Page 112 of Settle Down, Princess

“No, I—”

“I should make you clean it.” He was on me so damn fast I didn’t even notice him coming. His hand was around my throat, squeezing gently now, with the promise of a much more brutal hold. “Like a cat. Lick every drop off my clothing until it looks good as new, then I can put that mouth of yours to better use.” He thrust a thumb between my lips, and I choked on the foul taste of his skin. I fought to pull free, but he held me tight. “Did they do that? Each and every one of them taking their turn, using the mouth of the woman who was given in marriage to me? Did they force you to swallow down their cum each night, over and over until it spilled from your lips?”

Every man wanted something from you, that I’d learned at court. Whether it was to represent an ideal of feminine purity or elegance or beauty, or for you to allow them to use you like a napkin, to wipe parts of their body on. I knew now that I needed to work out what that was and then decide if I wanted to give it to them. Magnus needed a victim. Someone who would cry and wail and protest, making him feel strong because any other opponent made him feel weak simply by existing.

He was a small man, a pathetic one that had been allowed unimaginable power due to an accident of birth, and that was terrifying. I sniffled then, easily able to summon tears. I’d taken a great risk, getting into the carriage with the king, and that fact had one tear, then another running down my face. I cried for the girls he hurt in the dining hall. I cried for those he’d killed before me. I cried for myself, because the gods only knew if I’d survive this and that had him nodding. A hellish light danced in his eyes, growing brighter and brighter until I forced his thumb out of my mouth, only to croak out a plea.

“Please, Your Majesty, I did nothing wrong. You’ll find out once we reach the capital that I remain untouched. I remain loyal—”

His expression soured, brows jerking down, the skin around his eyes tightening. I watched him jerk away from me with something like relief, but that quickly died when he only drew back a few steps.

“Well, we’re all waiting.” He gestured to the trees. “Do your business and then we can be off again.”

“What?”

It was bad enough that I was reduced to urinating under trees like an animal, but usually a gentleman acknowledged this indignity by turning his back and standing away some distance. Magnus had made no move to oversee my excretions before.

“You asked for the carriage to stop. You wanted a tree to piss against.” His grin was back and twice as vicious. “Have I not done everything you asked?”

“You haven’t given me your back,” I snapped far too sharply. “You haven’t given me any privacy.”

“Because you are to be my wife.” His eyes slid down me so slowly I fought the urge to rake my nails along my skin, to rid myself of the almost physical sensation. “There is to be no privacy between us soon. And anyway…” His focus intensified as he followed his eyes up my form. “There is a particular bordello in the entertainment district. The owners of the establishment have every single girl drinking from tall glasses stained with very particular dyes. Each one of them can piss a different colour and when they get together, they create a rainbow—”

“You mean to watch…?”

They’d tried to tell me that Magnus was dangerous, Arik and his band. They’d made clear the threat he posed, but each moment my throat remained unmarked, I’d persuaded myself that I was in control of the situation. My focus shifted to up the road, as if one of the soldiers milling around there could be called upon for help. As I watched them stand around, chatting casually to each other, then cast their eyes back at us, I knew. There was no hope to be had here.

My whole body trembled as my mind frantically bargained. It tried to recite back to me the rules I’d been taught, the strictures of feminine behaviour supposed to protect me from this exact situation.

But they hadn’t.

It hadn’t stopped me from Magnus choosing me as his next victim and being a good girl wouldn’t help me now. My fingers sank into the silken folds of my dress, my breath sucked in, right as he turned on his heel.

“Piss in peace, princess, and be quick about it. I want to be in the capital before night falls. As scintillating as you are as a travel companion, the comforts of my chambers await.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, smiling when he saw I was still frozen to the spot. “Ones you’ll share with me tonight.”

My breath was coming in fast, but no matter how my chest heaved, it didn’t suck in enough air. My heart was racing far too much, my limbs quivering in revulsion. I’d told my mates blithely to come and find me, to wrest the throne from Magnus’ hands, but that took time. What the hell would I do in the meantime? When I wasn’t paying attention, sometimes it came, the memories of what I had shared with each of Arik’s bands.

Their touch had seared trails on my skin, marking me as theirs, but Magnus’ might overwrite it. Replacing pleasure with pain, with violation. When he saw that I recognised that, he nodded and smiled, evidently having gotten what he needed as he walked away. I was reduced to hunching behind the trees and doing my business as every part of my body shook with the need to run away.

But I didn’t.

There was nowhere to go, no means for me to escape, so I finished my task and then swept back to the carriage. Magnus held out a hand, ready to help me climb back in, but I gripped the doorway instead, hoisting myself inside. In that time, he’d changed out of his tunic, so I couldn’t even indulge in the pointless pleasure of tracing the outline of the stain with my eyes, rather I made myself a picture of feminine docility, keeping my eyes trained on the ground. If I thought the indignity of the day was over, I was sorely mistaken.

I barely saw the streets of the Kheanian capital as we clattered up the main road, taking us towards the palace. All I could see beyond the curtains were buildings, so many buildings and people. Teeming up and down the streets, going about their business, hardly even looking up to see us pass, but before I could ask why, we swept inside the palace gates. The building took my breath away. It was every single dream of a castle I’d had as a child, listening to my nanny tell me fairy tales. Made from an austerely pale-grey stone, spires and turrets rose high into the sky, each one flying the flag of Khean, the stags stitched on there, rearing up and pawing at the sky. But there was no audience to greet us when I stumbled out of the carriage, no courtiers to step forward and introduce themselves.

Probably because all of them were clustered here.

The king dragged me up step after winding step, then down a thickly carpeted hall to his chambers. That’s where everyone stood, milling around as if this was a party of some sort. Richly dressed men and women snapped to attention the moment we entered.

“Have the girl inspected,” Magnus said in a nonchalant voice. He glanced across the room at a woman dressed in hooded black robes. “You. You’re from the Temple of the Women, aren’t you?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Her voice was the one thing that dispelled the illusion, because when I took the priestess in, I felt like I’d been dipped in molten wax, my entire body tingling. She raised her hood slightly to reveal familiar green eyes. Her face was not quite as angular as the original. There was a softness in her cheeks, a fullness to her lips that alerted me to the fact I wasn’t staring at Silas in religious garb, but an actual woman. Her eyes twinkled as she shot me a sly wink before she pulled her hood back down.

“See if the girl is indeed still pure,” he directed, divesting himself of his boots, then his belt. “If she’s intact I’ll consummate the marriage now.”

Now…?

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