The noon hour passed, and the tavern emptied out, and I saw wagon after wagon passing, filled with goods and decorations that were destined for the wedding banquet at the castle. The tavern workers left for other tasks associated with the wedding, and I found myself the only occupant of the hall. Garlic was lying content by my feet, studying the wagons as they passed and taking inventory of their contents. Heather had disappeared into the storeroom of the tavern some time ago, and it was just as well, for I decided to leave and head to the church to join Jova and Oliver. I placed a generous amount of gold coin on the table.
Garlic and I had walked several paces back toward Blackheart Castle and St. Mary’s when my sharp ears picked up the sound of a tremendous crash that came from the direction of the tavern. “Hold on, girl,” I said to Garlic. “That sounds like a bit of trouble. Let us go see if we can lend a hand.”
We quickly retraced our steps and saw right in front of the tavern that two wagons had collided, and one had tipped sideways, and the barrels being held in place were bursting at their ropes and threatening to come loose. The drivers of the wagons had escaped unscathed and had drawn a crowd, who cheered raucously as the drivers exchanged blows in an argument over who should have yielded the right of way. Then from out of the inn, drawn by the utter commotion, walked sweet innocent Heather, right into the path of dire peril. “Get out of the way,” I called. “Heather, move!” And that was the worst thing I could have done for poor simple Heather turned to see who was calling her, right as the ropes gave way, sending several barrels of rolling death toward her.
I was Heather’s only chance at survival and sprinted with Garlic running beside me to save her. Luckily, the crowd was completely engaged in the fisticuffs so I could sprint at top speed. Heather turned back to the oncoming barrels and froze, one hand over her mouth, the other held out uselessly for protection. Garlic got to her a split second before I did, and careened into the barrel nearest to Heather, splintering it into a thousand pieces and sending a fountain of beer skyward. I leaped and landed in front of Heather, sweeping her up in one motion before I backflipped over the barrels, which crashed harmlessly against a stone wall outside the inn.
The bloodthirsty throng had not even turned around at the sound of the barrels. Garlic stood dripping wet from her beer bath, which she did not seem to mind, and went to liberate the rest of the beer from the broken barrels. I stood with Heather still in my arms and realized her arms were around my neck and mine were about her waist. Neither one of us made a move to disentangle from the embrace that danger had forced upon us. “Sirius,” she exclaimed, her heart beating so fast and so strong I could feel it with her still pressed so tightly against me. “You saved my life. How can I ever repay you?”
But I did not answer, as my mind was somewhere else. A tiny shard of the barrel that Garlic had detonated had grazed Heather’s temple, causing a small cut from which a drop of crimson blood began to run slowly down the side of her pale white face. The smell of her innocence was irresistible, and before I knew it, my hands were on her face, and my thumb daubed the blood sympathetically.
“There is no need to repay me,” I said. “I was just doing what any other person would have.” I released her from my grasp and guided her in the direction of the tavern. As soon as her head turned, I put my thumb in my mouth and reveled in the deliciousness of her blood.
Heather turned back to me as we entered the tavern. “But no one could do what you just did,” she said, her not-so-nimble brain trying to process what she had seen. “Would you like another beer?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I would like that very much indeed.” Since Heather’s shift was over, we retreated to a back room of the tavern, and she poured a beer for herself to settle nerves that still had her shaking visibly and jiggling deliciously. She downed her beer in several quick gulps and held out her hand, looking at it with concern, for it had not stopped its tremors. “You will settle down in a moment,” I said. “Take it easy on the beer.”
“You are right,” she said, standing up and going to the kitchen. She brought back a bottle of whiskey and poured a glass for each of us. “I know this is not very ladylike, but I need this right now.”
A small white cat with pretty green eyes had followed her out of the kitchen and now nuzzled its head against my legs. “Scat, cat,” I said, reaching for the glass Heather had poured me and pushing the cat away with my boot. The cat gave me a slight hiss and sat down by Heather’s feet, licking its paw defiantly. I was not a cat lover.
“But kitty is so nice,” Heather said, putting a hand down to stroke the cat ever so gently. “Don’t you want to touch my kitty?”
I absolutely did want to touch her kitty. Down went the first shot of whiskey, its fire warming my throat and my belly. A second shot had a similar effect, and Heather seemed much calmer and was no longer shaking. The cut on her temple had stopped bleeding, but she still had a line of blood down the side of her face. She saw me staring at her face and brought her hand up to feel her wound. “It still stings a little, and I am a mess,” she said, dropping her hand back to the table. She had reopened the cut, and the blood began to trickle tantalizingly once more. That blasted cat rolled to her feet, and licked its lips at the sight of Heather’s blood. That was the problem with cats, I mused, because if they were big enough, they would try to eat you.
I slid my chair closer to Heather, and our knees touched. I looked around for a cloth and, seeing none, put my thumb to her temple and held it. I could feel the quickening beat of her heart at my touch, and stroked her hair reassuringly. “This will stop bleeding in a moment,” I said. “Your hand just started things going.”
“You mean like this?” she said, placing her hand on my inner thigh and rubbing it. Her eyes were so soft and sweet as she looked at me, and she licked her lips ever so slightly. She took my hand off her face and put my thumb in her mouth and sucked hard, while the hand on my thigh cupped my manhood and squeezed delightfully.
“Aye,” I gasped. “Like that.” Her hands went to my breeches and freed the beast yearning to get out, and her eyes widened as she saw its size, but that did not stop her from taking it into her mouth, where I found she was as adept with it as she was with my thumb. I lay back against the wall, thankful that the tavern was deserted, but frankly not caring if an entire legion of Angus’s men walked in at that very moment. Heather stopped what she was doing, and lifted up her skirt and bent over the table.
“Take me now, Sirius,” she moaned, her fingers touching her womanhood as she looked back over her shoulder at me. I slid inside her, and Heather inhaled deeply and began clawing wildly at the table as I brought her to climax easily and often. Her mouth opened wide, but no sound came out as I pulled her back against my body, my hands on her firm breasts and my mouth on her neck and shoulders.
I felt the cat by my feet again, and a well-placed boot sent it hurtling into the kitchen. Fortunately, Heather’s eyes were closed, and she did not seem to notice or care, as her own moans drowned out the mew of the punted pussy. She was the first mortal to experience my enchanted phallus, and what Heather lacked upstairs, she clearly made up for in her nether regions. Finally, it ended, and Heather collapsed on the table. Suddenly, I heard from outside the faint peal of four bells, or was it five?
I cinched up my breeches and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Where are you going?” Heather asked.
“I have to get to the church,” I said, noting with a bit of pride the deep grooves in the table’s wood that Heather’s fingernails had made. She must have had some strong fingernails, or I was that damn good! “There is about to be a wedding I need to attend, and I can’t be late.”
Heather turned around on the table and lifted up her skirt and spread her legs. “Are you sure you can’t be late?”
“Quite,” I said, and sprinted with all immortal speed to the church. Garlic awoke from a beer-induced sleep under a tree and caught up
to me quickly, in spite of being unable to run in a straight line. I sure hoped that I had not heard five bells because that was when the ceremony was supposed to start. I came up to the church and found only a frantic Oliver.
“Where have you been? It is nearly a quarter past the hour,” he said. Then he looked at my face a little more clearly. “Really, Sirius, you had to on your wedding day? Come on now, we have a real problem with Jova.”
I don’t know if I was more relieved that it wasn’t time for the ceremony or that Oliver had dropped the issue of my little dalliance so quickly. But then his words sank in. “What problem is that?” I asked.
Oliver motioned toward the church. “Jova’s wedding clothes arrived, and as he went to put them on, he completely lost his mind,” he said. “He is curled up, naked as the day he was born, in a tight, little Bogeyman ball in the back room of the church. He is mumbling to himself, and I cannot get through to him.”
“I have seen that type of behavior from him before,” I said. “Garlic helped last time to bring him back to us.” I looked to Garlic, who had just finished lapping dry the basin of holy water by the door of the church. “Garlic, I need your help,” I said. Garlic looked at me, hiccupped, and promptly vomited a nasty mix of beer and holy water all over the doorway of the church, then lay down looking quite under the weather.
“I will take care of that mess,” Oliver said. “One thing about running taverns, you learn how to clean up after drunkards—even canine ones.”
I scooped up my wayward pup. “I will go see what we can do about Jova.”
I nodded to the workers who were busy putting the final touches on the church for the wedding of the year—a wedding that would not come to pass if I could not get Jova’s naked backside into his breeches and to the end of the aisle! I chuckled when I saw a whole team of people dedicated to removing every single cobweb in the old church. One would wipe a corner, and another would follow right behind in case they had missed the barest hint of web. St. Mary’s was indeed going to be arachnid-free, and Angus Blackheart would have no fear of soiling his drawers when he walked his two daughters down the aisle.
I heard a strange muttering as I walked into the back room of the church, and there indeed was Lord Warlock Jova of Hopkinshire, in all his natural glory, huddled in a corner with his pale posterior pointed up in the air. I remembered how he was in a similar state when the Howler and I confronted him on the Moon Hunter, though then he at least had given me the courtesy of being clothed. Then it was the Moon Hunter, and now it was just the moon. I looked around and saw no wine, rum, or whiskey, just Jova’s wedding clothes draped over a chair. “Jova, it is me, Sirius,” I called to the huddled mass of Bogeyman. “Snap out of it, man, there is a wedding about to begin, and it is yours!” He did not move, so I set down Garlic and motioned for her to go to Jova. She belched, threw up in her mouth, and walked over to Jova and proceeded to enthusiastically lick his posterior. “Garlic, really now!” I called to her. “Stop that right now, no man needs that much love on his wedding day!”
Garlic sat down and looked at me sheepishly. Clearly, she was not sure what I had wanted her to do, and she just comforted Jova by licking the nearest body part she could—what was my problem? But as Garlic and I engaged in a vampire stare-down, Jova rolled over, and slowly rose to his feet. Garlic’s magical tonguing had awakened the Bogeyman from his trance. “Sirius,” he said, “I am glad you are here.”
I looked down at his nakedness. “Well, I am not sure I am so glad of that, to tell you the truth. Put your breeches on, man . . . we have to get married soon!” The church bell pealed half past the hour, and I knew I had no time at all to get him to the altar—preferably with clothes on, but at this point, that was becoming optional.
“I am scared, Sirius,” the Bogeyman said. “Really, I am absolutely terrified! I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Scared of what, Jova?” I asked. He wasn’t the one marrying the girl who had four half werewolf, half vampires rolling around in her pregnant belly. What were they going to be called anyway? Werepires? Werevamps? “What do you have to be scared about? You are marrying the love of your life, and she is absolutely positively in love with you!”
“What if I am not good enough for her?” Jova said. “What if she decides at the last minute that I am not a worthy suitor?”
I held out his breeches and said, “That is not going to happen. I have lived a long time and been with many a woman, and only once have I seen the look that Cornelia gives you, and you give Cornelia. Frankly, you can see it and feel it. The rest of the world can see the true authentic love that you two have, and that you are lucky to have found it in a mortal lifetime, let alone an immortal one.”
Jova took his breeches from me. “Really?” he said.
“Without a doubt,” I said. “Look into her eyes as she is coming down the aisle, and I promise you, there won’t be anyone else in the church but you two. You are gifted by love with being in your own private world. So enjoy it, have faith in it, and take strength from it.”
“Sirius,” said Oliver, who had stepped into the room for the last moments of my speech, “that was quite an impressive discourse on love, considering your colorful history, my friend.”
“Thanks,” I replied.
Jova, still naked and with his breeches in his hands, leaned forward and embraced me. “No, thank you, Sirius,” he said, squeezing me in a rather intimate full-body hug. “I will never forget what you have done for me.”
I stepped out of his manbrace. “I will never forget this image, my good man, because it is seared into my noggin forever,” I said. “Come on now, there are some brides to wait for.” We changed into our wedding wear and walked out to wait for Cornelia and the Howler. I could not get out of my mind the nagging realization that the Howler and I did not remotely feel about each other the way Jova and Cornelia so obviously did. Ours was a marriage born out of lust and then out of the necessity for, frankly, legitimizing four unborn children. Jova and Cornelia’s was one that embodied love and honesty. I noticed Garlic’s mood had changed, and she was no longer the drunken fool, but rather was picking up on my thoughts. She whined and paced, and I shushed her. “I’ll be all right, girl,” I said. “Do not worry.”
The church was packed with all of Angus Blackheart’s well-to-do friends, and any major and minor member of the nobility within sixty miles. I also spied Harvis and Molly some ways back, and he smiled at me. Molly, too, had a wide grin on her face, which I realized came from her seeing me about to get hitched, which she knew made me extremely uncomfortable, and because the Howler was soon to be officially off the market. Jova caught Harvis’s eye and waved frantically. The Bogeyman was finally ready to get married!
The processional entered, led not by an ordinary fiddler but a full company of musicians playing Angus’s favorite march. I counted at least ten musicians wearing fine gold silk uniforms that matched the ribbons on the sides of the pews. The music reverberated a bit too loudly in the old stone church, and I was thankful when they stopped playing. The church was silent, that is until Garlic let out a single forlorn howl, drawing chuckles from the assembled congregation, and I shushed her once more. “Any more out of you,” I snapped, “and you are going to have to go outside. What is it, Garlic?”
But we did not have a moment to spare for conversation because coming down the aisle, led by a single flutist, was the bishop of London, Horatio Ignatius Sturgeon IV. He wore a huge hat that must have loomed three feet into the air and was adorned with gold filigree, as were his bejeweled robes. He had come from London for this very event, and I only wondered how much money my wily soon-to-be father-in-law had to have to be able to bring this walking testament to decadence here before us.
Bishop Sturgeon took the crowd in as he walked, making eye contact with only a chosen few of the nobility. He was simply too important to see anyone who was less than a baron, duke, or earl.
Garlic growled as he approached, but the bishop glared at her, and her growl subsided. He took his place in front of Jova and me, and it was all I could do to keep from coughing from the immense amount of perfume he wore. It seemed to bore deeper and deeper into my lungs with every wave of his hand and haughty movement of his chin as he nodded his head, soaking in the adulation.
The crowd stood as one, and yet another procession began. Jova leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Finally!” he said. And I had to agree, but was so much pomp and circumstance really needed for a wedding—a wedding that cost who knows what in pounds? But Angus Blackheart cared nothing about cost, for this day was just as much about him as it was about his daughters.
There was a collective gasp as the two brides began their walk down the aisle, each clutching onto one of their father’s meaty arms. And it was a good thing Angus was such a gigantic creature, for on one side of him, Cornelia leaned heavily into her sire for balance as she did not want her bad leg to be a hindrance to her graceful wedding march. She was dressed rather elegantly in a dress snug at the waist and corseted with a beautiful lace bodice that forced what little breasts she had into prominence. I heard Jova gasp in awe. “I have never seen her look more beautiful then she does this day,” he declared. I nodded and had to agree—Cornelia radiated an inner beauty imbued with the confidence of a woman marrying her true love.
I have eyes that rival that of the mountain eagle, but I had to look once, twice, and yet again at the woman on Angus’s other side to make sure it was indeed the Howler. Her face was swollen and puffy. Had she been stung by a thousand angry bees last night? Her abdomen stretched her billowy dress way out, forming a great tent of cloth over her feet as she walked—no, lumbered—down the aisle, leaning with all her weight onto Angus’s other arm. A bead of sweat formed over his brow, but the smile never left his face, and he was completely in the moment. Garlic began to whimper slightly, but I did not shush her. I agreed with her sentiment at that moment. Jova leaned in to my ear to whisper some platitudes about the Howler and then, apparently being unable to say anything complimentary about her, retreated awkwardly to his spot on the altar. Finally, after a brief eternity, which included one stop about halfway down the aisle for rest, they reached the altar, and the good Bishop Sturgeon was ready to proceed.
My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell Page 20
