“What did you dare to say to me, Nymphet?” he growls.
“My name is Sylva, Leander.” My eyes water from the pain, and a tear sinks down into my hairline. “I want to hear you say it.”
His laughter is hot with rage. He gives me a shove and I stumble to my knees, away from the bower. I crawl toward him, and before he can guess at my intention, I rise on my knees and close my mouth over his cock.
He grabs my hair in both fists and he slides me almost free, then yanks me back until I feel him in my throat.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he challenges.
I stare up at him, nodding with him still in my mouth.
But he withdraws and pushes me down. “Hands and knees, slut. I’m ready.” He closes his hand over his cock like a weapon.
“Not like this,” I whisper, still tasting him in my mouth.
His eyes narrow, this time knowing what I’m about to do an instant before I do it, and I bolt up from the ground, run through the arch, and flee into the forest.
I hear his hooves pounding behind me.
I know the word to make it stop. But my blood is pumping, my pussy is throbbing, and the last thing I want is to stop. Not until he’s possessed me, and maybe not even then.
And yet I run like the devil himself is chasing me, because I don’t want to be fucked as a punishment, like he did to the queen. I want more from him than that.
Branches tear at my arms and legs. I lose count of the times I trip and scramble again to my feet. He should have caught me by now, but I’m beginning to know him. I can’t predict what will happen when he catches me—maybe he can’t either—but I know he wants this chase as much as I do.
In the end it’s the river that takes me. As I leap toward the opposite bank, the stone under my foot loosens, and I fall into the water. Leander splashes onto the gravel beside me and drags me from the current.
He binds me like an animal, wrists and ankles together at my back. I watch, breathless, as he makes a sort of sling system with ropes, and then he hoists me onto his back. My breasts and thighs press and rub against him as he bears me deeper into the forest.
Our journey ends at a clearing with a stone slab at its center. He transfers me from his back to the stone, and as he binds me, arms overhead and legs spread wide, I get a good look at the knots he’s created—they’re like works of art, twisting and forming the rope so it creates a dress that frames my bare breasts and wraps and draws my hips open.
When I’m securely bound, shoulders and buttocks pressed against the cold stone, he leaves me.
—
My joints ache from being too long in the same position. I wonder how long he’s been gone. Whether it ever gets dark here.
I’m about to call out for him when I hear rustling, and two huge fern leaves part. Two women dressed like Orange walk into the clearing carrying baskets. They set one on either side of me without speaking to me or even meeting my gaze. The fair nymph lifts a jar from her basket. She holds it over my body and tips it, drizzling golden honey over my hips, belly, and breasts. The dark nymph works flowers into the hair at both my head and pussy. As a final act before leaving me, the fair nymph pulls a fat carrot from her basket. The root’s been cleaned but it still has its top, and she drags the silky fronds over the insides of my thighs before biting off the pointy tip.
She licks the carrot from end to end, and then—her eyes finally meeting mine—she slips it slowly inside me. I shudder against the stone.
Wordlessly as they came, they pack up their baskets and leave.
Their attentions have stoked sleeping fires, and my pussy clenches over the carrot, my honeyed hips bucking against the air. But I’m bound too tightly to relieve myself, and soon I settle again into silence.
There is something inexplicably erotic about it, lying there bound, decorated as for sacrifice, a carrot protruding from me like a plaything left on a banquet table. So much so that when the herd of fauns files into the clearing, their deep voices mingling in conversation and laughter, my muscles clench again around the root, even as my heart pounds with alarm.
They dump what looks like a cleaned deer into the clearing, and in no time the eight of them—including Leander—have built a fire and spitted their game. The smell of roasting venison reaches me, raising audible protest from my stomach.
The fauns seem to ignore me, until one of them breaks away from the group to relieve himself. On his way back to the others he stops between my open legs. He eyes my pussy curiously, grasping the carrot top and slowly pulling it out. A soft moan escapes my throat, and his lips curl in a smile as he pushes it back in.
“Is this yours, Leander?” he calls.
“It is.” The deep tone of Master’s voice moistens the passage around the carrot.
“Can I use it?” asks the other.
The conversation draws the others, and soon seven fauns, hungry from the hunt, peer down at me with bright eyes. Leander remains next to the spit, watching. Our eyes meet, and he says, “She’s for the amusement of my guests.”
It’s like a spell has been broken. Where they had eyes only for their meat a moment ago, they’re now transfixed by my splayed body.
A black-haired faun is the first to bend and lick at the honey, lapping and moaning until he’s sucked my nipple into his mouth. Then seven tongues are working my body, cleaning between the ropes that bind my flesh, suckling at my breasts. The faun who first came to me slides his hands under my buttocks and lifts my hips a few inches, plunging into me without preamble.
He finishes, fast and wild, and I press my hips into the air and beg for the next one. Seconds later I’m filled again, the dark faun this time, pumping so hard my breasts bounce back and forth against the ropes that frame them. I come at the same time he does, both of us shouting, but I’m nowhere near satisfied, and one by one I take them all. The early finishers climb onto the rock, covering me with their bodies and working my mouth with freshly hardened cocks, even as their companions pump at my pussy.
When Leander calls out that the meat is done, the current passengers come with shuddering groans. All seven mouths lick gently at my arms and legs with something like affection until, one by one, they gradually drift away from my body.
As they eat, laughing and talking like when they arrived, I lie drying there in the open air, their fluids chilling me.
A knife strikes the rock near my head. Leander begins slicing through the ropes that bind me, unwinding them slowly from my arms and legs. My skin is chafed raw in places, and my flesh is slack with exhaustion and satiation.
He raises me, wrapping me in a blanket, and lifts me in his arms.
The speed at which he moves is dizzying, and I close my eyes and press my head into his chest as he runs. After what seems like half an hour he finally stops, lowering and unwrapping me next to a clear pool lined with stones. A mineral-smelling steam rises from the surface—a hot spring.
He lifts me again, cradling me against him, and he steps into the pool, lowering me in about a foot of water. Resting my head against his fur-covered thigh, he dampens a cloth and rubs it gently over my skin—my arms first, then hips, then belly, then breasts. He works the cloth in tight circles over my nipples until they rise to his attentions. Then he slides the cloth down my belly, between my legs, working it against my pussy. Whimpering, I press against his hand.
But he lifts me from the pool and lays me on the blanket. He sinks beside me, opening his pack and pulling out a pouch. I smell it before I can identify it visually, and my mouth waters as he lifts a piece of venison from the pouch. He rubs the meat along my bottom lip and I open my mouth. I take the venison from his fingers, licking every drop of juice from his hand until he reaches into the pouch again to feed me another. Nothing has ever tasted so good, and I moan like he’s fucking me until I’ve eaten every last piece.
He cleans his hands in the pool and then wipes my face with the cloth.
He spreads an animal skin next to the blanket, l
ies down, and pulls me into his arms, covering us both with the blanket.
“Sleep, Sylva,” he whispers.
I feel tears gathering in my eyes and don’t understand why. What kind of trip am I on?
“Take me, Master,” I whisper. “Surely I’ve earned the right to ask you this.”
He laughs softly, a sound unlike any I’ve heard him make so far. “Indeed.”
I rise from his chest, letting the blanket fall.
His hand comes to my breast and he squeezes. “How shall I have you, Nymph?”
The promotion isn’t lost on me, and I smile.
“In the way reserved for a master. In a way no other has had me.”
I raise a leg over him and straddle his lap. His cock presses against my belly.
He smirks. “I believe the thinking man enjoyed this privilege.”
I shake my head slowly and reach for the venison bag. I grope along the bottom, coating my hand with grease. Then I rub it over his erection until he’s moaning under my hand.
I rise onto my knees, and I slide my ass slowly over his cock. He grabs my hips and gasps.
“What a sweet little slut you are,” he hisses, leaning until his back comes to rest against a tree trunk. “Where have you learned such naughty things?”
“In my fantasies,” I murmur, rocking against him, using my bent legs to control the speed. Relishing the building pressure and even the burning sensation. I run my hands over the perfection of his chest, and his fingers rub at my clit.
“Don’t you think it’s time to wake up, slut?” The slur is a caress slipping from his soft, full lips. I pause in my rocking and bend to taste his mouth.
It’s time to wake up, Sylva.
2
The Dragonmaid’s Secret
PROVENCE—1675 (L’GE DE DRAGONS)
Shift
The sunset bleeds gold and vermilion over the cliffs of Roussillon. I tap Aurora’s ribs with my heels, urging her toward our post. The contact is all but unnecessary. We were introduced to each other at birth. Most of the time she knows what I want before I do.
No delta dragon from the Camargue to the west, Aurora is fire born, her Persian mother transported to our village via the Silk Road. She was a gift to my family from the Artists Guild, in gratitude for my father’s twenty-five years of service as captain of the watch. A position I inherited.
It was a rich gift indeed, made possible by high demand for the pigment created by Roussillon tradesmen, and the pottery designed by our artists. I can neither confirm nor deny there’s a catacomb beneath our village full of gold coin, but there are those who believe it to be true, and this is why a village of tradesmen and artisans requires a full-time watch.
Aurora’s scales, burnished by the sun’s last rays, reflect gold or a deep orange-red depending on the direction of the light. She moves like a dancing flame over the ochre landscape. We are like sisters, Aurora and me. I wear my hair in a crown of red-gold plaits, and my guard uniform has been dyed with local pigment to complement her coloring. I prefer her company to any living creature’s.
Aurora knows the truth about me. Raised a dragonmaid—the first in our village—my first meal was the same as hers: dragon’s milk, to make me strong. My father wed me to the blade before I could walk. My sword, too, came to me by way of the Silk Road, the hilt’s gold filigree and ruby embellishment designed as a companion weapon to Aurora’s fire. She and I are the defenders of Roussillon, and as such neither we nor our family ever want for anything. Nothing required for our survival or comfort, anyway.
But on the night watch, I burn. The desire for another sort of life consumes me like the potter’s fire. I can’t even say what sort of life I would prefer. I only know that when I sleep, and especially during certain phases of the moon, I feel like color is billowing inside of me. Like if I don’t hold my breath I’ll erupt in orange and vermilion and gold.
I nudge again at Aurora’s ribs, and she drops in through the mouth of our cave. From here we’ve got a sweeping view of the valley, and it’s on clear nights like this when outsiders creep up on us from the south, or our own countrymen from the north. My costly sword has never drawn blood—except by accident during my training. The threat of Aurora’s fire has been enough to turn back many a would-be raider.
Inside the cave, Aurora spits flame at the wood we collected at the end of the last evening watch. We keep our fire small for most of the night, but I allow myself more light between sunset and nightfall so I can work. The walls of the cave are bright with my paintings. It’s the only way I can contain the storm that rages inside me—by letting out the colors, one brushstroke at a time.
My mother is a potter. My brother, an apprentice to the most skilled pigment chemist in the village. There are few here who don’t earn a wage from the ochre dust in our hills. But I was not given a choice. How long, I wonder, will the paintings be enough? Already, I feel they’re not enough.
Aurora settles in the mouth of the cave. Wings at rest, amber eyes alert. Great paws crossed like a dog’s before the fire. She glances at me, huffing smoke before returning her attention to the world outside. She feels my discontent, though she doesn’t understand it. She doubles her own vigilance when I’m distracted by my painting. I’d trust no one but Aurora to watch our valley alone. Day or night—even in the transition between—her eyes miss nothing.
I stare at the final whitewashed section of cave wall, near the back where the light is poorest. After I’ve covered it, I’ll have to resort to painting the ceiling from Aurora’s back. Or find another cave that’s big enough to hide both of us.
Or have Aurora fire-blast it all away and begin again.
My eyes roam over the work of previous weeks and months. I’d started with shimmering, serpentine rainbows—my attempts to channel the colorful chaos inside me. Then familiar scenery—lavender fields and vineyards. I tried the smaller scale for a while—baskets of fruit and rows of fresh-baked bread in the market—but soon tired of the inanimate and began to paint living creatures. Horses grazing below the village. Chickens pecking crumbs from the cobblestone streets.
At last, perhaps inevitably, I began to paint dragons. I painted Aurora as she rested, curled like a great wolfhound. I practiced catlike eyes, ridged brow and torso, and curving fields of burnished scales. From there I moved on to dragons of every color, whole skies full of them. Teeming, writhing hosts descending over the fields. The full rich and varied palette of fire dragons. The humble deltas—slinkers and creepers that threaten with venom instead of fire. The regal northern ice lizards with their hoary breath. And rarest of all, the great Celtic Silvers, bellowing thunder that cracks mountains and breathing fog over emerald hills. No one knows for sure if these last are truth, or a fiction created to warn invaders away from Ériu’s ragged shoreline.
In this last series I’d truly lost myself, though I’d gradually circled back from literal to more abstract depictions. My new dragons were ecstatic dances of color and light. Less precise, yet somehow more alive. I’d stopped concentrating so hard. I’d let go of mopping at mistakes with a damp cloth and opened to the flow.
“One more, Aurora,” I murmur. Selecting a brush from the dozen resting against the cave wall, I wonder whether I refer to this last blank canvas, or something more final.
Aurora groans and drops her head onto her coiled tail.
“Don’t let me interrupt your nap.”
She gives three barks of animal laughter, and her long tongue snakes out once over her lips before she settles her head and closes her eyes. A moment later one eye opens, rolling toward the mouth of the cave.
Sighing, I bend to open my jars of paint. I lift a circle of waxed linen off the precious pot of Tyrian purple, and Aurora huffs at the foul smell.
“I know,” I say. “But I can’t do a Royal Moroccan with—”
There’s a loud scraping sound behind me, and wind rakes at my hair and clothing. I turn, and Aurora shoots out of the mouth of the cave like she’s bee
n fired from a crossbow.
“Hey!” I shout after her, watching her figure recede into the orange-tinged sky, not sparing a glance for the costly pigment I’ve dropped. She’s never done such a thing, not even over the stink of Tyrian purple.
My hand curls around the hilt of my sword as I move to the mouth of the cave. I speak into the breeze that caresses my face: “What did you hear?”
My eyes scan the rocky cliffs opposite our position, sweeping down to the mouth of the valley. I strain to separate shadows in the twilight, and I listen with my whole body. No firelight blinks between the trees. No smoke smudges the indigo sky. What could have caused her to bolt like that?
I can think of only one thing: a threat too dire to wait. And here I am, trapped by the treacherous descent beyond the mouth of the cave, the geography that protects us from ambush rendering me useless to anyone.
“Aurora,” I groan in frustration.
Leaves rustle in the valley below. It’s just air moving through the trees, as it always does come evening, but I decide to put out my fire. I kick the burning logs apart and lift a bucket of dirt to finish the job.
“Drop the bucket and your sword.”
I spin to face the issuer of this command, bucket dropped, but sword in hand. How has he managed to creep up on me here?
His own sword is raised in warning, and slowly, with a voice like thunder rumbling in the clouds that roll in from the Mediterranean, he repeats, “Drop your sword.”
My gaze shifts beyond, to the band of sky that silhouettes him. Hope flares as I glimpse a bright point, only to blink out as I realize it’s the moon rising, spilling her neutral light into our valley.
“Isabeau.” The sound of my name in this stranger’s mouth—this warrior who speaks my native Occitan with a choppy, tumbling-rock accent wholly unfamiliar to me—has ignited a hot tingling at the base of my spine.
He is dangerous.
“She’s not coming,” he continues, “and this is your last chance to do as I’ve asked.”
Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales Page 4
