Passion Light

by Danielle Elise Girard

  “Uncle certainly seems to dislike you,” Evan agreed. “I think he resents how much influence you have here. A man who feels that threatened by women, especially one who brings so many tangible benefits to this place as you do, is almost unimaginable to our society. He’s acted an enemy toward the person who makes this place function. It’s irrational. He’s irrational. It’s very likely he could not survive here without you, but he is trying hard to get rid of you anyway.”

  A firm hand knocked on Isabelle’s door at that moment and the lock turned without her inviting whoever waited inside.

  Chapter 21

  “Get ready,” Evan whispered. “The trial is about to begin.”

  “Trial?” Isabelle asked.

  By then Olaf and two other guards were in the room and captured her arms as they marched her from the room, down the steps and into the great hall where Uncle, the priest and a group of Uncle’s cronies waited. They sat in chairs set in a couple of rows like an old style jury panel. Evan was right behind them and stepped to her side without arousing any opposition.

  Isabelle started to feel very anxious, but she refused to reveal how she was feeling. “What are you doing, Uncle?” she asked. She stuck her hands on her hips and faced him trying to seem unafraid, even a bit belligerent. It wouldn’t change anything Uncle did, but she would at least have her self-respect. She could feel Evan’s approval and support.

  The priest, the one she had always found less than holy or even moral, stepped forward and announced, “This is a witch trial against you to determine whether you will be either drowned or burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft. We will pass God’s judgment on you after all the evidence has been considered and a punishment has been decided.”

  “And just what is your role in this fiasco?” Isabelle asked.

  “I am the prosecutor,” he answered with just a bit more pleasure than she could tolerate. He liked her no more than she liked him. His shaggy hair stood on end and his clothing was dirty. He held a Bible that she knew he rarely read as though it would lend him some authenticity.

  Isabelle couldn’t resist. He’d left himself wide open. Everyone present knew what kinds of perversions he practiced at Uncle’s parties. “Just how do you think an old pervert like you might have the right to sit in judgment over anyone. Don’t you remember judgment is God’s? It’s certainly not the right of a sinner like you,” she declared dismissively.

  Some people in the room laughed and he turned purple with annoyance. Uncle shouted for order and the guards pushed into the gathered crowd to enforce his wishes. “What you think does not matter,” he said as he looked at her with loathing. “What this panel thinks is all that matters here and you will treat them with respect they should have.”

  Evan watched the proceedings, his hard face grimmer than usual. She felt his anger, but she thought most people in the room assumed he could do nothing to help her. He stood quietly behind her observing. No one in the room was focused on him or anything he did. She couldn’t understand why no one seemed to notice, but it suddenly occurred to her that he was indulging in a bit of group telepathic mind control.

  The priest started with the accusations against Isabelle. “This woman has been practicing witchcraft for some time. She collects and grows magical plants, treats many of the ills of the residents here with both plants and spells, shows disrespect toward men who should be her superiors, has threatened people with poison and may have poisoned her own father.

  At the last statement Isabelle turned and glared directly at Uncle. Isabelle wanted to scream in frustrated anger. Uncle had poisoned her father. For him to accuse her of the deed was outrageous. “It wasn’t me. It was you,” she snarled. “You are the poisoner in this room. It was you who killed my father and many people here suspect it, too.”

  “Silence,” Uncle shouted. “You are the one on trial. I will not allow you to go unpunished for what has happened here, especially for what happened to Angela.”

  “If you had left her alone she might still be alive. I told her not to have intercourse and both my husband and your guard heard me say it. You were the one in the room with her when she bled to death,” Isabelle shouted.

  Evan nodded in confirmation. “I did hear her tell this to Angela. It was as she says.”

  “It was you, Isabelle,” he uncle insisted. “You cursed her and she died and you should pay.” Uncle never took responsibilities. He only took privileges. If nothing else he was consistently self-serving. Isabelle thought he was being so difficult because he felt guilty, but it was only hurting her because he was so unwilling to take any responsibility for anything bad that happened.

  Still Isabelle tried to find a way to help herself.

  “Where is my lawyer and what about my right to defend myself?” Isabelle asked. “You have put me on trial without notice and have completely ignored my rights.”

  “There is no one here who will defend you,” Uncle said with his sneaky, evil smile. “I say what goes on here and I will say what happens to you.”

  Then he turned back to the priest and told him to proceed.

  The man drew himself up and tried to look as important as possible. “We have felt for some time that this woman has tried to impede our wishes at every turn. She has kept people who wished not to work here away from us in the dungeons, she rations all food and tries to feed the masses, she trades in spells and herbs, she treats the sick if it suits her convenience, she refuses orders from our esteemed leader, and she has familiars who are beasts. In this case we feel justified in ordering her death with her being burned at the stake as happened historically to witches of old.”

  Uncle stood up and turned to the noisy crowd. “Who agrees?” he shouted.

  There was a roar of a combination of alarm from her friends and supporters and shouts for them to burn the bitch/witch, from Uncle’s men who enjoyed his willingness to give them whatever perversion they wanted and paid them well to support him. They were definitely in the minority, but it did not deter Uncle.

  “We sentence you to burn this weekend,” he said loudly to both cheers and groans of dismay from those who watched.

  “We will sell tickets to all who wish to watch the witch burn,” he said, waving his arms in excitement and happiness at the spectacle he planned to offer as entertainment.

  Isabelle was shocked speechless with horror. It seemed that her relative had at last gotten his way, ridding himself of her influence and creating a money making spectacle at the same time. It was diabolical. He could make her demise into an unforgettable event.

  She felt Evan come into her head and offer her calm and comfort as though she could hear his voice, “It will not happen as he wishes. He has designed his own end. You will not be hurt. I will keep you safe from harm.”

  It gave her the strength to face Uncle. She looked at him and simply shook her head before turning, Evan at her side and returned to her room.

  In her room she turned to him. “I understand the Uncle has done the thing you feared he would do. He plans to burn me and sell tickets to his slimy customers.”

  “Things will not go as he has planned,” Evan rumbled in his deep voice.

  “You can stop him?” Isabelle asked.

  Evan just nodded.

  “How?” she asked.

  “As we usually do, through cooperative effort. This situation is where our greatest strength lies. What will happen will be decided by your Uncle’s actions.” He said grimly.

  Then he continued, “The rest of what will happen will require great strength from you. The exact moment must be reached for his fate to ensue as the Goddess and God intervene in this instance.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. It sounded…he sounded as though this whole thing was really getting out of hand.

  He walked to her and took her in his arms. She came eagerly into his embrace. He bent to her and kissed her passionately. She kissed him back. The danger she had been feeling, the risk they felt coalesced into desir
e and they fell on each other as though they were starving for sexual release.

  He systematically removed her clothing and his own. He led her to the table and leaned her over it. She was standing with her heart shaped backside turned toward him. He ran his hands over it shaping her buttocks and learning the sweet curves of her hips. Her back was lovely, too. When he reached under her he could touch her breasts and pleasure her there, too.

  “I think I like this position,” she told him breathlessly.

  “You are going to like it even better,” he said. He leaned back and tested her readiness with his fingers. She was already wet and she gasped at his touch. Opening her, he took his large organ in his other hand and slid into her warmth. He hit deeply within her and slid back out again.

  She loved the deepest penetration she had ever experienced. She held onto the table and gladly took all he could give her.

  He held her waist and occasionally touched her nipples as he gave her all she wanted. She felt connected to him emotionally as well as physically in a way few couples ever experience.

  He seemed to answer her, but not verbally. “I am yours and you are mine.” She sensed his satisfaction and his arousal and his happiness.

  The driving rhythm was working on them both. Isabelle tried to tighten her sheath around him to see how it would feel. Evan groaned and said, “Do it again.”

  She did it in synchronization with his thrusts.

  He ran a finger under her to her clit and she broke and came screaming. She felt on fire and warmed with golden light and passion. He followed her immediately, pounding out the perfection of their sexual union by filling her up with his cum which was dripping out of her as he eased his cock out. When they were spent he picked her up and carried her to bed.

  Chapter 22

  Sex did help them rest, but Isabelle woke in just a few hours. Her mind was racing, going round and round with disjointed thoughts. It overwhelmed her thinking that her uncle, her own blood relative planned to burn her…kill her…make her suffer unimagined pain. She couldn’t deal with it.

  Evan reached for her and urged her out of bed. He could sense her unease and her hurt feelings and her confusion. They dressed even though it was night. Isabelle knew she could not get back to sleep. She was too upset and frustrated by her inability to reason with her relative and his cronies.

  “I’m not going to try to tell you not to worry,” Evan said. “I know it’s impossible under the circumstances. Ana and the others are slipping into the castle,” he told her. “They plan to hide in the tunnels until the spectacle begins and then things will change.”

  “You mean they are going to cut things that close?” Isabelle asked.

  “There will be no doubt of his guilt if he actually starts the process of doing what he has said he plans to do,” Evan told her. “Of course it means that you will go through a terrible ordeal. Can you trust us to help you before it becomes an actual execution?”

  “I trust you more than anyone I have ever known,” Isabelle said. “The way things have been going here I know I would have died without knowing the things you have taught me about how things can be between men and women. I never would have known that a man could read my mind and understand how I feel about things. I trust you like I trust my friends. That’s a valuable thing to me, something I didn’t even believe was possible between men and women. But this is hard what Uncle plans to do to me. I am afraid. I can’t seem to feel any sense of calm except just after you make love to me.”

  “Ana is a priestess in our world,” Evan said. “She has great powers. I have a few skills myself. All the people who came with me have both talents and experience. You will not be hurt. I want you to believe me.”

  She didn’t say anything else. She just stepped into his embrace.

  Chapter 23

  The castle was filling with a crowd of people, more than they had ever entertained. Albert and the guards were stretched to the limit trying to keep things under control and making sure all the guests had been sufficiently disarmed, their money collected and their needs and wants fulfilled.

  Albert was also in a very bad mood. It was impossible for him to tolerate what Uncle was planning and he was short tempered and looking for a fight with just about anyone, even Doris. His normal composure was cracking and he was quickly forgetting his usual iron willed control.

  “That damned perverted asshole is going to kill the woman who keeps this place in food and relative comfort,” he snarled at his wife, apparently completely unconcerned that Olaf, Uncle’s new guard captain was standing right next to him.

  Doris was crying and she couldn’t seem to stop, either. She was still managing to do a fair job of directing the food and drink service but she was struggling with both the various tasks and her emotions.

  Albert dragged her into his arms but he felt helpless to comfort her and wished he could cry, too. He looked at Olaf and noticed he didn’t look all that happy either.

  “You know there is not another reasonably safe and comfortable place to live within 500 miles,” he growled at the other man. Olaf was different than Luther. He was smarter and he was also decent, unlike many of Uncle’s men. “Isabelle made this place the only place for miles around where we could live through all the unrest after the wars in reasonable safety and fed us all, too. So that uncle of hers just moves in here where he can be pretty safe, too and has us all running a whore house after he kills her father. I should have strangled him long ago. I still could do it and no one would miss him at all.”

  “Before we came here none of us were getting enough to eat,” Olaf said. “The old man said he knew a safe place we could go to and live in relative comfort and luxury. He was right. It was true, but we didn’t catch on for a while that all the comforts and the food were Isabelle’s talents and work. We just thought all the people here knew how to do those things because they were country people or farmers or good gardeners. I realized pretty soon that it was Isabelle who knew how to do things and most of the rest of the people here were just a bunch of strays she gathered up and allowed to shelter here. She even is kind to the whores. She treats everyone the same. She’s treated me when I did not feel well and she was reserved but kind even though I was her uncle’s man. She had every reason to distrust me, but she was still kind.”

  The man shook his head is confusion and distaste for what was happening. “I know what the old man wants me and the others to do, but we don’t want to do it.”

  He was a big man, especially for an Earthling at nearly six and a half feet tall, with a tall lean body. He’d had been painfully thin when he arrived at the castle, but he had filled out and gained strength in the four years he had been getting more to eat. His straight blond hair fell around a narrow face and was very long. He tied it back with a piece of leather. His eyes were an icy, pale blue and he had a beard. Like many of the men he avoided shaving because their beards helped keep their faces warmer in the cold weather that was the general rule.

  He was more of a thinker than Luther who had relished his role as top guard. He’d been a natural bully, but Olaf was much different. He was more intelligent and a logical thinker and he had military training. He had gained his position from merit.

  Uncle had liked Luther because he was easier to manipulate, but no one else in his original company could do what Olaf could. Additionally many of the men who had come with them were getting too old or ill to make good fighting men. They had become ill partly because they had been exposed to radiation in the wars. Since they had come to the castle they lived self-indulgent lives, having sex with too many partners, drinking too much and foregoing physical training.

  Olaf was really the only one capable of doing the job. He and Albert had spent the morning on preparations for the planned event.

  Albert’s mahogany face was sweating. “I just spent the morning preparing a fucking funeral pyre,” he snarled. “This is not how I want to spend my time. I have followed the last order I will take from Uncle.
It’s over.”

  Doris continued to cry. “But what can we do?” she asked.

  “I think we need to talk with that husband of hers,” Albert said. “He never leaves her side and he looks like he’d be a good man in a fight.”

  “He does,” Olaf agreed. “I don’t know if you noticed that Luther just disappeared after he hit him in the neck at the wedding. I think he killed him and somehow disposed of the body without fanfare or even notice. He carried him from the hall and that was the last anyone saw of him. I’ve thought about it but I’ve avoided starting any sort of search because none of us miss that bastard including his girlfriend.”