Lord of the Dark (12 page)

Gideon scarcely breathed. Had she taken pity upon him? He could only hope. “Tell it, then!” he said, with as much restraint as he could muster without diving into the fog and throttling her.

“They did trick her,” she replied. “I will tell you how, but that will cost you, and you will still have your final question in reserve. What say you, Gideon, Lord of the Dark? Are you game?”

“Name your price!” Gideon said without blinking.

“It is what you thought my price would be on your last visit, dark one, that cock of yours inside me again. I have a need, and you have the means to fulfill it.”

Gideon was silent apace. Her image at their last meeting ghosted across his mind, and he shuddered. Sight of her halo of foul-smelling, matted hair and gap-tooth grin, of her sagging breasts and faded nipples poking through the flimsy shift of stringy seaweed was enough to make his cock go limp as a noodle despite the curse.

“Come now,” she said through his hesitation. “Does she mean that little to you, then, your Rhiannon, that you cannot suffer your cock in the likes of me for a brief blink in time’s eye? It isn’t as if I am a human—a threat to her. I am not even real by your standards. We are all of us cursed by the gods, doomed to our different fates. Think of me as spirit, with no more substance than one of the Forest Lord’s trees if it eases your conscience. And being spirit—and feared—the watchers will not strike you down for penetrating me…in case you have forgotten. It has been a long time, Gideon.”

“I have no conscience, old one; the gods have driven it out of me with their lightning bolts. I do have self-respect!” That was wishful thinking, for he dearly regretted that the gods hadn’t taken his conscience, too, or that it evidently couldn’t be driven out of him; for in spite of everything he’d lost in all the eons since his fall, he hadn’t lost that.

“As well you ought, but it will not buy you your Rhiannon. Decide! Embrace me and have the means to find her, or be gone and bungle about on your own. The choice is yours.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Gideon growled.

“You will accept it, then?”

“How do I know you will keep your part of it? I’ve not had much good fortune with bargains of late.” He was thinking of the pact he’d made with Rhiannon to stay inside the cave.

“If I tell you beforehand what proof have
I
that you will keep your part of the agreement?” she countered. “Foreswearing is no good. You have renounced the gods you would swear upon.”

“I have not renounced them, old woman, they have renounced
me
.”

“So we are at loggerheads?”

“We have a bargain,” Gideon conceded, with more than a few misgivings. “I will take you at your word.”

The fog parted then, but the wizened old hag of recent memory did not emerge from it. Instead, a specter from the past stepped forward, young and voluptuous, with hair like spun gold that teased the firm, round globes of her buttocks.

“Your reward for trust,” she crooned, sidling up to him until her body heat radiated against his damp skin. She seized his cock. “Remember how it was the last time, dark one?” she crooned as she ran her soft, warm fingers the length of his shaft, tracing the distended veins and bulging mushroom tip. “Remember, I am but spirit, a succubus,” she soothed, pumping him rhythmically, meanwhile running her free hand over his torso through the open front of his eelskin. He’d forgotten it was open thus. When had that occurred? He had to be mad. “Coitus with me,” she went on smoothly, undulating closer, “holds no more stigma than a wet dream in the night, dark one. Take me, and I will tell you how to find her…if you dare…”

Her hand riding his shaft inched lower, her deft fingers strumming his sac, gently squeezing until his testicles puckered with the gooseflesh of excruciating ecstasy. He groaned, his breath coming short as she found his lips with a hungry mouth and plunged her pointed tongue inside, past his teeth to the silken warmth along the inside of his cheeks.

Parting her nether lips, Gideon slipped his finger between them, spreading her wetness. When he withdrew it, it came away slick with her juices, which he smeared on the head of his aching cock. Her pleasure moans ringing in his ears, he spanned her slender waist with his hands and lifted her upon his shaft, penetrating her in one swift thrust that filled the tight fissure of her sex as it gripped him.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, Gideon backed her up against a moss-covered phallic stone poking though the fog and thrust himself again and again, deep pistoning spirals as he undulated against her, grinding the root of his sex into the hard bud of her female erection until she cried out in her rapture.

“That was no…spirit’s cry,” he panted, as she clung to him.

“Be still and take me, dark one,” she whispered.

Fisting her hands in his hair, she drove his head down until one hard nipple entered his mouth, and held it there while he laved and nipped and sucked, tugging at the pebbled areola until she writhed against him. He could feel the involuntary contractions build toward her release. The grip of her sex upon his was more than he could bear, but he would see her come first. She was holding back for maximum pleasure, but time was short. Every second wasted here put more distance between him and Rhiannon.

His cock was aching for release. Thanks be to the traitorous wind, he was aroused before her seduction began. He was dizzy with need now, his shaft on fire, steeped in the hot, moist seat of her sex. Would she never come?

Balancing himself against the stone with Lavilia impaled upon his member, he cupped her breasts and stroked both nipples with his thumbs as he quickened his rhythm. Thrusting into her in mindless oblivion, he took her until she ground out a deep, throaty groan, holding him fast as the rapid pulsations of her orgasm riddled his cock with drenching fire.

“My wings…” he panted. “Stroke my wings! Stroke them
now
!” For while he held a beauty in his arms, his mind’s eye saw the wizened crone, and for the first time in so long he could not remember, he was in difficulty.

Lavilia did as he bade her, ruffling his feathers, and his release came in shock waves like cannon fire until she had drained him of every drop of his seed.

Clinging to him fiercely, her hot breath puffing against his skin running with sweat, she murmured, “They took her to a clearing northeast of where the Ancient Ones were ministering to you. Look for a tall ancestral oak whose branches touch the ground. It stands alone. There is a ring of toadstools at its base. You must step inside the ring and—”

“That is all I needed to know,” Gideon interrupted as he withdrew himself and staggered back from her. “You will forgive me if I do not linger,” he said, unfurling his wings. “Rhiannon’s very life could well depend upon my haste.”

The rune caster seized his arm. “You must listen…” she cried. “You cannot just cross over on your own. You must be led or aided. Notoriously, the fay lead their captives to a faery ring and cross them over. There must be an invitation or magic intervention to breach the span between the worldly and the Otherworldly. I can do this for you, but you must think it through…there are choices!” she cried. “Possibly the most important choices of your life…”

“There are no ‘choices’! I must have her back!” Gideon thundered.

“Then listen well and pay attention, impetuous one,” she returned. “You paid me three feathers upon your last visit. If you recall, I told you you would have them back when the time was right.”

“So?”

“I must cast one through the portal to gain you entrance to the astral realm,” she explained, “but there are limits. You must reach your Rhiannon and carry her back through the portal before that feather touches the ground on the other side, or the opening will close to you.”

“Do it then! We waste time, old woman!”

“Wait, dark one!” she called after him, for he was already in flight. “Those three feathers are critical to your life, Gideon. Once used, they cannot be had back. If I do this, you will have only two feathers left and much yet before you. Wait, I say! I have not finished! There is more! You need to hear me out and
think
before you—”

“Work your magic,” Gideon shouted, for he was out of earshot. “I have heard all I need to hear. Another time, Lavilia, when I return to collect my due…”

She was shouting something, but he had flown too far aloft to hear. It didn’t matter. She had told him what he needed to know. It only remained to find the faery ring, cross over, with the help of her magic, and bring Rhiannon back.

The wind whistled in his ears, stirring the strange disembodied voices again. Gideon strained to hear what they were saying as he soared toward the Forest Isle.

You still do not think we should intervene?
one was saying.
I should think it would be the perfect time. He should have let her finish
.

The other heaved a gusty sigh.
If Lavilia could not prepare the impetuous young fool, what chance have we? No, nothing worth having comes without as price. He will pay his.

The other voice sputtered,
It comes too dear, I think, the way he squanders feathers.

Cheap or dear, he pays it, and soon…
the other said, and said no more.

R
hiannon staggered back from the place where the ancestral oak had stood, wracking her brain for any long-forgotten lore of the astral realm that might help her return to her own world. She’d been told many a tale at her mother’s knee. Why couldn’t she remember them now?

She glanced about. Though she could feel a thousand eyes upon her, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Her mind was a blank. There was nothing for it but to rely upon common sense. She wasn’t comfortable in the open, but—not even knowing why—she felt she needed to be able to find her way back to the spot in the clearing where she’d crossed over. Without the oak tree or faery ring, she had no landmark to guide her, and she searched the ground for something to leave in their place. Several small rocks nearby sparkling with metallic flecks caught her eye, and she snatched them up and placed them as near as she could recall to where the oak had stood in the physical world. Strange voices riding the breeze began to whisper in her ears as she arranged the stones. Several times she stopped to listen, but the whisperers hushed the minute she stilled, and when she resumed her chore and the whispering continued, what they were saying wouldn’t come clear. No, she definitely wasn’t alone. Whoever these entities were, why wouldn’t they make their presence known? Surely, they knew she didn’t invade their realm voluntarily. What possible threat could she pose to the dwellers of the Otherworld—a frightened, half-naked woman lost in a fold in time and space, sobbing for her sorry predicament?

Straightening up from her chore, Rhiannon noticed a darker green swath in the grass taking shape. It was leading in the direction of the forest that flanked the clearing on what appeared to be the south, judging from the position of the sun. It seemed like an invitation, and though she was wary of accepting anything from the fay, she began to follow where it led. There wasn’t much choice. She wasn’t comfortable in the open, and so fixing her position in her mind, she began to follow the faery trail.

An eerie green darkness not unlike that which prevailed in the copses in the physical world enveloped her the instant she stepped inside the lush, dense foliage. Strange spangled light filtered through the trees, and the whispering grew louder. It seemed to be rushing at her from all sides. All around, the trees began to take on shapes within their towering trunks. Their bark began to shift and pulse and undulate as human-like figures became visible that almost seemed trapped in the bodies of the trees. Rhiannon blinked as the naked forms of men and women came clear, writhing seductively, their gray-green bodies never touching, for they were one with their host trees, and yet their seduction was the most powerfully erotic display she had ever seen.

Rhiannon took in her surroundings. Brilliant specks of buzzing white light flitted all around her. How happily they danced, some coming so close they nearly grazed her long hair. One by one they took living form, human-like, but not, for they were winged, and naked, flying all around her, like curious children. At first glance, she would have taken them for butterflies. Other creatures materialized. Fay of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions appeared before her eyes. They indeed seemed to be performing some ritualistic dance, but at closer inspection…no. They were
mating
—openly, without a shred of modesty.

She was mesmerized by the spectacle, and it began to trigger the long-forgotten memories of the fay she had been trying to conjure from her nursery days. The worst had already occurred. She had crossed over. There was nothing to be done about that but try to make the best of it and, if possible, find a sympathetic entity willing to champion her release. These seemed to have accepted her to make so free in her presence, but she saw no champion among them. They seemed content to satisfy their lust en masse for her to view. What had begun as bold pinpoints of glaring light darting about among the swaying boughs of trees whose spirits had come to life had become an orgy of unbridled passions. The innocent-looking spangles had merged into conjoined fay creatures mating in flight, while on the ground other entities had paired off cavorting in like lascivious manner.

But it was the trees that that took her breath away. Was she actually seeing their inner selves, their ancient spirits, or were these naked male and female entities mere faery glamour, staged to raise the fever in her blood? Whatever the case, they had succeeded. Her loins were on fire, her sex throbbing like a pulse beat. Hot blood rushed through her veins, thrumming through her temples, setting her cheeks aflame—calling her hand to her pubic mound. As if they had a will of their own, her fingers parted the honey-colored curls that hid her clitoris and began rubbing it to steely hardness. She was on fire, caught up in the sultry rhythm of the ritual. There was no turning back.

Beguiled, Rhiannon parted her nether lips and let her fingers glide in and out of her vagina on the cream of her juices. She probed deeper. How warm she was inside, like hot silk. She shut her eyes. Even the fiery darkness behind her closed lids had a pulse to it, a pounding, throbbing, shuddering, blood-red rhythm begging for release as she swayed to the beat of the strange orgiastic dance. The climax came quickly, riddling her with wave upon wave of achy orgasmic fire.

A sudden breeze brought her eyes open. The wind hadn’t risen. Two winged dryads were spinning around her. These were nearly as tall as she was, their wings so fine all Rhiannon could see was the iridescence of their motion, like a silvery veil the color of rain. Their garments were just as sheer, hiding none of their charms, as they circled her in a blur of twinkling motion, their tittering like the tinkle of bells to her ear. Each carried a thread from the ragged kirtle that barely hung on her body. Giggling and whispering as if they were sharing secrets, the two doe-eyed, long-haired beauties were unraveling the threadbare shift from top to bottom.

One had begun with several threads from the shredded hem, while the other had begun at the neck. As tattered as the garment was, it did provide some shred of decency, and Rhiannon’s hands flew in all directions in a vain attempt to preserve what little coverage remained over her private parts.

“No!” she cried. “Please, don’t! I am not one of you. I am human. I—we prefer to remain clothed…”

But the dryad’s tittering laughter only grew louder as they spun and danced and flitted around her, now and then bestowing a playful pat, like a butterfly kiss, with their wings as they passed by.

Rhiannon couldn’t see the others any longer. The whole forest had become a whirling, spinning blur of motion. She had begun to spin now as well into a void of pitch darkness. The dryads’ voices seemed to be coming from an echo chamber, then finally grew distant, and the breeze of their motion stilled. Something as featherlight as eiderdown touched her skin from her neck to her ankles. She felt it glide over her breasts, over her belly, hips, and thighs. But vertigo starred her vision and she fell to her knees too dizzy to stand.

On the edge of consciousness, Rhiannon’s heart began thumping against her ribs, and her breath was coming short. After a moment, her eyes came open to a twilight mist drifting over the forest floor, but the mating creatures had vanished. It wasn’t even the same forest. These trees showed no human-like shapes in their blackened trunks. These were bent and twisted, like the trees had been in Gideon’s petrified forest on the Dark Isle.

Gideon.

His image ghosting across her mind stabbed her through with the most excruciating pain. Where was he? Had the wood nymphs won? Was he with them, loving them—living inside them? Had he forgotten her in the arms of those treacherous creatures? Would she never see him again? No. She wouldn’t think about any of that—couldn’t think about it or she would run mad.

Glancing down, Rhiannon gasped. Her threadbare kirtle was gone. In its place she wore a garment so fine it seemed spun of pure moonbeams, just like the gowns the dryads wore. So that was what the playful creatures were about. They had replaced her kirtle with a fine new one—a gift. What had she heard about accepting gifts from the fay? It was forbidden in the physical world, but what about here, in their world? Were the rules different here? Why couldn’t she remember? The garment was enchanted, surely, and she’d had no real choice. The flimsy stuff it was woven of scarcely sufficed to preserve modesty, but it was better than going about wearing nothing at all among such highly sexed creatures that went about naked and had no compunction about mating in public in full view of all.

Rhiannon shrugged those thoughts off. It was too late in any case. She was wearing the dryads’ gift, and they were nowhere about even if she wanted to return it. Instead, she concentrated upon the lay of the land around her. It had a decidedly sinister feel to it, not warm and welcoming like the other copse. She glanced about looking for the ribbon of darker grass that had led her to the other forest, but it was nowhere to be seen. The land was draped in darkness, like a shroud—a living, breathing darkness, where a thousand eyes lurked in wait. She could feel them boring into her, and she shuddered so violently she mis-stepped making her way among the slimy tree trunks she reached toward for support.

Another bit of fay lore ghosted across her mind. It was common knowledge that the dryads had the favor of tree spirits. The enigmatic beauties ministered to the trees, petted, groomed, and reverenced them. In return, the ancient spirits that lived within the trees’ rough bark and leafy branches gifted them with knowledge of their innermost secrets. It was said that the dryads taught the druids what magic the tree spirits were willing to impart, and often even bestowed such knowledge upon worthy mortals. Dryads could always be found in the company of trees. They were conspicuously absent from these Rhiannon found herself among now, and she shuddered again. There was great danger here. She could feel it in the marrow of her bones.

Surely the dryads knew this would be. Why had they left her among such as these after helping her so kindly? Just another evidence that the fay could not be trusted, she surmised. She had followed the rules. She hadn’t thanked the dryads for their gift of the garment, for that was strictly prohibited. The fey neither expected nor solicited thanks for their deeds. In fact, they considered such displays rude. Still, for all their fickle reputation, she would have welcomed their presence here among the blackened branches rheumy with malodorous sap that seemed to be closing in on her. But that was ridiculous. They were only
trees,
rooted to the ground. Nevertheless, she gave them a wide berth as she continued on, anxious to be out of that forest.

There was no path, but there was only one way she could go. The spongy ribbon of flattened mulch winding through the trees was narrow, and even if she had wanted to go back in the opposite direction, one glance over her shoulder showed her that this was not an option. The undergrowth and trees behind her closed the path with every step she took, and what had once been a lane wide enough to accommodate a horse and rider, was fast becoming a tangled snarl of jungle-like impenetrable growth nipping at her heels.

Rhiannon quickened her pace. The pearly twilight was fading all around her. It was suddenly full dark. The forest seemed to be breathing in and out in rhythm with her footfalls. She could see the blackened trees in silhouette against a blacker sky expand and contract with every step she took.

An insidious murmur of disembodied sound rushed at her ears. Her eyes flashed in all directions in a vain attempt to pick out the authors of the noise from the misty shadows, but nothing came clear. Whoever—
whatever
—these creatures were, they were not anything she wanted to be alone with in the night, in the dark, and she quickened her pace again until she was nearly running; evidently, so were they. Their monotone buzzing had grown louder, and it was coming at her from all directions.

Covering her ears, Rhiannon ran on, dry sobs welling in her throat. The petrified trees’ bony arms reaching across the narrow path groped her familiarly as she passed among them, or was it the invisible creatures hidden in the mist that plucked at her long plaited hair, pinched her breasts, and tugged on the hem of her gown? Rhiannon didn’t stop to make an assessment. The trees thinned ahead, and she ran sobbing through the bog toward a clearing, where shafts of moonlight lit the meadow as light as day. Clapping her hands over her ears, she screamed at the top of her voice to drown out the hideous misshapen sound of the disembodied laughter mocking her flight.

The minute she reached the meadow, the dark swath of grass reappeared, and she spilled out onto the ground, her breath coming short, and collapsed in a bed of marigolds.

“Here now!” a woman’s voice croaked from nearby. “Watch where you’re goin’, missy! Ya’ nearly trampled me poor lost lamb.”

Rhiannon scrabbled to her feet, a startled cry on her parched lips. It was a wizened crone wearing a green shift, her hunched body bent nearly parallel with the ground. She was carrying a shepherd’s crook, and the lamb in question whose bleating was a welcome sound after the blood-chilling laughter still echoing in her ears from the forest behind. It, too, had disappeared now, like the first forest had. It was passing strange.

There was nothing threatening in the woman’s countenance. In fact, she had a pleasant face, the apples of her cheeks glowing with the rosy blush of good health, though her body was twisted and grotesque. Her smile was most pleasant, and the way she petted and crooned to the little lamb in her arms was reassuring. Could she be a
gruagach
? If so, there was nothing to fear. According to legend, such creatures, though simpleminded and prone to mistakes, held no ill will toward humans, but were reputed to be quite helpful. If that was the case, this woman might just be the one to help sort out the situation. But still, Rhiannon was wary.