“That I call you vacha.”
I paused, eyeing him. “We’re still on that.”
“Yes.” Dark brown ears twitched.
Why did the blasted beast sound so darned amused?
A short pause. “You amuse me.”
“I- GAH!” I griped. Spoken aloud again?! “I am not a little cow!”
Kvigor’s grunt of surprise had me frowning. “That is what she told you it means?” he choked out. He sounded like he was suffocating a chortling snort.
“Doesn’t vacha mean the same as Vachel? It’s... It’s... I dunno, short for it or something? I’ve heard you call her that. I’m not an idiot. I can figure it out. Vachel does mean little cow, does it not?”
Both males laughed, Kvigor’s deep, rumbling chuckle mixing with Adelric’s boisterous bark of a laugh, the sudden noises he made almost a purr but rusty, as if from disuse.
I hated the way my heart skipped a beat at the sound.
Grumbling, sinking down into Adelric’s hold, muttering under my breath, more than a little nauseated and out of my head, I chose not to respond to them after that.
˜˙˜*˜˙˜
Light pricked my eyes. The horrible noise in my ears stopped. Drool, pooling at the corner of my mouth, wetting the fur cushioning my head, had my face itching. A heavy door. We’d made it to the high priestess’ roost.
My breath left me in a loud whoosh. “Set me down,” I bit out, cupping a hand over my mouth. “Dowd, bow,” I garbled through clamped fingers.
Adelric was slow to respond, speaking quietly, deep in conversation with Kvigor.
“She looks green,” Kvigor noted.
“Swick. Swick,” I sputtered. My limbs flailed, causing Adelric to set me down or drop me on my head.
I wasn’t sick. Dropping to the ground, muddying the material wrapped around my waist, I gasped, slapping my slick fingers to my side. Leaning forward, my other hand bracing my weight, holding me up as the world did somersaults and black spots danced across my eyes. Red splashed to the ground, dripping from my nose. More dripped, until I could feel it dribbling down my chin.
Slumping forward, hunched until I folded in on myself, my forehead attempting to kiss my knees, I struggled for breath.
“Going to- Not- Pass-”
Someone touched my shoulder. There was barking. Words lost all meaning. My head fell. I tumbled to the ground with a harsh smack and a splash.
“Addie? Addie!” Kvigor’s frantic voice broke through the drumming in my head, rushing over me. Thick hands gripped my shoulders. More hands.
“Vacha? Riadne? Wake up. Hey.” A hand touched my face.
My hand was lifted, limp. With my last bit of strength I slapped it over his. “Don’t let Puck get him, Ferdinand” I mumbled. “Don’t let Peacock take... take my ma- take his body.”
“Stay awake, vacha. Do you hear me?”
“Hear you,” I muttered, grimacing, “stop shouting and listen to me. Do you hear me, cow, erm, boy? Cowboy?”
A small, shocked, laugh had me smiling faintly. My smile fell, fingers tightening. “Don’t let him marry some tart from the north, Ferdi... He doesn’t deserve that.” My head lolled, a thick shoulder supporting it. “Even if he’s a... a crotch flap. Gotta- Gotta love her...”
“Stop talking like that,” Kvigor croaked, cluing me in belatedly, that I was in fact in his arms and not his sibling’s.
“Argh. No more body taking ‘ventures, ‘kay?” My voice came out mumbled, muffled.
Warm breath blew across my face. “Of course not.”
“Say it. Swear it.”
When he didn’t answer, sensing I was going to pass out any moment now, I forged ahead. “You’ll kiss me one last time, crotch flap,” I mumbled, “and you’ll mean it. None of that mashing face squish stuff, either. You- You... Yer...”
“Addie!”
The lights went out.
I didn’t get my promise or that blasted kiss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I came to choking, gasping. Everything hurt.
“I’ve been poisoned,” I croaked, lifting my hand weakly. It flailed for a moment then fell.
A soft, feminine voice hushed me. “You fainted.”
“I did?”
“Right after you lurched towards Adelric and released the contents of your stomach on Kvigor,” Vachel noted proudly.
“I did?”
“Thoroughly,” the youth assured me.
“Good,” I muttered, “blighter deserved it, and then some,” making both women snort, smothering amused, chortling giggles as they worked. With my eyes closed, only the noises around me to help me see, I sensed a lot of activity.
Groaning, I listed to my side.
“Hurry now,” Suzaela urged, “we haven’t much time. She’s stable, and awake. All good signs.”
“Time for what? All good signs, eh? What are the bad ones?” My head felt so funny the room was doing circles. Or I was. Too much was going on in my head, around the room. I was drenched, just soaked. The tang of salt came to me as I licked my cracked lips. My upper lip was wet, my ears as well. My chest ached horribly when I tried to suck in a sharp breath. My breathing sounded wet, whistling.
“I’m dying,” I breathed. My insides felt funny, my head foggy and sort of detached, like it was floating above me. “When did the goat and the pig come to visit?” I asked no one in particular. What had she put in my drink this time?
When no one answered I forced my heavy lids open to scowl at them.
I caught Suzaela and Vachel exchanging a look right before my eyes slid shut once more.
“A goat?” Vachel sounded alarmed. “A pig?”
“Are they talking to you?” Suzaela thought for some gods forsaken reason to ask.
“Sure,” pausing, I laughed but the action hurt, “they want me to come to their tea part- Ugh... O’ ph. Not- Ughhh...” Bile filled my throat. My skin throbbed, eyes burned, it was hard to think.
“Work faster,” Suzaela whispered.
The sounds of rustling and bustling about resumed as I drifted off.
“Rest now,” the high priestess urged. “You are very ill and must rest.”
“Am?” I mumbled tiredly.
“Yes,” she said succinctly and left my side.
“M... ‘kay. Head hurts,” I mumbled, then nothing.
“Mama, her ears are bleeding!” Vachel’s voice was high-pitched, distressed. “Is she breathing?” the young woman squeaked.
The high priestess cursed. “The portent, she’s reacting badly to it. She bleeds easily. Too easily. Knew it could be too strong for her. She isn’t Tauran. Adelric!” she bellowed. “We go to temple, now.”
Temple? For what? Prayer?
Too late to pray for me now.
“Nothing is ever too late, vacha,” Suzaela murmured softly, a hand coming up to brush my hair away from my face. “Where there is faith, there is always hope.”
If you say so, was my last coherent thought.
Judging by the soft sigh she let loose, I assumed I had yet again spoken aloud in my confused state.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I was floating, water surrounding me. Just floating, feeling light, buoyant. The water was warm, comfortable. Nothing hurt. The lack of pain was my first hint all was not as it should be.
“Where am I?” I meant to think it. I had a horrible habit of doing that of late.
“Home, where you belong,” a pause, “with me.”
“Home?” Confusion gripped me. I knew that voice, but he wasn’t home, not my home. He was...
The water rippled, lapping at my skin. The cool calm of the surface disturbed.
Sensing someone was coming up behind me had me lifting, legs working, arms slicing through the water to keep me afloat. Eyes fluttering open, it was dark but for the stars above. Chin dipping, I peered down into the bottomless depths below. Bits of gold and green glittered sparsely in the black abyss. It seemed to go on and on and on, never ending. I’d
been floating on my back, rolling with the waves on an endless sea of nothing. How poetic.
I could feel him, sense him, right there at my back. His touch never came. I had choices. Wanting to turn and feast my eyes on him, touch him, see if he was real, something held me back. My hand felt warm, so very warm, the feeling of my palm being gently squeezed and released, faint whispers in the distance pricking my ears sending my face scrunching up in bemusement. What was going on?
Something brushed my hips. Still, I refused to look. Something bad would happen if I did. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I took a deep breath.
Thick, calloused hands brushed my shoulder, sifting through my hair. The thick strands, dripping wet, were gathered, lifted. “And Ania thought you dim and pliable.” A body was at my back. The sensation sent pleasant tingles up my spine. Lips whispered across my nape. I shivered and gasped.
Those hands slid forward, releasing my hair. A tanned hand went to my throat, staying but not pressing, another to my chin, where it lifted it, forcing my face towards the starry night. “Do you believe in fate, little one?” The hand at my throat massaged the spot. I felt no need to fight it—him. I could no more fight my fate than him. “That we’re all, each of us, destined to some preordained fate?” Those lips were at my ear. I heard chanting, strange chanting, over and over, like a song.
“No,” I finally replied. It was hard to force the words out, my throat suddenly gone bone dry, but I’d done it.
“No?” Intrigue rippled through me, like he was sending his feelings, his thoughts, to me like waves. “Truly? What say you of life, little mortal?”
“I think life sends us in many directions. The opportunities, or lack thereof, how we adjust or don’t, adaptability, capability, are infinite. It’s the choices we make that can change our path. Free will.”
“Free will overrules fate, you say?”
“No. Free will can change fate. Our fate is... whatever it will be. I’d like to think it’s our choices, all those choices leading up to our end that make or break us, that define us more than the hand we’re dealt.”
That deep voice grunted in response, the noise akin to a Minotaur’s grunt.
Coming up behind me, his hips cradled mine, the hand at my throat leaving me to band around my waist. The band tightened and tightened, until it hurt to breath. “The time draws near, but I find myself curious. I can understand my queen’s infatuation with her pets, as I find myself quite fond of my fledgling Abandoned. And now, of course, you. Tell me, Riadne of Durmad, Chosen of the labyrinth, do you believe in the gods?”
“No.”
“No?” He dipped us, until the water brushed the tips of my ears.
“The All-father?”
I laughed despite the strange gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I hadn’t eaten in days. “You mean to tell me you don’t have faith in yourself, my king?” I teased, bold as brass.
“Wee beastie.” Teeth nipped my ear. I jumped and squeaked, making him laugh. “So sensitive. Take to the waters with me. Accept me. I’ll give you the tools you need. Together we shall vanquish any foe.”
“Please, not that again,” I got out on a groan. Pool of dark water, glittering below. I knew all too well what could happen with that stuff.
“What again?” he whispered, his words husky, deep enough that smooth voice was growing guttural. Something thick pressed into my backside.
Was this a test? My heart started to pound.
“No.” My voice was barely a whisper. “Not again. My body is mine.”
Against my traitorous body’s will, which wanted to give in to the sex god incarnate, I fought, stiffening. I fought so hard within myself my breath was growing choppy, chest heaving with the effort.
Tears pricked my eyes and I cried out. “NO. N-n-n-n-no!”
The arm banding around my chest loosened, the presence at my back eased. A hand lifted to my forehead. “Peace with you, I meant no-”
“I won’t let you. My body is my own. I won’t be some vessel for you and your Queen to play in, and neither will Kvigor or Adelric.” With my anger my will grew, until I was my own.
“Your will is yours. I am asking, imploring. You thought I was to take you any other way?” The Warrior King sounded slightly confused, though there was an edge to his voice as if he’d already started to put the pieces together. It was an act. Had to be.
“You mean to tell me you don’t know?” I snarled, wrapping my arms around myself protectively. My hand splashed the water, the reflection of the stars mirrored on the water’s smooth surface fading out along with it.
My feet met solid ground, sand sifting between my toes. As if I’d willed it the sound of the waterfall back in the labyrinth’s cave room, Kvigor’s holding pen, was once more before me. My head started spinning. “I said no,” I got out between growls.
“I didn’t do anything,” that dark voice bit out. He was livid, breathing heavily from somewhere behind me.
“I didn’t know when I’d agreed. She never said the price I was to pay. If I’d have known...” If I’d have known, we’d still be in that fucking bull pen locked in the labyrinth—a sick twist of fate. “Your wife’s Puck-ish pet is running amok. Why have you not stopped him?”
“He cheats, and shall be dealt with when the time is right, but I can’t control the Taurans’ will if they should choose to follow him.”
“They think him Ekodar.” I gave a small snort. “He calls himself King-chief.”
“Do you wish my help?”
“Will you help me get rid of him, like you did the two in the cave?” I queried.
Pride filled him, but disappointment and a hint of guilt sifted towards me. “We are forbidden from interfering beyond what was agreed. It would make me no better than him. My queen may make her case to call it a draw.”
“We’re just a game to you, then?” My shoulders hunched, despair washing over me.
“No. You are the game, the ultimate battle. The final test. You all are.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“But Puck’s cheating!”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t?”
“I’m going to win. I don’t need to cheat.” His words dripped with cocky confidence. “I’ve coerced no one to come to me, accept me, and spoken only but the truth.”
“The deals you’ve all made?”
“I, if you will remember, extracted no price you weren’t already willing to pay. And Kvigor was not even my choice. No one said you had to bond yourself to the beast.”
“Then who is, uh, your choice? Will they help me? How do I find them?”
His answer was a small chuckle.
My expression soured. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Are you going to accept me?” he prompted smoothly.
“I don’t even know what that means,” I grumbled in frustration. Another slap to the water and instead of the strange place of before or the labyrinth’s sand pit I was sitting along the beach, high tide, at home, a giant tarantuacrab waddling past, water licking at my toes. “Whoa.”
“I like this one. I miss your seas.” Feet were on either side of me, masculine feet with hair on them, even hairier muscular legs, toes with black nails wiggling on either side of me.
I was naked as the day I was born but- “These are new,” I muttered, staring down at the small gold and black bars spearing through my nipples.
“I find them rather fetching, but I might be biased.”
“Are all fae horrendous flirts? Or only when their spouses, mates, lovers are not around?”
He let out a deep belly laugh that said it all. I was glad I’d never find myself a fae. The idea of being an untrustworthy rakehell of a creature or tied to one was completely unappetizing.
Sobering, he admitted, “Once upon a time I was youthful, and stupid, thought myself in love with my bride, a beauty of a woman. Time passes, beauty loses its charm, exposing, bit by bit, the creature beneat
h.”
“So leave her and find yourself a good old ugly gal, one with a good heart and a soup spoon in her hand. You’ll never do without.”
“Speak so boldly. Have ye a fetching creature of such standards, ripe for the old maidenly picking?”
“I’ve a cousin in Arz, but she’s not much for conversating. No sooner bite your cock off than kiss it. Not exactly the trusting sort.”
The fae actually squirmed behind me. “How old?”
“Forty. You’re horrible.”
“Incorrigible.”
“What are you, five hundred? Seven? Lecher.”
Another laugh but no answer.
“Why am I here? This isn’t really home and we aren’t really snuggling on the beach in our nudies. Am I dead?” I asked suddenly. “Is this death?
A chin fell to my shoulder, a thick hand coming up to brush sand from it. “Do you want it to be?”
“No. I’d-” I couldn’t believe I was actually saying this after all I’d been put through but, “I- I’d like to go back.”
“Good. And do you accept me?” Wiggling closer like he thought this acceptance business was a done deal, he buried his nose in my nape, inhaling deeply. “Never, have I been this close to a human before.”
“N-n-n-no?”
“No.”
“And you thought to try it now?” I squeaked out.
“Mm. No.” A small peck of a kiss to my shoulder that went straight to my core. “Part of the rules. Apologies. That one wasn’t mine but Titania’s. She thinks I won’t go through with it. More the fool she.” He said yes but I sensed his hesitation.
“I’m not ready yet.” If ever.
He pulled back. “I understand.”
“If I’m taken against my will, whether the contributing, uhm, parties are amiable to certain aspects or not, if not actual consent was given, what then?”
“Parties?” I felt him frown at my shoulder. “There would be only one body borrowed for...” His words died off, his tall form, looming over my back, stiffening. “I see,” he said finally.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and I meant it.
The fae cleared his throat roughly a few times. “Do not concern yourself with the affairs of the immortal, little one.” Slipping out from behind me, he stood. I listened as he dusted the sand from his body. “Come. It is time.”
By the Horns Page 31