Meagan laughed. "If I'm not here from five a.m. to seven p.m. every day, they'd fire me."

"But you could go to Gildon, get an education and be anything." "I don't have that kind of money, Elle."

"What if you did? Like a scholarship."

"No. I like my life here. I don't have kings chasing after me but I have it better than most."

"But there's so much more out there. It's beautiful. Green and lush instead of this deathly white that suffocates and freezes everything. Everyone was nicer there too. And I felt like I mattered there. I might just chance the snow in the mountains. No one would suspect and it would be harder for them to track me during snowfall."

"But you'd die."

Chapter Four.

December 21, 9544 AR

Valetta, Biston

Eleanor wriggled all night. The thick layers of clothing bunched up around her, making it impossible to get comfortable. But it wasn't just that. Her cunt still swelled and drenched her panties. She ached for something, anything to fill her, to pump her hard and rough.

No, that wasn't completely true. Her body wanted him. Traitorous flesh. Maybe a walk would help get him off her mind.

She muttered one of the few elven spells she knew and the illusion of a blue flame lit her palm. If only it were warm like true fire. The soft light cast short shadows in the tiny room. No lanterns. No fireplace. Not even a candle. She dared not draw the drapes for moonlight. Cold drafts would only add to her misery.

Just a quick walk.

With a groan she rolled out of bed and into her slippers. Oh, so cold. She jumped up and down to warm up, then rushed out the door, palm in front of her. Her teeth clattered and she couldn't feel her toes.

Eerie light from the Red Moon spilled in through the curtainless hall window behind her to give the walls a disgusting blood-smeared appearance. Dark memories oozed up. Earth, she didn't want to remember. At the other end of the hall, the Old Moon, with its pale, colorless light offered escape. She smothered the elven flame in her palm.

The east wing would be warmer. Fires burned there, as opposed to the south wing, where the chimneys had cracked and caved in.

As she neared the pale light, dozens of voices echoed off the rough brick walls and worn wood floor. It sounded like the murmur of thoughts from her guards but real. Moans, whimpers, passionate demands and grunts. Disjointed images of writhing bodies, half clothed in fanciful clothing and mismatched touches didn't synch up to the sounds. Outside the throne room, she realized why. There had to be at least fifty people in there, fucking. Their emotions and thoughts had smeared into one streak in her exhausted mind.

Eleanor stared at the door to the throne room in disbelief, eyes lit with lust of her own. She had to be dreaming. This couldn't be real. But her dreams normally had more color and light.

Heat seeped out from the dimly glowing edges of the door. It melted her frozen toes, as she stood there, hand paused on the smooth knob. She wanted to peek inside but her gut clenched in warning. Something was wrong. Her name. She'd heard her name. She licked her lips, trying to focus on a single stream of thoughts that immediately slipped away but couldn't find it among the masses.

Her drenched cunt and heaving chest argued it didn't matter. She could outrun them, couldn't she? If not, illusions could hide her. Maybe she wouldn't want to run. She smirked, wishing she could indulge her needs so openly in front of an audience of fifty ready cocks. Mmm. Guaranteed satisfaction.

Just a little peek.

Her insides fluttered about like moths in a jar. It shouldn't be scary. They wouldn't see her.

She turned the knob and opened the door just a crack. Smokey incense swirled out.

Beyond the pungent haze, flesh slapped together. Silk and lace dripped off shoulders and below exposed breasts. Bare asses shimmied from the force of thrusting cocks. Moans. Hands grabbing, squeezing, caressing. Parted lips. Muscled bodies dripping with sweat. Tongues tasting wet skin. But masks covered their faces and fabric draped over their hair. A depraved masquerade. Their ridiculous costumes, shortened and skimpy, mocked fairytales and positions of the palace. Pillows cushioned their heads and boosted their cunts to hungry cocks but on the stage was a silk-draped bed.

A woman lay on her belly across it, tiny skirt lifted up, fucked from behind, while sucking on another. Dark kinky hair poked out from the tight fabric holding her mask in place, marking her as Meagan.

Eleanor should have closed the door and fled but her throbbing clit and knobby nipples begged for more. She couldn't look away. Oh, she wanted to touch. To feel those veiny cocks plow into her eager pussy.

Masked faces turned to her. A man pulled the door from her grip and it crashed open.

Before she could think to flee, she saw him.

Erick's dark gaze pierced her through the slits of a black mask. He couldn't hide his thoughts from her. Black silk around his ankles, penis dripping with sex, he stood on the stage, behind Meagan. He'd fucked her, the way he'd wanted Eleanor over his chair.

"You whore!" The words screamed out on their own. Tears burned her blazing eyes. She clamped her hand over her trembling mouth to hold back the sobs. Blindly, Eleanor ran.

The last quarter of the Red Moon shone high in the night sky. Brilliant red, like the curtains Marilyn pushed back. Supposedly, the Red Moon had been knocked from Earth by a giant meteor that set into motion the evolution of elves, dwarves and wizards from mortal humans. A silly myth. Wizards came much later. A self-made race of sexy beings. Someday Marilyn would find herself another one of those beefy, magic wielding beauties. Her pulse quickened just from the memory of a wizard casting spells in the buff. Mmm, yet another reason to break free.

Marilyn gripped the windowsill and a splinter sliced into her finger. With a gasp, she jerked her hand back. Damned crumbling palace. At least it couldn't hold her much longer.

Blood dripped a deeper shade in the light of the Red Moon. She sucked up her favorite color, the color of the roses that grew in the garden just below her plastic-barred window. Though Phil brought them to her in spring, she hadn't felt their thorns scratch her fingertips in ten years. Since her imprisonment in this awful tower, grass hadn't tickled her feet, spells hadn't poured from her mouth and whims hadn't whisked her through the Biston countryside. All because of elves.

Ropes of tension drew in Marilyn's shoulders and pained her neck.

Oh, how she despised the controlling, deceitful creatures. Two of them stood guard at the plastic door, ever watching her with their eerie silver eyes. Repulsive. Nearly colorless. The Red Moon lent only a temporary crimson sheen to their silver hair which fell past their shoulders over their black cloaks. Come morning, they'd match the maggoty white plastic door, walls and floor.

King Andraste of the Western River Elves had placed the elven guards there despite his promised allegiance twenty years ago. A better offer came along which the elves jumped at far too eagerly. Andraste's niece would suffer for it. Poor girl. She didn't deserve what they'd forced on her.

Heels clicked up the stairs and Phil's lustful thoughts drifted up.

Earth, Marilyn was in no mood. Did he think she just waited for him all day and night? Of course. What else did she have to do? Bile rose up and left an awful taste in her mouth as she sank into the bright orange and purple cushions piled on her window seat. Phil had brought them as gifts last New Year's Eve. The soft weave gave beneath her weight and cuddled her like a grandmother's knitted sweater but she hated them. They reminded her every day of what she didn't have-cold, outdoor air on her skin.

The door clicked open but she couldn't look at him.

"Did you feel the surprise?" he asked, voice lifted with enthusiasm.

"Yes." She'd felt the poor girl arrive earlier in the day. An innocent little bird, caged from birth. "She shouldn't be here."

"What? Why?" He knelt on the dented plastic floor moving into Marilyn's view. His gray brows creased and lifted as he softly touched her ankles. His fingertips found a ticklish spot in the divot behind her ankle bone, as if elves weren't watching.

He made her gasp and squirm while he drew her foot into his lap. A grin grew across his lips when her toes found his arousal.

Marilyn glanced at the elves, wishing they'd look away. But they never did. Their silver eyes stared from expressionless faces.

Although Marilyn had hung layers of red and purple silk from the rods of her four-poster bed for privacy with Phil, his seductions always started in plain view. Maybe he enjoyed an audience.

Marilyn didn't. Heat squirmed through her insides like worms despite the gush of honey from her sex. "Stop," she whispered. "The girl," she reminded him. "Set her free. It's not right, her being here."

Undaunted, he lifted Marilyn's skirt to kiss her knee. His short-cropped beard scratched her skin. Normally that made her moan but then he said, "You'll be free to be mine."

Marilyn kicked him away. Heat flashed through her face and neck. "You don't understand the meaning of the word free." Earth, men were so stupid and cold.

The image of her late husband flickered in her head. Marriage had imprisoned her just as much as the elves who guarded the plastic door then and now.

Phil shifted to kneel before her again, as if starting over in his routine of seduction. "It's not the same. I promise it'll be different." The man never gave up. Every day he asked and every day she answered the same.

"No." Marilyn didn't want another husband. How could Phil be any better? He didn't truly love her. For ten years he'd done nothing to free her from this one-room prison. Only ten paces separated her bed from her scratched dining table. Another five paces to her stove and oven. Yet no amount of color could overpower the tiny cell's suffocating white walls and floor. She'd draped rich, bright fabrics over the few pieces of furniture but couldn't nail anything to the walls. Only a window interrupted the circular, plastic lined wall.

Phil swallowed and blinked but disappointment didn't stop him. "I'll be good to you, my love. I've never hurt you since we met, have I?"

Not yet. But all men decayed to scum once they achieved some level of power in a relationship. She wouldn't stick around to make the same mistake as last time. If she regained her freedom, she'd flee. "Besides, you're assuming the girl wants him." Eleanor wasn't stupid. She must have read the warps in Erick's mind. All the Duran men bore those abusive and cruel inclinations that worsened with time.

"I've worked hard to make him a good man, Marilyn. You'll see. He's considerate and sensitive. Nothing like his father."

Yeah, right. "Even if he does what Andraste wants, there's no guarantee they'll let me go."

Phil's barely-there touch glided up the sinews of her calves, under her dress. He always touched her so carefully as if she were a cracked tea cup in need of glue. In his lover's tone, he whispered, "They'd have no reason to keep you."

She wanted to believe him, to trust him but how could she? Phil had been the one who convinced Andraste to switch allegiances to Erick during the Revolution. Marilyn would still rule Biston as queen if not for Phil. She should abhor him. Her stomach should churn every time he crept through her door. Yet his tender touch behind her knee quickened her breath and dampened her neck.

Because of Phil, the elves kept her prisoner as a threat over Erick's head, in case Erick refused to marry Andraste's niece. Marilyn would benefit more from Erick's failure. If Eleanor abandoned the hateful boy, Marilyn could take back the throne.

If she could just push the girl to leave. If she gave Eleanor the spells to abandon Erick, Marilyn could seize control and make them all pay. The elves, Erick, Phil and the miserable filth that had sunk Biston into recession. Erick, like all the other sexist scum, prevented Biston's renaissance.

Marilyn's throat tightened. She wished she didn't hate her son. Twenty-five years ago, she'd had such high hopes for the boy. But he wasn't hers. A Duran. Raulin's son. A nearly-human, incapable of magic. An insignificant speck, unworthy of the crown. He had no idea. "You haven't even told him have you?"

Phil's touch halted and he sat back on his haunches. "No. Henry's right. Better to let them progress naturally. Erick'll figure out who Eleanor is."

"You're giving him too much credit," Marilyn muttered. The boy had always been slow. "You shouldn't listen to Henry. He's no better than Raulin." Her late husband had manipulated men like clay for his own amusement.

In a defensive tone, Phil argued, "Henry loves his wife and daughter. He'd do anything for them and Biston."

"His child knows nearly nothing. Not a single spell in her head other than the few I snuck in there. How is that love? To keep her weak for a moron. How could she possibly rule Biston with so little? What will she do that Erick can't?" If Eleanor were Marilyn's daughter, the girl would wield elven kings' magic. One day, Eleanor might have even woken the elementals of Biston, where Marilyn failed. But Henry had prevented that. Ignorant bastard.

"It's the only way Erick will see her." Phil shifted and his gaze avoided Marilyn's. "If Eleanor practiced magic... If she were..."

"Like me?" Marilyn cut him off. "He'll what? Say it." "If she's a threat in his eyes, he'll run the other way." "A threat like me." A demon, her son called her.

"No. You couldn't help it. I know that but he doesn't."

"I never purposefully hurt him." Marilyn had only tried to teach and mold him. No other way could strengthen him enough for elven magic and make him sympathetic to others. "He couldn't perform a single spell. How else was I supposed to prepare him?" Blood pounded in her head.

"I know." Phil rose up to kiss her. His cologne wafted up with the heat from his body to soften her resistance.

Although the scratch of his bearded chin always sent delightful shivers up her spine, she turned from his kiss. "What's the point?" He couldn't give her what she wanted. Either an elven reproductive system cursed her, which meant only one child every hundred years, or she'd let Phil age too much. Tears stung her eyes and her tongue pressed hard against the roof of her mouth.

Phil's voice hardened. "Don't you want me?"

She sobbed, "It'll end like every other night and I'll wait, hoping." Earth, she wanted a daughter. A little girl to hold in her arms and mold with spells. If only Erick had been a girl instead of a Duran pig. She'd have been such a good mother then, instead of the empty wretch she'd become. Marilyn's ribs caved in to crush her lungs.

Phil squirmed in behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Shhh. It's okay. Just give my plan a chance. I promise you'll cradle a baby granddaughter. That's just as good right? Better because you'll get to spoil her."

"He won't let me see her. It'll be the same as with Eleanor."

"No. I promise. You'll see her as much as you want. Things will be better. I swear it. Please, trust me. Just imagine that baby smell and that warm tiny body in your arms. A part of you and a part of me."

Her nose ran and she sniffled as she leaned back into Phil's embrace. "Even if your plan does work, he'll be a lousy father." Erick shouldn't have children. Like Raulin, he'd only hurt the child.

"Then you'll keep her safe. It'll be okay. You'll see."

Could Marilyn whisk the baby off to Gildon? Maybe elves wouldn't guard the door. She'd just slip out in the night.

A little breath of hope tickled her lungs. Perhaps Phil could give her what she wanted. She handed him his glasses from where she'd hidden them behind a pillow. "You forgot these last night."

"Maybe I left them here on purpose for you to think of me." Phil kissed her neck and the edges of his lips scratched her skin. He blew to cool the burn.

Earth, when he did that, shivers plucked at her nerves and muscle to draw her neck tight. Her cheek pressed against the sandpapery burn and the exhilaration grew too great.

His arm tightened around her waist as if to keep her from fleeing. Wait. Not in front of them, she projected the thought to Phil.

"They don't watch," he whispered, lips brushing against the delicate skin of her neck.

But their silver eyes glowed like lanterns held out in front of them to illuminate every stroke, kiss, suck and lick. Not only did the depraved voyeurs watch but they got off on it. Thick rods sprouted and pushed against their cloaks.

Chapter Five.

December 22, 9544 AR

Valetta, Biston