“Gabe!” I cried out as he was led away.
“So, I was correct, you do have feelings for that filthy monkey!” the prince said with a snarl. The expression was odd on his face, more at home on that of an animal. “Mellors, have the girl taken to my room after you’ve dispatched that thing. This little interchange was quite stimulating.”
“Of course, sire, though keeping the beast alive, restrained, may be just the key you need to ensure compliance from the girl.”
“An impertinent suggestion, Mellors, but a good one. Remove all weapons and keep him locked up in the abattoir. Do make sure the butchers know he’s not meat, yet.”
They went through our rooms and we all had to stand there very quietly as they pulled out every weapon we’d brought with us, and some other random items besides. They couldn’t decide if a decorative belt buckle was a weapon or not. I managed to convince them that the packet of tampons was not some form of bullets, though their furry faces creased up in expressions of confusion when I explained what they were actually used for. We watched them sort through our gear with a weird dullness. It was as if by t
aking Gabe away and doing God knows what to him, all of our mental capacity went with him. When Mellors turned to me and said, “You need to come with us, ‘Lady’ McKinnon,” I just went.
I walked down the hallways to the prince’s private residence, quietly cataloguing my failures: that I hadn’t anticipated Tess going through the portal; that I’d assumed that she would just come with me the minute I saw her; that she still didn’t know she was a potential menu item; that I’d brought Gabe, Flea and Natty into danger; that the prince would try to drown Gabe; or that we were currently trapped in a house full of highly competent soldiers who ate the likes of us for dinner most days. By the time I arrived at the prince’s massive gilt double doors, my head was hanging, my shoulders hunched over. I just looked at the doors, they looked so pretty and innocuous; not giving a hint of what was undoubtedly going to happen once I entered them. Will I survive this? I thought. I wasn’t exactly sure how a rape went, especially with a creature that liked the taste of my flesh as food as much as to fuck. Would he want to cuddle after, or rip my throat out? Would they look after Tess if they killed me because she was their only remaining option? Or would they make short work of both of us and then find another poor sap? “Get inside,” Mellors said, baring all of his very sharp white teeth. I pushed open the doors and did as I was told.
Gold was a big feature of the decor. Plush carpet covered the floors, paintings of varying sizes in heavy gold frames were present on every wall as well as gilt cornices and architraves. There was even a red runner leading up to a massive bed, situated on top of an ornately carved platform, a post rising at each corner. “Ah, you’re here, finally,” the prince said, coming out of the ensuite, towel wrapped around his hips. His body was as I expected, a long, lean masterpiece in muscles. He saw my eyes shift over his body, though obviously missing the dispassion there. Then he dropped the towel.
I began to laugh. Totally inappropriate, I half expected him to start shouting “Off with her head!” but I couldn’t help it. He just dropped trou, exposing a bloody big erection that should have had me scrabbling back in horror. Instead, I just laughed. Will he knot like a dog? I wondered. Will he make that dog face, tongue hanging out and eyes bugging like they always had in old cartoons? He started to lose his boner, which only made me laugh more. He was going to hold me down, after I’d done my best to fight him off, and rape me, but all I could do was fall to my knees and laugh and laugh and laugh. Finally, I felt iron fingers dig into my neck, hauling me upright, his angry face a blur through my tear-stained eyes.
As I was dragged over to the bed, all hilarity ceased. This wasn’t an idea that I could entertain academically any more. He held me down with a hand to my chest, his other hand clawing at my skin as I struggled, shifting until he straddled my legs. I slapped, punched, kicked and thrashed, anything to get him off of me and to stop him from getting my clothes off. Then his fist smashed into my face.
Stars bloomed in my vision as everything else went hazy and swam. I was dimly aware something very bad was happening to my clothes, but right now I was struggling to keep conscious. I blinked and blinked and then the world finally righted itself. My shirt was torn open and my jeans were halfway down my legs. My hands were now held above my head. I tried to kick out but was hampered by the stupid skinny legs of the jeans. He was over me, his knees digging into my thighs, trying to separate them, so he could wedge his cock in while my calves remained trapped in my jeans. “No, no . . .!” I almost sobbed, struggling with every fibre of my being to free my legs so I could strike back.
For a moment, it all fell away. This wasn’t happening, couldn’t happen to me. While the animal part of me struggled frantically to get the bastard off of me, intellectually, I was having difficulty getting my head around what he was doing. Part of me, I realised, could not believe that I would ever be the target of rape. I didn’t walk down dark alleys, wear revealing clothing, or live a sexually risky lifestyle, so how could I possibly be on the receiving end of an assault like this? As someone who had never had to deal with this before, I had helpfully forgotten that most rapes happened exactly like this, where a man in a woman’s life felt the need to ignore her autonomy, her rights to her own body and decided to take what he felt was his right.
I snapped out of my reverie to feel the inexorable shift of his body between my legs, something damp and hard beginning to move closer. No matter what I thought or felt, this was happening. The jeans weren’t going anywhere, having become very effective shackles as they were stretched to capacity around my legs. He chuckled as I began to cry in earnest, angry, choking tears building in my chest as he began to shove himself closer to penetrating me.
“I wonder if you’ll feel the same, on the inside,” he said.
“You fucking idiot!” I spat at him. “They’ll keep you forever in this place, in this form you hate, because you can’t stop being an arrogant, entitled fuck for more than a minute!”
He froze, his eyes boring into mine, the arm holding me in place began to shake with the effort. “What do you mean?” he asked. I didn’t reply fast enough evidently, so he shook me until my teeth rattled.
“The people who cursed you, who took your crown, they worded the curse exactly, to make sure you stay exiled here, forever.”
“What would you know of curses? You’re nothing more than a pinkie whore.”
“I studied politics, fuck face. The wizards who made you like this, something unacceptable to the people, because they knew that you would never drop that industrial grade sense of entitlement you’ve got going on!”
“Explain.”
“They didn’t curse you to look like a human until you fucked someone because they knew you’d just go out and procure some ‘monkey’ and rape her and then be back on the throne in time for tea. No, they made it conditional on finding one that would love you. I assume you tried persuading one of your ‘beasts’ to love you?”
“Yes, I thought being treated more kindly would engender finer feelings, but they are incapable of such things.”
“And let me guess, when you get sentient human girls, you show them what you think is a good time and then when they aren’t receptive, kill and eat them?”
“Of course, why would I let such sweet tasting meat go to waste? The varied diets you humans eat tends to give a great complexity to the meat. It’s quite delicious.”
“And that’s your fucking problem. You’ll die in this form if things don’t change, probably to be eaten by your officers as they toast your passing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t understand humans, women, or love, so how can you ever be freed of your curse? I’m one of two choices you’ve got, and what are you doing? You’re assaulting me. Women don’t fall in love with their rapist, you psycho fuck; they hate them with every breath of their being. Right now, I fucking despise you; I’d splatter your stupid animal brain all over these golden walls if I had the means, then I’d piss on your corpse.”
His lips remained pulled back from white teeth that were too blunt now to carry out what his instincts must be screaming at him to do. His eyes were wide, pupils tiny little pinpricks and his breath coming in harsh rasps. “You’re just trying to dissuade me.”
“Of course, I am. I don’t want your fucking cock in me. There’s got to be plenty of furries here who’ll bend over and let you do them doggy style. Fuck them, but if you want to be free of this curse, you need me. You have two human girls here. I can show you how it’s done, how to get a human girl to love you.”
The only sign he’d heard me was a slight jerk of his head. He blinked, as if trying to focus, then stared at me, the muscle in his jaw working. He pulled himself away, standing up in a moment, collecting his towel from the floor and wrapping himself back up, though his cock remained hard. He sprawled on a chair, elegant as ever and gestured to me to rise. I fought back the tears, my heart thundering deafeningly in my ears as I yanked my jeans up. I was never wearing them again. I’d throw them in the fire the moment I returned to our room. Once they were firmly zipped up and buttoned, I pulled the remnants of my shirt around me, holding hard to try and stop the shake in my hands from showing.