#remember when feyre was feisty and snarky

[ecileh]

Queen of Harlots

“She’d been prepared to offer the only thing she had to barter to Tomas, if it would have kept Elain from starving. Would have sold her body on the street to anyone who’d pay her enough to feed her sister. Her body had meant nothing to her—nothing, she’d told herself as she’d felt her options closing in. Elain meant everything.” - A Court of Silver Flames, Chapter 25

Pairing: Nesta/Surprise Sugar Daddy, Tomas makes a brief appearance :(

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 8k

CW: Sex work, survival sex work, dubious consent, starvation, rough blow job, age gap, whorephobia and antiquated ideas of virginity for the drama, please understand that the Archerons are starving and Nesta is literally whoring

AO3 link where the story will continue

BOOK I: A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES

It had been five days since Feyre last brought home a stringy, winter-starved rabbit. They’d made a thin, greasy stew that lasted four days.

As of yesterday, there was nothing.

Feyre had hunted all day yesterday, leaving the morning after their last, meager dinner. She’d returned late that afternoon with nothing. They boiled water with a handful of old, dry herbs for dinner. It wasn’t even tea; they hadn’t been able to afford tea in years.

It did nothing to keep them warm that night as their cold, thin bodies shivered side by side in the little bed. Nor did the blankets or the fire that burned in the hearth. Unless they got something in their stomachs soon, they’d never be warm again.

So Feyre left again, the next morning before dawn. Elain could sleep through an earthquake, which was why she had the middle of the bed. But Nesta felt the old frame shudder as Feyre slipped out of bed and dressed.

Nesta rose to follow her youngest sister, hissing as her bare feet pressed against the cold floor. Feyre was just slinging her bow over her shoulder when Nesta entered the main room.

“If you don’t catch anything today, we’ll all die,” Nesta said, not caring if she woke their father, who was sleeping on a cot by the hearth. She didn’t much care at all what happened to him, not after the way he’d let his children go unfed, unwed, and uncared for since their mother died.

“You think I don’t know that?” Feyre hissed, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice. She grabbed Nesta’s hand and pulled her outside, the door softly clicking behind them. The snow burned on Nesta’s feet, and the winter wind whipped right through her thin nightdress.

“Don’t you understand that there’s nothing? The forest is empty. I’ve had to go farther and farther every time. I’m hunting on a stomach every bit as empty as yours, and I don’t see you doing a single thing to help.”

Nesta glared at her younger sister, who had fed them all for five years but never missed an opportunity to lord it over them. So Nesta just said what their mother would have said. “You could at least brush your hair so you don’t look like a peasant.”

Feyre let out a long-suffering huff. “If you want to eat tonight, chop some damn wood.”

Her youngest sister disappeared into the snow, and Nesta was left shivering and alone.

When Elain and their father awoke, they huddled by the hearth, Elain chatting while their father carved bits of wood. When there was almost no firewood left, neither Elain nor their father rose to bring in more. Instead, they drew closer together for warmth, Elain tucking a threadbare blanket around their father. It was like they didn’t even think to rebuild the fire. Like they wouldn’t use any of their few resources unless Feyre was around to allot them.

In contrast, Nesta had no problem using their resources, and she always knew what needed to be done, even if she rarely did it, seeing no reason to take care of a father who’d never cared for her. But today it was that or they’d all freeze. Silently, she rose and struggled to put on her too-tight boots, the ones she had needled Feyre for, only for her sister to buy them a bit too small. Nesta knew she should have just given them to one of her sisters, who were both slightly shorter and smaller-footed than her, but she was too proud to admit defeat.

With mincing steps, Nesta trudged out to the stump where Feyre chopped wood. She selected a large log that could last through dinner and the long winter night once it was split. Wrapping her arms around the log, she tried to lift it, only for her vision to darken at the edges and her legs to give out in her weakened, hungry state. The snow-covered ground met her hands and knees with a cold thud. Determined to return with wood, Nesta left it in favor of a smaller log, one that she had half a chance of carrying and splitting.

She at least managed to place the log on the stump, but swinging the axe proved to be too much, and everything went black.

Nesta came to slowly, awoken by the violent shaking of her body and the cold, melting snow that seeped into her tattered clothes. She considered laying there, face down in the snow, forever. Or at least until her miserable life finally ended. But Elain needed her. So Nesta slowly rose to her feet and brought the entire small log to place on the fire. It burned poorly, but it was better than going through all the split wood before Feyre came home.

Except Feyre didn’t come home. Even as the sun dipped low, she still remained in the forest.

Nesta didn’t care if she herself starved to death. Since they’d fallen into destitution, she had not cared about herself. All she fostered in her heart was spite for her father, love for Elain, and resentment toward Feyre for prolonging their pitiful, worthless lives. But now Feyre wasn’t keeping them alive, and Elain couldn’t, and their father wouldn’t.

So she changed into her least-ragged dress and, once again, she put on her too-small boots.

“Where are you going?” Elain asked.

“To trade my boots for some bread,” Nesta lied. The boots may still be stiff, but Feyre had learned years ago that neither the baker nor the tavernkeeper would trade for clothes—only coin. And the farmers weren’t trading—not this deep into winter.

If Nesta truly were to trade her shoes, it would need to be on market day, which was not until tomorrow. But Nesta doubted that Elain and their father remembered any of these facts.

Her father didn’t even look up from his wood carving.

“Do you think you could get a new cloak for me, too? And some butter for the bread?” Elain asked hopefully. “You know I hate dry toast.” The last sentence was a childish whine, but Elain’s self-centered guilelessness had always been endearing to Nesta, in no small part because it was so completely contrary to Nesta’s guilt-ridden cruelty.

“I’ll try,” Nesta said.

The walk to town was blessedly short enough to keep her from dwelling too long on her destination. The thought of selling her body to feed her family had, of course, crossed her mind. She’d been seventeen when the last of their father’s money had run out five years ago; in other situations, it may have been expected of her, the beautiful eldest daughter and nearly a woman, to care for her family in this way. But the thought had not occurred to Nesta for long—in part because she would have starved before she put food in front of her father, who whittled away their mother’s fortune and did nothing to feed their family, and in part because Feyre shouldered her bow and brought home a deer before it got to that point.

But now it was that point, and she was too much of a coward to make good on her threat to watch them all starve. She could not watch Elain die.

And her body meant nothing to her.

Her body had never been anything but a vessel for her mother’s ambitions. For dancing and fitting into corsets tiny enough to seduce wealth and nobility. Marrying a lord or a duke. Bearing his heirs. The exchange of her maidenhead for food would just be the final nail in the coffin of her mother’s long-dead plans.

The Mandray family house appeared through the snow, candles already lit in the windows even though the sun was still setting. Evidence of their relative abundance, even as Tomas’s father lamented the number of children and mouths to feed. Feyre said she often saw Tomas hunting in the woods, looking hungry, as if that would deter Nesta from dallying with him. But Tomas’s father worked as a woodcutter and always had a bit of coin when it came down to it, even if he ensured he ate better than his children in sparse times.

It was the father who answered the door, frowning at her as the delectable smell of roast meat and vegetables wafted from inside. “Yes?”

“Evening, Mr. Mandray. I thought Tomas might fancy a walk with me.” Nesta bobbed her head as politely as she could manage despite her trembling.

“Is that Nesta Archeron? Ask her—” called the faint voice of Mrs. Mandray from the kitchen.

“We’re eating dinner.” Even though the Mandrays had never invited her to sup with them, the smell of food still unfairly raised her hopes. “Tomas may come out afterward.” He shut the door in her face.

Nesta steeled herself and went to wait for Tomas in the woodshed, where they usually met. His father had never approved of her, not when she had nothing but a rich wife’s training to offer his son, and not even a rich wife’s dowry. She could dance and play instruments and read, but what use was that to a woodcutter’s son, who needed a dowry and someone to cook and clean and raise his children?

Which was how she knew, even though she put on airs around her sisters, that Tomas would never marry her.

It was full dark by the time Tomas entered the shed, hanging a lantern on the wall. He kissed her by greeting, his tongue reaching to the backs of her molars as if he wanted to fill her to the throat. When he finally pulled away, he ran his hand across her jutting collarbone then down to her cleavage, slipping a finger under her bodice to search for her nipple. “My dear Nesta, you’d best watch you don’t let these glorious tits waste away… Have you come because you’re finally hungry for my cock?”

He’d become insistent these last weeks, especially once he finally realized that he would never have her in the bridal bed. She forced herself to smile through her discomfort. The only possible way her pride could make it out of this shed alive would be if she convinced both of them that this was what she wanted.

“That’s not all I’m hungry for.”

“What else then? I’ve only got the one appendage.”

Nesta took a deep breath. “I thought we might have a romantic picnic first. Some bread, some cheese—”

“Well, I’ve just eaten, and I’m plenty full of food. And seed.” He placed his hands on her waist and shuffled her up against the wall of the shed.

“But I am not,” Nesta said pointedly, hoping Tomas would finally understand the meaning behind her words.

He blinked, then smiled. “Are you trying to whore yourself to me to feed your wretched family?”

“Does that excite you?” she asked, bringing her lips close to his ear and running her hand across the bulge in his pants. “Haven’t you wanted to make me your harlot for months now?”

“Gods, yes,” he groaned, turning to lean against the wall. “Get on your knees.”

“What?” Nesta was quite certain she knew how sex worked, but this was unexpected.

“You’re so hungry, I bet you’ll eat anything, won’t you, whore?” Tomas nudged her down to the floor, then unbuckled his pants, now at her eye level. He pulled out his erect cock and pressed it at her closed lips. “Open that mouth and let me fill you up like the tart you are.”

Nesta hesitated, but his cock was pushing on her lips and his hand was on her head. So she parted her lips and allowed his cock entrance into her mouth.

“Use your tongue, and keep your teeth behind your lips.” Tomas held her head as he pumped his cock in her mouth, the salty, musty taste of him overpowering. “You’ve never even done this before, have you?”

Nesta shook her head as much as she could with him grasping her and made a sound that she meant him to understand as no, I haven’t.

“Suck and open your throat a little… Gods, that’s perfect.” He thrust harder, and his cock hit the back of her throat, then slipped even deeper. She gagged with force, which seemed to please him as he groaned and pulled her head closer, keeping his cock deep in her throat. She might have vomited if her stomach wasn’t so wretchedly empty. “Suck it, Nesta. Gag for me.” He shuddered and moaned, and then his cock was pulsing, thick liquid spilling down her throat and seeping into her mouth, hot and bitter.

Tomas removed his softening cock from her mouth and pulled her to stand up straight. Daintily, Nesta wiped her swollen lips.

“Are you still hungry?” he asked.

She nodded, the bitter taste of him lingering in her mouth.

“I think I filled you up quite enough. Don’t be an ungrateful whore. Are you still hungry?”

“No,” she said softly, bitterly, hoping that was what he wanted. “I’m so full.”

“Good.” Brushing her to the side, he left the woodshed without another word.

Shaking with fury, Nesta leaned against a pile of wood and sank to the floor. It wasn’t that letting Tomas use her had been as horrible as her mother had led her to believe. It hadn’t been difficult, or any more distasteful than chopping wood or any other menial task, but … to do it for nothing? To risk her reputation and have nothing to show for it? She wanted to vomit up everything he’d pumped into her throat, but feared that the effort would leave her unconscious, frozen to death in the Mandrays’ shed come morning.

But then Tomas returned with something wrapped in a handkerchief, which he tossed in the dirt.

“You know, whores usually do better than a bit of bread for their maidenhead,” he leered, taking the lantern from the wall. “Come back once I’m hungry again and maybe I’ll take yours for what it’s worth. At least two pieces of bread.”

And then she was alone, staring at the little package at her feet in the moonlight. Then, realizing food was within her grasp, she lunged for it, untying the handkerchief with trembling fingers. Inside was a heel of bread and a thin slice of cheese. Her family had shared less for a meal before, in the worst of times. Perhaps it would be enough for them to last through the night until Feyre came back. If Feyre ever came back.

But her stomach seized with a hunger pang, and before she even realized what she was doing, she was shoving the food in her mouth. Just a bite, she told herself at first. Just a bite to get her through the cold walk home. Feyre often made the same excuse for taking a little extra food with her when she went out hunting, and nobody faulted her for that. But Nesta couldn’t stop, the need to get something solid in her belly—to taste something, anything that wasn’t Tomas’s semen—overwhelming all rationality. And then the handkerchief was empty, and she was still starving.

She wept to see the last of the food gone, knowing that she had failed Elain and taken everything for herself. Even as she left the woodshed and began to walk home, the tears still fell. Nesta couldn’t remember the last time she wept.

The Mandrays lived on the other side of the village, so she had to pass the little main street of shops on her way home. Candles twinkled in the windows, blurred by the falling snow. Despite the cold, the street was lively near the tavern, and Nesta realized she didn’t have to go home empty-handed.

Whores usually do better than a bit of bread for their maidenhead, Tomas had said.

So Nesta wiped the half-frozen tears from her cheeks, adjusted her threadbare, too-loose dress so that her cleavage curved above its neckline, and strode toward the tavern.

She leaned against the cold stone wall, arms crossed against the cold and to prop up her breasts as she wantonly met the gaze of every man entering or exiting the tavern. None approached her, though, and she could not bring herself to shout her price. She would have taken anything a man offered for her body, anyway. Despite having a few bites of food in her stomach for the first time in days, she began to shiver once again as the cold entered her bones.

“You can freeze to death out here, or you can plug your wares in the back room. Your choice, but the men inside the tavern tend to have more money than those loitering in the streets.”

Nesta turned to face the voice that spoke to her. It came from a curvy woman in a red dress—the tavern keeper, perhaps.

Nesta narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What’s the cost?”

“Half to the house. And you can do it in the warmth instead of a frigid, filthy alley. But if you’re going to stay outside, get off my pub.”

Nesta’s eyes slid to the window, regarding the merry warmth within. What was a few silvers less from the final take when she had nothing to start with? Even if it meant leaving the anonymity of the darkening evening, at least Elain would eat sooner.

So she followed the tavern keeper, who led her through the bright public room. Nesta tried to keep her head down, hoping that nobody would recognize her golden-brown crown braid, that there were no Mandrays or Hales or Beddors out drinking tonight.

“How—how much do you think I can get?” Nesta asked as she was led down a set of stairs.

The tavern keeper—madam—continued to the landing, then motioned for Nesta to stand closer to the lamp. She looked Nesta up and down, then said, “You’re pretty. Clean. Great tits. Look a bit sickly, though.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Then you’ll work all the harder for a good tip, eh? Don’t take less than twenty silver for a simple rut. And consider extras.”

“Extras?”

“Huh. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You look younger. Have you not done this before?”

Nesta shook her head slowly.

The madam roughly turned Nesta around and prodded her to start walking. “Go! Upstairs.”

“Don’t you dare turn me away. I know what to do—” Nesta commanded as the madam marched her upstairs.

“I’m not turning you away, you stupid virgin. A first-timer gets an auction, if you want it. You’ll easily get four times as much just for the novelty of a new face and a maidenhead. But you won’t get any attention in those rags. All the way up, top floor.”

The madam ushered Nesta into a small but comfortably appointed apartment, full of mirrors and vanity tables and chaises. She sorted through a long rack of gowns and lingerie, and began holding up outfits to Nesta as if checking them against her coloring.

“I don’t think I can afford any of those,” Nesta said.

“You can afford my cleaning fee. Change before you collect your earnings and it’ll only be an extra five on top of my sixty percent,” said the madam, holding up a black gown with a plunging neckline. “Yes, I think this one. Maidens usually get white and blue and pink, but you’re rather severe, aren’t you? Like already you think you’re the Queen of Harlots.”

“You said half before,” Nesta said coldly.

The madam laughed. “Looks like a queen, haggles like a true whore. Keep those wits about you. If you fetch more than a hundred, I’ll only take half and rent the dress for free.” She held out the dress.

Nesta accepted it.

✦✦✦

The underground saloon was small and cozy, but packed with a few dozen people. Men lounged on red furniture, drinking liquor and smoking pipes as they played cards or dandled painted harlots in various stages of undress on their laps. It was a den of sin through and through, most notably marked by the shabby velvet curtains covering most of the room’s walls. In a few spots, the curtains were tied back to reveal little nooks containing beds covered in faded satin and velvet and tasseled pillows. Not all of the visible bed-nooks were empty; at least one or two held writhing tangles of flesh and limbs—those who apparently enjoyed exhibiting themselves to a room full of strangers. Nesta shuddered and hoped she would have the privacy of a curtain, at least.

In one corner, there was a stage where a pianist played merry tunes. It was here that the madam brought Nesta after a long stroll through the room, during which the madam greeted her regulars and showed Nesta off. “To drum up a bit of excitement,” she explained.

Nesta was not sure the burning feeling in her stomach was excitement. Anxiety, perhaps, or Tomas Mandray’s seed curdling in her belly. But she kept her chin high and her spine straight—at least, as straight as she could stand without her breasts escaping the perilously low-plunging dress.

When they reached the stage, the madam clapped her hands and silence fell upon the small crowd, except for the faint moans and creaks that escaped the velvet-curtained nooks.

“We have a special treat tonight, gentlemen. A fresh face—a maiden, in fact—and you know what that means!” the madam cried, to applause from the men of the crowd. The harlots—the other harlots, she was no different from them, she had to remind herself—just looked beautifully bored and sipped their wine as they sized up the newcomer. She gazed back at them all with her usual imperious air, hoping it made her look very expensive.

“Turn in a circle, so they can have a look at you,” the madam hissed to Nesta.

“Great tits!” someone jeered, and a chorus of whistles and hollers rose from the crowd. Nesta’s cheeks burned.

The madam cried to the crowd, “Isn’t she beautiful! For tonight, she could be your queen. We’ll start the bids at thirty silver.”

Several hands shot into the air. The madam pointed at the quickest, then raised the bidding to forty.

It was really happening. There was no going back now.

At fifty silver, even with the madam’s take, she would be able to bring home as much food as she could carry from the tavern kitchen, and then still feed her family for month after.

At thirty, she could also get Elain a new cloak.

Then the bids hit a hundred. New shoes, or food for another month.

Why had she let herself suffer and starve for years, when she could have gotten on her back once in a while and lived like a queen?

When the bidding was still going at one hundred fifty, a well-dressed, tanned man in his mid-forties threw up his hand and cried, “Two hundred, to end it now!”

The madam looked utterly pleased as she cried, “Do I hear two hundred and ten? Two hundred to you, sir!” She clapped her hands and led Nesta to the table where the man sat alone. The madam and the man exchanged money, and Nesta was sold.

When the madam had bustled away, Nesta stood there, feeling incredibly awkward behind her frozen face, unsure if she should lead the man straight to the nook the madam had indicated was theirs, or wait for his cue, see if he wanted to fondle her half-dressed in front of everyone.

“Please, would you sit and have a drink with me?” the man finally asked.

Nesta almost smiled, as she had for Tomas—but something about this man told her that he wasn’t interested in fake sweetness. He had offered one hundred silver, twice as much as the madam had expected for a virgin, even as Nesta stood on stage and glared daggers at the room.

So instead she slipped into the chair, folding her arms and looking at the man appraisingly. He wasn’t bad-looking for an older man, slightly lined and plenty muscular.

He poured a glass of wine from the bottle on the table and slid it in front of her. “I have to say I was surprised to see Nesta Archeron on the maiden-stage here.”

Nesta blinked. She had not told the madam her name, nor announced it on stage, and she’d planned to give a fake name if her buyer asked. It was a small village, she supposed, but since they fell into poverty there were few people her family interacted with—Nesta especially. She felt too shameful about her station to show her face in town or speak to anyone besides Clare Beddor most of the time.

She had little shame left, she supposed.

Looking at the man again, there was something familiar about his lean face and his honey-gold hair that she couldn’t quite place, until he smiled.

“Mr. Beddor,” she said with cold surprise, realizing that his crinkled brown eyes were the spitting image of her friend Clare.

She had not seen much of Clare’s father before. He owned a stonemasonry company that maintained parts of the magical wall between the mortal lands and Prythian, where it was reinforced with stone. The company also built estates for lords throughout the mortal lands of their island, so he traveled often and was fairly well off. He had dozens of men who worked for his business, a big house full of servants, and a dead wife. That was how Nesta and Clare had become friends; their mothers caught the same sickness and died within months of each other, and the two girls and Elain had grown close in their loss. Clare had been the only friend of any means who continued to spend time with Nesta and speak to her as if she were still a human being. Nesta never felt shamed by her station around Clare, who was kind and a bit sheltered in a way that made Nesta think Clare did not quite understand that Nesta was poor now, even as her dresses grew faded and her body grew thin. Clare never even thought to offer Nesta or her sisters to join her family for dinner after their walks together through the village. Clare and Elain had much in common.

Clare’s father, however, had always seemed nice enough, if a bit absent. On the rare occasion when he was home, he always invited Nesta and her sisters for dinner when he saw them call on Clare. Nesta was always too proud to accept, but when Elain was there, she always accepted the offer with alacrity.

“I hope you don’t find this too strange, Nesta.”

“I imagine no more strange than for you, Mr. Beddor,” Nesta said, sipping her wine. She was afraid she would need it.

“On the contrary, I’m rather excited to see you here.” He placed a hand on her thigh where her pale flesh was exposed by the high slit in her dress.

Nesta arched one judging eyebrow. “Been fantasizing about me as I stroll around your gardens?”

“Perhaps.” The lines around his eyes crinkled once again in amusement, his mouth quirking to the side. His hand traced lazy circles higher and higher on her thigh. She didn’t hate the feeling. “If I had known you were … on the market, perhaps we could have avoided this place entirely.”

“Would I have fetched a higher price?” she asked, slightly amused now by the interest of this rich, mature man she had vaguely known for years.

“You might still, if this goes well and you would hear my proposition.” His hand moved higher, sliding the fabric above her most private parts. She had never been touched by another there before, other than Tomas’s clumsy pawing over her skirts, which she had always discouraged immediately. Certainly not on her bare skin. But his gentle touch, on a spot that felt so forbidden to expose in public, was shockingly titillating.

The crinkles around his eyes deepened as he watched her lips part in surprise and pleasure. “Have you truly not been with a man before, Nesta?”

She shook her head.

“You would sell your maidenhead? You didn’t want your first time to be for love?”

“Not when it’s worth two hundred silver,” she said honestly.

He gave her a devilish smile. “You are seduced by the power of money?” Her breath hitched as he gently pressed his thumb into a spot that felt amazing.

“What do you want with me, Mr. Beddor?” she asked breathlessly.

“Call me Willam.”

“What do you want with me, Willam?”

“To see the power you might hold over me.”

Oh, she liked the sound of that. She drained her wine and allowed her lips to stretch into the tiniest of smilies. “Lead the way.”

He withdrew his hand from under her gown and held it out to her as he led her to the velvet-curtained nook.

✦✦✦

Nesta was relieved that Willam drew the curtains as soon as she perched on the bed. The red velvet was heavy enough to block out some noise of the saloon and provide an illusion of privacy.

Willam stood at the edge of the bed, grasping the posts with his large, sun-browned hands. “Take off your dress,” he said, watching her intently.

She obeyed, though it made her feel vulnerable and exposed. She wasn’t sure if she would have preferred that he bend her over and pull up her skirts, as Tomas would have been sure to do. “You too, then,” she challenged, as if his nudity would make her feel more dignified.

It did, though he remained hidden from the waist down as he stood naked at the edge of the bed. He smirked at her command all the same.

“Do you ever touch yourself, Nesta? Give yourself pleasure?”

It had been a long time since she had, considering she shared a bed with her sisters, but she nodded, remembering how she once had her own room.

“Why don’t you show me what you like? Make yourself nice and ready for me.” His voice grew lower, almost a purr as he watched her gently stroke her fingers over her clit.

Gods, it had been so long since she felt so good, to enjoy the buzz of wine and the feeling of her own hand. And if she felt some inkling of humiliation for being paid so much money to get naked in front of this older man behind a curtain in a crowded room, it only seemed to heighten her arousal.

“Do you feel like you’re going to release?” he asked when her breath came faster and she began to squirm with pleasure.

“Oh, yes,” she said breathlessly, moving her hand faster and harder.

“Stop.”

Nesta opened her eyes with indignation, glaring at him as he climbed onto the bed, his heavy cock swinging from his chiseled abdomen, carved from decades of heaving stones alongside his men.

“I’m going to finish you off,” he said as he licked his lips, spread her legs, and lowered his head between them, “now that I’ve seen how you like it.”

She jumped in surprise when Willam pressed his wet lips to the bundle of nerves between her thighs, though she soon relaxed into the delicious sensation. He matched her fingers’ rhythm with the movement of his tongue, sucking and smacking his lips as if it were the meal of his life. She was almost disappointed she came so quickly, as she could have allowed him to feast on her for hours.

When she stilled from her release, he kissed her stomach, working his way up to her breasts, which he worshipped with his lips and tongue until her nipples could cut ice. She took in his scent, like rain on hot stone and leather, and ran her hands over the hard, smooth muscles of his back. She felt his breath hitch and his skin prickle with goose flesh in the wake of her touch. Pleased that she could elicit such a response in him, she let her hand drift to the bottom of his abdomen, where a trail of hair led from his muscled chest to his cock. His stomach muscles convulsed at her touch, and his cock throbbed when her fingers drew near the thatch of hair at its base.

He kissed her neck lightly as his hand drifted back between her thighs. “You’re dripping wet, Nesta. That’s the first lesson you should learn about sex: making sure you’re very, very pleased before you let a man enter you.” Willam pressed his finger against her entrance, teasing her, and she realized that the burn in her lower abdomen was an aching desire to be filled. “Would you say you’re very, very pleased yet?”

“No, I’m not.” Nesta shook her head slowly, easing out from underneath him. He rolled over to lay on his back as she straddled him and placed her hands on his chest. What pleased her was the idea of controlling this man, even as he had meant for his payment to control her. Taking courage from the wine and inspiration from how he had just teased her with his finger, she slid her wetness across his cock as she leaned forward so that her nipples tickled his chest. She looked at him assessingly as she asked, “What is truly pleasing me worth to you?”

“What do you want, dear girl?”

Nesta pressed herself up so he had a view of her full breasts, and she writhed on his cock, positioning the tip at her cunt. She let him nudge at the entrance just enough that he could feel her squeezing the muscles within, but not enough that he would split her yet.

“Another hundred,” she said boldly, taking a gamble on his desires, the hints he had given her thus far. It was an extravagant sum on top of what he had already paid to have her.

But she knew the Beddors were very, very wealthy.

“It’s yours,” Willam gasped, grabbing her hips and pulling to spear her with his cock. She cried out at the sharp, quick surprise of pain that soon blended into pleasure. Even as her core felt well pleased that it was finally filled, her mind raced: it was done, she would forever be branded a whore, she should have asked for more, they would not starve, her family would eat for months even if they hated her for it.

Nesta sat there stunned and unmoving for a moment, before testing the muscles in her core, flexing and appreciating the feel of his hot girth stretching her taut. He ran his hands over her body, tracing lines on her waist and circles around her breasts, encouraging her to set her thoughts aside and instead squirm and lean into his touch and discover the pleasure of moving with him inside her.

He groaned as she started to rock, and he let her set the pace, though he placed his hands on her hips to help thrust her up and down on his cock. She appreciated the help, as her near-starved body quickly grew tired.

When she discovered a spot that sent waves of pleasure from his cock through her core, she undulated her hips back and forth to catch that spot with each movement, and his hand slipped from her hips to her clit. The feeling of him both inside and out soon had her seeing stars.

Nesta couldn’t help it. She moaned. Loudly, like a harlot.

Willam grinned ferally when the sound escaped her lips. “Are you pleased now, Nesta?”

“Yes,” she moaned, writhing on his cock.

“Do you want to please me, too?”

“Yes,” she said, louder this time.

“Then come for me, sweetheart,” he purred, rubbing harder on her clit.

She instinctively ground harder into his touch, squeezed her walls around his cock, and found her release. She cried out as her muscles began to flex rhythmically, and he dug his fingers into her ass, holding her tight while she climaxed.

His cock quivered inside her, like Tomas’s had before his seed spilled, and it brought back her senses. Nesta quickly dismounted, situating herself between his legs to finish him in her mouth. She had not particularly enjoyed doing so with Tomas, but she thought perhaps it would be more pleasant with her in control. Besides, she had never taken a contraceptive before, and she’d seen at least a few women in the main room with bare, swollen bellies. It had been years since that bountiful summer when she’d last suffered her monthly cycle, but she could not risk a bastard. She’d live forever in shame, but couldn’t condemn a child to that, nor could they afford another mouth to feed.

“Do I please you, Willam?” she asked, running her tongue along his cock, salty and sweet with her own wetness. Nesta wantonly met his gaze as she pressed her lips to the tip of his cock, and he cried out when she took him in her mouth as far as she could stand. If she was to be anything in this world, even a harlot, she would at least be good at it. No, she would be great, she promised herself as she lapped at the underside of Willam’s cock and sucked, drawing out his gravelly moans. She wanted control of this man, from his throbbing cock to his purse strings.

“I said, do I please you, Willam?” she asked once again, lazily swirling her tongue around his tip.

“Gods, yes,” he said, and she once again sheathed him in her mouth and sucked greedily. He climaxed with a shudder and a loud groan. When his hot seed pumped into her mouth, she was steeled and ready for it this time. He tasted different from Tomas, saltier and less bitter perhaps, and she held him in her mouth and swallowed until he was spent.

Just like Tomas had taught her.

Afterward, she climbed up to lay next to him on her side, propped up on one elbow. “You are exquisite,” he said, his eyes roaming over her body. He traced his fingers along the curve of her hip, her breasts. “Would you hear my proposition now?”

She nodded, surprisingly relaxed between her release and the feeling of his light touch.

“You know I’m a widower, and my childrens’ dowries and fortunes are well-secured. But I’m lonely, Nesta. I’m not traveling for work anymore, lest I injure myself irreparably as I grow older, and I need something to fill my days. Someone. I’ve no interest in coming here night after night to find a different woman to warm my bed, nor do I have interest in a new wife who might control my childrens’ inheritance. At least, not until Clare is wed and Iain is ready to take over the business. But I do long for someone whom I could take care of, in exchange for her company.”

“You want me to be your mistress?” Nesta arched an eyebrow.

“Honestly, it was you who gave me the idea, a few years ago. Your family having lost their fortune, but you being so well brought-up and beautiful… I confess I dreamed of an arrangement, but I remember Clare saying how proud you were, that she would not even offer you her old clothes or dinner for fear that she would lose your friendship. So instead, when I returned home permanently this winter, I started coming here, hoping to find a girl I could envision in such an arrangement, but there was nobody until I saw you on the stage tonight.”

“What will Clare think?” Perhaps her friend wasn’t as oblivious as Nesta had thought.

“I’d prefer to keep this private, at least until Clare marries Lord Nolan’s son this summer. I think she would fault me less for an affair with her friend once she is running her own house.”

Nesta blinked. She hadn’t even known Clare was engaged. Had Clare kept it from her, to avoid hurting Nesta’s pride, knowing that she would never make such a match as with a nobleman’s son?

“What do you think?” he continued, watching her face closely. “You’ll have a stipend of fifty silver a week, all yours, no fees to the brothel, and I will shower you with gifts in exchange for your company. You would never have to come to this brothel or see your family go hungry again. But if you would prefer to hold out for an offer of marriage from a younger man, I would not be offended.”

Nesta smirked. “Younger men have no idea what they’re doing.” Nor would anyone want her as a bride, not after tonight. An arrangement as a rich man’s mistress was a better deal than she could have imagined. She would have money, freedom, and none of her mother’s plans for her—though her mother’s training would not go to waste. And if Willam’s desires remained anything like tonight, it would be work she could tolerate.

He smiled and brushed a stray hair that had fallen from her crown. “Then you’re all mine,” he said, and finally, he kissed her.

✦✦✦

Nesta left the tavern in her old threadbare dress once again, with two purses in her pocket: the purse of one hundred silver she had collected from the maidenhead auction after the madam’s cut, and the purse of one hundred that she had earned on her own merit. From the take of her maidenhead, she spent a few silver to purchase as much food as she could carry for her family to feast tonight. She was practically giddy on the snowy walk home, the silver jangling in her pocket and the prospect of a changed fortune warming her from within.

It was not particularly late when she returned home; she’d been gone maybe three hours, and it was not even eight o’clock, but it was full dark, and Elain and her father were still shivering by the fire. A glance at the wood pile indicated that they had not bothered to add another log, though they had piled on nearly every blanket in the house, and the fire was practically embers.

Nesta set the cloth bag full of bread and jars down on the table, then went to rebuild the fire. Elain jumped up at the smell of food, tearing into the bag and opening jars.

“Beef stew!” Elain cried. “With vegetables and butter and bread. Look, Papa!”

“And we’ll get you a cloak at the market tomorrow,” Nesta assured her.

Their father limped over to the table and sat down while Nesta turned from the fire and removed her boots and cloak by the door. His eyes slid from the feast on the table to Nesta’s boots.

“Feyre isn’t home yet?” Nesta asked while Elain poured the steaming stew into bowls.

“No, but I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. When she comes home this late, it usually means she has a deer slowing her down,” Elain said brightly, sliding a bowl to their father. He finally tore his eyes from the boots and began eating.

Neither of them asked where the food had come from, nor t did they ask about the heavy purse of silver that Nesta placed in the little lockbox where they kept the coin that they so rarely earned from selling Feyre’s hides or their old valuables. Not that they’d had valuables to sell for several years now.

Nesta kept the other purse in her pocket. That was hers, and hers alone.

Elain chattered as they ate, listing off all the new things they needed to buy with the silver once they replenished their food stores. New cloaks, boots, flowers, paints. Though she knew the coin would be spent too quickly, Nesta smiled and nodded, happy to see her middle sister lively and eating. More coin would come soon.

Their father said nothing.

The bowls were soon empty, and they were pouring seconds when the door opened with a burst of chill air and swirling snow. Feyre entered, covered in blood and grime, a deer wrapped in a bloody silver hide slung over her shoulders.

“I thought you were going to chop wood today, Nesta,” she grumbled as she entered the cottage. “The pile outside doesn’t even look like it was touched.”

Nesta looked up from her dinner, too proud to admit that she had tried and failed. “I hate chopping wood. And we don’t need it to cook tonight anyway.”

“Feyre!” Elain said. “Finally! You almost missed dinner.”

Feyre blinked, as if unable to comprehend the sight and smell of such a rich dinner on the table. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before finally asking, “Where did that come from?”

“Nesta traded her boots,” Elain explained proudly.

Feyre looked down at the boots lined up by the door, where Nesta’s too-small, still-shiny boots sat right in between Elain’s and their father’s.

“What are you talking about?” asked Feyre as she toed Nesta’s boots.

Nesta looked up from her bowl and met Feyre’s eyes, her chin high and spine as straight as steel. “The food is hot, so put that disgusting carcass down outside and come eat.”

Feyre shook her head slowly. “What did you sell? What baubles have you been hiding all this time?” she asked, fury rising in her voice.

“It’s the last night of the week,” their father said quietly.

The first day of each week was market day. They all knew there was no place to trade or sell goods on any day except market day. All the daily businesses that operated in town accepted only coin. And the Archerons had no coin.

And the last night of the week was always the busiest night for drinking and whoring.

“Shut up,” Nesta snapped.

Feyre dropped the deer to the floor and rushed to the lockbox that they kept by the stove. “There must be a hundred silver in here,” she said as she lifted the heavy purse. “What did you do?”

“There’s ninety-two silver. Enough to get us through winter if we’re smart about it. You could stop hunting.” Nesta eyed the blood and dirt that encrusted Feyre. “Go wash your hands before you eat. You’re filthy,”she snapped, dipping her bread in the stew.

Feyre blinked. “Oh, I’m filthy? Do you really still get to call me filthy when you’re out walking the damn streets?”

Elain’s mouth fell open in horror. Their father coughed uncomfortably, then shoved another spoonful of food in his mouth.

“Nesta that’s not true, is it?” Elain asked. “Because—”

“It is, and do you know what, I loved it! And I’ll do it again and again. And you,” Nesta said, her pride inexplicably wounded as she turned back to Feyre, “you’re just upset because now you can’t expect a husband to take me away so you can finally rid yourself of my burdensome presence.”

“I’m upset because after years of mocking me for getting my hands dirty to feed us, you finally dip your cunt into the muck and still act like you’re better than me!”

“At least I don’t have to resort to rutting Isaac Hale in the hay like an animal,” Nesta said. She knew it was cruel to say and she didn’t care. It had been just as cruel of Feyre to say what Nesta had done out loud. In front of everyone.

Their father made a choking noise and became intensely interested in the bottom of his bowl.

“No,” Feyre said. “Because it’s much more dignified to do it for coin.” She turned and took the deer outside, slamming the door behind her.

Elain’s doe eyes were wide with horror. “Is it true, Nesta? Did you—did Tomas—”

“Tomas couldn’t afford me if he tried,” she said coldly. “Leave it, Elain.”

“How could you shame us like this?” Elain cried, her eyes welling with tears. “It wasn’t even Tomas? He might have married you, but now … now you’ll never find a husband. Everyone will hear you’re a whore, and they’ll think I am too!” She slammed her spoon down on the table and fled to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“Anything you want to add?” Nesta snapped at her father.

She hated that his gaze was soft on her, though he said nothing. He left his bowl half-full on the table when he limped to his cot and lay down facing away from her.

Hot tears springing to her eyes, Nesta put on her cloak and shoes, then poured a fresh helping of stew into a bowl and left the cottage. Feyre was cleaning and skinning the deer by the dim light emanating from the window.

Nesta set the bowl in front of Feyre. “You have to eat before you faint and end up freezing to death out here,” she said, then turned to walk away.

“Wait, Nesta!” Feyre cried. “Where are you going?”

She didn’t know. To throw stones at Willam Beddor’s window and see if he would take her in, even if she had to be locked in a room to stay secret from Clare until summer. Or back to the tavern, where she could take a room upstairs and work the downstairs for her keep.

“Stop, please.”

Nesta took a deep breath and turned. “What is it, Feyre? Do you want to tell me how shameful I am, too? How pissed you are that I let you hunt and never sold myself before now? You want to call me a burden and then order me to go chop wood, even if I’m too weak to raise the axe?”

“What—no! I don’t think it’s shameful. I—I just never thought you cared that much. About any of us.” Feyre stared at the steaming bowl in front of her, then drank deeply from it. “Who was it? There’s no way Tomas Mandray could afford ninety-two silver and all that food.”

“Tomas, and another,” Nesta said vaguely, unable to meet Feyre’s gaze.

“And you really liked it?” Her sister’s eyes, grey-blue like her own, glittered wickedly in the moonlight.

“Shut up, Feyre.”

“Please don’t leave.”

“Elain hates me.”

“She’ll get over it when she has a new cloak and doesn’t go hungry again in a week. And she’ll have no problem finding a husband soon enough,” Feyre said in between slurps of stew. “But she will hate you if you leave.”

Nesta sighed, and sank down into the snow next to Feyre. “I’m going to sit here until she’s asleep. Do not ask me to touch that disgusting carcass.”

#nesta would make a perfect fin dom i said what i said #remember when feyre was feisty and snarky #back before rhysand tamed all the fun out of her #nesta is canonically a big tiddy biddy #acotar smut #acotar fanfiction #nesta archeron #tomas mandray #nesta deserves better #nesta supremacy #nesta fanfic #ecilehwrites