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  He heard the men’s voices again. Two men, both with German accents. One was sharper than the other. That voice led the other voice. Saxon knew that somehow. Because . . . because he was good at it, flashed through his mind . . . and then the thought fled.

  “Da long hair will make ya think cunt, Baco.”

  “Fuck off, Cernno! They should of let me get da woman.”

  “Cernno! Baco! Quiet! This male is not to be touched by anyone other than our Lord Hellion or the handmaidens.”

  A new voice. A woman’s voice and older. Saxon clenched his closed eyelids, trying to transcend the thumping in his head and the jostling of the carriage floor he laid sprawled upon. Man, think! Just this one thing. Saxon strained for control of his mind. He knew accents like the back of his hand. Missing hand. “Viennese,” he mumbled into the noise of the rattling carriage. The woman was from Vienna.

  “Dame Baset, ya know you’d like da Marquis’ long dong in ya cunt right now and I’d take his ass. Ja! Two at a time!” Then, Cernno’s sharp smirking laughter filled the air.

  Dame Baset’s voice hissed loudly, “Quiet!”

  Saxon picked out a fleeting thought, a notion that Dame Baset held no control over Cernno, but the one called Lord Hellion did. The names of the kidnappers . . . of the players and fiends defied his befuddled brain, while he knew somewhere they meant something, and he should know it. And just then . . . it snapped through his mind for a split second. Cult. But the carriage jolted roughly beneath him, and he moaned, unable to catch the sound back.

  “He awakes now,” Dame Baset said, and Saxon felt the light edge of her skirts brushing his cheek, making him realize that she sat above where he lay trussed up on the carriage floor. “But the draft I gave him will keep him pleasingly malleable.”

  “Ja, and limp enough to ass fuck easily,” Cernno’s said.

  “You’re just a pig, Cernno. You always liked da little boys ass better,” Baco jibed.

  “Ass is ass,” Cernno returned with an angry voice.

  “Quiet! Both of you! While your talk is deliciously nasty to be tempting, you will allow the sacrifice more than he needs to know,” Dame Baset said. “And you know, our Lord Hellion, likes the sacrifice’s mind pure so he can turn it.”

  “Ja.” Both men affirmed, but they both sounded equally petulant.

  Sacrifice? Saxon tried to wrap his mind around that word, but it was too elusive. Whatever potion Dame Baset had given him was easing the pain in his head, but it was also making his mind float to pale white breasts with pink-tipped nipples. He had seen them.

  Descriptions. Listening. Melting into the background and gathering information. Those were some of his special talents. He knew them as instinctively as he could breathe. He could walk into a parlor or out on the boulevard or enter a crowded ballroom, assess the area for ten seconds or less and have the entirety memorized. Saxon realized that these details of his concentration possibly kept him more cognizant than his captors expected. Not enough to be anything but disgustingly malleable in their hands, but enough to be aware of snatches in clarity.

  The two German brutes, Baco and Cernno were stocky men and everything about them seemed double in his mind. Both had reddish brown stubby cropped hair, which meant they wore wigs more often than not. Both had the same barrel chests and thick arms with their height just a head taller than his medium height. Double watery blue eyes. Double bad teeth. Double ruddy complexions.

  Then, it came to him, pierced through the constriction trying to damper his mind. Twins. The two thugs were twins, however, there were two differences, Cernno led Baco more or less, and Cernno was more perverse.

  Saxon tried to be disgusted, perhaps appalled at the lewd groping of Cernno’s hands, while the two brutes bodily hauled him out of the carriage. That was when Saxon realized that they had stopped, but Cernno’s rough hand groping his ass distracted him for a moment. Thank god he had his britches on. The thought fled through Saxon’s mind and at the same time he hesitated, where was his shirt? Ah, no it was there, but it was hanging open.

  “Leave his ass alone. Da Hellion could be watching,” Baco hissed in warning.

  Saxon wobbled on his feet between the two men, his hair wildly loose and hanging over his bared chest, but he managed to stay upright and standing. His neck was like soft wax when he tried to lift it to look upward. He smelled Dame Baset passing by him and heard the swishing of her elaborate skirts. Remember he was in France, Saxon chided his cloudy mind. Elaborate dress in France.

  Dame Baset left a heavy scent of cloying perfume. Then, Saxon managed an upward glimpse before his neck fell limp again. In that brief glimpse, he took in the sight of a Gothic castle, shrouded in dark shadows with thick and vulgar creeping vines. There were even gargoyles on the turrets, Saxon thought, wanting to laugh out loud at the absurdity. He was in a veritable cesspool of major trouble here, he understood. Nevertheless, until the drugged wine they had given him wore off or he managed to conquer it better with his mind, he was a, “captive sacrifice.”

  Then his mind wandered to the Archangels. The best of companions and the most stalwart of friends. But beyond that, they were skilled and capable outside of normal men. Faint hope managed to flare inside him, pushing against the lethargy, until he remembered that he was now in France and his hopeful saviors were back in England. Then, his hope fled as bleakly as the castles dark facade, while Baco and Cernno bodily dragged him into the depths of Lord Hellion’s domain.

  Chapter Two

  “She is perfection. What unusual race must she have been bred from, troll?” Lord Incubus asked looking down his long, too thin nose.

  Yojo did not bother trying to look upward, because the height of his head only reached Lord Incubus’ upper thigh.

  “Gypsy, master,” Yojo answered with an excited giggle as he swayed from side to side. Yojo could only view a sea of stocking-clad legs with buckled shoes or wide ballooned skirts in the circus atmosphere of the upper ballroom. The stiffness and the under wiring of the elaborate skirts were the most dangerous, and he wished for Baco’s presence, because Baco would willingly carry him on his stout shoulder. Lord Incubus would never consider such a feat or kindness. Lord Incubus was cruel. And, Yojo loved him. But he’d never tell, never tell, never tell...

  “Hm,” Lord Incubus hummed in his throat like a lethal purring. The sound always trilled up Yojo’s miniature spine. “She is petite enough and her flesh is just that pale, delicious white. I am surprised at this deep red hair. Yes, I believe it will make the contrast between them striking.”

  “She has no one, master. No one now that will be missing her,” Yojo said.

  “Damnable, I can barely hear you, troll!” Lord Incubus snapped irritably.

  Yojo knew that it was Incubus’ way to blame him for his midget height and Incubus would never consider bending down to hear better. It was up to Yojo to right the wrong or Incubus’ anger would flare down on him. Yojo giggled nervously, then trundled to the corner of the large sweeping balcony that stood above the ornate ballroom below. The lightweight gold leash Lord Incubus held laxly in his left hand and hooked to Yojo just reached the distance.

  Yojo nimbly climbed up the railing and stood in the corner on the top rail. With one of his thick stubby hands, he held onto the column at his side, balancing himself. He wore a festive hat of dark green, blue, and red plumed feathers and he bobbed as he shuffled a little dance. Ladies tittered at him, passing behind them on the balcony, and Lord Incubus’ inscrutably drawn face showed no signs of approval. Yet, the slits of Lord Incubus’ eyes held glints of gray as he stepped forward. The elaborate black wig Incubus wore blocked Yojo’s view of the party revelers behind them and Yojo stared with fascination at the long curls upon curls hanging half down Lord Incubus’ chest. How he wished, he could wear such a handsome wig on his bald head instead of the silly hat that he wore. But he was Lord Incubus’ pet for the party. A pierrot mascot was a fashionable accessory of the times.

  “Now, tell me
again, runt,” Lord Incubus ordered.

  “No one will miss her now!” Yojo exclaimed. “She lied, using her old dead aunt’s invitation to enter here.”

  “Her only living relative that died so advantageously just last week?” Lord Incubus’ voice purred with evil intent.

  “That one!” Yojo exclaimed, bouncing up and down. “Now she looks for her distant cousin. But she will never find him. Never find him!”

  “Quiet down, troll,” Lord Incubus snapped irritably and Yojo pursed his lips looking about ready to explode, but silent for the moment. “That long distant relative, an elder Baron isn’t he, and he knows nothing of her. Nor does he want to?”

  “Yes!” Yojo peeped.

  “Hm, a Gypsy lady. Full Gypsy blood by the look of her. She had better not be coarse, this Lady Joelle Zurka.”

  “Real, lady!” Yojo piped.

  “Hm, well it seems you have done well picking her. And, she received a false note saying her long lost cousin would be here then?”

  “Not a note,” Yojo said. “Bribed the Baron’s butler!” Yojo clapped gleefully, nearly toppling backward, but he caught the column just in time.

  “And the butler?” Lord Incubus snapped.

  “He belongssss!” Yojo said in one long drawn out hissing.

  “A follower of Hellion?”

  Yojo nodded, turning to look outward, and then down on the revelers below, but more at the beautiful Lady Joelle. She was special. He had known it for a long time. Not like other ladies around. Lady Joelle had no need to wear a false wig. Her hair was glorious. Maybe, maybe, maybe this time Lord Hellion would praise Yojo.

  ***

  “I should not have come,” Joelle whispered harshly as she walked down the long winding road from the mansion that she’d just left. “Bi lacid,” she muttered.

  It was the Romani word for, “no good” and she rarely used the Gypsy tongue unless she was very upset. Her parents Lord Gunari Zurka and Lady Yolanda Zurka had taught her the rich Gypsy traditions in her younger life, before they died. It was a legacy far removed from their higher stations. A station of nobles bought and bribed many years ago by her great-grandfather. Lord and Lady Zurka taught her all the flamboyant richness of true Gypsy blood, while also strictly advising her to keep the outward signs hidden while in society. It was like having two inner selves. The one in her blood, pounding warm and full-bodied in her veins, then the outward, more constricted one, of the proper social window-dressing that she wore.

  And, she did have the price for a hackney fare, instead of walking. But her foolish pride had kept her from asking a footman at the ball to call one for her. Pride? What good was pride now, Joelle wondered? It appeared she was destined to swallow her pride for the more important virtue of survival. And she would do so if only she could find that old crow Baron Palko. He was a fifth or sixth cousin, so distantly removed that one could barely hold onto the thread.

  “Why was my family not more prolific?” Joelle muttered.

  But she would throw herself upon ancient cousin Palko’s mercy. At his very feet, she thought dramatically, if she could only find the dratted man. She just wanted a husband, she thought wretchedly. Simply the chance of one, yet if no one took her around, how was she expected to meet anyone, much less a husband?

  “It would be the answer for both of us, Palko,” Joelle mumbled, but just then she thought enough to look about. She quickly realized that while thinking and worrying over her circumstances she’d walked quite far, and it was very dark the further she’d distanced herself from the mansion. Joelle peered into a stand of poplar trees lining the right side of the road. The tall trees looked like malevolent sentinels. She immediately quickened her pace. She calculated that it was a quarter mile from the mansion back out to the main thoroughfare, nevertheless at night, and a pitch-black and starless one at that, it would seem further.

  Clop. Clop. Clop.

  “Spirits!” Joelle cried.

  She was completely startled at the sound so abrupt behind her. She was so goosey that she could not dare herself to look behind her as she quickly stepped toward the trees intending to hide from the oncoming carriage. It would not do for anyone to see her in the predicament she was in. Out alone and unescorted at night. Never mind that she only had one more night at her departed aunt’s home before she was out on the streets.

  But besides those dark and tragic thoughts, she still wondered how she’d not heard the carriage sooner. Then, she aimed her footsteps toward the base of a wide tree. It would be good to hide behind was her last thought, right before someone abruptly grabbed her from behind!

  Chapter Three

  “If those blundering initiates have damaged her, I will flay them alive!”

  “No, no, no, master. Only passed out. Awake soon. No magic drafts. You said no potion . . . Yet!”

  Joelle’s heart thundered as she peeked through her lowered lashes at the source of the two diametric voices. She realized at once that they had gagged her mouth and tied her wrists in front of her. She was lying on a flat surface, lifted off the ground. A table perhaps, because she could just see the two men speaking as she forced her body to remain still and not quake in terror. One man was a midget and she had a clearer view of his small gnome like appearance. Of the tall man, she could only see from the top of his chest down, unless she moved to look up further.

  She had no intentions of looking further up and giving away her wakefulness. That was the only small bit of comfort she had at the moment, in the terrifying turn of events. Frightening events she could not imagine and she willed herself not to imagine what their intentions were, because therein lay terror and she had to keep her wits about her as the words, “magic potion” fluttered through her mind.

  “I will examine her here, Yojo, and then you will take her onto the castle.”

  Examine! No, no, no. Joelle shuddered, unable to halt her body’s tremors as the import of what the tall man said rushed through her mind and the fact that he was unconcerned to use names.

  “Yes, yes, Master Incubus.”

  A moan churned in Joelle’s chest at the sound of the tall man’s name. Most assuredly fictitious. The name and possible meaning clamored over her, just as the moan thrashed free.

  Both men turned at the sound. “Ah, she wakes. Excellent,” Incubus said.

  Joelle rolled onto her back, jerking her tied hands upward in a defensive and warding off gesture as her wild-eyed gaze lifted up to see the man called Incubus. He looked like a middle-aged French aristocrat. But his gray lacquered eyes and the slash of his lips opposed any hope for noble demeanor. His charred eyes held discord, and in them she could see that the weight of his intelligence was perverted. She knew with an instinct deep inside that his intentions were warped in a sexual nature. It oozed from his lupine face with avid, yet boldly calculated interest as she uselessly swatted the air before him.

  “That’s it, little mare, show me your fire.” She watched his lips moving while saying the words, and they were slim and malevolent. “Obedience is worthless without any challenge.”

  The instant the word, “challenge” left his lips, Incubus caught her bound wrists in his hands, squeezing the too fragile bones and flesh into submission. Then, with her gaze bulging upon him, he wrestled her wrists above her head. Her body thrashed upon the table, but it was more a helpless gesture, because she discovered to her horror that her ankles were bound together.

  Joelle tried desperately to fight her own instinct to struggle against the inevitable. It was what the deadly and wicked Incubus wanted. He wanted her terror and her sexual vehemence. It was why he had not drugged her with the magic potion. She was perceptive and quick-witted enough to understand this. She was not the normal provincial and naive lady of society. Those “ladies” of society were callow and unschooled in worldly ways. Their titles shielded them from the crassness of society.

  Yet, even with the knowledge that fighting Incubus would not win her release, and that she had to stop the te
rror in her mind and find a better way. Still, she could not master the fear rushing through her. But, Incubus easily secured the bindings around her wrists to a hook, conveniently mounted on the table above her head. The snug material of her bodice pressed upward beneath her breasts, constricting her breath with its stretched tightness, while the mounds of her breasts nearly lurched out of the scooped neck collar. Joelle felt air rushing over her stocking clad calves at the raised position of her full skirts. Her teeth gnawed helplessly on the gag, too wide and set too far back in her mouth, forcing her lips open as though an animal bit had been fitted into her mouth.

  Incubus knew all of this. He knew every feeling that assaulted her and he wallowed in it. It did not show on his stridently austere face, but it twisted in the depths of his dissonant gray eyes. Then, she watched in horror, writhing futilely beneath him as he bent over her, lifting a stout and glistening knife for her to view. Was this to be the end? Her mind cried as her bug-eyed gaze watched the sharp tip lowering. It seemed to her as though, in that moment, her mind physically snapped. Yet, instead of hysteria, her body heaved to a shuddering stand still, with only her breasts rising and falling erratically. Her breasts were in the exact direction of the tip of the knife as her mind actually slowed to eerie calmness. She felt the long black curling ends of Incubus’ wig touching the silk of her dress above her belly. She inhaled the heavy redolence of his cologne. Her sensitive nose detected the saturating odor of rosemary and muscadine, as the scents strangled her nostrils. She saw the bead of sweat on Incubus’ slim upper lip.

  Then suddenly, she jerked her bound legs upward in an impossible acrobatic curl, defying yards of frothing silk that bunched up trying to impede her way. In spite of everything, her vigor and strength conquered them as she twisted to the side and kneed Incubus straight away in his chest. Her knees together hit solidly enough to sound a dull cloth on cloth thud, and Incubus fell back with surprise upon his face. Still in motion, her long cumbersome skirts landed in a tide across her waist, exposing her legs clad in black stocking, thigh garters, and the short crotch-less undergarment ladies wore. Incubus had never expected her to expose herself in such a fashion.