Fierce Enchantments Page 6

  Take off your tunic, Drusilla had ordered him. My daughter is ready to glimpse the nuptial mysteries. He’d complied obediently, but with no visible enthusiasm. Valeria remembered her own pink-faced embarrassment, her terror that she would give away more than maidenly shyness, her pain at his humiliation—and her guilty pleasure at seeing him stand there in the dappled sunlight, his muscled body as glossy as the polished flanks of a horse. She’d been fascinated by the dark hair on his groin and the smooth dangle of his cock and the soft and oddly pale pouch that hung low under the weight of his stones.

  Suck him, Drusilla had ordered one of her slave-women—a German, Valeria thought, with pale hair and big but low-slung breasts. She’d gone down on her knees before the physician and wrapped her full mouth round his cock and given Valeria her first demonstration of fellatio. And the Roman girl had watched mesmerized as everything changed: as that sleeping cock grew hard and erect, as his scrotum tightened like a fist between his thighs, as Thoas’ studied indifference crumbled, as he’d taken that German girl’s head in his hands, his fingers burrowing roughly in her hair, his face a mask of concentration. When he’d come he’d pulled out—on Drusilla’s orders—to paint the woman’s wobbling breasts with abrupt splashes of pearly ejaculate. Valeria had learned a lot from that lesson. Not least from the look in his eyes as his orgasm took him, because at that moment his glance had swept over them both, her and her stepmother, and there’d been nothing of the slave in that look.

  At the moment of orgasm he was free.

  Had he wanted to fuck her too, she’d wondered? Had he wanted to fuck the daughter of his master’s household and show her exactly what her silly pink-faced shame and her insipid filial obedience and her privilege was worth?

  Imagining that had warmed her marriage-bed many nights.

  Thoas, she called in her head, her lips not moving: Are you here? If it wasn’t him, then it would be someone else. The King of the Grove would be here somewhere, sword in hand, patrolling his tiny kingdom as he must do all day and every day, ready for the moment another slave came to supplant him. Valeria jumped as something rustled in the ground litter—but it was only a small brown bird.

  Then a man stepped up from behind and put his arms about her.

  Valeria shrieked, but the sound of her shock was trapped by a callused hand that clamped firmly over her mouth. She tasted wood-smoke and dirt on her tongue and she struggled frantically, but his grip only tightened, pulling her almost off her feet; the torso to which she was clutched was rock-solid, the two bare arms wrapped around her like bands of iron. Her sandaled toes kicking helplessly at the dead leaves. He pulled her head back and to the side, exposing her throat, and then he inhaled the scent of her hair and pressed his lips to her cheek and licked at her neck, his mouth burning.

  “Pretty,” he breathed. “A pretty little doe has wandered into my wood.” Valeria had been hoping for a Greek accent, but she couldn’t hear one in that unidentifiable hoarse whisper. She moaned in fear as the hand not pinning her head slid up to grope her breast, squeezing hard. “She didn’t know the hunter would be waiting for her, did she? She didn’t know she’d have to run for her life.” His fingers slid under the linen to capture her nipple. “Can you run, little deer? Can you outrun me?” He caught her earlobe in his teeth, savoring the yielding drag of skin. “Meat always tastes better after a chase.”

  He let her go quite suddenly, and Valeria caught her breath as she fell forward. Whatever her intentions—speak to him, turn and see for herself—they disappeared as his hand descended on her rump with an almighty crack.

  “Run!” he hissed.

  She panicked. It was the unexpected pain; she couldn’t think past the pain and the shock that flashed through her blood. She staggered away and began to run, and the gradient of the hillside caught her and pulled her onward, through brambles and under branches, twigs whipping her face and her raised hands, thorns scratching her bare legs. She ran because she couldn’t slow without falling, and because her feet were tripping beneath her and because at her back she could hear his hoarse laughter as he followed.

  Down through the cruel wood she fled until she saw a thinning of the trees ahead of her, and she ran toward that with a sob only to come to the shore of a lake: a round lake cupped by steep hills that walled it in and kept it in shadow. The water looked black, and hardly a ripple stirred on that obsidian surface.

  Valeria randomly chose one of the many tenuous paths paralleling the shore and kept going: ahead was what looked like a patch of flatter ground and she thought she could see the gilded roof of a small building among the trees. But despite her desperation her strength was failing: she wasn’t used to running and her legs felt as soft and heavy as lead, her breath was heaving in her throat and her heart thundered in her ears. And he was close behind her, always. She could hear his tread. He was right on her heels, keeping pace.

  She stumbled. A hand caught the back of her stolla as she went down and hauled her right off her feet, spinning her onto hands and knees. Seams tore as she wrenched out of his grasp and tried to crawl up the bank, her hands digging into leaf-mold and grass. For a moment she thought she was clear, and then he gripped her ankle and pulled her roughly back down onto him, capturing her in his arms again.

  It was over. Valeria had no more strength left to fight; she just gasped for air and sobbed with fear. The King of the Grove wasn’t even out of breath. He pinned her to his shoulder again with a single hand as she sat in his lap—but this time he didn’t cover her mouth, he just held her chin up tight, forcing her head back. She caught glimpses of long dark hair as he stooped over her; it fell in her eyes.

  “Hey hey hey,” he murmured: “Hush.”

  “Plea—” was all she could splutter.

  “Quiet now.” His other hand moved to stroke her breasts as if she were an animal that needed gentling, and she thought of the sacrificial sheep being held for the knife. “I’m not going to hurt you, little deer,” he said, and somehow that promise was more darkly menacing than his previous threats. “I’m just going to …”

  The hand slipped from her breasts to her legs. Her short skirt was no barrier. He lifted it aside as he stroked up the inside of her splayed thighs, searching her out. She was wet with sweat about her belly and thighs and groin. His fingers slithered on the shaven silk of her mons veneris, then parted her smooth cleft to delve into the heat within.

  Valeria moaned then, and writhed in his grip. He shifted against her, tightening his hold, and she was left in no doubt that he’d enjoyed the chase very much: his erect penis was hard as a wooden rod and shoving painfully into the soft muscle of her rear.

  “Oh yes,” he said, almost to himself. His curled fingers invaded her, greedy for her heat and emptiness. He played with her wetness and she heard the noises he made there, like moist kisses. “That’s nice.” He spread two fingers, opening her. “I like that. I like that a lot,” he groaned in her ear. Then he circled her clitoris with his callused fingertips, using her own moisture to smooth the path. There was a lot of wet to use. “And you do too, don’t you?”

  She whimpered. She could hardly speak, so tightly was her jaw held, so starved were her lungs after her running. But she could hear, now that he wasn’t whispering. Hear the foreign vowel-shapes.

  “Now, little deer, I’m going to …” he said, and humped her forward onto hands and knees so that he could lift her skirt at the back and set his aim, before pulling her back down into his lap—and onto the cock angled there like a spearpoint. She felt its blunt head surge through her outer defenses and realized he was far thicker of girth than her husband, and that he was going to demand things of her that she’d never had to give before.

  “Thoas,” she gasped.

  “What?” He was finding her tight: his focus was on the next thrust as he squeezed her down onto his thighs, impaling her further.

  “Thoas!” It was a sq
ueal by now.

  He heard her that time.

  For a moment he froze, and then everything changed. He pulled out of her, dropped her forward on the sloping bank and rolled her over onto her back, pinning her there with his hand on her breastbone. As he loomed over her Valeria saw his face for the first time, through her blurring tears.

  It was Thoas, but he was almost unrecognizable. Valeria’s heart banged against her breastbone. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been clean-shaven with decently short hair, but now that hair, looking like it hadn’t been combed in weeks, hung down to his shoulders and his face was swarthy with stubble. His skin was weathered dark and lined around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He was wearing a worn tunic that was splotched and faded to the color of autumn leaves, and a sword belt that hung diagonally across his chest: the thin fabric of the tunic didn’t disguise the corded muscle that packed his frame. The old vertical scar down his cheek had now been joined by one on his upper lip and a nose that had been broken out of its true alignment. He looked like a barbarian. He looked terrifying. And he looked older—quite considerably older—and it showed most around his eyes, which were undershadowed by patches black as blood-blisters and seemed almost unfocused, the pupils dilated wildly.

  He searched her face for a long long time.

  “Valeria Prisca Secunda,” he said at last.

  She nodded, and reached to touch his chest, like a plea for clemency. Her heart was pounding.

  “You’ve changed.”

  “Not so much as you,” she whispered. Was this even the man she’d come in search of, or just someone wearing his mask?

  He nodded slowly. For the first time a faint smile tried to pull at the corners of his mouth. “Little Valeria, the pretty girl with the crush on me.”

  She inhaled sharply and her chest heaved. “You didn’t know that!”

  “Didn’t I?” His gazed dropped from her face to her torso. The torn and twisted dress had been rent open when he rolled her, and one of her breasts was bared, her pink nipple pointing at the heavens. He lifted the hand holding her in place and ran it lightly down her body. As Valeria’s gaze followed his she realized that he was kneeling over her spread thighs still, and that his erection, interrupted in its mission, was still standing from under the hem of his tunic, glossy and solid, sticky with her honey. And bigger than she’d remembered: Valeria’s assessment of her own husband’s equipment underwent a sudden terrifying downgrading.

  “Are you married?” he asked, as if he’d heard her thoughts. His fingertips brushed the juicy slit he’d so recently assailed, and without being able to help herself she tilted her hips, moving her clitoris under his teasing touch.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to catch his wrist in her hand and stop him even as her vulva yielded to his exploration.

  “Congratulations, Domina.” His fingers gave her the caress she wanted, not for a moment believing her protesting hand. “And tell your husband from me he’s a lucky man, whoever he is.”

  “Quintus Didius Messor,” she whimpered.

  “Ah. I remember. So are you childless—or just frustrated? What did you come here for, Valeria?”

  Her eyes widened as his fingers stirred her fire, and she caught her lip in her teeth, but the words burst out anyway: “A child.”

  “Well,” he said, moving over her and easing between her thighs, his prick nudging into the slippery path of her sex as his fingers bit into her skin. “I can give you that.”

  “Thoas!” she sobbed.

  “What? Is this not what you were expecting?” His eyes were so glazed he seemed almost blind, but his cock was sure of the way. “Were you hoping for a little conversation, Domina—a little nostalgic reminiscence—before … this?”

  “Oh,” she said—then, “Oh!” as he retook every inch of lost ground, and no less demanding than before. He pushed into her with the implacable insistence of a man taking what was ordained to him by the gods, and Valeria cried out and arched her back, feeling as if her insides had to completely re-arrange themselves to accommodate him. “What’s happened to you?” she groaned.

  “Me?” He was moving slowly, taking the time to savor the roll of her hips and the quiver of her breasts with each thrust. “I’ve been King in this wood for four years, Domina.” The honorific was subtly mocking. “I’ve killed men. I’ve fucked women. Many more women than men, in case you were wondering. Are you surprised I’ve changed?”

  She reached up to stroke his face; he was braced on his hands and not close enough for her to kiss. When she was sixteen she’d wanted to kiss those lips more than anything in the world. Now they were scarred and cracked—but he caught her thumb in his mouth and bit gently upon it. She whimpered as he ground his cock deeper.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “No,” she answered, not entirely truthfully. And yet she didn’t want that hurt to stop, because it was better than any pleasure she’d had from Quintus Didius Messor. She just needed to take it slowly, at a pace she could manage.

  He paused, running his tongue over his lips. She wished he would lie down on her.

  “Thoas …”

  “No one’s used my name in four years.” A flex of his pelvis made her moan again. His eyelids sank almost closed. “I’ve been … not myself. Someone else.”

  She wondered that he was able both to talk and to plow her, even slowly, with long deliberate strokes and pauses. His voice was ragged with strain.

  “I came here by night, you know. I thought it best. I jumped up … to touch the golden bough at the gate. You have to be able to unhook it. First time. That’s how you prove you’re worthy.”

  She ran her hands down his torso, feeling his muscles working beneath the fabric of the tunic. He was starting to sweat, the cloth clinging to his hips and sides.

  “They gave me a sword … and I crept down here in the dark. To the temple there. It seemed the obvious place. I found him there. With a woman. A big plump Roman matron. He had her ankles up round his neck. Stuffing her good and hard. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Or he was so close he couldn’t stop anyway. I shoved my blade through his ribs … as he came.”

  “Oh gods.”

  Thoas clenched his teeth, his own rhythm rising to the steady powerful thrust of a man hewing wood, his face twisting. “When I rolled him away … she turned over on hands and knees. She stuck her cunny in the air. She said, ‘Now you’ve got to fuck me too.’”

  “Did you?”

  “I did.”

  Valeria lifted her knees, letting him sink even deeper into her, wrapping her legs about his back. “You were such a good man … when I knew you,” she said breathlessly. “So … Ah! Oh gods! … so kind to me, then.”

  His hands were slipping wider, his face dropping lower toward hers. “I tried to be,” he whispered, as if it were a secret they were sharing. “The first few times, with the women, I was gentle and respectful. And you know what? They were disappointed.”

  She dug her nails into his thighs and hips, urging him on, pulling him into her.

  “The women that come here … they don’t want just a fuck. They can get that at home. They want something more, Domina. They want to be Daphne ravished by Apollo. Selene forced by Pan. Europa rutted by Jupiter. They want something they will remember forever in dread and awe. They want … a god.”

  She started to cry out, a sound like fear, and he bared his teeth.

  “Is that what you want, Valeria? Did you come here to be fucked by a god? Filled with his ambrosial seed? Impregnated with divine life?”

  “I came here … for you …” she wrenched out, and after that she couldn’t talk at all, only cry out, because she was being taken up in orgasm and shaken limb from limb, dumb and deaf and blind to everything but the pounding of his cock inside her. And just for a moment she did feel like they were divine, that he was a god, that she was Danae bein
g showered in gold—as she found one last breath to cry his name and he spasmed and roared and poured his seed inside her, and fell over her with a groan.

  They clung together then, not like gods, but like children who’d gotten lost in the woods. She ran her fingers through his tangled hair and he buried his face in her shoulder.

  But a moment later he dragged himself out of her embrace, though she tried to hold him. His face was so drawn that Valeria, glimpsing his expression, thought he was ill. A single drop slipped from his cheek onto her bare breast and she stared at the clear splash, wondering: it must be sweat, surely? By the time she looked up at Thoas he was kneeling up with his back to her, looking intently along the bank of the lake and through the wood.

  His successor, she thought, trying to still her breath: He must keep an eye out for the man who’ll take his place. She sat up too, tugging despairingly at her torn dress, feeling a lump swell in her throat and her face burn.

  Thoas twisted to search behind them. Only when he was sure they were not being watched did he glance back at her and see the tears spilling down her face. He touched her chin.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “For what?”

  “For telling you to come here. I’m sorry …”

  She wiped at her cheeks with muddy hands, smearing her face, and met his gaze through wet lashes. For a moment in that wild rough mask she saw an expression that was almost familiar.

  “Hey,” said he softly. “Valeria. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  She thrust out her lower lip, swallowing her tears.

  “It’s not so bad, believe me.” His face moved into the semblance of a smile. “I spent two years patching up soldiers in a stinking tent on the battlefield, remember. At least I have as much to eat and drink here as I want. And the work’s … relatively easy.” His mouth twitched. “No one punishes me. No one tells me what to do any more. So don’t feel sorry for me.” He stroked her face. “I’m alive, Valeria—Oh gods, I’m more appreciative of that than I’ve ever been—and so much better off than many. And when I do get weary all I need do is remind myself it won’t be for much longer. Somewhere out there is the man who’ll finish it—someone younger and faster and stronger than me.”