Thick as Thieves (16 page)

She didn’t look impressed. “Did he say anything about me? I would like to see old age.”

“Do what you will. Madd and I are bound by things you don’t understand. I am going after him. If these wizards are as bad as you and Madd say—”

“They’re worse. They command fiends through necromancy, and their wands absorb magic, defeating even powerful spells. Witchkin magic is of little use against them.” Her shoulders tensed and she worried her lower lip with small even teeth.

“He was taken by soldiers, and I do not think the baron is a wizard. I will protect you. You have my word as a Scur warrior.”

After frowning for a moment, she stood and looked up at him. “This is insane, you know. Both of us. We could be out of this castle and halfway to Gurgh. You’re a strange man, Vorgell of Scur.” Stepping up to him, she extended her arm. “Give me your hand.”

Vorgell hesitated. This dainty woman was barely older than a girl, but she didn’t lack for confidence. He reminded himself that he was immune to spells and held out his hand. Her fingers slid against his as she pressed their palms together, and he watched her eyes grow wide.

“You may be some manner of witchkin yourself, warrior, because I can feel magic in you.”

With rapt focus, Reannry took his hand and moved it to her breast. The fingers of her free hand pulled down the neckline of her tunic so she could place his hand flat against the soft swell of flesh above her heart. Her eyelids drifted down, lips parting with an expression such as Vorgell had seen only a few times before on the faces of women gripped by pleasure. His cock stiffened at the summons, and he barely resisted an urge to throw her down upon the bed, part her legs, and plunge deep into her soft, receptive body.

“What witchery are you indulging now?” he murmured, wrenching his hand off her breast. “If this is temptation on your part, we have no time for cock play.”

She resumed a suspicious glare. “I don’t want your cock. But you’re attractive enough that just by touching you my body breeds magic. You don’t know much about witchkin, do you?”

“I know more than you think.”

“No, you don’t.” With wild, glowing eyes, she advanced on him. He retreated step by step until his back met the dank stone wall. Standing on tiptoe, Reannry pushed her lithe body against his and pressed her lips to the golden hair peeking over the low neckline of his tunic, which was as high as she reached. She really was a little thing. “Didn’t Maddog the fool tell you that our women are magic makers? That we create magic just by thinking of sex, and especially when we engage in it? That’s how we acquire enough to fashion spells. Our men don’t have that gift. They acquire magic only by consuming living things, taking them inside their bodies in the form of food or potions or rituals. They then give magic back to us through acts of love.”

All the while she was talking about magic, Vorgell waged war against his own. Unicorn horn rose in his blood and pounded straight to his cock. If he did not escape her touch soon, she would ride him the way Scur women rode men in the breeding hut. And the hell of it was he wanted her to do it.

“Aw, Wolves and Ice Harpies!” With a roar, he thrust her from him and grabbed his cock through his trousers, pumping furiously. He filled his mind with the image of plunging cock-first into the heart of his deepest desire: Madd’s tight, willing ass. He cried out with blessed, inarticulate relief as he felt his cock release. The hot rush of his semen flooded the fine cotton of his new loincloth.

“Why’d you do that?” Reannry clenched her small fists like a woman fighting her own urges to pummel and pound. “I could have used that! Semen is the best source.”

Vorgell was ready to find his own damn way up, back through the pitch-black passages of the castle. He had her to thank for having just stained his clothes. “That would have taken too long. We’re wasting time. I’m going to find Madd.”

“And I’m going with you, you rock-headed fool. I think I engendered enough magic from you to cast a simple spell or two. But you’ll still have to do the fighting,” she said. “If the baron set that trap for Maddog and he hates him as much as you say, he’ll take him to his wizard hall. The chamber amplifies magic, and he’ll want that collar at full power just to make a point. We’d best pray to our gods he has no wizards at his side.” She grabbed her pouch off the hook. “Follow me.”

Chapter 12

M
ADD
couldn’t decide which was worse, the pain threatening to saw his skull in half or the nausea caused by an allophane band on his forehead that prevented him from using magic. The pressure above his eyeballs was killing him, and his tongue tasted like blood. When he tried to move his arms, he realized they were tied behind his back. Voices, then words, filtered into the fuzz. A moment later, he identified the voices and knew he might as well stitch his own shroud. That he felt so cold, with nothing between his skin and the floor, told him he was naked.

“He’s coming around.” He knew that voice. Stankus. The biggest and meanest of the castle guards. Stankus also had the heaviest boots.

“Is he?” Footsteps approached. Madd felt the vibration of them on his cheek. “Wake up, you little shit.”

Flemgu.
Oh hell. The baron was supposed to be leagues away, on his way to the city. Not here, not in the same room. It didn’t even help to keep his eyes closed. At the sound of that voice, Madd jerked awake and desire swept through his body with a familiar, irresistible throb. The damn collar’s grip on him was as powerful as ever.

“Master,” he mouthed, fighting the word even as the spell forced it from his lips.

“That’s right, Maddog. Your own loving Master. Get on your knees where you belong,
witch
.”

Madd rolled to his knees and lifted his torso from the floor, already missing the slight warmth of the planks his unconscious body had heated. He didn’t have to see silvered walls etched with arcane symbols to know where he was. He could feel it in the collar itself. The wizard hall, constructed to hold the supernatural energy needed to contain unholy fiends. Flemgu reached down and grabbed the hair at the back of his head. Even that touch made Madd moan with desire. It was all he could do not to beg Flemgu to use him. That he resisted this much, he knew, was due to ingested magic.

Vorgell.
Gods. Through waves of pain and thoughts that would not line up, he tried to remember what had happened. Had the guards seen the careless oaf?

“I knew you’d return, you pathetic cock-sucking worm. The collar’s spell was designed to bring you back.” When Flemgu leaned in to lick his ear, Madd kept his eyes closed and shivered. Another vibration of lust raced down his spine. A thousand reasons to hate this man bowed down to a singular compulsion to desire him. To want and worship. As long as Flemgu and he were face-to-face, he was locked into the power of the spell he’d failed to fully break.

He cried out when Flemgu’s fingers tightened in his hair, pulling some strands from his scalp in the process. “You miserable thief! You godless
witch
! Look at me, Maddog! Look at why I’m going to make your life a living
hell!
”

Ordered, Madd looked. What he saw made his stomach heave. Flemgu’s mane of lustrous red hair had vanished, replaced by mangy tufts clinging to his mottled scalp like feathers. Nor was that the worst. Purple boils the size of quail eggs had erupted on the baron’s once handsome face, marring his high cheekbones and square jaw. One especially angry boil on his chin oozed pus and blood where it had broken open. Rings of greenish discharge rimmed both eyes, their emerald irises now swimming in yellowed whites. Bloody rheum dripped copiously from his raw, reddened nostrils. Noting the pocked, angry skin on Flemgu’s thick neck, Madd suspected the rest of his body fared no better.

His spells had
worked
? Really?

He’d cast them in dark desperation, seeking revenge, hoping to disease the man so much he would be too sick to work further harm. Every speck of magic, however small, that had come his way, Madd had gathered using cottage witch skills learned at his grandmother’s knee. Knowing that every living thing held traces of magic, he’d given himself to the guards in exchange for flowers and fruit, guzzling their semen as if it were sweet water and letting them put their cocks into his body. He had trapped pigeons and rats on his own and eaten them alive, had hunted down every manner of vermin and swallowed the damned things. He’d even gotten a gift of fresh eggs and seeds from the baron’s wife. Minute by minute for three days, knowing the baron had reached the limit of his patience and was probably going to kill him, Madd had woven his little scraps of magic into spells targeting his nemesis’s body, starting with Flemgu’s cock and then targeting every other body part he could think of. He’d whispered one the very day Vorgell had been tossed into his cell.

And now he saw the results.

Unwanted remorse swamped Madd’s rush of exultation. The collar around his neck couldn’t even let him enjoy his success. “I’m sorry!” he squeaked, though he both meant it and at the same time didn’t mean it at all.

“You lying, worthless—”

Still held fast by Flemgu’s fist in his hair, Madd closed his eyes again and steeled himself. The blow would land on his head, maybe his mouth… and this time he’d lose teeth.

“Stop flinching,” the baron growled. “I intend to keep you pretty. Oh, you’ll be pretty and sweet, and you’re going to pay for your meddling, you sniveling witch! I’m going to make certain this time that you suffer, just like my bitch wife will suffer now that I’ve handed her to the wizards so they can breed fiends upon her and harvest her bones! That’s right,” he said to Madd’s horrified stare. His lips parted over teeth streaked red by bleeding gums. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out she had witch blood in her veins? At least I now know why she sought out your crone of a grandmother! Why she kept finding reasons to visit you! The pair of you planned it. I saved your fucking
life,
and you repay me by teaching that whore how to work spells to kill me!”

No.
He hadn’t taught Gillja anything and certainly not killing spells. He could barely work those himself… though maybe now— In a panic, he shunted aside all thought of Vorgell. The last thing he remembered was being knocked to the ground, but he hoped the bumbling barbarian had run away. He’d yelled for him to run away. At the same time, he was now wishing for the big blond man to barge into this room swinging an axe.

At a gesture from Flemgu, two soldiers hauled Madd to his feet. Had they tried, they could not have handled him with less kindness. Their fingers dug into his arms like talons. Probably they blamed him for their baron’s bad temper.

Flemgu wiped rheum from his jaundiced eyes with an embroidered bit of cloth before leaning near again. Breath thick with underlying rot caressed Madd’s cheek as crusted, cankered lips tilted toward his.

“Say you love me, Maddog.”

“I lo… love you.” He tried to say otherwise but couldn’t. His body answered for him. Madd parted his own lips, seeking the kiss, welcoming the other man. Flemgu’s mouth crushed his, diseased tongue pushing thick and foul against Madd’s. He sucked on the sore-pocked tongue hungrily, begging for more even though he wanted to vomit. After only a minute, Flemgu retreated.

“I see the collar still works.” The baron traced it with a black-nailed finger. “Good. Because I’m going to ask you some questions.”

Madd breathed fresh air again as Flemgu stepped away. This wasn’t going well. From past experience, he knew he’d be unable to lie.

“The barbarian didn’t kill you.” Flemgu’s low voice cracked, prompting the man to cough into his bit of cloth. “You don’t know how disappointed I was, waiting in the guard room, battling the first of my afflictions and anticipating your cries as the brute shoved that big stallion cock of his up your ungrateful ass. Instead of fucking you, it appears you two joined forces. Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.” It was the blessed truth.

“Is that so? He was with you in the city. Rumor placed him there, and you with him. A man that big is hard to hide, but you know how to hide, don’t you?”

“Yes, I—”

“Witchkin hide in the city like maggots in rice. But you didn’t leave your new friend there. No. You’re far too self-interested to do something as altruistic as that. You brought him back here with you. That was a mistake.”

Madd’s gut went cold. If Flemgu had found Vorgell—

“He won’t get far. A man of his impressive size will stand out like a horse among sheep, and he can’t work magic, not like you, you little weasel. I’ll have him before long.” Flemgu ducked his head to dab at the bleeding corner of his mouth. Another of his sores had just split open.

Don’t ask any more questions
, Madd silently pleaded.
Don’t force me to answer.
He knew things, could betray Vorgell’s limited knowledge of the castle’s exits, their plan of escape. He could tell Flemgu about the cloak of shadows. He had only one option, to distract him.

“Use me, Master, please.” The words passed easily from his lips, sliding out on a spell’s compulsion. He hated how quickly his dick joined in. His cock was hard now, standing out from his body to announce excitement he didn’t want and could not escape. “I need it so much, I… please, I can’t be this near you and….”