Page 16 of The Captive's Curse
The reassuringly not-at-all-flammable tin bathtub, while corroded and dinged up, exceeded my modest expectations: long enough for me to almost stretch out my legs (although Enzo’s remarks about my “stunted child” stature rang in my ears as I did, damn him), and deep enough that the water came up to my chin. Thanks to my magic, which cooperated nicely, I’d gotten the temperature to the perfect point of nearly boiling me alive.
While coarsely textured and far from the lavender-scented variety I preferred at home, the soap smelled nothing at all like onions.
My new bedchamber, this one located in a different section of the castle and on the third floor, had an even smaller fireplace than the other and a tiny narrow bed.
But it too smelled nothing at all like onions, and the window looked out over a gorgeous vista of forests and distant peaks.
With my hair softly, silkily waving around my face, and with no offensive odors whatsoever emanating from my person or surroundings, the world took on a rosier hue—despite the even deeper lowering gloom outside the window.
So Bruno didn’t want me back. Fine. We’d been closer as children, but he’d been grouchy with me for a solid decade now. And so my mother didn’t want me back either. Also fine. Perhaps she had faith in me as a man and a mage, and believed I could take care of myself.
Ha.
All right, it wasn’t so fine that my mother was willing to have me cast out to fend for myself. But she had a soft spot for Rivina, having no daughters of her own, and no doubt that harpy’s complaints had worn her down.
Anyway, I had my lute. And Leander had sent someone to light a cheerful, crackling blaze in the fireplace, small as it was, with a basket of logs left to the side for me to feed it when it burned down.
The rain beat endlessly against the window, driven by a gusty wind. With my lute finally fully tuned, a bit of a project given the damp, I amused myself by using the rain as a rhythmic counterpoint to the melody I plucked out. It calmed my mind in a way nothing else could do. Some people found peace with a lover in the aftermath of pleasure. But I never had. No matter how many men I took to bed, no matter how momentarily satisfied my body might be when I was done with them, no matter how my curse might be successfully kept in abeyance by the act of taking another man inside me, none of it ever satisfied the ache in my soul that music soothed so well.
That said…getting fuckeddidkeep my curse at bay, whereas music didn’t in the slightest. And now that I’d had a moment of peace and quiet, I’d been able to calculate my impending cursed misery more precisely. By the evening of the next day, I’d begin to show the symptoms of the curse: first a headache, then a fever, and then shooting spikes of pain in every limb.
And all the while, the unbearable, agonizing ache between my legs, a hot, heavy demand that only another man’s seed—or a potion made for the purpose of replacing that requirement—could alleviate.
The first time I’d experienced it, I’d been only fourteen. Since I’d been born at dawn and had shown signs of magic allthrough my childhood, my family had known to have a potion at the ready by the time I entered adolescence, when Ennolu’s curse typically manifested. So that pain had been brief. I’d successfully used the potion for several years. It deprived me of my magic, but at least it kept me alive and sane through the few years during which I’d been too young to manage my curse in any other way.
And then I’d grown up a bit. My magic had begun to hum more insistently beneath my skin, demanding to be used.
On top of that, I’d read a few more explicit works of literature, and started to notice the way some other boys looked at me—and wish I could do something about it. The potion didn’t only stunt the user’s magic, it made sex impossible, or at best miserably pointless; impotence and a lack of desire were both side effects.
So I’d stopped taking the potion entirely in favor of developing my magic as much as I could, exploring my curiosity, and enjoying my life. Several years after that, the pains had hit me shortly after a lover had ended things with me, so cruelly that I wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t leave my room. The potion had seemed far preferable to trying to find a casual bed partner in my state of lovelorn misery.
Except that the moment it touched my lips, I became violently ill, shaking and vomiting my guts out for hours. A rare sensitivity, the mages and physicians whom Bruno had hired all told us. Very unfortunate, but everyone’s bodies were different, and so on and so forth.
Since then I’d simply made certain that less than a week went by between vigorous, enjoyable bouts with any attractive man who took my fancy.
Not that I was complaining. The potion tasted disgusting, like spearmint and ginger boiled with week-old socks. And I hated not even being able to get myself off.
I did, however, also make certain not to become too attached to any one man. That week I’d spent throwing up, shivering, and heartbroken, topped off with the agony of my curse at the end of it, had been the worst of my life, and I refused to ever endure anything like it again.
Mmm, that was a lovely little chord progression. I couldn’t write it down; my notes and pencils hadn’t made it into the trunk. Leander would have writing implements, and I’d beg and borrow them later, but for now I played it through again and again until I could be quite certain I wouldn’t forget it.
What had I been…?
My curse, right. Fuck. I had tonight, really, to sort it out, because I didn’t want to be wandering desperately around the castle tomorrow trying to persuade one of Enzo’s men to neglect his duties in favor of rogering me in a corner of the stables. Not that I’d have much trouble succeeding, I had no doubt, but what if no one attractive happened to be readily available? I’d have to take whatever I could get. Ugh.
No, tonight would be far preferable. All the men would be gathered at supper. I could assess the options all at once, and then prioritize which I’d like to approach first. Perhaps I’d start with Finn. He’d seemed amenable enough earlier. Or Leander, whose light flirtation hadn’t exceeded friendly bounds, but who might be happy to fuck me quickly to keep my curse in check.
If neither of them were willing, then I’d need to spread my net wider. A few smiles, perhaps finding an excuse to bend over again—although this time I’d keep my pants on—and seeing who couldn’t keep his eyes off me when I did.
There were no other possibilities.
None.
I trilled an arpeggio on the strings of my lute, up and then down, and then a different set of chords, focusing on the sensation of the strings, their tension, funneling a tendrilof magic into the process so that I could feel and perfect the vibrations in a way no mundane man ever could.
My breath came faster, and heat built low down, behind my balls, between the cheeks of my ass.
No. Finn, or Leander, or someone else I hadn’t met yet.
