For several seconds, it was entirely dark. I felt absent. Bodiless. Adrift.

Then with a sickening lurch I hit the blistering sand. The grit scalded my bare skin and I squealed in pain. I tried to climb to my feet, but was so winded that I just lay panting on the burning ground. The very air was hot to breathe. Coughing, I propped myself up on my hands and knees, pushed my hair from my face and looked out into the vista.

It was a hellscape.

An endless panorama of blue sand – so blue that it was difficult to discern from the sky. The swollen sun was white like molten glass. Small cerulean fires shuddered across the sand dunes, arching then receding in waves. I couldn’t understand what their fuel was. The only landmarks were jagged rocks that jutted in painful intervals from the acrid land. There were no trees or plants of any kind. But for the quaver of the wind: it was forebodingly quiet.

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. It sizzled where it hit the land, turning black and angry. Growling in frustration, I fought my limbs into standing.

A great gust of wind picked up from behind me, lashing my naked body with sharp sand and flinging my tangled hair into my face. I winced in pain. With a grimace, I considered my doomed walk into the blazing desert.

Then I heard a sound like the flight of a heron.

“Little Witch!”

My captor was near invisible in his native land. Even the gleam of his gold jewellery was lost in the shimmer of the heat. But he cast a monstrous midnight shadow on the sands that boasted his true size and power. I trembled for those who must challenge him here. Admiration was quickly replaced with the unease that I may be trembling only for myself.

His broad mouth held a smile of sharp teeth as he flew slowly towards me. For all I was glad not to be alone in this strange realm, I did not return his grin. I folded my arms across my breasts and trained a sour look upon him. He began to laugh heartily, his glowing eyes crunching up in amusement. (This served only to further steel my irritation.)

“Oh come now,” he crooned, “I’ve already made my apologies. Besides, isn’t this what you had in mind when you called me back? Hmm?”

“No,” I said flatly, refusing to meet his eye. He snorted. With another beat of his wings, he eclipsed the sun and his shadow covered me.

“Nonsense!” he laughed again, but there was no longer any sunlight in the cadence of it.

Without landing, he seized me in his impossibly strong arms. I didn’t struggle as he clutched me tightly to his chest and continued his slow flight across the desert plain. The feel of his bare muscles against my naked body sent a shudder of conflicted lust through me. But like the sweat that gathered on my brow, it soon evaporated.

I was too hot, depleted and miserable to contemplate where I was being taken. What did it matter? I deserved whatever cruel fate the demon chose for me in this wretched place. I had betrayed my darling Kasita after all that she had done for me.

The Prince’s steady heartbeat against my ear lulled me to a fitful sleep as the Azurian sands passed by far below us.

xxxxx

It is so easy to remember only the bad in our former lovers. We keep litanies in our hearts of their wrongdoings and shortcomings; yet we forget their tender moments and human sweetness. So I make an effort of telling you now, that though she never did forgive my family, Kasita could be as sweet as cinnamon. Especially in the beginning.

It was mid-winter when Kasita and I first made love. We spent the day in high spirits, decorating the cottage with evergreens and ivy, sipping and spilling mulled wine and casting spells to keep out the cold. We were so merry that we didn’t notice the flakes of snow become fat and the flurry become fast. So we were soon snowed in.

We built up the fire and climbed together into the bed we had always shared. We giggled, sang songs and held each other for warmth. I stroked her charcoal hair and admired it against her silver birch skin. I realized timorously that I was staring at her. She looked back at me with knowingness in her Jaybird-blue eyes.

Perhaps she kissed me first. Perhaps I kissed her? It matters not, for in that intrepid kiss I felt my world make sense again. Our friendship had been a romance all along and I loved her. I loved her!

“I love you!” I gasped my revelation into her lips and she devoured it. She kissed me back with fervor like a fire catching the wind. She pinned my arms above my head and straddled my hips, kissing me all the while.

“You don’t love me, you’re drunk,” she laughed, teasing me with her body as much as her words.

“Oh put me out of my misery,” I wailed, doubting her affections even as she ran her tongue along my exposed neck. “Just say it back!”

“Say what?” she smiled with faux-innocence.

“You’re an evil witch,” I sighed dramatically, prompting Kasita to cackle exuberantly as she unlaced the front of my bodice. I wrapped a frantic hand about her wrist to stop her, unexpectedly more urgent in my need for equilibrium than my need for her passion.

With wide, apologetic eyes, she released my ribbons and clutched both of my hands tightly.

“I love you. You fell into my life like a silver shooting star and I love you. Are you contented now?”

“Delighted,” I purred, sinking my own fingers into the ribbons of her red gown.

Newly naked and lost in giddy revelation; we kissed and writhed together for hours.

Our bodies – bodies I had been brought up to know as incompatible – fit together as rightly and completely as if they were the design of a higher power. My cheek against her breast. The palm of her hand against my shoulder blade. Our wet wanting mouths. The insides of our thighs pressed together: slippery and hot.

When the firelight wilted to embers, I reluctantly withdrew from her to add fuel to the flames. I wanted to do something for her, something the Prince had done for me. I knelt upon the sheepskin by the side of the bed.

“Why is my Little Bride down there instead of in this warm bed with me?” Kasita good-humouredly demanded.

“Sit over here, on the edge,” I told her.

Intrigued, she complied.

Still, I was nervous. I felt that my female body ought to give me some special insight into how to give her pleasure, but in truth, I had no knowledge whatsoever.

I knelt between her thighs, her spread legs opening her dewy cunt. Pearls of moisture beading from the plum-colored inner lips.

Gingerly, I brushed my fingertips though the curls of dark hair that served to protect and adorn her mound. I parted the foliage to peer upon the hood of her tiny clit. The little jewel of sumptuous flesh was hot to the touch. With my fingers, I gently mopped up the cream she had spilt and applied it to her little bud. I ran my fingers up and down her slit, spreading her wetness over her sex until she was slick. I worked my fingertips against her bud, orbiting the peak as often as pressing upon it.

She made soft moans, but not the squeals that I craved from her. I timidly slipped my fingers to her entrance, where she opened for me with ease. I smiled to myself, so pleased that she was too aroused to be tight and nervous. I crept into her slowly, two fingers pinned together, one joint, then two. She was deliciously hot and saturated within. Her soft walls yielding easily as I began to slowly fuck her with my hand. My thumb rested upon her clit, massaging it in time with my thrusts. Still she moaned reservedly, kitten purrs and gasps.

I sunk my fingers deeper into her cunny. Exploring the textures of her walls. It was so strange to feel a cunt locked around my fingers without receiving any pleasure for myself. I felt like I had lost my sense of navigation. I watched her face intently. Stroking her ceiling to see if she would have the same shudder I did. Working my fingers into her balmy depths. Yet there was ease to it too, as I did not find myself hampered by the inflexibility of my own wrist. My fingerprints soon puckered in the wet of her. I kept an even rhythm.

Her back arched a little with a gasp. I smiled. Here she was. The hidden surface was smoother here, and spongy. I strummed it devotedly. Her breasts lifted and fell as her breathing quickened. I pressed my thumb against her clit, our pulses touching. I fucked her faster.

And just as her hips rose again, I set my mouth upon her clit and lapped at it with a flurry. She tasted like sourdough. Not honey or nectar as virgin poets will tell you. A woman tastes alkaline, living and inexplicable. She shuddered around my fingertips, her mouth open but silent. Her breath stumbling. I felt her ecstasy now as if it were my own, our bodies and senses bleeding into one another. And in a rush I knew how to love her.

I pressed my tongue into her. I wrapped my lips around her. I drank her shimmering gloss. I set my lips upon her clit again and suckled, tongue still dancing upon that little blossom.

She made a sound. Clear and pretty as a bell. I felt the wave crash through her and clung to kiss her open mouth as those ripples ran though me. Our magic was our shared breath, shared pulse, shared mind; connecting us so that I felt her flow through me and myself flow through her. And in knowing what I had given her, I felt myself truly worthy of her affections. It was a beautiful serenity.

I lay panting beside her. It was a grand relief.

“Oh my sweet Little Bride,” Kasita exhaled. Her face was aglow.

“Let me tell you my name, please Kas, this has gotten foolish-”

She put a finger on my lips.

“No, no, no. How many more times? A witch must keep her name safe. A given name strengthens a hex or curse immeasurably. It is best that even you forget it.”

My eyes widened a little.

“Kasita isn’t your real name?”

“Oh no, it is. I gave it to you so that we could be… more equivalent. I am old, and bitter, and… and well, you are not. I thought that you deserved a drop of power over me. In case… in case we should part in anger. Which, might have happened had our companionship not recently taken a shift in nature… but seems rather more likely to happen now…”

“Oh don’t say such things! Do not doubt my adoration!” I kissed her nape and jaw a dozen times, but she stayed serious.

“I have lived centuries and never found a friendship that lasted forever yet.” She said quietly, “And we witches… we are a spiteful clan.”

I desisted in my passion, pain filling in my chest. A memory of fire and blood flashing before my eyes.

“Do you… regret telling me your name… having seen my… temper?” I managed.

“No.” She closed her eyes, and kept them so, “You have not seen mine.”

And in that sentence, I knew that Kasita had killed someone.

I laid my head upon her breast. I was comforted. Perhaps that sounds perverse to you? But I felt that I knew Kasita’s goodness so well, that knowledge of her former misdeeds only served to deepen my affections for her. She had struggled and she had overcome. And we were the same.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened. But I am ready to hear you if you wish to speak of it.” I said.

She had not expected such a reaction. Her eyes were wide and grateful – but for a time, she was too overcome to talk. She held me tightly and cried a while.

Her body shuddered with a graceless sob, her face reddened. I clung to her, smoothing her hair with my fingertips whispering reassurances. Her voice trembled as she told me her story.

Outside it still snowed.

xxxxx

I had expected to wake in some dank grimy dungeon, where I instead arose — quite alone – was in a beautiful sunlit bedroom.

It is important for you to understand that I hadn’t ever really seen wealth before. A better-kept woman from my village might have a silver wedding band or a locket from her grandmother, but no family could indulge a sickly mule or hire a wet nurse. So this room – to my untraveled eyes — was enough that I was not so much distressed by my situation, as overwhelmed by the sheer opulence and beauty of it.

I was strewn, still undressed, upon the softest bed that I had ever lain upon. I spread out my fingers and stroked the luxurious pure white silk. It felt splendid against my fingertips, against my whole body and I squirmed against it in gleeful appreciation.

Above me, the ceiling was covered in Mosaic tiles, thousands of tiny gem-bright squares in sky blue, bumblebee yellow and thistle pink. The walls were bright white, but decorated with huge ornamental tapestries and gleaming golden weaponry.

The large window behind me was the only stained glass I’d ever seen outside of church. Striking geometric patterns bordered the central image of a blue demon’s face. But not the face of my blue demon — this one had the ritualistic scarification of a war-hero all over his angular face. His ears featured ugly tears were presumably his gold earrings had been ripped savagely from his lobes. Dazzling sunshine poured through his merciless expression.

Beside my bed was a small, but clearly artisan, wooden sideboard with a glittering inlay of tiles that matched the ceiling. A folding screen for dressing behind also exhibited a small number of unusual garments. On the opposite side of the room was a dressing table in the same style with a selection of vanity objects carefully displayed in front of an impressive mirror in three sections.

Beyond that, the whole far wall was taken up with a shimmering pinkish curtain, which fluttered slightly in the breeze that was pleasant against the heat.

Slowly, I lifted my aching body from the bed. My joints felt stiff and achy. There was no obvious door, so I walked on shaky legs towards the curtain. I peeped carefully through the fabric, and gasped. It was a balcony garden, with climbing plants blooming with giant orange flowers and a low stone bench facing out onto the view.

The landscape here was a little more hospitable than the desert, but there could be no denying that this was still the Kingdom of Azure. The flat, dry, dusty blue plain had little to offer the eye, but for the crater of an empty lake and odd clusters of gnarled indigo trees. I reached out with my senses to look for nearby life… but found only a family of small thirsty lizards basking completely camouflaged against the stones. I despaired for them, living in the horror of such an unnatural seeming setting. I turned my gaze back to the garden, my eyes greedy for any color that was not that unbroken blue.

I lent over the balcony, looking up and down to try and get a sense of what sort of building it was — but the effort was fruitless, the overhang of the balcony prevented me from seeing the walls below, while what seemed to be another balcony directly above obscured the line of sight looking up.

I sighed as I ventured back into the cool of the indoors; at least if this was my prison, it was a very comfortable one. I poured myself a cup of water from the jug on the stand, then a bowl of water with which to wash my still sandy feet. As I gulped the water, my eye fell upon the small silver-handled looking glass on the dressing table. Scuffed and tarnished, it was a shabby thing compared to the rest of the room’s finery. On the reverse was a peculiar, but faintly familiar emblem made up of tessellating mathematical shapes. The mirror itself was foggy and barely reflective. I polished it optimistically with my bare elbow, but made no improvement. I laughed darkly at my own foolishness. The “mirror” was of course my promised scryglass.

I sat cross-legged on the bed, the scryglass gripped tightly in both hands. I breathed against its surface; then with the tip of my finger, in clumsy un-joined letters wrote my beloved’s name – ‘Kasita’ – in the wet mist. Nothing happened at all. I furrowed my brow.

“Reveal Kasita,” I whispered sweetly to the glass. Still nothing. “Reveal Kasita,” I urged the object. More nothing. I repeated the useless half-spell over and over, until tears crept into my eyes and my voice cracked into a sob. I couldn’t remember the spell from the book. The whole endeavor was hopeless.

I cried with self-pity into my silk sheets. I supposed to be a powerful witch, and here I was a stupid, kidnapped, spoilt little girl. One who couldn’t do a spell so basic that it made an incubus laugh, or come up with any plan of escape that wasn’t simply jumping to her death.

The white sun was dipping into a pink sunset. Feeling the strange sudden chill of evening in a hot climate, I plucked a buttercup yellow gown from the dressing screen. It had long, loose sleeves and tied about my waist with a single sash. I wiped my tear stained face on the sleeve.

I heard a knock on the bedroom door that I didn’t know I had.

xxxxx

The newly appeared bedroom door opened. There hadn’t been a door at all before, but now a demurely dressed woman clutching a gold platter entered.

“Settle down, Child,” her voice was laced with tones of both the Prince’s accent and his self-assuredness, “I’ve brought you dinner.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, not taking my eyes off her as I accepted the plate. She was old — not as old as Kasita — but mortally old, in her seventies or eighties. Her sleek silver hair was perfectly straight and hung to her elbow, contrasting with her wren-brown skin. Her eyes seemed such a dark brown to me that it was almost as if they were nothing but pupil.

“The very first thing that you ought to know is that I am not your maid, and I will not be bringing you food — or anything for that matter — again.” She was not rude precisely, but remarkably brisk.

“Understood,”

“My name is Maya, I haven’t any official role or title here, but most often am referred to as a ‘guest’. The same will be true for you, but make no mistake; we are not guests, we are-”

“Prisoners?” I interjected.

“Residents.” Maya bristled, apparently offended. “It may be unfamiliar to you now, but this castle will soon feel like the truest home you have ever had.” I regarded her sceptically, but I could feel the sincerity of her intention. She believed what she said.

“There are great many rules by which to abide by, but frankly they are so common-sense as to be insulting. Don’t go into the dungeons, don’t harass the guards, don’t commit treason. That type of thing.” I nodded near constantly to show that I was listening. “I will give you keys to the rooms that form the living quarters of the castle — the breakfast room, the library, the observatory and such — if you ever do need to venture elsewhere in the building Lazuren will accompany you,”

“Lazuren?”

She tilted her head and looked at me with a particularly scathing kind of pity.

“His Royal Highness Prince Lazuren the Second of Azure. I believe you have in fact met him.”

“Oh,” I said dimwitted. Of course my Prince had a first name, but in all that had happened, I had never thought to simply ask him what it was.

“He is terrible at introductions,” Maya tutted, more to herself than to me, “It’s always ‘Behold the Sapphire Nightmare’ with him.” She shook her head then added,

“Child, you can do better, what is your name?”

I hesitated.

“Greta.”

“Well Greta, eat up. We haven’t much time before I am to escort you to Lazuren’s chambers.”

For the first time I considered the platter of unrecognizable foods. I was not particularly keen to ‘eat up’.

xxxxx

Maya left me at the door to the Prince’s quarters.

“Aren’t you coming in with me?”

She raised a sardonic brow.

“No thank you. I think I shall feel plenty too involved hearing the commotion through the walls.” And with that she set away from the scene with a stride that was impressive for an elderly woman.

I stood outside the golden door, hoping to gather my thoughts and consider my options. But without my knocking, the heavy gilded door creaked open. With a resigned sigh I stepped inside. The Prince clicked the door softly shut behind me.

“Still pouting?” he asked.

I didn’t respond.

This room was even more lavish in style and comfort than my own, with enormous stuffed chairs and cushions in brightly colored silks strewn everywhere. The Prince took a seat for himself and gestured for me to do the same. The furnishings were all sized for an incubus’ form, so I scrambled awkwardly to clamber into the large chair. Eventually seated, I pulled the hem of my gown as low as I could, willing it to cover my knees. We sat together in stubborn silence. Until he could no longer stand it.

“I am at a loss!” he growled, “How can you sit there scowling as if you have reasonable grounds to be angry with me?”

“I do have reasonable grounds to be angry with you!” I snapped back, “Or did you not notice that you abducted me?”

“I brought you here because I thought that this was where you wanted to be!”

“Wanted! Whatever gave you such a delusional notion?”

“Oh, I suppose that entire episode where you re-summoned me was a figment of my fevered imagination then,” he spat.

“The part where I agreed to be whisked away to live in your Hell palace certainly was,” I said crossly.

He let out an exasperated roar, balled his hands into fists and raised them — but let the action go with a hopeless sigh.

“I will not proclaim love for you or the existence of some supernatural destiny to yet be manifested. But I will insist upon its potential within us. You summoned me a second time. We had a rare connection did we not?”

These words were startling. Too grand. Too truthful. A moment passed before I found the nerve to speak.

“I love another,” I confessed, “And you… have torn me from them.”

Far from the disappointment to him that I expected these words to be, Lazuren was jubilant.

“Oh! Darling Little Witch, now I understand your reluctance. But your mortal romance will soon pale to nothing. Another night with me, and you’ll forget whatever flaccid, shabby man has diverted you.”

“Woman. Witch. No mortal romance at all.”

He laughed his huge rumbling laugh.

“Then why did you summon me Little Witch? If your lady is so important to you?”

“I made a mistake.” I insisted.

The Prince’s smile slowly slipped from his face and finally he became serious.

“You did not. It seems that I did, that I saw in you only what I wanted to see.”

“So you’ll take me home?”

He opened his mouth then closed it again before speaking. He looked sheepish and it did not lend itself to his countenance.

“There is no way to return you home. As Prince, I am bonded to the land of Azure no matter how far I may stray, I can always return here. To visit other realms however, that requires a summoning. I can leave this place only when called.”

I shook my head back and fourth, refusing to accept his words.

“There must be another way back, there has to be.” I felt frantic, there simply had to be another means, another spell, another power. My panic squeezed my lungs, my heart beat like that of a chased rabbit.

Lazuren looked at the floor.

“I brought you here because I thought that this was where you wanted to be.” He repeated sadly. “I thought you would want to stay.”

“Could you not have asked?” I cut back, unwilling to indulge his regret. “You only had to ask and you would have known.”

“Did you ask me when I was summoned to your realm?” He gripped the arms of his chair tightly. “Or did you pluck me from my life, my duties and my family to satisfy your thirst for power and sex?”

His eyes burnt wildly. The air felt charged with the energy of his constrained temper.

“Your people like to tell their stories as if there are only depraved monsters and innocent maids… But we know different, don’t we?” He stood up and I shifted uncomfortably. “You and I know that little maidens with long blonde hair are just as full of dark desires as any big, scary demon. Just as hungry. Just as animal.”

I said nothing in return. He came closer to me now. I felt his breath in my hair and the heat of his body. He lowered his head to my ear.

“No one summons an incubus twice. No one becomes so intoxicated with lust as to take such a risk. Your body wept for me. Burnt for me. Convulsed and shivered and screamed for me. And here you are, marooned in my castle with no means of leaving. Do you really think that you won’t learn to be glad of it?” My flesh felt hotter still. I closed my eyes and tried only to breathe. “Each night alone in your chamber, your little hands in your cunny, just wishing you weren’t so stubborn, wishing you’d dropped your gown for me the moment you’d entered this room. I can put fire on your skin and diamonds in your eyes. You need me, Little Witch Whore.”

“You are forgetting your own nature, Incubus! Whatever doubtful desire I might stumble across in the early hours of the morning is but a spoonful of the torment that will rattle you r very bones. How your body will ache and sob for me. Where will your hands be at night? No succubus or servant will sate you; or you would not have bothered to bring me here.”

He moved to stand in front of me now, his head stooped low so that our eyes were level.

“You accept it then?” he hissed, “Our need is shared. We are inevitable.” I looked away from his yellow eyes and their rays of penetrating light.

“I accept nothing,” I said darkly, “Now, if you are quite done, I wish to return to my chamber.”

He opened the door, gesturing to it with a mocking flourish as if I would not dare to leave.

But I left.

xxxxx

That night I slept on that indulgently soft bed, beneath those fresh silk sheets. Muted light from the fires out on the desert sands patterned the curtain and sparkled in the stained glass. My body could not have wished for greater comfort, but my mind was restless.

Our need is shared. We are inevitable. The Prince’s words swam through my head.

I saw the strange logic. If I was trapped here for all time, then it wouldn’t matter how many years or decades or centuries I denied myself the taste of him; there would come a night when I would offer myself to him eventually.

So why resist at all, if it was inescapable?

I drifted, indecisive, between wakefulness and sleep. I rested my eyelids.

I dreamt of Kasita. Scarlet with anguish as she discovered our home empty but for salt and smoke. Her hypocritical, heartbroken, howl cracking like a whip through the centre of my chest.

I lay awake terrified that she might come looking for me, vexed and vengeful. And I lay awake just as long terrified that she might never look for me at all, and that I was already forgotten.

I dreamt of Mildred. Her hatred for me red-hot even within a soul that could forgive the man who beat her senseless. And I lay awake wondering how I had never learnt not to miss my eldest sister in all my time in the forest, and that I would never learn not to miss her here.

I dreamt of Lazuren. His hot breath on my neck and his anger brewing like thunder in the air. Then falling as soft mournful rain on blue sands.

Now awake, arms outstretched from my body, hands safe from any contact that might see his words vindicated.

I dreamt of my father. Maggots festering in his skull. Ever unseeing. Finally blindly sleeping.

All of their bitter voices whispering one word over and over.

WHORE.

THE END OF CHAPTER THREE