The House of Flame Lilies Ch. 03

Heat spiralled down Sparrow's core.

"You remember what I said about being a courtesan?" Vestalia's hiss stole over him and bound him. "Sometimes you just have to be taken."

He nodded, staring entranced into the eye of the quartz cock. Its glare bored into him. His heart pressed his throat. The blood rushed in his ears.

Vestalia seized his arm and flung him roughly around, slamming his front against the window. His cheek squashed to it and his neck twisted a little too hard, ice biting him. She snatched his wrists and pinned them with one strong hand to the small of his back. He didn't dare struggle, but he wriggled slightly to feel her crushing grip, revelling in her incredible strength. The blood tingled in his fingertips. One satin-covered finger ran over his buttock and slipped to his perineum. She began to massage it, rubbing a hum of electricity into his nerves. He sighed high, his knees weakening, making him slink against the window with a soft squeak. His eyes became unfocused, straining back to glimpse the strange, hypnotic beauty of his mistress.

She leaned forward and murmured in her deep, enchanting voice into his ear. "That woman is nothing to you. You will not see her again. You will be protected from her. It will be as if she never existed to you. You will forget her. Do you understand?"

She rubbed faster, his cock tingling maddeningly. He bit his lip and nodded.

"You saw nothing. You heard nothing. You feel nothing, except for how much you want to be fucked and forget."

He heaved for breath. The air sank icy into his lungs.

Tell me you want to be fucked and forget.

The way she could speak under his skin, it made music in his musculature. "Please, fuck me, Mistress," he whispered, misting the glass. "I want you to fuck me."

And forget.

Yes, forget. Let her fill his body and make everything he was afraid of melt away. "Yes, anything. I can forget. Make me forget."

Her finger kept pressing his tenderness, as her thumb crept between his buttocks and began to massage his entrance.

He whined, his lips trembling on the glass, the cosmos black cock growing in his mind until it seemed monstrous. Until it was the only thing more monstrous than his fears, than his banishment, than his shame, than the clawing interest of the stranger. He needed that monstrosity. "Please, fuck me."

"Squirm." She tickled his entrance and his balls.

He hiccupped and bucked. Her hand gripped his wrists so hard they burned. He twisted, the glass grazing his nipples.

She licked his shoulder. "Simper."

He mewled and sighed, his brow crumpling. His ass pushed backwards, chasing her touch. He felt horribly empty, like a cored apple. He needed to be filled.

"Good, Little One."

Her praise warmed him. He dropped his head back and smelled embers and flowers. "Mistress..."

"Yes?" She caressed his ass, then went back to her wicked tease.

"Please... Say it again..."

"Say what?" A harder press, a burst of sparks inside him.

"That..." Shyness smothered him. He bit his tongue, snaking in her grasp and the spreading pleasure between his thighs. He couldn't bring his voice above a tremulous whisper. "That I'm yours. Say it again. When you said it, I felt..." He couldn't find the words.

She made a sound of satisfaction that slid over him like hot butter. She pushed her finger inside him, hitting him with a bolt of pleasure. "You're mine, Sparrow."

He moaned thickly, a puppet on her hand.

She grazed his neck with her sharp teeth. "Did you like it when she called you Slut?"

He shivered, his cock straining, his breath catching. He nodded.

"Well," Vestalia purred, "you're my slut."

"Oh God..." Sparrow whimpered, pleasure coiling in his core. "Fuck me like it."

He hit the window with a bang that echoed in his bones. Vestalia shoved him violently against the glass and with one swift lunge skewered him with the quartz cock. Sparrow's body became a river. He was dashed against pleasure and pain, then flowed into it, the oil on the quartz making the cock glide smoothly into him, its rock-hard girth stretching his walls and intensifying the pleasure. He writhed around it, feeling it everywhere, beyond his core and in every inch of his flesh. Her hand closed tighter on his wrists, tugging his shoulders back and arching his spine. His voice fled. His breath fled. His eyes whited out, then finally focused again. The stars rained over the mountains, like the world was falling out of space.

Vestalia pulled back to his entrance, leaving an echo of pleasure inside him. She thrust forward hard. Pleasure resounded in him. He cried out, the sound pinging off the glass. He shivered against the window, the cold strimming him. She thrust again, harsher, another bruising bang to the hard surface. The hand that had been teasing him curled around his hip and held him firm. She began to drive in and out of him mercilessly, the gem cock striking his prostate over and over, a hammer to an anvil, forging his red hot core to her will. His body blazed, the heat pouring off him clouding the window, shrouding his vision in mist. The cold against his torso bit him deeper, the hotter he burned. The starlight blurred, as she rattled his body. It was as rough and insistent as earlier on the table, only now it wasn't only her weight and her strength that overwhelmed him. She was inside him, invading him, hollowing him out and refilling him.

She rammed faster, ploughing him like earth, mounting him and rutting like a stag in heat. Sensation rose and shattered in his body. He was fracturing. He was going to break like dry twigs and crumble into dust. A brutal ache seized his cock. He itched to stroke it, but she seemed to sense it and pinned his wrists more forcefully to his back, tutting in his ear. "No, no, Passer. Just take it."

He whined in his throat. She thrust powerfully. He cried out. His spine spasmed and arched. His slick tip slid against the window and left a spun-sugar drizzle on the glass. She crushed him to the icy pane. Cold fizzed across his skin. He howled and writhed. It moved the cock inside him and pleasure gripped his legs.

"Take it." Her command possessed him.

She clutched his wrists and his hip and pistoned hard and fast, her pelvis slapping his ass, grazing it with the lace on the harness. He wailed and broke into a searing sweat. His breath grated. His nipples chafed on the glass and stung with pleasure. His skin screeched against the surface and prickled with friction. She pounded his prostate, need welling inside him. His ears filled with the sound of his own rocky panting and frantic moaning. He was being punished. Claimed. He was trapped between the press of glass and the beating of her body. He was drowning in the stars, bound in the lashing tails of Pisces.

He lost everything. He wasn't an outcast. He wasn't a demon. There was no village. There was no stranger. There was only Vestalia and falling on her sword.

"Do you like being fucked?" she breathed into his ear.

He couldn't answer. He let out a pathetic noise, like a crying puppy.

"Slut."

His cock pulsed, ricocheting off the screaming pleasure in his core. He nodded, lips and shoulders quivering. His ass clenched around the quartz. His flesh effervesced. He groaned and drooled onto the glass, his mouth hanging open uselessly. A doped smile slipped over his hot blush.

She slowed a little. The change of pace caught the eddying pleasure and embedded it deep in his body. She ground inside him, the gemstone becoming a lightning rod for the chaos of want and sensation in his flesh, spinning it into a weave of delight that draped over the cold and extinguished the flickers of pain from her grip. His moans dragged out of him. His cock thrummed and strained, the veins blue in the glance of frost.

He could hear her breathing heavier, but she never tired, never eased. She was unabating. She fucked him fiercely. She expected him to withstand it. He swelled with pride. He was small and penniless and he knew barely anything of the world. But he could take this. He could take her.

His ass and his clamped wrists and his spine smouldered. His legs shook. His core thrummed. His cock throbbed. Saliva trickled down the pane and splashed into the smear from his cock.

"My dirty boy," Vestalia hummed. "Look at the mess you're making. Look at the mess you are."

Sparrow mewled.

"You seemed so fragile when I picked you up, now look at you, taking this big, powerful cock."

Sparrow keened. Pleasure wrapped him and sent skipping ripples through his muscles. Vestalia slicked in and out, taking the momentum of his pleasure and spurring it on. It raced through his body, filling him with shudders and spasms and heat. His joints felt ready to crack. His legs could barely support him. If it wasn't for Vestalia holding his wrists and the weight of the cock inside him, he was sure he would fly into the night. The night. The only thing that ruled Vestalia, owned Vestalia, she who ruled and owned the world. He belonged to her, so now he belonged to the night. Stars showered his enlivened skin and dazzled his eyes. His cries rose hotter and higher, echoing around the library.

"You're mine, Sparrow. Mine to keep. Mine to gaze at. Mine to spoil. Mine to fuck."

He moaned desperately. He was so full, full to bursting.

"All mine to fuck."

Sparrow screamed. With a final, reverberating strike inside him, the storm of pleasure broke and erupted through his flesh, drenching him in relief and bliss. The sweat on his back frosted, clinging to the ends of his hair. The ice on his chest was consumed in heat. His cock spurted silver onto the glass, sparkling wet under the stars. He panted raggedly onto the window, his cheek skidding against condensation. His heart thudded and sent tremors through his body long after the waves receded. His cock kept tingling with the ghost of the hard, pumping sensation, his core relaxing and sweetly sore.

Vestalia unsheathed from him and released his wrists. His legs gave out instantly. He puddled at her feet, whimpering like a kitten. He curled up against her leg, shuddering in the rush of relief. He gasped for breath and fell into a delirious swoon, eyes fluttering closed and mouth finding her thigh and kissing it sloppily. His body turned to soft lead. His mind turned to wine.

Vestalia reached down and petted his hair, hushing him gently and standing as still as stone.

In his struggle for breath, she just about discerned a word drifting from Sparrow's lips with helpless adoration. "Nightingale... Oh, Nightingale..."

*

It was the final hour before dawn. The trees folded over Sandu, the forest taking her under its wing. Arcan plodded through the undergrowth, the scuff of her hooves a comforting rhythm after the turmoil of the night. No terms she offered had been accepted, the creature's venomous arrogance that she needed no amnesty from Sang Mortel taking the cards out of Sandu's hand. She had known that killing the creature and retrieving Daniel and Sorin was a long shot, it was a miracle she was even leaving alive. Why was that? Why would the beast let her live? Perhaps she truly didn't have her men? No. The devil charms with one face so it can feast with another. They were in there. And if this monster was going to be foolish enough to think Sandu was no threat, then she was going to deserve her demise even more. Sandu would return and would not do so alone.

But first, she had to find respite. The shock from the stabbing and the bitter aftertaste of fear had left her too exhausted to take the journey back. There were villages in the mountains between here and Skarpo. And, if God led her to the right one, she might learn a little more about who that boy was and what she had seen him trying to hide.

It was the final hour before dawn. Sparrow had taken a little while to emerge from his bliss. He had begged Vestalia to let him stay with her, promised not to be a bother, if she let him sleep in one of the chairs. But she had sent him away, telling him he needed his bed after the long night. He trudged barefoot down the corridors, boots slung over his shoulder, clothes rumpled and hanging off him, hair a mussed thicket. He passed the door to the drawing room.

He turned back.

He tried to resist.

He was feeling oddly separate from the confusing scene, as if he had seen it performed, rather than experienced it. But his curiosity was never fully conquered. He paused and looked about him. The coast was clear. Maybe just one quick look, to see if it helped anything make sense.

He opened the door a crack, painfully slowly to keep it silent. He slipped inside.

The candles still glimmered softly, bathing the rosy walls and giving a sweet warmth to the room that he hadn't felt earlier. He crept across the floorboards, peering at the harpsichord and only just resisting skipping his fingers over the keys. He went to the coffee table. The tea tray had been cleared, but there was still a small stack of books there. He picked them up and leafed through them. The pictures were of towers and knights and maidens. He leaned to put them back in place. As he did so, a glint caught his eye. Lying discarded on the mahogany sheen was a martisor, a dainty charm in the shape of a horseshoe, threaded onto a red and white entwined bow. Sparrow recognised its like from the spring festival at home. It didn't look like anything Vestalia owned, and she seemed to live a life quite apart from the local calendar. Had the stranger left it? A gift? An accident? It looked rather sentimental for that harsh woman.

But then, she had spoken of meeting two men here. Was that it? No, it was two men being held here. Could it, possibly, belong to one of them? Of course, they weren't here, it was all a misunderstanding. But then they were still lost, and it was still a shame they were without this memento of a loved one.

Go to bed, Carissime.

Sparrow suddenly came over almost drunkenly sleepy. He turned and began to walk from the room, a slight stumble in his step.

He halted. Something nagged him. He walked back.

He picked up the charm and slipped it into his pocket.

It was the final hour before dawn. Vestalia stood at the library window, her replaced gown heavy on her tired body. She watched the mountains gradually etch prouder against the bluing sky. She would have to get back to her room soon. She could feel sleep preparing to evade her. She clucked her tongue and puffed out through her nose. She had been replaying the conversation with Lerae in her quick mind for far too long now. Lerae was the first of the Sang Mortel captains to dare to come alone. It was... troubling.

She heard the familiar shuffle of Cyrus' boots from half way down the corridor. He came into the library and walked to her, his earthen scent comforting, along with the must of books.

He arrived at the window and leaned against the stone wall with his hefty arms folded. He fixed her with an unreadable expression. "She was allowed to live, then? To leave even?"

Vestalia didn't answer.

"Would that have been the case, if he hadn't seen her?" Cyrus asked gruffly.

Vestalia narrowed her eyes. "A wolf kills deer. It doesn't kill another wolf."

He drummed his fingers on his bicep. "It does, if that wolf is from a rival pack."

"Well, I don't have my pack." She ran her fingertip along her jaw. "Yet."

"Will you soon?"

She nodded. "They're coming."

"Good. Because she hasn't finished hunting."

Vestalia met Cyrus' severe, hollow gaze and arched an eyebrow coolly. "Go and see to the stock. I want to eat tomorrow."

His beard fidgeted, then he inclined his head chivalrously, heaved off the wall, and padded away.

Vestalia turned back to the dwindling night, her fingers knotting under her sharp chin. In her final breath of dominion before the dawn, she whispered into the stars.

"It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

Some say the lark makes sweet division;

This doth not so, for she divideth us:

Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,

O, now I would they had changed voices too.

Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,

O, now be gone; more light and light it grows."

She took a breath, a tendril of sunrise dripping acid onto her skin.

"More light and light; more dark and dark our woes."