One Wicked Night
Page 24
Four
Gar was leery of the forest, for it was dense and dark, the moon scarcely showing through the canopy of diverse branches intermingled overhead. Here, oak and ash, elm and yew coexisted with pine, the ground grizzled with hawthorn, bracken, and woodbine. They had left the willows behind beside the lake, for willow trees so loved the water and lived beside it in both worlds, so it seemed. All manner of magical tree and plant life lived here, and the trees seemed alive, as curious as the little seal as he passed among them following the Goddess of the Dream Well deeply in.
Leaves, vines, branches, and tendrils groped him as he followed a narrow footpath, acutely aware that he was being watched. The centaur, he had no doubt, though Analee didn't seem to notice, or if she did she made no mention of it. Gar was beginning to part the veil she'd cast before his eyes to mystify and confuse. He was beginning to see her intent for what it really was. He was not her guest, as she would have him believe, he was her captive, until the dawn. What happened then evidently depended upon what he did while under her spell.
Gar had heard of people disappearing after an encounter with the fay, never to be seen or heard from again. The Celtic Otherworld was populated with creatures, one cleverer than the next, who delighted in playing pranks upon mortals. It had been thus since the fall that separated the races and split the worlds in two. Yes, they were, indeed, a clever lot, but so was mortal man, and Gar was beginning to regret he'd ever stumbled upon the dream well and its enigmatic goddess guardian. But it was too late for those thoughts now. He would have to play her game until dawn, and hope he could outwit her and escape. He had no desire to spend eternity in the Celtic Other-world. The trick would be to manage it without invoking her wrath. Judging from the look of her now, from the staccato spring in her step, the stiff set of her lips, and her silence as she led him deeper and deeper into the wood, it did not bode well.
"Have you dominion over these?" he asked her, gesturing toward the trees, meanwhile removing one branch that had gripped his torso familiarly as he passed it by.
"I am the Goddess of the Dream Well. There is where my dominion lies. Only the greater gods have dominion here among the ancient ones."
"But they heed you," Gar said. "I see them genuflect as you pass by."
"They show respect, yes," she said. "It is unwise to disrespect any deity. Why do you ask?"
The path they followed narrowed suddenly, or was it that he'd just begun to notice the trees on either side crowding close? He opened his mouth to speak, but too late. The goddess waved her hand, and a sturdy oak reached out its branches and tethered him by the arms to its vine-covered trunk.
"...And they do my bidding!" she concluded. Strolling back and forth before him, she pointed to the obvious. "You are aroused," she said. "The little seal's doing, while I was left beneath the lake!"
Gar popped a bitter laugh. "You cannot fault her for this," he said. "I've been aroused since I arrived here. You have seen to that. And as to leaving you, the sinking boat struck me in the head. But for that little seal, I would have drowned. She saved my life."
"I saved your life," she reminded him.
"Yes, you did," he returned, "and you gave me your favors until dawn. There is still some time left before that, and I can hardly do you justice tied to this tree. Turn me loose! Believe me, I perform much better as a guest than a captive."
She continued to stroll around him. "In due time," she purred.
He shrugged. "You are the one continually telling me time is short," he said. "Suit yourself."
Her eyes flashed, and she seized his cock, wrenching a groan that smacked of an odd mix of lust and surprise that startled even him. "Do you mean to say that little seal didn't cause this to harden?" she demanded. "I saw you two just now!"
"Then you saw naught but the sort of affection a man might have for his faithful dog." That wasn't entirely true, for he saw something in the little seal that struck an affectionate chord and touched his heart. Inside that sealskin, there lived an entity that could take the form of a woman, a woman who could be his for the taking if he possessed her pelt. A woman with childlike innocence possessed of a tenderness that he had never known. There was something magnetic about such a tender nature. Something once tasted no man could resist, least of all Gar Trivelyan, who had never known the like.
Secretly, he longed for the little seal’s tender touch, longed for her adoring eyes and benevolent nature, for that truly was a nurturing facet of the little creature's makeup, an attribute conspicuously absent in the goddess. But it wasn't the animal. It was the creature within shining through that so enthralled him to the point that he was becoming obsessed with seeing that creature in its human form. He was haunted by the longing to see if the attributes he so admired in the seal carried over in her human incarnation.
These secrets of the heart he could not share with the goddess. It would not do to anger her. His future was still suspect. For all he knew he would never return to his own world. It was more than likely that he would remain a captive in this plane of existence ruled by libidinous lust for the rest of his life, if in fact he still had a life. It did not bode well.
Her hand tightened around his cock and he sucked in a hasty breath. There was no question that she had the touch, no argument that she possessed the power to arouse and fulfill like no other he'd ever known. Her deft fingers were picking out the distended veins in his shaft as she sidled closer, flaunting her nakedness. She'd come so close he could feel her body radiating toward him. She was on fire, so steamy hot he feared his cock would burst into flame under the friction of her touch. He could feel the blood thrumming through the pulsating veins she stroked so skillfully. She was about to finish what had started deep within his loins when the little seal nearly touched his genitals on the lakeshore. The difference was the enigmatic little selkie did not have to touch him to set his pulse racing and riddle his loins with drenching fire. If he were to come now, it would be the selkie's doing, not the hand of the goddess that stroked him so relentlessly. For it was a different hand entirely that stroked him now, playing his body like a fine musical instrument. As skilled as that hand was, there was no love in it. No. This, he would not let on to the Goddess of the Dream Well.
"I do not like tethers," he said. "Have this ancient one unhand me else I break its branches. I am well able, you know. That I remain thus is out of deference to you, but I grow tired of this game. It would be wise to let me go now."
"You change the subject easily enough," she observed. "You have not answered my question."
"I give no credence to it," he said succinctly. "What you accuse is too impossible to deserve an answer, and a moot point. What are you doing there is about to make me come. Would that not be more enjoyable if I had the use of my arms, my lady?"
"Oh, I don't know," she purred, sauntering closer still, so close her hardened nipples touched his chest and his cock leaned heavily against her slit. "There is something very provocative about bringing a bound man to climax." She began rubbing herself against his shaft, slow undulations that threatened to drive him mad. "See how it lives for me?" she murmured.
She ground the petal-like folds of her vulva harder against him, and he strained against his tether. To his dismay, he found that he could not break his bonds as he had boasted. The tree branches were possessed of superhuman strength. They were enchanted, as were the vines that roped him now, climbing his body, binding him to the trunk of the ancient tree, while she had her way with him.
"It must be nearly dawn," he said. "Can we not find a more comfortable way to couple?"
The goddess laughed. "Time means nothing here, knight of the realm," she said. "Dawn here and dawn in your world are two entirely different things."
From somewhere deep in the fuzzy labyrinth of his memory, Gar recalled hearing that time as mortals knew it did not exist in the Celtic Otherworld. A pity he hadn't remembered earlier. But he would not dwell upon that then. It was clear th
at Analee wasn't going to release him until she'd satisfied the lust that was inherent in her, the libidinous drive that powered all the fay. There was much he needed to know, much he needed to ask her, but not while her skilled fingers were setting fire to his moist skin, and her body was charging his loins with unstoppable lust. While she was his guest, his slave, his captive, he was under her spell. She had made him what she was for the duration of his stay. How long would that be? How long before the dawn? He was almost afraid to ask these questions, though what flimsy shred of humanity he still possessed in this enchanted place demanded he do so, just not yet...
All characters, companies, and products in this book have no existence outside of the imagination of the author. Events depicted are purely fictional and are not inspired by any person living or dead.
APHRODISIA BOOKS are published by
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-1773-8 ISBN-10: 0-7582-1773-0
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