Chapter I
~ The Sunset Beckons Danger ~
Crimson stood near the bank of Lake Karlberg watching the artillery, and naval forces, as they prepared for the pursuits of war. She listened to the distant sounds of cavalry that thundered from outlying villages, forests, mountains and gorges to unite with sail-fleets in defense of her homeland, Sweden. She secretly applauded the regiments of pike men making their way towards Stockholm, then to Denmark, Holstein or Gottorp. The pike men were supposedly ceremonial, but she knew the real reason why the tips of their pikes were made of wood; why the soldiers carried wooden stakes on their ox-leather waist belts and wore pure silver crosses around their necks. She knew why the other soldiers felt the pike was far more honorable and useful than the musket, especially during the shadows of dusk.
Crimson leaned against ‘their’ willow tree and daydreamed under closed eyelids while she mindlessly tore the petals from a pinkish-white Twinflower, “Loves me. Loves me not.” The harvested petals twirled on the southerly wind and pirouetted as a troupe of suspended ballerina’s across the surface of the lake. Then came the answer of chance, only one petal left and for the moment, it was settled: “Loves me.”
Slow, and as thick as honey, the pale recollection transformed into to a vivid memory and took over her thoughts. The kisses shared between her and Viktor, of his roaming hands, his tender mouth, and his romantic words. God, his tongue is clever and tender, she thought as she languished in the daydream. The way he deepens every expression with perfect wording and tone.
Just weeks before, her passion, their passion, had assassinated the young boy inside Viktor and revealed the man. She knew she wanted more from Viktor. She wanted to be pushed to a threshold of pleasure, held in suspension until the very walls of her world caved in under the intense weight and threatened to suffocate any lucidity of realism. She wanted to be taken to the point where the world melted away. She thought of Viktor and savored the flashback. She had lost track of time, and dropped the spent Twinflower stem to the ground.
Fading rays of the sun serenaded the well-worn path along the lake, and Crimson knew the dangers of being caught outside the palace walls after sunset. At once, she mounted her chestnut gelding, dug her heels into his side and caused the steed to thunder toward the safety of the palace. She could feel the beast’s powerful strides as she balanced on his back and raced the setting sun; she dug deeper, demanding more speed.
The wind plunged under the collar of her shirt, fluttering the silk fabric against her flesh pink nipples. The top button loosened just enough to expose her left breast but she couldn’t stop, she dared not stop—the last of the sun’s rays danced on the horizon, soon it would be dark. Soon, danger would be about her like the encroaching shadows from which she raced away. More speed and the diamond necklace around her neck fell in rhythm, tapping the soft tissue under her chin and the reddened skin of her breastbone.
There’s an enigmatic level of excitement in racing the setting sun. There would only be one winner, and she was fearful she had stayed out too long. The horse’s gallop settled into a steady rhythm when suddenly, as she turned a bend on the path, the horse stopped, reared onto his hind legs, and tossed her to the ground.
Crimson got to her feet, brushed off the seat of her riding pants and noticed a silhouette of man on the shadowy part of the path. He collected the reins of her gelding and calmed the animal with a single touch to the animal’s forehead. The precious last rays of the sun dipped below the horizon and the path darkened. Danger awakened in the grave shadows and howled in the distance, sending shivers down her spine, and goose bumps ran up her arms. Every hair and nerve stood on end.
Crimson was about to thank him when she locked eyes with the stranger. A chill ran through her and she froze, which caught her off guard. She was of royal lineage, and although a secret, it afforded her a certain prowess, and she bowed to no man, certainly not some wandering commoner on a path. The momentary beliefs of her royal position shattered and the truth emerged—this was no commoner. She drew on trembling breath and strained to look away. “She knew what he was and he frightened her. Her entire body cringed. A veiled force restrained her emotions and actions. She couldn’t act or react and stood frozen in front of the stranger.
In an instant, faster than humanly possible, as if he was flesh one moment and vapor the next, the stranger was in front of her, caressing the soft tissue of her throat. She tried to pull away but couldn’t. He lifted her chin, exposing the soft, creamy flesh of her neckline.
“Why struggle?” he inquired before placing a tender kiss on the corner of her mouth. She had no answer, he was far too strong and she felt powerless to stop him. She affixed her hands over her neck, trying to protect herself and noticed her diamond necklace, the love-gift from Viktor, was missing. She tried to scream out for help, but her voice betrayed her.
The stranger smiled, tilted her head away from him. He easily lifted one finger, then the next, of her protective grasp, and kissed her naked throat. He could feel her pounding heart course right through him. Her rapid pulses and thumps made the collection of her sweet nectar that much easier.
Danger breathed new life, howled a resonating ecstasy deep into the dark forest as Crimson slipped into a mythical trance. She fell limp in his arms.
* * * *
Crimson woke in a foreign place with four chambermaids attending to her. She could vaguely remember any of her past. Visions and images appeared as notions of thought and little more. What she managed to recall came in and faded out leaving only the thinnest contours of memories. She fought to remember but her thoughts were scattered and riotous, she couldn’t rein them in and found it difficult to make judgments of place and time. She was unsure of the presence of her own body and it all seemed surreal. The oil lamps along the room’s walls bathed the bedroom chamber in a soft amber light as their black smoke pillowed out through open flues in the ceiling and Crimson felt she was little more than smoke.
She lay motionless, letting her eyes slowly fix on the interior of the room. The walls were covered with sexual art of men and women engaged in all manners of sexual pleasure. Statues of females anchored the room’s corners, the faint oil lamp light highlighted the softness of the naked female figure with their full bosoms, open mouths and closed eyelids frozen in time. They seemed to be in song. Two statues of men with particular attention paid to the phallus, framed the doorway. Many of the paintings and tapestries on the wall were of an erotic nature, and Crimson felt a strange feeling of subservience in the air.
The dampness of the room and the thudding echoes outside the door convinced her she was in the lower level of a castle or palace. She eyed the four women attending to her, looking for familiarity but didn’t find any. She was lost and drifted like a dove’s breath in this new reality. She wasn’t sure if she should be in the bedchamber or not and softly asked, “Where am I?” Her question went unanswered. The chambermaids moved as hummingbirds tending to a new flower. Crimson was left only to wonder.
It wasn’t until the chambermaid to her left sponged jasmine and lemon scented water across her neck that she recalled being bitten on the path. The water stung the two bite marks where the fangs had taken blood and the memory of the path, of the dark, of the stranger, rushed back to her. She examined her mouth with her tongue, felt the slightest sharpness of her incisors and sank into the pillow in despair. She closed her eyes, wanting to escape.
A chambermaid massaged rose oil deep into her skin while the other two shaved her legs and pubis. They all hummed as they tenderly worked on her naked body. Crimson struggled. She tried to sit up but leather straps bound her wrists and held her in place. The nearest chambermaid reached out with her finger and pressed them to Crimson’s lips, “Shush,” she suggested.
The chambermaid to her left asked, “My lady, have you ever been taken?”
“What do you mean?” Crimson asked as she examined the straps around one wrist debating whether the struggle was worth it. She wondered if she could breach the shackles, and what she would do if she could.
“By a man, have you been taken? Do you have carnal knowledge?”
Crimson nodded her head, yes, and tried to hold onto the memory when it surfaced, but it slipped away to hide in the heavy shadows of her amnesia. Yet, somehow, she knew it was her most treasured memory and fought to bring it to the surface. She vaguely recalled the day at the lake during the spring. It seemed so distant now. Her thoughts more of a hazy collection of feelings than a memory, but the power of it was full enough to allow the escape.
She went back in time to where she and Viktor were under a large willow tree. They were both eighteen but he was far too eager to become a man and was clumsy and quick. His kisses were too hurried and his hands were lumbering. She was disappointed in the haste of the clandestine tryst and wasn’t even sure he did it right. She didn’t climax, but the encounter felt right to her heart, and she felt a connection to Viktor. She was willing to give him more and more chances to please her. “Yes, by Viktor.” She delivered the answer on a soft reminiscent breath.
“I see, and how old is Viktor?” the chambermaid asked as she massaged rose oil on Crimson’s forearm and wrist. The other chambermaids stopped humming and waited for the answer.
“Eighteen.”
“Ah, just a boy. Tonight you will be taken by a man.”
“I’ve been bitten, haven’t I?” Crimson asked as she eyed the woman closest to her.
“Yes, by Kieran, my lady.”
“Am I?”
“No, you’re not a vampire. You’re a vampeel, half human, half vampire. Try to hold on to your memories, as they will try to escape. Just lie back and remember all that was important to you. We’ll get you ready for the bid.”
“For the bid?” Crimson asked, afraid of the answer.
Just then, the door creaked open and Crimson watched Kieran enter the room. Crimson recognized him from the path and her heart began to thump in her chest. She tried to pull her knees to her chest, tried to pull the bed covers up over her to conceal her naked body but couldn’t. She felt exposed and vibrant at the same time.
In the doorway, Kieran was tall and muscular. His black hair framed his face and flowed to his shoulders where it disappeared into a silhouette. His white shirt draped his muscular frame and she could make out the hard contours of his chest, shoulders, and arms underneath. In his black leather pants, she could see the shape of his cock tucked along his left thigh and her mouth watered just a bit. She pushed away the thought even though it flooded her body with just a suggestion of excitement. Helpless, she closed her eyes, trying her best to disappear.
“Is she ready?” Kieran asked the lead chambermaid.
“Yes.” The chambermaids answered in unison.
“Very well, she is beautiful and the bidders will trip over themselves to have her.”
Kieran waved the chambermaids to the side of the room. Kieran approached her and Crimson felt even more naked without the buffer of her new companions, and again struggled against the straps. He sat on the bed near her hips.
Crimson looked away to the far wall. She found a tapestry of a couple engaged in oral sex, the subjects seemed to come to life and she could hear the distant moans of their sultry and fearless mouths. She tilted her hips away from him and defensibly asked, “Do you know who I am?” Her body seemed to crave him and she didn’t know how to deal with the sensation.
“Yes, you’re Crimson, lineage to Sweden and sister of Princess Sophia,” Kieran answered as he leaned toward her and placed his left hand on her shoulder. His right hand rested on the inside of her thigh, just above her knee. He whispered, “Listen, you’ll be presented for the bid soon. The chambermaids will offer you fluid and I suggest you consume it.” He ran his hand up her leg and her flesh quivered. She felt her flesh had a mind of its own and that her body had become a traitor. She was in a state of dismay when her body rotated, making her breast available to him, to his view, to his hands, to his mouth. He kissed the outside of her breast and his hand glided over her oiled hips and rested on her fluttering stomach.
Crimson looked into his caramel colored eyes and became mesmerized but he broke away, stood, and walked toward the door, alas, Crimson couldn’t help but watch him exit.
“Finish the preparations, ladies!” he ordered before the door closed behind him.
A bronze bell chimed twice near the door and the chambermaids quickly tended to Crimson. The chambermaid who spoke before whispered, “This is going to happen, and the liquid eases you. You will enjoy it.” She then tied a dark ribbon around Crimsons’ head covering her eyes. Crimson and the darkness again. She considered when time is unlit, it seems to halt and she felt trapped in a moment of anticipation. Butterflies flickered in her stomach. The water drained from a nearby tub while Crimson was rubbed with rose oil and sang to.
The chambermaids patted her with cotton towels and when dry, Crimson could feel the soft silk of stockings rolling up her legs, the sound of a garter snapping into place. A leather skirt was wrapped around her and tied tightly in the back. Finally, she was forced to sit up as an hourglass corset was placed around her and adjusted, followed by a loose cotton blouse.
The chambermaid brought a goblet to Crimson’s lips and insisted, “Drink, my lady, drink.”
Crimson sipped the fluid and went into a trance that felt like a misty daydream without color, without presence. Without worry.
“Will Kieran be the man? Will he take me?” Crimson asked.
“No, dear.”
Crimson frowned and turned her head away. “Then I will dream of Viktor.”
“Yes, my Lady. Dream of Viktor.”
Crimson’s hands were tied behind her back and the bronze bell chimed again; three chimes echoed through the bedchamber. Crimson could hear the door to the chamber creak open, then muted male voices conversed with one of the chambermaids and Crimson was seized at each elbow and escorted out of the room. Her feet never touched the ground and she felt as light as a dove as the drugs coursed through her veins. A bewildered duplicity washed over her. She didn’t want this, but wanted the familiarity, the excitement of it.
In the corridor outside the room, there was the smell of burnt carbon from oil burning lamps. From behind her blindfold, she could sense the shapes of light shift from light to darkness as she moved through a circular hallway. They were moving in a lazy circle and she knew they were moving to the center of the lower level of a castle. Two doors opened in front of her and the echoes changed from the confinement of the hallway to that of a large open chamber. Voices boomed off the stone walls.
Crimson was escorted into the gallery. Her hands were untied and two chambermaids accompanied her to a knee-high platform surrounded by a pool of water. The chambermaids positioned Crimson on her back.
Crimson heard the slight murmur of a crowd, but was still blindfolded, and couldn’t discern exactly what was happening. Each time she reached to remove the blindfold; her hands were pulled to her side. She had no strength to fight. She lay on the warm table trying to catch her breath when another bell chimed.
* * * *
The stud approached her. She was beautiful, petite and young with strawberry blond hair. He pulled away her blouse and massaged her breast over her corset. He watched her chest heave with heavy breaths and was delighted when she didn’t struggle. He was elated when her flesh seemed to crave him.
The stud deftly removed her corset, cupped each breast, kissed and sucked on her firm, erect nipples, teasingly biting just a little. He spun his tongue back and forth over the firmness of her nipples until they stood proud and fixed against his tongue.
He licked the outside flesh of her right breast only stopping to gaze at her beauty and watch her chest move with her heavy inhales. Her head tilted away but her body made itself available to him. The chambermaids at her side whispered shush to her over and over, and held her wrists tight to the table. Crimson moaned and pushed her body toward him. He ran his hand down her mid-section, circled her navel, lifted her skirt and pressed his palm over the soft hairs of her pubis. He, then, pulled a knife from his sheath.
The room filled with hushed voices, the bidders quietly making bids while others leaned in for a better view. The bidding moved rapidly, one gold bar, then another, and then another. The highest bidder was a proxy from Russia’s Peter the Great. The silent deals for such beauty had no bounds—they all wanted her.
* * * *
Crimson tried to control her breathing, tried not to want this, tried not to enjoy the attention of this stranger and his attention. She didn’t know how to fight the flood of desire. These feelings were forbidden, yet she wanted them so— a part of her seemed to welcome them. Her inner-soul kissed each desire on the cheek as if they were long missed and forgotten. As if they were finally home.
She felt something cold and hard across her knee and run up it to her inner thigh, and a tugging of fabric. Cool air hit her skin then and she knew he’d cut away the fabric of her skirt. More tugging and she felt him rip the leather skirt off her body and run his fingers over that imaginary line between navel and her pubis. He slid his fingers lower, trailed them across her skin to trace the garter belt to her white stockings.
Crimson could feel the strength of him, could feel his coarse hands roam over her body and smell his sweat. The small hairs of her body rose with anticipation. Her legs opened just a little, her knees weakened, her body sensed gravity and grew heavier with each breath. Her mouth opened and she closed her eyes underneath the blindfold. The whispers of the crowd grew louder and this, too, excited her. She fantasized that it was Viktor attending to her but secretly hoped Kieran was watching. She hoped Kieran was jealous.
With a groan, Crimson felt soft, warm lips plant a kiss just above her knee, and then stay there, as though the man hunted the intoxicating aroma of her excitement. She imagined that the sweet smell of her rose oiled skin filled his nostrils and excited him even more. Suddenly, he grabbed her by the right elbow and right thigh and easily rolled her onto her stomach.
Crimson instinctively knew the position and arched her back, raising her butt into the air and pushed it toward him. She lowered her head onto the stone platform, pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, and slightly bit down with anticipation. She waited, and waited. It seemed an eternity. She wanted to reach back and feel the tightness of his flesh, to run her hands along his chest and powerful thighs, but the chambermaids held her arms in position, held her firm in position. Her nostrils filled with the smell of sweet spice and leather and it all turned her on even more.
The stud’s hands found her calf muscles and with the slightest force, eased open her legs. He pulled the garter to her knees in a rolled up knot of fabric. She was fully exposed to him. He returned to her calves and left a trail of soft kisses as he came up behind her.
* * * *
She was voluptuous and healthy. Her butt was perfectly shaped. He was delighted to see she had dimples of Venus on her lower back. His eyes followed her spine, trailed the length of her to her cascading hair and noticed the beauty of the nape of her neck.
His bare chest caressed her buttocks as he moved to kiss each dimple on her lower back. He mounted behind her, holding her hips in his hands and motioned for his chambermaid to lower his pants. The chambermaid untied the leather string around his waist, guided his pants to his knees and, with a flick of the leather whip from the caretaker, the stud began.
Her beauty, her body, her innocence demanded his attention and his cock stood erect and hard. It pulsed with each heartbeat. He parted her legs further with his knees, until the height was just right. The chambermaid clutched his shaft and guided him toward the captive. The head of his organ found her slick and wet, as the chambermaid massage her clitoris with the stud’s head. Then he was set free. At first he felt her natural resistance as she tightened around his shaft, but then was able to push past her tender lips and fully immerse himself in her. She was as smooth as silk and embodied the heat of a thousand suns. Soon she was completely open to him and he began to thrust in a sensual rhythm.
The woman moaned and pushed hard against his pelvis as he extended his left arm and grabbed her shoulder pulling her entire body toward him. He used his body with a growing need—a force—which brought her to her palms. His right hand found her tender breast as he slowly moved in and out of her. He heard her whimper and knew she wanted more and he willingly obliged.
In the reflection of the pool of water, he could see her mouth open with each deep thrust. He could hear her deep exhales followed by whimpers of pleasure. Her lips and cheeks were full and flushed. She pushed harder against him, savoring every inch of him. She matched his rhythm, and pushed her buttocks against him with such force that the sounds of their colliding bodies echoed off the walls.
The sounds of colliding bodies, moans, and heavy breathing were an aural pleasure for him and he used her signals for their pleasure.
* * * *
The repetition, the silky friction of him inside her led to a fiery ecstasy for Crimson.
Crimson had never reached orgasm before, and the sensation erupted through her body, it out flowed through her fingertips and held hostage her escaping breaths. For the moment, she was a lucid emotion under closed eyelids, and the feeling tried to escape with her breaths.
She felt an immense sense of gratification. It incited her clitoris and flowed in waves of pleasure—transporting the thunderbolts of delight through her, over her. She was a puff of silvery smoke from a thousand muskets fired in unison. She felt as though she floated above a distant ceremonial battleground of passion, a field of pleasure.
A crack of leather whipped across the stud’s calves, from a nearby caretaker, reminding the stud that he was not entitled to such pleasure; he immediately obeyed, and stopped thrusting behind her. Unsatisfied, he ached for release but could only rest his buttocks on his heels. Straps tied to his wrists pulled his hands away from Crimson’s hips. Pleasure of conclusion, of fulfillment was not his. He could only watch as she pulled away, then he fell onto his knees.
The voyeurs and the bidders saw Crimson orgasm. They watched as her body tightened then relaxed, slight convulsions and her hips slowed to a series of small shudder motions as her bottom fell deep onto the thighs of the stud. The bidding halted and Crimson, now, belonged to Tor of Russia.
The chambermaids wiped the sweat from Crimson’s brow and upper lip. They removed her from the platform and lifted her heavy arms. She wanted to see the stranger. She wanted to lay eyes upon the man who had brought her such pleasure, but the chambermaids quickly bound her wrists behind her back and two guards grabbed her elbows. The guards lifted her off the ground. The double doors to the gallery opened.
Crimson expected to be carried back to the bedchamber, to take a left after exiting the gallery, but the guards turned right, and escorted her down another hallway.