by R. Cooper
He stared into Joseph’s defiant but nonetheless sparkling gaze, and was more than a little awed at the gift he was being given, even if Joseph was a bit embarrassed.
“Inconsequential prince no more,” Zarrin growled for him, as close to a roar he could get in this body, “I am your dragon.”
“Mine,” Joseph gasped, the word torn out of him, and when Zarrin leaned down to kiss him, there was nothing at all left between them.
A Wolf’s Faithfulness
IT WAS LATE in the season for a wedding, more autumn than summer, giving rise to talk of a baby to come. Cal only wished the couple well, and smiled to think of their eagerness to be together. He caught a glimpse of them through the crowd that had gathered to share food and music, gave a nod to Alba when their eyes met, then he moved on before his presence might be interpreted as an ill-omen or something similar.
Cal had not been invited to the nuptials, of course, but he had not been expressly forbidden, either. It was a careful line the villagers of Hillston walked when it came to those of Folk-blood amongst them and the ceremonies of their Church. Cal, or Cally, to some, did not let it bother him for baptisms or deaths or saints’ days. It was only weddings that left Cal too full of longing to be still. It had been like that since the days of his childhood and had only worsened now, with his twenty-eighth year approaching.
There would be no wedding for Cal. And in less than a month’s time, he would be gone. When he returned… he tried not to think of that.
He pulled up his green hood as he left the village, taking the path that would lead to his father’s home. Cal did not like the cold, and it would be cold indeed when night came, but he continued on the path even after he had reached the turn toward his father’s dwelling. By then, the sun was setting.
His father had moved away from the village around the time of Cal’s birth, built a new house nearer to the Wildwood, where the trees began to thicken and gnarl and climb around each other. The closeness and size of the trees was one of the reasons the Wildwood was famous, and how it had remained despite the greedy efforts of the local lords. Black oaks with branches interlocked and heavy with leaves, and trunks wider than a house, dulled axes and resisted fires. No roads could be built through the dark woods, and even the humans brave, or foolish, enough to enter it had the sense to leave before night fell.
Music could be heard in the Wildwood at night, they said. Bargains could be struck. Innocents, particularly special or talented ones, could be lost forever, snatched up by members of the Faery Queen’s procession. Cal’s father was touched, the villagers claimed. As much as Cal’s father was respected, he was also feared for living so close to a place that thrummed with heathen magic, for keeping the fae child they imagined had been left on his threshold.
Cal had no fear of the Wildwood. He knew the woods as well as the village, and if he went far enough into the trees, climbing over branches and leaping from one branch to the next before dropping to the forest floor and the secret paths again, he would hear no church bells.
There were also other reasons to enter the wood this evening. One other reason.
“Here again, Callalily?”
“Aye,” Cal answered without thinking, though he was certain he had not crunched any leaves beneath his shoes. He stopped and pushed his hood down to his shoulders, exposing his brown-gold hair and his pale, slightly pointed ears to the cold. He didn’t turn to look at who spoke, instead giving himself a moment to shiver and flush and wish desperately that time would slow.
The woodsman always snuck up on him. Sometimes, Cal had the suspicion that the woodsman could find him anywhere in the Wildwood, in this world or in the one just out of sight, no matter how Cal hid or took pains to move silently. It was a warming thought. A fantasy for the lonely nights to come. Someday, Raymond might come for him.
Cal tried in vain to tug the sleeves of his tunic down over his hands, but left his mittens in his belt. The mittens were clumsy, human things, and though he was part human, and chilled, he wanted to be his most beautiful whenever Raymond was near.
The sun would have helped with that, but the light was already fading. Cal could have worn less, run barefoot over roots and earth. But the sight of Cal bathing in the river had not driven Raymond to embrace him. Cal was growing more and more certain that nothing would.
The coming seven years would be bleak, and tears pricked at Cal’s eyes as he gave in and turned his head to look.
Raymond took his breath away.
Unaffected by the creeping approach of winter, Raymond’s head was bare, his black hair, sparsely shot with white, was short but beginning to curl around his ears. His sleeves were rolled nearly to his elbows, his skin, paler in the winter but currently still darkened from the summer sun, was streaked with dirt or bits of bark. He wore a leather jerkin, which was not tight, although the laces were knotted. He must slip it on when getting dressed without tying it properly. His axe was loose in his hand instead of strapped to his back, the sharp head resting on the forest floor.
He was large, the woodsman. Humans did not usually achieve that sort of height, but Raymond carried it easily, like the way he swung his axe, or how he hefted massive branches with one hand when he believed Cal did not see him.
He worked and lived in the Wildwood and somehow, somehow, had managed not to catch the eye of anyone in the Hunt. Cal could scarcely believe it. Even Cal could see Raymond was special, and Cal was a mere half-fae.
Raymond raised his head when Cal didn’t speak. “Is something wrong?”
The rumble in his voice was close to a growl.
Cal sighed for that, too. “Am I here so often?” he asked innocently. Well, in truth, without much innocence. He had never been one for lying.
But Raymond did not shout for him to leave, or turn his back on him, or continue to work while Cal flittered around him—although he had done that last one a few times in the early days of their knowing each other. Cal, smitten, helpless, had snuck into the Wildwood again and again, and each time, Raymond had spotted him and continued to work without comment. Perhaps swinging his axe a little harder, but allowing Cal’s presence despite the pointed ears and the too-perfect skin and teeth, the inhuman colors of his eyes.
Raymond had not remarked on any of it.
He also did not go into the village except to sell wood or buy supplies. In the nearly two years Raymond the woodsman had managed the trees of the forest for the local lords, he had not attended any weddings or services, had not gone to the fête, did not court or allow himself to be courted, although he drew heavy stares of longing as he made his way through the village.
He arrived in Hillston and seemed to have no intention of staying, much like the other woodsman driven off by the magic in the wood—scared of their own shadows, more like. But he had stayed, for no reason he had ever shared. He had a cottage too, in the middle of a clearing he had made himself, a cottage Cal had seen but never been invited into.
“Are you here so often?” Raymond nearly repeated Cal’s words, which may have been derisive, although Cal preferred to think he was amused. Cal visited Ray in the woods too much, and only more so as the time drew near for his leaving.
“Winter approaches,” Cal told him. If Ray had spoken to the villagers, he would know what that meant. Cal was due to return to the faery realm soon, as he did every seven years, to return after seven more. As he would forever, or until his death, unless he found something to keep him firmly in one of his two worlds.
Cal was fairly sure he had, of course. He was looking at him. But that was not the way of spells and gifts from the Faery Queen. Something to keep him meant that exactly and nothing else. Cal’s heart was strong but not enough to tether him here, however he might wish it to. He wouldn’t ask for anything in return—he might wish for it, but he would never ask. Being with Raymond now was enough to make him both forget his melancholy at today’s lovely human wedding and to feel it keenly at the same time.
Raymond set his axe
against a tree and crossed his arms to observe Cal more intently. Raymond’s eyes were a piercing blue, even in twilight and forest-darkness. For them, Cal had set every blue flower he knew to bloom around Raymond’s cottage in the spring. He had few other skills to offer. He was not allowed to work in the fields or with the animals, and his father needed no help around the house. If Raymond had noticed Cal’s offering, the unusual number of flowers, he had not said. But he had plucked some and hung them to dry outside the door. A forever touch of color, even in the winter.
“Can you not feel the crisp bite of frost in the air?” Cal asked, breathless at having Raymond’s attention so fixed on him.
But it never meant what he wanted it to. Raymond kept his distance. “I hear all sorts of things in the village these days.”
Cal almost smiled as he hopped forward, taking this as an opening to talk more. “I didn’t know you gossiped.” He shook his head as he silently made his way over the forest floor. “Sinful.”
Ray ignored this instead of chiding Cal for silliness as another might have. “Winter approaches,” Raymond echoed him. The rumble in his voice was stronger, making the words as rough as they were meant to be.
“As I said, woodsman,” Cal replied joyfully anyway, a mad half-sprite, flushed at the cold and for the pleasure of coming to rest in front of this particular man.
“I hear a lot,” Raymond said, not over Cal’s words, but alongside them. “They tell me you are leaving soon,” he added, blunt, and there was the reason he did not smile, and something to make Cal glance down. “Which you have never mentioned to me in your many visits here, though you will talk of anything. You did not mention that, the date you were to go.” Raymond reached out, and Cal looked up, but Raymond flicked moss from Cal’s shoulder and did not meet his eyes. His voice sent shivers through Cal’s fae blood. “I have known since our first meeting that you have seen much more than just this village and this wood.” Raymond paused. “Some say you are to be wed.”
“Wed?” Cal exhaled the word so softly he barely heard the sound. He summoned his court skills and managed a faint smile before he met blue eyes again. “I doubt you heard that. Not in town. Or not about a villager, at least. I am only good for one thing, if you hear the right stories. No one will wed me, even if… even if I wanted it, and by some miracle, I was wanted in return. I cannot step foot into a church, and no priest will stand before me.”
Never before had he needed to remind someone of what he was. It was not spoken of, not directly, for fear of attracting the attention of the others in this wood.
Raymond did not act surprised to hear all of this. “Yet you were not cast out.”
Cal shrugged. “I am not the only one touched in our village. But, with me, should anyone harm me, there would be consequences. I follow the Seelie Court.” He waited, ready for Raymond to finally ask him about his parentage, and the luster in his skin, the sharpness of his teeth, the manners he could put on, and the feral pleasure he took in running through the Wildwood. The things that marked him as different.
But Raymond inhaled and looked away and said, “So that is where you will go. You must be bored, waiting for that splendor, and with nowhere in the village to call your own. Bored enough to wait with me.”
“Do you think I am bored when I come to you?” Cal demanded without thought, unable to believe that anyone could stare at Raymond as he did and be thought bored by him.
The subtle changes in Raymond’s expression were impossible to read without standing closer, which not even Cal would dare to do with Raymond’s mood so uncertain. Cal imagined Raymond was surprised, although by what, he could not say. He raised his eyebrows and gestured expansively to show how not bored he was in Raymond’s presence.
“I think…” Raymond began, and it was pleasing to know he was also being cautious, “that all the trooping faeries must be a sight to see. Must feel welcome, like family, after the cruelty of this world. You must long for it.”
Family both was and was not how Cal would describe the Court. But he was very interested that Raymond should think of it that way. He had often thought Raymond was lonely in his little cottage. Or perhaps Cal was placing his own feelings in Raymond’s breast, and wishing too hard for what he could not have.
“I do long for some of it,” Cal admitted. “It is a good feeling, to not be the only one like me.” He exhaled. “But both worlds have cruelty. It’s indifference that bothers me more at this moment.” He cleared his throat when this made Raymond seem to still, and decided to speak of other things before Raymond could ask about whatever it was that made Cal frown now. Cal kept his tone light with all the skills he had learned at the knee of the Queen. “I’ve made my way to see you even during the depths of winter, woodsman,” Cal told him sharply, because thorns and fangs might be required if Raymond had failed to see the moons in Cal’s eyes.
“I would not have asked you to,” Raymond argued immediately, breaking Cal’s heart until he added, in a particularly soft rumble, “You dislike the cold and are happier when you are warm.”
That was true of many people. But not as Raymond said it. Raymond said it with the note in his voice that meant he was speaking of Cal, that Cal had confused him or annoyed or delighted him, that Cal had been noticed enough to be teased or worried over. The words were plain but that note, like the furrow in Raymond’s forehead and how he leaned down ever so slightly toward Cal, held Raymond’s meaning.
Cal inched forward, removing more of the distance between them, and held Raymond’s gaze as he did. He had been shameless before, bathing in the river for Raymond to see, but this was different. If Raymond had taken him then, Cal would have been pleased but not surprised. Cal was toothsome and lithe, plump where men liked him to be. He expected to be taken, or for an offer to be made.
But Raymond had not taken him. Now, he had brought up weddings, had done so purposefully, as he did everything, and Cal was running out of time.
Another inch vanished between them.
Raymond took a breath, loud in the sudden silence. “Callalily.”
Cal waited to see what sort of man his Raymond was. “You live out here alone and rarely venture into the village or beyond. No bride for you, either?” Cal tread carefully, but deliberately, and didn’t look away from Raymond, even when the shadows around them made Raymond’s expression stark and sad before Raymond turned his head to hide it. Cal wanted to touch him so badly, the way he could in the Court but not here, where it was sinning, a bad thing that many were happy to do with Cal despite thinking that. “They look at you, the others in town. They want you.” Raymond did not react, as if he knew this already. Cal went on, the Wildwood in his voice now. “They have such longing for you, woodsman. But I hear not even a whisper of a tumble. Are you a man of their Church in your heart?”
Raymond snorted, then looked back at him. “Makes more sense to pray to the moon than with the greedy, lying, lustful, brown-robed fool in the village.”
“Lustful?” Cal was startled into asking. The priest was one of the few who had never approached Cal. But Raymond must have seen what he had not. “You know that for certain?”
Raymond nodded, confident.
“If you know that, then I must also bother you.” Cal was indeed lustful, although lust was an odd word for what he felt. Desire was better, full of warmth that had nothing to do with Hellfire. “For I desire you. Very much.” Raymond’s lips parted. He took another breath, and this time, it was followed by an exhale that almost had the sound of Cal’s name. Cal wanted to tease him for it, but found he could not. He was too tense. “I’d thought this plain, before today, but perhaps it was not. If it is the sin that offends you, know it is not to us—to my mother’s kin.”
“It was plain,” Raymond said, direct and yet more confusing than ever. “I don’t care about the sin, either, if it is one.” Again, the words were harsh but Raymond’s tone was soft. When Raymond was soft, when he carved bits of wood into spoons with flowers on the ends and
gave them to Callalily with the excuse that he had too many, and offered Cal ribbons of green and white to wear to the fairs Raymond did not attend, when he was giving and careful and distant, Cal could almost not bear the great ache in his heart.
He reached out and rested his palm lightly on the leather of Raymond’s clothes.
“Then, why?” Cal’s throat was tight. “Why do you not touch me or bring me to your bed?”
“As others do?” Raymond’s eyes seemed to reflect the moon, although it had not yet risen over the trees.
Cal pulled back his hand. “You don’t condemn the act; you condemn that I’ve done it before?”
Raymond let out a sound, a howl caught in his throat. “No.”
Cal gestured his confusion with that, then returned his hand to Raymond’s chest merely to give it a push, although he did not think he had the strength to force Raymond to move. “You bark at me like a dog but won’t speak like a man?” He wished his voice could be anything other than milk and honey, wished he could growl as much as his woodsman.
Raymond straightened. Cal had not even realized Raymond had been bowing his shoulders to bring them closer together until suddenly he rose up, tense and unhappy. “You are—”
“I am what?” Cal demanded before Raymond could finish, on his toes although he would never match Raymond’s height.
“Leaving,” Ray answered simply, soft again, and then looked up through the trees to the sky. “You’re leaving.” He took a long, deep breath and held it.
Cal dropped back down onto his heels and wrapped his arms around his chest. When that did not give him comfort, he spoke. “Aye. But while I am still here, you may have me, however you would like to.”
A shudder tore through Raymond’s body, and he lowered his head to look Cal full in the face, his eyes still bright. That sound left him again, the one that made Cal think of the creatures in this wood, both furred and magic, and the pounding of his own heart.