The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) (7 page)

“I require those names, wench.” He stepped away from her.

She did have a name—Axehand. But ’twas too soon to speak it. He had yet to take her away from here.

Evasion. He demanded information, and she must put him off until they were far from here, preferably at his keep. But how?

By offering him something else instead of the information.

Unfortunately, all she had was herself.

Like a petitioner at prayer, she crawled after him on her knees, her head meekly lowered. When she drew near, she looked up, only slightly, and fixed her gaze on the massive ridge bulging out his loincloth.

She released that bulge, though gingerly, and his man part made a savage arc for her face, a wild, disjointed swing, as though the rod operated entirely of its own volition. It amazed her, that jutting club, so much harder and thicker than her erotic candle phalluses.

She reached for him, no compunction over what the church deemed a mortal sin, for what she had a mind to do was sodomy, a forbidden act. Then again, so too was self-pleasuring with a candle. Had that been the first step on her slippery slope to hell?

Or had it been when she had nearly ended her life?

Giving in to despair was a grievous sin too.

But before she could take her own life, this stern warrior had interceded. And now she would grasp at life with both hands, even if that meant grasping
him
the same.

This ruthless nobleman had saved her life, not out of altruism, but for his own self-serving purposes. Regardless of his motivation, she breathed only because of him. In these perilous times, he would keep her safe, even offering her a pardon for a crime she had not committed.

Without further hesitation or useless pangs of guilt, she first examined his shaft, which rooted for the sky, its erect stature nearly touching a cloud.

A slight exaggeration, though he was of towering proportions.

After looking, as any inquisitive person would, she touched him. Gliding a hand over him, she allowed her fingers to do some tentative exploring. Kneading.
Squeezing
, as she would with a bladder of mead to free the last drop. Next she cupped his stones, the sac weighty and furred, then nuzzled the bulbous crown with her nose. Then with her tongue. Her mouth. Her teeth.

“Christ,” he shouted. “Have a care where you chew.”

She had not thought to bite him…

Until he put the grand idea in her head.

Alas, she teased him instead. Bending to the task, her passion rising along with her confidence, she licked the underside of his sac and continued from the root up the stem. Using just the tip of her tongue, she tickled the top, a top that had grown by leaps and bounds.

Somehow, despite her apprehensions, she knew what to do. At least her tongue did. That which had only tasted food before, now tasted him. Savored him, actually. And when a drop of something milky beaded the blunt head, she sampled it too.

That creamy droplet tasted of man. Not of overlord. Not of warrior killer. Not of her revenge-seeking warden. It tasted simply of man. Or, at least, of how she had envisioned a man would taste.

Going back for seconds, she flicked her tongue around the slightly raised ring under the crown. She grated her teeth over the flesh there; silky flesh ’twas too, despite his hard masculinity.

He stiffened. And not only his male member. All of him went rigid.

“If you think to continue in this same vein, I will soon gush blood,” the nobleman rasped.

Though wounding him had its appeal, ’twas probably not the best outcome here. The object of this exercise was to please him, not maim him.

Changing maneuvers, she blew across the area she had only just moistened.

He gasped, “Take me into your mouth and begin.”

Begin what, pray?

She lacked the wherewithal to imagine but trustingly parted her lips anyway.

“Your mouth feels fine on my cock.”

But for her mouth being well occupied, she might have giggled.

Blessed Virgin. He called his phallus a
cock
! Like a rooster, only this strutting bird had no feathers. Which gladdened her. Feathers in one’s throat would itch.

“I can take no more,” he groaned. “Suck me off.”

She would try, but first she would settle him more comfortably atop her tongue.

Loosening her mouth, she moved her jaw from side to side, his
cock
bouncing with every move of her head.

He groaned.

Sensing what was coming, she quickly rotated her head.

As she had suspected, he moaned.

“Wench, continuing on this way will end this before it begins.”

Somehow, she had also suspected he might say that.

Buoyed up on his obvious esteem, she began to experiment, alternately nursing his cock with tenderness and then punishingly scraping the underside with her teeth.

“Get on with it,” he commanded her.

She gave up on her experimentation and proceeded like a babe at the milk teat. Pursing her lips until her cheeks caved in, she drew on his hard man’s flesh, her tongue tickling the silk overlaying the rod of iron.

He must not have noticed her ineptness, for his hands tightened on her shoulders and he ground his cock against the back of her throat.

She very nearly choked until she tilted her head back, and at an angle too, willing her throat muscles to go lax, to accept whatever happened without gagging.

What happened was a thrust deep down her throat.

Clamping his hands on her head, the palms covering her ears, he slid freely and at his own will, then surged. In short order, a thick spurt coated the back of her tongue. There was no question of swallowing or not swallowing. Because of the depth of the penetration, his seed drained to her belly.

Afterward, after he pulled out, he kissed her, a hot kiss of her now man-scented mouth, her first kiss ever. She leaned into him, hungry for more. Even when he took his leave, tumbled back on his heels, and swiped the back of his hand across the stern set of his lips, she still hungered for more.

“You were excellent,” he growled. “The best I ever had. A real gem. Never have I been able to do that, not even with females well trained in the carnal arts.”

Had her throat not been so bloody sore, she might have thanked him. As ’twas, she smiled happily, confident he would
finally
take her with him back to his keep.

Who would not hold on to a gem?

Chapter Six

Spur circled his prisoner as she knelt on the mud-covered ground. “Can you sit a steed?”

As he paced, she followed him with her gaze. “Most definitely, my lord. Why do you ask?”

Despite her exuberantly affirmative answer, he eyed her bruised arse with a goodly amount of skepticism. “I ask because we leave straightaway.”

She no longer followed him with her gaze. Now she lowered her lids and clasped her hands together before her chest. Her pious attitude reminded him of a nun at prayer—an altogether unfitting image for him to have considering her talent for sodomy. What her mouth did to him!

And not just her mouth.

All of her. He had tremendous plans for her.

At his keep, inside his private solar, he kept a multithong scourge. He used the whip as a deterrent to miscreants—naught like a flogging for keeping a recalcitrant serf population on the straight and narrow—but deep within himself was a dark urge to employ the device as a prelude to intercourse.

A dark urge not yet satisfied. A bed companion who readily took to pain was a rare find. He thought mayhap he had discovered that rarity in her. After tightening the leather strap over her succulent nipples, the saucy minx had yelped out a hearty climax. Obviously her mercenary lover had introduced her to breast torture. What else had the cur trained his whore to do?

Anything and everything, he reckoned, a demonstration of which he would very much appreciate. Though not tonight, and not here, and mayhap not at his keep either, not with murderous mercenaries rampaging in the region. As soon as he returned to his thorn-surrounded fortress, he would call up his troops and order the forces to take extra precautions on their watches.

Watches he must oversee.

Attack was imminent. Royal unrest within the ranks was spreading like a plague. As evidenced by Lord Harold’s demise and a recent rash of similar destruction in the area, Matilda’s supporters had escalated their sieges. He would waste no time securing his holdings and protecting his people.

Securing holdings fit only for a Devil and protecting a populace who despised him.

So be it. In these perilous times, he much preferred bloodletting thorns surrounding his castle to sweet-smelling daisies, much preferred invoking fear to affection in his populace. Label him fearsome, never beloved, and his lands would remain intact, whilst the unruly peasants he owned would stay alive—and in check—to hate him another day.

The trick to keeping this wench alive and in check was for her to hate him too.

Already she searched out and found his vulnerability with her talk of “mutual weakness.”

And why her search?

So that she might launch an opportunistic attack against him. Most likely, she would run back to her mercenary lover, the one who had deserted her after destroying Lord Harold’s settlement, and report her findings to the cur. That he would not allow—

Or was that shortsighted of him?

Better than giving him a name and a description, her escape might lead him to the mercenary leader’s hideout. Find that, and Spur would abort an eventual siege on his keep.

A gentle and refined voice interrupted his contemplation. “Why the sudden haste to return to your holdings, my lord?”

Though loathed to do it, he forced himself to turn away from her reddened posterior and meet her gaze, a gaze glued to
his
face.

And not in fascination. Would that he believed that was so, but he was not so naive—or vain—as all that. Nay, she looked at him in speculation. The wench was trying to read him, trying to decipher what sort of man he was, no doubt so she could use the information against him.

Fine. He would give her something to think about on their journey to his demesne.

Just as the outlaw had done, Spur jerked his fist on the bulge of his
tarse
, his stones jumping within the loose wrap of his linen loincloth. “We leave as there is no further point in staying. I had what I wanted from you. You gave it to me of your own devious accord. That cocksucking should hold me apiece. And frankly, my insatiable slut, I would prefer getting it in your arse on a comfortable bed as opposed to a hard forest floor. I have all manner of oils and unguents in my solar, all manner of restraints and floggers. Since you are amenable, I would use them on you. Most women protest, but I suspect you will cry out for more.”

Before his astounded eyes, the tips of her bound breasts elongated once more. Buckled beneath with a metal fastener, the nipples stretched outward.

Even the mention of his devilish devices had excited the whore.

“I assure you, my lord, I am as anxious to return to your fortress as are you. You have only to help me mount your destrier and we can be away.”

“Since we met, your main objective has been to leave here. You asked me my motivation; now I shall ask you the same. What is your haste to leave? Something to do with your complicity in treason, perchance?”

As if a chill had befallen her, she rubbed her bare arms, where gooseflesh prickled the skin. The clime was mild, which meant another reason had caused the bumps.

“My reasons are personal, my lord, and must remain my own.”

He let her answer go. For now. Part of exerting control—and leadership—as learning when to hold one’s strength in reserve and when to release it. He would not have the name of the mercenary troop’s leader straightaway, but he would have it eventually. And despite her nun’s demurely lowered gaze and her gentle and refined voice, he would not trust her. Trust was for fools, not for overlords responsible for the well-being of those who depended upon his protection.

After pulling on his discarded garb and armor, he swatted her arse—no allowance made for the raised welts—and pulled her to her feet.

Head still bowed, she stood before him, a little worse for wear after their brief acquaintance.

Her bottom looked sore. Both breasts wore bruises, one a small cut from a knife prick. Her nipples were now both swollen, one showing a red stripe from his misplaced whip.

Whilst noting several scratches on her belly, he brushed some moss from her pubic curls. Without ceremony, he knelt before her and parted the pouty lips of her cunt. To satisfy his curiosity, he fingered her as he would, just to see what strokes she preferred.

Greedy pus! She liked them all.

She stretched open her thighs so he might do her deeper.

“Not now,” he chastised. “We are both of us in a hurry to leave. But later,” he promised. “Later I will fuck you hard. I will fuck you until you tell me to quit.”

“I look forward to an eternity of hard fucking then, for never will I tell you to quit, my lord.”

He believed her.

His cock jumping in anticipation, he regained his feet and pushed her ahead. Though he no longer gripped the end of her leash, he knew she would make no attempt at flight. Her object was to leave this place, and he was her method.

At his steed, he made a cradle of his fingers for her to mount, watching in bemusement as she did, and then swung up into the saddle too, taking up a position at her back.

Her bare back, save for the unyielding leather strap crossing her breasts.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Might I have a cover, my lord?”

Her nudity beguiled him as few things did anymore, and so he promptly dismissed her request. “No one will see you here in the forest.”

“The outlaws saw me,” she wheedled. “Fending off attack by another roaming band of thieves will only delay our return to your holdings.”

“Not at all,” he drily replied. “This time, I will let the outlaws have you.”

“What!”

“I do so enjoy lazing back and watching a rousing group coupling. Some of my prior partners, dames left widowed by their knights for the most part, had no objections to being shared. Do you voice objections?”

“I shall object to naught, refuse you naught.”

“What a relief. I find participating in orgies an amusing pastime and watching them endlessly entertaining.”

From his saddle, he untied a silver fox fur. The animal skin provided a layer of comfort between him and the hard ground when he traveled. After wrapping the soft pelt around her shoulders, he kneed his destrier to a gallop. “Sleep. If we ride through the night we will arrive at Nettlewood by dawn.”

Knowing just where to go to avoid the stinging nettles, he galloped past hedges of thorns and across the moat as the sun rose.

Unable to rouse his charge, Spur carried her into his keep, past the gawking serfs who tended the fires. He never brought stray waifs home with him, and so they were naturally surprised.

“Get back to work,” he told them curtly, “or sleep in the kennels with the dogs tonight.”

After shouldering the portal open, he placed his prisoner on a small cot nestled in the far corner of a chamber he used for storage, mostly for tack in need of repair. Whilst removing his heavy armor and boots, he watched her toss and turn on the straw mattress.

She slept deeply but restlessly, bad dreams—and a reddened arse—undoubtedly disturbing the slumber her body and mind needed.

Moving soundlessly, he exchanged the leather leash attached to the collar at her lovely throat for a heavy chain, fastening the end to a metal plate bolted into the stone wall. The chain would permit his prisoner to move freely around the chamber, though the length, whilst generous, would get her no farther than the threshold that led to the hall.

Confident she could not escape her enforced captivity, he left the chamber then to retrieve a sleeping draught made by an old man who claimed to be an alchemist. The elixir was made of valerian root and various other harmless botanicals, as well as a secret ingredient its maker refused to name. During periods of extended battle, Spur would take the sleeping agent to induce a mindless respite from the rigors of constant warfare. When taken in moderation, the tincture produced a sense of euphoria, along with a twilight repose, half awake, half asleep, a relaxed, altered state that left him better able to fight the next day, but still alert enough to spring into action should he be summoned to the front. When the draught was taken with spirits, the elixir lowered inhibitions, loosened the tongue, and resulted in a period of forgetfulness.

The very result Spur required.

He poured the mixture into a mazer of ale, filling the maplewood drinking vessel to the rim before returning to her. A knee on the bed, he carefully lifted her head from the pillow and held the goblet to her lips. “Drink.”

She obediently gulped the brew down with nary a pause. Afterward, when she began to sink into a relaxed state, he propped her body up into a naked, semiseated position and slid next to her. As he waited for the elixir to take hold, he took her injured breast in hand.

The nipple must be attended to. Though the lash had not broken the skin, he would take no chances on leaving a scar on her flesh.

Why had she turned toward the whip?

There was an art to dispensing just discipline, and he excelled at it. His hand was steady. His strokes landed exactly where he planned. He punished aplenty, but he never inflicted lasting injury on his subjects. Why would he, when lasting injury decreased the value of his serfs? He fed his people well, including his prisoners, made sure they received proper nursing when they fell ill, took care of them as he would his children. In return, he demanded absolute obedience to his authority.

Her injured nipple shamed him. By his own hand, he had done that to her. Had he kept her subjugated to his authority, as was his charge to do, the accident never would have happened.

There was a lesson to be learned here. Giving in to emotion—anger, passion—threatened his authority. In the future, he would make sure never to lose control again. Others suffered when he did.

Fortunately, along with the elixir, the alchemist had mixed him a healing balm. He had brought both with him to the storage chamber. Spur anointed the nipple that accused him of a loss of control and then began his prisoner’s interrogation.

He asked a nonincriminating question first. “Have you knowledge of the mercenary leader who torched Lord Harold’s manor home and the surrounding estate?”

Eyes closed, she nodded. “Aye, my lord.”

He took a deep breath, part relief, part disappointment. “What is he called?”

“Axehand,” she promptly answered.

“Know you his location?”

Her lolling head shook against the pillow. “Nay.”

Impasse.

Spur tried a different approach. “And you were his whore, is that not so?”

She shook her head in vehement denial. “Nay, my lord. ’Tis not so.”

He frowned. “You never bedded the leader of the mercenaries?”

“Nay, my lord. I have never bedded anyone. The mercenary leader gave his men permission to use me, a fate worse than death I narrowly escaped. I chose the honorable route instead. I chose to walk into the bonfire.”

“There is no honor in giving up hope,” he muttered.

“A fact I realized after meeting you. You enticed my animal spirits and made me wish to live.”

Her coquettish response stirred him carnally, and he looked down the length of her young body, past the peaked, firm young breast to the shapely limbs, slightly parted. Moisture dotted her pubic lips, pubic lips plump with arousal.

His prisoner was ripe for plucking. Chained as she was and his to do with as he pleased, he could take her now if he chose. Wipe her clean of his seed afterward and she would never know the difference.

Spur moved away slightly, putting some distance between them.

He never interfered with serfs. “Are you telling me you have never whored?”

She giggled. “Only to a candle.”

“Pardon?” he frowned. “What mean you?”

“I lost my maidenhead to a candle, my lord. Before the mercenaries burned my cottage to the ground, I made them—erotic candles, that is—for sale at market in London.”

Whilst he watched, she placed a hand over her mons and rubbed into the wet folds. The tincture had removed all the usual boundaries against such immodest behavior.

“Mmm. I wish I had one of my creations now.” She raised a knee, just one, and bent it up under her chin. “Do you perchance have a candle, my lord?” Her rubbing grew more heated.