The comment was blunt. From anyone other than Vane, it would be an insult. “You and Marius have much in common,” Gideon said evenly.
“Do we? I wish I had his lady. Linnea is beautiful. Wish, bah. I want her.”
Vane’s inner fire was suddenly visible in his dark eyes. Gideon gave him a narrow look. “She is indeed lovely, but not every woman is yours for the taking.”
“Spoken like a true friend,” Vane said wryly. “Of Marius. Not me.”
“Your sexual appetites are unquenchable, or so I have heard.”
Lord Vane laughed in a rude way. “Throw water on me and the fire will go out.”
“Not for long. And speaking of that, why are you without one? I don’t think I have ever flown near this island without seeing a glow in every window.”
Vane scowled. “Spying?”
“Do you have something to hide?” The question held a sharp edge. The Lord of Fire’s interest in Linnea was suspicious, given that she and Marius had just disappeared. He’d helped himself to many a maiden in the past. And nymphs. And naiads—no female was safe around Vane. His passionate skill was such that all went with him willingly, but they were spoiled for other lovers after him and difficult to please.
No one else measured up, or so Rhiannon had told Gideon. He studied Vane, whose air of indifference seemed put on.
“Of course not,” Vane said at last. “And if you are thinking that I seduced her, think again. I didn’t have the time, for one thing.”
“That is hardly reassuring.”
Vane strode about his chamber, kicking a limp leather boot into a corner with its mate after he almost tripped on it. “Gideon, I was joking.”
“Hmph.”
“That damned discussion of what to do about the demon went on forever,” Vane said peevishly. “I got drunk—”
“Obnoxiously so. You were loud, you were full of yourself, and you were ogling the women.”
Lord Vane didn’t seem in the least deflated by that description of his behavior. He seemed proud. “So I was.”
“I am not surprised that you admit it, only that you remember it.”
Vane came to where Gideon stood, his arms folded across his chest and his wings tense, and jabbed a finger at him. “Bah! I also remember you and Simeon hauling me up from the table and—”
“How is it that no one saw you leave his stronghold in the morning?”
“Because I slept outside on cold stone where I was dumped by the men-at-arms! I treat my hounds better than that!”
“Don’t look for pity.” Gideon favored him with a contemptuous look. “No one wanted to listen to your ranting.”
“Were you expecting me to come back in and say a polite good morning to all? Have a cup of tea?” Vane grumbled. “I hate tea. And I hate mornings. And it will be a long time before I go back to Simeon’s hall.”
“You still have not answered my question about how you left it, Vane.”
The two men stood glaring at each other.
“I hired a boat and had a man row me home. Don’t look at me like that. It is the truth.”
“I hope so,” Gideon said quietly.
“I have been here ever since. When exactly did she—they, I mean—disappear? Linnea was in the stronghold the next morning, was she not?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
Angry and exasperated, Vane made a move as if to shove the winged lord, but thought better of it and let his hands drop to his sides. “I have had enough of these strange questions! I never touched Linnea!”
Gideon sensed an evasiveness still, but his intuition told him that Vane’s answers were essentially true. “Good. Then help us find her and Marius.”
Lord Vane had fallen into a mood far blacker than he had been when Gideon entered through the window. “I see,” he snarled. “I am expected to prove myself, is that it?”
“We will need your help. Whether or not you actually want to give it.”
Lord Vane dragged over another chair from a corner and set it in front of the fireplace. “Never let it be said that
I
am not a good host. Sit down. And tell me everything you know.”
He stormed over to the wall and yanked on a woven belt to summon a servant.
A youth came in, glancing at Gideon for only a second, but listening intently to his lordship, who ordered wine and food sent up at once.
The servant left, and Vane went to a wrought iron rack that held firewood and began throwing logs into the fireplace with tremendous force.
Ash puffed out and Gideon coughed. Vane flung himself into a chair.
“You forgot the tinder,” Gideon pointed out. “And it’s not going to light itself.”
Both comments earned him a furious glare from Vane, who got up again and grabbed a spiky handful of dried pine needles and little cones, squatting to shove it under the tumbled logs. He looked about for his flint.
Gideon pointed to the mantel and Vane cursed. He struggled up—he was indeed stiff and achy from his drunken slumber on the stones—and grabbed the flint and the sliver of fatwood next to it, sitting on the edge of his chair this time to strike sparks.
Once. Twice. Neither caught. But the third spark did, glowing bright red on the sliver of fatwood. Absently, Vane blew on it.
The other man watched him. There was nothing else to do at the moment. The spark turned into a tiny flame under Vane’s breath.
Gideon’s eyes widened with amazement. The flame stayed small but it took on the shape of a perfect little naked woman. Blue with scarlet nipples.
“Hella,” Vane said with surprise. With one finger, he lifted her off the fatwood. The place where she’d perched was scorched black and a red ember glowed in its center. He threw the kindled wood into the logs to start the fire and put her in the palm of his other hand. “You’re back. How nice to see you.”
The fire sprite stuck out her flickering tongue at him.
You’re the one who went away.
“Did you hear that?” Vane asked Gideon, laughing.
“Yes, I did.” Gideon looked from the sprite named Hella to Vane. Her brightness made the gloomy lord of fire much more cheerful.
“She gets bigger, much bigger. She is nearly my height, in fact, when she gets going. All I have to do is blow on her.”
Gideon smiled and raised a hand. “Not now, Vane. We have things to talk about. Keep her small.”
Vane played with the sprite for a few more moments, letting her dance on his palm. Then she strolled over to his thumb, straddled it, and bit hard on the callused tip. “Ah, Hella. You are vicious but adorable.” He turned his attention back to Gideon. “All right, I will keep her small.”
“Thank you. Just until I go.” He could well imagine what would happen after that. He had no doubt that the sprite, full grown or blown or whatever the word was, provided Vane with supernaturally excellent sex.
The servant brought the provender and the fireplace roared up as Gideon told Vane of Marius’s restlessness, and Simeon’s reluctance, under the circumstances, to let him and Linnea go. And so on and so forth. He kept it brief.
The sprite in Vane’s palm turned her beautiful little face up to her master.
Who is Linnea?
“That is none of your concern, Hella. Be still,” Vane said.
Gideon continued with the rest: the boat they’d commandeered, where Linnea and Marius might have landed and gone, and all the rest of it.
Vane listened thoughtfully, then set Hella on his knee and turned to him. “It will have to wait until the morning. The hour is late and dawn is not all that far way.”
Gideon sighed. “Yes, that is what I thought.”
“But I will help you,” Vane said in a low voice. “You have my word.”
All the surliness seemed to have gone out of him. Gideon was sure Hella’s unexpected appearance had much to do with that.
He rose, warm and well-fed and a little drunk on Simeon’s strong wine. But he was feeling more hopeful. He bid the great lord of fire and his blue concubine good-bye.
When Gideon had flown away, Vane set Hella on the flagstones in front of the fire, and watched her kick burning bits back into it for sport. He peeled off his clothes and got down on his haunches, naked.
Mischievous to a fault, the sprite ran between his legs and pushed at his balls with all her strength, making them tighten up. She was no longer than his cock at the moment but that was growing rapidly and stiffening.
She put her hands around it and swung on it. Vane looked down at her and blew a gentle breath that tossed her fiery hair.
Hella leaned her head back and let her hair hang down as she swung, enjoying a few more moments of being very small. Then she let go of his cock, a tree trunk compared to her, and ran out from under him.
He blew on her all over, making her bigger, taller, and more shapely. Her breasts swelled from the soft stimulation of his breath and she turned around so he could blow upon her legs, lengthening them, and make her buttocks round.
He blew her cunny at the very last in little puffs that excited her, then stopped to catch his breath, laughing and exhausted. “You do not usually make me work this hard, Hella!”
Punishment. You deserve it, faithless one.
“Since when are you jealous? I have done nothing!”
I don’t like the way you say that woman’s name. The one Gideon was talking about.
She pretended not to remember.
“Linnea?”
Her eyes blazed. She gave Vane a slap that scorched his cheek and he grabbed her wrist.
“It is you that I want most!”
That is no great honor.
He swept her up in his arms, full size but weightless, and threw her on the bed. “You need what you are going to get, spitfire!”
Hella spread her legs. Her labia throbbed scarlet and the blue finger that slid between them and dipped in was phenomenally sensual to watch.
Vane stroked and pumped his cock while he observed her practiced masturbation. “Do that while I am gone. You don’t need me.”
I do. It isn’t enough. I want you. All of you.
She added a single word.
Now
.
Coming over her, he grabbed her ankles and lifted her legs until her knees were by her ears. She pushed his hands away and clasped her ankles, moving her legs so high her bottom came off the bed. She was infinitely flexible.
Without further delay, he positioned the tip between the tight folds of her scorching flesh and drove himself into her to the hilt, moving his hips so his balls pressed against her upraised bottom with each thrust all the way in, making her scream with pleasure.
His pent-up frustration from spying on Linnea, fantasizing about Linnea, exploded inside him but it didn’t make him come.
He pulled out, flipped the startled Hella over, and yanked her up onto all fours, her quivering behind spread and ready, the freshly fucked cunt between them juicy and ready for his length. He mounted her like a crazed stallion, going deep, taking wild pleasure in their mutual abandonment.
Imagining Linnea. With him.
But a mere stallion wouldn’t satisfy Linnea. No, he thought for a fleeting second, she needed a centaur. The image of Marius, doing to Linnea exactly what he was doing to Hella, excited Vane beyond belief. Pulsing out hot jets of lava into Hella’s cunt made her wild with joy, and she came only seconds later.
Drained, gasping, he stayed on his knees, his cock still inside her, feeling not joy but sadness. Even in his fantasy Linnea belonged to Marius and not him.
He pulled out of Hella without a word and collapsed on the bed beside her. She sat up, patting out the little flames that danced along her labia, a sure sign that she had been deeply satisfied.
She gave Vane a loving look, but said nothing as she stroked his sweating chest, making it sizzle. Then Hella rose and poured water from the ewer by the bed into a dark bronze bowl. She blew it, heating the water and testing it with a fingertip, then soaked a cloth and gave him an intimate, loving whore’s bath where he lay.
He ignored her and fell into a troubled sleep.
After a while, Hella dwindled down to sprite size and flitted about the room in an indecisive way. Her small blue form hovered several times inside the window that Gideon had flown from. She hesitated one last time, then soared out in the black night.
L
innea waited where Marius had left her, not as afraid as she would have been ordinarily in the dark—not after a day of such sensual joy.
They weren’t far from the beach, near a marsh as far as she could tell. The night noises seemed nothing out of the usual: musical croaks from small frogs, buzzes and chirps from the cicadas, and the swift beating of unseen wings now and then. Swallows chasing insects. Esau had left her shoulder and joined them, just for the sport of it.
She leaned back against a tree that had felt smooth to the touch and quietened her mind. Soon enough the battle against the demon would be joined. She was looking forward to spending another night in Marius’s protective arms, wherever he would take her.
Linnea straightened and sat forward when she heard Marius coming back. On two feet—with so much practice, he was getting more and more skillful at transforming quickly from one to the other.
As a centaur he would have unbalanced the small boat he had borrowed—or rather, commandeered, to use his manly word.
Men. They always had to be heroes, or pirates, or rogues. Never just themselves. Not that she would have changed a thing about him. Especially not his impetuousness—she scrambled to her feet as Marius burst through a thicket, swearing under his breath.
“The boat is gone. The rope was broken.”
“Cut?”
“Hard to say. I noticed the rope was frayed when I tied it up. It wasn’t much of a boat to begin with, of course. I was just happy it didn’t leak.”
“Oh no. Who would—”
He sat down dejectedly and she sank on her knees next to him, touching a hand to his shoulder. He shrugged it away.
“A fisherman. A demon. Who knows?”
Linnea sighed and put her hands in her lap. “I hope the man you got it from doesn’t need it tomorrow.”
“Too bad. It is not as if I can swim back to Simeon’s island and explain,” Marius said crossly. “He will be wondering where we are. They all will.”
“Should we light a signal fire?”
He shook his head. “That might signal someone we do not want to meet.”
He hadn’t said the name, but it was clear enough to Linnea that he meant Ravelle.
“Well,” he said at last, blowing out a long breath, “there is no point in sitting here. It is going to be a long night.”
“Let us go down to the beach and walk along it,” she suggested. “The boat might have simply drifted off if the rope broke.”
He didn’t seem to want to argue. “Maybe. All right. There is enough moonlight to see by.”
He got up and took her hand, and Linnea let him lift her to her feet. “Ready?”
“Wait a minute. The basket. I left it under the tree.” She went back for it, tripping over a thick vine that clung to her ankle. For a brief, unpleasant second she thought of Ravelle’s clutching claws and shuddered.
The basket was where she had left it, empty and light. She went back to Marius and followed him the short way to the beach, pushing aside the mangrove leaves and stepping carefully amidst the tangled roots.
“Stay to the high side of the beach,” Marius said. He looked worriedly at the sky. The indigo vault was thickly strewn with stars. What was left of the moon was not enough to obscure them.
She walked with him in silence for some distance, not seeing a trace of the boat. Nor did she see a light upon the water of a bobbing, golden-flamed lantern on a prow. No one was coming to get them.
The others had no way of knowing where they had come in from the water on the Forest Isle, which had many beaches.
Still, the night was peaceful and she was with him. Unless a demon were to blot out the moon and howl down from the sky—she told herself not to think that way.
Marius’s grip on her hand tightened.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
“I thought I saw a light.”
She scanned the horizon. Only the faintest sliver of reflected moonlight separated the dark sea from the even darker sky. “Where?”
“Above us.” He studied the heavens. “A flicker of blue. It’s gone now.”
“A shooting star?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She stopped, holding on to his hand and making him stop too. “I don’t see it. And I don’t see the boat. If it did drift away, it’s long gone.”
“Then we will stay here,” he said reluctantly. He let go of her hand and scanned the dark, tangled trees behind them. “Bah. The mangroves are full of biting insects and the beach is too open.” He walked a few steps away and Linnea hurried to catch up.
Something flashed out of the darkness and brushed her shoulder where the kirtle had slipped down. “Ow!” she cried, clapping her hand over the spot.
He hurried back. “A bite?”
“Yes, Marius! But what bug bites so hard? It feels almost like a burn!”
He peered at her shoulder. “The damn things will devour us if we sleep in the trees. It will have to be the beach. I will dig a hole for us to give us some shelter from the wind. It always picks up during the night.”
She flung the basket down, feeling the last shred of her peaceful mood evaporate. “Above the line of high tide, if you please. I don’t want to drown.”
He kneeled down and got to work, scooping out huge handfuls of sand without a word. Linnea regretted snapping at him. It wasn’t his fault that the boat had disappeared and tomorrow they could head inland and walk to where other beings could help them.
She kneeled beside him and scooped sand too. It wasn’t long before they lay together in each other’s arms, cradled in sand so warm that they fell asleep.
The sun woke them early. There was no escaping it on the beach. Linnea sat up in the hole and looked around. It was a gorgeous morning.
The dawn sky looked like the pink inside of a gigantic shell, fading to white where the sun rose in majesty. There were no clouds for miles and the sea was unusually calm.
Marius was already up, coming back from down the beach, dragging pieces of driftwood in a scrap of fishing net he must have found. He had the basket slung over one shoulder, stuffed with leaves.
“What are you doing?” she called.
“Collecting herbs for tea and berries for breakfast and wood for a fire.”
She laughed. “What will we boil water in?”
“A shell. Go look for a big, thick one, and smaller ones to drink out of. There is fresh water in the wine bottle. I rinsed out the dregs.”
Linnea stood up, stark naked and deliciously warm, and ran into the sea to bathe. The salt water stung her shoulder where the bug had bitten her, but it was not so painful it kept her from swimming.
She floated for a while, watching Marius snap the bleached, bone-dry wood, toss it into the pit where they’d slept, and strike rock on rock to light it. After a little while a thin trail of smoke rose in the air. He kneeled by it and fiddled with the wood.
She swam in to shore, refreshed, and walked slowly toward him through the shallows, foam swirling around her knees and then ebbing to her toes.
“Good morning, goddess,” he said, looking up from his fire. He had been blowing on it to keep it going. Orange and red flames, and even a few little ones that were blue and green, barely visible in the strong sunlight, licked over the white wood. The fire made snapping sounds and fought to stay alive. Marius picked up a stick and poked at it, frowning.
She bent down and gave him a kiss on top of his head. Her wet breasts touched his back.
At that instant something bit her again and Linnea straightened with a cry, waving at the air. “Ow! Another one!”
“The bugs like you,” he said absently. “I can’t blame them.”
“Do not mock me,” she said indignantly, “it hurts!”
“Let me look.” Moving awkwardly in the sliding sand and careful of his fire, Marius got up. “Where is it this time?”
“The other shoulder. In the back.” She wasn’t going to cry or complain about a couple of bites, but the pain was intense all the same.
Marius examined both her shoulders closely, but he didn’t say anything.
“Well? Is there a stinger? Why do they hurt so much?”
He came around to face her. “I will have to make you poultices. It is a good thing that I learned something of them from Quercus. The bites look more like burns. The one from last night has begun to blister.”
Linnea sighed. The sun was already strong and if they did not head back into the woods soon, whatever skin was not covered by her kirtle would be scorched too.
Her spirits were lighter after their beach breakfast. They’d left a heap of berries for Esau to find and filled the basket with them, eating them as they walked into the forest, dropping one every few feet as a game for him, in case he decided to walk instead of fly.
Marius’s poultices eased the blistered spots on her shoulders and she no longer thought of them. A centaur again, he found his way by the position of the sun above, and when the woods grew thicker, by smell. His nostrils flared widely, judging the way to go by the wind.
Linnea, on his back, admired his regal posture. Her steed and her lover were one and the same, an incomparable convenience. She patted his flank and kissed the back of his neck.
He tasted of sweat and salt. Delicious.
“Do not distract me, Linnea. We have far to go.”
“Must we go back to Simeon’s stronghold? I would rather be here with you.”
“We cannot without the boat. But we must find a way to let him know where we are and as quickly as possible.” His voice was tinged with guilt. “By now he has sent out searchers looking for us. They might have seen the fire I lit this morning, if it is still going. Ah me. There wasn’t much wood to be found.”
Linnea looked up at the little bird that flew by. Its feathers were gleaming indigo, a reminder of the beauty of last night’s sky. There was still no sign of Esau. Had he startled the bird? She glanced over her shoulder to see if he’d found them.
What.
…what was
that
? A blue flame danced in midair behind her and vanished.
Linnea shook her head and closed her eyes, then looked again.
Nothing. She must have been imagining things. They had woken at dawn and been going for some time without much food.
“When will we stop, Marius? I think I need to rest for a bit and I’m sure you do too.”
“Me? I could gallop through woods like this for days. But of course you lack a centaur’s stamina. We will stop in a little while. There is an old orchard not far away.”
Linnea put her arms around his muscular middle and pressed her cheek to the meatiest part of his shoulder. He took good care of her, to be sure.
They supped in the orchard, Marius browsing thoughtfully on green things and Linnea eating a windfall apple from last year that was miraculously free of wriggling inhabitants—she’d split it to the seed-star at its core to make sure—and cheese and grain-rich bread.
He had stopped at the cottage of an elderly spirit, a gruagach with mixed human and bovid blood by the looks of her, the keeper of a small herd of cows. She had been happy to fill the basket to overflowing with cheese and bread and other things to eat for both of them.
Nothing was too good for the Lord of the Forest. And his lady, the gruagach had added, dropping a creaky curtsey to honor Linnea.
“I wonder where Esau is,” Marius said when they had finished eating. “We could use him to send a message, though it is a long way to fly. Still, we are not yet close to any of the ponds that connect to the tunnels linking the islands.”
“I looked for him as we went along,” Linnea said. “I saw—” She stopped. The blue flame in midair had been a figment of her imagination and there was no point in mentioning something so trivial.
“What?” He sprawled in the grass and fallen petals of the apple blossoms, his four legs relaxed, propped on a muscular arm, looking content. He used his healed, once again magnificent tail to swat a determined fly that was bothering him.
Sqursh.
He got it. She made a face at him. Marius grinned with manly triumph, as if he had personally vanquished a certain loathsome demon with one blow.
“Nothing,” Linnea said in answer to his question. “He always comes, though, doesn’t he? It is a pity you can’t teach him to talk.”
“I only know what he is saying when Quercus is around to translate. And I don’t get over to his tree very often. I should. He’s a good old soul.”
“Yes, he is.” Linnea went over to Marius, settling her back against his sprawled bulk and looking up into the clouds that drifted over the orchard. They were tinged with the deeper pink that heralded the end of the day. “Shall we spend the night here?”
“Why not? How are those bites, by the way?”
“Healed, I think. I am glad to be away from whatever made them.”
With his arms, Marius lifted her away from him, ignoring her protests. “Hush. I have to make a bed for us, don’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“I need room to wallow.” Looking utterly ridiculous, he began to roll on his back from side to side, crushing the fragrant grasses and petals, making a bed as wide but not as deep as the one on the beach. Linnea laughed heartily at the way he looked when he was done, his centaur hide covered with bits of broken grass, the hair on his handsome head thoroughly disheveled.