Song of the Blood

Transylvania 1636

The blacksmith carefully offered Count Lupus the red-hot sword. He grasped it firmly by the hilt in his black-gloved hand, and Erika sucked in her breath where she sat on horseback watching him. The long and deadly blade was the fiery crimson of a clear horizon at sunset. A male slave was brought forward and shoved to his knees in front of the Count. Erika saw her lover shift the hilt of the weapon in his hand, getting a better grip on it, and she shifted sympathetically in her saddle as the wet heat of her sex seemed to rival that of the forge in which the sword had been beaten into its phallic form. Before the terrified man could gain his feet and attempt to run away, Count Lupus thrust the blazing metal deep into his guts with a single assured thrust. An orgasm teased the insides of Erika’s pelvis like a vulture’s wings spreading, but then settled disappointingly down again without taking flight as her lover slowly pulled the sword out of his victim. The slave clutched the blade as though afraid to let go of it, and indeed, robbed of its cruel support, the hot metal no longer staunching the flow of his blood, he fell face forward in the dirt. The ritual was complete. Cooled by blood, the molten blade steamed in the brisk air. The body was carried away as the Count concluded his business with the blacksmith, patiently waiting a few more minutes before sheathing the beautiful weapon in the scabbard hanging from his black horse’s saddle.

Once more Erika shifted restively against her own hard leather seat, firmly grasping the reins in her silk-gloved hands, impatient for them to be on their way again. They could not hope to reach their Castle high in the mountains until late tomorrow evening; they would have to make do with the best room in the Inn at Brasov to quench the lust death invariably kindled in them. The Count was a man of God – he had fought alongside his kinsman Vasile Lupus, king of Moldavia, against the heathens who dared continue demanding tribute from their betters – but in many respects he still honored and practiced the old ways. The impotent little priest to whom they both confessed would never hear of this bloody rite, or of the many other sins the Count and his beautiful bride indulged in. Erika and her husband both believed that all the flames of hell could not be worse than unsatisfied desires. Purgatory was full of souls who never had the courage to feed the feelings that made being alive at least tolerably interesting, and sometimes intensely entertaining. They might both be damned, but if so, Lucifer had reserved a special place for them at his side.

At long last the Count mounted his horse, casting a knowing smile Erika’s way, and their entourage proceeded along the road behind them, following at a respectful distance. All it took was a casual wave of his hand to make dozens of men and women obey him without question. Erika had been born into the nobility, yet her husband’s casual assurance never failed to speed up her heartbeats. It was not only lands and title that made a man powerful, especially in the bedchamber when he was stripped of all conventional signs of status and it was only the mysterious metal of his will a woman judged him by; and either scorned his dominance behind his back or gave herself to him body and soul as Erika had.

They were a few hours ride from Brasov. Tomorrow they would reach the Batrana saddle of the Carpathian Mountains and begin the arduous but long-awaited ascent to their Castle. How many more living treasures they would collect along the way remained to be seen. Erika was content with their prizes for the time being. The smallest, most remote villages sometimes yielded delectable unspoiled youths. Peasant girls were more common, readily offered up by parents who greedily traded away their daughters’ warm and silky young flesh for small velvet purses full of cold hard coins – as much money as they had ever seen in their lives and would ever see again unless they miraculously produced more beautiful offspring. An unspoiled, virile youth such as the one she had found for herself on this profitable journey was rare. She licked her lips, unpleasantly dry from the wind and the dust of the road, and smiled to herself knowing he was riding behind her now. The servants were crowded together on bumpy carts while the young bodies she and the Count intended to use for their pleasure were treated more kindly.

Eventually the rhythm of the horse trotting beneath her ceased to beat erotic images into her mind, and no matter how much she resented it, she had no choice but to succumb to her body’s languid exhaustion. She surrendered herself instead to the more innocent pleasure of admiring the majesty of the dusky blue mountain ranges, rising to meet velvety black clouds with luminous silver borders woven by the sun setting behind them. Her eyes wandered contentedly to her lover’s stern profile (for they always rode side-by-side) and then back again to the undulating landscape of fertile fields fringed by dark forests.

The spires of Brasov’s church came into view first. Serban and Erika smiled at each other. The sun-bleached stone glowed pure white against the brooding sky, and gazing upon it one could almost forget that its foundations were crawling with vermin. They had to be careful when they were staying in a city, but the danger was a thrill in itself, and Erika was determined not to waste how much the sword-quenching rite had aroused her. A shaft of sunlight thrust through a sudden break in the clouds, illuminating the fields in front of the city walls so the grass shown like a precious stone. It was across this welcoming carpet of light that the Count and his bride galloped, racing each other and leaving their armed attendants, servants and slaves far behind. They would visit the church first as a courtesy, and by the time they were through charming the silly priest, everything would be ready for them when they arrived at the Inn.

* * *

‘You must strive to contain your murderous lust until we are safely home, my love,’ Serban said fondly, pouring them both more wine from a silver flagon.

‘No, my lord, I will not be denied tonight.’ She gazed challengingly into his eyes.

‘Yes, I am your lord, and your master,’ he reminded her quietly, rising out of the richly cushioned chair. ‘If you do not obey me, I will be forced to punish you.’

She tossed her head back to look up at him as he loomed over her, bracing himself with both hands on the carved back of her chair. She continued defiantly holding his dark eyes, the hard line of his mouth exciting her by reminding her of the sword he had plunged into a man’s bowels only hours ago. She felt her breasts threatening to swell out of her tightly laced bodice as she took a trembling breath, as always afraid of what he might do to her even as she craved his cruelty.

‘Please, my lord,’ she begged softly, ‘my body is tired from our long journey, but my soul is hungry, terribly so!’

‘You wish to watch me, my lady?’

‘Yes, my lord, it would give me great pleasure.’

‘You know I can deny you nothing, my love.’ Still bracing himself on the ornately carved chair with one hand, he clutched her slender white throat with the other. He moved too swiftly for her to have a chance to catch her breath, and her black lashes fluttered with a submissive ecstasy as he began strangling the life out of her. He watched her face intently, the bulge in his leggings growing more pronounced as her full lips parted, her eyes narrowed, and her hands clutched his arm without, however, trying to push it away. The hot discomfort blooming in her chest was as nothing compared to the delicious warmth smoldering between her legs. The more cruelly his hard fingers dug into her soft throat the more her sex wept, not with fear but with a lust more powerful even than her desire to breathe. She was aware of her hands falling into the lap of her dress as black suns began rising in the corners of her eyes… Suddenly, he ripped open her bodice, relaxing the grip of his hand just enough to let her take a desperate breath, watching her breasts heave from the strain before turning her bosom to stone again by putting even more vicious strength into the hand throttling her.

‘I could kill you now, Erika, you know that,’ he whispered, ‘and one night I will kill you, my love, I swear it on my sword!’

The tears of fear and pain that should have been shining in her eyes were instead burning between her legs and trickling down the insides of her thighs as she gazed worshipfully up at him. The black suns swimming in the corners of her eyes merged with the shadows cast by the candles and the crackling fire… his black-clad body looming over hers was an embodiment of the darkness to which she was willingly offering not only her body but her very soul…

He waited until the instant before her eyes closed as she lost consciousness to remove the pressure from her throat, quickly forcing his own breath down her bruised neck by way of a savage kiss. He savored the flavor of her cry as he gripped her hard nipples between his thumb and forefinger, pulling on them cruelly, stretching her lovely round breasts into agonizing peaks. Then, just as abruptly, he let go of her and straightened up.

Erika watched him with the mindless eyes of a cat, aware only of how beautiful she looked to him with the signs of his ownership branded into her flesh, her aureoles a fiery rose around the darker towers of her nipples powerless to defend themselves against his possessiveness. She would be forced to wear a high collar tomorrow as they rode out of the city, and knowledge of the discomfort she would experience then only stoked the perverse excitement his dangerous cruelty always filled her with. The pain in her neck and chest and breasts was not important; all that mattered was the aching, bottomless yearning between her legs.

She watched with a hunger that consumed her very soul as he untied the leather flap over his crotch, and freed the erection forged by her submissive brush with death at his hands. She waited until his rigid penis was aimed at her like the sword he had held that afternoon before pushing herself up out of the chair. She did not care that her legs were almost too weak to support her because all she wanted was to kneel at his feet. In her mind’s eye she saw the slave crouching before him, saw him plunge the red-hot blade into his body as he thrust the full, hard length of his penis into her mouth, ramming it down her ravaged throat. She clung to his leggings as he gripped her skull with both hands to bury her beautiful face against his body, brutally stuffing her orifice to the hilt with his pulsing erection. Once more relentlessly cutting off her breath, he stimulated himself in this way for much longer than he ever had before, testing and tormenting her; bruising the inside of her neck now with his cock until she thought she would die from the excruciating effort she had to make not to gag and wretch all over him. Whenever she did not gracefully fulfill his violent desires he punished her afterwards; punished her so severely it was black magic that pleasure not only survived but flourished deep inside her coupled with the hot, hauntingly luminous sensation of pure pain.

The Count did not satisfy himself in his wife’s mouth. Leaving her a gasping heap on the hard wooden floor boards, he quickly laced his leggings closed again and left the room.

Erika knew she had only moments to compose herself, and how intensely aroused she was gave her the strength she needed to gain her feet. It was more difficult controlling the trembling of her fingers as she made a vain effort to lace her bodice closed, but he had torn the threads beyond repair so she abandoned the effort and sat back down in the chair, her lovely breasts exposed to the cold room and the warm licks of the fire. She hoped he would choose the least comely of the peasant girls they had collected and save the special ones to be more enjoyably disposed of at the Castle. For this quick, secret sport at a public Inn they needed only a young and reasonably attractive body, virginal or not.

As usual, her husband did not disappoint her. When he returned she saw he had gone so far as to not even deplete their personal stock at all. He brought with him a local wench undoubtedly procured for them by their steward. All along he had meant to enjoy more than a fine meal and a flagon of wine at the Inn and had said nothing to her so he could also relish the pleasure of hearing her beg, and then punish her for it.

He shoved his prize into the room and barred the door behind him. Erika smiled as the girl stumbled, and then gasped when she saw a beautiful woman sitting half naked by the fire, the marks of her husband’s fingers branded into the fine skin of her neck. If the whore had not been frightened before, she was now. Erika saw it in her eyes – the realization that a man who shared his pleasures with his wife would not be easily and quickly satisfied. It was too soon for her to be afraid, after all the noble couple in whose rented chamber she was standing was strikingly attractive, and there was nothing threatening about the way Serban walked over to his wife and kissed her affectionately on the cheek while idly caressing her breasts, as gentle with her then as he had been vicious only moments ago.

‘Do you like her?’ he whispered in her ear.

‘She will do,’ Erika replied shortly. ‘What is important, my lord, is that you like her.’

‘You know she is of no consequence, my love.’ He spoke in his normal voice as he straightened up. ‘It is you I will be looking at and who will be pleasing me as you touch yourself watching us.’

The young woman was clutching her cloak protectively around her, and the uncertainty in her jaded eyes made her look attractively innocent in the flickering light.

‘Remove that,’ he commanded, and the rough cloth immediately fainted to her feet as if frightened by the tone of his voice.

Erika stood up long enough to lift her heavy skirt up around her hips, bunching the rich material around her waist as she perched on the edge of the chair. Her dark-red stockings clung to the tender white flesh of her slender thighs as she spread them wide, the gems in her gilded slippers flashing in the firelight as with one heavily ringed hand she held up her dress, slipping the other between her legs.

The girl stared at Erika as though she had never seen another woman’s sex before, and perhaps she never had seen one shaved smooth as alabaster suffused a lovely rose color by the warmth of her blood.

‘My wife is beautiful, is she not?’ Serban asked the girl as he began unlacing her plain black bodice.

‘Yes, very beautiful!’ she replied obediently and, it seemed, sincerely.

Erika pressed down on her clitoris with three fingertips, moving them slowly and lightly back and forth, biting her lip as she struggled not to climax right away. She wanted to savor the anticipation of her first blindingly pleasurable release before allowing herself as many more orgasms as her lord saw fit to indulge her with. She would wait for the exciting vision of his long, thick dick plunging in and out of the other woman’s body, yet she was scarcely able to bear the suspense of wondering which orifice he would choose to possess first.

The girl stepped out of her skirt and stood naked in the center of the fire lit room except for gray stockings and worn leather shoes. Her breasts were large, beginning to sag a little from their own voluptuous weight, and her waist was that of a peasant unaccustomed to tight, shaping corsets, but her hips were unusually slender (they could never be called childbearing) and her legs were nearly as long as Erika’s although not quite as shapely. Apparently, her long blonde hair was not artifice for her bush glimmered a dark-gold as Serban grabbed it roughly, growling and then laughing as she cried out in fear. Erika furiously stroked herself, but then quickly lifted her hand away from her sex as her husband released the girl. His watching bride was panting, her breasts heaving as she struggled not to come. Her excitement was a divine blade stabbing her between the legs and cutting straight up through her body into the almost painfully sharp points of her erect nipples. Sometimes he asked her which hole she preferred he start with, but that night they were both too weary from long days on the road and impatient for gratification. He simply took the girl by the hand, pulled her over to the chair beside Erika’s, and bent her face-down over it, offering his wife a close-up view of her quivering buttocks as he smacked them. He spanked her until her cheeks were red, priming her for his cock, which he quickly freed from his leggings again and pushed into her anus with cruel suddenness, ignoring her shrieks of pain.

Erika was scarcely aware of her hand working between her thighs as she watched the Count’s rending erection rising in and out of the girl’s tight little hole. The wanton fool was sobbing as he reamed her heartlessly, and the sight of a muscle in her thighs quivering as she struggled to brace herself against his agonizingly violent thrusts filled Erika with a pleasure so exquisite, so fine, it cut through her ability to resist the searing climax that had been building inside her ever since she watched her lover plunge his sword into a man’s body. She did not take her eyes off his pumping hips and stabbing penis until the intensity of the pleasure blinded her and she collapsed into the hard arms of the chair. When she opened her eyes again the first thing she saw was his smile.

‘That was only the first of many, my love,’ he remarked at once indulgently and proudly.

‘Oh, yes, my lord, thank you…’

‘But I think we must find a way to make her quiet.’ He grabbed the girl by the hair and yanked her around towards her.

For an enticing moment a woman’s full breasts dangled before Erika, inspiring her to reach out and caress the slack, tender mounds, until her husband forced the sniveling creature down onto her hands and knees, his cock still lodged deep in her ass very effectively eliciting her whimpering compliance.

‘Lick my beautiful wife’s slit, you noisy whore!’ he commanded.

Erika gently smoothed stray hairs out of the girl’s tear-streaked face to make it easier for her to obey, but then all thoughts of kindness vanished as she threaded her fingers possessively through the sleek golden strands and pressed the pain-contorted features against her hotly juicing sex. She positioned the firm bridge of the whore’s nose just where she wanted it so her clitoris could ride it fast and hard; selfishly following the sharp trail of the pleasure cutting up through her body and once again devastating her as she watched her husband’s hips beating faster and harder against the girl’s quivering buttocks.

By the time the young woman was kneeling before the fire licking her own blood off the Count’s undying erection, Erika had lost track of how many times she died to her surroundings in the throes of a pleasure so intense it sacrilegiously rivaled a saint’s mystic ecstasy with its transcendent power. By then she was so tired she barely remembers the girl hastily dressing herself, and then limping as quickly as she could from the room. The next thing she was clearly aware of was the milky rain of her husband’s fulfillment cooling her flushed face and flickering star-like in her eyelashes. Afterwards, he stroked her long black hair like a cat’s back before leaving her in the care of her personal maid, who knew never to ask questions as she undressed her mistress, and then wiped her face clean with a damp cloth before helping her up into the bed. Erika was asleep by the time her husband joined her; she did not feel his gentle kiss on her forehead or hear him whisper, ‘I love you more than anything!’