The Lady Wakes

The wind howls around the castle, forcing its way through the time-weakened windows, chasing dust and cobwebs down dimly lit hallways. There is one window bearing a light; the lonely flicker of a candle flame illuminates the silhouette of a woman. She is staring out of the window, across the violent sea, which throws itself at the shore, a desperate lover in a forbidden circumstance. The woman sighs a sigh filled with sorrow and mourning. Will her husband return to her? Has the ocean claimed him?

She moves away from the window and takes the candle to her bedside. She brushes her hair thirteen times on each side and thirteen times at the back. The bed is warm in the coldness of the room and the sheets are soft as lamb's wool. Ingrid turned over and closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek and blossoming as a flower of blood on her pillow.

Ingrid's dreams are troubles this night. She dreams of raging storms and shipwrecks on distant and foreign lands. She dreams of tigers and cannibals and traps that were laid for adventurers. She dreams of voodoo and inhuman monsters that snatched helpless women away never to be seen again.

She does not know what awoke her. She knows she was dreaming but the details are fading, being replaced with wakefulness and an irrational fear. Scowling, Ingrid climbs out of bed and gasps as the shock of the cold tiled floor shoots up her feet. She stands; adjusting to the cool ground and leaves the room. Her breath flows out before her like a lantern as she navigates the corridors of her lonely home heading towards the grand staircase and down to the kitchen where a well stands in the centre of the room.

The floor here is warmer as the stove is still radiating heat from the last of the wood to be burned within. Ingrid takes a cup and pulls the bucket from the well, cursing herself for not taking one to bed. She fills the cup to the brim and drinks deeply of it, savouring the metallic taste of the water as it flows over her tongue and trickles serenely down her throat. Ingrid leaves the cup of the lip of the well, knowing that she will not thirst again tonight. She pulls a large chair from the maids' dining table and draws it to the stove. The maids have long since left; Ingrid has been alone here for one month since he went away. She sits and pulling her knees to her chest begins to think of her love, her husband, her Bela.

How she misses him.

Ingrid's eyelids begin to grow heavy. She tries to stir herself but the stove is still warm and her body is reluctant to go back through to cold passages to her chamber. Ingrid's head nods and she sleeps a restful and dreamless slumber.

Hours pass and still Ingrid sleeps. She does not hear the banging on the oak doors at the entrance to the castle. She hears not the raging thunder and her eyelids do not reveal the flashes of white hot lightening that screams its silence in light. She doesn't see the doors swing open nor does she see the tall, built man enter through them, dripping rain on the flagging and shaking his out coat as if he were welcome inside. He makes not a sound as he walks through the lobby; his feet leave no trace of his ever having been present. As soon as he moves on, the droplets of water that he has scattered evaporate with the smallest swirl of steam into whatever nothingness awaits them. The stranger walks through the door and into the pantry; he spies Ingrid in her rest and walks past, still without making a sound.

Ingrid is awoken suddenly by a coldness being pressed into her hand. Her eyes fly open, her heart jumping in her chest as she sees the monster before her. A moment later, she realises there is nothing there but the shadows of the kitchen and her overactive imagination. Nonetheless, she turns her hand over a little surprised to feel the wetness in her palm.

'Passing strange, Ingrid,' she scolds herself. 'It's nothing more than a spot of water or saliva from your sleep. Forget it, child. Sleep once more.' But it seems that sleep has spread its wings and flown away to bestow its enfolding darkness to another.

Ingrid walks through the castle, paying no heed to the cold that nibbles her toes and hardens her nipples under her nightgown. She feels that there is something wrong. She knows not what it is but every hair on the back of her neck is standing up, her beautiful pale skin is breaking out in gooseflesh and her pupils have contracted to pinpricks within her deep brown irises. Her fear is growing in her belly like a demon child. She notices a doorway left ajar and it is a doorway she has not noticed before; it looks as if a piece of the wall has grown hinges and swung forth, issuing a glowing lantern light inviting her to enter. She does so.

The room has many torches mounted upon the walls and the warmth radiating from them calms Ingrid's skin, defrosting the ice that had lodged itself within her. She begins to relax as she walks the room, feeling the lush animal skins on the floor beneath her chilled feet. She glances out of the window as the moon takes leave behind a passing cloud. A movement she catches from the corner of her eye causes her to spin about on her heels; a look of shock appears, turns to puzzlement and then melts into glorious happiness.

There before her is her husband, her love, her...

'Bela!' She cries, rushing towards him with her arms outstretched. Something in her shouts a warning but it is drowned out by her relief. 'Oh, my love,' she weeps covering his face in gentle snow-soft kisses. Bela wraps his long arms about Ingrid, his cold hands warming her body heat. His hands move up her back sending shivers down her spine. It seems like an age since she felt his touch and she smiles, kissing his mouth and closing her eyes. Bela kisses his wife and wraps his fingers in her hair. He tightens his grip and pulls her head back, his eyes changing from deepest green to the burning orange of a high summer's sunset.

Ingrid screams at the unexpected pain as Bela pulls her hair.

'Love me, wife,' he coos, his voice somehow smoother than she remembers. 'It has been too long since you loved me and I will not wait a second longer.' Bela pushes Ingrid and she falls to the floor. Somehow, she is naked and scared as she feels; she wants her husband inside her. She has never wanted him this hungrily before. It is base, it is animal and it is raw.

Bela's clothes, too, have vanished. He stands over her, his body muscular, his penis hard and ready to take her. Ingrid's eyes deceive her now, she thinks she sees Bela's face change, his features elongate but as she blinks, what she thinks she saw has gone just like her nightgown.

Bela roughly parts Ingrid's legs and forces himself inside her. She cries out; in a mix of pain and pleasure. As Bela thrusts himself into her, Ingrid listens to his breathing change. It deepens and roughens. She grinds herself into him, welcoming the forceful and desperate nature of their lovemaking. Bela raises himself up onto the palms of his hands, slamming himself harder still into her, making her scream out as she comes in huge spasmodic contractions. Before her orgasm is truly finished, Ingrid feels another welling up inside her and she digs her nails in to Bela's back, biting her lip and making it bleed in the force of her second climax.

Blood trickles from the corner of Ingrid's mouth and blood seeps slowly between her thighs but still Bela continues. He watches the blood make its track from Ingrid's lips and hesitantly bends forwards. He licks the blood from her face and, as he does so, his muscles grow hard; his back arches outwards like a dog stretching. Bela throws his head back, and this time as the moon appears from behind its temporary shelter and Bela begins to come, hot and animal inside her, Ingrid knows what she sees, what she hears and what she feels. Bela's face morphs and extends making him look like a hound. He howls, his teeth growing in his mouth and frothy saliva spattering forth, covering Ingrid's face and making her think of his seed deposited within her. Under her hands, his skin begins to bubble, coarse hair sprouting from the pores at a terrible rate. Bela is gone. Ingrid screams as the wolf withdraws its still rigid penis from within her. His hackles rise as she watches in appalled paralysis, his snout wrinkles and he begins to clamp his jaws together ferociously, rabid foamy spit clogging his muzzle and thickly falling to the carpeted floor.

Ingrid tries to scramble away, digging her petrified fingers into the animal skin rugs, desperately hoping that they find purchase. They find none and her attempted escape is observed by the wolf who knows she is going nowhere. Ingrid, exhausted and defeated, gives in. She lies back, sobbing as the one she thought was her husband comes to her. He sniffs her face and licks her cheek, almost tenderly before clamping his jaws about her pretty throat and tearing it out in a rush of ecstasy, pain and blood.

Ingrid jumps awake with a scream of terror. Her chest heaves and she wonders where she is. Slowly, she remembers coming to fetch water and settling by the warmth of the stove. The kitchen is cold now and Ingrid longs to sleep in her own bed. She rises from the chair, not caring that the floor is cold against the soles of her feet.

She walks to the foot of the staircase and mounts the first step. A peculiar noise grabs her attention and, paying no mind to her silly nightmare -- the details are all but gone from her mind but she finds herself feeling strangely aroused and knows that she is wet -- she walks towards the source of the sound. Its sound was a creak like an old door being opened after a very long time has passed since it was last used.

Ingrid sees a doorway that is ajar. It is strange; she has never seen this one before. It looks as though it would disappear if it were closed. It looks so like the wall that surrounds it! There is a warm welcoming glow emanating from the room, almost seeming to invite her. She casts a look to her left down the darkened corridor and to her right, back the way she came from.

Ingrid looks into the room and smiles despite the tiny flitter of unease that left her belly as soon as it had arrived. When she steps inside, the torchlight grows more intense as the moon takes her leave, hiding behind a shroud of thick and deathly clouds.