Magia Posthuma ✓

Twenty One

Hermannstadt, Violet Tuesday 1770

Vlad groaned as his back hit the mattress of a creaking bed inside an even creakier room. The bed swayed dangerously as Leonie pounced on top of him like a cat – clawing her nails down his chest and stomach until she reached the waistband of his breeches. When he moved to help her she swatted his hands away; she tugged and tore at the placket with more urgency than he'd ever seen from her, freeing his cock in an instant and then immediately sinking down onto it with a pleasured sigh.

He snarled and bucked his hips as her hot flesh engulfed him. "...Slowly."

Leonie ignored his breathy request; she threw the tail of wispy blonde curls over her shoulder and began riding him like a cart on a bad road. "...I missed you," she purred from behind her green, velvet mask. It was all she was left wearing of her costume for Karneval; the crown of laurel leaves and gauze shift stitched with silk flowers abandoned on the floorboards by the door – dropped and discarded before he'd even had a chance to ask her who or what she was supposed to be. "...And, I know I should not say that... I know how you hate it... but, it's been weeks; I was worried..."

Vlad shut his eyes and beat his head back into the pillow; he reached down and grabbed her hips – trying to slow her frantic pace. "...You shouldn't have concerned yourself," he muttered, trying to concentrate.

"...But I thought... I thought that you had forgotten about me," Leonie whimpered as she snatched up his hands and slapped them against her breasts – holding them there as she rolled her hips. She threw her head back and moaned. "I thought that you had found another."

"...Forgive me," he demanded gruffly after a pause. "I've been... preoccupied."

It was nothing more than an empty excuse, but actually – annoyingly – it wasn't that far from the truth. He'd spent weeks holed up within the crumbling walls and candlelit bowels of Poenari – indulging in anything and everything that could keep him occupied. He'd practiced his swordplay, re-read his favourite books, and drank through a good deal of his dusty store of brandy as he pondered over his plans for rebuilding the castle – anything that could take his mind off of the unbearable feeling of being besieged from something that no weapon or fortification could ever withstand. Anything that could take his mind off of her.

The trouble was that she'd broken through his defenses long ago. And worse, he'd let her. He'd practically flung open the doors and invited her in.

Why the devil had he even invited her to Poenari in the first place? Before, he could easily forget about her if he picked up a sword or climbed the western tower to catch the last of the sunset – but now he found her scent lingering in every cobwebbed corner. He could hear her angrily playing the harpsichord - those damned eyes of hers cast down at the keys, lashes brushing the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. He could feel her warm skin and her trailing fingertips and everything they'd touched, including himself, and he was still picking small pieces of glass from the crevices of the flagstones where the bottle of brandy she'd sipped from had smashed (Grande Champagne Cognac from 1704 – a truly tragic loss).The only part of her she'd taken when she left had been the damned pearls.

He didn't like to admit to himself how many times over the years he'd slipped the gleaming strand from his casket of jewels and reclined in his bed, thinking of her – of that night. He'd war with himself over it - growling as he hid casket from view and still ended up fishing his fingers into it. He'd lift the pearls to his nose and inhale the distant smell of them – of her – and remember how she'd felt, how she'd tasted. A vintage – as she'd termed it – so rare and delicious. He used to chuckle to himself when he thought about how she'd shoved his shoulder and wriggled out from underneath him – casting a flushed and furious glance in his direction before fleeing. He'd chased her lingering scent all the way to the gardens of the Hofburg before turning back and retreating into the night.