ACHTZEHN
The King was pleased with the ballroom, so he let me go. Just like that. No Masks came running after me, no Jack followed my tail, no one coerced me down from jumping out of a window.
I knew he'd let me out even if it looked like absolute shit. He couldn't risk me and Almar getting it on under the palace roof, not when his fiancée was living in the same place.
The first thing I'd done when I left was visit my father. Maybe it was stupid. But I needed closure, even if I already knew the answers.
We were sat in my old lounge. "When your mother died," he said. "Fiction just seemed better than reality. It was a safe space. It made me feel like maybe everything wasn't going to cave in on me. That I wasn't screwing up the only thing I cared about. You."
I sighed. "Why did you do it?"
He shrugged, shoulders slumping afterward like the weight of the world lay on his shoulders. "I got bribed. I shouldn't have taken it, not when I knew what the King was capable of when enraged."
I put the newspaper I'd flicked through on the table. The front page glared at me.
ROYAL WEDDING CONFIRMED FOR 14TH MAY
I turned the paper over. I was happy for them, but that didn't mean I wanted to see it.
"Almar?" I asked, before realising maybe he didn't know his name. It rolled off my tongue like it'd belonged there all along. I tried again. "Rumpelstiltskin?"
He smiled, laughing slightly. "That's what he'd called himself." His grey hair moved as he shook his head. "I took the money because I thought it'd help pay for the school."
"Why did you really take it?"
He shrugged. "Because I could."
"You were never a father to me," I told him, but I figured he already knew that. "You were just there."
"Better than nothing, hey?"
"Sometimes it really wasn't," I said, remembering how alone I'd felt. Completely alone, even if my father was in the same house. He was so caught up in caring for his fanciful stories he'd forgotten to care for me. "I signed up to that school to get away from you."
"I figured."
Those ice eyes met mine. There really was nothing behind them, nothing at all. I didn't remember anything ever having been.
"I miss her too, you know?" I said. My gaze fluttered to the photo on the mantelpiece. Old and worn, it hadn't moved in the last ten odd years.
"I know," he said. "You look a lot like her. It made it hard to look at you sometimes."
"It made it hard to look at myself sometimes, too."
"I should never have been a father," he said, rubbing at his arthritic knee. "I was hardly a man. Not up here anyway." He pointed to his head. "Immature and reckless. Someone should have warned your mother, told her I couldn't give her what she really wanted."
"She wouldn't have listened anyway."
"No," he said, shaking his head with a fond smile. "She wouldn't have."
After a few more minutes, I stood up.
"Goodbye, Vincent," I said from the door.
He didn't get up to see me out, but I heard his voice from the living room.
"Goodbye, Eleanor."
. . .
I rolled around in bed, unable to get to sleep.
It was pitch black, just how I liked it at night, but I couldn't get comfortable. Something felt wrong.
"I'd appreciate if you didn't lurk in the corner of my bedroom," I said, face still on the pillow.
I heard his chuckle. I turned to watch as he stepped into the light finding its way in through the window.
"What would you rather?" He asked.
"That you say 'hello' or 'how are you' like a normal, less stalkerish person."
He chuckled. "I'll try that next time."
I sat up on my bed. "Why are you here, Almar?"
I hadn't seen him in so long. I knew how wrong it was, what it would mean, what message it would send but I yearned to touch him. To feel him. Like how we used to be before things got impossibly complicated.
I didn't need to hear his answer to know why.
"Let me stay the night, Eleanor," he said, coming closer to the bed. I didn't move, but followed him with my eyes. "Please."
Even in the dark, he saw me nod.
His lips found mine.
I moved mine against his, savouring his taste, savouring his touch. And I realised, after a few moments, that he seemed intent on doing the same.
He knelt against the bed, refusing to relieve my lips from his, and pushed himself into me. I followed his lead and put every part of me I could against him, the distinct clawing in my abdomen wanting ever more.
There wasn't much running through my mind— nothing about my dad, thank god, or his fiancée or the King— even as his hands wandered under the light material of my nightie. As his fingertips brushed the sensitive skin of my stomach, my mind was solely focused on him. On the feeling of him against me. On the way he was still able to make my body follow his every whim.
His touch was soft, gentle, like he knew as I did that leaving our mark on one another wouldn't be in the form of hickies or pleasure induced bruises, but instead be in knowing that our love, in that moment, felt eternal.
His fingers drifted up my form, until they began to leisurely caress my breasts. Taking his time in puckering each of my nipples, I was left to deal with the ache in my groin with my mind alone. I, like him, wanted to make this moment last as long as possible, so I kept my whining for more to myself.
"Almar," I said instead, more of a sharp exhale than anything else as my hips pushed into his on their own accord just as his lips travelled to my neck, teeth skimming against my skin.
He nipped at the pulse in my neck, making it pulse until it was probably visible.
His breath was warm against my skin, sending my senses into haywire. "Say it again."
My hands wove their way into his hair, tugging at the strands lightly, needing to use a restraint I really didn't have.
"Almar," I said again, head back as he continued his lovemaking on my neck.
He squeezed my hip. "Again."
"Almar."
Looks like someone's got a name kink.
I almost winced at the feeling of not having his lips on me, but as I titled my head forward again, I realised he was staring at me, intently.
"Run away with me," he said.
I didn't answer. What are you meant to say like something to that? I knew what I wanted to say. Yes, god yes. Thought you'd never ask. And I equally knew what I needed to say. And hat was drastically different.
Rather than give him either answer, I pulled his head down to mine. He didn't seem to mind my diversion as he took control of the kiss, stroking his tongue with mine in a way that made my toes curl.
He tugged on my lip with his teeth, before placing kiss after kiss along every bit of skin he could reach. No square inch of skin was left unchartered by his mouth. They were languid and unrushed, committing my body to memory in his own sweet time.
I tried to do the same. I clenched my eyes shut, maybe to stop from crying or as I would tell myself, in concentration. My legs wound themselves around his hips, pulling him into me.
I could feel every inch of him, but it still wasn't enough. I needed more, more, more.
My fingers trembled slightly as I tried to work him out of his shirt. His hand came to rest on mine, before looking to me.
"It's okay," he said, pushing himself forward on his knees until our faces were inches apart. I felt my eyes flutter closed as his lips met my face, kissing away tears I hadn't known had fallen.
With fingers that trembled if only a little less, i unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it over his toned shoulders. He continued his work on my neck and down onto my collarbones, letting me do the job alone. I didn't mind that, not when it let me stare at his skin, his body, for a few moments longer than I might have.
He kissed down the valley between my breasts and down to my navel, lingering on certain spots he knew I appreciated.
"I found your letter," he whispered into my skin, muscles in his arms contracting as he hovered above me. I wanted to reach out, touch them, kiss them.
I stapled my hips to the bed, holding in a moan as I felt his erection against my thigh.
I sighed as his tongue swept across my hip."I'd hoped you would."
He kissed down my leg, never hastening his work from my thigh to my calves.
He placed a small kiss on my unclothed heat.
"Say it out loud."
I knew what he meant, even with his torturous lips on the place I needed him most.
"I love you," I told him, feeling my body shudder internally as the truth seemed to ooze from my every pore. "It wasn't good enough on paper?"
I felt him smile against me.
He raised himself to my upper body again. I almost groaned at him leaving my pulsing heat, but clamped my lips closed.
His mouth found my nipple, the other hand kneading my other breast.
"I just needed to hear it," he said. "For my sanity."
I smiled, despite myself.
"I love you," I said for no reason at all, other than the fact I meant it. I seemed unable to hold the declaration in now that I'd said it once. "More than I've ever loved anything in my life." More than than the planets. The moon. The stars. The whole universe. I love you. I love you. I love you.
He paid the other breast equal attention. I couldn't stop the moan as my painfully hard nipple slipped from his mouth.
"I love you, too," he said, locking my eyes with his own golden ones as I stared down at him. "I feel immortal when I'm with you."
That's funny, I wanted to say. You make me feel mortal. Because if you so pleased, you could destroy me and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
He rubbed himself against me.
I needed him in a way I hadn't before. It wasn't desire or lust that made me want to be as close as possible him, even though both did swim in my veins whenever I looked at him, but something else. Something more.
He took off his trousers, his member springing free.
His mouth was on mine again, moulded to mine like that was where it had been intended to be all along. I moaned into his mouth when he eased himself into me, biting his lip slightly and tugging at it. His eyes met mine and he smiled that smile I wished everyone in the world could see.
He moved inside me. Each thrust was measured, controlled, slow but managed to hit the spot every single damn time.
It was silent, beside our laboured joint breathing and him moving in and out of me, my wetness aiding him.
"Run away with me," he said again, though this time it was strained as he fought off his release.
I pulled his head down to mine, wrapping my arms around his neck and showing him just how much I wanted to say yes.
My hips met each thrust, pushing him deeper inside me until I was sure he'd branded me in a way no other man would be able to compete with.
I moaned as I clenched around him.
I felt him shudder as he relinquished his own hold on his control and relieved himself inside me. He hovered above me, still inside me. Placing one last kiss on my lips, he rolled to the side.
We stayed still, hardly breathing, as we stared at the ceiling mere inches from each other.
"Run away with me," he breathed into the darkness. "We could go to the coast or the mountains or to the end of the world, wherever you want. I don't mind where we are so long as I am with you. With you, I would be able to call a junkyard a home."
I turned to him, memorising his plump lips, his straight nose, the furrow of his brow. "You have a kingdom to run. You'll be a great king. I can't runaway with you, you know that."
"Rule alongside me. Be my queen. When I'm king, I can choose whoever I want to be by my side. It doesn't matter if you're not of noble birth." He turned to me, stare so intense I might have fallen had we not been lying down. "I need you, Eleanor. Like the air in my lungs and the sky above my head, I need you."
It was my turn to look away from him. I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed with my back to him, face to the expansive night outside. "We both know you couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. Mahin will make a great queen. She will give you heirs and a happy life that I could not—"
"I will only be happy with you, don't you get that?"
I faced him, watching as he leant his arm with the sheets dangerously low on his hips. I drew my eyes away from that dangerous territory and back to his eyes. But if anything, that was more dangerous.
"You might not think it now," I managed to get out, keeping my voice steady even if it took everything out of me. "But you'll grow to love her. You'll forget what we had. I will be a distant memory as you put your everything into running a kingdom, into raising a family."
"I may grow to love her, but not as I love you." His voice was confident and assured, but the desperation that pooled in his eyes was unmissable. "Not the all-consuming, destructive way I do you. Your taste will be stored in my mind until the day I die." He pushed himself forward, taking my hands in his. "I'll never forget you, Eleanor. Never forget us. Please, let me prove to you that all the kingdoms in the world are nothing if I don't have you. Please."
I took my hands from under his and placed them on my lap, trying to ignore the hurt in his eyes.
"We're destructive. You said it yourself." I paused, gathering all the strength within me. "She'll be a worthy queen, Almar."
"Fuck worthy," he said. "What does that even mean? What is a king who does not love his queen? How am I meant to lay with her, give her children when I don't love her?"
Like so many kings, I wanted to say. "Live a happy life and be the virtuous king I know you are."
His stood from the bed. I felt more than saw him getting back into his clothes. He rounded the bed, standing before me.
"I've been in love with you since I saw you on that cart when we were young," he told me. "You were helping your father. You had the biggest grey eyes I'd ever seen and I knew I needed to see them again and again until I got them out of my system. But you don't get Eleanor Warren out of your system. She chews you up and spits you out when she pleases. And by god, even though I'll hate you for the rest of my life, it was an honour."
To be hated by a King. "The honour is mine."
And just like every morning in the last several months, he was gone by sunrise.
THE END