Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

The Bell

When I returned to my room, a metal tub full of steaming water waited. My body ached and my bones screamed, and the thought of sinking into the heat made me want to weep with relief.

I closed the door quietly and scanned the room for any signs of fae but saw none. Then I turned my attention to the water, attempting to assess if it had been enchanted. While I did, the door opened.

Naeve entered, grumbling. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Get in! You stink!”

I straightened. “Did you order the bath?” I asked.

“Who else?” she snapped.

“Thank you,” I said.

The harsh lines carving the brownie’s face softened at my gratitude, and she averted her eyes as if it made her uncomfortable.

“Hurry, hurry, before the water cools!”

I smiled at her embarrassment and reached behind me in an attempt to loosen the laces of my dress. Casamir had tied them, and they had grown tighter over the two days I’d stayed in this gown. Naeve pushed a stool toward me, climbed it, and took over. With deft fingers, she had the dress undone in seconds. It was stiff as I pushed it down.

Once I was naked, I stepped into the bath. I could not help the moan that escaped my mouth as I sank into the water. For the first time since I’d arrived here, I felt the tension leave my body.

I could not see Naeve, but I could hear her moving about, and I knew she was near when a scrub brush popped up over the edge of the tub. It was followed shortly after by her face as she climbed the chair.

“Lean over,” she said.

I hesitated and considered telling her that I could scrub my own back but decided I’d rather keep her favor, so I did as she said. When she was finished, I leaned back in the bath and immersed myself in the water, enjoying the feel of it cradling my body. When I surfaced, she scrubbed my hair until I thought my scalp might bleed before she poured a fresh bucket of water over my head without warning and then stood, holding out a towel.

My bath was finished, and as I stood and the water dripped off me, Naeve said, “Our prince is an idiot.”

My brows lowered. “What?”

“Take the towel,” she said and then hopped off the chair.

I stepped out of the bath, watching the brownie as she pushed the stool back to the vanity.

Once it was in place, she turned and continued, “He is an idiot, and he is not a good person. He has few positive traits, save that he is handsome, but so are all elven princes, and he will likely never understand your needs because he has never had to think of anyone but himself, but that does not mean he will not try.”

“What are you talking about, Naeve?” I asked, confused by her sudden speech.

“I am trying to help you fall in love with him,” she said.

“What?” I asked on a breathless laugh.

“To be sure, he has not been kind by your standards,” she said, as if she had not even heard me speak. “But by the fae, he has granted you every mercy.”

“What mercy?” I asked. “I am his prisoner, and I must earn my freedom, and for what? Nothing but his pleasure.”

“You must earn your freedom because he cannot earn his,” she said. “Trust me, it is not a pleasure to watch both of you fail at this every day.”

I stared at her, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“The prince is cursed by the Glass Mountains,” she said. “And if you do not guess and speak his name in five days’ time, he will forget it, and if a fae does not know their name, they fade away.”

“Fade away?”

“Cease to exist,” she said. “Never to return to the earthly plane.”

I thought of my earlier conversation with Casamir.

I have died many times and I will come back with more.

Under the curse, I supposed the cycle would cease.

“Why should I care?”

“Because now your freedom is tied to his,” she said. “And if you are not free before he forgets his name, then you never will be.”

“And what does love have to do with this?” I asked.

“You can guess his name and even speak it, but you must also love him, or the curse cannot be broken.”

I could not describe my shock, but the warmth that had radiated off my skin from the bath suddenly chilled me to the bone.

“Then we shall never be free,” I said.

“Let us hope that is not true,” she said, and with that, she left me alone to process this blow.

You must also love him.

Casamir had completely failed to communicate that part of the deal, though why would he? He needed me and likely thought himself charming enough to sway me.

“Stupid, arrogant fae prince!” I seethed aloud.

I threw off the towel and crossed to the wardrobe, knocking as I spoke.

“I need clothes! Something…modest!”

The door opened, and I snatched the white gown the fae offered and slipped it on as I crossed to the mirror. It was a thin night rail that did little to hide my body from sight, especially the parts of me that were still wet from the bath. I laced the ties in the front, as silly as it seemed considering that Casamir had already seen all of me. It felt like a form of rebellion.

I turned from the mirror and wandered to the window where the day was fading into night, only a small sliver of golden light peeking through the thick foliage outside.

I thought about some of the things that had occurred over the last few days—the way Casamir touched me on our first meeting, the way he’d taken over lacing my gowns, the way he had kissed me in this room as if he were starved.

But as it turned out, he was just desperate for me to fall in love with him and break a curse. My hands fisted, my face hot with shame. I crossed my arms over my chest, frustrated that I had let him indulge in my body at all.

Never again, I thought as tears pricked my eyes.

I was so embarrassed. I felt so stupid. I wasn’t even sure why. There was nothing wrong with indulging in pleasure. Except that…I think I might have hoped that this idiot elven prince was actually interested in me.

“Never again,” I said aloud, and I watched as the golden light turned dark red. As the light faded, I swore I heard the sound of a bell. It was a soft chime I could feel in my heart, and it drew my attention like nothing ever had before.

I pressed my ear to the window, and it became clearer—a pretty peal of bells. All at once, I felt calm, the tension and anger that had tightened my insides releasing in an instant, and I could breathe again. I drew away from the window and left, the sound growing clearer without the walls of my room in the way. I followed the portico and escaped into the garden, guided by the echoing chime.

My feet were bare and the earth was cold, but the sound of the bells was warm, so I did not mind as I made my way through towering wood lilies and shoots of anemones, between trees hung so thick with brambles and thorns, their branches were hardly visible.

The chime did not grow any louder the farther I walked, and yet I followed, as if I might find the source. But when I came to a clearing where the ground was covered in flowering convolvuli, the sound abruptly stopped. When the bell ceased to sound, its hold on me fell away, leaving me cold and alone in the middle of the Thorn Prince’s forest garden.

“Fuck,” I muttered, turning in a circle at the center of the clearing, but I could no longer tell from which direction I came. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder and the color drain from my face as a familiar voice spoke.

“Do I know you?”

A knot formed in my throat, and I tried to swallow it, but I couldn’t.

“Miss?”

I closed my eyes, torn between hope and horror.

I knew the voice, but I had not heard it in years.

“Darling?” Another voice joined the mix, and a sound escaped my mouth, so pained and so visceral, I could hardly hold myself up, bent beneath the anguish.

The voices were those of my dead parents.

“Darling,” my mother said in her beautiful, breathy voice. It brought tears to my eyes to hear it, a long-ago echo I could never recall. “Look at my face, and you shall know that everything will be okay.”

“Stop!” I said, choking on a sob that felt like a needle in my throat.

A cold hand touched my arm, and I tore away, squeezing my eyes shut tighter.

“Little one.” My father’s voice shook me to the core. “Listen to your mother.”

“She is not my mother,” I shouted, my voice raw and rough. “And you are not my father!”

“Ella.”

The new voice broke me. It tore my heart out and left a gaping hole, and the blood that I saw at my feet was not my own but that of my sister.

“Do not be afraid,” she said. “We are all together again.”

I knew not to, but I did it anyway. I opened my eyes and beheld her. My sister, Winter. She was nothing but a corpse, a skeleton adorned in rotting flesh with an arrow lodged in her breast.

I reeled away and broke into a run, and my family followed, their shouts shrill and resonate in the wood.

“Ella! Come back!” my sister called.

“We have come to take you home,” my mother said.

“Gesela! Stop running from your mother!” my father ordered in his gruff rasp.

“Go away!” I screamed and covered my ears. “Go away, go away, go away!”

I tripped, and when I hit the ground, I did not move. I felt as though my chest had been cracked open, the pain so great, I could barely breathe.

I sobbed, and my tears wet the earth beneath my head, and I only rose from where I lay when I felt something touch my cheek. I sat back and saw that it was a leaf. As I watched, the leaf sprouted a longer stem, and the stem sprouted a golden bloom, and the bloom opened to reveal a sleeping fairy. She was covered in gold. When she opened her eyes, she sat up and stretched and then smiled wickedly as she blew dust into my face.

“Fuck!” I heard Casamir curse, and the sound of his voice made my heart race in a way it never had before. I started to turn to him, but his voice cut through the air like a whip. “Close your eyes!”

His command was visceral, and I knew fairies well enough to trust him. I did as he had ordered, and a laugh sounded from the golden fairy, small and impish, though it quickly turned into a gurgled scream.

I covered my eyes with my hands, except that they were quickly ripped away.

“No, you must look! Look!” said a voice.

I could not see the source of the power that kept me from obeying Casamir, but I was not strong enough to resist. When I opened my eyes, I saw the Prince of Thorns holding the golden fairy within his clawed hand, teeth bared as if he were about to devour her.

“Casamir!”

I did not know what possessed me to speak his name, but I did not understand anything that was happening to me anyway.

When he looked at me, I suddenly understood what the fairy had done. Her magic was desire, and as soon as Casamir’s gaze connected with mine, heat erupted between my legs and an unearthly groan escaped from my mouth.

“What. Did. I. Say?” He spoke between clenched teeth. His entire body had gone rigid, and I couldn’t speak, noting his heavy erection.

The fairy had gotten him too.

“Fuck,” he cursed as he tossed the fairy aside. She landed with a thud and did not move as he stormed toward me and dragged me to my feet.

I thought—hoped—he would kiss me. I was ready for it, desperate for it.

My fingers tangled into his shirt as I angled my head and opened my mouth, but he turned me away and drew my back to his chest, his hands on my hips.

An unearthly whine escaped my mouth as his arousal settled against my ass. I could not help grinding into him. I arched my back and reached behind me, hoping to secure my hand behind his neck, but his hand came down on my wrist, and then he trapped my arms beneath his own.

“Don’t,” Casamir gritted out.

“Please,” I begged, panting, unable to think past the desperate need pulsing throughout my entire body. I had never been this aroused.

It was more than desperation.

If he did not fuck me, I would die.

“You hate me,” he said, but he pulled me closer and held me tighter. It was the smallest reprieve, the tiniest stroke of friction. I wanted to weep. “You will hate yourself.”

“It’s not as if we can help it,” I argued.

“I’d rather not fuck someone whose lust for me is only a spell.”

“Yet you had no trouble when I sucked your cock.”

“That was different. This is different.”

“How?”

“Stop talking,” he said. “This is harder when you talk.”

“Why should I?” I challenged, frustrated. “I would have never guessed the Prince of Thorns was a man of honor.”

“I am not,” he said, his voice grating.

He lifted and carried me beneath the branches of a nearby tree where he sat with his back to the trunk and me before him, cradled between his legs. He kept me pressed against his front, his arms trapping mine as they encircled my waist. His erection was hard between us, and despite his resistance, even he could not keep from shifting against me.

“I can ease you,” I said. “I have done so before.”

“Creature,” he warned.

“I am only asking for you. Nothing more.”

He did not respond. The longer I sat there untouched, the more distressed I felt. I rubbed my thighs together to create some kind of friction, desperate to end the throbbing at the apex of my thighs.

“Please, Casamir,” I begged.

“Don’t. Make. This. Harder,” he said between his teeth, his fingers pressing hard into my skin.

“I will die,” I moaned.

His face fell into the crook of my neck, and his lips brushed over my skin as his tongue darted out to taste me. I twisted toward him, and our mouths collided in a hot and vicious kiss. I let my legs fall open, frantic for his touch, hoping he would not resist, but he kept his hands planted firmly around me. I lifted my dress and broke the kiss, letting my head fall against his shoulder as I parted my own flesh, twisting my wrist to reach deeper inside me.

“Fuck.” The curse slipped from his lips.

A moan broke past my lips, and I whispered to him what I never wanted to say aloud.

“I am so wet,” I said as he watched me pleasure myself over my shoulder.

“Fuck me,” he whispered as his lips danced across my shoulder and up the column of my neck, teeth scraping hungrily.

“I am trying,” I said, shifting my legs over his so that I was far more exposed. “Don’t you want to touch me?”

“That is a foolish fucking question,” he said as his teeth nibbled at my ear, but it worked.

One of his hands broke away and tangled in my hair, and he jerked my head back so he could kiss my mouth, but his action only freed me enough to pleasure myself far easier than before. As I moved inside my heat, bliss threaded throughout my body, curling deep in my belly to the point that I could no longer contain my orgasm. I opened my mouth against Casamir’s as I came. When I removed my hand and reached for him, he caught it and brought my fingers to his mouth, sucking each one clean. As he did, a laugh drew our attention.

The fairy Casamir had tossed to the ground had risen, and her wicked smile returned.

“No use resisting,” she said, her voice as pure as the chimes that had led me here. “It would have come to this eventually.”

Casamir went rigid behind me.

“What is she talking about?” I asked.

“I do not know, but if she does not shut up, I will pluck her head from her body.”

The fairy giggled again. “I only gave you what you truly wanted. Your deepest desire. It is not every day I find two people who want each other. Consider yourself lucky.”

Then she fluttered away, and silence stretched between us.

“Release me,” I said.

He didn’t listen, his body growing tense against mine.

“Casamir,” I warned, and then my hands were free. I shifted onto my knees and faced him. His eyes were dark, our need screaming between us.

“I hate you,” I said, even as I straddled him and his hands curved against my ass.

I had to say it because what I was about to do didn’t make sense.

But I wanted this.

I wanted to be wanted.

A small smile curved his lips.

“The feeling’s mutual, creature.”

As my mouth collided with his, Casamir tore my dress in two, each piece falling off my shoulders and pooling around my waist. I didn’t care, couldn’t care. My need for release had gone beyond anything rational, and I was consumed by him—by his mouth and his touch, both of which were now on my breasts.

“Is it true?” Casamir asked. “Is it true that you desire me?”

I was quiet.

“Answer the fucking question.”

His hands tightened on me, his lips pressed to my neck.

“Yes,” I breathed. “And you?”

The sound he made was something between a growl and a sigh.

“I knew you wanted to fuck me,” he said.

“Beast,” I said, pushing against him. “Answer me!”

“Yes,” he growled and kissed me hard on the mouth, his hand knotted in my hair.

When he pulled away, he spoke. “You will call me Casamir if you want my cock. Do you understand?”

I parted my lips and offered a small, teasing smile. This prince was about to discover he had no control.

“Casamir,” I breathed his name, my lips hovering over his.

He kissed me again, hands digging into my body as he shifted and pressed me to the ground. He sat back on his heels, eyes full of black.

“You are beautiful,” he said, and this time when he spoke, I knew he meant it.

Then he shed his clothes, and his cock was thick and full. He settled between my hips, only wearing the silver chains, which were cold as they rested against my skin. I sighed with relief at the feel of him against me, widening my legs so that his crown rested within my heat.

He paused for a moment and brushed my hair from my face. The movement was strangely gentle, and then he spoke, voice warm and low. “I will give you everything,” he said. “But right now—”

“You have never been charming,” I said, interrupting him. “Do not waste my time with it now.”

He smiled shrewdly and then pushed inside me in one fluid movement. I hadn’t known how much I needed this until now. We both groaned, and I let my head fall back against the ground as his fingers wrapped around the column of my neck, though he did not press. As much as I hated to surrender to this creature, lying beneath him right now, it only seemed right.

“Choke me,” I said.

He did not need encouragement, and I had expected this because since our first encounter, he had had an obsession with my neck. As he gently squeezed and thrust inside me, I thought I might die from the rush of pleasure that blossomed throughout my body, only growing in intensity as he continued to press on either side of my neck.

I grasped his forearm and tried to take a breath when my chest started to burn. He loomed over me, watching my face, and then he bent to kiss my mouth before releasing me. I took a deep, guttural breath, light-headed but so fucking aroused I could barely hold on to my orgasm. I did not want this to end because beneath Casamir’s heated gaze, I felt like someone.

“So fucking beautiful, so fucking wet,” he said, panting, but he whispered the words, as if he were only speaking to himself. Then his hand returned to my neck and his pace shifted into something far more visceral and carnal. I loved it and wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything, even my freedom.

When he released me, I came, but he continued to move, chasing his own release.

“Come inside me,” I said.

“Fuck you,” he breathed, but he planted his arms on either side of my head and leaned close, and I reveled in the crush of his body against mine. Perspiration gathered on his brow, and I held on to him, fingers pressing into his skin until he kissed me, coming with his mouth against mine.

I wrapped my legs around him to keep him inside me, expecting him to soften, expecting to find myself sated, but as the prince pulled back and met my gaze, the fire that had spurred us on from the start reignited.

“What kind of magic is this?” I moaned as I arched against him.

“This is not magic,” he said and bent to press a kiss to my neck, then my jaw. It was a sweet gesture, and it sent a strange feeling of comfort throughout my body, even as the heat from our coupling raged inside me. “This is need.”

If this was need, I had never known it before, but I was certain I could not live without it, and I had sense enough to feel the dread of that thought before I was consumed once more by passion for the elven prince whose name I did not know.