Today, Cousin Stefan ran off to elope with his stepsister, Zara. Everybody in the family is shocked; my mother feels it’ll bring shame on our house for generations. Zara was promised to a merchant’s son from across the sea, and was supposed to make a union that would profit both families. But Stefan was unwilling to lose her and married Zara before anybody could stop them. They say he loves her with a passion so wild, he can barely stand to let her out of his sight.
I think it’s the most romantic, bravest thing I’ve ever heard. I hope they live a happy long life together, and fill the world with children who know the power of love and passion.
I only pray that someday, I may know a love such as they have. And all those that I love, I wish the same for them.
I read the words once, in disbelief. Two times, in astonishment. And three times in absolute pure fucking joy, the likes of which I had never felt before, ever in my entire life.
“Holy fuck,” I said, grabbing Dora and slapping a kiss on her soft, wrinkly cheek. Still in total shock, I held her by the shoulders, staring into her eyes, which were damp with tears of happiness. “Is this real? You think she would give us her blessing?”
Dora patted me on the cheek. “She would indeed, my lad. I’d suspected it all along, but now we have the proof.”
I was out of the door in a fucking heartbeat, barreling down the long corridor that led out of my quarters and into the main castle. I hooked a sharp left into a secret passageway that was disguised as a closet door, and wound my way through the complex hidden maze that had sheltered my passion for so fucking long. It was only fitting that now, those same secret hallways would lead me to her to claim her, to take her as mine. At fucking last.
Marriage was still out of the question, I knew that. My mother’s diary didn’t change the law. But fuck the law. I’d marry her in the old way, the real way. The only fucking way that mattered.
I was already hard, but the thought of her virgin blood on my sheets made my cock fucking throb. I’d take her maiden head, and present her as my bride by rights. And if at all fucking possible, I’d fuck my baby into her before the king and queen returned from their now-useless time spent negotiating a marriage that would never fucking happen.
I’d seal us together forever. And there was fuck all anybody could do about it if we had an heir on the way.
But as I ran up a staircase and into another long, dark, arched hallway that ran beneath the great ballroom, a secret tunnel between my chambers and Anika’s, I had to face the reality that no matter how much I wanted her, no matter how I loved her, she didn’t love me. Not yet. Certainly not after the way I’d treated her.
The things I wanted to do to Anika weren’t polite, they weren’t gentle. Not rape, not that. Never that. But I wanted to walk that line of consent with her, I wanted to play with the flames of yes and no. I wanted to take her to places of passion and intensity that she’d never fucking imagined before. My love for her was fucking consuming and overpowering. It was a dirty fucking thing to ask a young sweet girl like Anika to take a beast like me. She deserved better.
But I’d never give her up. Never fucking ever.
Now I was at her bedroom door. I took one second to collect myself, like a hunter taking a breath before loosing his arrow.
This was it. I was going to walk in there, kiss her, and get my cock inside her as fast as fucking possible. It was time to claim her as mine. There was not a second to waste.
Three hard knocks on the door and it swung open. I was so wild with passion and need that I barged right in uninvited, shouldering past Maria to get inside. But when I scanned the room, there was no sign of Anika. And it wasn’t just that I couldn’t see her, either. I couldn’t feel her presence. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t nearby.
“Where the fuck is she?” I asked.
Maria scurried around in front of me, clutching her apron. Her eyes widened in horror and realization.
“Isn’t she with you?”
Fuck. Fuck. “Of all the fucking times for her to slip past me,” I said, fuming as I walked to the window to see outside. “Did she say anything to you?”
“Nothing at all,” Maria said. “Not a word. She was just… gone.”
“Goddamn it,” I said, smacking the stone windowsill with my fist.