy now, two fingers plunging deep. The tail nudged against my tight hole, lubricated by my own slickness, and the whole tip slid in.

  I moaned, feeling somehow that this must be improper, and did it feel good or not? Oh yes, I think it did, in a way that was utterly overwhelming and made my cheeks redden. Now I was losing myself to him completely as he claimed me every which way at once. I whimpered as his tail quivered in my ass, occasionally nudging in just a little deeper than before.

  “Yes…oh, Rapunzel…I love it when you moan.” He grabbed my hair with his free hand, tugging on one of the small braids. He seemed to be lost to words then, and I tightened my tongue around his cock, feeling how he trembled, seeing his eyes close to bliss. I hoped he had completely forgotten, in this moment, what he had lost for me. He pumped into me, again and again, his breath growing quicker and quicker.

  His seed gushed into my mouth. My chest heaved as I panicked a little, thinking I might choke. At the same time, it was so hot to see him lose it for me. A brief smile of uncontrolled satisfaction flickered across his face. He took his hand out of me and now clutched my hair with both hands, sweeping it up.

  He ran a hand down my throat, sighing, and I swallowed his juices. At least, I hoped that was what I was supposed to do.

  “Rapunzel.” He growled my name out with boyish satisfaction that made me grin. He picked me up by my arms and slid me a little further down the bed, and sprung on top of me. His tail was still inside my ass, and he gave it a good twitch. I squealed.

  “Do you like that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Just wait until I’m filling you up with my cock at the same time. Give me a minute to recover from the magnificence of your mouth.”

  I arched my back off the bed for a moment, pressing my pelvis against his, while pulling some of my hair up onto the bed behind me. Right now I was laying on a bed of hair and it was pulling on my head.

  He twirled a finger around a piece of it. Grief flashed across his expression for a moment. I softened under him. “Dorin,” I whispered, wanting to talk about it.

  “Don’t.”

&n
bsp; “But I have so many feelings myself. I mean—I killed the Witch.”

  “I did.”

  “Well…I will never know my real parents; I don’t know their names or where I came from. I’m twenty years old and I haven’t known anything, until I met you. And—and I don’t know what to say. In stories, there is always a point, isn’t there? But I don’t know what the point was, of those twenty years, and truthfully I feel furious when I think about it. But I feel a little better just saying so.”

  He nodded. “You know how to kill a mood.”

  “Oh, I haven’t killed any mood and you know it. You still want me as much as ever. I just want you to talk to me!”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m blind and I might never be cured? I might be a cripple? You want me to admit that and feel better?”

  “Maybe.”

  He scowled. “You were supposed to say, ‘You’re not a cripple, Dorin.’”

  “I didn’t say that because I don’t care one way or another. I wouldn’t think any less of you.”

  “That’s just the bond spell talking.”

  “Is it the bond spell, or does the bond spell just know?”

  “That is always the question.”

  “I don’t think you want to feel better,” I said.

  He looked fierce, his dark eyes searching. I hoped he did feel a little better, deep down. I spread my knees, letting him know that he didn’t have to keep talking if he was uncomfortable.

  He speared me with his length, and I groaned with the taking of him. All the things he had already done had left me very sensitive, my clit so swollen that any sensation brushing against it was like fire, and now his tail was filling me too.

  “Ahh,” I breathed, sliding my hands up and down his back.

  “Fuck that witch,” he grunted.

  “Why would you fuck the witch?”

  “I didn’t mean—it’s an expression you say to people you’re angry at.”

  “Oh.”