ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Coveted by the Werewolves (Paranormal MMF Bisexual Menage Romance) (New Adult Shifter Romance Short Stories) (141 page)

“I am not.  I will give up my life to live another with you.”

Beatrice felt her heart swell. “Then kiss me.”

~

Under the arch of the bridge Beatrice smiled as William carefully disrobed her. She did not speak as words could never convey or express the emotion she felt. Despite the cold temperatures she felt nothing but the warmth of the lover. William’s kisses soothed her of her pain, freed her from her worries... killed any remaining doubts.

William’s hands traced Beatrice’s body. To his eyes she was beauty defined. Her alabaster skin glistened with the rain water, while her fulsome lips parted just enough to expose her healthy teeth as she sighed to his touch.  He stood naked but felt nothing but confidence. Holding Beatrice tight he lay down his love on the clothes.  Their lips locked, their bodies merged.  They never wanted to be parted.

Beatrice wrapped her leg around William. She silenced her groans by nuzzling her face into the crux of his neck. The sensation of love in its physical form played havoc with her body. Feeling the need to scream, she expressed her love to her man by losing herself in carnal pleasure.

~

Walking hand in hand back to the horse, William and Beatrice barely heard the whistle on the air.

The force of the arrow forced William backwards before dropping onto to his backside.  Blinded by pain, he tensed up while screaming in agony among the reeds. Beatrice dropped to the side of her lover. She shook her head in desperation as she noticed the arrow had buried deep into his shoulder. “William, oh William.”

“Get on the horse.”

“Let me help you.”

“Forget me, get on the horse.”

              Beatrice burst into tears. “We must escape together.”

“They want me not you. Now stop wasting time and escape.”

As William gingerly climbed to his feet, he spotted a masked bandit running towards him from road. He glanced over his shoulder to see Beatrice climbing on to his horse. Once she sat on the saddle, William slapped the rear of the horse sending the galloping across the shallow river towards the opposite tree line. 

William faced his enemy. Despite his bleeding wound he stood his ground. The bandit screamed as he launched his first blow, violently slashing with his sword.

Keeping his elbows close to his body, William parried each glancing slice.  He kept his knees bent and feet sturdy making sure not to lose his balance after each defensive parry.  Despite his ailing strength William knew he had to bid his time until he could capitalise on the aggressor’s first mistake.

The polished blades cut through the rain as they battled under the angry sky. Thunder from the unsettled heavens interspersed each grunt and clash of steel of the combatants.

The bandit proved too eager and locked swords. He pushed forwards in an effort to overpower the injured William.  Shifting his standing feet, William forced the bandit to make a false step. Off balance, the bandit was powerless to stop William gaining leverage with his sword and lost the flow of the fight.

William seized his opportunity.  In one strong sapping blow, he swung. But cried out in agonised frustration as the bandit merely blocked it.

Without the strength to carry on, William knew he was done for.

“Leave him... Leave him, I say!” A drenched Beatrice had crossed the river once more brandishing a large branch. “Leave, or you’ll have to fight the both of us.”

The bandit seemed stunned. His attention spilt, he couldn’t focus.  William thrust his sword towards the bandit. But the bandit easily sidestepped the blade. However he couldn’t avoid getting clobbered on the face with the Beatrice’s branch.

With the bandit floored, William kicked away the assailant’s sword. Beatrice then kissed Williams cheek. “Are you OK?”

“Fine, but you need to take me to Carlisle once we have dealt with this rat.” William reached down and unmasked the face of his stricken foe, revealing a bloodied face.  To Beatrice’s hysterical screams, William could barely mutter, “Peter?”

“My Liege, I had no choice.”

“Why? Oh Why? You foolish wretch.”

“I’m sorry... I.”

“You...” William dropped to his knees. Exhausted, he could hardly speak. “You wanted me dead? You betrayed me.”

“You stole the love I could never have. I couldn’t let you taunt me by making Beatrice happy.”

“You were to be a monk... No?”

Peter could barely speak for the blood pouring from his nose. “I was going to live my life as a monk in hope of cleansing my soul after killing you.”

“But this... it never had to come to this.”

“Kill me, as I no longer wish to live.”

Feeling faint, William could not muster the strength to pick up his broadsword. He instead unsheathed his dagger.  As he went to slit Peter’s throat, his hand was met by Beatrice’s.

“No, let him live.”

“Why should I? He will not allow us to live in peace.”

Beatrice did not relinquish her grip. “Knowing that we’re happy while he is shackled in the dungeon will serve him better than the tortures of Hell.”

“You’re wicked, Beatrice.”

“No. I’m just a simple weaver.”

THE END

Her Untamed Cowboys

All of time and space exist somewhere, but her world is narrowed down to one pinprick of space on the skin of the universe.  There is nobody in any place in all the world that can hear her, nobody from her past or her future.  In fact, there is nobody to hear the stifled screams of her inner horror but her own mind.  Her mouth is pressed into the bed, the springs around her squeaking with his exertions.  Her arms, well-muscled and dark, but still too weak to fight him off, are bound behind her back, and the inner sanctum between her thighs is being invaded.  She tries to clench her muscles, to block him off, but he is ramming into her like a weapon of yesteryear.  This is what his ancestors did before they plundered and pillaged whole villages—they took great armies of men, great, angry men, who used the strength of their bodies to lift huge battering rams and take down the fortresses of cities.  White men, blood made thick in their veins by years of inbreeding, the same kind of inbreeding that they forced upon the thousands they enslaved, treating them no better than mating animals.

                      They bred them, putting the cloth of ignorance over their eyes until those that they subjugated to their rule become one unwashed mass of creatures.  Children with their parents, mothers with their sons, brothers with their sisters.  In a litter of rats, humans are shocked to find this kind of incest, but this time, the time that is now, is the time in which humans do it to other humans, whites doing it to the black they own.  If you are less than human, then all of this is easier to impose, easier to imagine, the kind of perverse experiment that will be repeated over and over again throughout the course of history until at last, the world can stand it no more.

                      She can stand it no more.  Master has spread her buttocks and is ripping her.  It hurts, it hurts when he thrusts into her dry soil, racking the inner walls of her with pain.  He grunts above her, allowing himself the sounds that he has robbed her off, and she can feel his saggy white paunch on her back, dripping sweat onto her, shaking it off his face, wiping it off with a hand and smearing it against her shoulder blades as if she is nothing more than a towel, a thing for his use.  It is not the first time, and it is not the last.  Her mind, which has created a version of herself to watch from the outside, talks to her.

                     
Perhaps he will be finished quickly this time.

                      She knows better.  She knows that although his time is limited, that his wife may come upon them at any second, this is common practice amongst all of his buddies.  Nobody care about her, and she has gone numb, anyway.  Her man, Jim, will know about it, of course, because Master will swagger about her while she is in the house, strutting like a peacock, claiming his territory as if she was a post he had peed on.

                     
Isn’t that what he’s doing now?

                      She shuts her eyes as his thrusts intensify, and tries to imagine the song they sing when the end of the work day is done, the only time she feels relief.  It is hard, because the bed pumps with Master’s pumps, but she almost manages to lull herself away from reality when he lets out a loud groan and spills his seed inside of her.

                     
Better hope he doesn’t get you big, girl.

                      She closes her eyes and feels her lashes wet against her cheek.

                      Better hope, indeed.

*                    *                    *

                      Selema’s body is the last thing on her mind, but she cannot help but notice the stares.  Damn men.  Always looking to see if they may touch.  Well, they can’t.

                      This town is quiet, much too quiet after growing up in a busy city like Chicago.  You can literally see the dust settle on the air as the mail carrier’s horses pull up the mail wagon to the post office.  It’s a town that must seem rough to others, but to Selema, it is nothing compared to the urban jungle; maybe, however, she just doesn’t know its intricacies yet and shouldn’t be so quick to judge.  Maybe those stares at her breasts, hips, and face aren’t nearly as intimate as she thinks they are; they could very well be glances of a darker nature.  After all, it was not so long ago at all, two and a half decades at most, that slavery was abolished.  From the glances she now recognizes as hostile, Selema thinks that perhaps word has not caught up with the fine folk of the west just yet.

                      That’s just fine.  She’s not there to make friends, anyway.

                      The horses nose at the ground and stomp their hoofs lightly.  She pats them gently on the neck before stepping into the post office.  The withered gentleman behind the counter is sorting through mail by hand and looks none too friendly as he spots her.  It’s unusual for a woman to be strutting about town alone, she figures, but even more unusual for a woman of color to be doing so.  Never mind that her green gown, bustled in the back in the latest fashion is of a higher quality than most of the women’s in town—maybe that’s even what’s contributing to the intenseness of the stares—never mind the fact that it offsets her green eyes.  She carries the mark of double indemnity on her person like a stamp made from permanent ink, the kind of ink that never washes off.

                      Selema’s searching for the root of being yaller, not trying to hide it.  But it looks like being this color here won’t earn her any favors, judging from the post master’s expression.  Well, she’s not one to be daunted by an old white man, Selema decides, and steps up to the counter, settling her satin bag on it and resting her gloves on top.

                      “I’m looking for Misters Lee and Roberts, if you please.”

                      The postmaster looks her up and down.  “I don’t please, ma’am.”

                      She regards him coolly, knowing the full measure of her glance.  “I’m gonna be here a right long time, mister,” she says, her voice soft and dangerous.  “And I reckon’ it’s better to be friendly than enemies.”

                      The postmaster weighs her words for a moment, then turns to the myriad of little boxed-up spaces behind him, heavy with the protection of the metal around them.  “They live in that there ol’ plantation, the one ‘bout a mile down the center road.”

                      She smiles, as if to say, “Now was that so hard?”  She turns on her heeled boot and is almost out the door when the postmaster calls out to her.  She looks over her shoulder.

                      “Whatchu want them for, anyhow?”

                      The smile on her ebony face deepens, and the postmaster notices two dimples in either cheek.  It would be a nice smile if it wasn’t exactly like a cat’s, sly and self-satisfied.  “Oh,” she says, as if the taste of the word in her mouth is a surprise, “We’re neighbors.”

                      And what exactly that means, only she knows.  The bell clangs above the door as she exits the post office.

*                    *                    *

                      Somehow, Selema is not surprised to find that the plantation down the main road seems to be somewhat abandoned.  Two men living together, seems like it would be fairly quiet to begin with.  It’s always the women making the noise, filling homes with sound.

                      “Hello?  Anyone there?”

                      She lifts her skirts as she pushes open the white-washed door. The house is neatly, if spartanly kept.  She knows that the two men who live here are cowboys, but she has planned her visit carefully to make sure that they are not out on the range at this time of year.  Upstairs, she hears noises, and surmises that they have not heard her come in.  No time like the present to make her arrival known.  She climbs the stairs and hears a sound like an animal in pain and quickens her step.  The door to the room is locked, but through the keyhole, Selema catches sight of something wholly unexpected.

                      She is not quite sure she is seeing what she sees, but she has some theories.  She saw something like this once before, in a seedy little bar on the end of Little Italy.  Her father had some business to attend to, and he left her behind the bar with his friend Rudy, who was tending bar.  It was early in the morning, before dawn, and she wondered what kind of men you find at a drinking hole that early.  This was before her breasts and hips and thighs intruded on her life and made her less invisible, so she snuck out from behind the bar, sliding her back against the wood paneling of it, and began to wander.  Behind the heavy oak door of the toilets, she heard the sounds of scuffling.