Page 14 of The Huntsman's Heart
Now I’m laughing. “Is this your version of making it easy for me?”
Suddenly his hand is on my throat, and I’m not laughing anymore. “Do I need to show you what the hard way looks like?”
Alaric
Something in me snaps when she laughs in my face. Little brat. I would have been gentle with her. I would have done it quickly.
She wouldn’t have felt a thing.
Well now I’ll make goddamn sure she feels every single moment.
My hand tightens on her slim throat. I’m cutting off her air. So much the better.
Then she can’t eat at me with her words. Her useless questions.
Did I dream Melantha would bed me now her father is dead? Not exactly, but I’m ashamed of how close she cut to the quick. Still stinging, I tighten my hand around her pretty neck.
I don't know why I haven't ended this yet. It's not as if I have a choice. Melantha has given orders, and thanks to the curse I brought upon myself, I'm nothing more than her slave.
Once again I'm forced to play the cur when once I was a king. Well this dog still has teeth, and I’ll take a bite of what I really want before I slink back beneath my mistress’s feet.
Guinevere’s weak nails dig into my dead flesh, and I wish she could hurt me more. There’s nothing left here of the man who used to inhabit this body. He died long ago when I gave up my soul. Is it any wonder I have become a monster?
She struggles still, and though her strength is no match for mine, I must admire the tenacity that drives her to fight me even when she knows she will lose. I admire and curse it.
“Did you think…she would let you have me?” the princess grinds out through gritted teeth. “Is that what she promised you?”
A harsh bark of laughter erupts from me. “Do you think I could not take what I wanted?”
The arm I have about her waist slips as she struggles, and my fingers graze the underside of her small breasts. They arerounder and softer than I am expecting, suddenly full and womanly when one summer ago she was nothing but a child. Her firm ass butts against my groin, and unbelievably I feel a stirring there.
“Oh so that is what this is?” She jerks in my grip, but I won’t let her go.
It’s not what this is, but if she insists on taunting me, why should I not take whatever I want from her?
Hungrily, I grip the delicate linen of her chemise where it rises above her corset. I tear it down the middle.
Guinevere lets out a squawk of outrage, but I simply yank on the rope holding her hands behind her back. She lifts her heel and stamps down hard on the toe of my boot. I ignore the dull pain and grab hold of the rigid boned corset. With another rough yank, that too is torn, all the way to her slim waist.
I take a grim satisfaction in the little whine of fear she makes when I close my hand around her naked breast. I’ve never heard her afraid before. The sound is not as sweet in my ears as I had hoped. Not when a cold twisting of guilt stabs at me even as I paw her pale flesh.
My cock rises to full thickness as I squeeze her roughly, savoring the plump feel of her, certain I’ll never feel such sweet, supple skin in my grasp ever again. As pure as the skin on her face and neck is, there is no softness like the untouched flesh of her breasts. Virgin flesh, now sullied by my monstrous touch.
When I remove my hand a smudge of dirt from my fingers remains, marring the pretty white of her skin. I’m both appalled and incredibly aroused by the sight of my mark on her flesh.
Struggling, she tugs to be free of me, twisting and kicking. But now that I’ve started, there’s no stopping.
Years of bending the knee, of debasing myself before Melantha, have bred an anger in me that the princess’s ignorantdefiance has loosed. Since I can’t have my revenge on her stepmother, I will slake my frustration on her.
There’s nothing she can do to stop me.
I push her roughly against the nearest tree. Tharrok whickers softly in alarm. He’s right. There are monsters out here. And I am the worst of them.
She cries out in protest as I push her against the rough bark, yet the princess doesn’t scream. She doesn’t cry.
I thought she would cry.
I take a fistful of her skirts and pull them up. The skin here is just as soft and perfect as the rest of her. Her bare legs are pale in the moonlight, her ass is as plump and delicious as her tits.
