Page 21 of The Royal Curse

And then it cracked, a sound like a branch breaking, as my arm spasmed and my fingers clenched convulsively.

NowI could tell, and how I’d thought my mere nerves a moment ago were my cursed magic, I didn’t know.

Scorching pain swirled in my abdomen and radiated out, sending tendrils like fiery worms into my hips and my ribs, up to my shoulders and down into my groin. I doubled over, panting against the urge to scream.

“Your Highness! Your Highness, fuck, look at me, tell me what’s happening…” Andreas’s voice washed over me for a moment, but his hands on my shoulders grounded me enough that I could focus on them, return my awareness to his voice. “…which one to try first? Your Highness!”

I lifted my head from my knees, assisted by his grip on me. Andreas had knelt down beside me and bent to try to look into my face.

“What?” I gasped. It took a second to remember, and pain shot down my right arm so suddenly that I yelped. “Try…you mean the drugs. The…labeled for palpi, pitations.”

He released me and I slumped over again, gritting my teeth, trying to force my muscles to relax. My heart hammered. A headache built behind my eyes, sizzling bolts striking my skull at random.

Andreas pushed me up again, tipping me against the back of my chair. “How much?” He tugged the cork out of the bottle. “I don’t want you to take too—”

Desperation gave me more speed and strength than usual, and I snatched it out of his hand and took a deep slug of it. As soon as it left my lips, Andreas seized it and took it back, muttering something under his breath that sounded like, “irresponsible.” Well, it sounded like “reckless idiot,” but I preferred my more polite translation.

And I could have a coherent thought because…the pain had simmered down enough that I could focus on something other than the fire ripping through my body.

“It’s working,” I said, only a little slurred. My lungs expanded all the way as I sucked in air, and it felt glorious. “It’s better.”

Andreas tilted the bottle toward the lamp and frowned, squinting at the label. “That fellow has the most ridiculous handwriting—there are sixteen doses in this bottle, meant to be taken two hours apart,” he said, and looked up at me. “Sixteen, Your Highness. I estimate you just took four of them. Possibly more.”

“It doesn’t feel like too much. My heart’s almost beating normally.” I let my head fall back against the chair. My racing heart being reined in to a more reasonable pace had reduced all of my symptoms, as the physician’s assistant had speculated it might. He deserved a higher wage.

Only…not quite all of them.

My eyes popped open as something throbbed deep inside me. I’d always associated this particular sensation with pain, since they’d always been bound up together. But it didn’t actually hurt, not on its own. Between my navel and my hips and my balls, I’d gone molten: hot and swirling and somehow achingly empty. Needy. Demanding.

Fuck,verydemanding. I forced myself to be still rather than squirming in the chair, spreading my legs, arching my back, trying to ease the sensation by opening myself up as much as I could. The effort of keeping my body in check had sweat breaking out on my hairline and starting to bead on my spine.

“Your Highness?” Andreas leaned down, lines of anxiety bracketing his mouth. “You said you were feeling better.”

“I am, it doesn’t hurt so much as it—”

“You were whimpering.”

I stared up at him in horror. I absolutely had not been…whimpering. “That’s not a sound that I make, Andreas,” I said, as confidently as I could.

His frown deepened. “It wasn’t an insult. Are you in pain or not?”

“Not exactly,” I hedged, and then another spasm hit, this one very clearly centered behind my balls, a piercing twist of heat. “Oh gods,” I—whimpered. I couldn’t even deny it. My grip on the arms of the chair went so tight my knuckles popped. Any second now, I’d— “Andreas,” I gasped, bending down again, trying to curl around it, but it didn’t do a damn bit of good. “Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.” His voice was so close that it startled me, and I lifted my head to find him crouched down in front of my chair again.

His eyes were extraordinary at this distance, more dark bronze than anything and ringed with a thin black line. And steady. Andreas was steady. He’d never let me down, I knew it in my bones. I could trust him.

“It’s not pain, it’s the—other thing,” I said, almost whispering, as if I had to keep this between us, in this tiny space separating us. “I’ll be begging soon. I’m halfway sane right now, but that won’t last long. Those drugs won’t help with the cravings, just the pain. Andreas, I’m so sorry, please forgive me—”

The words caught in my throat as he reached up and—laid his hand over my mouth. My lips, against the callused skin of his swordsman’s hand. The heat of him.

And perhaps I should have, but I hadn’t expected the skin-to-skin touch of another man to make me collapse again, moaning,needing, my balls drawn up and my hole tightening around nothing.

“Please,” I gasped, my lips sliding against his palm. He tugged it away instantly, and it didn’t help, it made itworsethat he’d stopped touching me. “No!” I flailed an arm out to catch him as he stood and walked away—and missed, my hand flopping down.

“One second, Your Highness,” he said, his voice flat with tension, and I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my forehead on my knees, panting, trying to center myself. It worked, except that my center had become the place between my legs where another man would force me open, stuff and fuck me, fill me with heat, make me wet.

I moaned pitifully, aware enough to hope he hadn’t heard it.

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