The heartless princess (1)

Chapter 8 - April

A grunt and the vibration of the wall wakes me. I rub my eyelids and sit up in bed when I see Tate hanging over the floor, a trickle of blood down his chin. Nate has him firmly by the throat and doesn't seem to want to let go. The two men are glowering at each other.
I didn't communicate much with Nate, every time I started a conversation he'd go off and do I don't know what.
The more mysterious of the two sends my sleeping partner into the wall beside me. Tate goes flying and hits the bedside table hard. The lamp shatters as it follows the soldier's arm. My heart is racing as I glare at the man wearing nothing but a towel in front of his bed.
I've never seen such a demonic look before, he looks like he's just left the underworld to possess someone. His whitened knuckles contrast with the blood on his hand. The sight seemed so beautiful before I saw the blood, scarred abs, a towel low on his hips, a thin line of hair running up to his navel.
I take my eyes off him and shift on the bed to look at Tate, his face bleeding far more than I'd imagined. His eye has doubled in size, and his lip, nose and cheek are bleeding. His back has been shattered by the broken glass of the frames behind him. He's going to need stitches and lots of ice. I get off the bed when I hear a chuckle behind me.
I cast a murderous glance at Nate, who is pacing behind me, his fists on his legs, while the others watch the scene without taking any action. Do they think they're at the cinema, in front of a projection?
" You had one job, Tate! Not to sleep with the prisoner. You couldn't even do that, so no wonder Harper came crawling to me, begging me to fuck her."
He slept with Happy's girlfriend and now he's lecturing her for what he thinks we did. I grab a piece of glass from the floor as the wounded man grabs my arm to convince me not to try some stupid rebellion against Grumpy.
" He'll kill you." He warns me
" Then he's risking more than I am." I stand up, facing the man who smells dangerously good.
He holds his head high, avoids my gaze but manages to grab my wrist before the glass cuts into his skin. He twists my wrist, I grit my teeth and let go of the piece of glass that hurt me far more than it did him. He finally looks down and grabs my throat with his large hand, pinning me to the cupboard behind me.
He presses on my throat, I'm in pain, beads of sweat run down my forehead. I wouldn't cry over a man, there's no way I'm giving him this victory. He tilts my face with his thumb and I feel his tequila-flavoured breath on my skin. Goose bumps crawl over my skin as my vision goes blank.
" There's something you're going to have to remember, my queen. You are nothing but a prisoner here. You have no rights and we don't answer to you. You can corrupt the weakest among us, but I won't give in to your whims. No more all-you-can-eat meals, no more tours of the house, no more contact with your new gigolo. There are rules here."
" No alcohol and no sex. You have to set an example, no one ever told you."
He's going to kill me, he hoists me five centimetres off the floor and pulls me towards him, then slams me hard against the furniture. The fire spreads through my veins as the smell of blood tingles my nostrils.
" Provoke me all you want, all you'll get is humiliation. I'm going to make you cry, sob, suffer until you go mad."
I spit in his face and he does it again, making me hit the cabinet door even harder. My head jerks back and forth and the smell of blood intensifies.
" You've just signed your own death warrant, Kleine klootzak."
" What did you say?"
" You'll be the first one executed when I return to the castle."
" I think you've missed the point, you'll never make it back to the castle alive. Black will kill you if I don't do it first. You had a chance to survive but you chose to be an ungrateful bitch instead."
He releases his grip and I find myself on the floor, coughing as he leaves the room, slamming the door. I can still feel his hand around my neck, a part of him is still in the room. The man is a fucking lunatic and that makes him so scary.
I lie on my back on the floor despite the glass, giggling nervously to keep from crying. Tate shifts over to me, stretches his legs out and rests my head on his thighs, wiping away the remnants of a fight I've lost, tears blazing in my eyes.
" You're bleeding, sweetheart."
" Hmm."
" He's not usually this nasty, he must have a grudge against your family or he misses Soléne, I don't know. He won't do it again, he'll go and relax and by tomorrow he should have forgotten all about it."
" I don't think so."
- You should have a coffee so you don't fall asleep straight away. You might get a concussion, given the force he used, it wouldn't be shocking.
- You should be worrying about yourself.
This isn't the first time I've been threatened in a month, it must be the third or fourth time. I knead his thigh until I have the perfect texture so that I can wedge his head in without putting down the part that hurts the most. He smiles as I entwine my fingers with his, the simple contact making me forget a small percentage of my affliction.
" Sweetheart ?"
" Should I?"
" Thanks for last night, I haven't slept so well in years."
" Don't thank me, you look like a corpse."
" Ah! Ah! Ah! Very funny."
" I'm always very funny."
" Funny or not, you need care. One on the left and one on the right, now!" Demand the fake blonde in the bathroom.
I take my time settling on my bum, scratch my head and blood slips under my fingernails. My hair is sticky from clotting. Tate goes to clap his brother's hand and leans back against the desk. Kane soaks a compress with disinfectant then pats the soldier's face, who frowns.
" You're so soft, it's just disinfectant."
" Just below my eye, take care of her first."
" I'd love to, but Nate's made it very clear that she comes after us."
From his tone and Tate's reaction, I can tell that neither of them agrees with the new rule.
" Since when do you take orders from Nate?"
" Since I know he sees her as poison. He never acted like that before she came."
" Talk about me like I'm not here." I whisper and lie down on the bed. "I'm so tired."
" Don't fall asleep!" they shout in unison.
I'm not planning on sleeping, just resting for a few seconds. It's been hot in this room since I woke up.
" April, don't fall asleep."
" I'm not going to fall asleep. Take care of my favourite soldier."
Kane disinfects the rest of Tate's face and bandages his forehead before closing the wound on his cheek. My new friend places a kiss on my shoulder and slips a packet of cigarettes into my hands in case of emergency. I thank him and he leaves.
Kane motions for me to kneel on the floor so he can treat my skull. I comply and he settles on the bed. Tate has good taste in lacy underwear and blue and yellow suit me well.
The powerful fake blond split my hair in two and applied the alcohol-soaked cotton pad to my skull. I hold back my tears as the clotted blood on my skin comes away. Gently, he goes to work, pursing his lips as he concentrates.
" You need a stitch, I should have the stuff to do it in my room."
" Just clean it up, it should be fine."
I prefer to stay in his company before Nate sets foot in his room again. He looks particularly grumpy to me and I'd like to avoid him murdering me.
" Tell me, you haven't slept with Tate?"
" We shared a bed, but that's it. I was in the mood for company, I must admit I really want to fuck but not with Tate."
My body is just crying out for sex, but it wouldn't do me any harm to abstain. Kane impresses the hell out of me, that puts him in the category to be tempted if the human race goes extinct. If we were the last two humans on earth, I'd have kids with him. Unless I test the goods first.
" You're sitting on your heel, that must be uncomfortable."
It's necessary to touch me without showing that I'm touching. When I think back to his fingers around my throat and his threat, my pussy becomes as slippery as the waves in Australia.
" It's not, it's the opposite."
" Why are you doing this?"
" Don't ask."
" I'm asking you. Lil' Daisy, why?"
I see his eyes sparkling like bubbles in champagne, I stand up, grab his hand and thread his fingers between my panties and my clitoris. He draws circles around my knob, which gets bigger as he touches it. He checks the doors and pulls me to him. Straddling his legs, he doesn't stop his fingers from moving, but quickly undoes the bra. My breasts level with his chin, his breathing quickening as I unzip his pants.
He wraps his lips around my nipple and sucks. I tremble, moan silently and arch my back against him. He terrifies me, which makes him a hundred times more attractive, he's sworn to take away my ability to walk, I want him to show me what he can do. He's not allowed to touch me, but he puts two fingers inside me. I bite his shoulder to keep from screaming, my body following the rhythm of his fingers.
" I thought I was a prisoner."
" That's what you are, you're so..."
He kisses me, I kiss him back hard, I want to feel his lips on mine again and again.
" Nate's going to kill you."
" You might be."
I stand up and show him the door.
" You have to go."
I want to feel his lips on mine again and again. "What?"
With tears in my eyes and my hands shaking, I tell him again to get out. He puts his clothes back on and strokes my face to wipe away my tear.
" Why are you crying? Do I disgust you that much?"
I shake my head, I have no idea why I'm crying, I'm attracted to him, he excites me. Why am I crying? Why did I stop him?
" It's nothing, I'm not allowed to touch you anyway."
" Kane, why is he so...?"
" He's been drinking, it's nothing. He'll get over it. We're going to lock you up at his request so if you want to pee, you'd better go now."
" I don't want to go to the bathroom, I want to run."
" I'll get you out of this, if you promise not to have my brothers beheaded for their behaviour."
" I only behead people who want to attack my family. Your brother can hit me, humiliate me, disfigure me, as long as he stays away from my mother and father."
I'm not royalty, nobody considers me a princess, least of all me. I don't want to rule a kingdom or appear perfect like them. I want to be able to sleep with Kane without limitations because he wants to and not because he has to.
" You're Princess April."
" Just April, your sexy prisoner."
" Who has a piercing around her clitoris." he adds
There are a lot of rumours about the jewellery on my body, I'm not hiding it, I have four piercings, done by three different piercers.
" Kane, Nate needs a condom. I can..."Vale starts as he pushes open the bedroom door. "Am I interrupting something?"
" No, I checked that she didn't have too many wounds on her back. You can put that back, I'm done. The condoms are in the first drawer of the bathroom, if he doesn't have any left in his box, he'll just have to fuck less."
Kane leaves me the bra and goes out, locking the doors. I was often locked in my room when I was little, my tantrums drove my mother mad and my absent father asked Rosie to channel me by locking me in a room and depriving me of my toys.
I used to have nightmares about them, hiding under the bed so I couldn't see the paintings move. My grandmother loved frescoes and there was one in my bedroom. I was safe under my bed until the monster in my cupboard dragged me out. I've been punished in the same way since I was four, and I'll put up with a few weeks in a room with nothing in it.
A simple pencil could distract me for days, I'm not complicated and I'm used to being punished excessively for things I may or may not have done. A book takes at least four hours to read, the thinnest is three hundred pages long and the thickest is seven hundred pages long, so I must have five or six days to read it, so that's not a problem for me. I've got fags and a fire, so it's not a reflection but a pause for meditation.
They'll never break me!