The Unknown Mistress - An Erotica and Romance Paranormal/Historical Novella (12 page)

This is your revenge. Perhaps dread and wickedness will line your road, but at last, the pleasures of the flesh are yours for the taking. Even if you aren’t the one doing the taking.

“I know,” Jany heard herself say. She swallowed and forced her voice to become steadier. “I am yours.”

The vampire’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You are a quick learner,” she said and smiled. “I can see in your eyes that you mean what you say. I have a task for you, but first things first. Dedication such as this must be rewarded. Turn over.”

Still stunned from her climax, Jany did not understand what the baroness meant, but the maid gently pulled Jany back on top of her. Feeling the maid’s naked skin under her sparked the fire in Jany again, and she lifted her head to kiss the maid – but the maid put a finger over Jany’s lips and shook her head.

“Only when
she
allows,” the maid whispered. “Remember that.”

When Jany nodded slowly, the maid smiled and let Jany rest her head on her shoulder. Behind Jany, the baroness ran her hands along Jany’s back and then pushed Jany’s legs apart, slowly but firmly. Jany gasped in anticipation, but the maid wrapped her arms around Jany to keep her from moving.

“Never say that I am ungrateful mistress,” the vampire said. “Consider this your first reward. Do as I say, and many more will follow.”

The baroness shifted in the bed, and a moment later, Jany felt the tip of the woman’s tongue trace first the curve of her spine, then continue down between her buttocks.

Within minutes, Jany was screaming in ferocious, unrestrained bliss again, but her cries were drowned out by the storm.

*

Pressing her scarf to her neck, Jany walked down the cold corridor, slowly making her way towards the wing where the witchfinder slept. She kept to the deepest shadows. No blood came from the wounds on her neck, but they were still visible. Walking was difficult; the baroness had left her almost unconscious before she had sent Jany on her mission. The castle was quiet, everyone asleep or huddling in their rooms out of fear of ungodly beasts prowling the grounds. Soon, though, the whole castle would be awake.

And a man would be dead.

The stories Jany had heard had been both right and wrong. Vampires defied description. Words were not enough to explain their magnetic radiance, their immense power or their astounding knowledge. Jany’s new mistress knew every secret of both body and soul. She was beautiful and terrifying, irresistible and lethal, loving and cruel. And Jany would never leave her side.

 “It’s true that my maids visited that idiot witchfinder,” the vampire had said when Jany had come to; the baroness reward had left Jany unconscious for the best part of an hour. “But they did not go to him for the reason I mentioned before. They went to him to make sure he chose the right room. I did not expect him to be so paranoid that he would inspect their necks and then call for the guards. I was too rash. But there is still time. Here is what you will do...”

When the baroness was done explaining, Jany had left the room immediately. All she could do, and wanted to do, was to obey. Slowly, she turned a corner and looked down a long hallway. Empty and silent. At the far end, next to the witchfinder’s chambers, was a storage room. There she would find what she sought.

“The witchfinder thinks he is above us,” the vampire had said, laughing. “He believes he has the right to make women suffer and burn. I am tempted to go to him now and make him see what true suffering means. Alas, there is no time. But you, Jany, will help him see the error of his ways. Tonight he will have his grandest show ever.”

Moving silently down the corridor, Jany listed for the sound of voices but heard nothing. The door to the storage room opened with a dull creak. She slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and waited for her eyes to adapt to the darkness. A small window let in enough light for her to make out the large barrel that stood against the wall. Several other barrels were lined up next to it.

Before the witchfinder had spotted the bite marks on the maids, the two women had been at work for hours, moving the gunpowder kegs hidden in laundry baskets or bundles of linen. Almost all of the castle’s gunpowder reserve was piled up next to the witchfinder’s room. Piled up against the barrels were dozens of great sacks of flour and wheat. All other nearby rooms had been evacuated by the maids due to broken locks or windows.

Jany looked at the barrels and smiled.
What she was about to do was terribly, awfully wrong, but there was no room in her heart for disobedience. Before the sun rose, her newfound devotion would make her a criminal, but she had no regrets.

Once she had been living in an invisible cage, able to move but sentenced live unloved and untouched. Now she was a prisoner chained by dedication, facing a lifelong state of terrified devotion and physical need – yet at last, she was free to love.

Moving carefully, Jany brought out the small tinderbox she had brought and lit the fuse. Once it had caught fire, she left the room and quickly padded down the corridor. In less than a minute, the witchfinder and all his plans would be evicted from the castle in an enormous plume of fire and smoke. No longer would he harass the baroness and her kin.

The maid who had been part of the baroness’s scheme to seduce Jany – her name was Elodie, she had found out – would use the chaos as cover and sneak down into the dungeons, where she would release the two other maids. After that, the baroness, her maids, and Jany would leave the town. The renowned baroness’s authority would get them past the city’s guard at the gates.

Her heart pounding hard in her chest, Jany hurried back to the baroness’s chambers. The explosion would come any moment. As she ran, her head was light but her heart untroubled. She had always prided herself on her sense of judgment, and that had not changed. Tonight, her world had at last become simple and rational.

She was in love with the baroness. For her, she would do anything.

It made perfect sense.

*

THE END