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Mountbane moved to the door of his chambers. “Gregor!” He bellowed.
A flushed youth raced to his master’s side, “Yes, sir?”
“Bring me Caius.”
“Yes, sir.” He was gone.
The air inside the chamber grew hotly tense. Charlotte remained on her feet in the center of the room, nervously fidgeting with her skirts. At moments when she wasn’t noticed, she would glance at the great bed on the far side of Mountbane’s chamber, wondering—until she forcibly stopped the picture—what it might be like to lose herself inside the great velvet quilts, in the arms of this handsome man. Could it be desire beating in her heart and more horribly between her legs where she could feel the chastity belt as though it were a pair of firm hands grasping her flesh?
When the ethers in t
he room finally stirred again, it was from the entrance of a burly brute—one much like the two fellows who took her from her father’s house. Yet, this one seemed taller still and more commanding in his presence. The hulking fellow wore leather trousers as the others had, though his torso was clothed in a dark muslin shirt and his beard was freshly trimmed, his head shaved and smooth as a still lake.
Mountbane moved toward his wary bride with a contemptuous snarl curling on his lips. “You understand, I could rape you now,” he said in a voice that wrapped about her with a wintry blast of wind. “I could have my aides hold you down while I rip your virginity from you.” He shook his head. “But that is not my way, fair madam. You will beg for me…”
Her face registered an earnest denial but she didn’t speak, being much too scared to utter a word.
He turned away. “Caius, take my bride into the bowels of my castle and prepare her for me.”
“And shall I prime her first, sir?”
“Yes. Thoroughly. I’ll take her when she’s well spent. Perhaps she’ll be more willing then.”
“Tis likely I’ll be having her for some time?” the great brute observed aloud.
“Oh, yes. She’ll need to be fully trained in the ways of Ilusian women. Take her now.” With his final retort, Mountbane brushed her off as he would a speck of dust from his sleeve. And Charlotte quit the room, towed by the rigid grip of Caius’ hand on her arm.
Chapter Three
The dungeon of Mountbane Castle was accessed by a series of stairs, which wound their way through darkness, where a damp climate bred fear and tension with each step. Charlotte lowered herself with each footfall in her twisted descent, closed in by corridors, by thick wet stone, by air hardly pure enough to breathe. The pace of her plunge was so swift that she felt faint by the time she was halfway down.
“Please,” she tried pulling back, “where does this lead?”
“Your new home,” was all the mighty brute would reply as he tugged her faltering form.
Her fear magnified.
Hitting the bottom step in their journey was like reaching the ends of the earth, the last possibility for life before the chance to breathe ceased inside the bowels of dark matter and nonporous stone. Charlotte couldn’t imagine living so close to her grave.
“Have I earned this travail?” she cried as they came into an opening where walls gave way to Caius’ dungeon lair. Iron bars marked off cubicles where female slaves where roused by the noise of the master returning. A young maid with bronze skin and flowing black hair moved out of the shadows, falling before Caius with her lips pressed to his boots.
“In the corner until I need you, Loria,” he pointed toward the opposite wall and the woman scurried quickly to take her place in a subservient but relaxed pose. Kneeling, knees apart, her ass rested on her feet behind her, while she bowed her head, parted her lips and opened her hands at her side as a sign of her willing acquiescence to the dungeon master.
Slowly rising from beds of straw, the jailed slaves moved toward the forward bars of their cells, which were little more than cages, stacked three high, embedded in the stone wall. Though they were mute, a few even gagged, they did not want for some degree of care, appearing clean, hair washed, and eyes, while remote, certainly clear and lucid.
“Your home, wife of Mountbane,” Caius announced dropping his grip on the bewildered woman. “There are easier ways to fit into the life of Ilusia, but none quite so profound as this.”
Charlotte’s frazzled nerves made her weak. Infinitesimal seconds ticked by too slowly—drawn out to the weary end of each one before the next began. This eternity might just be hell.
“Remove your clothes,” Caius ordered abruptly.
Her eyes opened wide and she didn’t move.
“Do you not hear, or do you simply refuse to obey?”
“I cannot remove my clothes…” she uttered the strained cry as her parched throat could hardly form the words.
“Oh?” Caius looked amused saying mockingly as he motioned to the cages and the slave he called Loria, “You’re better than these slaves? Shall we order you a wardrobe of silk so you can graciously lord over my chattel here?”
