As promised, here is the 6th installment of Ember. If you haven’t already, please read: one, two, three, four, and five.

But first, a blurb:

Everyone loves Prince Charming. They have to—he’s cursed. Every man must respect him. Every woman must desire him. One look, and all is lost.

Ember would rather carve out a piece of her soul than be enslaved by passions not her own. She turns to the dark arts to save her heart and becomes the one woman in the kingdom able to resist the Prince’s Charm.

Poor girl. If Ember had spent less time studying magic and more time studying human nature, she might have guessed that a man who gets everything and everyone he wants will come to want the one woman he cannot have.

Charm is a curse. Love is a fire. This story is no fairytale.

And now, the continuation of Ember…

6. The Prince

The Old Wives say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They also tell a tale of curiosity and cats. Though their words of wisdom were much on my mind through the night, I couldn’t stop myself from rising well before the sun and sneaking into the Prince’s room. I took a bucket of kindling and coal to use as an excuse for my intrusion, but my real purpose was to snoop.

It wasn’t until I stepped through his door this time that I remembered to tuck my moonlight pendant away. With hasty hands, I shoved it down the neck of my bodice, where it lay trapped between my bodice and my shift.

The Prince was asleep on his bed. He was naked beneath the covers, if his bare shoulders were any indication. He didn’t stir when I sneaked into his chamber. Nor did he stir when I tiptoed over to the chair beside his window. There were empty wine bottles on the floor beneath the chair, and a messy stack of books upon the table beside it—five or six books, at least.

The careless pile of books was worth a fortune! Each book was lettered and bound by hand, copied over by monks who went blind from their task before they had so much as a single gray hair in their tonsures.

There was a book of tales, and one of poems. There was a discussion of magic and witchcraft. I leafed through it, but it was a translation from Terre d’Or, and very biased against witches. There were two books on mathematics, and one on the building of bridges and other functional constructions. And beneath those, I found a slim volume with no title or illuminated frontispiece. It was half-filled with script written in an exacting hand. I flipped through the pages until a drawing caught my eye.

Of the two facing pages, one page held a drawing done in pencil and traced in ink while the other was thick with text. The drawing was very nicely done. The subject was a young woman of common costume and appearance, but I could see why he had chosen to sketch her. There was something compelling in her dark eyes and sharp features.

I wondered if I knew her. She seemed very like someone I’d met as a child. It took me several moments to recognize her face as my own. Not my face now, but my face as it had been five years ago, more hopeful in attitude and softer in appearance.

It is no wonder I didn’t recognize the Prince’s drawing of my face—I’d worn the Cinder Girl’s face for months. I had not been so cold in my manners then as I was now and my eyes hadn’t held the slightest hint of wickedness.

I turned my attention to the text on the page facing the drawing. It read:

I get everything I want, but not her. I will her to come to me, but she does not. It only makes me want her more.

When I find her, I shall woo her and make her love me, for I have never been loved by anyone who’d the ability to refuse me—who had ability to resist my curse. It is possible, I suppose, that she might refuse me. She might rebuke my intentions and rebuff my advances. She might even decide to hate me.

I have never been hated. I might like her hatred almost as well as I would like her love. Perhaps I might like it better. What a pity love and hate are opposites. It would be so fine to have both from her, to feel the fire of her passion in its every possible form.

Night after night, I imagine her naked in my bed, eager for me, angry with me. Fighting me, seducing me. I imagine her as a battle to be won, a woman to be wooed. I want to be both harsh and gentle with her. I want to seduce her each day and conquer her each night.

I want her to be mine in every conceivable way. I want her love, her hate, her body and her soul. I want her every soft sigh and harsh word.

Some would say it is madness to want a woman this way, but I think it must be love. Not the tepid, fickle love of which the poets sing—the love that forms or fades with kindness or cruelty. No, this love is something more divine—like the love of a god, both vengeful and benign. It is as constant as the sea. And as beautiful. As dangerous. As mysterious.

She is the only woman to ever refuse me. And yet, I want…

He was mad—obsessed, insane. And yet, I want… And yet, I wanted. My heart beat faster when I closed the book than it had when I’d picked it up. I could feel the flush of arousal on my cheeks and the liquid pulse of desire heating my blood.

My reaction was not the result of the Prince’s curse, but of his haunting words. Words weave a spell, betimes. They create images in our minds that heat our loins and sway our souls. And though I didn’t love the Prince, though I feared him, I couldn’t extinguish the heated images his words had kindled in my imagination.

The Prince stirred in his sleep, but did not wake. His sleep-roughened voice said, “Ember.”

I started at the sound of my name and kicked over the empty wine bottles at my feet with a clatter. His eyes opened in earnest, and his voice spoke more firmly. “Ember.”

I waited for the burn of the moonlight pendant against my skin, but it was trapped between my shift and my bodice. I couldn’t draw upon its strength. The nerves of my left hand screamed in pain from my burning finger, but the pain was not enough to halt my feet. I went to him.

He looked darker than I remembered. His brown hair seemed almost black. His sun-kissed skin seemed almost swarthy. Still half asleep, he sat up in bed as I approached, and the blankets fell away from his muscled chest.

He pulled me down across his body and kissed me. This time he did not complain I tasted of ash. This time there was nothing tentative in his kiss. He ravaged my mouth, forcing my lips apart and plundering me with his tongue until I moaned and writhed against him.

“You are she,” he whispered, as he traced his lips along my neck. “You wear a different face, but you answer to her name.”

He was overwhelming, irresistible—my nightmares come to life. I tried to resist him by thinking of Rian, but as in my nightmares, my memories of Rian twisted into my perception of the Prince. He looked perfect, but his smooth-seeming hands felt callused, and rough as Rian’s hands against my skin. He smelled of straw, horse and leather, just as my Rian did. The Prince’s curse wove memories of my lover into a noose upon my will. I struggled like a prisoner on the gibbet, twisting my body in vain to catch a last breath of freedom before my doom overtook me.

I struggled with him, but soon enough my traitorous hands ceased pushing him away and began pushing at his blankets to bare more of his body for my hungry touch. He tugged my chemise and bodice down to bare my breasts—but, alas, not low enough to free the moonlight pendant—and covered them with his lips and hands, suckling until I moaned and clutched his head to urge him closer, still. His words had been elegant upon the page, but his seduction was too hungry to be kind.

His hands made fast work of my skirt, bunching it around my waist. He ripped the center-seam in my loose-fitting drawers and plunged his fingers inside me. My cunt was drenched already, and eager for his touch. I moaned at his penetration, and rolled my hips to urge him deeper. His long, strong fingers moved within me and without, hurried but unerring in their pursuit of my completion. I screamed when it came upon me, bucking against his hand.

My tremors hadn’t yet faded when he took his hand away from me to grasp my shoulders and roll me beneath him. He skewered me on his cock with no forewarning. The sensation wasn’t pain, exactly, but it was no kindness. I hated that it made me come again.

His movement was rough, hungry and relentless. He’d been so eager to fuck me, I’d thought he would come quickly. But he went on and on. Desperate and unflagging, he rode me hard and set a brutal pace that drove all thought from my head.

I don’t know how long I writhed beneath him, listening to the heavy oak headboard knock divots from the plaster wall. My body wasn’t mine. It shuddered and moaned at his command. He wrung pleasure after pleasure from my protesting nerves.

If making love to Rian had been an act of worship, this act was a blasphemy. And the creature rutting on me was a demon that sucked away my soul with every sigh I ceded to his touch.

Rian! I cried as I thought of him. I had not wanted to betray him. I felt horrid and heartless to have so easily fallen into bed with another. Hot tears slid down my face, and singed black spots into the sheets.

At last the monster rutting on me found his completion. He shouted my name and came inside me. His hot come seared me like a brand. Or perhaps the sensation was just shame, eating at me like acid for my betrayal of the man I loved.

Loved? Did I love Rian? Of a sudden, I was amazed I hadn’t known it earlier: I loved Rian not “in my way,” but in every way. I wanted to weep at the thought. What good was it to give my heart, when my body was so willing to betray me?

I felt a gentle touch against my cheek and opened my eyes to find the Prince staring down at me. His dark eyes were beautiful as the night sky, and his perfect face bore lines of worry at my sadness. “Why are you crying?”

I shook my head. “I should have fed my heart to the Fire instead of my finger. Had I done so, I’d not regret betraying the trust of a good man.”

“Ember,” he laid a gentle hand against my cheek. “You haven’t—”

“I haven’t just lain beneath you and screamed with joy as you fucked me? I haven’t just spread my legs for a man other than the one I love?” I shoved him off me and bounded out of bed. “You fucked me as though you had a right to. But you had no right. I love Rian. You made a traitor of my body, but my heart and soul are his!” I turned and ran.

“Ember!” He reached out to grab me, but my skin burned his hand when he touched it. He let go with a muffled oath. “Wait!”

His curse tugged at me, but rage gave me strength where loyalty and love had failed me. I barreled through the door and careened down the stairs. I heard the rumble of his heavy footfalls as he chased me. He shouted at me, ordering me to wait and to listen, but I forced it from my mind. I lost him when I ran into the servants’ hallways. I knew them blind and he’d no light. I emerged downstairs and hid myself in the root cellar. I stayed there for three days, until the moon was full and I knew the Prince would return to the castle.

It was midnight on the first night of the full moon when I emerged, bedraggled and still wearing the clothes I’d worn when I ran from the Prince. Rian sat with his back against the cookshed, a skin of wine in his lap and a worried look upon his face. I began to cry the instant I saw him.

He pulled me into his arms and whispered in the low, calm voice I’d heard him use with panicked horses. “Darling, where have you been? I’ve been so worried for you.” He kissed my filthy cheeks and smoothed my matted hair.

“Don’t.” I hated that he gave me tenderness when I deserved scorn. “We mustn’t see each other again. I didn’t know it, but I’m heartless. I’ve betrayed you, Rian, and I cannot guarantee I won’t do it again.”

He cupped my cheeks in his hands and looked into my eyes. “I love you. You haven’t betrayed me, you’ve proved you love me, too.”

I shook my head, even as he tried to calm me. He didn’t understand. “No, Rian. Go find a woman you can trust. Go find someone who has all her fingers and who won’t frighten your horses. I’ve given away too much of myself. Too much, but not enough.”

I pushed out of his arms and ran into the night. I did not run quickly, for my twisted foot makes me less than nimble, but I knew the back alleys from the years I’d spent avoiding the Prince. Though Rian tried to follow me, I soon lost him in the labyrinth of the city.

I spent two weeks roaming the Dark Woods to the east of the city. One night I found a ring of pagan stones and made a bonfire there. I spent long hours with my knife clasped in my hands trying to determine which part of me I could cut out that would allow me to resist the Prince and yet love Rian. But the traitorous and necessary parts were one in the same, my heart.

Near dawn the fire woke me with a message. I fed it dried leaves and small twigs until it built a scene in shades of flame. The front parlor of our house on the Avenida Delpalacio. Minette sat in her blue leather chair. Sylvie and Dulcie sat side by side on the gold velvet settee. All three wore blank expressions, and I soon saw the reason. The Prince stood in the room with them, his face a burning mask of determination.

“I wish your sister would stop running from me. No matter where I search, I cannot find her.”

“You can’t find a witch if she doesn’t wish to be found,” Dulcie murmured.

“No, but I can make her come to me. Swear you will bring her to me. Swear you’ll bring her to me at the palace. The palace is protected by the magic of the Old Ones. Her witch’s spells will not work within its walls. I will know her when I see her. I will make her stay and listen to me.”

My sisters tried to protest, but the Prince silenced them with a wave of his hand. “Promise you will bring her or take your own lives as forfeit for your failure. And make sure to tell her of the promise you’ve made the instant you see her.”

Outside the city, in my circle of stones, I ground my teeth and hated him for using everything I loved against me. I’d never before understood what drove other witches to sacrifice or renounce their families and friends, but I understood it now. Love made me weak, and worse, it exposed those I loved to unnecessary danger.

If I had not loved Rian, I wouldn’t have fled the city in shame and guilt at betraying him. If I had not loved my sisters, the Prince would not have been able to use them to force my return.

My sisters unwillingly repeated his words. I knew I had to go back.

Watch out for next week’s Chapter Seven, suckers…

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Bettie Sharpe has utilized over forty nom de plumes since 1842. One of her more favorite ones is one you might recognize: Barbara Cartland. She bathes in the blood of her virgins in order to keep her youthful appearance and drinks a shot of wheatgrass in the morning to start her day. She enjoys mowing down toddlerz with her industrial-strength lawn mower. Her novella Like a Thief in the Night will be released in January by the awesome Samhain Publishing as a part of their Strangers in the Night anthology. Way to go, B!

Oh, and seriously? DO NOT post any part of this story on your site without attribution to Bettie or a holla-back at her site. If you do, I will not hesitate to sic Jane from Dear Author on your thieving asses. Copyright © Bettie Sharpe 2007 and seventy years after her death, bitches!

Note: Hey, other writer-types, do you want to contribute to The Serial? If so, email me and I’ll hook you up, yo. Peace!

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