The Scullery Maid

By Dallas Hunter

Catalina would stare down a monstrous beast twice her size and weight any day before dealing with the sexy, spoiled Prince Rowland. Monsters, Catalina understands. Men are an entirely different animal.

Her father has gone missing, likely attacked by the dangerous Shin who stalk the forests around their village. Catalina, employed as a Scullery Maid, leads a double life as she does her duty while sneaking out on all her spare hours to search for him.

Though desperate to keep his kingdom safe from the bloodthirsty monsters in the woods, Prince Rowland is also desperate for Catalina’s affection, and has a certain kind of service in mind for his Scullery Maid. He will stop at nothing to have her, even if it means taking her prisoner.

But Catalina’s heart is free, and she will not give it to anyone, especially a man who would take it by force. Catalina finds herself engaged in an entirely new kind of battle, a battle of desire.

However it plays out, she’s determined to win.

The Scullery Maid is a 25,000-word novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deep Desires Press
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463882801

Dallas Hunter

Dallas Hunter is an Author, Barista, and a Substitute Teacher. She is the wife of a free-spirited and loving husband and the mother of soft-pawed dog. When she isn't writing she enjoys going out to the movies, reading literature, doing laundry at her parent's house, visiting her chickens, and making art that involves fire.

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright

The Scullery Maid

About Dallas Hunter

Don’t Miss These Great Titles From Deep Desires Press

The Scullery Maid

Dallas Hunter

Copyright © 2018 by Dallas Hunter

Cover design copyright © 2018 by Story Perfect Dreamscape

All characters are age 18 and over.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Visit http://www.deepdesirespress.com for more scorching hot erotica and erotic romance.

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I didn’t want to live in the castle, especially as a scullery maid. Being eighteen meant I should find a male suitor, and soon, but I didn’t feel the biological clock ticking like many other women in town. My father had taught me how to hunt in the forest, to bring home meat and herbs, to avoid the monstrous Shin that lived there, or kill them if I had to.

My mother didn’t fear the danger of the woods either, but she perished with my younger brother in childbirth last year and my father disappeared in the woods not long after. Everyone in the village thought that the Shin had killed him, ripped him limb from limb and eaten his innards. They might have been right, but no remains were found, so I still held a small hope that my father was alive somewhere, unable to deal with his grief. If he was alive, however, it left a different kind of pain in my heart, akin to abandonment. Perhaps he thought I was strong enough on my own. He was right, of course, but it hurt nonetheless.

My aunt on my mother’s side got me a job at the castle as a scullery maid, because she was my only living family left and took charge of my well-being. I loved her, but I think she took the responsibility a little too seriously.

Catalina! my Aunt Marge hissed at me as I carried a pan of waste down the hallway. Get out of the way, the royal prince is coming! she said and dragged me into another room, this room was more a side closet in contrast to the well manicured marble floor and impeccable texture of the gray and red bricks of the wall in the hallway. I peeked out the door as a young man was stalked by at least three other men all vying for his attention. The young man, the prince, was dressed less luxuriously than usual, in a simple white long sleeve which seemed to billow around him, a golden rope that tied the front together, and soft black slacks with similar golden stitching. The three fools following him, all old enough to be my father’s age, had fancy garments of green overcoats, brown slacks, and soft boots. They had varying degrees of baldness and one barely caught a vase he had knocked over in haste to keep up with the prince.

Sir, what shall we do?

The Shin, they grow in number!

What if they attack the castle?

Their questions fell on deaf ears.

As the prince passed he seemed to look through the crack of the door right to us. My aunt was uncomfortably close and her attire was obscuring some of my view. I pushed the mass of material that ballooned beside me down so I could watch the four of them continue down the hall as the chandeliers cast mid-morning sparkles across the gloom of the hallway shadows.

When all was clear, I opened the door, and we emerged like unsightly mice at midnight. The maids were meant to be unseen; we had god-awful mushroom-shaped hats and puffy work dresses. We were background noise until summoned, like the clouds we dressed as, to provide some rain, or tea, or deliver a message…

Fine man, the prince, said my aunt with a girlish sigh. I raised an eyebrow at her.

The prince was fine to look at, nice jaw, short stubble, deep green eyes that appeared black most of the time, and a short haircut to control his dark hair that grew fast enough to keep a royal barber on staff. He was in his late twenties and was busy learning to take over the kingdom from his father, who grew ill with the strain of power. I guess I could drool over him like other girls if I had the time, but I had a pan of waste to drop off. It was unusually heavy, and still warm, which always gave me the distinct feeling of sitting on a chair someone had just vacated, their lingering warmth spreading to you through a different medium.

I didn’t mind the smell, it reminded me more of when my father had taught me how to clean a deer we’d successfully hunted, the innards of an animal spread out past our boots as he taught me how to gently sever small tendons that held them inside the body cavity. My aunt sighed, jerking me from the memory as she fell in step beside me, looking back nervously.

I need you to prepare the flasks tonight in case the royal family requests a drink, she said.

I can’t, I’m about to get off my shift, I said, frustrated. I had more important things to do than prepare wine flasks.

You aren’t planning on going to the forest again this afternoon, are you? Didn’t you just hear the royal advisors?

My aunt had found out after a month when I’d come to live with her that I went into the forest every evening, searching for clues about my father. Once she’d discovered what I’d been doing, she gave me extra shifts and tons more work to do. I learned to work faster, and I got to the forest whether I had work left to do or not.

Yes, Aunt Marge, I’m still going, I said, exasperated.

But the Shin—

Yes, there are the Shin. I will look out for them, like always, I said.

One day, you’re going to end up just like your father, she said and hurried off, knowing she had hurt me by bringing up my missing father, whom she was convinced was dead, and not wanting to see the look on my face. I stared down the hall where she shuffled down. My aunt thought I was chasing ghosts. I couldn’t convince her otherwise. I wasn’t sure myself.

That evening I went into the forest, brown working pants, shirt and vest, belt with a few knives, and a quiver and bow on my back. The air was muggy today, the cicadas unusually quiet, like they sensed something I could not. The tree line looked ominous in front of the playful village, bordered by a wooden wall behind me, and the slumbering castle blowing lazy smoke streams into the sky beyond that. The trees were a hundred feet high, with few low branches for cover. I heard hoofbeats and looked to my left where a team of five horsemen trotted down the main forest road. They were too far to make out anything clearly about them except the number of riders. I tried to stay as far as I could from that all-you-can-eat buffet road,