The Pied Piper Read online

  The Pied Piper

  By Celeste Hall

  An erotic twist on the classic fairytale…

  The Pied Piper

  Copyright © 2014 by Celeste Hall

  Smashwords Edition

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  All sexually active characters in this book are 18 years of age or older.

  Additional titles by Celeste Hall

  ~ Novels ~

  Fealty

  Lady Silence

  Prison of Dreams

  Simple Musings

  His Pale Prisoner

  Error: Please Try Again

  Secret Admirer

  Passionate Creatures

  ~ Seduction Series Books ~

  Ethan

  Kye

  Rico

  Gavin

  All The Queen’s Men

  ~ Short stories and Anthologies ~

  The Inventor’s Throne

  A Touch of Irish

  The Pied Piper

  The Magic of Pan’s Flute

  With great curving horns and the hind legs of a goat, Pan stands above the flock, the god of shepherds and a lover of beautiful women. His gaze falls upon Syrinx, a beautiful woman known for her chastity.

  He chases her and she runs to the river’s edge begging for the river nymphs to help her hide.

  In jealousy for her beauty, the nymphs transform her into hollow water reeds, which played a captive haunting tune as Pan’s heated breath blew across them. In grief for the beauty he could never posses, Pan cut seven of the most alluring reeds and made them into a set of pipes.

  Thence forth known as the Syrinx, every note played upon it carries the piercing sweet sadness of Pan’s eternal longing.

  The Pied Piper

  “The rats are everywhere,” old man Johan complained loudly enough for Chloe to clearly hear it from her hiding place, behind the partially closed closet door in her father’s private study.

  As the group entered, she peeked out through the crack and recognized nearly every affluent businessmen and town leader of Hamelin.

  “There isn’t a barn or a corn-rick, a storeroom or a cupboard, that they haven’t eaten their way into. There is not a cheese that they haven’t gnawed hollow, or a sugar puncheon they haven’t cleared out.”

  “Why the very mead and the beer in the barrels are not safe from them,” Brewer Cole continued as Johan stopped to take a breath. “They gnaw a hole near the top of the tun and chew their way down as they drain the drink. But that is not the worst of it. What of all the incessant squeaking and shrieking, the hurrying and scurrying, so that you can neither hear yourself speak nor get a wink of good honest sleep the live-long night!”

  “Not to mention that mamma must needs sit up and keep watch and ward over the baby's cradle, or there'd be a big ugly rat running across the poor little fellow's face, and doing who knows what mischief,” complained Farmer Tomas. “We cannot live this way any longer, something must be done!”

  “We have purchased entire armies of cats,” Grocer Dan pointed out, “but the rats have driven them all away.”

  “We have used wagons full of poison,” old man Johan jumped back into the protest. “So much poison that it fairly bred a plague.”

  “Rat catchers!” Brewer Cole continued, “Why there isn't a rat catcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End that hasn't tried his luck. But do what we might, cats or poison, terrier or traps, there seem to be more rats than ever, and every day a fresh rat is socking his tail or pricking his whiskers.”

  Chloe watched as her father patted his brow with a handkerchief and shook his head in frustration. As mayor, the men had come to him for some answers, but he had already wracked his poor brain and come up empty of solutions. Yet just as he was about to confess his helplessness in this situation, Chloe’s mother came rushing into the room.

  “Benedict,” she gasped, quite out of breath and excited. “There is a very queer fellow here for you. I don’t rightly know what to make of him, but he insists upon seeing you at once."

  "Show him in," gruffed the mayor, secretly pleased at the temporary reprieve, while Chloe strained to look upon the newcomer from her hiding place.

  A queer fellow, truly, for there wasn't a color of the rainbow that couldn’t be found in some corner of his flowing traveler’s cloak. But he was tall and strong, with keen piercing eyes that lingered a fraction too long as they passed over Chloe’s hiding place. He had dark hair that was roughly cut, hanging unkempt to shadow intelligent brows and lean, angular cheeks. His jaw was stern, and her overall impression was that he might be some lordly gentleman using the gaudy patchwork cloak as a disguise to draw the eye away from his true appearance.

  "I am called the Pied Piper," the mysterious stranger began. "I have heard of your plague. So pray, what might you be willing to pay me, if I rid you of every single rat in Hamelin?"

  Chloe felt her heart leap, for there was something in the man’s voice that spoke of power and confidence unlike anything the town had seen before. Her father must have heard it too, for he didn’t jump to throw the man out for bragging. Instead, the town council appeared to seriously consider his offer.

  Unfortunately, as much as they hated the rats, they hated parting with their money more, and fain would they have higgled and haggled for a week of Sundays. But the piper was not a man to stand nonsense.

  “Do not offend me by suggesting an amount less than you have paid my predecessors. They have failed where I shall exceed. Let us say fifty pounds and be done with it.”

  From her hiding place, Chloe chewed her lip. It was a great deal of money when the town’s coffers were already so terribly low. But after a moment of deliberation amongst themselves the town council agreed.

  “All right then,” her father conceded rather boisterously, “fifty pounds shall be yours when there is not a single rat left to squeak or scurry in Hamelin.”

  From the set of his fists on his hips and the challenge in his eyes, the mayor did not think such a feat possible, at least not anytime soon. The piper only offered a nod of his head and stepped out into the hall, where he immediately laid his pipe to his lips.

  A shrill keen tune sounded through street and house. And as each note pierced the air Chloe was greeted by a strange sight, for out of every hole the rats came tumbling. There were none too old and none too young, none too big and none too little to crowd at the piper's heels and with eager feet and upturned noses to patter after him as he paced the streets.

  Up Silver Street he went, and down Gold Street, and at the end of Gold Street is the harbor and the broad Solent beyond. And as he paced along, slowly and gravely, the townsfolk flocked to door and window, and many a blessing they called down upon his head.

  When he reached the water's edge, he stepped into a
boat, and every rat quickly followed it, splashing, paddling, and wagging their tails with delight. On and on he played and played until the tide went down, and each master rat sank deeper and deeper in the slimy ooze of the harbor, until every mother's son of them was dead and smothered.

  When the tide rose again, the piper stepped on shore, but not a single rat followed.

  Chloe stood on the docks with her father and the entire town council. They all stood in awe of what they had just witnessed, yet as the piper stepped ashore Chloe saw her father fidget with his coin purse in the subtle way he always did when he felt that he was being cheated.

  “Papa, the rats are gone,” she reminded him softly, wary of the nearby council members’ ears. “You promised to pay him if he rid the town of rats, and there is not a single squeak to be heard or whisker to be seen.”

  The mayor startled a bit, as if surprised to find his only daughter standing beside him, then his brow furrowed and a stormy look entered his eyes.

  “It’s the moral of it, don’t you see? He’s tricked us all into thinking it was a difficult feat. But it took him only a few minutes to accomplish. Why should I pay him so much for so little effort?”

  “Papa, you promised!”

  “Go home, Chloe. This is no business for womenfolk; this is a matter for the town council.”

  “But, Papa…!”

  “Be silent girl!”

  Chloe looked up to meet the dark eyes of the piper, and from the tempest she saw brewing there, it was obvious he’d heard everything. She wanted to apologize, to tell him how grateful the villagers really were, but he seemed to read every intention on her face and gave her a slight shake of his head before turning to confront her father.

  “The rats are gone, as I promised. Now if you will kindly pay me, I will be on my way.”

  "Come, my good man," the mayor hedged. "You see what poor folk we are. How can we manage to pay you fifty pounds? Will you not take twenty? When all is said and done, 'twill be good pay for what little trouble you've taken."

  "Fifty pounds was promised and fifty pounds it must be," said the piper shortly, his voice deepening and growing dangerous, the reverberation of a coming storm. "If I were you I'd pay the money quickly, for I can pipe many kinds of tunes, as folk sometimes find to their cost."

  "Would you threaten us, you strolling vagabond?" shrieked the mayor, and at the same time he turned to the council for support, many already clenching fists over their purses.

  "The rats are all dead and drowned," muttered old man Johan, and several nodded with agreement. The piper couldn’t undo his good work, so what had they to fear?

  "You may take ten pounds, or you may go without," suggested Brewer Cole. “Ten pounds for a few minutes of work, you should be grateful.”

  Chloe made a squeal of outrage, but the piper again met her eyes and gave a small shake of his head.

  "Very well," the dark musician rumbled, and he offered a quiet smile before laying his pipe to his lips once more. This time there were no shrill notes of scraping and gnawing, and squeaking and scurrying. The music he played was a sensual caress that whispered along Chloe’s skin and made her heart pound a little faster. Every note was a kiss, every lilt a seduction.

  As the piper turned and began to pace down the streets, the elders mocked, but from every kitchen and parlor, from every garden and shop, the eldest daughters of Hamelin came out to follow.

  Dancing, laughing, swaying and quivering, the enraptured throng moved up along Gold Street and down Silver Street. And beyond Silver Street lay the cool green forest full of old oaks and wide-spreading beeches, and there followed every unwed woman of marriageable age, enthralled by the piper’s bewitching tune.

  In and out among the ancient oaks the town elders caught glimpses of the piper’s many-colored coat. But they thought their daughters were only rejoicing in their freedom from the rats, and did not suppose they might be enchanted, until the music faded and died away within the lone green wood and the women did not return.

  Chloe danced beside the piper himself, laughing and twirling as he watched. She hesitated only a moment when the strange mist began to rise from the forest floor and block out the lights of the city beyond.

  The forest seemed to shimmer around them, the trees quivering as if they had a life of their own. Then she knew that they were no longer in the woods of her childhood. They were transported to some other realm, where the deer and the foxes came out to watch the seductive dance of the Hamelin daughters. The eagle and the owl took congress from the sparrow above them. And the very trees bowed and whispered in time with the piper’s song.

  Dark shadows emerged from the mists and took the form of men, every inch as tall and every male as handsome as the pied piper beside her. A few of them even withdrew pipes of their own.

  Chloe’s heart swelled with the music. All around her the daughters of Hamelin danced faster, captivated by the song. The women swayed and whirled, shedding their clothing as they danced among the caressing hands of the seductive pipers.

  Chloe moaned and sighed in turn as the harsh cloth of her own dress seemed to slide away without care. She wanted to be rid of it, to be as naked and free as the wild wind in the trees.

  An impressive man began to gyrate behind her, his powerful body sliding and grinding against hers, but Chloe had eyes only for the pied piper, and he had eyes for her.

  As the other man’s hands slid over her body she could see the lust gleaming in the piper’s admiring countenance. His gaze burning along her naked flesh, searing her everywhere they touched, stirring a smoldering heat that drew down to dampen the lips of her pussy and made her body tremble.

  She offered a timid smile and opened her arms to draw him in.

  It was then that the pied piper finally shrugged off his cloak and revealed what he truly was. Not a man at all, but a creature taller than any man, with a powerful chest and waist that tapered down into the hind legs of a wild goat or stag.

  In shock she looked about and realized that none of the pipers were men. They were satyrs, the half-men of the forest and musical servants of Dionysus.

  She felt a twinge of fear as their leader strode towards her on black, cloven hoofs. Yet as he drew himself up before her, tall as an oak and broad as the mighty river, the hooves vanished and the dark fur fell away, leaving only a nude man in their place.

  Oh, such a man as she’d never seen before!

  A tremulous shiver whispered down to caress the trembling nerves of her pussy, as she looked down and witnessed the enormous cock jutting up from within the dark curls nestled between his now human legs. It was not the first time she’d looked upon a naked man, but never had it awakened such desire within her.

  Lean, hard muscles rippled beneath tanned flesh as he stroked his palm along the silken length of his cock, seducing a pearl of creamy liquid out onto the broad tip as he gave her a cunning smile.

  “Beautiful Chloe, you have shown me that you are both honest and good. Speak the truth now, if you dare. Are you afraid?”

  The deep musical rumble of his voice merged with the sweet lilt of the golden pipes that still swelled the air with seduction. It filled her limbs with a molten yearning that weakened her knees and made her breath catch.

  She trembled as a leaf caught in a windstorm, yet she shook her head.

  “No.” The word was hardly more than a sigh, but it was the truth and he was pleased. He stepped closer, letting her feel the heat of his flesh against hers, capturing her between them, twin satyrs masquerading as men.

  Their breath was a fire upon her neck and the back of her shoulder as hot mouths began to taste and to savor. Her nostrils were filled by the scent of prime wood after a rainstorm, of hot wet earth and wild things. It was intoxicating.

  “I am Pan, the lord of these woods,” his words swirled over the sensitive skin just below one ear. “And Faunus is my comrade, the most trusted of my satyrs. We would have you together, my sweetling, if you say yes.”

&
nbsp; Fingers plucked at her nipples like chords on a harp, seducing the sweetest moans from her throat, but the sound was quickly swallowed by the piper’s heated kiss. It was a long, slow smoldering union of lips and tongues that left her straining against him, desperate for more. And both satyrs were eager to offer it, yet they waited for her answer.

  “Yes,” Chloe nearly wept, so heated was her need.

  The satyrs offered a combined rumble of delight at her acceptance, and the sound went straight to her clit. Pan was eager to follow it with his fingertips. Strong hands smoothed down her thighs and stole sweet kisses from the lips of her pussy, even as other hands squeezed the fullness of her ass, parting those luscious cheeks to stroke the velvety steel of a cock between them.

  Their hands were everywhere, touching and caressing her most sensitive places, filling her with a raging passion that threatened to consume her. Chloe mewled and trembled between them, openly begging for them to guide her through the firestorm of building pleasure.

  She gasped as clever fingers sought out the satin pearl of her clit, sending wild bolts of electricity ricocheting through her body. Her head falling back to rest upon the satyr behind her as frenzied coils of need tightened and grew inside her.

  “You fought to protect me from the folly of your father,” Pan’s lips caressed the words against her skin between kisses. “But after I’d laid eyes upon you, I was no longer interested in my little game. I was hoping that he would fail in his promise, so that I could claim you as my reward.”

  Chloe knew that she should be appalled by his confession, yet she was overcome by the searing pleasure of his fingers between her legs. She was gasping and arching into his hand, her body trembling with the overwhelming need for more.

  “Then claim me, now,” she pleaded.

  He gave her a wicked smile and increased the speed of his caress. Almost instantly the earth shattered around her and she was thrown into a sea of ecstasy, wave after wave of pulsing euphoria sent crashing through every nerve of her body.