The Dark Pool is due for release in a few short weeks or less.
I’d like to share the Prologue with my faithful readers, for whom I am so incredibly grateful.
The Prologue takes place in medieval England, a snippet of time that reveals a past life of two characters in the novel.
I hope you enjoy this little bit of The Dark Pool, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Prologue
“I want to love you wildly. I don’t want words, but inarticulate cries from the bottom of my most primitive being that flow from my belly like honey. A piercing joy that leaves me empty, conquered, silenced” ~ Anais Nin
What hour was this? Brigida opened her eyes to the smoky warmth of the room. Light was just beginning to creep in at the horizon.
The mullioned windows of the bedchamber were frosted with cold, the yellow-orange glimmer of the rising sun barely visible through the glass. Her eyes lifted towards the rich canopy hung above the carved oak bed.
Her mouth was dry. She tried to move her arms from the position they were in, stretched above her head. She had always slept like this, from the time she was an infant. Open. Trusting of the world, although then she had known nothing of it. But her arms would not move, and neither would her legs. Panic set in, and then memory flooded her brain.
“Are you awake, my lady?”
The rich voice of Brigida’s lover brought the memory into sharper focus. She tried to answer but her throat, parched as it was from the wine she had drunk the night before, closed to all words. She nodded, watching the handsome face lower towards her. He kissed her gently where her pulse was now beating madly at the base of her neck.
“Water, my lord,” was all she could muster.
He nodded, eyes soft and hungry at the same time. “By God, you are beautiful,” he whispered, and turned to the table by the bed where a pitcher of water and a cup stood ready. He poured, and lifting her head with one arm, watched her drink as if she had walked the dessert the night through.
“Untie me.” Brigida, throat moistened, gathered her courage.
“Not yet, my love.” A shadow fell across her as he bent down to kiss her lips. She could smell the oils in his hair, the musk of his body, the wine on his breath. It made her weak, his presence. And she wasn’t sure now that she wanted to be released.
He smiled, a wicked smile, while his hands pulled up on the rich fabric of her nightdress and exposed her breasts, nipples taut; and the pink of her sex visible. He moved now to the bottom of the bed. His stare was penetrating. He licked his lips. Brigida squirmed, a flush blooming on her cheeks.
“Are you still the blushing maiden, Brigida?” he asked, untying the bindings on her legs. “After everything we have done, after all the words of love I have spoken?”
Brigida moved her legs together, and brought her knees to her chest. Her back ached and she wished to stretch the pain away. He waited, giving her a moment to ease herself back into a lying position.
She said nothing. Words were of no use when he looked like this.
“You are more to my liking like this, my lady,” he growled, taking up her legs and bringing her knees once more to her chest…spreading them wide. She gasped.
His hair falling about his broad shoulders, chest heaving with desire, her lover lowered his face once more. There was no reason to resist him. She wanted this as much as he. Her body, traitor that it was to all things decent, began to respond to his skilled tongue. He looked up at her briefly, curious.
“Do I please you, my lady?” His question was madness. He knew that he pleased her.
Pleased her so well that she forgave him his requests. And his hold on her heart.
Copyright: Monika Carless