Asteria - In Love with the Prince Page 9

  At last, we finished our wine and he declared that it was time for dinner. There was a horrible moment when I thought he intended to take me out to a restaurant like that, but he said that we had work to do back at the hotel, and that he’d need me to translate documents: a working dinner. In his room.

  We walked back, two bodyguards in front of us and two behind. The rain was still pounding and the wind was getting up: we had to angle our umbrellas down in front of us like shields. I longed to hold his hand, to have him slip his arm around my waist, but we walked as formally as any work colleagues would. Normally, it would have been frustrating. With me as worked up as I was, I had to stop myself just grabbing his lapels and pulling him into a kiss.

  Minutes later, we were back at the hotel. He took me straight to his room and told his advisors we weren’t to be disturbed. Trays of salad and cold meats, cheese and fruit were waiting for us, together with a bottle of wine.

  When the door closed, I leaned back against it and blew out a very heartfelt sigh of relief. Jagor stood across the room, smiling one of those smiles.

  “Did you enjoy that?” he wanted to know. I struggled to answer. Because I’d been embarrassed, uncomfortable, terrified...but yes, dammit, I had enjoyed it. I was turned on in a dark, delicious way I wasn’t used to. I nodded.

  “Good. Take off the coat.”

  He’d left the curtains open. Outside, the howling wind and lashing rain had scoured everyone from the beach below, but I was still incredibly exposed: the lights were on, the whole room bathed in a warm, yellow glow. Anyone watching would be able to see everything.

  I slowly unbelted the coat, then popped the buttons, one by one. It gaped gradually open, my body hidden in shadow at first. Then, as I reached the bottom, I shrugged it back over my shoulders and let it fall down my arms.

  His gaze tracked down me, like a caress that warmed my body still further. I could feel it travel over my cold cheek, where a few strands of my hair had been plastered by the rain. Down over my breasts, the corset making me very aware of every breath, every rise and fall of my chest. Down to my panties, which I could feel were damp with my arousal. He smiled, and the way his strong, dark-stubbled jaw moved, the way his lips pressed almost hungrily together, made my heart lift and flutter.

  “I need to teach you,” he told me, “about Asteria.” Suddenly stepping close to me, he plunged a hand into my loose hair and drew my head back, his mouth descending on my lips. I gasped into his kiss, aching for his touch. Just the slightest brush of his body was like a drug, making me want to press myself to him. He broke the kiss abruptly, leaving me wanting more. “Are you ready for that?”

  I was panting, but the memories of our conversation in the limo were still fresh, my anger burning bright. “No, Your Highness.”

  He abruptly cupped my sex, his fingers running over the damp silk, massaging my slickened folds. I cried out, my knees buckling. “Yes you are,” he admonished, and I felt my face flush.

  “Go to the stool,” he told me, nodding across the room. There was a dressing table there, and in front of it a rectangular stool with deep red cushioning. It stood a few feet high, on carved wooden legs. I walked over to it uncertainly.

  “Kneel down across it,” he told me.

  I knelt, the wooden floor hard against my knees. The edge of the stool pushed against the front of my thighs, and as I lowered myself down the cushioned top pressed against my stomach and breasts, making my cleavage bulge provocatively. I gingerly put my hands on the floor on the far side of the stool. My heart was beating fast: I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

  Jagor was rummaging in one of his wardrobes. Then I heard him step up behind me, and something was drawn around my thigh, just above my knee. I looked down. It was one of his silk ties: he was tying my leg to the leg of the stool. I gasped: the feeling of it, of being suddenly unable to move, caressed by soft silk and hard, unyielding wood...I’d never felt anything that was at the same time so scary and yet so erotic.

  He tied my other leg, then repeated the process with my wrists, the wood cold against them. Now I was bound fast to the stool, unable to move, the ties he’d used slippery-smooth against my skin. I tugged at them experimentally. They held fast: this might be just a lesson, but the bondage was real – I certainly couldn’t free myself on my own. The thought made my heart beat faster. I glanced up at the windows. Night was falling fast, the angry sky merging with the dark beach as the wind whipped rain against the glass.

  Jagor knelt down behind me – I had to crane over my shoulder to see him, and he chuckled. Then he laid his huge hands over the cheeks of my ass and started to smooth over them, again and again. My eyes fluttered closed and I let my head return to front. Every touch was stirring the heat at my groin; after a few minutes, I was unconsciously grinding my hips in the air, trying to rub my clit against the edge of the stool.

  Then one hand was stroking lower. Down...oh God, underneath. I shuddered as he cupped my sex, not bothering to strip away the silk that covered it, just massaging my folds through my panties. My head lowered, my legs straining against the ties. I’d thought they were to stop me escaping. I realized now they had another purpose: I couldn’t grind my thighs together or clench his hand between them as I longed to. I had to go at his pace: I had no control over my own pleasure, and I growled in frustration.

  He started circling my clit with one finger, the damp silk sliding deliciously against it: just the right amount of friction. My eyes were still closed, my lips pressed together. With the corset constricting me, my breath was just hot little hisses through my nostrils; the room was almost silent. So it was all the more shocking when he suddenly spoke.

  “I’m going to spank you now, Lucy,” he said in a voice as unyielding as the movement of a continent.

  “W-what?” I swallowed. “Wait, Your Highness. I haven’t—I’m not sure—”

  “Do you remember your ring, Lucy?”

  I felt it, then, heavy and loose around my finger. I nodded. All I had to do was slip it off and let it fall to the hard, wood floor. And it would end.

  “I want you to count for me.”

  I swallowed again. I could feel my heartbeat rising, my hands clenching and unclenching. “I—” I started to say.

  CRACK!

  It was hard, harder than I’d imagined. I’d never been spanked, didn’t understand the pain a hard hand, especially one as large as his, can inflict on soft flesh, and how incredibly intimate the sensation is. I cried out, a strangled shout of pain and surprise – mainly in shock that he’d actually done it.

  I knelt there panting.

  “One,” I said, when I’d got my breath back.

  Nothing happened. The only noise was the wind howling outside.

  God – he didn’t really mean me to...did he? “Your Highness,” I added, my face flushing. The title changed everything. I wasn’t his lover anymore. I was his maid, his peasant, the serving wench in the dark hallway, the young bride stolen from her husband. And he was my king.

  CRACK! This time I was ready for it, which made it worse. There was an initial second of shock, I learned, with no pain. Then, as all the nerve endings exploded, it blossomed like fire. God, I couldn’t do this!

  “Two, Your Highness.”

  CRACK! This time I let out a cry as he hit, my pain cast from me in words, and that seemed to make it easier, even though the sob I let out sounded worryingly like something I’d do during sex. As the pain washed through me this time, it seemed to soak downwards, into my groin, and the burning turned into dark, liquid heat.

  God, no: I wasn’t getting turned on by this, was I?

  “Three, Your Highness.”

  CRACK! Now the slap of his hand and my reaction were all one, and the hot flood of arousal sluiced through me at almost the same time. It wasn’t just the pain, I realized. It was the whole thing.

  “F-four, Your Highness.” My voice was breaking, now, and I had to struggle to get it back under control.

>   CRACK! The fifth slap, and now the act and the pain and my lust were all one. It turned me on...despite it hurting? Because it hurt? I could feel the heat rising up through my belly, towards my chest.

  “Five, Your Highness.” I had to raise my voice over the noise of the storm. It wasn’t just the pain, it was the situation. I was—

  CRACK!

  “Six, Your Highness.” I was on my knees, being spanked by my prince, my king--

  CRACK!

  “Seven, Your Highness.” My eyes were wet.

  CRACK!

  “E-Eight, Your Highness.” Hot pain was blossoming all over my ass now, the explosions all joined together in an inferno, and I could feel the heat inside me up around my lungs, my breasts. I was panting, trying to breathe— God, I was crying—

  CRACK!

  “Nine, Your Highness!” and my voice was high and shrill. Hot currents were running up and down my bound body, like nothing I’d ever felt before. Tears were running down my cheeks.

  CRACK!

  “TEN, YOUR HIGHNESS!” I shouted, and the orgasm swept over me, making me thrash hard against the stool. If I could have ground my hips together I would have come a lot sooner, but by tying me he’d forced me to teeter on the edge. I let out a long, high cry, feeling myself clench and spasm.

  He leaned forward over me and gently undid the ties around my wrists, then the ones around my ankles. I didn’t – couldn’t – move. He scooped me up and carried me over to the bed, laying me down on my side.

  And then he did something that took me completely by surprise. Instead of taking me, he lay down behind me and wrapped his arms around me, cuddling me.

  The pillow was damp. It wasn’t the hard, hacking tears that get wrenched up from your soul when your boyfriend breaks up with you. The tears were from the pain, but they were more than that – it was like a release, like a barrier had been broken down in my mind. If I’d been on my own it would have been scary, but with his strong arms around me it was almost...cleansing. Cathartic. We lay there together until it passed. The storm howled and raged outside the windows, but it couldn’t touch us.

  “I think I understand now,” I told him softly. “A little.”

  I felt him nod. “You don’t mean about me, or Asteria, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “What do you understand now, Lucy?”

  “Me,” I whispered. “I understand something about me.”

  I turned over on the bed, trying to hold my tender ass off the covers. His arms tightened around my back and we kissed, his tongue slipping into my mouth....

  Someone banged loudly on the door. We jerked apart as if stung, and stared at each other. He was as shocked as I was.

  More banging. “Prince Jagor!” I thought I recognized Villik’s voice. He sounded worried – no, more than worried. Full-on panicked.

  Jagor leant close. “Bathroom, quickly!”

  I slid off the bed and willed my shaking legs to carry me. As I closed the bathroom door, I saw Jagor pick up the raincoat I’d left on the floor, ball it up and push it under the desk. I wanted to tell him to remove the ties, still trailing from the legs of the stool, but there was no time. As he opened the door to the corridor, I shut myself inside the bathroom and strained my ears to listen.

  “Your Highness!” Villik said. “An attempt has been made on your father’s life.”

  Chapter Eight

  For the entire time we’d been in Monaco, the bodyguards had been in the background. Other than that one time in the dress shop, I hadn’t had much contact with them and still only knew a few of their names. I’d started to view them a little like nightclub doormen – tough and silent and mostly there for the sake of appearance. I didn’t really take them seriously.

  Now, everything changed.

  Our floor of the hotel quickly came awake. The bodyguards banged on doors and started barking orders to each other – suddenly they all had earpieces in their ears, and their guns were a lot more obvious. I hadn’t realized they were all armed: that was how good a job they’d done of hiding it.

  Jagor covered for me, saying he’d go and wake me himself. I slipped him my key, and he let himself into my room, grabbed some clothes for me and joined me back in his room. Once I was dressed, I slipped out in the confusion.

  Less than ten minutes after the aide had banged on the door, we were assembled in the corridor with bodyguards at the front and back of the group. They raced us down the stairs, weapons drawn, to a rear fire exit. Terse instructions were snapped at us. Run. Heads down. Don’t stop. Get in the car you’re told. My heart was hammering so hard it was almost painful: I felt like I’d be sick at any moment.

  The door swung open and we were running. Outside, a line of black SUVs, flanked by police cars. Men crouched on the ground, with guns pointed at the rooftops around us. I was pushed into an SUV with the two other aides and to my dismay Jagor was sent to a different one, bodyguards shoulder-to-shoulder with him the whole time. Sirens wailed and the convoy sped off through the storm, blue lights lighting up the rain.

  ***

  When a member of a visiting royal family calls for an emergency evacuation, the government makes things happen. When we reached the airport, there wasn’t even the cursory passport check or trip through the VIP corridor. We were waved through a set of gates, and the whole convoy drove straight onto the taxiway. We pulled up next to the Prince’s 747 and were hurried up the steps, all of us quickly soaked by the rain. I felt the plane move even before the doors were closed, and we were in the air minutes later: they’d been holding all the other flights for us, so that we weren’t a target sitting on the runway.

  Once in the air, everything stopped. The aides immersed themselves in phones and laptops, trying to get a handle on things. The Prince was shut in his study, talking to Asteria. I sat there shaking: I had no one to call and no one to talk to. The one person who should have been reassuring me – and maybe me, him – I wasn’t allowed to see.

  When I managed to catch Villik between calls, I asked him, “Where are we flying?”

  He shook his head. “Nowhere. If the Prince’s life is in danger, standard procedure is to get him airborne: we’re safe up here. The pilot will fly a random course around France while we work out what’s happening.”

  I sat back in my seat and waited. There was nothing else I could do.

  ***

  Almost an hour later, Jagor emerged and addressed us.

  The King was alive, but critically ill in hospital. He’d been poisoned: they suspected at a reception he’d attended. An investigation was underway.

  “I need to be with my father,” he told us. “And I need to reassure the people. We’re going to Asteria.”

  ***

  My first glimpse of Asteria came a few hours later, as we piled into a line of waiting limos. It was still night, and all I could see were runway lights and a distant control tower. I could have been anywhere in the world.

  But I wasn’t, and my gut knew it. I’d felt the cold knot of fear even back at the hotel, as soon as Villik told Jagor the news. I’d tried to suppress it; hoped for the best. But now it was real: we were here. I was terrified, and at the same time I hated myself for being so selfish, for thinking of myself when I should have been worrying about Jagor.

  I hadn’t seen him since he spoke to the retinue: he’d spent the journey in his study and the rest of the retinue had been desperately scrambling to prepare for our arrival in Asteria, weeks ahead of schedule.

  I got into a limo with Villik and Ismelda. Even as the door closed, Ismelda reached into her bag and took out a shining silver collar. She swept her hair up out of the way, closed it around her neck and clicked the back together with a heavy, metal clack. The front of the collar was engraved with a name: Arkone.

  She met my eyes, then exchanged a worried glance with Villik

  “We should drop you at the palace,” she said, more to him than to me.

  “I should stay close to the Prince,”
I told her, with a firmness I didn’t feel.

  “We don’t need you here!” she snapped. Then, “I’m sorry, I mean—we don’t need you here, Lucy. He won’t need a translator at the hospital.” Or anywhere in Asteria, she might as well have added.

  I’ve never felt less wanted, or more out of place. I was an interloper, intruding right when they wanted to close ranks and protect the Prince. I nodded, but told her firmly, “I still want to come to the hospital.”

  Ismelda stared at me. God, did she suspect? But eventually her gaze softened a little and she nodded.

  We sped through the night: glimpses of beautiful, ancient buildings and towering skyscrapers, everything either newly built or perfectly preserved. I was one of the few outsiders ever to see it: any other time, it would have been wondrous. Right then, all I could think of was Jagor, and what he must be going through.

  When we pulled up in a basement car park, Ismelda turned to me.

  “Stay in the car,” she told me. “And Lucy, I mean stay in the car.”

  I nodded dumbly, close to tears.

  I spent close to two hours sitting alone in the back of the limo, the driver silent in the front seat. I was alone, in a foreign country – one where, if I went out alone in public, I was liable to be grabbed by the first man who saw me, taken to the slave market and sold. I was conducting a secret love affair that could wreck both our lives if it ever got out. I was very possibly in real danger from whoever had tried to assassinate the King, and cut off from the one man who could make me feel safe.

  I thought back to that night in the embassy. If only I hadn’t gone to the party. If only I hadn’t spilled my wine. If only....

  Then I’d never have met him.

  And I knew that, however much I hated my life right now, I wouldn’t change any of it if it meant giving up Jagor.

  Even as I thought it, the door opened and he got in – just him, although I could see the bodyguards pressing close outside. He looked like he’d aged ten years overnight.