The Devil's Surrogate (18 page)

She tottered
across to where a young tree had somehow become uprooted and was
lying almost horizontally, its broken branches tangled up in a
particularly thick clump of bushes so the trunk was held a few feet
perpendicular to the ground. Using one winged arm to steady
herself, she swung her right leg over it and settled herself
astride the smooth bark. As the pressure of her weight drove the
front dildo deeper inside her, Kitty let out a moan of
appreciation.

She was bored
with running now... no, not with the running but with the lack of
anything to run from, or to. Let them find her, and meantime she
would prepare in her own way. Slowly she began rocking back and
forth, her weight first pressing on one dildo, and then the
other...

With Oona's
weight pinning her down, snarling fangs only inches from her neck
and the savage metal claws digging into her unprotected flesh,
Isobel offered little resistance as Jane went to work with the thin
twine.

First she bent
each of the hapless girl's legs double, lashing her ankles to her
thighs, and then, pulling her winged arms behind her, she wrapped
more twine around them, pinning them against her body. Finally she
added loops from her bound legs over her shoulders and the back of
her neck, and completed her task by tightening loops about her
breasts so her victim was left doubled over and held immobile in
the manner of a bird ready for the oven. She was truly trussed for
the table, her head bowed and her buttocks thrust up into the air,
the restraining strap and twin dildos removed and cast aside so her
sex was left pouting open and fully exposed from behind.

'Excellent,'
Jane sighed, cutting away the unwanted twine with her knife. 'Ready
for plucking and equally as ready for fucking. Yes, whether for
plucking or fucking, she looks delicious. Doesn't she, Oona?'

The dog-girl
growled and moved around to sniff at the proffered goods, but she
made no move to take advantage of the prisoner. Jane, however, was
less reserved. Kneeling, she extended a gloved hand and began to
caress Isobel's compressed and puckered labial lips, gently at
first and then more firmly, until finally she pressed one finger
between them to be rewarded by a warm and moist passage. From
inside the stricken bird-girl's lips came a whine of protestation
that quickly dissolved into an altogether different sound. Oona
began to whimper now as the scent of female arousal reached her
keen nostrils.

'Not yet, you
greedy bitch.' Jane laughed. 'You've had one prize already, so this
one is mine. Don't worry though,' she added, seeing the resentful
expression in Oona's eyes, 'I'll only be flavouring her for you.
After all, I don't have quite all of your advantages for the actual
stuffing.'

Rocking back
and forth astride the fallen trunk in a steadily increasing rhythm,
Kitty was so engrossed in her own needs that she neither saw nor
heard the approach of the two men until they were virtually upon
her. Gasping and groaning, she slowed herself to a gentle swaying
motion and stared at the newcomers through hooded eyes all but
hidden from them by her mask.

They were not
dressed as hunters, she saw, and instead of specially charged
pistols and whips they were carrying muskets. Probably keepers, she
told herself, annoyed at them for interrupting her. Perhaps,
though, they would be thinking about taking advantage of her
helpless situation, and her pulse began to quicken at the thought.
But the older man stopped just short of her, and held up a hand as
if to try to calm her.

'Just you sit
there, me darling,' he said softly. 'Sean and me mean you no harm,
we just need a bit of help. Now, can you speak? Ah no, I see you
can't. Whatever in the name of all that's holy are these bastards
playing at with you girls?'

Kitty made no
attempt to reply, and neither did she entirely stop her motion, for
the two dildos felt very good as the shifting pressure pushed them
in and out, and she was riding very close to the crest of an
orgasm. Maybe one of them would...

'Yes, you just
let me help you off there,' the one called Sean said, handing his
musket to his companion and stepping towards her with an
outstretched hand. Kitty mewled in protest as she tried to lean
away from him, shaking her head in frustration.

'There now,'
the fellow continued, 'there's nothing to be frightened of, it's
just me and Paddy, and maybe we can get you out of this accursed
devil's kitchen before the day's done. You'd like that now,
wouldn't you?'

Moaning and
sighing as the man began to lift her clear of the fallen tree,
Kitty was not altogether sure she would like that at all.

Isobel could
hear the air whistling in and out of her nostrils like the sound of
a demented bellows, and she bit hard into her gag as she tried to
fight the overwhelming surges of pleasure her captors' attentions
were causing her.

Trussed up in
such an undignified position, she knew she should have been
mortified and horrified. And indeed, for the first few moments as
Jane Handiwell (Isobel recognised her voice and mannerisms) went to
work on her with the twine, she had been enraged and embarrassed to
be treated this way by a girl who was a commoner. However, almost
as soon as Jane's fingers began to probe and explore the tightly
compressed lips of her exposed sex, Isobel's baser instincts began
taking over. Now, as the dog-girl's rough tongue rasped in and out
of her pussy, lapping eagerly at a clitoris that had grown hard and
bold, she could smell her own arousal and feel how wet she was
between her thighs. Had either of them been male, they could have
taken her with ease, for her usually tight tunnel was now so well
lubricated that no amount of resistance on her part could have
prevented an easy entry into her body.

She groaned
and screwed her eyes shut as she heard Jane's mocking laughter. Did
the common little bitch suspect who she was? The identifying ribbon
had come loose before they captured her, so to the Handiwell wench
she could easily be just another of the bird-girls, but there was
something that suggested to Isobel that Jane knew who she
was...

'Wait on,
Oona,' she heard Jane command, and immediately the insistent tongue
ceased its work. 'Ah yes, the bitch is lovely and wet now.' She
stroked Isobel's sex. 'Well done, Oona, you shall have her properly
in a few moments, but first I think we should tenderise this lovely
rump she's offering us.'

As the first
stroke of the whip fell across Isobel's naked buttocks the hapless
aristocrat knew she had been right: she was going to be made to pay
for the slights and put-downs to which she had subjected the
innkeeper's daughter ever since they met. Worse still, she knew,
the whip would do more than hurt her, for its fierce caress was
doing nothing to quench the fires burning inside her. Although she
flinched and whined beneath each stroke, the silently demanding
screams of desire rising from deep within her flesh sounded louder
inside her head than any cries she could utter through her gagged
mouth.

'Titty Kitty?'
Paddy echoed. 'What manner of name is that, girl?' He stood holding
the shivering bird- girl by the arm, her sodden gag hanging from
his free hand.

'It's what
they call me, sir,' Kitty mumbled, looking down at his feet,
'because of these.' She tried to indicate her burgeoning breasts
with her winged arm, but she could barely bend it.

'They're
certainly a pair of beauties,' Sean Kelly observed, but Paddy
Riley's warning glance silenced him before he could make any
further remarks.

'Well...
Kitty,' Paddy continued, 'tell me this, how many of you are here in
these woods? I mean, how many girls are running around like
this?'

Kitty pursed
her lips thoughtfully. 'I'm not sure, sir, five or six, I think. Or
maybe seven, I can't remember. There was this funny girl who bet
she could do it better, and we had to wait until they got her
ready.'

'And how many
men are hunting you?'

Kitty sounded
even more uncertain. 'Maybe as many as ten,' she said, but Paddy
could see this was just a guess. 'And one of them is a woman,' she
added, this time sounding more definite. 'She's dressed the same,
but she's a woman, and then there's also this dog-woman.' She
shuddered. 'She has nasty teeth and horrible eyes,' she whispered,
peering up into Paddy's face, 'and they give her these horrible
claws, all shiny and sharp! I hope someone catches me before they
do. Or have you caught me first?'

Paddy grunted.
'Looks like that's exactly what we've done, Kitty,' he said, 'but
then our purpose is a mite different from those others, or my name
isn't Riley.'

'Oh,' Kitty
said, 'you mean you're not going to...?'

'No,' Paddy
said quickly. 'No, we're not going to.' He smiled encouragingly
down at her, and to his astonishment saw a definite glint of
disappointment in her half-hidden eyes. 'No,' he repeated, 'but
we're going to let the next man along here think he's got every
chance of doing just that.'

Guy
Bressingham listened to the slow tolling of the tower bell as it
echoed through the woods, and smiled to himself. The sound meant
Isobel had won her bet, but this did not worry him in the least. He
had calculated that his chances of capturing her within the
specified hour were probably not much better than one in four, and
the money involved he had considered written off before the hunt
even began. His smile widened into a grin. The money meant nothing
to him; he had inherited a medium-sized fortune and had since
managed his affairs so well it was now a good-sized fortune. No,
the money was as nothing to him, but Isobel... now there was a
prize worth having, and have her he would. For the stupid girl had
not specified that she was to be released at the end of the hour,
only that if she stayed free for that time she would receive the
money. Bressingham would happily honour that end of the bargain.
The money was already in Grayling's hands ready to be paid over to
Isobel when the hunt was over.

When the hunt
was over.

Bressingham
snickered to himself as he plodded along the trail. The hunt
included the after-hunt celebrations and Isobel had volunteered
herself for this part of the proceedings, that ended only when the
birds had been enjoyed by their captors. He and Grayling had
discussed the matter thoroughly; there could be no contesting that,
when Bressingham finally caught his bird then he would have the
right to her as much as any other hunter would have the right to
his own catch.

She would hate
it, he knew, but then she would have no means to protest against
the decision since the leather gags the girls wore beneath their
bird masks prevented any comprehensible speech. Neither would she
be able to free herself. The stiffened leather of the tightly laced
wings had been well designed; once in place the wearer could not
remove them, and neither could she use her hands for anything
remotely dextrous.

No, Isobel de
Lednay would remain a bird until well into the night, perhaps even
until the following morning. Bressingham felt his pulse begin to
quicken at the thought. He could almost feel himself sliding into
her defenceless pussy, her beautiful backside raised towards him so
invitingly by the traditional trussing he would enjoy carrying out
first. It had taken all his control to restrain himself when she
first appeared in her gaudy outfit, her breasts invitingly exposed
between her feathers, her sex lips bulging enticingly from either
side of the gusset strap holding the plugging shafts inside
her.

'She'll maybe
not like the thought,' Grayling had said, 'but by the time she's
run around in the woods with those things in her arse and pussy,
she'll be hot for something, believe me, and she won't be able to
help herself if you stuff her thoroughly!'

Bressingham had been astonished when Grayling suggested the
scheme to him earlier that day. He was aware that Isobel and
Roderick had known each other for a long time, and that Isobel was
sweet on the young landowner's son, so much so that he was able to
treat her with the utmost contempt at times and yet she was still
not swayed from him. But this deliberate conniving to deliver her
helpless into the clutches of another man... would she ever forgive
him
this?
But then,
he thought, she would never be told it had been Grayling's idea in
the first place. And she had played into their hands so easily,
rising to the bait so quickly, she could hardly blame anyone but
herself for whatever happened to her.

Grayling would play the part, all right. He would shrug his
shoulders and sympathise, but then he would insist the rules were
the rules, the same for everyone, and he could not break them or
make even the smallest exception, not even for her. Perhaps
especially
not for her,
for people would then surely accuse him of favouritism.

He would repay
Isobel for her rebuffs, for her thinly veiled insults, for her
sarcastic quips and her constant parading and flaunting before him,
which she knew had such an effect on him. 'I'll parade you all
right, bird-slut!' he hissed as he paused at another junction in
the path. 'You'll make a pretty enough picture wriggling on the end
of my cock on the main table tonight, and you'll remember your
stuffing for many a year to come!'

Isobel had
long since lost count of the number of small orgasms Jane's whip
and her probing finger had triggered within her. Held rigidly by
the cunning twine bindings, her head down and her buttocks raised,
she gasped against her gag as fiery darts of ecstasy pierced her
through and through.

Twice Jane had
stood back and let the dog-girl at her, the bitch's long tongue
pressing inside her like a small penis, its rough surface working
on her throbbing clitoris with devastating effect. Time and again
Isobel came, whining and wriggling, panting and moaning until she
could no longer tell whether it was tongue, finger or whip her body
was responding to so fiercely.