The Gingerbread Dungeon (13 page)

****

In less than an hour, Maya was knocking on the manor door.

Zachariah answered it, breathless, and looked down at her. “Is it time?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, throwing down her bag and walking into his arms. “One more day and you will be mine forever.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, his voice a calm murmur into her hair.

“I’ll tell you in a little while,” Maya replied. “For now, just kiss me.”

As she raised her head, he lowered his lips to hers, pressing his lips gently to hers and then nibbling at her mouth until she opened it to receive his tongue. They stayed like that for endless blissful moments, lips together and locked in each others arms, until Zachariah moaned in discomfort.

Maya pulled back and gave a gentle laugh, reaching down to cup Zarachiah’s cock where it strained to escape its imprisonment. “And how has this gone, my love?”

She let him gently move her hands away and bring them to his mouth to place one kiss on each palm, as he tried to relax his body with deep and cleansing breaths.

“Let me just say, my lady, that I am very glad that it will only be days and not weeks.”

“Does your body trouble you so?” Maya asked.

“Only because I can’t get you out of my mind,” he said, and kissed her palms once again.

Maya’s breath caught, and she stepped back.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

“I was just suddenly struck by how very much I love you,” she sighed, “and realizing that my honor at your romantic gesture means that tonight I will also be denying myself.”

She moved her hands so that they were now grasping his and clasped them to her heart. “I do not wish to torture you too much, but would you mind terribly if I were to sleep tonight in your arms?”

“And tomorrow?’

“In the morning, I will leave you.” She touched his face and smiled as he relaxed into her palm. “But when I return in the evening, you will be forever mine.”

Zachariah took a deep breath. “Tell me your plan,” he said, and she did.

****

The next morning she returned to Johannes and found him pacing the clearing.

“Everything is arranged,” she said, as he turned to her. “You will just need to follow my lead.”

Then she gathered water from the stream, and had him kneel so that she could shave him one last time, loving the way that he stilled beneath her hand as the razor’s sharp steel moved across his tender skin.  She finished just as the sun crested the horizon and, packing the blade safely away, grabbed the bag containing his remaining belongings and told him it was time to go.

When they reached a bend in the river that brought it very near the King’s road, Maya told Johannes to take off his clothes. Then she packed them into the sack she carried and threw it into the fast moving stream where it quickly disappeared.

“What are you doing?” Johannes screamed. “Everything I owned is in there!”

“Everything the miller’s son owned was in there,” Maya said evenly. “You are now the Marquis de Carabas. Repeat it after me.”

“I am the Marquis de Carabas.”

“Go stand in the edge of the stream, and when you hear me scream, you must pretend that you are drowning.” She kissed him one last time. “That illusion of death will be the start of your new life.”

“I don’t understand,” Johannes said.

“Just do as I say,” Maya said, “and you will. Now go.”

Johannes waded into the stream, and Maya moved to the side of the road to wait.

When she heard the wheels of a fine carriage and the hooves of half a dozen horses, Maya knew that it was the King approaching, and she jumped into the road crying, “My master, the Marquis de Carabas, is drowning in the river! Please, Your Majesty, he needs your help.”

Calling for the driver to pull up on the horses, the King told the Princess to wait. Then he jumped down, signaled to several of the soldiers  accompanying him, and followed Maya as she ran back to the river.

With the King and the soldiers working together, they managed to drag Johannes from the water.

“Where are your clothes, my good man?” the King asked.

Before Johannes could answer, Maya turned around and cried out, “Oh no! They were right here when he went in to bathe, someone must have stolen them while I searched for help.”

“Hurry back to the castle, and fetch him my best suit,” said the King to one of his men. “You girl, fetch a blanket from my carriage.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty.” Maya bowed and then tried to suppress her smile as she ran back to the carriage.

She knocked on the carriage door and when the Princess answered she whispered, “Follow my lead,” before loudly saying, “My master, the Marquis de Carabas, has almost drowned. Do you have a blanket?”

“Of course,” the Princess said. “You must let me help.”

She stepped down from the carriage, and Maya led her back down to where the men stood beside the river.

“Daughter! Go back to the carriage! You must not shame the Marquis by seeing him in this state!” The King snatched the blanket from his daughter’s hands and wrapped it around Johannes.

“I will take her back there myself, Your Highness,” Maya said. “If you will permit me, master?” She bowed deeply.

Johannes blinked for a moment, but then spoke. “Of course you must escort the Princess back to where she’ll be safe. A woman as beautiful as she should always be cherished and never be put at risk.”

Maya accompanied Petra back up to the carriage.

“Will the Marquis be alright?” the Princess asked, and Maya could hear the sound of real worry in her voice.

“Your father came in time,” Maya said. “There is no need to be concerned.” Locking eyes with the Princess she continued, “Your Highness, I promise all will be well.”

A short while later, the man the King had sent galloping for clothing returned, and a few minutes after that, the King and the now richly attired Marquis de Carabas ascended from the riverbank.

“We should take you home, good sir,” the King said, waving off a footman and handing the Marquis into the carriage himself.

Before Johannes could demur, Maya spoke up. “Thank you, Your Majesty. If you would just continue in the direction you were headed and turn left at the next lane we will be there momentarily.” She handed the Princess up into the carriage to sit across from her father and the Marquis and hopped up onto the seat with the driver.

Maya could hear the trio speaking as they drove along, and she smiled at the sounds of jovial conversation.

When they pulled up to the manor house, the door opened and Zachariah stood there in his finest suit.

“Your Majesty,” he said, sounding surprised. “Welcome to the house of the Marquis de Carabas. The Marquis isn’t in right now, but…” He gasped and jumped forward as Johannes stuck his wet head out of the carriage.

“My lord!” Zachariah continued. “We must get you inside by the fire.” He quickly hustled Johannes inside while Maya stayed to help the King and Princess out of the carriage.

“The Marquis would be honored if you would accept his hospitality,” she said. “Would you please come in for a drink and perhaps to share the evening meal?”

“What a fine manor this is,” said the King, looking thoughtfully around him. “Isn’t it fine, my daughter?”

“Yes, father,” the Princess smiled as she looked around her. “Anyone would be happy to dwell here.”

The King looked at her questioningly and, as Maya gestured them inside, the Princess turned her head back to look at her and winked.

When she followed them into the salon, Maya was pleased to see the Marquis stand and hand the Princess into the comfortable chair that stood by the fire next to his own.

The King then sat across from the pair and, after they had been chatting about inconsequentials for a few minutes, said, “You keep a beautiful home here, Marquis. I must congratulate your wife.”

Johannes bowed his head. “Alas, I am unmarried, Your Majesty.” He looked meaningfully over at Maya where she hovered by the door. “Any thanks must go to my servants.”

“Nonsense,” the King said. “It takes a man of good character to keep a home like this one. Don’t you think so daughter?”

“Yes, father, I do.” The Princess smiled at Johannes where he sat beside her. “I think the Marquis must be a man of very good character, indeed.”

The King startled. He had spent so many years failing to interest his daughter in potential suitors that he had begun to think he would never see such a look of love upon her face.

“Would you consider marrying a man of such good character, Petra?” he asked, in shock.

“If he would have me,” the Princess said, turning to the Marquis and grasping both of his hands in her own, “I would wed him here today.”

“What do you say, Marquis?” the King asked, with a jovial laugh. “Will you be the man who finally takes my daughter and her dowry off my hands after so many years?”

Johannes’ eyes were fixed on Petra’s as he answered. “Yes, Your Majesty. I will.”

The Princess married the Marquis de Carabas that day and, as a wedding present, asked her father to bestow a title and a grant of land on the serving girl who had brought the two of them together.

Pleased to have finally rid himself of the problem of finding her a husband, the King agreed, and Maya found herself named Baroness Catalyn of River’s Bend with ten acres of land, a small manor house, and a portion large enough to enable her to live happily until the end of her days.

“My husband and I thank you, Majesty,” Maya said to the King as she took Zachariah’s hand and pulled him forward into the light. Then she bit her tongue to keep from laughing at the shocked look on Johannes’ face. Fortunately, he stood well out of the King’s sight.

Maya and Zachariah went off to their new home that night, on two of the King’s horses, with his gold in their pockets and his blessing to speed them on their way.

****

When they arrived at their new house in the middle of the next day, after spending the night at a roadside inn, they found a note upon the door.

I sent someone ahead. – Petra

“Who is Petra?” Zachariah asked.

“The Princess.” Maya replied, and reached to open the door. “Let us see what she has done.”

She walked into a room filled with the scent of flowers and soap. The floors were scrubbed, a fire was laid in the fireplace, and through a door she could see that the kitchen was just as clean.

“Home,” she said quietly to herself before turning to Zachariah. “My love, we’re home.”

He dropped their bags on the floor, closed the door, and then picked her up and spun her around.

When he put her down again, she smiled and touched his cheek. “Now, at last, you can truly be mine.”

Zachariah blushed.

“Find the bedroom,” she said, “and remove your clothes. I will meet you there in a moment.”

She went to clean her hands and face and then found her love where she had always wanted him, naked and on his knees in their own bedroom, where no one could ever take him away from her again.

After kissing his forehead, she knelt down before him and said, “I am going to release you now, but even once your body is free from its cage you will still be mine.”

“I will always be yours, my lady,” he answered.

She smiled as she gently reached down to slide his beautiful member free from its bonds and slowly ease his balls from their imprisonment. “Now your lady in truth.”

“It has always been my truth,” he spoke gently. “Even when you were sold to another.”

“I love you, Zachariah.” She put the apparatus that had caged his body aside and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I love you too, my lady,” he said as she brought his lips to hers.

When Maya could finally bear to be parted from his lips, she pulled back and said, “Undress me.”

Zachariah first unpinned her hair, so that it cascaded straight past her waist like a black river. Then he unlaced her gown, and drew it off her shoulders so that it fell to the floor.

When she stood beside the bed, dressed only in her boots and her hair, he knelt down before her again to plant a kiss on each of her insteps.

“I thank these boots for carrying you back to me,” he said, and slowly kissed his way up the leather until his lips rested on the soft golden skin of her thigh. “May I, my lady?”

Taking a deep breath, Maya composed herself to answer. “Yes, you may.”
 Then she gasped as Zachariah reached out and touched her with his tongue.

The shock of his mouth on her body after so long weakened her knees, and she allowed Zachariah to push her back onto the bed and kneel before her, draping her booted legs over his shoulders. He returned his mouth to her pussy, and she moaned.

No one else had ever pleased her in the way Zachariah could, no other man had ever brought her so much joy with just his lips and tongue. As Zachariah buried his face between her legs, he brought her to orgasm again and again until she cried out, “Enough! I need you inside me.”