I had never liked him, but now I was finding my way towards actual hatred. To think that he had caused my mother so much pain in order to have me for himself was awful to consider. She had never been kind to me, but no one deserved to suffer so much at the hands of her spouse.
I pressed on with my questions. “Who arranged for me to come to you? Who’s been paying you off?”
My father sucked at the marrow from the rabbit bone. “The traveling minstrel that comes through the Cock and Bull each month. Bardo. He was the go-between. Knew that we was hard up, what with the mill my own father had left me standing in ruins. Of course, back then I was seen as a landowner and not too badly respected, and it weren’t hard to hide your mother away for a few months so as you could be seen as legitimate. But, you know, injuries and sickness kept me away from the fields and our fortunes weren’t what they’d been.”
He paused, taking a bite of his meat, and I almost laughed. Injuries and sickness be damned, he was just lazy. Lazy and weak, and unable to even sell off his land at a fair price, leaving us more impoverished by the year.
“Bardo still remembered me as I’d been though,” he said, pointing a bony finger at me. “Good man is Bardo. Born and bred in Weschail and now respected throughout the kingdom. Used to sing in the Cock and Bull as a lad. He knew I could be relied upon to keep my mouth shut about where you’d come from, just so long as I kept receiving a few coins for beer when he came through town. As for who arranged for you to be taken in the first place, I don’t know the answer to that. Knowing too much can be dangerous.”
I knew the man he meant. Bardo. I had heard him sing. He had a good voice, but his presence was unpleasant. Weaselly… almost ferret-like. I’d always felt he wasn’t to be trusted and now I knew I was right.
“But why? Why would anybody do anything like that?”
More bone-sucking ensued, and then he replied. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” He patted his knee. “Why don’t you come on over here, Princess, and sit on Daddy’s lap?”
Bors grunted beside me. “Shut your fucking mouth.” He said, and a low growl rumbled in his chest before he paused, looked at me, then finished with, “As I said, not nearly enough beating.”
And then he rose, took three long strides around the fire pit, and walloped my father with a knock-out punch.
As we lay down to sleep, I stared at the rope-like lines of Bors’ back and shoulder muscles, feeling confusion about the things that had been done to me. On the one hand, I’d been taken, stolen as a baby, and given to a family that didn’t care for me. On the other, if that hadn’t happened, I would never have met Bors.
Questions still tumbled in my mind. Who had done it? Who had arranged it? And why?
It was clear that my father was going to be of no use in finding the answers to those questions. He slept now, snoring loudly, bound to a tree on the other side of the camp. Far enough away that he would never hear us…nor did I care.
I grabbed Bors’ massive shoulder and rolled him over to face me. He met my gaze, studying my face, at first with concern and then his pupils widened. “My angel, your sweet cunt is calling me.”
I exhaled. “I want you. I want as much of you as I can get before we reach the capital.”
As if I was mounting a horse, I swung one leg over him and pinned his huge legs beneath my body.
“Take me. Right now,” I said.
“Aye, yes, I’ve already done that but now, you’re a princess. I’m nothing more than a clan warrior. A thug.”
Despite his words—or perhaps because of them—I felt his cock begin to respond and I ground my hips into his.
“Take me,” I said. Noticing how my words affected him, how having me in control made his body respond, I pinched his jaw in my hand. “Do it,” I said. “If I am truly the princess, you’re honor bound to serve me.” I grinned. “Or service me. As I choose, you will obey.”
“No,” he protested, playing into the fantasy, his usually tight lips fighting their bend upward into a smile. “No, princess, I mustn’t.”
“Yes, you must.” I gyrated on his erection, shifting side to side, my heat and wetness surely dampening his britches.
Using my body and my desire, I worked the tip of his cock free from the loosely-tied spread of his pants and wiggled them downward until I felt its head, smooth and warm against my slippery folds. “Fuck me right now. Obey me, or you’ll feel my wrath.”