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🥀 Traps With Baited Jaws 🥀 Prince Paul x Reader || 14.8k words || Part III

Summary: There’s a snake in the palace garden. Blood spattered on Catherine’s shrubs. Reader learns that Ruling all of Russia comes at a gutting price- (TW so much subby!Paul smut, violence, mentions of gore/death)

Suka - Term mostly used for women, meaning ‘Bitch’

Mudak - Term used for men, it mostly means asshole, pig, basically a derogatory term for a man.

General Abramov was practically pacing long groves, in the parquet floors outside your quarters.

The doors were closed. No signs of life stirred behind them. None. Stone cold dead. Quiet as the grave.

It was a quarter past ten. The Tsarevich was due half an hour ago, to join Minister Panin in negotiations with the Turkish Ambassador. Who famously was of a grizzly temper, and didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Subsequently, the man now had a face like bottled up thunder. Sat across the table tapping his fingers on the wood. His aides were getting twitchy and pissy. Scurrying to his side to whisper more snide discontent in his ears in their mother tongue.

They offered wine and cakes. They offered vodka. They almost offered some agreeable plump-thighed courtesans. But it wouldn’t sway the bastards. Sharp brown eyes scratched glares like arrow tips across the table.

Abramov volunteered to leave the huge echoing room. Snappish. Tensions swimming down tight like a noose on the Russians. He politely said he’d hurry the Prince along. The ambassador gave him a chilly stare. Gaze packed in frost.

You do that.

Find out what’s so important to that insolent Boy Prince, to keep us waiting.

The General bowed jovially in parting. Waddled his portly way the hallways to Paul’s chambers. Sword clattering at his rounded side. He scooted along. Sweat beading under his wigged brow. Matching his red cheeks.

He’d knocked loud enough to wake the hounds of hell. And then he decided enough was enough. He jiggled the handle and it twisted.

He let himself into the private lounge. The rooms where the Prince would dine. A lounge where they’d light the fires. Masculine port reds soak heavily on the walls. Golds and creams layered daintily on the furniture, like whipped cream dolloped on a dark cake.

It goes beyond the General’s notice to spot a wriggled pair of stockings thrown over the back of the settee. Cushions squashed from the previous crush of bodies. A suspicious wet patch sullying the silk. One pair of mauve ladies heels cast across the floor.

Evidence of a salacious night the evening past.

Catherine’s silky miniature greyhounds are in here. The maid let them in. The mutts were thieving the food that hasn’t been yet cleared by the servants. Leftover essences of last nights dinner.

Blue cheese and French bread. A bowl of ripe grapes, apples and oranges. Two used glasses of wine. One knocked over, broken. Crimson blooms into the persian rug. Bleeding expensive Portuguese wine. No one will care.

The dogs are thieving bread crusts, fruit, and leftover bones. Munching on the plushy pink centres of cut open figs and gnawing ham bones. They yip and sprint away licking their spoilt greasy chops when Abramov came storming in.

The pocket doors to the bedchamber are half closed. Pushed up but not shut. The General is walking too angrily and too quickly to stop and devour the noises coming from behind those doors.

The room filled with wet sounds sneaking from the spaces where your bodies vigorously net.

“Your Majesty.” He begins as he determinedly cuts through Paul’s quarters.

When he rounds the open doors and sees what’s happening on the bed, mortification roundhouse punches him in the stomach. His glaring pink cheeks get pinker - eyes blow wide like spode saucers.

You and Paul, not at all covered the twisted cotton sheets laying limp to the mattress.

He’s laying back. And you’re riding him. Winding your hips to slam down on his cock.

Head thrown ceiling bound. Hair wild and kinked down your back. Cheeks red. Body rendered in shimmering sweat. His hands clutch the cradle of your hips. Fingertips digging dips into the meat of your skin.

He’s in the same state. Sweat licked skin. Eyes so dark they’re black tar stuck on the sight of you. Brown curls damp at the brow. Cheeks all rushed red. It spreads down his neck too.

You love when it does that. You drag your nails over the blush. Leave white lines raked through.

General Abramov is a witness to the way you grind your hips, all to make your husband buck and writhe below you.

Paul’s eyes widen just a little at being caught. Too wrapped up in the bliss of your cunt to fully care.

He almost goes to grab the damp sheets. Or move. Or rectify, or-just, something. Yell and tell him to get out, when he can manage to find his churlish tongue.

Because, fuck, your hips were just that good. He’s drunk on you.

You shove a hand flat to his sternum and make him stay down - your breasts jolt as you ride your husbands cock. You don’t care if the General sees you. Even more than he’s already undeservedly glimpsed.

The man flounders on the spot for a moment. Caught in the ragged chafing space between embarrassment and mortification.

You twist, panting and look the General right in the eyes where he stands gawping. Long coils of hair sticky and clinging on your forehead.

Narrow your bladed eyes and cut his skin with a look that’s all displeasure and amusement. Prickly as a pretty rose bush. To be adored, admired, but make no foolish mistake, your thorns will prick out blood.

It’s true what they say about you. You are all slicing knives, coated in bitchiness.

You look displeased. Yet you smile. It’s all manner of brazen. Lips way too red and wet from sucking on your husbands cock before the position you find yourselves in now. You’ve no shame.

“I’m not done with him yet.” You insist.

Ultimate authority in your tone. Purring sultry breathy words like the sex kitten you are.

“Now, fuck off Abramov. You may have him. When I’ve finished.”

Unspoken threat follows sharply after your carefully plucked but nettling words; Kindly fuck the hell off so I can cum.

He stumbles through an apology to your majesties and bolts from the room like his heels are lit on fire. Like hell hounds are snapping at his coat tails too.

You hardly hear the receding footsteps. General Abramov’s bright red face glowing as he chuffed in displeasure and made a hasty retreat. Good. Tubby old letch.

Paul chastised you.

Overlapping his cross chide is the slam of the door that rattled the air. “That mouth.” He growled in fondness.

“The mouth that you had wrapped around you not too long ago. You were saying very different things about it then.” You point out.

You shift your hips and resume your pattern. You had been edging him for nearly an hour now. He’s all blushy and ready to blow. Just a little longer.

He sits up, chest mashed to yours, and shuffled your hips further on him. Hands scooping under your ass and bringing you close as was possible.

And then he doesn’t care at all, cause he’s smothering his mouth over your breasts and your perfectly hard nipples, and they bounce to his lips where you continue to ride him to a full gallop.

Those hips of yours should be outlawed. Fucking divine.

He’s licking your nipples and letting them fall into his open, searching mouth. Moving his head to time with your thrusts on and off his cock. Plucking with lips and tongue.

You get sweet. Soft on him maybe

Decide to lean back and let his hot mouth and seeking lips wander the sweat trails on your skin.

So dirty. This prince of yours had some of the filthiest desires you’d ever known. Debauched. Debased. He’s always ready to lap you clean after a hard fucking. Beg on his knees. Let’s you choke on his cock for hours, if that’s what you so desired. Prostates himself on the altar of your dignity.

You purr moans right now as he licks at your nipples.

Your interruption was paid no heed. He’d deal with it later. Much later. After you’d finished having your wicked delightful way with him.

Your nails are scratching up the nape of his neck. Tugging the brown locks in a mean fist. You bring his head up to watch his reaction when you clench down on him.

“Seeings as you find my behaviour so objectionable. Perhaps I should stop?” You judge.

Thrusting your hips forwards in a silky sway that gets his mouth going slack. Buried between your shoulder and your neck as he hiccuped a sob.

“Would you rather I cease, my prince?” You ask.

Twist of the knife. Salt rubbed in a gaping wound. You ask so sweetly. Yet still you roll your hips.

There’s a little glaze of fiery hatred in his eyes. But he knows if he doesn’t behave he won’t get a single thing.

“Please. Don’t stop. Please. Never stop.” He begs. His voice crawls into that soft broken territory between pleading and desperation. Hands palming your dewy hips as he nudged his nose against your shoulder.

He’s weary and sweaty and rubbing himself all over you like a cat in heat. Sweat licked skin. Desperate pretty boy with his lashes draping a long flick of burnt umber onto his cheeks, as he bites his lips and begs begs begs.

You’d kept up this soft teasing for hours. Especially last night.

At dinner was when you started. Afterwards during the Opera was when you kept it going.

Sat next to him in the red and gold encrusted box and drove him wild.

You started by caressing your fingertips just up his thighs. Over his tight white breeches. Palming his cock over them. Making him close his eyes and whine like a kicked puppy.

You’re a cruel cruel mistress with it. Every time he hummed, or moved, or adjusted, shyly asking for more, with a shove of his hips forwards to your hand, you pulled away.

Diamond bracelets rattling on your wrists. The way you looked so smug. Had his teeth grinding to dust.

Desire spurned with so much love and hatred it could swallow the blazing sun whole. Loathe at first sight and all that-

You watched the stage religiously as the Aria from the Soprano tripped into a stunning high C. Pitching higher and higher as Paul’s hips squirmed to your touch. And then-the horrible awful wretched burn of-

Nothing.

Leaving him to fester in the ache of a punishment. Hand pulled away again.

He had to swallow and bite his knuckles. You could see tears shimmering in his eyes. You wondered if he’d summon that bratty tongue and give you orders soon.

Listening to him breathe unevenly, all choppy, staring at the chalky opera scenery and fucking Greek marble plinths and columns on the foggily lit stage, with his cock pressed hard and painful up against the falls of his breeches.

You fan yourself and know he’s watching your hair swirl in the breeze. Your diamonds blazing in the dull light, linked around your neck.

The way they shift up and down with your every breath. Clasping your collarbones and fuck now he’s envious of a bunch of stones for being able to kiss your skin and he cannot?- torture.

He looks to your amused face for answers. Puppy doe eyes - slipped with tears-melting all genteel at you.

You give him that look. That knowing wifely look of ‘you will not cum until my say so.’

And how he knew it.

Trying to get you to budge would be like trying to move this entire palace over three feet, merely by pushing at the brick walls with your bare hands.

You scrape your nails up his thigh to dig in. A sting. Just a little pain. He could take it.

His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. Sweet rouge on his cheeks absolutely nothing compared to the real merlot blush underneath.

His jaw was tight, knowing that if he utters so much as one peep of a word, those fingers and that blissful touch of yours would flit away. Back to your own lap.

Poor baby boy prince.

He leaned over and hissed into your ear. Clutching your hand where it laid over his cock.

This opera is going on for far too fucking long.

It’s a German opera my love. It may well last for a week.

He curses in his mother tongue.

When it does finally blunder to a finish? Oh he’s ripping you out that seat and out the box door before the final note even reaches top pitch. Before the velvet curtains slam together.

He practically ran you to his rooms he moved so quickly, so recklessly. Sweaty palm clutched hard and painful on yours. He’s tugging you along and you do let him. Spilling love-drunk into the night

The pair of your shoes clipping harsh on the parquet floors. It snaps to the high moulded ceilings. Along with the smoke that flickers from the flickering candelabras. You laugh when he shoves you into the alcove by by his doors. He kisses you like he wants to win you over.

Again. You let him. You let him devour your mouth like a sloppy teen with a fat clumsy tongue whose never even kissed a girl before.

You grab his cravat. Fist the tied cotton in your nails. Tumbling backwards on horny limbs through the doors to your chambers. Entwined.

Lips joined and roving over hungry plump mouths, passion bruised, burned alive as you bumbled your way, tangled legs, knocking knees, and into his bedchamber.

Your arm hooked around his neck. His took fists of your skirts and hauled you closer. Like a spoilt child clutching at his favourite toy.

“Please, please” He began. Your poor husband was treading softly on eggshells, the slightest kiss or the tease of your body against him giving him a hard-on he couldn’t get rid of. He aches. It hurts- he wants to sob already.

You decide to grant a little clemency in the middle of your fun.

You pull him in and push him onto the settee in your rooms. Shove him back til his legs give way. Making him crash down.

He drank this behaviour in, fucking flourished on this kind of attention.

He’s sprawled out. Cheeks red. You hook your fingers into, and then throw that stupid pompous ceremonial wig on his head across the room. You yank his trouser falls down one handed.

You saw the resulting grin that followed. The dark eyes clutched with lewd lust. He wanted to admonish you for stripping him of his courtly dress. But then you won’t give him what he needs.

Being married to you has been a lesson in biting his tongue. He both loathes and loved it in equal measure. No one can treat him like this but you-

Before he can even try asking and begging again, you’re wrapping your skilful lips and talented flicking tongue around his thick cock. Swirling around the head. Sucking deep. Swallowing him down.

Choking on his girth as his hands twitch to just bury themselves deep in your perfectly arranged, silky-sweep of hair. All coils and pearl pins. Refinement. Elegance.

And yet here you are with his cock buried in your mouth til your gagging. Like some common Parisian whore with smeared rouge.

You let him just clamber to the peak and then, you’re leaving him dry, pulling back with a hum, and a satisfied pop where he slicks out your mouth. Drool stringing down your tongue to his length. Hard cock shiny with your spit.

Watch him drop his head on the puffed up and plump settee cushions with a damn near pitiful, aroused whine. Hips shifting.

“Be good." You warned. You rose up and bit his lower lip in an aggressive kiss. Voice like harsh thunder. He sits up and drinks as much of a kiss out the cup of your mouth as he dared.

You back up to a stand. Pushing up with your hands from the furniture. Paul just looked up at you from his thrown position on the settee, all sprawled crashed limbs and hope worn naked on his face.

Pulling off what of your dress you could manage on your own. Making him watch your crude undressing. Brocade silk cast to the floor.

You lock eyes with him as you strip your clothes. Shoes kicked off. Leaving you in your stays, chemise and stockings. Anything else required more elaborate undressing. And time you simply didn’t have right now.

Every scrappy second was devoted to this man before you. Stood up, peering down on the lovely sight of him

“Are you going to behave for me, my Tsarevich?” You asked him, cupping his chin between a thumb and forefinger.

He’s quick to nod. Head bobbing like a wild lunatic obeying your commands.

“Going to follow my every command?” You check. You slip your hand off his chin.

Again. A nod.

“Knees. Now.” You bark out at him.

“Yes. yes.” He couldn’t twist his clumsy tongue around the words fast enough. He struggles off the settee and his knees crashed to ground - hard. Cock bobbing where he moved.

You take his place. Laying back. Spreading your knees wide. Pulling up your chemise until your slick pussy was exposed.

He swallowed. His pupils blew wide at the sight, enchanted. Tongue wetting his lips. Fingers itching to move.

“Lick-“

He dove into you.

Licked and sucked, nibbled, flicking skilfully against your clit and running the point of his tongue right up and down your slit.

So enthusiastic, so greedy.

You reached over and soothingly grabbed a handful of his brown hair with a sigh, rocking your hips against his mouth.

He groaned into your folds and took it.

Lolling his head forwards as you ground your clit against his nose and slicked up his chin and all over his cheeks with arousal.

“Finally putting that bossy mouth to good use, Hmm?” You moaned. Bucking into his searching mouth.

That voice that barked at his army. And often at you. Or scathed at his mother. And here he is being such a good boy with it. Like he was trying to eat you from the inside out.

He slurped at you as best he could. Hazily content to let you use his lips. Chocolate-drop eyes glassy, gazing with sheer dumbed bliss and awe up at you.

Contentment churned with gratitude, that you’re finally letting him get his mouth on this holy grail of your lush pussy. Feeding it to him.

“You getting all thoughtless my sweet?” You cooed, heat pooling in your gut at the sight of his face squished between your doughy thighs.

“Love eating me that much do you?” You murmur.

He hummed his answer into you.

“Mmmhmm.” Long and low, like hot drawling treacle, nodding, fingers bunching your skirts as you rocked against him.

The only thought behind those doe eyes, is that he desperately needs to make you cum.

Drunk on pussy. He’s making those moans. Your favourite kind. Eyes flicked back in his skull. Lost in your taste, and the sensory thrill of puffy wet lips gliding against his tongue.

Sweet submissive little noises endlessly trip out his mouth.

You can feel that low-gathering heat bunching up in your gut. He’s tonguing you into an orgasm so quickly. Sensation like fire sneaking up from your ankles up your thighs. Almost like an agony. Bliss stacking up in your bones ready to tip over.

“Mmm. Paul.” You groan all breathily. Your hand clutched hard in his hair. The other over your head and scratching nails into the settee silk.

A warning. A good kind of warning. One that meant he was pleasing you. He thrummed with bliss, neglected cock throbbing, and he’s licking harder.

Fuck, you were close. So very, very damn close. He got you there quick.

You sway your hips up and down to push against his sloppy lips. “Gonna cum. Right on your tongue. Would you like that, my darling?” You ask. Voice all high.

He nods. Furiously nods. It makes lewd wet sounds squelch out from between your thighs.

You start to pant with the way your orgasm rips through you like a devastation. It starts to uncoil and then it’s unleashed.

A natural storm that swelled and tugged and transformed. Legs shaking around his head. Knocking into his ears. Throwing your head back and crying out one long wail. Wetness of your climax seeped out of you and onto the silk of the settee seat. Smothered his chin and mouth.

“Paul. Oh, Fuuuck. Fuckkk.” You tug on the back of his hair and it must be mashing his face so deep into you, nose into your clit so that he could barely breathe-

He didn’t look the slightest bit bothered about gulping down air. Not when he was busy gulping down you.

You spilled into his mouth and he eagerly lapped you up. He finally took a breath as he rested his cheek against your thigh. Dozy grin on his dopey lips as you came back from your high.

Seeing this man shiny cheeked with your arousal. All blushy and slumped against your thigh, ye gods, it was almost as good as the incendiary sex the two of you have.

The future heir of all Russia. Slumped into you, brainless from eating you out. Will wonders never cease.

“Get me out these fucking stays Paul. And I will make you cum and cum until my legs give out.” Is your next order.

Laying back and purring at him from your resplendent sex-frazzled position.

He very obediently stands up and acquiesces instantly. Tearing your stays laces open. Stockings off and thrown over the settee back. Mouth hungrily sloppy slanted on yours.

Bed. Now. Wife.

He ripped your stays. An unfortunate casualty in the end. You couldn’t even care.

This is where it wound you both up. The morning after. You’re riding his cock and making him late to meet with the Turks.

You smirk when you think what they will ask Abramov on his return, and what his answer will be.

“Now. Be a good Prince. Lay back so I can fuck you properly.”

“This isn’t properly?” He asks with disbelief.

You reel him in and kiss him before you pull back and carelessly shove him down. The way he liked. Hand to sternum. And you shove-

He sprawled back on the mattress with a pretty grin that split his face in two. Hands sliding up your knees.

“Want me to fuck you or not?” You ask.

“God please. Please. I will throw myself on your mercy.” He begs.

“Go ahead. I don’t have much to contend with.” You warn him sharply.

Watching how he moans and drops his head back. Gasping and grasping at the sex mussed sheets. You start to swivel your hips. Figures of eight relentlessly. Cruelly.

“You’re so-“ The words evade him. He can’t decide if he wants to curse your blood or sing your praises.

“Careful. Or I won’t be generous. I’ll pull off. Leave you here to fist yourself in your own hand. Spill over your chest like an adolescent.” You sneer.

“You wouldn’t.” His lip trembles with some real horrific fear that you might leave him aching.

His fingertips seek for your legs. Clamping you onto him. Never leave. Ever.

He can’t even let you sleep in separate beds. Not even when you vex each other and snipe like fishwives over something inconsequential at court. Something you don’t see eye to eye on.

Even then, he goes off to his chamber to take a drink and calm down. Yet, come an hour later, and he’s climbing under your sheets with you. Pasting himself to your back with his face in your neck because-

His pillows smell like roses. Of course. They’re soft as anything in heaven. But what they don’t have, is the smell of your peachy perfume lingering on them. He needs that merely to drift off to sleep.

On nights like those, you tend to hate-fuck the aggression away. Take it out on each other. Bear scratches and bruises and tired half moon eyes the next morning. It’s worth it all to share that secretive dirty smile over a crowded room.

You both can’t forget that this crazy twisted path which ended up leading to love, did start in seething hatred and explosive enemy territory. You vexed him, he shoved you back. You kicked, he clawed, you scratched.

You loathed each other bitterly before you ever considered it could actually be passion, prevailing, blazing between you. Some nights you’re reminded of that fact and in the morning neither of you can walk properly. There’s bliss in it you could never give up. Not for all of Russia.

You run your fingers down his chest. Dig your nails in just a little. Press your fingertips over his taut nipples to get a whiny reaction. You smile when it comes.

“I’m not going anywhere.” You slide back down on him so he can feel how wet you’re getting.

“Your cock feels too good, my Prince.” You slam on him again and let him feel how you crush your walls in a tight squeeze on him. Choking his thick fat cock. Pleasure and pain in equal portions.

He’s laying back. All lip bites, blushy cheeks and stumbly moans. Unable to tear his shining eyes off you.

You give him so little all night, and took and took, and then you heap everything back upon him. Like now; riding him so fast you knew he wouldn’t be able to resist it for long.

You were slamming yourself to his hips and grinding right up against his soaked thatch of curls at the base of his cock. It had him close to tears. Your clit is almost numb with how much sensation you’re grinding out of him.

The wet slapping-slick sounds of your cunt sheathed tight around him echo obscenely in this bed. Crude as hell and so loud. It’s making him shiver to hear it.

You’re so wet he can feel you slurping against his body. Mess dribbled down to the inside of his own thighs.

“My love. Oh my- love my-your cunt is incredible. I can’t do it. I can’t hold off. I- hmmm.“ He blabbered. Pitchy. He can’t even round off his jagged little words. Throat corded and tense and veins wriggle and push up under his skin with the strained effort.

His body is jolting from how hard you’re riding him. You can feel him coiling tighter and tighter under you. His belly tenses. He’s thrusting his hips up to meet you. It batters that spot rooted far inside that makes your whole belly flutter.

You moan with pleasure and he’s eating it all up.

You adore the way the bed is slamming hard, knocking into the wall from the roll and knock of your hips.

“Better break this damn bed frame putting a baby in me.” You order. Dig your nails into his ribs again.

“Going to fill me up, Tsarevich? Hmm? Leave me dripping?” You enquire. Sultrily cooing the words at him. Liquid sex skated on your voice.

That did it.

His nails bite into your legs and he starts to chuff breaths like he simply can’t believe you. Can’t wrap his mind around your indecipherable form. Eyes wide and dazed. You catch them for barely a second before they flip back in his head.

You wreck him. You drive him to ruin. And he offers himself up to you for more. Push him right to the brink of abyss and snatch him back. You’d always snatch him back. He was yours to do so with.

You feel his cock pulse hard inside you. Spurting and blooming that delicious push of warmth low in your belly.

He whines when you won’t stop winding your hips in big wide circles to get every pulse of pleasure out of him. Capture every drop.

He cries for mercy. Throat bared as his head is all the way back to the sweaty mattress.

You eventually decide to give it. But not before succumbing to your pleasure. Throwing your head back and riding hard hard hard. Moaning for anyone to hear and you didn’t care who did.

Then you’re drenching-gushing in his lap when you cum. Gummy walls rippling down on him in a fluttering series of squeezes that make his brain wipe blank.

His hands are sweaty clamps on your waist as he watches in awe. Cup of his sweet pink mouth gaping. Oversensitivity brushing against his cock but, lord, this view of you he gets to have is entirely worth it.

You float down from your high. Sticky skin pasted to his where you flop into his chest. Thighs shivering with the strain. Feeling the warmth of his soft cock inside you. Messy where your bodies meet.

You indulged him in a kiss as he rakes his hands through the sweat dampened hair at the nape of your neck.

“So good for me. Always so good.” You pant against his lips. Biting his lower lip with a tigers proud smile. Heart clashing terrifying beats against the trap of your ribs. Same as his.

He’s quiet. Just gazes at you. Equally terrified and utterly beguiled by the fierceness of this hold you have over him. He doesn’t know what he’d do without you. Every day in this court he treads a knifes edge that something will take you away. Something he can’t stop. Something he’s powerless against.

Then what will become of him-

Bliss is now furring up his tongue and stilling his head. All you can hear is the aggressive ram of your hearts as you lay atop him.

Dipping your fingers into his collarbone. Dragging them in patterns that smear his sweat over his torso. Down his slight pudge of a belly. The soft scratch of his happy trail. Up over every bump of his ribs.

You roll on your side and hiss when you shift up and off his cock. Almost sore from the rough ride you gave but you don’t divulge that. That would be admitting weakness and there’s no soft spots you can expose, not in the rough hyde of your ‘supposed’ scaly dragon skin.

Slick-creamy spend of him spills down your thighs. A ring of it left at the base of his cock. Shining wetly on the thatch of his dark pubes.

You smile with sight of it as you roll on your side and cuddle up close to him. Leg thrown over his hip. Hand a reliable weight resting on his sternum.

Wedding ring shining a bright snatching gold and glimmer of diamonds. Sweat wriggled down your chest and over your nipples and he’s hungry to stick them in his mouth again.

He skates his hands up your leg. Looking at you with a weepy and dazed expression.

You watch him a second. Before shuffling naked to sit up. You reach over and press your thumb into the space between his brows. As if you can rub the creasing frown away.

“Why the face my love?” You ask.

Because of course you eternally have your fingers hovering on the pulses of his every mood and want. The vital string of him deep inside you loved to toy with? You know it better than anyone ever has. It’s infuriating. Yet somehow incredible.

You can feel when something isn’t right. It’s eerie but you just can. Can judge what’s up with one flick of your eyes across his expression.

To you, he’s like those long daunting books you devour in the library. You trawl your diamond tip eyes over every secret line of him, and can easily read when something isn’t right.

Hysteria slams into his chest. Mangles his still throbbing heart that doesn’t, that can’t, calm down. He drapes his hand over yours on his ribs. Turns to meet your eyes.

He loves you. Proper honest to god, biblical, soul-deforming, aching perfect love.

And that frightens the hell out of him.

And he’s not just stumbling to this realisation because you’ve pushed him around into submission, and ridden his cock like an absolute champion. Well, not entirely-

You tilt your head and await his response. So many things unsaid sink into the plush bed of his tongue;

He’s so thankful his conniving draconic mother brought you here. Summoned you from Rostov to entertain him and get him off her back.

He’s so happy for every sneer you give him. Every shared look that sent shivers, cast over a ballroom swimming in good golden candlelight and the other half falling into spots of shadow.

He’s so soothed when he comes back from another argument, locking antlers with his mother, and you’re there in his quarters.

In your exotic plum silk dressing gown, hair down, soft, no angles present, pouring him wine and pulling him in for a plump kiss to chase the sour-sharp words off his tongue.

He doesn’t know how to speak kindly or softly. He’s been raised in the opposite of all those things. In every manner. By the same token, so have you. You’re perfectly matched in that regard. Tongues like sandpaper. Bred with barbs left on your dark souls.

Is there a hole where our hearts are do you reckon.

Yes my love. Black and terrible deep ones.

And it couldn’t be more right.

He leans over and softly lets his lips spill onto yours, and kisses you. Because these feelings just burst out of him, and he needs somewhere to direct them. He cups your face and won’t stop drinking in your lips like he needs them merely to survive.

You smile when he lingers so long kissing you like he’s still aroused. Lips wet and tasting faintly of you. Pushing and taking. When you pull back, your lips are spit wet.

“Aren’t you now terribly late to go and meet this ambassador?” You enquire in a soft voice still laced in giddiness from his kiss. Fingers still splayed on his sweaty skin.

He shakes his head at you with a trace of a flirty smile. “Good thing I don’t entirely care for the Turks.”

“You’re welcome, my liege.” You grin. Looking like a honey eyed vision. Like that sly fox in old fables.

It suits you. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

A tea party. Another bloody insipid tea party.

All you seem to do is take tea, or lunch, put on dresses, or a strand of pearls or a diamond clasp. Plan yet another tea party, and lay in wait to hear the latest snippets of gossip. It does grow into tedium, you’ll admit.

But then, that’s what the ladies of the court love to do.

They do remarkably little else.

Aside from fucking, reproducing, and bitching. But, silver lining. With these parties, atleast there’s cake.

Paul remarks that those silly affluent ladies don’t have the brains to do anything else. They do as they’ve always done; as they were taught and raised by their own ridiculous mothers.

Prance daintily around with their fluffy little lapdogs, their silk dresses and their powdered wigs, they wag their tongues like it’s a sport. And their usefulness really does end there.

You sit in Catherine’s spacious rooms. The ones she entertains in. The walls are slaked in deep rich paints. Mossy greens and flower vines twining in opulent golds with jewel coloured petals. Dazzling Prussian blue velvet swallows the light on the furnishings. Dark like her wicked taste in all things.

You’ve got one of her little Italian greyhounds cushioned in your lap. Malvolio. The naughty tempered grey one. He sits there chuffing as you scratch behind his ears.

You watch the Empress cackling with mirth as she points out the window beside Lady Orlova, showing off the pair of peacocks in her gardens that drift through, pecking at the lawn. Feathers skirting fluffy behind their steps like a brides train.

They were a gift from the Emperor of the Mughal Empire. All the way from the Agra Fort.

You’re sat on the rococo settee with Milena. She wore a dress the colour of vivid lemongrass, with a gold and emerald necklace ringing her throat. You saw to her having a good maid - at last. And access to as many jewels and silks as you did. She smelled like rich vanilla soap and damask roses.

You wore your mulberry purple silk dress. Rubies set in squares and icy silver cling to your neck, and drape from your lobes. A single teardrop of a pearl dangles off the necklace. To sit at your clavicle.

Both dressed in your court finery. Heeled feet propped on the low table being very unladylike as you dipped into Earl Grey tea - her into the wine - and scoffed down tiny, pretentious pink cakes. Slathered in too much sugar and fondant icing.

“I cannot believe it is expected of us to do this twice a week.” She griped.

“Here, here.” You mope in agreement.

“That’s cause not a single one of them, save for our glorious Empress, has ever read or touched a fucking book.” Milena explained as she shoved a much too big cake into her mouth.

“Probably wouldn’t know how to open one without instruction.” You jape.

It made her smile around her mouthful. She vulgarly sucked her fingers clean.

“You know, I heard that in Europe, There is a popular movement. It is being called the enlightenment. People meet in coffee houses and read journals and pamphlets. An exchange of ideas and liberation.”

At that precise moment your attention is called across the room to where the Ladies flock like hens to one noble who was proudly showing off how the new snuff box she’d been gifted, had been painted with a miniature of her spaniel. And isn’t that stunningly clever. Have you ever seen anything so ingenious? I declare not.

The Patriarch Archbishop, stood and clapped his hands in wondered awe at the spectacle. How wonderfully Marvellous.

“And then the there’s us-“ You comment drily as you watch the exchange with barely veiled horror.

“Stuck in the dark ages.” Milena agrees.

“Be careful lest we be burned at the stake for that kind of talk.”

Lady Petrova scurried past you, talking shrilly a mile a minute, about her new lilac lace parasol. How wonderful the fabric was. And how she simply must demonstrate it’s perfection right away.

She puffs up her parasol like she’s putting on a show and gets a dainty round of applause. Noises of awe from her companions.

“Fuck this. Have you a pistol?” You murmur in agony.

Milena snorts.

“If I’d have been lucky enough to be carrying right now. Half the idiots in this room would have some extra ventilation in their heads courtesy of me.”

“Start with the Patriarch.” You consider. Smiling all saccharine at the man. He was a horrible old letch. Pious to the most harsh degree.

He unnerved you with his constant toadying towards you and Catherine. When you’ve heard him snipe from corners when her back was turned how German turncoats and sexually liberated women like her, should be horsewhipped.

It makes you wonder at the manner of this frivolous court life. If everyone slaps on a smile that’s purely fake to glide through halls. Then, crept in the dark gaps of bright candlelight the smiles drop and true natures come sneaking free. This place felt like a writhing-seething snake pit on the best of days.

Milena tilts her head at you. “Patriarch is a solid choice.”

His nature was entirely contrived in front of Catherine and Paul. You and Milena received scathing comments from him in moments when no one could overhear. As far as he was concerned she was a sapphic hell-spawn who should rot in hell. He saw you as the royal bitch of a broodmare only fit for breeding. At least you were a true Russian though.

By gods grace that was the one thing he did like about you.

Both your moods plummet to the earths core when he decided to wander your way away from the courtesans and their lace umbrellas and fucking dog painted snuff boxes.

“Tsarevna. You do look well.” He rubs his slimy hands together. Horrible glint in dulled eyes the colour of grey marble stone like the cold walls of church he loves. His voice is chalk dry and grating. A sack full of broken metal that scraped against your ears.

“Patriarch.” You greet. Your smile is stiff.

“Still not with child I see? Are there problems upon the royal marital bed? As a holy leader of this country, I take great interest in the state of our leaders familial prospects.” He raised one thinning brow. Your jaw clamps.

Keep fucking walking. You think.

“Though I hear you’ve no problems with opening your legs for our dear royal Prince. Like a true Voronsky.” He insults with a beam traced on his lips.

Milena turns to you with a sneer. “Bet you wish I had that pistol now.” She starts darkly under her breath.

“Tell your little spies to keep their beaky noses out of my business or my bedchamber. I’m a terrific shot. I’d hate for anything to come to harm. They may get their pretty feathers bloody.” You peck out. Stroking your lapdog.

Milena chuckles. Popping another cake in her mouth. Cackling as she enjoyed it. Not taking any care to be ladylike.

“Lady Dimitrova.” He hissed with his teeth clenching. Milena’s hand curls into a fist.

She narrows her eyes. Smiles sickly. Daydreaming about putting a bullet right through his greasy balding head. It was her soothing lullaby most nights.

“Heavenly Father.” She cooed all flirting.

“Still delighting in your depraved inverted sins?”

“On a daily basis.” She sucks her fingers clean of icing with a too loud suck. Sucking the end of her middle finger, and plainly aiming it right at him.

“Still on your knees praying yourself black and blue? More fool you-“ She sniffs derisively. Running her tongue inside her lower lip. Entirely unbothered.

You can see him bristling to say something else. Jaw clenched. You cut him off.

“I would be very cautious of saying too much more, Patriarch. One day I will be mother to the next heir of Russia. I will have sway in this court and this country will belong to my children, and my husband before that.” You make plain.

He folds his hands behind his black cassock back. Cross swaying heavy and obscene weighty gold on his chest.

“Insult me or my Lady in Waiting any further in any manner, and I will happen to discover that you have vehemently voiced ill-will against the future King of Queen of Russia. Repeatedly. I think that may even border on treason.” You state easily.

A very real fear and loathing is woven into his eyes. Everyone knows what happened to Svenska when she dared threaten you at a soirée one night.

Paul’s devotion to you was laced in ferocity and any words levelled against his Tsarevna would answer harshly to the crime. Pay in blood and pain.

“And you. You pathetic little worm. Will be ground into the mud and left for the birds to rip to pieces. I’ll make sure of it.” You sip your tea. Diamond eyes sharp over the rim of the dainty rose pattern china. Set the cup back into the saucer.

“Such a vision of beauty.” He bows and takes his leave. Eyes throwing pools of acidic scathing at the pair of you.

He stalks away and into the folds of court to stir discontent with the Lords. Black cassock flapping around his feet as he takes his leave.

“I love when you do that.” She chuckles. “Put the dogs back in their place.”

Malvolio shakes his head in your lap. As if he knew he was being discussed. Settles his paws on your knees.

“Soundly whipping them into shape.” You smirk. You pucker a kiss at the Patriarch as he daggers a scratchy glare at you through the crowds.

“Besides. I far prefer being sat here with you. My scary Serbian bitch.”

She’s amused at that. “Mongrel remember. Not an ounce of pedigree blood in this unholy body. Unlike you, you pampered bitch.” She sneers.

You laugh together and she shoves a cake at you. “Come on. You’ll need energy to be a broodmare ready for the stud to hump later on.”

“You’re such a cunt.” You speak through a laugh at her. “And I wouldn’t have you any other way as my Lady in Waiting.” You pat her leg with your hand.

“Stop flirting or I’ll do something to you that will make the Patriatch blush in anger.” She threatens.

“I don’t think it would be wise for us to cross the boundaries between friends to lovers.” You decide with teasing.

She tilts her head. Scans you up and down. “You haven’t seen what I can do with my tongue.” She curls it out at you in a scooping motion.

“Must I have you hosed down? Mongrel?” You ask. Eating the cake she gave you.

You pluck the cherry off the top and bite it- plump sweet red clamped between your teeth. She looks salacious.

“Always ready to do my depraved things to anyone- Oh. For fucks sake.” Milena began. Turning away from you and hissing.

You tittered laughter. She cursed under her breath as Svenska came trotting into the room with her train of even more vapid ladies in tow. Even the stupid tottering click of her heels was somehow annoying.

All ridiculous brushed wigs, and low cut dresses. Svenska with her cleavage bulging out of her dark fern silk dress. A little yippy snuffling dog on a lead. With a flat face, lolling tongue, and bulging eyes. Ugly fat beast of a thing.

“I’m astounded she managed to find the door without help.” Milena bit out.

Her and Svenska famously did not get along. They grated like powder versus lit fuse.

Svenska was all highly-inbred noble stock and entirely no brain.

As the saying goes, if it was raining brains, that woman wouldn’t even get wet.

Milena was the polar opposite. Too many brains for her own good, and plenty more besides. She had no noble silver spoon childhood. Her father was a penniless Baron and her mother was a scullery maid. Quite the scandal to blossom from out under.

She rose, through hard plucky grit and bootstrap enthusiasm, and took her years to rise to become a Lady of Catherine’s court. She earned her place here and married only for gain, and you respected her greatly for it.

Svenska had her cushy comforts slung at her, like everything else in her spoilt life.

You were the same. Most of your life had been handed to you on a plate. You’d been trained for this occupation of marriage. Look at where you’re sitting now because of it.

Lady Svenska and her harpies always seemed determined to needle your friend for the manner of her upbringing. Spiky with the fact she wasn’t raised in these noble circles, like them.

Milena had known strife and penury. Overall you think that makes her far more interesting. She wasn’t bred for court life from the very second of her conception.

Now, Svenska’s distaste, it appears, had spilled on over to you, by mere association.

Good.

The woman was a venomous snake, who had tried on many occasions to slip into Paul’s bed and earn title as his Mistress. Even after you were married.

She was always trying to dig her claws in. Angling herself for a dance. Draping her hand over his elbow if she can snatch him alone, at a ball or one of his mothers soirée’s. Always hovering herself on the edge of his notice.

Your scratchy eyes never missed a thing. You kept them on her. You had your sources around this palace. Keeping you informed.

She makes a beeline for you. Expression dipped in venom. She had to come and bid her greetings to you. You were of rank. It was expected.

“Svenska.” You awarded. You didn’t really wish to engage any more than was necessary.

“Harpies.” Milena greets to them with no hint of shame.

“You should really have that mongrel companion of yours muzzled, Tsarevna.” Svenska trilled all chirpy. Smiling. Hateful bite in her words.

You can feel the air crack with tension. Milena bristles with it. Snarl kept at bay in her throat.

“I tried. But she bit the handler quite viciously.” You explained. Still stroking Malvolio. Self assured smile on your lips. Stroke and smile like a fresh faced daisy.

Milena sipped her wine and thereafter bared her teeth in a grin.

“Man needed his wounds sewn shut.” She widened her eyes. Unflinching eye contact with Svenska.

“Best not get too close. She may be rabid. I haven’t yet had her checked.” You warned. Stroking the dogs silky ears like you hadn’t a care.

“Good day Svenska. Have some cake.” You stretch her a wide smile like heaven was too perfect for you. Angels feathers and clouds.

She bobs a curtsey and departs with a sickly smile that snaps off her face when she turns away at her rude dismissal.

She side eyes Milena who winds her up, making a growling noise and then barked and flashed her teeth.

Makes the woman scurry away all the faster in her dainty heels.

You smile together and clink your glasses. Tipping the rim of your saucer to her wine glass.

“Stuck up prig.” Your friend scoffs into her wine. Watching her back as she departed. Ridiculous pampered dog wadding after her.

“Maybe she wears her hair too tight. Could that be why she’s so unpleasant?” You ponder.

Milena snorts her brusque laughter. “Not like it’s strangling a brain. She doesn’t have one. Maybe it’s the wig? Too heavy perhaps?”

“Ladies.” Comes a harsh hyena bark from in front of you.

It’s very telling that Malvolio yips a whine and zips submissively off your lap at Catherine’s looming appearance.

“Empress.” You both nod at her with due politesse.

“Behaving yourselves I should hope?” She lowers her sharp sherry hawk eyes to burn into your faces. Eye contact always so shrewd.

Milena bites her tongue. Tries to hold back a face of amusement.

“Not even remotely.” Comes your answer.

Catherine gives a dry chuckle. “Would you give us a moment, Lady Dimitrova?”

“Of course, Empress.”

Catherine hefts her saffron orange skirts up. Milena vacates her seat for the Empress to take her place.

“I do so hate to be bossy. But I needed to see you.” She insisted.

Catherine loved being bossy. That was such a blatant mistruth. She craved it.

“You and I fully appreciate, compromise is not your strong suit. It’s not even in your repertoire.”

“Not yours apparently. If the spoiled Turkish ambassador meeting I’ve heard about, is anything to go by.”

She needles you with a look.

You allow yourself the small sneak of a smile.

“May I give you one small piece of advice, petal.” She says with a thinning smile.

“Of course, Empress.”

“All these air-headed idiots may vex you terribly. But it’s good to keep them in agreement. Nettling as they all are.”

“Was my displeasure so evident?” You ask.

Not entirely sorry that it was showing so much. Your face was stale and sour with it. Putting up with the frippery and frivolity.

She rolls those dark-sherry eyes over to you. Tucks her cold bony fingers into yours. Rubies and amber rings on her fingers. Her perfume slides off her skin and slinks across to you. Red pomegranates and lilies. Spicy and vibrant as she is. Harbinger of blood. And how ironic it is that she’s scented won’t the flower that reminds most of death.

She beckons the servant over with two crooked fingers and cradles a glass of wine. Scarlet red.

“It pains me to even say it, but a woman in power needs to occasionally rely on the absolute idiocy that envelopes her at every turn.”

She takes a moment and scans around the room as she sips her wine. Fuck the tea.

“You scare them.” She tells you as she looks across the crowds. Squeezing your hand like she’s proud.

“Because I would rather hunt, ride and shoot. Then sit here and sip tea. To be alongside Paul when he attends his meetings. Not shut out and expected to embroider. To possess a sharp mind and budding intellect. Not some empty headed noble who gets excited over an umbrella in fucking November.” You smile through clenched teeth.

You bite the words out so hard it stings your tongue. You consider that perhaps you opened up too much.

“Exactly my darling.” She answers.

“I should be less- terrifying?” You ask. Really you don’t know any other way to be.

“Heavens, no.” She winks.

“Goddamn right they should be scared of you. You’re the Tsarevna. You live in the shade of my terrible image. That thought should strike fear unto anyone.” She sneers. The jewellery on her wrist rattles where she squeezes your hand harder like a great wrapping boa.

“To be in power in Russia. You must be more than a woman. More than your meagre bones. More, even, than a man. You must be like a God.”

You smirk. “Like a god? Busy elsewhere?”

It makes her laugh. It’s a bright musical sound that doesn’t happen often.

“It’s hard fucking work believe me. And a task few would envy. But you must tread a fine line. With Paul. With the nobles. Don’t be a wet blanket by any stretch. But there are times when you must proceed more softly than I know you’re probably used too.”

You nod. You do see sense in that. Doesn’t mean you agree with it.

“I would be by his side for whatever he wishes. I think he’s perpetually scared I will usurp his rule.“ You inform her.

“I did set a precedence for that.” She beams at you.

“A dangerous one. Sometimes the way he looks at me, like he’s worried I will one day follow in your footsteps. I think I scare him in that way when I’m too forthright.”

“Good. Keep the boy on his toes.” She urges with a sickly grin. “It’s not in my nature to take it easy on any man.”

She pats your knee and rose to her feet. A great waterfall of saffron silk rustling as she stood. The slash of her tulip red lips. She towers tall over you.

“Any word on my heir of yet?”

The warmth is sucked from the sun. Your belly shrivels. She’s good at that. Making you shrink down to about two inches tall.

She can wither anyone to crumpled cinders with those eyes and her words. She roots out any spec of shame and dissects it in front of you.

“No word yet. But you’ll be the first to hear if anything changes.” You insist with as much geniality as you can stroke on your tongue. You hold your jaw firm and set you eyes like the hard diamond tips they can be.

She leans down and kisses your brow.

She lingers with an afterthought on her lips. “By the way. I must warn you, keep your guards close-by. I will be adding three more to your usual watch. There’s been rebellions against us in Omsk. Last week two men tried to break into the palace gardens. Be watchful of your pretty back, my dear.” She urges. Nudges a finger under your chin.

And in a great sweep of silk she’s out the room. Guards on her heel. Flying away back to her cutthroat rule. You’re left sat there with a daunting hole burning it’s way into you gut. Price for being royalty already chalked on your head. Being chided slyly for the fact you weren’t with child yet.

You take a deep breath. It’s not deep enough - it feels too shallow. Milena thumps down back next to you on the settee. Shoehorns a glass of your favourite wine into your slack hand.

“I had a feeling this would be needed after the Dragons visit.”

“My guard watch has been doubled.” You told her. Lifting the glass for a sip.

The taste of it soured on your tongue. Too sharp and spiky. It was so sour, you could barely stand to swallow it down. Your stomach roiled at the taste. Throat left chalky.

Milena’s face fell at your news. “Is that dangerous?”

“Looks as if Catherine has been busy of late.” You suggest flatly. Stirring up her usual amount of rebellions and distaste.

And then you wince. “That wine tasted disgusting. What vintage was that?” You ask in vehemence. The cloy of it sat on your tongue making you feel ill.

She frowned at you. “The Portuguese one you love.”

You handed the glass back.

“Come on. Let’s go have a ride or shoot something. I grow weary of tedium.” You insist. Clutching your skirts and rising gruffly to a stand.

Paul was sat leisurely at his escritoire writing his letters. Leafing through sheets and sheets of bureaucracy inked on thick white cloth like paper.

Unawares as to the storm happening in other parts of the palace.

His eyes were store from trying to make out the squiggled hand. Head swimming from the amount of political jargon swirling around his head. Ink stains on his hands. Cramped fingers.

You’d left not half an hour ago. All bathed and powdered. Rouged up and sent off all pretty, smelling of peaches and cashmere wood soap, wrapped in your cream silk dress and a cloak for a walk around the frigid Autumnal gardens with your maid.

You looked so pretty in silks with diamonds shimmering in your ears. It seemed a strange parallel that not half an hour previous, he had you on all fours on his bed ramming his cock into you, until you sobbed.

It was almost unbelievable to equate the two images of you in his mind.

He gets you as the pretty regal Tsarvena in diamonds, in court being perfectly divine by his side. All elegance. Then in private, he gets you as the most debased woman. When you look at him as you’re laying there naked on the bed. Eyes glazed. Beckoning him over with two curled fingers for more-

You glided over to where he was sat writing. Back to the room. You sling yourself around him and kissed the back of his still sweaty neck. Told him you liked it when he was all rumpled and undone. No buttons polished. Shirt untucked. You ran your gloved hand down his chest.

You then squealed as he flipped around and tugged you across his lap on his desk chair. Hands up your waist as he kissed you deep.

Your maid knocked at the door. Too timid to come in. She’d been burned by that before.

He pulled back and rubbed his nose briefly into yours. Laying it alongside yours. Examining those scratchy-diamonds of your eyes he adores. Extending the touch for as long as he could.

Then he hauled you back upright on your feet. Told you to get out of his way and don’t be troublesome. Swatted your ass and watched you smile with it. Lip bite.

“I’m always troublesome.” You insist as you stand near. His kiss worn pressing on your lips.

“Enjoy your promenade. Tsarevna.”

It never dawned on him until later, how those could be the last words he said to you.

You kissed him once more. Softly. White lace gloved hands slipping off him. Flowers and sweet blossoms coating your palms. He watched you slip out the doors. Swathe of pretty silk slipping through his fingers.

Usually it was a walk you reserved for Milena, your lady in waiting. But she was currently in bed hungover and she was too stubborn and grizzly to be contended with this morning.

She’d sent you a note with two short words scrawled on it telling you her answer.

Scurrilous was a word that seemed entirely crafted for your Lady Dimitrova.

He turned to his papers and the morning sun slanted over his desk. Displaying the lateness of the hour. Burning over the walnut wood as he worked. The maid brought him tea. In his working daze, it grew cold.

Time crawled on until something far greater came to disturb.

He could hear her coming. He could hear his mother a mile away. Always.

The tell tale stab of her heels on the wooden floors looming closer. Closing in like a predator on hunt with blood in her nose. Stab-stab-stab. Slaps to listen to her footfalls. Summed her up perfectly.

What wasn’t usual was the drum beat of many many soldiers walking alongside her. He twisted his head to the doors.

She didn’t stand on ceremony. She threw open the doors when she got to them. They slammed the walls. Rattled the floors. Shook the doorcase. Rage filled the room and it’s entirely hers- powerful and terrifying like the way lightning takes up the sky.

The air she feeds into this once calm space feels damned.

He stood from his desk at such an ungodly, not to mention, noisy intrusion.

Catherine’s hawk eyes are scanning his rooms. They narrow to rusty blades at him. Some way relived.

“You’re safe.” She says it like it’s a minor convenience.

“Where is the Tsarevna?” She orders to know.

The guards flanking her file into the room and fill it up. Hands poised over their guns ready to aim and fire. Faces stoic.

Paul feels his gut plummet to his toes. “Walking in the gardens. She left half an hour ago.”

Catherine’s lips purse.

“You are not to leave these rooms. Do you hear me?” She seethes.

Before turning around, and walking her terrifying rage somewhere else. Flicking her sherry coloured eyes all poison-filled, in another direction.

Two of the guards flank the doors. The others trail after her like violent shadows.

“Mother!” He snaps after her. Demanding to know what was so twisted about all that. About why he suddenly felt sheer clammy panic. Shimmering it’s nasty way along under his skin like a vile serpent. It’s gripping onto his bones and he can’t shake it loose.

“What is happening? Explain.” He snapped. His voice clapped harsh off the walls. His throat strained around his shout. Eyes ablaze.

Catherine didn’t even try and temper him. She turned and caught his eyes. Doesn’t mince her words.

“She’s in danger.”

Ice fills his blood. His heart hurts where it beats. Trembling in fear. So much fear fills his face, he looks like a shiny eyed boy again. His lower lip trembles.

“No-“ He says. His voice is a quiet bleeding wound. Born on skipped choppy breath. Not you.

“Paul. Stay. Here.” She threatens. Voice falls as hard as knife blows. She leaves blood weeping behind.

She’s just pulled out his guts out and splayed them twisted at his feet. Stomped on his heart the way one would a weed.

Paul has never wanted to disobey her more.

Your Autumnal walks did fill you with such joy.

It was yours and Milena’s time to bitch or laugh away from the always poised ears of the stifling court. Where apparently every corner and nook and cranny had both eyes and ears.

You don’t see why you need a chaperone still. You were married. And your usual guards had swapped shift when you departed the house. The new men coming into duty were General Abramov finest - so he said.

You found them passed out in the company of a naked plump whore with a ratty wig. Empty bottles strewn around the pit of their room. Clearly they didn’t care overmuch about your safety when there was vodka and fucking to be had.

You rolled your eyes. You weren’t waiting on another set of grunting shaved monkeys to ready themselves.

So fuck it. You made the executive decision.

You and Darya strode out into the dark heart of the gardens, alone.

Your maid was much sweeter than your friend. More timid wet bunny than a rabid long-toothed mongrel. She pranced gingerly along beside you, tiptoeing like a nervous baby roe deer.

She didn’t talk much and mostly hung off your words for fear of displeasing you. You never snapped at her. You weren’t that heartless. She worked thoroughly hard. She was a diamond in the coal mine of ladies maids. She was good with hair too. Worth her precious weight in gold.

“Lovely day.” You comment. Hiking up your skirts to step over a squelching patch of mud.

“Indeed it is Tsarevna.” She copies your lead.

“You don’t need to call me by my title every time, Darya. It doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.”

“Yes, Tsarevna.”

You roll your eyes. Really, she won’t be won over.

“I hope the chef makes apple cakes tomorrow. That, or something with yellow pears. They are my favourite fruit this time of year.”

“Mine too, Tsarevna.”

“With cinnamon and brown sugar?” You add. Determined to coax more out the girl.

“Yes. Tsarevna.”

You sag your shoulders down. She wins. Milena would have told you three salacious sex stories by now. And two shreds of reliable gossip.

You stroll along and you introspectively marvel at the slowly deadening trees. You didn’t actually mind the companionable silence.

Autumn here did remind you of home. In Rostov. Your father and his love of roasting nuts over the fire embers at night. Buttery chestnuts and smoky air lacing together.

The prick of frost on your cold cheeks. The loping mist that accompanies a frigid bitch of a blue dawn morning. The way you and your sisters used to collect apples in the orchard. Rusty rosy flesh. Gather them in your apron pockets. The way you had to warm your toes by the fire before bed some nights.

You were more at home bedecked in furs, and being in horse drawn sleighs over milky frozen lakes. White as a swan feather snow.

You liked this type of cold that was creeping in. You put that down to your entirely slavic blood. Sustained on frostiness.

You like it how it is now. An array of golden toffee leaves being tidied into corners by the gardeners. Scuttling papery things being blown everywhere. Tumbling and sticking across the wet grass. You idly wondered in the back of your head why the guards weren’t at their posts.

That thought didn’t sink into the proper full dawning place it should have.

You skimmed your eyes along the clipped hedges. The way the frost knifed at the copper beach groves was stunning. Spiderwebs it’s clawing ice across each and every one of the leaves. The air is ungovernably sharp with cold. Blue silk drape of a sky with a searing mustard sun.

Breath leaves your mouth as a silver wisp. Each drag inhale burns the walls of your throat. You watch birds dip and swoop in the sky above. Through the frost thinned branches.

You walk with your eyes turned skyward for a second. And when they come glancing back down to earth- your steps come grinding to a halt.

You fist Darya’s cloak. Getting her to come to a sharp halt. You tuck her behind you. Your hand a grating pain on her wrist where you held so tight.

There’s blood spattered on the frosty copper leaves.

You’re just coming to the clearing in the groves. There’s a fountain with a Greek statue decorating the space ahead. You know it well. Deep in the heart of this garden. The water in the mossy stone pit, is thick and glossy still with ice.

The guards lay dead, heaped beside the fountain. Slumped dark shapes of what used to be men. Throats laid open from ear to ear. Crimson ribbon cuts draped over their throats.

Darya splits the air with a scream, muffled through her hands clamped to her mouth, tears shaking from her terrified eyes. You catch on what tore that scream from out her mouth.

One of them isn’t dead yet. But the man who just ripped a knife across his throat from behind, unleashed a vivid spill of red. Like he was a boar on a hunt and not a royal guard.

Wide glassy eyes, choking splutters. That dreadful expression as his own blood fills his throat. Choking.

The men holding the knives are not of nobility. There’s two of them. They wore dirty coats and mud smeared faces. Shaggy stubbled beards, and hands and eyes that have never known finery or riches. They’re smiling as they kill.

Catherine was very well hated after all.

Darya’s screams draw too much attention. You try and silence her lest she ends up the same manner as the guard. But then her eyes flick back and she drops into your side. Dropped like a dead weight. Fainted. Perhaps that was a mercy.

Their eyes swim to you.

Without care you’re kneeling in the mud and checking she’s alright. Calling her name but she just lays there limp. You yank hair out her face. There’s mud on your hands. You don’t mean too, but it smeared across her cheeks.

Breath fell silver from your lips as you rasped her name. You refused to let panic crawl up your throat and thicken your voice.

Suddenly there’s a grubby hand fisted in the back of your neck. Cold steel - bloodied - resting at your throat. You will down your bile.

“Up. Suka.” Comes a sniggering voice from behind you. Laughter.

Charming.

You try to breathe as you rise to your feet. They pull you up fast. Shoving you backwards against the grove. Leaves and frost scratch the back of your neck.

“Pity that small one fainted. We could’ve had one each.” One says, tone pure filth. Rakes his eyes over your heaving tits. Not even fully addressing you.

They’re animals at best. Beasts that dared to crawl upright from the mud. Dirt ringed around their fingernails, blood spatters on their brown coats. Shirts yellowed with sweat. Hands red.

The way they’re both looking at you is like you’re a plate of bleeding lamb chops before a wolf.

One is lanky and still brushed with youth. Short shorn hair. He licks his lips as he looks at you. Eyes so deep they’re black.

The other one is shorter, older. Hair blonder and shaggy. Down to his shoulders. Eyes paler but no less spurned, entirely wrapped up in blood lust- pure hatred.

“I’m Russian you Mudak.” You spit out at them cursing at you thinking you won’t understand your native tongue.

The young one grabs your cloak in a fist. Clenched the fabric. Rips it off to see more you. Silk ribbons slither free and they cast your fine cloak into the mud. Get a better look at your dress and bodice.

“Look at that- fuckin beautiful.”

You blaze with a furious blush as he drags the knife tip under your diamonds pushing up so the gems grew tight around your neck. Choking a little. Choking you on your riches like the pampered bitch you are.

“The diamonds or the tits?”

“Both.” He guffawed back like a hyena.

You bristle. Caused the younger one to prick the slimy knife deeper into your throat. It burned. Grazed skin.

“Behave girlie.”

You can’t keep to silence. You can’t. Your pride is unleashing it’s jagged monsters. You’re snapping your fangs without thought.

“Fuck you.”

The knife pushes in more. You felt the scrape of it pushing at your rage slicked heartbeat.

“Keep your fucking tongue still unless you want it cut out.” The older one slithers a smile at you.

You spit at him. It lands right on his chest. Streaking down his coat.

“You’re going to regret that Suka.”

“Doubt it.” You snap.

Then he gets closer and his filthy hand grabs your chin. Hard. Squeezes your bones.

“Shame that. To leave a pretty girl without a tongue. It’s all you must be good for, Suka.”

You glare. Eyes threaded with steel. Your backbone rigid.

“If you’re going to keep calling me Suka, you better put start putting royal before it, scum.”

The young one fists his hand in the back of your hair and forces you to arch your neck. It burns. His foul breath washes over your face. His lips are chapped. His teeth are twisted black and yellow.

“Who might you be then?” He wonders aloud.

“Too smartly dressed for a maid.” The older one proposes.

“Maybe she’s a Whore. Opens her legs and keeps her cunt wide open for the nobles or the Prince.”

“What whore would have a maid?” The young one asks.

A beat of silence. You swallow

“The Tsarevich’s wife would.” The older one grins. It’s deadly.

Bile fills your neck like acid.

“We’ll go and find your pretty prince when we’re done here with you.” The young one taps your cheek with his fingertip.

“Slit his stupid throat. Leave you gutted open here. Two little presents for that Empress cunt.” The young one keeps his hand in your

Then he chuckles and it’s sick. Looking down your body. “Maybe you’re already carrying the Empresses’ heir huh? That princes babe in your belly.”

He makes a face that you could only describe as coldly flippant.

“Shame.”

You barely register anything else save for the way he swings his arm back and goes to bury the blade in his hand deep in your belly. The older one watches on.

You brace for the hot mean slice. Your hand vices for his wrist. But no pain comes. It didn’t penetrate your skin.

You flick your eyes down and see the blade hasn’t even pricked beyond the whalebone of your stays. Stuck on the thick close fabric of it. It only ripped the silk and left blood that wasn’t yours.

You act so fast you can’t believe it. Your hands are shaking. Time slows to honey.

You twist his wrist hard enough to potentially break it. He screams. Too slow.

You grab the knife and tore it onto his lanky throat. Ripped it across his neck and push him away. You hear his grunts of pain that churn into wet sloppy chokes.

You’re a sight. Red spattered across your cream silk and those fat diamonds. Droplets across your face and cheeks. Dripping off your hair darkly. It’s like there’s red rose petals on your dainty lace gloves.

You sneered at the expression on his face. Eyes glassy wide and blown with disbelief. Shock. Blood sheeting down his grubby clothes as his hands scrabbled for his neck.

The older one comes for you in rage. Which makes him clumsy. He pushes you into the mud and used all his weight to try and choke you with his bare hands. Where he felled you, the knife scattered out your hand.

Greasy blonde hair falling in front of his rage flushed face. Muddy clothes and the horrid weight of rutting man like a stocky boar above you. Spittle wet on his lips.

He’s cursing your name. You’re grunting and trying everything in your gritty scrappy power to overcome.

He gets his meaty hands around your neck. You scrabble your fingernails at his dirty coat. He slaps you to keep you subdued. Cheek stinging. Mind reeling into base animal instinct.

You twist and reach for it. The knife you dropped. Your fingertips barely reach the handle. A desperate stretch. An empty slip to the frosty muddy grass.

Your world starts trickling into punchy static swirled stars. Blood pounds white and black over your eyes. Pulsing with the craving for air.

Not for long.

Where he pushed you and climbed on top of you, your skirts were up around your knees. And with every painful pulse of your brain. You reach for the slither of a dagger you keep in your garter.

You get your slippy fingers around it. They drift off. Blood smeared over your thighs and your breath is starting to wane. Trickling out dry past your lips. Paul’s face flashes in your mind. Last thing you can think of. Those brown eyes and the corner of his pink smile caught in candlelight.

You could sob with the agony of it. You really could. Your lip trembles.

But then something else roundhouse whirls into your chest like a furious storm that can’t handle your bones. Rage. Love.

Tears squeeze out your eyes that feel ready to burst as you gape up at his furious face. Digging his nails and thumbs into the meat of your neck. The burn of blood rose furious in your throat.

You slam your knife down into the soft of his back. Three times. You stab and stab down down hard until pure terror seizes over his face. Until he’s weak enough that you can knee him off you and grab the back of his neck. Fist his dirty collar in your hands and grit your teeth.

“Rot in hell.” You curse at him before you slam the sticky steel knife into his throat too.

Gurgles and frothy pink blood. More red blooming down into your dress. Sour metal in your nose. Too many warm pennies. It’s gummy on your hands. Sticky.

You hate the smell of blood even on a hunt. It cloys on your furs and matted and made you feel sick. You never hated it more than now.

You kick him off you and scramble to your feet. The weight of him off you. You’re upright and legs trembling like they won’t hold you.

Skin too small. Your veins wriggle like flames. Your steps shivered. Body bowing pathetically. Every muscle sore and still pulled taut with adrenaline.

There isn’t enough air and all you can taste is blood. You spit it out your mouth but it doesn’t leave. Bile tries to force its way out but you just breathe. For now. Just try and locate the thin air.

You brace a crimson hand on your stomach. Stained lace. Mud and blood smeared on your dress. You cannot hear the sweet call of birds or the wind rattling it’s whisper through the trees. All you can focus on is the fierce drum of your heart. Lungs swelling in the trap of your ribs.

You stand and stare down the centre of the copper birch groves. Trees lining the way in your vision. Back to that terrible palace. You just stare because everything is still ringing in your ears.

Guards are furiously running in their swathes towards you. So many of them. Rifles aimed. General Abramov in the centre enfold of stocky columns of uniforms that were his men. Barking his orders that you cannot hear. It’s all swirling mute to you.

Paul is there. Surrounded by a cluster of soldiers. In his untucked white shirt, undone jacket. Hair a smushed mess. Pistol locked in his hand.

Your face is oddly stoic.

He stalks towards you- terrified eyes scanning the bodies slumped around you. Your maid. The guards. The blood. The knife still dripping in your hand.

You’re covered in it. He doesn’t know if he’s out his wits with fear, or wanting to get on his knees and pray his thanks to the heavens, til his lips hurt.

Wrap his hands around your hips and kiss your belly. Chide you and love you in the same breath cause you scared him to death.

You barely see him when he comes up to you. Calls your name. Cups your face. Doesn’t care for the mess all over you. He needs the snap of your diamond eyes meeting in his.

He drops his pistol cause his hands are around you. All over you. A scuff of material catches rough on his palm. Grazed jagged silk.

He looks down and sees the knife sized hole that had been stabbed into your stomach. His breath lays in his throat and it’s too thick to reach.

Even in your hard prickly angles, your glassy steel countenance, and they’ve cut through your brambles and laid their hands on you. Hurt you.

You finally say his name. “Paul.” It’s not even above a raspy whisper.

Tears shine in his eyes and you don’t know anything else than how to clutch him and hold onto his hand over your belly. You chuck down your bleeding dagger. Will the blood ever come away.

You wait until he reels you into his chest and cups the back of your neck to cry. Fear finally gets to you. Hands cold and scrabbling for his hair. His warmth. The smell of his shaving soap. Safety.

For now, it’s enough.

Night fell swift. Catherine was furious. Seething spitting nails at everyone who crossed her path. Livid at being disobeyed.

She chucked wine glasses. She threw priceless vases at the walls. Shrilled til her throat hurt. Shards of broken things less spiked than her displeasure. The countess could barely calm her down.

She cast her eyes over you as Paul walked you back from the gardens. Soldiers flanking you entirely and the General on your heels.

You stepped inside and she was ready to draw some blood of her own. And then she saw you. Red spattered face and dress. That metal scent living on your skin and you were dying to scrub it away. You wanted that harsh scratch from a hard wooden brush. Bristles on your skin until it barbed to pain.

You meet her eyes. You don’t back down.

She almost had the balls to look impressed. Intimidated even-

“Go get her cleaned up.” She orders gently to the maids.

The first time you’d ever heard anything gentle come out her mouth. Crossed with respect. She nods at you. You feel blessed in some ways.

And here you were. No longer trembling. In the piping hot bath in Paul’s quarters. Water slicked over your skin. The bath water still ran pink even now. Even after they sluiced it off you with cold jugfuls before you got in the tub.

Your throat is stinging. Eyes bloated and sore from salty tears. You weren’t angry. Or sad. It went much deeper than that. Roots clinging. You’re not entirely certain why you spilled tears. Maybe it was that one thing you swore you’d never show;

Fear.

It’s fully matte dark and the room is only licked by flames. The orange of the fire and the spin of the gold from the candle holders. You turn and turn a wedge of soap in your palm until your fingertips were pruned. Your hair sticks down your back. Wet silk that sticks into the water.

Blood still in your mouth no matter how much you swilled with tea or water. The wine still tasted bad. It will be a while before you can stomach swallowing claret.

The maid knocked on the door. A harsh rap that disturbed your silence. It seemed almost too much. Overwhelming. You flinched.

That wasn’t you.

You were at peace with the crack of the flames and logs shifting in the half. The swish of the water around your naked limbs. The smell of your tuberose and cashmere wood soap. That was all you wanted for now.

“A little longer, Tatiana.” You call out. Not unkindly. Dazed maybe. You didn’t have the energy spare to be a sniping viper tonight.

The door opens anyway. You don’t bother to cover yourself. The waterline only just hid your nipples.

When you look up. Paul is stood sideways in the door. “I took the liberty of dismissing your maid.” He tells you.

“Did she say how Darya was.” You ask.

“Awake but she was very shaken. The doctor attended her. Gave her a draft.”

“Poor kid.” You sympathise. Scrubbed the soap bar down your arm.

You feel Paul bristle at that. You just know. When you look over at him the sides of his mouth are taut. Pulled firm with anger.

Catherine does the same. When the lips purse, that’s when you know- run.

“My concern is elsewhere at present.” His voice is stiff. Tamped with stomping brat and anger.

“Do not think to lay the blame at my feet. I went for a fucking walk.” You hold firm. Eyes gazing into his. Too tired to be slinging vitriol back and forth.

But you won’t dare let him forget you have sharp snarling teeth. They may be tucked away. But just because a panther sheathes it’s claws doesn’t mean it’s lost use of them entirely.

“I don’t lay blame at you. I’m just trying to wrestle with the idea that I could have lost you today.” He snaps out louder than he intended. Voice reed thin.

Stood at the end of your bath in his big baggy shirt and breeches. Barefoot and stripped down to nearly nothing. Rubbing his forehead and trying not to let fear bleed into his voice. He failed.

He looks so young. So stricken with fear as you sat there. Watching candles flicker jerky flame across his satin cream cheeks and those wide brown eyes.

You say nothing. “You want to be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry. I’m livid.” He hissed out.

I’m terrified. Is what you hear.

“Those men meant harm. They killed four guards.” He tries to strike fear. You’ve had enough of it today.

“I’m sat right here proving their plans otherwise.” You insist.

“Because you got lucky.” He snips.

“Not really. I’m always armed.” You insist.

He softly uses your first name. He never does that.

“Try and take what I’m saying seriously.” He pleads.

You look at him for a silent beat. He’s lumping all this on you and you’re just trying to sit here and manage to breathe.

“They said they wanted to hurt you.” Another swish of water. Swill of soap over your palms. Chalky and white woody petals.

“They told me. They were going to gut me and leave me in the gardens like a stuck boar. They were going to come and slit your throat. Leave your mother our corpses to find. A present.”

His face falls into distress. He’s spurning with so much anger and sadness it’s starting to rule his expression. His eyes twirl with it.

“So before you sit there and rightfully rip pieces out of me, Paul. I ask you this: What choice did that leave me.” You say it so softly. But your meaning is backed by steel.

He soaks in your words. Drinks them in.

He can’t cross the room fast enough.

In four quick strides he’s on you. Uncaring for the soap suds still on your skin or how your hair is dripping. His face is in your neck. His arms wrapped around you and yanking you to the edge of the tub. You’re dripping spots onto his white cotton sleeves.

His fingers rake through your hair. Wet beading on his fingers. He tilts your face up and just traces his thumb over the stinging welt that animal left.

“I don’t want to be without you.” He whispered softly.

That’s what it comes down too. When everything else is stripped away.

“I’m a bitch with sharp teeth and lots of knives. My Angel. I’m not going anywhere.”

You pat his cheek. Slide into an easy plump-lipped kiss. He pushes his mouth onto yours. Strokes his fingers gently down your naked wet back. Those melty chocolate drop eyes by candlelight you will never get enough of gazing at. Or into.

“Your fierceness today astonished me. I’ve never known you do anything so physically Russian.” Ghost of his smile returns.

You take a breath. Something swims on the tip of your tongue.

“I believe It wasn’t just myself I was being very Russian in defending.” You admit.

His face is thrown into all realms of bewilderment. “My love?”

You tilt your head at him. Smile like you’re the gatekeeper of sacred secrets.

You take his hand and slide it under the bath water to your belly. Fully soaking his sleeve. You press his palm onto your warm flesh.

There you fool.

“You-“ He gasped.

Fell on his knees. Mouth gaping. Doe eyes wide. You stunned him like a deer caught out in the open on a hunt.

“Congratulations. Tsarevich.“ You smile. “And may the Lord fucking help us.”

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foundtherightwords · 7 months

Text

The Firebird - Chapter 6

Pairing: Prince Paul (Catherine the Great) x OFC, Fairytale AU

Summary: When Paul, a spoiled young prince, spots a strange bird in the forest near his palace, he impulsively chases after it, hoping to both escape from and prove himself to his disapproving mother. Thus he is plunged into an exhilarating adventure across a magical realm populated by enchanted princesses, dangerous monsters, and powerful wizards, an adventure that may change him more than he can ever imagine.

Chapter warning: none

Chapter word count: 3.4k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

Chapter 6 - The Tsar's Quest

At close quarters, Tsar Afron's castle was as sumptuous as it was from afar. Though it was constructed of wood like the rest of the town, the carvings were a lot more intricate, draping like lace along the roofs, running down columns and banisters, surrounding windows and doors like decorations on a marzipan cake, and painted so they stood out against the rich brown log walls and shone even in the twilight. Every roof peak was topped with a gilded weathervane or an ornament in the shape of a horse. The inside was even more resplendent, with walls and ceilings painted in the brightest shades or covered in the richest tapestries, all illuminated by the light from hundreds of gold chandeliers. And everywhere was the image of horses, in every configuration and pose, carved into the wood or painted in gold. Paul, used as he was to the splendor of the palaces of Saint Petersburg, had to remember to close his mouth lest he drooled at all this opulence and looked even more like a fool than he already did.

Not that he had much of a chance to take it in. After Zhara's demonstration on the pasture, the soldiers wasted no time bringing them to Tsar Afron, and now he had to scurry to keep up with their long strides down the many corridors of the castle. To make things worse, the soldiers had been too frightened to rebind Zhara's hands, but had neglected to untie him, so he was forced to march with his hands behind his back like a common criminal. He didn't dare complain. He could feel Zhara's anger coming off her like a heat wave, and he was afraid that wave would burn him to a crisp on the spot if he so much as opened his mouth.

He had been a fool, he knew. Yes, he could try to blame Zhara for not trying harder to warn him, or even blame the horse for moving toward him first, but at the end of the day, he was the one that had decided to steal the horse. He was the one that had gotten them into this mess. Somehow, in this strange land with its strange, bewildering rules, Paul was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore his own fault.

The commander stopped in front of a door covered in so much carving and gilding that it hurt Paul's eyes, and instructed them to wait. Zhara seemed to have simmered down a little, so Paul cleared his throat and turned to her, hoping to get back into her good graces with something he'd never uttered—an apology. "Listen, I'm—"

"No, you listen," she interrupted, a finger pressed into his chest, hot enough to burn through his shirt. "Once we are in front of the tsar, do not speak. Do not make a sound. I don't want to hear so much as a peep from you. I shall handle the talking, and if you still wish to see your precious Rus' again, you shall follow my lead. Do you understand?"

Paul was quite certain his shirt was starting to smoke and scorch. There was nothing else he could do but nod. At that moment, the door opened, and they were ushered into the throne room. It was more magnificent than the rest of the castle combined, all crimson walls painted with gold vines, gilded window frames, and, on a raised platform, framed by a red velvet tapestry, stood a pure gold throne flanked by two gold horses, where Tsar Afron was seated.

For all the equine imagery around the castle, Paul had expected the tsar to be something of a Tartar, but the man he saw was rather weedy and colorless, with pale skin, thin hair of an indeterminate shade, a downturned mouth that gave him the look of a sulky child, and eyes that were watery blue under one light and gray under another. Those eyes squinted inquisitively as Paul and Zhara were led into the room. Zhara dropped a curtsey. Paul, following her lead, sketched an awkward bow.

"Lady Zhara," Afron said in a wheezing voice. "Forgive me this rather unfortunate welcome, but I was told that you were a fugitive..."

"No, my lord, it is I that must beg forgiveness," Zhara said. "What you heard is not true"—and here she gave a brief summary of the story she'd told Paul and of their goal to find Baba Yaga. "We were on our way to ask for your help," she continued, "but my—companion here was worried that the horse would not take to us and decided to introduce himself." That was a rather clever way of explaining their presence in the pasture without admitting that they had been trying to steal the horse. "It was an honest mistake. We never meant to disrespect you."

Afron let out a deep sigh. "I, too, have heard disturbing reports from Arthania that match your story," he said. "Had you come to me first, I would have done my utmost to help you put an end to your brother's reign of terror." Paul could feel Zhara's glare boring a hole into the side of his head, and he hung his head in shame.

"But," the tsar continued, "the truth of the matter is, you did disrespect me, by entering my land and putting your hand on my most valuable property without permission. These trespasses ought to be severely punished."

Paul wanted to shout, The horse touched me first!, but he remembered Zhara's warning and kept his mouth shut.

"However, out of respect for your late honorable father, I shall excuse you, if you perform a certain service for me." The tsar said this in an oily voice that reminded Paul of the way the soldiers had leered at Zhara, causing him to bristle. Well, if Afron insisted on behaving the same way as his men, then Paul would have to speak up, regardless of Zhara's wrath. He would allow no one to talk to a lady that way.

Zhara asked warily, "And what service would that be, my lord?"

"Bring me back Tsarevna Elena the Fair."

Afron's request didn't come as a complete surprise to Paul. It was how it happened in the tale. The question was, did it happen this way because it was in the tale, or because he, knowing the tale, had inadvertently caused it to happen...? It hurt his head to think about it, so Paul stopped thinking about it.

Zhara frowned. "Tsarevna Elena of Bryansk, you mean?"

"Do you know of any other tsarevna of the same name?" Afron replied, his eyes turning dreamy as he looked at a spot somewhere in the distance. "For so long I have loved her with my whole body and soul, but her mother, Tsarina Kostroma, is proud and rejects my suit. The Horse with the Golden Mane will be yours, if you can bring me Elena's hand in marriage."

The lustful look on the tsar's face made Paul feel quite sick, and he saw Zhara's lips curl in barely concealed distaste. Then she set her mouth in a resigned line. "As you wish, my lord," she said, inclining her head. "If you would be so kind as to provide us with some supplies, we shall be on our way presently."

"Presently?" Afron said, surprised. Paul glanced at Zhara in dismay. It had been several long days, and he was rather hoping for some rest and proper food. Well, he supposed he should have thought of that before deciding to steal the horse.

"Time is of the essence, my lord," Zhara said. "We cannot delay."

"Very well," Afron said. "I shall have my servants prepare for your trip."

He clapped, and a string of servants appeared to replace the soldiers in leading Paul and Zhara out. Once they were safely away, Paul held Zhara back, out of the servants' earshot.

"What's the rush?" he asked. "I would've liked to sleep in a bed for one night at least."

"You don't deserve to sleep in a bed," she hissed, not looking at him. "You deserve to rot in Afron's dungeon!"

"Fine, leave me here then! I'm done trailing after you!"

"Perhaps I should."

She sounded rather serious, which made Paul stop short in his track. He hadn't considered the possibility that she might really leave him, and it filled him with trepidation. She was the only one who knew he was a stranger in this world; what would happen if he angered a leshy or a rusalka or one of the many strange creatures that roamed this land and she wasn't there to warn or shield him?

"You're not going to, are you?" he said plaintively. "I know I should have listened to you..."

She turned and examined his sheepish face for a moment or two, her eyes softening.

"Well, I guess someone ought to keep an eye on you," she said. Paul gave her an uncertain smile, which, strangely enough, seemed to fluster her. "Just so you wouldn't wander around trying to be a hero!" she snapped, before turning and following the servants down the corridor.

Despite Zhara's refusal to stay the night, Afron still insisted on treating them as honored guests. Paul soon found himself luxuriating in a hot bath in the tsar's personal bathhouse. It was heavenly, except for a startling moment when he again caught a glimpse of another green-skinned creature covered in birch leaves, but it quickly disappeared. He then had his shoulder wound redressed with some sort of herbal poultice and was given a new suit of clothes in the old style, before Peter the Great introduced European fashion to Russia, made of the finest fabric and beautifully embroidered. His own clothes were cleaned, and even his wig was carefully brushed and set aside for him. Paul hesitated to put it back on—it did not go with the old-fashioned clothes, making him look like the Fool of his mother's court—but he felt naked without it, so he wore it anyway.

"Wow" was all Zhara uttered when he rejoined her outside the dining room. The bath seemed to have lifted her mood. She had changed into nicer clothes as well—a snow-white chemise, a red sarafan embroidered in gold, a gold headdress studded with pearls and rubies, and a string of coral beads around her slender neck. But for all the regal air they gave her, her sarcastic, impish grin remained the same.

"Stop it," Paul said sullenly, tugging at the upstanding collar of his shirt. "I look like an imbecile."

"No, you look like you would fit right in with the Lukomorians," she said, her eyes twinkling. "Even with that ridiculous wig." Her teasing only made Paul scowl and ram the wig more tightly onto his head, out of contrariness.

They entered the dining room and sat down to a scrumptious supper. It was nothing like the feasts that Paul was used to in his mother's court—the food was simpler and heartier—but the taste was incomparable. He was so busy stuffing his face that it took him a while to notice Afron was asking him something. He looked up, bewildered.

"I say, are you a knight at the court of the late Tsar Artyom?" the tsar said.

Paul gave Zhara a panicked look, not knowing how to answer.

"No," she smoothly interjected. "He's—a court jester."

"A court jester!" Afron exclaimed, looking rather offended at having to share his table with a fool. Paul, too, stared daggers at Zhara and opened his mouth to protest. She gave his leg a swift kick under the table.

"Yes, my father's favorite," she said. "And he has been most loyal and attentive to me since my flight from Arthania, so I thank you, my lord, for rewarding him with your kindness and generosity."

Afron's thunderous expression dissipated, and once more, Paul had to reluctantly admit that Zhara's quick wit had saved them.

"That explains his outlandish dress and manners then," Afron said. "But, my lady, will you be safe traveling with a jester as your only companion? I am quite worried for your safety."

Though clearly not worried enough to offer your soldiers as protection, Paul noted.

"Oh no, I trust him with my life," Zhara was quick to say. Paul glanced at her to see if she was speaking in earnest or not, but her face was turned toward the tsar, and her side profile gave nothing away. He looked down again, feeling rather hollow. It was likely that she said that simply to avoid raising Afron's suspicion.

After supper, Zhara insisted on departing right away. Afron saw them to the castle's front door, where their mounts and supplies were waiting. Upon seeing the animals, Paul almost shouted out in indignation and had to bite his tongue to keep quiet. Zhara, who seemed to see nothing wrong with them, curtseyed to Afron, thanked him, and promised to return soon with Elena the Fair's hand in marriage. They then mounted the animals and rode out of the fortress, under the light of a full moon.

It was only when they had gone far enough that Paul made his displeasure known.

"Donkeys!" he exclaimed. "I bet he has a stable full of horses, and he gave us two donkeys! What a miserly little—"

"Donkeys are perfectly good animals," Zhara said calmly. "Besides, horses are no good for us where we're going."

That sounded ominous. "Why? Where are we going?"

"There." She nodded toward the mountain range in the distance. "Perun's Crown." Paul had only given it a passing glance that afternoon, and now, his stomach dropped to see how far it spread out, a veritable wall of silver and crystal under the moonlight, stretching as far as the eyes could see, with peaks so high they were lost in the clouds, and so steep they were like knives cutting through the night sky.

"Elena the Fair lives up those mountains?" Paul asked, his voice coming out squeakier than he'd intended.

"No, don't be silly. Her kingdom is behind those mountains. But the quickest way is to go through them. And these donkeys are experts in crossing mountains. So stop your complaining and keep up."

***

It took them three days to reach the mountains. By the second day, Paul realized that Zhara had been right about the donkeys. The ground was becoming rougher, with almost no discernible path, yet the donkeys picked their way through the rocks as surefooted as walking through a level field.

Though Zhara still took care to hide under Paul's cloak during the day, they met very few people on their way. During the first two days, they traveled with some convoys of merchants, but one by one, these convoys all turned right as they neared the mountains and followed the river instead, and they were on their own.

"It may be easier traveling along the river, but for us, it is safer this way," Zhara said when they stopped on the second night by a rock outcrop, the mountains looming above them like some giant, ancient god. "We don't want to draw more attention to ourselves than we already have." She had changed out of her finery and was back into a coarse linen chemise and dark blue sarafan.

"Do you think your brother is tracking you?" Paul asked.

"I don't know. He may use the victims he has transformed into animals, like poor Alyosha, but that takes a lot of strength from him, so he is going to focus on protecting his death. He knows he only has to bide his time; I shall have to confront him sooner or later." She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them close to her body, her eyes fixed on their fire. "Besides, I wasn't just talking about me." She nodded at Paul meaningfully. "I didn't wish to stay at Tsar Afron's castle for longer than necessary because I didn't want him to start asking about you."

That reminded Paul of a question that had been bothering him for some time. "About that—how come you know I'm from Rus, but others don't?"

"Those of us with magic in our blood can always tell," she replied. "I don't know how to explain it—we simply know. Be thankful that the rest of Lukomorye do not have such ability."

"Is that... bad?"

"Anything from Rus' is a great curiosity here. If they knew who you are, they would descend on you like a pack of wolves. How would you like to be paraded around like some exotic creature, to be ogled at?" She smiled at Paul's horrified look. "I suppose it would be the same if I ended up in your world."

"It might be worse," he said. "You might be burned as a witch, even though that practice had been outlawed for a century now." Now it was his turn to grin at her.

Zhara laid her head on her knees and regarded him with interest. "What is it like, your world?" she asked.

Paul thought about it for a while. "It's—like here, but different," he said lamely. He did not know how to put into words the otherworldly feeling that constantly coursed through him ever since he set foot in this land. "The trees, the mountains, the river, even the people... they're all similar, but back in my world, they're more—dull, solid, while here, there is this air about them... I can't describe it. It's the same with how you can tell me from a Lukomorian, I suppose. It's—"

"—magic?" Zhara prompted.

It wasn't quite what he had in mind, but it would have to do. "Yes, magic," he agreed. A strange little smile flitted across Zhara's face. She said nothing more and went back to watching the flames.

They arrived at the foot of the mountains on the third day. There was a stone-built shelter there, and Paul and Zhara found themselves in the company of an old man, who said his name was Simeon, and that he was placed there to aid travelers in their crossing. He gave the donkeys some hay and stoked the fire to make tea, while Zhara opened the supplies Afron had given them and shared their food with him.

"It's been months, nay, close to a year, since I had anyone passing through," Simeon said, biting into a hunk of cheese with relish. "They all follow the river these days. Even large groups avoid the mountains. It's odd that you two would take this route..."

"My mother lives in Bryansk," Zhara said. "She is very sick, and I must go to her as soon as possible." This was the story she and Paul had agreed on, should they meet another traveler.

"Well, you're traveling light, so I suppose you don't have much to worry about—except for those two donkeys—" The old man considered their packs and clothes with the eye of an expert.

"Worry about what?" Paul asked.

"Who, my lad, worry about who," Simeon corrected him. "Nightingale the Robber. You have heard of him, yes?"

Paul wracked his brain for the old stories. "The one with the deadly whistle?" he asked.

"The very one. He has staked out these mountains as his own. His nest is on Perun's Peak, and he perches there, whistling down mountain passes, blowing men and animals against the rock. Many merchants have had their entire stock of goods and their animals taken, so now they just avoid these mountains altogether. And even then, those that stray a little too close to them may still be in danger."

Paul looked at Zhara and met her worried returning glance.

"Perhaps we should—" he began, but she shook her head.

"No," she said firmly. "It's going to take months to go around, and who knows what my—what might have happened to my mother by then." She glared at Paul briefly, giving him a silent warning to say no more.

Later, after Zhara had settled down on the narrow bed in a corner of the hut, Simeon clapped Paul on the shoulder. "Listen to your missus, my lad," the old man said. Paul's cheeks flamed. Though he and Zhara had agreed to pose as husband and wife, the idea still made him feel oddly shy. "I know you're worried about Nightingale, but trust me, having a wife and a mother-in-law angry with you is worse," Simeon continued in a friendly tone. "Why do you think I stay out here in this stone hut even when there's no traveler?" Chuckling, the old man climbed on the stove to sleep, leaving Paul to make himself comfortable by the fire.

Chapter 7

Taglist: @ali-r3n

#prince paul #tsarevich paul #catherine the great #prince paul fic #prince paul x ofc #joseph quinn #joseph quinn fic

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fantasies-fairytales-n-fics · 10 months

Text

Thranduil and Josie Pt. 162- Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum

Summary: The Elvenking has spoken for all to hear. Did Josie hallucinate or did she have another prophetic vision? Boromir finally clues Josie in. Josie views a spit swapping moment. All of middle earth feels the wrath of the Elvenking. Garrett gets another visitor with disturbing information, but is it real? Ain't no rest for the wicked.

*Chapter Warnings* language, angst, mentions of murder

Chapter characters: Thranduil, Josie, Rosie, Lola, Legolas, Boromir, Leeanduil, Narcisse, Catherine, Haldir, Rumil, Orophin, Jareth, Garrett, Amara, Elrond, Arwen, Galadriel, Aragorn, Bard, Gimli, Gollum, Ravenna, Lestat, Marius, Maharet, Armand, Selene, Michael, Craven

Chapter word count: 5,949

Stories Stories Stories Masterlist

The Elvenking sat stiffened and still at the head of his dining table, peering down his turned up nose at the roasted wild beast, greens, fruits and breads before him, foods he had always savored but now found unpalatable, for his eyes were triggered with slitted annoyance at the empty seat belonging to Legolas.

The Prince still had 6 days left out of the 7 that the King had set in stone for his son to return you and Leeanduil to him, but Legolas was still not updating his father on the happenings in Dorwinion. Thranduil knew his first born was intentionally evading his telepathic inquiries and also concealing his thoughts. The Prince's insubordinate behavior would carry consequences of merited punishment. All knew that the King of the Mirkwood was a master of patience and could wait, but not this time, for due to the side effects, per se, of Jareth's bad blood tainting his own, the Elvenking now knew impatience and every inch of middle earth was about to know it too.

There were 13 days left leading up to the winter solstice of December 21st, the day the goblin king and his army of the dead would come and Thranduil wanted his daughter in the safety of his halls, not in the perilous perimeters of Lord Narcisse's lands where he knew bodies had been piling up, courtesy of the wicked warlock Jonathan Harker, the same male witch that had aided his brother Jareth in all of Thranduil's torturous suffering and mind alteration. It would be a winter war like no other, bringing many reanimated enemies and other foes as well, all with plans of painting the silvery snow crimson red.

Bard was also expected to return with extra supplies of Dorwinion wine and ale, per the King's orders, for a feastful party that was set to take place days before the solstice in celebration of the birth and return of the Princess of Mirkwood, but Bard, unknown to Thranduil, was off assisting Aragorn and Gimli in tracking down the Marchwarden Haldir that Narcisse evicted from his lands.

Thranduil could sit no longer, for he craved to breathe the evening air that reeked of the impending doom and gloom and he just wanted to to be alone in his thoughts. Thoughts that you still intruded after seeing you in his mirror, crying on your knees and he found himself wanting to comfort you, which the Elvenking quickly cursed Thranduil for once again.

Scoffing, he eagerly finished off his goblet of wicked wine and then rose to his feet, staff in hand and swiftly glided off without a word to Feren and Tauriel who both sprung from their chairs, as did other elves, to properly acknowledge his unexpected and abrupt exit. The ocean is where the elf lord would head to send a message that could not be denied.

As you strolled down the halls to the dining hall, grasping your aching, injured hand that was concealed inside of a black lace glove, you heard laughter. A child's giggles echoing in the near distance and the pitter patter of running footsteps. When you neared the turn of the hall, a lingering scent of roses filled the air and all the sound came to an abrupt halt, both startling you to a skidding stop.

Peeking around the corner, you saw a little girl sitting all alone on a bench appearing to be around ten years old. Softly, you announced yourself.

"H..hello there. Are you lost?"

The small girl in her plain black dress and matching headband through her long auburn hair, quickly stood to gaze at you and remained silent as you slowly approached her.

Once you had a good look at her face, your eyes grew as a slight gasp escaped your lips. Her eyes were familiar sapphires of a deep blue sea. The same eyes you saw months ago in a dream touching Garrett's face, but there was something more to them that you could not quite place.

"May I...ask...what your name is? M..mine is Josie." you asked as you clutched your chest in shock.

The little one smiled. A smile that was also extremely familiar.

"It's Rosie silly." the child of reddish brown hair giggled and then she ran away.

"Wait! Little girl!"

You ran right after her, but as you rounded the corner merely seconds after she did, the hall was completely empty and there were no doors that she could have slipped into.

"What the..fuck..." you whispered as you spun around and round, your eyes frantically searching for the child you swore was very real, but now you were left wondering if the hallucinations were beginning, the ones Bash told you would come from the panther's infection.

You sat and waited a few minutes to see if she would return, but you remained all alone. Had you been alone the entire time?

After you collected yourself, you hurried off to the dining hall, still searching every corner along the way for the mystery child who had literally vanished into thin air before your disbelieving eyes.

You found Lola, Legolas, Leean and Boromir on the patio adjoined to the dining hall, all enjoying some hors d'ouevres except for your sweet baby who was happily drinking her magical Mirkwood water and began kicking her feet in excitement when she saw you.

The weather was absolutely astonishing for December, for only a day ago, it had snowed and was quite chilly and now it felt like a Spring evening as the sun was slowly lowering to let the Moon have it's nightly reign. This only confirmed to you that the first day of Winter, that being the day of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest and coldest night of the year, would tear through middle earth like a hurricane, just as the dead would do, some even before that with personal vendettas. How were any of you going to be prepared for this? You needed more help, for even with Narcisse's warlock guard and the magic most of them held, they would never be enough and you...you were of no help at all now with Rahl's poison inside of you. Could the dark warlock lord have done it on purpose? Did he know how powerful you actually were? Did you?

Boromir and Legolas both rose from their seats, each offering a head bow to politely greet you and then you smiled and went to Lola, scooping you precious angel into your arms and snuggling her tight. Leean was the closest thing you would ever have to holding your King and being able to feel him and if it weren't for all the eyes on you, you would have broke down crying again. Everything was falling apart and you couldn't even protect your own daughter. You knew she would be safest in Thranduil's halls and if it weren't for the unsafe travel of getting there, you would take her there in a heartbeat, even if it meant suffering all the pain of the memories you had been severely avoiding.

"Josie? Are..you alright my lady?" Legolas asked, as he could see right through your forced smiles. He always could read you like a book, even if he was not connected to your mind like Thranduil had been.

"Nothing feels right. We shouldn't be partying at a time like this. Narcisse has literally lost his damn mind and now he's freed Catherine and my daughter is not safe here anymore. I want to take her home Legolas...but it's even more dangerous to do so. I should have went with you before. How could I have been so stupid? All to retrieve a book I will never find and even if I do, I only have one of the six runes needed in my possession to stop what's coming."

"You...wish to return to my father's kingdom??"

The Prince was stunned, for he knew that he was supposed to take you and Leean back there regardless and he was just as opposed as you were to the travel, but more so because of the new and badly improved Thranduil that you didn't even know was alive and he still believed you should not. Legolas also knew he had to contact his father very soon, he just didn't have the words Thranduil wanted to hear and he feared his reaction, which is why he had shut him out of his mind completely and Thranduil's anger for him doing so, Legolas feared even more.

"I do Leggy. I just don't see how it's possible. We cannot risk it. I won't."

Especially not now, you thought, considering you needed Delphine's antidote that you wouldn't receive anytime soon since Bash had to sneak off in the middle of the night after the party to find her, so now, you were useless power wise and just an added liability to travel and you didn't even know how to explain to Legolas or the others what had happened with Narcisse to cause it.

"I must agree with you. That is why I came back here. For you and my sister...and of course Boromir." Legolas responded in relief.

"Oh..yes. Boromir. I am so sorry. I know you have been waiting to speak with me. I suppose there is no time like the present yes?"

Boromir remained standing, not knowing where to begin. How was he to tell you that his brother, Faramir, was not truly his brother by blood, but actually yours and also your twin? The man of Gondor could see the turmoil you were in over all the happenings and to add this onto your heaping plate seemed so heartless, but...he knew he had no choice.

"I came here to tell you about my...brother Faramir. I have recently discovered something quite unsettling for me, but is of great importance and news for you..and even your father Julian, little one." Boromir explained as his towering form approached you.

"Oh? Well, my father, if he is even that. I don't even know what to believe because some fortune teller told me she feels Julian is my father but his brother Jareth told me that he himself is, that my mother lied. Sorry, long story on that part, but anyways, Julian is not even here to inform of anything. Jareth and Harker have messed with his mind and turned him dark."

"Yes. I am aware. Legolas has filled me in. Josie...Julian is your father. Caroline...she lied to you yet once again, to all of you." Boromir confessed with great sadness.

"How could you even possibly know that?"

"The fountain of fate has shown me. You, Julian and my br.....Faramir," he began to explain, but left out that he saw Thranduil with you in the vision, "were all together, happy...and you called him brother and he...called Julian father. Their eyes of blue skies. They were one and the same as well as their smiles and long noses. The only difference was their hair. Faramir...he shares strands of fire like you."

"Wait, what? My...brother? and...Julian is...both..our...I'm so lost here. Are you saying that my father has another child with someone?"

"Not just someone. Your mother, Caroline. Faramir is your twin."

A gulp traveled down your throat that you almost choked on. A twin?? And what about...Jace?

"Lola...please...take Leean. I..I'm having a bit of trouble breathing at the moment."

"Yes Miss. Shall I get you some water?"

"No!" you swiftly snapped, knowing that it burnt your skin, you could only imagine what it would do to your insides. "Sorry, Lola...I..I would just much rather have the hard stuff right now. Whiskey will be suffice and I will go get it myself. Please excuse me for a moment."

You rushed off, feeling as if you were going to be sick and it wasn't from the cat scratch, but from the overwhelming anger you felt towards your pathological lying dead mother. How was she even your mother??? The two of you were the exact opposite. Yin and Yan, just like Narcisse's alter ego and his damn ring. All your memories of her were from when you were a small child and you had never witnessed her evil side. Your memories of her were good ones. It was as if she had a split personality as well after learning long ago of all her horrific acts, but the only thing she had that was close enough to an alter was her own twin sister that you don't even remember, Cassie, whom she had killed. Caroline was just pure evil. No excuse. Even Maharet, her mother, your grandmother, would vouge for that.

As you knocked back your wicked whiskey with a grimacing cough, you caught a glimpse of Catherine in the dining hall doorway, walking down the hall and she appeared to quite angry and heading towards something...or someone...and of course, you had to sneak a peak.

There were multiple tables along the walls, filled with party goers and Catherine was bee-lining for Narcisse who was standing at one, speaking with two men.

She briefly stopped at the table to rudely call him a judas and spit right across the food and drinks into Stephane's face, then glared at him and walked off with two of Francis's men following her.

Narcisse wiped his face as he watched her exit in disgust, then he went to apologize to the men, but he sensed you, your gaze upon him and your scent. You froze as your eyes locked into his, trying to read them to see if it was him or...Darken Rahl you were once again paralyzed by.

For a moment, you thought you held the eyes of Stephane, the ones that always looked upon you with love and it appeared as if he were going to approach you, but instead, he forced his eyes from yours and continued on with his conversation as if nothing had even happened. You knew better though. Narcisse just didn't want to cause a scene and he would retaliate against Catherine's assault soon enough. The same for Francis. Whatever he held over Stephane's head to force his hand to release Catherine would only be temporary. Cat's always did like to play with their prey before devouring them.

You scoffed at his disregard of you, realizing he was very much still the dark warlock lord behind those beautiful blue eyes, then headed back to your table with another hefty sized goblet of throat burning whiskey.

"Does this Faramir know about me?" you asked Boromir as you sat back down.

"He only knows of the powers he possesses, but does not understand why, for our parents, the only ones he's ever known, are both simple humans. I told him I would find the answers and that is when I went off on my search for them and for you."

"But how Boromir?? How did your parents end up with my...brother and how did my mother ever conceal this from my father???"

"I will tell you exactly as I have told Legolas. According to my father's inebriated words one evening with my mother's midwife, my mother had went into early labor while my father and I were away. She had a boy, but sadly, the child did not survive. My mother was inconsolable and terrified for my father to know, feeling she failed him and that he would leave her, or even more so, that he would blame himself for not being there. A winter carnival had been passing through that very day and one of their travelers, your gypsy mother Caroline, had went into labor. Our people took her in and my mother's midwife delivered a boy and a girl, twins, both of red hair. Caroline demanded to hold the girl and wanted nothing to do with the boy. She ordered her to give "the little bastard" away and to never speak of it to anyone, or she would curse her. To prove her power, the witch gave her a little display of what she was capable of. The midwife watched her own breath forcefully flow out of her mouth as she choked on it. In terror, she agreed, took the boy and ran out and never saw your mother again. It was then that the child became Faramir and no one was to ever know the truth, but my father learned of it years later when my mother was dying, for she then confessed."

"Oh my god...so my mother...she intentionally left to give birth so my father would be clueless. So...I have lost one brother and gained another. The Seelie Queen...she was right. I..I cannot even fathom any of this."

"The who?" Boromir asked in surprise.

"Amara, the faerie Queen of the Wander Woods. She told me I shared birth blood with two others. I..I assumed she meant Raven and Jace...but she said she didn't believe that to be true...and all knows she cannot lie."

The mention of Amara had Legolas cringing inside, knowing he was still bound to their contract of impending marriage.

"Remember though, she is not lying if she "believes" something to be true. It does not mean that is true. Raven is Caroline's daughter with Craven. Is that not birth blood?"

"I...I would think so Legolas. Oh god though, Jace. How..how am I going to tell him this? He will be devastated....just as I am."

"Josie...he is still your family by blood. It should change nothing. Just as it did not change anything when you believed Julian was not your birth father." Legolas sweetly added, trying to shed light on a dark situation as he always did with you.

"I..I know that you're right Leggy, but it still hurts just the same. My other has turned our lives upside down and I...I have a feeling she is not finished."

"How do you mean?" Boromir asked? "She...she is dead, is she not?"

"Well yes, but even that will not stop her. Surely you must know of Jareth's plan to raise the dead and you can bet your ass that she will be one of them. I am very certain he has already done it because all he needed were the three pages from Ashmole that contained the spell. My father...he had went to retrieve them from his special hiding place to reunite them with the book and take down Jareth, but Harker found him and captured him and now...Jareth has the pages and I know he has used them, for only hours ago, I have seen with my own eyes, one of the walking dead."

"So it is true." Boromir whispered in thought.

"The book...it truly has the power to resurrect the dead..." he continued in disbelief.

"Very much so, but they won't be who they used to be." you softly said, feeling your eyes burn of wetness as you began to space out in thoughts of your King while gazing up at the moon.

All the chatter around you faded to muffles as you remembered your time with him at his special place in Rivendell, a place he shared with only you that you longed for almost as much as you longed for him, to feel him and be close to him again. A place where the love that you shared and had made was real. A place that nobody dared to go, that echoed of long ago. A place called Moonlight.

You found yourself standing, almost trance like as you began to see him, on a beach and gazing up at the same moon you were locked into. Were you hallucinating again?? You didn't care. All that mattered was that you were seeing him again when you thought the visions were long gone.

"Josie? Are you alright?" Legolas asked in concern as he stood and took your hand.

Without so much of a glance at him, you freed your hand and walked across the patio, your eyes still frozen inside of the hypnotic moonstone glow above that resembled your King's eyes. It was almost as if you were looking right into them and they were pulling you to him, sucking you out of reality and into his world.

At that same moment, Thranduil had came to a standing rest at the Black Sea's northern inlet. The moon was almost in it's full phase and illuminated over him and the restless waves, for they were feeding off of Thranduil's emotions, as he too, was reliving the exact moments you were.

All the words in your letter to him that he had read under the twinkling multitude of stars in Moonlight, flooded his mind. His eyes began to sting of wetness too, just as they did then, for he could hear your voice reciting the words once more and not even the Elvenking could stop it. At least not before he then heard you singing.

"A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star. An everlasting world and you're here with me, eternally."

Tears now streamed down your face as you randomly sang lyrics of a song that reminded you of Thranduil and his world of magic. Xanadu.

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You could feel many stunned eyes upon you as everyone's voices silenced to listen, and then you felt Legolas's hand on yours once again.

"Josie. Sweetheart. Let me take you back to your room. You seem...disoriented."

"NO!" you sobbed and jerked your hand away. "I...I see him...don't you see him????"

Legolas's moonstone orbs flowed up to the dusk ridden sky where yours were fixated.

"Who? I..I do not see anyone."

"Thranduil!! There, in the moonlight!! He...he is looking right at me!"

Thranduil did see you. He saw Legolas too and his emotions exploded as the Elvenking raged inside of him. He could feel Jareth's blood boiling in his veins as he began to erupt like a volcano.

"Legolas!!" he demonically roared as his sacred staff that he carried in his hand, slammed into the earth and projected a blinding light as bright as the great star.

The Elvenking stood unmoved with a lifeless expression as the strike sent a horrendous sound and jolting ripple effect into the ocean and all across middle earth, the massive tremor was felt and heard.

The skies darkened to an eerie hoary hue as the waves of the Rhun crashed like an avalanche of white powder upon the shorelines of Dorwinion.

You grabbed the railing for support, simultaneously trying to cover your ears while screaming as the ground shook like an earthquake of great magnitude and an ear bleeding diminished chord pounded through the air. Was it the rapture???

Everyone on the patio was shouting in panic and ran inside the castle for safety, except for Boromir and Legolas. Boromir, like you, had no clue what was happening as he looked upon the sky in terror, but Legolas...he knew.

His eyes rolled shut as he gulped down a breath, for it was the only sound that could ever deafen his ears and send shivers through his body besides one other sound that he solely heard. The Elvenking's magnified deep godly voice shouting his name as it internally hammered through the Prince's head, having the only power to make him feel ill.

An hours travel away by horse, the colossal city of Dorwinion was pummeled as well by the sizeable river that divided it and Narcisse's lands. Chunks of stone fell from structures as the inhabitants scrambled for cover with many trampling each other as Haldir stood with clamped lips and eyes alongside his two brothers, Rumil and Orophin, due to the sting they all felt. The blonde pair had made their way from Lorien to aid the Marchwarden in what was to come in the days ahead. Aragorn, Bard and Gimli also stood at the three elves side as all 6 pairs of gaping eyes looked to the North where Mirkwood lied, for each one of them knew what and who carried such intense power, including Haldir who had been previously informed by Aragorn of the Elvenking's survival and warned of what the beautiful giant had become. Haldir too, especially now, was also in agreement with the others that you should not know your King still breathes.

The Seelie Queen's court that was hidden deep in the Wander Woods, a suburb per se of the dark forest that held beauty but was quite deadly, shook something fierce, knocking hundreds of red apples from the trees, sending flocks of birds scattering to the sky and even the bugs scurrying into the cracks of the earth. Amara was never fearful of anything or anyone except for the giant of all elves that she had very stupidly crossed who could squash her like the bugs that she adored or like her kill trees could do to the strongest of vampires and werewolves. Thranduil certainly had a reason to do so when he would come to learn of her entrapment of his son.

Gollum cowered under a tree, shaking like a leaf as his avocado sized blue eyes darted about the dark forest he had taken refuge in. He knew the earth's aggressive movement was Thranduil's doing and that the mighty elf lord now had the precious citrine ring belonging to the goblin King that he stole from him and that Raven stole again. He also knew that gemstone could save him, restore him to what he once was if Jareth was truly dead, so he vowed he would side with the Elvenking when the time came.

In the Misty Mountains, Jareth smiled from ear to ear at the destruction unfolding as he bided his time, circling his crystal balls round and round in his hand, knowing his blood that coursed through the Elvenking's veins was evoking the beautiful disaster before him and that Thranduil was embracing his destiny as a dark elf lord, the true Elvenking and also that by the Winter's Solstice, which mother Jadis would inflict a winter storm like no other, Thranduil would be gone for good. "Your time is short King Thranduil."

At castle Corvinus, the vampires Selene, Maharet, Armand, Lestat, Marius and Lycan Michael all knew what was happening. The brat Prince and his maker Marius knew before most that Thranduil was alive and that Jareth had captured and tortured him and now all were paying for it. They too, knew what was to come, for the dead could sense the dead.

Maharet, she had been absent since the masquerade ball at Lestat's now chateau de ashes, but with good reason and soon, she would come to you with more disturbing news of her twin crimson haired daughters Caroline and Cassandra, your mother and "aunt."

Selene had missed you terribly, but after Harker's deadly attack upon her, her love Michael, knowing very well you saved her and very grateful for it, has wanted her to steer clear of the irrelevant danger, for he and she had lost too much time together as it was and had been lucky enough to receive a second chance. Soon enough, their happy reunion would take a hit though, for they knew that they would have to deal with Craven and Viktor once again. Selene, she knew what Thranduil was now and he most likely despised her even more than he already had, but even so, she would never abandon you.

Lord Elrond, Lady Galadriel and Arwen had been enjoying evening drinks after a splendid family dinner on the Imladris patio when the thunderous boom shook their goblets right off the table and caused all the waterfalls to sway and spray. The elves were the most sensitive to the power of the sacred staff and all had a similar reaction to it like Legolas and Haldir did, especially Elrond, who silently shrieked in pain as he held his forehead.

Elrond and Galadriel would soon gather a small council to decide if they should intervene in the war of wrath just weeks away. Elrond knew and had seen first hand what his dear friend Thranduil had endured. He aided him then and he most likely would do it again, for he now could see the King needed saving more than ever.

Ravenna remained at her high rise desolate castle, for she had no desire to return to Jareth. When her sister-in-law Freya had returned just in the nick of time with the three children she needed to keep her of ageless beauty, Freya informed her of news she learned upon the way. News about Jareth's infidelity with the dhampir Raven and all he had done to the King of Mirkwood. In her jealous rage, she vowed to make them all pay and maybe take a little treat for herself, a delicious platinum haired evil Elvenking that was just her type and in doing so, she would punish you as well, for she was the fairest of them all, not you.

Ravenna took to her terrace to enjoy the gloomy night air with some wicked wine while she orchestrated her next moves, when the slick stone floor underneath her high heeled boots had a massive seizure. If she had been standing any closer to the edge, she would have plummeted to her death, for she was a witch that could not fly and the ground full of rubble was thousands of feet below. Lifting herself from the floor, the diabolical beauty Queen grinned and panted in delight after reaching a sinfully shuttering climax brought on by the hand of the vigorous spring himself. Another vow then escaped her lips as she licked them. "You Elvenking, will be mine."

Garrett, still chained by iron shackles to the musty bed in the murky basement, jerked about with sweating nightmares when he was startled awake after repeatably being struck in the face by dirt falling from the ceiling. Once he opened his eyes and his ears, he heard objects falling on the wood floor above him and soon realized his bed was shifting about and banging into the stone wall.

"Oh hell no. I can handle scary, but this exorcist shit is where I draw the line." he garbled through the tremors.

One thing you loved about the vampire Garrett Lee, was his undying wit in times of turmoil. You supposed it was his survival mode kicking in and that, you could understand, even if most of his jokes and jabs were cheesy as fuck.

"Hello Garrett." a man's familiar voice spoke from the dark stairwell, sending a gasping Garrett against the wall with blazing red eyes of defense.

"I..I know that voice. C...Craven??"

"Well you should since I created you." the tall dark and handsome re-vamped vamp spoke and turned around.

Garrett smashed his eyes shut and sprung them open wide to focus, for he hadn't eaten in 24 hours and the iron was draining him of all the energy he had left.

"No..no no...you're not real. I'm fucking hallucinating. It's all I have been doing."

"Was Kate a hallucination? Look around you G. Was the earth shattering about just now too subtle for you? Fee Fi Fo Fum. The Elvenking has spoken. All should know this, even you. In the words of Carol King, I feel the earth move under my feet, I feel the sky tumbling down. The time is near G. Judgement day."

"Then set me free already, for Christ's sake!"

"Ohhh....language babe. That word is a big no no. And sorry G, can't do that."

"What?? Why in the fuck not?? I'm dying man!"

"Always so dramatic aren't we? You see, you and I are not on the same team anymore and quite frankly, I...am not the same anymore....if I release you, you'll try to stop me, not that you even could, but I just don't have the time for all that nonsense. Besides, you will soon have your hands full with a few...reunions."

"Then why the hell are you here?? To shoot the shit??!!"

"Actually, yes. You see, I died before I ever got to tell you something quite important. To you anyways. I did it for you, even though you were against it and now, well...I guess I kind of wanted to rub it in. You know, for shits and giggles? I enjoy those things."

Garrett could feel it. It was something very very bad.

"What...did..you do???" Garrett snarled.

Craven chuckled as he neared the bed.

"Does the name...Ryan...ring a bell..Roman?"

All the energy Garrett had left, he used up in a fit of rage.

"You didn't!! I told you to leave him alone! To let him have the choice that you didn't give me!!! I will kill you, I swear it!!"

"Now is that any way to speak to the one who changed you?"

"I saved you from that dastardly life with that wife of his. The wife who turned your brother against you. Ryan was going to die. He was never going to wake from that coma and his wife was going to pull the plug! I wanted to give you back a part of your life that made you happy, so a thank you would be nice!"

"A thank you?? YOU caused that fucking accident!!"

"I did and I made up for it by saving Ryan."

"Jesus Christ! Where is he? It's been 20 years!"

"There you go again with that potty mouth. My ears have had enough. You'll figure it all out...if you survive."

"Whoa whoa whoa! Wait! You..you said...reunions...plural."

"Well now, you caught that huh King? Oh, wait...you're not King anymore, that would be me. Gotta run now. Got many others to see. Tell Sally hello for me."

Just like that...Craven was gone and Garrett sat silently stunned. It couldn't be true. Sally? His dead sister that was brutally beaten and murdered by her husband before Garrett became Garrett. He was Roman then and he tried to save her, but he was too late and he ended up doing time for beating the man to death with a hammer. If she was alive, that meant Jareth did it....all to torment him.

Was this real?? Any of it? Or was it another nightmare or hallucination?

Garrett fell back on the bed, gasping with tears in his eyes as he called out one word and then passed out.

"Josephine!"

Back in Mirkwood, the abominable arachnids of the Woodland Realm raced up to the treetops for refuge. Even the lurking queen spider Shelob cowered inside of her dark, wet cave. They were too close to the power of the sacred staff. The light physically hurt them, burning their crepey skin and black beady eyes.

Thranduil had now returned to his halls with the dark elf lord appearance due to the vengeful rage that had consumed him. He stood in his chambers and gazed out the window, up at the moon once more as it reflected in his golden eyes...and then he spoke.

"Ain't no rest for the wicked."

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