Enchantress (6 page)

The color lightened in her eyes.
Sparks spun about, pulling him down in a vortex until he felt as if
he was falling down a well, drowning in a luminous ocean of gold
and silver. "I have never met you in my life, d'Anzeray. I was
fetching water when you and your brothers..." She let the sentence
fade into nothing.

"Fetching water when what?"

She shook her head, lush black hair
shining in the lantern light as if it was polished. "I got the
words wrong. This is not my native tongue. Often I am
confused."

He didn't believe that excuse at all
anymore. She might be confused about something, but it wasn't
language. "Were you fetching water in the market place that day
when the fight broke out?"

Finally she looked at him again,
frowning hard. "What marketplace?"

Nino grinned. "You
do
remember! I know you
do. You pretend that you never kissed me. And then slapped my face.
And then kissed me again."

"You are a madman. This never
happened."

"Indeed it did, Jesamyn. I was
there."

"You are addled, cub."

The grin faded from his lips. "I
remember the scars upon your back. That is how I know it was you at
the souk in Marrakech. That and the color of your eyes, which I
have never seen anywhere else in my life."

* * * *

Jesamyn stared at the fool
in the straw.
Marrakech.
The very word sent a flame-tipped arrow through
her heart and soul.

Yes, she too remembered Marrakech, but
not because of him. For a moment she could not speak, waiting for
her body to heal with yet another scar after that plunging, fiery
arrowhead had seared her flesh and her spirit.

She thought now of The Master, a cruel
man who whipped Jesamyn and her twin sister whenever their mother
did not perform well or came home with too little coin. Only when
he began talking of sending the girls out to work, of selling them
to a rich man who required virgins for his bed, did their mother
finally find the courage to run away with her daughters, to build a
life elsewhere, out of his clutches. That was how they came to live
in the small village that was later razed to the ground by the
wicked marauders otherwise known as the d'Anzeray. Rumor had it
that the warrior brothers were hired as mercenaries by an enemy of
the Almoravid king— that there had been some disagreement between
the sovereign and one of his cousins, which flared into bloodshed
and caused each side to take and lose territory. Jesamyn's mother
and sister were casualties of the "disagreement".

She survived only because she had been
sent to collect water that morning early and had become distracted
by daydreams on her way home.

As the memories came to her again,
scraping off the old scabs of time, she smelled anew the acrid
smoke— the odor of burning houses. And flesh.

Later, among the ruins of her mother's
hut, Jesamyn had recovered a silver cuff and on it was marked the
crest she would soon come to recognize as that of the d'Anzeray.
From that moment on they were her sworn enemies. If she died in the
effort of dispatching every last one of them back to their maker,
so be it.

Marrakech was where it all
began.

She was glad now of the reminder, for
she'd begun to think this cub harmless, even likeable.

"The souk?" she asked quietly, making
her voice calm again.

"When the brawl broke out, you were
hiding behind a pot and that's where I found you." The arrogant
murderer had the gall to smile. "Is it not strange fate indeed that
we should meet again?"

"How old were you then?"

"Eleven. Almost twelve."

He was talking of something that
happened ten years ago then.

Yes, that would have been a short time
before her mother took them away from Marrakech. Two years before
the slaughter in which he and his brothers participated. She felt
sick.

"And all your brothers were
there?"

"Of course." He laughed. "They started
the brawl."

Naturally.
She swallowed hard and turned her face away
again. The idea of letting this man touch her, fuck her again, made
her blood curdle with a renewed surge of hatred and despair. But
she must go through with it, snare his trust, lure him in, so he
would take her home with him to where this nest of killers lived.
Intimacy with the enemy was a sacrifice she must make in her mother
and sister's memory. Their spirits had surely driven her this
far.

Vengeance was now within her
reach.

"I tire of this talk," she said
briskly. "Shall I suck your cock until it is erect again? Then it
will be ready to fuck my pussy, as you said was your
desire."

He chuckled. "I do love the way you
get directly to the point, Jesamyn. Whether this is your native
tongue or not, you have mastered it with expertise." He leaned over
to kiss her. "Yes. Thank you," he whispered.

* * * *

Her mouth was indeed expert, he soon
found. On his back in the straw, he enjoyed the sensation of her
warm, wet tongue and throat, massaging his shaft and crest until it
was ready to crow again. Her lips made a tight ring around the very
base of his cock as she swallowed his entire length and worked his
staff with the muscles of her throat. His balls could not hold
their load for long under this assault. He squirmed, panting,
lifting and lowering his groin as the suction
intensified.

Finally, seed surging up his shaft, he
grabbed her by the hair to pull her off. "Time to fuck," he
growled.

She climbed astride his hips and
lowered herself onto him, taking control, moving her body up and
down, letting him watch as his long cock disappeared inside her and
then reappeared slowly, inch by inch. He held her around the waist,
trying to adjust the speed, but she would have none of it. The
woman pushed his hands away and continued riding his manhood at her
own pace.

Her long, glossy locks tumbled forward
over her breasts, and Nino felt as if all that black hair
surrounded him in a mysterious cloud of softness and darkness. He
sank into it, helpless to resist the grasping tendrils.

For the first time in his life he was
at the mercy of a woman.

It wasn't at all bad, he
discovered.

She lifted up slightly to readjust her
legs, placing the soles of her feet flat on either side of his
hips, and now she fucked him in a squat position. His penetration
was even deeper. He could see her juices gleaming on his thick
shaft, could enjoy the sight of her pussy lips swallowing him as
eagerly as her mouth had done earlier. In, out. Up,
down.

Unable to stand it a moment longer, he
gripped her thighs and held them hard to thwart her escape as he
thrust his cock to her womb and spilled, crying out in the agony of
delight. His body flexed and arched, his seed flooding into her,
his fingers digging into her flesh, pinning her down.

She cursed at him for spending inside
her, but the physical strength, ultimately, was his. And he wanted
his seed in her. When he won her game, she had promised to give him
whatever he desired that night, had she not?

Yes, and this was what he desired— to
fill her up with cum and to watch it dripping out of her. Time and
time again.

That night he discovered just how much
he enjoyed witnessing the steady, sticky drops of his semen marking
a wet path along her lean brown thighs, across her pretty breasts,
over her stomach. To watch it trickle from her pussy lips onto his
own muscular thigh as she rested astride his leg.

Nino had never spent so much of it in
one night or in one woman. He concluded drowsily that she must have
used some sort of magic upon his manhood. Nothing else could
account for the heightened sexual arousal that raced through his
bones, made him feel superhuman with the tireless need to fuck
until she could take no more.

Chapter Five

He did not sleep, but lay in the straw
with his arms around her while she dozed. At least, he thought she
dozed. She was quiet but for gentle breaths blowing against the
side of his neck, and she was still, her body warm beside him. By
dawn's light he would wake her and then they could ride to his
home. Nino's mind was made up to take her with him. She was too
fine a purchase to leave behind.

But the sudden creak of the stable
door warned him that this peaceful night would not continue. They
were about to have company. Sitting up, he let her slide to the
straw and he reached for his sword where it hung with his belt from
the lantern hook.

"Hand her over, d'Anzeray," came a
loud, slurred voice. "It's our turn to fuck the whore. We all spent
our coin in her pussy, so we should all get a piece of
it."

Nino stood in the entrance of the
stall to face them. He wore only his boots and re-fastened
breeches, but with sword in hand he was ready to fight if need be.
"She sleeps. I wore her out."

"So what?" came a different voice
through the dark shadows. "I'll have her while she's
sleeping."

Another added with a terse
laugh, "The whore will soon wake with the three of us using her at
once. This time
you
can watch d'Anzeray."

Three figures finally emerged before
him, their faces ugly and grimacing in the lantern light. One of
them already unlaced his breeches, fat fingers fumbling for his
flaccid dick. "Maybe I'll beat her awake, eh? Stand aside and let
us at it. I can smell her sweet cunt from here."

Nino stood his ground. They argued,
accusing him of being selfish, of conspiring with her to steal
their coin. And thus a fight broke out, because he wasn't going to
let them lay a finger on her.

* * * *

Jesamyn had not been asleep at all and
when she heard the men enter she prepared herself with her own
weapon— her mind.

She did not need Nino d'Anzeray to
fight for her. If she was a woman without extraordinary skills, she
would have been dead long before.

Jesamyn lay in the straw and listened
to the argument, heard d'Anzeray refuse to turn her over to the
other men. She'd seen in his face already that he did not mean to
share her with strangers. Apparently it was different when it was
family, she mused, thinking of what he'd said about his brothers
sharing their wives.

She closed her eyes and reached
through the night with her senses. The other men smelled strongly
of bad hops and stewed beef. One of them had eaten an apple that
day for there was a seed stuck in a wide gap between his rotting
teeth. He knew it was there for his tongue kept running over it,
trying to loosen the unfamiliar object. One of the others had a
spleen that was swollen— the result of a blow at some point in his
recent history. The vessels were bloated and tangled. It was not
hard to see. Finally the third man, the youngest of their group,
was so drunk that his eyesight was blurred, his feet
staggering.

Oh, this would be an easy one for
her.

Their most pressing thorns revealed to
her questing thoughts, she simply slid her mind's artful fingers
over them and, like an invisible hand on a dagger hilt, forced them
deeper.

* * * *

Nino spread his feet for balance and
held his sword in readiness as the three would-be assailants
approached the stall and the woman sleeping in the straw behind
him.

Suddenly, before they reached him, the
largest man fell to one side, clutching his stomach, color draining
from his face. In seconds his heavy form had crumpled to the
ground, groaning in agony. Another man tripped over him and
stumbled against a wooden beam, knocking himself into apparent
unconsciousness. He tipped over backwards, straight as a plank, all
the way down to horizontal.

The third man still advanced, not
caring about his companions. His mouth flapped open, drooling and
leering. He ran a thick tongue over his teeth. Suddenly, just as he
reached Nino, his lips closed and a surprised look widened his
bloodshot eyes. His head jerked back and he raised both hands to
his throat, clutching at it. A harsh wheeze gushed out of him, but
he seemed incapable of drawing air back in. His face
reddened.

As Nino watched the man choking and
spinning in circles, he suddenly felt a hand on his arm. Jesamyn
was awake and standing at his side.

"Quickly," she exclaimed, "the apple
seed is a good size but will not hold forever and he will cease to
choke. Make haste."

Although confused he instinctively
acted on her command. Her voice was so calm and steady, he did not
think twice.

Only when they were both astride his
horse and riding at speed through the forest did he think to say,
"Apple seed? What made you think that? A man cannot choke on an
apple seed."

The woman riding with her arms around
him did not reply. Her long black hair wove thick tendrils around
him again, and it soon became unimportant whatever that man had
choked upon. Or how she could have known it.