The Stolen Princess (Fated Royals 1)

The village tavern was called the Cock and Bull. From several hundred yards away, the raucous noise of revelers’ voices and the clink of glasses spilled out from the half-open windows. I knew it was risky to show my face there, since my father or any one of his friends might spot me, but it was a risk I had to take. All information about happenings in town were known there by Charmaine who tended to the liquor. And so, I conquered my fears and stepped through the door.

The room went quiet when I walked in. Aside from the barmaid, the room was full of men. As their eyes fell on me, I saw a new expression—one that I was very unaccustomed to seeing: hunger. The hunger of he-wolves and bucks and stallions. The hunger of desire.

“High time this village got a fresh pussy for us men to enjoy,” one of the men at the bar said as he laughed. The rest of the men in the pub seemed to grumble their agreement.

Most of them were locals, but as my eyes drifted around the room I spotted a single table of five men, all unfamiliar to me, wearing the colorful garb of city folk, probably from one of the provinces closer to the capital, not like the well-worn drab linen and sackcloth that passed for clothing around here. The men stared at me with an air of arrogance that made me swallow hard.

I could barely talk. “I’d never…”

“I like a little protest when I pay for it,” one of the city men said. “If it’s too easy, it’s no fun at all.”

His companions guffawed drunkenly, nodding their agreement, and a few of the locals twisted their lips into grins.

I looked to Charmaine for help. I had known her most of my life if at arm’s length, but now even she looked at me with a new coldness in her eyes.

Still, it was nothing compared to the way the men stared and I sought some comfort from her as I approached the bar. “We don’t allow your sort of women here.” She spoke as though ice had formed on each word.

Suddenly, the logic of it all became clear to me. Angelica had tainted me by association. Because I was staying with the village prostitute, they thought I’d followed in her line of work. I was outraged for so many reasons—not least among them that I’d come to see Angelica as a kind and caring friend. What did it matter what she did to survive?

Yet again, I knew my youth was against me. Appearances mattered and I’d tarnished mine.

“I’m looking for Angelica,” I said to the barmaid. “Have you seen her?”

“’Course I have.” She wiped down the bar with a dirty rag. “You’ll find her in the sheriff’s holding cell, getting no better than she deserves. She’s awaiting trial.”

“Trial?” I gasped. “For what? She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s a good woman. She gave me shelter when I had none, she gave me…”

Charmaine cut me off. “Save your excuses, child. She’s being tried for witchcraft. They’ll burn her if she’s found guilty.”

I could see I’d get no help or support from her, no matter that she was a woman, and I turned to go. But when I did, I found my escape was blocked by a half-circle of the city men that had gathered around me.

Instinctively, I reached for the knife that Bors had given me, but I was too slow and the men too experienced for me to surprise them. One of them stepped forward and pinned my arms to the bar. “Please,” I begged. “This is all a misunderstanding. I’m not selling my body. I’m not a whore!”

It was as if they couldn’t hear me at all, blinded as they were by frenzied lust. A second man hiked my skirt up and I felt his rough, greasy fingers on the inside of calf, then my knee, then my thigh, and I screamed at him to leave me alone, but it did no good.

As they handled me, the barmaid’s voice rose above the hammering of my heart. “It was us who took Angelica to the sheriff. Everyone said she’d worked her dark magic on you. How else could something that had been so pure become so wicked?”

Desperately, struggling against their grip as I begged them to stop, I searched for a means of escape, but I could find none. A third man stepped forward and clapped his hand over my mouth, then tore my blouse from my chest. My eyes filled with tears as I fought with all my might, screaming against his palm for help. But when I looked through the men, the barmaid had abandoned me, and the pub had emptied except for these strangers.

These five men meant to take me by force, and I was utterly and completely powerless to stop them. I tried kicking them between the legs, but the fifth man grabbed my ankles. “Lads, this is going to be a fun ride!” He crowed as he reached down to undo the buttons on his britches.