Moonlight Invitations
A Smuthunter Story
When there came a rapping at the door of Sir Niles’ chamber, he was half surrendered to the meaningful repose of slumber. The door shivered in its frame with no great force and the echo of knuckles across its thick wood was only so loud as to attract his particular attention.
The chamber, being his own only in the name of hospitality, had fallen into darkness and there it remained save the pale silver of a moon drawn tight to the edges of its full splendor. Its reach was a light cast to guide him.
Again the sound of a determined yet light hand struck against his ears, and the young knight found himself both on his feet and armed for bear. He knew not why his hand had found his sword, but some greater sense of danger, some finely honed warrior’s instinct acted without his call.
“Who raps at this hour upon this door, speak your deeds lest you find malice awaiting in chambers so uninvited.” He did not shout, save past the force to pierce the door, and his answer came first with a daunting chuckle.
“Good Knight, who are you to deny me entrance unto mine own chambers? Who are you to challenge the queen of the castle at this hour or any other?” The music of her words was like a mist across the luminous glow from the moon so afar.
He did not know the tone of this woman’s voice, for he’d supped with the lady of the castle who thought she was noble was not a queen at all, and she was not so alluring a speaker nor was her voice so full and vibrant.
“Would you be unescorted at this hour? Such would be an ill mark on your name and virtue regardless of whose house you may claim. Nor would I have your name be besmirched by mine own in a meeting such as this.” Tales had filled these lands for years beyond count of the ethereal and the ghostly, of nefarious forces that worked their dark will against the unsuspecting, and having seen much unspeakable wickedness in his years of travel, he trusted well his instincts.
“I would not be so underserved in honor or in practice if such a knight as yourself, so brave indeed, would open my own chambers’ door and escort me out into the evening for a stroll in these quiet and moonstruck yards.”
Her voice bore a lyrical weight though her words had no verse, and as she spoke, the musical mist seemed to grow thicker. Not with magic or some wicked enchantment though, Sir Niles was well schooled in fending himself from such deliberate sorcery, no it was nothing so dire, but something impossibly more dangerous.
It was the mist and music of simple charm and unabashed charisma brought to full force in the voice of one skilled in her own strengths and senses.
The knight, who’d needed a keen ear to battle ambush and closer dangers yet unseen, heard no other sound, and doubted that even the most skilled of footpads could be lurking behind that door.
“You shall be bested soon if you are not disposed to speaking the truth madam. I doubt well your claim to rights and royalty, nor my prowess to best a deceiver.”
With that, tiring of this small intrigue, he opened his chamber door and stood in his night dress, sword at the ready. And what his eyes did befall was indeed not the lady of the manor, at least not the one with whose company he’d supped.
“Now you are to have my secrets and my truths in full good knight. For I am both not who you would think, but wholly who I claim to be. In the hours of dawn through dusk my descendants sit on this throne diminished though it may be, but in the time of darkness and the domain of the stars and the moon I do rule these hall eternal. Look upon me, and see what legends have borne and what eyes would doubt and rejoice in.”
What wicked light there was did indeed bathe the visage before him.
Her hair was rich and red as blood, its luster like crimson spilled fresh on the frozen snow, and her lips were pale and pink, as though their thirst for a kiss was in that pale hue. Her skin was white as alabaster, as flawless and smooth as freshly blown glass, and her eyes were burnt with a pale green light that seemed as cold as frost and bright as the pre-dawn sky.
A cloak of black adorned her shoulders and hid the whole of her form, its fur lined hood was down, and covered in the thick cascade of her red ringlets.
There was something of the women she claimed was her descendent that he saw in the woman before him. He saw the opposite was true as well, but it was a diminished thing, quieted and muted and without the flush of pure and elegant beauty that he saw now in the silver moonlight.
It was as though he’d had taste of wine made wholly less by too much water, and now his eyes did drink of it straight from the cask. “Wicked things oft walk in finer guises, I bid you flee my door as I do rightly invoke the protection of guest-rites and declare to you now, dare you try me with force, subtle or crass, I will strike you from these halls and from this realm as rightly I should.”
She did not blink and her steadfast gaze pierced deep into the heart of his eyes, he felt no fear, neither from himself nor from her, and readily he met her seeing challenge in that unrelenting look. He saw as well that while her eyes were a beauty akin to all her form and features there was no great mystery there, no compelling sparkle of light to lead him, and he knew not what that gaze had hoped to accomplish.
‘Then tell me knight, why do you not? Would you be so crass yourself as to boast of violence to the mistress of this house, and refuse to bring weight to those words? Would you now step through this gate and do as you say? Or would you not join me, as I asked of you, for a simple walk under the night sky?”
“What charms you may wield and the brunt of your gaze has not moved me to bend or abide your will. You’ve no power here.” He’d heard tales of the gaze of some nefarious creatures of the night and their ability to beguile and enthrall, but he knew that their power could not pass a threshold uninvited.
“I’ve no greater power than any other woman to compel, save perhaps my beauty, but I do have a chill…” her cloak fell from her shoulders and revealed that she was not garbed in any fashion at all underneath it, “and if you would not walk with me, then perhaps you can invite me in and warm me? Perhaps under your covers?”
His eyes betrayed the gasp he kept behind his teeth, and her porcelain frame was in no proportion he had seen in any house be it of ill repute or of the finest company. Her waist was narrow and muscular, as though shaped by labors of pure vanity, her legs were long and bare, no boot nor sandal adorned her feet, and her legs too were sculpted of long fine muscle. So too were her bare arms muscled in such a fashion, enhanced by the serpentine shapes that adorned them, their blue lines tattooed into her flesh that seemed to dance with motion in the moon’s silver glow.
A small well groomed tuft of red sat above her womanhood, and Niles’ eye did not resist the simple urge to look down, and then up to the imposing sight of her breasts; they were two white and lovely globes of flesh, like moons themselves in their roundness and their fullness. “What witchcraft is this? Or would you claim only the spells of the fairer sex?”
He’d found himself trying to make light of the imposing beauty before him, and his will called in simple sense to close the door and look no longer on such a beguiling sight, but the challenge of her dark and wicked ways called to his gallantry and he would not abide leaving her to work he wiles on another.
No, he would force her to action and in good justice bring this fiend low.
“Witchcraft it is indeed, but as you’ve your arms and armor, I simply use what I must for the form most suiting my needs. You do me honor by your admiration, and yet you still misunderstand my power and my purpose. Would you not wish to share the bounty of my sorcery, would you not lust for me if you saw me not as some wily foe?”
She cupper her breasts, and the eerie luminescence of her skin glowed warm as thought a translucent silver fire danced around her. “I cannot enspell any, be it man or woman, thought I know spells of love and lust surely, but as a witch and only as such could I cast them, and you know well you’ve warded yourself with good sense against these charms. No, you are safe in your chamber, but would that I tempt you to the sweetest taste of my beauty. You need only gaze upon me, and mayhaps I will beckon you to invite me in, or join me without, and failing that my power will wane and never will my visage cross your eyes again, so bound by the rules of power am I.”
Niles made finally, knowing that he could win this battle with a greater ease than he’d guess, to close the door, but ever did his eyes linger on her fingers as they danced about the ripe and full flesh of her massive breasts, and much as a snake be-stills its prey, her breasts became the unblinking eyes of the serpentine slither of her tattooed arms.
(I know it’s a shorter sample than usual, but if you read the rest you’ll appreciate why I only shared this much)
Cost: $3.00
