I t took a surprising amount of time for Cika to run into her sister again, since Silly was off on a short reconnaissance campaign for their mother, but when it finally happened, she smirked at her as if Cika was some weird freak .

"Why is your hair still so long? Couldn't your maid do it?" she asked, running her fingers through Cika's long locks as if they were spider webs. But she didn't wait for an answer before plowing on, "So? What was it like? Did he last the whole three days? He was so young and he looked quite fit to me—he should have. Do you think you're breeding yet? How many times did you take him ?"

Cika frowned. She was nearly at the library, where she hadn't been very frequently since she and Vallon—since she and her mate, she corrected in her head—had spent those first three days of the most fertile part of her cycle together—and he had required that he see her every night since then, too, and had, frankly, exhausted her to a point that she could barely get out of bed once the guards came to return him to his quarters every morning. It had been weeks since she'd been in to work, and, royal family or not, she had never taken that much time off work in her life .

But one of the reasons she wanted to go in was to see what she could find about this planet he kept talking about—she wanted to find out whether or not it was real .

"I don't wish to discuss it ."

"Oh, dear." Sillandra couldn't quite achieve an actual sympathetic tone of voice—she was too gleefully imagining Cika's misfortune. "Was it bad? Did it hurt horribly? From what I saw of him, he was quite…nicely filled out. Did he misbehave? Did you have to correct him? Tell me all about it—I'm dying to hear !"

Trying not to blush—for reasons Silly could know nothing about, but she knew the younger woman probably assumed it was because the situation was so new to her—Cika repeated, "I really don't want to talk about it ."

"Oh, well, there will be other times ."

"Yes, there will," she agreed. "Like tonight ."

Her sister looked startled. "You're going to mate tonight? But it's not the right part of your cycle for you to mount him, is it? It's very common of you to want to be with him when you don't have to, you know." She frowned disapprovingly .

Cika entered an elevator in the library that was employees only, turning to give her sister a secret little smile, and, as the doors closed between them, she said flatly, "I. Don't. Care ."

Silly stood there, fuming. Her eldest sister was still alive, and even seemed somewhat happy with the man she should have hated, who should have hurt her, perhaps even killed her by now, especially since she had sabotaged her ability to control him. She had that stupid glow about her that people got when they were satisfied, and Silly hated that idea. But then she smiled slyly, an unusually satisfying method of fixing her sister's wagon having popped into her head .

* * *

A fter a wonderful day amongst the books, where she was always the happiest and most satisfied—although that sense satisfaction was getting a run for its money lately from a very unexpected quarter—Cika did a few errands before finding her way home and picked at her dinner before dismissing it. She was unusually nervous, and, if she was willing to admit it to herself—and she wasn't—she knew exactly why .

The past six weeks seemed like a dream. She had been largely left alone by her family, surprisingly, and she had taken an almost alarming amount of time off work in order to breed, but she had needed that time for more than the usual reasons .

Much more. She highly doubted that any other woman on the planet had had to come to grips with what she had while mating .

And she was still working on it—on how completely her outlook had changed since she and Vallon had coupled—and almost more importantly—since she had submitted herself to him .

She still couldn't really even begin to contemplate the enormity of what she was doing. Cika didn't even know what might happen to her if this highly unusual—and probably illegal—practice of theirs was ever discovered .

But she couldn't say that she regretted the decision she'd made—under duress, she kept reminding him—even when it seemed as if he was deliberately trying to make her regret it .

It hadn't taken Vallon very long to put her to that particular test .

He was completely and utterly insatiable, barely giving her time to sleep at all, especially during those first few days when no one bothered them at all except when she called for food and drink or a bath. He seemed bent on staking his claim, imprinting himself on her, somehow, on her body and her mind and her soul, and he was succeeding in all three .

Although she was the one who was the outward face for them, he took over every time, as soon as they were alone again—feeding her on his lap, insisting that she needed her strength—and he was not wrong—surprising her by bathing her, then joining her and having her in the bath. It was the first time he allowed—and that was definitely the term—her to sit astride him .

"This is what—according to your customs—we are supposed to do to make a baby," he said, guiding her leg over his. "Take my cock and put it between your legs like a good girl ."

She did as she was told, fitting him just barely into her notch before putting her hands on his shoulders .

"Now slide down and ride me, kind of like you would a horse ."

Cika had liked that, but even though it was supposed to be a female dominant position—and would have been if he had been in what was supposedly the correct position. But big hand that shouldn't, by rights, have been free soon found her hips, easily lifting her up and down to show her the way he wanted her to move .

"But wasn't I doing it right?" she asked, a small pout making her look terribly cute .

Vallon had kissed her nose, making her frown down at him. "Yes, my princess, you were doing it wonderfully. But you know I like to be in control of these things—in control of you. You need firm guidance from your mate—in this and all things ."

With that, he kept her still with his strength, gathering her wrists in one hand behind her back, and not allowing her to move as he held her down as much as he could and fucked her, watching those glorious, soapy breasts bounce as he slammed himself up into her, losing it completely as she arched against his hold, head falling back, the tips of her hair trailing into the water as he took his pleasure of her, leaving her—for the moment—unsatisfied .

When he had recovered, he finished washing himself in a most perfunctory fashion, then hopped athletically out of the tub while cautioning her to stay put. He gathered the soaps and the shampoo and the warm towels and the washcloth close to the tub, then proceeded to wash her quite lavishly, and with an obscene attention to detail, making her get on all fours so he could reach every single exceedingly embarrassing part of her, swatting her hard—his hand sounding loudly against the wetness of her cheek—and making her cry out in a manner that was not unreminiscent of how she sounded when she came, when she tried to wiggle away from his attentions .

"Ow!"

And he was entirely unsympathetic. "Stay still, and I won't have to spank you ."

Cika had huffed at that .

But she had remained still until he was done—she'd squirmed a bit, but not much, not wanting to be swatted again .

Having gently and thoroughly scrubbed all of her body, he then folded a pillow against the back of the tub on which she could rest her head and neck, then he began to wash her hair, and Cika very nearly fell asleep during it, it was so relaxing .

"I love your hair," he murmured as his fingers massaged her scalp .

"Thank you. Too bad I'll be getting it cut, tomorrow ."

"What?" he nearly yelled. "Why ?"

She turned her head to look at him. "It's the custom. I'm a woman now, hopefully soon with a woman's responsibility of children, along with my job and my royal position. Short hair is much easier to take care of. It's a symbol of maturity. Everyone will know, then, that I have become a woman ."

"No," he stated firmly. "You may not cut it. I forbid it. The women on my planet leave their hair long. It's a sign of femininity and submission ."

Cika actually chuckled but her tone was anything but amused. "I think you have forgotten yourself and where it is, exactly, that you reside. I might have agreed to abide by your strange preference here, where we are alone, but I am certainly not going to let you tell me what to do beyond these four walls—and what happens on your make-believe planet is of no consequence here, whatsoever ."

She didn't say it, but the word she hadn't said lay heavily between them—one she hadn't dared to use since she had agreed to submit herself to him. Slave. He was still, for all intents and purposes, her slave .

No matter how he expected her to behave—and how she chose to behave—in the sanctity of her bedroom. It was the bald truth of what he was here .

And—he realized more clearly than ever before—the reason why he had to escape .

He hadn't done much towards achieving that goal since he'd met her—he had wanted her, and he had gotten her. But he knew he needed to start making plans to leave here—to get back home—and take her with him .

He couldn't stop himself from answering back again. "No." His tone was like that of her mother or her sister. Implacable. Imperious. And with every expectation of being obeyed .

At times like this, she could definitely believe that he was a prince .

"Yes. And that is the end of the subject, Vallon ."

Not "sir" this time, as she knew he required .

She expected him to pick her out of the water and put her over his knee or show some other outward sign that he was very unhappy with her, because she knew she had to have made him very angry by blatantly defying him like this. He'd not given her a formal spanking yet, but instead, had subjected her to the occasional hard swat when she was slow or reluctant to obey him .

But he did not fulfill her expectations—at least, not at first .

He didn't rage or yell or make any outward sign that he had even heard her, and Cika knew instinctively that wasn't a good thing, either. What he did was finish bathing her, helping her out of the tub with her hand in his and his arm threaded carefully around her waist so that she wouldn't slip. Then, he dried her thoroughly—paying particular attention to certain areas—before drying her hair just as completely .

Vallon knew that Cika had been lulled into what she was about to find out was a very false sense of security by the fact that he hadn't reacted at all to what she'd said—or how she'd said it. But once he'd folded the towel he had used on her hair, laying it atop the pile of used ones he'd created, he put her in the position he had imagined her in that first night with her—his left arm slinking around her waist in a way that didn't alarm her at all, at first, until she realized that she wasn't facing the same way as he was as he slowly bent her over it and his left side, trapping the arm that had the hidden button she would soon need against him as his big right palm coming to rest on her still bare—still slightly damp—behind .

Growing alarmed, Cika asked, "What are you doing? Vallon, stop !"

He ignored her, of course, and began to spank, crisply, cleanly, first one cheek then the other, moving relentlessly back and forth. And he knew that—even though she wasn't technically wet—this first spanking was going to hurt much more than it would have if she hadn't just gotten out of the bath—and he was glad of it. It was just the lesson he was delighted to be able to teach her—a harsh one, without him having to expend any more effort to make it so. He would much rather spend his energy pleasuring her, but making this point was much more important at the moment .

Cika's feet were never still—she stomped, she danced, she tried to kick up—until he literally lifted her—without so much as a huff or a puff—and she found her feet dangling half a foot from the floor, even more useless than they had been !

"Put me down!!" she cried, then changed it quickly to, "Stop spanking me, right now !"

Vallon merely chuckled, continuing to swat her as he had been. "That's not how this works, Princess. I thought you realized it, but if you didn't, you're soon going to ."

He took a seat in her favorite chair—the throne like one by the fireplace—easily draping her over his knee as he did so, despite how she was flailing, careful to keep a hand always around her left wrist, bending that arm up and holding it firmly against her back .

"Vallon—no—sir—please!" She found herself begging, hating that she'd been reduced to that and hating it even more than she could feel herself beginning to respond to what he was doing to her, despite the fact that her bottom was already well on its way to wildfire status .

"That's another twenty swats on top of what you're already going to get for addressing me disrespectfully, Princess ."

And, by the time he had laid down the law on her vulnerable, now bright red bottom—and gotten her to agree that she wouldn't cut her hair, but only by threatening to use her own wooden hairbrush on her—he paused for a second, then announced, "And now, I will give you the last twenty you earned by calling me by my first name when you have already been told that you are to address me as sir ."

Her breathless, tearful, "No more, please!" was pitiful, but he steeled himself against going easy on her. She was not the kind of woman a man could do that with and still expect to maintain dominance over her. Vallon knew that he would always have to be on his guard against her slipping back into acting in a manner that she might consider to be the "right way". He knew that he would always need to be very strict with her—she'd been raised incorrectly and spoiled from the start, and he wasn't going to have that in his household. He was Prince of Juqar, and she was going to be his wife. She might as well begin to toe the line sooner, rather than later .

And he made each of those last smacks ones that she would remember every time she sat down for a good long while, landing them very deliberately, using his tempered strength to make an impression on her that had her literally howling by the end .

After delivering the last one, though, he rose with her in his arms and brought her to the bed, laying her down on her side as she continued to sob and snuffle and weep fit to break his heart. He curled himself around her, careful not to press too hard up against her very sore, extremely hot backside, brushing her hair out of her face and kissing her neck and brow gently .

"I'm sorry I had to spank you, Princess ."

She tried to jerk away from him, but couldn't get very far with his arms around her .

"Shhh-shhh-shhh. How could I let you cut off all of this beautiful hair of yours; it's like spun silver with sparkling green highlights. It's your crowning glory—I would weep at its loss ."

Although she doubted that, it didn't help that she really didn't want to get her hair cut, either. Cika had always thought it was one of her few good features. Her hair was thick and luxurious and soft and wavy, and it did look very pretty most of the time, even though she didn't fuss with it often. It was definitely what most people complimented her about .

"Let—" He almost said "your prince" but he stopped himself in time. "Let me make you feel better, my princess." He couldn't have born it if his remark had driven her to call him slave, when that was never how he felt when he was with her, especially once she had given him dominance over her .

She didn't say anything, still sniffling occasionally and huddled in on herself. But he found ways around that, touching her very gently and lightly, rubbing her back, getting her to relax despite herself and what was probably a lot of anger she was feeling towards him at the moment. Vallon was persistent, though, his hands eventually cupping her breasts, tweaking her nipples in the ways he had already committed to memory that she liked, pinching them both at the same time somewhat hard, ignoring the way she batted at his hands ineffectually, with no real intent behind it, as she began to breath heavily rather than sob, and he let one hand delve down the silky skin of her belly to her cleft .

He didn't have to say a word—she parted her legs as soon as his fingertips touched her down there, and he knew it was both a result of her knowledge of his expectations and her not wanting him to spank her again. He did not make the mistake of chalking it up to her actually wanting to obey him. That, he fervently hoped, would come later .

Vallon assumed that arousing her at this point—when she was at the tail end of a very understandable, ugly, long bout of crying, and her rear end must still be stinging awfully and she had to be incredibly angry at him, too—was going to be an uphill climb. Not that he wasn't going to rise to the occasion—he had, in fact, already risen. Spanking her was one of the most titillating things he had ever done in his life, especially considering the circumstances—she was supposed to dominate him, she was more than ten years older than he was, and he was absolutely certain that she was the woman he was going to grow old with. He was already three quarters of the way in love with her, not that he was going to tell her that anytime soon .

So, when he slid his fingers along those pink, kissable lips, slipping his middle finger into the slightly deeper groove, feeling it glide over her clit, then lower. Where it immediately began to drown in the veritable river that was flowing out of her, he almost laughed in relief, but turned it into just a rough sigh that he didn't think she even noticed .

Being spanked aroused her! He had certainly hit the jackpot with her, in more ways than one !

His other hand joined in, wrapping around her and bending her forward a bit, so that he could get to her better, one finger, followed by another, invading her gently, in case she was a little bit sore there, too, although she hadn't shown any signs of it so far .

And the presence of his fingers within her had her clutching at his hands as if to remove them .

All he had to do was use the tone he'd been working on all of his life, it seemed—that tone that had made all of the females around him jump to obey him from the time his voice began to deepen. "No, Princess ."

Her native, natural whimper of protest brought him to full attention but he ignored his own needs for the moment. This was a time to concentrate on her—to remind her that there was great pleasure to be had in submitting to him, even as his cock began to weep when she—slowly, reluctantly—moved her hands out of his way .

"Good girl, Princess ."

His expert hands had their way with her, bringing her to the edge of her peak repeatedly while he catalogued in the back of his mind exactly how she most liked to be touched, what flicking or stroking or rubbing methods brought forth the loudest cries, honing skills he would only ever use on her to drive her to absolute bliss .

But not until he was inside her. At this point, he felt it was of great import that, when she climaxed, at least in this first tremulous beginning, that his body was joined with hers, so that she learn that this was where pleasure culminated—when he owned her most completely .

That was easy enough to accomplish, though, since he was perpetually capable around her, and he did it with one, smooth, powerful stroke that made her catch her breath loudly, groaning and struggling throughout—not to get away from him—she wasn't testing her bonds, he knew instinctively. She was just trying to accustom herself to being taken. Occupied. Possessed. Owned. By a man. By a slave , one who had convinced her to eschew her position in the world, one who had turned the tables on her completely, who had forced her to confront the fact that, in doing so, she had found the deepest, most profound source of pleasure she had ever known .