"Yes, mother," said Imogen, glad to be allowed to lower her gaze.
"Clean off that ridiculous mud and change out of this ruined dress and put on something comfortable. Wait on the balcony while your father and I are discussing the agreement with the gnomes. I'll have your maidens lay out something nice if you are needed."
Imogen hurried towards the door.
"Imogen," called mother. "You are a princess, not a druid. Please remember that."
The princess hid her petulance and fled from the throne room. The great caravan of gnomes were already arriving in the basket lifts, the tiny figures dressed in finery even more outrageous than the silks and platinum worn by the elves. They were scarcely three feet tall and their bright costumes made them look to Imogen like overripe fruits.
She did not wanted to be spotted by the wee procession and forced into some sort of official welcoming. She gathered her tattered skirt around her thighs and hurried off to her chambers. With the door closed and barred she let out her anger, shredding the last of her dress until she stood, naked but for her scratches before the long silver mirror.
Imogen was a specimen of fitness. Not soft like a courtly girl, but strong-limbed and muscular in her abdomen from climbing through trees. She had large breasts for an elf and a thicker backside than her mother liked, but it was because she had a human's appetite to go along with her unusually rugged physique. Her quim was thatched with a wild strip of platinum hair and her plump breasts were capped with puffy nipples of a shade that almost matched the natural golden hue of her surrounding flesh.
She was, in short, nothing like what her mother wanted out of her daughter.
Still cursing in old elvish, Imogen scrubbed the mud from her face and put on a simple, high-collared padded doublet, slender trousers of creamy brown leather and her knee-high boots with their climbing heels. She pulled her hair back and tied it into a single braid that fell between her shoulders. As a last bit of pique, she fastened a scabbard and dagger around her waist, securing it flat against her outer thigh with a strap that wrapped around her leg.
"No one will mistake me for a princess now," she said at her reflection.
The Climbs were high in the golden oaks, ancient carved structures connected by suspension bridges and walkways of ironwood. The Goldenheart palace required three massive trees for support and sprawled among a dozen structures, promenades and bridges. The main palace was surrounded by a balcony that overlooked the foliage of the forest, a magnificent view of blue skies turning to blood in dusk meeting with the rusty tops of the massive oaks.
Imogen could hear the gnomes and her parents laughing and sharing greetings through the heavy doors. She passed the guards and walked along the balcony, her fingers trailing along the rail that was polished by a hundred generations of Goldenhearts. She leaned against the railing, looking down at the forest below, pressing so that her breasts were squeezed over the smooth wood. She leaned so far forward that she very nearly fell. At the last moment, a hand grabbed the back of her doublet and hauled her onto the balcony.
"Princess, it would not do well to have you fall to your death." The deep voice belonged to Karissa Marigold. The elf woman was very large and resplendent in the sun-kissed platinum armor of the royal guard.
"Karissa!" cried Imogen.
The princess threw her arms around the big woman's neck and kissed her face through the slots in her helmet. Karissa laughed and took off the helmet. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with pale skin for an elf and emerald eyes. She shook out the lovely red mane of her hair and returned the embrace.
Imogen and Karissa had grown up together. Karissa, of no noble house, had always been destined to serve in the guard and she had done so gladly. Imogen had once considered joining herself, to be closer to her dear friend, but she knew that Father or Mother would have forced the guard to throw her out.
"I thought you were dealing with the humans of the western wood," said Imogen. "Why are you here today?"
"I have been promoted to High Captain and I am here to see that the agreement with the gnomes goes well."
"You're expecting trouble?"
"Your mother is," said Karissa and she gave Imogen a serious expression. It seemed as if Imogen's dear friend wanted to say something, but when Imogen pressed, Karissa refused.
"I must go. Stay safe, princess." Karissa fitted her helmet back over her head. "They will call on you when they need you."
Karissa entered the palace, leaving Imogen to watch the night gather on the horizon. Torch globes began to burn in the Climbs below and farther afield, high in the tops of other trees, the glow belonged to the phosphoric night birds, calling out to one another and flashing their glowing bellies in their ancient mating ritual.
The door to the great hall opened and light and the sound of music spilled out onto the balcony. An inebriated bunch of gnomes wandered out, talking and laughing and smoking pungent sticks of wild herb. They noticed Imogen leaned against the railing and began to talk about her. Her long ears picked up more than the gnomes intended her to hear, including several lewd remarks. She felt strangely gratified when they mistook her for a servant girl.
After several minutes, one of the gnomes peeled himself off from the group and wandered over towards Imogen. He was scarcely half her height, with a head that seemed too large for his body, wide-set eyes and an unruly mop of brown hair. He wore a leather coat, trousers and boots, along with several golden chains around his neck. Her years of watching the court had never been fun, but she knew how to spot nobility and this man was of the lowest rung. A duke or lord perhaps, trying to raise his status by joining the delegation.
He leaned against the railing a few feet away from Imogen and attempted to appear nonchalant.
"Fine night," he said.
"Is it?" Giggled Imogen. "I would think you rather hate it up here. Aren't you accustomed to tunnels inside the mountains."
"Ah, yes," said the gnome. "Truthfully, this is terrible. The open air, the heights, all these trees. I do not know how you elves endure it all."
"What can I do for you," she decided to play the part of the servant girl and added, "my lord."
"I will be truthful again, then," said the gnome. "My name is Tiermont. My friends and I could not help but notice such a beautiful elf maiden as yourself standing alone and, having too much drink among us, they concocted a bit of a wager. I accepted that wager."
"And are you going to tell me what the wager was?"
"The first part," he waved his arm. "I have already achieved by talking to you. The second, I realize, will be much more difficult. I am to win from you the honor of a kiss."
"A kiss?" Imogen could not help but blush. "From me?"
"Well, we have all been listening to the elf king boast of the beauty of his daughter and how she will make such a fetching bride for King Parnassmus that we all became infatuated with elf-"
"What do you mean?" snapped Imogen, leaning over the gnome. " King Goldenheart is going to marry his daughter away to the gnomes?"
"My lady, please, you're...um...my lady..."
Imogen realized she had lifted the gnome up by his leather lapels and was nearly holding him over the balcony. She quickly set him back onto his feet and mumbled an apology. She wandered away from him in a daze. Father was going to marry her to a gnome? To the gnome king? Was that how he intended to secure trade with the gnomes? She had always feared such a marriage, but never imagined she might be wed to gnomes.
"Lucky oaf, Parnassmus." The gnome rubbed at his shoulder as if it was smarting. "I hear that Princess Goldenheart is as beautiful as a ray of sunlight striking a vein of ruby quartz. You are quite beautiful yourself, might you like to--"
"I must go!" cried Imogen and she ran down the balcony and escaped to the spiraling stairway that descended to the lower tiers of the palace.
Tears wet her cheeks as the princess fled from the gnome, from his friends and from the sickening possibility of her betrothal. She brushed past o
ther gnomes and members of the royal guard who did not even recognize her. She descended the spiral stairway and took one of the basket lifts down to the lowest tiers of the Climbs, where the rope ladders descended to the forest floor.
A watch guard stopped her as she opened one of the trapdoors to climb down and escape from the village. He squinted at her and held her arms firmly in his strong hands. She thought, for a moment, he had recognized her.
"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked.
"Yes," said Imogen, fighting to hide her distress. "I have walked the ground of the forest many times."
"It's night out," he said. "Beasts come out after dark. You should go back to your bed, miss."
"If something happens, no one will come for you. Dawn at the earliest." He released her arms. "The wood is not safe at night. If you cannot sleep, why not go up to the feast at the palace. I hear the princess is going to be married tomorrow."
She could not stomach this gossip coming from a watch guardsman. They never came near the palace and yet he knew of her marriage? How could she have been so blind?
"How do you know that?" she shouted at him.
"It's just what I have heard. No need to raise your voice to me, miss."
Imogen had a terrible temper for an elf. She wanted to smack the guard in his face. Instead, she gave him her absolute best glower and proceeded back to the trapdoor. He followed her to the opening as she began to climb down. He watched her descend into the dark woods. She cast one last glance up at him on the platform and disappeared into the wild woods where she felt most at home.
Her eyes amplified the moonlight that filtered through the massive oaks and she made her way without need for a torch. She was sure-footed and knew the path to her secret cairn. All druids built a cairn to manifest their spirits. Imogen had only just begun down the path of becoming a woman of the wild. Her cairn was simple and she had only a few seeds and flowers to focus the magic of the spirits. The stacked stones were as she had left them, with the arrangement of flowers hardly disturbed by the wind.
"Mud," she said. "I need to paint myself."
She took off her boots so she could feel the grass beneath her feet. She wiggled her toes against the soft, cool earth. She stripped out of her leather trousers and folded them beside the cairn. She unbuttoned her doublet and her breasts bounced free of their confinement, the cool night air arousing her nipples. She left only the silken undercloth to preserve a tiny bit of her modesty.
Imogen left her cairn for the stream where she knew she could find the fresh, red clay that she could use to paint not only her face but her entire body. As she went, she unbraided her hair so that her lustrous platinum curls hung over her shoulders. The wood was very quiet nearby. The night birds were silent and only a few insects buzzed in the dark.
The stream was wide, shallow, and slow moving. Its placid waters reflected the moon like a gently rippled pane of dark glass. Imogen stepped to the muddy bank and found the spot where the red clay was thick and soft. She squeezed mud between her toes and reached down to scoop some up with her fingers. As she did she felt eyes upon her. Were they the eyes of the forest spirits or something else? Something hunting her?
She felt the eyes in the trees, taking in her naked flesh, the way her breasts dangled when she leaned over, the way her silken under cloth was snug against her bottom. She was being watched, but she could not see anything, even with her dark vision.
"Let it be the wild itself," she softly murmured. "She of the Leaves, watch over me."
She began to paint her body with the clay on her fingertips, smearing red clay in spirals over her breasts, in curlicues down her belly and hips, and in jagged lines from her eyes. As she bent down to scoop up more of the clay, something moved in the water. It was dark and slithered like a serpent, hardly rippling the surface of the water at all. She thought it might be a water snake or an eel, but more of its length became visible and she followed the dark, wriggling serpent's body all the way to the other bank of the stream.
"Oh, no," moaned Imogen.
The long tendril wriggling towards her across the stream was only one of many thick tendrils extending from a body like a thick tree trunk with feet that reached into the mud like roots. As Imogen watched in horror, a huge lipless mouth split open, stretching strands of saliva and exposing a pink tongue as big as a shovel. Above this horrible orifice a single enormous eye opened and focused its cruel gaze on Imogen.
She knew the humans called this a roper for the way it bound its victim with its long tendrils. The elves knew it as a witch tree or a hunting tree, although it was a beast and not a tree at all. The hunting trees were voracious predators and possessed a beastly cleverness that allowed them to creep close to even skilled hunters. They would play with their prey and then swallow it whole. Staring at that hateful eye, Imogen knew that she had been chosen as its prey.
She backed away slowly from the water's edge, her feet squishing into the mud as the serpentine tendril wriggled out of the water and slithered towards her. She noticed the intoxicating barbs on its surface. If the hunting tree could slash her flesh with those barbs she would be powerless to resist it and would willingly allow herself to be devoured. She could not allow that to happen.
She bent her knees and waited, watching the tendril slither closer and closer. More were squirming across the surface of the water towards her. The tendril curled up, showing the barbs as it prepared to strike. Imogen feinted and the tendril lashed out. She threw herself away from it, breasts swaying and plump bottom jiggling as she ran in the opposite direction. The tendril lashed useless in the brush along the stream, trying to find her, but she was already gone.
It was not until she had made it several feet away, heart hammering in her breast, that she paused to look back. Only as she saw the tendrils beginning to creep through the brush after her did she realize that she had been pricked by the barb. Tiny drops of blood marked the wound on her calf. There was no pain. In fact, she felt pleasantly warm and a sudden urge to touch herself came over her.
Forgetting her peril, Imogen dropped to her knees in the grass and slid her hand down the front of her underclothes. She felt as if a fever had come over her body, but it was a sickness of lust and the only way to treat the pain was to run her fingers over the straining bud of her clit. Her pussy was swollen. Her delicate velvet folds were already slick with her juices. She opened herself with her fingers and fiddled herself along her aching groove.
Her body shook as she quickly climaxed against her fingers. Her breasts heaved, nipples aching to be touched and her honey-sweet cum spilling down her thighs. She fucked against her fingers, craving more. Craving to be ravished. She tore at her under cloth, ripping the silky garment away from her pussy to attack herself with both hands. She felt back on the soft grass, her weight resting on her shoulders and head as she lifted her pelvis off the ground and thrust herself at her fingers.
She was completely oblivious to the tendrils squirming towards her, following her scent and driving straight for the pink flower of her pussy. Two of the tendrils lashed the soles of her feet as soon as they were in reach, pricking her with multiple barbs into her arches and ensuring she had a full dose of the aphrodisiac poison. More tendrils swiftly wrapped around her legs, climbed up her thighs and spread her legs apart as the they began to drag her towards the hunting tree's body.
"Yesssss," moaned Imogen. "Yessss, touch me. Take me."
She lifted her head to see the horrifying tree, its eye staring at her and its mouth hanging wide open. The pink shovel of its tongue twitched in anticipation as more tendrils wrapped her arms and curled tightly around her breasts, squeezing them tightly and drooling mucus across her nipples.
Some part of Imogen's mind knew she was about to be tormented and devoured by the horrible creature, but it was a silent scream against the torrential pleasure wracking her. She thrust herself against the tendrils and eagerly opened her lips as one pressed into her mouth. She tasted the foul mucus as
sweet as syrup and sucked at the throbbing tendril.
"Hungry?"
The voice seemed to come from the surrounding trees. The hunting tree froze and suddenly the blade of a throwing ax was buried in its single eye.
"Sorry, this one is ours."
Imogen could not make sense of what was happening as the tree began to screech, releasing her and flailing its tendrils in agony. Two men emerged from the woods. One was powerfully built, with broad shoulders, bulging arms, a huge belly and a fat face. Dark hair bridged his shoulders and down his back to nearly his bare buttocks. In his left hand he held an ax that matched the one stuck into the eye of the hunting tree.
The other man was lean, his features exotic and almost elfin, though he seemed to be human. His long arms and legs moved with a grace completely lacking in the other man and he was hairless from his bald head down to his toes. He carried two curved daggers in his raised fists, like the fangs of a serpent.
With her hands freed, Imogen did the only thing that made sense to her: she began wildly stroking her cunt and reached down to play fingers of her other hand against her anus. She intermittently watched the men as they began to fight with the hunting tree. She could not decide which she wanted to win the battle as tendrils whipped to and fro and ax and blade flashed in the moonlight. As another orgasm wracked her body, Imogen decided she did not care.
She was scissoring her thighs against her hand, fucking herself wantonly and playing with her nipple when the two men returned to collect their prize. They stood over her, watching her fuck herself and gasp with pleasure.
"What a lovely sight," said the man with the big belly, stroking his whiskers. "Nice of your friend to get your started for us."
"Elf bitch," hissed the bald man. "Want to get fucked?"
"Oh, yes," moaned Imogen. "Yes. Fuck me."
The lust-crazed princess squirmed and looked at their cocks dangling between their legs. The big man had a thick one like a hose hanging between his hairy thighs and the slender man was hard as steel and his curved cock stuck out like one of his daggers. She wanted to reach out and grab them both and do things to them she had only imagined, but she was too occupied with pleasuring herself.
Princess to Pleasure Slave Collection: The Forbidden Book of Monstrous Pleasures Page 33
