Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales (9 page)

We pass through a corridor lit by more of the strange lamps, most notably an octopus with an arm span of a dozen feet and a large green lightbulb for a head. A clock is mounted just under the bulb, and as it strikes the hour, the arms begin to adjust their position along the wall, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of grinding gears.

Wilkes catches me eyeing it and says, “Master makes them all himself.”

“Who
is
Master?” I reply, fear sharpening the edges of my voice. “Where does he come from? Who made him like that?”

“Same as makes us all, Pearl. The Maker.”

“You mean to say he was
born
like that?”

“Are any of us as we were when we first separated from our mothers' bodies?”

This sounds like something my pa would say, and is not at all the sort of chat I want to have right now.

“What makes him do it?” I demand. “Why does he steal things?”

“Master Raven acquires objects for his inventions. Cast-off things, or things the owner will not long miss.”

“Ha,” I grunt, “and what would a silly old crow-man who has no use for other living souls know about
that
?”

Wilkes follows me down the corridor, so he can't see it's not only anger that's choking me up. But neither can I see what he thinks of my answer.

At the end of the corridor we climb a dizzying number of steps that wind upward like a corkscrew. We rise through a hole in the floor into the “workshop.”

Workbenches line the walls, and every surface is covered with what look like machines in various states of repair or assembly. There are heaps of “acquired” objects up here as well, and I steal a quick look around the room for Ma's stone.

The tower has but one large window fitted with amber-tinted panes, so it's only moderately brighter than the rooms below. More lamps range around the perimeter, but these mostly use clear lightbulbs so it feels less like being in a submersible—or at least what I'd imagine a submersible to feel like. Near the window is a tall easel holding a stack of parchment. Symbols and numbers and diagrams have been scratched over almost every inch of the first sheet. I notice now that many sheets, similarly scrawled upon, have been hung along the walls. Some of the diagrams seem to be carefully labeled drawings of Raven himself.

“Here, Wilkes,” he calls, and Wilkes takes me by the arm and leads me over to the easel. Next to it is a sort of stand, shaped like an X, with a system of straps and buckles.

I jump as the manservant pushes me toward the stand, and the moment my back touches it I begin to fight him in earnest.

“What are you doing?” I demand, shoving at his chest.

Wilkes doesn't reply, but he uses his body to seal me against the stand. His eyes bore into mine, transmitting something hot and alive, as he raises my arms over my head.

Raven joins us, and I cry out as he fits leather cuffs over my wrists and ankles.

“Leave us,” orders Raven.

As Wilkes withdraws, Raven steps back, cradles his elbow in one hand, and props his head on the other, watching me.

“What do you want from me?” I shout, straining against the cuffs.

His brow furrows as his eyes move over me. I'm not sure he's heard me.

“Master Raven!” I insist.

He drops his arms and moves to stand directly in front of me. We regard each other, my heart vibrating my chest, and I become aware that the fear that grips me is changing—in a way I don't understand well enough to explain to anyone, including myself.

My heart still hammers. My breaths come faster. I
am
afraid. But something warm and velvet is awake and moving low in my belly.

Raven reaches for a lever and tugs it gently. The X-stand tilts backward, angling my body.

He draws nearer, reaching a gloved hand to the top of my corset. I gasp as he runs a finger from the laces, along the ridge of the corset, tip grazing the soft, rounded flesh above. His finger passes back and forth, my breath increasing with his momentum, until finally his fingertip stops just above my nipple. He presses into the soft flesh and then suddenly tugs upward.

My nipple pops free of the corset. Heat builds between my legs and my mouth waters. He meets my gaze and my lips part, short puffs of breath moving in and out. His fingertip slides down, and with the soft leather of his glove he begins to slowly rub.

“I…Master…”

He ducks his head closer, positioning the magnifying device over his eye and focusing it on my nipple. I feel the cold metal of its tip pressing against me, surrounding the small red flower.

“Hold very still,” he says, and I try to stop breathing. But it's not possible.

Straightening and raising the eyepiece, he reaches again for my corset and begins loosening the laces. He folds back the fabric, and I jump as he inserts one hand, lifting out my right breast. He cups it carefully, raising and lowering, feeling the heft.

I squirm on the stand, but I'm no longer trying to escape. I arch my back, pressing into his hand.

But Master Raven doesn't seem to notice my agitation. He continues his examination, lifting and cupping the left breast, allowing it to come to rest next to the right. Placing a hand on the outside of each breast, he raises them again, pressing them together, before letting them bounce free against my chest.

His dark gaze meets mine. The warmth of his flesh, the cool air over my exposed and rigid nipples…it's more than I can take, and I whimper like a pup.

Raising his hand again, he flattens it against my breasts and slowly drags it down, feeling my ribs and belly, around to the bones of my hips, and finally sliding it between my legs, clasping me gently as the breath hisses between my teeth. I close my eyes as his hand rubs back and forth, exploring me over the fabric of my trousers.

Without warning he releases me and walks to the easel, removing the topmost sheet of parchment from the pad to reveal a fresh one. He lifts a pen from the tray and begins scribbling.

My heart slows while he makes his notes, but when he turns I catch a flash of metal in his hand and my body goes rigid. He draws close, bending and examining my trousers, and I flatten against the stand as if it will help me.

As he raises his hand I notice he's holding sewing shears. I yelp with fear as he aims them between my legs. Pinching together the fabric of my trousers and undergarment with his left hand, he slides the sharp blades carefully against them until he's removed the front sections, baring my abdomen and the soft curls of hair just below.

Heat flashes over me, and I try squirming into myself. But all self-consciousness is lost as he reaches out with his gloved hand and begins gently kneading the flesh between my thighs.

A moan works its way from my throat as I feel the soft leather press of his fingers between moistened lips. My hips push forward as he massages in a circle over that most sensitive spot. I suck in a breath as I feel a finger slide inside me, pressing in to the knuckle, wiggling against the soft tissues enclosing it. I clench my muscles over him and rock my hips against his hand.

I've never been with a man, not like this. The closest I've come is a schoolmate's clumsy fingering, and the mayor's crude pawing. Both left me thinking that the thing I'd seen my ma and pa do in the small hours when they thought I was sleeping was a thing I never wanted for myself. I never understood why
anyone
would want it.

But this is different. Raven's working buttons and levers I never even knew I had.

I buck against his hand, feeling something explosive building.

But he withdraws again and takes a step back. I shrivel like a violet plucked and left lying in the sun.

“Wilkes?” he calls.

“Yes, sir,” replies the servant, emerging from the stairway. Has he been listening from just below?

“How is this used?” asks Raven, gesturing at me.

Wilkes raises his eyebrows. His gaze moves over my disarranged clothing, lingering on my exposed breasts, then again between my legs. He swallows. “Beg pardon, sir?”

Raven comes close again, shoving gently at one breast with the knuckle of his index finger, then circling the knuckle underneath, trailing it down my stomach until it comes to rest just above the cut in my trousers.

“How does it work? What does it do?”

“Well, sir”—Wilkes steps toward us, his eyes locking on my breasts—“many things. Many things, indeed. It depends on your need. But I'm taking you to mean how is it used for pleasure?”

My heart gives a watery thump.

“Pleasure.” Raven considers. Then gives a stiff nod. “How is it used for pleasure?”

Wilkes glances at Raven's easel. “Shall I make a sketch for you, sir?”

“No. You will show me.”

My heart jumps, and Wilkes's tongue slips between his lips, moistening them. I feel something dripping down the inside of my thigh.

Wilkes moves to stand beside the table. Gaze locking with mine, he unbuttons first his jacket and then the lowest buttons of his shirt, giving me a peek at his chiseled abdomen. Then he unbuttons the front of his trousers.

“This is your key, sir,” he says, reaching into the opening and releasing himself—the whole hard, gleaming length of him.

My heart outpaces the clocks, but I don't move, not even to breathe.

“Where is the key inserted?” asks Raven, and my eyes move to his face. His wings have dipped below his shoulders in rest, but every other part of his body is awake—taut muscles of arms, face, and chest. Gleaming eyes, lungs working like a slow bellows.

“There are…three keyholes.”

My eyes widen as Wilkes steps toward the stand, and he grasps one of the handled wheels that's mounted to the stand's supportive framework. Cogs turn on all sides of me, and the table lowers and tilts until I'm lying on my back.

Wilkes swings a leg over the table and straddles my chest.

“You want a stiff key, sir,” explains Wilkes, grasping a key that doesn't look like it could be any stiffer, “and there are many ways to accomplish that. For the sake of simplicity…”

He sinks his hips toward me, and he slides his cock between my breasts. He grasps them in his hands, hips arching as he kneads me against him. Back and forth, back and forth, he rides me. His thumbs rub over my nipples as he squeezes, and I give a choked-sounding moan.

Suddenly he stops, rising slightly and bending forward.

“The first keyhole,” he says, pulling my head forward in his hands. He inches closer, cradling my head. “Open your mouth,” he commands, inserting his thumbs at the corners of my lips. His voice isn't cruel, but it's hard as steel.

Spit collects in my throat as I spread my jaws wide. Never breaking from my gaze, he slides my mouth over his cock.

His fingers press against my head as his hips grind in a circle, in and out, his fullness gliding to the back of my throat, grasping and thrusting and groaning loudly.

The evidence of my eagerness has slicked the insides of my thighs and soaked what's left of my trousers. I arch my back, arcing toward the ceiling, my body straining for relief.

Show him the second keyhole,
I'd beg with my voice if I could.

Wilkes withdraws, and I gasp. He lifts his leg and lowers it to the other side, leaving me.

My hungry gaze follows as he makes a slow torture of raising the table higher. Then he moves around to the other end, stepping between my spread legs. I arch again, and he presses his palm against my stomach. The fingers of his other hand take hold of a sliced-open edge of my trousers, and with a sudden jerk he's exposed me fully—my hips and thighs and my throbbing, engorged sex.

“The second keyhole,” he explains, sliding a finger into me, scooping out wetness and smearing it over himself.

He takes his slick cock in one hand as he steps closer to the table. I feel the tip of him at my opening, and that outer machinery clenches over him. He teases me to the point of actual pain, rubbing the tip over the lips of my pussy.

His hands come to my hips and he holds me hard. Suddenly he pumps solid and fast into me, and I buck against him and cry out.

Raven moves to stand behind him, watching me over his servant's shoulder. “Are you inflicting pain?”

Wilkes's laugh is a low growl as he begins to pump harder and faster, and my breasts flop and roll heavily. “Does the girl look like she's in pain, sir?”

Raven's eyebrows lift. “Decidedly not.” He moves around Wilkes to stand beside me, his eyes moving curiously over my body. His hands reach up to tug my corset farther open. Then his gaze moves down between my legs. “And this keyhole is the one to unlock her? You mentioned a third.”

“I'll wager this little thief will unlock easily enough at any hole.” My body jerks as he rams into me, the lips of my pussy pressing his abdomen. “Shall we save the third for your own discovery and exploration, sir?”

“Perhaps so,” nods Raven. His hand moves to my left breast, covering and squeezing, tugging up and down. I arch into what I can no longer keep back. I'm sure my body can hold no more sensation, but Raven's other hand moves down into the tight curls between my legs, pinching my lips and my clit together onto the top of Wilkes's pumping cock.

I arch powerfully against my restraints, practically levitating from the table, and Wilkes shouts as I open fully to his key.

“Leave us.”

Wilkes pulls out and lets go of my hips, packing up his key and heading for the stairs without a word.

Raven takes his place between my legs, gloved hand rubbing the moisture slicking my thigh. Clasping a thigh in each hand and studying my face. He's stiff behind the dark leather of his pants, and he snugs in against me, pressing the hardness into my wet, throbbing flesh.

I can't help but press back, anticipating, even as I struggle to catch my breath from Wilkes's exertions. In the locking of our bodies and gazes I begin to lose myself. I become indistinct, borders loosening at the sudden tightness of this connection.

Frightened, I shift my gaze to the hard planes of his chest, the dark lines of the raven tattoo between his left breast and shoulder. But he backs from between my legs and circles the table. Next thing I know he's released my cuffs.

I stumble down to my feet as the blood rushes back into fingers and toes.

“You may go,” he says flatly.

He returns to his easel, and I stare at him, gaping like a baby bird. A new kind of fire kindles in my belly.

“I'll not go
anywhere
until you give me my stone.”

He turns slowly, fixing me again with his gaze until I feel like a worm whose days are numbered.

But I hold my ground. “My pa went underground for that stone. Risked his life in a job he shouldn't have been doing in the first place. It's all my ma's got left of him, and I'm not leaving 'til…”

I trail off because I'm starting to cry and this is the opposite of the impression I want to give. Huffing in frustration, I tug my corset over my breasts and tighten the laces. I glance down between my legs and flush to my hairline. I'll have to tie my jacket around my waist.

Raven watches me, his head cocked at a strange angle. My hands drop below my waist to cover my sex, and I steel myself against the urge to bound down the stairs.

“I'm waiting,” I say in a voice that quavers.

Raven turns his back on me now, wings rising behind him, and he takes two long strides toward the window. He lifts the handle and gives it a shove, and before I can figure out what he's up to, he's thrown himself out of it. I gasp and rush after him, leaning out over the sill in time to watch him rise on those great dark wings and soar away from the keep.

“Well, how do you like that?” I mutter.

And it's then it really hits me, how far I am from home. It steals over me like the morning sunlight flooding the field behind my house. I can walk down from this tower and reach the cottage by nightfall, but even as I think it, I know it's not that easy anymore. My body can carry me back to my mother's door, but I can never really go home. And somewhere out near the limits of my powers of comprehension, I wonder, is that all this has really been about?

Pa always said I'm a girl who knows how to go to extremes.

“Shall I show you out, little thief?”

I turn to find Wilkes standing behind me.

“Stop calling me that,” I snap. But something in me likes the sound of it. Something in me wants to hear the words in Master Raven's mouth.
Little thief
.

“As you like, Pearl.”

He tries to hand me my backpack, but I fold my arms. “Where has he gone?”

He lowers the pack to the floor. “Hunting, I presume. The same as every night.”

I glance at the window and know by the cottony blush of cloud that the sun—which made a late appearance—is already beginning to dip on the other side of the sky. But it's not yet night.

“When will he return?”

“When he returns. He's dismissed you and will not be pleased to find you here.”

I draw my shoulders back. “I don't care if he's pleased.”

His expression is cold as glass but his eyes let out a spark of mirth. “Shall I entertain you until then?”

I frown at him, but the memory of earlier entertainment increases the heat between my exposed thighs. The keep master and his servant have opened up a box—a box I'd shoved into a corner under a stool. But the lid's off now, and it seems to be full of brightly dressed harlequins. They spill out on all sides and have no intention of going back in.

Wilkes clears his throat. “Perhaps you're hungry.”

My belly answers for me, and I give a nod of agreement.

“Wait here.”

I make a tour of the workshop while he's gone. Master Raven is a tinkerer, and a kind of explorer. There are mechanical objects ranging from windup toys to pedal larks in various states of disassembly. He seems to have abandoned them all in their partially deconstructed states, some of them so long they've actually collected a layer of dust. I wonder if this is what will happen to me if I stay here.

But I'm only here until I get what I came for.

“Here you are, miss.”

I turn to find a young woman rising from the hole in the center of the room. She rests a tray of bread and cheese on a small table, and then comes over to me. I notice she has a skirt draped over one arm. She holds it out to me, and her eyes slip down to my clasped hands. My pa told me the sun was once bright and strong—so strong it could burn you if you faced it too long. That's what her notice feels like on my skin.

I move to take the skirt from her.

“I can help,” she offers brightly.

She's a lovely thing, with creamy skin and hair like honey piled high on the back of her head. Her corset hoists her like a tabletop and tapers down to her waspy waist.

“A great honor it is, miss,” she says as her skillful fingers unfasten and draw away the fabric of my trousers. “He don't ever look at me for more than a few seconds.”

The sunburn creeps to my chest and limbs as she works the black taffeta up over my hips, using leather straps and a belt to cinch it up high on my legs in front, letting it hang to the floor in back.

“He didn't,” I murmur, “it wasn't…”

She gives me a small, sympathetic smile. “I see.”

She's sweet, and disarming. I find myself asking, or
trying
to ask, “Does he ever…does he like…?”

“He's different from other men,” she replies, comprehending me. She bends to smooth and arrange my skirt. “I know he's got the right parts and all. But he's awful preoccupied with…” She glances around the room and shakes her head. “I never met a man I couldn't coax a grope from. Not even when I did it for more than my own amusement.”

Her gaze returns to me, and she winks. “I'm Cecile. I help take care of Master Raven.”

“Why?”

She chuckles at my staring eyes. “He pays me to. And we suit each other. Forget to sleep and eat without Wilkes and me, he would.”

“Does he not have any family or friends?”

“Bah,” she mutters. “He's got better than family. My ma sold me to a circus. His pa—well, the fella who made him—kept him locked in a cage.”

My eyes go wide. “A cage?”

“Cecile, hold your tongue.”

Wilkes appears behind her.

“Oh, Wilkes, you look like an old hornet,” replies Cecile, dismissing him with a wave.

“Part of what you're paid for is keeping the Master's business the Master's business.”

Cecile rolls her eyes at me and then turns, hands on her hips. “What I'm paid for is between me and the Master. I don't work for you. It's nice to have some female company, so you just let us alone.”

She turns back to me, circles around, and suddenly I feel her arms curl round my waist. I gasp as I feel breath and then soft, warm lips against the back of my neck.

Wilkes steps closer, and Cecile's hands glide up my corset to close over my breasts.

“You don't have permission, Cecile,” he murmurs as her fingers move to the laces. “The Master's not finished his study.”

“You've had her,” Cecile replies, but her voice is low in my ear and my body begins to hum. “Why shouldn't I?”

“I was assisting the Master.”

Chuckling softly, Cecile draws open my corset, exposing me again to Wilkes's hungry gaze. One of her hands slides down, easily slipping beneath the hem of my raised, belted skirt, and I suck in a breath as she kneads me lightly.

“Oh, you're nice, miss,” she whispers, and I sink back against her breasts, weakening with desire.

Her arms clasp me tightly as she works her body around so we're facing each other. With the same bright smile, she unhooks her own corset and takes hold of my waist, pulling me close, very deliberately, very slowly, rolling her nipples over mine until I begin to moan.

“That's it,” she whispers, as my head falls back.

Slow, tortuous spirals, hard nub against hard nub, until our hips lock together.

“Wilkes,” she calls sharply. “Master's table.”

Through half-closed eyelids I watch him move to the X-stand and lean against it, and then Cecile takes my head in her hands, pulling my lips to hers, filling my mouth with her velvet tongue. I roll mine against hers, moaning and reaching around to grasp her round buttocks.

She releases me suddenly and takes me by the hand. With molten limbs I find it hard to make the right movements to follow her. But we join Wilkes, and she positions me in front of him. She reaches down below his waist, unfastening his trousers and pulling him free. She circles behind me and takes hold of my hips, shoving me forward.

His hands grip my rib cage, and between the two of them they hoist me up and over his cock, letting me sink slowly onto him. A groan vibrates through him, and Cecile grips my hip bones in her hands and begins to rock my body. Wilkes takes a breast in one hand, still gripping my ribs with the other, and I go warm and liquid. Abandoning striving. A stream guided by stones and trees and hills, finding its bed in the course of no resistance.

My head tips back again, and my body undulates on his cock like a serpent. She shoves my hips and his hardness rends me, hot and alive. My breasts glide forward, hips glide back; hips forward, breasts back. Push and pull, in and out, until finally Cecile gives me another hard shove, my clit mashing against his belly, and sensation uncoils and expands as I shout. I fall back into her waiting arms as he takes possession of my hips, working me in little circles over his cock until he gasps and bucks against me.

There's a clattering at the window and Master Raven descends into the room. Something bangs to the floor as his gaze takes us in, and in a moment he's joined us. Wilkes is still buried in me, and Master Raven grabs hold of Cecile, tearing her away from us.

She yelps as he shoves her against a workbench, yanking up her skirts and tossing them over her back and shoulders. My heart bangs against my chest as he frees himself from his pants, cock long and gleaming in the strange light. He plants a hand on her back and shoves inside her.

She cries out like she's in pain and I vibrate with that cry and know that she is not. He pumps her fast and hard—wings wide and erect behind him—until both of them let out stuttering groans. He collapses against her, wings folding, and then suddenly he withdraws. He crosses to his easel, scribbling notes, as if he were alone in the room. I don't think he's even winded.

I slip away from Wilkes, and Cecile rises and straightens her skirts. Her smile is still bright as she meets my gaze, but there's something different. At first I read satisfaction—he's noticed her at last. But as she slips past me on the way to the stairs, she whispers, “Thank you.”

Wilkes follows her out, and I'm still puzzling over her words as Raven crosses to the window and picks up the thing he dropped: a leather bag. He upends it over one of his worktables, and my mama's heart falls out.