Alayna didn't try to touch herself again.
Perhaps her body was aware of the torment she would receive if she did or perhaps it was the aphrodisiac potion finally settling, but her need hadn't been... as great.
Sort of.
It no longer hit her so hard she couldn't think of anything else or brought her to a point where she would risk his punishment again, but the desire was always there. Every part of her body felt hypersensitive to the slightest touch, which made washing herself a nightmare. But, given enough time, the all-encompassing need to orgasm would fade until it was simply a thought in the back of her mind. As long as she had something to occupy her time, she could withstand it.
In the days that followed, Xanth came to her room often. In the middle of the day to see if she needed anything, in the evening to have dinner with her, at night to bid her pleasant dreams. Each time ended with him fucking her until she couldn't recall her own name. There were times he would come randomly striding into her room throughout the day, throw her across whatever horizontal service was readily available, and bury his face between her thighs. It didn't matter if she was reading, napping or bathing, he would barely utter a word before he had his tongue inside her.
He even let her leave the room once, under a ridiculously heavy guard, to tour the formal gardens outside the castle. Her request to explore the forest outside the protective walls was firmly denied.
She had a beautiful room, a spacious bathing chamber, food that tasted better than anything she'd ever had before, a constant supply of new books, well-made clothes to wear, days and nights filled with more orgasms than she could count... She wanted for nothing.
And Alayna hated it.
As her father always pointed out at every turn, she'd been bastard-born. But if she had been the obedient type, perhaps he could have managed to marry her off to a minor lord's sixth or seventh son, to live out her days in relative comfort and peace. That was a future she'd never wanted, even at a young age.
She wasn't meant to be kept in a cage, however gilded it was. She was meant to be in the sunshine, amidst the trees, in open fields, wherever her heart led her. She was meant for freedom and choice.
Xanth had taken both those things away from her.
For now, obedience served her well. She no longer protested taking the potion. She didn't fight when he forced her to knees and told her to open her mouth. She didn't struggle when he pushed her up against the wall of windows in her room and fucked her until her knees gave out. Yes, part of that was because the potion made her constantly ready, even eager, for those moments. But she needed him to think her as docile as Yesenia. A toy, to be added to his collection and played with at his whims.
But, by the gods, she would show him this fox still had teeth.
She hadn't given up on working to summon only a whisper of her power, though her efforts often left her with a pounding headache after the cilice did its job. In the rare times she was successful, Alayna found she couldn't maintain it for long. It either slipped away or came bounding forth like an overeager puppy, triggering the cilice. She was still trying to discover the line of how much she could draw.
Alayna had to remind herself that magic wasn't the only tool she had at her disposal. Each night before she fell asleep and at random times during the day, she would mentally walk through the path they'd taken on their way to see the gardens. Each flight of stairs, every door, all the faces they'd passed, every single turn. If she couldn't manage to get the cilice off, she would need to know how the castle and the city around it was laid out for a speedy escape. Braving the dangers of the Greenfrost without magic was a problem unto itself.
She was going over her mental map of the gardens when the door to her room opened. Xanth walked inside, carrying a wooden box. He didn't explain as he crossed the room to where she sat at the little table in front of the hearth, pretending to leaf through a book.
"What is-"
He dropped the box on the floor and gripped her arm, forcing her to stand, then abruptly bent her over the table. The book fell, forgotten, from her fingers as he went to his knees behind her and shoved the scraps of silk aside. He had his tongue inside her before she even knew what was going on.
"Oh!" Alayna gripped the edge of the table, her eyes going heavy-lidded as he feasted upon her. His tongue wriggled deep inside her, moving in ways a cock never had, ways that had her panting in anticipation.
Though he had other plans. He slid his tongue out of her and angled his head so he could wrap his lips around her clit. He sucked on it insistently, the way he did when he wanted her to cum quickly. It didn't take long at all before she was crying out, her hips rocking against his mouth as she came. Normally, he would lap at her arousal with his tongue, but this time he pulled away, leaving her dripping.
"Sir?" she asked in a breathless tone.
"Don't clean off," he said as he climbed to his feet. "I need you wet. Come over here."
She raised up, a little unsteady on her feet from the quick, intense orgasm. Alayna turned to find him standing in front of the armoire holding the box, so she walked over to him. He lifted the lid.
"I thought you might like to take a walk through the city today."
Her heart lurched in her chest, though she was careful not to let her expression change. She didn't need him to know how badly she wanted that, wanted to further the knowledge of her surroundings. So she just arched a brow as she looked up at him.
"And I need to be wet for that?"
He chuckled. "Not for that, exactly. Here." He lifted the box slightly and Alayna looked down to find clothes.
Real clothes, not these damn scraps of fabric she'd been forced to wear. The plain gray dress wasn't much different from what she'd seen the servants wearing, unremarkable but well-made. Alayna lifted it from the box to find sensible leather boots beneath it.
"I find it very reassuring that you don't expect me to go traipsing around the city with my breasts on display."
"Somehow, I think you'd like that."
She snorted. "That might not be appropriate if there are children around." A thought occurred to her and she looked up at him. "Are there children?"
"Do you mean is this city normal or is it full of immoral, wicked creatures who would snatch a beautiful woman off the street and keep her?" The pointed look she gave him made him laugh. "It's a normal city, Alayna. There are people, families, shops, everything. Get dressed."
She removed the scraps of fabric clinging to her body and started to step into the dress, but his command to wait had her pausing. He took the dress from her hands and laid it over the bed, along with the box. When he removed the boots from the box and placed them on the floor, she realized there was something beneath it.
