Blood and Roses

Author's note: this is only a part of a much longer story. Amelyn was once the princess of Farish, until a coup ousted her family. Shadruck, the new regent of Farish, kept her a prisoner, until a soft-spoken and mysterious man calling himself Josset helped her escape. Now, he accompanies her across the border of Farish into neighboring Alstaire, where she hopes to find her banished brother and escape Shadruck's men. We join them on the first full moon of their journey; Josset has enigmatically rented a room that locks from the outside, and has given Amelyn the key, forbidding her to enter no matter how hard he begs. That night, Amelyn goes to his door, woken by his cries.

* * * * *

He had forbidden her to open the door, to even answer his pleas. She looked at the key in her hand, a small silver key. She went to the door and listened.

"Amelyn?" His voice was low, strangely raspy. He sounded ill.

She fell to her knees by the door, leaning against it, closing her eyes. Over the course of their travels he had kept her from harm. She knew what it was to cry piteously to the darkness. She knew what it was to feel as if no one heard. How could she leave him like this, when he had protected her?

"Josset," she whispered to the door. "Josset, are you all right?"

"Amelyn. Please, open the door."

"I promised. I promised I wouldn't."

"I need help. I feel ill. Oh, gods, Amy, it hurts."

"What's wrong?" She laid her forehead on the door. She rested her hand on the knob, cool and hard beneath her fingers.

"I don't know, but I need your help. Please, Amy."

"I promised," she said again, her voice barely a whisper.

Silence met her from the other side of the door.

"Josset?"

No answer.

She stood. She looked at the key he had given her. Silver in her palm, cutting slightly into her skin.

"Josset, I'm coming." It went smoothly in. She opened the door.

The room was dark, save a single candle flickering on the bedside table. The bed was made, golden coverlet taut across the mattress. Josset was nowhere to be seen.

"Josset?"

The hairs on the back of her neck, newly exposed to the world, lifted high. She wished she had not cut her hair; she wished she had left it to hide behind, to protect her scarred back, her soft neck. "Josset, where are you?"

"My poor girl. Did I not tell you to keep the door locked?"

Amelyn turned to face the door. He stood behind the open door. His hair, long and black, covered his face.

"Josset?" she whispered.

"Well," he said. "In a manner of speaking."

As he turned she staggered back, tripping against the bed and sitting abruptly upon the mattress. His face, always thin, flickered weirdly in the light, dangerous and lean. His usually dark eyes glittered gold, the eyes of a nocturnal hunter. His fingernails had grown, sharpened into claws. He had grown so pale the scar across his cheek nearly disappeared.

Amelyn gripped her skirt. She had promised not to come in. He had made her promise over and over and probably for good reason. And now she was here.

"Are you ill? Josset, what has happened to you?"

"Never mind that." His eyes danced over her face, something playful and malicious caught in their golden light. "I thank you, sweet girl, for opening the door. I thought you would not. I thought perhaps you would be too afraid."

She could not remove her eyes from his face. It was still beautiful, though it held a different kind of beauty. It no longer contained the cold, restrained calm, no longer the same elegant subtlety. Now his face was hungry, amused, scornful. He looked like a half-starved wolf.

"I'm not afraid," she said. It was a lie.

His eyes widened in laughter. "No? Most maids would be. Most maids would be halfway to the constable by now."

Her eyes fell to her lap, to the plain brown cloth of her traveling dress. "I am no maid."

"No." His voice was soft, strangely gentle and cruel at the same time. "I suppose you aren't."

The mattress bobbed beneath her, and when she looked up he was next to her, this new and vicious Josset. His eyes skated over her face, over her short dark locks and heart-shaped face, and, unless it were her imagination, her bodice, the plain low-cut dress of a commoner that was her disguise, that left the tops of her white round breasts exposed. She felt her cheeks color. Her eyes dropped back to her lap.

"Tell me," he said, not a request but a command.

She glanced at him. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me what they did to you. Tell me, did you acquire a taste for rape?"

She stood quickly, her cheeks on fire. "No." Her voice wobbled. She began backing away. This could not be Josset. He was sick or under enchantment.

But then she saw his eyes: strangely kind, strangely commanding.

"No," he said softly. "No, I suppose it was not like that. Sit. Tell me."

Without knowing why, she sat, keeping her distance from his warm flesh. She looked at her lap. She fumbled for language, and then spoke.

"It hurt," she said, her voice very low. "It hurt. Shadruck...did it first, before his court. They cheered and...called me names." Tears began flowing down her cheeks as she remembered, fat hot tears of embarrassment and helplessness. "Then he gave me to his men. And...it was like I wasn't even there. They took me like I wasn't even there. They didn't want me because I was beautiful or well-bred or kind, they did it because they wanted to debase my family, debase my kingdom. They wanted to hurt my people and so I became...a way to do that." She had not said any of this out loud before, had not spoken of her treatment at the hands of the regent. Something in her chest felt loose, open. She felt exposed to Josset in a way she could not explain. Again she felt Shadruck's hands, squeezing her breasts, squeezing her throat. She felt the shame of her nakedness and her father's defeat.

Suddenly Josset's lips were on her cheek, on her forehead, on her chin. Kissing her tears as they fell. His lips just soft for a moment on her skin, and then moving somewhere else. She stopped crying, stared at him.

"Amelyn." He laughed, very low. He was Josset and not Josset. He was mocking and cruel, but his lips were so soft. He had Josset's fine nose, pale skin, gleaming hair. He had Josset's quiet voice. But he was dangerous. "My poor little Amelyn."

He smelled different, not Josset's clean strong sweat smell but a soft, almost metallic musk. Blood and roses, she thought, leaning towards it.

"Josset," she whispered, looking up at his face. He looked at her, his eyes bright. "What happened to your eyes?"

His lips grazed her chin, came to breathe into her mouth. "Never mind that," he said, touching his lips to hers, not a kiss but a gentle rubbing. Something glinted from his mouth.

"Your teeth..." His hands played in her hair for a moment, before gripping it, not pulling but gripping tightly.What is wrong with you, a part of her mind shrieked, rising desperately to the surface.What is wrong with your teeth?

They were sharp. His teeth glinted sharp.

Leaning into his scent, she pushed down the voice. He was Josset and not Josset. He was the man who had taken her safely through the mountain pass, who was leading her to her brother in Alstaire. He had saved her life at least a dozen times already. She had been avoiding his eyes for weeks, silent, shy, cautious. Now he kissed her tears, her lips, as she had allowed him to in each girlish fantasy she had had.

"Are you afraid?" he asked. He stared into her eyes, gripping her hair. He gripped her forearm with his other hand.

"No," she murmured. "Yes. I..." His fingernails—claws—tightened, gently but implacably, into her arm. A thin ribbon of blood trickled where he had scratched her.

His gold eyes narrowed. He pressed his lips to her wrist, then licked, slow and delicate, up her arm, catching her blood on his tongue.

When he kissed her again he tasted of metal, of blood. She leaned forward, touching his face where the scar showed paler than pale. She grazed her lips on his again, then drew in her breath as he pulled her closer. His tongue crept slyly between her lips, probing her mouth. His hand cupped the back of her neck, and she could feel his nails digging in, bringing a sudden tingling pain, followed by just the tingle, as if someone were blowing upon it.

She tilted her head back as he bent to kiss her throat. Pain again, right at the place where neck and shoulder met. Sharp and sudden, then fading, leaving a deep ecstatic sense of his invasiveness, of her softness and his strength. She reached up to touch his hair, stroked it, stroked his face as he kissed her neck. Her hand came away bloody.

"What...?" She struggled in his arms, trying to crane her neck to see what was bleeding. He looked up, his lips brilliant red. When he spoke his teeth were bloodied.

"It will clot in a moment. It won't bleed much. My sweet girl. Beautiful sweet girl."

No voices rose in her mind to argue. She didn't care. She wanted to bleed for him. She wanted to feel lost to him. Josset and not Josset.

I love...she thought, but didn't speak out loud. She turned her head back and felt him back at her neck, moist kisses, hard sharp teeth that left her feeling soft and exposed.

"You are too lovely to be used for politics," he laughed against her throat. She loved the hard bell-tone of cruelty to his voice, the gentle velvet caress of it. "Those fools had no idea how to treat a princess." His lips moved down from her neck, rested at her breasts, the smooth white tops of them rising up from her bodice. His teeth grazed against them but didn't penetrate, and she shivered. He peeled her bodice from her shoulders, leaving her breasts exposed in the light.

"Blushing. You may be a maid yet," he whispered in her ear, closing his lips on her lobe and sucking briefly. He traced slow circles with his long nail, around her breasts, around her nipples. They stood erect, tight little pink buttons. He kissed the tops of her breasts, kissed below them, where they met her torso. He licked a long arc up one, resting his tongue on her nipple.

Blood and roses. She watched his dark hair moving over her, felt pleasure roll over her entire body as he sucked. He nibbled, just lightly, then sucked all the harder. She whimpered softly, putting her fingers into his hair.

"Take off your dress."

He looked up at her again, those dark gold eyes. He pulled off his own tunic, revealing his smooth muscled chest, glowing pale in the candlelight.

She felt her face flush, but could not ignore the command in his eyes. She stood, letting her skirt fall off her hips. He watched, reclining slightly on the bed, a position of casual hedonism.

Her body, laced intermittently with scars, was still beautiful, lithe from the travel they had been doing, but hinting at the curves that would soon blossom. She was tall for her age, five seven already, her hair hanging straight just past her ear. Her breasts were soft, round, white, her arms tan from the sun.

Scars criss-crossed all across her back, where the whips and brands had hit.

He watched her lazily. His feigned carelessness made her wish to crawl to him, but she stood before him, as he had instructed. After a few minutes he stood, walked around her. She waited, feeling the air cool on her skin, waiting for him to touch her, grab her, kiss her, anything.

Fingers on her back, tracing her scars. Hands on her shoulders, claws piercing little holes in her skin. He licked her ear. He wrapped around her, cupped her breasts. He ran his hands down her sides and cupped her hips, stroked her ass. His bare skin on hers was warm, hard. She wanted to cave her softness into his hardness, the hardness of his chest, of his arms, of his cock pressing without urgency against her ass.

Her breath was ragged and quick. She could not bring herself to look at him, to meet his eyes for very long, but instead turned her head away, blushing. He circled her, kissing across her body, pulling her to the bed. She lay down obediently, watching him shed his pants.

His cock was erect, a divining rod pointing at her. It spoke to a desire he kept from his stance, though when she met his eyes she saw his lust there. He kept his shoulders loose and casual as he lay next to her, touching the small scab where he had bitten her.

"I...I don't know what to do," she said softly, putting her lips to his chest.

He leaned over her, running his hand over her thigh. She clenched slightly, him so close to the softest spot on her body, her poor abused cunt. Site of so much shame and pain. But he forced her to meet his eyes, stroking in circles on her thigh. Her lips parted, her breath catching.

He grazed her labia with his knuckle, careful this time with his claws. A shudder ran up through her center. He eased his fingertip into her pussy, moist by now, an insistent firm invasion. She felt memory and thought melt off her, leave her a creature of pure sensation. She felt as if she had no body beyond her cunt. Then he was kissing her neck again, biting, sharp hard teeth in her neck, hard firm finger in her cunt, and it was as if someone had torn her open simply to stroke her most tender interior. Not to destroy it or bruise it, as had happened before; just to touch it, to caress it.

She arched her body towards him, gasping for air, as he put two more fingers into her pussy, then slid them out, brushing her clitoris. He toyed with it, twirling it in slow circles. She parted her legs. She felt herself fall away into nothingness, body tensing more and more and finally exploding, all energy flooding through her veins and shooting away from her.

"Lovely girl," he breathed at her, sliding himself closer up against her. He put his hands on her ass and pulled her close. Her legs were covered in slick oil from her cunt, and it rubbed into his legs. She felt hollowed out, moist and raw, and as he slid his cock into her wet pussy she clutched his ass. He laughed at that. "You need this?"

She didn't answer, still too shy, blushing even with his cock inside her. Josset and not Josset. He laughed again, then groaned, slowly beginning to pump his hips between her thighs. His cock felt as if it filled her, reached up to her stomach and made her hollow self complete. It pushed against the tight walls of her pussy, tight even after the three weeks in Shadruck's court. It hurt, a little, but it hurt the way his nails and teeth had. It pushed her open and made her his.

Suddenly he let out an inhuman snarl, shuddering on top of her. She pressed herself to his throat, kissing the hot pulse there. His face contorted for a moment, and then for a long moment he was still.

When he stopped moving, he looked down at her, smirking in a way that seemed fond. She didn't know anymore if it was Josset, her protector, whom she could not admit she loved, or if it was someone else, something else, that had pried her open. She didn't care.

"Ah, Josset," he said quietly, smoothing her hair off her head. "I'll never have anything but damaged princesses again. They are too lovely."

She didn't reply. She stared up at his face, and for a moment, could not even recognize him.