Celtic Love Knots Volume 7 Read online

  The lovely maiden approached the spot where Connla stood, and when she was very near, he spoke to her. A touch of wonder tingled through his voice. “Fair maiden, I know you are not of this world. Who are you, and from what faraway place do you come?"

  "My name is Kera,” the maiden replied. “I have come from the Land of Tir Na N-og."

  Connla was intrigued. “Tell me more of this place."

  Kera replied, “It is a land of eternal spring, for neither illness nor death can enter there, nor is there dissention or conflict or pain or grief. All is peace and beauty, and tranquility.” Her voice was like the sighing wind, low and sweet and melodious.

  Connla had heard of this magical land, but in his wildest flights of fancy, he had never imagined such a place could exist. “Where is this wonderful place?” He couldn't take his eyes from Kera's beautiful face.

  Kera smiled sweetly. “It lies across the waters of the Western Sea, where it is nestled among rolling, pleasant, green hills."

  Connla's fascination grew with his curiosity. “What occupies your time and your talents in this faraway wonderful paradise?"

  "We have but one talent and that is the ability to give and receive pleasure.” Kera lowered her shining head, and peered up at him from under her long, dark lashes. “We pass our time indulging in sensuous delights."

  The king and his company stopped their descent down the slope and listened, for although they could not see the maiden, they could hear each provocative word she spoke, and they were appalled by her titillating revelation. King Conn's angry voice boomed out into the gathering darkness. “My son, what form of being is this creature thou art speaking with?"

  Connla stood, transfixed, with his gaze riveted on Kera. “Alas, Father, I do not know. All I know is that she is very young."

  Kera's disembodied voice addressed the king and his company. “Your son is speaking with Kera, a lady of noble birth."

  Connla interrupted to say, “And she is beautiful beyond compare."

  Conn replied, “Physical attractiveness is of a short duration, my son. With the passing of time we all grow old and wrinkled and our beauty fades away."

  "My beauty will never fade,” Kera said, “for I shall never feel the heavy hand of age upon my shoulders.” And then she added, “Neither will death ever claim me."

  It was then that Conn knew he was speaking to a fairy maiden of exalted station and noble birth. He hid his fears behind a mask of nonchalance. “You have no place here. Go your way and trouble us no more."

  "That I cannot do,” the voice replied, “because I have fallen in love with Connla of the flaming hair."

  Those words struck panic in Conn's heart. “Connla is a mortal and a warrior prince; he cannot possibly fit into your world of pleasure and self-indulgence, and you have no place in his life."

  Fairy laughter wafted through the oak trees, putting to shame the songs of the night birds. “It is not you, but your son, who must decide what his future will be and with whom.” Turning, she spoke once more to Connla. “Don't you agree, my love?"

  In the presence of this delicately ethereal creature, Connla seemed to have lost his power to speak or to think. “I do ... that is to say..."

  Kera interrupted his stammering to declare, “I have come to take you with me to Tir Na N-og, where we shall abide forever in the green hills. There we will observe the rituals of sacred sex and celebrate the divine eroticism of giving and taking pleasure.” She laid one dainty hand on his arm. Her touch was enough to cause his blood to heat and his cock to grow and expand. He tried to pull away from her feathery touch. He could not move. Once more Kera said, “Your father offers you combat, conflict and death. I promise you indulgence and fulfillment, and eternal life."

  Connla countered, but without conviction, “I owe allegiance and service to my people and my father. Someday I shall follow in his footsteps and become a warrior-king."

  Kera replied, “How little that vague, hoped-for future holds compared to what I offer you now.” Her hold on Connla's arm tightened. “The residents of Fairyland have watched you with your kinsmen, and in the assemblies of tribal elders, and with the women and children of your family. They know you and they love you with a strange love. On the day that you come with me, you shall be made King of Tir Na N-og, and you shall reign there forever. Why would you choose war, strife and struggle over delights such as no mortal tongue can tell?” The harp of the gods played no more engagingly than was Kera's voice when it dropped to a low pleading purr. “Come with me, o gentle Connla of the powerful body, the proud erection, and the flame-red hair!"

  King Conn could not see this creature, but he could feel her presence and hear her honeyed words and he could see his son, standing proud but confused and with an erection of enormous height and width. Truly his son was equipped to be a warrior king; all the more reason not to let this invisible being drag him off to some promised fairyland of sensual decadence. He called to his druid, Coran, “Come hither, wise druid. I have need of your magic."

  Coran came to stand by his leader's side. “I am here, oh noble Conn."

  Conn swallowed his pride and admitted, “I find myself engaged in a battle such as I have never known since I became a warrior-king—a clash with an invisible being who is beguiling my son to the Fairyland of Tir Na N-og by her sensuous charms. Tell me what I must do to save him."

  Coran replied, “There is nothing you can do, oh mighty King, for Kera's cunning is beyond your skill, and you cannot withstand her power."

  Conn knew that if Coran could not help, he would lose his son to the wiles and witchery of this woman from the fairy hills. In anguish, he cried, “Oh, Coran of the mystic arts and of the mighty incantations, put forth your power against the dark spell of this invisible creature."

  Conn stroked his long gray beard as he stood for extended minutes with his head bowed and in deep thought. As he lifted his chin to stare at the king, he said, “Your wish is my command.” His long tunic rose above his ankles as he raised his arms toward the heavens and chanted to the Goddess Danu against the wiles of Kera.

  Oh, Goddess of wind and wisdom,

  Your servant's pleadings hear,

  Take the fairy maid from our presence,

  But leave Prince Connla near.

  And for the moment Coran's power was greater than Kera's. With a cry of distress the lovely fairy maiden vanished from Connla's view and the king and his company heard her voice no more.

  But the clever Kera was not about to be defeated by a mere druid. As she was snatched away, she secretly tossed Connla a red, rosy apple.

  He caught it and hid it in the folds of his tunic lest the others see and ask questions.

  Conn's joy knew no bounds as he put his arm around Connla's shoulder and steered his son toward home. The battle was over and, as it had been one hundred times before, he had prevailed.

  The entourage of guards and tribal elders followed after the king and Prince Connla, murmuring as they went words of praise for Conn's strength and wisdom.

  But the king's joy was short-lived. For the ensuing weeks brought drastic changes in his beloved son. Connla became lethargic and indolent, refusing both food and drink that was offered him.

  With each passing day Conn became more concerned and more afraid. No man, not even his strong and stalwart son, could long survive without food and drink to sustain him.

  What the king did not know, what he could never have imagined, was that Connla ate each day of the apple Kera had secretly given him. And although he feasted on it until his appetite was sated, it never lessened, but was as whole and perfect at the end of each meal as it had been in the beginning. Consequently, when he was offered the finest of dainty dishes to eat, he refused them, for after tasting Kera's apple, no other food was pleasing to his palate.

  On the first night after a day of eating only of the apple, Kera came to Connla in the darkness of midnight. She stole quietly and invisibly into his father's round house and was lying besid
e him in his narrow bed before he became aware of her presence. He opened his mouth and would have spoken but she cautioned him to silence by laying her finger over his lips. “Speak not, your father, your brother and your father's mate cannot hear me, but if you utter a sound, they will awaken.” She shifted her body until it fit spoon fashion against Connla's backside.

  The warmth of her soft breasts pressing into Connla's back was enough to make his heart beat at a rapid pace and to send heat fusing through his body. His cock grew instantly to stand stiff and rigid as it throbbed with unrequited desire. A soft moan escaped through his parted lips.

  From across the house his father called softly, “My son, are you ill?"

  If passion and desire could kill, Connla might even now be in the throes of some divine death. He lied, an act unbefitting one who held the exalted title of warrior-prince. “I am quite well, sire."

  As Conn turned in his bed, Kera took Connla's cock in her hand and massaged gently. “Not a sound, my love. Lie still and silent and let me show you the fairy way to supreme and glorious fulfillment."

  Conn shifted to face her. In the darkness he could discern the green light of lust in her eyes and feel the heat that emanated from her bare body. Pulling her into his arms, he ravaged her mouth with savage, plundering kisses. She had awakened in him an ardor such as he had never known before.

  Kera's tinkling, bell-like laughter sounded in his ears, as she began an erotic exploration of his body. Her probing fingers slid across his broad chest, traveled feather-light down his flat belly until they came to rest on his tight hairy balls. As she squeezed and caressed with her hand, her hot seeking lips found his enormous cock. She licked around the head and tickled the opening with her tongue before taking him into her mouth and sucking greedily.

  Fire exploded inside Connla's brain as his body shook with delicious delirium. He was caught in a web of scintillating sensual splendor. Never before had he known such intense pleasure. Pulling Kera up and into his arms, he returned her caresses, as his hands gently massaged her taut breasts before finding the moist slit of her cunt. He pushed one finger inside and moved gently in and out.

  Kera moaned her delight.

  That quivering moan was enough to trigger a new and frenzied burst of crazed excitement inside Connla. Sliding to the end of his narrow bed, he pushed his face between Kera's legs and shoved his tongue into her hot, moist, cunt. A taste sweeter than honey burst on his tongue and flooded his mouth with delicate delight. Hunching and pushing like a child at his mother's breast, he sucked and siphoned until his throat clogged with fairy cunt-honey.

  As he climbed back up the bed and into Kera's waiting embrace, she pushed him onto his back and mounted him with her body astride his throbbing cock. Then she sat on it, pushed it deep into her pulsating cunt, and began her wild ride, bouncing and pushing and shouting with frenzied glee, “Such bliss! Such bliss! I'm coming! I'm coming!"

  Connla bit his tongue to keep from crying out as he rode with her, climbing higher and higher as her frantic thrusts sent him deeper and deeper inside her hot, slick slit. The world was a circle of shimmering lights as he moved nearer and nearer toward a soaring, scintillating climax. He would have shouted his mounting bliss had not Kera put her lips over his and then whispered into his ear, “Silence, my love."

  Connla's mind screamed, oh yes, oh, yes, as his sweating, striving body strained and struggled toward some sublime and magnificent pinnacle. He was—oh sweet agony—he was almost, ah, tantalizing torment...

  And then it happened, his body convulsed as his senses melted and converged into euphoria so intense that he went spinning off into a fathomless pit of mind-blowing ecstasy. After moments of blissful oblivion, his senses unscrambled and his mind cleared, leaving him sated and a little breathless. Wrapping his arms around his fairy lover, he closed his eyes with the thought that he would certainly sleep this night.

  That was not to be the case. All through the night, Kera awakened him and demanded that he pleasure her even as she pleasured him. Each time Connla was more than happy to oblige. But, alas, by dawn, when she took her leave, her strong warrior-prince was too weary to lift his head from his pillow.

  The next day Conn could not rouse Connla from his bed.

  The next night Kera once more slipped into Connla's bed and the couple's wild and wicked orgy began all over again, and so it went. By night Connla's life was one of untamed and unparalleled sexual cavorting. By day he was too weary and spent to drag his body from the warm confines of his bed. And he refused any and all food brought to him.

  Conn became more worried and concerned with each passing day. Although his son appeared to be hale and hearty, he refused food and was unable to rise from his bed.

  On the morning of the first day of the second month of Connla's strange illness, Conn summonsed his druid Coran, for by now he was forced to admit that Connla was in the grasp of some evil spell. “Tell me, good druid,” he said when Coran was seated on a mat beside him, “what strange malady ails my son and then give me a remedy whereby I may cure him."

  Coran shook his old gray head. “Your son is under the spell of Kera, the fairy maiden. She is determined to lure him away from the fair Plain of Arcomin, and take him to live with her in Tir Na N-og."

  Conn could not let that happen and he said so before asking, “Is there some way to break Kera's spell?"

  "That is a difficult question to answer,” Coran replied. “Lady Kera is very powerful and she is also in tune with the forces of nature that surround us all. I have been told that when she chants to the sun, it hides behind a cloud. It is rumored that the moon shines favorably when she chooses to perform love rituals under the beam of its pale rays; the stars twinkle for her in willing obeisance; the rain is her servant, and the wind is her minion."

  Conn's concern deepened. “Perhaps if we lured her inside a house..."

  "It wouldn't matter. Kera's powers are not diminished by her location."

  King Conn stood and walked to the door of the round house. With his back to the druid, he declared, “But we must do something, and soon, or else Prince Connla will become nothing more than an indolent, apathetic slug."

  "He seems in good health to me,” Coran replied before adding hopefully, “Perhaps you are worrying needlessly."

  Conn turned and stamped his leather boot on the hard-packed ground. “I will not have my son turned into a simpering, lazy shadow of his former self by some fairy creature, regardless of her powers."

  For several seconds Coran stared at the king, seemingly reluctant to speak.

  Conn bellowed, “Speak, oh mighty druid. Or do you lack the knowledge to give me an answer?” Coming back across the room, he sat once more beside the aged man. “Forgive me, good friend, worry for my son has made me edgy and imprudent.” In a placating tone, he pleaded, “If you know a way to break Kera's spell, tell me."

  The old druid sighed as tears gathered in his eyes. “I sympathize with your pain and I understand your concern. The sad answer to your question is that I don't know of a sure way to break Kera's spell. There is one possibility, but if it fails, you will lose your son to Kera forever."

  "Then we will take that chance,” the king declared with finality. “Anything is better than seeing Connla, who was once a mighty warrior, become a wretched indolent sloth, wasting away and waiting for the sure stroke of death.” Over the catch in his throat, he begged, “Tell me what we must do."

  The old druid rubbed his hands together. “We must begin by taking Connla back to the place he first met Kera. She will return and try once more to lure him away with her beguiling word and enticing promises. Then it will be up to Connla to make his choice whether to go or to stay."

  Conn saw little magic in that plan but he was a desperate man, so reluctantly, he agreed.

  The next day the king found Connla asleep in his bed. He shook his son to wakefulness before informing him, “This evening you and I will walk on the Plain of Arcomin until we reach the slope
where I first heard the voice of Lady Kera."

  Connla protested, “My father, I am too weary to travel so far."

  Conn would not take no for an answer. “Very well then, I will have someone carry you to the spot."

  Even in his current exhausted state, Connla was not about to be shamed in such a manner. “Very well, I will walk with you this evening, go away now and let me sleep."

  That evening Connla stood, as he had before, by his father's side with the tribal elders and guards ensconced behind them, and as before he saw the lovely Lady Kera approaching.

  When she was very near him, she spoke, “Conn-of-a-Hundred-Battles, you have not known defeat, but you shall soon become acquainted with its bitter taste."

  The king could not see Kera but he heard her scornful words. “Call Druid Coran to me,” he said with a sneer. “For it seems that the invisible fairy lady has this day regained the power of her voice."

  Coran came to stand beside Conn. “Be careful, my King, it is not wise to incur the wrath of someone as powerful as Lady Kera."

  Conn knew that his druid spoke the truth but his anger made him bold and reckless. Unbuckling his sword from around his waist, he laid it on the ground. “This battle will not be won by force, but by magic.” Then he directed Coran to chant against Kera and drive her from the Plain of Arcomin forever.

  Coran placed one hand over his heart. “My lord, you know not what you ask."

  Conn had been victorious in a hundred battles. He could never have survived so many bloody skirmishes without the aid and support of the Goddess Babd Catha. She would not fail him now. He instructed Coran to direct his chant to her.

  Fear was written in every line of Coran's aged face; nevertheless, he obeyed. Stepping forward and raising his arms toward the darkening sky, he chanted:

  Babd Catha, we come to thee,

  With offerings of adoration

  Hear, we pray our humble plea,

  Heed, we implore our supplication.

  When a dark cloud appeared on the horizon and a crow flew overhead, squawking and cawing, Coran knew that Babd Catha had heard his petition. Bowing his head, he folded his hands beneath his chin and continued.