She nodded. “I doubt that it mattered. Gods do what they want.”
“Indeed they do. The mortals and immortals of earth must suffer the consequences. An old one enchanted the stone and then hung it about my neck. It began to glow and sparkle. Boy that I was, I was pleased with the gift, until the transformation to the centaur began. The first time was agonizingly painful.”
“So I have seen,” she said with sympathy.
“The gods laughed at my dismay, then grew angry at my screams.”
Linnea sighed. “Why do humans worship them and build them temples and bring them offerings? It makes no sense.”
Marius raised his hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “Who can say? So that they will not be the next victim of mischief or worse? I have no faith in gods or priests.”
“Nor do I,” she murmured.
“When the change was complete, I stood there crying. A lesser goddess, slender and small, felt sympathy for me and wove me a halter and reins of flowers with her own hands, vowing she would be the first to ride me. I knelt before her but the strongest of the gods, her lover, fell into a jealous rage. He dragged me to the edge of the clouds and pushed me out of their lofty realm to fall to earth. He expected me to die, I think.”
Linnea did not care to think about the slender little goddess who had been so kind. “What happened?”
“As I tumbled, the amulet came loose from its golden chain and fell. I grabbed at the air.” He nodded up at the sleeping magpie on the beam. “That one swooped down out of nowhere and caught it.”
Linnea frowned. “Did the gods fling him down too?”
Marius shook his head. “No. He was flying by. Any shining thing catches a magpie’s interest. Off he flew, the amulet in his beak, just before I plunged into a forest pool. When I surfaced, he was gone.”
“I see. And so was the amulet, I assume.”
“He never brought it back and I have never found his nest. He may have more than one nest, for all I know, but that is Esau’s secret to keep. I did try. It took me eons to tame him—that’s why I was so surprised when he let you feed him.”
Linnea pondered that but not for long, not thinking it significant.
“But every magpie is born a thief, Linnea. And thieves do not give up treasures easily. Besides, he is only a bird and not the kind that talks.”
She smiled faintly. “Still, he is loyal if he has stayed with you all this time. And he fought the demon and the imps like a little Fury.”
“Esau is not always playful.”
They looked at each other, sharing a brief, glowing memory of the serenity the three of them—man, woman, bird—had shared. The juicy, ruby-colored seeds, freely shared too, eaten with abandon, had seemed a portent of fruitfulness and joy. The sexual union between Marius and Linnea had been an extraordinary experience, life-affirming and utterly sensual.
But since the appearance of Ravelle, that sweet, magic mood was irreparably shattered. His demonic malevolence was far worse than the mere mischief of careless gods. It was calculated.
Marius seemed to understand that her memories of yesterday had plunged her into sudden silence and did not press her.
“You must stay here,” he said at last. “And I will call a convocation of the lords of Arcan. Not here. Old Querky needs his solitude.”
Quercus looked up from the scroll he was studying. “Yes, I do.”
The magpie flew down from the beam above and landed on Marius’s shoulder.
“Traitor,” he said affectionately. “So you are back with me.”
“He goes where he is needed most,” Quercus pointed out.
“So he does. When there is not anything shiny to collect or food to steal.”
The magpie squawked at Quercus, who laughed and responded to it in Treeish.
“No fair keeping secrets. What did he say?” Marius asked.
The tree spirit laughed again and smoothed the bird’s black-and-white feathers. “He said that an army travels on its belly. And he is not wrong about that.”
Marius bent down to give Linnea a farewell kiss. They had said everything that needed to be said last night. She would stay here where Quercus could keep an eye on her and she could continue to heal. If she wished, she could conjure Marius in the scrying pool although it would not allow her to speak to him.
Once the lords were gathered, it would not take long to vanquish Ravelle and hold him at bay in the Outer Darkness. Or so Marius hoped. He had not the firepower of Vane or the ability to fly of Gideon.
Clad in a kirtle of soft leaves that were fuzzy to the touch, she rose to walk with him to the top of the staircase. He gave her another kiss and caught her up in a fervent embrace that betrayed his feelings for her. Quercus busied himself with his scroll until he had done, humming absently.
“I think it is best that you do not venture outside the tree for now, dearest,” Marius said softly. “Everything you might need is here. And Quercus says that you can climb out on the bigger limbs if you wish. Tuck your kirtle up and use your hands.” He gave her one last kiss on the nose. “I wish I could be below to see you do it.”
“Hush, Marius.”
His hands slid down from her waist but he hesitated before going further. Linnea pressed herself against him and at last he stroked all of her that he could reach. Their lovemaking last night had been gentle in the extreme—and the ultimate climax shared at the same instant. She felt healed. Caressed from head to toe, tongued to full release, and rocked beneath him, his lusty tenderness had erased the demon’s vile touch from her body and mind.
“Look for me in the pool tonight, Linnea. I must return to Philonous.”
“The old willow must be worried about you,” she murmured. “I know that I shall be.” Her uneasiness about him had vanished, drawn out with the poison from her wound.
He held her close. “I hate to let you go.”
She sighed and nuzzled the side of his neck, then pressed her lips to the skin over his strongly beating heart. “There. Take that with you. I would give you a token of my favor to wear, but as you have no clothes and no pockets, you will have to make do with a kiss.”
Marius cupped her breasts and brought his mouth down over hers. “And there is one for you,” he whispered when he stopped. “Wait for me.”
“I will,” she said as he turned to dash down the spiral staircase and go back to his green realm. A final look upward at her and he was gone.
L
ord Vane, the ruler of the Isle of Fire, sat enthroned before a blaze that threatened to consume his ancestral hall. The massive stones of which it was built were black as coal, a flat black that reflected nothing.
He was lost in contemplation of the blue flames that licked around the wood in the fireplace. Marius had sent over a raft of logs moons ago, seeing that the fallen giants of his domain were gathered once their remains had dried to whiteness. That brother of his supervised the gangs of men that got them rolled to the sea and tied to a raft, but Darius himself never left the island.
The brothers were fearless, to be sure, but the Isle of Fire was not loved by those from the forest. He rose and looked out an archer’s narrow window at the setting sun. The volcano—his foundry, as he thought of it—belched smoke and ash. The spew tinted the sky in lurid tones of purple and black that seemed to hover in the air. The sun’s red rays pierced it like flaming arrows.
Just as he liked it.
The same disturbing gloom prevailed in his grandiose dwelling. He looked again into the roaring blaze, wishing the fire nymphs would appear. They came and went as they pleased, and he could not control them.
Which was, in a way, the best part.
A singular flame rolled around the giant log and then separated itself from the others. It shot higher, its undulating contours becoming the shape of a woman.
Hella was here. His favorite.
Vane propped his head on one hand and watched her play in the flame. The fireplace was so high that a full-grown mortal could stand upright in it. Hella, beautiful Hella, had all the room she wanted.
She was naked, of course. Her fiery blue breasts were tipped with red, and a juicy slash of red showed between her legs every time she bent over and spread her legs.
He could watch her for hours.
Right now she was straddling the giant log and pressing her cunt to it with lascivious little cries. No matter how hot it got, Hella wanted it hotter.
A smooth branch had escaped the devouring intensity of the flames and she grabbed it to keep her balance. Then she looked over her shoulder wickedly at her one-man audience.
They had the same idea. The branch was rounded on top, broken off so long ago that the weather or waves had smoothed to the size and shape of a cock’s head. As for its length—he looked down at his lap—his rod was comparable. “Go ahead, Hella.”
The fire nymph laughed and rose up from the log, sticking a slender blue finger into her scarlet labia. The fire within her made them pulse color that was deeper still. Extending her leg high in the air to give him a good show, she lay back on the log and spread her cunny apart.
Look your fill.
He did. He noted with more than passing interest that her clitoris was an incandescent blue amidst the scarlet of her innermost lips. The contrast was enchanting. Her blue finger parting those pretty petals, exciting herself as she thrust it dreamily in and out—my, my. The fire nymph was sin-scorchingly hot.
“The branch,” Lord Vane said to her encouragingly. “Smooth and shapely, is it not? As if it was made to penetrate your hot cunt. Move up on the log.”
Hella obeyed. She turned her bottom to him, swaying and dipping.
She was maddeningly delicious. Her new pose was even better. Lord Vane undid his breeches and pulled out his cock. “Spread for me, my dear. Show me everything.”
The fire nymph reached around and clasped her beautiful buttocks, pulling the shapely blue globes apart for his delectation. She gave him an impertinent grin over her shoulder again.
Wanton as she wanted to be. Like a temple whore, she danced in place, showing off what the gods had given her: a tightly folded pussy framed by a sweetly curved ass that was punctuated with a barely visible anus in deeper blue. Her flawless skin shimmered as her own arousal increased.
He wanted to bury his face in her, have her push back, back, back. She liked to enfold his face with her buttocks, and allow him to take a taste of her fiery pussy, slipping in his tongue whenever she stopped. Knowing what was coming, Hella sang to herself, her voice flickering in pitch, changeable as the flames she’d stepped out of. Then she rose and positioned herself over the round tip of the branch.
This was going to be hotter than…Hella. Lord Vane straightened on his throne.
Hella put the tip between her labia, its unburned whiteness a startling contrast to the scarlet flesh that would soon take it deep. With erotic slowness, she eased her body down upon it, twisting and turning, riding the thick prong that seemed to have been made for her alone.
He got up and came closer, standing by the fire, much taller than Hella, who stayed inside the blackened frame, looking up at him as if she too were glad to have company.
Then he saw the reason she seemed to be experiencing even more pleasure this time. The round-tipped branch had a bump at its base, just as smooth. The perfect thing for clitoral pressure.
Rubbing, rubbing, she was shameless. Gripping the top of the burning log, her slender fingers started new little blue fires all over it. The log itself creaked and moaned, coming to a final burst of life under her.
Indeed, his Hella could raise a dead demon with what she was doing. She let go with one hand and reached between her legs, fingering the incandescent blue bud as she pleasured herself on the white wood branch.
What magic kept it from bursting into flame inside her, he knew not. But the fire nymph would not have minded. She twisted and bounced, boneless and utterly free to move however she wanted.
In her ephemeral way, she was an immortal. Yes, she vanished when the fire burned down to gray ashes, but she reappeared when the next one was lit. If she wanted to.
What few visitors he had seemed to suffer from the heat of the constant blazes, but that was just too bad for them. Lord Vane preferred to be alone. Hella was worth waiting for.
He stroked his heated shaft, moving his hand around and down and up again. The increasing length of his cock made the fire nymph’s eyes spark with lust.
“Do you want that in your pretty mouth?” he asked her in a low growl.
Every inch.
She turned halfway around so that her face was turned up, and smiled wantonly, licking her lips, waiting for a taste of him. Like her labia, the inside of her mouth was pulsing scarlet. Her tongue was pure fire, flicking, changing color.
He knew only too well how eagerly it licked. The narrow tip could lengthen and wrap around his aching cock, pulling the head more deeply into the scorching recesses of her mouth, setting
him
on fire, swallowing every inch just how she’d said.
And that tongue of hers could soften and lap him tenderly until he cried out her name and begged to be sucked to orgasm.
Yes, the great lord of the Isle of Fire knew how to beg. She seemed to take a particular pleasure in seeing him do it. She’d had him on his knees more than once, his craving for her was so strong. But not tonight.
Come over me, my lord.
Her extraordinary flexibility made fellatio effortless. Arching her back, she met him halfway but stayed within the blackened walls of the enormous fireplace. He leaned, impervious to the flames. The pulsing mouth that took his cock had learned the art of fellatio well. She never, ever gagged, and she sucked hard, even if she was as insubstantial as air.
Ah, the heat…Lord Vane felt a sensation of melting mindlessness that was equaled only by the stiffness of his member. Naughty bitch that she was, Hella played with his balls, showing him no mercy, spanking the swollen sac between his legs, knowing it was filled to bursting with her favorite treat: lava.
She loved the blazing spurts he produced without fail, reveled in leaning back when he wanted to cover her blue breasts with shot after shot of fiery ejaculate, putting out her tongue to catch any wayward drops that missed her body.
Tonight he wanted to come in her mouth. She craved that too, voraciously swallowing the urgent scarlet rush as it pulsed from his cock hole, milking him with flame-fingers to get more and more.
His fire girl. How he loved her.
Hella wrapped her lips around the base of his excruciatingly sensitive member and fluttered her tongue against the underside of it.
He was damned if he would give in so quickly. But damnation was exactly what he wanted. Her fingers explored farther, pressing on the ridge of flesh in back of his scrotum, forcing him faster and faster to an explosive new high.
He groaned and shuddered, letting his cock disappear into her mouth and down her snug throat. She had no need to breathe—the only air she required came through her bare, blue skin.
His excitement reached fever pitch. Tiny new flames, delicate as jewelry, sprang up here and there on her nude body. She was infinitely combustible, she was his, he was hers—oh! By the gods of all that was unholy!
She stopped what she was doing and used her tongue to ease out his cock.
Controlling himself and knowing she played the trick to make the pleasure last, he methodically pumped his agonizingly hot rod while she smiled in an enchantingly wicked way. He had forgotten that the smooth, round-tipped branch was still inside her, in part because she’d twisted at the waist as no mortal female could ever do. She rode it for a while, gripping the log as before without looking at him.
I like to make you wait.
“But am I not your lord? Do I not command you, Hella?”
When I want you to.
She began to press her clitoris against the bud at the bottom and he noticed burn marks upon its whiteness each time she pulled away. Hella enjoyed more intense stimulation in the moments before her climax and she was giving it to herself now, ignoring him.
It was not to be endured.
Lord Vane reached into the fire and hauled his blue lady out. His masterful action brought out the bitch in her again and she tried to get away, but he was too fast for her. There was no need to hold her prisoner. None whatsoever.
All he had to do was clasp each of her nipples and he did, employing finger and thumb in a slow, firm roll that melted her for a change. Writhing with erotic joy, Hella surrendered, raising her breasts in her flaming hands, offering her nipples up for his teasing, highly sensual control.
Ahhh, my lord. You know exactly what I like.
“Then why do you make it difficult for me to give it to you?”
Harder!
More firm rolls of tight nipples, standing out scarlet from her hot blue breasts. More moans. How he loved to see her like this, at his command, at least for a minute or two.
To his surprise, Hella cried out his name. Once, then twice. She leaned against, twining her arms around his neck and murmuring in his ear.
That was good…so good.
“Did I make you come?”
Yes.
Well, then. She was in for the ride of her flaming life. He turned her around, bent her over, and penetrated her to the hilt. Hella moaned with the echoing pleasure of her own stealthy orgasm as his hit him full force. He pounded against her soft bottom, increasing the sensitivity of his overhard cock with ever deeper thrusts, craving her heat, excited to new heights by the intensity of their lovemaking, something only Hella truly inspired in him.
He came in gigantic spurts, the lava in his balls filling up a quim already so tight and lusciously hot that he wanted to scream.
She knew it, took him higher still with sensual undulations of her hips and buttocks, making him moan. He was weak, but he was in heaven. With her.
“Hella…”
She didn’t speak, enjoying the last reverberations of his mighty climax more than her own, until finally he heard her one-word reply.
Yes?
“I think I—”
No, you don’t. Besides, I don’t really exist. You can’t love a woman made of fire.
“Why not?” His question came too late. She slipped out of his grasp and went back into her element, indistinguishable from the other flames that leapt and danced and made men dream.
Several nights later, sprawled in his black-sheeted bed, the Lord of Fire could not sleep for wanting her. She hadn’t come back. His restlessness was new and it upset him. Why did he feel this way? They’d had incandescent sex before—many times. Hella knew a thousand variations on the theme of a truly hot night.
It was true that sometimes he dallied with another nymph of lesser talent—come to think of it, a naughty cousin of hers had been carrying a torch for him for a while and begged him to satisfy her curiosity about him as a lover. They had parted on good terms. Had Hella heard of it? She prided herself on not being jealous.
Or…this thought was truly alarming…had she taken a different lover? Someone more potent than the Lord of Fire?
He scowled and flung back the covers, too troubled to bother with masturbating himself to sleep. He would only think of her and become more agitated.