Virgin Outcast: Bred to the Beast (3 page)

A shuddering sigh escaped her lungs
, but her heart still raced
.  She looked around the small one-room cabin.  In the darkness, it was difficult to make out details, but she sensed that she was alone.  Moonlight filtered in through high, narrow windows,
too small for a man or beast to enter.  Kara checked the crossbar again, impressed by its sturdy thickness.  Would it keep out whatever that had been?  She had to hope that it could.  At least the creature hadn't tried to break down the door.

She edged along the wall as quietly as she could and peered out one of the windows.  Nothing moved that she could see; the clearing was empty and still in the moonlight.

Feeling along the wall, she found a sturdy
bed frame
and fell down on the feather-stuffed mattress, utterly exhausted. 
She lay staring up at the dark, wondering if she would wake.  She pushed away the memories of the last few hours, denying the harsh reality of her banishment and the unseen creature in the woods as her mind built protective walls to shield her from what she could not yet face. 
Despite her terror, sleep found her quickly.

Kara knew she dreamed, but it felt
so
real, more intense than any dream she could remember.  Her body was insubstantial, feather light, and she floated on
the breeze through
the moonlight night, gliding along the cobbled streets of Krall as though pulled by some unseen force toward the center of town. Around the slender oak, benches and chairs cluttered the village green, but
only
a smoldering pile of blackened wood
remained of the roaring bonfire.  T
he revelers
had
gone
, and all was still
.

Onward the force pulled her, toward the long clapboard town hall.  She slipped through the crack between its doors like fog, past the rows of benches, past the podium, and down the flight of stairs near the rear.

The village stockade was a small room
in the basement.  A chair for a guard sat unoccupied across from
two cells
made of iron bars
.  One cell stood empty
, but
Mykal slumped in the other.  Love and sorrow filled Kara's heart at the sight of him, but someone else was in the room.  Rela stood over him wrapped in a silk robe that clung to her flaring hips and large round breasts.  Pale hair cascaded down her shoulders, and she looked toward Mykal with the same fire in her eyes that Kara had felt only hours before.

Kara tried to call out, but she had no voice.  She tried to leave, but something held her in place, a soul without a body, forced to watch as
Rela
slipped a small bronze key into the cell's lock.

When the gate swung open with a shrill sound, Mykal's head jerked up, and his eyes widened when he saw Rela.  "Why have you come, Wise Woman?"

"Silence, boy," she said.  "Would you have Kara
for your wife
?"

Mykal nodded.  "Of course.  I love her."

Rela's smile was colder than the grave.  "If you would have her, then you must first take me."

Mykal's deep brow furrowed as he frowned in confusion, but when Rela slid the silk robe off her shoulders, understanding dawned in his eyes.

She stood over him on the rough hay, her nude body all ripe curves beneath her tight, smooth skin. 
A rawhide cord hung from her neck, decorated with sharp white fangs bigger that a wolf's. 
Kara wanted to scream
, but she had no voice. 
She willed herself to wake up,
tried to flee this awful dream that she knew to be reality.  T
he Wise Woman had used some dark
magic
to summon her spirit here.

But she couldn't run, couldn't wake.  She could only watch
as Rela stood naked before her betrothed
.

Mykal's eyes were locked on the thatch of golden curls
where Rela's legs met.  H
e swallowed nervously.  "But I'm in here because..."

"Never mind that," Rela said.  The cold ice in her voice had melted into soft seduction.  "If you take me, you will have her.  Otherwise, I can promise
you will never see Kara again
."

"Will she know?" Mykal asked.

Rela smiled.  "No one outside this room will find out.  I promise you that."
 
Her eyes flickered toward Kara's invisible form, and s
he reached down and took Mykal's hand
, then
bent forward and took his fingers in her mouth, sucking gently.  A look of delight came over her face as though savoring some delicate treat.  "I can taste her sex on you, Mykal.  How did it feel, having your fingers inside
her
, knowing that she wanted the rest of you, that you were so close..."

Rela's eyes flickered past Mykal's shoulder, and she met Kara's gaze as though she knew Mykal's betrothed was watching. 
Her lips curved in a mocking smile, and
Kara wanted to howl, to pound on the bars, to lash o
ut, but something held her in place.

Mykal
's breathing was faster, his broad chest rising and falling
as Rela
sucked his fingers.  When he finally rose to his feet,
the Wise Woman
took one of his big hands and guided it between her legs.  Her head rolled back on her neck, and she sighed as his fingers curled into her slit. 
At first, Mykal simply let her slim hand guide his, moving him in and out, but as he felt her wet heat, he began to move
of his own accord
.  He stepped closer, and
his free hand cupped Rela's ripe, round breast.  He rubbed and massaged, running his fingers over the big nipple until it grew firm and dark with desire.

Rela unlaced his pants and drew forth Mykal's cock.  His manhood stood out hard and thick, betraying Kara with its arousal as she
watched the Wise Woman
stroke her fingers slowly up and down its length.
  Kara didn't need to see the tension in Mykal's shoulders or the way he looked at Rela to know that all the pent-up desire from their earlier encounter was boiling up inside him now like floodwaters ready to burst over a dam.

H
er betrothed lunged forward and grasped Rela's buttocks in his big, rough hands and pulled her lush, ripe body against his own.  Rela gasped as he carried her forward and slammed her against the bars of his cell, but she spread her thighs and wrapped her slender legs around his narrow waist, crossing her ankles
behind his back
and pulling him in.

Rela shuddered as Mykal entered her
with a savage lunge.  As his hips thrust forward and impaled her on his manhood, he froze, and Kara saw the astonished ecstasy on his face, the shock he felt at the soft, slick tightness that surrounded his shaft.  Kara had been meant to give him that moment, and Rela had taken it from her.  For that, she hated the Wise Woman.

Mykal moved with a quick, hungry lust, pounding Rela against the wall as the small woman wrapped her arms around his broad back, raking her fingernails up and down along his hard muscles.  Over Mykal's shoulder, Rela stared into right into Kara's disembodied soul, a wicked grin on her face.

Then
the Wise Woman
flicked her fingers, and Kara felt herself spiraling away, spinning backwards through the cell, out into the empty hall, across the green, and back
through the forest to the lonely cottage where she lay
sobbing until sleep took her
.

Kara woke with a start, expecting to find a pair of yellow eyes staring at her in the darkness, but morning had come
. 
B
leak sunlight shone through
the high windows
, and outside she heard the clattering of bare branches moved by the wind.
  She had wrapped a thick bearskin around her body to stave off the night's chill, but now she cast it aside and stood up, smoothing her dress as she looked around.

In the daylight, the cottage seemed normal, if quaint.  A stone fireplace dominated the far wall, and an iron cookpot hung above the ashes.  A well-crafted wooden rocker sat before the fireplace, and tools hung along one wall
near a small cupboard
.  It seemed the kind of place a solitary man might live, a hunter or trapper, perhaps.

Kara's stomach
rumbled
with hunger,
and she went to the cupboard and peeked inside.
  A few dishes, but no food.  Worry began to gnaw at her gut.  If she couldn't go back to Krall, how was she to eat?  Would she have to beg
to survive
?

Something thumped against the door and interrupted her thoughts.  She jumped and let out a little yelp as she spun.  The heavy crossbar was still in place, but it rattled in its brackets as something hit the door again.  A muffled curse came from outside, then all was still.

Kara stood frozen in place, not wanting to breathe, the memories of last night's pursuit still fresh in her mind.

"Rela must have sent you," a deep voice sai
d from one of the high windows.

Kara screamed
in fright,
but the face at the window belonged to a man.  A thick black beard covered his strong jaw, but he had ruddy cheeks and the dark complexion of a woodsman.  His eyes were deep brown, not yellow, and they seemed gentle, almost weary.

"Who are you?" Kara said, trying to hide the tremble in her voice.

"You're inside my house," the man said.  "Better I should ask the questions.  Now will you open the door?  I
've got two fat coneys here, and I
'd like to get a stew going."

The man called himself Luther.  He was lean and lanky, but with wide shoulders and sinewy muscle of a man who lived hard.  Hairy forearms stuck out from beneath his buckskin jerkin, and Kara found herself watching him move gracefully about the cottage.  He
skinned the two rabbits he'd brought and
cooked a delicious stew with fresh vegetables from
his small garden
. 
Luther didn't speak much, but he seemed at ease in her presence, and completely unsurprised that she was there at all.

When the stew was finished,
Kara
sat before his crackling fire and
ate hungrily
.  The woodsman
watched with amusement as she wolfed down two bowls of the
thick, meaty
stew.

"Why are you here, girl?" Luther asked, when she finished.

Kara's face flushed with shame.  "I was exiled from Krall," she said.  "For... indecent acts."

Luther raised an eyebrow.  "Did you let him put it in you?"

Kara thought her face could grow no redder, but she wanted to crawl back under the bearskins when he looked at her with those brown eyes.  "No," she said at last.

"A virgin then.  She's persistent, isn't she?"

Kara didn't know what he meant.  Perhaps living alone in the woods had made him a tad crazy.

"T
he Wise Woman said that didn't matter.  She called me a temptress
, and said I had to go
."

Luther stared at her for a long moment, his expression carefully neutral.  Then he
snorted with disgust
.  "Wise Woman?  Is that what Rela's got those sheepherders calling her now?"

Kara pushed aside the memory of Rela and Mykal, of being fo
rced to watch as Rela seduced her betrothed
.  In the light of day, it almost seemed
she had dreamed the whole thing
.  Almost.  "Rela is a powerful witch," she said, surprised to find herself defending the Wise Woman.  "She sees omens and guides the village."

Luther chuckled
.  "Of course she does," he chuckled as he caught his breath.  "What else would she do, farm potatoes?"

Kara frowned.  "I've never seen you in the village.  How do you know Rela?"

His smile disappeared.  "Our paths have crossed.  She's a dangerous woman, full of treachery.  But you know that now that you've fallen afoul of her.  Exile is probably for the best.
"  He stood and headed for the door.
 
"
You should head for the lowlands.  There are things a girl can do
there
to earn a respectable living.  Forget Krall."

"I can't," Kara said.  "My betrothed, he..."

"I don't care about your sad story, girl," Luther said.  "You're an
outcast
now.  There's no point staying near your village.  Move on.  You can take the rest of that stew with you, and some water from the stream, but I want you well away from here by nightfall."
  His lip curled in a savage snarl, and his posture implied more than a threat.

Kara thought of the beast in the darkness, the one that had pursued her here.  A chill ran up her spine
.  "Rela told me to wait here.  She..."