Chapter 7

I was awakened the next morning by Clare gently stroking my cock. There were tears running down her cheeks, and her breathing was already labored.

"Please, Master Michael," she pleaded in a whisper when she sensed that I was awake. "Please love me. Let me feel as good as Shannon did last night. Please, Master!" By now I was fully awake, and also fully erect, and as hard as stone.

"Sweet Clare, what is wrong?" I asked, as she increased her rate of stroking.

"I need to feel the same pleasure that Shannon did. Please don't deny me the ecstasy that she felt," Clare wept.

"You could feel her joy and pleasure last night?" I asked, stunned.

"Yes, we can each feel the others joy, ecstasy, or pain," Clare answered.

I had never heard of this phenomenon, and would need to find out more about it, but later. Right now I needed to take care of Clare's needs, and also my own, as my cock was hard to the point of beginning to ache. Shannon had turned over during the night, and was facing away from us presently. I was now lying on my back, and turned toward Clare.

"You're sure about this?" I asked her.

"Yes, oh yes, Master!" she breathed, as she turned onto her back and tugged at my cock. I moved over on top of her. I could feel her rapid breathing, and her young body was already quivering with need and anticipation. I wiped my cock along her already wet slit several times to lubricate it, and she guided me to her opening. I thrust, and quickly slipped into her tight wet sheath. It was evident that others had been there before me, but I still took the time to let her adjust some. It wasn't overly long before I was fully seated in her. Clare let out a breath of contentment, as I finished filling her.

"Yes, oh yes, Master! Make me feel good," she pleaded, as I began stroking into her with long slow strokes. Almost immediately Clare began thrusting back on my strokes, but wasn't content with my slow approach to sex, and she began to increase the rate of her thrusting. I had to increase mine to keep pace with her.

Clare's first orgasm started within a few minutes, and I could feel her body go rigid for a few seconds. This was followed a short time later by another orgasm which led into a series of small but intense orgasms.

We had been going at it for a time by now, and our pace had become frantic. I was nearly ready to cum when Clare bucked up at me one last time arching her back, as her entire body went as rigid as steel while her pussy clamped down on my cock like a bear trap. Fortunately, I was buried deep in her at the time, and came as strongly as I ever remembered.

Clare collapsed under me, my shrinking cock slipped out of her, and I managed to roll off of her. We lay there side by side breathing heavily while recovering. Clare's body continued to quiver from the aftereffects of her powerful orgasm. It was several minutes, or so, before she turned to me. Tears were running down her cheeks, and her breathing still hadn't settled down, but her body had nearly stopped quivering. I wondered what was wrong now. Why was she crying? Had I hurt her?"

"Thank you! Thank you so much, Master Michael!" she whimpered in tears, as she pressed her body against mine. "That was so wonderful. I never felt that wonderful before, ever," she continued, as the tears just flowed down her face and onto my clothes.

"You're welcome, Sweet Clare. I'm glad that you enjoyed it," I told her, and leaned in to kiss her.

"Can ... can we do it again, later?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes, we can do it often, but it will need to wait until we are somewhere more secure," I told her, as we were after all not in a very friendly environment just then having locked the Duke, the Duchess and his Wizard in cells in the basement last night.

We had been lying there for several more minutes with Clare snuggled up against me when I heard the noise of someone moving around in the room. Since I had set my personal wards on the room last night, and a quick check showed them to still be intact, I had to assume that it was Pat and possibly one or more of his women. I had no more then finished the thought than the curtains on one side of the bed were opened, and Sheena and Cathleen were there.

"Wake up sisters!" they said, joyfully. "We must leave here soon." Shannon sat up and stretched having just awakened, and then turned to look at us and then them.

"Is it morning already!?" she asked.

"Yes, and we need to get ready to leave. Master Pat says that there is much to do," Sheena told her sister.

"Yes," I added, "Like warming this place up." With the curtains around the bed open, all of the cold air in the room was free to move into the bed enclosure and remove what heat we had in there.

I started the air exchange spell, and changed the air in the room five or six times at about two minute intervals as we got out of bed. I found my socks, and the girls found their long stockings. We all put on our shoes. I placed more wood in the fireplace and used the fire spell to get it going quickly. The room soon began to warm up. While I had been doing that, Clare was talking to Shannon.

"Shan, my experience with Master Michael this morning was as good as yours last night. It made me feel just so wonderful!" Clare excitedly told her friend who hugged her close and kissed her.

"Good. I'm glad that you had an enjoyable experience," Shannon told her young friend.

"Was your night as good as ours was?" Sheena and Cathleen then asked the hugging pair.

"Oh yes, at least as good!" Shannon assured them.

"It was fantastic!" Clare told them boisterously.

"Yes, ours was fantastic, too," Cathleen assured her twin with a grin. With the fire now started and the room now warming, I had questions for the four of them.

"Shannon, Clare told me that she could feel how you felt last night. Is that true?" I asked casually.

"Yes, Michael. We can each feel what the other feels. But only Clare and me. Sheena and Cathleen can feel what happens to the other also, but I don't feel what either of them do," Shannon told me.

"Can you tell what Clare is thinking, or she you?" I inquired, more interested now.

"No. We can only tell when the other feels joy, happiness, or pain, but especially pain," Shannon whispered more quietly. "We can send soothing thoughts to help the other through her pain, and to keep each other from feeling so alone, but we really can't send complicated thoughts," Shannon finished.

"We can send identities. That is how we knew each others' names," Clare told us.

"We have all received and felt a lot of pain," Sheena whispered, as she started to tear up. Shannon pulled her sister to her and hugged her.

"Don't cry, She. I'm sure that things will be better soon," Shannon told her sister still holding her. The O'Toole sisters joined them, and all four hugged together.

While the girls were doing this, I was looking around the room. I soon saw two things that drew my attention. The first was Patrick going through the Duke's desk on the far side of the room, and the second was something that instantly froze me in place, for sitting there on a night stand was the 'Book of Dreams'. A much thicker 'Book of Dreams' than I had ever seen while growing up.

"Pat, what is the 'Book of Dreams' doing here?" I asked my cousin who seemed absorbed by something lying on the desk.

"The 'Book of... '!?" he asked turning to look at me and saw the book sitting there by the bed. "I have absolutely... !?" he started again, and stopped as a strange look appeared on his face.

"Oh shit!!" I exclaimed at the same time, as the reason that the book was here became clear in both of our minds.

"No kidding!" Pat answered, as he also realized what the book's presence meant. "That just shoots the shit out of plan A. I hope you have an alternative," Pat said in disgust.

"Actually, no!" I told him. "But we are going to need to devise one and quickly."

"Come look at this while you're thinking," Pat told me, and pointed back to what he had been looking at on the desk. Arriving there, I could see that he had been looking at a large chart or map. There were also a number of letters or other correspondence near it.

"It would appear that our boy, the Duke, has delusions of grandeur," Pat said, as I looked down at the map. It covered the eastern part of France, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. On it I could see that a large area had been outlined in red, and that there were cryptic markings in various places on it. Written in large letters in the middle was "The New Kingdom of Bourgogne".

"He definitely has delusions of grandeur," I admitted studying the map. Several images then appeared in my mind of the current and previous borders of the different countries shown on the map. I now knew part of what the 'Book of Dreams' had done last night.

"This area that he has outlined on the map covers the present Duchy of Burgundy, the old extinct Country of Burgundy, a part of which is now Franche-Comte, a good part of Switzerland as far east as Zurich, and then goes down to the Italian border. It also covered much of the eastern part of France all the way to the Gulf of Lion, and as far east as the border of France with Italy. It appears that he has studiously avoided getting into a quarrel with the testy Italians. It does very closely resemble the image of a much earlier Tenth Century map of the old Country of Burgundy that the 'Book of Dreams has provided," I remarked to Pat.

"He wasn't going to accomplish this with that sorry excuse for a Wizard that he has here that is for sure," Pat said, and then added, "Unless the local Wizards are even less capable than the one here."

"Yes, you're right, Pat. There would need to be not just one, but a number of very powerful Wizards involved in something this large and complex. The Swiss and the French would be sure to take exception to his plans. So where is he expecting to get this help from?" I asked.

"There may be something in all of this correspondence," Pat said pointing to the stack of letters and notes, "But we aren't going to have time to go over all of it this morning."

"Yes, " I agreed, looking out the window at the risen sun and noting how late it was already. "We'll have to take all of this with us to read. That is, once we determine where we are going and how we are going to get there," I told him.

"I'll just roll all of this up and stick it in our saddlebags," Pat said as he collected the chart and the correspondence. While he was busy doing that, there was a knock on the bedroom door.

"Breakfast, my Lord," a voice said after the knock.

"Should we ignore it?" Pat whispered.

"No, I'll send him away," I replied quietly.

"Leave it!" I then said loudly in the local dialect, doing my best to imitate the Duke's voice.

"Remember, that you have an audience at 10:00 this morning, my Lord," the voice reminded before departing. It appeared that this wasn't an unusual situation for the Duke.

"So we have until 10:00, and maybe a little longer to get out of here with the girls. First we need to figure out where to go, and how long we need to take to return to Frankfort. Let's see if there is any information in the 'Book of Dreams', since it is the one causing these changes in our plans," I told Pat.