The Seduction Plan

"So... uh. What did you do to Saymar?" I asked. We were walking back through the palace, and the Master of the Realm was holding my hand, firmly. I was trying to ignore that. –That and the nearly overwhelming urge to plaster myself to his body like some kind of parasitic octopus.

He shrugged. "Sent him back to where he belongs."

"Like, hell? Or?"

"That's a lot of vengeance you're desiring against someone who obviously just wanted you for his own," he said with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"He scared the shit out of me."

Eric began to laugh. "I guess! Gosh, Dor – you were crying! What happened to my little badass?"

"I'm not little," I snapped, embarrassed. "He just, he startled me. He caught me off guard. ...I didn't even hear you say a spell," I said, changing the subject. "How'd you disappear him?"

"It was the palace. I have it rigged to throw out unwanted guests. I actually had to say a spell earlier when I realized he was trying to get in, just so he could get in."

I stopped him there. "Why did you let him in?"

"I wanted to see what he was up to. So once I figured it out, I let the spell go, and the security system kicked in and sent him home."

"Oh," I said. Something wasn't working in my head. He just sent Saymar home. It wasn't that I didn't think that was fair, but...

He looked at me curiously. "Are you okay?"

No.

No I wasn't.

I let go of his hand suddenly. I couldn't touch him; it was frying my brain.

He seemed surprised by this. "What is it, Dor?"

"Are you lying about Saymar?"

He now looked at me confounded. "Why would I lie about Saymar?"

"Why didn't you kill him?" I demanded.

"Should I have?" he asked.

I was beginning to feel sick. Saymar invaded his home and tried to kidnap me. And I thought I recalled Eric referring to me as "his woman." Regardless of how inaccurate that statement was, it seemed to me Saymar should be top of the list of Eric's enemies.

But Eric had only killed my family.

-Not the man who tried to take me away.

Was it that my parents' lives had been somehow more offensive than Saymar's?

Or was it that Saymar hadn't really committed that large of a sin in Eric's eyes?

I was just a servant.

Maybe if I hadn't said anything, Eric would have just let Saymar take me.

Maybe that's how simple it was to him. Men want women, they take them. Nothing personal.

Eric reached out for me, but I couldn't. I couldn't touch him. I put my hands up and ran away.

Down the halls that only began to light as I ran through them. Up the stairs of cold, smooth stone. I wasn't going to cry again. Not where he could see me.

Problem was he could see me anywhere.

I ran into my room, and pushed past him, already waiting for me by the door, looking all confused and frightened by me. I ran into the bathroom adjacent, and started to wretch.

He came to stand in the doorway. "What. The. Fuck," he said.

I finished, crumpled beside my toilet, sweating.

I wanted to scream at him! Why my family! Why not Saymar!

But then he would know.

And this plan would be for naught.

It was probably already for naught, but now, oh man, now I really wanted it to work. I wanted the resistance to kill him on Gravlor's Peak. And I wanted it to be because of me.

"I don't feel so good," I said.

The Master of the Realm looked so lost for a moment there, trying to figure out how to respond. "Dor. He's not going to get you. I can protect you from him. I always could. I won't let him back in the palace. You don't have to be frightened." He stopped, looking at me, almost visibly wondering if I was comforted. "You're a badass, remember? And you have me." He put his hands out like it was a show. "Master of the Realm, remember?"

I wiped my mouth. "Yeah. Right. Well, in any case, I guess this solves the problem of convincing them. You said I was your woman to one of the leaders of the resistance himself. That'll get them moving," I said, rising to my feet.

"Oh, we're not going through with the plan now," Eric said.

I almost laughed. "What?"

"You screamed my name, Dor. You cried at the idea of being away from me. They're going to think that you're the one besotted."

I rinsed my face in the sink. Then I turned to look at him. He had the grace to look away. "It doesn't matter. Hell, it's better." I held up my fingers. "They get two for the price of one. I'm still great bait. Hair, eyes, feet, right?"

A could feel the quiet anger skim over the surface of his skin, touching his eyes, but not his voice. "They might hurt you."

I walked past him into my room, saying softly, "Everyone does."

He turned in the doorway. "It does not escape me that two men claiming to want the best for you have both been on the verge of 'taking you against your will' so to speak in the last couple days. I understand that would affect one's mental state. But-"

I started to undress.

First, with my back toward him, I pulled off my top. I snapped open the bra, and threw it on the floor. Then I turned, letting him watch me fiddle with the strings and snaps on my pants, my breasts beginning to pout in the cold air.

He swallowed. "What are you doing, Dor?"

"I'm taking off my clothes, oh Master of the Realm."

"Why?" he asked, looking panicked.

I shimmied out of my pants and turned toward him, in just panties. "This is what you wanted."

"I'm confused," he said.

I crawled onto the bed, and then knelt, looking over my shoulder at him. "You coming?"

He almost tripped over himself before his legs even started moving. He got about halfway to the bed, mouth hanging open slightly, before he stopped. He took a step back and closed his mouth in a firm line.

"I can't figure you out, Dor." He lifted his arm and scratched his head, a strange grin coming over his face. "The other day I was sure you wanted me. The readings I had on you... Now, you seem so... I wasn't expecting this. It doesn't seem right... Not the way you feel inside."

For maybe two seconds there, I reconsidered.

But it would be so nice to give into the anger and let the plan take over, no more worry, no more conflict. Just let it happen.

From whore to widow to nothing at all...

"If you want to feel me inside, maybe you should stop using magic and start using something else."

His clothes were off instantly.

Okay, that's when my brain started to back peddle.

He was already... ready. And being quite aware what was supposed to happen now, I began to wonder how it would happen now. –Because there was no way THAT was going to fit THERE.

I started to crawl away automatically, but he was already there, grabbing my hips and turning me over. His mouth was on mine, his tongue was everywhere, and I could feel with a start every touch of his man-parts as they bumped into me.

I gasped for air when he suddenly let go of my mouth to start kissing down the length of my neck and then down between my breasts. His hands were on them, kneading them, hard. I moaned and lost my control of my brain somewhere between the squeezing from his hands and the swirling from his tongue.

Oh, I could do this.

Then his hands began to roam down around my waist. I had just enough control to look down at him, and caught him staring up at me while his mouth messaged my breast; his eyes were the eyes I had always expected to find in his face. –Dark, dangerous and not from this world. This snapped me back to the universe.

I was going to mate with the man who murdered my family.

I shook my head. -Had to think of anything else.

"So... have you done this before?" I asked, unsure about how conversation worked during, you know.

He smiled, and bit me gently, pulling a gasp from me. "Not in this body," he said.

"Oh." I nodded. Okay. Whatever. Maybe foreplay was supposed to be cryptic...?

His hands met the waistband of my panties. He pulled them partway down, then suddenly ripped them apart at the seams, tossing the remnants away from the bed. I closed my eyes as he parted my knees. Both hands trailed up my inner thighs. I put my hand over my closed eyes. Then I felt his fingers there, at the apex, and flinched.

He stopped.

Moments passed.

Slowly I got up the courage to look through my fingers at him. He was looking down at me with this strange, worried expression. I lifted my hand from my face.

"This isn't what you want," he said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Why are you doing this, Dor?"

"I, I want to."

"Why?" he demanded, angry. "My spell wasn't wrong, Dor. You wanted me more the other day when I nearly forced you, than you do now that you're the one asking for it. Why are you doing this? Why now?"

"It's your plan! You're the one who said we had problems! Well I'm fixing them!"

He closed his eyes, sitting back, holding my knees. "Dor, don't you know I meant everything I said back there?" He opened his eyes. "Don't you know what this means to me? The only 'Seduction Plan' I've had is for you." He rubbed his thumb on the inside of my right knee. "I've just been waiting and waiting for the right moment. -For when it would seem natural. I've wanted to seduce you since we were teenagers, but I was sure you'd bolt. And you're all I have." He looked off at my balcony. "I thought this was finally a chance to..."

For one moment, I saw a man. Eric there, between my legs, clearly wanting me and pouring his heart out, saying that he loves me. He had said it again and again and again. –When he saved me from Saymar, when he healed my injuries, when he kissed me, when he took me in and became my friend.

It hurt so badly, knowing he loved me, I wanted to drop dead right there. "Take me."

He looked at me suddenly, and I realized he thought I was finishing his sentence. I shook my head. "No, take me. Take me now, please... Eric."

"What's wrong? I can fix it if you just tell me."

"When we're done," I lied.

He continued to stare for a deep, long moment.

He moved my legs, sliding them down on the bed and spreading them wide as they would go. Then he slid down too, and I was began to become alarmed again as his stuck his nose down inside my folds.

And then his tongue came out.

And he kissed me, hard, down there. My thighs' first instinct was to snap shut, but he just held them in place and continued to explore me with his mouth. His tongue entered me, and I grabbed my own breasts hard, not sure what to do with thrills of reaction running through my body.

Soon I wanted more though. I couldn't take the teasing. "Eric!" I said, unthinking. He sat up then, and crawled further up along my body. A sudden wash of terror came over me when I realized he was positioning himself to enter where his tongue alone had been almost enough. "Wait," I said.

He thrust inside.

I felt like I had been stabbed.

He moaned, his face going blank with need.

Oh it hurt!

He finally looked down at me and caressed my face. "I love you, Dor."

I just nodded. He kissed me.

Then he began to move his hips, slowly at first, but growing in pace, and then I began to feel it – the want and the need building up, as he stretched out the insides of me, pummeling my walls.

"I love you, Dor," he said again, his eyes squeezed shut as he churned inside me. "I'll never let anyone take you away. You're mine. Forever."

My body split and shattered into a million pieces without even changing.

He dripped sweat onto me, and part of me realized that we were one now.

With one last stiff shudder, he collapsed onto me, filling me with his seed.

And I knew that when I killed him, I would die too.