Asteria In Love with the Prince
Contents
An Extract from "The Elf Princess's Lover"
Asteria - In Love with the Prince
By Tanya Korval
Bookish UN translator Lucy Snow sneaks into an embassy party...and meets Prince Jagor, heir to the throne of Asteria. He's mysterious, charming and supremely powerful, and the chance encounter turns into a steamy kiss in one of the embassy bedrooms.
Their initial tryst isn't enough for the Prince: he offers her a job as his personal aide. Not only is she now conducting a secret romance under the watchful eyes of his retinue: Lucy is only too aware that in the wealthy European kingdom of Asteria, women are ‘owned’ by their lovers.
As the couple battle to keep their love a secret, Jagor shows Lucy a submissive side to herself that leaves her breathless: but is she ready to accept the Prince’s collar and the life in Asteria that comes with it? When their relationship becomes public, can she survive the glare of the spotlight? And, as political unrest in Asteria threatens the entire royal family, exactly how far will she go for love?
This erotic romance contains explicit scenes.
© Copyright Tanya Korval 2013
The right of Tanya Korval to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
All characters, events and places in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, or real places is purely coincidental.
Cover image credits: Jagor and Lucy - Shutterstock / Kiuikson, The Palace - CanStock Photo / AlexT, Border - DepositPhotos / Smeagorl
All characters portrayed are intended to be over 18 years of age, even where not explicitly stated.
This story exists in a world of fantasy. Always practice safer sex and keep your play safe, sane and consensual.
Other Books by Tanya Korval
My Secret Life
The hugely popular four part series, now available in one collected edition. Erica, a high-powered businesswoman, is watching her life tick away in a sterile world of hotels, airports and meeting rooms. When she’s mistaken for a call girl one evening, she does something crazy…and her life will never be the same again.
Note: all my other books are erotic romances - this is erotica and is more explicit than the others.
The Elf Princess’s Lover
Salranna is a virgin elf princess who’s only ever seen the world from the safety of the palace windows. On a journey to a distant kingdom, assassins attack her party and she barely escapes. Alone and hunted, her sole hope for survival lies in Rafe: a human who blames the royals for the death of his parents. They find that love cares not for class or race, and Rafe awakens submissive tendencies in the normally imperious Salranna that leave her gasping. But can passion hold a princess and a commoner together…or will society tear them apart?
One of my most romantic books: if you liked The Lord of the Rings, you’ll love this!
Music
Charlotte is young, privileged and a talented cellist: good enough to attend the world-renowned Farrington Academy for the Performing Arts in New York. She's also painfully, crushingly shy. Her life changes in an instant when she falls for Saul: a penniless up-and-coming rapper from the Bronx. Everyone tells her it can't work: and she's too naïve to foresee the problems they'll face. Their backgrounds, their friends, their parents: everything is against them, and Charlotte isn't known for breaking the rules. But love fears no boundaries....
Chapter One
Technically, we shouldn’t even have been there.
I knew Eddie, one of the two guys on the door; sometimes brought him a coffee when it was snowing and he’d pulled door duty.
“No, Lucy: it’s senior staff only. Unless you got yourself twenty years of promotion in the last couple of days….”
“Come on….” I wheedled. “You know my boss likes to go to bed at ten. His invite’s only going to go to waste.” Next to me, my partner in crime, Gwen, did her best starving kitten impersonation. I’m always in awe of Gwen’s ability to manipulate men. I doubt Eddie would have noticed if I’d flashed him.
With a long-suffering look, Eddie waved us through.
Just a few feet further on, a younger guy looked doubtfully at us, but he wasn’t going to argue with Eddie. He tiredly asked for our IDs and scanned them, checking our photos as they appeared on a screen. I had to glance away. I hate that photo: I wasn’t quite ready when they took it and I have my mouth hanging open. Now it’s in the UN computers, it’s there for life: they’ll still be using that photo of me when I’m ninety.
We were in the embassy of one of the larger West African nations: a grand old place, although smaller than you’d probably expect, really just a large townhouse with the basement given over to offices. That meant I didn’t know anyone, even to speak to. Europe was my area: this was more Gwen’s. But I was more than happy to enjoy the first bit of glamour I’d seen all year, even if all I did was nod and smile at strangers, and sip champagne.
Just a couple of glasses, of course. We’re big on decorum at the UN: at least, the staff are. Some of the ambassadors are a different matter, but we’re held to a higher level of scrutiny: no one wants a scandal. Working at the UN is less exciting and more formal than you probably imagine. A cynic would say that’s why I fit in so well.
Someone once joked that I was born to be a librarian. At the time, I thought that was a little cruel, but if you saw me at work you’d probably understand. As a teenager, I was always the gawky, shy one – and funnily enough I did spend too much time in the New York Public Library, but seriously, have you ever
been
to that place? I was both tall for my age and a late developer, so I spent most of high school with crazy long legs and no boobs, and then when my body finally did catch up, I’d spent so long being ignored by the boys that I sort of stayed in the corner.
Now, at 22, I looked enviously at Gwen: so confident in her own skin, especially around men. She could drive guys crazy with a flick of her long, blonde hair, while my chestnut locks spend most of the time pinned up (yes, I know that adds to the librarian look). I’d managed to coax my hair into ringlets for tonight, though, and for once, I’d left my glasses at home and gone for contacts. It made me feel strangely exposed, as if the glasses were my armor.
I’d borrowed a dress from Gwen, a long green strapless gown in deep green, which Gwen said had been a present from some admirer at the Iranian embassy. I didn’t know if she was kidding or not. Every time I saw a mirror my heart did a little jump of dread as I saw how much cleavage the sweetheart neck was revealing - I really wasn’t used to wearing that sort of thing.
“Come on,” Gwen whispered, leading me by the elbow. “Let’s find an EYA.” It was a joke between us: Gwen’s big plan to find an Eligible Young Ambassador, marry him and live a life of leisure. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a young ambassador, let alone an available one.
We moved slowly through the party, each taking a glass of vintage champagne from a passing waiter. We were surrounded by older men in dinner jackets and their wives, who fell into two categories: young trophy wives (or mistresses: it’s not considered polite to ask) and older, effortlessly stylish Grande Dames. There were a lot of eyes on Gwen, which was nothing unusual. I wondered what it would be like, to be followed by male eyes wherever you went. Not that I was jealous: I was happy to fade into the background. Even if it did mean my options for romance were limited.
In the translation and documentation department, it’s mostly women, so that doesn’t help. Gwen and I both came to the UN as French translators, with me concentrating on the European French speakers and Gwen gradually sliding into West Africa, where there’s a fair amount of French spoken as well. Most of our job amounted to sitting very quietly wearing headphones, while typing at a hundred words per minute. It’s what’s known as good, honest work – which translates as deathly dull, and that’s even if you’re into languages the way I am. Hence our excitement at getting to enjoy the high life, if only for an evening.
We moved past a huge wooden staircase, down an oak-paneled corridor and emerged into the lounge, where doors had been opened onto a terrace. Guests were spilling outside, eager to enjoy the night breeze: the building was already getting uncomfortably warm, now that it was full of dignitaries. A string quartet played in one corner, and for a few minutes, all was serene.
Then Gwen spotted Louis.
Louis was one of the few men who worked in our department. He was a studious, shy type: not the kind of guy you’d expect someone like Gwen to go for…except he was blessed with the most gorgeous pale blue eyes and long, blond hair: a geek, trapped in the body of a Nordic poet. If the two of them ever got together, they were going to have the ultimate in blonde, blue-eyed offspring, but Louis kept ducking Gwen’s advances: I think she scared him.
Gwen, as expected, immediately latched on to him, which left me on my own. Great. I looked around for someone, anyone I knew, but the nearest person to my age was about twenty years older.
I took a step towards Gwen, not looking where I was going, and trod on the toe of a short, overweight man in a too-tight dinner jacket. He squealed and threw his arms out to stop me and his glass of probably very expensive red wine sloshed all over my neck, chest and the upper part of my dress.
All conversation stopped. The string quartet stopped playing with a nasty shriek of a bow: so now, I was the centre of attention. Across the room, I could see Gwen with her hand over her mouth, eyes full of pity but unable to stop herself laughing.
“
Shit!
” I said under my breath, hoping he didn’t speak English. He made mumbled apologies and we both looked around for something to mop up with. I recognized him, now: he was the Belgian ambassador. He pulled a napkin from a nearby tray and started towards me, and I realized that if I didn’t move, he fully intended to start dabbing at my chest. Also, in another few seconds, someone was going to notice the wine on the Persian rug.
I reassured the ambassador in hurried French that it was perfectly all right, apologized profusely for any inconvenience and fled the room. I had to find a bathroom and lie low for a while. Then I’d sneak home and leave Gwen to Louis.