Dark’s teeth grazed her nipple and he quickly found her most sensitive place, slapping it with hard fingers. The sensation sparked fires inside Thérèse, already burning with a fierce arousal.
She could not refuse, helpless to withstand the sensual assault. Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized she could not withhold anything from these two men. They had learned their skills well and were using them to their fullest on a willingly receptive vessel—her.
Sighing with the knowledge, Thérèse resigned herself to her fate—she would come again. There was no way to avoid it, no way to resist the longings of her body and their lustfully talented touches.
She had betrayed herself once more, her base nature asserting itself over her mind and what she knew to be right. She should be screaming, crying out her innocence, wailing and flailing at her captors.
Instead, she came.
Soft waves of release began rolling over her, growing in intensity as Dark’s fingers cleverly teased her swollen pussy and Grey’s cock started to shudder inside her ass.
“Oh no, oh God…”
Vainly she fought for control, but it was of no use at all. The spasms would not be denied, building into a massive onrush of sensation that exploded within her just as Grey began to come. The sensation of his cock spurting deep inside her darkest places merely added fuel to her fire, something apparently Dark could sense, since he touched her delicately now, urging her along the steep path to the end.
Thérèse surrendered and cried out as the shocks of her orgasm ripped through her.
Shattering heat swept her mind blank, blinding her with its ferocity. Grey let loose an oath behind her, holding her body tight to his as he orgasmed, pumping into her on a growl of completion.
Awkwardly bent over Dark and impaled on Grey’s cock, Thérèse suffered through another release and tried to tell herself she could not enjoy it.
Deep down inside, she knew she lied.
She lied to herself continuously in the hours that followed.
Throughout the long night, Dark and Grey took turns with her, sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh. Their inventiveness knew no bounds, their sensual skills beyond comprehension.
She was not being raped, she was being continually aroused against her will. She discovered the difference very quickly.
The pain she felt was from the occasional lashes or pinches from some implement or other the men might use. But these pains were not intended to make her suffer. They simply heightened her excitement, drawing sensations to her nipple or the swollen folds of her pussy, or her ass if one decided to spank her there.
It was as if she was imprisoned in a chamber of sexual excess—helpless within the grasp of two extraordinarily skilled lovers trained in all the arts that would please her most.
They mostly remained silent as they pleasured themselves and Thérèse. Occasionally they would repeat their question “Are you a witch?” and consistently Thérèse would deny the accusation.
Nothing they did to her would ever change her answer, weaker though her voice became as the hours wore on.
They permitted her water, even going so far as to assist her as she cleaned herself at one point. They washed themselves fastidiously after each round of activity, seeming tireless when it came to inventive ways to arouse her body.
Thérèse lost track of how long they were locked into the chamber. She lost track of how many times they’d taken her and in how many ways. Together, filling her until she thought she would burst, or with one cock in her mouth while another plunged deep into her sex—it went on and on until she was weak from her orgasms and her legs barely able to support her when she tried to stand.
Finally, Dark and Grey allowed themselves to admit exhaustion. All three lay on a rough pallet of hay covered with a blanket. The scent of sex and sweat permeated the airless chamber, yet Thérèse did not find it distasteful.
She was aware of a gnawing hunger in her belly but was too tired to ask for food. She merely curled up against one of the hard bodies, weary to the bone and unable to even lift her head.
To her surprise, she found herself tucked snugly between Dark and Grey, feeling strangely comforted and protected by her erstwhile inquisitors. They had taken her body, ridden her hard, yet through it all she had matched their lusts with lusts of her own.
Toward the end their attentions had become more sensual and less harsh, more like lovers than captors. Their last shared orgasm had been almost—beautiful.
Freed of her shackles, Thérèse had straddled Grey’s cock, watching his face as he came, while Dark had filled her ass from behind, his hands—as always—finding her breasts like a lodestone to north.
They’d all cried out as they’d reached their peaks, sounds of ecstasy resounding across the aged stone walls. It had been a mutual pleasure, this final fucking. Thérèse was no longer afraid of them. She sensed they might well have reached acceptance of her protestations—she was no witch.
Tomorrow perhaps she would be freed to return home. As she slipped into sleep, she realized she would carry the memory of this night with her for the rest of her life. And it might not be such a terrible memory, either.
Chapter Eleven
If her slumber had been peaceful, her awakening was anything but.
Wrenched from sleep by the cruel application of a bucket of cold water, Thérèse gasped and jumped like a scalded cat. Her two companions did much the same, cursing luridly as they flailed around, trying to escape the icy shower.
“Get up, you useless louts.”
Thérèse dashed the water from her eyes to see the Bishop standing at the edge of their pallet, a taut fury radiating from every pore.
“My Lord…” Dark scrambled to his knees as Grey reached for his breeches.
“You filthy, devil-possessed, worthless…” Words failed the man in the resplendent robes as he raised a shaking hand and pointed at the door. “Get out. Get out of my sight. This witch has obviously placed a spell on you. I shall deal with you and rid you of the evil she has wrought. Perhaps a day or so in the stocks and a sound whipping will recall you to your duty.”
The Bishop’s eyes were cold chips of ice in a face suffused with anger. “Your duty is to God and to me. Not this foul witch.” He turned to the two burly servants who had accompanied him into the chamber and were now staring with interest at Thérèse’s nakedness. “Take these oafs to my study. I shall deal with them shortly.”
Recalled to their duties, the servants nodded. “Yes, my Lord.”
“I…we…” Dark attempted an apology.
“Get out. Get out of my sight, or the stocks will be the least of your punishment.” He turned his gaze back to Thérèse. “I know not what perverted skills your Devil worshipping has bestowed upon you, but clearly they are sufficient to coerce two of my finest witch hunters from their duty. I am convinced of your guilt. Montreaux was right.”
Thérèse swallowed, vainly trying to conceal her body from his gaze. “My Lord, I have no such skills. I am innocent. I am not a witch—no matter what allegations Simon Montreaux has made against me.”
“You would…how dare you…” The indignant cleric sputtered in fury. “As if the Montreaux family would lower itself to malign you. They are a fine and upstanding line, a noble house aware of God and their duties to the community. You indict yourself further by trying to pass the blame to them.” He turned away. “Filthy witch.”
Thérèse caught a glimpse of Dark’s eyes, sad and almost distraught as he followed Grey from the room. They had no choice but to leave her, she knew. In these uncertain times the power of life and death was held tightly in the hands of those with position and title. Sadly, those people often did not possess the wisdom to manage such power.
“I will find out the truth.” The Bishop spoke over his shoulder. “The Hun will extract the information I need.”
Another servant entered and Thérèse was bound once more. “Where are you taking me? Can I not go home?”
The
re was no answer to her pleas. Naked, she was led from the chamber as the Bishop ignored her and disappeared up a steep staircase.
Thérèse’s path lay downward, treading spiral stone steps worn by the passage of thousands before her. She stumbled after the servant until her head spun, aching a little from her previous night’s activities and with a hunger gnawing at her belly. She needed food and water but it appeared she would receive neither.
Instead she was pushed into a large hall at the bottom of the staircase.
“Here. His Lordship wants you to question this witch.” The words were gruff and the servant quickly departed, leaving Thérèse bound and naked—and very, very afraid.
The massive columns of the hall soared high above her, dirty with the grime of centuries. Fires blazed in braziers here and there but did nothing to warm the chill that percolated Thérèse’s heart. She could vaguely hear moans coming from small barred chambers ringing the perimeter, sounds that might have been human—but could easily have been animals in dreadful pain.
All these things registered in her mind, but were relegated to incidental next to the man who was staring at her.
Huge and bare to the waist, he could only be the Hun. Massive muscles bulged in his arms and shoulders, knots of strength gleaming in the firelight. He was quite bald, a contrast to the hair on his chest. He wore stained leather breeches that were held at his waist by ties.
But it was his face that froze the breath in her lungs.
Where there should have been an eye there was only twisted flesh, a terrible scar that looked red and painful. It crossed down his visage from forehead to chin, gathering the skin as it went. It twisted his mouth into a grimace of rage before fading around beneath his chin to the base of his neck.
His one good eye stared at her without expression. Then he stepped forward and without a blink dragged her to a wooden table, lifting her and tossing her onto it as if she was no more than a kitten.
Within moments she was trapped, ankles in iron bands, wrists tied high and wide above her head.
And all had been accomplished with the minimum of effort and in total silence. Her heart thundered so loudly she was amazed it didn’t echo from the walls. Scarce aware of her nudity, Thérèse watched fearfully as the Hun turned away to busy himself with some tools.
He returned almost immediately, a large mallet in one hand.
She shivered as he reached for her fingers, looking at them almost with curiosity. “Are you witch?” Finally he spoke, his voice heavily accented and a little slurred from the deformed shape of his lips.
“No.” Her answer remained the same although her voice trembled. “No, I am not a witch, good sir.”
“You lie.”
And he smashed her fingers with the mallet.
*~*~*~*
The pain began.
Endless waves that brought screams to Thérèse’s throat. She fainted only to be revived by water flung over her body, icy cold streams that burned her back to consciousness.
How could she endure this? She must. She struggled, fought for strength, tried to protest her innocence to her torturer. But he refused to listen.
It went on and on. The first day her hand was shattered, then her toenails were pulled cruelly from her feet, an agony that nearly killed her before she fainted once more.
Hours seemed like days—time blurred into a red haze of excruciating pain and periods of numbness that had her wondering if she’d died at last.
But she did not die. Something inside her, some spark of fury—of stubbornness perhaps—refused to let her succumb. She bore the savage treatment, whimpering as her body was stretched and her shoulders cracked and wrenched out of place on the rack.
She withstood the tiny branding iron in the shape of a cross as it was applied to each and every tiny mark on her body. When the Hun burned it into her pussy she screamed until she had no voice left and then continued to scream in her mind, only to find relief in the blackness of a void she could never have envisioned in her wildest nightmare.
And yet still she denied the charge of witchcraft.
Each night—or when she assumed night came for time had ceased to hold any meaning for her—she was flung into a small barred prison, infested with rats and vermin. There was a tiny bowl of water and sometimes a blessed piece of stale bread she gnawed hurriedly before the rats could steal it from her.
One hand had been left untouched, apparently to ensure she could make her mark on her confession when the time came. Some inner strength forced her to refuse over and over again to sign such a document.
She was innocent. It was her only handhold to reality now, her knowledge that she would most probably die protesting the fact.
Her hair had matted into a filthy mess, she was naked—although cared little for that—and could barely walk since one of the Hun’s tortures had crushed her right foot.
A heavy-handed slap had split her face open and the blood had congealed as it fell unchecked. She could not see from one eye and the other was bleary.
Weak from hunger, almost insane from the pain, Thérèse still found some inner reserve that would not let her die. Some strength, some burgeoning fury within her sustained her for longer than she could have imagined.
Fanciful notions began to creep into her mind. She wondered if she was a challenge to the Hun. If he was trying new and devious ways to make her confess—if any of his previous victims had withstood him as long as she had.
Each new torture became a battle of wills, hers against his. The tiny cuts on her belly and breasts—made to release the evil spirits within her—mere insect bites. The salt water he soaked them with—nothing more than a sting or two.
The continual branding of her body—the stench of her own flesh as it charred beneath the sign of God—a reinforcement of her innocence. Surely God could be taking no pleasure in this savage abuse of one of his children?
Eventually, the Hun reached the end of his patience. He beat her savagely with nothing more than his hard hands, leaving long bruises and open wounds that bled freely, making her even more dizzy and sending little black dots dancing in front of her eyes.
“Are you witch?”
The refrain had never changed throughout the torture. It was the only question he ever asked.
Her answer never changed either, whispered now between lips that were swollen and bloody and through gaps where her teeth had once gleamed straight and white.
“No.”
Her ribs stabbed her viciously, telling her that more than one had shattered as he’d beaten her.
It was a war of wills now, Thérèse against the Hun, or as she comforted herself—right and innocence against evil. She held that thought for a while longer, finding that the periods of blackness were longer now, the intervals between her agony stretching out into infinities of blessed unconsciousness.
Or so it seemed to her, anyway.
Until that moment when a shrill scream brought her head up from where she was chained to the wall. Until the terrified cry of a young girl sent shivers of pain and sensation back through limbs dulled to their torture.
“No, stop. Stop it. You’re hurting me…”
The Hun turned away from Thérèse, casually tossing the branding iron into a nearby brazier. For her part, Thérèse tried to swallow down a surprisingly large lump of horror as her breath seized in what was left of her lungs.
She knew that voice.
It was Katya.
A servant was dragging her by the hair into the torture hall, chemise ripped and dirty as if she’d been rolled in mud.
Thérèse’s heart stopped dead.
This couldn’t be happening. It was not possible that retaliation would fall on one as innocent as Katya. She dug deep into her soul for strength, for the energy to move and protect her sister.
Katya’s eyes widened as the Hun neared her, staring hugely at the giant man with the terribly scarred face. She whimpered, then looked fleetingly around her. Thérèse wanted to sob
aloud as Katya’s glance brushed over her.
Her own sister had not recognized her.
Vainly, Thérèse tried to move, to rattle her chains, to cry out—anything to distract the Hun. All her efforts did was bring the servant’s gaze to where she sagged. He glanced at the Hun and apparently the brief nod from the giant bald head was enough to tell him what to do.
Katya’s pleas and screams echoed in Thérèse’s ears. The Hun picked her up like a bag of grain and carried her away.
The servant approached Thérèse. She parted her lips and spoke with difficulty. “I am a witch. I confess. Anything. Don’t let him hurt my sister. She’s an innocent child…”
The servant snorted as he unchained her. “Too late. You’re done for. So’s the brat. The Hun likes ‘em young.”
Collapsing on the floor, tears finally erupted and Thérèse sobbed out her pain. “Nooo…”
“Enough. You’ll be dead soon enough. Maybe you’ll see her again then. Although if you’re a witch, I doubt it.”
She was dragged to a different chamber this time, a larger cell with hay on the floor, some distance from the hall of horrors. There was even a tiny window high up on the walls where Thérèse’s one good eye could almost make out clouds passing in the sky.
“In here. If you’re alive next time we check, maybe we’ll hang you. If not…well, the rats’ll take care of you.”
The dull clang of the grate closing behind her barely registered. All she could hear was the echo of Katya’s screams as they reverberated through her mind. How could this happen? How could men be so brutal to one so young?
Horrid visions began a relentless dance inside her brain, images of Katya suffering the imaginatively vicious tortures. Of having her small bones crushed, her soft skin burned—Thérèse would have screamed if she’d had the strength.
Weak and disoriented, she crawled to the wall and leaned against it, ignoring the filthy straw and muddy slime that coated the floor. She was beyond all that now, wrapped in a terror and a desolation that resounded to her soul.
She prayed, prayed with every ounce of her remaining will, every fiber of her shattered body. She prayed that Katya would be freed, unharmed.
Darkness In The Flames Page 56
