Lord of the Dark Read online

  “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—”

  “That goes without saying,” Gideon cut in.

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

  “I am in your debt, Marius.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Gideon nodded. “We all are,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  14

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

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

  We could spare him much, the first voice argued.

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

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

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

  The first speaker hesitated. I still think—

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

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

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

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

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