The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty Page 0,17

dreadful wooden paddle nudging her moist and secret place, so cruelly exposed by her open legs.

She struggled to pretend this was not happening. But she could feel that revealing fluid, and she knew the Prince knew of her tormenting pleasure.

"I have taught you much, and I am so very pleased with you," he said, "and so now you know a new suffering, a new sacrifice for you Lord and master. I could soothe the burning craving between your legs but I shall let you suffer it and know the meaning of it, and that only your Prince can give you that relief that you long for."

She couldn't control her moan, even though she muffled it against her arm. She feared that any moment she might move her hips in helpless, humiliating entreaty.

He had snuffed the candles.

The room was dark.

Beneath her feet she felt the mattress give with his weight.

She leaned her head against her arm and felt secure in the satin bonds as she let herself hang there. But this torment, this torment...and there was nothing she could do to alleviate it.

She prayed the swelling between her legs would die away, as the throbbing in her buttocks was cooling and dying away. And then falling to sleep, she thought calmly, dreamily almost, of the crowds awaiting her on the roads to the Prince's castle.

Chapter 5

THE CASTLE AND THE GREAT HALL

BEAUTY WAS breathless and flushed as they left the Inn; but it was not so much on account of the crowds that lined the village streets, nor those she would see ahead following the ribbon of road as it ran through the wheat fields.

The Prince had sent couriers ahead, and as Beauty's hair was dressed with white flowers, he told her they would reach his castle by afternoon if they were to hurry.

"We shall be in my Kingdom," he announced proudly, "as soon as we are on the other side of the mountains."

Beauty could not quite anatomize the feeling this aroused in her.

But the Prince, as if sensing her strange confusion, kissed her full on the mouth before mounting his horse, and said in a soft voice so that only those around them could hear:

"When you enter my Kingdom, you shall be mine more completely than ever. You will be mine beyond reprieve, and it will be easier for you to forget all that went before that time, and devote your life to me only."

And now they left the village, the Prince walking his magnificent horse just behind Beauty as she made her way quickly over the warm cobblestones.

The sun was hotter than before, and the crowds were very great, the farmers having all come to the road, and people were pointing and staring, and standing on tiptoe all the better to see, as Beauty felt the soft gravel under her feet and now and then tufts of silken grass or wildflower.

She walked with her head up as the Prince commanded her, but her eyes were half closed, and she felt the cool air soothing her naked limbs, and she could not stop thinking of the Prince's castle.

Now and then a low voice from the crowd would make her suddenly and painfully aware of her nakedness, and even once or twice a hand shot out to touch her thigh before the Prince behind her cracked his whip immediately.

Finally they entered the dark wooded pass that led through the mountains, and there were only occasional clusters of peasants here and there peeping out from the thick-limbed oaks, and a mist lay upon the ground, and Beauty felt herself drowsy and soft even as she walked. Beauty felt herself drowsy and soft even as she walked. Her breasts felt heavy and soft to her, and her nakedness felt oddly natural.

But her heart became a tiny hammer when the sunlight streamed ahead to reveal an ever-widening green valley.

A great cry rose from the soldiers behind her, and she realized that indeed the Prince was home, and up ahead, across the sloping green, she saw upon a great precipice overhanging the valley the Prince's castle.

It was far greater in size than Beauty's home, a wilderness of dark towers. It might enclose a whole world, it seemed, and its open gates yawned like a mouth before the drawbridge.

Now from everywhere the subjects of the Prince, mere specks in the distance growing ever and ever larger, ran toward the road that wound down and then up again before them.

Riders came over the drawbridge and rode toward