Author's Notes:
I want to reiterate that this story is not new. I wrote it in 2014. I'm just now posting it up, however. Rest assured I haven't dropped my W.I.P. stories to tackle this one. In fact, by the end of February, I think those who read most of my other W.I.P. stories will be quite pleased.
Also, a HUGE thank you to FF user "HDan" for correcting my Turkish. This chapter is dedicated to you, HDan! :)
Hermione watches Bill move around her bedchambers with the slow, assured grace of a predator, and feels close to experiencing her first bout of vapours.
Her gaze is pinned to him as he pauses here and there about the room to touch various adornments earlier left by his sister and mother on the room's furniture, its window ledge, and the large linen chest that lies at the foot of the massive bed. He seems particularly curious of the individual stems of flowers, autumn wheat, and hawthorn berries that had once been a part of her bouquet, bringing several pieces to his nose to scent.
"M-my lord, perhaps this pagan custom would be better to...to pass over," she entreats him a second time to turn aside his absurd idea.
William doesn't answer, instead bringing a late-blooming garden rose close to his face to examine.
"'Twould be a kindness to mine husband, your brother, to leave this night to him," she tries again.
He glances at her from the corner of his eye and plucks the petals off the flower in his hand. "Did you know I can taste the rush of your blood in the air as a steady pulse against my tongue?" he asks, and tosses the rose's soft layers onto the bed coverlet. He does the same with a red Dahlia, and then with a small bunch of Sternbergia, scattering their colourful, soft petals everywhere. "I hear your heart a-pounding the war cadence between your ribs? Its power enchants my soul."
He moves around the wooden frame towards her, his intentions set. "Yet, it is not fear I see in your eyes, my lady." He stands before her, barely a breath between them as he reaches up to caress her shoulder. "I see desire in the set of your mouth, in the heaving of your bosom, and in the apples of your lovely cheeks." He leans his mouth towards her ear and whispers, "I smell it blooming like sweet, ripe fruit between your milk-soft legs." His hand skims down her arm, and he grabs her wrist, bringing it to the centre of her femininity. Guiding her hand, he pushes against her core. "Puis-je toucher?"
Hermione stiffens. Her mother's tutoring did not include the reading of letters, but it did encompass the speaking of French, as well as Latin. She understands well his meaning. "Non," she replies, jerking his hand away.
William laughs, delighted by her rebelliousness. "French is not to your liking? Mayhaps Ottoman Turk will move you instead? Dokunabilir miyim? No? How about… Hadd érintse meg? Do you not find Hungarian alluring?"
Fiercely, she shakes her long, lion's mane of hair where it falls, freely, having been removed from its wimple and plait by her mother earlier.
"Perchance it is only in our native tongue that you will respond. Very well." His hands smooth a line from her hips to her breasts, cupping them in his large palms. "May I touch? May I know how soft a heaven you are?"
Even as she trembles at his proximity, and at his wicked, lyrical words, and how his thumbs lightly caress her nipples, Hermione's pride stands firm. "Not only a Baron who exercises absolute dominion over his vassals, or a hardened soldier for Christ, but a poet of many languages as well. How gifted you are, m'lord."
He presses his advantage and rubs harder. "Saucy wench. Many lords would take a strap to a shrew mistress, but I confess that it is a favourite quality of mine in a fine woman. It proves her vitality."
Hermione slaps his hands away. "I am no mere sheath for your dagger!"
Undeterred, his fingers roam over her hips instead. "You are, my dereworthy heart…and it is time to prove as much."
He pulls the side lacing of her wedding bliaut free.
As a frightened bird attempting freedom from a net, Hermione flaps her arms and manages to dislodge her captor's hold. Stumbling back, she hastens to get away, but William moves with an unnatural speed and before she can utter a scream, she is on her back in the bed and the Baron Cranmere is atop her.
She can barely draw breath against the heat of his body, which radiates like the sun against her skin. His chest brushes against hers and their legs entangle. He leans into her, pressing her deeply into the wool mattress with his heavier form, and his fingers wrap around her wrists, holding her captive.
Turning her head, she closes her eyes, waiting for the business to be done and praying she has the strength not to enjoy it.
Her Lord does not shove her skirts to her waist to get on with it, however, but instead pauses a moment. "Maid, look to me," he whispers, and it is a coaxing, tender plea her body cannot resist answering, no matter her mind's resolve. She peeks through her lashes at him and he rewards her with a chaste kiss to the tip of her nose. "Do not fear me, Hermione, my love."
My love.
Her heart thumps wildly in her chest as she watches him slowly shift a hand, raising it towards her face. With light caresses he traces the contours of her cheeks, her brow and her jaw and with an unexpected gentleness. He even smoothes a stray hair from her cheek.
Fire burns through her blood with every stroke of his fingers over her hot skin. Her eyes close again as she absorbs the delight William provides.
According to her mother, 'tis a sinful weakness that females have e'er been creatures to revel in the wonder of touch. Hermione cannot see as how that it true, as the feel of grass against her bare legs, of the soil under her feet, of the rushing chill of a stream's water through her fingers, of the softness of flower petals against her cheek, of the moon's soft light bathing her body...these things have made her feel alive as no scent, no taste, no sight, no sound ever has. As she walks the fields, lays in the grass, feels the wind and the rain against her skin, and feels the occasional crackle of energia on her fingertips, she e'er believes herself a nymph bathing in the love of God's creation. To be so blessed from on high can only be good, can it not?
Lady Weasley has told her in soft whispers that this type of pleasure is an ancient and powerful magic that exists solely between woman and earth that men do not share, cannot know. It is sacred femininity, a thing of beauty and secret. This she is inclined to believe, and to water with her mother!
Hermione feels that same power from her earth-bond now, as she lays limp under William's touch. He smells of forests and highlands, and he looms over her the same as winter's coming, and the tickle of energia that follows wherever he strokes leaves her heavy heart pounding.
There is no fear now, only wild need. It begins to consume her, inch by inch, until her thighs tremble and her breasts ache and her hips writhe. Until she does not remember who she is, only what she hungers for and how that lust consumes her.
"Nay, I do not fear you, William," she admits with a breathless sigh, opening her eyes to meet her lord's. "'Tis myself I fear."
A slow, masculine smile turns his mouth up at the corner and he watches her with a half-lidded intensity filled with knowledge.
They lay there together in the hushed, private room, with only half a dozen beeswax candles flickering, golden tongues to keep the darkness at bay, and Hermione knows then that she has sealed her fate with her confession and with the intimacy of speaking the Baron's given name in the same breath.
Her stomach ties into knots, and she bites her bottom lip, a part of her—the good, loyal wife—returns to the forefront of her mind, bringing with it the hollowness of regret and guilt, and making her wish fervently she could take it back. The other part of her, however—the awakening woman—dares her to speak the desires of her heart.
William's fingertips slip across her cheek and gently release the skin of her bottom lip from the hold of her teeth. He lingers there, considering her mouth, and she wonders what devilish thoughts he is contemplating next.
His finger slowly slides into her mouth and back out. He repeats the motion, and again.
"I will have all of you, Hermione," he promises her, his wolfish eyes darkening with his greed once more. "Even this."
She does not understand his meaning, but a moan of longing escapes her as he withdraws his finger.
He stares into her eyes as he traces the bow of her mouth, and she is unable to turn away. What is this mysterious hold he has over her? Why does her very soul tremble when their gazes meet, when their hands brush, when his mouth forms her name?
"I claim Droit du seigneur," he whispers and nips at her bottom lip. His lips graze her chin, her cheek, her mouth. "I am your Lord. Submit to me. Be mine as you were meant to be. Let the wild have you."
He kisses her then, fully with parted mouth, thrusting his wet, hungry tongue against hers. Hermione's limbs shudder and her body flushes with a thousand lashes of heat, and there is that sudden, yet familiar tingling of energia in her fingertips again. It crackles and snaps against her flesh, much as it had earlier, within the circle of oaks.
Pleasure such as she has never known abruptly caresses her from head to toe and she finds her mouth opening willingly for her lord. Each pull of his lips unleashes her bit by bit, until her tongue is eagerly coaxed into dancing with his. An animal-like lust strongly grips her heart as their limbs and mouths and fingers tangle, and Hermione has an inexplicable longing to throw off her clothing, to run through the meadow beyond the castle, out into the dark forest and beyond, with William at her side.
So powerful is the call, her body bucks and her thighs part...
He falls into her crevice and yanks at the side of her nightdress, ripping the sleeves from her shoulders to release her breasts from their captivity. He captures a mound in his palm as she spills free of her human trappings, and his fingers massage it with an expert touch.
"Give unto me," he whispers, lowering his head to her throat to nip the sensitive skin along where her blood's pulse races. "Give unto the magic between us."
His tongue laps over her skin, making her toes curl. Hermione pulls at his renewed hold upon her wrists, her fingers yearning to touch him, but he tightens his grip, keeping her his captive, his indomitable will imprisoning her as effectively as chains. Her body arches as the need within her loins grows hotter, more restless. Her breasts strain as her nipples are abraded by the roughness of her linen mantle. Its softness, too, stands as a barrier to her freedom.
The summoning becomes a powerful compulsion upon her, and her struggles increase. She must be unbound, allowed to run, to feel the magic of the world beneath her straining body, to find a place where the grass is soft and the earth cool. The desire to lie back and spread her legs, to let William mount her, enter her, unite with her under the moon and with only the wind and the stars as witness pulls at her more strongly than any commandment.
It is only when she recognises that it is her mouth producing those awful, dog-like whining noises that she abruptly remembers who she is and returns to herself.
"What have you done to me?" she cries, terrified by such inhuman desires as rush through her. "What is this devilry?"
His lids lower again, hiding fathomless eyes the same mysterious blue of the twilight welkin. He turns his head and runs his mouth across the bottom of her jaw, pauses over her sensitive ear. "It is not evil, what you feel. It is your nature, passed to you by your ancestors who came from far away across the continent to settle this island. Their blood has survived the ages, and you...you are the last of them. Your connection to the earth's magic and to Mother Moon are your birth right. Did you not feel it while you stood within the circle of oaks on this most sacred of nights?"
He nips her tender earlobe. She gasps at the exquisite sensation that runs through her body and her fingers clench into fists.
"You are a daughter of Hecate, goddess of magic...and I am a son of Lycaon, the deceiver. I am the cursed wolf, bound to your moon."
She cries out as he bites down over her pulse, sinking deep and bleeding her, infecting her with his passion-fever. At the same instant, he releases one of her wrists and cups her breast, kneading it and seeking out her nipple to pluck it as casually as he had the flower petals earlier.
The pleasure consumes Hermione's senses and she moans again, arching against him.
"You are mine, and I am yours," he tempts her as his mouth lifts to her ear again, pinching and pulling until she is taut and aching for more.
Hurriedly he dips his mouth to encompass her nipple within the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. Pleasure o'ertakes her senses. It is all-encompassing, such that she barely feels the pull of her skirts or notices William's hurried movements at his waist. She feels his fingers delve between her legs, seeking out the font of her womanhood and breaching the damp flesh to test her readiness. Her thighs widen further of their own accord, her body strains for this man who is not her husband, but something else...something altogether perfectly wicked.
William's lips release her breast, but his smile stretches with satisfaction against her throat. "You feel it, at long last—the call to be mine."
She shudders as his finger enters her body and he moves it in an out to an enticing rhythm that has her hips willingly moving to meet him.
"Do not do this to me!" she pleads, knowing she is already lost.
"I do nothing, but bring pleasure to you, my mate."
Mate.
Yes, that is the whispered word that has eluded her, skimming across her mind and heart and body since William's return from Crusade.
Mate.
It is this feeling of belonging to him that has haunted her each time their eyes have met across a room, or the sensation that follows her as she walks past him through the bailey, or in the hall, or on the stairs.
Mate.
It is the truth that binds her to him, and makes her forsake Ronald and her vows and everything holy. She desires him unto madness, and the call is too powerful to resist any longer.
Hermione lifts her hips, the word, "please" a continuous prayer upon her lips. William answers her entreaty with a growl of triumph. Raising his body over hers, he tucks in against her wetness, brushing through her wet curls again and again in a rocking motion that makes her flush with heat.
"Now," he whispers, and pushes into her body, sealing their fates.
Hermione cries out—in shock, in relief, and in joy. There is pain, but underneath it, a veil of pure pleasure ascends, as translucent as white silk and as inviting as flame.
Her body accommodates her Lord's claim quickly, opening for him and gripping tightly to his thick, hard flesh. The crisp hairs shrouding her core brush against his as he shifts slightly to go even deeper, to the very heart of her, making her shiver.
Seated to the hilt within her at last, he stills for but a moment, allowing her a small respite from his love-making.
She holds her breath. They share no words, only the passage of feeling as their eyes meet and their lips touch. His gaze is filled with blue storm and gold thunder, with passion tightly leashed but desire exposed. Sweat shines at his brow and above his lip, and with a small shake his long, crimson hair falls forward creating a curtain of privacy for them. Released from his imprisonment, she lifts her hands to it and allows her fingers to play with the soft, vibrant strands, realising how very different it is from her own mud-earthen curls.
Man and woman, as different as the oak and the sun, as the wheat and the apple, and yet this mating feels to her as if it were Heaven-sanctioned, even in its sin.
"Breed me," she whispers on a small wing of sound.
William hears her plea and obeys. Moving slowly, he pulls his hips back until Hermione is empty and aching for him to return, and then he slides forward again doing as she silently wills, uniting their flesh once more—relieving her need. Repeating the motion time and again, he soon sets a steady rhythm that matches the beating of her heart and leaves her dizzy and slightly faint.
As his pace quickens, William's breath becomes as heavy as his body, coaxing a lovely tension to life within her belly. The curve of his thrusting hips is all she can see when she glances down between their straining forms, but she feels that even as they pull apart, they are as one, locked together in their mutual lust. The coil of heat within her burns brightly as the bed shakes beneath her and the need swells.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she arches into the dance, lets William take as he pleases...and in doing, receives such pleasure that she cries tears of joy from it.
The mating culminates in their flesh bathed in sweat, smelling of wet sex. With a roar of satisfaction, William is suddenly pulsing heat within her, and her body quakes the moment he finishes, as if the earth itself moves her and moon douses her in its silvery fire. She sobs his name as her spirit escapes towards the blanket of stars far above.
Her lover's mouth devours hers and his hands caress her as he brings her back down. In the aftermath, William vows it is far from over between them, that this is just their beginning.
Under the moon's sway and the night's magic, there in her earthly bed, surrounded by the scent of late-blooming roses and Samhain apples and Allentide harvest, Hermione discovers that he speaks truly again…and again.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes:
Again, reminder: this is not a romance fic. It is a DARK FIC.
Please review!