Chapter 16

Ari

“ H ow many virgins have you done it with?” I asked as we lay side by side in my bed, our arms and legs intertwined.

The night had been amazing. Even with very little experience, I could tell Salas was a skilled lover, and now I knew where that skill came from.

“What does it matter?” He frowned. “They were all clients. None of them were you.”

He leaned closer to kiss me, and I let him. What happened between us had never been about money for him. I knew it the moment I’d learned that he donated it all.

A shiver ran through me, and Salas pulled away, breaking our kiss. For once, I resented his self-control, wishing he’d get lost in our beautiful lie with me tonight. But he seemed to be always aware of the truth.

“I’ll run a warm bath for you, Princess. It’ll help with any soreness you may have.”

He took a blanket from the foot of the bed and drew it over me before getting out of bed. A moment later, I heard the water rush into the tub through the open door to the bathroom.

I stretched in bed, feeling slightly feverish but elated. It happened. I’d come as close to a man as one could, and it hadn’t killed me. On the contrary, I loved it. After dreading sex for so long, I actually enjoyed it.

Did it mean I was now ready to guide my future husband in all bedroom matters?

A sudden grip of sadness seized my heart.

It was over now. There was no reason for Salas to be with me anymore. Yet letting him go was the last thing I wished to do. Even having him out of my sight right now didn’t sit well with me.

I tossed the covers aside, ready to go to him when he returned from the bathroom.

“The bath is ready.” He scooped me from the bed into his arms.

I hugged him with a soft giggle. The sound felt foreign, even to my own ear. Giggling was unbecoming for a princess, but the giddy feeling Salas caused in me bubbled over, hard to contain.

The tub was filling quickly. No petals floated on the surface this time, but Salas must’ve added some oils and fragrances from the vials on the stand nearby, turning the water creamy pink.

“Here we go.” He gently lowered me into the tub.

The warm water hugged my hips, soothing the ache. For now, it barely reached up to my waist. Kneeling by the tub, Salas scooped the water with his large hand, then poured it over my bent legs to warm them.

I raked my fingers through the water. “Do you want to join me? There is lots of space for two in here.”

He hesitated. “I should be going soon.”

His words churned with anxiety in my chest. I wasn’t ready for him to leave. I never was.

“Stay,” I begged. “We have a whole night still.”

“Don’t you need to get some sleep? There is another busy day of running the country tomorrow.”

“I rarely sleep, anyway.” I shrugged.

“Why?”

I’d hardly spoken about my insomnia to anyone. What was the point? The one time when I mentioned it to the royal healing witch, she gave me the same sleeping potion that the palace guards used on their crossbow bolts. It knocked me out for the whole night but left me drowsy and aching for two days after. I never took that thing again.

Instead, I managed to do just fine by getting scraps of sleep on the nights after some less stressful days.

“I’m just not a good sleeper, I guess,” I said.

“You slept just fine both nights I’d stayed with you. The first night, you even slept in, remember?”

“I did, didn’t I?””

Salas proved to be better than a sleeping potion for me. Except that I didn’t want to sleep tonight. If this was our last night together, I didn’t want to waste a single second.

“Climb in.” I splashed the water in the tub in invitation. “It’ll fill faster with you in it. Besides, I really enjoy having you close,” I confessed, then added quickly, “Of course if you don’t feel the same way...”

“Oh Ari.” He shook his head in surrender. “The last thing you need to doubt is the joy I feel when I'm with you.”

He rose from the floor, then undid the closure of his pants, and I averted my eyes. He’d already been inside me. I’d felt him and loved the sensation. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to look at that part of his body. Maybe I feared it’d remind me of the one that’d been forced down my throat long ago. It was the only penis I’d seen so far, and I didn’t want any reminders of that memory.

Salas stepped into the bath. Despite being determined to keep my focus on the swirls of water, I failed and jerked my gaze up his muscular legs.

A wide, mangled scar marred his right thigh, stretching from just below his hip all the way down to his knee.

“Is this from the fire?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Yes.” He lowered himself into the tub.

Before he settled into the milky water, I caught a glimpse of his erection. To my relief, it looked very different from the dick that I hated to remember. Thicker and longer, Salas’s hard length also had a curious ridge and protrusions I’d never seen or even heard of before.

With a deep sigh of relaxation, Salas leaned back against the marble on the opposite end of me. The water instantly rose higher, hiding his peculiar appendage from view.

I turned off the faucet and drew my knees to my chest to give him space, but he found my ankles in the water, then stretched my legs comfortably for me, placing my feet on his thighs.

Every time we got together, it had always been about me. Salas had made my pleasure his mission, but now I wondered how he felt. He’d never done anything for himself.

He’d said he was dying to find out what it felt like to be inside me, but he’d slipped out right after that one thrust that had absolved me of virginity. At the time, I was relieved to have him out, ending the invasion. But now, I wished I could make him feel at least a fraction of the pleasure I'd experienced because of him.

“Can you tell me something, please?” I asked, a little hesitantly.

Would he appreciate my attention to the matter? Or would he find it intrusive?

His voice remained light when he gave me permission. “Go ahead, ask.”

“Please don’t laugh, but I honestly don’t know. Does a man’s erection always mean he... um, wants to have sex?”

He didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile, just cleared his throat, shifting a little.

“Not always. But often, yes. It does.”

“How about you? Right now? How are you feeling?”

“Does it matter how I feel?”

“Why not? I’d like you to enjoy your time with me as much as I’m enjoying spending it with you. How do you feel when I touch you?”

I placed a hand on his shin under the water but didn’t move it any higher, waiting for his reply. He’d known his share of unwanted touches. The last thing I wished was to force more on him.

“How far do you want to go with this, Princess?” His voice dropped to a low rumble.

“All the way.” I leaned closer, sliding my hand up to his knee. “If you let me.”

He gripped the edges of the tub with both hands. Water splashed and sloshed around us as he sat up straighter.

“May I?” I ran my fingers along a thick corded muscle in his left thigh. “Give me a sign, Salas, say a word, and I’ll stop,” I echoed his own words to me.

He let my hand travel up his thigh unimpeded, but as my thumb brushed by his shaft, he sucked in a breath.

I halted my advances.

“Don’t stop, Princess,” he rasped. “Whatever you do, just please don’t stop. I can’t do anything halfway with you.”

“All right then. All the way it is.”

I braced against the onslaught of dark memories when curling my fingers around his girth. But the sensation was incomparable to anything I’d ever touched before.

Everything about this man was solid and well-built—from his character, to his heart, to every part of his body, including his cock. Some curious shapes seemed to be inserted just under the delicate skin of his hard length.

He tossed his head back, gripping the edges of the bathtub with both hands as I explored his body.

“What’s this?” I tapped with my fingers along the hard ridge at the base of his cock in the front. My thumb slid over a row of round bumps on the underside of his shaft. “Were you born with these? I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Of course, you haven’t.” He groaned softly, either from pleasure or pain.

“Does it hurt?” I jerked my hand away.

He scrubbed a palm down his face before looking at me again. “I wasn’t born with these, Princess. A warlock with questionable skill and reputation did it, using fish bladders, liquid onyx, a few magic spells, and goddess-knows-what-else. But the pain is long gone. Now, it’s just numb at the base.”

“Why did he do this to you? Did you report him? Was he arrested and punished for this?”

He smiled warmly. “My feisty little princess, ready for blood and vengeance. Why would I report him? I paid him to do it.”

“You did?” I gaped at him in shock. “But why?”

“For the pleasure of my clients.”

“You paid an unskilled warlock to hurt and mutilate you for the pleasure of strangers?”

“Strangers who financed the survival of both me and the establishment I worked for.”

I stopped short of arguing, afraid I’d sound judgmental. Instead, I reached out and wrapped my hand around his hard length again.

“How exactly did it give your clients pleasure?”

He covered my hand with his, guiding me.

“This elevation here...” He slid the tip of my pointer finger along the thick vertical ridge at the base in the front. It ran from about halfway up along his cock then up his lower belly for about the length of my finger. “It’ll make you come in seconds if I fuck you at just the right angle.”

“Oh...” I bit my lip.

“And these here...” He pressed my thumb to the row of rounded bumps on the underside of his shaft. “They would bring you a lot of pleasure if I took you from behind.”

Desire surged low in my belly. The mental image of Salas pounding into me with abandon proved incredibly arousing.

“You said it hurt when you had it done?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It is a rather painful procedure, yes.”

“But you went through with it, only to feel numb at the end?”

“It never was about what I feel, Princess. These things aren’t done for the man’s pleasure.”

“Then tell me what brings you pleasure. Where can I touch you to make you feel good?”

He paused for a moment.

“Me?” He guided my hand up his erect cock. “Here—” His breath hitched as he moved my finger in a circle just under the crown of the head.

“Right here?” I rubbed where he showed me.

“Yes...” Salas groaned. “Oh, gods.”

His hand fell away, leaving him entirely at my mercy.

I stroked lightly at first, carefully avoiding the magical modifications to his body. Despite his assurance that they were no longer painful, I lost all desire to touch them. They were done for someone else, and right now I wished to pleasure him and only him.

He stretched through his entire body as I played with him, slowly gaining confidence. His low groans and eagerness with which he pushed into my hand were the best encouragement. As he jerked up, the tip of his erection popped out of the water. I bent down and flicked my tongue over the head of his cock.

He moaned, sucking in air in short little breaths.

“Princess...”

I looked up at him.

“What are you doing?” He cupped the side of my face with his large hand.

“The same thing you’ve done to me.” I licked my lips.

“But women don’t normally do this.”

I arched an eyebrow. “They don’t?”

“Not usually. No.”

“So, you’ve never had anyone lick you there?” I stroked with my thumb over his cock’s head under water.

“No. Never.” The muscles in his belly and thighs strained, turning rock-solid.

A thrill coursed through me. Could it be true? I did something for the first time to the man who had given me so many of my firsts.

“Well, that’s just perfect, Salas.” I smiled. “My turn to be your first, then. Can you lift him up for me, please? So I can do it again.”

I waited for him to lift his hips again for his cock to emerge out of the water, eager to take him in, but Salas kept his body down and his hand under my jaw.

“Are you sure about this, Ari?”

He worried about me because he now knew all the dark parts of my past. But that was exactly why I had to do it. I used Salas’s taste, his scent, and the feel of his skin to erase every sensation that had been forced on me by others. I used him because I knew he would let me.

“I’m sure.” I nodded. “Please let me taste you again.”

He lifted himself out of the water, exposing his cock for me. I wrapped my lips just under his crown, the place where he said he felt the pleasure. He tasted like the rose water of the bath. I sucked then licked, delighted by his tortured groans.

“Ari, I—” He gripped my head, his fingers sinking into my hair.

He lifted me up and off his cock. Then dropped his hips back into the tub, water splashing out. I pumped him with my hand for his climax to erupt. His release spread through the water in tight creamy spurts, and I felt grateful to him for keeping it out of my mouth.

The dark memory churned in my head with a brief swirl of nausea in my throat. Then, it passed, and I knew it would never torture me with the same intensity ever again. Salas proved to be a perfect cure for my sickening past.

I gently stroked up his thigh and over the rugged surface of his scar. His skin suddenly wavered with shimmer, mirroring the mother-of-pearl swirls of the rose oil in the water—a wave of reflection ran through Salas.

I’d never seen him reflect before, not when he was flogged, not when he faced the guards in the city at night, but he did now while looking at me.

“You’ll be my ruin, Ari,” he said with a quiet conviction.

The smile slipped from my face. My heart tightened at the foreboding in his words.

A princess and a slave were already a highly unlikely pair. A princess and a man with Salas’s past? I couldn’t even predict all the repercussions we both might face if it ever came out.

If I was to be his ruin, then he certainly could be my downfall.

AFTER DRAINING THE tub and taking a shower together, Salas and I snuggled under the blankets in my bed.

“Have breakfast with me,” I said, curling against his wide chest.

He threw an arm around me, holding me close.

“It’s way too early for breakfast.”

“Tea then? I’ll call for it right now.” I climbed out of bed and pulled on the ribbon of the bell before he had a chance to object.

He sat up in bed. “Wouldn’t the kitchen be closed at this hour?”

“Not in Egami Palace.” I found and put on a nightgown. “The Queen’s Court is huge. Someone is always hungry, day or night. The cooks rotate in the kitchen.”

Salas hid behind the silk screen when a maid came, and I ordered us tea. After my order had arrived, we sat in my bed, shoulder to shoulder, our backs against the headboard, the tea tray on our lap.

“Where did you learn how to serve tea?” I watched him expertly fill the infuser with tea leaves then add just the right amount of dried berries and herbs for extra flavor before submerging it into the porcelain teapot. “You don’t need to answer it, by the way,” I added promptly, afraid of what kind of memories my question might stir in him. “You don’t ever have to answer any of my questions about your past.”

“I don’t mind,” he replied calmly. “My memories hold no power over me. With you, I can talk freely, now that you know everything.”

I envied his composure. I could only wish to get to that level of calm and control one day.

“I learned many ways to serve tea in the lady’s manor,” Salas explained. “Back in our house, Mother kept things simple. We had one fine tea set that came as Father’s dowry. But it was mostly displayed in a glass cabinet. I remember taking it out only when Mother’s friends came over or when her sister visited, which she didn’t do often.”

He poured the tea into two cups, then added some cream to one of them before handing it to me.

“Thank you.” I accepted it, noticing he remembered how I liked my tea.

“A sandwich?” He offered me the plate with tiny pastries and some meat sandwiches.

“No. I’m good.” I waved the food off. “You have some.”

I wasn’t hungry. I could always get any food I wished. He, however, could use a break from the potato stew served in the slaves’ barracks. But Salas didn’t seem to be in a hurry to devour such delicacies like doe cheese from the mountains or the sweet fruit from across the sea. Picking up a rye wafer with a thin slice of ham, he took a small bite of it, then placed it back on the edge of the tray.

Salas handled food with the same reservation and control with which he drank fine wine or made love to me, as if afraid to get used to something he knew he couldn’t keep.

I set my cup down on the tray, then took his hand in mine. He faced me. His eyes, dark in the pale moonlight, studied my face. I searched for something to say. Something that would express how I felt having him by my side, but no words seemed adequate, so I just smiled.

Leaning closer, he kissed my nose. The tenderness of his gesture spread through me like melted butter. My limbs grew heavy and my resolve to keep it together softened to a mush. He didn’t move away from me, pressing another kiss to my cheek.

“Your freckles are hard to see at night,” he murmured against my skin. “I need to be very close to spot them.”

My glasses fogged up from his breath, and I closed my eyes, using my other senses to feel him.

“Is that what you’re doing, Salas? Are you kissing my freckles?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, pressing a kiss to the side of my nose. “They’re so cute. And extremely kissable.”

“I don’t remember anyone calling me cute before.”

“It’s because they don’t get to see you like this, with your hair down and your feet up.” He pressed his lips to my other cheek next.

Out there, deep behind the horizon, the sun kept moving, bringing the inevitable morning to Rorrim Queendom. Soon, Salas would have to leave. But for now... For now, he was still mine.

I tilted my head back, catching his next kiss on my mouth. He deepened it, letting me taste the sweet tea on his lips. When he pulled away, he panted a little, leaving me out of breath too.

“Have you ever been on a date?” I asked, because this really felt like a date to me, even though I'd never been on one before.

“No,” he said. “I was too young for courting when my parents were alive. And then—” He shrugged, not bothering to finish.

But I knew what he didn’t say: and then, an adult woman robbed him of his innocence, his youth, and his future, depriving him of any chance to ever have a date.

“If you were on a date, what would you like it to be?” Salas asked, his voice lifting. Clearly, he refused to be dragged down by memories of his past.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I tapped my chin with a finger. “I’d go see a play in a theater?” It came out as a question, betraying my uncertainty.

“Is that something nobles do when courting?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’ve never really courted anyone. The council and my parents have been doing that part for me so far.” I thought about my parents strolling along a garden path, lost in their conversation. “If I had to plan a date, I think I’d go outside. A walk in a garden is something I’d like to do. The palace gardens are a nice, quiet place to talk. Besides, I enjoy being outdoors, even if I don’t get out that often.”

“How about riding your horse?”

“I like that too, yes,” I agreed. “A ride would make an excellent date. Provided of course that my date can ride a horse.”

“Or you could teach him.”

“I’m a terrible teacher.” I laughed, shaking my head. “I could explain a math problem and help find the solution. But to explain things outside of the classroom? That’s not in my skill set. I’d be like, ‘Alright, Salas, this is the horse. Horse, this is Salas. Now find a way to work together.’”

He grinned, moonlight bouncing in his eyes. “So, it’s our date you’re talking about then? Since it’s me you’re introducing to that horse.”

I didn’t argue. What was the harm in letting this fantasy live for a little while? Either way, it was doomed to die with the first light of sunrise.

“Well if so,” he continued, “then I’d like for us to go swimming together. Do you swim?”

“I do.”

“Great. But I have a condition. The best swimming is at night when no one is around, because it’s best to wear no clothes at all, nothing to drag you down. On a calm night, the water is so dark, you can’t see the bottom. With the starry sky above and a bottomless abyss below, it really looks like flying. And at that moment, you feel absolutely free.”

Free.

I closed my eyes, letting the picture created by his words take me. Of the two of us, it could be assumed I had more freedom than Salas. But I felt more tied up and chained than ever, restrained by so many duties and obligations, sometimes it felt my back would break from their weight.

A kiss landed on the side of my nose, and I opened my eyes to meet Salas’s warm gaze.

“I just realized I hadn’t kissed that freckle yet,” he explained.

He simply wouldn’t let me descend into sadness tonight, lifting me up one kiss, one smile at a time. I liked my freckles. But now I wished I had infinitely more of them for Salas to keep kissing them all.

“And after swimming,” he continued describing the imaginary date we would never have in real life, “I’d make you the best rabbit pie you’ve ever had.”

“I like rabbit pie. Come to think of it, they don’t serve it in the palace often enough.”

He huffed in disappointment. “Well, the life of a princess isn’t as great as I thought then. In such a case, I most definitely would make you the pie. That’s pretty much the only dish I can make, but I can make it exceptionally well.”

“I can cook too,” I bragged, not to be outdone by his rabbit pie. “I know at least a dozen ways how to cook potatoes. And... well, that’s pretty much all I know about cooking.” I shook my head, laughing.

“It’s a really good thing then that we both have other people to make food for us, Princess.”

I had an entire palace kitchen staffed with the world’s most renowned chefs. And he had a slave cook. It wasn’t quite the same, but I smiled anyway because if I didn’t, I’d have to acknowledge the infinite distance between us that could never be crossed.

“STAY,” resonated through my mind.

Only this time, I didn’t say the word out loud as we stood on the patio, his arms wrapped around me in one last hug.

As much as we’d tried to hide from the sunrise in my bed behind the silk screen, the pale light of the rising sun had found us. Morning slithered through the open patio doors, painting the skies with muddy yellow.

Salas had to leave, and I could no longer hold him. I’d run out of time and out of excuses to keep him with me.

He’d put his shirt back on. I’d smoothed it over his chest, running my fingers over the small, polished buttons. With the shirt now in his possession, I realized there was nothing I’d have of him, not a single memento. Just memories.

My throat tightened. I wished I could do something, say something. But words were void of hope, so I kept them all in.

Salas gently ran his fingers along the side of my face. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Ari.”

I loved the sound of my name from his lips. It pained me to know I’d have to live now without ever hearing it from him again.

Like it had always been, happiness remained unattainable. By now, I believed it simply didn’t exist. There was contentment, safety, and peace. I’d felt those. Happiness, however, remained nothing but an illusion, a beautiful but impossible idea. A ghost. Every time I thought I’d come close enough to feel it, it’d flutter away and disappear like an apparition.

“Can you find a way to be happy, too, Salas?”

“I’m content. That’s more than I could’ve hoped for years ago.”

I wished I could do something for him, help him somehow. But after my last failed attempt, I feared even an offer of help might come off as an insult to the life he’d built.

“Don’t free just one slave...” he’d said.

Mother had told me something similar, though not quite the same. “ ...you can’t favor any one person without considering the impact it would have on the rest.”

If I made a change to the benefit of all slaves, then Salas would benefit too. I didn’t know exactly how yet, but I was determined to find a way.

“I’ll never forget you,” I said with a sigh, struggling to keep my tears at bay.

“I will always remember you, too, Princess.”

He took my mouth in a kiss that seemed impossibly short when it ended. As he tore himself away from me, I took a step after him, unable to let go. He promptly climbed over the parapet, and by the time I reached it, he’d already made it down the wall, jumping off the lattice onto the ground.

He ripped the lower section of the lattice off the wall, wrested it out of the climbing rose bushes, then tossed it into the nearby hedge with force.

“Don’t let them fix this,” he growled, before walking away.

Air left me, squeezed out of my lungs by a tight band of sorrow around my chest. My knees gave in, and I sank to the ground. Hugging a stone pillar of the parapet, I watched his large figure shrink into the distance until he stepped off the path and took some hidden passage between the hedges toward the slaves’ barracks.

Longing stretched from me to him like a thin but resilient thread. I wished I could break it as easily as he’d broken the lattice to block his way back to me.

A longing could grow into something bigger if I wasn’t careful.

But there was no place for Salas in my future.

And I had no place in his.