Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Snow stared down into the enormous, steaming tub, a nervous flutter in his lower belly.
It felt safer to stare there than to watch Vor’s clothing disappear across the room.
His eyes refused to listen to reason, though, and kept drifting of their own volition, catching wide expanses of tanned skin with every peek.
His breath caught each time, the sight too tantalizing.
All that muscle and sinew. He wanted to trail his fingertips over it and feel the power move underneath them.
He was accustomed to pampered princes and noblemen—all with skin as pale as his own and no real muscle to speak of. Only coarse workmen basked in the sun all day and were near as large. They were the type of men he wasn’t supposed to desire.
But those roughhewn men he saw working the docks and around the kingdom had always caught his attention, with their big, strong bodies and sun-kissed flesh. He’d often wondered if he would taste sunshine if he nibbled on their bare skin. Perhaps Vor would allow him a sample to ease his curiosity.
Curiosity about that… and many more wonders if he was brave enough to ask.
Vor spun away from the fire Greer had lit in the small fireplace. At first, the bedroom had been cooler than the great room they’d all gathered in, but between the now raging embers and the heated water, it quickly rose in temperature.
Seeing Vor naked helped, too. Snow was flushed and flustered, his body responding even more than it had in the woods. Slick coated the insides of both cheeks, his hole throbbing with the need to be touched.
Vor’s bottom was full and round, his back muscle upon muscle, forged from fourteen years of throwing his shining silver axe day in and day out. No wonder he was so immense. Snow’s heart broke for the many years Vor had lost to the wizard’s cruelty. Forced labor had created a beast of a man.
A beast whose tender touch had soothed his wounds.
Snow watched with rapt attention when Vor slid the leather tie out and a cascade of silken black hair fell across his back.
Jealousy clutched at his heart, as well.
He’d tried to grow his hair long, but his tight, spiral curls had only spread upward and outward.
The Prince Consort had claimed his hair was caused by his spoiled bloodline, mixed with raiders who’d claimed omegas from the Southern Shores and North Ifriqiya.
Snow hadn’t quite understood why that was a bad thing, but from the Prince Consort’s tone, he’d assumed it was.
His papa had had tanned skin like Vor’s but had never spent more than a few minutes in the sun that Snow could remember.
For some reason, Snow had gotten his father’s pale skin, not his papa’s glorious light bronze.
Not a day passed where he didn’t wish it had been the opposite.
He saw so little of his Papa when he looked in the mirror.
He could scarcely remember the warm face that had smiled down at him with such love.
That love, on the other hand, he would never forget, no matter how many years passed.
A good thing, too. After the Prince Consort had arrived, all the paintings of his papa had disappeared, and Snow feared he’d forget everything.
When he’d asked why they’d been taken, he’d been ignored.
Snow had searched the castle high and low, never finding any sign of them.
Their absence made it harder to remember the small details.
Vor turned, pulling him from his wandering thoughts. As soon as his gaze landed on Snow, Vor frowned. “You can’t get in the bath fully clothed.”
Snow barely heard him, though. His gaze had traveled down to the thick vine swinging between Vor’s thighs. He struggled for air, his body tingling all over. Several more drops of slick slid down his thighs, pooling at the backs of his knees.
Vor’s nostrils flared, his cock somehow getting even thicker than before.
The tip peeked from its fleshy sheath, quite red and angry looking.
Perhaps Snow should’ve been scared. He felt far from that emotion, though.
He licked his lips, quite willing to soothe that angry head and taste the seed pooling at the tip.
It grew harder by the second, veins popping along the surface, and it soon jutted in front of him, tilting towards Snow.
Snow forced his gaze up to Vor. “What did you say?”
Vor scoffed, a small smile curling his lips. He shook his head and crossed to the tub, the muscles under his skin working in perfect harmony—a panther prowling closer. After slipping into the water, he sat staring at Snow, his eyes darkening with lust.
“Your turn.”
“My turn?” Snow asked, too addled-brained from sneaking peeks at Vor’s monster poking up through the surface.
“Take your clothes off,” Vor replied. A few beats of Snow’s heart passed as Vor eyed him from head to toe. “So I can clean your wounds.”
Snow gripped the edges of his tunic, hesitating. His fingers curled, balling the fabric in his fists. To desire was a delight. To be bold enough to actually fulfill that desire was another.
“Take your clothes off,” Vor repeated a bit firmer the second time.
Snow trembled, the need to obey overtaking him.
After he slipped off his torn, knee-length trousers, he found there was a bit of his leggings left underneath.
They’d split up past his knees, the bottoms halves long gone except for a few threads left behind.
Eyeing Vor, he peeled off his frayed tunic and was finally left in his thin, linen undergarments that left little to the imagination.
“Those, too,” Vor commanded softly.
With a shaking hand, Snow slipped one hand under his chemise and lifted it over his head.
He’d never been bared in front of anyone but the betas who served him in the castle, and most definitely not a virile alpha in his prime.
Once his chemise floated towards the floor, he untied his short braies and allowed them to slide down his hips and puddle around his ankles.
Vor stared at him with a hunger Snow had never witnessed before but knew on sight. He sensed he’d be consumed, mind, body, and soul, if he’d allow it. Maybe even if he didn’t allow it—though any denials he spoke would be lies.
Just him giving the facade of being a good, chaste prince.
Was he still a prince, though? Perhaps not after he’d run away from death itself. He’d left that life behind and been reborn in a new one. What that new life would become, he wasn’t sure. All he did feel certain of, that new life was tied to this alpha in some way.
“Come,” Vor demanded, his voice deeper and rougher than Snow had yet heard.
The roughness of it rubbed against him, sending spirals of need throughout his body. Vor held out an expectant hand, bidding him to near. When Snow didn’t move, he lifted a brow in challenge.
“Come,” Vor barked.
Snow moved before he even realized he had. He reached for Vor’s hand as he stepped into the tub, steadying himself as lifted his foot high over the edge. The tub was massive—though it looked smaller because of the giant inside it. Snow struggled a bit to enter. Vor was only too eager to help.
Before Snow could sit down across from the man, Vor led him closer, placing him between those huge, muscled thighs. Vor’s hard staff pressed against his lower back, throbbing with life.
“We need to wash all your wounds, so they don’t fester,” Vor murmured, soaping a clean cloth.
When the cloth landed on his shoulder, Snow startled.
Vor’s touch was again tender as he washed Snow’s back, but the touch was too much all the same.
Overwhelmed, he closed his eyes and focused on the breath coming in and out of his lungs, praying for control over his senses.
Opening them, he thought he’d mastered his emotions. He was dead wrong.
“I’m not a child. I can wash my own body,” Snow insisted as his eyelids grew heavier with each swipe of Vor’s large hand.
He didn’t really want to do it himself. Vor’s hand massaged as it cleansed him, relaxing him as it traveled. It felt incredible in its wickedness. The virtuous thing to do would be to stop him.
Snow wasn’t feeling very virtuous, though.
“I assumed that Snow White, Prince of Kleeves-Burgh, would be accustomed to being tended to by others.”
Snow looked over his shoulder at the hulking alpha. “You know who I am?”
“I know of you. And many other little pampered princes just like you.”
Snow glared at Vor. “I’m far from pampered.”
“Do you not live in a castle? Served by others?”
“Yesss,” Snow hissed, impudent. He winced. “No longer, though. I’m dead to all who knew me.”
“I’d wager your father is searching for you even now. We may hear a knock upon our door at any second,” Vor said, gently splashing water to rinse the soap from Snow’s body. “And you’ll sleep in your own bed tonight.”
Instead of mine…
Vor didn’t say that, but the implication of those words hung as heavily as the steam wafting around them. He saw it in the deep, growing blackness centered in Vor’s silver eyes, the yawning abyss calling to him.
They told him to surrender, the pleasures he could have that night unfathomable.
“Doubtful,” Snow replied, almost glad to relay the following news. “My father has gone to forge a truce with the Duke of Fuelders before the spring planting.”
“The spring planting should’ve already happened, should it not? Spring is around the corner.”
“There have been petty skirmishes along our border with Fuelders for months—which father says impacted our last harvest in the region. It’s made the farmers along that border leery of planting, fearing their fields will be burned and crops lost. We cannot allow another harvest to suffer or our people might starve.
” Snow sighed. “Father left just yesterday and planned to be gone a fortnight or more.”
A smile tickled at the corners of Vor’s lips. “So you’re ours for at least a fortnight, you say?”
Snow fought a smile of his own. “Ours? I belong to no alpha, let alone seven.”
Vor dragged him closer, lifting him until they were eye-to-eye. “But you wish to, do you not? To belong to me… if only for a night or two?”
Snow grew ravenous, but something within fought it. A night or two wasn’t enough to give himself over to the alpha. He longed for more than that.
“Or perhaps we make that a fortnight,” Vor whispered.
He feared a fortnight wouldn’t fulfill the promise in Vor’s eyes, either. “I’m supposed to remain chaste for the prince I’ll one day wed.”
“But you’ve run away from your responsibilities. You’re a little prince no more.”
Snow narrowed his gaze. “I didn’t run away from my responsibilities.
I couldn’t run back to the castle! The Prince Consort’s men are loyal to him.
The best I can do is wait for my father’s return.
” He paused, considered that, and then shook his head, sighing.
“Whom do I deceive but myself? My step-papa will surely poison my father’s heart against me.
Somehow, the fault for this whole thing will be placed on my shoulders.
As beguiled as my father is, he might believe the lies.
” Snow fought a sob rising up his throat. “I don’t know that I can ever return.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Vor murmured.
Snow frowned. “Better to lose my only home—and my father? You sound as cruel as my step-papa.”
“I meant not to be cruel. I only meant that you could live for yourself now,” Vor replied, his tone soothing. “Do as you wish. No more political intrigues or forced matings between the sons of kings. No more expectations.” Vor’s gaze drifted. “No more duty.”
Snow searched Vor’s face, noting pain in the alpha’s expression. “You speak as if you know this life of mine yet claim you’re not a nobleman.”
Vor’s face darkened, his gaze following his hand as it trailed over Snow’s arm, washing the cuts there. “I was close enough to life amongst the highborn to know the dangers. All that glitters is not gold, Snow White. A nobleman is just a prisoner of another kind.”
There was a truth in Vor’s words. Snow had never considered it thus.
Snow’s body jerked as Vor’s strong hands swiped his body a bit more roughly.
“You’re angry with me,” Snow whispered.
“I’m not,” Vor snapped.
“You’re being rough,” Snow complained.
Vor’s hands stilled. “My apologies. I forget my strength at times.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, dropping the cloth into the water. He hauled Snow onto his lap. His hard cock pressed against Snow’s bottom, throbbing with life. Snow writhed, sliding over the silken hardness that was both too close and not close enough.
“Do you forgive me?” Vor whispered.
Snow nodded, even though a part of him wanted to punish Vor. The kind of punishment they both might enjoy. If Snow had been schooled in the art of seduction, he would’ve known how to torment the alpha.
“You know not what you do to me,” Vor whispered, his shining gaze frantic as he stared down. He cupped one of Snow’s asscheeks, weighing it in his hand. “I sit here trying to save your skin when all I want to do is mar it with my unclean fingers.”
“You’ve washed your hands twice now that I’ve seen,” Snow said, frowning.
Vor chuckled, shaking his head. “No matter how many times I wash my hands, I will always be too impure for someone such as you. I am no gentleman.”
“Perhaps I don’t want a gentleman,” Snow whispered, placing his palm on Vor’s furred chest.
Under his hand, Vor’s heart beat as erratically as his own.
“You’re too young to know what you want.”
“I soon celebrate my twenty-fourth summer, thank you.”
One of Vor’s brows cocked higher over one eye. “A whole twenty-four sheltered years. And not mated yet? We have a spinster in our midst.”