Icon

By Louisa Trent

In an age of brutality, a Scottish clan imprisons Noci behind the bars of an animal cage. Only one man can save her now --

Taracut "the Gelded", the unfeeling overlord of Northumbria.

The fierce warrior draws breath only to serve his king, and his impenetrable heart beats only for duty. Although a vision warns Noci that Taracut is numb to all emotion, even lust, she offers the overlord the use of her body in exchange for her freedom. Satisfy Taracut's dark urges and she will live. Fail to submit to him, and the self-righteous Taracut will condemn her to a fiery death at the pyre.

A sweet kiss seals the bargain, and so the bitter battle for the overlord's soul begins. Tricking him with games of seduction, teasing him with a purring acquiescence to his every demand, tempting him with wanton carnal acts, Noci introduces the warrior to the full spectrum of feelings, from passion to...

Betrayal.

Suspecting Noci has played him false, the enraged Taracut exacts a terrible retribution for her deception. The fierce warrior forces Noci -- his sweet pet, his enthusiastic whore, his secret obsession -- to crave him as much as he craves her. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trent Publishing
• Release date: Mar 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507089460

Louisa Trent

Louisa Trent has been published in ebook format since 2001. Her erotic romances have been with Ellora's Cave, Liquid Silver, Loose Id and Samhain. Refusing to be "branded" ( Louisa has a rebellious streak ) she writes across the genres -- contemporary, historical, paranormal, multi-cultural, and sci-fi. Basically, she writes whatever piques her interest, and she is a writer of many passionate interests. Readers can reach Louisa through her website: www.louisatrent.com .

Book preview

Chapter Two

After completing a colorful border of drolleries, Noci set the illustration aside to grin at her pet, a black-and-white rabbit prominently featured in her whimsical drawings. Well done, Allhops!

Long, floppy ears wiggled in reply.

Aye, my precious darling, you have every right to be proud of yourself. Posing is a tedious occupation. Never could I accomplish such a feat. Sitting quietly for more than a trice vexes me sorely. From the patched girdle at her waist, she pulled a carrot, freshly stolen that very morn from the gardens up at the fortress to break her morning fast. Here. Take your reward and go play. I have more painting to do.

His pink nose twitching, Allhops bounced away with his treat, and Noci, her empty belly growling, reached across her scribe’s board to a tall stack of vellum. Caressing the soft animal hide with her fingertips, she placed the next manuscript page for the book of hours, a devotional prayer book, before her.

Already inscribed, the text awaited illumination. In this instance, she needed to fill in the first letter of the first word of the first paragraph with pigment.

But even with all her squinting, she could barely make out the letter’s outline.

Pondering a solution, she tapped her pointed chin. Then, she had it, the answer to her problem. Before transferring their creations to vellum, the good monks always sketched them first on a wax tablet. Those would be far easier for her to decipher than the faint pinprick outlines she worked from now. Next assignment, she would ask to see those initial wax drawings.

A request she would have to place surreptitiously.

The monastery had no idea they employed a woman as their scribe, a revelation that would go over as well as a fart in church during a high-holy day service. And speaking of churches – the good monks were also unaware she painted their manuscripts in a pagan temple, where once barbaric Saxons had offered human sacrifices to appease a whole host of bloodthirsty deities.

Oh my. Even if the monks survived the first disclosure, for sure, the second one would give them an apoplexy.

Then, there was the small detail about where their payment went. In this instance, the monastery’s holy coin went to support a wizard and his followers, of which Noci was one.

Was it any wonder she hid her true self?

As no amount of sprinkled holy water would change her, the kindest thing she could do was to keep her identity a secret.

’Tis for the monks’ own good after all, she decided.

No need to tell them a pagan cruet illuminated their text. No need to volunteer a heretic embedded gold around the haloes of their saints. No need to relate she had learned her scribe skills from a lapsed monk, her own father, a devout man who had loved Noci’s witch mother well, if unwisely. Absolutely no need to divulge she had learned sortilege from her mother, and she divined the future either from casting bones or from images that came to her while she painted pictures from the Bible. No need to relate when her parents died a decade earlier, she had taken both trades on the road and traveled the world over.

Why tell the good monks any of that? she asked the four crumbling walls. ’Twould only cause them worry, and causing others to fret unnecessarily is the height of selfishness. Enough for the monastery to know I have a way with pigments. Everyone says so. With a toss of her head, she preened only a bit.

Usually, she drew and painted original creations. On this occasion, though, the good monks had commissioned her to replace a wealthy patron’s book of hours lost in a fire, and he wanted the prayer book to look exactly as it had looked before. This meant no sneaking trolls in between the lines. No hiding faeries in the background trees and sprites in the foreground bushes. No disguising imps as angels in the sky. Doing so would jeopardize her steadiest source of income.

Times were hard for outcasts. The wizard and his followers barely eked out a living from their various pursuits. And she made one more mouth to feed. Her earnings put bread on the trestle table, with naught left over for luxuries, like shoes and such…

All the more reason to return to work. The nobleman had offered the monastery an additional sum for a speedy completion of his lost prayer book, and she was determined to finish it sooner rather than her usual later to collect the bonus.

She batted her veil behind her bowed shoulders. Otherwise, the linen’s raggedy ends dropped in her pigment pots. Even in this pagan temple, she observed all Christian customs – like covering her head. Verily, she only cast off the head cloth in the privacy of her own chamber. Or, under the light of a full moon. Or, while dancing with wood sprites in the forest. Or…

Drat. She never could lie. Well, not overly much.

Off came the coif, the rest of her faded garb, too, whenever the urge came upon her. And the urge came upon her all the time. Going out and about in the skin felt too wicked to refuse.

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.

Chapter Three

Taracut widened his knees.

A night of excesses was growing long, and the travesty of passion had begun to take a toll on him. Weary of portraying a carnality he was far from feeling, he once more took his cock in hand and led the swollen head to the kneeling fellator’s mouth.

A reprieve! Before she could suck him down her throat, a loud and strident voice rose above the foot-stomping appreciation of his audience.

Wait, my lord.

Would that he could! But with two more mouths to fill, he would never get to bed this night if he procrastinated.

Speak your name, guard, Taracut commanded the soldier who dared to interrupt his discharge of duty.

Oen, my lord.

Like a mastiff at the hunt, the vassal headed for his oak chair, where Taracut still slumped, his proud member lancing the air. The interloper had the temerity to drop to the floor a scant distance removed from the female about to service him.

Taracut sent the bounder a cutting glare.

Really, enough was enough. Duty was one thing, but taking advantage of his generosity was quite another. While he had bounty enough to go around – his ejaculate could seed a harem, the sultan, and a pack of camels, too – decorum must be observed. I have made my selection for today. Return on the morrow, soldier, and queue up for your turn.

The rebuke bounced off the messenger. My lord, under the cloak of night, a small contingent of Scots invaded the region.

Taracut clenched his jaw. Which tribe?

The Clann Néill.

Damnable heathens, all pagans to a one. Their raids grew as tedious as fornication. How many more times must he rout the Scots before they were vanquished for good?

A decade earlier, Taracut had served Athelstan in his campaign to drive Guthfrith out of Northumbria. By so doing, he had earned himself royal favor. This old fortress was a boon resulting from the region’s annexation. Hardly a prize, since the settlement was constantly on the verge of siege. During the last attack, occurring about three Rogationtides or so ago, this same Scottish clan had taken exorbitant casualties to their forces. And yet, here they were, back again, ready to bleed another day.

After getting himself in order, Taracut jumped to his feet.

He directed his order to the bearer of inconvenient tidings. You – Oen – gather the men. We leave at daybreak to put down this latest insurrection.

And they would return the victors, too, as they outnumbered the Scots’ legion a hundred to one. But the win would not come without cost. During the sortie, crops and thatched-roofed farmsteads would suffer damage – a loss of property that would eventually translate to a reduction in revenue to royal coffers.

Athelstan would not gladly suffer forfeited tithes.

In reprisal for decreased tributes, the king would order Taracut to crush the clan, once and for all. As a consequence, Scottish women and children would be raped and then taken as slaves along with any other survivors. His army would torch Scottish homesteads and burn crops to the ground – the destruction of property and life all acceptable casualties of war.

Taracut would do as the king bade him, but the logic of it escaped him.

Oen spoke again. The clan leader sent a message, my lord.

Taracut furrowed his brow at the minion. Well, speak up. Must I drag the words from your lips?

The chieftain declares this no raid, only a mission of retrieval. Return the icon, says he, and his clan will leave as they came.

Icon? Taracut shook his head until his thick mane of dark hair whipped across his clean-shaven cheeks. Pray, what is this icon?

Something the wizard Petacides stole.

Wizard! Ha! The mad hermit leader of a freakish band of oddities, more like. Simple peasants might credit that group of misfits with powers not of this earth, not him. Most decidedly, he did not. This stolen icon was probably just another idol, one of the many representations of pagan Norse gods and goddesses. Heathen Scots, following the old ways, continued to worship these stone replicas alongside Christian saints.

Taracut folded his arms across the wide expanse of his chest. What did he care what heathens prayed to or if they prayed at all? ’Twas no concern of his. His charge was to maintain the stronghold’s defense and accumulate wealth for the king, not ferret out crazed heretics.

He made his decision. The clan will have their stolen property returned.

Oen offered, My lord, the chieftain demands you come alone and on foot with the icon.

A deathtrap if ever he heard one. Escaping the ambush alive would take naught short of a miracle.

Or sorcery.

As he believed in neither, Taracut smiled. So be it.

* * * * *

The next morn, Taracut set out in pursuit of the stolen icon. Fortunately, he would only waste a small portion of his day, not the whole of it in the search, as he knew just where to look for the relic.

The wizard’s pagan temple in the woods.

After tying his steed to a tree stump, Taracut turned and faced the messenger Oen and the small military