Prince of Magic (5 page)

"You cannot have her," Fynnian responded. "Not yet. Not until we're finished with all we have to do. You cannot have her in the way that you wish, but… would you like to have a look?"

"Yes, please," Ciro whispered.

Evidence that Ciro's transformation was not yet complete was clear in that spontaneously spoken "please." A true beast did not use such a polite word. A soulless fiend took what he wanted without the word "please" passing his lips.

Fynnian lifted the silver bell which sat on his side table, and rang it briefly. In moments, Rayne appeared.

"Yes, Father?"

"My guest and I would like some tea."

Rayne glanced nervously at Ciro, who grinned at her like a man who did not have
tea
on his mind. "Of course, Father." She fled from the room as quickly as she could, her skirts swishing, her breath held.

"More," Ciro muttered when she was gone.

"Rayne will soon return with the tea. She'll stay longer next time."

Fynnian was not blind to his daughter's beauty. The girl looked very much like her mother. Dark hair, dark eyes, innocently beautiful face, body ripe and still untouched. She would make a fine empress when the time came.

Rayne was as much a prisoner here as Ciro. Neither of them realized they were being held captive. It was an art, one at which Fynnian was quite adept—and well practiced.

Rayne returned quickly with the tea. As was expected, she served Ciro first, since he was their guest. She did not know he was the Prince of Columbyana, or that he'd been officially missing for months. How could she know? Rayne had been sequestered here in this fine house for her entire life. If she had been given to wandering, she would not have gotten far. They were a long way from any village, and the closest neighbor they'd had in her nineteen years had met with an untimely accident—as did anyone else who came too close. Rayne knew nothing which her father did not tell her.

She did not like the tall, fair-haired man who had been with them for so long. Fynnian could tell by the way she served the guest so quickly and then moved away that he made her uneasy. He could not blame her. Ciro looked at the woman he lusted after as if he wanted to eat her alive. His hands wandered too close to her body, though he did not touch. He had been told he could not… not yet.

When the time was right and Rayne had served her purpose, Ciro could do whatever he wanted to her.

After Rayne had served Fynnian his tea, she nodded gently. "If you don't think you'll need me again this evening, I'll retire for the night."

"So soon?"

"I don't enjoy the late-night hours the way you do, Father."

No, Rayne was a morning person, like her mother.

"We'll be fine, dear," Fynnian said, patting his daughter's hand gently. "You go on to bed."

Rayne said good night, cast a suspicious glance at Ciro and nodded shyly, and all but fled from the room.

"She doesn't like me," Ciro said when Rayne was gone.

"She will learn to like you in time."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then when she's served her purpose, you can kill her, the way I killed her mother when she grew tiresome."

Ciro shrugged slightly, accepting that as a possibility. "It was nice to look upon Rayne for a few moments, but watching her only made my hunger more keen," he said.

These days Ciro was always hungry, but that was to be expected as the transformation took place. Fynnian rose from his chair and headed for a small door at the rear of the study. He could not feed the boy as often as he'd like, not without some considerable trouble. Eventually the prince would be able to feed himself, but until then these weekly feasts would suffice.

Fynnian opened the door, and found the girl waiting. She was thin, young, and frightened. His personal soldiers had delivered her just that morning. She cowered in the small room that was little more than a closet, her dark hair mussed, her face smeared with tears and dirt.

"Come, child," he said, offering her his hand and a genuine smile.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked. "What do you want with me?"

"I did not bring you here," Fynnian said calmly. "You poor child. What happened?"

The girl stared at him suspiciously. Armed men had kidnapped her; a maid as timid as she had seen to her through the day. Perhaps she thought he was going to save her. Foolish girl.

"I was traveling to my sister's house, and—"

"Traveling all alone, I imagine," he said.

"Yes, as I have done many times." Her voice was quick. "Her house isn't far from mine, less than half a day's walk. But this day some… some horrible men snatched me up and I was on the back of a horse for—"

Still smiling, Fynnian backhanded the girl. The sound of his hand against her cheek was followed by a surprised gasp that came deep from her lungs. "You talk too much." He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the study. Her eyes flitted this way and that, as if she had never seen such elegance in her lifetime. She likely had not, given the state of her dress and her worn walking shoes. Her gaze eventually landed on Ciro and stayed there.

The prince was a handsome fellow, tall and broad-shouldered and pretty of face. The girl was fascinated for a moment. There were no more tears, no demand for explanations. She was enchanted…

"This is Prince Ciro," Fynnian said. "Have you heard of him?"

"Of course I have," the girl said. Her brow furrowed. "Is that why I was brought here in secret, because he is a prince?"

"Yes, dear." Fynnian could almost hear the gears turning in the simple girl's mind. She was thinking of romance, and Fynnian reached into her mind and nudged gently, feeding the enchantment. The girl imagined, quite vividly, that the handsome prince had seen her about town and had ordered her delivered to him so that he might slake his lust. She would gladly spread her legs for a man like this one, and it wouldn't be the first time she had done so.

She approached the prince almost coyly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my lord." The girl was not beautiful, not like Rayne, but neither was she entirely homely. She knew how to flirt in a crude way. She tossed her mussed dark hair, and smiled—forgetting the tear tracks and smudges of dirt on her face—and thrust out her chest to show off her wares.

"Would you sit on my knee?" Ciro asked, patting the knee in question.

"Of course, my lord." The girl perched prettily on Ciro's knee, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What is it you desire of me, Prince Ciro?"

Ciro had likely never been subtle, and in his new state all semblance of patience and princely comportment had been dismissed. He thrust his hand between the girl's legs and rubbed hard. Without so much as a word of protest, or a moment of pretending to be a demure lady, she closed her eyes and rocked against that hand. She spread her legs and shifted so that the prince touched her where she wanted to be touched.

Fynnian watched, a silent observer. Neither of the participants in this groping encounter paid him any mind, so he was free to watch. Not only to watch, but to study Ciro's moves, the expressions on the boy's face, the way his breathing changed as the girl moaned and thrust her bosoms close to his face.

"I want your body and your soul," Ciro whispered.

The girl smiled, and reached down to caress the prince's erection through the tight crimson trousers he wore. Her fingers trailed there lightly for a moment, and then she stroked hard and bold, much as he stroked her.

"Body and soul, you shall have them both, my lord."

"Freely given?"

She gasped in pleasure as his stroke grew harder. "Very freely."

"Thank you," Ciro whispered.

The prince placed his mouth against the girl's throat, and while he continued to stroke between her thin thighs, he broke the tender flesh at her neck, feeding greedily on her blood and on the soul she had so foolishly given him. Ciro slurped and grunted as he fed, moaning like a man in the throes of passion.

Thanks to her enchantment, by the time the poor girl realized that something was wrong, it was too late. She was weakened by loss of blood, and Ciro was much stronger than he had been when he'd first invited her to sit on his knee. She struggled to get away, but the prince held her fast and attempted to fill his own eternal emptiness with someone else's soul.

Fynnian knew that it would work for a while, but eventually Ciro would be hungry again. Soon he would be strong enough to take a soul without permission, and when that happened… when that happened, there would be no turning back for Ciro, and together he and Fynnian would be unstoppable.

After the girl was dead and her soul had been emptied into Ciro's body, the prince continued to fondle her with one hand while he gnawed upon her ruined throat with leisure. Fynnian was both fascinated and repelled by the sight. When the transformation was complete, would Ciro be more beast than man? Or would he be entirely beast?

Finally, Ciro allowed the husk of the girl to drop to the floor. She landed there limp and forgotten.

"Thank you," Ciro said, sated and appearing quite sleepy. With the back of his hand, he wiped away the few drops of blood that stained his lips. In the early days his feedings had been quite messy, but he had become much more adept at the ritual. "I feel better."

"Of course you do."

When the Isen Demon stole a living man's soul, the resulting hunger was tremendous, or so Fynnian had heard. The ancient writings which had led him to this place in time had been written more than a thousand years ago. It had been that long since the demon had risen. The soulless man would feed upon other souls endlessly, searching for relief, but the souls he ingested were never his to keep. The Isen Demon took them all eventually. The Isen Demon took the souls its vessel fed upon, and it became stronger with each feeding.

So did the vessel.

The Isen Demon had been defeated in the past, so long ago when it dared to attempt to gain power. Of course, Fynnian hadn't been there to guide and care for the demon, more than a thousand years ago. The vessel it had possessed had been killed before the demon could build sufficient power. That wouldn't happen this time. Fynnian would see to that.

Some men might be afraid to share such close quarters with an animal such as Ciro had become, but Fynnian had everything under control. Ciro loved Rayne, and Fynnian controlled his daughter. That alone would be enough to keep the future emperor in line for a while longer.

Ciro didn't have to know that the love he felt for the beautiful Rayne was the product of an enchantment, any more than he needed to know that it had been Fynnian who'd offered the boy's soul to the Isen Demon.