Chapter 7 #2
I’m thankful it was a beautiful woman who brought me back and not some old witch or warlock.
Not the religious figure who summoned Itrimort.
Sating my needs in exchange for help would have been off the table.
In fact, I’ve never exchanged sexual favors before.
This summoner was too divinely exquisite to pass up the chance.
Emeline’s body softens. The night is cool but sweat coats the skin of my yellow-haired maiden. She cannot see my face, so she does not see my fingers dip between my lips to clean off every taste of her.
Tied up and helpless is a dangerously alluring look on her. She can’t rise, can’t fight me off without her hands. If I chose, I could slide my cock down her throat, fuck her until the scarecrow’s pole cracks behind her neck. I seriously consider it.
She gazes up at me, a strangely contented look that none proffer while in my terrifying presence. Instead, I praise her as I untie her from the scarecrow’s pole. “You did well.”
She melts, sliding to the ground. “What demon magic was that?” Her panting is most endearing.
I did all the work. Still, she collapses, lying flat on her back.
“My abdomen. It cramped, or some strange sensation…” The right words do not come.
Her thighs rub together and I can imagine she’s replaying the memory of her climax.
My grin spreads. She’s never come before, either.
“Twas no magic. Mortals can make those things happen, too.”
She scoffs. “That simply cannot be true.”
“Oh, the things I can do to you, Emeline. Like I said, a taste was required for me and a taste is what was given to you. There is much, much more where that came from.”
Crimson crawls up her neck and those hazel eyes stare up at me, glazed with desire. “You are not headless. Just invisible.”
“Correct.” I slide my glove back on.
“I can only see your body because you’re wearing clothes. If you wore a hood or hat—” She struggles to get up, rolling to her side before pushing into a seated position.
“You would see my head, yes. But I do not wish to hide behind clothes. I desire a visible body and head. That is what you will give to me next.”
“First you will help me. You gave your word.”
“I did. Bring me those you wish to see punished and I will keep my word.”
She frowns. “It’s late into the night.”
“Are there not men guarding the border of the woods?” It’s a rhetorical question. I can sense them, their energy pulsing just beyond the tree line.
“Yes, the members of the Lamb’s Golden Light have taken up shifts to guard the town from witches.”
“Perfect. Bring them to me.”
“It won’t be that easy. I haven’t any clothes, and the men—”
“Your lack of clothes is precisely why they will follow you. Lure them into the woods with a song. Your voice was powerful enough to summon me from another dimension.”
“But how—”
“No more questions,” I snap. “Go before I change my mind.”
Emeline
I’ve already started walking toward the edge of the woods when I turn back. “Horseman?”
“Are you unaware of the meaning of no more questions, nightingale?”
“I understand the meaning. I just, after what just happened, such intimate moments, I feel I should know your name? Do you have another name?”
He stiffens. “That question I will allow. Before I was The Horseman, they called me Fierdon.”
I nod. I still can’t see any sort of mouth.
The lips he speaks with are completely invisible.
Turning back toward the trees, my steps are slow as I think of that mouth.
It’s hard to believe his tongue was able to make me convulse.
I had some sort of seizure, surely. But the way it felt, like lightning rushing throughout my body.
A storm of euphoria. Butterflies in forbidden places.
The way it burned through me, all at once.
“Don’t let your mind wander too far, nightingale, or you won’t make it past the pumpkin patch without me inside of you once more.”
I hurry my pace, ears burning. Was I that obvious?
He calls out, “And next time you’ll get far more than a tongue between those thighs.”
My cheeks are so hot I may be consumed by the heat. How dare he say things like that. The impropriety is enough to make me…make me feel very odd things down low.
I’m still pondering the strange and wonderful things he made me feel when the first member of the Lamb’s Golden Light comes into view. I can’t make out his face from here, but whoever he is, he’s not alone. Two others approach him.
Good Lord, am I really going to sing, completely naked, in the haunted woods, in the middle of the night?
Singing has always been something that brings me comfort.
Soothing my nerves in challenging times.
Leed used to call me his little songbird.
Thinking of him makes my ire rekindle. I’m anxious and uncomfortable, but those feelings are nothing compared to the suffering those women endured while being tortured, hanged, and burned alive.
Toughen up, Emeline. You’ve been passive all your life. It’s time to grow a backbone.
I can’t think of a song, though I must know a hundred or more. Clearing my throat, I breathe deeply, and allow new words to flow from me.
“Come to my voice,
hear it lovely and bright.
The moon shines so fully,
at this time of night.”
All three men whirl toward the sound. They rush forward, rifles drawn.
Another three race toward the woods from the south, bringing the total to six.
My adrenaline spikes. This is it. I’m going to be caught and charged with witchcraft.
By morning, I’ll be swinging from the hanging tree or burnt to a crisp on the edge of town.
But as I continue to sing, their movements slow.
“Come to my voice,
Such things we can do.
Hidden away in the woods,
Me and you.”
Their guns lower. All six stand there, mouths hanging wide, completely entranced. Is this really working? Turning, I walk slowly back toward the pumpkin patch.
“Come to my voice,
I’ve a secret to tell,
Deep in the trees,
Where all shadows do dwell.”
I’m almost back to the scarecrow. There’s no sign of Fierdon. All six men have followed me and are standing just feet away.
“Come to my voice,
A surprise waits for thee,
So follow, yes, follow,
And soon you will see.”
When my song stops, that glazed look in their eyes clears. One lifts his rifle. My heart beats so hard that I mistake it for the distant sounds now growing in volume. But it is not my pounding heart that fills the still night air. It is the pounding of hooves.
“What’s that sound?” one man asks, panicky.
I see Fierdon before the others. I’m immediately swept up in the dark whimsy of him as he barrels through the woods on that skeletal stallion.
Their attentions cut away from me and toward the darkened tree line. I smile despite my fear. “The Horseman approaches.”