He was nearly to the gate when he heard it, a woman’s shrill voice—
Rhiannon’s voice
—calling his name. Was he imagining it? Was his desperate need to find her causing cruel hallucinations? It came again, so loud and shrill it pierced his soul. His heart leapt. No, it wasn’t a hallucination. Amplified by the fog, her voice was echoing from beyond the Outer Darkness gate, and he streaked through the air dodging missile after missile toward the tall phallic stones that marked the entrance to the dark unknown and careened through the gate, feathers smoking.
Lightning bolts glanced off the columns Gideon passed through, but no watchers followed. Gideon gave the display only passing notice to be certain the tales of watchers being barred were true. Searching for some sign of Rhiannon, he strained through the eerie half-light of perpetual night that existed in Outer Darkness. It took him a moment to become accustomed to the atmosphere. Then he saw it, her head breaking the surface of the water, her arms flailing wildly. Scarcely thinking, he dove into the lake, seized her in his arms, and soared skyward with her cradled against his hammering heart, and the thick bulk of his aroused penis. His wings, still hissing and crackling from submersion in the icy water of the lake, trailed steam now instead of smoke. It felt so soothing, he groaned, but it was almost a subconscious outburst. Nothing mattered then but his Rhiannon. He had her in his arms again, and he flew straight for the shoreline and set her down in a marshy tangle of reeds and rushes at the edge of what could only be quicksand from the way it belched and undulated, set ajar by their untimely presence.
His hands roamed over her body frantically, searching, begging for reassurance that she was sound. What met them was soft, trembling flesh; hard, firm breasts; and nipples like two rigid acorns against his trembling palms. Fire raced through his loins, warming his flesh beneath the torn eelskin suit clinging cold and wet to his body.
Rhiannon threw her arms around his neck. “I do not swim well in deep water,” she sobbed. “I tried to reason with the ferryman to take me back, but he disappeared—boat and all—and I fell into the water!”
“They gave you to the
ferryman
?” Gideon seethed. “The whoresons! There is no return from the ferryman’s punt.”
“He didn’t want to take me without a tribute, but they made him. He was not happy, believe me!”
Gideon swallowed dry. “The ferryman is Death’s alter ego, Rhiannon,” he said. “You are fortunate to be alive. That you are my soul mate is probably why you still draw breath. We are…old adversaries, the ferryman and I, and on several occasions…friendly enemies.”
“Does he rule this place, then?” Rhiannon queried.
“No,” Gideon returned, “would that he did.” He clouded suddenly. “If that were the case I might have reasoned with him.”
“Who is the keeper here, then?”
“An entity you do not want to meet,” Gideon told her. “A great horned satyr, half man, half goat, in the manner of a faun, who metes out hideous tortures upon those whom the gods banish here. He is called
Ravelle
. Never say his name, for to speak it thrice will summon him and open a pit of eternal fire.” All color drained from her face, and he quickly added, “But you needn’t fear. We rest here only till the watchers tire of waiting. Then we will leave this place forsaken by the gods and find some corner of this world that will accept us.”
“You’re bleeding,” Rhiannon cried, stroking his bloodied wings.
Even the faintest touch to wings already charged with the curse of sexual arousal was more than Gideon could bear despite the pain ripping through those wounded appendages. The last thing he needed was a distraction now, but those hands…those gentle hands stroking, smoothing, sliding over aching, throbbing tissue and sexually charged feathers were weaving their magic, and he fell back in the snarl of tangled weeds and let her minister to him.
It was a bad position, for the weight of his wings held him down, but he scarcely thought about anything then but the ravenous lust her fingers ignited. This was hardly wise in such a dangerous place, where he needed all his wits about him, but the curse was running rampant in him then, compounded by the libidinous need her touch had unleashed.
He groaned. “I have bled before,” he said, “and I will bleed again. I will not die of the injuries. The gods would not grant me that blessing. I will rally and mend to live and bleed another day as long as there are watchers to make certain of it.”
“You haven’t begged me to stop,” she murmured, still straightening bent feathers.
Gideon shrugged, and loosed a bitter laugh. “It is too late to stop now, my love,” he said. “If you would have me clearheaded enough to get us out of this, make me come….”
Rhiannon wiped the tears from her cheeks, then began opening Gideon’s eel skin. The look of her, so terrified, still trembling from her ordeal in the water, touched him so deeply he reached and pulled her into his arms. Burying his hands in her hair, he took her lips in a tender kiss, tasting the salt of her tears, and deepened it, coaxing her tongue into his mouth. Rhiannon melted against him, clinging to him for dear life as he stroked and caressed her. How completely she responded to the tenderness she had evoked in him, despite the volatile emotions the curse brought to bear. How totally his she was, an extension of himself, the love in her palpable as he fed from her sweet essence, tasting her deeply, laving the soft insides of her cheeks and underside of her pointed tongue. She was giving him all of herself—all of her passion, all of her very soul in that deep, penetrating kiss.
Beyond the point of no return, Gideon tugged at the eelskin suit until it gave, releasing his throbbing cock. Rhiannon gripped his shaft, fondling the soft skin, like satin, stretched over hot steel, the purple veins throbbing a steady rhythm. Free of its restraints, his engorged penis mushroomed into a gargantuan erection, an anxious force to be reckoned with. She gasped, and he swallowed the sound, taking it deep inside him, savoring the hum like a starving beggar at a banquet.
They’d been stripped of everything but each other—distilled into something pure. She was part of him now, as she never had been before, so totally that they seemed to breathe each other’s breath and their hearts seemed to beat as one. This was the power of a passion that transcended lust, a power that commanded need, desire, and longing. It was what Gideon had been searching for since time out of mind, a love that knew no bounds, the innocent abandon of one yielding to a single kiss.
Rhiannon’s cool hand riding his shaft made his heart race. Being made love to lying on his back was a luxury he had never afforded himself. For one thing, the weight of his body upon the traitorous wings alone created such a lustful onslaught of sexual energy it bordered on bestial. For another, it made rising awkward, especially when wounded. He longed for the carved-out niche in the cave that was no more, where he’d slept standing, longed for the soothing mineral spring, and the soft, peaceful twilight steeped in velvet darkness of a life that seemed to have belonged to someone else. Only once before in all his eons abandoned by the gods had he lain thus, and ever since he’d longed for the sweet agony the position promised. It was only fitting that he know such bittersweet ecstasy in Rhiannon’s arms. This was hardly the time or place, however, but longing cancelled common sense, and he groaned as she straddled him, guiding his magnificence to the folds of her entrance, where she hovered, her gentle hands gripping his bare shoulders.
He could feel the crackle of her passion through her fingertips as the hands slid lower, her palms pressing against the hard pucker of his sensitive nipples. If he let himself, he could come in a heartbeat, but no, this was something to be savored, something to be prolonged, where he teetered upon the edge of sanity before letting go and opening up these long locked floodgates that would empty him completely. Yes, sanity was involved, for with the privilege of such a dangerous coupling for him came a visit to the brink of sheer madness, which is what gripped him now, as he arched himself against the moist nether lips that tortured him with their exquisite promise.
Just when he thought he could bear no more, she took him inside her one fold at a time, gliding on her juices. Gideon shut his eyes, imagining the dark mystery of her sex as it gripped him, plunging him deeper inside her until she’d taken him from mushroom tip to the root of his thick hardness. Grinding her clitoris against the base of his shaft, Rhiannon threw her head back, and her long hair cascaded down her back, teasing his thighs. Her undulations became more urgent as she rocked back and forth, taking him deeper and deeper into her velvet mystery—deeper than he’d ever gone before, until her womb, the very seat of her sexuality, caressed the sensitive head of his cock.
Groaning her name, Gideon reached for her breasts and cupped them, his thumbs grazing her tall, hard nipples. When had her shift fallen away? Slowly, he slid his hands along her sides, following the curvaceous indentation of her waist and the full, soft mounds of her hips as she straddled him. Tightening his grip, he raised and lowered her on his shaft. The motion put pressure on his wings, and a riot of drenching fire ripped through his loins. He’d forgotten the intensity of such a climax. It rippled through his body like a firestorm, wave upon wave of pulsating heat that threatened to consume him in an orgasmic explosion as she milked him dry.
How silky hot she was inside as her tightness gripped his penis, the thick folds of her sex expanding and contracting with each throb as she came. He could feel her juices release. He could feel their wetness flowing into his come as she released again. She touched his wings and his hips jerked forward, thrusting his penis into the pulsating depths of her again and again. It was as if his body had become a machine over which he had no control, an unstoppable mechanism of runaway energy pistoning into her, triggering multiple orgasms in them both that knew no bounds.
Yes, he had forgotten the exquisite agony, the unworldly ecstasy of coupling with a woman on his back. The forbidden position for one winged as he was. The posture that transcended mortal or immortal love and made it a passion fit only for the gods. This was something to which he was not entitled, something for which he would pay dearly as decreed by the terms of the curse that was his perpetual torment. But for this brief blink in time’s eye, as he lay helpless in Rhiannon’s sultry embrace riddled with carnal euphoria, he knew something worth dying for…a purity of sexual abandon like no other, and he wanted more, so much more.
It seemed to go on forever before they lay in each other’s arms, sated at last. It would be so easy to fall asleep as he was, lying on his back with his soul mate in his arms, to wake and doze, and take her again and again in that forbidden position. He couldn’t remember when he’d last slept. It seemed an eternity ago. The pain of the weight of his sexually charged wings notwithstanding, he longed—just once—to lie thus and sleep. The notion had plagued him like a splinter under his skin since time out of mind, for he had never done. It was time.
The mysterious perpetual darkness was closing in upon them. Only the marsh lights bobbing innocently on the mire shone through the blackness. All was still around them, and there wasn’t a soul or animal to be seen. That in itself was suspect, but Gideon didn’t care. He’d begun to doze when Rhiannon’s soft voice broke the silence.
“I don’t like this place, Gideon,” she murmured. “It frightens me. Do you think the watchers will have gone by now?”
“Not likely,” Gideon said, settling her closer in the crook of his arm. “I do not like this place any more than you do, but I like the prospect of lightning bolts even less. They are inevitable on the other side of that gateway back there, but I need to heal the wounds I have before I beg for more. Rest, Rhiannon, while we have the opportunity; then we will take our chances with the watchers.”
She sighed, moving in his arms. He was hard again, and trying to ignore it, but the soft music of her gentle voice made an end to that.
“What are those?” she asked, pointing toward the bobbing lights dancing over the breast of the bog.
“Marsh lights,” Gideon said. “Will-o’-the-Wisps they are called in the astral. They are mischief makers—pranksters, whose pranks are not always harmless. I wonder what evil deeds got them banished here.”
Rhiannon got to her feet. “Look, I think they want us to follow….”
Gideon gripped her arm. “No!” he cautioned. “Never follow the marsh lights. They will lead you astray. You see? They work their magic even from their distance. They would seduce you into quicksand! Come…lie with me and stay by me. I haven’t slept, and I need to rest if I’m going to heal. I will try to stay awake, but in case I don’t, you need to stay by me.”
Rhiannon visibly shook off the lure of the marsh lights and rushed into his arms. Gideon groaned as her breasts flattened against his bare chest, and her pubic mound leaned into his erection. Sleep was a myth while her soft, eager flesh was pressed against his hardness. He would reach for her again and again before the strange, dark morning, eclipsing night and day, cast its murky spell.
W
e should have interfered
, the vaguely remembered voice ghosted across Gideon’s mind.
If we had, none of this would be.
The other breathed a gusty sigh. It seemed his mantra.
He made that rather difficult,
he said.
And now he pays the price. He could end it in a trice were he to let the girl go.
The first voice took a defensive tone.
He will never do that.
He is tested soon. Then we shall see. He has lost much, and he has just made a decision that will cost him even more.
The first speaker, still defensive, said,
He still has one question left and two feathers to redeem.
He does
, said the other.
Let us hope he uses them wisely. He has never stood at this crossroads before….
Gideon stirred with a groan. His thick member was swollen with arousal, and the pain of sleeping in the coveted position had taken its toll. Agonizing waves of excruciating pain rushed through his limbs, his wings, his sex. The effect was dizzying. White pinpoints of blinding light starred his vision. When his eyes finally focused, all that met them was a bleak black fog.
He groped for Rhiannon, but she was not in his arms, and he called out her name. The sound echoed back at him slurred and distorted. There came no reply, and a riveting barrage of cold chills gripped his spine, knitting the bones rigid. He called out again, but still no answer came, and he tried to struggle erect, finally realizing the folly of living his fantasy. It was next to impossible on the first attempt, for all his extraordinary strength. Sleeping on his back had all but crippled him.
The desperation of his third unanswered call set him in motion. Grinding his teeth as he ground out a bestial roar, he surged to his feet only to be jerked back down to his knees in the snarl of scrub and vines and nettles that had been his bed. He was tethered. Groping his throat, he found the cause. A thick iron band was clamped around his neck. From it, a heavy chain stretched into the fog and disappeared.
Something had hold of the other end of the chain, for it was in motion, going taut then slack, as if whatever hand had custody of it was demonstrating its power. Gideon’s first instinct was to grab the chain and wrest it from his captor, but the minute his fist clamped around the links, smoke rose from his grip, and the stench of burnt flesh—his flesh—rushed up his nostrils. He dropped it, soothing his burned fingers.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Where is Rhiannon? What have you done with her?”
“We meet at last!” said a deep, sultry baritone voice from the fog. “I have long wished it. Forgive the rude awakening. Unfortunately, it is necessary until we’ve talked. You have the advantage of wings, Lord of the Dark, and I, alas, do not.”
“Where is Rhiannon?” Gideon demanded. “What have you done with her?”
“Done with her?” the voice in the fog said. “Curious question. We are not murderers here. Whatever fate those that enter through those gates have earned for themselves, they have done so on their own. We are simply…administrators here.”
“Enforcers, you mean!” Gideon corrected. “They hardly mete out their own torture, Ravelle.”
“You know me then,” the demon said. “I am impressed.”
“I know of you,” Gideon said. “All of Arcus knows of Ravelle, the keeper of Outer Darkness, and his cruelties. You have me. Let Rhiannon go. She has done nothing to earn admittance to the Netherworld. The watchers put her here to punish me.”
“Umm, yes, I know of your…punishments. There are those who would deem perpetual arousal a blessing of the gods. You’ll find no sympathy for that here.”
“Show yourself!” Gideon charged. “And loose me of this tether. I will not go anywhere without Rhiannon. Unchain me!”
“You are lord of your domain, Gideon, but you are at my mercy here,” Ravelle reminded him. “You would do well to take another tack with me.”
The demon’s sugar-coated voice had suddenly turned dark and threatening. Gideon took stock. He needed all his wits about him to best this creature. He thought of the last question the rune caster owed him, and the two feathers. He also remembered the disembodied voices’ words warning that he choose wisely. Desperately, he strained his ears to hear those voices again, but all was still. He was on his own, his focus on one thing only: He needed to find Rhiannon and leave Outer Darkness.
“Very well,” he said. “I would appreciate that you return Rhiannon to me. She is an innocent in this, and—”
“Ahh, but the innocents are the most succulent,” the demon interrupted. “I found her especially so.”
Gideon stiffened, straining at the tether. “What have you done to her?” he seethed.
“Taken better care than you have, Lord of the Dark,” Ravelle chortled. “For one thing, I clothed her, else she be fighting off all my subjects. Take ease, I haven’t touched her…yet. I was referring to observation only. You are quite the stud, my friend, and
she
…well, there are no words.”
Gideon’s posture clenched again. So they had been watched. It would not be easy having her back from the demon now that he’d seen Rhiannon naked, in the throes of ecstasy. This was to be a battle of wits, and he prayed to the gods that had forsaken him to give him the power to win.
“What do you want of me?” he said, still searching the drifting fog for sight of the creature.
“I want you to remain here, with me,” Ravelle said. “We have much in common, winged one. Just think of the power we would command were we to join forces. I have long dreamed of it. You have nothing left in your world. You are hunted like an animal. Here, you would be like a god, and we could rule together. Thanks to the corruption of humankind, Outer Darkness has grown too vast for one alone to govern. Think of it! Think of the power the two of us could command!”
“And Rhiannon…what of her?” Gideon hedged. The demon still hadn’t shown himself. He needed to see the creature to strategize how to best it.
“We would share in all things equally,” Ravelle said, “even your Rhiannon.”
“Show yourself!” Gideon said, hoping his tone wasn’t as abrasive as it sounded. “I make no bargains with wraiths in the mist.”
There was a long silence before the mist parted and the creature pranced into view. Ravelle was much as he had been described, a horned, cloven-hoofed satyr, goatlike from the waist down, his upper body that of a human, muscular and magnificent, hairless but for an arrow-straight strip of hair that pointed to the bulge below his waist that two airborne sylphs were addressing.
“Have one,” the demon offered, gesturing toward the winged females. “Avail yourself. I offer as a gesture of good faith. Take your pick…or would you rather a catamite? My stables are at your disposal, dark one. There, you will find a bedmate for every taste, a creature for every appetite. I would have thought such a one as these—winged as you are—would be the perfect enticement, which is why I summoned them.”
“I want only Rhiannon,” Gideon said, watching for a reaction.
The demon’s reptilian eyes narrowed. The look in them chilled Gideon to the marrow. “How mundane,” the creature said. “Denial of a good will offering is not an option. Even here there is such a thing as hospitality. You would do well to observe it.”
“Another time,” Gideon said steadily. “Rhiannon is my mate, Ravelle. It is she whom I hunger for. That is not to say that at another time one of these lovelies mightn’t suit…” he quickly added. It would not do to anger the creature.
“In due time,” the demon said. “Once we have settled our…business.”
Gideon nodded. “Then let us get on with it, eh?”
Despite his refusal, one of the sylphs left Ravelle and descended upon Gideon. She wore no garment, only a fine silver chain about her waist. Her breasts, perfect and firm, grazed his shoulder, the nipples steely hard scraping against his moist skin. She touched his wings and they unfurled, nearly knocking her over.
“Do not touch my wings!” he warned, twisting away
A cold light flared in the demon’s eyes, and a smile creased his sensuous lips that did not reach that lecherous gaze. He waved his hand. “Away!” he commanded the sylphs. Cowering, they faded into the mist, and Ravelle jerked the chain attached to Gideon’s collar leading him away from the bog, to a clearing not far distant. On his guard, Gideon let the demon lead him, fully aware that no move the creature made could be trusted.
“I see you are still skeptical,” Ravelle purred. He cocked his head, a sly glimmer in his snakelike eyes. He flicked a crooked finger toward Gideon’s wings, then recoiled it slowly, resting the knuckle on his lower lip. “Must be a ghastly nuisance that,” he said. “Even the touch of the wind ruffling your feathers gets you hard, um?”
Ravelle had made no move to touch them, but Gideon furled his wings regardless, and made no reply.
The demon laughed outright. “Don’t worry, dark one,” he said. “I’m not going to torture you, quite the contrary…if you will allow a little demonstration?”
“What kind of demonstration?” Gideon said, skeptically. He’d lived too long to trust a demon lord of Outer Darkness.
“This kind,” said Ravelle, blowing upon Gideon’s wings.
The issue from the demon’s puffed out cheeks was blue, like the volcanic gasses that issued from the Fire Isle that warmed the bathing pools throughout the archipelago. It stung Gideon’s eyes and rushed up his nostrils, making him grimace. Gideon shrank from it, but it clung stubbornly like a blue halo about his furled wings.
“What is that?” he choked.
“My demonstration,” Ravelle said. “Unfurl your wings.”
Gideon hesitated.
“Oh, come, come, dark one!” Ravelle snapped. “If I wanted you dead, you’d have been so long since. It is a nuisance ending the life of an immortal, too tedious. Besides, you are of more use to me alive, but you are stubborn, and a skeptic. You are of a sort that must be shown, and so I am showing you, plain and simple. Now, unfurl those wings!”
Gideon did as Ravelle bade him, and the demon came closer, his cloven hooves hidden in the mist, though their clopping chilled Gideon to the bone.
The demon reached toward him. “May I?” he said, his intent to stroke Gideon’s feathers.
Gideon backpedaled pulling the chain taut. Clearly out of patience, Ravelle gave the chain a sharp tug, jerking Gideon to a standstill, and stroked the feathers on his left wing. To Gideon’s great surprise, there was no arousal, no crippling surge of libidinous lust that always riddled him with unstoppable waves of carnal desire. He reached with his own hands and ran them over his wings. Nothing. No feeling at all. Could it be? His wings had been sexually charged since his fall from grace. How could this be? Slack-jawed, he stared at the smug-faced demon watching, arms akimbo.
“Well?” Ravelle said. “How long has it been, um?”
“I…I don’t understand…” Gideon said.
The demon laughed. “How would you like your wings to stay thus? How would you like to soar through the sky like the sylphs do? How would you like to glide again with the cool wind soothing your feathers, not igniting the perpetual lust of the gods you still champion so—despite that they have condemned you to suffer such cruel torments? I can do that for you, just as I’ve done it now. Remain here with me. Rule with me, Prince of the Night. You
belong
here—in the dark. Together, what a team we would make. But I see you need more convincing…”
Inhaling, the demon sucked back the blue aura that had clung to Gideon’s wings. The sudden drainage left Gideon weak and he swayed, wings shuddering as the lust returned a thousand-fold, and he groaned for the pressure of his hard cock swelling against the seam of his eel-skin suit, drawing his hand there, and dropped to his knees.
“Yes,” the demon crooned, “it had been difficult for you, but it need not remain so. All you need do is join forces with me. You have no idea of the power I command, and of course there is your Rhiannon…”
Gideon’s head was spinning. Just those few moments of relief were like heaven, but only to have it snatched away again was the cruelest kind of torture. Ravelle was a dangerous entity. He had honed in upon Gideon’s greatest weakness and used it against him in the most vicious way, made more so by the syrupy manner in which the proposal was put forth. Gideon had seen through the demon’s clever seduction, but still…oh, but
still,
that one brief moment of blessed relief…If only it could continue…
All at once a racket of noise hit his brain like cannon fire—raised voices, yelling, arguing, demanding to be heard…
I told you we should have intervened!
one was shouting.
It’s too late,
the other said.
He cannot succumb! Do something!
He has free will. There is nothing to be done.
Then shout! Shout at the top of your voice and pray he hears you!
A garbled static of ear-splitting noise banged around in Gideon’s brain. Two speakers were causing it. What were they saying? It sounded so urgent. What did it all mean?