I thrust three more times, hard and deep, and then I'm coming, filling her with my seed, marking her from the inside. My bite mark on her neck throbs in time with my pulse, and I lean down to lick it, to taste her skin, to remind myself that she's real, that she's mine.
"I love you," I pant against her neck. "I love you so much. More than anything. More than everything."
I stay buried inside her as my orgasm fades, my cock still twitching, still releasing the last drops of my cum. My wings wrap tighter around us, cocooning us in warmth and darkness.
"I'm going to fall asleep like this," I tell her, my eyes already growing heavy. "Buried inside you. Where I belong. Where I've always belonged." My wings flutter around her. Encapsulating her in their protection and warmth.
I play with her other nipple, alternating between them, feeling her body respond even in sleep. Feeling her clench around my cock.
"Mine," I murmur, my eyes closing. "My treasure. My love.”
Sleep pulls at me, heavy and warm. I let myself drift, my body relaxed, my cock still inside her, my wings still wrapped around us both.
But just as I'm about to slip under, something tugs at my consciousness. Something wrong. Something... different.
I force my eyes open slightly, looking at her face in the dim candlelight.
Her lips. They're... parted. More than usual. And there's something about the way they're positioned, like they've moved. Like they've actually moved.
I stare at her mouth, my heart suddenly pounding. That's not possible. The curse keeps her completely still, completely frozen. Her mouth doesn't move. It never moves.
But I could swear... earlier, when I first entered her, when I was watching her face... I could swear her lips parted. Not just from the pressure of my cock inside her, not just from her body's response, but actually moved. Like she was trying to speak. Like she was trying to...
No. That's not possible.
I'm imagining things. I must be. Fifty years of the same routine, the same stillness, and now my mind is playing tricks on me.
But the unease doesn't fade. It sits in my chest, cold and heavy, even as sleep finally claims me.
Something is wrong with the magic.
Something is changing.
CHAPTER 2
THE PRINCESS
I feel him enter me, and I want to scream.
Not from pain, though there is pain, there's always pain when something that large pushes inside, but from the horrible, shameful pleasure that comes with it.
Each ridge on his cock drags against places inside me that make my body sing. Makes me wet. Makes me want more even as I hate myself for wanting anything at all.
He's talking about murder. About pulling someone's intestines out. About strangling a man with his own guts. And my body is responding. Getting aroused. Getting ready for him. I've been hearing him talk like this for so many years that it's started to sound normal.
What does that make me?
I feel him push deeper, stretching me, filling me inch by impossible inch. He's so careful. That's what makes it worse. He knows exactly how much I can take, exactly how fast to go, exactly where to touch me to make my body accept him.
Fifty years. Fifty years of being awake inside this prison of flesh and bone. Fifty years of feeling everything while being able to do nothing. Fifty years of his voice, his touch, his presence becoming the entire world.
I remember the first year. How I screamed inside my own head until I thought I'd go mad. How I tried to move, tried so hard that something inside me felt like it would break from the effort. My finger. Just one finger. If I could just move one finger, I could prove I was still here, still human, still Adelaide.
But nothing ever moved.
The second year, I tried to count the days. Tried to keep track of time, of myself, of who I was before this. Princess Adelaide. Nineteen years old. I liked reading. I liked riding horses. I had a friend named Violet who made me laugh.
By the fifth year, I couldn't remember Violet's face.
