The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales)

by Trent, Louisa

  In his company, she felt secure.

  A great deal could be said for that. A ruthless leader like him would keep a populace safe, whereas a benevolent ruler like Lord Harold would fall, taking his unprotected subjects with him. Benign neglect was fine in times of peace, but in times of anarchy, an overlord’s harsh reputation best served his peasants.

  Her master was a not a man of deep contemplation. As she pondered political philosophy, he sprang into motion. As if she weighed little more than a goose feather, he wrapped two hands at her waist and lifted her from her astride positioning atop him. Jumping to his feet first, he pulled her up to a stand secondarily. Then, leaning down, he brushed some dust from her bliaut.

  “There! All is right again. Save—” The soulless devil stared soulfully at her. “I could not withdraw in time. This also will not happen again, I swear. In my own defense, your commandeering the situation caught me by surprise.”

  “In the female superior position, once seed is deposited, it drains immediately. Such is its advantage. ” Even as she said so, a viscous stream dribbled down her thighs.

  He scooped up his pile of garb from the ground. “I have never been someone’s wish before. Your choice of prizes honors me.”

  As he hobbled into his attire, she had all to do not to laugh. And not at his expense. This easy camaraderie between them must be what true happiness felt like…

  She quickly dismissed the notion. Forming an attachment to this royal would be unwise. To do so would be to ask for a broken heart.

  Instead—as though this thing between them was no more profound than an afternoon’s romp in the hay between a milkmaid and a shepherd lad—she said flirtatiously, “Allow me to honor you again, Master.”

  “Are you saying what I think you are saying?”

  “Put away the arrows and daggers, just for a day, and let us be together, closed off from the perils of warfare. Everyone needs an escape from anarchy, a spot to find peace in the midst of turmoil, every once in a while.”

  “A tantalizing proposal, what you suggest. And I suppose I do have an oversight to make up to you. I was remiss in my…er…archery just now. In my excitement, I could not control the speed of my…er…arrow’s release from its…er…quiver.”

  His naughtiness was infectious. His boyishness swept away.

  Until he remembered his exalted position in the fiefdom and her own lowly status.

  “Come along, wench,” he said imperiously and swatted her posterior. “Here on out, no more surprises. Or suggestions. Know this—if you stay, ’tis by your own doing. And if you do stay, you serve me. My whim, my caprice, my pleasure. Not yours.”

  And her carefree moment fled, lost in a bargain she had made to ensure her sister’s safety and then distorted to satisfy her own lust.

  She would stay, for she was not yet ready to say the words: “Set me free.”

  Soon. She would say the words soon. For now, this arrogant and dominant lord held an unholy supremacy over her. For now, she was his carnal slave.

  Silence reigned between them as he took her back inside his keep. She went willingly up the rough-hewn plank stairs to the second-floor sleeping quarters. This time, though, rather than take her to the quarters she shared with items in storage, he escorted her to his solar.

  So lost in him was she that she hardly noted the surroundings. Aye, the space was grand and furnished in heavy oak pieces, with silver fox furs and purple velvets strewn all about, and the arched ceiling soared like the interior of a cathedral, but ’twas him who held her attention. When he tore her new silk garb from her trembling form, renting the luxurious and costly fabric as though ’twere a pauper’s sack, she could hardly breathe.

  By his caprice, he might do the same to her. He might tear her up and then cast her aside. He might very well destroy her. All serfs were expendable, their worth assigned by their owner. So long as she stayed, this royal owned her. So why stay?

  She stayed because she could not leave.

  Rather than save herself, she batted her moth’s wings ever closer to the flame. Knowing firsthand as she did the damage a fire could do, still he drew her. She was seeking pain, she supposed, seeking her own annihilation.

  Naked, she clasped his head to her breasts as he nuzzled her nipples, nuzzled and suckled and finally bit into her sensitive flesh. Not gently. Not delicately. His teeth marked her, and she arched into him in acceptance of her own conflagration.

  “Aye aye aye,” she sobbed, the release that had eluded her at the target range finding her now. The honey of her renewed arousal came first, followed by her body going taut in expectancy, and then it happened. Like hot, molten beeswax surging inside her, pleasure slammed into her belly, pounding her like a clenched fist.

  And still he kept marking her with his teeth. Their scrape made the tight skin of her areolas raw. Inflamed. Afire.

  In her extremity, she took a ragged breath. And let him. Simply let him.

  He was hurting her now. Expertly hurting her. Cruelly hurting her. Would his teeth rip her nipple? Draw blood? Would a thin stream of crimson drip off the tips of her breasts to land in the plain brown nest of her pubic hair?

  His head lifted, and he stared her down. “Shall I?”

  “Aye,” she sobbed. “Do it. I want it done.”

  But nay. The bite never sharpened. There was no nick, only bliss washing over her as she climaxed a second time.

  Whilst she trembled and shook, he stepped away from her, stood back a pace or two, and contemplated her.

  She refused to cower. Refused to run for cover. Refused to wind her arms around her nudity. Refused to cross her arms over her exposed breasts. Refused to hide his teeth marks on her flesh.

  “Your blood is the same color as my own for all that you are peasant born,” he said hoarsely. “And I would sooner draw mine than yours.”

  Growling like an animal—a wolf, mayhap—he sniffed the air as a predator would, and stalked back to her.

  “Your slit tempts me,” he said, his unblinking stare fixed on her thighs.

  She tossed her head unrepentantly and splayed her legs, letting him see her most private part. They had crossed the line, and there was no going back now. “My body belongs to you. You are its true master. Do with me as you will.”

  He did. With a jerked nod, he half carried, half pushed her backward until her spine slammed into the cool hardness of the stone wall. Her breasts lifting and falling with her excitement, she forced herself to go pliant in acquiescence as he hiked up her leg, pushed her knee high, and pressed his hand, the knuckles bent, against her notch. His thick digits exerting enormous pressure there at the inlet to her body, he pressed. Only a bit. Only so her distress increased a hundredfold.

  “Does this pain you?” he asked.

  Not solicitously. Not this time. His romantic sentiments had been fleeting at best, if ever they had existed at all outside her imaginings, and were now consigned to the past. His was merely a question, stated like any other question, such as an inquiry over the weather.

  “Aye,” she answered in the same matter-of-fact tone.

  “’Tis tight, your cunt,” he offered and reached his free hand for her bosom, stroking his thumb possessively over the one he had bitten whilst continuing to press, press inwardly against the tender folds. “You are not accustomed to such activities.”

  She shuddered convulsively, need encroaching, need making allowances for discomfort, indignity, humiliation, shame…

  Joy. Unlike she had never known.

  Which allowed her to forgive the rest. Even crave the rest.

  He had spread her body wide open. His fist pinned her to the stone wall. And he was fondling her teeth-marked nipple as he would. Whichever way he would, even roughly, even if the rough fondling hurt her.

  It did hurt her.

  To say the least, she was not accustomed to such treatment. Yet he made her hunger for the treatment. Her nipples elongated. That needy space between her split legs gnawed. Wet arous
al saturated her loins and coated his scarred knuckles. Her fleece was soaked with the evidence of her unwholesome desire. Oh, how she wanted the pain he inflicted on her.

  She shrugged, and her bare breasts shifted, the nipples tight. “I am not your lady,” she said, stating the obvious. “For as long as we are together, you have leave to treat me as you please, even if it pleases you to treat me like a strumpet. And I have leave to depart anytime I please.”

  This assertion seemed to make up his mind.

  “Nym,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Come here at once. Bring oil.”

  His squire must have been posted directly outside the portal, for within a relatively brief spate of time, he entered the solar carrying a metal tincture.

  The oil no doubt.

  With a respectful bow to her, he made to hand the requested item to Lord Devil.

  Her Master shook his head in the negative. “Prepare her, would you, Nym?”

  “For what, my lord?”

  “Fisting.”

  “Very well. Which inlet?”

  “The cunt this time, I should think. Her bottom will come later.”

  “As will she, I imagine, my lord.”

  The warlord sent his vassal a quelling look of censure. “Keep to quiet, Nym, or taste my whip upon your back.”

  The squire nodded.

  “Shear her wool first,” the Devil instructed. “No compromise. I would have her curls gone, as enticing as they are, so I might see her rosy cunt at a glance. Do it as you would a restive ewe.”

  ’Twas true, she was restive. In fact, she struggled against the lord’s hold. Though willing, this was all new to her, and though needy, she was too sensible not to be wary. She who had never been even partially ungarbed before in a male’s presence was now not only entirely naked, but splayed before two very masculine men. And the overlord had made her body not only available but had placed her wantonly on display. To Nym. To any other guard or vassal in the fiefdom. The portal was ajar. A steady stream of male servants and attendants and militia walked by the entrance to the noble’s heavily guarded solar. Some outside in the hallway must surely have looked in. Naturally this disconcerted her.

  Unfortunately the same circumstance also excited her.

  An excitement tempered by the not so inconsequential issue of her own self-preservation.

  Her vulnerability was never so apparent as when Nym unsheathed his dagger and came at her, weapon drawn. She bucked wildly then and tried to scoot out of harm’s way as the blade approached her loins.

  With a raised hand, Lord Devil immediately called a halt to the proceedings and backed away, pulling Nym with him. “If you do not wish any of this, Mitri, you have only to say the word and you are free to leave.”

  Her bared breasts heaving, she glanced to the portal and just as swiftly returned her gaze to the overlord’s face.

  His expression told her all she wished to know, and she realized she trusted him to hurt her only as much as she needed to be hurt and not one scream more.

  Making up her mind, she squared her shoulders. “I am where I wish to be.”

  He sighed. “I should like to collar you again. Collar and tether you. ’Tis for your own protection. Move during the shearing and you might be left with a nasty wound.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “And I suppose, my lord, your enjoyment has naught whatsoever to do with the collaring and tethering,” Mitri replied.

  Spur resentfully contemplated the young woman who had so exquisitely made him her slave. By her words, she had rendered him naked. Unfair! He had only stripped her of clothing.

  Her voice sounded fearful and aroused, all at the same time. And beneath all of that was an unspoken challenge. Her silent words hummed inside his head:

  Admit what I do to you. Admit I am everything you want and desire in a woman.

  Or was that his own chastising voice he heard?

  Deep within him was a terrible urge to make a clean breast of it now that she had called him on his hypocrisy. Deep within him was a mad impulse to tell her the truth, to admit that in her he had found a partner to fulfill him.

  And what then?

  After avowing the sentiment, what would come next?

  Certainly not a betrothal, a promise of a future together. He could never plight his troth to her. They could have no life together. He was a nobleman, and she was a common peasant wench. The best he could do was keep her as his plaything, his whore until and, mayhap even after, taking a wife. Apart from the impropriety of offering her anything more, what he felt was lust, not love. He would never commit the irresponsible act of loving, of cherishing, of adoring a common serf. During these perilous political times, he must strengthen his ties with the king’s court with a royal marriage, a true alliance of nobility, not abandon them. And for what? A cunt?

  The very idea was the height of self-destruction. He might just as well slit his own throat as well as the throats of his populace as permit this succulent wench to get in the way of a strengthened military defense he would make through the right marriage.

  Nay, that he would not do. As anarchy reigned supreme, he would satisfy his prurient passions and let it go at that. Who knew what the morrow might bring?

  Not he.

  In the here and now, he had a flirtatious wench, naked and taunting him with her bold regard, at his disposal. Tonight he intended to lose himself in her dancing eyes, in her tight little body, in her creamy cunt and welcoming arse. In the future, he would make a respectable lady his wife.

  “Drop down, lambkin.”

  “Your wish is my command, my lord,” she said and fell to her knees on the rush-covered floor.

  “All the way down,” he ordered. “No half measures. You are either in this or you are not. In which case, gather your belongings and leave with the agreed-upon recompense.”

  “Why keep belaboring the terms of our agreement? I have done naught to gainsay you. Any prohibitions, any denials are in your own mind, my lord.” She reclined gracefully on her back, her small breasts pointed upward. “Like so?”

  “Open,” he said sternly, frowning darkly at her closed-up-tight knees. “I want your pelvis raised and your thighs split wide. Seduce me. Naught held back. There is no place for female pride here, for maidenly modesty, for chaste morality. Become as an animal for me, my little excitable lambkin.”

  She stretched her legs out wide, spreading her loins open, and then raised up her hips.

  ’Twas not good enough for him. Her total submission was what he required.

  “What say you?” he demanded.

  “I say, I am your cunt. Use me.”

  Spur nodded to Nym. “Tie her with the leather restraints, then shear the little lamb’s wool.”

  This time, she made no attempt to struggle but went entirely lax as Nym placed her in the leather bonds. With her arms and legs tied, her lovely throat collared, she was every bit as docile as a tethered lamb and now as open as a woman could be, her body—feverish with excitement—there for any man’s taking.

  Without having to contend with a female’s natural modesty, his squire made quick work of scraping her pubic curls. When she was bald down below, Spur gave his vassal the next directive.

  “Apply the oil.”

  Once again, Nym carried out his order with efficiency and a minimum of fuss. When her folds glistened and she began to writhe at all the touching, Spur said, “Apply an all-encompassing stroke whilst I watch.”

  Nym of the nimble fingers knew his way around female genitalia, but he had never pleasured any of his partners before. “My lord?” he asked in obvious confusion. “Her passion bud too?”

  “Aye. Of course. Naturally.”

  And so his squire began. His fingers slipping on her slick flesh, Nym brought Mitri to a frenzied state. When her murmurs changed from purrs to mews, then from gasps to moans, and her hips were lifting and falling with his vassal’s petting, Spur stepped away from his observation point at the wall.

  �
��Thank you, Nym. That will be enough. You may leave. Make sure to close the portal after you. My men-at-arms have had enough entertainment for one evening.”

  “I care not a whit who sees me,” she interrupted. “Please, my lord, finish it.”

  He now stood over her, looked down upon her. “Why should I?”

  “You would never be so cruel as to leave me yearning this way…”

  “Oh, would I not?”

  She thrashed her head on the floor, her loosened brown hair flying over her face, the thick strands sweeping across her eyes. And with her wrists tied over her head, she could make no repairs. Sightless, she sobbed, “I beg you. Give me release!”

  “Very well.” He went to a small table and removed a squat wooden ax handle he had not yet had the opportunity to attach to a blade. The wood was smooth and seasoned, a nice thick handful to grip when he felled timber.

  He returned to her and untied a bound hand, into which he placed the tool. “Use this to find your pleasure.”

  Her small breasts swelled over the sides of the crisscrossed leather strapping Nym had used to corset them; the hardened nipples stabbed the air. “Aye. All right.”

  Her folds were wet, slick with the oil, swollen with her lust and all Nym’s fingering. Although the handle was too thick for this particular activity, with only a little cajoling on her part, she was able to do as told.

  An “Ah” left her gaping lips on a whoosh as she made that first thrust. Then another. And another after that. When she hovered at the chasm, he removed her hand from the handle, finger by finger.

  “No more,” he said softly.

  “But I need, I need to…”

  “I know what you need,” he reassured her and retied her hand. “And now that you are nicely stretched, you will get it too.”

  “You?”

  He repaired her hair so that she could see. “In a manner of speaking.” He pushed up the sleeve of his tunic. “At least a part of me.”