The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  But nothing changed, and that only compounded my exasperation. I felt like there was a gauge inside me- something that measured my pleasure- and whatever she was doing wasn’t getting me even close to where I wanted to be anymore.

  More! I dug my fingertips more deeply into her hair and when she complied by sucking on me more firmly, I almost cursed out loud to understand that the tension inside me was building in my jaw and toes and stomach than it was in my cock now. I pressed my hands over my face and moaned in exasperation, and when I caught a whiff of her exotic and fragrant scent on my hands, something inside me switched off completely because I hated Patchouli. I growled and looked down at where the Shepherd’s daughter and I were connected, and saw to my dismay that my manhood has started to wilt so much that she was using her hands to grasp it so that it wouldn’t fall out of her mouth. Fuck! Was I impotent now? No, I couldn’t be… I had wet dreams all the time!

  It’s not impotence… it’s karma. You almost ruined the kingdom the last time you corrupted an innocent girl with your sexuality so now God is wilting your erection, making damn sure that it doesn’t happen a second time! You don’t need to get off with this girl- you need to get as far away from her as possible!

  My spirits had been flagging all day but now they crashed completely. It was hard to use my hands to pleasure myself because when I needed it most, my sparking hands were capable of seriously injuring me, but I’d been waking up wet in my army cot for two years, imagining that a sweet, faceless virgin was doing this kind of stuff to me… yet now that the fantasy was coming true, my body was reacting like I was being violated by a dirty old man by not only failing to rise to the occasion, but by withering up! What if I was like this for life? What if I’d never be able to marry, or father children?

  And what if I deserved it? I’d taken away my Companion’s ability to make babies, hadn’t I? So what kind of God would allow me to have the kind of happiness that I’d prevented so many others from knowing?

  Amelia-Rose was panting now as she began to jerk my flaccid member off with her eager little hands and buck against my leg like she was riding a bull, but none of it was doing anything but piss me off and with a groan, I turned my face away from her, feeling humiliated for the both of us. That was when I saw the pictures of Kohl and I again, and my heart and lungs crumpled as I remembered how he’d wept in Amelia-Rose’s arms… and how he’d feel if he knew what we were doing. The urge to vomit overwhelmed me, and I sat up quickly, pulling my legs out from under her and causing her to topple forward onto the bed.

  ‘We have to stop,’ I said woodenly, standing up and looking around for my clothes. ‘This is wrong.’

  Amelia-Rose gasped. ‘Wh-what? But you were so close-’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, deciding to save her feelings by allowing her to go on believing that she’d been having any sort of effect on me at all. She’d obviously never been with a man before and therefore, she had no idea that the favour she was doing me would wear the skin off my knob before it granted me release. ‘I don’t deserve to know such pleasure or to be so soothed. You are right to say that I have abstained and that I am suffering for it, but I deserve to suffer Amelia-Rose, it is my penance.’ I found my silk formal cargo pants and moved quickly to step into them, keeping my back to her so she wouldn’t see how tiny my member had become. ‘I thank you for trying to help me, and for healing me so- you are gracious and kind and indeed, filled with God’s light...’ I got my zipper up and turned to face her again. ‘But you are destined to do greater things than service me, Miss Choir, and I won’t derail you from your holy path by taking advantage of your kindness.’

  She frowned gently, but her cheeks were still pink and her eyes were very glassy, betraying the fact that she was more frustrated than offended. ‘I am undertaking an apprenticeship as a shepherd, your highness, but I am not one yet.’ She began to crawl across my bed and towards me. ‘My path is not set in stone, and if I believe that I could be of greater service to God by loving a Barachiel-’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said quickly. ‘I saw you and Kohl kissing before I left, and though I can understand why you’d feel confused about your feelings in my presence given how alike we look, and because it’s probably been months since you saw him last- the sad truth is that he would not be so understanding.’ She’d had the grace to look embarrassed when I’d mentioned the fact that I’d already seen her coming onto one of us, but her eyes flashed resentfully when I hinted that Kohl had some sort of claim on her and just like that, I knew that I’d glimpsed more than her lustful nature- but her agenda.

  Amelia-Rose was to turn twenty-one sometime soon, I was certain of it, which meant that she had only a few months before she had to pick a course- find someone to marry, or enter into a regular apprenticeship and the joining lottery and pray that she found someone to be with that would make giving up a lifetime as a shepherd worth it, because once you became a shepherd, you were not allowed to get married or leave. That was why most Shepherd’s waited until they were retired to pursue the career and why young apprenticeship Shepherd’s were rare- undertaking it before you’d lived your life would make you a martyr yes, but only after some major sacrifices were made.

  People admired Amelia-Rose for having undertaken such an apprenticeship when she was only eighteen, but if she’d just done it in order to make someone rich and powerful pursue her as his bride, then the clock was ticking for her now, for sure. Had she come on to Karol too? Was there a single, unmarried member of the nobility that she wasn’t draping herself all over once she had isolated them from the pack? Somehow, I doubted it.

  ‘Why should Kohl-’

  ‘He loved her too remember, and she chose me. He hides his pain better than Karol does, but it is surely still there, and I won’t hurt him like that again.’ I saw my black leather shirt and sash and wriggled into those too before reaching for my boots and my golden belt. ‘So I’m sorry for having blurred any lines tonight while I was half out of it, Miss Choir because it was unfair to both of you. I am in your debt for how you have seen to my healing, but I think it is for the best that we do not see each other again for awhile… at least until the lines between us have become clearer.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’

  ‘I am. You are a shepherd’s daughter, a member of the nobility and an apprentice shepherd... but I am a Guardian of Arcadia’s army and an outcast,’ I had to fight to keep a straight face as I added: ‘I have strong urges yes, but you’re above servicing them and you know it. But if you do not believe that God has a higher purpose for you then sucking my cock, ask your father, or both of my brothers for I’m sure they’ll all agree.’

  ‘I don’t belong to any man but God and I do not seek anyone’s approval!’ Amelia-rose sniffed, finally getting the hint and crawling off my bed and back into her own satin nightgown. ‘I was trying to help you tonight, Kohén- not offering myself up as a sex slave or a potential bride. And I love how apologetic you are after you’ve gotten what you needed!’

  There was so much I could have said in rebuttal to that, but I wasn’t in the mood to put her in her manipulative little place- but to put Eden’s fence between us! ‘Actually what I really need is to get back to work and head north, before my jealous, withered, resentful older brother finds a more dangerous mission to send me off on.’ I saw my sword and my pistol sitting on my old desk, and I collected them up in my arms instead of putting them on in the interests of getting out of there sooner. I hated that room- so much that I sort of wished that the fire Larkin Whittaker had sent had burned it beyond repair too, and could not get out of there fast enough. ‘So thanks again, and good night.’

  Amelia-Rose sighed. ‘And when will you return from this little trip north?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said, moving towards the door and bowing slightly to her before I opened it. ‘But feel free to pray that I do.’

  Then I shut the door between us before I had to hear her answer.

  I wasn’t
surprised to see Karol standing there when I stepped out into the hallway and looked up but I was surprised to see the odd little half-smirk on his face as he appraised me while leaning against his door, quite at his leisure.

  ‘Do you feel better now that you’ve been healed by the most eligible girl in the kingdom?’ he asked carefully, and I frowned in confusion.

  ‘She’s the most eligible girl in the kingdom?’

  Karol shrugged. ‘That’s what she tells me…’

  I almost smiled- almost. ‘Then God must have told her so, and who are we to argue with God?’ I tucked in my boot laces and then shoved my small hand-held pistol into my pocket. ‘I have been healed, thank you, but the next time that you’re left with two options: to let me bleed to death or send that crotch-hound after me... act like a brother for once, and let me bleed to death, all right? Or at least send a chaperone in with her?’

  I didn’t look back at Karol as I swaggered into the foyer of the royal suite, leaving him in the hall, but his chuckle followed me all the way out onto the landing, warming me a little on the inside because to the best of my recollections, that was the first time that my big brother had laughed with me instead of at me in my whole life.

  29.

  Libertie City, Raphael

  Larkin Aztaroth

  I did go to the coven to speak to the witches about a binding spell to keep my kingdom and its secrets, secret, but all they could do was promise me that they would think the matter over. They were very powerful witches- especially when all fourteen of them worked together- but silencing two hundred people on one subject without accidentally robbing everybody in Raphael of their voices was going to be a difficult undertaking, and Arial was quick to warn me that it would require a very large, very precise sacrifice.

  Needless to say, I left feeling more nauseated than when I’d gone in, dizzy over my whirling feelings for Cairo. The last time we’d had to make a sacrifice to one of their many dark deities, I’d ended up sprayed with salt and pepper bear blood and Inoborna hadn’t come near me for two weeks after for the lingering stink. I’d done that in order to work a simple protection spell- one that kept bears out of our territory- so what was I going to have to do in order to keep an army away from it? I shuddered to imagine it!

  Everybody in the kingdom was in a wonderful mood due to the fact that The Iana had returned with a full wooden belly, but I felt too anxious to shake off my unease and re-join them, so after I left the isolated little cabin that the coven lodged in on the south shore, I retreated quickly to my room, sighing when I found five notices in the cubby hole on my door. One from Lady Lucinda, asking if I still planned on throwing a ball for Cairo’s birthday so she could start planning the menu and picking costumes for her and her girls, a second from Martya asking if I’d finished the manuscript yet so we could ‘Toast the Sunrise’ the following morning, (which was a very unsophisticated tradition we’d stared one winter by getting drunk before six a.m.) one relocation request from a girl that had ended her betrothal and wished to move out of their cottage and back into the castle, a fourth from Windsor, reminding me that he would be departing on one of his hunting excursions the following morning to look for the salt and pepper bear that had been terrorising the barracks for the past few weeks, and a final one from Miriam, which said only: ‘Tick Tock.’

  Smiling, I sat down and quickly scribbled notes in response to all of them, and then pulled on the little bell by my door. Vanessa arrived a few minutes later, red-faced and breathless, took the notes, asked me if there was anything else I liked and when I said no, she went happily on her way, leaving me alone with no choice but to finish my manuscript before Miriam could come up and finish me.

  We didn’t have servants in the palace, but we had castle employees that saw to the day-to-day management of things, and Vanessa had opted for that vocation right back in the beginning because it allowed her to keep close to her daughter Larkin all day long. Almost everyone in Libertie participated in the roster system that I had instigated back in the beginning, which meant that they spent a few hours of every day participating in educational, vocational, recreational and communal activities on a rotating basis, but there were some exceptions and Vanessa was one of them. Vanessa, a few other single mothers and anyone over seventy-five, who were allowed to do whatever they wanted to do whenever they wanted to do it- much like Inoborna who was a law unto himself.

  Vanessa was one of the ones that worked ‘full time’ in the one place, on the condition that as soon as Larkin was old enough to start schooling, her mother would enter the system herself. Not only would this ensure that she kept learning and growing and challenging herself, but it might possibly one day lead to her undertaking a less banal career. Lady Lucida had a similar role to play because her Inn was one of the only places in Libertie that was open all day long (for meals, she was forbidden from taking clients in while the sun was up), but I’d refused to allow her to live like a courtesan without furthering her education so she had to participate in classes and recreational activities once a day like everybody else did -including her two employees, who I secretly hoped would tire of their night jobs once they’d discovered that they had other things to offer the world aside from their bodies and Lady Lucida’s delicacies.

  I didn’t participate in the roster system myself, because my monarchical duties kept me hopping, but I earned the exact same wage that every other full-timer did or rostered citizen did, and I’d taken on the duties of Copy-Editor for the print press in the hopes of earning more. Sure, my mother could gift me practically anything I wanted- but that wasn’t how I wanted it and so, I’d become quite the multi-tasker in order to keep myself in books, sweets and scented soaps.

  I didn’t know how long the roster system would be in place for, and I knew from Cairo that it was an unorthodox practice, (he called the roster system: ‘Life School’ in jest) but Libertie was still a small city and it just worked for us because it helped me make sure that everybody’s needs were being met in a way that was beneficial to the kingdom, because it kept it and its people moving forward. We had everything that every other functioning city in the world did, but we had them on a much smaller scale, and after only two years of living in that tiny community, I’d all but convinced myself that that was exactly how every community should be: so small that the person in charge of it knew every resident by name, and could be certain that they were all being properly cared for.

  People only needed three hours of school a day in Libertie, because they got two hours of practical work that was educational in itself too, and shop owners only needed to open and staff their shops for as many hours a day, because there weren’t enough people to warrant them being open from morning to night. No one needed to shoulder the burden of being labelled as a cleaner, because everybody in the kingdom was allocated three sanitisation tasks a week, and nobody was overweight, overworked or underfed, because exercise, recreational activities and periods of rest were worked into the roster as well.

  Perhaps Martya would have fared better if she’d gotten the chance to attend a ‘real’ school like the ones in Calliel, but everyone got to go to school here- right up until they retired- and the older ‘students’ absorbed knowledge like sponges, even the ones that hadn’t known how to read before they had come here. In fact, most of them looked forward to school the way that the adolescents looked forward to lunch!

  And that was exactly why it was important that I finish ‘The Mistral’s Mistress,’: it had been written by someone that probably hadn’t read a book until 644 AD, and if I could get it published, then I would not only be changing someone’s life by making them an author, but changing the lives of everyone that came along to read it after. We had a tiny library attached to the school house, and Cairo had done his best to fill it with books for me, but I wanted my people to be able to access thousands of them and there simply just weren’t that many left in print. Most of the ones that we had were books from the time before that had been re-typed in
places like Rabia and New Rome and then smuggled out after, and I knew for a fact that many of the storylines had been ‘tweaked’ in order to make them less scandalous, and that cheapened them a little. I kept them in circulation as the Barachiel kings had to serve as cautionary tales more than anything else, but there were plenty of cautionary tales to be told from the point of view of people in the new world too, and I was determined to get as many in print as possible- to prove that God had failed us when he’d abandoned us and left men that thought they were Gods to rule in his stead. The only way to shed some light on the situation was to get people whose stories were considered the least savoury and most scandalous published, even if they didn’t know how to write well yet- and even if their stories were bound to be censored in every country that still fell under God’s protective Barachiel banner should they ever escape our shores.

  Even if those stories were going to make me more uncomfortable than they would ever make any of the Barachiel heirs.

  So I read the steamy manuscript until the light began to stream through my rear window, and until it began to be muted by shades of pink and burnt gold. I turned page after heart-wrenching, lip-biting, breath-stealing page, until I was so fully immersed in Rian and Medley’s world that it felt as though a thick fog had settled over me. I read seventy-two pages, but gave up on the seventy-third when someone knocked on my door- just as I’d been about to start writhing in frustration or slashing: ‘Why are you torturing me?!’ into the margins with my red marking pen.

  Taking the intrusion as sign that I was in way over my head with this copy-editor nonsense, I tossed my red marking pen over the edge of the bed and onto the stone floor before burying my face into my new, periwinkle and honey-hued comforter so I could muffle my groan of frustration. It was Cairo at the door, I just knew it, and I also knew that I was in no state to be expected to handle that well, not when I’d just been reading about how expertly Rian handled Medley’s sex with the tip of his tongue! Honestly, I was practically hyperventilating! What had inspired the anonymous author to dream up such a passionate scenario?