by Jade London
The tide has turned, that much is obvious.
Or, rather, the tide had never really run in Charles’s favor. Poor tactics, desperation—against a foe of Conrad’s caliber, such errors are only made once.
The battle grinds on beneath me, and I watch with bated breath.
Conrad is the same furious demon he’d been outside, charging his horse forward, sword crashing and swinging, helmet pivoting this way and that, blood running red on his blade. Charles watches his men fall in droves, and yet he fights on, sparing not a single glance for me.
And then, after what feels like an eternity of watching Conrad’s men batter down their inferior foes, Charles sags back against the wall and shoots a glance up at me.
“CONRAD!” He shouts, pointing at me with his sword. “LOOK TO THE WALLS!”
Conrad fumbled mid-swing, the lion visor tracking up to me.
I watch him freeze, his sword dangling.
Charles lifts a gauntleted fist, and the knife at my throat presses tighter yet, and I feel the deep aching burning agony as the edge bites into my thin, sensitive skin.
Charles pauses, an evil grimace on his face, and then drops his fist.
*
I expected death, but it never came.
I tensed, eyes closed, not breathing, waiting for the cold dark to drag me under.
Instead, I hear a grunt, feel the blade at my throat quiver. I reach up, push the hand away, expecting resistance. There is none; the hairy paw flops aside, and the soldier stumbles backward.
Conrad’s dagger is buried to the hilt between the ugly soldier’s eyes. The same dagger that once sliced open my dress, and left me naked for Conrad’s touch.
An impossible throw, it would seem to me. How far away is Conrad? Thirty feet? An easy shot with a bow, but with a thrown knife? It shouldn’t have been possible.
But there’s the man behind me, a blade through his skull, already dead.
I’m shaking all over, gasping. I fall to my knees, giving in to the panic. Letting the fear push through me.
I hear the sounds of battle, shouts, cries for mercy.
I hear Charles and Conrad.
I do not open my eyes, do not uncurl from the cold stone flags. I don’t want to see any more.
I hear Charles shouting, hear the sounds of metal on metal, and then one final crunch, and Charles goes silent. I open my eyes, and see Conrad standing over his former friend, his sword buried to the hilt beneath the lower edge of the breastplate. Charles is gasping, blinking.
“Damn you, Conrad,” he says, sinking to the ground. “Damn you.”
Conrad hesitates as the light fades from Charles’s eyes, and then yanks his sword free. He turns to look at me. He sees me lying on the walk, staring over the edge, and immediately he sheathes his sword. A few of Charles’s men are still attempting to hold out, but the majority are already either dead or have surrendered, especially now that Charles is slain.
I’m dizzy, disoriented, panic still bashing through me. I’d denied myself the luxury of panicking while the knife was at my throat, but now that the danger has passed; I have no control over myself. My legs are jelly, I’m trembling, tears trickle down my throat.
I hear boots on stone, shrinking away from the sound, but it’s Conrad. He bends, scoops me up, and clutches me against the scales of his armor. Gauntlet fingers brush hair out of my face.
“Hannah.” His voice is low, careful. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. “A minor cut to my throat. Painful, but doesn’t threaten my life.”
“I expected treachery,” Conrad says, “but this deviousness was callous even for him.”
“He hated you more than he desired me, I think.”
Conrad carries me down the stairs. I bury my face in the cold hard metal of his armor and refuse to look around. Men moan, weep, beg for help; I don’t want to see any more. I don’t want to see.
I hear a horse whicker, and feel warm fur against my cheek. “Can you ride, Hannah?” Conrad asks.
I open my eyes, see Conrad’s massive white charger in front of me, ears twitching, nosing me curiously. I nod, and allow Conrad to settle me on the saddle before swinging up behind me.
“Take measure of this place, Edward,” Conrad calls, and one of his men nods, slams his sword’s pommel against his breastplate in salute. “Set your most trusted man as warder until I can find someone to govern. I’m off for the castle—I’ve had enough of this day.”
“What of the prisoners, sire?” Edward asks.
Conrad shrugs dismissively. “Prisoners are useless to me. Loyalty to Charles does not mean hatred for me, so if they’re willing, put them to work. If they’re recalcitrant, put their heads on a spike. I care not which.”
“As you will, sire. How many men do you wish as escort?”
“A dozen at most. With Charles defeated, I have no fear of ambush any longer.”
We’re off, then, hooves thundering, the horse moving powerfully between my thighs, Conrad at my back. He’s doffed his gauntlets, and his hand is warm and strong and gentle at my belly.
It should be impossible to sleep on a cantering horse, but I somehow manage to drift beyond awareness.
It is nearing dusk when we reach the castle. The bridge is down, the portcullis up.
As soon as we’re in the courtyard, I hear the clanking of massive gears and the rattle of man-thick chains, and the bridge jolts upward behind us while the portcullis lowers. Conrad leaps off the horse with lithe alacrity, energetic and powerful even after an entire day of riding and a battle behind him. He sweeps me off the horse, carries me into the castle. I allow myself to drift, as he walks with me through the long hallways and up the many stairs.
I’m drowsy, loose, weak, terror and fear having sapped me of strength.
I feel something soft beneath me—Conrad’s bed. I curl gratefully into the blankets, listening as he removes his armor piece by piece, the quiet murmur of a servant assisting him.
The bed dips, and I smell the familiar odor of Conrad, the sweat, and the male musk. He is warm, huge, hard, and gentle. He lies down beside me, curls me in his arms, cradles me against his chest.
“Sleep, Hannah.” His voice is soothing, close to my ear, buzzing against me.
I sleep.
**
I stir, wakefulness upon me but not yet thoroughly arrived. Dawn light is yellow and warm on my eyelids; I feel Conrad behind me, feel his breath on the back of my neck. I remain as I am for a time, content to bask in Conrad’s warmth. His arm is low across my hip, his fingers trailing against my belly and perhaps even a bit lower. His thighs press against the backs of mine, and I can feel the stirring thickness of his cock going erect, even through the silk of my dress and the cotton of his breeches.
He hums, his muscles tense, his hand tightens on me, his hips flex forward; he’s fully erect now, and pressing between the globes of my buttocks.
His lips touch the back of my neck, and I feel them curve in a smile. “Well. Quite a good morning, is it not?”
I moan, the feel of his cock rubbing against my ass cheeks igniting my libido like a flame touching tinder. “If there were fewer layers between us, I think it might be a better morning.”
I feel his fingers untie the laces of his breeches, he shifts and wiggles behind me, and then he’s tossing the garment aside and his hands are on me. I’m curled up in front of him, knees drawn up, and his hands begin at my ankles, finding the hem of the dress I’m still wearing, having been too exhausted last night to bother removing it. He caresses my thighs as he brushes the silk upward, and I lift my hip to allow the fabric passage further upward. I moan again as he return his touch to my hips, scouring the tautness of my buttocks, and then reaching around to dimple my thighs with his fingertips, pulling at my leg. I roll to my stomach, sit up, and yank the dress off, hurling it aside, and then lay down facing him.
His eyes are dark and hot and fierce, his skin radiating heat against mine. He smiles at me again, a brie
f sweet secret smile meant only for me, a smile I would bet no one else has ever even suspected him capable of. Then his fingers walk and trip and dance down my body, finding the juncture of my thighs. He leans into me, presses me to my back, and his mouth immediately goes to my breast, tongue flicking over my nipple, lips tracing damp lines and wet arcs across to the other peaked, sensitive mound of flesh.
I gasp, and then my breath catches entirely when his fingers find my slit and delve into me, spearing through my slick silken heat, scissoring, curling, withdrawing to smear my juices over my clit, multiplying the sensitivity of my clit infinitely. His mouth laves at my nipples and his fingers circle my clit, setting a slow pace at first, teasing me toward the edge, bringing me to the crest and then when I begin to buck and beg and whimper, he slows to pull me back away from the cusp of climax.
And all the while, his cock rests hot and thick and hard against my hip. He’s beside me, levered over me, his bulk reassuring, his muscular form spread around me, over me. I caress him everywhere I can reach, slide my hands through his long loose black hair, trace the contours of his shoulders, the subtle inward curve of his spine, the taut hard bubble of his ass, and then finally I allow myself to curl my hand around his erection, moaning in pleasure at the rising burgeoning heat of impeding climax and the soft steely velvet of his beautiful cock.
“Conrad, please—please—” I whisper, my lips touching his ear.
I feel the rumble of his voice as much as hear it. “Please what, Hannah? Speak it, and it’s yours.”
“I need you inside me, Conrad.”
He nudges my thighs wider apart with his knee, settling between my legs. One fist buries in the mattress beside my face. He is huge and masculine and gorgeous and his cock is throbbing delicious heat as he guides himself to my slit, his fist hard around the base of his shaft, and then I’m unable to breathe or whimper or gasp or anything. I can only tremble with eyes wide as he slides into me, rocking home in a single powerful thrust.
“Oh fuck, Conrad. Fuck—how is it you feel so perfect?” I find my voice, the words bubbling up and pouring out.
He grinds with slow power, unhurried, taking me, claiming me, piercing me so perfectly, and I feel his many thick inches stretching my cunt open and filling me to the hilt, until I am glutted on his cock, and still I need more, more, more.
I cling to his neck with both arms, lift myself as close to him as I can get, wrap my legs around his pumping buttocks and moan in his ear and bite his earlobe. My fingers claw down his back as his thrusting erection pushes me from the cusp of climax to the teetering edge and then over. The orgasm blasting through me is a detonation of such potency I cannot even scream, can only sink my teeth into the firm muscle of his broad shoulder and whine in my throat as I am seized by a battering succession of twisting white-hot waves. They curl in my core, wringing ecstasy out of me.
I thrash beneath him, writhe under him.
And then I feel him grunt, feel his hips stutter in their rhythmic pounding against me, and I know his release is imminent.
I push him backward, sitting up with him. My thighs wedge around his waist, my ankles lock behind his back, and my fingers knot in his hair. I lift up, feel the slick, sex-coated length of his shaft sliding out of me, feel him tremble, holding back.
“Hannah—” his voice is a barely-audible snarl.
“Come for me, Conrad,” I whisper, and slam my ass down on his thighs, impaling him deep within my cunt. “Say my name as you come. Let go. Give it all to me.”
“Hannah—” he growls. “Hannah…fuck—”
He loses control then, his powerful thighs and hips driving him upward, lifting me, rocking me, his cock filling me, fucking deeper and deeper. His muscles shift and sweat beads on his flesh. One of his hands knots in my hair and yanks to tilt my face up, his other hand curls around my waist and pinions me tight against him. We writhe together, then, his climax inciting another of my own, his wild passionate fucking driving me over the edge all over again.
“God, Hannah!” He breathes this, a desperate, disbelieving gasp. “What are you doing to me?”
His body bucks and writhes and heaves beneath me, and then his mouth slams against mine, his teeth bruising my lips, his tongue demanding and slippery in my mouth and against my tongue, his kiss a mad crush of need, as if he couldn’t help but kiss me, as if some force woven through the fabric of reality itself demanded he kiss me.
I whimper, a tear sliding down my cheek as he kisses me.
He kisses me, and he comes inside me.
I feel it, a hot wet rush filling me, his hips tensing, flexing, his cock throbbing thicker and harder and deeper, spasming, and he groans into my mouth, his fist in my hair smashing my face closer to his, his lips moving furiously, his tongue dancing.
His cum fills me, a river spreading through me, suffusing me, and his kiss envelopes me.
My hands move, shaking, to his face, I cup his cheeks. I fall into the kiss, whimpering through it.
It is so a moment so beautiful it hurts—please don’t stop kissing me.
He pulls away, and I resist the loss of his mouth, the absence of his hungry tongue. I shake like a leaf as he pulls back, my lips quivering, my hands trembling on his cheeks.
His deep dark brown eyes fix on mine, and he gazes at me as if truly seeing me for the first time.
He is still impaled fully inside my slit, hard, throbbing. His fingers uncurl stiffly from the tangled mass of my blond hair, but his hand does not leave the small of my back.
“I—” he whispers so low, so nearly inaudible I have to strain to hear him. “I don’t—I wish—”
“What, Conrad? You wish what?”
He shakes his head, buries his face in the crook of my shoulder. His breathing is slow and deep. He clutches at me, as I’m being pulled away from him.
“Don’t go, Hannah.” His forehead touches mine. He’s still so hard inside me we could fuck again and yet I’d still not be sated. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
His words slice razor-sharp, sending a myriad of agonizing ripples throughout me. “I’m not leaving, Conrad. I won’t. I’m here. I’m staying with you.”
His forehead separates from mine, and his gaze swivels to the closed door of his chambers. “You can’t.”
“I won’t go.” I whimper this, desperate.
I cling to him. Squeeze around his still-hard cock. Claw at his shoulders, his back.
He falls forward, planting my back to the mattress. He stares down at me, and his hips flex. “God, Hannah. I hate this. I can’t—”
I cry out as he begins to fuck me. But it’s not fucking, now. It’s something else. It’s rough and desperate and wild and furious, but it’s not fucking. I cling to him as desperately as I can, wrapped up in him, tangled around him.
“Conrad—”
“Hannah—”
It’s all too brief, but in those moments, each of us clinging madly to the other, there is no him or me, only us, mingled, united, merged, and his breath and mine are one, his body melts into mine, mine into his.
His growl is agonized, the mournful wail of a wounded wolf.
We come at the exact same moment, and his arms wrap around me, and we tumble to the mattress together, his mouth on mine, rolling so I’m on top, both of us grunting and gasping, hips crashing together.
There’s a secret eternity buried somewhere in that mutual orgasm.
He pulls away, ripping his body from mine with a pained snarl, as if removing himself from my touch causes him physical pain. He stands a foot away from me, chest heaving, jaw clenching and releasing, fists knotted at his sides.
Then he moves toward me, fists unfurling, and he lifts me from the bed, carries me the few short feet across the room and sets me, naked, leaking his cum, whimpering, trembling, in front of his chamber door.
“You have to go, Hannah. It’s time.” He sounds as if he can barely get the words out, but knows he must.
The door is solid dark ag
ed wood, banded with black iron straps. Where a handle would be, there is a lion’s head, nearly life-size, captured mid-roar in solid gold. It has a thick gold ring between its jaws.
I remember another like it, a lifetime ago.
An eternity ago.
A journey down a long stair, coming face to face with a haughty king.
Before that?
Darkness.
And I know, with a dread certainty, that when I pull on the gold ring, the door will open not to a throne room but to infinite darkness.
I do not want that darkness.
It is cold, there.
Lonely.
There is loss in that darkness.
“No, no.” I whimper.
“You have to, Hannah.” His breath is at my ear.
His lips touch the side of my jaw, and then his huge rough calloused paw cups my cheek with exquisite gentleness, and he kisses me, softly, tenderly, briefly.
“You must.”
Tears drip down my cheeks, and I reach out a hand toward the door. The gold ring is colder than ice, biting, burning. I pull, because I must. I know it. I cannot resist this. My body obeys commands not my own.
I pull.
The door swings open toward me. The darkness beyond is a maw, cold and ravenous. I glance back, see Conrad behind me, hair a loose black cascade around his burly shoulders. He is naked, beautifully so, perfectly so, nude and masculine and massive, every angle and plane of his body rugged and hard and breathtaking. But his eyes…oh his eyes.
Don’t go…they say.
But he doesn’t reach to stop me, as if he knows he cannot.
I know he cannot.
Now that the darkness stands before me, I am called into it.
Drawn.
Inevitably.
