“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
—Pearl S. Buck
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Today's Prompt:
Design your own treehouse.
Regina's 15 minutes:
When she opened her eyes, the world was upside down. The sky spread out below her and the grass clung to the sky, far too close to her head. Her hair hung up from her scalp, brushing the grassy sky and tugging gently at her skin.
Louise groaned and tried to feel for the way up. Her sense of direction was all wonky woozy and she had no idea what was going on. Quick body scan. Head dizzy and aching but seemed okay. Shoulders and arms, exhausted but seemed okay. Torso – burning like the fire of 1000 suns. With a lurch, her head snapped up and she was staring into the mini galaxies that swam in his eyes.
“Put me down,” she whispered, almost scorched by the heat coming off his body.
He quirked one silver eyebrow at her. “No.” His lyrical tone allowed no argument.
Lou considered struggling but was simply too exhausted, so instead she lifted a hand and wove it into the silver hair that curled against his neck. “As long as I am dreaming, I might as well enjoy the whole experience.”
He laughed like wind through chimes, and Lou felt his laughter against her ribs. His hair slid like silk under her fingers, soft and smooth and warm as oil sliding between her fingers.
“Where are we going?” She asked dreamily, dropping her head against his neck.
“To my secret hideaway. My treehouse.”
Louise pulled back and stared at him. This ancient being, this dashing, vicious, passionate prince had a treehouse? This she had to see.
“A treehouse?” Louise asked, trying to keep the smile from her lips.
“Yes. Is that not the right word in your tongue?” He frowned, those silver blue brows drawing together over bottomless black eyes. “A house within a tree.”
Louise smiled. “Sounds like the right word to me... I can hardly wait.”
“You don’t have to, we are arrived.” The prince tipped his chin forward and Louise turned her head. Her jaw fell open in awe. They stood before the largest tree she had ever seen. It was so large around it blot out the rest of the forest for what seemed like miles in either direction. The prince leaned forward and whispered something in a foreign language to the tree. His words collected like silver dust on the air, ringing in her ears like raindrops on a still pond. Her hair tingled and she felt the wave of power as something released inside the tree. The bark before her shifted and rearranged, then fell back, becoming as a doorway opening into the deep night of the tree’s interior.
A wide circle of wooden stairs rose from the ground in a spiral up inside the massive tree. Without hesitation, the prince mounted the steps, Lou no heavier than a leaf in his arms and climbed the stairs with such impossible agility, speed and grace that Lou’s hair streamed out behind her, and her eyes teared in the generated wind.
He pulled to a stop as he mounted the last stair, and stepped into the tree house. Lou felt her racing heart slow as he eased her feet to the floor and her mouth drop open again as she looked around the treehouse.
The room was made up almost entirely of polished wood, carved and polished to a diamond shine as if the space had been simply hollowed from the tree. There was a massive fireplace in the center of the space, that glowed in the living room, the kitchen and the bedroom in addition to the landing where they currently stood. The prince took her by the hand and pulled her gently into what humans would call a living room. Large circular seats of various sizes circled the fire in a half moon. Scrolls filled the hollows in the wooden chimney and the bookshelf walls that divided the space. The chairs seemed woven of various mosses and flowers, and when Lou dipped her head closer to look, she realized they were indeed – daisies and thyme, dandelions and clover – growing in clumps around red wicker frames, tied with golden thread and polished to the same shine, softened only by the greenery and the fire. Wordlessly he took her into the kitchen where a sink, cutting board, mortar and pestle and cooking fire made the space logical, even when Louise realized everything was either wood, crystal or stone. No plastic, no glass, no metal anywhere. Come to think of it, other than the drugged clover nectar he had fed her that first night in the Underworld, Louise didn’t even know what he ate or drank. She glanced at what looked most like a refrigerator and silently hoped it wasn’t filled with live things.
But he was pulling her on, through the kitchen and into the bedroom. Louise paused on the threshold and slowed her steps, till he stopped and looked at her. “Are you displeased with my treehouse?” He asked, his head tilting to the side in a gesture no one would mistake for human. Louise shivered then flushed all over.
“Nothing like that. It is beautiful, but the bedroom...” her mouth grew dry and she struggled to speak, gesturing weakly towards the bed, with one pink tinged hand.
The prince tossed a glance at the bed. “Is it not to your liking? It can be changed -” He raised his long fingered hand. Before he snapped the bed was a while cloud of bedspread and pillow cases of fully blooming peonies. Then he snapped and the peonies turned a scarlet red then shifted into massive rose blooms. Lou stared agog at the careless magic. She shook her head in awe.
“No? Perhaps Forget Me Nots.” He snapped again and the red drained from the petals like blood, disappearing into space as the rose petals fluttered to the ground, disappearing before they could gather. In their place, thousands upon thousands of the fuzzy little heads of Forget me knots clustered together to make a massive quilt on the oversized bed. Lou gasped and tried to speak but only a gurgle came out.
“Still no? Perhaps lilacs?” He snapped again and the room whirled with a gust of wind that blew the forget me nots into a flurry then out of site as the room was suddenly heavy with the spring smell of purple lilacs.
“Stop!” Louise finally squeaked out right before he snapped his fingers again. She reached out and grabbed his hand, her fingertips sizzling wherever they touched.
“This is fine. Its not the flowers. Its the bedroom. For humans, your bedroom is a private space. And inviting someone into it means things...” She petered out, her volume dropping to almost nothing as her gaze slid from his.
“It means we will sleep together,” he said, matter of fact-ly.
Louise’s head snapped up. “Look, princey, you may be hot as all get out and royal and all, but I am 16 – almost 17, but still – and we barely know each other, and I don’t even know if that would work. Like do the fae have all the same – you know... parts as humans? Are we like compatible? And I mean aren’t you like 700 years old? You can’t just assume that because you set the world on fire to save me, and that I shared my life force with you that now I am just going to go and have sex with you -” Louise squeaked to a stop mid rant when he touched his fingers to her lips.
“I seem to have upset you. Is it possible I misspoke? I intended that you and I should both rest here this night. The Fae usually like down to rest, often in the dark hours. Is this not the way with humans? Do you curl in the fields like dogs, or hang from the branches like bats?” As if the idea had just occurred to him and he was suddenly fascinated with the bazar sleeping habits of humans, he looked down at her sneakers as if trying to imagine the talons hidden within that would let a human hang bat like from a tree.
“No!” Lou squeezed her hands to her head in frustration. “Humans sleep in beds too. We lie down when it is dark and rest, just like the Fae – apparently. I – well – I think I may have misunderstood you.”
He nodded sagely. “I see.” Then he lifted his earnest gaze and stared into her face curiously. “What is sex? Why won’t you have it with me?”
Louise choked on her tongue and doubled over as she gasped for air. He patted her once on the back, then walked calmly into the kitchen and returned with a cut crystal glass of clear liquid. Louise looked at it skeptically through the tears filling her eyes at her riotous coughing.
“Water,” he promised, raising twisted fingers to his heart
***
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With Love,
Snow White and the Wicked Curse: Chapter 1
Snow White and the Vicious Curse: Chapter 2
Snow White and the Seven Thieves: Chapter 3
The final chapter, Snow White and the Poisoned Apple.
Prefer to read the whole story at once? Grab your copy of Snow: The Complete Erotic Series now! All five books available now in ebook and paperback.
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With Love,
Check out her books:
Snow White and the Wicked Queen: Chapter 1
Snow White and the Vicious Curse: Chapter 2
Snow White and the Seven Thieves: Chapter 3
Snow White and the Poisoned Apple: The Final Chapter
Prefer to read the whole story at once? Grab your copy of Snow: The Complete Erotic Series now! All five books are available now as ebooks and paperbacks. Coming soon in Large Print format!
2nd edition coming 2025!
