“What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss, yanking my hands away. Stumbling back a few feet, I try my best to steady my heaving chest. “You cannot touch me, and how dare you say those things about my virtue! This is highly inappropriate.”
Orion studies me for a moment before throwing his head back, chuckling. “A thousand apologies. But you can hardly blame me. You wouldn’t believe some of the so-called princesses I get begging for my hand – ready to spread their legs at the mere possibility of a marriage to me. Not that a night with them is anything to brag about. None of them gave me anything the last prince hadn’t already enjoyed.” I gasp as he folds his arms, tilting his head. “I’d heard so many stories about you. Sol’s eldest daughter: more radiant than the sun and purer than the doves that fly across it. You can’t blame me for doubting the purity part, especially with how many suitors your father’s invited to the palace to see you. I thought one of them’s bound to have had a taste, if not all, and you’d be just like the other princesses I’d courted. But I was wrong. Clearly. And for that, I am truly sorry.”
I tense. His apology does nothing to calm the rocking in my stomach.
“Please,” he starts again, stepping forward.
Immediately I step back.
A breathy laugh escapes him. “You really are as pure as they say. Thank the Stars, I was expecting to have to break you.”
“Break me?” I scoff.
He smirks, eyes darkening. “While I’ll admit I had my doubts about your purity… After hearing those stories and seeing your portrait, I knew I had to have you. Even if it meant dragging the name of every man you’d ever bedded from your lips until you knew only mine.”
I stiffen.
“But fear not, my darling,” Orion continues lightly, as if his words haven’t just sickened me. “There’s no need for anybreaking when you’re as pure as a little baby dove, and how I will enjoy teaching you to fly.” He moves closer, coiling his arms around my waist before I can jump back again. “You’re going to scream for me, Amaryllis. Scream like the little whore you’ll become when I have you riding my cock for the first time.”
Everything in me turns to ice. I gasp – and Orion seizes the opportunity to slam his mouth against mine. His tongue invades every part of me, claiming my teeth, my tongue, even my lower lip as he bites down hard.
Shouting, I thrash in his arms, but he only holds me tighter.
“That’s it, little dove,” he murmurs against my lips. “This is only the beginning.”
My heart pounds. My throat seizes. Until finally, my slippers unroot themselves from the grass, and I stomp one down onto his foot with all the strength I have left.
“Fuck!” he whines, dropping his hands to grasp his foot.
I don’t dare check if he’s okay. Grabbing my skirts, I bolt through the hedge maze.
“Amaryllis!”
I’m gone before he can yell another word. The thorny walls of the maze fly by, and soon I’m racing through the palace grounds, the manicured trees and topiaries passing me in endless blur of green. As I reach the palace and storm inside, the green transforms into shimmering gold, and then pink as Blossom charges up to me.
“Ami?” she calls, waving a hand. “I was looking for you everywhere. Your lovely new suitor told me to meet you both by the library, but you weren’t?—”
I rush straight past her.
I can’t stop. Can’t speak. Can barely think. Because Orion is a monster. All princes are. And the mere thought of ever having to marry one of them makes my corset feel so tight, I can barely breathe.
Hot tears blur my vision, but somehow I make it back to my bedchamber. Thankfully it doesn’t take long to peel the sticky gown from my body and tear all the flowers from my hair.
Like little feathers, they flutter to the ground, so soft, so delicate, so pathetic – just like me.
Snarling, I stamp each one into the wooden floor. I hate this. I hate Orion. And most of all, I hate that I’m not charging straight to Father’s office demanding that he sends Orion away, never to be seen again.
‘Don’t disappoint me’ he’d said, ‘behave yourself’.
He’d never said that about a suitor before. It’s always been my choice. Always. But now, after the way he was this morning, and with Hugo at the ball, it’s like something’s changed within him.
Maybe he really has had enough of us. Maybe I’ve disappointed him so much that he’s willing to throw me to whichever awful prince is strong enough to put up with me.
Maybe, I deserve Orion.
Collapsing onto my bed, I grasp a pillow and scream into it.
When my maids arrive, I tell them I’m sick. They’re smart enough not to argue. Instead, they draw the curtains and close the door behind them, leaving me in complete darkness.
