“I can handle it.”
Arya let slip the shadow of a laugh. “I don’t doubt that you can. But you must understand that, if it is successful, this ceremony will use the methods of Holgaerst to bind your body and soul to the Mother Goddess. I cannot be sure she will protect you, but it will strengthen our entreaties to her on your behalf, such as they are.”
“Do it. I’m not afraid.” It was a lie, but the alternatives were hardly more appealing.
“There’s one other thing. I think the binding spell will be more powerful if we ask Brien to take part in the ceremony. We cannot deny that, for good or ill, the spirits of the forest are powerful in him.”
Scarlet felt his throat contract so tightly that words failed him.
* * *
“Let me get this straight. You want me to take part in this mad ceremony…by not taking part?”
“There’s slightly more to it than that,” explained Arya. “I want you to actively not take part. We need to bind you.”
Brien ruffled his fingers through his dark curls. He still felt groggy, having barely had more than a couple hours of sleep since breakfast, and his stomach was grumbling for another meal. And now Arya was telling him that they had to perform another dubious ritual on Scarlet immediately. He remembered the last time only too well, and the agony of watching. Brien couldn’t be bothered to rant about the lunacy of it all right now, but he certainly couldn’t face going through that again.
“Brien?”
Scarlet was hovering a little way off. Rather than replacing his silks and muslin, he had dressed in a skimpy smock that looked good on him despite its shabbiness. His little braids had been replaced, his hair swept neatly back from his face. When Brien caught his eye, his feet shifted agitatedly, as if he fought the urge to run.
Then Brien realized he was gawping at the lad, his mouth wide open. He forced a scowl.
“Please do this for me,” said Scarlet.
Staring intently at the ground, Brien grunted, which was taken as an assent, and that was that. The forest had truly swallowed his reason. And moments later, it swallowed Scarlet for what felt like the thousandth time as he slipped off into the undergrowth.
Brien muttered a bitter oath and turned back to Arya, who appeared equally uneasy about it all.
“You could just talk to him,” she suggested, gesturing toward the bushes. “If you two could just try to understand each other, none of this might be necessary.”
“I have nothing to say to him,” said Brien. “Unless he happens to know a spell that would conjure up some freshly brewed coffee. Or tea? Tea would do, believe me. Good God, I can’t wait to get out of here.”
* * *
Brien did not get his coffee, but he did get a visit from Urhelda. Her appearance perked him up a little, although when she informed him that her purpose was to bind him, he balked.
“Is that really necessary? I won’t interfere. I’ll be quite happy just to watch you ladies do what you have to.”
“I’m impressed by the faith you have in your own self-control,” replied Urhelda. “But your active exclusion from the ceremony may be crucial to its success. Place your back against this tree, please.”
“I told you before, the boy is not that irresistible.”
Urhelda shrugged off his words as if they were irrelevant. “Look, are you prepared to let me bind you, or are you not?”
Tension gripped at the back of his neck and streaked across his shoulders. Brien wasn’t a natural subordinate, although with the right man or woman, he liked to take risks and was always up for a gamble.
And Urhelda was just the sort he’d played such games with in the past. Even after their trying night, she appeared unruffled. A black bodice that was laced tightly to only halfway up her chest cradled her breasts, and her flaming hair had been braided into tiny plaits, which made Brien smile for reasons he didn’t quite want to fathom out at that time. Yes, Urhelda was a fine woman, and strong too. He recalled his previous ruminations: might games with Urhelda be his best route back to sanity? Well, she was hardly offering him her body, rather some form of public humiliation, but…
“If you don’t think you can handle this, you’d better just leave.”
“I can handle it.” Brien’s tone was guttural, the words rushing out before he had given them any thought. Grinning at the spill of her cleavage, he then did as she bid him and leaned back against the trunk of an oak.
From there Brien could see into the sacred space of the tree cathedral, where candles had been lit, although nothing much was happening as of yet. Urhelda, on the other hand, was a whirlwind of industry. With the aid of a companion, she wound thick ropes about his body and the impressive girth of the tree.
As she unlaced his shirt, opening it to bare his chest, Urhelda brushed her fingertips across his weather-tanned flesh. He arched a brow. Her skin was hard, and her hands felt cool.
“Seeing as I’ve volunteered to be the sacrificial lamb, do I get to learn more about this bedeviled ceremony?”
“You’ll find out about it soon enough.”
Urhelda then disappeared out of his view, so Brien’s attentions shifted to her younger companion, who bore the name of Clover. He relished the quiet admiration on the girl’s face as she drank in the sight of his broad shoulders and the tightly knit muscles of his arms and chest. Clover was blonde and pretty in a quirky way; her buck front teeth had a large gap between them.
He winked. “Are you ladies going to be deporting yourselves lewdly again?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Clover, and an instructive shout from above Brien’s head cut their conversation short. Urhelda had clambered up into the lower branches of the tree and was setting up some sort of pulley system.
It all happened so quickly. It never crossed Brien’s mind that these women could restrain him in a fashion that he could not escape from given a brief exertion of force. But after a few moments, Urhelda and Clover had coiled thick hemp about his wrists and suspended his arms securely above his head. The branches that tethered him were so sturdy that a hearty tug scarcely evoked a mild creak.
The ropes that were flush against his bare torso heaved up and down with his increasingly panted breaths. It struck him suddenly. He didn’t like this.
Urhelda landed with a heavy thud on the forest floor. Brien growled. “Let me go.”
She placed her palm flat on the coarse hair of his chest. “Please be calm,” she said. “Surrender yourself.”
“To what? Fuck…no. I don’t do surrendering. I told you to let me go! Nnnnng!”
Brien gave a strenuous heave, and the strength of the ropes and branches mocked him. But Urhelda’s hand was still on his chest, stroking in calming circles, smoothing down the thick hair, and working its way lower and lower.
Brien gritted his teeth, baring them in a snarl. Nevertheless his defiance wasn’t entirely heartfelt. Urhelda coolly refused to meet his eye, and he had to admit there was something about the way she touched him, a combination of clinical indifference and skill, that was…yes, it was enticing, if not quite yet arousing. He allowed himself to relax a little. Maybe this was indeed what he’d needed? Brien set his mind as blank as he could.
The sensations got better and better. Both Urhelda and Clover had their hands on him now—and God, were those lush, feminine lips closing in about his nipple, a tongue flicking over the hard, fleshy nub? The rush of excitement streamed straight to his prick, which hardened behind the tight flap in his breeches. Seconds later, as if reading his mind, they worked their busy fingers lower and lower, unbuttoning the starchy fabric that imprisoned his increasingly needy loins.
Brien gazed down at the alluring sight of the two women knelt before him, one blonde head and one a rampant red, their attentions locked on his swelling member. Neither had touched him properly yet, but their lips glistened inches from the moistening tip. Slender fingers stroked the hair of his inner thighs, hot breath urging him toward a full erection.
&n
bsp; He moistened his lips and let out a deep, nervy laugh. “I’m starting to warm to this ceremony.”
“Good.” A knowing smile curved Urhelda’s lips. “Then just lie back and relax.”
Urhelda at last closed her fingers around his prick. Brien offered her a lopsided grin. “I certainly will…agh!”
At first the constricting sensation was so weird and unfamiliar that he didn’t know what they were doing to him. Brien simply gaped as Urhelda imparted her witchcraft torture, slipping a thick gold ring so far up his cock that it became half-concealed in his nest of pubic hair. The cold metal tight about its root, he felt his member spasm, aroused, itching for stimulation—and for so much more.
And so much more was given, although it wasn’t quite what he was after. Urhelda met the blazing question in his eyes with a knowing smirk, and the next instant, she clamped a cage around his prick, constructed of a series of interlocking rings. The unfeeling metal bars pressed over his pulsing veins, binding him snugly.
“What the devil?”
“These are your restraints,” explained Urhelda. “You must watch what we do to Scarlet, you may struggle a bit, but whatever happens, you must not come. It will help Arya’s magic if you do not spill forth any more of your troublesome seed.”
“Troublesome seed? Christ!”
Urhelda slipped her tongue firmly into her cheek, concentrating on finishing her task of securely buckling leather straps around Brien’s tautened sacs. As she withdrew her touch, he bucked his hips, a futile attempt to see if it was possible to build any friction at all against his tightly harnessed cock.
“This is fucking torture!”
“I’m sorry about that.” Urhelda blew him a kiss, then turned away with a teasing sway of her hips.
“You’re sorry?” he spat. “Then undo me. I didn’t agree to this. I hate this…fuck!”
Scrunching his eyes shut, Brien gasped a lungful of air and prayed to wake up. He knew it was in vain; this was all too real. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead, his chest, and, worst of all, his bound and glaringly aroused cock, which jutted out in the full view of anybody who happened to pass him.
Damn it, he didn’t want to be this excited. The tight ring trapped the blood in his prick, the cords that bound it keeping him agonizingly erect.
He glowered at Urhelda, who stood a little apart, arms folded beneath her luscious breasts, and then things got even worse. At the altar in the cathedral, the ceremony was about to begin. Scarlet was naked, kneeling before the altar with his heels kissing his dainty, golden-pale buttocks.
Brien’s cock felt like it was going to explode. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be dominating, possessing, and fucking that woodsman. This was the most unnatural order of things in the world, and…bloody hell, he wanted to come.
Urhelda narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Scarlet and then Brien closely. “I think this might just work.”
Chapter Twelve
As Scarlet knelt quietly in wait, he felt Brien’s gaze drilling into him. He stole a glance back over his shoulder, and his pulse quickened.
Trussed up against the tree, Brien looked like some sort of tortured god, his biceps gleaming, his chest so sturdy that it seemed melded as an extension of the oak itself. And his caged, tormented prick—oh, gracious Mother Goddess! Even that irritating flurry of envy he had felt when he saw Urhelda bind the captain had scarcely lessened his thirst. How Scarlet craved to free him, to take Brien in his mouth and to give him the stimulation he needed with his fingers and his tongue, and then suck him deep into his throat. Scarlet wanted to taste every last drop of his hot seed, then lick him clean. But he couldn’t. This was what he had to fight against if he wanted the ceremony to work. He had to resist temptation and reject Brien now.
With an effort, Scarlet ripped his gaze back onto the half circle of druidesses who had gathered around him. The overcast day did not show Arya and her sisters off in their most radiant light, but as shrouds of gray went, they wore it well. Each was wrapped in her cloak, her head bowed beneath her hood, their chants mingling with the rustle of the leaves and humming hauntingly around the dell. Scarlet dipped his head to join them with his silent prayers.
Then Arya stooped, placed her fingers beneath his chin, and lifted it so their eyes met.
“Do you understand what we are attempting? You must submit to this completely.”
“I submit. I…I have faith in you.”
“If the ceremony succeeds, you will be bound to the Mother Goddess of the Earth, and to her alone. Although all things, living or otherwise, are her domain, you must search your heart, Scarlet. Are you quite sure that your truest loyalties do not lie elsewhere?”
Why must she ask him again and again? Scarlet felt breathless, and his confusion made him desperate.
“Yes…yes. I’m quite sure. I love the Mother Goddess, the nurturer, the bringer of all life. I vow to trust in her alone.”
“Very well.”
For a heartbeat, everything around Scarlet fell still and silent; his guts churned with a sickening uncertainty. Then a leather blindfold was pulled over his head from behind, and the world truly vanished. He shivered; he couldn’t help it. But as a sea of female bodies closed in about him, Scarlet did his utmost to push his doubts to the corner of his mind, leaving room only for blind faith—and sensation.
He surrendered his body to the tide of caresses. Somebody stroked his cheek, lips traced and nibbled along the line of his jaw, and someone gently kneaded the tight, knotted muscles across his neck and shoulders. Scarlet was pressed backward under the exquisite pressure, expecting the carpet of cold, damp earth to rise up to meet him. But instead he was cradled in a comfortable lap. Moist breath closed in upon his lips, and Scarlet invited inside a sweet tongue tasting of wild honey and oats. A second mouth joined the first, dabbing and prying at the corner of Scarlet’s parted lips. He inhaled the next intruder with a cautious pleasure, their attentions all the more wondrous because of their anonymous multiplicity.
A hot tongue licked the path of the downy hair beneath his navel before gliding across the ridges of his pubic bone; fingernails tangled into his nest of curls. Tongues and lips inched ever closer to his cock, urging him into semiarousal with the sheer carnality of it all. It was like nothing he’d ever known. Yes, he could give in to this…surely?
As Scarlet’s excitement swelled, his senses arced out beyond his physical form, and his awareness of Melmoth Brien became acute. His captain was watching him but was unable to touch him—or even himself. And he was just yards away.
The enchantment wavered, and a wretched scream tore from his heart. Was it his own anguish or Melmoth Brien’s that lashed into him? Even as lips like bubbling satin set him writhing, he craved a cruder handling, one that could really hurl his senses over the precipice. He found himself bucking his hips, murmuring his need for a fiercer friction against his cock. Laughter tingled in his ears, and despite himself, he giggled too. Could he do this? Could he come for them? Gossamer-light fingers stroked and teased at his tight sacs. Oh, but how Scarlet craved a harder, more boisterous tongue there…
“No…agh…more…please…more!” Scarlet squirmed and kicked. Why couldn’t he submit? Damn it, why couldn’t he enjoy this?
“Shhhhhhhhhh!”
Laughter faded, a cold finger pressed down on his restless lips, and then all the wonderful contact was withdrawn save the lap that pillowed his head. It was like being tipped from a warm bath into ice, although Scarlet was given little time to wonder how he had transgressed. He was soon being touched again, this time by hands alone. There were so many of them that they lifted him effortlessly.
The women placed him on the wooden altar, where hazel had earlier been replaced by a slab of solid oak. They rolled him onto his front, his prick stiff against the wood, then stretched his arms and legs wide as before and fastened them into place with straps.
For a moment, nobody touched him. A chill sense of apprehension ripp
led down his spine, and he found himself praying the ceremony would be painful, anything to overwhelm those cravings. He was glad they had bound him, and tightly too. Yes, oh Goddess, he could still feel that man’s presence, tangible on his every breath, and the last thing he wanted was any means of escape from what the druidesses were about to do to him.
Next, suddenly, a high wailing assaulted his ears. Increasing in pitch by the second, the noise was as excruciating as their touch was arousing. The druidesses smeared oil over every inch of his skin, rubbing soothing circles into the stretched sinews of his arms and shoulders, carving deep grooves up his thighs. Lifting his chin, one of the few movements still afforded to him, Scarlet inhaled a potent combination of sweet lavender and spice; he bucked his hips the little he could. Somebody started oiling his arse, smoothing firm circles into his exposed flesh.
But he still needed more. Because every pore of Scarlet’s body now cried out to Brien, and likewise, Brien strained back. He could feel the other man’s desire as plainly as if it were his own.
“Mother Goddess, save me,” murmured Scarlet. “Please take me.”
He let out a shuddering breath, his ribs pressing through his scant layer of flesh and into the wood. An oil-smeared finger traced a delicate circle around his tight opening. He squirmed, his throat tightened, and he could only gasp his approval. Now this ought to distract him.
“Goddess!” cried Arya. “By the methods of Holgaerst, we beg of you to bind this being of the forest to your protection! We entreat you to keep his blood and soul from Niogaerst.”
Scarlet cried out in gratitude as his buttocks were seized and roughly parted. More cold lubricant was smeared up his cleft, a finger probing and then gently opening his clenched ring of muscle. As words of prayer rose almost to a scream, he felt something easing inside of him.
Scarlet knew that feeling. It was wood, smoother and more polished than that which, in all honesty, he was used to. The wooden prick probed a little deeper, while levering gently from side to side, stretching Scarlet ever wider. He gritted his teeth; the discomfort was only slight and disarmingly dull.
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