“There now, my pet,” the crone sang to the lamb. “The lassie didn’t mean ta hurt ya’.” She winked at Rhiannon. “
Cead mile failte
!” she said. “A hundred thousand welcomes to ye’, missy.”
Rhiannon nodded. “I fear I’ve lost my way,” she said. “Can you tell me where I am?”
“Where is it ya’ want ta be?”
Tears welled in Rhiannon’s eyes. She blinked them back. It wouldn’t do to show emotion to any here. “I want to go home…to the physical world…to Arcus,” she got out through a dry sob despite her resolve.
The old woman clicked her tongue. “Well ya’ shouldn’t have crossed over then, should you?” she scolded.
“I didn’t do it apurpose,” Rhiannon defended. “I was tricked…the wood nymphs, they—”
“Oh, that lot was it?” the crone cut in. She wagged her head. “Ya’ want ta have no truck with the wood nymphs.”
“There was a clearing, and a huge ancestral oak, with a ring of toadstools around it,” Rhiannon explained. “The nymphs took me there and disappeared, and now I’m here and I cannot find my way back. Can you direct me? Everywhere I’ve been keeps disappearing just as they did.”
“You’ve been took, that’s what,” the woman said. “There’s nothin’ ta be done.”
“I need to find that clearing where I left the stones to mark the spot where I crossed over. Please, I beg of you, show me the way.”
“There is no ‘way,’ missy. You’ve been
took
, I tell ya’. They cast a glamour over ya’. No use ta fret. You’ll like it here. Stay outa the bogs, keep your thoughts to yourself, and stay on the path till you’re absolutely sure ya’ want ta leave it, and you’ll be fine. Me name is Maribelle. What’s yourn?”
Rhiannon opened her mouth to say her name, but thought better of it. Recalling the effect it had upon the others in her own world, it wouldn’t do to test it here. “There has to be a way back,” she pleaded instead.
“I’d like ta stay and chat, but some of us have chores ta tend to,” the woman said. “We’ll meet again I have no doubt, the way you’re goin’, missy. ’Tis my job ta see ta the lost, ya’ know, and care for the livestock.” She turned her attention to the lamb then, crooning and petting it profusely, and waddled off.
Rhiannon was right. The woman
was
a gruagach, and she started after her. “Maribelle, wait!” she called.
“Mind the path, missy!” the crone reminded her, clicking her tongue again.
Rhiannon glanced down just in time, for she had nearly stepped off the dark green swath. When she looked up again the woman was gone.
Rhiannon’s heart sank with her posture. She glanced behind. A sheer-faced wall of granite three times her height now stood where the bog had been, and she heaved a sigh. There was nothing to do but to go forward, and she followed the dark path through the meadow to a parklike clearing whose central feature was a maze sculpted in the center of well-manicured grounds. The faery path of lush dark grass led right into it.
Almost at once, she saw a faun seated cross-legged on the ground just inside the first tall hedge, his elbows braced upon his hairy, goatlike legs. His pipes had his full and fierce attention, and he didn’t seem to notice her.
Sy!
Could it be? Rhiannon’s heart leapt.
“Sy!”
she cried, starting toward him. “Is that you?” Of course it wasn’t. The satyr paid her no mind. Seeming mesmerized by the music drifting from his flute, it was as if she wasn’t even there, and she checked herself just in time, for she’d nearly left the path.
For one split second, she’d had hope only to have it dashed. The creature looked so like the Prince of the Green’s simpleminded faun, she was certain she’d found her way home. How could the gods be so cruel? The satyr looked right through her as she passed him by, and Rhiannon trudged on, her eyes peeled for any sign of movement ahead, but there was none. Was she invisible? It wasn’t likely. Maribelle had no trouble seeing her. There was no time to waste puzzling it out. She needed to return to the spot where she had crossed over, and she pressed on, begging Mica, god of all, to show her the way.
Tears stung behind her eyes. Under any other circumstances, she would have been awestruck at the breathtaking shadowlands she passed through, burgeoning with all manner of wildflower, moss, and fern, and silvered with dappled moonlight. It was a sight to behold, but it was tainted with thoughts she could not help but think of what had brought her there. If only she had respected Gideon’s conditions. If only she’d stayed in the cave, none of this would be happening. But no, she had left it, and now there was no cave. There probably was no island. She had angered the gods and cost Gideon his home, and very likely his life.
His handsome image flashed before her mind’s eye, his striking angular features, the dark mercurial eyes that spoke with more articulation than his handsome lips had ever done, his long dark hair, combed by the wind, teasing the broad ledge of his brow. She could almost feel his strong, well-muscled arms around her, and the hardness of his sex throbbing deep inside her, pumping her full of the warm rush of his seed.
Rhiannon groaned. Would she never feel him come inside her again? Would she never again touch the soft, silky feathers of his wings? Would she never feel them fold her close to his magnificent body, skin to skin, or know the freedom like no other as those appendages carried her aloft, to what had to be the very gates of Heaven? It mattered not that they were denied entrance to Paradise. Her Paradise was in Gideon’s arms. It would have been enough to live and love, and end her mortal days cradled in those voluminous wings. She could almost feel the way they furled around her when he came, the way they shuddered against her as she milked him dry of every drop.
Her arousal was deep and demanding, her sexual pulse throbbing a steady rhythm, her breath coming in thick, short puffs that rumbled up from the epicenter of her sex, begging to become deep-throated pleasure moans. Her need was great, a burning, aching demand of body and soul that only Gideon could satisfy.
She slowed her pace and shut her eyes, calling his image to appear in the velvet blackness behind her closed lids. How clearly his shape took form—every line in his face, every brooding furrow in his brow. How odd that he had no laugh lines to speak of. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him laugh. What torments had he suffered over the ages? She was just beginning to realize what she had done to him—to them both—and an agonized cry poured from her throat. She had lost him, and now she was lost herself.
All at once a rustling sound to the east of the path disturbed her reverie and her eyes snapped open. Blinking back the tears, she searched the mist in the direction of the sound, her heart pounding in her ears. What entity, what creature of the fay had her outburst attracted? Adrenaline crippled her, rooted her to the spot as a shape slowly materialized out of the mist. Her breath caught in her throat. It couldn’t be, but it was.
Gideon,
in all his winged splendor, standing like a statue as the mist faded around him. He was naked and aroused, his eyes riveted to hers. Their message was clear. Despite all she had done, he wanted her still.
The gruagach had warned her not to stray from the path unless she was absolutely certain she wanted to leave it. There was no question. He reached out his arms, those strong, muscled arms, and she stepped off the path and rushed into them.
His rock-hard body collided with hers in a volatile explosion of pent-up passion. His hands, roaming over her curves, explored every inch of her through the gossamer gown the dryads had given her. It hid nothing from his hungry eyes; they devoured her.
He didn’t speak; there was no need. She was in his arms, his engorged penis leaning heavily against her belly, his need evidenced in his rapid breathing, in the runaway heart hammering against her through the gossamer gown. His touch was a little rougher than she remembered. Where was the gentle strength, the power of a passion that married tenderness to the lust that had damned him? He was angry. That was understandable. Hadn’t she just cost him everything, his home, the very island it was built upon—nearly cost him his life, for though he said not, the lightning strikes had done damage; she had no idea how much. Yes, he had every right to be angry, but he had never caused her pain before, not even when he took her maidenhead, and she had never felt fear in his arms, like she did now.
His kiss had become smothering. His hand twisted in her hair tethered her cruelly. His bruising hardness forced against her caused her to pull back.
“Stop…Gideon…
Stop
!” she gritted out past the hard mouth grinding against her lips. She pushed against his massive chest, and when that didn’t work, she began pounding it with her tiny hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “Stop, I said! You’re hurting me!”
But he didn’t stop. He tightened his grip, his arms like a vise, his fingers pinching her breasts until she cried out: “
Gideon
…let me go!”
This wasn’t the Gideon she knew. What had happened to him? She couldn’t break his hold, and she screamed as he drove her down in the tall grass in hopes that she would shock him out of the madness that had evidently overtaken him. She screamed again as he spread her legs and attempted to struggle between them.
Overhead, the stars twinkled innocently in the indigo vault, like spectators to her struggles. It all seemed so unreal, and yet the pain, the pressure of rock-hard flesh, and pinching fingers was very real, indeed. She fought against them, her eyes flung wide to the star-spangled sky winking overhead like faery dust, from which a single white feather slowly floated down. Where did it come from? Fascinated by the languid progress of its unexpected fall, she gasped, and gasped again as a tear was suddenly rent in the vault itself. Yet another scream spilled from her throat while watching the sky seem to peel back as through the hole—feet first—a white-winged figure plummeted down on a mercurial surge of displaced energy the heat of which spread its wavy aura wide.
In a blink, the creature pinning her to the ground dissolved before her eyes, and Gideon scooped her up in strong arms and soared skyward at a dizzying speed she would have thought impossible for any creature. Past the treetops he zoomed, past the feather still drifting down, the wind of his motion spinning it upward momentarily before it once again began its spiraling descent.
“Hold fast!” he charged. “The portal is only open until that feather hits the ground!”
Rhiannon shut her eyes. The rest was no more than a blur.
G
ideon streaked through the tear he’d rent in the cosmos crossing over and left the Otherworld behind not a moment too soon. He’d scarcely carried Rhiannon through the portal, which had rolled back like a tightly furled scroll, when it nearly snapped shut on his heels. His heart was pounding so violently, it nearly threw him off balance. He had all but run mad. Rhiannon was precious cargo, and he clutched her so close to his hard, muscled chest the pressure of his fingers chased the blood from her shoulder, bared by the loose-fitting shift she was wearing. Where the deuce did she get such a garment? Anger flared at sight of her all but naked draped in such flimsy stuff.
“Have you been harmed?” he got out through clenched teeth.
“N-no,” she said. “It was quite pleasant…except for the last. What was that creature? I thought it was
you
! Are we still in the astral, or have we come…home?”
“We have no home,” Gideon said flatly, glancing down at the gaping hole in the archipelago, like a missing tooth, where the Dark Isle had been. It wasn’t much, but it had been his—all that he had. The gods had stripped him of his privilege. They had taken his keep, and then his cave. Now, they had driven the land it had stood upon beneath the sea. He was hunted like an animal because he dared to seek the pleasures of the flesh, because he dared to
love
. That was how it began. Where would it end?
Gideon was well aware of his failure in falling from grace, but how long would he have to suffer for it? It had been eons. When would the reparation be enough? It was a never-ending nightmare, and now it wasn’t just himself that must suffer. There was Rhiannon. If he had any sense, he would take her to the mainland and have done, but it was much too late for that. Their hearts beat as one. Their souls breathed as one. He was on fire for her—even now, when jealousy and rage roiled in him. He was in love with her. The minute he thought she was lost to him was when he knew. It wasn’t a comfortable thing.
“Where will we go?” she murmured, to his silence.
Gideon’s eyes darted every which way, scanning the midnight blackness for some sign of watchers. He saw none, but he knew they were there. They were always there. “For now, we go to Marius,” he said. “The Ancient Ones will protect us until I can find a better place.”
“They did not protect me!” she cried. “The wood nymphs, they—”
“They are banished from the Forest Isle…at least for now.”
“They tricked me! They crossed me over!”
“I know,” he said. “Hold fast! We go below. I see no watchers, but that does not mean there are none nearby.”
Rhiannon stiffened in his arms. He knew she feared flight. He would end it as swiftly as possible. They were far from out of danger.
“Who was that impostor?” she persisted.
They were over the Forest Isle, and their descent would have to be swift if they were to avoid any watchers lurking about. Gideon covered her eyes with his hand and plummeted below, where the trees formed an instant canopy over them. Carrying her deeply into the ancient wood, he set her down in a velvety moss bed.
“That creature was a
thought stealer,
” he said, dropping to his knees beside her. “The stealers probe your mind and take the form of whomever you trust most from the images stored there, so that they can seduce you off the path.”
Rhiannon gasped. “Maribelle warned me to keep my thoughts to myself!” she said. “I wish she’d made herself plainer.”
“Maribelle?”
“A gruagach, I think. I met her on the path. She said to keep my thoughts to myself, and not to leave the path unless I was absolutely sure I should.”
“Why did you?” he snapped.
“Because I saw
you
!” she defended. “At least I thought it was you.”
“You couldn’t tell the difference?” Was he jealous of his own effigy? He was surely going mad.
Rhiannon pouted. “Not until it was too late,” she said.
“You would have been safe if you had stayed on the path.”
“I wouldn’t have been there in the first place if your nymphs hadn’t—”
“They are not
my
nymphs,” he corrected her.
“Perhaps you need to tell them that,” Rhiannon said frostily. “They seem to think otherwise.”
“I have existed as I am for a very long time, Rhiannon, since the great cataclysm—a time incomprehensible to you, a mortal. Considering my…situation, I have taken my pleasures where I could find them over time. And yes, the nymphs have been my consorts. I shan’t deny it, but that is in the past, and I will not be damned for things that happened before I met you. You have no reason to be jealous of that lot.”
“Jealous?”
she returned in a huff.
“Call it what you will, that’s what it amounts to, and we have no time for childishness. We have serious issues that needs must be resolved—”
“I am no child!” she interrupted.
“All right, then, I can play the same game,” he responded, his voice like gravel. “Where did you get that frock? Did the nymphs give it to you? You have no right to admonish me, while you parade yourself thus before every creature in the astral!”
“No, your nymphs did not give it to me,” Rhiannon fired back. “They shredded the fine shift you provided, violated me, and left me far more naked than you see me now to fend on my own in a strange and hostile place.”
“Who, then? Who dressed you thus?”
“Now who is jealous?”
“Never mind! I told you I, too, could play this ridiculous game. Who gave you that shift?”
“Two dryads,” she replied. “They unraveled my torn kirtle and spun me this.” She slapped the skirt of her frock. “It is just like the ones they wore. They evidently thought they were giving me something fine. I suppose they were your consorts, too?”
“Probably,” he pronounced. “As I told you, since the gods cast me out, I have taken my pleasures where I could, with any who were brave enough to risk the watchers’ lightning bolts. Now, enough! All that is in the past; we have serious dangers in the present to contend with, and we need to spend our energies upon those.”
She looked so forlorn that he raised her up and took her in his arms. “We will find a way,” he murmured against her hair. The last thing he needed now was physical contact with her. He was already aroused, the bulk of his hardness leaning heavily against her belly—throbbing to life, like a separate entity between them. It lived for her. It remembered gliding on the silk of her wetness as it plunged deep inside the sweet musk of her sex. Every memory was indelibly fixed in his mind, every shudder and thrust etched in the sexual stream flowing between them.
“Rhiannon,” he murmured, his husky voice savoring her name as it rolled off his tongue like honey. “Do not ever leave me. When I thought I’d lost you….” He couldn’t finish the thought much less put it into words.
He found her lips with a hungry mouth and teased her tongue deeply. Lacing his fingers through her hair, he drew her closer to his need, to the rock-hard cock challenging the seam of his skintight eel skin. When their lips parted, she reached for more. Dare he free the anxious penis and take a chance that the leaf-laden boughs the trees had formed into a canopy overhead were dense enough to fool the watchers?
“How did you ever find me?” she said. “How did you ever cross over?”
Gideon was glad she’d broken the spell for the moment. He wasn’t ready to test the inevitable. Instead, he held her close, soothing her through the gossamer shift with gentle hands. What glorious torture to hold back. What exquisite agony to live on the brink of ecstasy. “I visited the rune caster,” he said. “It as not the first time I’ve solicited her aid over you.”
Rhiannon’s breath caught in her throat. “Her services come dear,” she said.
Gideon frowned, remembering. “Once, her fee was three of my feathers, which she plucked from my wings. She said I would have them back when needs must.”
Rhiannon gasped again. “The feather that floated down?”
Gideon nodded. “She hurled it through the portal. It opened to me, and I had only the space of time before it reached the ground to retrieve you and cross back over before the portal closed. Where there is enchantment, all things come at a price, often above gold. To tap the rune caster’s magic is like looking into a cracked mirror. There is never a true image. Things are not always what they seem.”
“I don’t understand…” she said, her brows knit in a frown.
“The rune caster said one true thing when she took my feathers. She said I had no inkling of the power in them. What she has given me is three chances.”
“Like three wishes?”
“Not…exactly. She has given me three chances to tap into her magic. I must choose wisely. Once used, those chances cannot be had back. Meanwhile, she extracts some beneficial element from the feathers for her own use.”
“And you used one of those chances bringing me back?” she asked.
Gideon nodded. “Yes,” he said. Two chances remain.”
“All this is my fault,” she sobbed.
Gideon smiled. “Actually, the fault is mine,” he said. “And all that happened a long time ago. Leave it. We need to talk. We cannot stay here. For one thing, we wouldn’t be safe, for another, I cannot put my friend in danger….” All at once a rustling sound in the undergrowth pulled Gideon up short, and he laid a finger across his lips. “Shh!” he whispered. “Someone comes!”
“Your friend can take care of himself,” said a deep resonant voice, as a tall, muscular man parted the brush and joined them. He was bare chested, his long hair tethered with vines, wearing skintight buckskins that revealed hard, muscled thighs and left nothing to the imagination between them. His penis was clearly outlined, long, curved, and thick, straining the stitching in his breeches, which were tucked into fringed buckskin boots. One muscular arm was threaded through a longbow, with arrows at the ready in a quiver on his back, sharing the space with his very vocal magpie perched on top.
It was a moment before Rhiannon gasped, and Gideon almost laughed outright. She had never seen Marius, Lord of the Forest, Prince of the Green, in his natural state. The moon had begun to wax, and he was no longer trapped in the body of the great black centaur.
“Well met,” Gideon said, gripping the forest lord’s forearm. “I am relieved to see that the watchers haven’t done you harm.”
“They tried,” Marius got out through a throaty chuckle. “They do not like my arrows overmuch.”
“Do they know we are here?” Gideon asked.
“Oh, they know, my friend,” Marius returned. “It is far too still in the wood. Listen…not even a chipmunk chirping.”
Gideon frowned. There wasn’t a sound. The forest was steeped in deathly silence. The watchers were there all right, lurking in wait, and cold chills raised Gideon’s hackles. “We will not linger,” he said. “You have done enough for us.”
“I am not chasing you,” Marius said. “I merely want to warn. You need to be on your guard. These harpies of the gods are relentless beings. I have never seen the like.” He turned to Rhiannon, dosing her with a deep, dark-eyed stare. “Are you well, lady?” he said. “We did not part well, and I fear I have been lax in my hospitality. I should have stayed with you. Sometimes I tend to forget how simple Sy is. He is quite enamored of you.”
“My fault again,” Rhiannon said low-voiced. “I never should have tricked him and left your cottage.” Gideon stared at her, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I tricked the faun into picking me some flowers so I could steal away and come in search of you,” she confessed.
“No matter now,” Gideon said. “We will leave before more harm is done.”
“Where will you go?” the forest lord queried. “The Dark Isle is no more, and Simeon’s underwater palace would not suit. Vane would take you in a heartbeat. He is your staunch supporter, is the Fire Lord.”
“Fighting fire with fire, eh?” Gideon said.
“You’ve had to do it before,” Marius reminded him.
“And will again, no doubt,” said Gideon. “I will give it thought. We were just deciding when you came on just now.”
Marius took Rhiannon’s measure. “I have interrupted something,” he said. “Take some time with your lady. I shall keep vigil. I have noticed that the watchers are particularly active in the wee hours before dawn. We are approaching that now. The Ancient Ones have granted you protection. You will be safe as long as you remain under the canopy they have created for you. I cannot vouch for what will be once you leave it, but I will cover you when you do.”
“I do not want to bring the watchers’ wrath down upon you, Marius. Do not put yourself in harm’s way. The gods are quick to anger and slow to forgive. I do not want your chastisement on my conscience. I will deal with this.”
The Forest Lord ignored him. “There is a spring at the end of this path that feeds a rock pool. Refresh yourselves.” He turned to Rhiannon. “All the isles of the archipelago have warm springs fed by the Isle of Fire, like beads in a chain,” he explained. “I’m sure you know that, Gideon, but what you do not know is that mine connects to Lord Vane’s isle directly. It is for the most part cloaked—a discreet means of travel among the isles—but I shall reveal it to you. I trust you will keep its whereabouts to yourselves—”