Crimson's Captivation (19 page)

Crimson was the only one unafraid. She moved
toward Sena. “Sena? Are you in there?”

The horror looked at Crimson, but didn’t say
anything, and Crimson moved, slowly, timidly closer. She took
Sena’s right hand with her left, then took Sena’s other hand with
her right and pulled Sena toward her. Their bosoms met, their
fingers wrapped around each other, and Crimson leaned in and kissed
Sena on the mouth. The kiss was instantly wet and returned by Sena.
Crimson opened her eyes to see that Sena’s were closed. She slowly
stepped away and felt the coolness of Sena’s saliva on her
lips.

Then Sena opened her eyes, looked left and
walked down the hallway toward the courtyard as calmly as one would
take a stroll. Before she exited Crimson yelled, “The cross and the
crescent moon, Sena! Remember Viktor, the cross and the crescent
moon!”

Sena stopped, looked back at Crimson. “It is
but a kiss, but I’ll remember it for a lifetime! I will find
Viktor, Crimson!”

Sena opened the door to the courtyard and
shielded her eyes, and then in an instant she was gone.

Crimson ran toward the courtyard door to see
Sena scurrying away in the shadows along the high walls.

The countess ran past Crimson, screaming,
“Tor! Tor!” She ran past Darya’s room and Darya was awakened by all
the commotion. Darya opened her door just as her mother ran by
still screaming Tor’s name. Darya saw Crimson at the courtyard door
and joined her.

“Sena’s gone?” Darya asked.

“Yes,” Crimson answered.

“And she’s why my mother is screaming?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Darya said under her breath. “Good
for Sena.”

Crimson’s eyes met Darya’s with a sense of
puzzlement.

Darya looked down the hallway toward her
mother’s room. Convinced her mother was occupied, she walked over
to Sergen and kissed him softly on the cheek. She laid her head
against his chest. “I dreamt of you last night, Sergen,” she said.
Her right hand moved in broad circles over the ripples of his
exposed stomach. “Dreamt that you lusted after me, wanted to take
out your frustration on my flesh.”

“The dream is true, but still only a dream,”
Sergen replied.

Darya smiled, grabbed Sergen’s hand, and led
him out toward the back of the palace. She let the door slam closed
behind them and pulled him along a path until they reached a
freestanding wall of stone. She leaned against the wall and pulled
Sergen into her. “Mother will be ranting for some time, Sergen.
What ever will you do with me?”

“Darya, you have no fear?” Sergen asked, not
genuinely concerned with the answer.

She kissed him and whispered into his open
mouth, “None, my love.”

* * * *

Sena watched Darya and Sergen from the canopy
of a tree. She watched as Sergen pressed his weight into Darya and
pinned her against the stone wall. Sena inched closer and saw
Sergen dig his fingers into the soft flesh of Darya’s bottom. He
then lifted her and they kissed, they kissed like hungry lovers.
Soft kisses at first, then sensual kisses, then it was as if they
feasted on each other. Sergen slowly let Darya to the ground, and
he then turned her around so that Darya was facing the wall. Darya
unconsciously planted her hands onto the stones of the wall and
arched her back, raising her butt into the air. She sensed the
coolness and roundness of the stones on the warmth of her
palms.

Sergen and Darya didn’t know that Sena was
watching and as Sena observed them something came over her. A
hunger that she had never known, she had the desire, almost a
craving--to taste blood. Her muscles tightened, her limbs twitched,
and her mouth went dry. Her skin began to itch and she sensed it,
for the first time in her life, she wanted to hunt and noticed
anything that moved in her plane of vision.

Sena refocused on the lovers. Then Sergen
stopped fondling Darya’s skin. He wet his finger and ran it across
the red welt on her bottom. Sena knew Darya had been punished
because of him. He had been punished, too, but here they were, in a
moment that was lost to the outside world—lost to everyone except
the lovers and Sena, the onlooker. Soon, Sergen’s saliva slowly
evaporated off Darya’s warm skin.

Sena saw Darya’s body tense, and then relax.
She knew Darya now wanted Sergen more than ever. Darya backed into
Sergen’s torso, and lowered herself with slow up and down gyrations
into his pelvis. Sena closed her eyes. She imagined the hardness of
him and heard Darya exhale and moan when he finally penetrated her.
Sena’s legs trembled when she thought of Darya’s body around his
cock, and then Darya reached back with one hand, and placed it on
his pelvis to stop him from going to far, too fast.

“Slow,” Darya moaned, “so gratifyingly
slow.”

* * * *

Sergen pushed into her, wet his fingers and
ran his hands along her hips, down her waist then up across her
belly until he found the fullness and weight of her slumped breast.
She felt soft in his hands and he caressed her hard nipples with
his wet slippery fingers, tugging and rotating until she lowered
herself into his hands. That was all he needed. He moved in deeper
and Darya let out little moans of pleasure. Her moans begged for
more and advised him at the same time. Her resistance slowly waned
and she was now absolutely wet, soaked, and available to all of
him. Her heat, every inch of her, all those delicate folds of
suppleness enraptured his shaft and his consciousness in the
process. He closed his eyes and thrust harder into her and she met
each thrust, slamming her bottom into his pelvis and thighs.

In an instant, Sergen knew he loved her
because in an intense moment that overcame him: he wanted her to
please all of his senses at once. He wanted to taste her, touch,
smell, see, and hear her all at the same time. He opened his eyes
to see Sena sitting on the top of the stone wall above them,
watching them, her fangs dripped with fresh blood.

* * * *

Tor reluctantly dispatched a letter he had
written to Kieran’s kinsmen in the nearby town. In it, he requested
that his latest acquisitions from the auction house be re-auctioned
at the earliest possible date.

Chapter III

~ Noblemen’s Hope and Honor ~

The trip across the Baltic to Riga is three
days, maybe as short as two with a prevailing wind. Viktor was in a
hurry and felt it couldn’t hurt to fill the ship’s sails with his
hopes and dreams. He leaned against the large mast and watched the
largest sail as it filled with the westerly wind, its shape rounded
like the potbelly of a man. “
Just a little push windward
,”
he said to himself as he stared off into the eventide horizon. It
looked as though the whole fabric of the world was changing and
took its sweet time doing so. He hated that he wasn’t on land yet.
He had hoped to be in Poland already, tearing across the landscape
to find Crimson.

The ship, heavy with war supplies, sat low in
the choppy seas and the moon glowed in the sky. Above, a formation
of birds flew by chattering with one another. It seemed they were
in a hurry, as well. Then Viktor spotted them far off the starboard
side, a fleet of masts heading in the opposite direction. For some
reason, he ducked on the deck of the ship as if he could disappear
and thus make the ship disappear, as well. He inched along the wall
of the deck and for hours watched the fleet of ships move further
and further away. When the last mast disappeared, he finally
breathed.

“That was close,” Erik said as he came up
beside Viktor.

“Yes, Russian?”

“Danish, we suspect, but luckily we didn’t
find out. If we weren’t heavy they would have probably spotted us
and we are without escort.”

“Hmmm. Odd, I was just wishing that we were
empty and making better time. Guess one should be careful what he
wishes for? Have you been to Riga, Erik?”

“This will be my third trip.”

“Perfect, when we get there will you help me
procure provisions?”

“I will assist, but will have very little
time. Ships at sea are my quiet time. In port, it’s pure madness.
What’s your plan? To invade Poland with two men? Dead men don’t
need provisions, Viktor.” Erik let out a hearty laugh and walked
below deck. “Dead men don’t need provisions!”

Viktor stayed on the upper deck and looked
eastward to the lands of great empires and enemies, where his
homeland, the Russians and the Poles were in an all out war because
the enemies thought the king was young and vulnerable. Viktor
sensed it, now—that tinge of fear. He knew, too, that if he allowed
his mind to follow the footpath of reality, if he dared look past
the romantic notions of love and rescue that there was no warm
welcome waiting for him on dry land, only death. For the first time
in his journey, Viktor faced the realization that he may never see
Crimson again. It was an eerie feeling, one that he quickly tried
to put out of his mind, but it lingered like a dreamy sleep.

On the northern horizon, a storm came in and
it’s outer winds thrust the bow of the ship deep into the Baltic.
As terrifying as the storm was, Viktor welcomed it. It created a
powerful tailwind that propelled the ship through the sea with
amazing speed.

* * * *

The king and his men crossed the Daugava
River and found an old Teutonic crusader’s castle that sat high on
the craggy shoreline. The corner towers of the castle were in
severe disrepair, fallen stones lay in heaps around the foundation
and were covered with moss, but the castle was nestled in a thicket
of trees and seemed as good a spot as any to set up camp and
wait.

The king motioned for his commander. “We
shall camp here today, then move westward at early light tomorrow
to meet up with Viktor in a day or two outside Minsk. Have the men
perform a quick inspection of the interior to verify the castle is
abandoned.”

“Yes, my king.” The redheaded commander
trotted off and barked out the orders. Soon, troubling reports came
in.

“Sir, the castle appears deserted, but the
men have found markings.”

“Markings?”

“Yes, scrape marks on the stones, especially
those stones on the north side. Could be tool marks, but as you can
well guess, their concern is that they are scratch marks of the
horror’s we left behind in the woods.”

“Their imaginations run wild, commander?”

“I think not, sir.”

“Why?”

“The scrapes are fresh, far more so than any
other abrasions we’ve found. And there is fresh blood, sir. And off
to the north, near the river’s bank, we found a bone yard.”

“Not unusual to find bone yards, commander.
Teutonic knights built these castles centuries ago and had a
penchant for order. The markings are probably from adventurous
children in a nearby town.”

“Sir, unless these knights gnawed at the
bones like wolves, then I don’t think they formed that bone yard
and I doubt children could’ve made those scrapes.”

“Gnaw marks? Show me.”

The king and commander rode to the north side
of the castle where several streams from the low-lying hills joined
the Daugava. At the conflux of two tributaries, the king found the
bone yard with thousands of bones loosely piled. He noticed several
things at once. He noted that the bone yard was downstream from the
castle. He dismounted and examined the bones, many were old, a few
were from recent kills, and they did show teeth marks.

“Commander,” the king said as he held a large
moose bone in his hand, “this bone yard was made by humans. It’s
downstream so that the drinking water isn’t fouled by spoiled
flesh. Dogs have gnawed some of the bones; wolves looking for bone
marrow, I suspect. And the collection is too neat to be anything
wild.”

The king tossed the bone back into the pile.
“The men’s imaginations are getting the best of them, commander.
They’ll probably see a wolf’s head in the full moon tonight.
Prepare the camp and instruct the men to put this foolishness
behind them.”

As the sun sat mutely on the horizon, it lit
up the castle walls with a golden light. The men sat around a large
campfire and watched the full moon inch its way across the sky from
the west. The king, to pass time, told tales of the Teutonic
knight’s battles against the pagans and nobles that populated this
region. They ate and drank while four men posted as sentries at
each corner tower watched the dark beyond.

“This land has hosted many wars of love and
revenge,” the king started as he ate flesh from the bone of a
cooked deer. “Sometime near the year 1500, probably very close to
where we are now, a young nobleman fell in love with the lovely
Danusia of the court of Duchess Anna. The nobleman was sentenced to
death because of a conflict with a delegate of the Teutonic
knights, who were prominent in the area. Just before he’s about to
hang from the gallows, Danusia rushes onto the platform and
declares her love. She promises to marry him and the execution is
stayed. But a wrong had been committed against the knights by the
nobleman and they held a grudge. They laid in wait for the
nobleman. This wouldn’t be a story if something dreadful had not
happened, and the Teutonic knights kidnap Danusia. Her father
captured! Tortured! Maimed! And the young nobleman set out on a
quest to find his love.”

“Did he find her, King?” a nearby soldier
asked.

“He did, but it was too late. Danusia was
tortured, too, a lengthy torture. You see, her father, weak and
old, succumbed quickly at the hands of the knights. Not Danusia,
though. She was strong in spirit, so much so that she was driven
insane in resistance and she died a gruesome death. She leaped from
a castle wall in a failed escape, only breaking her back in the
fall. And it was painful death. It took twelve days for her to die.
Some say there was a year of war for each day she suffered.”