Prey (part 3)

A fairytale with fangs

💕✨🌙Part 3 of a mini-serial in 4 parts🌙✨💕

In last week’s episode, Robert rediscovered Aurelia’s secret but found himself a little tongue-tied about revealing it. Meanwhile, both are regally engaged to other people—that neither loves.

Frank Dicksee, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (detail)

The court physician bent over Robert as the thane lay prone in his room, tutting and rubbing thoughtful fingers through his long white beard.

“See the indents here, the wounds? What do they look like to you?”

“Almost like the bite of a snake,” murmured Sophia perplexedly. “But there are no snakes in this realm of such size.”

“Indeed. And you can tell us nothing, young man?”

Robert shook his head in exasperation, his throat working, but all he could manage to croak out was a single word, over and over: “Scales.”

“A fascinating conundrum, is it not, Princess?”

“I shall be able to think of nothing else.”

“You will be happy, then” the physician winked, “and you, my lord, should take comfort that at least your predicament provides pleasure for your lady. She likes little more than a difficult puzzle”. The princess had been secretly attending patients with him since she was old enough to carry his medicine bag, for the old man recognised a scholar when he saw one, and was too wise to care whether it wore skirts.

“Well, well, your pulse is strong and steady, and your temperature is nearly what it ought to be once more. I daresay you will come to no harm tonight. Princess, let us retire to my library, and see if we cannot chance upon the manner of creature that caused this wound.”

“Thank you,” Robert managed to croak, as Sophia followed the physician from the room with her brow creased in thought.

By morning, Robert was well enough to walk unaided to the Great Hall to hear the reading of the banns. The castle gossips had been busy, and he found himself on the receiving end of many moonstruck gazes, his reputation as the saviour of Princess Aurelia blossoming overnight like a weed. He was forced to take her arm and be cheered as her hero, even as he shuddered at the touch of her skin.

“I am glad to see you healing, sir,” she cooed mockingly.

Robert attempted an answer, but the words died in his throat, and he managed nothing more than an inchoate grunt that only made her smile wider.

Dimpling prettily at the applause, Aurelia leaned to whisper in his ear, “you should thank me. See what my little white lie has done for your reputation! You’re more popular with his courtiers than my dear fiancé, Engstrand!”

It seemed Aurelia wasn’t the only one aware of this. Engstrand’s smile was sour as a lemon. But if the crown prince was looking green, his sister was positively pasty, with deep mauve circles under her eyes.

Bocca Baciata, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (detail)

“Oh dear, Princess, are you unwell?” asked Lucien, offering her his arm to lead her to breakfast.

“Thank you, I’m just tired. I was up all night in the library,” she offered, then flinched as if she would bite back the words. But the Sylvan prince just grinned and said, “I’ve done that a few times myself. Find anything interesting?”

“Perhaps—I was trying to discover what sort of creature might have attacked the thane.”

She must have said too much after all, for Lucien politely took his leave, and went to find his sister. Sophia felt a pang, and stifled it with her old ally, detached observation. Watching Lucien talk with his sister, his normally calm gestures agitated, something in her head gave a little click, and she resolved to return to the library after breakfast, and check her notes.

The meal was a quieter affair than the supper of the night before, with each of the royal guests sunk in their own thoughts, and quick to depart about their own business for the day.

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At dinner, Sophia found herself sitting next to Robert, even as her eyes lingered curiously on her future sister-in law. With a little effort, she turned her attention to her fiancé.

“I trust you are recovered?”

“Much better thank you. I rode to the town today. The market seems prosperous.”

“Yes, traders come from far and wide.” Sophia was pleased to have a reason to brag a little about her country. At least Robert would become prince of a prosperous land when he wed his boring, bookish bride. But already his glance was sliding away from her, to where Aurelia was slipping from the hall through one of the garden entrances, likely to steal a moment’s peace from Engstrand’s boasting.

“Excuse me.”

“Of course.”

Arthur Hughes, April Love (detail)

Sophia watched Robert follow in Aurelia’s tracks, anxiety mixed with dull resignation. She had better get used to her bridegroom chasing after other women. After all, what claim had she to his interest? Arranged marriages are just that—business arrangements with no place for sentiment. A moment later, she was distracted from her gloomy thoughts as Lucien took Robert’s vacant seat. She eyed him with new interest.

“Lucien, I must learn more about my sister-in-law-to-be. You shall tell me all about your childhood! And your family—your parents. What is your mother like? Is she also very beautiful?”

She might have been suspicious at the speed with which Lucien turned the conversation from personal details, had she not lost herself so deeply in their discussion about the difficulty of identifying kelpie tracks.

Robert, meanwhile, was tracking a different water spirit. He stepped out into the cool, dark garden and for a second the scent of lilacs and the churring of nightjars soothed him. Then he saw her wandering through the trees, a white shade in the darkness, and he moved to intercept her.

“Princess Aurelia.”

“Thane Robert.”

“Are we alone?”

“Quite alone, I believe. Why? Do you have something you wish to discuss with me? Something of a delicate nature, perhaps?” She laughed, mockingly. “Oh, but you can’t can you? Discuss it, I mean.”

Robert’s face contorted with effort, his throat working, but all he produced was a gargling sound that drew mocking laughter from his tormentor. His blood rose in anger, his face grew hot and then he paused and smiled to himself.

“I may not be able to speak about… that. But I remember everything. And I remember more. Your naked body.” He leaned closer, his lips parted in a thin smile. “The white of your belly. The swell of your breasts.” He stepped closer still, taunting her now, daring her to strike as he inclined his head so that his breath tickled her ear, fell hot on the skin exposed by her low-cut gown.

“How dare you,” she hissed, but she did not move away.

“I remember the rosy pink of your nipples,” he raised his eyes to meet hers, and smiled wider to see their deep blue-green sparking with outrage. “They were firm as berries, as if they wanted to be tasted.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing a deep blush flash over her throat and chest as her hand flew out and struck him a stinging slap on the cheek. He caught her wrists and held them as she squirmed.

John Everett Millais, The Escape of a Heretic 1559 (detail)

“Insolent human!”

“Monster!”

“I could bite you now. Kill you here,” she spat furiously.

“But you won’t. Because the Princess already suspects, doesn’t she? And you need her brother to marry you. Why? Your father’s kingdom is far larger than his, your army more powerful.”

“You dare to question me?” her eyes blazed at him.

“You love him no more than I love his sister!”

“Love? Hah! He’s a fool. Even worse than most humans.”

Robert leaned close to whisper as tenderly as a lover, “better a foolish human than a freak.”

She tilted her chin so that her lips were a breath away from his. “You pretend to be repelled but you’re just as pathetic as the rest of them.”

“Pathetic?” he smirked, squeezing her wrists so hard she gasped.

“Pathetic.” She stopped squirming and smiled, moving her body against his so that he felt her heat through the rich silk of his tunic. “So easy to seduce.”

“Is that so?” He pulled her more tightly against him, as tightly as she had held him in her coils the evening before. A vivid memory of her naked skin against his sent his heart hammering, but he noticed with satisfaction that her heartbeat now seemed to echo his.

“So… pathetically… easy…” she breathed, closing the final distance between them. Her lips found his and parted, her tongue flicking inside his mouth, her eyes blazing triumph. But then they widened in confusion and she pulled away. “What—?”

“You caught me off guard twice. But you never shall again.” He bent toward her and the throat of his tunic glinted, a dark, green-grey stone glistening on a heavy golden chain.

“Galaxite!”

“Yes. Or Snakestone, to give it its folk name. You should tell your fiancé it sometimes pays to listen to the superstitious nonsense of peasants.”

“Where did you get it?” Aurelia shrank back from the stone as if it could burn.

“I found a trader in the town. As luck would have it, a shipment had just come in from Kebec, and I was able to buy a good quantity for a fair price.” He smirked and leaned in closer. “I shall be sure to give your bridegroom some as a wedding present. His clever sister will understand at once, and I shan’t have to say a word.”

Aurelia’s eyes widened in horror. “No!” she hissed.

“Aurelia?”

At the voice they sprang apart like startled cats.

“Is all well?” Prince Engstrand glanced from one to the other.

“Quite well thank you, beloved,” Aurelia cooed. “I came out to the garden for some air. It’s so hot in the hall. I felt faint and Thane Robert was kind enough to offer me his arm.”

“Oh dear. I hope you are quite recovered?”

“Quite, thank you.”

“Well then, let us all return to the feast. My new minstrel is about to begin a song in honour of my valour and your eyes.”

“How charming,” she smiled, allowing Prince Engstrand to lead her from the garden. Robert followed, his eyes gleaming triumph.

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Edward Degas, Woman in her Bath Sponging her Leg (detail)

Aurelia was a quick learner. When she sank down into her bath that night, she made sure to turn the key in the lock first. The hot water did little to soothe her irritation with the thane, though, however glorious its scent of lavender and rosemary. It couldn’t dislodge the memory of his insolence, or the nagging fear of how he might expose her.

Over and over in her mind went their garden encounter, her emotions a jumble of outrage, shock, and something quite new—the sensation of her control over a human male slipping from her grasp. Just the memory of his arrogant words, his daring to mock her with that gaudy bauble of a talisman, made her heart pound in fury, and she amused herself by imagining what she might do to him the next time she found him alone.

She would find a way to remove that pendant, then taunt him and tease him until he begged her to release him from his misery. Aurelia’s tail twitched in anticipation, but even in the midst of her fantasies, she couldn’t shake a growing discomfort each time she remembered his body against hers. Oh, she wanted to nip and bite him, probably more than her teeth had ever hungered. But in the midst of imagining her fangs sinking into his annoyingly pretty chest, the thought would keep popping up of what it might feel like to use her mouth more gently. And even worse, a strange fascination with the possibility of him kissing her back.

While Aurelia was lost in her reveries, someone even more adept at learning than she slipped a sheet of paper under her chamber door. The key jiggled in the lock, dropped, and was pulled through the gap between wood and flagstones. Stealthily, the door swung open. It closed just as stealthily behind someone who took the time to replace the key, giving it a firm turn.

“I was right,” remarked Sophia, gazing with a scholar’s curiosity at Aurelia’s serpentine tail curled about her in the bathtub.

Aurelia leapt up, but the other woman held out a calming hand. “Don’t fear. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“How did you—?”

“The bite marks on the thane’s chest. And then I heard the chamber maids gossiping about how much the new princess loved her baths. You can learn a lot from listening to the servants.”

Aurelia swallowed; inside her mouth, her tongue flicked against her fangs, considering. “You’ll tell your brother, of course?”

“Why would I do that? You need to marry him, don’t you? For a soul.”

“You know that too?”

“I have a special fondness for books of legend. They have much to say about Lamia. Your kind are beautiful, powerful. But you are mortal, and worse, once you die, you are lost to eternity. You have no soul of your own.”

Aurelia gazed at Sophia, confused by a feeling she’d never encountered before: respect for the intelligence of a human being. “But we can gain one. If we can convince a human male to marry us.”

“Yes.”

“The reason my father brokered this engagement. The peace treaty was just icing on the cake.” Aurelia frowned. “But you’d let your own brother marry me, knowing what I am? Why?”

Sophia scoffed. “You think you’re worse than him? You at least kill because you have to. He enjoys it. Actually, I’m relieved. I wanted to see if my theory was correct, but that’s not the real reason I’m here.” She paused, and swallowed, rolling up a sleeve to show a vicious red welt. “I had to warn you. He likes to cause pain.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith (detail)

Aurelia’s eyes flashed. “He did that to you?”

Sophia nodded.

“Why?”

“Because he likes it when I cry out.”

Aurelia’s anger propelled her from the bath, her tail vanishing into legs as she stormed across the room to wrench open the girl’s gown. Sophia’s pale skin was covered in bruises and scars.

“He says I deserve it. Because I like to read, to learn. He says I humiliate him. That I’m a freak.”

“Freak,” hissed Aurelia, low through her teeth. “These human men like that word, don’t they? Well, we’ll see how he likes being married to one. I promise you, once we are wed, he will never touch you again.”

Sophia smiled wanly. “We shall both be married to men we do not love, it seems. But you don’t know how happy I am that you’re—different. Strong. He won’t be able to hurt you, after all, and I was so worried, so guilty! I am heart-sorry that it has taken me so long to find the courage to warn you what he’s like! Can you forgive me?”

Aurelia blinked at the pale whisp of a girl before her. “You came to warn me, knowing I would likely break the engagement? And that Engstrand would take his anger out on you?”

Sophia nodded. “But I should have come sooner.”

Aurelia hissed again. “How do these men do it? They behave like monsters, and yet they somehow always make us feel as if we are to blame! Of course I forgive you! Him though,” she ran an angry tongue across her fangs, “he will be sorry soon enough.”

Sophia pulled Aurelia into an impulsive hug. “Whatever my marriage is like, at least I shall have a sister I can love!”

Dripping, Aurelia awkwardly hugged her back, confused by a second new experience—embracing a human she desired to protect, not kill.

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Copyright notice

© Moll Moonlight. All rights reserved.

Will Aurelia channel her inner monster for good instead of evil?

Is Robert’s necklace enough to save him?

Are Christmas Dinners in the Sylvan court destined to be a worse nightmare than that time someone slipped Nanna too much sherry?

Don’t miss next week’s episode:

If you’re enjoying Aurelia’s confusion and Robert’s smugness, or just a little sister bonding, please like, restack and tell your friends!

John Everett Millais, Only a Lock of Hair (detail)