Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 29. Chapter 29: Black Heart

Chapter 29: Black Heart

Lord Laszlo was fuming.

He pushed his way into his wife's chamber, and resented the oak and iron for its resistance to his force. 'Things are going to change,' he told himself.

Lady Gretza was obviously startled. She stood in her peach-coloured dressing gown in front of her window; the evening twilight cast grey shadows about her silhouette as seen from Laszlo's position.

"Milord..?" She turned and stared annoyed as Laszlo gaped at her. Gretza then proceeded into the centre of her chamber. She paused in a mocking display of deference to him by picking up the corners of her gown and curtsying low.

He was having none of it, not anymore. He strode straight past her without a word, gripping his dangling sword close to his outer thigh, and went to the window.

'What had she been watching so intently?'

Laszlo caught the slight reflection of his own enraged eyes blinking back at him in the seedy windowpane.

Down in the courtyard, the older and more burly slave stood with his arm draped across the back and shoulders of the younger one; both were looking at the exterior of the chapel wall.

Lord Laszlo's rage abated for a moment. His wife had a mysterious way of making him feel profoundly weak, and it seemed to be an impotence borne along by a desire to keep her content. It was an arcane desire to give her satisfaction even if it were to the peril to his own future, and perhaps too, to the perdition to his soul.

He rotated his steely eyes to confront the woman. The face he saw peering at him was anything but blank; it positively dared him to continue on this route of boorish behavior and beware of its consequences.

As he neared her, he wondered if underneath of all this flaunting of manipulative power still lurked the sweet girl he had bedded and married long ago.

"Something troubles you, My Lord?"

He circled around her back, getting close enough to let his shoulder and arm brush against the heat of her silk gown. In his physical motion he gave free rein to the abhorrent thought in his mind that Lady Gretza's interest in the Turks could hardly be considered 'pure.' He let himself think no further along those lines; he had more important matters at hand.

He glided into position where he could set himself right in front of her. "There is news, wife, from Walachia."

A flicker of joy played at the side of her mouth, but it was fleeting. Lord Laszlo caught it in mid-birth and dashed it cruelly to the floor. "You stupid cow. You had me remove Vlad from his throne, you had me make myself ally with his inept brother Radu, and now your handiwork has put the Sultan's army on the move! You, wife, have ca-cornered me into a position where I must decide if it is better to stand back and watch the Ottoman hordes occupy the neighbouring country, or commit Hungary to all-out war against Ca-Constantinople!"

An evident distaste for the man before her washed over the woman's face. "You are upset, husband. Perhaps that is why you do not see this as the opportunity it is." Her voice grew strong, manly. "Saddle up for God's sakes; take your troops into battle, and your brother and king will have to acknowledge your bravery."

He hated her. His love for Lady Gretza was so far buried within him as a barely smouldering memory, it would be easy for Laszlo to snuff it out of existence. When he looked at her now, he swallowed down feelings of anger, powerlessness, and the notion that he was being used to act against his own best interest; he felt cursed by his wife's black heart.

He had to forget his political problems, and try to reach this woman emotionally, before it was too late. "Gretza, I believe I may be ga-going mad…"

She blinked in a startling display of genuine concern. The back of her hand went up to his forehead. "Are you ill?"

"I said," he iterated with deliberate intensity. "That I am ba-being driven mad."

"By..?"

"By Prince Vlad."

Her hand pulled away; her defences returned. "What do you mean? Explain."

Lord Laszlo paced the room, a hand on his sword hilt, his tone slowly rising. "I can hear him. Right here!" He tapped the narrow area of skin just above his nose and between his eyes.

"What does he say, My Lord..?"

"He says horrible things. Things about you, my love. He says you are a common enemy to both Vlad and myself."

"I believe you are imagining these – "

Laszlo rushed at her. He grabbed her upper arms, ruffling her fabric so that her breast became exposed to the pink light coming in through the window. "It's strongest when I am in the Knights' Hall." A passing notion in his head said he should try to regulate the crazed look he knew was in his eyes, but Laszlo could not help it. "I can hear his voice reaching me like a slow drip of maddening water – Laszlo, Laszlo, Laszlo he repeats over and over. And then as if in a vision I see the door of the oubliette open of its own accord. I see me descending the ladder and releasing him."

Lady Gretza stepped out of her husband's grip.

"You must never do that, dear. Vlad must stay where he is, and as far as listening to voices, mine is the only one you need to be attuned with; mine is the only pleasure you should be concerned with." Her eyes seared deep into his psyche.

Laszlo shook his head a moment with an inverted sigh. He was confused; was he not here to confront her; was he not here to 'punish' her, so then why was he the one swallowing down the acrid taste of regret for having doubted her? There was a jumbled mélange of thoughts and feelings, an inextricable pull back to Lady Gretza with a strangely tender longing to placate her. With these emotions came a vision of the Turks. He used it to pull his purpose slightly back to him.

He spoke slowly, threateningly, "I admire the devotion of those two men."

"Who?"

"The Turkish slaves. Perhaps you have seen it too, my dear – the way they protect one another, the balance they have achieved, and the calmness with which they go about their task. In a way I am glad you have brought them here, for they have wound up being a sign and symbol to me – one of hope in the face of an enormous cha-challenge."

"Husband, I do not know – "

He cut her off. "I want to be true to my word, and release them once they've sta-struck water."

A malicious sneer spread across her face. Lady Gretza's eyes reflected his own, and he looked as upset and ill at ease as he had at the window a few minutes before. Suddenly, he felt her hand caress the area between his legs.

"Your lordship is overly stressed. You need to focus on what is most important. You shall be king, Laszlo – and I shall be queen. That has always been meant to be. Embrace it."

"I do not hate my brother, or his wife –"

She interrupted him. "Well, dear, in my opinion that is at the very root of your problem."

As her digits played expertly about his member, Laszlo's vision lolled ceiling-wards. He grew hard, and grudgingly accepted that he was enthralled to a woman he both loved and despised.

˚˚˚˚˚

The castle was asleep. The full moon had risen late at night and discovered all was as it should be. Lord Laszlo slept in a rapt and dreamless slumber – his troubles somehow drained by his wife's lovemaking. He had retired to his chamber after supper, and fell into bed with a caress from Louis after the young man had removed his boots, tights and doublet. The lad had disappeared, and now the lord of the place was alone. Over and across his peaceful face, the moonlight stroked his chamber through narrow panes of window glass and broad ties of leading.

This same glow entering the regal palace above coyly sought out the unobtrusive cavities and voids through ceiling vaults to fleck the lower passages in eerie shadow.

Through these corridors moved a creeping presence, one with sinister intent.

˚˚˚˚˚

Lady Gretza awoke with a start.

She slowly sat up in her bed, realizing the sound she had just heard was not of her chamber door opening, but of it closing again.

Someone was with her.

She dared not speak, but willed the figure to step into the angled rays of moonlight striking her floor.

He did, and the lady sighed when she saw him; an inextricable wave of moisture flooded hot and coursing through her nether regions.

Ahmed strode with paced confidence towards her. He lifted off his tunic and brought his naked and beautiful body rakingly across the interlinking bands of moon glow; they burnished his flesh like marbleized bronze.

She tossed her covers aside as prelude to her pleasures; the fingers on one hand descended to lift the flimsy silk casement of her nightgown away from her waist. Her other hand sailed airborne over her head to land writhing in anticipated rapture on her pillow.

She scanned over at him again, and the slave was climbing onto her bed. He was crouched low, like a leopard, and 'stalked' her from over the sheets at the end of her covers.

"Ahmed," she moaned, her fingers exploring her womanhood. She agitated herself with craning gestures, and forced her neck to arch.

The professional soldier dove in and laid aggressive kisses on that vulnerable neck. She let a slow-building, primal cry erupt from the molten core of her being and pressed his head into her flesh.

He bit her. His teeth raked gently over her jugular, and the woman panted with lust as his lips locked over the abrasion to create suction.

In the back of her roiling mind a thought abjured – what if the slave leaves a mark? A mark visible to her 'lord and master.' But that question was quickly allayed. If seen, she would blush and say his lordship's lovemaking to her yesterday was more vigorously gratifying to him than he recalls.

The Turk's mouth moved to follow the line of her jaw, and then her chin. In a moment, it was pressed hard against her lips, and his tongue aggressively sought deeper and deeper passage within her mouth.

Just while she was thinking how Ahmed had never shown this level of passion to her before, his hand roughly removed her digits from between her legs, and replaced them with his own to perform the same activity.

His fingers roughly entered her. Several explored at depth and pulsated with a persistent coax, but the tip of one – his thumb with its nail perhaps – teased and raised her maidenhead with precise anatomical knowledge.

She let Ahmed have full access to her pleasure zone, and barely allowed the thought to circulate that this man – this well-used lover of hers – had somehow acquired prodigious technique overnight. He now knew the ways to best please a woman, and he went about executing them with expert deliberation.

Just where her lover's fingers slowly gyrated in maddening exactitude, the interior of her flushed hot and insistent. The moisture mingled with the man's touch to smooth the passage and dilate an eager willingness to receive him farther.

The Turk's hand suddenly withdrew, and in the half-second before Lady Gretza could voice complaint, both of those same hands brusquely gripped her behind the knees and pushed.

Her backside rose automatically, and she was forced to move a fist to her own mouth, for at the same moment of her upward motion, Ahmed's tongue descended to land perfectly on the pulsating tip of her pleasure.

He applied pressure; he released her slightly to toy at her rising clitoris with his erect tongue point; he delicately blew on it, and then he repeated – over and over – and each time was as precise as the preceding and as exact as the following assault.

Lady Gretza orgasmed.

The buried invisible bands of tendons surrounding her ankles sparkled in something like near pain. Her wrists erupted into spontaneous aching, and every pore of her body involuntarily relaxed to produce a single, sweetly-fragranced drop of musk.

Her womanhood shuddered, and began to convulse a rhythmic contraction and release. This pulsation was felt by Ahmed, for his mouth on her most sensitive area sucked and released in time with her bodily gratification.

Her fist fell freely from he mouth. She experienced no desire to scream, for this climax was unlike any she had felt before – it was as if her body were only an extension of her pleasure, and at last the one and its silent companion had met in uncompromising bliss.

As she tried to catch her breath, she was vaguely conscious of movement. Ahmed let her legs fall and came closer to her with his lap. He draped her lower limbs over his thighs and rose to his knees.

His member was pressed at her passage, and she reached up to pull him down into her.

"I need your seed," she moaned in what sounded to her own ears like lustful pain. "Plant it in my womb. I'm desperate to satisfy my lord with a son."

He grunted, immediately placed his hands on her throat, and thrust into her all the way.

The woman's gasps were commingled with pants of lust. With each excited exhale, she was able to intake less air than the last time.

He established a rhythm, and the wet sounds from her nether regions began to echo from every corner of the darkened chamber like falling rain.

Her eyes opened, she clutched at the man's hands, suddenly feeling some evil pang about him.

As she tried to contend with the nearly overpowering desires of her body to orgasm again, and to receive this man's semen, her eyes forced a new focus on the figure moving above her.

His face modulated and shifted as if the mirror showing him to her were suddenly wobbling in another's hands. In the fuzziness of this motion, the pinpoint centre of her vision began to broaden.

A gruff voice erupted from the face thrusting up and down over hers. It arose from the black heart of anger and soured rancidly within her synesthesia-blent perceptions.

He continued to pummel her; he continued to raise a needful desire that he finish inside of her, but all of a sudden, a stench gripped the woman's senses and demanded immediate attention.

It was the reek of captivity: bare, naked, unmasked and radiating off of the man about to implant his semen into her womb.

She clawed desperately at the lower arms and hands at her throat and neck.

"Her Ladyship enjoys Romanian cock, doesn't she?" The voice was coarse and far-away sounding, but unmistakably, it was the voice of Vlad Dracul.

She ripped his hands away from her body, and a new focus confirmed it was he who was raping her.

He slowed and made a roar like the man was climaxing.

Internally, silently, she screamed. Her struggles concentrated on one aim – to turn over. She gripped the side of her mattress and pulled. She brought her legs together, and forced her attacker out of her.

As she did this, a bit of psychic clarity came to her. She saw the inside of the oubliette; Vlad was physically still there. He sat with his back against the wall, his hands laid open-palmed on his knees, and all of his considerable mental concentration was directed hatefully at her.

"Incubus," she whispered. "You are a phantom incubus!"

The man stood on her bed. His nakedness was diseased, and wholly unlike the manly beauty of Ahmed's form. Vlad had suffered in his dungeon, and his emaciated, scurvy-ridden sores pulsated unattended to.

Lady Gretza was nauseated and cowered in her sheets as she was helplessly confronted by what her own caprice had done to a once strong man.

When Vlad extended his arms and meant to go for her throat again, a low growling reverberated off of the wall behind her.

The lady watched as the man turned slowly and tracked the sluggish movements of something in the room. It was as black as night and slipping along with stealthily-dipped shoulders. The prince lowered himself from the bed.

The thing inched its way with measured steps into the angled moonlight.

A giant black dog, with saucer-sized red eyes, bared its teeth at Vlad.

The man extended his hands low and crouched as he began to the circle around to his right.

The menacing cur stood in one place, growling ever more fiercely and pulling its flews higher. Razor-sharp fangs glistened in the moon glow with the dripping salvia of animal-based rage.

Vlad stopped moving. He stood upright like it was all a joke anyway.

The hellion leapt to rip out his throat, but the incubus spectre of the prince dissolved in a puff of laughter; a cruel laughter which echoed manically around the corners of the chamber like a thunderclap.

As Lady Gretza rose out of bed, the creature stopped up its growling mouth, then turning lowered ears and docile eyes to her. The woman let a satisfied expression settle over her visage.

The beast sat, and as its mistress approached, the formerly fearsome canine licked its chops in a display of submissive ardour for the woman who controlled his every desire and actions.

Lady Gretza strolled right up to the dog's sleek flanks. She raised a hand and stroked its black head like a valued and highly trusted pet. She glanced down at the red eyes averting themselves from her direct inspection, and began to contemplate an appropriate reward for this hellish cosset of hers; she also began another mental process. Her hand stroked in long, and nearly loving languor on the animal's skull, and she did so with the hand that wore the large and mysterious ring.

In her mind she lost herself to delicious notions of revenge, she felt assured that whatever form that vendetta might want to naturally take, it was bound to be personally gratifying. Her punishment would be one equal to the initial offensive, and her pleasure in exacting it would be enormous. It would be greater by far than his was in reaping the wrongdoing in the first place. Vlad would suffer, of that she was sure.