The Ward of Falkroy

by Loki Renard

  “So I should put my cape over my head and keep my eyes down and make sure not to look at any male for longer than a second, in case he decides I'm trying to sell myself?”

  “You should stay inside,” Leo said. “As I told you to do in the first place. Now we are going to have to move on before this town turns on us.”

  “We can't move on! She won't know where to find us!”

  “We will find her,” Leo said. “Don’t you worry about that. You just stay close, keep your head down, and….

  “WITCH! There’s a WITCH in Samilton!” A cry went up nearby, followed by a sudden shift in the wind. The villagers who had been going to and fro largely uninterested in anything besides their own business suddenly became alert, their ears pricking like a field of hares.

  “Come here. Now,” he insisted, grasping her by the hand. Kelsie had no choice but to follow him as he dragged her to their horses. Lady Varys' mount was gone, but his stallion and her donkey were still in the little stable outside the tavern.

  She watched as he hastily saddled both, his agile fingers working the leather straps with a practiced touch that was smooth even at speed.

  “We're running away? Why?”

  “Because a witch burning is not something we want to be near, especially when you're the witch in question,” he said. “Mount up, Kelsie.”

  “But our things are still in the room...”

  “Doesn't matter. Mount up.”

  “But Victoria...”

  “MOUNT. UP!” He bellowed the order at her. His stallion flicked an ear and otherwise did not respond, but her donkey seemed to take the order personally. It reared back and struck out with its front hooves, just missing his head.

  “Easy!” He reached out and grabbed the animal's bridle, only to have it try to bite him.

  “They're here! Bring the fire!” A scream rang out behind them.

  Kelsie looked over her shoulder and saw a pack of villagers approaching, their torches held high and burning bright. It had taken them just a few minutes to assemble a mob – an impressive feat. Though it was the middle of the day, the torches threw nasty shadows across the peasants and the ground beneath. The looks in their eyes were particularly frightening, a manic glaze of hatred from people who had not cared who she was an hour ago, and yet who were now gripped with the desire to destroy her.

  As she stood rooted to the spot, a hand reached down, grasped her by the scruff of her doublet and hauled her up and over the saddle. Falkroy spurred his mount and the black stallion flew from the stables just as the mob arrived, bursting through flame and fury with Kelsie's donkey following up the rear, the ornery long eared beast striking out at those who sought to harm her.

  ***

  Leo rode out of Samilton at full speed, heading into the countryside. His choice to flee was not on his account – or even Kelsie's. He strongly suspected that the apprentice sorceress was more than capable of defending herself when necessary. He had chosen to flee in order to protect the people of Samilton themselves. They were dense and simple, but they did not deserve to die.

  He headed due east, drawn by the notion that there should be some cover in the woods in that direction. Riding with one hand on the reins, one keeping a firm grasp on the back of Kelsie's doublet to ensure she did not go flying off, he mentally cursed Victoria. They needed to stay together in these matters. Kelsie was trouble waiting to happen and she needed more than one pair of eyes on her at any given time.

  Finally trees began to surround them and Leo slowed his stallion. The forest was dense enough to force the horse to have to pick its way through.

  As she felt their pace slow, Kelsie tried to squirm up, but he kept her in place with a rough. “No.”

  She made some complaint about being uncomfortable, but he paid that no mind. She had no idea how uncomfortable she was about to get if she didn't settle down and rediscover her obedient spirit.

  He was looking for a place to make camp when a glimmer of water showed through the trees, and shortly after an old cottage came into view as well. As he approached he noticed that it was seemingly abandoned. A trapper's hut, perhaps, used in winter.

  Drawing his mount to a halt, Leo let Kelsie slide from the horse and looked inside. It was all packed down and the dust covering the furniture and floor indicated that it had been some time since the owner was there. The walls were in good condition, as was the thatch, so it would do for temporary shelter away from the mad locals.

  “You stay here,” he said. “I'm going to find Victoria. They may turn on her having been deprived of us as prey.”

  “I'll come with you,” Kelsie said quickly.

  “No, you will stay here, in this cottage. I will bar the door and you will not open it until I come back, understand?”

  He saw a flash of temper in her eyes, a rare sight for Kelsie, and one that did not bode well for either of them.

  “I'm coming with you,” she insisted. “She's my mistress.”

  “I'm not making a request of you, Kelsie,” he growled. “I'm giving you an order.”

  She drew herself up in a manner quite reminiscent of Victoria. It would have been quite adorable if not for the fact she was picking precisely the wrong time to test his patience.

  “No,” she declared, practically copying Victoria's tone to perfection.

  “No?”

  Leo grabbed her and a second later his palm met her buttocks with a hard swat, enough to make her yowl.

  “I've got one sorceress who doesn't mind me. I'll not have two!”

  The slaps landed firmly across her britches, catching both cheeks with single swats. It was far from the worst whipping Leo had ever given a girl, but it made an incredible impact on Kelsie. Her squeal was so high pitched, it almost sounded like a suckling hauled off to be roasted.

  He gave her a good two dozen right across the tender part of her bottom where she'd usually sit, intending for the message to stick for a while. It only took a minute or so to deliver the punishment and the second he let her go she bounced up, her face flaming, her eyes downcast as she threw herself down on the bed, hiding her face.

  Leo sighed, putting his hand over his eyes.

  He did not hit women. That was his credo. But sorceresses were not women in the typical sense of the word. They were far stronger, far more difficult to control, and Kelsie had been very close to getting herself killed once today already. He had every rationale in the world for having thrashed her rear, and frankly, it had been a merciful whipping. But he also knew that he had given the apprentice a taste of the thrashing her mistress truly deserved.

  “Kelsie?”

  She would not look at him and he was reminded of how she had been when he had first met her, a cringing, cowering girl who hid within her cape and could barely say a word to him. He hoped he had not set her back permanently by his actions.

  “I'm not going to say I'm sorry for whipping your rear,” he said. “You have to mind me. It's the only way you'll stay safe.”

  A little shrug met his words.

  He sat down next to her on the bed and touched her shoulder gently. She rolled back toward him and looked at him with sparkling eyes. And then he smelled it. A familiar feminine scent. Was she... no. Surely not. Her eyes met his and he saw arousal there, plain as day. It was an innocent attraction, but no less powerful for that fact.

  Leo cleared his throat. “You're alright, aren't you, Kelsie.”

  “I'm sore,” she said with a little pout he was almost certain was calculated.

  “That's what happens when you're punished,” he said as she angled her rear toward him with an uncharacteristically forward roll of her hips.

  “You could rub it better?”

  There was a test and a trap in that suggestion. As he looked down at her, he could not help but see that Kelsie had blossomed in just a few short days. She was not the same scared little scamp who had trailed him through Englred. She was a young woman in the first bloom of her desire. He knew how strong that
could be. He could feel the pull of it, the knowledge that below those tight britches he himself had chosen for her, she would be welling with... He stopped the train of thought immediately. There was something in the air between them, something new and not quite natural. He found himself looking around the room, as if expecting to see something or someone.

  “Please... Leo...” her voice was soft and breathless, her hand on his thigh.

  He stood up swiftly and put a pace of distance between them. “What are you doing, girl?”

  A beautiful maidenly blush appeared on her cheeks, but she was not so embarrassed as to fall completely silent.

  “I'm just so.... ready...” she sighed.

  Ready. She was beyond ready. She was like a queen cat in heat, hips rolling, chest out, eyes downcast but gleaming with need.

  “Spank me again, Leo,” she moaned, rising to her knees and crawling toward him across the bed. “I've been naughty.”

  “I'm not going to spank you again.”

  “But you have to,” she said, looking at him with those doe like brown eyes. “Or else I'll disobey you.”

  A low growl escaped his throat. This kind of seduction was out of character, so much so he half wondered if she had been charmed.

  “Settle yourself, Kelsie,” he ordered. “Or it won't be a spanking you get, but a whipping. I'll pull this belt off and stripe your hide. It won't feel good like that rump warming obviously did. It will hurt – I'll make sure of it.”

  She stopped and sat back on her knees, pouting with her creamy breasts threatening to spill out of the top of her doublet, which had lost a couple of buttons in her writhing display. “It's because I'm ugly, isn't it.”

  “It's because I have command of you, and I have no intention of taking advantage of that.”

  “But I don't want to be a virgin anymore. Please... you could...”

  “Kelsie!” He snapped her name sharply. “Another word and I will have you with your nose in the corner, hands tied behind your back. You'll stay here bound until I get back. Is that what you want?”

  “Nossir,” she said, shaking her head swiftly.

  She was still obedient enough to obey him and to sit down a little more modestly. Leo took a deep breath, his blood like fire in his veins. Oh if he were to unleash himself upon her, she would be thoroughly ravaged, and that was not his intention.

  “Stay here,” he repeated. “I must find Victoria before the villagers do. You must promise me you will not leave this cottage.”

  “I promise,” she said, sulkily. He did not know how much her promise was worth. He supposed he was about to find out.

  Chapter Eleven

  Left all alone as the stallion's hoof beats faded into the distance, Kelsie pulled off her boots and got comfortable on the bed. She could not quite believe she had gathered the nerve to proposition Leo, but when his hand met her rump, she had felt a spark like none she had ever experienced before ignite deep between her thighs. Every subsequent slap had caused it to grow, so the whipping hadn't even hurt. It had done nothing but leave a tingle in her buttocks and a slick sensation between her thighs.

  It was quite frightening to be left alone without any kind of protection, aside from the little dagger always at her waist. She didn't even know if it would do any good. She had never once drawn it since Leo bought it for her. Though she knew she was not entirely helpless, she felt exposed and nervous.

  In an effort to distract and comfort herself, she closed her eyes to the gathering shadows and let her fingertips slide between her legs. Remembering Leo's touch, how it had felt to be pressed against his rock-hard body, she felt the warmth begin to creep back into that low little spot in her belly, an excitement that made her breath come quicker.

  As she touched herself, she did not imagine Leo, precisely, but something more like a composite of all the men she had known. The image of the soldier from Samilton as he had been when he smiled at her outside the tavern came into her head and made her wonder how he would look without his uniform on, the hard planes of his virile body bared to rut her, as he had so invited. She now regretted not having taken him up on his offer. She would have been relieved the burden of her virginity, and spared the horror of a witch hunt at the same time.

  She let her fingertip sink inside herself, feeling how warm and slick the inside of her pussy was. The thin barrier of skin stopped her from going much deeper, but even that little act of penetration was enough to excite her, the heel of her palm pressed against her clit and mound.

  “Pretty one...”

  The words came in a dark hiss. Kelsie's eyes flew open and she saw a young man standing in the very center of the cottage. He was very, very handsome with hair the color of coal, his eyes so deep in hue one could almost miss that they were red.

  “Hello?” There was a tremor in her voice. Her fingers stayed between her legs, paralyzed like the rest of her.

  “Hello, witchlet. Daughter of Raine.”

  Nobody had spoken her mother’s name in decades. It was a joy to hear it even on this strange creature’s infernal tongue. She already knew he was not human. Humans did not appear in silent darkness. They did not smile with such cursed beauty. His skin was like diamond, very pale in hue. He moved in a way that did not seem to be entirely synchronized with typical time, as if he weren't quite in the same world.

  “You know who I am,” she said softly.

  “I've known who you are since long before your birth,” he said with a chuckle that sounded like coals bursting into flame. “I've been watching you, witchling. My little pig herd turned seductress.”

  The demon began to move toward her. She had the sense that she could have stopped him as easily as she had stopped the soldier if she truly wanted. But she found herself not wanting to stop this apparition who moved without leaving so much as a footprint in the dust.

  The demon sat on the bed and gazed at her with smoldering eyes and a bright smile. She looked back, addled by arousal. This was a creature of evil, so she had been told, and yet she did not feel fear as she looked into his unholy eyes. She felt a strange joy, accompanied with a tiny pang of guilt that only served to excite her more. She should have been quivering in fear, banishing the beast from her bed. Instead she shifted over a little to allow him space.

  “How do you know me?”

  “My name is Immoleth, and you were promised to me,” he informed her in a possessive growl.

  “Wha...What?”

  “Just as your mother was, your grandmother, her mother before her. I have had copulation rights to your line since before any human can remember. And I will have those rights as long as your line breeds, so when I am done with you, witchlet, make haste into the wilds and find another cock to rut...”

  His words were crude and they excited Kelsie. As she stared up into his face, his hand slid over hers and he began to tease her pussy along with her. It was all happening so quickly, and he acted with such calm certainty that she did not stop to question his actions.

  “Will you do that for me, Kelsie?” The demon purred the question as his fingers ignored the physical barrier of her clothing, somehow found her slippery slit and teased the wet entrance to the very core of her being. “Will you find a strapping man rich with seed and sink your tight chalice down upon his root?”

  She found herself nodding. “Yes... I... yes...”

  “Such a weak will,” Immoleth chuckled. “You are to be the easiest of all, I think. No mother to guide you, no father to protect you, just your solitary bare sex waiting to be deflowered. That man who left you. You should take him when he returns.”

  “I cannot,” she said. “He belongs to another. And she... she is not weak.”

  “Another witch?”

  “A sorceress.”

  “A witch,” Immoleth laughed. “There is no such thing as a sorceress, only a witch with pretensions. But I suppose she is older, more powerful.”

  “Much and much.”

  He laughed again, seeming very amused
by her replies as his fingers stroked her lower lips with slow, gentle touches, encouraging her sex to flower into full arousal. Kelsie let out a soft moan of desire, needing his touch desperately. She was easy prey there alone, her welling feminine desire repressed for all too long, breaking free under the touch of this malevolent danger.

  His fingers left her pussy and slid up, removing her doublet with deft touches. In moments her entire body was laid bare beneath the demon’s gaze. She lay there and allowed the creature to touch her with his infernal fingers. Everywhere his fingertips traced, she felt liquid fire burst across her skin – not so hot as to cause pain, but more than enough heat to excite her.