Chapter 1. Kidnapped

"Let go of me you mongrel!"

I watched in fascination as the princess struggled against the ropes binding her ankles and wrist. She shook on the floor like a worm, her head twitching in different directions once in a while, no doubt searching for her captor, even whilst it was covered with a black cotton pillowcase.

"Unhand me buffoon and I'll tell my mother the queen to spare your life," she said indignantly.

Oooh! How lovely. As if her mother the queen could help her right now. This one was charming. It almost made me want to let go of her. Ha ha! As if. All that planning to infiltrate the castle and kidnap her would not go to waste. But while she was in my possession, I might as well have a little fun with her.

"I doubt your highness will spare my life if I let you go," I said to her. She stopped squirming in an instant. "You're a girl?" she asked with bathed breath. The corner of my mouth perked up into a smirk. "Last time I checked yes," I told her.

"What do you want from me? Do you want money? Power? Men? I can give you all of that." She tried to sit but it was too much of an effort, considering she was bound like that. I stifled a smile. "I have money," I said. "Lots of it in fact. Power comes with money, so that is not an issue. As for men. Well let's just say that I like women more."

"Then what do you want?" she asked in a small voice. I walked steadily to her and kneeled on the floor. Once I did, I brought her to a sitting position and leaned to her head so I could whisper. "I want your body."

She froze in an instant and squirmed away from me. "You're a lunatic! Jerk! You're an ugly son of a-" I removed the cover on her head and watched her mouth slack open as she blinked in a confused daze at me. I heard her breath hitch as she took a good look at my face. We studied each other for a while.

Her gray eyes took in my features. She licked her thin lips nervously and asked, "What color are your eyes. They are the strangest green."

I smirked at her. "They're called forest green princess." Before she could ask another question, I took her in my arms and hauled her to the bedroom. It was not without difficulty of course. She kept wriggling against me and even threatened to bite me. What a charming princess, I thought in disdain.

Once we were inside the bedroom, which would be her holding room or her cell if you want to call it that, I set her down on the bed where she squirmed some more. I looked her in the eyes. "If you want me to untie you, you'll stop twitching like that. You look like a maggot."

"I am not!" she said heatedly. I clicked my tongue at her. "Sure you're not princess."

She stared daggers at me. "Why did you kidnap me? You're a low life! You're the lowest!" she seethed. I gave her a patronizing look. "And you're a saint princess?" I asked with a smile. "Don't ask questions that you'll regret knowing the answer to."

"Are you going to kill me?" she choked.

"If I wanted to, I would have done it a long time ago. So to answer your question, no I'm not going to kill you. But I am going to hold you here for a long time. Look around you princess. Stare at the four corners of this room because you'll get to memorize it while you're here."

I pointed to the windows. "Those are barred. Even if you cut that lovely honey colored hair of yours to make a Rapunzel-like rope, you'll never escape from here." I tilted my chin to the door where she followed with her gaze. "That is made with metal and is locked with a security code that only I know of."

"Scream all you want," I continued. "This hideout is located miles from any town or road. No one will ever hear you. In this little world of ours, I'm your only friend. I will feed you, talk to you when I want to, and do things that need be. If you're not nice to me, you'll never see the daylight again. Do you understand?"

"I despise you," she said savagely.

"Well I'm very sorry to hear that," I said with a shrug. "But your attitude will not help you at all princess." I stood up and walked to the door.

"Wait!" she called out. "Aren't you going to remove my restraints?"

Her question made me smile to myself. "Say please," I said. Her jaw clenched. "Are you freaking kidding me?" she said loudly.

"I don't think her highness would appreciate your smart mouth princess." I faced her and grinned widely. "I'll only remove that if you say please." She closed her eyes for an instant and deliberated whether to say it or not. She thought better of it and said, "Please remove it."

I walked back to her and leaned down so I could untie the ropes. "See? I know there's some manners left in you," I teased. She pursed her lips and didn't reply. I knew she was angry at me for kidnapping her and doing this. But who cares? I had my own reasons.

My hands deftly removed the knots on the rope. Once she was untied, the princess moved her hands around and sat on the edge of the bed. She stunned me by elbowing my stomach and running to the direction of the door. Years of judo training kicked in. I pounced on her and pinned her to the ground where I straddled her.

"You shouldn't have done that," I told her. "My stomach is going to bruise. You're lucky that I don't have a photo shoot right now." She writhed against my grip. "What are you saying? Let me go this instant!"

"I'm warning you princess. If you do that again, I'll rip your clothes off and let you stay here completely naked." That made her stop. "When I release you, you're going to walk back to the bed. Understand?" She nodded. I stood up and helped her to her feet. She headed to the direction of the bed and sat down as instructed.

When I was sure that she wouldn't do anything again, I went to the door and punched in the security code while ensuring that she didn't see anything. "I'll see you tomorrow then," I said before getting out of the room and shutting the mechanism behind me.

I headed to the rooftop of the 4-floor building where we were staying at. At the top was a lovely garden. My garden. But I didn't come here to tend for the roses or the dahlia's, nor to check the forest that lies all around the building, effectively hiding the place from the public eyes. No. I came here to rest my head which has been pounding all night.

I knew that the princess could be difficult. But she was a little different than I thought she'd be. From a distance, she was a goody-goody who was caring, lovely, not to mention quiet. Boy was I wrong. Not only did she possess a smart mouth, she was wild too. The girl elbowed me for Christ sakes.

If I wasn't careful around her, she could ruin my plans. But I do admit that she was pretty. Gray eyes, hair that looked like it was dipped in honey, thin lips, lean but shapely body. She was exactly my type. Too bad she was the princess. With a sigh, I went back inside and headed straight to my bedroom where I jumped on the bed and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning, I found myself in a staring contest with her. She simply refused to eat the porridge I prepared for her. "I don't eat that," she insisted with a frown.

I held the bowl right in front of her face. "Lot's of children starve all over the world. You're lucky I'm even feeding you."

"Those children will still starve even if I eat that. Which I won't," she added quickly.

"Do you even hear yourself right now?" I asked in frustration. "You're a bloody princess and yet you're such a picky eater. Oh that's right! You're exactly like that because you're royalty. You think you're better than anyone else don't you?"

She rolled her eyes before standing up and moving away from me. "Of all the things that you're going to feed me, you had to pick the one thing that I hate most. Porridge," she said in disgust.

"What's your problem with porridge? I love porridge!"

"Then you eat it!" she screamed.

I placed the bowl on the floor and glared at her. "If you want to starve so badly then be my guest. I won't force you to eat it anymore. In fact I don't want to be in the same room at all." I walked to the door and opened it after punching the code. "I bet you'll eat the freaking porridge once you're hungry," I mumbled.

When afternoon came, I checked on her but saw that she left the food untouched. Well if she wanted to go down that road, I wouldn't be able to do anything at all. She was such a brat. I did my business around the house and returned to her room at nightfall. The bowl was still on the floor with the porridge intact. She hasn't eaten the whole day.

In fact, she hasn't eaten since yesterday. She must have been starving. At present, she was sleeping peacefully on the bed, her mouth opened a little bit. I walked in her direction and sat by her side. She was still wearing the blue dress that she had since the day before. Her hair was still tied in a half crown braid, making her look like a real princess. A beautiful one at that.

My heart squeezed painfully. I'm so sorry Talia, I thought. If things were a little different, this wouldn't have happened to us. But it was destiny. And you could never ever fight your destiny.

I knew I shouldn't be kind to her, but I still went to the kitchen and prepared a decent meal for her. When I went back to her room with the plate in my hand, she was already awake. "What is that? It smells good," she said.

"It's steak and mashed potatoes," I replied and set the plate in front of her on the bed. She looked at me curiously and didn't touch the food. "Don't worry," I said. "It's not poisoned or anything. I prepared that from the goodness of my heart."

"There's no fork and knife," she said while raising her eyebrows to me. "I don't want you to stab me," I said matter-of-factly. "You have to eat it with your bare hands. Cavemen did it before. You're going to do it now."

She stared at me in disdain but still pulled the plate to her and ate its contents. I just sat there and watched her eat silently. "Do you want some?" she asked after she swallowed. "No thank you," I replied. "Don't be nice to me. Don't talk to me either. I'm your kidnapper after all."

She ignored me and asked, "How old are you?"

I didn't see any reason to lie to her. "Twenty two," I said with a shrug. "You don't have to tell me your age princess. I know you're eighteen." She didn't answer me and continued eating her meal. After it was all gone, she licked her fingers in a very un-princess way and smiled widely to me. Her gray eyes twinkled, making her look cute.

"I figured it out," she said.

"Figured what out?"

"Why you kidnapped me," she explained. "You said you have money and power. You also said you want my body. So do you have a crush on me?"

Laughter escaped from my lips and I had to clutch on my stomach by the intensity of it. All the while she just looked at me like I was a complete lunatic. When I finished laughing, I wiped my eye and stared at her. "Really? You expect me to kidnap someone because of a crush? That's really cute."

She crossed her arms on her chest. "Then why did you bring me here? You don't look poor. You don't like a hoodlum either. In fact you look like a..."

"Like what?" I asked curiously.

"I won't tell," she said stubbornly.

I stood up from the bed. "Fine. I'll come back tomorrow to feed you. Go back to sleep princess."

"Wait," she said. I turned to her. "You're still hungry?" She shook her head and glanced down at her dress. "I want to bathe. I want to change my clothes."

I sighed and nodded. "Okay. Look to your left." She did as I told her. "You probably don't notice the door there because it blends with the wall. But that's the door to your bathroom. There's a tub, a shower, and everything you need to clean up and do your business. The windows are also barred so you can't escape from there." I opened the door. "I'll come back to bring you clothes to wear." With that, I left the room and shut the door close.

I made the mistake of coming back when she was stark naked in the middle of the room. It was too late when I realized that I already closed the door behind me. I was stuck in the room with the butt-naked princess.

We stared wide-eyed at each other. I held her gaze and tossed the clothes to her. She quickly turned around for the bathroom. My heart palpitated against my chest as I waited for her to get dressed. Talia was all grown up now. Her body told me that. And believe me because I saw everything.

When she got out of the bathroom, she was already wearing the skinny jeans I lent her plus a blue loose sweater. She still looked pretty, and her hair was still styled on a half crown braid. But she looked tamer. Not a commoner though because she'd always look like royalty, but the clothes was a welcome change from her usual attire.

I noticed the black choker on her neck. "Why didn't you remove that?" I asked.

She touched it for a second before her eyes darted to me. "I don't take this off ever."

"Why?"

She gave me a look and walked back to the bed. "It's none of your business," she said. "If you're not going to tell me why you kidnapped me, then I'm not going to tell you my reasons either."

I walked to her and sat down beside her on the bed. "What if I remove it from your neck?" I asked.

She stared at me seriously. "Then I will have to find a way to kill you."

My stomach felt hollow because of her statement. Something happened to Talia. Something bad. And I wasn't able to protect her from it. I turned my head away from her. Now I had to hurt her too. I had no other choice. It was our destiny.