Lord of the Dark (14 page)

“That goes without saying,” Gideon cut in.

Marius nodded. “I have my reasons,” he said. “Take some time with your lady. “You do not know when you will be able again, if you take my meaning. I will make my rounds. When you are ready, you need not take to the air and draw the watchers’ fire. You will need to swim beneath the surface of the water for several yards to reach an underwater tunnel with air pockets, like a bathing tub, quite pleasant. Follow it in an easterly direction, and it will lead you to a similar rock pool at the foot of Lord Vane’s volcano. You will need to take shelter once you emerge, and there are precious few hiding places to be had on the Isle of Fire. At least this will buy you a little time. I wish I could offer you more.”

“I am in your debt, Marius.”

“There is no ‘debt,’ old friend, just keep my secret hideaway to yourselves. Now then! I go to lead the watchers on a merry chase. Hail and farewell, Lord of the Dark. When we meet again, let us hope it is in less dire circumstances.”

The Lord of the Forest melted into the shadows as mysteriously as he’d emerged from them without a sound, and Rhiannon uttered another gasp.

“What a strange creature,” she murmured. “I mean no disrespect calling him that, but what
is
he, human or fay?”

Gideon pulled her close in his arms, brushing loose tendrils back from her face in the stray flashes of defused moonlight seeping through the canopy of boughs above. “Marius is a creature of Nature, neither man, nor beast, nor mortal, nor fay. He is like all of us lords of the archipelago, a plaything of the gods. He serves Mother Nature and the Ancient Ones, tending all things green and burgeoning. He is fertility. He
is
Nature, the keeper of all grounding balance in the land. His sentence was lighter than mine. He only must take the form of the centaur for three days each month.”

“But why? What did he do?” Rhiannon persisted.

Gideon hesitated. “He forgot who he was,” he said. “He killed a creature he was duty bound to protect, and the gods have suffered him to walk the land in the body of that creature as punishment each month at the dark of the moon for all eternity.”

“He is…immortal then,” Rhiannon murmured, answering her own question.

Gideon nodded. “We all are,” he said.

“I see,” she replied so softly he scarcely heard.

“Enough of Marius!” he said, pulling her closer still. “It matters not to me what he has done. He is my friend, and yours. He has just proven that. We are safe here for the moment. The gods alone know what will be when we leave the forest.”

She clung to him, and he found her lips with a hungry mouth. How soft and sweet they were. They felt like velvet and tasted of honey as he deepened the kiss, his tongue inviting hers to join the mating dance. It was a swift thrust, extracting a moan from her throat that resonated through his body, igniting flames only she had the power to kindle. He was aroused, his loins on fire, his penis swelling to life against the soft cushion of her belly.

Gideon’s wings unfurled halfway, grazing two ancestral pines that seemed to sigh awake and stretch, their fragrant needles caressing them as their boughs swayed to an erotic rhythm that moved the ground beneath their feet. Rhiannon stiffened in his arms, and he soothed her gently.

“There is nothing to fear,” he murmured. “The ancient spirits in these trees would bless us.”

The words were scarcely out when the mulch-covered forest floor began to shift. One by one, roots and tendrils began to break through the groundcover. Like curious children, the roots began exploring their bodies. Rhiannon cried out as one root lifted the hem of her shift and began inching it up along her thigh. Another reached to stroke her hair, still another joined with the first, and together they unbound the loose plait and spread the long tresses wide.

Gideon had never seen anything so beautiful as Rhiannon with her hair free of its tether falling over the creamy expanse of her shoulders. Where had her gossamer shift gone? It didn’t matter. The flimsy thing hid none of her attributes. The dryads had robed her well, in the filmy gauze of spider silk spangled with what seemed like shimmering stardust. She was more provocative in that shift than she was naked, for it rested upon the turgid peaks of her firm, young breasts and pubic mound, and clung in shadowy seduction to the voluptuous hollows and valleys that defined her narrow waist and sculpted her curvaceous buttocks. It now lay puddled about her feet sparkling in the half-light before dawn. Gauze of the gods, for it truly was too fine to have been spun by mortals.

Gideon opened the front of his eel skin, shrugged it down, and freed his anxious cock, soothing it from thick root to ridged head. Slow, pulsating waves of achy heat spread through his loins as her hand replaced his gliding along his thick, veined shaft. Her long, languid strokes made him harder still.

His wings unfurled wider, caressing the trees that had joined boughs and formed a ring around them, like a fragrant cocoon, their needles running with sticky sap leaving little trails upon their naked skin. It was an intimacy like no other as roots, vines, tender shoots, and tendrils of other plant life stroked them both relentlessly, tethering their ankles to the ground, binding them to Nature and to each other.

Shuddering waves of drenching fire ripped through Gideon’s penis as tender shoots of the climbing vines that had made their home on the great pines’ trunks wreathed his erection and snaked their way between the globes of his ass. He could have sworn he heard one pine sigh under the umbrella of rustling branches, as the two trees began to stroke each other.

Gideon recalled what happened the last time the trees had relieved him thus. He might be able to get away with coitus beneath the Ancient Ones’ canopy, but the minute he left the protection of the trees, the watchers would descend and hurl their lightning bolts. How long before their wrath extended to Rhiannon? How long before their retribution threatened her? Their missiles could not kill him, but they could kill her. Could he live with such as that burdening his conscience? He dared not linger over such fears. He needed to remain focused. No mean task, while gripping waves of smoldering heat, the slightest touch of her hand, the merest puff of wind, or flutter of a pine needle threatened to riddle him with a climax that would rock his soul. The curse was working in him now unlike it ever had before, because love had become a factor. He had reached the point of no return, but he wasn’t the only one to consider any longer. Now there was Rhiannon.

Tender shoots were strumming her nipples, and ivy runners had crept between her thighs. Leaning her against one of the swaying pines, Gideon spread her nether lips and thrust his penis into her from mushroom head to thickened root not a moment too soon. Shudders of orgasmic contractions gripped his shaft as her vagina tugged at his penis. Slow, fluttering tugs at first, then faster, more urgent pulsations as he rode her silken wetness.

Rhiannon called out his name as the climax took her, milking him dry as she rode the firestorm of their simultaneous orgasm. Gideon groaned. The shuddering timbre seemed to bubble up in his throat from the very depths of the enigmatic fiber that knitted him together. Could this climax be his last? Had his time finally run out? His cock was burning with unbridled need as she stroked his wings. With the last shuddering thrust, they furled around her, releasing the trees, for they were no longer touching.

Roots and tendrils, tender shoots and climbing vines crept over them returning to the ground, burrowing back beneath the mulch of dead leaves, fallen needles, sap, and wildflowers. The pulse beat beneath them faded as the ground cover returned to its solid form as if the trees’ roots had never left it. The whole forest seemed to sigh as the canopy shifted overhead, and Gideon withdrew himself, snatched up Rhiannon’s shift, and scooped her up into his arms.

“We must go,” he murmured, stalking deeply into the lush, dense underbrush along the path Marius had pointed out. “It is no longer safe here. The boughs soon part and the watchers lurk in wait.”

“I fear the Isle of Fire,” Rhiannon confessed, gripping him tighter. “It is said that everything Lord Vane touches bursts into flame, even people—even
himself
, that he has the power to self-combust!”

“It is not Lord Vane’s fire you need fear,” he said. “It is the watcher’s fire that threatens, and it is Marius, who needs to fear those lightning bolts more than either of us. The gods are patient with the Ancient Ones, but these ancestral spirits are not exempt from their wrath. I saw fire consume an Ancient One once. I wish never to see such as that again, nor could I live with myself if I were the cause of it. Hold fast and make no sound. I hear dawn breaking. It is time to go.”

H
e cannot fight the watchers single-handed,
a familiar voice ghosted across Gideon’s mind.

There is nothing we can do,
said the other.
Besides, he is not alone
.

We could spare him much
, the first voice argued.

The other uttered something akin to a growl.
What, and bring the watchers’ wrath down upon our heads
?

Just because the gods employ the watchers does not make the watchers right, which is why the gods employ us also,
the first voice spoke up.

When the gods want us, they will let us know,
the other said.
They also employ the rune caster. The winged one has sought her counsel, and I want no truck with that one.

The first speaker hesitated.
I still think—

Shh! Be still! He hears us. You forget his powers. He would have heard us long ago if he was not blinded by love madness. You forget, he can hear night fall and dawn break. He hears the music the sun makes, and the sighing of the moon—the very symphony of the universe when he is not bewitched like now, by such as she. He has not lost that gift, it just lies dormant. But enough! We wait on the gods. It is in their hands now….

Gideon did hear something, but only fragmented bits that made no sense. There was no time to trouble over disembodied voices. His way was clear. He was a fugitive, hunted like an animal, and now Rhiannon was a fugitive as well. He could not think past that he had put her in such a position. He could not rationalize beyond that his selfishness in that he would keep her may be the very thing that damned them in the end. For he felt the chill of the angel of death’s icy breath puffing down his spine this time; something he had never felt before. It raised his hackles and riddled him with cold, clammy chills.

They found the mineral spring and reached the rock pool in an unexpected clearing deep in the wood, as first light began to chase the shadows. It was just as Marius had described, like a little oasis in the midst of lush vegetation. The prospect of submerging himself in the warm mineral spring, having the silky water lave his tender wings in Rhiannon’s arms, was almost more than he could bear. The thought of it alone made him hard as he hesitated on the brink of the pool.

“Must we swim under the water?” Rhiannon asked, hesitant.

“Only for a short distance,” Gideon replied, slipping his arm around her waist. He had just come from her steamy embrace, and his member was throbbing to life again. His skin had begun to tingle in anticipation of those lapping ripples of dark water lifting—separating each feather in his traitorous wings, missing no crevice; it was sheer torture. Water was his enemy now. It would bring the libidinous drive, the unstoppable passion, which would be bad enough if he were alone, but with Rhiannon in his arms, he would be perpetually hard against the seam, and there was no help for it.

“I don’t swim underwater well,” Rhiannon confessed.

“Take my hand,” Gideon said. She did as he bade her, and together they plunged into the rock pool.

Gideon groaned as the steamy mineral water cascaded over his wings. He remembered that submerging himself in the warm water of just such a pool, or standing under a waterfall, or swimming off the shores of Simeon’s Pavilion had soothed and relaxed him. But that was before his fall from grace, before the gods turned his own body against him and made it an instrument of sexual torture.

Rhiannon clung to him, and he stiffened as her hands came too close to those recreant appendages for comfort. “Do not touch my wings!” he cautioned. “I need all my wits about me now. Let your body become accustomed to the water temperature. When you’re ready, take a deep breath, and hold on to me.”

Moments later, they were moving underwater. His wings were like lead weights, the surge to sexual readiness almost more than Gideon could bear. He could feel her fear. He could also feel her trust, and he held her closer, sifting through the phosphorescent glitter in the water with narrowed eyes searching for the opening Marius described. It seemed like an eternity, but it was only a moment before he saw it, like a burst of ethereal light, and he streaked upward through the water to the underwater cave.

Defused light from anonymous chinks in the rock formation above showed him the labyrinth with air pockets supplied by the same source. The air smelled strongly of pine, rosemary, and cress. The water was only waist deep as they began treading toward a glimmer of daylight at the far end of the cave, but the constant laving of his wings had taken its toll, and Gideon loosened the crotch of his eel-skin suit and soothed his aching penis.

Rhiannon took him in her arms. “Is it…Am I worth all this?” she murmured, searching his eyes in the half-light.

Gideon could no longer mask the pain and the desire that lived in his shuttered gaze. He hesitated. Of course she was worth it, but did he have the right to risk putting her in harm’s way?

“Worth it?” he breathed. “My love, you are worth any torment the gods can hurl at me, but nothing is worth putting you in danger; this is what troubles me.”

Rhiannon laid her soft hand against his cheek. “Several times you have asked me never to leave you,” she murmured. “Now I ask the same of you. Whatever comes, we face it together.”

He found her lips with a hungry mouth and pulled her against his anxious hardness. Her body heat excited him as hot steam rose around them from the mineral springs that fed the corridor they traveled. His wet wings shuddered, unfurling halfway, and his breath caught as her pleasure moan resonated through his body.

Taking his penis in her hand, she guided it between her thighs until it glided the length of her slit, riding her wetness, a different wetness than the water that rushed to lave their genitals. It was as if his cock had been ensconced in musky hot silk and at long last found its home.

“Do you remember how it was the first time we met…in the pool in your cave?” she asked. “You did this to me then. I was a virgin, and you were so masterful, trying to frighten me.”

“I was trying to warn you away.”

“Yes, well, you will never know what an opposite effect it had upon me, how often I dreamed of what it would be like to have such as this inside me.” She undulated against the unsuspecting penis trapped between her thighs. It was enough—more than enough.

Gideon seized her, and in one thrust plunged into her. Wrapping her legs around his waist, he backed her against the smooth wall of the cave in a mindless explosion of carnal oblivion. His need was unstoppable, his passion inexhaustible, fed by the fuel of her breathless moans. The climax was swift and riveting, like cannon fire, paralyzing them both.

Finding her lips, he took them eagerly, and she melted against him. How soft and fragrant she was. Hers was a palpable passion. He could feel it in the eager abandon of her response. He could taste it in the desperation of her kiss, as if it was their last. It was then that he realized not all of the drive, the unstoppable frenzy of desire, was due to the curse that left him in a perpetual state of some level of arousal. He didn’t feel this way relieving himself in the wood nymphs, or in the siren Muriel, or in the shape-shifting rune caster. Those occasions were mere bodily functions, desperate acts performed to relieve the pressure the curse brought to bear. This was different. He had never felt this way before—not even when it all began. The remotest possibility that this embrace could be their last had opened his eyes to a poignant truth: He had come back from the others, when they were taken away, but he would not come back from Rhiannon. He had found his soul mate, and he would keep her no matter the cost.

Light trickling in at the end of the tunnel had grown brighter. The sun had risen. There was no more time. How much help evading the watchers of the gods Lord Vane could offer remained to be seen. The relentless creatures stalking him with their lightning bolt seemed set upon his destruction this time, and the gods had closed their ears to his pleas for mercy.

Pulling Rhiannon close in his arms, he tilted her face toward his. “I won’t lie to you,” he murmured. “This has never occurred before, Rhiannon. I have always had a refuge, a place of sanctuary; no more. We are fugitives, and my greatest fear is that the gods will try to get to me through you. It is not too late for me to carry you to the mainland. For all we know, Rolf is long gone by now aboard another vessel. I must offer you the option. There are places there where you could easily blend in. It would be impossible for me, but you—”

Her finger across his lips silenced him. “I will never leave you, Gideon,” she said with passion.

He crushed her close and offered up a prayer he prayed hadn’t fallen on deaf ears like all the others, and led her toward the glimmer of light in the distance. “Come,” he said. “Lord Vane already knows of our coming. Marius will have seen to that. He will be waiting. You have nothing to fear in him. He is not the ogre you expect. He is, I think, the most tragic of us all.”

The cave opened onto the foot of a towering volcano. A lone figure stood at the base of it raking volcanic coals onto what looked like a litter drawn by an enormous black draft horse, its white feathered feet pawing the steamy ground. It whinnied at their approach, and the figure straightened up, his eyes like molten amber taking their measure.

Rhiannon’s breath caught in her throat. How striking he was, tall and well muscled, his hair a thick mass of chestnut waves tinged with copper and gold in the sun curling about his earlobes and combed by the wind across his brow. He was naked but for a scant leather loin cloth, the sunlight gleaming off his sweat-slicked biceps, roped torso, and corded thighs. He was ruddy complexioned, but Rhiannon couldn’t tell if that was a natural phenomenon or due to the exertion of his chore. He threw down the rake and strode toward them. Gideon was right. Nothing in the Fire Lord’s demeanor fostered fear, there was something rather tragic in it.

“Well met, Gideon,” he said, sketching a bow, and turned toward Rhiannon, “and Gideon’s lady,” he said. “You will forgive me if I do not shake your hand, my dear. I am sure Gideon has told you that would not be…wise.”

Rhiannon offered a nod.

“What the deuce are you about with that?” Gideon asked, gesturing toward the litter and the nervous draft horse prancing in place.

“Something that can wait,” Vane replied. “Let me get you two inside. It isn’t safe to linger here. The watchers have been flitting about since sunup.” He turned to the horse, stroking its neck and withers. “Hold, Eli,” he whispered to the animal. “Do not move from the spot….” The horse whipped its head around, gave the Fire Lord a playful nip on the shoulder, and bobbed its head, spreading its silky mane.

“One might think that beast understands you,” Gideon observed.

“Oh, he does,” Vane returned. “He will stand thus until I return. First, I get you inside, out of the watchers’ view, while Marius draws their fire. Then, I will return and bring the lava rocks I’ve collected to your chamber for your bath. You shall stay in my spare rooms. They are seldom used, since I rarely entertain, and the rocks will heat the pool there. Meanwhile, everything will look quite natural, to the watchers’ spying eyes. Come…”

“We shan’t stay, Vane,” Gideon said. “We will not bring the watchers’ wrath down upon you. It’s bad enough that Marius is involved. We just need time to form a plan and slip past the watchers. If we can manage that—”

Lord Vane threw his handsome head back and loosed a mighty guffaw. “Look around you!” he warbled. “What harm do you suppose the watchers’ missiles could inflict upon me here, hm?” He swept his arm wide. “What damage do you think their piddling lightning bolts could do against this sleeping volcano of mine?”

“They could wake it!” Gideon pronounced in his inimitable manner, scanning the sky for any sign of the watchers.

“You have a point, my friend,” Vane said. “Follow me…”

He walked ahead then, motioning Gideon and Rhiannon to follow, and skirted the foot of the volcano, their feet crunching in the slag that wreathed it below the hot lava rocks Vane had been collecting. Waves of heat rising from the slag gave the volcano a dizzying aura. The air was steamy hot, which was why Lord Vane’s burnished bronze and all but naked body glistened with sweat. So this was how the Lord of the Fire passed the time on his volcanic isle, mining lava rocks and laboring beneath the hot Arcan sun.
It must be like living in hell,
Rhiannon opined.

Judging from the evenness of his tan, the Fire Lord labored thus scantly clad regularly. His bronzed skin showed no lines of demarcation from his neck to the heels of his bare feet. He walked with a graceful swagger, the sun beaming off the round, firm globes of his bare buttocks and muscular shoulders, defining his waist and arrow-straight spine.

Why was the legendary Lord of the Fire doing manual labor? Were there no lackeys to take on such chores? Were there no other inhabitants on the isle, come to that? She hadn’t seen any since they’d arrived. Questions flooded her mind. Things were definitely not as they seemed, but there was no time to address that then. Gideon’s eyes were trained skyward, and she’d had enough experience with watchers to know that just because one didn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there.