Why did I think his touch was so terrible?
“What?”
“Kiss me.” He leans closer. For a moment, I see Roarke’s face, but then I blink, and the eyes that hold mine are the wrong color. They should be deep hazel with bright amber flecks, and they are not. Silver irises, so pale they are almost white stare back at me. His face changes too, his cheeks no longer chiseled and broad, his nose narrow and almost hooked. After another blink, it shifts again, his mask back in place. But I have seen behind it now. I cannot kiss him. Iwillnot kiss him. Not ever. Not willingly.
Roarke will come for me. I can endure whatever pain the Prince subjects me to if I can only see him again.
I shove the Prince back hard enough that his head hits the edge of my cot. “I would sooner die than feel your lips on mine. Do what you want to me,Prince. I will never be yours.”
“Guards!” His shout brings the three large Fae bursting into the room. “Strip her.”
Chapter Nine
Aurelia
Iscream as the tallest guard pins me down, sitting on my thighs as the darker-haired one ties my wrists together and hands the end of the rope to the Prince. He pulls my arms over my head so I cannot sit up or fight.
My leather corset rips under their hands, followed by my blouse, and then my breasts are bared to the cold morning air. My skirt is next, yanked down my hips and tossed away. Lastly, they unlace my boots and pull off my thin woolen stockings and panties.
“Now what?” one of them asks the Prince.
“Bring her to my chambers,” he says.
The tallest one wraps the rope around his fist and nods his head towards the door. “Walk or be dragged.”
“I will walk,” I say and struggle to my feet. The trek to the Prince’s chambers is long. Down a long stone stairway, then through an ornately decorated hall with golden carvings, beautiful paintings, and statues set into alcoves. Finally, up another stairway where there are two doors—one to the right and the other to the left.
The door on the right is open, and the guard pulls me through a lavish parlor with two chaises, a rich, dark wood table polished to a high shine, and oil lamps burning brightly.
“In here,” the Prince calls. “She will do her time bound where I can appreciate her body.”
His bedroom.No.
I dig in my heels, the soft rugs covering the floor giving me a small bit of purchase. But the guards are too big, too strong, and they simply pull me until I fall to my knees and drag me the rest of the way.
“Bind her properly now,” he says with a wave of his hand.
The tall guard tosses the rope over a horizontal beam in the ceiling and pulls my arms up until I am forced up onto the balls of my feet against the hard wooden beam. Another long rope winds around my waist to just under my breasts, and yet another binds my legs from mid-thighs to just below my knees.
My most intimate areas are left bare as I face the Prince’s bed, and the bastard lounges against numerous pillows piled on his unmade bed, watching me. “This is better, Lia. Is it not? You are mine, after all. Leaving you alone in that tower room? Unacceptable. I should not have done that to my future bride.”
“I amnotyour future bride,” I whisper.
“Oh, but you are, my sweet Lia.” He chuckles and lifts a pitcher from the table on the side of his bed, then pours amber liquid into a glass. “It is only a matter of time before you accept your fate.”
Sauntering over to me, he holds the glass to my lips, but I shake my head. “You are drugging me. I would rather die.”
Anger flares in his eyes and he pinches my nose shut, then forces the nectar down my throat. “You will submit to me, Lia. Or you will beg for a death that will never be granted.”
Once I swallow enough of the liquid for his satisfaction, he cups my cheek and rests two fingers against my temple. “What do you want, Lia? What is your greatest desire?”
“To be free of you.” The words escape on a hiss. My entire body warms, despite the chill in the room, and I fight against the pull of the charmed drink. I am so very hungry and still thirsty after all the tears I cried the previous day. My feet ache, and whenever I try to relax them for a bit of relief, the ropes bite painfully into my wrists.
The Prince tosses the empty glass onto the bed so he can grab my head in both of his hands. He pries my eyes open when I try to close them, and his stare bores into me. “You are mine, Lia. Nothing will ever change that.”
“I am…not…yours.”
“Oh, but you are.” He touches his forehead to mine. “Yet you desire another.”
