His Lycan Princess | 18+

The Devil Himself

I brought my goblet to my lips and had another staid sip. “I bet you come from wealth,” I ventured, eyeing Bane.

Alright, admittedly, this wasn’t exactly a wild guess. With his cocky attitude, his immense confidence and arrogant meandering around the splendid Vilskansser mansion and all its opulence, calling him upper-crust was far from doubtful. But I didn’t want to be bold, I didn’t want to risk it. I had to make him drink. And fast.

“Yes, one might think the luxurious estate gives it away,” he replied sardonically, suggesting that my bet was no lucky guess at all worthy of a sip, but rather an obvious observation. Still, he did me the favor and he drank. I watched him down the wine, praying he wouldn’t detect the poison. Was the dose I had given him enough to alter the flavor? I had no clue.

“And you come from poverty,” he said, shooting his shot.

“Now, now,” I said, “that’s not very nice.”

He raised a dark brow. “But I am right.”

“You’re right,” I admitted, and I drank in turn. What sort of royalty would ever willingly send their aristocratic offspring into the land of the beasts and the cursed, into the Mistbound Forest? None. Only the poor suffered fates like my own. Of course, I came from poverty. And from adversity, from tolerance, from the daily struggle of a long lineage of women who fought and withstood and shone brighter than the darkness threatening to consume them. The Huntresses. Poor, but kicking ass.

Funnily enough, it felt like we both were cheating in this game, trying to get the opponent wasted first by simply stating whatever came into focus.

Hmm, what should my next guess be about? I decided to follow the same trail of thought as before. Besides, he had already admitted he was rich. I just had to add more to the picture. “You were raised amidst opulence,” I surmised. “Coddled, spoiled, with a swarm of despairing nannies always running after you to keep you away from trouble and mischief. Usually failing. You were a very, very naughty boy. A proper hell-raiser. Yet, your mother yielded to your every whim, and your father yielded to your mother’s every whim. Hence, you never learnt what no means.”

“All this great narration and this intricate storytelling of yours,” he said, running his middle finger languorously along the rim of his goblet, “just for me to tell you you’re full of shit.” He laughed, amused by how far off I was with my presumptions. He had a nice laughter which resonated all around and within me, it was robust and a little hoarse, with a rich timbre and a hint of depth. “You think you have me all figured out, love? Think again.”

“C’mon!” I protested. “No despairing nannies?”

“No.”

“No mischief?”

“Hey,” he said, feigning a blend of defensiveness and affront. “Stop denigrating my childhood. I was a little angel of a boy.”

And yet, I thought to myself, you look so much like the devil himself. Mysterious, canning, compelling, and lustful. A sin in human form. Well, almost human. Mostly human.

“At least,” I said, “tell me you’re an only child.”

“I am.”

“Aha!” I chirruped triumphantly. “I knew it!”

“Now. I am an only child now,” he clarified.

“Huh?” Maybe I had rushed to celebrate my triumph after all.

Bane lowered his gaze and let it sink into the red depths of his poison-filled goblet. He stared at it for a long, torturous, nerve-wrecking moment that made me believe he somehow knew of my doing. I waited, but instead of wrapping his big hands around my throat to kill me, he just kept on talking. “I wasn’t born an only child,” he explained. “So, you’re right and you’re wrong. We both drink.”

He lifted his goblet and I did too, a gesture like a silent toast to… to what? To him not killing me? To actually playing the game by the rules? To finally making guesses and not observations even blind folks could make? Possibly. Then again, I never knew with Bane Vilskansser. Our goblets clinked together, creating a light, melodious sound as they made contact. Cheers, werewolf. Cheers, mortal.

I hesitated before taking my sip of wine. “Hold on, that makes no sense. You either got siblings or you don’t. You can’t be a part-time only child, you know.”

There it was again, that unexplainable hesitation of his, that negation to look me in the eyes and speak. All of a sudden, he seemed lost and detached, like he had turned to some dark, inner part in the depths of his mind where none could reach him. Not even me. He was all alone with his thoughts. And that seemed to haunt him.

“Bane?”

My voice led him out of it. His eyes met mine and the spark of recognition inside them told me he was with me again. “There was an attack in Bersanthia,” he confided in me. “The Lycan realm, many years ago. My brethren were killed. My parents too. I’m the only one left.”

My lips parted. Oh. That certainly didn’t match my own version of a blithesome childhood full of play, pampering, and shenanigans. This man before me had seen war, death, g******e, and the immeasurable pain of losing everything and everyone he ever loved. “You’re the last of the Vilskansser,” I realized. A shiver crawled its way down my spine.

He nodded. “The last.”

Once again, I found myself drinking. This time though, it wasn’t because he had beat me in the guessing game. It was his confession, the reluctance and the acceptance to share something so personal and so painful with me. What a burden he carried around all by himself! The Slevorians had seen the same grim misfortunes as the Bersanthians then. War. Death. g******e. When the forest devils attacked and killed all the men in the village, the lives they left behind –those of the women and the children– were not the same.

In a way, we had just discovered something we had in common. Sadly. We were both the last of our kind. Him, the last of the Vilskansser. Me, the last of the Huntresses. Both the solitary survivors of a dying breed. Nothing would be left of us once we were gone.

I felt like the situation called for an imperative change of topic. Something to lighten the mood, something to have him drinking again, sulking alone wasn’t enough.

I cleared my throat and I used my cheerful voice. “I bet… you've had many fall for you, but you’ve never been in love with any of them.”

“Touche,” he brought his goblet to his lips and just as he was about to drink, he attacked back, saying: “And you’ve never had a man between your legs. Not before the night of the Blood Moon.”

As hard as I may have tried, I failed to absorb the shock. I opened my mouth to say something, something equally offensive and sensitive and embarrassing, but I was at a loss for words. How dared he? What kind of gentleman spoke of such matters so blatantly? Not a gentleman, I reminded myself, just the devil himself. “Yes,” I hissed. “One might think being sent into the Mistbound Forest alongside eleven other virgins gives it away.”

Bane stood from his chair and he leaned over me, the little distance between us waning. He was so close I could feel his hot breath against my skin as he spoke. “Tell me, Celine, what do you think kissing feels like?” He placed his goblet on the table beside me and his fingers grazed my lips.

"I wouldn't know," I whispered tentatively.

He smiled disarmingly. “And what do you think f*****g feels like?” His words, wrapped in the velvety rasp of his voice, had a way of drawing me in, casting a spell that made me forget everything but him, the way the gold in his eyes glowed, his full mouth lingering half open, his… c**k.

Oh Goodness gracious, his c**k!

When had he undone the button of his pants, when had he lowered the zipper? I looked down in unabashed terror and squealed. I froze at the feeling of his hard c**k pressed against me, gently at first, slowly adding more and more pressure as he rubbed it against my exposed c**t. My breath hissed out before I could stop myself.

“What are you doing?” I murmured. “S-stop.”

“Sssh.”

I tried to close my legs, but he stopped me. Because he had felt it, before I could hide it. The heat, the moist, the longing. He had seen the trickle, the smooth bead sliding down my small, tight slit and wetting the head of his bulging c**k. And Bane had interpreted the sensation as an invitation that couldn’t be revoked. He needed to get inside me, deep, deep within.

“Bane,” I pleaded.

When he looked at me again, he was different. There was nothing of the previous playfulness, of the mocking and the teasing on his striking face. He seemed… resolute, unyielding. Changed.

“You have no idea how good it feels to f**k, to claim, to take. I can show you.” He ran his fingers on the outside of my thighs, while stroking his sinful girth harder between my legs. As ashamed as I was, and as much as I hated to admit my feelings, the way he held me and how his... cock... was hardening and hardening against my untouched s*x made a terrible, pleasing heat bubble up from inside. “Would you like that? Do you want me to f**k you, Celine?"

My jaw dropped and my goblet fell off my trembling hands, the wine soaking my torn gown. The sheer fabric molded obscenely to my body, accentuating every line and curve of my form; my firm, round breasts with their small, pink circles surrounding the pebbled n*****s, unmistakably visible through the dampened material.

I was almost naked.

Naked before him.

And I was terrified.

“D-don’t,” I whispered, unable to continue. I felt my breath catch, my body tense, and my heart skip several beats incapable of overcoming the shock. Besides, he wasn’t making it any easy. He was still touching me down there with the tip of his hot c**k, insinuating himself between my legs, testing my limits, exploring possibilities.

“Don’t what?” he said with a deep, horse voice, heavy with desire.

“D-don’t f**k me, p-please.”

He leaned in closer, closer. “Why not?”

There was a lump in my throat that didn’t allow the words to come out, not effortlessly, I had to push them. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you to,” I was begging now, growing more and more desperate, more confused and venturesome.

Was I really considering this? Considering doing it with him? With this stranger, this wild beast, this man I barely knew?

No, no, no. Of course not. Or was I?

“Liar,” he said.

“I am not,” I lied immediately, but the evidence of my need wetted him all over. “You have to believe me, I’m not lying–”

He leaned down, brought his head next to mine and whispered to my ear: "You are and it’s against the rules of the game. But I forgive you. I’ll drink for you." His tongue stroked my neck, catching a red wine droplet running along a vein underneath my skin. He relished it, the flavor, my flavor, and he gave me a growl I didn’t want to enjoy, but I did.

I did.

I struggled to find my voice, I struggled to find something to say, to defend myself, to protest. I had nothing. We both knew I was telling him the truth and I was lying to his face at the same time. I wanted this with him, and I didn’t want it. The only certainty was that I had no idea what I wanted. My mind and my heart were at war with one another. Emotions were contradicting, and while logic said I should resist him, he did wonderful, dark things to my body and to that treacherous little part between my legs that kept burning with a hot moist that begged for soothing.

“You’re thinking about it, Celine. Like I am. And it’s messing with your head.” He bit his lower lip. “Should I do everything to you right now?” He was definitely tempted. “Lay you down, spread your legs wide open, and just take you?” One thrust and he’d be inside me. I could feel him holding his breath, holding back from the last little bit of distance. “Should I?”