Chapter 8

Suzan could tell by the rising and setting of the sun that she had been here at least a week and a half so far. She wasn't sure what was going on with Dusty and her friends, but she really wanted to see them again.

The first few days she was there she refused to eat, though after awhile she decided starving herself before she found a way out didn't make sense. But she refused to eat with the Queen and Prince under any circumstances. She just flat out refused to see them.

Everyday she tried to scrub her face and hands to get off the makeup, and even though she almost scrubbed them raw, the colors did not come off. She realized that they again hadn't lied to her about what they had done.

On day four her hand maiden, who was always present in her room first thing in the morning after the first meal with the Queen and Prince, told her that she could walk outside today if she wanted to, but she would be escorted by guard "for her protection".

Suzan really knew it was to prevent her from escaping.

At first Suzan refused, but then almost immediately she called her back and said that she would go. She realized that she still had no idea where she was, or how to get free. She would need information to make any good plan, she needed to see outside.

Bowing and leading the way, Suzan was then lead outside of the palace.

Suzan was quickly surrounded by the sounds coming from all around her.

Looking back at the palace she could see that it was huge. It was surrounded by shrubs that were about waist high around the outer walls walls, but cut to only thigh high where they were close to the walls of the building.

The windows were all open and the palace had easily five stories to it.

Unlike most castles the palace had a double rod iron gate and a rod iron fence that seemed to run the length of the grounds.

Looking around her in awe Suzan could see all the various workers and people running around. All the women she could see were dressed similar to her in various colors and all the men were dressed similar to her guards and the Prince.

While the other men were impressive, not one of them was quite as attractive as the Prince or had his impressive build.

As she realized that her mind had mysteriously wandered into having that thought, Suzan started to blush hard. She had no idea why that train of thought even entered her mind.

"My lady, are you alright? Your face is looking flush," said the hand maiden.

Hearing her say that Suzan's face blushed even harder.

"I'm fine. I just need some sun, uh, I'm sorry I've never asked your name," said Suzan.

"It's Anita my lady," said Anita.

"Ok, stop calling me "my lady" will you please? I'm Suzan," said Suzan.

"I'm sorry but one can not call royalty by their first name," said Anita softly.

"But I'm not royalty am I? And I don't plan to ever be, so Suzan if you please," said Suzan matter of factly.

"As you wish my ... Suzan," said Anita with a small smile.

"So Anita, where are we exactly?" asked Suzan.

"I'm sorry my ... Suzan, but no one will tell you until after your marriage to the Prince. It is forbidden during the time of choosing. Once you decide to marry him all your questions will be answered," said Anita.

"What if I don't want to marry him and only want to leave?" asked Suzan.

"It has never happened before, so I still am not at liberty to say," said Anita.

"But is it possible to chose not to marry him?" asked Suzan.

"Again, I am forbidden to say anything during this time ... Suzan. But it has never happened in the history of our people," said Anita.

Letting her quietly think about the responses for a bit they walked into the market square.

Suzan had a thought of darting into the crowd, but that hope was dash as she realized two things. One, no one was dressed like she was. She was the only one in a stark white outfit while others were dressed in varying but less obvious colors, and two the crowd parted like an opening door and dropped to their knees to bow as she and her guards passed through.

Not one person stood, but they were so tightly packed together that she couldn't get past them to escape into any buildings or side streets.

That made it impossible to escape unnoticed, unless she wanted to see if she could outrun her guards on the straightaway, even though she had no idea where she was.

While she was walking though the market square a little girl, with pig tails and a brown outfit similar to everyone else, was peeking up at her and trying to get a good look instead of kneeling like everyone else did.

She looked to be about six seasons old.

Slowing to look at her Suzan dropped to her knees to rub her little head. The little girl gasped and trembled but tried not to move.

Speaking softly Suzan asked "Little one what's the matter?"

The little girl didn't speak, but someone who was obviously her mother grabbed her to her chest and said without looking up "Princess, please forgive her. She is little and doesn't understand."

Reaching out and touching the woman's face Suzan made her look up.

"I'm not a Princess and you have done nothing for me to forgive," said Suzan.

"But aren't you going to marry the Prince?" asked the little girl before her mother could shush her.

"No I'm not. I'm just his guest for a while," said Suzan with a warm smile for the little girl.

The little girl smiled back at her as well, even though her mother looked at Suzan in shock for her statement. No one who had ever came to marry the Princes ever left. They always became the next Queen.

"Please stand, everyone. This is making my uncomfortable. Please don't do this," said Suzan as she looked around.

At first no one moved, but the little girl stood up and stepped close to Suzan. Suzan reached out for her hand and the little girl gave it to her.

"Honey, what is your name?" asked Suzan.

"It's Tabitha. Tabitha Benin," said the little girl.

"Well Tabitha, how would you like to be my friend?" asked Suzan smiling.

The smile on the little face would be able to light a hundred rooms.

As the crowds saw how everything played out they stood and smiled at Suzan. Soon everyone was coming up to talk with and touch her.

A few times she fought the urge to break and run to keep from being touched by strangers, but eventually once everyone's curiosity was filled they started on with their daily lives. Only Tabitha stayed close holding onto Suzan's hand.

Before long Suzan had walked as far as her guards were willing to let her and she returned to the palace and her room. Anita excused herself and left, and then Suzan was all alone.

One thing that Suzan found out during this time as well was that Anita wasn't just a simple hand maid.

Growing bored Suzan asked to please be allowed to get some exercise before she grew fat and lazy.

Taking her to a practice room Suzan was then shown numerous blunt weapons and allowed to work out with a few, but they made sure to make her leave them where she found them before they would even open the door to let her out.

At first Suzan kept to just using only the blunt swords for practice, but as the days rolled by she stayed longer and longer in the room and eventually started doing a few hand to hand combat practice moves.

The major reason for her practices to run longer and longer was that Suzan was growing more and more frustrated.

She didn't want to admit it, but Jolica was right.

The first few days she was angry and that was her driving factor. But as the days rolled on she started to find that her mind was wandering on its own into things it shouldn't.

Every time they let her out of her room to roam the grounds she saw nothing but well built men, and a few attractive women, all around the palace. The men were all in kilt shorts and showing off their well developed bodies.

Not to mention that the Prince as well always seemed to be there to greet her when she left her room and greeted her when she returned. Even though she would no longer eat with him and his mother, she seemed to always see him underfoot whenever she entered or left a room in the company of Anita, no matter when it was.

She began to wonder if he had any other jobs to do than stalk her.

Suzan tried not to pay attention, but it was hard every time he or one of the other well built men came her way. They all seemed to be smiling, almost waiting, for something to happen. They were always polite, never touched her, but they were always there.

And it was always handsome young men who came when she called help to get something, move something, or tell her where something was located, and the Prince wasn't far behind "watching" all interactions with her. The guards were still with her but they didn't react or move from their position of standing guard over her.

The first time she realized she was staring at a young man's butt trying to figure out what was under his kilt was when she became distracted and looked up from the book she was trying to read in the library. She stopped what she was doing when she realized he was staring at her and smiling in a knowing way.

Blushing hard she looked back down at her book and didn't look up again until he had left the room.

By the end of the second week she had quit looking people in the eye as she knew that they were all expecting her to start undressing them with her eyes soon.

If it would have stopped at that she might have been able to control it.

But also during the beginning of the second week she found herself dreaming erotic dreams all the time.

Originally it was of Dusty, and later it was of Dusty and a few of the young men together, and they were all always working hard at pleasing her.

Twice she had come awake only to find she was touching herself.

She screamed and ran for the bathroom to take a cold bath. A few times she fell asleep in the bath because it would keep her from touching herself again.

Suzan couldn't believe it, but everything Jolica had said would happen was slowly happening to her.

Sometime also near the end of the second week she found herself starting to dream about the Prince.

At first he joined everyone else in her dreams that always contained Dusty, but over time the dreams started having just him and Dusty by themselves, and later it was just him alone.

She would often dream about how she would run her hands all over his firm and hard body, and how she would stroke the hair on his head as they stared deep into each others eyes while they pleasured each other.

During one such dream she came awake in the middle of a violent orgasm that almost completely robbed her of her senses.

Once finished she realized that she had pleasured herself throughout her entire dream of her making love with the Prince and not to her husband, and the conclusion to the dream was of the Prince giving her such intense and great pleasure.

Screaming Suzan curled up in a ball and wept after that happened, and refused to leave her room for the entire day.

She refused to sleep on the bed any longer, and would only sleep naked on the tiles in the bathroom, where it was cold and uncomfortable.

After that Suzan started working out hard to relieve her frustrations.

She refused to be someone else's plaything. She would be the one to make any decisions on the direction of her life.

Suzan eventually asked Anita if she could find someone for her to spar with.

As soon as the question was finished Anita walked over to the wall, pulled down a sword, gave it a few practice swings and returned to where Suzan was.

"Anita, I don't want to hurt you, but I need someone to spar with," said Suzan with uncertainty.

Smiling Anita swung at her with an over head cut, that caught Suzan off guard and she just barely blocked.

"What the..." started Suzan, but Anita had pulled back the blade to swing it as a vicious back hand at her.

Realizing that Anita was pretty well versed in sword craft, Suzan smiled and started to get serious in her practice.

Suzan disarmed Anita quite a few times, but Anita just retrieved her sword and started again. Even though she was gasping for wind at time, she refused to quit practicing with Suzan.

Seeing that she was about spent, Suzan asked "Why didn't you say you could use a sword?"

"I was picked to be your second in command of the army when you become Queen. I had to fight against all other comers and prevail. I am well versed in reading, art, math, and weapons. I need to be a walking reference if you need me to me to assist you no matter what," said Anita with a smile.

Smiling herself, Suzan put her arm around her and hugged her. She didn't really think about it at the time, but it felt like Anita was trying to be her friend, and she really needed one right then.

Suzan wasn't aware that in the shadows above the room the Queen or her son the Prince often watched her practice. Anita was the best fighter they had and Suzan easily defeated her and always outlasted her.

The Queen wasn't sure if in her prime she could have taken Suzan.

But it always brought a smile to their faces when they saw how hard she practiced.

Another thing that helped Suzan pass the time was the different walks through the market or the times that Tabitha was admitted into the palace on a routine basis and permitted to visit with her.

The little girl was infectious and bubbly. She was always happy to see Suzan and always raced up to her in the market and held her hand and walked and pointed out people and things for her to see.

As few different times Tabitha started to say something while chatting with her, but Suzan could see out of the corner of her eye Anita shake her head and the little girl stopped, and she then switched to more mundane things.

Suzan wanted to know more about current events, especially when Tabitha started talking about people who lived outside the city going missing. Suzan wanted to know more about that.

But she also knew that she was here for a reason, based on how they kidnapped her and kept her away from basically everyone else, and she wanted to know what that reason was.

Even as hard as she worked out and kept busy the dreams at first slowed down, but eventually started happening again in full force.

For a second time, even though she was sleeping on the cold tile floor, she dreamed of making wild love to the Prince once again and she again came awake in the middle of a violent orgasm. Though this time it was so powerful that it seemed to linger, and while trapped in it she was extremely light headed and dizzy and couldn't seem to get her bearings.

It was so powerful that she stayed disoriented for several moments before she eventually came down.

Opening her eyes, and then checking her extremely wet hand, Suzan realized what she had done and started screaming non stop at the top of her lungs. She seemed to scream for hours, even though it was no more than likely only several minutes.

Dashing into the bathroom, for the first time that Suzan could remember, Anita was there and she held Suzan as she managed to scream, weep, and babbled incoherently all at the same time about things that made no sense to Anita, but she held her until Suzan wound down and dropped into a fitful sleep.

For the first time since she was chosen to become the Princesses second in command she wasn't sure if they were doing the right thing to Suzan.

She was following the Princes orders, and reporting everything as he asked, but she wasn't sure if Suzan eventually would break down and give in or drive herself insane trying to resist.

Anita shed a few tears of her own for her part in this.

While Suzan was growing even more agitated by her fitful dreams, dreams that seemed to be coming more and more frequently, she had given up sleeping on the bathroom floor as it no longer stopped her from touching herself.

Moving back to the bed since sleeping on the cold tile didn't stop her dreams, she found that instead of playing with herself once a night, she was now doing it two and three times, and each time was even more intense than the last.

Suzan no longer awoke screaming when she realized that she no longer had any control over making herself stop doing this, but she did wake up crying very hard in frustration over her inability to make herself stop each time.

And even though she cried herself to sleep each time she awoke this way, she still had those intense erotic dreams, no matter how determined she was to never do it again, and every time she was still touching herself during them.

Suzan might have had a complete and total mental breakdown from all of this, except just as she was dropping off to sleep, after her latest erotic dream, her bedroom door burst open in the middle of the night.

Jumping up from the middle of the bed naked to stand on the floor Suzan stared at the person who had entered so abruptly and found it was Anita.

Anita was dressed like she always was, but she struggled hard, while bent almost in two, to carry a very large sword in a back scabbard. She had a similar styled sword on her back already.

"Suzan we have to move quickly. You'll need a weapon because you don't have one, so I went to the royal armory and got one. Here is your royal sword. You'll need this and you have to get dressed quickly!" said Anita in a whisper.

"Where are the guards?" asked Suzan as she struggled into her top and then stopped to pull on her skirt/shorts.

The only answer Anita gave her was the movement of her head over her shoulder.

Looking past her Suzan could see the two night guards slumped against the wall and out cold on the ground.

"Are you helping me escape?" asked Suzan hopefully.

"Maybe later, but first I need your help. Tabitha has been taken by trolls and we need to move fast!" said Anita.