Crimson's Captivation

by Melange Books, LLC

  The troop halted and the king looked behind them. He eyed the forest where they had almost died.

  “One should never look back,” the red-headed commander suggested.

  “It’s okay to look,” the king replied, “you should just never go back. My hope now is that Poseidon has consecrated the fresh water river, for I have very few men left.”

  Chapter II

  ~ The Dread of Change ~

  Behind the closed doors of his bedroom, Tor rubbed the knot on his head as he argued with his wife. “Why did you hit me, my love?” He slouched in the chair, his elbows on his knees. “When you and I agreed …” he continued, “… that I would attend the auction and obtain our servants … you knew this was their purpose. We agreed to it beforehand, and now you hit me? Why? Jealousy?”

  The countess flopped the full weight of her burden in the chair across from him. The entire matter exhausted her and left her drained. The man across from her was an overweight, indulgent child who didn’t think he had done wrong.

  “‘My love,’ Tor? You seriously start this conversation with a term of endearment?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Their purpose is not singular, Tor,” she replied, “It was not meant to be coercion. Sneaking around like some horny chambermaid. We were to share them together, use them for our mutual pleasure. Darya, and now you, seem to have forgotten that I run this palace. What you do when you’re out and about in the countryside is your own business, but not here, Tor. Not here!” she shouted. “This is my domain. This is my palace and will be run it according to my rules. You know my jealous streak. You know that I’m not a stranger to doubt. You, Tor, exhaust me.”

  “Still, no reason to hit me,” Tor said rubbing the knot on his head.

  In the courtyard, guards trumpeted the day’s start and bells rang throughout the palace. Servants and maids began their daily chores. They swept, added wood to the fires, and began making breakfast. A chambermaid entered the countess’s bedroom, refilled the washbasin and emptied chamber pots. All the while, the countess and Tor debated.

  The countess began dressing. “I can’t think of a better reason to hit you. Maybe the vase was the wrong choice, but I doubt you’ll forget. Now what to do with you? What to do with that little cute one you can’t seem to neglect, Crimson? My palace reeks of the sulfur of your desire, Tor!”

  The countess took a deep breath, approached Tor, and fell deep into her chair once more. “Doesn’t matter, we have another issue. Sena, the dark one is sick.”

  “Sick? What’s wrong with her,” Tor asked. He grimaced as he rubbed the knot on his head that had now become tender to the touch.

  “Who knows?” The countess pined, “she could be pregnant. I’m heading to the servant chambers now. Can I trust that you’ll behave?”

  Tor purposely didn’t answer. He knew what he had to do.

  * * * *

  The countess entered the hallway that led to the servant quarters to find Sergen, Crimson, and Uric standing in the hallway.

  “Have you eaten this morning?” the countess asked.

  “Yes,” Uric answered.

  “And why are you in the hallway?”

  “It’s Sena,” Crimson said as she pointed to the open door.

  “Yes, she’s sick,” the countess acknowledged. “There’s no need for a crowd, be about your chores. And you, Crimson, I’ll be watching you closely,” the countess barked, but no one moved.

  “But, countess, look …” Crimson insisted.

  The countesses peered through the door to see two servants attending to Sena; one held a wet cloth to Sena’s forehead while the other held Sena’s hand, trying to calm her. The normal tanned skin of Sena had turned a ghostly white. Sena’s eyelids were closed and her body gyrated as if she were in pain.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the countess asked.

  “My lady, she lives beyond the charm of God,” the servant holding Sena’s hand answered.

  Then the countess could see it. They all could see it.

  Sena was visibly mutating. Her face distorted as if the underlying bones were alive. Her cheekbones seemed to crawl underneath her skin. The structure under her eyebrows seemed to boil and her nose appeared to extend. Her ears moved higher on the skull, her mouth widened, and then her forearms lengthened. It appeared that Sena’s body was being tortured from the inside out and she thrashed about in the small room, so violently at times that she lifted the servants attending her from their kneeling position. The servants fought hard to keep her pinned, so hard that they sweated profusely and began to pray aloud.

  The countess stumbled back and nearly tripped over Crimson. They all watched as Sena’s fingernails curved into claws, then, suddenly, everything was still. So still that they all wondered if they had just seen what they were sure they just saw. The countess called out for the guards, but her voice was weak and the sound barely audible. None of the others said anything. Their jaws lay wide open as they watched the transformation.

  Unexpectedly, Sena took in a lungful of air, sat up, opened her eyes, and everyone backed away.

  Crimson screamed when she noticed the caramel color of Sena’s irises were now a solid black, a black that she had never seen, and the whites of Sena’s eyes, they were now a blood red. Black irises, red eyes, and chalky skin--except for the silky black hair that seemed to tuft upon her scalp it would be difficult to know this was Sena blankly staring at them. Then Sena went limp and fell back into the makeshift bed, and the transformation quickly reversed.

  The room, the hallway, the palace went silent for a long time; long enough for everyone to digest and realize they had just witnessed a turning and had forgotten to breathe. Sena lay there, motionless, and the countess for a moment thought she was dead. The countess inched toward the door. “Is she alive?”

  “I think so, my lady,” the caretaker replied with dread.

  “Leave,” the countess whispered to the two servants in the room.

  When everyone was in the hallway, the countess closed the door and screamed for the guards, and ordered Sergen to hold the door shut.

  Sergen looked to his left and right. “Who, me?”

  “Yes, hold the door shut until the guards arrive.”

  “No. No, no, no,” Sergen answered while shaking his head back and forth and backing up to the far wall. Uric instinctively followed him.

  Crimson stood alone, and approached the countess and pushed her aside. Crimson locked the door and fixed her own back against it. “Cowards,” she said, as she looked at them. “That’s Sena and no one else.”

  The guards arrived and took charge of the prisoner.

  “What will you do with her?” Crimson asked the countess.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never trapped a horror before. I’ll keep her locked up until I can find someone with knowledge of these matters. I’m not certain what to do.”

  Then came sounds from the locked room—they could hear Sena, or whatever it was, moving around in the dark. A loud thud from the other side of the door echoed down the hallway, then another as Sena slammed her body against the locked door.

  Boom! Boom!

  Everyone inched back and found the wall behind them.

  The guards turned toward the door and stepped to the side.

  “What is she doing?” the countess asked aloud.

  The answer came with an explosion of splintered wood. It happened so fast that none could react. They just stood and watched Sena tear her way through the wooden door. The guards rushed her and she threw both of them down the hallway and then stopped, staring at all of them. The countess, Sergen, and Uric tried their best to hide behind each other, each fitting their bodies into the smallest real estate possible, as long as it was behind someone else.

  Crimson was the only one unafraid. She moved toward Sena. “Sena? Are you in there?”

  The horror looked at Crimson, but didn’t say anything, and Crimson moved, slowly, timidly closer. She took Sena’s right hand with her left, then
took Sena’s other hand with her right and pulled Sena toward her. Their bosoms met, their fingers wrapped around each other, and Crimson leaned in and kissed Sena on the mouth. The kiss was instantly wet and returned by Sena. Crimson opened her eyes to see that Sena’s were closed. She slowly stepped away and felt the coolness of Sena’s saliva on her lips.

  Then Sena opened her eyes, looked left and walked down the hallway toward the courtyard as calmly as one would take a stroll. Before she exited Crimson yelled, “The cross and the crescent moon, Sena! Remember Viktor, the cross and the crescent moon!”

  Sena stopped, looked back at Crimson. “It is but a kiss, but I’ll remember it for a lifetime! I will find Viktor, Crimson!”

  Sena opened the door to the courtyard and shielded her eyes, and then in an instant she was gone.

  Crimson ran toward the courtyard door to see Sena scurrying away in the shadows along the high walls.

  The countess ran past Crimson, screaming, “Tor! Tor!” She ran past Darya’s room and Darya was awakened by all the commotion. Darya opened her door just as her mother ran by still screaming Tor’s name. Darya saw Crimson at the courtyard door and joined her.

  “Sena’s gone?” Darya asked.

  “Yes,” Crimson answered.

  “And she’s why my mother is screaming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Darya said under her breath. “Good for Sena.”

  Crimson’s eyes met Darya’s with a sense of puzzlement.

  Darya looked down the hallway toward her mother’s room. Convinced her mother was occupied, she walked over to Sergen and kissed him softly on the cheek. She laid her head against his chest. “I dreamt of you last night, Sergen,” she said. Her right hand moved in broad circles over the ripples of his exposed stomach. “Dreamt that you lusted after me, wanted to take out your frustration on my flesh.”

  “The dream is true, but still only a dream,” Sergen replied.

  Darya smiled, grabbed Sergen’s hand, and led him out toward the back of the palace. She let the door slam closed behind them and pulled him along a path until they reached a freestanding wall of stone. She leaned against the wall and pulled Sergen into her. “Mother will be ranting for some time, Sergen. What ever will you do with me?”

  “Darya, you have no fear?” Sergen asked, not genuinely concerned with the answer.

  She kissed him and whispered into his open mouth, “None, my love.”

  * * * *

  Sena watched Darya and Sergen from the canopy of a tree. She watched as Sergen pressed his weight into Darya and pinned her against the stone wall. Sena inched closer and saw Sergen dig his fingers into the soft flesh of Darya’s bottom. He then lifted her and they kissed, they kissed like hungry lovers. Soft kisses at first, then sensual kisses, then it was as if they feasted on each other. Sergen slowly let Darya to the ground, and he then turned her around so that Darya was facing the wall. Darya unconsciously planted her hands onto the stones of the wall and arched her back, raising her butt into the air. She sensed the coolness and roundness of the stones on the warmth of her palms.

  Sergen and Darya didn’t know that Sena was watching and as Sena observed them something came over her. A hunger that she had never known, she had the desire, almost a craving--to taste blood. Her muscles tightened, her limbs twitched, and her mouth went dry. Her skin began to itch and she sensed it, for the first time in her life, she wanted to hunt and noticed anything that moved in her plane of vision.

  Sena refocused on the lovers. Then Sergen stopped fondling Darya’s skin. He wet his finger and ran it across the red welt on her bottom. Sena knew Darya had been punished because of him. He had been punished, too, but here they were, in a moment that was lost to the outside world—lost to everyone except the lovers and Sena, the onlooker. Soon, Sergen’s saliva slowly evaporated off Darya’s warm skin.

  Sena saw Darya’s body tense, and then relax. She knew Darya now wanted Sergen more than ever. Darya backed into Sergen’s torso, and lowered herself with slow up and down gyrations into his pelvis. Sena closed her eyes. She imagined the hardness of him and heard Darya exhale and moan when he finally penetrated her. Sena’s legs trembled when she thought of Darya’s body around his cock, and then Darya reached back with one hand, and placed it on his pelvis to stop him from going to far, too fast.

  “Slow,” Darya moaned, “so gratifyingly slow.”

  * * * *

  Sergen pushed into her, wet his fingers and ran his hands along her hips, down her waist then up across her belly until he found the fullness and weight of her slumped breast. She felt soft in his hands and he caressed her hard nipples with his wet slippery fingers, tugging and rotating until she lowered herself into his hands. That was all he needed. He moved in deeper and Darya let out little moans of pleasure. Her moans begged for more and advised him at the same time. Her resistance slowly waned and she was now absolutely wet, soaked, and available to all of him. Her heat, every inch of her, all those delicate folds of suppleness enraptured his shaft and his consciousness in the process. He closed his eyes and thrust harder into her and she met each thrust, slamming her bottom into his pelvis and thighs.

  In an instant, Sergen knew he loved her because in an intense moment that overcame him: he wanted her to please all of his senses at once. He wanted to taste her, touch, smell, see, and hear her all at the same time. He opened his eyes to see Sena sitting on the top of the stone wall above them, watching them, her fangs dripped with fresh blood.

  * * * *

  Tor reluctantly dispatched a letter he had written to Kieran’s kinsmen in the nearby town. In it, he requested that his latest acquisitions from the auction house be re-auctioned at the earliest possible date.

  Chapter III

  ~ Noblemen’s Hope and Honor ~

  The trip across the Baltic to Riga is three days, maybe as short as two with a prevailing wind. Viktor was in a hurry and felt it couldn’t hurt to fill the ship’s sails with his hopes and dreams. He leaned against the large mast and watched the largest sail as it filled with the westerly wind, its shape rounded like the potbelly of a man. “Just a little push windward,” he said to himself as he stared off into the eventide horizon. It looked as though the whole fabric of the world was changing and took its sweet time doing so. He hated that he wasn’t on land yet. He had hoped to be in Poland already, tearing across the landscape to find Crimson.

  The ship, heavy with war supplies, sat low in the choppy seas and the moon glowed in the sky. Above, a formation of birds flew by chattering with one another. It seemed they were in a hurry, as well. Then Viktor spotted them far off the starboard side, a fleet of masts heading in the opposite direction. For some reason, he ducked on the deck of the ship as if he could disappear and thus make the ship disappear, as well. He inched along the wall of the deck and for hours watched the fleet of ships move further and further away. When the last mast disappeared, he finally breathed.

  “That was close,” Erik said as he came up beside Viktor.

  “Yes, Russian?”

  “Danish, we suspect, but luckily we didn’t find out. If we weren’t heavy they would have probably spotted us and we are without escort.”

  “Hmmm. Odd, I was just wishing that we were empty and making better time. Guess one should be careful what he wishes for? Have you been to Riga, Erik?”

  “This will be my third trip.”

  “Perfect, when we get there will you help me procure provisions?”

  “I will assist, but will have very little time. Ships at sea are my quiet time. In port, it’s pure madness. What’s your plan? To invade Poland with two men? Dead men don’t need provisions, Viktor.” Erik let out a hearty laugh and walked below deck. “Dead men don’t need provisions!”

  Viktor stayed on the upper deck and looked eastward to the lands of great empires and enemies, where his homeland, the Russians and the Poles were in an all out war because the enemies thought the king was young and vulnerable. Viktor sensed it, now—that tinge of
fear. He knew, too, that if he allowed his mind to follow the footpath of reality, if he dared look past the romantic notions of love and rescue that there was no warm welcome waiting for him on dry land, only death. For the first time in his journey, Viktor faced the realization that he may never see Crimson again. It was an eerie feeling, one that he quickly tried to put out of his mind, but it lingered like a dreamy sleep.

  On the northern horizon, a storm came in and it’s outer winds thrust the bow of the ship deep into the Baltic. As terrifying as the storm was, Viktor welcomed it. It created a powerful tailwind that propelled the ship through the sea with amazing speed.

  * * * *

  The king and his men crossed the Daugava River and found an old Teutonic crusader’s castle that sat high on the craggy shoreline. The corner towers of the castle were in severe disrepair, fallen stones lay in heaps around the foundation and were covered with moss, but the castle was nestled in a thicket of trees and seemed as good a spot as any to set up camp and wait.

  The king motioned for his commander. “We shall camp here today, then move westward at early light tomorrow to meet up with Viktor in a day or two outside Minsk. Have the men perform a quick inspection of the interior to verify the castle is abandoned.”

  “Yes, my king.” The redheaded commander trotted off and barked out the orders. Soon, troubling reports came in.

  “Sir, the castle appears deserted, but the men have found markings.”

  “Markings?”

  “Yes, scrape marks on the stones, especially those stones on the north side. Could be tool marks, but as you can well guess, their concern is that they are scratch marks of the horror’s we left behind in the woods.”

  “Their imaginations run wild, commander?”