I woke up with my head on Virtus’s chest. I looked up and he was already awake, looking at my face. I was a little bit startled.

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “Only a little while, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Thank you,” I smiled and started to trace circles on his chest.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Good,” I tried to remember how I had felt the morning after I actually lost my virginity. “A little sore.”

  He cupped my cheek with his hand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine, yesterday was good.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.”

  I moved up and kissed him. He pulled me closer to him, my breasts brushing against his chest. I felt something hard push against my leg. I blushed.

  “Do you want to do it again?”

  “It always gets hard in the morning,” he expined. “We don’t have to do it.”

  He ran his fingers through my hair, then he added:

  “But if you want to do I wouldn’t mind.”

  I blushed again.

  “I think I want to.”

  He smiled and kissed me, running his hand over my breast. My nipple turned hard under the touch of his hands. Then his hand ran down my ribcage and over my hips, rubbing my hipbone with his thumb.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered into my ear.

  I felt him getting even harder with my leg pressed against his dick.

  “Do you want to try something different this morning?”

  “Different how?”

  “Sit on my face?”

  “What?”

  “If you sit on it, I can lick you while lying down.”

  “Are you just asking me to do this because you’re zy?”

  He chuckled.

  He y on his back and showed me how to sit on top of his face, with one leg on each side. I felt sort of powerful, seeing him lie there underneath me. He grabbed my thighs from behind and started licking. He started with slow soft ps at my clitoris, pying with it with his tongue and mouth, but he soon started going faster. I grabbed the headboard. With one hand he started stroking himself. His cock was already dripping with excitement. I took a sharp breath in, the night before he had been teasing me, but now I was finding out that he could make me come as slowly or as quickly as he wanted.

  I screamed as he made me come, the rapture was too sudden to hold back. He kept going until I was no longer tensing up, and his tongue was starting to grate me just a little bit. Then he pulled back and ughed.

  “Oh no,” I whispered. “Do you think someone heard me?”

  “Yes darling I think everyone heard you.”

  I banged my head against the tall eborate headboard.

  “Now come on, move down.”

  I awkwardly cmbered off his face and back on to his hips. I didn’t know if there was an attractive way to do it, but certainly none that I was capable of.

  He guided himself inside me as I slid down on him. I moved carefully at first, then eased into the movement. He was so big, and it was pretty tricky to move comfortably with it. Virtus started guiding me by thrusting his hips up into me. I moaned. He went on like this for a few minutes, my pleasure rising with every thrust.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  I did. Now I was no longer looking at his beautiful face but his bck-haired legs. It was quite a downgrade.

  “Now lie back slowly.”

  I moved backwards very slowly, using every muscle in my thighs, finally I was lying back on Virtus’s chest with my knees bent in a pretty weird position. My long hair fell in Virtus’s face and he had to brush it off so that it would lie around his shoulders. He lightly kissed my jaw. He grabbed my hips and thrust up slowly. It felt amazing. He started moving, I moaned. It felt so much better when he was in charge, he knew what he was doing so well.

  He pushed into me again and again. My breasts bouncing with the movement. I felt so full and hot. He moved his hands down to finger me, wetting his fingers on the lips of my vagina. He fingered me carefully at first, finding a way to synchronize the movement of his fingers with the movement of his hips.

  My mind went empty as he thrust up again and again, pying with my clit while he did it. The pressure built up inside me again. I clenched around his big hard cock and bit my lip as the waves of pleasure rode through me.

  Virtus took a little bit longer than me this time. I y on top of him, spent, satisfied, as he kept going. He grabbed my tits, letting them bounce into his warm hands. He went faster and faster until finally he came as well, panting into my ear as his hot come shot inside me.

  I y still on top of him for a little bit, thinking about how lucky I was to have sex like that for the rest of my life.

  ***

  The next two months were a dream. We travelled through the duchies of Medora with style, and I got to see so much of this beautiful country which I was to call my own. Of course not everyone liked me, but none were so outwardly hostile as Duke Etolio and Duchess Astra. Virtus always defended me and honestly it made me excited to see him exercise his power to protect me.

  First we went through the mild climate of Tamora and Pelva, meeting people at the vilge festivals and in the market cities. Virtus would hold speeches for the common people in their own nguages and they would cheer wildly. He would teach me a few words to say as well and when I would repeat them even the groups that were originally hostile would warm up to me. They would give us local fish and fruits to eat, and the harvest festivals coincided with our presence there.

  The next month we travelled through the mountainous duchies of Trakkatt and Marmmo during the beginning of winter. It was getting quite cold in the mountains, and Virtus told me that we could not have gone ter, then it would even be too snowy to travel through. I wished I had known this because then I could have brought more of my woollen travelling clothes from Havermark.

  One morning I woke up to find Virtus gone. When he returned he was beaming with pride, holding a big beautiful fur coat. It was so warm and lovely I could wear it over my silk dresses and stay warm all day. At night we cuddled up together next to firepces in the castles. I was never cold in his warm embrace.

  The mountainous areas were more sparsely poputed, the common people there spoke Arpas, the nguage of the mountain people. They were very pleasantly surprised when Virtus could speak any of it at all. Everywhere we went, he was adored by the common people and respected by the nobles.

  We shared the same bedroom every night, even though we were given two, and almost every night we had sex. It kept getting better and better. We explored new positions, and got to know each other’s bodies. Virtus was very sensitive to every little cue from me, and became an expert in pleasing me. He could tell how I felt and what I would like almost better than I could. From the way he pleased me and from the positions he chose for us to try it was very clear that I was not the first woman he had been with. This was considered normal for men of royal families, but for women it would be a great sin.

  ***

  At the start of the third month of our trip we descended from the mountains to enter the duchy of Aloria. The temperature immediately rose, and although it was now the middle of winter, it was only cool.

  “So Queen Reena told me that you and the duchess are close,” I watched for his reaction.

  “Yes,” Virtus looked a little distant. “We were friends since childhood. She was married quite young, at nineteen, but she comes down to the capital fairly often.”

  “And you go to visit her as well,” I added.

  “Yes. I come for the good wine and the good weather too.”

  “Well the wine should be easy enough to transport to Medolina.”

  We sat in silence for a little bit, then I asked him:

  “The queen also said that her husband died.”

  “Yes, he died of a lung infection around a year after they were married, when she was pregnant with the young duke. He is eight years old now.”

  We entered the castle and Duchess Karina and her son Duke Jarion welcomed us. The duke lit up at the sight of Prince Virtus, and almost ran to hug him.

  “No, remember,” his mother said sternly, “this is an official visit.”

  The child became serious. He had his mother's bck hair and cool blue eyes. He looked so much like her that I could not have guessed what his father had looked like. He bowed.

  “Prince Virtus, Princess Talia, we humbly welcome you to our home.”

  I curtsied back to the child, and Virtus replied:

  “Thank you, Duke Jarion. We are happy to be here.”

  The kid giggled.

  “You may hug me now, if you want, duke.”

  He ran over to Virtus to hug him.

  “Duchess Karina,” I said, “I’m so happy to see that your son is healthy again.”

  The duchess tore her gaze from her son and my husband.

  “What, oh yes. It turns out it was not so bad after all. I’ve heard your wedding was very beautiful.”

  “I’ve heard so too, although I must admit I was so nervous I couldn’t really enjoy it.”

  The duchess nodded.

  “I was the same way on my wedding day.”

  They showed us around the castle and then we had dinner. The food was very good but the conversation was a little stilted. Often Duchess Karina and Virtus would bring up things from the past or references to something I didn’t know about. Even the young duke wanted to discuss some memories with Virtus that I had no knowledge of.

  ***

  I y in my bed after dinner, waiting for Virtus to come. He had told me that he would come to my bedroom after discussing the logistics of our ongoing trip with Sir Topelio. I wondered what could be taking so long, he had usually been quite eager to get into bed at the end of every evening.

  I stared at the ceiling in the light of the candlelight. Maybe there was some issue? I had a nice old wool dressing gown from home. I didn’t wear it often, but that night I needed the comfort, and even in Aloria the winter nights were cool. I slipped on the dressing gown and a pair of warm shoes and left the room to look for Virtus.

  Outside my room stood Sir Rallen, one of the castle guards that had accompanied us.

  “Where are you going your majesty?”

  “To look for my husband.”

  “I don’t think you need to do that, he’ll come.”

  He was making a strange, furtive sort of expression.

  “I’ll just go to Sir Topelio’s bedchamber to ask him when he will come to bed.”

  “Oh, if that’s it I could go for you.”

  Something didn’t seem right to me. Something made me want to push it.

  “No, I’d like to see him in person.”

  Sir Rallen pursed his lips.

  “Fine, I will come with you.”

  The castle was dark and cold. It was that sort of humid cold that is not actually near freezing but still cuts to the bone. I wrapped my dressing gown tight around me with one hand as I held my oil mp with the other. Sir Rallen followed me with a candle.

  We went up to Sir Topelio’s room. It was quiet. I knocked on the door and waited for a while. Sir Topelio came to the door wearing his linens. He had clearly been asleep.

  “Sir Topelio, I am looking for Prince Virtus. Is he here with you?” I don’t know why I asked, I already knew the answer.

  “No,” he looked at Sir Rallen, who stood behind me. “He just left.”

  “He just left?”

  Sir Topelios hair was frazzled, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were still watery from his slumber. He had clearly been sleeping for a while before I had awoken him. He was lying.

  “Well then he must be in his room.”

  There was no point in calling out Sir Topelio on his lie. I marched right towards the room they had assigned to Prince Virtus. The cold no longer bothered me. The heat of the anger connected to my rising suspicion kept me warm.

  Virtus had given me a key to open his door. We always gave each other the keys to our rooms during our trip. I had found it sweet. I swung the door open to an empty room. It was cold and fully dark. The firepce and candles had not been lit. My husband was not there.

  “He must be back at your room already,” Sir Rallen said unconvincingly.

  “Please take me to the duchesses room,” I told him.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Take. Me. There.”

  I was almost a head shorter than the knight, but the look I gave him must have been withering, because he complied.

  I followed him to the duchesses room. It was not far, she had put him in a room close to her. Outside the room stood a guard. He looked very young. I pulled him outside before he could say anything.

  “Do not tell the duchess I am here.”

  “Your Highness…”

  “That’s an order.”

  “Your Highness please…”

  “I am your future queen. If you obey me I will make this worth it for you, if you do not I will make sure you regret it,” I hissed.

  He nodded.

  “Now open the door to this room.”

  His hand trembled as he unlocked the door with a key on his belt.

  Inside stood Virtus, the duchess in his arms.