Love on the Dark Side Read online

  The Black Knight Olivia Knight

  Once upon a time, there was a hero of most unusual qualities, known as the Black Knight. He was as beautiful as the night, with long silky hair like the sky spangled with stars. His long limbs were as lithe and swift as a deer’s. On the battlefields, his bravery was famous, and every knight would rather fight at his side than anyone else’s. His quick eye, fast reflexes and dexterity with both sword and bow had saved many of his countrymen’s lives – and ended many of their enemies’.

  If all this had made him swagger, the other knights would’ve hated him. In fact, he was quiet and unassuming when he joined them in the taverns, and uncomfortable when attention was drawn to his daring exploits. The prettiest girls always clustered near his table, and bright eyes darted his way invitingly – but, even then, the other men were content. He had eyes for these beauties, to be sure, but he was wholly faithful to his own true love.

  The spurned lovelies were usually happy to salve their pride with the attentions of the other knights, with hair and talk a little coarser, but still powerful men for all that. Later in the night, with muscular hairy thighs scraping hard between their own more delicate legs, pinned down by the heaving sweaty beefy weight, they thought it was just as well – the Black Knight was a shade too womanly, and might not have such a hefty slab of meat as this to offer a girl.

  So the years went by, with the other men revelling in the wenches, while the Black Knight’s fame continued to spread. Before long, the stories held him to be the most lovely, the most chaste and the most skilful man ever to exist. Though he was much embarrassed by these tales, nothing he did disproved them.

  His own love, Lily, lived with her mother in a quiet valley far from the kingdom’s castle. There she gathered herbs and made potions, as well as the usual homely tasks: feeding, healing and slaughtering the livestock; curing meat and scraping skins; planting, weeding and harvesting the vegetables; picking and preserving fruits; making bread, soap, candles and cheese; scrubbing and sweeping; spinning, knitting, weaving and dyeing; sewing, cleaning and mending clothes; and so on. She had a lock of her darling knight’s black hair, which she treasured, rubbing its softness against her cheek late at night when she longed for him.

  Whenever his duties permitted, the Black Knight leapt on to his fast horse and galloped all day and night to visit her. Then Lily laid aside her work and they walked together, dreaming of the day when they could be man and wife. She was still a little too young, he was still a little too poor, the King could not yet spare him, the borders were being challenged again … For three years, this continued, and it was always to be next spring, next autumn … until it seemed the day would never come.

  Her mother was a wise woman, as well as the wisewoman. She made sure her daughter knew enough of the rhythms of life to avoid being embarrassed before her wedding day by an early guest. The Black Knight and his true love lay down in the forest, in summertime, and he disproved the suspicions of the tavern wenches as he made her wail and screech with his thick staff. One sunny afternoon, they discovered that kisses could be even sweeter when mouths didn’t meet. They were elated and shocked by their invention, and she saw all the stars of the universe in the hair on his bowed head. The mother, seeing the cloud of birds frightened into the skies from the treetops, smiled to herself as she rocked and wove her wool on the cottage porch. In winter, whenever the Black Knight visited, the mother would remember an urgent visit to an invalid. Then, by the fireside, on the pile of rag-rugs and warm woollen blankets that the two women had made, in the close smoky air of the little cottage, he would prove his love for Lily again and again. Her mother always paused at the path’s summit, to see the steam that billowed from the snowy cottage, and smiled.

  Now the king’s need of the Black Knight was no invention to keep his best fighter close. The little kingdom was hard pressed by its neighbour, which was ruled by a sorcerous queen. She used her dark arts to impart strength to her fighting men, and her cruelty to ensure they would always fear her more than death. Even her beauty was torture to them: her black dresses always cut low, her talons and lips crimson, her black crown of spikes resting high on her imperious brow.

  The sorceress enjoyed the battles. Sometimes she watched from her horse on a hill crest, other times as a screeching crow, discernible from the other carrion-eaters by her crimson beak and claws. She savoured the bloody pitting of man against man, the straining muscles and spraying sweat of their toughened bodies. Less pleasing was how the Black Knight cut down her best knights. He lent courage to his comrades and darted nimbly through the press of bodies, playing both archer and swordsman, bringing death to her forces from far and near.

  One spring day, watching from the clifftop, it seemed at last she would win. The Black Knight was hemmed in, unable to help his own side for fear of his life, and the black-armoured men were pushing the king’s forces steadily back. Then – the effrontery took her breath away – in the midst of battle, he broke off from returning the sword strokes of his adversaries. Dancing and leaping over the cold steel thrusts, he whipped an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to his bow, and pointed it – upwards. At her. Before she could even grasp his intent, the arrow was flying through the air and had buried itself in her gown. Flung from her horse, she was knocked out cold and did not see the remainder of the fight. By all accounts (reluctantly and bloodily obtained), her men had believed her dead and fled the field. She was gravely wounded, and any mere mortal would’ve no doubt died. As it was, she took two months to recover, nursing herself and her hatred in equal proportions.

  For the Black Knight, those were months of purest happiness. As soon as possible, he escaped the celebratory banners and drunken feasting at the castle, readied his horse and sped towards his love. In the heavy warmth of Lily’s breasts, he drowned out the memories of bloodied flesh. The song of her ecstatic screams replaced the echo of battle in his ears. All her gentle, long, soft body wrapped him in its welcoming embrace. Peace, it seemed, had come at last, and the time of war was over – the time for love had begun. They set a date in midsummer for their marriage and began the preparations for a feast and celebration worthy of the king’s greatest knight being wedded to his one true love.

  The first day that the sorceress was strong enough to walk on the ramparts, she was consumed with bitterness. The farms were long neglected during her campaigns. Swathes of forest lay scarred and bare. The king’s lands were rich and fertile, and she longed for them. It was all the fault of that damnable, beautiful knight! If only he were dead … But imagining his mangled corpse only made her sigh over the waste. He should be hers, not fighting against her, but using all that limber strength to please her. How powerful those slim limbs would be! How pared and graceful his bare body would look, spread on her sheets. That long black hair would curtain her face as he sank into her in quiet worship. His only weapon would be between his legs, leaping up in fat readiness … She rang her bell wildly. ‘Send me Sir Garth,’ she ordered. All night long she rode her knight, using him repeatedly while he sweated with fear lest he fail her – whether by weakening or by coming. She bucked and screeched, ordering him into this position and that, all the while imagining the Black Knight.

  At dawn, she fell at last into a feverish exhausted sleep. Sir Garth miserably put an end to his longing, his fist working fast and furtively, and crept from the ghastly woman’s bed with his shame cupped in his palm.

  The Black Knight’s wedding present for Lily was to be a silver brooch to hold the lock of his hair, which he would ask her to twine with her own. Then the two would lie curled together, the gold and the black, encased in silver. When he took the king’s wedding invitation, he planned to detour past a silversmith, leave instructions and on the way back collect the finished piece.

  He set off early in the morning, and Lily came out in her long nightgown to wish him farewell. He clasped her close, feeling the loose weight of her breasts beneath the fabric, and thought with longing how soon they wo
uld rest against him every night.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Lily at a sharp pain in her scalp, as a black bird flew away, the shining threads of hair caught in its crimson beak. ‘That bird pulled out my hair!’

  ‘It’s so golden that even the magpies can’t resist its lure,’ replied her lover, chuckling and kissing the little injury tenderly.

  All day he rode, thinking dreamily of his beloved. It occurred to him that he had never yet kissed the soft skin behind her knees, though he’d often admired it when he lifted her legs high and slid back and forth inside her. When he returned, he promised himself, he would amend that oversight. He’d raise her leg, her skirt slipping over her thighs, and brush his lips over the soft crease of skin. Then he’d raise the other leg, and her skirts would tumble further … The fantasy spun on pleasantly, so that by sundown he hurt with need for her. He lay by his fire, under a thin blanket, and let his hand wander inside his trousers, his mind full of his darling Lily, as he had done so often before. Soon, it would never be necessary again … He began to plan their wedding night while his hand stroked, but he got no further than undressing her before he came with a long shuddering groan.

  The silversmith’s village was near the sorceress’s lands, and the knight shook his head at the sharp difference between these healthy fields and those neglected stretches. He lodged in the local tavern, where his identity was quickly discovered and many drinks pressed on him. Even one of the women, exceptionally beautiful and forward, insisted on buying him a glass of golden mead. He accepted it, not wanting to embarrass her in public, but said, ‘My fiancée will be very grateful to all these good people for their kindness to me.’

  If she was disappointed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she was coolly charming, entertaining him with her witty cruel humour. He noticed how lovely her dark hair was, how pale her skin. The merciless perfection of her beauty cut the eyes, and her painted smirk suggested she was knowledgeable, too. He glanced at her plump half-naked breasts, and imagined releasing and handling them … At that, he decided the mead had gone to his head, and withdrew to his room.

  The drink had only just started to take effect, however. By midnight, its hold was firm. She made her way into his darkened room, where he lay sleepless and consumed with lust for the raven-haired lovely. When her naked body insinuated itself next to his, a wave of fire swept through him. With a quick pantherlike twist of his elegant body, he held her pinned beneath him, his knee forcing her thighs apart. Delighted, she fought a little, straining her arms which he held fixed by the wrists, struggling to keep her thighs together. She would have the chaste knight force himself on her – and her groin melted at the thought.

  They wrestled, skin rubbing, as she tested his strength. He was lost to everything in the darkness, his hunger to take her like a roaring in his ears. All he could think of was the sweetness of spearing her, whatever her resistance. Her hard nipples crushed against his chest as they fought – she was using her whole strength in earnest now, full of glee that he was so much more powerful – and it spurred him into a frenzy. His knee forced her open, his hips wriggled into the gap, and with one hard shove he sank to the hilt. Then he roared with pleasure, bucking and heaving in her slippery clasp.

  He fucked hot and hard, thinking only of his gratification, the girl a mere sheath and a succulent shape to titillate him. He rode her to the crest of his pleasure, and shot his hot seed into her, then found it was not enough. After two minutes of gasping to catch his breath on top of her, his cock was painfully hard again without so much as withdrawing. Feral with lust, he began to slam into her again, squelching in his own juices. She was screaming, in pain or orgasm or both, he hardly cared, except that the sound made him even harder. He howled murderously as he came.

  Through all that night, he kept taking her with his full brutal strength. Though he hardly cared to notice, her own orgasms kept pace with him five to one. Truly, the Black Knight was everything the sorceress had hoped and imagined.

  The news quickly spread that the Black Knight had abandoned his true love for the sorceress and the kingdom he had defended for the enemy land. He lived with her in her castle, and her little cups of mead, always seasoned with a snippet of the precious golden hair, enslaved him. Every waking hour, he was consumed with lust for her, obeying her spell to the letter. He hauled up her skirts as she stood looking over the ramparts, and took her from behind. He seized her in the corridors; he dropped to his knees before her throne, and pushed his head between her thighs in front of everyone; he lay on her bed, splayed and lovely, permanently erect, gazing at her with hunger. The time was ripe to attack the king’s lands, she knew, but it could wait … The Black Knight’s hefty staff, always throbbing and ready to split her, could not.

  Lily wept bitterly. Her wedding day, so close at last, had been snatched away; her lover, so famous for his fidelity, was screwing the enemy queen with – by all reports – unquenchable passion, little caring who saw his clenching buttocks or pistoning cock. She was fortunate, however, to have a mother as clear-headed as she was far-sighted. The mother reasoned that only a spell could have torn the Black Knight from his beloved’s side, and made him behave so out of character. Through her work as a wisewoman, she knew just what sort of spell, too. It was not an art she ever practised, however the local maidens pleaded – love-spells are blackest magic.

  In the lulls between her daughter’s stormy sobs, she spoke reason. She knew the terms and requirements of the spell. It relied on the beloved’s hair – that, for a start, guaranteed his love was true. The very extent of his lust for the queen proved how much he adored and desired Lily. The two women shaved Lily’s golden hair, burnt it and kept her bald, letting it be known as the girl’s way of mourning. Furthermore, the spell governed only the Black Knight’s waking hours; it could not extend to his sleep. This was where her lock of his hair came in – not for a love-spell, which her mother would never perform, but there are other ways to use hair.

  In the hot dog-days of harvest-time, even the nights were sweltering. There was no work in the sorceress’s fields, for nothing had been planted, but the Black Knight ploughed her thoroughly and harvested their screams of pleasure. They lay asleep, their heads at opposite sides of the bed, their genitalia still clasped. The Black Knight’s back bore long scratches from the queen’s scarlet talons. She, splayed on her back, had a mouth swollen with kisses and slaps, and suckering bruises all over her breasts. The sheets were damp with their violent sweat. The door to the balcony stood open, letting in the scant breeze, and the moon stood high and small in the sky. The Black Knight dreamt.

  In his dream, he lay by a fire on the roadside, dreaming. Twice asleep, he was twice removed from wakefulness. He dreamt with longing of a girl he’d just left, reliving their moments together. They’d followed the river deep into the forest, to a pool where the canopy of trees parted and midday sun fell on the water. The girl was tall, with golden hair, and beautifully formed. Most importantly, she was as gorgeous and desirable as only true love can be.

  Teasing him, because she knew his long absence had made him ache fiercely, she darted out of his grasp and danced a few steps away to the edge of the water. Then she unbuttoned her gown under his eager eyes. Her light shift was almost transparent in the sunshine, showing the shape of the curving hips that he longed to be held within. She turned her back on him – he could just make out the slope of her buttocks, and sighed with longing to hold them against him – and she dived into the pool. He tore off his own clothes, clumsy with haste, his cock parallel to the ground. She stood up to her waist in the water, the wet white shift clinging in translucent folds to her breasts and hardened nipples. Trembling, slender and graceful, his shaft disproportionately thick, he waded towards her. The ends of her long hair were turned darker gold by the water and curled. She let him reach her, and his hands rose to cup her breasts as his head bent down to her mouth. The little gasp as his palms brushed her nipples was all he needed to hear.

  Their mouth
s clashed fiercely, while shrieking moans flew like swallows from her. Together they fought the wet clinging fabric up to her waist, and as her thighs parted the cold slid over her opening. She wailed, falling back as he caught her and drew her towards the waiting spear. He pulled her slowly on to him, wedging her open. The heat of each other’s skin supplanted the chill of the water inch by inch, until all of him was inside her and she was speechless. His strong arms supported her watery weight, keeping her lying on the surface, tugging her backwards and forwards on his cock, the water sloshing over her breasts.

  Each time he withdrew, his exposed shaft was cooled by the water, then buried again in her slippery heat. She sobbed with joy. Her eyes fluttered open to see his lovely face, falling hair, steamy eyes, parted lips – then rolled backwards and closed, as a new thrust brought her closer to the peak. For so many nights, he’d dreamt of her body yielding to him again that now he could barely control himself. All he wanted was to let go and spurt plentifully inside her, but more than that he wanted to make her come repeatedly. Withdrawing further, he used the cold water to keep himself in check, though the sight of her was nearly driving him over the edge. She was writhing and wriggling against him, contracting so hard as she wailed that suddenly he could hold back no more. He pushed harder, thrusting all his length inside as a long pure scream tore out of her mouth. High above them, from the trees, all the birds took flight in fright as the two lovers capsized in orgasm.

  In his dream, he woke by the fire on the roadside, the piercing song of passion sharp in him, his cock splattering his chest with purest lust. What strength it took to journey away from his darling Lily. Only the prospect of making the land safe for her to live in could induce him to do so.

  ‘My darling …’ he groaned softly, his arms so empty without her.