Subi awaited me in my room, naked. When I stepped through the door, her violet eyes narrowed and she deftly removed one of those slender daggers from her hair. Had I not been scared witless, the Oriental would've made an alluring sight, for she sat in the wing chair facing me, with her legs spread over its upholstered arms. Fu was perched on its top edge, observing me with an unblinking demon-green gaze.

What did one say to an opponent so wantonly presenting herself? So dangerously ...erotic?

"What are you doing in my room?" I blurted. "What do you want from me?"

Her white face lifted with a feline smile. Her dagger made a quiet slapping sound against her palm. "Subi pack your things. You go now--never see Ferral again."

"Or?" I demanded. Why should I leave, just because she said so? And frankly, with her pussy so blatantly displayed and her golden breasts peaked with those long, dark nipples, Subi obviously had another option in mind.

"Caressa become Subi's love slave."

"If you think for a single minute--"

"Only way to drive evil spirits from Ferral's house!" she proclaimed in a more strident voice, raising the dagger dramatically.

I planted my fists in my hips, determined not to let this wayward Oriental--or my fear of her--force me into yet another inelegant situation. "You can't believe evil spirits ransacked this house! Or that I invoked them during my seance!" I stated. "The only spook here is you, Subi--veiled in gauze with your hair flowing down, pretending to be Ravenna the other night!"

"Subi watch spirits throw your mama's Bible, and gloves, and portrait over the railing where Missy Ravenna fall from!" She pointed with the dagger, toward where the French doors in the adjoining suite would be. Where Ferral's wife had lost her life.

My heart clutched hard within me. The servant was staring me down, her arm still extended while her other hand slithered toward the moist, pink folds between her legs. If Mama's things were indeed at the bottom of that chasm--if I had no way to retrieve them, and had to imagine my precious mementos lying shattered--

But before I railed at the Geisha, I caught myself. By saying those items belonged to Mama, she'd admitted to being at the second-floor railing above the dining room, listening to us before she made her mysterious appearance at the seance. Or she'd eavesdropped last night, when I'd mentioned the theft to Ferral. Or both. Better to play along, to see what other information I could glean, than to cave in to my pounding pulse and this woman's demands.

"And did these spirits take anything else from the house?" I challenged. "Anything belonging to you or Dr. Graves?"

"NO!" she crowed, defying me with a dark gaze as I stepped closer to her chair.
"Spirits who invade Raven Crest want you gone, not Subi."

"Well that's too damn bad! Ferral invited me here, and I'm staying until I take care of his business!" I glanced around the bed and the highboy, looking for my valise, pushing her further. "Where are my clothes, Subi? Now you'll have my mother to deal with, since her belongings--and mine--are missing! She won't stop joining me just because you threw her things over Ravenna's railing!"

The Oriental quirked an eyebrow, considering this. "Subi know bullshit when she hear it."

"That makes two of us! You were at the seance--and it was you who tore up this house, to make Ferral believe you were frightened out of your mind by a burglar! Wasn't it?" I insisted. "It'll take more than your scare tactics to get rid of me, Subi!"

The Geisha leveled her malevolent stare at me and pointed the dagger toward my chest. "You leave--now! Or get on knees to lick me, slave!"

Her next hissssss should've warned me, but I wasn't ready for Fu, that huge black cat, to lunge, at his mistress's command. I ducked, barely avoiding him--which put me close enough that the sly Oriental could hook her arm around my head and make me kneel between her knees.

"Do it!" she ordered, placing the cold, slender weapon flat against the back of my neck. "Lick pussy--hard and hot! Make Subi come, or Fu trained to unsheath his claws!"

I didn't argue, for I vividly recalled what those claws had done to Aaron Lovejoy. And since the furry black feline was insinuating himself under my skirt, and my nose was rubbing Subi's thick, dark muff, I was literally trapped between two pussies that refused to be refused. While I'd enjoyed the tonguing I'd received from Katy DeShay, it was another thing altogether to pleasure the Geisha who'd forced me to obey...the exotic woman who'd attacked me with her scrub brush in the tub.

Her pressure against my head put me right where she wanted me, but I couldn't help grinning: I'd bested this Oriental whore during our encounter in the tub, and by God I'd do it again! I already had a leg up, so to speak, if she was urging me to lick her slit rather than shoving me out the door. And when my tongue gave her folds its first tentative stroke, her shudder told me she was halfway there. Mine for the taking.

Her musk enveloped me, and as I began to lap at her, Subi slipped her backside closer to the edge of the chair. She sat shamelessly splayed, her butter-colored thighs flexing beneath my roaming hands while her cunt opened like a rose. Her hole was ringed with dew...a salty-sweet confection I was tasting for the very first time. The maid was already enamored enough to trust my hands upon her soft, sleek body, so I squeezed one of her plump breasts and then raised her curly mound higher, to expose the pink slickness I wished to concentrate on.

Lord, but she was lovely! Tender tissues turned a deeper pink before my eyes, while her clit came out to play without my even encouraging it. What a bold little bud, challenging me to notice it! And as I curved my tongue toward it, I was spurred on by the rubbing of that other cat: Fu had found his way beneath my skirt! He rubbed languidly against my inner thighs, his purring like a miniature engine vibrating against my flesh. If he arched upward...if he smelled something akin to fish and began to lick with that rough tongue....

These thoughts sent indecent tinglings throughout my body. I moaned, laving the folds around Subi's clit. In turn, the maid wiggled with mindless delight, her lush hips burrowing into the chair seat as she opened herself further. In and out I probed with the point of my tongue, watching the slick skin quiver beneath my intimate caress; hearing her sighs and moans grow louder as her moment of truth approached.

"Tickle clitty," she begged in a breathless whisper. 'Tease with tip of tongue, on underside, and then take between teeth. But if Caressa bite, so will Fu."

As though knowing his cue, the tomcat arched beneath me, finding my furrow with the ridge of his spine. I exhaled forcefully, stunned by these sensations even though I wore drawers.

"Yes, blow! Subi go hot and cold--fire and ice!"

Her squirms confirmed it, so I blew against her sex again. The thigh muscles on either side of my face danced with her arousal, while her cunt flexed and flushed. I did as she ordered, running my peaked tongue from her open hole along the crinkly underside of her clit, pressing then, before sucking the little bud between my lips. Subi began to yowl like an alley cat, wild and low--and damned if Fu didn't answer her! He arched higher against my quivering slit, as though he knew exactly where I needed such attention, and my own moans were added to our trio's music.

On impulse I stuck my middle finger inside her and pumped, still licking where the maid had commanded. The Geisha cried out, grabbing my head to set the speed at which she would surrender to me...although she saw it as taking control. I was too fascinated by the sights and sounds and scents to stop--too busy rubbing my aching slit against Fu's back--to even think of cutting this dangerous woman short. As Subi's hips wriggled in the chair, I kept working her, lapping the juice that seeped around my finger and lips, until her screams filled the little room and she nearly smothered me between her thighs.

Silly me, to think this would satisfy her. Just as I was backing away to wipe my mouth, the maid grabbed me by the hair to gaze at me with a defiance that was frightening.

"Now Caressa pass rest of Subi's test," the white-faced maid decreed. She was still panting from her own climax, but hadn't missed a beat. "We go to master's room, for candle ceremony. Maybe--if Seance Lady obey and perform well--she get her clothes back."

"And Mama's things? What about--?"

But Ferral's vengeful servant couldn't have cared less about my own concerns. She stood me up, still holding my hair in one hand and her dagger in the other, and coaxed me through an awkward pirouette beneath her arm. "Strip," she ordered, shaking me for good measure. "Spirits demand you be naked! Hide nothing while Subi purge you of wickedness."

I didn't like the sound of that. But the Geisha was taller and stronger than I--already the roots of my hair were tingling painfully--so I peeled off my skirt and blouse and underthings as quickly as I could, given my tenuous position. When the tip of that dagger met the middle of my back, Subi didn't have to tell me to walk ahead of her, down the hall to Ferral's room.

"Open door," she ordered.

And no sooner had we entered than she shoved me toward the large four-poster bed I'd slept in the night before, where Ferral had tucked me in with such tenderness. His Japanese whore showed no such tendencies, however. Subi spun me under her arm and shoved me to the wall in one fluid movement, landing me between those ominous manacles I'd wondered about on my previous visit. She'd obviously had a lot of practice fastening them, because I found myself bound to the wall by my wrists and ankles within seconds.

"Wh-why does Ferral have these fetters in his room?" I asked--knowing I tempted her wrath by quizzing her this way.

"Sometimes he lose control, during full moon or when anger overtake him," she replied, using this opportunity to further frighten me. "Subi lock him to wall to protect herself. To keep him home, not out killing people when he turn wolf."

Visions of Ferral's powerful body, bound by these chains, shook me to the core. Had he taken this precaution the day Ravenna died? Could he possibly be her killer, as he'd intimated, and not remembered it when he returned to human form? Now that I'd witnessed his transformation, I understood the doctor's concern for his wife's untimely demise...and I wondered if I were in more danger than I'd allowed myself to believe.

Subi chased away these thoughts by striking a match against the iron cuff around my wrist. I flinched at its sudden spark and acrid smoke. Then, with a maniacal gleam in her eyes, she lit the taper on the bedside table and held it mere inches in front of my face.

"You afraid of spirits, Seance Lady?" she whispered with an evil hiss. "You denounce yourself for summoning Missy Ravenna? Promise not to call her again?"

"I'm doing this because Ferral--"

"Ferral hurt too bad--miss her too much--to realize mistake. Sometimes knowing answers much more treacherous than just accepting questions."

Did Subi have the answers Dr. Graves wanted? With that slender red candle's flame bobbing before my eyes, while I stood bound hand and foot against the wall, I wasn't wise to ask. The Geisha stared down her nose at me, through the opaque white makeup that hid her thoughts and feelings and intent. If she was making me pass some sinister test involving fire and hot wax, I'd best pay close attention to her every gesture.

Her painted-on smile settled into a line and she slowly lowered the candle between our naked bodies. The flame cast its golden spell upon our skin--Subi's a richer whiskey color than my own--while sending the rest of the room into the shadows. I gazed avidly at her breasts, gently rounded but smaller than mine. I watched the light play upon her midsection and then make the black triangle between her legs shimmer with indigo highlights. She was studying me, too, with a desire I doubted she'd admit aloud. She thrust a hand between my legs.

"Spread!" she barked, suddenly the mistress commanding her slave again.

Since my ankles were already at shoulders'-width, and held tight against the wall, I had no choice but to open myself by bending my legs. The manacles had been bolted at levels appropriate to Ferral's height, so I found myself suspended from the wrist irons with my body dangling awkwardly so I could part my knees farther. The maid made a pass at me with the candle, to further establish her dominant position, yet something inside me was trembling with anticipation of her nasty plan. I was an innocent in the ways of bondage and servitude, but in my mind I could conceive only a limited number of things Subi could do with that candle...things that made me shiver with apprehension while playing upon the desires that had gone unsated in the other room.

Subi lifted a foot onto the bed, exposing her dark pink folds and the dampness that clung to her lush thighs. My eyes widened as she placed the blunt end of the red candle to her nether lips and began to rub in a hypnotic rhythm. I found myself swaying with her, imagining every wet crevice responding to her pressure... watching as the wax dripped from the burning end nearest me, like a tongue of flame at the tip of a red erection. I nipped my lip to keep from moaning.

"You like?" The Geisha undulated seductively to show me her running honey.

I nodded, not taking my eyes off the alluring--potentially hazardous--spectacle she made. Playing with fire in every sense of the words.

"Beg me, slave!" she commanded. "Show Subi you desperate for it!"

I inhaled sharply, aware that such an admission might forever put me in her power...something such a woman would never let me forget, even after her master returned to Raven Crest.

But my body betrayed me by straining against my bonds as my hips thrust forward. "Yes," I whispered, my voice edgy with desperation. "Please, Subi, touch me that way."

She let her head loll back with her pleasure, rubbing the rounded wax end around her extended clit and then lower...to tease at her hole. Red wax dripped onto the rug, but the Geisha seemed oblivious. She also appeared unconcerned that the candle was growing shorter as I watched.

"Please!" I repeated more urgently. "I--I want you to rub me, Subi! My juice is seeping out--"

"Beg--harder!"

"Yes, Subi--please!" My nipples were distended and aching, while my lower body writhed with a life of its own. "Please, God, just rub me with that--"

"What?" The candle stilled in her fingers as one eyebrow rose imperiously. "Who the slave here? You telling Subi what to do?"

"No! I--I--" A spiral of unadulterated desire coiled through my insides, and I hung transfixed by the flame, mesmerized by the way its light danced upon the Geisha's ripe body. Her breasts swayed gently, taunting me to touch them, while a dribble of dew ran in a slow, single line down her thigh.

I raced down the hallway, appalled by--and completely at the mercy of--her offhand remark. Without a thought, I barged into Ravenna's forbidden premises, running toward the French doors on the far side of her spacious room and studio. Candles were lit as though Subi kept constant vigil here, but I forgot all respect for the dead in my quest to recover the few belongings I'd brought to Raven Crest. Bad enough that an intruder had stolen my mother's things, but to be beholden to Subi and Ferral for even the clothes on my back was more than I could tolerate!

I glanced anxiously through the huge windows facing the mountains, grabbing the handles of the double doors that hung open just enough for a small animal to pass through. Then I froze.

My valise was hanging by its handles, slid onto the top rod of the balcony's ornate fretwork railing--which hadn't been repaired after Ravenna's fall, judging by the way this section sagged out over the edge. Fu's black backside and bushy tail stuck up from inside my bag, and his body quivered with each swallow of what smelled like...rotted fish. The only way to retrieve my clothes was to step to the edge of the wide balcony and reach out--over that vast chasm, far below--to grab hold of that top rod and pull it back.

I sprang forward before my nerve failed me--before I thought too much about how Ravenna had tumbled to her death from here--before the breeze and Fu's weight carried the carpetbag beyond my reach...or off the end of that loose rod. One lunge, and I caught the floating pole--barely--and used my weight to haul it back toward the balcony. The startled cat sprang from my bag with a hair-raising yowl, and then hissed at me as he scurried into the house.

My hands were shaking so hard it was a wonder I could work the handles of my valise over the unattached end of the rod. I didn't recall this much damage to the balcony rail when I'd slipped out to borrow Ferral's horse and wagon--but then, I'd been occupied with my escape. I scowled as I tossed out my underthings and two wadded-up dresses--and the half-eaten fish Fu had been feasting upon.

No sign of my Bible, or Mama's likeness and gloves. My body crumpled, and I knelt on the hard platform in resignation. Finding her precious possessions had only been a faint hope, but now I had to believe they'd been stolen. Or thrown over the balcony here. My body shriveled with gooseflesh as the wind kicked up from the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains...the chasm that had claimed Ravenna Graves, and thus brought me to this haunted place.

Once I got past my keen disappointment, and the stench of my clothes, I took in my surroundings. From here, the snowy slopes glistened like diamonds in the sunlight, accentuated by rich purple shadows and lush evergreens farther down the mountainsides. Beyond the peaks--miles and miles I could see, from here!--rolled freshly-tilled fields, and pastureland wearing its first hint of spring green, dotted with fleecy sheep. I had forgotten the blue intensity of the Colorado sky, immersed as I'd been in Raven Crest's mysteries, and suddenly my eyes couldn't get enough.

I rose to gaze at the panorama spread before me, drinking in the signs of life resurrected each Spring. My naked body quaked with the cold--for the house shadowed me from the sun I was admiring--yet I understood why Katherine Lee Bates had composed her poem, "America, the Beautiful" during a visit to the Springs. And I longed to see what Ravenna Graves had painted from here, before she succumbed to whatever tragic fate had befallen her.

I set aside my anger and disgust. I breathed in the exquisite beauty around me, hugging myself as the afternoon shadows deepened. Tomorrow I would set up my tripod and my camera--out here, to catch the breathtaking view from a spot where Ravenna had surely felt inspired, as well. My artist's soul craved a communing of this sort as a way to escape the darkness enveloping Raven Crest; a spiritual detour from its latest intrusion, which promised even more heartache before it was all solved.

And that's where Dr. Graves found me when he came home. I spotted him through the lens of my best camera the next morning, a proud rider on a midnight stallion, returning from town. I kept snapping shots that would form a panoramic photograph when placed side by side: a still life that captured the very essence of this remote area--and hopefully the imagination of someone who'd be moved to pay me for it when I opened my studio.

Time and the rest of the world were lost to me as I immersed myself in focusing so carefully...snapping the shutter at just the right juxtaposition of light and shadow...slipping the glass negatives gingerly into my light-proof box, and then eagerly positioning another plate in my camera, which I adjusted to capture each angle and facet of the magnificence spread before me. So engrossed I was, I didn't hear the thundering footsteps or feel Ferral's anger until he burst through Ravenna's room behind me.

"What in God's name are you--I told you to never enter my wife's studio, and here you are!" he raged, grabbing my arm. "Tempting fate by coming out onto this goddamn balcony--as though--as though--"

I was jerked from beneath my camera's black cape, to squint in the morning's brightness--and face the tight, hard lines of a man who demanded answers. "Stop it! You're hurting me!" I rasped, struggling against a grip that cut like a vise.

"That's the least I should do to you for defying my orders!" he bellowed. "Subi tells me she warned you against coming out here, where Ravenna fell--"

"Subi's the one who lured me out here! Yesterday! By hanging my valise from that railing out there!" I yelled back.

He was a man swept away by wrath and--could it have been true concern for me? But I refused to fall into this trap again, baited by the Geisha so the wolf could prey upon me. Indeed, Ferral's face seemed to elongate before my eyes as his brows and sideburns thickened with quicksilver speed.

"Be that as it may," he panted, his voice becoming low and gravelly as the beast emerged, "you have some explaining to do, Miss Caine. One step into my suite set me on edge, you see--and you can't lie to me! You were in there, marking your territory!"

I barely had time to suck air at this accusation before I was pulled into a kiss so ravenous, so outrageously animal, that I thought Ferral Graves might swallow me whole. His mouth burned into mine, with a devilish tongue that forced me to open to it--that lapped at my very soul as he doomed me to lose myself to the wanton wolf that overtook him.

He thrust me away as vehemently as he'd claimed me. "You're coming with me, Caressa," he snarled, steering me toward the French doors. "Once again I must show you the consequences of defying me...of calling out the beast by behaving as one yourself."