"I'll be back soon, princess," I whisper, getting out of bed. "I just need... I need to think."
I walk to the balcony, my wings spreading wide. The night air is cold against my scales, sharp and clarifying.
Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe seventy-three years of this has finally broken something in me that can't be fixed.
Maybe I'm the monster everyone says I am.
I launch myself into the sky, shifting into my full dragon form as my wings catch the wind, carrying me up and away from the castle. Away from her.
But even as I fly, even as I try to clear my head, all I can think about is her lips parting. That soft, breathy sound.
And the terrifying possibility that she's waking up.
I fly above the forest treetops and through the mountain ranges that circle the castle. The farther I go, the worse the pulling sensation in my core becomes. That’s been happening more often as well. I fly and sore until the pulling sensation becomes unbearable and I’m forced to return to the castle. To her.
When I return hours later, exhausted and no clearer than when I left, I curl around her sleeping form. My tail wraps protectively around her body as it always does. My wings follow suit, holding her close.
"Someday," I whisper as my cock enters her smoothly and slowly, "I'll wake you.” I'm terrified of what I'll see in her eyes. I don’t enter her for sexual gratification. I want to be closer to her. Always near. Always connected. Lately, I feel like I can’t get close enough to her. In the back of my mind I hear a small voice tell me it’s because my body needs her to be awake to fully connect with her. But I’m not ready for that yet. I’m not ready for her rightful hatred. For her to leave me. I’m not ready for what she will say to me. Maybe I’ll wait a while longer.
CHAPTER 4
THE PRINCESS
I feel his clawed fingers in my hair, gentle despite the sharpness, almost reverent. He does this every morning, or what I assume is morning. Time has no meaning in the darkness. There's only the endless now, the eternal present of my prison.
He's lifting me now. I know this routine. Bath time. He'll undress me, wash me, touch me with those scaled hands in ways that make my silent body respond.
And God help me, I want it. I want it so badly.
I don't know anything except the darkness and his claws and his scales and the terrible, shameful pleasure that I've started to crave.
The water is warm. I feel it envelop me, feel him peeling away the nightgown with careful precision. Those claws could shred the fabric, could shred me, but he's always so careful. My breasts are exposed to the air, and I feel that too. The coolness, the way my nipples tighten in anticipation.
He's talking. He always talks.
He's a killer. A monster. He likely murdered my family. They must be dead by now, seventy-three years later. He kidnapped me. Cursed me. Trapped me in this darkness.
Another prince. Another murder. Another body in the courtyard. This time two at once. His scaled hands are on my breasts now, soaping them, the texture of his skin strange and rough-smooth all at once, and my body responds immediately. Heat pools between my legs. My nipples harden further under his touch, and I want more. I always want more now.
I'm so sick. So fucking sick for wanting this.
His clawed fingers slide between my thighs, and yes. Yes, please. Touch me there. Make me feel something. Make me feel alive.
He's washing me there, his fingers moving in slow circles, so careful with those claws, and my body, my desperate, starving body, grows wet for him. It always does now. In the beginning, I was dry, resistant, my body fighting even when my mind couldn't. But over the decades, my body learned to anticipate. To want. To need.
And lately, I don't know why, I can't understand it; I've been craving him even more. Thinking about him between his visits. Waiting for his touch with something that feels dangerously close to eagerness.
He's getting into the bath with me. The water shifts, rises, and I feel his massive body sliding in behind me. His scaled chest against my back. His arms wrapping around me, pulling me against him. His tail coiling around my legs beneath the water as he flips me around so I’m straddling him.
"I can't wait," he's saying, his voice that deep rumble that I feel in my bones. "I need you now, treasure. Right here."
His cock, already hard, already impossibly thick, presses against my core, and my body clenches with anticipation.Yes. Yes, please. I don't want to wait either. I never want to wait.
He's positioning me, lifting me slightly in the water, and then I feel the thick head of his cock pressing against my entrance. Even after all these years, even with my body trained to take him, that first push always steals my breath. The water makes it different. Smoother, easier, but also more intense somehow. I feel every ridge more acutely as he pushes inside.
"That's it," he groans, and I love that sound. Love knowing I make him feel this way. "Take me, Adelaide. Take all of me."
He's filling me, inch by impossible inch, those ridges dragging against my inner walls, and the water sloshes around us with each thrust. I'm completely at his mercy, held in his arms, impaled on his cock, and it's perfect. It's everything.
