‘Such a pretty little pet.’ He softened, as always taken by her flattery and submissive beauty.
Vorra offered no resistance as he flicked the blade over her nipples, then rested it at her belly button. ‘Abuse me, master,’ she begged. ‘Release your anger upon the body of your slave. Trample her and crush her beneath your will.’
Rodrigo grinned, as always diverted from his mental calculations by the immediate offer of sexual mastery. ‘Kiss the blade,’ he commanded. ‘Make love to it.’
The command was not new to Vorra, but it never failed to fill her with a thrill of expectation. Some nights she would awaken in a cold sweat, dreaming of how her life had hung in the balance on so many occasions, her flesh dancing the razor’s edge of life and death, blood and sex.
One wrong move and the sharp instrument would slice her wide open. On the other hand, if she were seen to hold back, to seek to maintain some scrap of pride or prudence, he was as liable to slit her from throat to cunt.
To begin with she kissed the flat of the blade, softly, lovingly, her lips pressed to the killing metal, the blood of a hundred, a thousand, having washed over its surface. Next she ran her tongue across it, boldly, pricking the very end of the outstretched blade with her tongue. What better proof than this of woman’s weakness and man’s strength? Next she put the blade to her cheek, encouraging him to caress her face, to trace the lines.
Now she put it to her breasts, her palms on either side of the deadly metal, guiding it into place. If it were possible she would want him to fuck her this way, the sword for the prick. As it was she contorted herself prettily, abasing her naked body so as to maximize the contact - creative, potentially deadly but also sensually stimulating like nothing else she’d ever experienced. ‘Please, master,’ she begged, ‘use me.’
‘I will dispose of them both,’ he was saying, obsessed as always with Marcellus and his little consort. ‘Next time I won’t just put him to sleep. And the little blonde, I’ll have her thrown to the sharks.’ Vorra whimpered with need. ‘Then again,’ he mused, deigning to stuff himself in the girl’s mouth, ‘the vision might be true. Marcellus could be doomed already, in which case I need only sit back and wait.’
She agreed with him, of course, though she could no longer say so given her present position.
How could it be that the girl only grew more beautiful with every degradation? In fact, standing before him now, wet with sea foam, her ravished body cleansed but not healed, she had never seemed to the pirate king more desirable.
‘You look like a drowned rat.’ He tossed her a cloth, and Tesra clutched it to her breast, shivering. ‘If you had asked mercy,’ he told her, ‘I would have given it.’
‘Even after I tried to kill you?’ Her teeth chattered.
Marcellus shook his head. ‘But you did not try to kill me.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I simply do.’ He shrugged, letting slide her failure to call him ‘sir’. ‘Just as I know you are hiding something from me. Something you have seen and are afraid to share with me.’
‘No,’ she shook her sopping blonde curls too quickly, ‘nothing.’
‘Must I beat the information from you?’ He reached for his belt. ‘Or fuck it out of you?’
‘As sir wishes.’
He smiled wryly. ‘You are stubborn enough to be a pirate. Come here.’
Marcellus placed his hands on her head, right where they stood. ‘No games this time. You will open your mind to me. Without hesitation.’
The nymph resisted only briefly. Whether it was his own will having strengthened or hers weakened he was not sure, but he found himself sifting her thoughts in short order. Indeed, it was true what he’d suspected. Rodrigo was the poisoner. Only it was not an attempt to kill him, merely to drug him so he would have unencumbered access to Tesra for the night. The clumsy oaf had wanted a vision all his own, something to cement his hold over a mutinous crew, a group of men too ungrateful and greedy to appreciate what they’d just been handed.
So what had she shown him? Had he mounted and bridled her, riding her moth-like body across the horizons of her mind? No, the clod was too clumsy, too dark and too impenetrably selfish. By the god’s own eyes, how had he missed seeing this himself, how black was Rodrigo’s heart? Or had it been a recent development, a gradual rotting away of good wood as oft happens at sea to untreated lumber?
Tesra was squirming, wanting to break free. He bent and touched his forehead to hers. At once he was in the white room with her. Rodrigo was coming, dressed in black. The king stiffened in fury to watch him hit the defenseless girl again and again. This was not discipline, not training, but simple bullying. Now she was appeasing him as a female, on her knees, placating with her warm mouth. By the foamy brow of Nephisis the girl was hot in her submission. But he mustn’t be distracted. He must delve deeper, to see what they had seen.
The whirlwind, yes. This he knew. Tesra and he had already ridden its crest. But what was different? The madman Rodrigo was pulling her down, that was it. Not letting go. He was forcing a vision, demanding she show him the future, the fate of two kings, one in reality, one in desire.
He himself was the real one, and now Marcellus saw his own image as in a perfect mirror, carved crystal, living and breathing. So delicate and real.
And then he beheld the hand, swooping in from the sky like a hawk, then a cloud, filling the horizon. The tiny king has no chance. He is smashed by the glove, the fist of iron, the mail of black metal with no kinks, no weakness, no mercy.
For a second, a brief second, he beholds the emblem, the crest. It is that of Talassia. The royal seal.
So this is what the girl feared - his own death at the hands of the dragar.
Marcellus laughed out loud, a deep, terrifying sound, like the lion fresh from the kill, the mighty panther tearing at the throat of its enemy. In part it was a war cry, but there was also in it great irony. The sea nymph had sought to protect him from this vision, and yet what pirate king of the high seas did not foresee his own potential end at the hands of his foes on a constant basis? Day and night he stared death in the face. It was his friend, his consort, and at times his whore. This is what made him strong, what made him king. A man like Rodrigo would never understand that in a hundred years.
‘Show me something else, wench,’ he demanded. ‘Show me something I do not already know.’
The wall. She was trying to telegraph to him something about a wall. About going someplace he should not go. Marcellus scowled. He was tired of boundaries. Tired of being patient with the delicacies of her feminine soul. Was he a timid old woman or a brigand’s brigand?
Thrusting his fingers into Tesra’s wet cunt, which was as always open and ready for him, he manipulated her to jelly. The other hand still on her forehead, fingers spread, he posed the question, one that would eliminate this pussyfooting forever.
Show me his greatest treasure, he asked. Reveal to me what I can steal from the dragar that will shame and reduce him above all else.
A flash of light followed. The inner dawn. A woman revealed herself. A goddess, radiant and red-haired, her curls like unfurled fire.
‘Yes,’ he cried out loud, laughing as he kissed Tesra once on the forehead, her body floating before him, ‘I understand.’
Chapter 9
The pirate king had gone insane. This was the only explanation Tesra could find for the mission they were now undertaking. What logical objective, after all, could there be in raiding such a pitiful island, which by the man’s own account to her contained nothing more than a volcano, a few rocks and hovels, a handful of domestic animals, some stray grass and some ragtag shepherds?
To make matters worse they’d sailed for days on end to find this particular place, at harrowing speed, first with the fleet then in Marcellus’ own ship, and finally in this one small boa
t under cover of night, the treacherous Rodrigo rowing along with two others as the king sat at the prow training his spyglass upon... nothing.
Her worst fear was that Rodrigo had only come along so as to murder the king as soon as they set foot ashore on the desolate place. And in his current state Tesra wasn’t all too sure Marcellus would know to stop him. Indeed, even since that day on the ship, when the king had pulled from his mind some secret vision which even she did not know of, he had been different, like a man walking on clouds, more like a monk or priest than a pirate. Had the gift of inner dawn driven his male mind into madness? It seemed a strong possibility.
He was not himself. He had not touched her, had not disciplined her, not even when she’d attempted deliberately to provoke him. Spilling the wine in his lap had merely made him laugh, and arguing petulantly about his slovenliness only made him wink and pinch her cheek. Like some lovesick fool. Or one of the fops from the court of Princess Ameliadora.
Even Drusia had become disgusted with him. It was rumored she’d crawled to Rodrigo begging to be his slut. The number two pirate, for his part, seemed to be enjoying every minute of Marcellus’ newfound weakness. Surely a mutiny was close at hand, if not already underway. Despite the wealth the king had brought, he was no longer a leader and Tesra doubted seriously the man would even have a kingship to return to when this disastrous mission was said and done.
‘Is it not beautiful?’ he asked Tesra, offering her the spyglass for a look at the night-shrouded mountain, which every few centuries or so poured out torrents of hot lava, destroying the island’s one and only village.
She declined, preferring to scan the horizon for other dangers, ones not seen with eyes of flesh or glass. Something was wrong out there. Very wrong.
‘The stars have never seemed so bright to me,’ he sighed. ‘Like hand-painted gems upon a carpet of midnight. Isn’t that so, Rodrigo?’
‘The gods are full of mystery, majesty.’
Marcellus sat at the prow, leaning forward on the first bench, his back straight, his noble brow level with the craggy, black-shadowed cliffs just behind the moonlit waves. The light sea breeze had caught the torrents of his hair, making him look even more possessed. ‘We are playthings to the gods, Rodrigo. Never forget that.’
Tesra, wearing a cast off shirt and downsized breeches, her hair tied back in a bow, clung to his arm. ‘Turn around, my king. This will not go well in this place. I sense danger.’
‘Playthings,’ he reminded her sweetly, touching her cheek. ‘That is all we are.’
He is mad, thought Tesra. Of this there is no doubt.
The tiny boat dredged itself upon the sand. The beach was rough, the grains dark and crystalline. The volcano lay in front of them, and behind that the gnarled trees and gritty soil in which the inhabitants made their livelihood.
There was and would be nothing here. Nothing good, at any rate.
‘We must reach the top of the volcano before dawn,’ said the king, stepping first into the lapping water, an inch deep.
‘As you say,’ Rodrigo intoned flatly.
Did the man expect anything here? Had Marcellus confided something in him? Whatever it was, it lay dead ahead.
‘A precaution,’ said Marcellus, clapping the iron onto Tesra’s wrist, the other end of the chain wound about his fist.
She shuddered at the intimacy. How long since he’d confined her like this, consigning her to metal, fixing her for ravishment? Lately he’d imposed on her a torture far greater than iron and leather - namely that of neglect, knowing that his lust was being spilled again and again elsewhere. Into the slut Drusia and that new pet, the ever horny former princess. ‘My lord,’ she whispered, reaching for him with her lips.
He accepted the kiss, briefly, allowing her to open her lips against him. Between her legs she burned, from fear and need and confusion. From an island such as this he had taken her, wrongly, and now he was returning her to one, having stolen her heart and hidden it in one of his chests, a pirate’s lock upon the handle.
And all that from their one union, the one encounter, her seer’s eye submitted, her lithe body given over to the predations of the first and strongest man she would ever know. Did he not know she was his, that she would be to him consort, whore or even slave? What was wrong with her that he had rejected her, refusing to use her during the ritual of the hangman’s daughter or any time afterward?
It was the pirate king who broke the contact first. For a split second, in his dark green eyes, she thought she saw a flash of pain. The one and only such trace of human weakness she’d ever seen in the man. What was this place, to draw him out so?
‘Why have you brought me here?’ she asked instead. She remained at arm’s length, immobilized, her arms in his grip. He had not wanted the kiss to go on, nor had he wanted to face the inevitable consequences, her in the sand, the thin garment torn from her body, her legs parted rudely, his spear plummeting her sex as though it belonged to him, which indeed it did by right of conquest.
‘I was told to,’ he said simply. ‘By your goddess.’
Tesra’s mouth dropped open. To her knowledge the man did not even believe in her. Why then would Persistrata speak to the pirate king and not to her?
Rodrigo drew his sword. ‘We must go now. The dawn approaches.’
Marcellus nodded, stoic, almost lifeless. His own sword, she noted, remained at his waist.
‘My lord,’ she blurted, feeling the hot breath of Rodrigo at her back, ‘do not do this. He will kill you before we reach the top.’
‘No, Yellow Pelt, he will not. I die at the hand of the dragar, remember?’
‘Marcellus,’ she wept, her knees buckling, ‘we must stop!’
He lifted her into his arms, cradling her. ‘No, my nymph, we must go on.’
The trail was steep but not impossible. Many feet had trodden here before; indeed it was a sacred path, for the stone had been carved, yielding itself to stairs, crudely cut and weathered over time. Tesra thought she knew this mountain upon closer inspection. Was it some vision of her own or one transcribed to her by her teachers as a hatchling? Twice as they climbed Marcellus nearly lost his footing, but he would not set her down. On both occasions Rodrigo held him up from behind; actions that seemed to belie her theory that the man was planning to kill him. And yet there was no mistaking Rodrigo’s real intent, unchanged since the moment she’d met him.
‘My lord,’ she addressed him, employing the term she had chosen on her own, ‘I can walk.’
‘No, you cannot,’ he countered. ‘Because I am carrying you.’
For the first time it occurred to her that the pirate king might be planning to toss her down into the fiery depths as some sort of sacrifice. This seemed the sort of thing his own god would demand, being a bloodthirsty male deity, but he had hardly imagined such a thing coming from a goddess.
The heat could be felt as they ascended. Was the volcano already active? From what Marcellus had told her it was due. But there was no predicting such things with complete accuracy. Huddling close against the underside of his chin she was secretly glad of being cradled. How protected this man made her feel! Such a strange sensation, it was too, to have needs and feelings awakened and satisfied all by this same creature, her sea beast who had stolen her so long ago it seemed, from the Pool of Reflection, that naïve puddle of her girlhood.
At the very top of the volcano the mountain had been chopped flat, the expanse consisting of some several hundred square feet and providing a platform for worshippers - or perhaps practitioners of human sacrifice. Setting her down gently on her feet, he unbuckled his sword.
‘We must pray now,’ Marcellus said, kneeling upon the dark rock.
Rodrigo frowned slightly then followed suit, the posture coming awkwardly to him, on one knee. Tesra complied as well, as did the two other pirates. She her
self used the time to implore Persistrata, from whom she had not heard since leaving the Isle of Dreams. It displeased her that the diving being might speak to him instead. Subconsciously she moved against him, hip to hip. For the first time in her life, Tesra felt afraid.
‘Enough,’ the pirate king announced, breaking the trance. ‘Let us complete our business.’ His business consisted of reaching beneath his cloak to extract a velvet bag. The first of the two objects she did not know. It was a circle of bronze, a medallion of some kind. Without ceremony he kissed it, then set it on the ground at his feet.
The next item she knew all too well. ‘The ring!’ she exclaimed, recognizing the ruby gem that had magically opened the rocks of the pool allowing her kidnapping. He held the ruby aloft and for a moment she thought he was going to toss it, but then, out of nowhere, came a great black bird. Wings clapping like thunder the bird seized the ring, swallowed it whole and flew away.
‘Marcellus,’ she whispered, despairing of how she would ever return home without it. ‘What have you done?’
‘I have stolen,’ he answered her, his face unlit with an eerie smile, strangely calm, ‘that which is most precious to the dragar.’ His words made no sense to her. They walked back down the mountain in total silence, all but the pirate king clueless as to what this journey had been for.
The soldiers were waiting for them at the base of the cliff when the party returned, a large number of them, maybe thirty, having hidden themselves behind the rocks in readiness for ambush. Another fifty or more, Talassian marines, encircled from behind.
‘Lay down your weapons,’ called their commander, a vice-admiral by the crest in his helmet, ‘and live.’
Tesra doubted any of them would live. The pirate king offered no resistance. Setting her down he followed instructions, kneeling, hands behind his back. Rodrigo and the other two remained standing.
‘I have followed my side of the bargain,’ said he to the Talassian admiral. ‘I have delivered them both. The pirate king and the seer. A thousand talents; that is your side.’
Dream Captive Page 17
