The Wicked Tower - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

“There you are, Vel.” Cassia found her son striding in from the meadows, holding Naevia’s hand. They looked sweaty and bedraggled, as well they should. She assumed they had spent a busy day helping to erect tents in the absence of the servant staff. She hoped that was all they had done. They knew better than to get into mischief where they could be found, didn’t they?

Naevia leaned in close to her brother. “There is a shadow that hangs about Mother. I can remove it. Let’s get her somewhere private.”

“There is a what?” Vel looked down at her and then back up to the duchess. He saw no shadow.

“Like the ones Brynhild cast about her.” As she watched her mother beckon to them, Naevia could feel her nerves tingle and itch. “Let’s be quick about it.”

“I’m glad I found you, Vel,” Cassia said. “I wanted to talk about tomorrow. The arrivals should start –”

“Come with us, quickly.” Vel took his mother’s arm and hurried her into the castle. Neptune’s temple was the closest unoccupied room, so he pulled her in there.

“What’s going on?” Cassia looked around her at the statue of the great towering man with his trident and the sea creatures that surrounded him. The blue walls of the chamber became bluer still when her daughter’s skin glowed. There was a flash of azure, and Cassia stumbled into her son. A dark veil that had shadowed her mind lifted. Her thoughts immediately fixed on her conversation with Brynhild that morning. “You’re in danger, Vel. The sorceress plans to …” Her face twisted in disgust. “She plans to rape you, I think. She’s looking for magic.” She grabbed at Vel’s arm. “Where is she?”

“It’s okay. She’s gone. I sent her from the castle for good.” Vel hugged his mother close and squeezed her tight. “Naevia prevented whatever Brynhild had planned. And I banished her.”

“Naevia did?” Cassia looked over at her daughter. “How?”

Vel and Naevia filled in their mother on the azure light and how it had protected them. They left out the part where it had saved Naevia and Dellia when they’d been spying on Cassia. It didn’t seem pertinent.

Cassia relayed to them the conversation she’d had with Brynhild that morning. She left out the part where she’d told the sorceress about Vel taking the duchess’s rear. Her daughter didn’t need to hear that.

Silence filled the temple after they’d, mostly, caught each other up to speed.

“The curse has turned my daughter into a sorceress.” Cassia thought through all the implications.

“Yes. But not you, Mother. You’ve had no blue light? Nothing unexplained?” Vel followed along. He saw what must have been Brynhild’s conclusion.

“Vel! Not in front of your sister.” Cassia’s eyes went wide at his cavalier mention of their secret.

“I know you’ve done it, Mother.” Naevia folded her arms.

“Of course she knows, Mother.” Vel held up his hands in surrender when Cassia shot him a look of betrayal. “Only Naevia and Dellia know. It’s okay.”

“Dellia?” Cassia felt faint. She looked about the temple, her gaze traveling everywhere but her daughter’s eyes. How much had Vel told them?

“Don’t faint, Mother.” Naevia reached out and held her mother by the shoulders. “We need to think things through.” She turned to her brother. “You have to take her to the relic tower tonight.”

“What?” Vel and Cassia both looked at Naevia like a madness had taken her.

“Brynhild went to you, Mother. She said she was going to interrogate Norbana next. Don’t you see?” Naevia looked back and forth between her mother’s uncomprehending face, and Vel’s knowing one. “She would have made Vel take her in the castle if she thought that’s how the magic worked. It would have been easier. But she surmised from you and Norbana that she needed the relic tower.”

Cassia’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my.”

Moments later, Vel nodded. “Brynhild’s logic must have been that the magic transfers to a woman only if I join with her in a place of old magic.”

“Yes.” Naevia nodded. “Which is good news about Lady Norbana. We should have been more careful there.”

“But … I don’t want magic.” Cassia looked from her eighteen-year-old daughter with her determined expression, to her nineteen-year-old son with his suppressed smile. “You better not be enjoying this.” She bit her bottom lip. Of course he was enjoying it. Men always wanted to claim the horizon. They hadn’t yet spoken of it, but of course she would have to give him her vagina in that broken tower. That was as clear as day after what Brynhild had said to her. Cassia had given Vel almost every part of her. It was no surprise that Vel wanted the rest. Perhaps it spoke well of his restraint that it was circumstance, and not his pressing for it, that would break this final wall.

“You have to, Mother.” Naevia took a deep breath, trying to control her excitement. “If it wasn’t for the magic, Brynhild would have had her way with Vel.”

“You have no magic?” Cassia looked to her son.

“Only the gift.” Vel nodded.

“The … gift.” Cassia had meant to correct him and call it a curse. But it wasn’t a curse, was it? “I will go ready myself. Take a bath, Vel, and meet me at the lonely rock with two horses in an hour.” She turned and rushed out of the temple.

“Four horses.” Naevia corrected after Cassia had gone. “You’ll need Dellia and me to keep guard at the tower.”

“‘Keep guard’ is a clever euphemism for surreptitiously watching Mother and me.”

“Well, I’m a clever girl, Vel.” She reached up, grabbed a lock of his hair, and pulled his face down to hers. “You know her butt isn’t going to be good enough this time,” she whispered.

“I think that much was clear.” Vel kissed her rosy cheek.

“I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” She kissed him on the lips. “Now, let’s go take that bath. We can’t have mother smelling my scent on your cock, can we?”

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The old wooden steps spiraled ever so slightly as Vel and Cassia moved up the relic tower. Vel had to stoop under a beam that had fallen diagonally, punching a hole through the wall. This tower was in even worse shape than the tower in Kart Hadasht had been, before Vel and Naevia had accidentally given it new life.

“Will this hold us?” Vel moved cautiously, weighing each step so as not to plunge through the rotten boards. The bag slung over his shoulder didn’t help matters.

“I’m as light as a feather, Vel. But you should continue to tread carefully.” Cassia looked back over her shoulder and tried to smile. It was a feeble attempt. Her heart was in her throat, thinking about what they were about to do. The failed smile didn’t matter. It was dark enough to muddy their faces. Vel was just a blotchy, pale twig plodding his way up behind her. They dared not risk any light for fear of bringing attention to the tower. “Anyway, I think we’re near the top.” Once, the tower of Ostia Novus had spiraled into the heavens. Now it was only five stories tall, and forever getting shorter.

“Thank the gods.” The panic in Vel’s mind at the thought of breaking his leg in that stairway nearly pushed out the steady excitement of what the night held in store for them.

“There we are … starlight.” In the opening ahead, Cassia could see the sky. She chewed on the plant in her mouth with increased vigor as the moment was nearly upon them. Her vagina gushed and her stomach hung on the edge of an imagined precipice.

They clambered out onto what was now the roof, but had once been a floor. Parts of the stone walls made a circle around them, jagged against the lights of the city on one side, and the inky blankness of the wilds on the other. The furniture was all in ruin and unusable. A soggy, decaying bed sat off-kilter some twenty feet away. Closer, a great sambuca, its strings mostly snapped, leaned against a fallen wood wall. The remains of chairs and sofas lay here and there.

“It is a beautiful night.” Vel took in a deep breath and stepped out onto the floor. The magical builders had used thick, ancient timbers. “Seems solid.” He took several more steps. “The floor will hold.” He blushed when he said it. Hold against what? The statement seemed to beg the question. He walked out farther to a clearing. “Here is good.” He dropped the bag and pulled out the thick, wool blanket they’d brought. As he spread it out, he could hear his mother nervously chewing. He looked over to where she watched him. “What do you eat?”

“I’m chewing silphium.” Cassia could see her son better now under the stars. He looked strong and handsome making ready their makeshift bedding.

“Yuck. That stuff tastes like black licorice, but stronger. Why are you chewing silphium?”

“Think on it, Vel. You’re a smart lad.” Cassia sighed and stepped onto the blanket. She reached down and loosened her sandals. If she was going to back out, now was the time. Once he touched her, there would be no going back.

After he finished getting their blanket ready, Vel took off his own sandals and unclasped his robes. He wasn’t as familiar with herbs as he should have been. He always tuned out those classes. Silphium wasn’t for debriding. His mother’s breath was fresh as a spring breeze anyway. It was … “Oh.”

“Oh?” She slowly pulled off her stola, careful not to disturb her brown braids, or the circlet in her hair.

“It’s a contraceptive.” Vel took off his robes. The sight of his mother in her chest band and underwear sent the memory of their perilous climb out of his mind. Her curves looked even more accentuated in the starlight. “You don’t wish to have my child.”

“You can bet your duchy that I don’t wish to have my own grandchildren.” She paused with her hands on her chest band. “I assume Naevia has been doing the same.” More correctly, she had assumed that her daughter had the sense to use a contraceptive. But if Vel wasn’t familiar with silphium …

“Yes, but she’s been using …” He tried to think of the correct plant. “… pennyroyal.” Vel watched his mother closely. Her face eased. His lie had done the trick. Why hadn’t his sister taken something? “Um … are you ready? We’ve got a busy day tomorrow. We should get started.”

“Right.” Cassia pulled the chest band off her chest and watched her son’s eyes fix on her boobs as they dropped, one after the other. “This will be the only time you take me … in that special place. It’s otherwise reserved for your father.”

“Yes, of course.” Vel removed his tunic and underwear. He leaned back, letting his cock reach up to the sky. An evening zephyr blew in from the sea and tickled his naked skin.

“I would say ‘don’t do it inside me’ … but you have to, don’t you?” She wiggled her underwear down her legs and stood before him, as naked as he was.  

“Yes.” He stared at her dark triangle between her legs.

Cassia stared back at her reclining duke, heart now pounding in her ears. She felt flushed, woozy, and swallowed whole by anticipation. He was such a raw, virile specimen. She could just make out the crimson at the head of his cock. For the first time she wondered if she would have fallen for her son without the interference of his gift. She stepped over to him, her feet on either side of his legs. “Shall we get on with it, then?”

“Yes,” he whispered. Looking up from this angle, her breasts looked larger than before. His heart ached at the beauty of his mother. He watched her slowly bend down and kneel between his legs. He listened to her sharp intake of breath when she reached out and touched him.

“With your father, I would normally do my wifely work to get him ready. But …” She bit her lip. Why was she talking of Gallio at a time like this? The familiar, tantalizing heat traveled from his penis, down her fingers, and into her arm. She swallowed the silphium and relaxed.

“Do you need me to get you ready?” Vel regarded her as she slowly shook her head. Of course, she must be quite wet. He had come to expect that from his women. “So, then. Do you want to simply … put it in?” Vel stopped breathing as she climbed up onto his stomach and reached under her. Her tits hung so low that her nipples brushed against his skin.    

“Wait a moment.” Vel folded his arms around her back.

“What?” Cassia froze, the head of her son’s cock pressed against her slick lips. What had gone wrong now?

“Don’t look so serious, Mother. It’s just that you are so beautiful in the starlight, and I wanted to see you …” In one swift move, he lifted her, flipped their positions, and laid her back on the blanket. “… from a different angle.” He gazed down at her breasts hanging to either side. He rested his cock with his balls on her pussy and the head well past her belly button. “This is how far it will go.”

“Gods, Vel.” She lifted her head and looked between her boobs to where that giant thing grazed the slight curve of her belly. The heat of him, his sudden assertiveness, and the sight of that monster combined to wipe away all her apprehensions. “If it hadn’t already gone in the other way, I would never say you would fit. Put it in, Vel. Put it in, but go slowly. I …” Her mind wandered away when the head pushed between her lips and her body began the process of accepting him. She never did finish her thought. Instead, she spread her legs as wide as they went, and lifted them up to the night sky. Her animal grunting started when the head was fully in her vagina.

“How does it feel, Mother?” Vel knew his sister and Dellia were spying on them. He wasn’t sure where they were, but at the very least they were listening. Cassia had insisted on hiking up to the fifth floor to be out of earshot of his sister and cousin on guard duty. But Vel knew there was no way Naevia would miss this. Not only was she not jealous, as she often reminded him, but his sister seemed to take pleasure in his pleasure. Or maybe she enjoyed viewing the pleasure he caused in others. If that was the case, he couldn’t blame her. His mother was grunting, her brows knitted in concentration, her eyes fixed on the monstrosity stretching her out. It was a matchless sight. She was so consumed by the moment that she didn’t answer him. He asked again. “How does it feel?”

“Every … ugh … time … you enter me … it is magic. You open my eyes … again … and again. This is a continuation … of that … but … ugh … better.” Cassia’s chest rose and fell as if she had undertaken some Herculean effort. Well, she had, hadn’t she? Her son’s cock was her Nemean Lion. Or, perhaps, more fittingly, her vagina was the lion, the impervious and pure creature that Hercules was about to destroy. Her hips spasmed and her toes curled in the air. “Push it all the way … in.”

“I’m trying … it’s tight.” Vel wondered that this pussy had birthed four children. His father must have let it go fallow in the years since. “It’s … almost … in.”

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“Shh.” Naevia held her finger to her cousin’s mouth. They both stood perched in the shadows of the stairway, watching the sex unfold some twenty feet away. It had been a difficult task climbing the rickety stairs without making too much noise. But they were there now. Dellia had rebelled at guard duty. Neither had wanted to miss this, and both cousins had agreed that it was unlikely that anyone had followed them. And even less likely that anyone would happen by the tower that night.

“Gods, she loves it. Listen to her.” Dellia pushed her side up next to her cousin, eager for some body contact. She was pleased when Naevia didn’t pull away. Maybe they could fool around a little even without the blue magic as a spur. “She sounds like she just discovered sex.”

“Do you remember the first time you took Vel in your pussy?” Naevia looked over at Dellia. It was dark in the shadows, but they were only inches apart. She could clearly see the smile on her cousin’s pretty face. “Was it not like discovering sex?”

“Yes, but your mother is a champ. She’s been taking him in her fucking ass, Naevia.” Dellia reached over and massaged her cousin’s full breast through her stola and chest band. She met no resistance.

“It’s different.” Naevia leaned back against the canted doorframe. So, it seemed based on the hand squeezing her tit that she and her cousin were a bit of a thing. The first couple times, it could be dismissed. But after a while, one had to acknowledge it. “I like the feel of your hands on me.”

“And I you.” Dellia pulled up her cousin’s stola and pulled down her underwear. She found her wet gash and went to work. Not long after, she felt Naevia’s trembling hand under her tunic. As Vel picked up the pace and pounded into his mother with long, heavy strokes, Dellia and Naevia worked each other’s pussies standing side by side, with legs slightly spread.

“Look how long he is.” Naevia couldn’t move her gaze away from the grunting couple out on the blanket. On each backstroke he moved an impossible distance from the duchess, and then closed the gap with a resounding smack of skin on skin. Her mother’s voice picked up in volume, keening like a lost demon. It was clear that the great Duchess Cassia Tullius was about to explode on her son’s cock. The thought was too much. With her free hand, Naevia put the skirt of her stola between her teeth and climaxed.

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As she accepted her vaginal punishment from the scion between her legs, Cassia tried to sort through what had happened so far. Her gentle Vel had dug into her, found a forbidden spot in her womb that she had no foreknowledge of, and then his hips had taken off at a gallop. A mighty lightning-string of orgasms followed for her. “Vel … Gods … ugh … just do it, Vel.” She looked up into his sweaty face with awe and reverence.

“Mother … I’m going to …” His grunting matched the rhythm of his hips, both slowed their cadence, but amplified in intensity. Vel watched his mother’s tits bounce violently as her round body absorbed each crash. He lifted his head, arched his back, and thrust a final time. He held his cock all the way inside as his balls emptied.

A while later, her womb laden with sperm, Cassia rode her son. She found that to get the full length of him in and out, it was best to plant her feet on either side of his hips and squat down on him over and over. Her thighs and calves burned with the effort, but the pain was overwhelmed by the joy of that penis and the look of pure happiness on her son’s face. His knees were bent behind her, so she reached back and placed her hands on his wiry thighs. Her breasts flopped on her chest with each lunge. She followed Vel’s eyes from her boobs to her face and back again.

“Do you want me to … uh … uh … uh … cum again?” Vel held her hips gently, so as not to upset her rhythm. He had unloaded in her three times already, and was nearing a fourth.

“Yes,” Cassia squeaked.

“I want to hear you say … ugh … ugh … say it, Mother.” Vel wondered how strong a barrier silphium provided. He thought of all that seed smothering her once-fallow fields.

“I want you … to spray it … in my womb … again. I want … ugh … ugh … you to … make me yours.” Clearly, she was babbling nonsense she’d later regret. But that was for a future Cassia to worry over. In the moment, she just wanted to soak up every bit of Vel. She screamed when she felt him release again. The thought that she’d ever felt hesitation about taking him in her vagina was incomprehensible.

Over an hour later, they lay on their sides spooning, Vel’s tall form behind his mother. His hips moved languidly. He had pounded her enough that night. Now, their intimacy was a gentle, quiet thing. Vel looked to the east and could see a faint line of violet forming above the jagged walls of the tower. They had spent most of the night there.

“We need to finish, Vel. The cockerel will call soon. We’ll be missed.” Despite her words, she pushed her butt back against him in a steady motion. Their night had burst forth with a storm of energy and passion. The tempest had finally passed, and they were gently rocked by a calm sea. “Maybe just a few more minutes.” She cupped her breasts and luxuriated in her body’s instincts.

“If we go a little harder, I can fill you all the way up.” Vel rested his face on her hair, relishing the faint scent of flowers.

“I am already full.” She almost chuckled at the thought she could hold any more of his stuff. “But you have my leave for one more … ugh … final … ugh … time.” She saw stars as his hand clamped on her hip and his hips went back to work in earnest.

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The sky was quite pale when Vel and Cassia stumbled out of the tower. They found Dellia and Naevia already mounted on their horses.

“Did it go well?” Naevia tried to keep a smirk off her face. She had seen most of what had happened and already knew things had gone very well indeed.

“I think Mother will have the magic soon.” Vel reached out his hand and helped his mother onto her horse. He noticed that she made eye contact with no one. “How long do you think it will take to work?” He swung up on his own destrier and adjusted himself in the saddle. He was exhausted and longed for bed, but that day would not afford him rest. The wedding was so close now.

“Do you feel anything yet, Mother?” Naevia could hear Dellia snicker at the question as their horses turned and trotted toward the road.

“Not yet.” Cassia said it stiffly and sat rigidly in her saddle. It had been so much better than she had expected. Her mind was already scheming against her, trying to come up with scenarios to get Vel back inside her. She kicked at her horse. Her vagina flashed a protest to her, as they galloped onto the road. She would be very sore that day. Of that she was sure.

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“Oh, husband, what have they done to you?” Dellia entered the cell and closed the door behind her. The room was not meant as a prison, but she could see why they’d chosen it. Solid stone floor, walls, and ceiling. Only one way in and one way out. It might have been used for storage at one time, but now it was empty. The place smelled sour and damp. “I came as soon as I found you. When you didn’t return to our bed …”

“Dellia? You are still free?” Spurrius blinked up at her. The lamp she’d brought in was so very bright after all that time in the dark.

“They must not suspect me.”

“I fear they must have done something to the Lord Lars and Lady Norbana. I think they were paid informants of ours, but …” He took a breath. “What have you found?”

“They keep me in the dark.” Dellia didn’t move too close to Spurrius. She had washed her hands and face, but hadn’t yet had time for a bath. She wondered if the scent of her sex lingered about her. “I know only that the wedding proceeds as planned. Where you able to report anything before they captured you? What would you have me report now?”

“There is something … off, my dear Dellia.” Spurrius slowly pushed himself to his feet. He was chained to an iron ring in the wall, but the bond was loose enough for him to move about. “How many hours has it been since you missed me in our bed? Why did it take you so long to find me?”

“Well … I needed to locate the key to your door.”

“And how did you procure the key? You asked the seneschal nicely?” A rage built up inside Spurrius. He could see it on her face. His wife had betrayed him and the queens. “Of the two of us, you are brawn, and I am stealth. I do not expect you picked his pocket or cajoled him.”

Dellia sighed deeply. “I had wanted to keep you and my Tullius family in equal esteem. But it seems I must choose.”

“You choose them,” Spurrius spat.

“It is not so simple.” Dellia eyed him across the cell. Was she not a brave woman? Should she not make a clean cut? “I have taken both Vel and Naevia into my bed. And I had a roll with the Lady Norbana as well.” The muscles in her shoulders bunched. This was worse than pitched battle.

“I … I …” He saw red. He had heard the saying, but never thought it to be a literal phenomenon. But here he was, his vision as crimson as the cape of any royal guardsman. “You are the most cruel and wretched worm. May Pluto’s embrace find you this very minute, and may you drown in the sea of sorrow.”

“I take no pleasure in hurting you, Spurrius. You were a loyal husband. Or, at least loyal to me.”

“I will kill your duke, and his sister, and their bitch-whore of a mother. If the queens don’t get to them first, I will watch them scream and burn and char –” The slap across his face caught him quite by surprise. Dellia moved so fast, he’d hardly had time to understand the meaning of her approach.

“I will not let you or the queens harm any of the Tullius family.” Dellia withdrew to the door and opened it. “I will see that you are safely freed when the time comes. But if you seek to harm them, I will strike you down.” When he made no reply, she stepped out of the cell and closed the door behind her. Her whole body trembled as she climbed the stairs out of the cellar.

Continued in Chapter 18

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