Page 8 of The Royal Curse

His eyes widened, and there he went, looking impossibly young again. He made me feel aged.

“How old are you?” I demanded, only slurring a tiny bit. “I bet you can get it up.”

Oh, thank the gods I hadn’t had the motivation to open a third bottle after all. This could’ve been even worse if I had, although I had trouble imagining how.

Andreas’s already tanned complexion had darkened to something resembling the burgundy of our house’s heraldry, and he didn’t move a muscle, gone rigid like a statue.

All over? Probably not, even if he was capable. A drunk, disheveled, sprawled-out prince he didn’t like much wouldn’t be particularly arousing.

“Your Highness, I think you need—”

“I think you need to answer my fucking questions.” I blinked up at him and resisted the urge to stick out my tongue like Amara would have. Of course, she probably would have been trying to seduce him.

Except that hadn’t I just asked him about his cock? She’d be so jealous.

I started to laugh again, interrupted by hiccups.

“You only asked me one question, Your Highness,” he said, very low, “and I’ll answer it. I’m twenty-four. And you need water and something to eat.”

“I asked you two, you—oh wait,” I said, as I muzzily ran back through what had actually come out of my mouth. “Don’t mince words with me. I’ll ask it now. Can you get—”

“Water and something to eat!” Andreas said loudly enough to make me wince, completely drowning out my mumbled, “it up or not.” He moved at last, setting the lantern on the tiles by his feet and coming around the side of the chaise to reach down and grasp my bicep.

Long ago, between when my magic started to flow and when it built enough strength to rack me with agony and begin destroying my body from the inside, I’d set off a spark, something like lightning only much smaller, from me into a fireplace poker and then into my other hand.

My hair had stood on end and I’d jumped a foot in the air.

Andreas’s touch struck me the same way that had, a sudden and searing awareness of every hair on my arm and every cell of my skin beneath the heat of his huge hand wrapped around me.

It felt like magic. And the touch of magic had become anathema to me, a sign of my failure and of pain to come.

I jerked my left arm out of his grasp and struck out with my right, my wrist connecting with his forearm hard, the shock traveling up into my shoulder.

“Ow, fuck, that hurt—shit, I wouldn’t actually hurt you,” I gasped, gripping my throbbing wrist. He’d pulled away from me, taking a step back and staring, opening and closing his hand as if it had gone numb from the brief contact with me.

“No, you definitely wouldn’t,” he said after a moment.

“Good, I’m glad you—wait, hang on.” The quirk of his mouth and the gleam in those coffee-colored eyes had finally registered, and I gritted my teeth, both hands clenching into fists. “Fuck you! I may not be able to—able to, but I’m still a man—”

“Will you stop—of course you are, fucking gods, stop it!” Andreas caught both of my flailing arms, and I toppled down onto my back again, the world spinning crazily around me. I landed hard with my arms pressed against my chest, Andreas’s weight pinning them there as he leaned down, one knee braced on the chaise.

I went limp, panting and simplydone. The burst of activity, hopeless and pointless as it was, had drained what little strength I had left after two bottles of wine and no supper.

Besides, I simply didn’t care: about the bruises I probably had forming on my arms, about the insulting ease with which Andreas had overmastered me—although perhaps I shouldn’t feel too bad about losing a tussle with a professional soldier while drunk—or even about the way I’d started the fight, by trying to insist that he tell me if his cock got hard.

In the morning I might seek the nearest hole in the ground and bury myself alive rather than look him in the face again.

Tonight, nothing mattered except that I’d be here forever, with no lover and no friends besides my siblings and nothing in my life but endless, fruitless research. If the potion stopped working, it might be even worse than that.

And I couldn’t even get myself off to pass the time, damn it all.

The sound of my own miserable mumble and the horrified look on Andreas’s face told me I’d said that out loud.

Perhaps I ought to go and find that hole in the gardenright now, on second thoughts, because the embarrassment of that penetrated even the fog of wine in my head.

Andreas stared down at me, brow furrowed, lips parted as if he was really thinking about it. About me, not being able to get myself off. Fucking gods.

The warmth of his body permeated the air around me, pushing away the damp chill of the night. His hands on my wrists, and the press of his leg against mine where he knelt on the chaise…and simply his nearness. His fingers flexed. Ten points of contact, each one distracting individually, and together almost unbearable. I tried to suck in a full breath, but it wouldn’t quite come.

---