Chateau of Desire (Chateau of Love Book 1)

by Monica Bentley

  And that was all. Gaspard had already declared his plans. He was off to see a butcher’s wife he knew in a neighboring town because he knew the husband would be at the summer market in the regional capital Rennes. Tristen shook hands with him, nodded goodbyes at others and threw a salute to the Commander at the head of the line who returned it. He turned Destrey into a lane that looked vaguely familiar and wondered if he had been on it before. It had been years since he had last set foot in Brittany.

  That had been wise. He wasn’t happy to be here now, even though he knew that Chateau Brionde was a good four days ride from where he stood. He let Destrey meander slowly. There wasn’t anything else to do anyway.

  He was surprised to feel a pang of loneliness. This harvest would be the third he had ridden with the Commander. That was a lot of moons. A lot of changes. A lot of nightly campfires and sleeping under the stars in his bedroll on fair nights, sharing a tent with Gaspard and his incessant farting on stormy ones. A lot of companionship. Their stories. Some so wild they beggared belief, like Victor claiming to have survived a jump out of a three story window to escape a husband in Paris. As if he had even been to Paris, Tristen had thought quietly. But, he had laughed along with all the others. Why not? It was fun. And it didn’t mean anything, anyway.

  A lot of changes.

  He wondered how much different he looked now. He wondered if Phoebe would even recognize him. Phoebe. He wondered what she would think of him. Sir Tristen. She would probably cluck at that.

  Would she? He had to think about that. Whenever he thought about her, he could only see the ragamuffin scamp with the scabbed knees and dirty cheeks. What would she look like now?

  He wondered, again, if she were even alive or, for that matter, now married with her first child. She was just old enough. What would her husband be like? Fat? Sweaty? A pig farmer, maybe. Or a tradesman.

  Rounding a bend in the lane, Destrey had picked up the pace, triggering a grin from Tristen. Ah, a patch of clover must be ahead somewhere. He slackened the reins some more and let the horse lead them wherever they would go. He had his bedroll and some fleece and flint to light a fire. He had some dried mutton jerky and water. It would be fine. He remembered now that there was a village a few hours ride from there, Bignon or Bignan or something like that. Yet, he didn’t feel like sitting in a tavern for the night. The beer would be good of course. In fact, he thought he remembered the inn now. The Goat something or other. But, he didn’t feel like company. No, the woods alone would be fine for him.

  Destrey was turning into the woods just now, as if in response. He plodded along, his hoofs softer now hitting the ground in the richness of the loam and grasses underfoot. Tristen let him, ducking under passing branches, knowing that Destrey was sure of foot beyond the capability of many another steed, and let his mind wander over the whole question of how much he had changed.

  He was a hell of a fighter now, he knew. Could take almost any in the band, even the Commander. Maybe. The Commander was a wily fighter, and Tristen would never want to find himself opposite him. The others? Gaspard? Tristen snorted. Gaspard he could dispatch of in one or two cuts. He lightly fantasized about that. One slice of the broadsword slightly to the outside to draw Gaspard’s shield and, dropping the point, circling up into to the opening to deliver a quick thrust to the throat. And if Gaspard was wearing his helm, the same thrust to the throat to stun him. Then, a third through the visor. C’est fini.

  They all packed heavy armor even if they only wore the chest plate, arms, thighs and maybe shins because they were typically attacking on horseback. Their opponents were usually fully armored and, as a result, much slower. But they were always defending. The Commander’s band? Always attacking. Raiding, looting, raping, pillaging, sacking, burning, whatever. They were always on the attack. Tristen liked it that way.

  He thought back to the boy he had been, Remi. Kicked in the ass by any passing Guardsman, clocked in the head by Adalene with her broom for just about any offense, sometimes for nothing at all. Mostly because she was in a bad mood. He daren’t ever fight back. That would mean being kicked out of the kitchen, out of the castle. That meant death. Or so he had thought. He didn’t remember much about his parents. Just his father dropping him outside the castle one day and riding off without a word. He had cried, so scared. Had finally hidden for warmth in a haystack, then begged his way into the castle’s village by offering to carry out night slops, the worst job of all. He didn’t remember much of those days, didn’t want to.

  The first really happy memory he thought he had had was when the scamp had shown up and that had been years after he had arrived. Not for the first time he wondered how old he was. Then, not for the first time, he discarded the question as pointless. He could fight. He had Destrey. He had a name. The Commander paid him coin to attack. That was all there was to it. As to how many he had killed...who cared?

  With a start, he realized that the light was failing. Destrey had stopped in a copse, his nose was buried deep in a patch of clover, the munches and crunches on the fragrant greens floating up to Tristen. He also noticed a firefly that was coming to him.

  Wait. That was silly. Fireflies didn’t come to people.

  Yet, this one was. Its glow shined brightly in the fading light. The colors were strange, shifting he thought from orange to bright yellow to a light pink and then back to orange again. He puzzled about what that meant, if anything.

  He waited, wondering if he was faint from lack of water. He shook his head. He felt all right. He grabbed his water bladder and took a long swig anyway. Then he looked at it. Yes, there it was. Hovering a dozen or so feet away. Moving off further, deeper into the woods, then stopping as if looking back at him and returning to its first spot. Odd.

  Could it be enchanted? He clucked at the thought. Maybe it was one of those quests, he smiled, like Lancelot always had in the old King Arthur stories. He laughed aloud at his silliness. But he also kept watching that firefly. It began to return to a spot closer to him now. Okay, there had to be something going on here.

  He dismounted and hobbled Destrey. He didn’t need to check his armor to make sure it was securely tied to his saddle, but he did untie and don his broadsword and scabbard. The shield he didn’t bother with. He was wearing enough armor as it was.

  He turned to the firefly, saying, “Okay. Let’s see what mischief you intend.”

  At that the firefly darted ahead. He smothered a curse and plunged into the woods to follow it. It flew faster, so he began to jog to keep up. After twenty paces, he stopped, remembering an old trick he had learned years ago and he paused to take his bearings, memorizing the largest trees and, through the gathering gloom, a very large boulder that he spotted just now. Looking ahead, he saw that the firefly was waiting. So it was enchanted. He grinned. Nobody in the band was going to believe him. Well, maybe Gaspard, but only after he was wildly drunk on ale.

  And they continued. Every twenty paces, Tristen stopped to get his bearings, the firefly waiting patiently until he started again. They went on for what must have been several glasses when he began to hear some singing. Or so he thought.

  It was a sweet voice with some darker notes underlying that caught his fancy. He felt his cock twitch and could have sworn that he heard the voice chuckle in the midst of its tune. He kept jogging along, following the darting glow that shined as brightly as a flaming fire now. Its colors were shifting faster, orange to yellow to pink and orange again. He realized at some point that he was running. He also realized that he hadn’t stopped to take his bearings in some time. Also, a chill wind had sprung up, biting through his armor.

  This was wrong, a voice in his head told him.

  But the singing voice told him not to worry, but that he should hurry because so many wonderful things awaited him.

  Hurry he did.

  His cock was fully hard now, he realized. It was banging against his hip, even hitting the edge of his thigh plate which actually hurt from time to time, but he co
uldn’t help it. He had to keep going. He had to keep following the firefly to meet the woman who was singing such a lovely, and scary, song of fucking, of fucking lust, of screaming out a cum between her thighs. He had to meet her.

  Pretty soon he heard a different screaming, that of the pain in his chest, shouting that he needed to rest. He couldn’t. He had to keep going. His panting was so loud now that it thundered in his ears. It did not matter. Only her voice did. It even seemed to keep him warm, which was good since the wind, louder now, was freezing him. It had also begun to rain.

  Finally, panting, needing to stop so badly that he felt that his head would explode, he burst through a tall hedge into a clearing. Stretching up to the dark, cold sky and icy stars above rose a high, circular tower of black stone. The firefly was darting along some steps cut or built into the side, bouncing once for each step as it ascended. At the top he could see a bright line of light glowing. The line widened, as if a door was slowly opening.

  He stumbled to the bottom of the steps. In his exhaustion, they looked pretty steep. He also knew that it mattered not. He had to climb them. So climb them he did. The rain, coming down in sheets now, made the steps slippery, adding to the danger. He was soaked through. Even his boots squelched. Yet, stop he would not. To go back down was unthinkable. He could not.

  As he ascended, one hand on the wall to keep him upright – he was so exhausted he felt he could easily have toppled off the edge even if he didn’t slip – he could see that the door was opening wider as the song was growing softer. When he finally reached the top step, the door was thrown wide radiating a cheerful, bright light through its stone arch. He stepped through the arch to see an extraordinarily beautiful woman with luxuriously thick raven-colored hair, so black there was a faint blue sheen to it in the light. Her skin was pale, her eyes shrouded in shadow, her lips an exciting blood-red. She was wearing a brandy colored velvet dress trimmed with flowing black silk sleeves cut so wide that they trailed the floor when she stood.

  Her tits were huge. Two large luscious mounds of quivering flesh, rising and falling within the dark silk lining of her neckline. Tristen stared at them, fascinated beyond belief. He had never seen a woman so desirable. In all of his travels, in all the women he had known, no one came close.

  She spoke. Her voice trembled with the mixed timbre of her singing, lust-filled notes teased with darker notes of danger. He shivered. He wanted her.

  “Welcome, fair knight. You have traveled far, I see.”

  Mute, he nodded.

  “You are wet. Let us dry you.”

  She pointed at the wood stacked neatly in the fireplace and a fire immediately sprang up, filling the room with its warmth. She moved to him, seeming to float rather than step, gesturing to a large, silver goblet on the table which sprang to her hand without spilling a drop. She reached to him, placing a hand behind his wet neck and tilting the goblet to his lips. The honey mead was sweet and warm. It filled him with a glow as it passed down his throat and settled within his cock, he could have sworn. Not that he needed any help getting hard.

  Now she was undressing him. Or his armor was unfastening itself. He watched, stunned speechless, as he saw the straps unbuckle themselves and the plates on his shoulders, arms, and chest lift off him and float to a corner of the room to stack themselves neatly by the bed.

  The bed? He blinked. It was full of sumptuous fabrics, thick with his burgeoning lust, he was sure of it. A rich sapphire color, soon to be stained with copious amounts of his cum. He could hear her saying all of this in his mind. Couldn’t he?

  He looked back at her, at her tits and felt himself being drawn to them.

  The plates were lifting from his thighs, the leather armor unstrapping and lifting itself now. Soon, all he was wearing was his linen tunic and shorts.

  She lifted her hands, long with blood-red nails and his tunic lifted itself above his shoulders, blinding him as it passed over his head. His shorts were also gone, he knew because now he felt her nails trailing the length of his cock as she held it in the other hand.

  His cock was so hard, it positively hurt. He had known something like that before, that time in...he couldn’t remember where. Aquitaine? It had been months since he had cum. Wait. He was just in Aquitaine, right?

  His head reeling, he felt the hot sting of her nails as she raked them over his cock again and again, the other hand settling on his chest, feeling the heaves of his panting.

  Now the bed was floating to them. Or were they floating to the bed? Either way, all too soon they were at the edge as she sat and bending forward, took the head of his cock in her mouth.

  He gasped. He moaned because of how fucking good it felt. Her mouth was so warm, so soft. Her tongue played all around his shaft as she sucked on his head. It was marvelous. He had never known it so good, not even as good as that tavern maid in...where was she? He couldn’t remember. He moaned again, louder. He couldn’t help himself. At this rate, he was going to cum soon. Almost immediately.

  Then, it all abruptly changed.

  She pulled back and began tonguing his head. He could feel it. He waited for her to go back to sucking. But she didn’t. He suppressed a growl, forcing himself to wait. He hated it when women did this. It was such a tease, only tonguing, not sucking. He tried thrusting in her mouth, but now she had her hands on his hips holding him in place. He tried to grab them and pull them out of the way, but she bit down. Hard.

  He screamed and tried to pull out, but she was biting down harder as she reached behind and sank her nails into his ass, drawing blood he could feel. He tried lifting his hand to strike her but found he couldn’t.

  Then, she went back to tonguing him. On and on she did it, driving him mad. He needed to fuck her, needed to thrust into her pussy, her mouth, somewhere. Anywhere but this maddening teasing. Anything but...well...anything but being bitten, too.

  Finally, he heard her chuckle. Looking down, he saw her flick her hand and felt himself thrown bodily on the bed. With another flick of the hand, her dress dissolved in front of his eyes, revealing a body taut with curves everywhere. Her nipples, so dark as to be black, were hard, perking out from two very large, circular areolas covering a good portion of each tit. Her black pussy hair curled straight up from between her thighs, creating a forest he wanted to lose him within. Forgetting the earlier pain, now all he wanted was to touch her, to feel her, to penetrate her. But he couldn’t. It was as if she had bound him. His arms were as weak as a kitten.

  She chuckled again, a throaty one.

  She climbed onto the bed. She slowly crawled over him, straddling him. It looked as if he was going to get his wish. But she kept going. She crawled right up his chest, pausing to play with his chest hairs a bit, then kept climbing until her thighs straddled his face.

  He felt his eyes stretching to the breaking point. He had heard of this, of course. Some of the band would talk of it from time to time. None had done it. They didn’t want to. As one had put it during a drunken revelry one night, “She fucking wees out of that hole!”

  Tristen wasn’t given the choice. She sat on his mouth and began pulling his hair. Hard. Biting back a scream, he heard her speak.

  “Do me!” she hissed. Her voice, so warm and inviting before, now sounded like that of a large snake.

  He did scream. Which she cut off by grinding her pussy into his mouth and nose, suffocating him. Mashing her pussy on him back and forth, back and forth. He could feel her pussy juices flowing all over his nose, his mouth and chin.

  “Do me!” she hissed again and began pulling out clumps of his hair.

  He gave in and began licking. She growled a low, hungry moan that rumbled in her belly. He could feel it throbbing on his neck before it traveled up to explode from her mouth.

  “Yessssssssssss!”

  He was so terrified at this point, he just kept licking, wanting it to end. To just be over. He could feel his cock, so proud in its hardness a few minutes earlier, wilting away to nothing. He kept lic
king for he did not know what else to do. She started moving her pussy up and down on his tongue, until he got the gist of what she wanted. She wanted longer, slower licks, from top to bottom, then bottom to top. He alternated this while listening to the sound of her moans that went on and on, some deeper in intensity, others less so.

  Deciding that he wanted the greater intensity moans, he did whatever brought about that. If she wanted two low licks from top to bottom, he did it. If she wanted the other he did that.

  Then, he felt her press her pussy down so hard that he experimented with sliding his tongue inside it, like a miniature cock. Oh, she loved that! She grabbed both sides of his head and began cooing. He kept fucking her with his tongue, feeling an odd hot and cold sensation inside her pussy, until his tongue began aching. He pulled out wondering if she would resume pulling out his hair. But she didn’t. Instead, she moved down a bit to grind a little nub of flesh in his mouth. He could just barely feel it, so he tried flicking it with his tongue, slowly, gently. He was immediately rewarded with her high intensity moan again. So he kept at it. Resting his tongue as best he could by nibbling the nub a bit, then flicking it again, then nibbling. On and on her moans grew in intensity and strength. Louder and louder until, finally, she choked out a harsh, ragged screech and squeezed down so hard with her thighs that he thought his head would pop off.

  He couldn’t breathe. He just lay there, hoping it would stop. Atop him, she was writhing back and forth, from side to side, on his face, her hips twitching, her knees squeezing his temples into agony. Soon, though, she began to slack off. Her breathing was all panting now, growing quieter. Then quieter yet. Finally, she spoke.

  “Very good, slave. I believe I shall spare you. Maybe.” Her voice hissed these words with a menace so low it made his blood chill.

  She slowly climbed back down and laid her nipples into his mouth, massaging his neck with a grip so hard it felt like iron. Of course, he began sucking. What else could he do?