Asteria In Love with the Prince (17 page)

That didn’t happen.

He was sorry, of course, but not just about Calara. There was a sense that he was only just realizing – as was I – that I’d had some sort of expectation, some dream of the future. It wasn’t that I thought we’d marry – not consciously, at least. But on some level, I’d imagined us together forever, as his one and only, however we made that work.

“I should have made things clearer,” he said.

“
Clearer?!”

“Calara and I have been betrothed for a year. She’s been travelling in the Far East.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty.”

“So she hasn’t chosen you yet – but she will when she turns twenty-one.”

He nodded. “That’s what we mean by betrothed. We know we’ll be together. There will be a wedding, and she’ll put on my collar.”

I was suddenly crying: big, heaving sobs. Jagor tried to put his arms around me, but I pushed him away. I could feel the palace collar around my neck and clawed at it, trying to tear it loose.

“Lucy!” Jagor said, afraid, “You’ll hurt yourself—”

I pulled and pulled, the velvet leaving red marks on my neck, but it wouldn’t tear—

“Lucy, please!” And suddenly he was behind me, one huge arm around me to hold me still, his other hand fiddling with the back of the collar. The lock popped free. I snatched the collar off and hurled it to the floor.

I stared at it, then raised my eyes to him, my face burning with anger. “What did you want for us?” I shouted.

“I— I hoped you’d give yourself to me, eventually. Become my slave.”

“With Calara as your wife?”

He could see how much it horrified me: how stupid he’d been. “Yes.”

I was almost hysterical now. “But I wanted—I wanted
you
, I was willing to give myself to you, let you
own
me if it meant being with you, but as your wife, not just one of your slaves!”

He looked at the floor. “Lucy, Calara is a noble – a Lady. She’s been prepared for this marriage almost since birth. However much I love you, the people would never accept me marrying—”

“A commoner?” I finished for him.

He gripped my arms. “Lucy, it can still work. We can make it work, we can all live together. There’ll be no jealousy from Calara: she’ll be my wife but we can be lovers. No more creeping around.”

I imagined it. Life in the palace as a pampered slave. Sex with Jagor every night, an unlimited credit card, expensive clothes.

“It’s not enough,” I said quietly.

There was a hard, metallic clang. We both watched the ring roll away across the floor.

***

I packed. Jagor didn’t try to stop me, and I didn’t expose us by saying anything to anyone. The story was that I’d simply changed my mind about the whole job, and would be leaving the Prince’s service immediately.

Outside, as Arno brought the car round, I sensed someone standing behind me. I whirled around, but it wasn’t Jagor. It was Medenko. Any other time I would have been embarrassed, after hearing the conversation from under the desk. But I was beyond that.

“It wasn’t for you, then?” He looked at me carefully, and I knew I’d been right: he had a pretty good idea what had been going on.

I shook my head. Then, bitterly, “It must be a relief.”

He pursed his lips. “I know you think me evil, Lucy. But I only wanted to protect you; I knew this was going to happen.”

“Why did nobody
tell
me?” I was close to tears again.

“Why would they? None of them knew about the two of you.”

I was half-sobbing now, furiously rubbing my eyes. I didn’t want to appear weak in front of him.

“For what it’s worth,” he offered, “I think you did a marvelous job.”

“Translating?” The car pulled up and I opened the door.

‘Becoming an Asterian. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

As I got in, I realized I believed him: I was actually getting the truth from him, for once. He closed the door for me and the car sped off.

***

A week passed.

Back in New York, I spent a few days in bed, with Gwen stopping by to alternately curse Jagor’s name and bring me bagels. She thought I should go to the press and spill everything – our secret romance, the insider scoop on Asterian society, even what the sex was like. I declined.

Money showed up in my bank account – the palace had paid me for the full month, despite me ducking out. It would pay my rent for several months.

At the UN, I managed to plead my old job back. Sato from the state department was apparently furious the whole thing had fallen through, but Foster-Thomas ignored her.

Outwardly, life returned to normal. I translated, ate, and slept.

But whatever I did, there was a Jagor-sized hole in it. I couldn’t go out in the street without thinking I glimpsed him, or hear a phone ring without hoping it was him.

I felt...changed. Not just on a sexual level, although I knew that I’d discovered some things about myself. On a personal level, I was different. More confident. More aware of my looks and my body. Gwen said I now glided. I was better for having known him, in every way except the one that mattered. I’d been alone before – lonely, even. But it had been nothing compared to this.

Then one night the entry phone buzzed. Gwen was due any minute, so I just lifted the receiver and hit the button.

A few minutes later, there was a knock. I flung the door wide, and Jagor was standing there in a dark suit, dripping from the rain.

I was suddenly back in the embassy, my brain failing to process.

It’s the Prince of Asteria.

Of course it isn’t.

“I was wrong,” he told me in Asterian. “I said the people would never accept me marrying you.”

I was having trouble speaking. “You—You think they will?”

He shook his head. “No. But I shouldn’t have cared.”

He stepped across the threshold and in the next step went down on one knee.

“Lucy, if you’ll have me, I want to marry you.” And he held out a ring in a box, just like he had in the limo in New York. Except this wasn’t an outsized, safeword ring. This was a silver engagement ring, with a diamond gleaming atop it.

“I’d give myself to you – I’d be your slave?”

He looked at me steadily. “My slave and my wife.”

“Would you have other slaves?”

“No.”

“What about Calara?” I asked weakly.

“I already told her. And my parents.” He hesitated. “So if you say no, this is going to be a little embarrassing.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

I realized I’d said it so quietly, he wasn’t sure. “YES!” I shouted, “Yes, Your Highness, yes!”

He picked me up and twirled me around, folding me into his arms as he kissed me.

Gwen’s head rose into view as she neared the top of the stairs. She stopped dead.

“OK,” she said slowly. “What did I miss?”

Chapter Eleven

Weeks later, I would hold onto that moment: wrapped in Jagor’s arms, spinning round and round in my cozy New York apartment. It would become my happy place when I was alone in the darkness, body rigid with fear, listening to the soldiers in the street.

I was so happy back then: if you’d described what would happen in Asteria, I would have laughed in your face. Jagor and I felt indestructible.

Gwen had climbed up the last of the stairs and was clutching a bottle of wine by the neck. She looked like she might swing it at Jagor’s head at any moment. I snapped back to reality.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ve—” I realized I was crying, and had to stop and paw at my eyes. “We’re okay. We’re going to get married.”

Anyone else would have dropped the bottle of wine. Gwen was more likely to drop a baby.

“Well, sure,” she said at last. “You’ve known each other
weeks
. I was wondering if you two crazy kids were ever going to tie the knot.” She was still shell-shocked but the Gwen bite was returning fast. I saw Jagor’s expression flicker: he wasn’t used to a woman talking to him that way.

“We’ll make it a long engagement,” I reassured her.

“This wedding will be in Asteria, right?” She was talking to me, but looking suspiciously at Jagor.

Jagor and I both nodded. “You’ll have to come out for it,” I enthused. “You can meet—” Bit of a stomach lurch as I realized I didn’t really know anyone in Asteria. Who was I going to introduce Gwen to: the retinue, who I’d lied to? The Queen, whose son I’d stolen? “Everyone,” I finished lamely.

“So once you’re married...Lucy will be your slave?” Gwen stepped closer to Jagor, unafraid.

He looked at her steadily and nodded. She looked at me, eyes flicking down to the diamond on my finger. “You sure about this?” she asked.

I didn’t even have to think about it. I knew. “Yes.”

Gwen gave me a long
we’re-both-going-to-regret-this
look and smiled tiredly. “Okay.” She stepped up to Jagor and prodded him hard in the chest with one finger. There was the tiniest hesitation as she came to terms with just how broad and strong that chest was: then, “You hurt my friend, Prince Charming, and I’ll have your balls.” She stared fiercely up at him. I’d seen Gwen’s stares bring men to their knees: with Jagor it was like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. I could almost feel pressure waves spreading out from them.

Jagor’s jaw tightened just a little. Gwen was breaching about twenty different rules for a commoner: triple that for a woman. But at last he nodded tightly. “Understood.”

Gwen hadn’t heard Jagor speak before, and I saw her unconsciously draw in her breath at his bass rumble. I smirked. “Coffee?”

Gwen looked at me like I was crazy. “You’ve just agreed to marry a billionaire prince and become his slave. The hell with coffee!” She started opening the bottle of wine.

While she did, I pulled Jagor to the corner of the room. There was something I had to know before I could move on. “Calara,” I said, watching him very closely. “I need to know...did you love her?”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “No. It was an arranged marriage, Lucy. She was to be my princess—I’d known her so long it’s difficult to remember a time
without
her, but I didn’t love her.”

“But you were going to go ahead and marry her?”

“That’s how royal marriages work. That’s how I thought it had to be, for me.” He stared into my eyes. “Until I met you.”

It was what I’d hoped to hear, but it didn’t remove the guilt. I’d still made him break off the engagement: Calara would be devastated, even if I had saved her from a loveless marriage.

Jagor asked where the bathroom was: mainly, I suspected, to give me some time alone with Gwen. After being apart for so long, even having him out of sight again made my stomach ache. As I sat with Gwen I kept glancing over my shoulder, waiting for him to reappear.

“You realize your life will be completely insane now?” Gwen asked me, handing me a large glass of something. I don’t even remember what it tasted like: my mind was in Asteria.

“It’ll be better. No more hiding. You don’t know what it’s been like, Gwen: we’ve had to creep around. I’ve felt like a mistress: do you know what that’s like?”

I’d meant it rhetorically, but Gwen looked suddenly guilty.
Oops!
I pretended I hadn’t noticed. “We can finally be together, like—” I nearly said
like we’re meant to be
but that was stupid, even if it was what I was feeling. “Like we want.”

“As his slave,” Gwen added sagely.

“Yes.”

“One of his slaves.”

“He’s already said he won’t have any others.”

“Oh, well that’s alright, then.” Gwen sighed. “I’m happy for you: I just...you sure about this, Luce? A few weeks ago, you were this shy library mouse. When did you go all ‘Spank me, spank me!’?”

“It’s not like that. It’s not just about the sex; it’s about giving yourself to the other person absolutely.”

“The other person always being a man, right?”

“Yes—”

“Because all women are slaves: c’mon, don’t you think that’s just a little wrong?” She was looking at me like I’d joined a cult.

Whatever I said seemed to make things worse. I laid my hands on the table, feeling the scratches in the surface. Everything in my apartment suddenly seemed so cheap and ragged: what must Jagor think of it? “Look: I thought the same as you, at first. But it’s not like that, it’s not...evil. People in Asteria are happy. They look at sex differently: they look at everything differently. Relationships are different.” Gwen looked blankly at me. “We slaves are the ones with the power!” I told her without thinking.

“’
We slaves?’”
she said, appalled. She put her wine glass down so hard that some of the wine rained down on her hand. To Gwen wasting wine was the worst crime imaginable, but she didn’t even seem to notice. “This guy’s done a number on you,” she told me. “I don’t trust any guy who feels he needs a whip—”

“He doesn’t have a
whip!”
I snapped. Actually, now I thought about it, was I sure about that? For all I knew, he did have a whip: probably some royal, jewel-encrusted thing. I could feel that hot/cold shock of desire and trepidation, winding down through me and making me weak, just at the thought of it. God, how did he do that to me? He wasn’t even here! I realized I’d gone silent and looked at Gwen, who was watching me carefully. Did she know what I was thinking? I looked into her eyes.
Yup.
I blushed.

Gwen slowly shook her head but I cut in before she could speak. “Look,” I told her, “I get that it seems weird. It’s a different culture. But I swear to you, Gwen, it’s different but it’s not wrong. And I’m still me.”

“
You
are a librarian. You’re a languages geek, for God’s sake!”

“You’re a translator too, and you have sex hanging upside down from a chandelier with four guys at once.”