Chapter 1: The Audition
The air in Prince Alistair’s study tasted of rosewater and deceit. Elara knelt on the Persian rug, her knees already aching against the intricate patterns of birds and twisting vines. The rug was worth more than her entire childhood neighborhood. She focused on that, on the unfairness of it, as the prince’s cock filled her mouth.
He wasn’t gentle. He never was. One hand was fisted in her auburn curls, guiding her head with a brutal precision. The other rested on the arm of his wingchair, fingers tapping a silent, impatient rhythm. She looked up, her emerald eyes meeting his ice-blue ones. He stared back, his aristocratic face a mask of cold detachment. The only sound was the wet, rhythmic gagging and the distant crackle of dying embers in the fireplace.
“Deep,” he commanded, his voice flat.
She took him deeper, suppressing her gag reflex through sheer will, her throat burning. She could feel him pulse against her tongue. He was enjoying this, but not in the way men usually did. There was no lust-clouded glaze in his eyes, only a calculating sharpness. This was an inspection. A test.
With a sudden, brutal yank, he pulled himself out of her mouth. The air felt cold on her wet lips. Before she could gasp, his open palm connected with her cheek. The slap wasn’t meant to knock her over, just to sting, to humiliate. It snapped her head to the side. Pain bloomed hot and bright across her skin.
“You’ll need to be better than that for Philippe, you little whore.”
She kept her head turned, catching her breath, the taste of him salty and bitter on her tongue. She could feel his gaze crawling over her exposed neck, the swell of her breasts above her corset.
“He likes it rough,” Alistair continued, his voice a low snarl. “Worse than me. He’ll choke you until you see stars. He’ll call you ‘cunt’ and make you thank him for the privilege. He might even make you bleed. Just a little. It amuses him.” He leaned down, his breath hot on her ear. “Can you take that? Or will your famous fire sputter and die?”
Elara turned her face back to him. The defiance in her eyes was real, a banked coal that never went out. She licked her swollen lips, a deliberately slow, provocative gesture. She saw a flicker in his cold eyes—not warmth, but interest. A predator noticing another predator.
“I can take anything he gives me,” she said, her voice husky from the throat-fucking. “As long as you hold up your end of the bargain.”
His lips thinned. The bargain. Her services in seducing his rival, the Duke of Philippe, in exchange for the documents that proved her family’s land was stolen, the evidence that could restore her name. A lie, probably. He was a prince. His word was worth less than the dust on his boots. But it was the only game in town.
“Your end is to be his perfect whore,” Alistair stated. “Mouth, cunt, ass. Whatever he wants. You become his obsession. You make him whisper secrets into your pillow. Then you bring those secrets to me.”
He reached for the fall of his breeches again, his cock standing thick and angry. “We’re not done. You need practice.”
He didn’t guide her head back down. He simply watched, waiting for her to choose. That was the true game. Her submission had to be voluntary, a conscious sacrifice on the altar of her ambition.
Elara held his gaze and leaned forward. She took him into her mouth again, her tongue swirling around the head before she sank down, deeper than before. A low groan escaped him. Good. Let him feel a fraction of the control he thought he wielded.
But it was just a fraction. With a growl, he wrenched her off him by her hair. “On your feet. Turn around. Bend over the desk.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a gilded cage. She rose, her legs trembling slightly, and turned her back to him. The polished mahogany desk was scattered with maps and sealed letters. She braced her hands on the cool wood, the scent of ink and old paper filling her nose. She heard the rustle of his clothes, the slick sound of him spitting into his palm.
He didn’t bother with pretense. He didn’t touch her to prepare her. He just grabbed her hip with one vise-like hand, yanked her skirt and petticoats up with the other, and drove into her in one vicious, tearing thrust.
Elara cried out, a sharp gasp of pain that echoed in the quiet room. She was dry, tight, utterly unprepared. He fucked her with a punishing, mechanical rhythm, each thrust jarring her teeth, rattling the desk. The leather-bound books on the shelves seemed to watch, impassive witnesses.
“This,” he grunted, pounding into her, “is nothing. Philippe will be worse. He’ll want you screaming. He’ll want you broken.”
Tears of pain and fury stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She focused on the map under her fingers, the inked lines of borders and fortifications. Power. This was all about power. His over her. Hers, someday, over them all. She pushed back against him, a small, defiant resistance. It made him snarl and grip her hip harder, his fingers surely leaving bruises.
He fucked her brutally, a clinical and cruel enactment of dominance. The slapping sound of their bodies was obscene in the dignified study. His breathing grew ragged, his thrusts more erratic. He came inside her with a final, deep grind, his body shuddering against her back. He stayed there for a moment, his weight heavy on her, his breath hot on her neck.
Then he pulled out, stepping back as if disengaging from a distasteful chore.
Elara slowly straightened, her body throbbing. She smoothed her skirts down with trembling hands, forcing a mask of calm indifference onto her face before turning to face him.
Alistair was already refastening his breeches, his expression once again smooth and unreadable. He walked to a carved cabinet, poured two glasses of brandy, and held one out to her.
She took it, her knuckles white around the crystal.
“You’ll attend the ball at Versailles tomorrow night,” he said, sipping his drink. “Philippe will be there. Make him notice you. Make him want you. Use whatever means necessary.”
“And my documents?” she asked, her voice steady.
“After.” His ice-blue eyes held hers. “One secret from Philippe’s pillow, one page of your past. That’s the trade.”
He walked to the fireplace and tossed the rest of his brandy onto the embers. They hissed and flared for a second, illuminating a hidden compartment in the stonework beside the hearth. He pried it open with a thin blade from his desk and pulled out a single sheet of parchment.
“A show of good faith,” he said, handing it to her.
It was a church registry entry. Her parent’s marriage. Their names, in official script. Proof they existed, that they were legitimate. It was the first brick in the wall of truth she needed to build. It was nothing, and it was everything.
She folded it carefully, hiding it in her bodice, against her skin.
“Leave through the servants’ passage,” he said, turning his back to her, staring into the fire. “The same way you came.”
Elara didn’t curtsy. She simply turned and walked to the paneled wall, pressing the hidden latch. The door swung open silently into a dark, narrow corridor that smelled of damp stone and tallow candles.
As she stepped into the darkness, his voice followed her, cold and clear.
“Remember, Elara. He has to believe you belong to him. Body and soul.”
The panel clicked shut behind her, swallowing her whole. In the pitch-black passage, she allowed herself one moment to lean against the cold stone, to feel the ache between her legs and the fragile paper crackling against her breasts.
She smiled then, a sharp, dangerous thing in the dark.
Let them believe she belonged to them. It would make their fall so much sweeter.
HE FUCKS HER BRUTALLY.