Americana Fairy Tale (28 page)

There Taylor was again, in Corentin’s thoughts like a wound he couldn’t resist tearing open at every chance. A guttural growl came from deep inside, and he pumped harder. He clenched his thighs, slightly jerking his hips forward as he worked himself.

Corentin needed this. He needed Taylor. He wanted nothing more than to defile Taylor’s sweet princess hole and then fuck his tempting, smart mouth, only to splatter cum on his beautiful face. Corentin couldn’t help the jackal grin cracking across his face. Taylor would be so pretty, lying back breathless and with Corentin’s seed smeared on him.

And when Taylor got smart with him, Corentin would take him over his knee and spank Taylor like the spoiled shit of a princess he was. When Taylor couldn’t take it and his ass became red as a cherry, Corentin would fuck him again. He’d make Taylor scream out what he wanted, how he liked it. He would turn Taylor into the filthiest of whorish princesses. He’d make Taylor’s body ready and wanting at a mere word.

And then Corentin would throw Taylor away.

The thought hit him hard as his balls tightened and betrayed him with the rising climax.

“Fuck, fuck,
fuck
!” Corentin roared and pounded the wall over the toilet. The darkness of Charles’s curse flowed into his pleasure, increasing it, making him unable to resist fucking his own hand. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was
all wrong
.

He slammed the side of his fist into the wall, and the mirror on the left rattled in the frame. Corentin had to get rid of Taylor. He was a poison in Corentin’s thoughts. He couldn’t even think of taking him gently and with care. His first thought was to
violate
Taylor. That wasn’t him. He knew he wasn’t like that. The evil within him controlled his thoughts.

Corentin’s thighs ached from tensing. He was so close to the edge and had to get himself over.

He had to get rid of Taylor. If he just got rid of Taylor, the pain would stop, the confusion would go away, he’d get his curse broken, and he’d be free of the hellish road. He had to get rid of Taylor. He
had to
.

Corentin bellowed wordless roars and frantically pounded the wall. The violence jostled the mirror off the wall, and it shattered into the sink. The shards scattered over the floor, catching the light like the flecks of the distant stars Corentin would never reach. The freedom he’d never have. The peace he’d never get.

The vision of Taylor lying breathless on a bed bloomed into his thoughts—Taylor’s beautiful face painted with Corentin’s cum, his pink eyes staring into nothing, and Taylor’s stomach sticky with his own seed as he remained still. Silent.

Corentin’s orgasm caused his knees to buckle and stole his breath. He creamed hard into his hand and sprayed the wall in front of him. He rode the last few waves, pumping slower, milking himself of every drop. He pressed his lips together and groaned. “Yes…,” he hissed. He cried out when another pulse of a smaller orgasm shot through him. “Oh
Storyteller yes
,” he cried and tossed his head back as he pumped himself through the falling pleasure.

His body tingled from the release, his head fuzzy from exhaustion. He took a breath and then yanked up his jeans and restored himself to a sense of decency. The shards of glass crunched under his boots as he slowly paced to the sink. Gulping in large breaths as his heart thumped a slow rhythm, he brushed the glass shards away from the rim of the sink and from the faucets. Quietly, he scrubbed his hands, letting the evidence of his shame wash away.

He couldn’t face Taylor and Ringo yet. They’d be wondering where he was, but he needed to collect his thoughts. Make a plan. Decide if he was going to do the right thing as a huntsman or do the right thing as a hero. He still didn’t know which side to choose. The legends of kindly huntsmen who had a change of heart were just propaganda to get princesses into their clutches.

Huntsmen didn’t change. Huntsmen
couldn’t
change.

Corentin took a ragged sigh and placed his hands on either side of the broken mirror. He rested there, looking down into the sink and at his face, monstrously warped on the broken glass.

Taylor belongs to me
, he had told Phillipa.

Those words would be Corentin’s undoing.

I
N
H
IS
E
YES

Hatfield Plantation, Atlanta, Georgia

June 9

E
VERY
TIME
Atticus wandered by the rows of blessed sunflowers, he couldn’t withhold his hungry grin. Charles had instructed him to resist the temptation of the sunflowers. If he didn’t, there would be no mercy.

Atticus chuckled with a surge of defiance and reached for the tall stalks. His fingers threaded through the enchanted leaves, and his cock swelled within seconds. His lashes fluttered as he rubbed at his hardness through his shorts, letting the long-denied sensations flow though him.

It was the law of princesses never to know an intimate touch until true love’s kiss. But Charles had already been Atticus’s true love before Atticus was aware. Atticus hummed a contented note as he rubbed at himself. It was foolish to call Charles by his mortal name. He was Idi, the glorious Witchking. His destined true love from before Mother Storyteller hatched from her golden egg.

Idi was the strength the world needed to know. Idi was the fire that awoke the winter queen Atticus’s closed heat. If Atticus had to suffer through his princess designation and never be a king, he was determined to be the malevolent queen the Enchants would never expect. He would reign alongside Idi, usher in a new era of chaos and ice. If the Enchants resisted the new regime, they would know the devastation of the Tranquil Frost.

Taylor would come for him. Taylor, the
Curseless
princess, would draw his line in the sand and rally the Enchants behind him.

Atticus fondled himself harder as he clutched the sunflower stalk. Taylor couldn’t have this. Taylor couldn’t have the love Atticus had with Idi. Taylor couldn’t even have his love. Taylor was
nothing
. Taylor was an insignificant speck in the universe. Taylor would never become a star; he would never have gravity; he would never be anything.

Clarity was a wonderful thing. Atticus had worshipped his brother. The rebel. The free spirit. The Hatfield son who stood up to their domineering father. The one who got to escape.

But worshipping a false God had crippling repercussions. Atticus grunted like the Jabberwocky herself as he let the pleasure roll through him.

Taylor was selfish. Taylor wanted Atticus’s life. Taylor wanted Idi.

Taylor couldn’t have Idi. And Atticus would take Taylor apart if he dared to try.

Taylor got everything he ever wanted. Everything.

Everything
.

Now it was Atticus’s turn to have what he wanted. And he would take it all.

He would become Snow White the Witch Butcher, and on the arm of Idi the Witchking, Enchants, witches, and mundanes didn’t stand a chance.

Taylor would bow to Atticus.

Atticus would not be satisfied until Taylor licked the dirt off his boot.

The price of freedom and the price of treason would be far more than Taylor’s soul could pay.

With his climax so close, Atticus found his restraint and withdrew from the sunflowers. His reason returned. He took a soothing breath and looked out across the endless field of sunflowers, satisfied with his work. The field of sunflowers stood petrified, frozen in spines of icicles, sweeping out into the horizon. Atticus gasped with a burst of joy and looked over his hand. Nothing seemed different about it. But he didn’t stop there.

“You left me,” Atticus growled, visualizing Taylor right in front of him. He flicked an arm downward, and a spire of ice shot from the gravel road, the pebbles frozen in the surface. He pivoted on his heel. “You abandoned me,” he snarled again and flicked his arm again. A taller spire shot from the ground. It creaked and cracked in the summer breeze. Atticus shot out both hands before him, and the Taylor of his mind stood glaring at him. He defied Atticus with his feral pink stare. “
You are nothing
,” Taylor whispered in his mind and stood defiant.

Atticus bellowed in the fury of a dismissed sibling. He brought his hands above his right shoulder and felt the coldness of a thick handle materialize between his palms. He clutched it and bought the rod forward, hoping to beat Taylor’s head from his shoulders. Instead, an ax head crystalized across the handle as Atticus brought it around.

Taylor’s head fell away with a smooth slice. His body dropped, the stump of his neck frozen over. His head rolled, coated in glassy layers of ice. Taylor stared up at Atticus with his pink eyes that even defied him in death.

Atticus screamed, jerking Taylor’s decapitated head from the road. “I deserve this, I deserve this,
I deserve this
!” Atticus howled at Taylor’s dead face. He reared back with the head in his hands and threw it down onto the gravel like it was nothing more than a child’s toy.

Taylor’s face shattered, and skull shards scattered through the pebbles. All the while Taylor’s pink eyes glared up at Atticus, facing his death in defiance of Snow White the Witch Butcher.

Atticus brought his heel down on Taylor’s frozen eyes, crushing them like glass. He huffed, and the frost of his breath rose in wisps from his mouth.

Idi’s hand slithered over Atticus’s shoulder. “Good,” Idi purred, stroking Atticus’s cheek.

Atticus nuzzled into the touch. “He took everything from me.”

“Not everything,” Idi said, and Atticus turned to face him. He still wore Charles as his vessel. But Atticus knew the truth. His true magnificence was underneath the glass of Charles’s visage. “He would never take me from you.”

But Idi would be Charles for the time being. He would have to keep his power secret, just as Atticus’s true needs would only live between them. Atticus burned with the anticipation to call Charles by his true name and scream it out as he took him in the shower.

Atticus ensnared Charles by the scruff of his neck. “I want his head. For real.”

It appeared Charles took pleasure in Atticus’s rough touch. “And I will see to it you have it. But….” He glanced at Taylor’s crushed face. “His eyes seem to offend you most.”

Atticus yanked Charles to his level and commanded him in a low tone. “I will
eat
his eyes.”

Charles blinked, his eyes bleeding with black, like drops of ink into water. He pursed his lips and drew his eyebrows upward, seeming concerned.

Atticus sneered; how could someone as powerful as he show hesitance? He claimed Charles’s mouth, possessing him and taking the magic of his soul within his own. Atticus felt Charles reach into the waistband of his shorts and reward his hate-fueled needs with firm strokes.

Atticus pulled away from Charles’s mouth, his breathing ragged and his body trembling. “Yes…,” he panted breathlessly as Charles held him up while stroking. “Yes….” His muscles clenched as the bolt of Charles’s dark magic shot through him. Atticus barked with the sensation.

“You’re mine, Princess,” Charles said in a low tone.

“Forever…,” Atticus whispered and licked his lips.

“Together, we will erase Taylor from existence,” Charles stated, and Atticus snarled at his words.

“Taylor is
mine
,” Atticus snapped and gnashed his teeth as he came into Charles’s hand. Once Atticus’s orgasm passed, he shoved Charles away.

Charles stumbled back as Atticus yanked his shorts back to his waist. Atticus caught the bewildered expression in Charles’s eyes.

“You wanted this, right? You would stop at nothing to find me?” Atticus asked. He looked out over the field of frozen flowers and spires of ice. “Well, now you need to be ready for what you have wrought.” Atticus stalked away from Charles and clenched his upraised fist.

The frozen flowers and spires dispersed into a torrent of hail, tearing through the oak trees and ricocheting off the gravel.

The Tranquil Frost would silence the defiant world.

And Atticus would freeze Taylor’s last breath.

T
HE
T
OUGH
G
UYS
T
UMBLE

Margate City, New Jersey

June 9

C
ORENTIN
STUMBLED
out of the Starbucks bathroom just as drunkenly as he had stumbled in. It had been three days, and they were hitting dangerous levels of delirium. At least Corentin knew he was. The rapid day changes were shocking his system hard. He could withstand a lot before he broke down.

Taylor’s presence had managed to do that quite efficiently in the days of being stuck together. Only Corentin couldn’t perceive the days. It only felt like they had been together for thirty hours. Apparently, thirty hours with a princess will drive any reasonable man insane.

He found Taylor at the beach, sitting in the sand and seeming lost in thought. Ringo sat on his shoulder, occasionally pointing to the waves. Corentin frowned. Taylor always had a way of looking so lonely and closed off to everything.

As heartbreaking as it was, Corentin had to keep it on the tightest of leashes now, not give in to the desire to comfort him. He couldn’t even fantasize about Taylor without envisioning a complete demoralization of the guy. Corentin suspected it had something to do with the spell Charles had enchanted him with. But he wasn’t so sure anymore. His journal chronicled the horrific acts he had done to his previous victims, and he had notes of their screams, how much blood, and how he disposed of them.

But there were never any notes of gloating or seeming to enjoy any of it.

There were entries of his passing days, of how alone he was. How he was just waiting on the next thing. Waiting on the next order. Waiting. Always waiting for a shred of hope that there was something out there. That someday it would all come together.