My slit was still tingling from the mint, still pulsing madly after the abbot’s attack. Father Luc dipped down to lap lightly around the edge where my bush met the slick skin of my pussy. His kisses then followed his caress up my abdomen, worshipping my sensitive skin until he met the tips of my breasts. After a playful peck at each aching nipple, he raised himself to gaze at my face, awaiting my answer. His erection prodded my pussy from beneath his cassock, an erection that felt as mammoth as the one Brother Christy had fashioned on the wax abbot. I could feel the tip of him pulsing through the black fabric, waiting to plunder me.
‘How can you possibly refuse my offer?’ he whispered, his eyes flaring above mine. ‘I’ll give you this ecstasy any time you like, Mary Grace. And I’ll allow your attraction to Sybil full reign, as well. Instead of being at the mercy of every man — and woman — at Heaven’s Gate during the rites of the vernal equinox, you could be writhing with unparalleled pleasure as I shove my cock into you again and again. I want to claim you with it now, sweet Mary. All you have to say is yes.’
My body almost betrayed me by curling up to encourage him. Yet something rang false about his offer. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I rasped. ‘You could have Sybil, or anyone else who suits you.’
‘But it’s you I want, Mary Grace,’ he whispered sinuously, prodding me with his cock. ‘You’re far too beautiful and erotic for Fortune. He’s a mortician, after all — he’s made death his livelihood! And they say his mother went insane in that house.’
I studied the face suspended above mine. The swarthy skin and fierce eyes gave nothing away about his age; his coal black hair accentuated his virile omnipotence. But I wasn’t the least bit interested in becoming this man’s lover, except to spare myself the pain Brother Christy’s lifelike corpses had suffered as celebrants…and to give myself a chance to return to Hyde later, after Father Luc tired of me.
‘You’re stalling,’ he prompted. ‘The Mary Grace Michaels I’ve come to admire decides in favour of the right. She knows better than to believe a handsome man’s pretty promises when a far more powerful lover is offering her the world. A world of eternal springtime, where her youth and beauty will never fade.’
It sounded perfect. Too perfect. And when his eyes bored into mine with a heat reminiscent of hellfire, I shivered. ‘Mary Grace Michaels is also a woman of her word,’ I replied. ‘I love Hyde, and I’m honouring my promise to him.’
‘Is that your final answer?’ His erection prodded at my pussy until I thought it might tear through his cassock to get inside.
‘Yes,’ I hissed. ‘Now get off me!’
With a feral snarl, Father Luc shoved himself up from the floor. He stood straddling my naked body, pointing a finger as though it were a pistol loaded with my doom. ‘You’ll live to regret those words, Mary Grace. And unless you change your mind, you’ll also regret that you live!’
I reached for the tattered blanket to cover myself, but he kicked it away.
‘You realise I can’t possibly let you leave with Hyde,’ he continued in a coiled voice. ‘Brother Christy has revealed too much about our life here at Heaven’s Gate, so I can’t allow you to go anywhere, Miss Michaels.’
The abbot strode to the door and pounded on it, still glaring at me with those glowing eyes…eyes that haunted me with a familiarity I couldn’t place. ‘You have a few days before the ceremony to reconsider. It’s only a matter of time before I claim you, anyway. A matter of whether you come to me willingly, or for your own survival.’
I returned his stare with a defiance born of desperation. I had to believe Hyde would see through Brother Christy’s trumped-up story. I told myself Sybil would ensure my safety, as she’d promised, no matter how blatant Father Luc’s threats became.
My heart pounded as we heard the rasp of a key in the lock. The abbot stooped to snatch a piece of paper from the floor — the note Sybil tucked into my lunch. He scanned it with a smirk.
‘If you believe for one minute Sybil will come to your rescue, then consider this,’ he said, raising his brows for fiendish emphasis. ‘She, too, had the chance to return to her previous home but saw the wisdom of remaining here with me, when I made her a similar offer years ago. If you think she’ll place your wishes ahead of mine, you’re a fool, Mary Grace. What a disappointment that would be. And I don’t handle disappointment well.’
He swung open the door, slipped through it, and slammed it behind him.
‘I told you she’d refuse,’ came his accomplice’s voice. ‘Mary Grace still believes good will prevail over evil, even here at Heaven’s Gate.’
Pain pierced my heart. It was Sybil who spoke, and who’d just stated her betrayal. I clapped my hand over my mouth so they wouldn’t hear my sobs.
What was I to believe? Whom could I trust?
Brother Christy had said that Hortense kept the keys to this prison, and that she’d sent him to mislead Hyde with a forged note. Yet it was Sybil, the one friend I thought remained, listening through the door as the abbot made me the same proposition he’d posed to her long ago. Everything I’d heard lately contradicted what I once believed. My trip to the catacombs had made me the unwitting witness to too many secrets.
One thing I knew for certain: Father Luc would prevail. It was merely a matter of whether I became his willing victim, or became another of Christy’s macabre works of art in the crypt. I curled up on my palette beneath the old blanket, feeling totally lost and alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Rites of the Vernal Equinox
‘Get off the floor! Act like the queen you’re going to be — unless you’re accepting the abbot’s offer instead.’
The evil glee in Mrs Goodin’s voice was a rude awakening. Not more than a day had passed since Father Luc’s visit, so it couldn’t be time for the rites. Except for the flickering flame of her candle, my cell was as dark as a moonless midnight, so it hardly seemed the hour for celebrating spring. The force of her foot against my backside convinced me to get up, however.
‘Well?’ she demanded, thrusting her candle in my face.
I backed away for fear my hair would catch fire. The housekeeper’s expression looked downright wicked as she peered at me. ‘I don’t understand. What’s happening?’
‘Imbecile!’ she snapped. ‘You’re being given a final chance at salvation. Are you staying with Father Luc, or going through the rites?’
‘I’ll take my chances on the ceremony.’
‘You and Fortune will make a fine pair, then. I thought he had more sense than to come charging up here,’ Hortense said with a snort. ‘Damn shame such a handsome man will meet his fate along with you, but he wouldn’t listen. Now get moving!’
She shoved me out the door ahead of her, into the dark, dank passageway. Instead of taking me back through the vaults and crypts, however, Mrs Goodin steered me around the side of the cell, to a stairway I hadn’t seen before. I knew better than to dawdle — my warden would singe me with her candle if I didn’t move fast enough to suit her. Past a cellar we climbed, where I made out racks of wine bottles and caught the scent of musty fruit. Then I noted large rooms where food was stored, so it was no surprise when Hortense threw the door open ahead of us, and we stepped into the back pantry of the kitchen.
‘Get her ready,’ she ordered. ‘Don’t keep the abbot waiting.’
As the housekeeper hurried on through the main kitchen, eager to prepare for my doom, Sybil stepped from behind the shelves. ‘Ready for some fun, Mary Grace?’ she asked when Mrs Goodin was out of earshot. ‘This is where we show them what you’re made of. Sugar and spice, and everything nice — until they discover the real you!’
Her conspiratorial grin wrenched my heart. ‘Why should I even speak to you, after the way you brought Father Luc down to torment me?’ I wheeled around, preferring the cheerfully lit kitchen to this dimness where a traitor lurked.
But Sybil grabbed my arm. ‘It’s not that way, Mary Grace,’ she whispered. ‘I had to play along. If yo
u’ll trust me, you’ll be going home to forget any of this ever happened.’
‘Is that what you told poor Martin Crowley? And those triplets in the white gowns?’
She frowned. ‘The Rosen sisters? They left here a long time ago. And Martin was too pretty to labour in the vineyards and gardens, so he didn’t last more than a week.’
‘They’re down in the crypts and you know it!’
‘Shhhhh!’ Sybil clapped a hand over my mouth, looking extremely confused. Then she glanced towards the kitchen, where Elvira and Brother Paul were dragging a bathtub to the hearth. ‘Fill that tub, and I’ll be out with Mary Grace in just a moment,’ she called to them.
When she focused on me again, standing so close her dark trousers brushed my bare thighs, Sybil spoke in a whisper. ‘I don’t know what Brother Christy told you about those —’
‘He said they were celebrants. He implied they died during the ceremony, and that he preserved them by —’
Again her hand covered my mouth. ‘This is too bizarre to go into right now. We haven’t time,’ she insisted. ‘But yes, the rites get raucous. If these men get excited beyond their control, you can’t handle them alone. Since you rejected Father Luc’s proposition —’
‘Why didn’t you warn me about that? He said you chose to be his lover long ago!’
Sybil nipped her lush lower lip. ‘Yes, but I had nothing to go back for — no future with a kind, passionate man like you have with Hyde! I knew from the start you didn’t belong here, Mary Grace. You’ve angered Father Luc beyond belief, so now I’m —’
‘But he’s got you! Why does he want me?’
‘Because you’re fresh and young and uncorrupted. But mostly because he doesn’t want Hyde to have you. Now listen to me.’
Her hand framed my jaw, as though she were going to kiss me. Her feline green eyes plumbed mine, imploring me to believe what she was about to say. ‘I can’t tell you what my plan is, for fear the others will catch on. But once I get into that sanctuary, you follow my lead, understand me? Play it like your life depended on it, because the abbot’s so jealous it just might come to that.’
The idea that I’d be surrounded by everyone else at Heaven’s Gate, at the mercy of a vengeful abbot, made my heart stop. ‘But I don’t know what to do! How will I ever —’
‘You hush that whining!’ she snapped. ‘Get it into that pretty, dense head that you are in control, because you hold them in your power until they get what they want. Men are like that, Mary Grace. So you lead them on with suggestive stories, or brazen demonstrations, or whatever works, and then you play along with me as though we’d planned our little performance all along. They’ll love it, I promise you. And it’s your best chance to grab Fortune and get the hell out of here.’
So Mrs Goodin wasn’t lying: Hyde saw through the note, and came up here to investigate. And because he didn’t wait until a Friday, Father Luc moved the rites forward…probably to humiliate me into staying. I had no doubt the abbot intended to keep me here, if not to preserve the image of Heaven’s Gate confections, then to satisfy his own insidious whims.
But Sybil planned to spring me from this prison, and what better hope did I have? I still had plenty of questions about what I’d seen and heard this past week, but they would wait. Right now my only choice was to trust the woman who stood before me.
‘All right. Let’s do it.’
‘Good girl!’ she breathed, hugging me close. ‘It won’t be easy to face all those excited cocks and outsmart the abbot, but I know you can do it! Now get that bath — and get rid of this filthy rag you’ve been cowering under.’
When Sybil yanked away the blanket, which smelled even nastier than I did, I managed a smile. In the kitchen, Elvira, Vee and Zee awaited me beside a curved tub from which the steam rose invitingly. I stepped into it, adjusting to their overt gazes by telling myself these friends were the least of my concerns.
‘Like what you see?’ My voice shook, yet conveyed a confidence I hoped to work up to.
‘You’d better believe we like it,’ Elvira crooned. ‘We’ve been hoping you’d be chosen as our celebrant, because we wanted the honour of preparing you.’
I heard not a hint of bloodlust, nor did I note any eagerness to watch me suffer. These three were still my friends, and as they rubbed me with rose-scented soap and soft sponges I let my head loll back on the lip of the tub. Had I misconstrued Brother Christy’s meaning down in the crypts, surrounded by those corpses and wax mannequins? Or had he been trying to frighten me, so that my imagination led me astray?
I let go of those grotesque images, allowing the steamy water to soothe my sorry state of mind. The blonde sisters were massaging lather around my thighs, inching higher as they spread my legs. I didn’t resist their luxurious touch, nor did I protest when Elvira washed my neck and breasts. Six hands were circling my most sensitive areas, kindling an inner heat that rivalled the water’s.
Just as the ebony-haired vixen leaned down to suck a nipple into her mouth, one of the sisters found my slit with her fingertips. With a moan I gave in to them, thinking this far more beautiful treatment than I received from Father Luc. In and out the fingers slid. I watched through a lazy haze as Vee plied my inner folds, her intent written all over her steam-flushed face. Inside me, that secret lust I’d come to love rose quickly, and I squirmed with the need for release.
‘That’s enough for now,’ Zee teased, swatting her sister’s hand away. ‘It’s our job to prepare you for the rites, not to satisfy you, Mary Grace. Now Brother Quentin will shave you. Here — sit on this stool, spreadeagle.’
My confusion made the large man approaching the tub chuckle. ‘Trust me, dear Mary, when you see how we’re going to anoint you, you’ll be glad none of that mixture gets matted into your bush,’ Quentin said, unfolding a blade that caught the fire’s light. ‘It’s a shame to shave such a splendid patch of thatch, but it’ll grow back — unless you and Hyde find your new nakedness more appealing.’
The blonde sisters were positioning me on a stool at the bathtub’s back edge. I was dripping wet, pink from the steaming water, and so stunned I could only comply when Vee and Zee each took a leg again and leaned me back into Elvira’s waiting arms. ‘But I don’t understand why —’
‘Hold still, sweetheart.’ Brother Quentin focused on the hair between my splayed legs. After rubbing a shaving brush around the rose soap, he lathered my mons and the plump folds of skin flanking my cherry-coloured pussy. ‘Most women balk at this the first time, yet they find the result more exciting than they’d imagined. There now…steady…you’re doing well…’
What choice did I have? As white lather laced with my auburn curls rose with each stroke of Quentin’s razor, I knew better than to struggle. And once he had cleared away the visible hair to proceed lower, I found myself strangely enthralled by the scrape of his blade. He stood so near me his warm breath fell on my clitoris, as the cutting edge came achingly close to the folds around my hole.
Quentin, too, seemed fascinated by my emerging bareness. He stopped to inhale the scent of my private parts, which were seeping with a fragrance more pungent than the soap’s. I quivered with a tingling sort of fear as he stroked close to my folds with his blade. Then he scooped hot water up from the tub to rinse me — a bold sensation, now that I had no coarse, curling hair to protect my protruding clitoris.
‘Did you enjoy the chocolate toy I sent you, my Mary?’ he whispered. ‘I lay awake that night, imagining what you did with it, hoping you recognised it as mine.’
‘I — I put it to good use, yes.’ I sucked in my breath as he cupped more hot water against my newly exposed skin. His middle finger slipped into the naked pink cleft he’d created, making me rise up with need.
‘Oh my, I can’t let this chance pass,’ he murmured, and immediately planted his mouth where his blade had been. His tongue covered the bared skin with quick, wet confidence before probing deep into my cunt.
I moaned and spread further
, my eyes fastened on the pink, innocent-looking flesh Quentin now devoured. The sisters and Elvira encouraged my enjoyment as I speared my fingers into the monk’s soft, tied-back hair. With a grunt he swivelled me around so he could suck more freely, his bulky body moving between my legs until I bent them over his broad shoulders. The heat kindled during my bath flared again, only this time there was no holding it back. Spasms rippled out from my abdomen, making me thrash against his avid mouth. Had my friends not been holding me, I would have toppled off the stool as my climax reached its scintillating peak. My cries echoed around the hanging copper pots until I collapsed with a whimper.
Quentin rocked back, grinning as he wiped my wetness from his face. ‘You’ll be the most splendid celebrant we’ve had in years, Mary Grace. Just wait until the others see what glorious adornment we’ve planned for you!’
My fears faded with his teasing, and as I was dried with a warm towel I considered what Sybil had told me: I did indeed seem to hold these people in my power, because they all wanted a taste of me — or wanted to test their skill at pleasing me. Vee and Zee led me into the centre of the kitchen, where Brother Paul waited with a pot of honey and a paintbrush. His eyes sparkled as he coated me with the thick stickiness, careful not to miss a single inch of my skin as I stood with my arms raised and my legs spread. Meanwhile, Elvira was binding my hair into a Psyche knot which allowed the final length of my waves to swing alluringly, just above my shoulders.
‘Close your eyes and hold your breath,’ Zee instructed. ‘This cocoa powder will make you sneeze.’
The flaxen-haired sisters were rubbing huge powder puffs into bowls of brown cocoa, and then playfully slapping them against me to cover the honey. A cloud of sweet-scented dust enveloped us as they worked, sneezing and laughing their way around my entire body. I squeezed my eyes shut as they powdered my face, and then I was finally allowed to breathe again.
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