Page 5 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
“Only a little. Don’t be a baby about it.”
He chuckled again, and I almost smiled before I caught myself.Fiend Prince, I reminded myself sternly.Bad man. Enemy.
“What I want is quite simple,” he said. “My father wants reassurance that we’re trying to create an heir. So you need to help me convince him that we have been intimate.”
“Why the desperation for an heir? Are you on your way to an early grave? You do look a little pale, and weak.”
He splayed long fingers over his chest. “That hurts, Princess, it really does.”
I shrugged. “I’m only saying what I see.”
“Your brutal honesty gives me hope,” he said dryly. “I cannot tell you why my father is so desperate to secure the future of our line. You see, I don’t trust you yet. I know, I know—it’s very strange. When women brandish daggers at me I usually spill all my darkest secrets, but with you—” he shook his head— “I just don’t feel that trust that a husband should feel for his wife. Maybe if you climbed on top of me again—”
“I could cut you somewhere else, if you think that would help.” I twitched the dagger in the direction of his crotch, and he swerved his hips away quickly.
“Emasculating me would be counter-productive, I assure you,” he said.
“Fine. So you want me to pretend to be your dutiful wife who provides you with full access to her body every night, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“And in return, what do I get?”
“You getnot killed.” He cocked his head aside, and that leering mask of his suddenly looked dreadfully sinister. He could shout for his guards at any moment and tell them I tried to assassinate him. I’d be restrained, punished, maybe imprisoned, or tied to the bed so he could have his way with me. Worst case scenario, the Dreadlord would decide I was more trouble than I was worth, that he could find another womb for his son to fill, and they’d kill me. My father had already surrendered everything; he could do nothing to save or avenge me.
“That got serious, didn’t it?” said the Fiend Prince, rising from the bed and shucking off his pants. I eyed his pale legs, scattered with dark hair. He pulled the shirt off as well, and my gaze snapped instantly to a knotted, coiled mess of scar tissue along his left side. The scars began just under his left pectoral and traveled all the way to his hipbone. When he turned, I saw that they wrapped around his back, nearly crossing his spine.
“I showed you mine,” he said quietly. “Care to show me yours? Or perhaps you don’t have any scars quite so hideous? It’s not a competition, you know, Princess. Feel free to share.”
“I have a few,” I said. “From training. What’s yours from?”
He went to the foot of the bed and pulled the curtains, blocking out most of the light from the dying fire. In the gloom, his mask looked more frightening than ever. “From a monster. Now, Princess, it’s time to fulfill your side of the bargain.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“We have to make my father think we coupled. And to do that, we have to make certain sounds, so the guards outside can bear witness.”
“Sounds? Like me screaming for mercy while you plow into me?”
“Devil’s bones, no! What is wrong with you?”
I shrugged. “Those seem like the most likely sounds for a woman forced into a marriage bed.”
“No, you should make sounds of pleasure.”
“Because you are so damn charming that I fell for you in less than an hour? Won’t that seem a little—far-fetched?”
“Women have fallen for me in less time. Men too. I am aprince. That makes me innately desirable.”
My jaw dropped. “Men too?”
“Would that displease you, if I’d been with men as well?”
“I—no, I suppose not—unless you prefer them solely, and that’s why you want this arrangement.”
“If I preferred men, I wouldn’t have been ogling your breasts earlier. No, Princess, my tendency is toward women. And let’s assume that you, being the vulnerable female you are, have succumbed to my beauty and charms—” he gestured to his lean, scarred body— “and you’re caught in the throes of the best pleasure you’ve ever had.” There was a bitter hardness to his tone when he referred to his own charms. That self-deprecation might have softened me a little, except I was too busy frantically trying to think what sounds I should make. I had never heard a woman “in the throes of pleasure,” as he said, and I had never experienced such pleasure myself. When I’d been with the stable boy, he’d reached his climax quickly, long before I had a chance to get more than mildly excited, and the coarse grunts he made weren’t something I wanted to imitate. I had tried to reach the pleasure peak myself, but I never seemed to find the right rhythm before I was interrupted or I fell asleep. So I was left staring blankly at the Fiend Prince, with my mouth slightly open.
“Do you not know what sounds to make?” he asked. “Are you a virgin?” He seemed shocked. “But—you’re twenty-something, yes? You can’t be a virgin—"
