Captured by the fae beas.., p.1
Captured by the Fae Beast, page 1
Captured by the Fae Beast
Mallory Dunlin
"Captured by the Fae Beast" by Mallory Dunlin
mallorydunlin.com
Copyright © 2022 Mallory Dunlin
All rights reserved.
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law and fair use.
For permissions contact: mallory.dunlin@gmail.com
This book is dedicated to all those who cheered me on and demanded, often with great vigor, that I publish:
Max, who edited not once but twice,
Remy, who provided invaluable assistance,
Meghan, Kelly, Holly, Kassie, and the rest of the sprint squad, who devoured many snips,
Ariel, who chivvied me onward,
and everyone in IAA who offered critiques,
and kept me writing.
Contents
Prologue
1. Becoming a Statistic
2. Backcountry
3. Wolf Eyes
4. No Thank You!
5. Thanks, I Hate It
6. The Beast of Phazikai
7. His Mother, the Queen
8. There's the Roses
9. Romance Novels
10. Four Skulls
11. Equitation, of a Sort
12. Familiar Landscapes
13. Sunlit Conversation
14. Happiness
15. Faery Feast
16. Escapism
17. Swords and Sorcery
18. Gifts of the Gods
19. Wedding Crashers
20. Stories
21. Drinking Games
22. Foolishness
23. Arrowed
24. The Good Stuff
25. Conflict
26. A Momentary Interlude
27. The Court of Mercy
28. Challenges Issued
29. The Outside World
30. Goodbyes
31. A Written Farewell
32. Winter
33. Love Letter
34. Welcome Home
35. Morning, Sunshine
36. Diplomacy
37. Too Thorough
38. Missing Pieces
39. Confrontation
40. Revelry
41. Balcony Confessions
42. Invitation
43. The Gift of a Throne
44. Taking Off Layers
45. Out in the Open
46. An Instructive Meal
47. Obedience
48. Teeth
49. Puzzle Pieces
50. Where There's Smoke...
51. ...There's Fire
52. War
53. An Answer to Prayer
54. Made of Iron, Chased with Gold
55. Sweet Nothings
56. Comfort
57. Finally
58. Pleasure
59. Life After War
60. Moonlight
61. Orchids and Hot Springs
Epilogue
About the Author
The Sorceress and the Incubus
Prologue
Only five hours remained until moonrise, the call of the moon an unsettling itch underneath my skin. Tonight was another revel I wouldn't attend, not that anyone would care for any reason other than relief. The thought brought anger with it, that after all these years I possessed nothing I hadn't demanded for myself, as if I was a pariah instead of a prince. With a growl, I gave up trying to force myself to do the paperwork that came as the endless price of the armies my mother cared nothing for, and stalked out of the room, my tails trailing behind me and my wing-hands curled into frustrated claws.
People got out of my way as I came through the hallways, hoping not to be noticed. I saw them all, as I always did, my ears turning to catch the muttered comments, the sour scent of fear pale upon the air. Any one of them might be the next to try and rid Stag Court of its monster, looking for my mother's approval, or for that of the stag-god she devoted herself to. It had only been eighteen days since the last try, and hopefully the memory of that execution lingered enough to keep their claws sheathed. I disliked pain, and my voice still rasped from the shards of glass in my food.
That had been clever, I thought bitterly, snarling at a man who loitered in my path. I could smell most poisons, not that they did much to me, and iron filings alone would only have made me puke. But the glass had been invisible in the blended fruit shake I liked to down after sword practice, and combined with the iron my throat had been lacerated and slow to heal. I'd fucking choked on it, too, getting glass into my larynx and slicing my vocal cords. One more thing to worry about. I hated when my enemies got creative; I much preferred getting stabbed yet again to having my voice stolen.
I'd worked myself into a fine temper when I reached the fighting courts to work off my aggravation, enough so that I could hear a couple wry comments about the beatings that my opponents would take. I paused at the board for bout signups, skimming to see if there were any groups looking for combat. A smirk crossed my face when I saw that the five-man squad who'd accompanied the Court of Mercy's ambassador for the decadal concords had thrown their names on the board for a bout. It was always enjoyable to face people who knew me only by reputation.
I put my mark on the board as their opponent, the combined glyph for D and S with a horned slash across it – Crown Prince Dain Sundamar – and strode into the staging room to prepare for combat.
Thirty minutes later, I stepped onto the sandy earth of the fighting court. All the irritation focused as my claws sank into the ground beneath me, the entire world narrowing to the space between the oval walls of the arena. My ears tilted, catching the sounds the squad made as they took their places opposite me. A woman and two men, three of them outfitted with longsword and shield, and a secondary dagger. The other man and woman had bows; the woman had an axe at her belt, and the man a maul. Good armor, lighter than the plate Zhiolas favored, but enough to require finesse or force.
The arrows would be a problem, especially if the archers were any good. This wasn't a glamor-fight, so I couldn't use a glamor-defense, not that I was any good with combat glamor-shields, anyway. I'd have to deal with them, first.
I swung my greatsword in a lazy circle and took a fighting stance, rolling my shoulders and settling my wing-arms in a defensive posture. Across the field, my five opponents drew their weapons, the archers cocking bows, and I stopped bothering to act like a fae instead of a monster. I let the feral love of battle come into my eyes, my tails snapping behind me, and voiced my rolling growl.
The scent of adrenaline brightened the air, and the arbiter rang the bell to start the match.
The archers released their arrows, but I was already moving, throwing myself to the side before charging forward with a roar of challenge that shook the air. They were faster than I expected with the draw, and clever; the arrow fired a hair to my left caught me when I moved laterally into its path four seconds into my charge, thudding into my shoulder with bruising force. But seconds later I was on them, and an arrow an inch into the meat of my shoulder meant little to me.
My world slimmed down to the space around me, my body moving with the ease of long practice. They knew how to fight together, but they didn't know how to fight something like me. My sword met the first blade with the bright clash of steel, as if we fought with true weapons and not ones glamored for the fight. The force of the blow vibrated through my arm, bright and singing, and I whirled to meet the next blow.
Claws digging into the sand of the field for purchase, a tail whistling through the air to smack against the face of an archer as she cocked an arrow, my wing-hand raking across the ground to fling sand into the eyes of an opponent. I let everything go in the heat of the moment, falling into killing without any hesitation. I kept my opponents around me to stymie the archers, my ears and nose telling me where they were with the same ease as my eyes.
I batted away a sword-blow, striking hard enough to twist the man's blade in his hand, then yanked his leg out from under him with a wing-arm. Bones snapped under my foot as I broke his wrist, twisting my blade to parry a blow from the axe. Two blades came for me at once, a tight maneuver, and I sidestepped to guard against one with the tip of my blade as I blocked with the base of my blade in a twisting sideways movement, then drove the heavy pommel between the eyes of the woman.
She dropped, the glamor-wound tricking her body into thinking she was dying, and the blade in my hand flickered out of existence for a moment as the arbiter canceled the illusion so that my opponent wouldn't shock out. The brief moment of swordlessness meant that an axe-blow made it through my guard, but I evaded, dropping down and catching my weight with a wing-arm as I kicked viciously at her knee, breaking it.
Her armor bruised my foot, but now there were only two of them, and despite the wounds in my thigh and shoulder I made quick work of them, getting the archer with a driving attack and whipping my blade under the guard of the last fighter with a one-handed move that sliced the edge of my greatsword through the join of his armor at his groin. For a moment, blood sprayed through the air, before my blade vanished and the wound closed again.
The smell of fear and sweat mingled with blood and sand as I stood there, breathing lightly, my blood up and temper redirected into combat. I offered my hand to
That caught me up short, and I turned my head to follow the scent, finding myself looking at the female archer. Despite her obvious pain, she looked up at me with a hungry expression I recognized, her vivid jay-blue eyes looking up at me through dark eyelashes.
"Might I offer you a hand?" I said, looking back at her with interest. I never had sex with any of my soldiers, who were under my command, but she was from the Court of Mercy. Perhaps it would be interesting, with the sort of wildness that might take my mind off of my bitterness.
"How polite," she replied. "Perhaps you might carry me, instead. I think I ought to see the healer; my knee usually bends the other direction."
I smirked at that, and crouched to do so, hearing as I did one of the men snort in what sounded like disgust. I ignored him. As long as he didn't interfere with me, I had weathered far worse slights than a snort of disgust at the idea of someone touching me.
The woman slung her arm around my shoulder as I lifted her and flicked one of the armored spines of my back. "I've heard you're as excellent a lover as a soldier, Beast," she said in a heated voice as I carried her towards the waiting healer. "Is it true?"
I let the name roll off my shoulders. I knew what I was. "As I've never been on the receiving end of my prowess, I can only tell you what others say," I replied, putting a little of my growl into the words. She had liked seeing me fight. She wanted the Beast of Phazikai, not the crown prince of Stag Court, and I would give her that. I licked my lips and took a seat on the bench with her on my lap as the healer went to her knee. "Would you like to hear about the way they moan, or the way they scream?"
She grunted with pain as her knee crunched back into position, then relaxed as the agony of her broken knee abated. The healer gave me an askance look, but didn't say anything about the damage I'd done or the fact that I had the woman on my lap, only finishing up her work before moving over to the man with the broken wrist.
"Why don't you show me?" she said, with a sharp smile. "It's a few hours yet til the banquet."
I picked her back up, making myself focus on the scent of desire and the heat in those blue eyes rather than the gazes or avoidance of the people around me. I knew what I was, I reminded myself again. A man, a prince, a monster—and people always saw the monster first, the prince second, and the man never. "Do you have a venue in mind?"
"Surprise me," she replied, walking her fingers up my neck to flick my ear.
I pinned them back automatically, disliking being treated with such casual disdain for the strangeness of my body, but didn't snap at her. I didn't expect much else from people, even from the women who came to me with an interest in discovering how well a monster might please them. She'd asked for surprise, and since my reputation involved mostly vigorous sex against walls or other various inventive places, I took her to one of the sumptuous guest rooms of the palace instead.
The guard smirked at me as I got onto the bed, laying her out on her back and framing her with my body, my tails lashing through the air. Desire, sweat, and the scent of her skin hovered in a halo around her, and I lowered my mouth to her neck, running my tongue along her skin to fill my mouth with that want so I could forget the world.
"Surprised?" I asked in a purr, putting my mouth against her ear.
"Very," she replied. Her hands wandered to my sides, moving up along the armor I still wore. "Are you secretly a gentle lover, then, your highness?"
I barked out a sharp laugh and closed my eyes, feeling for the lines of reality and overlaying what I wanted with my glamor. "Don't insult me," I said with a low growl, and hid our clothing from the world.
She gasped as I dropped my hips to hers, grinding my cock against her as I bit her neck, rumbling my pleasure for her as I slid my shaft over her clit. I was a monster, physically brutish and impossible to overlook, but I could use those differences to my advantage when women wanted to try mating with the Beast. I rolled my hips against her again, nipping and licking at her neck while the heady scent of her enjoyment washed away everything else.
I slid down her body, running my hands down along the strong planes of her sides, and then running my wing-hands up her body to her soft breasts, glamoring off my talons so I could grab her without risking piercing her skin. With a growl of pleasure, I ran my forked tongue up along the wet of her desire, framing her clit with my tongue as I tasted her. She bucked her hips up against me with an encouraging sound, so I devoted myself to the task, using my wing-hands to tease her nipples and knead her breasts as I held her thighs apart.
The taste and scent of her told me when I did well, my body responding to her as she reached her first orgasm on my tongue. Then another with my fingers added, and a third, until I was throbbing and aching for release, and she was panting and flushed, her eyes closed and sweat standing out on her skin.
She opened her eyes as I wiped my face, and ran her fingers along the wrists of my wingarms with a look of almost horrified fascination. I took them away, out of her grasp, hating that look—hating that it took her seconds to go from enjoyment to fascination, as if I was some sort of creature.
She'd had her pleasure, all the care towards a woman's enjoyment a man could give, but I was still a monster.
Very well.
I snarled, putting a reckless smile on my face, and flipped her over roughly, digging the dull claws of my hands into her hips as I hauled them up to the level of mine. "I was told once that my cock and tongue are the only parts of me worth enjoying," I said, turning the heat of my passions towards nothing more than the raw pleasure of sex. I lined my cock up with her entrance and rocked forward, sliding a fraction into the wet heat of her body. "Is it true?" I purred, with a cruel lilt, and jerked her hips towards mine.
The woman cried out with pleasure as I buried myself in her body. Silken heat pressed down around me, so achingly good, for one moment leaving me with nothing but my thudding heart and the glorious sensation of a woman's body grasping my shaft. I reached around her hips to press against her clit, determined to drive all thought out of her mind, and grabbed her braid as I started thrusting.
Gods, it felt good, every stroke forward sending pleasure spiking through my body and every withdrawal leaving me aching for more. I could have come in seconds, from the taste of her orgasm on my tongue and the bliss of being yielded to out of desire instead of fear for this small span of time. But I focused on her: on the gasps and whines, on the scent of her body as she chased orgasm with me, and on the enjoyment of being wanted, even for nothing more than the shape of my cock and my dedication to her pleasure.
My breathing grew harsh as I held myself back, pushing away the coiling sensation of need so that I could make her come one more time, put one more memory out into the world where the Beast of Phazikai was more than a killer. She started shaking, her body growing tense, and I gave her more, slamming down into her depths and demanding her ecstasy with the press of my fingers. Closer... closer... I panted, wanting it so badly, and determined to make her come with me.
She gasped, then voiced a shuddering cry as her body slammed down around my cock with a shock of pleasure. I let go of restraint as she came, fucking her with sharp jerks of my hips that flung me over the edge, sending pleasure soaring through me. I groaned with the heat of it as my pleasure spiked and released in waves, my cock jerking as my come shot through me and filled her tight body.
I stayed there for one moment as ecstasy turned to euphoria, then released her and drew back, exhaling and resettling my wing-arms behind me.
She flopped down with a sound of enjoyment, then rolled onto her back to look at me with hooded eyes. "Your cock and tongue are well-worth enjoying," she said, smirking at me. "The rest of you might be troubling, but the gods have certainly blessed you there."
I held onto my smirk by force of will, then flicked my fingers and banished the glamor, putting both of us back into our clothing and armor. "Enjoy the rest of your stay," I told her, and sharpened my smile with cruelty. "Though I doubt anything else will match up to fucking a monster."
