The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) (6 page)

He held that same awe-inspiring decision over her now.

As Stephen’s man, ’twas his duty to see his prisoner prosecuted for her role in treason against the Crown. A death sentence. But the situation had changed. He now knew she was innocent of murdering all those villagers. Her reaction to the dead outlaws convinced Spur his prisoner did not hold any direct culpability—she had not the belly for murder.

A soft belly for bloodletting did not make her blameless. She had consorted with a traitor to the crown, and that particular whoring would still earn her the noose. Or the chopping block.

But not straightaway.

Ah, the king. A bit of a procrastinator, that one. To all their detriments, there was no rushing him to judgment. Before he deemed to hear her crime, the wishy-washy monarch would cast her into the dungeon, a mortal blow unto itself. Most inmates expired before sentencing, usually during their first year of imprisonment. Mayhap there was a method to this kingly madness. Mayhap delay saved His Royal Highness on chopping blocks, axes, hanging ropes, and crowd control. Whole families turned out for these rousing events, and they expected a stately spectacle. Pomp and circumstance. Oceans of blood. A severed head plopped into a catch basin. Entertainment on such a savage scale was an expensive proposition.

But whatever the monarch’s rationale, be it negligence or parsimony, living in the abject squalor of vermin-infested straw, with little by way of food and drink, and subject to nightly attacks by fellow inmates—especially the kind visited upon female inmates—soon took its toll on a prisoner. The whore would probably expire before her case was ever heard.

Spur let his prisoner run, giving her a brief spate of freedom for what portended to be the very last time.

Unless he took her punishment into his own hands.

After revealing to him everything she knew, of course. Once she came clean, he would mete out a suitable penalty. A public whipping sprang to mind. The little tart would most likely enjoy something of that ilk. She had certainly enjoyed his prior corporal punishment of her. As a bonus, the entertainment would amuse him. Plus, there was naught quite like making an example of someone. And so too, sound public thrashings kept unruly peasants in line. His duty to the Crown thus observed, he would release his prisoner to whore another day.

Why see her executed merely for spreading her knees?

As far as he could see, the only difference between her and the ladies at court was a royal pedigree. And the exchange of coin. And even that was a gray area—titled sluts accepted gifts from their admirers all the time, some of those gifts monetary. At least this whore worked for a living, which was more than he could say for female nobility who fell into their wealth through family connection. The wench was a loose woman, not a murderess.

No need to decide anything yet. Up ahead—and without asking his leave—his prisoner raced into the water, her leather tether floating behind her. From a near distance, he watched her splash, then scrub her bloodied flesh clean with sand scooped from the river bottom. When her pale flesh took on a rosy glow, she dunked her head, and her long brown hair fanned across the water’s surface. He could not seem to pull his gaze away from the sight. For some strange reason, she intrigued him.

He sighed, enraptured. Here was a wench who understood men, who knew their base desires, their wants, their fantasies. Here was a wench willing to oblige those wishes only given name to in the dark of night.

Here was a wench he must keep at a distance.

The sun would soon go down. Then, darkness would cloak the woodlands in mourning. Owing to the bandits who obviously made this forest their home, Spur gave up on the notion of a hot meal at the campfire lest the light cast by the flame invite attack. Another raid like the last would send the wench into apoplexy.

He would see her spared that. And why? Because she was only a mercenary’s silly cunt, not a cold-blooded murderess.

A good night’s sleep would restore her former tranquility. With that in mind, he gestured for her to leave the river.

A summons she ignored in her frenzy to cleanse away the blood of her first kills.

He understood her plight, but going easy on her would not help her inner turmoil.

When she continued to disregard his motions, he called, “Return to me or pay the penalty for your willful disobedience.”

He might never have issued the order for all the attention she paid it.

The same dazed state that had held her in sway at Lord Harold’s courtyard gripped her again now. Her gaze was unfocused, her every move fraught with tension. The same as then, he doubted she was even aware of his presence. Without looking back at him on the mossy bank, she waded deeper into the stream, a waterway, he belatedly realized, deeper than it had first appeared.

Jesu Christi
! How could he have been so blind? The foolish whore was about to take her own life.

Spur flung off his armor and sturdy boots, dropped his garb to the ground with the exception of his soldier’s loincloth—from force of habit, he left the linen in place—and plunged into the river after her.

Tall for a female, she was still only neck-deep in the water when he reached her. But even with that, she was already floundering, sputtering too. Obviously she sought to drown herself.

“Foolish slut,” he shouted and took her firmly by the elbow. After a quick sluice of his own grit-stained body, he dragged her to safety.

Back on the riverbank, he flung her to the dirt.

Chapter Five

Drips puddled beneath her as Mitri rolled up in a ball on her side, her knees drawn up to her bare chest.

The warrior she had coerced into taking her away from Lord Harold’s destroyed village stood over her. Ushering her small store of courage, she glanced up slowly into his face. “Wh-why did you do that?”

“Because you tried to bring harm to yourself. And what was worse, you did so over a pair of worthless outlaws.”

Save for a strip of wet cloth girding the tremendous ridging of his loins, her warden was naked. Huge in stature and big everywhere else, he should have frightened her. Yet she feared him not. Her bestirred animal spirits ignored trivialities like fear.

She lusted after his engorged manhood, wanted it inside her as much as she now wanted to stay alive.

“You defied me,” he continued, his voice quivering, his chest working like bellows fanning a flame. “Worse still, you almost destroyed
my
property, an ownership I value.”

He considered her his possession and he valued her? Is that what he meant?

Comprehending his words proved difficult, as his virile countenance had set her mind to stuttering.

Here was her first glimpse of the warrior’s face without his helm. And without her fear distracting her. Funny, how a life-and-death struggle negated the impact of a handsome man’s countenance. For now that she had escaped assault, the powerful persuasion of his masculinity hit her full on. This man was everything she knew naught about.

But she did know about pride. Her pride fought back against his wrong opinion of her.

She looked up into his odd metallic eyes, eyes akin to chain mail, silvery eyes chilling her with their icy rage. “Aye, I disobeyed you, my lord. B-b-but I did not try to take my own life. Not then. Then I was merely trying to cleanse myself.”

“What mean you
not then
? Merde!” he exploded, his black hair, straight and coarse, brushing against his high cheekbones with the fierceness of his expelled vulgarity. “Is that what you were about to do when I came upon you in Lord Harold’s courtyard—take your own life? I interrupted before you could fling yourself into the bonfire?”

A sting of leather against her wet flank stole Mitri’s breath away before she could answer.

Explain, her thoughts screamed, before he beats his valued property to death.

Before she could, he raged at her again.

“Hearken you to this, wench. Any attempt you make on your own life, you make on my life.”

What?

Then she understood. Her warden needed the name of the mercenary leader to protect himself and his keep from future attack. If she killed herself before revealing his identity, she endangered the nobleman’s holdings.

“Roll over, wench.”

Not wishing to die now that she wished to live, she scurried to do his bidding. In the muddy grass, she flopped over onto her front, her small breasts smashed into the wet earth, her legs straight.

“Too low. Raise up,” he ordered.

Coveting the release that the leather strap offered, she was only too anxious to oblige—so long as her pained bliss did not come with a shroud.

Up on her knees, she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

“Clasp your hands behind your head, wench,” he said from where he now stood, over to one side.

When she did, the move brought her nipples up and out in bold relief, the ends sticking into the air. He could see her arousal from his positioning. Deeply shamed by the involuntary reaction of her body, she dropped her chin in dire humiliation.

At least he was not so cruel as to keep her waiting. The leather came down, a fiery bite into the tender flesh of her backside. The pain cleansed her more than the river. Purified her more than the gritty sand she had scrubbed into her flesh in atonement. In anticipation of the next fall of the lash, she bit back her throaty purr.

Like the clover-scented candles she had once sold at market, her enjoyment was another perverse secret she must hide, another unnatural longing that set her part from all other women. Yet, casting shame and humiliation aside, she could not keep from arching her throat in longing for the next fiery stroke.

To lengthen the pained pleasure, she angled her body to the biting kiss of the leather. Just as he let the whip fly.

The strap did more than flick her breast. The strap snaked around and caught the end of her nipple.

She cried out. In ecstasy.

For a big man, he moved lightly on his feet. Her abandoned cry still hung in the air when he was there at her front, reaching for her lashed breast, cupping the round mound in his calloused warrior’s hand. Not gently. Not tenderly. He touched that private part of her as if she were a thing. An object. His possession. Something he looked after because he owned her.

Turning the throbbing tip this way and that, he finally grunted, “No lasting harm done. The skin is not broken. The nipple is not split. You will wear a bruise but carry no scar.”

With seeming reluctance, he dropped his hand from her flesh. “But I will not tolerate another accident like that happening again, an accident, I might add, that was caused by your own willfulness.”

Seeing that her nipple had sustained an injury, she thought for sure he would call a halt to the punishment. To her, that would have been a far worse punishment than the strapping itself.

But nay. She need not have feared that the uncompromising warrior would change his mind. Instead of quitting, he said solemnly, “You are to hold still and receive your just punishment. Make no further attempts to avoid it.”

“I was not seeking to avoid it, my lord,” she said, defending herself. “Rather, I thought to yield to the punishment by turning toward it in acceptance of the pain.”

“Be that the case, go to all fours. You will have pain aplenty to accept in that pose.”

Before the inflexible overlord, she went to elbows and knees, her back leveled out at a slant, her loins remaining stuck in the mud.

The middling high grass was sharp and abraded the hardened tips of her breasts. Despite its soft texture, the mossy vegetation aligned to her mons irritated the sensitive folds of her cunny.

Wiggling, she courted this additional punishment…for all that ’twas unjustly earned.

An excellent swimmer since childhood, she could not have drowned herself in that river even if she tried—which she had not. Wearing the outlaw’s splattered blood had been intolerable. Her only thought had been to rid herself of the stain, not to end it all. Never again would she do such a thing.

She owed her mind change to the royal. The rough warrior had given her a rekindled appreciation of life.

The next two leather strokes caught her lower, on her buttocks, and she rocked in place, then wildly convulsed, no longer caring that he could see her arousal, no longer trying to hide her excitement. She spread her legs wide, wider still, hoping the strap would land between her open thighs. The knot inside her belly had begun to unfurl like a flower in the sun, all thanks to him.

“Oh aye,” she cooed. “Oh aye.”

And then, ’twas done. Finished. The punishment was over. The lashing ceased. Too soon. Much too soon to do her any good.

Her belly hollowed out. Bereft at the loss of his discipline, she could easily have wept. In frustration. His strapping had not lasted long enough to tip her into release.

But she took heart. All was not lost. All was not hopeless. Heat rising off his body informed her that he had drawn near. If only she could find some way to provoke him again…

A rough hand fisted her hair and forced her back up onto her knees.

He was staring at her. His gaze burned her backside, blistered her skin worse than the whipping.

“You liked it,” he accused. “The strapping—you liked it.”

Tired of the lies, she nodded her head in eager agreement.

“Corporal discipline makes you come apart.”

A statement, not a question, and one that irritated her to no end, for if he understood her perverse need, why had he stopped her discipline before it could benefit her?

To deprive her of pleasure?

Or mayhap he was simply thoughtless. Many men were dolts about female carnality, which explained why her erotic candles had found such winning success with women. Frustration was a horrible thing, and she would know all about that.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, she hinted at what pleasured her. “I have always preferred a firm hand.” All she had ever experienced was her own firm hand, but she could hardly admit that to him.

“The whip assuaged you?”

“Nay,” she said and dropped her chin again, not in shamed humiliation this time. In the torment of an unappeased craving. “You stopped too soon.”

Telling her deep, dark secret freed her. What else remained for him to do to her now that he had stripped both her body and her soul?

“I see.” A large calloused palm smoothed over her buttock, first one and then the other. “You have some fiery stripes here. Sleeping on your back tonight will be out of the question.”

She shrugged. “No matter. In my trade,” she said without thinking, “I oft lie on my belly.” Candle making played havoc with her back, and that position eased the achiness.

A groan came from behind her.

That she must have prompted that groan stroked her vanity, and she preened. A new experience, as always before she had run from men.

Smiling to herself, she daringly slid her thighs apart.

That should provoke him…

His moan was like music to her ears. “Your arse is so tight. Unusual for a woman to have such a muscled physique and yet be soft and round too in all the right places.” He grunted. “You have a fine, healthy body. From those flirtatious teats, to the sable curls at your cunt, to your long legs and narrow hips, you make for a savory little piece.”

“My thanks,” she murmured, not knowing what else to say. No man had ever complimented her before; no man had ever seen her naked before. Never had she told anyone about her unwholesome desires before, either. And rather than meet her perversity with disgust, her admission seemed to have provoked him, the very result she sought to achieve. All of this was so new and unexpected, she hardly knew what to think.

Save—“Just now…you took enjoyment in the dispensation of my discipline,” she blurted, female intuition filling in the blanks in her knowledge.

“’Tis not a question of
my
enjoyment, wench, but
your
punishment.”

From the side where he stood, he must have noted her elongated nipples, distended with her arousal, for he instructed, “Fondle the ends of your breasts; then dig in your fingernails.”

“The hurt breast too?”

She heard him swallow. “Aye. The hurt breast too.”

As if of their own volition, her hands fluttered to her chest. Just as she always did when self-pleasuring, she stroked her fingers across the light rose centers.

Ahhhh…

Her body tightened like a bow with an unreleased arrow, and…and…

Naught happened.

He came closer, brushed her hands away, and thumbed her erect and gnawing nipples himself. As his thumbing grew rougher, she grew more agitated. She could scarcely hold still for all her excited trembling. Her hips rolling, her naked breasts shifting under his hands, she performed a little jig on her knees, completely unselfconscious about how she must appear.

Regrettably, a moment later, his hand lifted away.

She must have made a sound, some indication of her distress, for he said, “I know what will help.”

He came around to her front and wrapped the leather whip around her chest. High, where her nipples stuck out an embarrassing amount. He tightened the restraint, forcing the mounds together. She nearly swooned when he clamped the buckle at her mounded cleavage, the metal gouging her flesh.

“Better?” he asked softly.

“Nay! More,” she demanded. How was it she was able to express her longing to him, a complete stranger?

Mayhap that was why. ’Twas because they were strangers that she was able to voice her need, that she hungered for the unorthodox as other maidens hungered for the usual. Pain was her bouquet of posies.

The honey of her perverse desire dribbled down the inside of her legs. He must have seen the wetness, for, after tightening the strap around her straining breasts some more, he fingered the cream, tasted the cream. From his sculptured lips came an enthusiastic, “Mmm.”

His murmur delighted her, but still her release refused to come.

“Give over,” he crooned.

At his encouragement, which certainly must signify his acceptance of her perverse need, she no longer resisted that which she wanted. A hum started deep within her belly. From the vibrations burst forth a glowing ember, a spark of rapture unlike she had ever before experienced. She ignited, and a high-pitched scream ripped from her throat.

“Ayeayeaye…”

Drained, awash in her unorthodox pleasure, she went limp. If not for a sinewy arm,
his
sinewy arm, holding her upright, she would have fallen face-first into the muddy earth’s sharp grass and abrading moss.

“You came,” he said. “You broke apart.”

“Aye,” she replied. For the second time, she admitted her horrible secret. To him, a royal, of all people. “And the sight of my coming stimulated you, my lord.”

“Never you mind what stimulates me, wench.”

“But ’tis a mutual weakness. Cruel to have me show you my weakness without you revealing yours.”

“I am cruel, and never forget it. Name names, wench! With your cooperation will come certain rewards. One such reward is my granting you a pardon.”

She furrowed her brow. “A pardon for what, pray?”

“High treason. You whored for a traitor. The mercenary who destroyed Lord Harold’s holdings and killed his people is an enemy of the crown. As his consort, you are his accomplice. Treason is punishable by execution. My pardon will spare you the loss of your head.”

She gasped but said naught to defend herself. Her lie had trapped her in a spider’s web of her own making. She had led him to believe the very thing of which he now accused her. Telling him the truth
might
mitigate her guilt in his eyes, but then again it might not. One thing was certain—she would lose all credibility with him. Here on out, he would not believe anything she said. Worse, he might leave her here and go charging into the woods after the mercenary. For all she knew, her sister was still in those woods. If this royal found Ysenda, everything she had endured thus far to keep her sister safe would have been undertaken in vain.