My Lady Series Bundle (1-5)

by Anders, Shirl

  While her theatrics were in play and the guard was physically holding her upright dragging her forward, she lifted the key. Success! Quickly, she dropped it into a small hole that she'd torn on the inside of her cloak. The key fell free to the bottom hem of the cloak where it caught and she felt elation for a brief moment, before she finally allowed herself to look at the room and the man waiting within.

  "Come here, my darling beauties. I have waited so long to meet you." The voice was so resonate in cultured and deep tones, and the enticing strength and quality of the sound instantly filled Joelle with the desire to find its source. She remembered thinking that the man behind that voice had to be extraordinary, right before she gasped, thinking the man was a ghost.

  Joelle tried to see beyond the light of candles placed in the otherwise dark room, with heavy drapery clinging in blackness around the edges. The man's image seemed to waver behind the light of the flickering candles as the guards herded her and the Marquess forward. Joelle would always think of the man thereafter as, "the voice," and the glimpse she caught of him standing in the darker recesses, beyond the candles, was of a ghostly quality. It was obvious that he had long white hair. His hair was so long, the snow-white strands appeared to trail nearly to his waist. His silhouette looked tall and thin and he wore a large piece of glinting jewelry that hung in the middle of his chest. But that was the only glimpse of him she obtained before the guards halted their forward advance, and then both guards spoke for the first time.

  "Kneel before your master, Lord Hellion!" Both guards pressured she and the Marquess down onto their knees, barely using the corded muscles bulging around their arms.

  Joelle fought to keep the key from clanking on the stone floor as she was forced downward unexpectedly. She succeeded, but her gaze was lowered when Lord Hellion spoke next.

  "Ah, there is the hair of fire and the hair of earth, this pleases me. Giver of the red hair I bestow the christening name, Ardente, on you and giver of the earth shades of hair I bestow the christening name, Seducteur, on you."

  Giver? Joelle thought, captured by the mellifluous tones of Lord Hellion's voice. This man, she realized suddenly, could shape legions of people with his voice alone. Alarmed, Joelle fought the urge to look at the Marquess for strength, at the same time she challenged herself not to gaze upward at the carrier of that, "voice." Somehow, she knew Lord Hellion expected his voice to entice her gaze to turn to him, more than her natural curiosity.

  Chapter Eight

  Saxon's gaze was fathomless as he looked into the face of pure white evil. Lord Hellion was an albino, with his chest bared in pastel white flesh, pink eyes, and the voice of the devil. Saxon let none of his surprise show at Hellion's venomous and unnatural appearance. Saxon kept his gaze sultry-lidded with flecks of interest as though he was instinctively trying to hold it back, but not succeeding. He saw immediately that it worked as Hellion's pink-veined eyes purred back at him. Saxon's flesh itched with distaste, yet he knew Hellion was slightly surprised, because Hellion seduced with his voice, not his looks.

  Hellion wore white britches and a white fur-edged cloak draping back on his shoulders, leaving his chest and arms bare. His flesh appeared ashen and his sparse lips looked bloodless. His structure was nearly skeletal, while his face was concave, with sharp ageless qualities. Had Hellion had any color to draw upon one could deem him partially handsome, if not for being so thin. Suppressed demonic energy shown from his eyes, and the voice of mastery came from those eyes. Saxon was certain that Hellion could call God vile and his listeners would hear the honeyed tones of righteousness in Hellion's voice.

  "I have waited eternity for you, Seducteur." Hellion moved forward as though he flowed and Saxon caught a glimpse out of the side of his gaze of Joelle raising her head as she knelt beside him. Saxon heard her small gasp, then Hellion's voice thundered as though in ecstasy, shouting, "You!" Then, Hellion shocked Saxon, and Saxon nearly cringed backward as Hellion dropped to his knees before him. "You will make me a God!" Hellion's vociferations came with his white face twisting at odd angles.

  Saxon hastily bowed his head before showing any outward reaction as his heart hammered unreasonably. He had no clue as to what to do. How to proceed. How to gain the best advantage over a madman with the voice of a God. Joelle's hiss of fear beside him sounded like repercussions inside his ears and inside himself. Voicing things, he fought to control. Joelle's sounds obviously turned Hellion's attention.

  "And you, Ardente, you will anoint and consecrate the last limb I need to rise up to my rightful place and forever will your hair be intertwined with this young vision of the deity Bacchus!"

  Joelle made a strangled sound, causing Saxon to raise his head, as he heard her crying in outrage, "Are you utterly insane? Just listening to you is like watching a bad play! If you are going to kill us or rape us at least make some sense!" One of her hands emphasized her statement by slashing in front of her. "I wager you have people groveling at your feet with that undecipherable drivel. God at least made sense when he spoke!"

  At this turn of events, and unrestrained, Joelle chose to lurch to her feet as though her fury's heat lifted her upright. The guard, several steps behind her, came forward to roughly clasp her arms from behind, while Hellion rose with deep and charismatic laughter. Saxon stayed kneeling, silently applauding Joelle, while he took the free moments given him to quickly calculate the perimeters of the room. When confused, shaken, and uncertain, he thought dimly, fall back on what you know.

  "Your fire will sustain me," Lord Hellion chuckled, stepping toward Joelle. Joelle fought her instinct to cringe away from Hellion's unappealing visage. "You are intelligent and I will feed on that," Lord Hellion said, with his chalky hands, carrying long and claw-like fingernails toward her. Suddenly, he grasped her jaw, forcing her head back harshly against the guard's chest behind her. "But," Lord Hellion hissed. "In the end you will worship your Master and God. You will be a play thing for his pleasure!"

  Hellion's fingers dug painfully into her jaw, straining her neck as she fought the clutching fingers, working her mouth against them. "If I saw a God," Joelle sputtered through the press of her lips. "I might worship him!"

  Joelle cried out at the slashing pain of one of Hellion's nails slicing down her cheek. She saw the Marquess rise, but the other guard quickly clasped his arms. Joelle felt blood welling on the laceration as Hellion held up a hand toward the Marquess, with his gaze turning to him also.

  "It is good, Seducteur, that you wish to protect your future voluptuary slut. Possessiveness is a raw emotion and you have such seething emotions inside you."

  Hellion released her jaw then, and he moved toward the Marquess, with his upper torso and head undulating slowly, like a seductive dance, half circling from one side of the Marquess to the other. Joelle saw the beauty and underlying carnal virility of the Marquess also as she watched the serpent trying to tempt the beauty.

  "Passions buried deep, my sultry Seducteur. So deep inside you." Lord Hellion's voice was like the lowest honeyed notes of a violin.

  Joelle saw the cherry-brown color of the Marquess' eyes deepen as he remained unnaturally quiet and accepting. She wanted to rail at the Marquess, to tell him to rise and challenge the evil. Yet, the Marquess merely stood, appearing to be a supplicant, with his long hair falling loosely around him like a rich curtain of brown and his black eyelashes covering his heavy-lidded irises. The Marquess' gaze looked more attracted to the odd jewel in the medallion on Hellion's chest. It was large and multifaceted with colors that changed with the light. Looking at it made Joelle feel strange, especially with Hellion's undulating motions and she forced her gaze away from it.

  "Your hair, Seducteur, is a talisman of your desires and of the erotic passions you can barely contain." Hellion's voice wove seductive tones as his body snaked in slow motion.

  Joelle felt as though Hellion were sucking the Marquess into some unmentionable abyss and her emotions flared again, before her sense prevailed. "What
bunk! Marquess, are you going to listen to this farce and say nothing?"

  "Silence!" Lord Hellion snapped, flinging his head in her direction.

  "Ouch! Ouc-," Joelle's protest came to a halt with a dark palm seriously clamped over her mouth.

  Saxon felt as though he was jerked from some type of dreaming trance as his gaze pulled away from the sway of the prismatic, egg-sized gem on Hellion's chest, to Joelle's outcry.

  "Yes, yes," Hellion said, with his fingers reaching forward to touch Saxon's hair covering his shoulder. "You will easily be mine, succulent Seducteur."

  Saxon wondered in alarm if that were true. There seemed to be some quality to Hellion's voice and the jewel that was altering what should be his natural reaction.

  "Let me see the rest of him," Hellion said. Saxon kept his gaze on Joelle, whom the attendant still restrained, but the fire in her midnight irises sustained him. "Disrobe, the Seducteur, so I can see the final piece. See the male organ of ascension."

  Bloody hell, Saxon thought, Joelle was right. Hellion talked like a warped theatrical religious actor. But he also knew that it was imperative to make sense of Hellion's mélange of meanings. Saxon thought one thing was clear, Hellion wanted to look at his prick. Saxon felt the guard behind him reach forward and fling open the cloak that had been covering him. That cleared his senses. That and keeping his gaze off the jewel. He could not remember a time when his nudity had bothered him as much.

  The sound Hellion made was of instant perverted attraction and Saxon realized at once that Hellion lusted for men as well as women. He should have known it. He probably did deep inside where he had not wanted to look too closely. It was why he remained so docile, wasn't it? So Hellion would lean toward him and not Joelle. Sometimes he did not understand his inner motivations until too late. It was as if he worked on inner instincts his conscious mind didn't recognize. It was because of chameleon qualities that spying had forced him to play. Well, really before that.

  Saxon thought he might finally erupt if Hellion touched more than his hair. But Hellion merely gazed at his nakedness, and just those pink licentious eyes on his bare flesh, without touch, had his stomach crimping and his flesh longing for cover. The guard holding his chained upper arms from behind, moved him partially to one side, and then partially to the other side, but Hellion's gaze stayed on his prick. Saxon wondered that Hellion could not see the tints of virgin's blood there. However, with only the candles shadowing the room, Saxon supposed that it merely made his male organ look ruddy against his medium-shaded flesh.

  "Any dripping cunt hole would feel like a vise around that cock. Most women would have trouble taking you, I imagine. It is the cock of a God when hardened. The cock of a male seductress."

  Saxon felt like squirming unreasonably beneath Hellion's words, and he tripped his gaze away from Joelle in something like embarrassment. He had never been in a position quite like this before as though he were the object of some desire. He thought for an instant that he could nearly catch hold of how an abused woman might feel.

  "Unveil just her tits," Hellion ordered suddenly. But his gaze stayed on Saxon's penis.

  Saxon watched Joelle's struggles, but the guard managed to keep his hand clamped over her mouth and at the same time tug her cloak open and downward just enough to bare her breasts. Saxon's lean muscles tensed with the need not to react in her defense. He willed it away at the same time he kept his gaze from her breasts.

  "White flesh, young, plump, and with pink rosebud nipples," Hellion purred.

  Saxon strained not to look, but his options were becoming slim. Do not look at the jewel, do not look at Hellion, do not look at Joelle, and do not feel the stirring in his penis.

  "Look at them, Seducteur, or I will order him to hurt her!" Hellion's voice was a low bass-toned hiss.

  Saxon looked. They were supple and young, perfectly molded. Both white firm globes had aureoles that were the size of a small coin stamped with powdery pink coloring and darker pink tips thrusting outward. Feminine breasts that looked pristine and untouched by a male hand. Accept, splayed across his chest.

  His penis stirred and he grimaced, trying to will it back. Nonetheless, it lengthened toward those aroused pink nipples like a cad, filling out with a slight curving angle to the left. His bare feet shifted as he cursed inwardly. He had invariably been sensitive about the appearance of his prick when rigid. It did not strut outward like most men, but lengthened heavily downward.

  "The Gods will be pleased with this cock of fertility," Hellion said with his body swaying. Then, his hand swept upward toward Joelle. "Uncloak her fully. Let me see the virgin cunt."

  Saxon stiffened with his prick rigid and his mind agonized over what would transpire next. Anything that he did would give away more than he could afford, and he struggled to remain passive.

  Joelle cried her distress at being stripped naked, and then she bit down harshly on the hand offending her lips. The guard made a hissing sound of pain as his hand jerked away from her mouth. At the same moment the guard overreacted, shoving her forward as though to push the pain away. But, the cloak stayed with the guard and Joelle found herself standing naked two steps away.

  If she were really brave, she would have run or attacked Hellion in some way. At least tried, as useless as it might be. Nevertheless, she cowered disgustingly there, with her arm across her naked breasts and one palm cupped between her thighs.

  Joelle wondered with embarrassed panic why it seemed to matter so monumentally to her that she was naked before the Marquess, while other men were there, as opposed to just naked against the Marquess. Which she had been. However, everything flew from her thoughts at Hellion's outraged shouting. Then, before she even knew it was coming, Hellion had stepped toward her, while swinging his hand to slap her. His palm hit her cheek so hard that she lost her balance and fell to the floor on her side.

  Through the ringing in her ears and the pain slicing her face, her one coherent thought was that Hellion had seen the virgin blood on her thighs.

  "She is tainted! Not a virgin! Nothing but a used whore now! How could this have happened?"

  Before this, Joelle had thought Hellion was acting out some horrible play he had concocted in his twisted mind. But now he really had the voice of an angry God, denied something he richly coveted. Joelle could not keep her naked flesh from cringing as she lolled on her side clutching her battered cheek.

  "I suffer only idiots and fools to worship me!" Hellion thundered. "Take her to the preparation chamber! It is too late to replace her. The cock of God was anointed, and tell Incubus of this debacle!"

  "Why?" Saxon asked suddenly, speaking his first words. "What type of preparations? I must have her alive."

  "You feel it then?" Hellion gasped with his pink eyes staring at him.

  "Yes." Saxon worked his mouth with difficulty around further words, while his mind pressed him to trust himself. Yet, it was so insane. "I feel the virgin's blood scorching the cock of God, but . . ." Saxon looked to the ceiling with his long hair shifting to fall down on his buttocks. "I did not ejaculate into the virgin."

  Saxon's body shuddered, as Hellion intoned. "The time has come. It is truly here!" Animated with an insane light in his eyes, Hellion gestured, "Sit, sit, Seducteur. She won't be harmed. She is yours to prepare. To live or die." The guard that had been holding Saxon's arms let them go, stepping back. "Unchain him also," Hellion ordered.

  Saxon saw Joelle sag and stumble beside the guard holding her upright as he turned her away toward the door. For the first time ever Joelle's head bowed with her dark red hair curling down to her ivory thighs.

  "Her cloak please. No one should see her just yet," Saxon requested softly.

  "Yes, yes of course," Hellion responded. "Keep her covered," he ordered, to the two guards now taking Joelle away.

  Saxon stayed in place, with his arms still behind his back, although they had unchained him, while the guards and Joelle left the room. Then, with the wincing of blood rushing w
here the chains had restricted it, he let his arm fall to his side. He flexed his right hand as he slowly moved to sit, keeping his left, handless arm behind his back.

  "It bothers you that much that she should see your stump?" Hellion asked softly.

  Saxon sat, nude upon the velvet-embroidered seat of a high-backed chair. He tilted his head back, slowly closing his eyes. "Yes," he said.

  Chapter Nine

  Joelle sat in a chair clutching the cloak around her. She had tried the door, the barred window, and even the fireplace for any means of escape from the room they had locked her into after leaving Hellion and the Marquess. The room was small and dark. There were two chairs facing the cold fireplace with the only light coming from an oil lantern wall sconce. There was a small tapestry rug beneath the chairs covering the whitewashed stone floor beneath. The room exuded a musty odor with only the tinge of oil from the lantern in the air. It was very cold in the room as she curled her bare feet up on the chair beneath her and under the cloak. Her injured cheek throbbed and she was certain that if she could view it, a bruise would be forming there.

  Joelle touched the puffiness and laceration on her cheek, wincing lightly as she worried about the Marquess, while wishing that she knew his name. "It is a silly thing to want to know now," she chided herself. "And better not to think of becoming attached to him in anyway. Not now with everything going on." But she already was attached, wasn't she? How could she not be, when they had felt each other so intimately? And he was the only ally she had in this horrible nightmare.

  The Marquess seemed to understand more of what was happening, while she struggled and railed against their assailants, he listened, ingested information, and then melded himself to control their reactions. Furthermore, while she was fighting and crying, he concentrated on discerning the twisted meaning of Hellion's ranting. If anyone could understand the zealot madman's rambling, the Marquess seemed to with his quiet and solemn ways.