My Lady Series Bundle (1-5)

by Anders, Shirl

  "And the butler?" Lord Incubus snapped.

  "He belongssss!" Yojo said in one long drawn out hissing.

  "A follower of Hellion?"

  Yojo nodded, turning to look outward, and then down on the revelers below, but more at the beautiful Lady Joelle. She was special. He had known it for a long time. Not like other ladies around. Lady Joelle had no need to wear a false wig. Her hair was glorious. Maybe, maybe, maybe this time Lord Hellion would praise Yojo.

  ***

  "I should not have come," Joelle whispered harshly as she walked down the long winding road from the mansion that she'd just left. "Bi lacid," she muttered.

  It was the Romani word for, "no good" and she rarely used the Gypsy tongue unless she was very upset. Her parents Lord Gunari Zurka and Lady Yolanda Zurka had taught her the rich Gypsy traditions in her younger life, before they died. It was a legacy far removed from their higher stations. A station of nobles bought and bribed many years ago by her great-grandfather. Lord and Lady Zurka taught her all the flamboyant richness of true Gypsy blood, while also strictly advising her to keep the outward signs hidden while in society. It was like having two inner selves. The one in her blood, pounding warm and full-bodied in her veins, then the outward, more constricted one, of the proper social window-dressing that she wore.

  And, she did have the price for a hackney fare, instead of walking. But her foolish pride had kept her from asking a footman at the ball to call one for her. Pride? What good was pride now, Joelle wondered? It appeared she was destined to swallow her pride for the more important virtue of survival. And she would do so if only she could find that old crow Baron Palko. He was a fifth or sixth cousin, so distantly removed that one could barely hold onto the thread.

  "Why was my family not more prolific?" Joelle muttered.

  But she would throw herself upon ancient cousin Palko's mercy. At his very feet, she thought dramatically, if she could only find the dratted man. She just wanted a husband, she thought wretchedly. Simply the chance of one, yet if no one took her around, how was she expected to meet anyone, much less a husband?

  "It would be the answer for both of us, Palko," Joelle mumbled, but just then she thought enough to look about. She quickly realized that while thinking and worrying over her circumstances she'd walked quite far, and it was very dark the further she'd distanced herself from the mansion. Joelle peered into a stand of poplar trees lining the right side of the road. The tall trees looked like malevolent sentinels. She immediately quickened her pace. She calculated that it was a quarter mile from the mansion back out to the main thoroughfare, nevertheless at night, and a pitch-black and starless one at that, it would seem further.

  Clop. Clop. Clop.

  "Spirits!" Joelle cried.

  She was completely startled at the sound so abrupt behind her. She was so goosey that she could not dare herself to look behind her as she quickly stepped toward the trees intending to hide from the oncoming carriage. It would not do for anyone to see her in the predicament she was in. Out alone and unescorted at night. Never mind that she only had one more night at her departed aunt's home before she was out on the streets.

  But besides those dark and tragic thoughts, she still wondered how she'd not heard the carriage sooner. Then, she aimed her footsteps toward the base of a wide tree. It would be good to hide behind was her last thought, right before someone abruptly grabbed her from behind!

  Chapter Three

  "If those blundering initiates have damaged her, I will flay them alive!"

  "No, no, no, master. Only passed out. Awake soon. No magic drafts. You said no potion . . . Yet!"

  Joelle's heart thundered as she peeked through her lowered lashes at the source of the two diametric voices. She realized at once that they had gagged her mouth and tied her wrists in front of her. She was lying on a flat surface, lifted off the ground. A table perhaps, because she could just see the two men speaking as she forced her body to remain still and not quake in terror. One man was a midget and she had a clearer view of his small gnome like appearance. Of the tall man, she could only see from the top of his chest down, unless she moved to look up further.

  She had no intentions of looking further up and giving away her wakefulness. That was the only small bit of comfort she had at the moment, in the terrifying turn of events. Frightening events she could not imagine and she willed herself not to imagine what their intentions were, because therein lay terror and she had to keep her wits about her as the words, "magic potion" fluttered through her mind.

  "I will examine her here, Yojo, and then you will take her onto the castle."

  Examine! No, no, no. Joelle shuddered, unable to halt her body's tremors as the import of what the tall man said rushed through her mind and the fact that he was unconcerned to use names.

  "Yes, yes, Master Incubus."

  A moan churned in Joelle's chest at the sound of the tall man's name. Most assuredly fictitious. The name and possible meaning clamored over her, just as the moan thrashed free.

  Both men turned at the sound. "Ah, she wakes. Excellent," Incubus said.

  Joelle rolled onto her back, jerking her tied hands upward in a defensive and warding off gesture as her wild-eyed gaze lifted up to see the man called Incubus. He looked like a middle-aged French aristocrat. But his gray lacquered eyes and the slash of his lips opposed any hope for noble demeanor. His charred eyes held discord, and in them she could see that the weight of his intelligence was perverted. She knew with an instinct deep inside that his intentions were warped in a sexual nature. It oozed from his lupine face with avid, yet boldly calculated interest as she uselessly swatted the air before him.

  "That's it, little mare, show me your fire." She watched his lips moving while saying the words, and they were slim and malevolent. "Obedience is worthless without any challenge."

  The instant the word, "challenge" left his lips, Incubus caught her bound wrists in his hands, squeezing the too fragile bones and flesh into submission. Then, with her gaze bulging upon him, he wrestled her wrists above her head. Her body thrashed upon the table, but it was more a helpless gesture, because she discovered to her horror that her ankles were bound together.

  Joelle tried desperately to fight her own instinct to struggle against the inevitable. It was what the deadly and wicked Incubus wanted. He wanted her terror and her sexual vehemence. It was why he had not drugged her with the magic potion. She was perceptive and quick-witted enough to understand this. She was not the normal provincial and naive lady of society. Those "ladies" of society were callow and unschooled in worldly ways. Their titles shielded them from the crassness of society.

  Yet, even with the knowledge that fighting Incubus would not win her release, and that she had to stop the terror in her mind and find a better way. Still, she could not master the fear rushing through her. But, Incubus easily secured the bindings around her wrists to a hook, conveniently mounted on the table above her head. The snug material of her bodice pressed upward beneath her breasts, constricting her breath with its stretched tightness, while the mounds of her breasts nearly lurched out of the scooped neck collar. Joelle felt air rushing over her stocking clad calves at the raised position of her full skirts. Her teeth gnawed helplessly on the gag, too wide and set too far back in her mouth, forcing her lips open as though an animal bit had been fitted into her mouth.

  Incubus knew all of this. He knew every feeling that assaulted her and he wallowed in it. It did not show on his stridently austere face, but it twisted in the depths of his dissonant gray eyes. Then, she watched in horror, writhing futilely beneath him as he bent over her, lifting a stout and glistening knife for her to view. Was this to be the end? Her mind cried as her bug-eyed gaze watched the sharp tip lowering. It seemed to her as though, in that moment, her mind physically snapped. Yet, instead of hysteria, her body heaved to a shuddering stand still, with only her breasts rising and falling erratically. Her breasts were in the exact direction of the tip of the knife as her mind actual
ly slowed to eerie calmness. She felt the long black curling ends of Incubus' wig touching the silk of her dress above her belly. She inhaled the heavy redolence of his cologne. Her sensitive nose detected the saturating odor of rosemary and muscadine, as the scents strangled her nostrils. She saw the bead of sweat on Incubus' slim upper lip.

  Then suddenly, she jerked her bound legs upward in an impossible acrobatic curl, defying yards of frothing silk that bunched up trying to impede her way. In spite of everything, her vigor and strength conquered them as she twisted to the side and kneed Incubus straight away in his chest. Her knees together hit solidly enough to sound a dull cloth on cloth thud, and Incubus fell back with surprise upon his face. Still in motion, her long cumbersome skirts landed in a tide across her waist, exposing her legs clad in black stocking, thigh garters, and the short crotch-less undergarment ladies wore. Incubus had never expected her to expose herself in such a fashion.

  Joelle supposed that Incubus would believe ladies to prefer death, but she was much more than simply a lady and she would defy death or anything less with all her heart. And now her legs were free, bound at the ankles, but free in motion. She did not waste the moment of surprise, by looking at her actions furthering effect on Incubus, but instead she swung her legs two times strongly in widening arcs, and then she hefted with all her might, curling her legs over her head. Pushing . . . pushing, until the weight fell through and she landed on her feet beside the table. She looked quickly at the hook, forcing herself not to instinctively look to see where her attackers were.

  There was no time and partial freedom was so close. She saw instantly that the hook was not closed and she twisted her bound wrists, tugging them free of the hook. In the same motion, she whirled toward a chair, toppling it over as she hopped past it in the direction of a huge dripping candle, set in an iron wall sconce. She understood that because they had tied her there was little hope for escape. Yet, she would not breathe her last breath in weakness and fear, but gasp it in defiance. Whether it was murder or mutilation and rape they intended, she would only fall beneath their strength fighting!

  Joelle grasped the five-inch base of the candlestick between her bound hands, ignoring the burn of the hot wax as she wheeled her body around. In the same instant, she braced her back against the wall, swinging the candle before her without really seeing. She fully expected Incubus to have recovered and be lurching toward her. However, her overwrought swing met nothing but air and nearly toppled her over. Shock raced through her like fire, as she heard Incubus' tenor voice.

  "Magnificent!"

  Joelle's eyes popped open and she saw Incubus standing across the room, completely out of range of the slinging liquid wax. She screamed her frustration against the gag in her mouth, while Incubus lifted a white linen to his nose as though dallying leisurely in a ballroom. But his charred eyes held glints of excitement and wickedness. Oh spirits, how she had wished to brand him, mark him with the hot wax and fire as he was determined to do evil to her. She stood with the desire of it shaking through her body as the now useless candles weight slid through her fingers and the candle thudded to the floor.

  Incubus' gaze bore into hers, never leaving her gaze as he dropped one hand from his cocked hip. Then, he snapped his lean fingers and the midget Yojo bounced up on his toes, handing Incubus a wadded piece of white cloth. Incubus took the cloth and started toward her with an evil smirk on his features.

  "You, my little mare, will be a pleasure to watch Lord Hellion tame." His voice dripped with drawling depravity from each word.

  Hellion?Incubus?Tame? It was so much more than murder or rape, Joelle realized, as she curled her fingers preparing to fight the snake approaching her.

  Chapter Four

  "Time was wasted. However, I would not have missed that performance. Now, I will just have to check her virginity and endowments here."

  Joelle tried to listen to Incubus' words, fighting through the sleep that he had produced with the vaporous rag he'd earlier wrestled to her nose.

  "Time, time, time," Yojo chirped, and then Joelle heard a slapping sound, and she heard Yojo yelping.

  "Quiet or you will receive worse, troll."

  "Yes, yes, master," Yojo squeaked. Then all was quiet except for the rattle of a moving carriage. That is when Joelle realized that she was in a moving carriage, laying the length of a seat with blankness in her mind as to how she got there.

  Slap. Slap. "Wake up!"

  Joelle moaned at the sharp stinging on her cheeks. Slap. Slap. "No," she half exclaimed, half mumbled.

  "I want you awake for this! Open your eyes!" Joelle felt the painful harshness of her body being shaken as she willed her eyes open, to make it stop. Incubus' blurry face bounced above her. "Ah, that's better, little mare. Welcome back."

  She moaned and when she heard the sound she realized that she was not gagged. She tried desperately to clear her thoughts. "Bastard," she rasped. The sound was scarcely audible through her parched mouth.

  "Ah, so you think I am a bastard. Really, mare, that is so much nicer than what I actually am. Can you feel that?"

  Joelle choked on what should have been a gasp at the feel of rough fingers clawing her bare breast, twisting the mound. Bare? Naked. Oh my God, she was naked and tied with her arms above her head and her ankles below.

  "I see you realize your position suddenly," Incubus said, nastily. "Answer me!"

  Joelle felt the sudden spike of pain piercing her tender nipple tip from Incubus' pinching fingers, as she yelped involuntarily. "Yes!"

  "Pain could tame you," he sneered, with his face leaning over hers, so close she could feel his humid breath emitting the odors of mint and liquor. Then, she felt the tip of his fingers on her other exposed nipple and she knew the pain would come again. He smashed his fingertips together tightly as he twisted them.

  "No," she cried at the pain. But she also cried more at his claims about her and pain.

  Incubus knew that, as he chuckled. "Excellent, my succulent little Joelle. There are worse things than pain to break you."

  Joelle clamped her top teeth over her bottom lip trying to fight the lingering lethargy from the drug she had inhaled and also trying desperately to hold back her reactions. She knew Incubus fed on her. He gorged himself on her responses. Then, horribly she felt the scratchy heat of his fingers, his hands circling each breast, lifting them upward. Massaging, not painfully. He was examining her.

  "Firm, young, not too big," he drawled. "Are you too innocent to know that these hard nipples show how aroused you are? Like any, bitch-animal in heat."

  Joelle groaned low in her throat searching for saliva in her mouth, wishing that she could spit it in Incubus' face. He leaned forward more as her body betrayed her and she squirmed in revulsion. He pressed his nasty and hot lips to her cheek as he spoke.

  "But if your cunt is wet, little mare, then we will really know."

  One of his hands jerked from her breast and she felt it clamp roughly over her naked and exposed sex. She cried out at the horrifying invasion, while instinct made her desperately try to close her thighs. Nevertheless, the ropes holding her ankles apart would not allow it, and for the first time in the shocking ordeal, tears burned on her eyelashes. She tottered into hysteria with her breath panting as she felt Incubus worming his fingers through the lips of her cowering sex.

  "Wet, hot, and ready as any bitch in heat," he rasped.

  Joelle's mind splintered as she felt the repulsive groping of his harsh fingers in the most vulnerable place she had. No! No! Her mind shrieked as she choked on the dryness of her panting breath. And she was dry. Her sexual being was not aroused. Those were just words the bastard used to break her. She would never be aroused by his touch. The pig! Never! Let him touch her. It meant nothing. Nothing!

  "Full cunt lips. Too much hair, we need to bare that." Suddenly, Incubus moved and Joelle felt the fingers from both his hands pulling the lips of her sex apart. She gritted her teeth trying not to pass out, or move, or give
any reaction. "Pink labia and dark rosy hole. Are you a virgin, little mare?"

  Despite all her efforts. Despite the strong willpower that she'd always hoped that she possessed, she screamed. She knew she fed Incubus' perversions with her cries of revulsion and terror as he prodded his finger inside her. Raping the virgin entrance with his rough scraping fingers and eroding sensations inside her that had never been touched before. She tried to keep him out, clamping hard around his finger, surprised that she had muscles there to control. Yet, he shoved through with his dry clawing fingers, dragging along tender tissue, initiating scratching pain where she had never felt pain before. Her body bowed upward in agony and through her hysteria she heard Incubus rasping.

  "Ah, there it is, the maidenhead of life. The perfect Bacchus sacrifice for our Lord Hellion's favor," he finished, withdrawing his trespassing fingers, satisfied of her virginity.

  Through the warping in her mind, Joelle wondered senselessly and beyond her understanding whether she truly was supposed to be some primitive virgin sacrifice? Then, Incubus left her, nude and violated, a virgin by definition, but no longer a virgin of reality as he sat on the other side of the rolling carriage, with Yojo crouched on the floor boards.

  She tried to gather her thoughts, her courage, or even the will to live. Anything! She tried to think past the shame and revulsion she felt. Those feelings were worthless commodities and they would not do her any good as she tried to outwit and escape the horrifying situation that she'd been kidnapped into. But the fear was the worst. The fear of the countless possibilities of what more could happen. Of what they intended. That gnawing terror tried to steal her wits, but she fought it back with her anger. Letting her rage build and grow. It was a powerful emotion and it chased away the talons of terror clawing within her. How dare they? How dare they?

  But her rage was too volatile and uncontrollable. However, her rage turned to hate, and then turned to stubborn contempt that was more manageable. Then, she twisted it to calculated vengeance, reprisal, and escape. Yes, she could think now. She walled the unusable reactions behind her anger, and as ever before, her quick mind started triggering again, and she breathed shallowly. To understand what they wanted could be power in a powerless situation. And it was, "They."