The House of Flame Lilies Ch. 03

She glanced once more at the fallen steed, then strode back to her own, lashed to a thick, snow-brushed pine. She was pacing, snorting, and scuffing her hooves, the scent and sight of Brutus making her nervous. Sandu stroked her nose and shushed her, untethering her and breathing in her warm, straw-and-musk scent. "Hush, hush, Arcan. There's a brave girl. I'll keep you safe. I need you to get me home, eh?"

Arcan snorted, mist blowing from her wide, black nostrils. Sandu scratched her mane, and slung herself into the saddle. She kicked Arcan's flanks and set off along the path, her way clearly lit by milky moonlight through the threading shadows of the forest.

The manor was only one more hour's ride.

*

A deep, quiet bliss had set up camp in Sparrow's body. They'd pushed a couple of the couches into a V around the fire and heaped the cushions on the floor, turning the warm glow into a secret den. Clothes slowly slipped away, the two of them always touching, always kissing. She read to him, taking him on more tours of awe and adventure with her spell-binding voice, excerpts from histories and diaries and legends and poetry, now scattered about the silk cushions, like fallen petals. Some of the words spoke to Sparrow, others washed over him like buttermilk. But, whether through meaning or just the music of her voice, all were painfully beautiful. And all drew him to Vestalia, like a zealous novice is drawn to one reading the Gospel. He worshipped her, as she read. He sucked her cranberry nipples throughBeowulf, until her areolas were flushed and her breathing quivered. He curled against her leg and padded kisses up and down her thigh throughThe Meadows of Gold. He massaged her feet and licked her dainty toes through theAeneid. He nestled his cheek to her hair and breathed it like drugged smoke throughThe Epic of King Gesar. She ordered a gargoyle to bring a tray of food and wine and they fed each other sweet morsels, kissing each other's fingertips, encircled in a shared blanket. She pressed her thumb to the seeping tip of his endlessly aroused cock and glazed a grape with his dew. She had him eat it up, as she teased his nipple. He drifted into a haze of crackling warmth, flowing words, luxurious tastes, and the sweet cycle between the cradle of afterglow and the exquisite promise of sex.

Now he lay on his front along Vestalia's back, cuddling to her. She was stretched out prone on the hearth rug, propping herself up on her elbows and reading in a sultry, lazy ebb and flow from a book of plays, as Sparrow relaxed on her body, like a lemur on a branch.

"What's this one again?" Sparrow asked into her shoulder, running his nose along it.

"It's called Romeo and Juliet," Vestalia replied, thumbing through to the scene she wanted. "It's a play about lovers."

Sparrow wrapped her closer in his arms and pressed his brow to the dip between her shoulder blades.

"Our lovers have stolen some time together under the stars, but now dawn approaches and they talk about wishing to stay in the night," she explained.

He nestled his cheek against her and listened.

"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;" Her voice was like the breeze through willow branches.

Sparrow turned his face again and kissed her skin. He began to slide down her body, running the kisses along the smooth curve of her spine, into the creases at her waist.

"Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."

"Mmm, Nightingale..." Sparrow sighed. He slid up over her back again, slipped his hands beneath her, and cupped her breasts, filling his spread hands with overwhelming softness. He massaged them gently and flickered his fingertips over her nipples, feeling them prick up to his touch.

Vestalia's voice dropped lower to speak for Romeo, wisps of breath chasing the words, as Sparrow pleasured her flesh. "It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:"

The fire rumbled comfortingly and spilled red-gold light over her sumptuous form. Sparrow hummed and stroked her hair off her back and sank into her neck. He slinked on top of her. His swelling cock slipped between her ass cheeks and pulsed hard.

"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

She moaned on the end of her line, opening her neck for him and sending a maddening undulation down her body, rolling pleasure along his torso and grinding her ass cheeks either side of his cock.

"I must be gone and live, or stay and die."

"Stay and die..." Sparrow groaned. He peeled from her, like a petal wilting off a bud, dragging his lips down her back. She chuckled wickedly under her breath. She spread her legs, as he descended, so he could land kneeling between them. He gathered her round ass into his hands, squeezed, and flickered his tongue down the cleft. Vestalia gasped and perked her ass up, pushing into his mouth, and beckoning him to her pink, glistening seam. Sparrow moaned and ducked, tongue unfurling, pupils yawning.

"Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:" Her voice rose high for Juliet, then higher with pleasure.

Sparrow pasted his tongue to the length of her clit from behind and tucked his nose against her cunt, pulling her ass cheeks apart and breathing deeply, whimpering helplessly at her musk.

"It is some meteor that the sun exhales,"

He lapped deep in her folds, her fragrant juices pooling in the well of his mouth. He squeezed the flesh of her ass and nuzzled her seam. His cock reared up, his cheeks burned. His lips skidded in a fresh trickle of her wetness. He slurped and groaned. She moaned with him, pushing her ass back to smother his face, extinguishing the fire and the books.

"To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

And light thee on thy way to Mantua:"

Sparrow's answering gasp was plugged by pungent, delicious flesh. He breathed headily, his cock aching and flinching. He sawed his tongue along her clit rapidly, delighting in her subtle bounce up and down on his taste buds and the quiver of her ass against his palms and cheekbones.

"Therefore stay yet;"

"Oh, stay yet..." His tongue flashed on her and tangled around his mumble.

"thou need'st not to be gone."

"Not to be gone..." He tensed his tongue and worked her seam. She sighed and ground her ass against his face, driving him into a fog of sensation and desire, as he drove his tongue inside her. He thrust forward with it, washing it with perfumed fluid, licking and swirling in her pulsing walls, entirely overpowered by her scent and taste and the snowdrift of her flesh. He slipped his hands to hook her hips and encourage her slow, deep, backwards thrusting. He buried himself in her body and excavated her for flavour, for moans, for tremors. Her cunt was slick and springy. His tongue worked against it, a satisfying ache easing into the muscle. His cock ached too, more and more intensely with each sip from her seam and grind of her ass. He swam in her, gloried in her, until the need for relief was screaming in his bone marrow.

He resurfaced with a gasp, her fragrance smeared across his mouth and nose, his cheeks printed hot, glowing pink from her press. He crawled forward, panting and shaking, and collapsed over her back again, clutching her needily and raining kisses over her shoulders. She wriggled beneath him, sending a hail of sensations across his skin. She arched her spine and pushed her seam against the tip of his cock. He mewled and shuddered. He slipped inside.

The pleasure was cacophonous.

Vestalia moaned carnivorously and rolled into Romeo again. "Let me be ta'en,"

"Oh," Sparrow moaned, "let me be ta'en..."

"let me be put to death;"

"Let me be put to death..." He thrust forward, his torso rubbing warmly along her back, her flesh giving way to him, submerging him.

"I am content, so thou wilt have it so."

"I... I am... c-content - Oh! Oh, so thou wilt have it... have it so... Oooh..." He let her gentle, undulating movements guide him, propelling him in and out of her sucking, caressing body in deep, controlled strikes. His heartbeat echoed in his cock in resounding pounds of pleasure. His body brushed over hers again and again, every pore whirring to life and brimming with sensitivity.

"I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,

'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;"

He staked his toes into the hearth rug and curled his fingers under her breasts and pushed deeper, the sound of his solid length ploughing through wet flesh tickling the small of his back. Sweat beaded between their bodies. It trickled down his spine with the strain of staying slow, staying gentle, softly filling her with pleasure at the expense of his own desperation. His stomach bubbled, his flesh flared, his pulse punched in his wrists and throat. He thrust and receded over her, like a low tide lapping the great cliffs. She hummed and sighed and moved sensuously beneath him, captivating him to the rhythm of her desire. It tortured him that she could still read in her poetic lilt, while he so easily lost consciousness in the flowing pleasure.

"Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat

The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:"

She tipped her head back and a deep purr rolled over her tongue. It seized Sparrow at his core. He heaved himself onto straight arms and began to thrust harder inside her, gazing slack-jawed at her body and the firelight rippling down it with her river of motion, sparkling on the lacing of sweat on her broad back. He scooped his hips and drove deeper, staying deep, shortening his thrusts so he could stir the pleasure between them with no reprieve, so he could stay enveloped in her heat and soft, insistent grip. His pelvis met her ass over and over. He watched the ample curves quiver with his movements. He watched her head fall forward and her shoulder blades rise, like there were wings under her skin. He watched her vertebrae ridge and vanish, as she ground and twisted on his cock, drawing the pleasure from him. She moved faster. He matched her, his tip throbbing. He could feel himself swelling inside her. He grit his teeth and thrust through a surge towards the peak.

"I have more care to stay than will to go:"

His pleasure crested. He bit his tongue and arched his spine violently with a muted howl, smoothly sliding deeper yet, his locked elbows trembling.

Vestalia dropped the book with a quiet thud, open on the page. Her fingers splayed beneath her and scrabbled on the rug. Her next line came in a shattering cry. "Come, death, and welcome!"

Sparrow wailed, "Come, death!"

Her voice dropped to a snarl, jabbing her cunt backwards to swallow and grasp his cock. "Juliet wills it so."

His pleasure mounted in his body, until he could do nothing but twitch and gasp. "She wills it so..."

He broke and overflowed. Heat tore through him and pumped from his cock, coursing into her own blaze with a mutual, rending moan that ruffled the pages of the books spiralling up the walls. Powerful beats of pleasure drummed between them. Sparrow collapsed against her and held on for dear life, still writhing inside her to prolong their connection. He rode her panting, as she caught her breath, dropping to lie flat on her front with her hair sloshing over the dark rug, her brow pressed to her folded forearms. He gulped for air, then threw himself into kissing her back, wriggling restlessly on top of her exhausted body to catch every inch of her skin with his lips.

Vestalia broke into bubbling laughter, bouncing beneath him, muffled by her arms. She let out Romeo's line on a long, merry sigh. "How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day."

Sparrow echoed her sigh and returned to cuddling against her, slipping his fingertips up for her to catch in her mouth and nibble. He smiled at the soft bites and ran his thumb along the tender skin under her chin. He whispered into her hair, a sudden surge in his heart. "My soul... it is not day..."

The hearth crackled.

A breeze whisked the window.

Sparrow's body slowly began to cool. He shivered a little against her. Vestalia twisted under him and tipped him to lie beside her, facing her. She lifted her hand to his face and ran her fingertips down his cheek. He leaned in to kiss her.

The library door banged.

Vestalia's eyes flashed. She stood with disorientating swiftness, casting a blanket over Sparrow and whirling another about her body in one movement. Sparrow scrambled to stand beside her, gathering the blanket around his waist, heart skipping.

Cyrus came striding into the room, his lightless eyes like slate.

"You might try knocking," Vestalia scolded.

Cyrus looked at her flatly, seemingly unmoved by the state he'd found them in. "It's the library."

"It's my library," she corrected harshly. "What is it?"

"Look over here." Cyrus strode to the windows and jerked his head out at the grounds. Vestalia hurried to his side, Sparrow tripping after her, going cold.

Cyrus pointed to the iron gates rising from the snow-sprinkled grass. On the other side of them was a bulky figure in a dark, long, leather coat, astride a huge, solid, black horse, pacing and stomping in front of the railings. The face was concealed by a black, broad-brimmed hat. The figure reached into their coat and withdrew a pistol. Sparrow's stomach lurched. The figure raised the pistol to the sky. The shot cracked the deep quiet of the mountain, ricocheting off the manor walls, echoing for what seemed like miles. Sparrow jumped and gripped Vestalia's arm. She didn't respond to him. She was staring down at the figure with a steely, unnerving expression he hadn't seen her wear before.

"VESTALIA!" the figure roared, the horse kicking at the grass and snorting. "VESTALIA!"

Vestalia was as still as marble.

Cyrus looked to her urgently. "What do we do?"

"COME OUT, DEVIL!" The coarse voice clanged on the windowpane. It was rage itself, it sounded like an earthquake.

"Mistress?" Sparrow asked timidly, tucking his body closer to hers, his heart pattering too fast. "What's going on?"

Vestalia still didn't look at him. He needed to see into her eyes. He needed to know she was safe. That they were all safe. His fingers moved on her arm. Still, she didn't turn, but she laid her hand over his.

"VESTALIA!"

Cyrus bent his head to Vestalia and spoke earnestly. "I can face her for you."

Vestalia snapped her gaze to him, so bright it illuminated his pallour. "Don't you dare." She swallowed, Sparrow watched her larynx spring. She set her face and issued a soft command to Cyrus. "Have her wait for me in the drawing room."

Cyrus frowned. "You can't be serious."

Vestalia shrugged. "She wants a confrontation. Might as well have one in the warm."

The corner of Cyrus' mouth twitched, whether out of anxiety or amusement was impossible to tell. He inclined his head and marched from the room.

Vestalia finally turned to Sparrow, the irresistible authority of her gaze taking hold of his body. "Help me get dressed, Passer."

She pulled him back to the hearth, where her gown lay over the back of one of the couches. She speedily dropped the blanket with her back to him, swept the dress under feet and stepped into it and her red, silk slippers at once. She drew the dress up her body and held it over her breasts, as Sparrow let his cover fall and relaced the corsetry.

He was afraid to speak in the sudden bowstring tension, every thwip of ribbon scratching his skin. Memories pressed on his mind. The village had felt like this moments before his banishment. His fingers tangled.

"Quickly, Little One," Vestalia murmured.

He flexed his hands and took up the ties again, finishing them hastily. She turned, met his eyes, and looked penetratingly into them for a long, pained moment. Then she squeezed his hand and swept away, the gown billowing, as she hurried to the library door.

Sparrow stumbled after her, heart crashing into his throat. "Wait!"

She turned sharply.

"Are... Are you in danger?"

She didn't answer.

"Mistress, please, tell me," he begged.

Her face softened. She opened her mouth, but stayed silent a moment. When she spoke, her voice was sweet. "You know that key I gave you?"

He nodded.

"Be a good boy and use it."

"Can't I come? Can't I help?" He kept stepping towards her.

"No. Stay here."

"But..."

Do as I say.

Sparrow's muscles all knotted, as he halted abruptly. "Who is that?" he asked desperately.

She paused, her hand on the door handle, and took a slow, measured breath. Her eyes roved away, then returned to him, full of an emotion he couldn't place. She turned the door handle. "The lark."

And she was gone.

It hurt him more than blades, but he locked the door behind her.

*

Vestalia stepped into the drawing room, the soft glow of candles and the hearth painting the dusky pink walls in sunset. She closed the curtains, the swish of heavy fabric ruffling the silence. She ran her fingers over the keys of the harpsichord near the window, strumming a tuneless song from it. She walked back to the centre of the room and its high-backed, cushioned chairs around a low coffee table. There was a small stack of books left on the table from her last visit, poetry and music and myths. She looked thoughtfully at the arrangement of chairs. She pushed the one nearest the fire directly in front of it, so the flames framed it and cast it into deep shadow. She waved her hand. The candles dimmed to tiny flickers and the fire diminished in its crackling bed. The room was wreathed in darkness.

She stood in the heat of the hearth, letting it caress her skin. A pot of flame lilies sat on the mantelpiece, their petals like cuttings from the fire itself. She reached up and ran her fingertips over the waxy surface.

She waited.

A quiet knock at the door.

"Come in," she said, turning to the sound.

The door clicked open, peeling away to reveal Cyrus, his face clouded and his mouth stiff. "Your guest," he said darkly.

A woman strode past him, the flap of her long leather coat slapping the end of his words. She was monumentally tall and easily as broad as Cyrus, her powerful build accentuated by the hard angles and long sweep of her coat and the slicing silhouette of her broad-brimmed hat. Her boots tramped on the floorboards, an assortment of hidden buckles clinking in the rhythm of her weighty step. Her face was brushed brown and scattered with old pox scars, with a proud, crooked nose, a tight, severe mouth, and onyx eyes that glinted in the shadow of the hat. Her oak-brown hair was restrained at the nape of her neck, but escaped in dry coils around her face, shadow mottling her skin further. She brought with her a scent of earth and mountain stream and horse. And particularly strong, hearty blood.

Vestalia subtly lapped her lower lip at the flavour billowing into the room. The woman stopped, feet planted apart, hackles up, large, square hands twitching at her sides. Vestalia smiled graciously. "Cyrus, what poor manners, didn't you take her hat and coat?"

"She threatened to behead me if I tried." Cyrus replied with guff irritation.

Vestalia cocked an eyebrow. "Even worse manners."

"I won't be staying," the woman said shortly.

Vestalia tutted. "Oh, now, Lerae. It's an arduous journey to make without reprieve. Will you not at least have a cup of tea?"

Lerae Sandu's hands balled into fists. Her voice lowered and simmered with nearly breaking restraint. "You and I need to talk."

It seemed it wasn't a visit for pleasantries. Vestalia shrugged in resignation and nodded to Cyrus, watching faithfully at the door. "Leave us."