5. The First Touch of Summer
Chapter 5
The First Touch of Summer
T he touch of his sun was the first thing she felt when they cantered into his realm. Dry dust kicked up from a warm wind and Celestine squinted as it stung her eyes.
This is his realm. They are all connected at Calendar, as ours is. But this is not the land of the red banners that I know.
Unlike the stillness of Calendar, this world held such a vibrance. It was vivid . Like Encarmine.
What surprised her the most was that there were people here. She saw them in the distance as she rode, a lady on a steed in the arms of a horned god of war.
A god who nearly slew another for the right to part my thighs.
The thought was barbed and held such a weight she turned away from it in her mind. The enormity of this being, his raw power, it might kill her. At least for now, he was courtly—gentle almost.
The drying dust kicked into her eyes and watered them. In the Realm of the Red Banner, she saw Encarmine’s mark everywhere. Every village held his sigil. Every house flew a red silk that billowed in the wind.
It was an afternoon of slow riding. Encarmine’s powerful arms never faltered as the reins flowed through his hands..
“Your lands are strong, my Lord.” Celestine gazed upon his realm. Many stopped their work of leather, brass, and steel shaping to salute Encarmine. He would always return it smartly, showing honor to any farmhand the same as any soldier.
It was hard to look at him and hard not to. His eyes glowed red, the circlet on his head was a visage of twisted black metal, a haze-like mist made of blood surrounded it. When she glanced too long, she heard the clash of metal and screams.
“My lady, forgive me,” Encarmine said and removed his circlet. “I was gone in my thoughts. My circlet offends.”
His face transformed from an immortal being of battle and beauty to one of the most handsome men Celestine could have ever imagined. The sense of menace receded, but it did not disappear. Encarmine looked like a man of thirty in his mortal form, the stubble on his cheek was gruff along a jawline tanned by the sun. His hair was dark and close cropped, and his eyes were red irises flecked with brown. They seemed to swirl in their ring over his pupil.
Like a great storm fixated on me .
Any place not armored on his body was muscled and scarred. But as Celestine glanced, the scars seemed to change. Like the engravings on his armor. A strange magic trick.
“Is your circlet that which gives you power?” Celestine asked.
“All men are their own power. Circlet’s show the Seasons what we truly are. But my domain and persona is not fit to look upon—for most.”
They rode longer. He seemed content with the silence. This was his realm, his world, his people. And when she watched them, she realized they enjoyed something her own world didn’t—the stability he brought.
Yet as fascinating as walking into another world might be, and be carried on horseback by a demigod of war, the fear of what waited at the ride’s end turned her stomach.
I am afraid, in a way, every bride must know.
It was only the fact that
They passed great towns and cities, all fiercely defended against some enemy. His banner flapped in blood red defiance, both a mark of honor and a challenge to anyone looking upon it. Every man and woman, and even some children, were armed.
“What thoughts were you lost in?” Celestine asked, breaking the silence of this distant demigod.
“Of your crest and body. You are the Final Bride, and I could not help but issue a challenge for your touch.”
Celestine turned away, his frankness spoke to his lust as well as a being that ruled whatever he looked upon. She watching the approaching horizon, the sun beginning to dip towards distant hills, signaling the darkness to come.
“I am the exertion of war, Lady Celestine. I am not the courtly knight but the dutiful soldier. I am the march and the erosion of an enemy’s will. That is how I took you from Cedarheart.” Encarmine touched her now, his hand ungloved and so strong, gentle but prudent upon her back, turning her back to him. “But I am also the darkness within men after the siege, Lady Celestine. You are my prize and plunder. War is not wanton savagery but controlled force. Order. Castles are not stolen. They are won. As were you. It is this control that keeps me from plundering you here and now because the soft flesh of your thighs is heaven to the man who has seen war. A heaven he wants to possess, and in that possession… he usually destroys.”
Celestine shuddered at such words. Maybe this was his way? The Red Lord stared at her.
He is summer’s heat made manifest. Or perhaps, summer is his heat made manifest…
“But, I am also the honorable challenge of men. Of contest. Of life itself. My name is screamed in the clash of battle. In the groans of childbirth. In the breaking of a castle wall.”
“I have won the right to your first touch, but I have not won that itself. Do not fear my savagery, for everything is earned in my realm. When you die in the red bannered realm of summer, it is the hand that slays you that becomes your heir.”
A great fortress came into view, in a lightly wooded valley. Red stone and banners, square stout spires greeted her.
“This is my home, called Scalehall.”
“It is lovely,” Celestine said. Even as the word escaped her lips she knew it was the wrong one. The castle was strong. Defiant. Dominant. It cut into the veil of reality, daring for it to be opposed.
“We will march the rest of the way,” Encarmine declared, pulling his reins. Celestine hopped down, seeing into the valley a small village that bore his banners and another great town further away.
Where am I?
“Your people are industrious.”
“They prepare.” Encarmine swung from the horse, his circlet tied to a sash on his belt. His mount sped away without a command. He threw a pack of plain cloth around his shoulders, carrying his shield and sword there as well. The speared banner became his walking stick.
Celestine felt the warmth of the sun and shut her eyes. If she was to die, or fall to his touch, earned or not, she would at least enjoy the steadiness of a sun. It had been so long since there had been a season she could depend upon. It was relentless. Bountiful.
When she turned, Encarmine was staring at her. He looked like a veteran of a thousand wars, strong— yet so very wounded within.
I am the darkness within men in a siege…
Feverish eyes stared into her. Celestine saw every portion of his body: his long and muscled legs, his straight back and wide shoulders, the lust in his eyes smoldered under a glare of complete control.
Strangest of all things in this realm, was that underneath the fear fluttering in her chest… something stirred inside her. Like an animal raising its eyes to meet the challenge of another.
Encarmine shut his eyes. “My lust drove me to you, Celestine. But I will seek your favor and your decision to wed me. Wars are not won in a single day, but some battles are. They all follow a tracing route, a route I will march and lay claim to, section by section… of your body.”
He lowered his spear and reached up to the banner. He tore it into three strips and held them to her.She took them.
“My courting will be a campaign in three parts. It will be your choice. The first touch, the first taste…”
Celestine held the broken banner in her hands. The three ribbons flapped in the warm wind.
“And the last?” she asked.
Say it. I want you to say it.
Encarmine stared at her. “Embrace.”
Celestine looked at the ribbons, then at him. This wasn’t just a declaration, she had the feeling he respected rules. Defended them. It was up to her.
“And if I refuse?”
Encarmine stared at her, the stubble on his jaw shifting under a clenching jaw as he considered.
“Then you’ll refuse.”
What does that mean?
Celestine looked down at the banner in her hands. The words of Blackdawn came back to her. That these demigods were starved of lust all year. That their own women fell to death the moment they touched them.
It would be contest, and courtship. Here a bastion of summer itself wanted to prove itself for the right to touch her. What girl did not dream of being courted by a prince of sun and fire?
To be the fixture in a smoldering gods eyes, the drumbeat that thundered in his veins? Even if it meant your ruin.
“I accept.”
The hint of a smile crept upon his lips. “Come, we head to my estate.”
They walked together; he bore his shield and sword upon his pack, the spear in his right hand. They drank from a waterskin as they walked down into the valley near the town she learned was called Rosendall, where they met the road. Many of his people saluted him, and he returned their salute. He was a respected peer, not just the scepter of dominion here. He was another soldier.
No, that wasn’t right. He was every soldier.
Encarmine asked her of gentle things. He asked of the Painted Realm. What wars did they wage? What battles? Were there contests? She spoke of what she knew, and tried to tell him of the hardship from the conflict of he and other seasons. That there was no time for contests and duels when seasons changed by the day. He did not seem to know this was the case. That the warring of the Seasons changed so much.
“Do your people become sterner because of this?” he asked.
“They die, my lord. Before they can even walk.”
He didn’t dismiss this, Encarmine considered it as they walked.
Celestine told him was wars she knew, meager as they were. Bands of starving men battling each other, like emaciated beggars knifing each other for bread.
Slowly, as they walked towards the town on the way to his keep, the fear of him diminished slightly. There was a mirth to speaking to him. To walking alongside a demigod and Lord of Calendar. Sometimes out of the corner of her eye, he seemed a thing of red and black, with a glorious crown of metal, but when she turned, his grateful eyes regarded her.
“Many died upon the battlefield, and we spent all week tending to the wounded.” Celestine said as they walked past a great mill. She was speaking of a pitch battle near her home.
“It is a final and great comfort to lend your hand to a dying man's brow.”
Celestine didn’t know what to say to that. There was no honor or glory in men who screamed and convulsed and died in agony.Who begged for their mothers long gone.
“Hail, Lord Encarmine.”A young man walked past. He was maimed, missing several fingers, and a wicked scar had cleaved his palate. Many she saw, were like this.
“Hail.” Encarmine saluted to a young man walking past. Celestine turned as he went on his way.
“Foolishness is the great recruiter of all wars,” Encarmine stated. "Not the missing leg nor the father’s grave warn young men away from my ways.”
“Can you not know peace?” Celestine asked.
The sun shone on them as they walked to the edge of town.
“Not yet,” he answered.
They walked towards his proud fortress. Celestine thought of her father and of her home, which was so different from this place but similar. Calendar had felt like a dream in a fever. The Realm of the Red Banner felt so very real. A realness that would burn away the fog of life and replace it with steadfast discipline.
His estate, would it be lovely and plush inside? Or efficient and practical like him? She was not sure what he meant by the three challenges. Celestine clenched the three ribbons in her fist as they traveled. The promise of his courtship in her very hand.
It was the longest time she had ever spent alone with a man unsupervised. An entire day. Aside from her father, of course.
When she looked at Encarmine, she felt the fluttering of wings in her chest. This man could be her groom. His lustful need held back by stark laws of conduct. Laws, and oaths so strong they shaped his realm and his people followed.
Celestine imagined it. To be Queen here. It likely didn’t mean finery. It likely did not mean softness. Not that she had ever craved such items. But she would rule with him. Ride with him. She as his prize, as he declared. His bounty. This courting, she guessed, would show her more of him. And more of these strange worlds mirrored upon her own.
A flash of light caught her eye. Like someone holding a mirror. But when she looked to the hill it had come from, there was nothing. Encarmine seemed to notice, but said nothing.
Longer and longer they walked, under a vast sky lit by sunlight. The dried grasses crunched under her feet.
As they neared his keep, she felt a tremble in the ground. The sound of hooves thundered as they walked. Celestine looked around. His grand castle was so close now.
“That which is won is not easily kept,” Encarmine stated, more to himself than her.
He dropped his pack and planted his standard atop his great spear into the ground, where faintest edge of his tattered banner remained.
Riders approached, bearing a banner of his color but with a differing sigil.
Celestine looked around wildly as twenty, then thirty men rode around up to them. The men were scarred, yet noble in their bearing. Was this rebellion? Was this insurrection?
Encarmine drew his sword and stood with grim defiance.
The riders slowed, their horses pacing.A beast of a man stared down Encarmine with a challenge.
“Your keep was undefended in your absence, Lord of the Red Banner.”
“So it was.” Encarmine pointed his sword at the chieftain. “Are you here to attempt to claim it?”
“A throne won is a throne defended, always. As you teach.”
“As I teach,” Encarmine echoed the words.
The riders now stared at Celestine. Encarmine would don his circlet now, she knew. These men would be corpses. She had seen him fight the Champion of Autumn for her touch. These men would be nothing to him.
“Let us begin the lesson then,” the chieftain drew his sword.
Encarmine looked back at her, sadness in his eyes.
“Above all things, war is a thief. It steals the future and all it could have held.”
He did not reach for his circlet.
Celestine felt their time coming to an end so soon. Too soon.
It was the harsh reality of what every young woman, mother, and father knew when conflict arose. Was there a term for a widow who never got to marry her betrothed? What did you call young women who saw war touch men who would have been their husbands, and had never shared even a kiss?
Encarmine stared at her.
A spear snaked out and struck Encarmine. His armor breached, the metal rending under the hard thrust. Celestine screamed when she saw his blood. How could this be? After Cedarheart and the duel, to fall to these men? These lowly mortals?
No one came near Celestine. Their only quarry was Encarmine. She dared not step forth, though she wished to, but if she distracted him and he was slain…
Riders fell upon him, and he fought savagely. Encarmine screamed and roared. He swung his blade, cleaving men down. Slaying horses. But without his circlet, or by choice, he was losing.
Riders broke and then returned in a sortie and ran him down over and over. A wound crested his shoulder. Then another, his thigh. The trample of hooves and a swift spear painted his blood upon the soil.It trickled from him like ribbons of red.
His flesh was rent. Encarmine was defiant, the very image of valor, and that visage was all the more tragic as he was pierced and slashed again and again. There were no songs here, only the sing of steel. No melody but his growl, his grunt, and the trickle of his blood.
In the end, he fell. Exhausted, wounded. Encarmine fell, and the riders broke away to the hills beyond. Their slaying done. They took his spear with its battered standard from the ground.
Celestine went to him. So heavy was the cleaving upon his body that his once powerful arms shook, the nerves and muscles now splayed apart.
“Strip my armor,” he whispered. The buckles would not come loose because her hands shook. Celestine gritted her teeth and stifled a scream of frustration, willing her fingers to obey her.
The sun dipped, and piece by piece, she removed the armor from his body, revealing rough, spun padding drenched in blood. This, too, she hoisted from his wounded torso. Celestine took his arm around her shoulder and they heaved together as she lifted.
The Lord of the Red Banner was heavy. His blood stained her gown, and it was slick enough that she nearly lost the grip of his arm, but Celestine gritted her teeth and grunted, keeping him upright with her strength. She helped him stand. Celestine had lifted bales of hay and helped raise structures, but nothing was harder than lifting this limp and struggling demigod in his mortal form.
“The fortress…” Encarmine murmured. Ahead of them, a drawbridge lowered as if expecting their master, but no men came forth. No servants ran to his aid. Light glowed from within. Celestine kept stepping, wanting so badly to collapse.
I can carry him to his home if he fought thirty men for me. Carry him to where he wants to die.
Celestine exerted every piece of strength she had. She thought of her mother, a back to a door against winter so long ago.
Help me, mother. Help me withstand this.
The ground turned from dry dirt to gravel and finally to the wood of a drawbridge walkway. They stepped together and joined in the union of effort.
When she stepped two paces into his keep, she collapsed with him.
“Help!” Celestine yelled down the hallways.
“Celestine,” Encarmine groaned in her lap. “I am sorry.”
“Who were those men? Will they return? Are they here in your keep?”
But Encarmine didn’t answer. His eyes shut, and he still breathed.
Servants came. They wore his sigil. They did not look at her but rushed to their Lord.No emotion passed their faces.
“Help him!” Celestine cried out.
“Come, Lady.” A matron bade her to stand. “His wounds need tending if he is to pass in comfort.”
That night was one of the longest of Celestine’s life. They laid Lord Encarmine in his bed at the top of the keep. Celestine barely remembered surmounting the staircases.
Servants brought poultices and stitching for his wounds. But some wounds were so deep they could only pack them to slow the flow of his blood. Not stop it.
Among a blur of attendants someone left food for her, and water. She tended to Encarmine. The Lord of Summer was draped in crimson bandages atop the bed. A bed they might have shared.His circlet was drenched in drying blood at his side.
A fever was the final rider that rode him down in the middle of the night.
Encarmine’s body shook with fever. Celestine stripped him, his majestic body ruined by gruesome wounds. There was nothing beautiful here, not any longer. As she tended to him, the stories and songs she had once heard of great battles seemed like bitter lies. The ridges of his muscle were shattered peaks. Half of his body was crumbling. The Lord of the Red Banner began his last journey in front of her. His eyes, once bright, rolled to the back of his head in the agony of fever.
The sun had dipped beyond the horizon long ago, and Celestine tended to him under the light of lanterns and candles. They dared not light the hearth for sake of his fever.
“My Lady, please. Eat. You must steel yourself.” A servant held out the board of bread and cheese.
Celestine turned away finally, her eyes swollen from tears. “He is dying.”
The servant nodded. “Lord Encarmine will not last long.”
“I don’t understand,” Celestine said. “His circlet. He didn’t don it.”
“It is not his way.” The servant touched her shoulder. “It would not be proper, against mortals.”
She could not eat. His wounds kept reopening. They exhausted the linens, even the sheets. More blood than ten men deserted his veins. The fever ravaged his body like a countryside under war. His flesh was hot. Celestine tried to place his circlet on him, but nothing happened.
All night, he was feverish. Eventually, his blood slowed its seeping. There was too little left.
In the darkest hour of the night, the season who had fought all others of the Calendar Court opened his eyes in the haze of his fever.
“Celestine…” he whispered. She touched his brow now. It was hot, like steel left in the sun for days.
She looked around the room for something to dip into her cold water. There was nothing. Her dress would do, the blood-soaked mess it was. As she reached down, she felt his torn banner in her pocket.
Celestine set her jaw, refusing to cry.
I will not weep. I won’t. I won’t send a man to his death with tears on his chest.
She dipped the rag into the cold water and squeezed it. Her right hand held his.
Celestine dabbed at his fevered brow with the banner that was now a rag in her hands. Encarmine groaned. His agony finally staunched at her touch. He raised his hand to the rag in her hand upon his forehead and touched her.
“Heaven,” he whispered. Celestine felt the fever recede from his brow as if by magic. She smiled and looked down.
Lord Encarmine died under her cooling touch.
“Encarmine?” she whispered. There was no answer. It was horrid, to have him here with her a moment ago and now realize she was alone.
In a numb grief, she slept somehow. Afraid to move from him, afraid to accept what had just happened. It was too much. Too much and not enough. She slept in the bed next to his body because there was nowhere else. Celestine curled her knees to her chest and shut her eyes, willing the world away.
Her entire life had been a gambit won by this immortal who now lay dead. Would she now be sent to the next Lord of Summer? Would the contest end? Was she stranded here, in this strange world of blades and sun?
The possibility of their future, as briefly as she had known him, was gone now. His mystery, his majesty…gone. She had seen a lord of battle and blood, proud with his red banner and armor. He had saved her crest from being taken by the monster of the Scarlet Banner, the thief of the Gold Banner, and the beast of the Brown banner.
Celestine did not want another lord, nor a bride or a courting. She wanted to go home.
In the dawn light, she woke. Eyes fluttering open, swollen from a restless night.
“Celestine,” someone said.
Her eyes opened slowly. She was moving, floating above the ground.
I am dreaming. Floating. I hope I am taken home to my broken realm.
“Celestine.”
She saw red mist. A circlet of molten daggers. Celestine shook the sleep from her eyes, not believing what she saw as she floated above the walkways.
Encarmine carried her, his circlet upon his brow.
“You’re alive,” Celestine whispered. If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake herself.
Encarmine nodded and carried her down a grand hallway of sigils and coats of arms. Around his wrist was the torn banner she had dabbed his brow with.
“Forgive me, for leaving you. But I am that which war brings and takes.” His red eyes stared down at her, terrible and majestic in his true form. “And selfish. For in my selfishness I sought to prove myself worthy and feel what so many had felt in their last moments. The caring hand of Celestine upon their fevered brow. Before slipping from this world, your hand was the last thing I felt.”
Celestine felt a surge of unrelenting hope but feared this was a trick.
“I saw you die.”
“You did. Many have. Many will. I could not tell you. Forgive me. I have won your touch, the touch of the wounded, and I bear my prize gladly. It is not finery or grand keeps that I wanted to win you with, but to know the true courage of you. The courage of a woman to face the horrors of war, because that is what they do. Men vanish, and the pain and misery endures among women to carry alone.”
Celestine wanted to cry in anguish, but he was here.Grateful he was alive. Grateful he had won her favor in the Court of Calendar.
“Now you know, I am the most terrible lord. When the snows melt, when the rivers deepen, I come. For misery follows all conflict where men slay one another.”
Celestine embraced his neck.
I should strike him, for such anguish. Yet the relief is such salve to me.
“Where are you taking me?”
“It is my turn to tend to you,” Encarmine declared. His eyes were a dull glow, and his circlet of black metal shifted to silver daggers, melted together. His eyes laid upon hers. “I have been paid in touch, and now I will pay in kind.”
A chamber opened, a grand bathing room with wooden tubs. Nothing soft lived in his keep, she saw now. But the call of hot swirling water sang to her. Encarmine set her down, looking down at her, over a foot taller than she.
Celestine leaned forward to kiss him, but he stopped her. His strength was absolute. “It has not been earned to taste you, Final Bride.”
To hell with your rules. Now kiss me, you living and dying god.
But she said nothing. Because the control and oaths he dictated; he also served. It was his very being. Celestine trembled under his touch, and he regarded her, never looking away from her eyes as he undid her dress, sliding it down.
Encarmine’s hands were warm through her chemise. He touched the ties of her shift, drawing the strings away. The knots fell, and Celestine felt her heart flutter as the undergarment fell away, like towers falling under siege, crumbling at her feet in satin folds.
The Lord of the Red Banner drank her in.
Everywhere his hand touched, goosebumps followed. Along her arm, her shoulder, her neck. Her skin was stained with his dried blood. He touched patches of it lightly. She was nude, exposed. His for the taking. Her stomach quivered, her quim responded, pulsing and readying for the first touch of a man.
But he is not a man. He is something else.
Encarmine traced her flesh with his hand and eyes, along her neck, up to her jaw and chin.
“No finer prize worth fighting for,” he whispered. His eyes glowed red. A needful lust and fervor stirred within her.
It’s him. It must be his touch. It infects me.
“It lives within you,” Encarmine whispered. “Fury, exertion… challenge… conquest. My essence lives within all people. Whom is braver than the bride on her wedding night? The shield that knows it must be broken?”
Encarmine reached down to a chest and produced a silken robe so thin it appeared as if it had been spun from glass. He reached around her, draping it over her shoulders. Steam, cedar, and sandalwood infected the air in the bathing room.
The cloth was finer than any silk she had ever worn. He tied it around her waist and led her to a bathing table.
“Remove my tunic,” he commanded. Red eyes glowed and bore into her. Within his steely firmness, a dark tyrant stared at her, seeking conquest. Seeking challenge, conflict.
Seeking everything.
Celestine did as he asked.
I enjoy his command, being his prize. Beyond the court and the battlefield yesterday, what is more dangerous than being in this room with this Lord of the Red Banner.
His breastplate came away, red leather and steel. Names of men moved and slid under her touch, shifting down and being added to. She could feel the magic in the strong plate. She unlaced his tunic and undid the brass buttons along his left side. Drawing the cloth apart, his body was hers now to witness. She exhaled heavily when she touched his flesh. It was hot, hotter than this room. Scars tattooed him, lines, punctures, stars, and deep ravagement.
His abdomen resembled the jutting stones of a castle wall, ridged and proud. She ran her fingers across his abs, and he shuddered, stirring for her.
Celestine looked up at the Red Lord in his circlet of metal and blood. His chest was a shelf of muscle, his shoulders like two boulders placed above scarred arms tanned from the season he commanded. His forearms were as thick as her thighs, and she slid the tunic free.
Encarmine regarded her, then took her in his arms, her soft flesh forming around the impossible hardness of his sinew. He was taller today, like he had been when at Calendar.
He placed her upon the bathing table like an offering at an altar, and Celestine shut her eyes, feeling the fear give way to want. She would be an eager sacrifice. Low growls came from him, the deep timbre of his throat vibrating the air between them with want.
Red haze circled above his crown, the stubble of the soldier, the haunted and feverish eyes that took her in.
I should hate him. But I don’t…
Shirtless, his red belt and burnished bronze buckle glinted in the lamplight. Steam rose from openings somewhere in this bathing room, the heat of it all making her flush. The only thing he wore from the waist up on his magnificent body was her token, the ribbon of his torn banner he had won from her, bound around his thick wrist.
“I have won your touch, and now I will pay it to you in kind,” Encarmine’s deep voice rumbled. He reached low. His voice was different, deeper, as if he was straining to hold himself back from taking her here and now.
Hot water splashed along her body from a steel pitcher in his hand. He drenched her, the bathing robe now clinging tight to her body, to the curve of her breast and hip.
Celestine arched her back. The onslaught of hot water, the despair of the absence of it, was delicious. She was his, in his control, a token won, and now she was being paid in his touch. He produced a sponge laced with soap and lathered her, first her neck, his hand large enough to wrap around her entire throat, but he was strong and guided her. He guided her against her trepidations, and she felt the defenses within her fall under his campaign of touch.
“So lovely,” Encarmine growled. War itself was tending to her. “Something terrible touching something so pure…” he spread her bathing robe, lathering her chest, his hands forsaking the sponge and soaping her arms and armpits, pulling her wrists back. Celestine fell into the wonder of his embrace. It was fire.
Like anyone, she sometimes longed for a different body. A different heft, a different flesh.The hair another girl had. The eyes.
In this place, all that vanished. Celestine felt Encarmine’s hands, so impossibly strong and rough, scaling against her smooth flesh to the bones in her hips. His body was hot like a furnace, and she opened her eyes to see his wet skin, browned and muscled and glistening with steam and sweat.
Celestine spread her legs, her quim yearning for touch. Encarmine took his time, teasing her and coaxing her. She squirmed, reaching down to ease herself but he stopped it.
“Do not presume to touch that which is mine by right.” The demigod stared down at her. The clit hardened under his words. The steam and magic of the moment bathed her.
“Take it,” Celestine murmured. "Take my crest now."
If my realm saw me now… I’m not ready, but gods, I don’t care.
"My prizes are won, not given or stolen,” Encarmine growled, the force of his voice enough to flatten her. Her heart raced.
His hand traced down her hip to her pubis, over the bathing cloth flattened against her hair. “But I rule what I conquer.” His fingers slid down into her lips, to her swollen clit, and when he touched her, finding her mark, her weakness, she jolted at the rapture of it.
“Encarmine,” Celestine huffed the words. It was so hot in here, the steam, the heat.
He petted her slowly. Encarmine stood beside her, standing up straight, working her, teasing her. Celestine writhed and tried to sit up, but within a moment, his hand was at her throat.
“Take your payment, Final Bride,” Encarmine rumbled.
“Yes,” Celestine groaned.
His hand was firm against her throat. He did not threaten her life. He simply held it in his hands. Encarmine stopped touching her, and he reached down, bringing forth a steaming pitcher of gold.
“What is…” Celestine’s question died on her lips when the sensation struck her. Hot oil, rich with the scent of lavender and mirkwood, flowed over her body. Across her chest and breasts, around his thick arm, and hand at her throat. He poured it lower, across her belly, mound, legs, and feet. She felt a liquid blanket enveloping her flesh, clinging to her and not falling or sliding away.
“Your payment,” Encarmine whispered, and now he picked her up, the oil of her body pressing against his massive chest and torso. She was a doll being moved around. Encarmine turned her over. Never ceasing his grip on her throat.
The demigod lowered her head down to the bathing table, raising her rear up. Like a peasant thrust over the cart at the hands of a conquering soldier.
Encarmine tore the fine silk from her body. The sound of it ripping made her tremble in anticipation. She eased back, begging to be filled. To be taken. Held down, split open. Those dark needs she felt so often in her bedchamber at night. The whisper within her when she heard terrible stories that disgusted, yet excited her.
“Good girl.” Encarmine now traced his left hand, like a claw, along her back. “You are so brave. Little Bride. ”
“Lord Encarmine…” Celestine moaned. “Please, take me.” His hand held her face down on the bathing table. The lips of her quim so open for his view.
His hand stopped along the lower edges of her back. Hot oil slid down her backside, pooling around her pouting cunt.
“Silence,” Encarmine ordered. His hand left her, and before she could protest his absence, he spanked her oiled cheeks roughly. She cried out.
His onslaught continued. He held her down, pinioning her, exposing her, as he spanked her with measured control again. And again.
“Pleaaaase…” Celestine groaned.
Encarmine’s thick finger slid past the ring of muscle that was her rear, prodding it slightly, and she backed up against his absolute control, seeking to have any part of him in any part of her. But he deflected from her, sliding lower, pinching her swollen lips, spreading them, the heat of the oil and his fingers so rough and calloused until he slid them back and forth across her bare nub, teasing her clit and now focusing solely on it.
“Give it to me,” Encarmine commanded. Celestine slid back and forth across his fingers, swirls of euphoria racing up her midriff.
He spanked her again. Teasing her ass, touching her there. Then to her cunt again, this time furiously, swirling and slapping and rubbing violently until she was grunting.
I turn into a beast in his arms, a wanton little whore, and all I want is more.
Encarmine's touch was electrifying, his hand on the back of her neck bending and spreading her in a way that awakened new sensations within her.
He ceased when she was close to her edge. Before she could protest, he released her.
“Step into the tub.”
Celestine rose, losing the last tatters of the bathing robe. It was her turn to withstand a fever that encased her entire body. Twenty years of being alone, never touched for fear of the wrath of her father, it all came crashing down within her demanding more.
Celestine locked eyes with Encarmine as she stepped into the tub. The water was hot, near scalding. It’s heat seeped into her calves.
Encarmine walked forth, eyes fixed upon her. Nearly seven feet tall.
Celestine leaned forward, eager for a kiss. It would make this proper. Make it… less feral.
Red eyes stared into hers. “Taste has not been earned.” And from the tone of his voice she knew she was about to be punished.
Encarmine’s hand was at her throat, the other shot between her legs, and he lifted her with his forearm like a grappler back onto the bathing table. Muscle rippled in his forearm, and he pushed her down until she sat on the edge of the table, his arm gripping the porcelain behind her, rising to meet her quim.
Encarmine stared into her eyes. They were close enough to kiss.
Impishly, she pressed her quim upon his arm. He spanked her.
“Ride.”
Celestine slid back, then forth, the lips of her cunt swirling and unfolding upon his bone and muscle. She shuddered, and he spanked her again, her buttock stinging.
“Ride,” he commanded.
Celestine eyed him and smiled. She placed her arms around his neck, like a lover at a dance, and he nearly pulled from her, but she did not go further to kiss him. Celestine would be good. She would obey. She would not overreach.
She rode upon his arm. Like she had with her silken pillows in the late evenings or her own hand.
But now she sat, oiled and bruised and bathed, and slid her cunt back and forth across his immortal flesh, the scars and edges of him. His circlet emanated heat, and red eyes stared into her as he rode faster and faster, sliding up and down, using his neck as leverage.
Encarmine stared at her like a tyrant gazing upon his freshly won realm, and she shuddered as her climax danced for her in the distance. She picked up speed, fucking his arm, sliding across it, her nipples hard and so exposed in the steam-soaked air.
“Good girl,” Encarmine growled. He withdrew his hand again as her climax neared. “Undress me.”
Celestine fell off the table in a frantic greed of lust that would have shamed her to even think of. She dashed the buckle of his war belt aside, pulling at his breeches, where the firmness in his groin threatened her behind the cloth. She tugged the pants down, the lines of his abdomen and waist so cut and lean but large. She saw the edge of his pubic hair, close-cropped like the hair on his head, and finally, as she found herself biting her lip, the edge of his manhood.
Lower, lower she pulled, eyes fixated upon the growing line of flesh, thick as her forearm, more and more, until his cock sprang free like a maul of war. His member was immense, thick, rising now in front of her face like a proud weapon waved in front of a frightened enemy.
Celestine gripped it, her single hand not even able to encircle it. He was as long as her forearm.
This could kill me, but how many maidens groaned upon this terrible weapon…all I know is that there needs to be one more.
The musk of his cock, the heavy hang of his balls, she inhaled it, lifting his massive member that grew harder and harder in his hands. She bent forward, needing to taste him. His head was dark purple now as he grew fully firm. She needed to gag on it.
Strong fingers grabbed her chin, breaking her spell. She looked up at him, at his discerning eyes.
“It is not earned,” he stated. “Step into the water, now.”
Celestine obeyed. Her eyes never left his cock. She wanted it. She wanted to be ruined upon a horse cart, a village around her in flames, while he strode into her.
She sank into the water, and her Lord of Red followed, massive and tall, his swollen member turgid and straight as the water rose around him.
Celestine swam forward, over his foot and shin, to his thigh muscle.
Encarmine regarded her. “You will be paid in touch only, Celestine.”
Celestine nodded. She reached forward, grabbing his member under the water. “Let me taste it, lord. Let me break upon it.”
“No.”
Celestine reached down, touching herself, and rose out of the water. Encarmine sat deeper into the water, his frame so large that only his legs were covered.
“Serve me, now.” Encarmine nodded to the pitcher of oil at the edge of the tub. She reached for it eagerly, the metal hot to the touch and burning her, but she withstood it and poured it upon his beautiful cock.
Encarmine sat back. He unlaced the token of touch upon his wrist and beckoned her forth. Within a moment, his deft hands tied the red cloth around her neck like a leash.
“Ride me, prize.” Encarmine drew her towards him. She settled around the meat of his thigh, sinking her legs lower into the water, sliding upon him now. Celestine was his property at this moment, a prize of war, of duels and conquests.
Her hands fell upon his manhood, oiled and hot, so hard she could feel every ridge, every vein.
“Good girl,” he praised her, holding her leash tighter. “Now milk my seed from me, Little Bride.”
“Yes, Lord.” Celestine ground against him, free at last to pursue. He raised his leg slightly, and she slid her lips up and down the oiled muscle of his thigh.
She glided her hands over his manhood, reaching down to his pouch, even dancing around the edges of his muscled rim.
“Harder, girl.” Encarmine growled.
A spank came slicing through the bathwater. She groaned. Her cunt was frantic as she rode against him, holding his cock like the horn of a saddle on her strong gallop.
“Now stroke me,” Encarmine growled. Celestine obeyed, grinding and sliding both hands up and down the length of him. His cockhead turned darker, the glisten of his pre-release shining for her.
“Good,” Encarmine moaned. “Good. You’re such a good little bride, Celestine.”
“Yes, Lord,” Celestine murmured, lost in her fever of milking him.
“How wet was your quim when I nearly slew that dog of the Brown Banners?”
“I was excited, my lord.”
Encarmine yanked at the cloth around her throat. “Answer me.”
“I,” Celestine stuttered. “I wanted it, my lord. I wanted you.” She felt his cock between her hands and groaned.
“What did you want?” he demanded, pulling her leash closer. A tremor laced up her quim, to the small of her back.
“You.” Celestine admitted. “To break upon you.”
Encarmine smiled now, regarding her. They were creatures of lust. He a demigod of battle and now pushing her, like his legions of soldiers, to exert everything.
“Such a proper girl of the Painted Realms. Milk me, Celestine. I know the harlot’s lust in your heart.” He smiled, then his eyes narrowed.
“Yes,” Celestine murmured, the leash going looser in his hand. She rode and rode, plunging her hands up and down to the base of him and the head of his cock. Her climax approached like the thunder of cavalry, and Encarmine groaned. The bathing room around her slid away, and she heard the din of battle in the distance.
Celestine raced, sliding up and down his leg.
“I’m going to-” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I’m coming, my Lord,” Celestine cried out.
Encarmine held her now as she ground and shuddered upon his thigh.
“Yes,” Encarmine encouraged her. “Break upon me.”
Celestine couldn’t speak, she felt like she was falling, seizing…her quim mashed against his leg, sliding to his hip as she fell, and he caught her in his arms.
“Encarmine,” Celestine whispered. Her left hand still held the head of his cock. He smiled, wrapping an arm around her.
“Touch has been paid.”
Celestine wanted to kiss him so badly, but knew he wouldn’t permit it. She looked down at his throbbing manhood in her hands, monstrous and wonderful. She raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s settle the scales.”
She slid back, proud in her fury upon him, and he rose from the bath to sit on the tub, displaying himself for her. She oiled and stroked and gripped him, holding his cock with her left hand, squeezing as hard as she could, and slid over his tip and shaft as fast as she could.
“Give me your seed, my Lord, give it to me.” Celestine pleaded
Encarmine stood suddenly, towering above her. Her hands went skyward as he stood over her. He dripped water and oil. He groaned and shuddered, a beast of war above her as she milked and milked, her entire body exerting itself , gripping him, holding him back, stroking him faster and faster.
“Yes,” Encarmine growled. Celestine looked up at him, licking her lips to show her desire.
Such a fire.
His cock flexed in her hand. His seed erupted in pearled rope after rope, cresting her face, her lip, her shoulder, and across her chest. Encarmine roared, but Celestine braved him, drawing every drop from his cock. There was so much, she was fixated on drawing him forth.
Finally, he ceased spasming. Encarmine groaned and fell back into the water. His come felt like fire on her flesh.
He stared at her, knowing she wanted to taste it. She opened her mouth and slid her tongue towards his seed upon her cheek. He stopped her.
“It is not earned, Celestine.” Burning eyes stared into her. She nodded.
“Now rub it into your flesh. My seed will be the armor on you.”
Celestine stood. She moved her hips and form for him, rubbing the come all over her chest, to her breasts and nipples, and down her hips and over her cleft. It felt smooth, wondrous… and her heart beat faster as if it were some great drug. Her muscles felt solid, like wood; she felt like she could fight three men and win, and she felt proud to adorn herself in his spilled seed.
“I have earned this prize.” Celestine felt the seed drying upon her. It felt illicit. Shameful… and so very earned. She removed the cloth from her neck and held it to him.
Encarmine took it and wrapped it around his wrist again. They stared at one another, and she bent down, sliding into his lap, his massive arms curling around her, both their bodies spent. She felt him stir again, hardening against her rear as he held her just as he had carried her to this place.
Thus, the Touch was paid.