Father’s arm squeezed her waist. “Leave that to me.”
“Pass?” The knight who stopped them barred the way with a sword rather than a staff-they were clearly on alert.
Father’s eyes glittered behind his white feathered mask, and he reached into his cloak to pull out the medallion. “I have something the King has been looking for.”
The man’s eyes widened and he lifted his staff, stepping aside. Artan guided the horse through the gate and dismounted, helping his wife down.
“What is that thing?” Mother asked again, and Artan shrugged.
“I told you,” he replied, taking her hand and leading her toward the hall. “A key to the portal.”
“But-” Mother’s protest stuck in her throat as they entered the room. Jill was chained up, completely nude, in the archway that Hump had occupied the other night.
She was alone, suspended forward by her chains, arms behind her, feet manacled close to the brick. It had to hurt and Mother moaned in sympathy.
Jack, however, had fared worse. He was suspended nude by chains above a chandelier, the candles all lit, glowing brightly. Six men held the ends of the chains, and as the King called out, “Lower!” the crowd cheered, “Lower! Lower!” and they nudged the youth down a notch, closer and closer to the flames. The worst was the cock ring, a thick band of leather wrapped around the base of the boy’s not inconsiderable member, forcing him to maintain his erection. It would reach the fire before any other part of him, she gauged.
“He doesn’t mean to let him-” Mother whispered, hearing yet another cry, this time from George, who sat at the right of the King, of “Lower!”
“I believe he does,” Father Goose replied, his mouth drawn into a thin line as he glanced up a their young charge. Jack was close enough that the front of him glowed red from the heat of the flames, and he arched away as far as he could in response, in spite of the strain it must have been on his muscles.
“Interlopers!” George’s shriek filled the hall, and Mother gasped, taking an instinctive step toward her husband. “He has the Keeper’s Jewel I warned you of! Look, around his neck!”
King Cole’s gaze found them as he stood, and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he’d seen the medallion. Artan had left it around his neck and exposed, the glittering black jewel in the center like the eye of a crow.
“They’re from the other side! They came through the portal with the medallion!” George insisted. “Men! Seize them!”
Artan stepped forward, pulling off his mask and bowing in King Cole’s direction.
“Your majesty, I am returned.” A gasp of recognition echoed through the hall. “Has it been so long, then, that Georgie Porgie now gives the orders here?” The King held up his hand to his men, his gaze moving to Mother, who pulled her own feathered white mask off to reveal her visage.
“I’ve come to claim what is rightfully mine.” Father Goose held the medallion high, turning toward the crowd so they could see as well.
“It doesn’t belong to him!” George’s shriek, the stamping of his foot, drew little attention.
“It belongs to me, and my line before me!” Artan turned back to King Cole. “It belongs to my wife, my family, and all my children who come after us.” The Queen of Hearts stood beside her husband, her hand at her throat, her face perplexed. “It is our freedom, to fly where we choose, in this world, or in others.”
“What is this jewel?” King Cole frowned. “Is it true, as George has said, that it opens the portal?”
Father Goose gave him a brief nod. “This, and all portals. We are the guardians of the gate. It has always been so with our kind, until it was stolen from us generations ago. We know not by whom.”
“No!” George, frustrated by the lack of action on the part of the King’s men, reached for a sword and wrestled one free. It was too heavy for the man, but he struggled forward with it, determined. “You do not deserve it! It’s mine! Give it to me!” His eyes moved toward Mother, who stood staring at her husband, as stunned by his revelations as the rest of them. “Give her to me!” Father Goose disarmed him with one swift twist of the man’s wrist, but his more impressive move, the one that made the crowd gasp in shock and awe, was the shrugging off of his cloak, and the impossible sprouting of two enormous white wings from his now-bare shoulder blades. No one had ever seen him in his real form before except Mother herself, and even she was taken over by the shock of it.
“Men!” King Cole seemed to come to life in that moment. “Seize him!’
“Finally!” George panted, trying to shake the giant bird-man’s hold on him, but was unable.
“Not that one!” The King shook his head as the knights moved toward Father Goose. “The other-the little fat treasonous liar who has been feeding me poison in my ear for months!”
“No!” George wailed as the King’s men grabbed onto him, but his struggles were no match. They hauled him quickly from the room, leaving a stunned silence that all of them felt quite deeply.
“I remember the stories.” King Cole stepped forward, his face reddened, his demeanor apologetic. “My grandmother’s grandmother told her, even wrote some of them down. Your kind was always welcome here.”
Father Goose inclined his head at the man. “Now we are to be hunted and killed and denied passage between worlds, then?”
“I apologize. I was misinformed.” The King flushed. “You are free.”
“Yes, we are.” Artan reached his hand back for his wife, and Mother went to him.
He glanced down, smiling at her, and whispered, “Reveal yourself.”
“No…” She shook her head, glancing around the room. To do so, here, in front of everyone? But his eyes commanded her, and she took a deep breath, throwing off her own cloak and slowly unveiling her own set of white wings to the gasping amazement of the rest of the hall.
“Father and Mother Goose, indeed.” The Queen of Hearts stepped forward, smiling. “Welcome home.”
“Now, I’d like you to release my charges.” Artan glanced up at the ceiling. “I would like to take them home, and then I will set them free.”
“Free?” The King raised his eyebrows, and Father Goose fixed him with a long, challenging stare. The rotund man cleared his throat and shrugged. “Well…of course.
You’re free to do what you wish with them.”
Artan’s huge wings flapped slowly, pushing him aloft, and he rose to the young woman still hanging off the precipice of the arch. Jill groaned when he snapped her chains-his strength was incredible in his current form-and collapsed into his arms.
Mother rose above the flames of the chandelier to unfasten Jack, careful with the leather strap around his cock as well, releasing the pressure gradually, making him groan with both pleasure and pain.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered as she floated them back down to the ground, and she smiled, kissing his cheek.
“Time to go home, little one,” she murmured, looking over at her husband. He nodded, folding his wings up tight as he carried the girl from the hall, out into the bright moonlight of the courtyard. His wife followed him, carrying her own charge, and then together, Mother and Father Goose spread their wings wide and flew toward home.
He had her suspended by the strong muscles of her wings, spread wide, white down splayed, her toes barely touching the floor. And he was torturing her. Slow, sweet, aching torture, the sort her body had remembered and longed for. Artan slipped the crop between her newly shaved pussy lips-she couldn’t believe how sensitive she was there now, the exposure making her feel swollen and ready all the time-his breath hot in her ear.
“Have you had enough, love?”