At first, it seemed a little thing, easily dismissed, but then it burgeoned as it had earlier, the warm glow of its golden light swinging lazily in the air. It seemed to be just at the edge of the lawn and Melisse strained to see who might be there.
"Hello?" she said, in nearly a whisper.
The light seemed to pause in its gentle arc, then resumed its swaying movement. Melisse could not have said why, but she was suddenly quite sure that it was calling her name. Except that her name had become golden hued, in rich beeswax candle colors, and there was no sound in it.
She was halfway to the edge of the manor's lawn when she realized she no longer carried the slops bucket. She turned to look back, seeing the manor and its many windows, the life of the privileged and those who served them written in its facade. She found that it was not difficult to turn her back upon it and them as the the light before her beckoned once more.
At first, it seemed as though the trees parted as she passed. Their branches turned away from her and the underbrush, in its turn, gave way before her.
In fact, it was a path she followed under the moon's light. It was lined in soft, green mosses and the going was not difficult.
The bobbing light danced at a distance from her, and she imagined that it was pleased in the way its movements had become more exaggerated and clear in its intent that Melisse should follow.
The moon came and went as she slipped calmly forward, following the bobbing light. At times, certain trees were stubborn before the inevitability that was autumn and the cold months to follow. In those pockets of shadow under clinging leaves, with the moon tucked away and the golden light fallen from her sight, Melisse knew doubt and questioned her reasons for doing something so removed from her character.
But, each time she walked anew under the familiar moon and the charm of the beeswax candle glow before her, she felt once more at ease and sure that if ever she would change the story that was hers, it was now.
In time, however, it began to feel like hours had passed as her feet began to ache and ever forward the light beckoned her. She chanced to look behind her, once, only to to see that the gentle track she was following was not there. Behind her, there was only a rude slope of rocky terrain crisscrossed by menacing, thorny briars. Except that she had no recollection of having descended any hill, thorny or otherwise.
The glow beckoned to her and showed her the way forward upon soft mosses and moist leaves that did not crackle beneath her feet.
As she rounded a bend in the path, there before her was a fire burning upon the ground and just beyond, seated upon the ground, a young man.
His smile was full and kind, and any alarm she felt was smoothed over by his somehow familiar visage. The fire burned bright and she could not see all of him, but that his shoulders and chest were bare was plain.
"Hello," she said, as quietly as ever.
The young man made no sign that he had heard her. He only continued to smile and patted the ground beside him.
Melisse stepped around the fire, her own smile answering his, and then came to a sudden stop. Beyond the fire's glare, she could see that he was not wearing a stitch of clothing and what was more, that he had a full erection sprouting from his lap.
"Oh! I'm sorry," she said, turning about upon her heel, feeling the heat rising in her face.
"For what?" he asked. His voice was low and gentle, absurdly calm despite the obvious.
"Is it not a lovely night, a cool autumn breeze wafting around us as we warm our tired bodies before the fire? I am not sorry, nor should you be."
She heard music in his voice, as if he were only half a breath away from singing and she knew his song would be of a heart of warmth in the forest, of two bodies holding the cold world and its harsh truths at bay, if only for a short time, if only for a few stolen moments under the watchful moon.
"Please, do not fear. Come sit beside me and we shall share the warmth." He said it as if he spoke of sharing a cup of wine, even if she felt his understanding of the difference was somehow blurred and lacking the edges of meaning that most people employ.
She turned back to him slowly, willing her eyes upon his face, and stepped gingerly toward him. Her movements were hesitant and her body tense, ready to spring away like a wild deer or some other creature of the forest. She traced the lines of his collarbones with her eyes as she found her place just beside him, a finger's breadth of distance between them.
He leaned forward, with his knees up, to gaze into the depths of the fire burning before them. She felt herself drawn to him in the same way that any fire draws the eyes of those near it. She followed the curve of the nape of his neck, seeing the tiny curls at the base of his skull, the way that they turned in all directions, wild, yet charming in the way of boys and men, uninterested in mundane things like well combed hair, guarding instead their concentration for more important things like open fires or women alone in the forest.
His shoulders were broad, the bones framing what he would be one day, a robust and well muscled man. Even if he must have had the same age as her, Melisse could see that he had not yet come into his own. The heavy, hard flesh of manhood was just beginning to find its place upon him.
His back curved delicately and she could make out the tiny ridges of the bones of his spine. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to lay her hand there, placing her fingers in between the depressions, to feel where his vulnerabilities lie, if he would allow it.
She shivered then, surprised with the turnings her thoughts had taken.
Once more, his broad, inviting smile. "Now I am sorry, in truth. You are cold and I have done nothing to warm you."
With a slight nudge, he closed the distance between them, laying his hand upon her thigh. The heat of him was strong and Melisse shivered again under his touch.
He laughed then and the music in his voice was plain. He leaned in close to her, placing himself fully against her, and despite her trembling at his touch, Melisse did not move away.
His eyes were amber as he looked at her and she felt them pull her in. In that moment, she thought that she might still resist, that there might still rest a chance of escaping him, and then she sighed, falling into his depths, letting herself drown in the waters of his golden hued gaze.
His lips were like velour and tasted of honey. His tongue slipped between her teeth and she laughed in surprise. She had not known what a smile could feel like as she felt one for the first time, writing itself in answer as they kissed in the warmth of the fire. She could have believed that their teeth struck sparks, brushing together briefly, their smiles intermingling.
He moved his hands about her body, touching her, gently calming her at each point that she stiffened with the shock of his hands touching everywhere and nowhere anyone ever had but her.
He undid laces and buttons with ease, casting aside the conventions of propriety as easily as the wind casts fallen leaves whither it will. The heat of him was full upon her skin as her clothing fell away, as she let herself fall down to the soft ground.
Hungrily, he licked at the base of her throat before coming back to suckle at her ears, his breath tickling her while it seemed to pull at threads inside her, threads that reached down her body, to knot together between her legs.
He took each of her nipples, one after the other, into his mouth, gently. Pulling at them, teasing, before nipping lightly with his teeth. She gasped as he did it, then leaned toward him, her body asking that he do it again.
He lowered himself upon her and she could feel his heavy erection, stiff with warmth, press across her flat stomach. He brought himself level once more and held her face in his gaze, and she felt the desire flowing from him in waves, as heat from flames, and she delighted in his touch, in the intensity of his gaze upon her. Another first for her, she felt desirable, the focus of all his intentions, that she could be beautiful, even if only for a little while, as he placed her and only her at the center of all his thoughts.
She rocked ag
ainst him, moaning, at once afraid and hopeful that it would happen. She had been told that it would hurt, except that the ache she felt between her legs, the wetness that was both hot in its urgency and cool as the night air caressed her fine hairs there, the ache demanded only that he answer in the best way of any man.
And, so he did. He pulled back from her, lowering his pelvis between her thighs, and she welcomed his movements, almost ashamed at how easily she ceded, but so desperate that it should happen.
He pushed himself forward and she felt his penis touch her there, just at the lips' edges, holding himself still as she quietly cried out. She moved against him, tilting her hips up and down, his tip just within the folds of her lips, the sensation delicious in its thick, wet rhythm. She felt her clitoris hardening ever more, and was reminded of the sting of salt and lemon upon her tongue.
He held himself, unmoving, controlling his desire until his own body shook, the strain showing in his shoulders and the way that his smile slowly disappeared, to be replaced by a concentration that only heightened Melisse's excitement. Her thoughts had become erratic, small bursts, that it was about to happen, that it had not happened, that she wanted it more than anything, and that she was afraid.
He seemed to know her mind and so held himself ever still, until she cared nothing more for the rumors she had heard, until her fear melted in the heat of the fire they had ignited.
Her breaths had become short, quick things, and finally, she panted just one syllable, "Please," in answer to the question he had not asked.
Released from his self restraint, he shuddered, his muscles rippling down the length of his body, and then pushed himself forward, into the cleft that she had opened for him and she welcomed him with a gasp of pleasure.
They rocked together, his hips rolling like breakers upon her shores, the waves rose and clashed, each one lifting the other higher. Melisse had expected pain, embarrassment, but felt only release and pleasure as she cradled his cock inside her, lifting against him and with him, their rhythm feeding upon itself.
And as sweat broke out upon both their bodies, Melisse felt him growing ever larger inside her, bigger and bigger, as her legs strained, parting ever further. Heavy sounds began deep in his chest, throaty and profound, until she realized that he was growling with each thrust of his hips. She opened her eyes to a world aflame, the fire beside them having burned to within an inch of her. Melisse was forced to squint her eyes as golden color suffused her vision, as she saw that the amber of his eyes reflected the fire with a heat all its own.
She turned her face away from him and, in doing so, saw that the fire so comforting earlier had burned very close now, but more than this, and worse than this, she saw that it burned upon nothing. There were no coals at its heart, no logs, nor branches set to spend themselves in its hunger. It was simply a golden fire upon the ground, burning itself out upon nothing.
She realized then that it was not the fire reflected in his eyes, for that, she had been mistaken. The fire was the reflection of him and all that animated him.
His lips peeled back from his bared teeth in a snarl, his lovely smile twisting into something unrecognizable. She felt his size, become nearly impossible for her to contain, as bestial sounds erupted into the night air.
Despite herself, she was unable to break the rhythm, thrusting against him, even while believing that she was tearing apart inside, and helpless but to invite him onward. The drum of their act pounded out its primitive rhythm.
Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes and suddenly, with three quick, stabbing thrusts, he erupted inside her. She felt herself ripping as burning fire filled her up from inside, a vast, black cauldron of molten color flowing out from him, burning her alive.
She smelled smoke as he drove himself once more deep inside her, a howl ripping from his throat that sounded of all the fall bonfires she had ever known, falling down at festival's end, in a heap of white, glowing ash and embers.
Her legs and arms did not obey her as he slowly lifted himself off her chest while still inside her. His hair was smoking and she could see wisps of smoke seeping from eyes that had become filled with inhuman amber, the pupils effaced. She could feel him pumping rhythmically into her, despite her sense of having been broken inside, left in ruin.
He smiled down at her and in a gravelly voice not at all like the earlier young man, he said, "You've got what you came for, foolish woman. You came looking and now you have it and more."
His voice twisted into a sickening growl as her eyes rolled back, her lids fluttering, and she knew no more for a time.
It was cold. The air smelled of wet leaves and of the rich humous lying just beneath them. Her back ached, her legs ached, and her mouth felt as though it had been wiped in ashes.
Melisse sat up, opening her eyes to see the clearing where she had encountered the young man. There was no one now but her.
Her head ached as she crawled about, gathering her clothing, the absurdity of what she had done this night coming back to her. She stood shakily, leaning against a sapling while dressing herself in the early morning light. Even her eyes hurt her against the dim light that had begun to show itself although she knew that to anyone who had spent the night indoors it was still truly dark.
She began staggering back in what she thought was the direction of the manor house, even if the path was no longer there. She thought only of finding some small corner in the stables where she could sleep in soft straw and wait for dear Mathilde to come tell her that everything would be alright.
The two beings watched the young woman limp away and one of them chuckled.
"Such good sport. She really was unspoiled. I thank you for bringing her to me," he said.
The Will O'Wisp cocked an eyebrow at him, then said, "It was my pleasure. I doubt that the poor thing will ever enjoy an ordinary man after having been with you. A curious fate. As her first, you have surely marked her, and finding such...sensations...with anyone else will be quite impossible, I think."
"Oh please, Wisp, you're making me blush," he replied.
"There is one thing more, though," she continued. "I believe you gave her something, there, just at the end. Something...interesting...."
"You saw rightly," he conceded. "Do you mean a child? No, never that, but something to remember me by? Yes...I did. And we shall see just where that leads our sweet girl, now that she has something she can use, before it comes to consume her."
He let out his breath then, and with a second sigh, he let fall the skin of the slops boy. His amber eyes were filled with fire and with a sound like that of breaking glass, the two slipped through a crack in the skin of the forest, disappearing from view.
Her faltering steps strengthened as she worked her way through thick underbrush and up difficult terrain. At first she believed that she would bleed and had balled up one of her stockings into her undergarments, except that as she began to feel better and her muscles seemed to loosen, it seemed unnecessary.
She checked the stocking to find it quite dry and unstained. She continued walking back, through the darkness, trying to avoid thinking of the smell of smoke that clung to her like shame.
Her strength continued to return and soon she began to make good time, believing that she would be back to the manor in half the time it had taken to follow the path the night before.
She stopped to get her bearings, unused as she was to finding her way in the outdoors. She put her hand out to a young larch, to hold herself steady on the slope of a small hill, when she smelled smoke again, only much stronger this time.
Suddenly she was sure that she had come upon some woodsmen cutting timber for Lord Perene's hearth. Perhaps they were camped nearby, their fire burning down into the fall leaves, producing that unmistakable odor.
She strained her ears, listening for voices, or other sounds to indicate where the woodsmen might be. The forest was dreadfully silent. As she peered about her, the odor of burning wood and leaves ever more present, Melisse sa
w a series of tiny fires smoldering upon the trail that she had taken.
Tiny fires, evenly spaced upon her path, the span of her legs apart. As the acrid scent of burning bark lifted in the air, she jerked her hand back from the larch, crying out at the sight of its burning wood, blackening where her hand had been.
Understanding came, then, as she looked back at the small, regular fires, each smoldering in her footfalls, as she blithely walked through the wood.
She saw him again, holding himself over her, growling like a beast with eyes flaming in amber, his cock pumping into her, pumping until she felt herself filled to overflowing.
Smoke continued to sting her eyes, and to her horror, she looked down and saw that the ground was burning where she stood.
She ran then, terrified of her own steps. The forest sped by, blurring as her tears burned, boiling away into steam, as they ran down her cheeks.
He had done something to her. She had been cursed. There would be no returning to the manor, to the life she had always known.
She remembered his words then, as she came to stand, finally, at the edge of the manor's lawn. She reached out to rest a trembling hand upon a small tree and watched as it crackled and burned within her grasp. She had what she came looking for. She had made a choice and and had taken the path that led irrevocably away from the life she had always known.
She cried, then, her tears steaming away in the early morning air. She lamented the demise of what had been laid out as her destiny, from the moment of her birth, the child of a servant, who would live out a life of a servant, and then die as a servant.
Her tears fell, but perhaps not all of them were in sadness. Melisse looked a last time at the facade of the manor, thinking of all the hearts beating behind its great stone walls, some subtle and cruel, others simple and kind, but none of them burning with the golden fire that filled her now.
The Marechal Chronicles: Volumes I, II, and III (An Erotic Fantasy Tale) Page 3