“I will leave the hammer at the entrance to your home. It is not hers until I have inspected her to my satisfaction and am certain she is all that I traveled to this land to find, and certainly before giving my life for the cause.”
This brought a round of seething contempt from the pack. But their leader summoned them to peace.
His shoulders slumped as he pulled the cowl back over his skull.
“Be prepared, Nocturne Liaison, to give your apology for your high-handedness. Our mother has spurned sorcerer kings of your race! I should think a simple schoolteacher would demonstrate at least humble gratitude.”
The air congested with silence then. He approached me and gestured ahead. “But I see no reason she should wait any longer to at least welcome the one she has chosen.”
The others stood back as I followed him through the brushed land to the passageway between the limestone archways. The vines that had touched me as unnatural before seemed nothing more than harmless flora as we passed through. As we entered the courtyard, two peahens flew before the vampire guide, and a peacock, standing near the shadowy thickets, raised his magnificent show of tail feathers. The hateful sarcophagus had been left with its lid moved partially aside, and a large, hairy spider skirted across the open frame. My chest tightened, but it was the only remnant of emotion that touched me. We continued into the dark grove on the other side of the courtyard, only a short distance this, and came out into a slender clearing.
The eastern portal of the monastery was here, and torches lined the clearing. Their light illuminated a statue of a leonine angel that stood on a marble pedestal. His magnificent wings were caught in graceful flight, and his robes had been fashioned in such a way that the sculpted fabric appeared to cascade in ripples down his body. His face was beautiful, and his fine features were rendered with the severest of countenances. I was astonished to see the depicted fabric had been sculpted in such a method as to lend the impression of an immoderate phallus bulging beneath the robe. The angel’s right hand grasped at his hip the head of a female carven figure by its hair. The angel’s left hand wielded a sword. Its stylized rippling blade was aimed at heaven. The head’s mouth was frozen into a disfigured circle; its eyes sunken and open in shock.
More surprising than this, however, was the door at the eastern facade. This was an unusual element, as most Christian buildings of cruciform design were absent of eastern portals. The door itself was made of the same stone as the black blocks that bordered the monastery property. The vampire monk pressed it in easily enough, and light from within the monastery seeped out as he stepped inside. This light glazed the clearing grass in luminous silver.
“The pagan toy,” he spoke, “leave it at the doorway. I will present it to mother . . . after she has voiced satisfaction in you.”
His evident fear of the thing tempted me to bring the hammer inside just to torment him. But I put aside the selfish notion and leaned the weapon upside down against the frieze casing before crossing the threshold.
I blinked against the brilliant light, then saw that we had entered the eastern apse. The walls of the semicircular room were fashioned of pale wood, and the floor was tiled with ivory. Little ebony sconces set with wax candles protruded in at least a dozen places from the walls, producing the illumination that bounced off the walls and floor. A brazier sat in the center of the room. Some dried vegetation had recently been thrown over the flame. It gave off a rich, calming aroma along with its milky smoke. My eyes flashed to the ceiling only long enough to glimpse the mural of a strutting peacock gazing down on us. As I followed the vampire monk toward the ambulatory, I detected a sour, putrid smell to the air that the incense could not completely mask.
My guide was silent as we proceeded past the crowded cedar walls of the ambulatory. His shoulders slumped ever more with each passing step. At length we reached a wall of black stone. It was a curious obstacle; I would have thought this way led to the high altar, though I kept my musing to myself. A rounded marble lintel thrust out, and beneath this was a door of the pale wood as found in the apse. The vampire raised the knuckles of his right hand. With a flash of a repulsed glimpse to me, he knocked.
Within a moment, the door opened, and he gestured me before him with an exaggerated bow. As I stepped into the room beyond, my nostrils were overcome with the invisible waves of a smell much like refined ambergris. The circular room was large, paneled in the costliest mahogany, and carpeted with thick indigo rugs. Black lace curtains sparkling with jewels hung haphazardly from ruby pegs on the ceiling, which, I noticed briefly, was muraled, too, with the titanic image of a masculine face. This face was beautiful, exotic, haloed by waves of black hair, and dominated by a pair of languid Aegean-blue eyes. It took only seconds to realize it was the same face from which the statue outside had been depicted.
I only regarded it a second, maybe two; but as my attention returned to the room, I saw a lithe figure moving toward us from out of the curtains of black lace. The vampire guide bowed low as a pair of gold-sandaled feet glided into view.
She was more statuesque than I remembered, an inch or so taller than myself. The perfume of her body was so potent that my brain was momentarily addled. Her high-throated gown was of peacock blue silk, and her hair was piled in soft waves atop her head, and pinned with pearled and silver-leafed combs.
The moment I looked into her face, my chest panged with desire. The lashes of her long hazel eyes were naturally thick and dark. I noticed for the first time the beauty mark at the left corner of her wide, sensual mouth, and how perfectly sculpted were her subtly arched eyebrows. She regarded me with a strange pout as she laid one hand upon a hip and tapped the fabric of her gown there with her long, ruby-hued nails.
My every masculine sensibility felt lulled, tempted, drugged, aroused. It was not only her incomparable beauty and flawless physique, but the smell of her, and the unseen and confident aura that clung to her as uniquely and surely as her own skin. I knew she had every right to be so proud. Perfect in every physical detail, highlight, curve, and abstraction.
Not like Carina, with her short-lived mortal beauty and limited human potentials.
If this thought had come from my own mind, or was offered by Griselda herself, I did not want to know.
All my desire for Carina was welcomingly cast away. I spoke with the voice of the intoxicated lover, the impassioned challenger, the constant worshipper.
I fell to one knee and lowered my head before Griselda. “I have been mistaken,” I said humbly. “In your presence, I have found all that I have sought. I am yours, Griselda—and willingly surrender the secrets that will free you.”
She stepped toward me and placed a sandaled foot upon my thrust knee. My eyes swept up her ankle and to the hem of her gown. I relished the image of well-proportioned legs that were inevitably veiled beneath the fabric.
“You come without weapon. Do you truly believe it so simple to make amends for the insult of chasing after that female?” Even with the underlying displeasure, her husky voice was sweeter than the best tuned harp. “I should take you now, reap the fruits of thy knowledge, and be done with you!”
I looked up and saw the tight purse of her mouth. She was as insulted as she was needy for my knowledge.
“I am a fool,” I declared. “Take my knowledge now—quickly—for what I have done! I do not deserve a moment to worship you.”
“Yes,” spoke up the son dryly, “even unto tonight has he proved his faithlessness.”
Griselda’s eyes narrowed and she lowered her foot again. I expected her to question him on what he meant; there was no denial I could give to excuse my actions. But to my surprise, she turned on her son.
“It was your duty to curb the beast,” she said. “I told you of the poison she was capable of plying into his heart. If there is any to be held accountable here, it is you.”
The vampire flinched. His head lowered humbly, though I caught the dimmest glint of exasperation in his voice as he said slowly, “Yes, my lady. But you were not there; you did not feel what we felt at his windows when—”
His words were cut off abruptly by a release in her snug aura. It spilled over us both, a half-visible vapor that in its fury vied to snatch my breath away. It turned on the son and knocked him backward from where he stood. As I struggled to inhale the thin oxygen, her unspoken wrath reverberated through the room. “We have had this discussion before! You will not accuse me, ever! It was insulting enough to have to follow the bitch mortal once. It is not for me to roam these lands unless I choose to roam! You would have me go into mortal land without proper procession like some unrefined peasant? Perhaps it is time I turn you over to these pagan peasants and let them deal with you to the full measure of their boorish delight!”
The son regarded her inanimate body dispassionately. His eyes were two hollow, wounded black orbs. “No, mother, that is not what I wish. All I meant—”
A gust of unseen energy knocked him back again, this time so rudely he was pushed to his backside on the floor.
“I decide what is of consequence. Leave now—inform your brothers I am not to be disturbed. And then you, my presumptuous son, are to wander the province until the approach of sunrise.”
He looked as crestfallen as a deserted child as he got to his feet.
At his silence, her voice thundered again, “Go, now!”
He bowed deeply, then turned and fled out the door. It shut heavily behind him, and looking up at her stony hands, I saw the fingers quicken and felt her contained aura draw itself back into her body.
But as I dared to meet her eyes, the white-heat anger that had marked her face disappeared. A smile came to her lips, so elegantly severe that my mouth watered to kiss them.
“Remember this, Marcel Rolant,” she said, “it is I alone who determines what is of consequence. And I alone who determines how my requirements are carried out, and when.”
Her fine chin raised and she regarded me indifferently. “There will be no easy amends for you. Now, onto your knees, Nocturne Liaison.”
I went to all fours and languidly kissed her feet. The feel of her toes against my mouth sent a pleasurable ripple down my spine. I readily welcomed it, and envisioned the calves above my brow, the portal of her womanhood between her legs. My desire plummeted and centered into my loins, taking my willed conscious thoughts with it to color my aura. I felt her vampire eyes pore over my pulsing aura, so boldly presented that her narcissistic regard was silently pacified.
Griselda displayed no reaction as she scrutinized me, but at length she turned and snapped her fingers. I crawled after her clicking soles past half a dozen more black lace hangings, through a door that opened into a smaller compartment. There was a great fireplace here, burning low with scented herbs, and upon a marble dais, a huge bed covered with a rich blue coverlet and quilted over with peacock feathers.
She sat primly on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. My eyes lowered as I waited for her to speak or act. And when she reached to my head and stroked my hair, my manhood grew erect and inflamed.
Griselda leaned close to my face. Her mouth was the scent of roses and ambergris. “Why did it take so long for you to present yourself to me, handsome Marcel?”
I did not answer at first. At last I thought the truth was sufficient, “I did not understand at first that it was for this moment that destiny led me to this valley.”
She laughed softly. “And I am not so anxious as to allow myself approached easily. Unlike your mortal slut, schoolmaster.”
The words were meant to barb me, test me. But there was no taunt that could dismantle my aspired lust.
I replied in words she could appreciate, “You cannot deny there is a sublime satisfaction in the claiming of another.”
Her smile turned languorous, and the flick of her tongue across her bottom lip heightened my passion to an uncomfortable level. “My forgiveness for the fleeting indulgence of vanity will be my gift to you. But you belong to me now, Nocturne Liaison—body, soul, and mind.”
“Yes.” I bowed my head to kiss her feet again, but her fingers clutched the roots of my hair and held me back.
“Do you know that Solomon himself could not approach me so close?”
I shook my head, and her mouth swept over my face. Her cool, poised lips scorched my flesh. I trembled with heat and hindered desire.
“Up to your knees,” she breathed. I raised humbly to my knees, and she fell back on her elbows to the mattress and lifted a foot to my shoulder. She drew up the hem of her gown just enough that she could caress my cheek with one of those calves I had so earnestly imagined. Silken alabaster was her skin. I did not grasp it as I suffered to do so, but turned my face and kissed her leg. She gave a throaty note of approval.
“Worship me,” she commanded. “Demonstrate your fidelity is to me, and not only to the cause of my father.”
“You are my only cause,” I sighed.
She fell back completely, raised her feet to the edge of the bed, and pulled her gown back over her knees. Her milky thighs parted and I looked greedily upon her brunette pelted sex. As my knees padded closer, she coddled the front of her gown, pulling her breasts over the bodice and groping her large areolae. Reverently, I parted her thighs and kissed the inner flesh. My face lowered to her fount. The ivory lips were swollen and dewed, perfumed with a musk more tantalizing than a cabalist passage, more potent than any pagan incantation. Her damp pubic curls tickled my face, luring the passion into a torment. A proud temple of unsurpassable promises was this portal my lips touched.
With my fingers, I gingerly unfolded her labia. My tongue darted between the fine, inner lips. Ice and fire was her pulsating flesh. I slid my arms gently over her thighs and licked her cunt. I heard her sigh, and glancing up, saw that her lovely eyes had closed. She was massaging her breasts still as I gave her portal an adoring kiss. She moaned, and I drew my tongue lightly over her clit’s satiny hood. Hard as a diamond, and like a diamond, it drew the very heat from my mortal tongue. For a moment, I tantalized it by licking the hood back and sucking gently on the organ. Griselda moaned deeper, and I saw her fingers rake through the coverlet.