25 #4
She ran to the door after him, calling his name. She would have gone after him, pursued him down the steps of the keep, but Celedin was there, pushing her back inside her room.
She gasped up at him and he slapped her across the face, a quick crack that lit up her jaw with pain and she staggered backwards.
Celedin slammed the door shut, took her by the arm, and pushed her back into the door. “Sorry about the slap. I simply wanted to calm you down.”
She gaped at him, not calm at all, but now too frightened to make noise.
“So,” said Celedin, “what have you let him do to you?”
She shook her head, truly incapable of speaking.
Celedin tilted his head to one side. “I suppose I’ve noticed the way you look at him. I’ve noticed the way you both look at each other.”
She shook her head again, shook it very quickly back and forth.
“Father has some ideas, and I don’t like them,” said Celedin, backing away from her.
She stayed with her back to the door, afraid to move.
Celedin crossed the room to drag his long, elegant fingers over her bedside table.
“Father thinks that we will use your skills to our profit. He says we can rent a house in Notharlien, where no one knows you. You will go to dances and you will seduce the man who is the richest, and you will get him to pay your bride price, and we will be rid of you that way.”
“No.” She managed one syllable.
Celedin looked up. “I tried to explain to him that there was no being rid of you because you are mine.”
She bit down on her bottom lip.
“I have wanted to possess you since the moment I saw you,” said Celedin. “And the idea that you’ve already been sullied by Dathor, well…” He shrugged. “It doesn’t change things, not truly. Perhaps, however, it means I can be freer with you.”
What did that mean?
Celedin crossed the room to her and he touched her face, touched the place where he’d slapped her. “Such delicate skin, reddened here from where I struck you,” he breathed, and he sounded aroused by the thought of that. “How sullied are you, Aerhril?”
“No, I’m not, I’m not. I’m intact. I swear to you, I am a maiden. I have never been breached.”
“So well-versed in the meanings of it all, are you?” He gave her a nasty smile. “Who taught you what it means to be breached?”
She shut her eyes.
“Dathor?”
She cringed from him.
“What else did he teach you?” said Celedin. “What sort of filthy things did that orc make you do to him?”
She said nothing.
Celedin’s breath was hot against her eyebrow. His hands spanned her waist.
She opened her eyes. “No,” she said in a tiny voice.
He pulled her body against his. “Here’s what we will do, Aerhril.
You will tell my father that you will not marry anyone but me, that you will not cooperate with any of his schemes to use you to seduce other men, that I am your choice.
And in return, I will not tell anyone that you have been ruined by a servant, and I will marry you and make you a stewardess. ”
She did not answer him.
At that point, some part of her thought that Dathor would come back. Soon, she thought, very soon, and that would change things, she thought, and she did not have to agree to anything that Celedin was saying, because Dathor would come back soon.
“And you will be mine,” he said. “There will be no escaping to some other man, because I will tell them that I have taken all manner of liberties with you. I’m going to take liberties now, in fact.”
“Celedin,” she managed. “Please—”
“Undo my trousers and take me out,” said Celedin.
She shook her head. “Take what out?”
“Don’t be coy.” His smile was vicious. “Do I have to hit you again?” And before she could answer, he did, slapping her other cheek.
The pain tingled in her jaw and she felt wide awake and her heart was pounding and she did not wish to be hit again.
So, she reached out and began to unbutton his trousers. Her hands were shaking.
His cock was long and pale and curved. He panted into her eyebrow. “You know what to do with it, I’m sure of that, little pale thing. Use both of your hands, that’s right.”
While it was happening, she felt sort of disconnected, as if she was only connected to her body by a little string, as if she was floating outside of herself, just watching. It did not take him very long.
“There,” he said, holding up her palms and looking down at his sticky leavings there. “Now, if any man wants you, I will tell him that you have pleasured me and I have spilled my seed on your pale, pale skin, and that you belong to me.”
She shook.
He took her by the chin. “Say it, Aerhril. Say who you belong to.”
She only shook.
“Do I have to hit you a third time?” There was an eagerness there. He wanted to hit her.
“I belong to you, Celedin,” she sputtered. “I am yours. I am Celedin’s.”
“Very good,” he said. He kissed her.
She did not respond.
He ran his hands all over her through her clothes.
She shuddered.
He put his cock away.
She wanted to wipe his semen off of her hands, but she had to wait until after he left the room.
Even then, she thought, Dathor will come back and when he finds out about this, he will destroy Celedin.
But Dathor did not come back.