Undressed by the King

NICOLETTE

When I was young, my father always told me that the best profession on the planet was being an archaeologist.

Every time he would come home from one of his expeditions, he always brought with him a piece of his discovery.

You can only imagine how amazing our house looked with all the ancient relics.

That’s probably the reason why I became an archaeologist myself, even though I graduated with a degree in Education.

He said that the work might entail long hours of digging, getting dirty, and burning up in the sun, but the end result was worth all the pain.

We would get to discover a new world, a new life, or a new object that no one had ever known existed.

He also used to say that there was a one-in-a-million chance that we could find ourselves in two places at the same time.

Of course, even though I was small back then, I didn’t believe him word-for-word. I mean, how could that even happen, right?

Teleportations and out-of-body experiences were just a figment of the human imagination.

Right?

Little did I know at the time that I’d be experiencing them in a literal way.

Like, seriously. In a gut-wrenching, stomach-twisting, literal way.

***

It all started when I brought an ancient mirror back to my place from my latest dig.

The six-foot-tall mirror looked very old, but it didn’t scream “precious”.

For starters, the frame wasn’t gilded. It wasn’t adorned with rubies or diamonds, either. It was just…simple—with little flowers and elegant curves carved on its sides.

Maybe that’s the reason why the Malta Customs Department had let me bring it home.

I’d dragged it all the way from Malta to my apartment on the twelfth floor of Hedonia Apartment and Suites, in the heart of New York City.

The mirror looked unimportant. Like junk. But I decided to keep it.

Why?

Honestly, I don’t know.

I just felt some connection to it.

A feeling that I couldn’t describe.

Plus, it fit in perfectly with my Grecian-themed bedroom.

The first night after I hung up the mirror was…haunting.

Ever felt like something or someone was looking at you while you were falling asleep?

That’s definitely what I was feeling. But I didn’t think too much about it.

I had experienced unexplained things happening around me since I was little.

I had become accustomed to weird flashes of memories that were vague and unclear. I had grown up with them. And I didn’t want to let them ruin my daily life.

But on the fourth day of owning the mirror, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. There was a magnetic pull from it, as if it wanted me to touch its smooth surface.

And touch it I did.

Suddenly, I lost my footing and fell face-first into my own reflection.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on grass with a throbbing headache—my stomach twisting, bile coming up my throat.

What the—?

It was night, so I couldn’t make out my surroundings very clearly.

But out of the corner of my eye, I saw two silhouettes of humans…

I think.

They looked menacing, wearing oddly shaped armor and holding thick, curved blades. And their eyes were on me.

That’s when I knew that I was royally fucked.

LUCIEN

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Three knocks sounded on my thick door.

A welcome interruption from my current situation. A curly-haired blonde with impressive breasts had been pleasuring me for half an hour already, and I…

Just.

Couldn’t.

Fucking.

Cum.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my mistresses—all fifteen of them.

Or twenty?

Hell, I don’t even know—my Council gathered them, not me.

But not one was able to satisfy me.

Her moans were ringing too loudly in my ears. She kept making this donkey-like sound while she rocked her hips up and down on my hard-as-fuck shaft.

It was annoying. Very annoying.

So I was more than happy to hear someone knocking at my door.

“Get out,” I commanded the woman abruptly.

“Oh nooo,” she cried when I sat up and pushed her to the side.

She raised her legs in the air, giving me a good view of her wet core. I peeled my eyes away from it.

“I said OUT. NOW.”

“But, Your Highness…” She gave me a pleading look and then crawled back on top of me. “I’m still soaked…”

“Then go pleasure yourself!” I yelled, scowling at her.

She deflated instantly. Then, with twisted lips, she left the chaise lounge and gathered her clothes from the floor.

She threw open the wide door and stepped outside, bumping straight into a very surprised Sir Guillard. I saw his eyes roam down toward her exposed buttocks as she scurried away.

“Another one, Sire?” he asked me. “You’ll be running out of concubines soon if you don’t give them the love they deserve.”

“Tsk.” I cringed at his words. “What do you want now, Guillard?”

“A moment of your time, Your Highness,” he answered, trying his best not to look at my still-erect cock, which I hadn’t even bothered to cover.

“Two soldiers on patrol along the Forbidden Forest arrested a woman. They are waiting in the throne hall for your advice.”

“Don’t bore me with something like that,” I complained as I stood and pulled up my breeches. “Figure it out yourself.”

I took my leather military jacket from the headboard and donned it, covering my flexing torso.

Guillard bent his head and made a gruff sound. “With all due respect, Sire, I can’t, because I do not understand the woman’s language. She seems…foreign, judging by her clothes.”

I arched a brow. “Foreign?”

That piqued my curiosity.

Images of a distant world flashed through my mind.

No, it can’t be…

But I’ll have to make sure for myself.

“Take me to her,” I ordered.

NICOLETTE

“WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!” I yelled at the top of my lungs to the two terrifying men towering above me.

Normally, in this situation, a person would cry.

I wasn’t. Not yet.

But I could feel my voice growing hoarse from thrashing and shouting at my captors.

I tried to come to terms with my insane situation.

First, the ancient mirror I’d brought with me from Malta clearly had some kind of magic power.

I knew all about cursed Egyptian objects, voodoo dolls, and items enchanted by witchcraft, but this one…

This was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

How could a perfectly normal woman, standing in her perfectly normal apartment, get suddenly transported to an unknown place with just a touch of a mirror?

I thought stuff like that only happened in movies!

Second, I had been transported to a place that totally contradicted my knowledge of science and history.

When they had captured me, my captors had strapped me to the back of an animal that looked like a cross between an elephant and a gorilla. And while I rode on the surprisingly tame creature, I was able to examine my surroundings.

The path we traversed was dark because the sky lacked stars, and there was no moon visible. The atmosphere was heavy and the place smelled of sulfur and rotting garbage.

But after a few minutes of riding, everything started to change.

The god-awful smell dissipated and the air grew lighter. The dirt beneath me looked like Earth’s, but the water and the sky were another story.

We passed a lake, and I noticed that the water had a silvery, glowy appearance to it. The sky was filled by what looked like Aurora Borealis, but better than anything you could see in the Earth’s North and South poles.

The plants were green, same as on Earth, but I could have sworn they also had a silvery undertone. It was truly unusual.

I mean, I’m an archaeologist. I study the past and, so far in my extensive research, I haven’t read of any place like this one.

And then, there was the language that my captors were speaking to me.

I couldn’t even understand one word that they were saying to me, and they clearly didn’t comprehend any English.

“Let me go!” I yelled at my captors again and again and again.

One of them snapped his head toward me. “Duskime!” he said.

Yep.

I am as clueless as you are.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” I clenched my teeth. “I can’t… I can’t stay here!”

The creature that I was riding stopped in front of a huge palace, and in an instant, my captors grabbed hold of me and pulled me inside.

I looked around in awe at the tall arched roof, thick pillars, stained-glass windows, mirror walls, and humongous chandeliers.

Finally, my eyes landed on an elaborate throne, high up in front of me, probably for their king to sit on.

The men threw me down onto the marble floor and then stood at attention, staring at the throne.

Ouch.

They were clearly waiting for their king to decide my fate.

“Let me go home!” I shouted again.

“Duskime!”

By now, I could infer that the word meant something along the lines of “shut the fuck up.”

That’s when I heard the sound of footsteps ringing through the great hall.

I saw the silhouette of a man, tall with long, jet-black hair, who quickly averted his eyes.

Is this him?

The king himself?

My only hope for mercy or certain death?

But he didn’t look like any king I’d ever seen. And he didn’t take his seat on the throne as I expected.

Instead, when he saw me, he walked straight toward me at a quick, frantic pace.

I raised my gaze to his.

When our eyes locked, his face flashed with a look of anguish. Or relief? Or fury? Or desire?

I couldn’t understand his expression, but in the pit of my stomach I felt that one thing was certain…

Yup.

I’m definitely royally fucked.