ICON

Chapter One

With a sigh for her lack of discipline, Noci picked up her quill, dipped the pointed end in the lovely blue pigment -- a hue derived from the shrubby indigo plant -- and began applying color within the letter's outline.

T...T...T...TTTTTTTTTTT

Her mind stuck on the sound. Whatever did the letter stand for?

T...T...T...TTTTTTorment?

Nay. Though the echoing sound tormented her royally.

T...T...T...TTTTTTeats????

Nay. Though hers did TTTTTThrob and TTTTTTerribly TTTTTToo.

Dropping the quill, she flattened her palms against her ears.

Trying to block out the mind noise did no good. Suddenly he appeared on the page before her, a powerfully built warrior holding lordly court in the large hall of an ancient fortress. Dark of hair and eyes, he wore a rich outer tunic...

Of blue. Indigo blue. The color of royalty.

He sat impassively on an oak chair, not a muscle twitching, his swarthy-toned face devoid of all expression. A buxom woman knelt naked between his widely spread legs. With massaging hands and straining throat, the...the...dancer set about assuaging the earl's turgid flesh.

And she would fail. No partner yet had succeeded in satisfying the overlord.

Noci could, and the knowledge had her squirming. In her vision, she saw herself drinking of the warrior's life force, draining the ejaculate from his tremendously thick cock, swallowing his cum and licking her lips of his salt afterward.

Her belly clenched. Goddess! What she would give to strip off her garb and race for her favorite Cantonese groin dildo. When soaked in hot water, the stalk swelled and hardened, until it achieved the dimensions of a phallus. Lightly coated with scented olive oil, to ease its penetration, the dildo would swiftly bring her frustration to an end. Where had she put that olisbo, anyway?

Before she could seek out carnal relief, another vision popped before her eyes.

She gasped. Although shadowy and tinted of indigo blue, the image involved her.

For joy! Noci rubbed her hands together. Public nudity!

Pageantry, especially naked pageantry, appealed to her sense of drama. Ritualized orgies, most especially those involving shifty dragons, set her afire. In a good way. Throw in a few lecherous satyrs, add one or two naughty faeries, mix in a stud of a centaur and she could easily swoon.

But -- what was this? Surging boos. Hissing catcalls. A swell of raucous shouts. A branch coming down on her raised bottom. Where was the merrymaking here? Where was the applause? And why was she allowing the man of her vision to take a birch switch to her bare buttocks while a crowd in a courtyard looked on. And not in high-spirited carnality, either. In frowning, judgmental disapproval.

This was not like her. Sure, she enjoyed a little slap and tickle during foreplay as well as the next cruet, but this was serious punishment. And generally speaking, she avoided pain -- save, of course, pain of the erotic persuasion -- like the plague. Specifically speaking, her rear was near and dear to her. In truth, she had a healthy appreciation for her own skin.

Welts were so unattractive.

Public nudity. Birching. A large, intimidating, and darkly dominant man applying himself to her bottom. Welts'

A carnal shiver raced through her. Arching her throat and throwing back her head, Noci swept the leaf of vellum away. Of a sudden, she throbbed all over, most especially her TTTTTTeats.

With no other hand but her own available, she pinched a distended tip. When the pressure proved insufficient, she tugged her muddy-toned tunic and natural linen surcoat to her waist, revealing garters that held her wool hose secured at the knee but otherwise laying her cunny bare.

Bare -- save for a slick of passion.

Desperate now, she drove her fingers -- one, then two -- between her parted thighs. Pumping feverishly, she plunged them inside her slippery channel, then diddled her feel good nubbin.

No use. No use. No fucking use. No matter what she did, 'twas no use at all. Her appeasement never came. There was no surcease in her fiery need, only emptiness. Burning, gnawing, greedy emptiness, only he, the wretched warrior of her vision, could fill.

Why him? Why now?

Unfair! Her trencher was already filled to overflowing. Keeping the wizard and his followers safe from harm occupied every moment of every day. Not that she was complaining. Not much, anyway. But this warrior had a fearsome, bullheaded, quality about him. Very off-putting. Also, he was an earl, and she had no use for idiot royals.

Up went her back, her spine arching like a cat before a fight. Feeling as she did, threatened and defensive, she would be of little help to this man.

Regardless of her misgivings, she trembled and a sea of yearning for him rolled over her in great wet waves. Her cunny fair flooded with her pining. So great was her need, even her faithful olisbo would be of little help to her.

She withdrew her fingers from her body's clasp. Her tunic and surcoat slipped back into place. With her shaking hands anchored on her wobbly knees, she gave herself over to the conflict raging within her.

Fear and eagerness. Resistance and surrender. The sweet balm of acceptance tempered with a bitter denial of her fate.

Carnal ambivalence was new to her. Always before, her trysts had been playful and joyous, light and sunny romps that meant naught beyond mutual enjoyment. All her previous interludes had ended with laughter and good wishes, and nary a tear of regret at the farewells.

Not this time. This time, she sensed devastation, annihilation, a vanquishing of her former self. And not just at the very end, either. At the beginning and throughout.

She felt positively ill. Sick to her belly. With dread.

For there was no escaping this indigo-blue wearing royal. Avoiding what lay ahead would prove as futile as trying to stop the changing of the tides. This arrogant earl would allow her to hold naught back. He would expect all of her, every part of her.

Woe is me. Does this vision tell me true?

Surely he would stop short of eating her up alive, of chewing her up whole, of marking her hitherto silky and unblemished skin with his pearly white teeth.

Then, she knew. The premonition came to her as clearly as an image of a whip raising welts on her bottom.

The overlord would not stop short of hurting her. And the pain was not the worst of it. The worst part was...in spite of the cost, beyond all reason, she would come to crave Taracut of Northumbria.

Most especially the bite of his pearly white teeth.