Bane of Winter

by Debbie Cassidy

  “You’ll be okay …”

  I awoke to blissful warmth and the unfamiliar, yet not entirely foreign, feel of a naked body wrapped around mine. The Raven lay behind me, his chest to my back, the front of his thighs pressed to the back of mine, and a hardness pressed to my spine.

  It took a moment to realize what that hardness was and then my mouth was dry.

  “Raven?” I shifted slightly away from him.

  “Wynter.” He sat up to look down on me. “How are you feeling?”

  “Naked.”

  He proceeded to tuck the furs around me. “I apologize, but it was the only way to raise your body temperature in a short space of time.”

  The crackle and pop of a fire registered. I pulled the furs to my chest and rolled onto my back to stare up at the wooden knotted ceiling. “Where are we?”

  “Back in the hobbit’s hovel. He won’t be needing it any longer.” His tone was terse.

  “He tricked me.”

  “Yes, he did, and he paid with his life.”

  “He didn’t want us knowing his name.”

  “There is power in a name, and the lesser fey, more than the Tuatha, are bound by it. They do not give it easily.”

  “And you? I assume that the Raven isn’t your birth-given name?”

  His throat bobbed. “No. It isn’t.”

  “Did Morrigan know it?” My eyes widened. “Is that what gave her power over you?”

  He blinked and averted his gaze.

  “But she’s gone now. You’re free.”

  His mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “No, Wynter. Morrigan’s soul still lives and it is that I am bound to.”

  Her soul which was now my soul. “If I’d died … you would have been free, but … But you saved me.”

  He scanned my face with a gentle frown. “I couldn’t let you die. I could never let you die.”

  His words stole my breath. “I’m sorry.” I sat up, making sure the furs covered me. “If I could set you free, really free, then I would.”

  He turned his head to look down at me. “I believe you, Wynter.”

  His face was softened by the firelight, and my gaze slid down his neck to his bare chest, not as powerful and large as Veles’s, but lithe and taut. His arms spoke of a wiry strength. Arms that turned to wings at his will.

  “Do you like what you see, Wynter?” His voice was a whisper.

  I wanted to touch his skin, just to see if it would be as velvety as it looked in the firelight. I grazed his pectoral with my fingertips, and his muscles tensed beneath my touch. His skin was like warm silk, poreless and porcelain. What would it taste like?

  “Do you like what you feel?”

  “Yes.” The word was a soft explosion from my lips.

  I kept my attention on his chest, afraid that if I got caught in the snare of his gaze, I wouldn’t be able to pull away. Right now, I could stop at any moment. This was just an experiment, an exercise in curiosity about the being that was bound to me. I laid my hand on his chest, lifted my chin a fraction, and leaned in to press my mouth to the base of his neck. His body froze. Was he even breathing? But his heart was beating like a wild thing beneath my palm. I flicked out my tongue to taste him—sweet like his breath, like the berries he’d been feeding me. His chest rumbled in appreciation, and the sound vibrated through me, emboldening me. My lips parted to suck at his flesh, just a little, just a taste. Flavor exploded in my mouth. How could he taste this good? Did he taste like this all over? I licked up his neck, kissing along his jaw until I came to his mouth.

  His mouth.

  I could kiss that mouth if I wanted.

  I could do whatever I wanted, and he’d allow it because he was bound to me. Oh, God. What was wrong with me? What was I doing?

  I shoved him away and turned my back on him, chest heaving as I struggled to get my unpredictable libido in check.

  “Wynter? Did I do something wrong?”

  He sounded so dejected and forlorn it made me want to hug him and slap him all at the same time.

  “Dammit, Raven. You can’t just … just let me do stuff.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I turned back to him with a glare. “You do not belong to me. Get it. You don’t belong to anyone. So … You can’t just let me … let me take advantage of you.”

  I felt sick saying the words, but they were true. He was bound, and I was losing my mind. Being here, in this land, was coaxing new desires to the surface, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying.

  The Raven was watching me, his expression closed. “I enjoyed your attentions,” he said finally.

  A lump formed in my throat. That was not what I wanted to hear. “Well … don’t.” I lay back down and pulled the furs tight around me. “Let’s get some sleep.”

  I closed my eyes and willed slumber to take me. Long minutes passed and then the Raven lay down, facing away from me, so our spines touched. Another few minutes and lethargy swept over me, and my body finally succumbed to a sleep riddled with dreams.

  I am floating high above the world, bathed in starlight. This is freedom, and this is my realm. Below is my tree—a monolith, a giant—it touches the moon with its branches and brings life to my world, and inside … I need to be inside where the fun will happen. I’ve left him to play alone for too long. Swooping down on obsidian wings, I fly through the highest window and tumble in a tangle of naked limbs onto the bed where my Raven waits. He is on me in a heartbeat, taking, just the way I have instructed him to.

  His skin brushes against mine, covering me, pressing me down into the soft silk sheets. His mouth teases my parted lips, hovering over them, forcing me to make the first move, to lift my head to claim him. I lick the inside of his mouth, running my tongue over his teeth, and then draw him down to me, skin to skin, chest to breasts.

  “What would you do to me tonight, my Raven?”

  I part my thighs for him, allowing him to see the bounty he is about to receive.

  His chest rises and falls, erratic with desire.

  “What will you have?” I ask again.

  “Whatever my queen desires.”

  “No. No. What have I taught you?”

  His eyes glitter and then flash crimson and he is on me, tearing at me, insinuating himself between my thighs and pinning me down with claw and bite.

  My laughter is throaty and full, rising into the night. “Yes. Yes, this is the way.”

  I roll my hips against him to envelope him in my wetness and revel in the throbbing friction. Mine, he is mine to do with as I wish.

  “Take me.” My voice is deeper, sultry and wanton. “Take me, Raven, show me how much I mean to you with every thrust.”

  “Yes, my queen.” His mouth descends on mine in ravenous hunger as he penetrates me, filling me and swallowing my cry of satisfaction.

  “Mine.” I grasp his hair and yank his head back to suck on his neck.

  “Yes, yes.” His hips pump, fingers digging into my hips as he drives into me. “Yes. I am yours, forever yours, my Morrigan.”

  I woke on a gasp, my body throbbing with the tail end of an orgasm. The Raven sat with his back to me, his head bowed and cradled in his hands.

  “You saw … you saw.” His voice was a soft whisper of despair.

  My mouth was dry. “I … I don’t …”

  He turned and fell on me, his hands grasping my wrists to pin them to the ground, his legs tangled with mine until he’d forced them apart and settled his hips against my intimate place.

  “This is what it was like.” His dark eyes blazed. “This is what I was.” He dipped his head and pressed his teeth to my throat and nipped me. He ground his hips against me, still swollen and sensitized from the effects of the dream, and a moan slipped from my lips. “It’s easy to forget. All too easy, but the dreams … they don’t forget. Never forget.”

  “Raven, please … stop.”

  “Why can’t you see that? What are you doing to me?” He sagged against me and then his
tears licked at my skin.

  Had that been his memory or mine? Had our subconscious minds somehow mingled in sleep? Whatever it was, what I’d seen had been real. Him and Morrigan. The woman Dagda had described as divine had thought of him as nothing but a possession. A plaything. I’d been in her mind, and I’d felt her thoughts. But he’d worshiped her with his body and soul.

  My heart ached for the creature clasped to my breast. One who no longer understood what he was expected to be. And me? I’d made it even more complicated with my actions. Sucking on his flesh as she had done. Reminding him of her. Conflicting him. No. It had to stop. There had to be a line.

  Slowly, tentatively, I wrapped my arms around him and cradled his head with one hand. “I’m not her, I’m me, and I’m sorry … I’m sorry you miss her so much, but I can’t be that person.”

  He raised his head, his thick, dark lashes wet with tears, and then he smiled. “Oh. Wynter … don’t you understand? I don’t want you to be her. In fact, I’m glad that you’re not.”

  What did he mean? But he was slipping away, the softness receding from his features as he released me and sat up.

  “It will be dawn soon. We should start our journey to the village now,” he said.

  He stood with his back to me. Naked save for his undergarments, his form was lithe and toned, muscles rippling as he pulled on his pants and shirt. He flicked his hair back and turned to look at me over his shoulder.

  “And now that the show is over, I’ll give you a private moment to dress. Your clothes should be dry by now.”

  He ducked out of the hovel, leaving me to the flames and my tumultuous emotions. He was mine, whether I liked it or not, and I’d make sure he was taken care of, just as he’d taken care of me.

  The problem was, I wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed, or what I wanted it to include.

  Chapter Eight

  Veles

  The world is darker now than it has ever been. Strange because I am accustomed to the darkness, to loneliness and the loss of self, but watching Wynter almost die, watching the Raven save her and bring her back to life with his touch, watching them together, the curiosity on her face as she touches him is more than my heart can take.

  I am by no means fragile, but this … this will break me, and so I stand on the balcony of Dagda’s tower looking down. I focus on the lines of the mechanisms in the walls, and I tell myself that all that matters is that she is alive, and yet the beast, the one that has claimed her as his own, howls inside, desperate to be set free.

  She is not mine. Her heart belongs to Finn, and the Raven is bound to her soul. How can Death compete with them? I am nothing but a guide. Best to let go and allow her to be a dream. For the first time since regaining myself, I wish to be parted from my memories.

  The irony is not lost on me.

  But the beast is not amused. The beast is incensed by our impotence.

  “You left abruptly,” Dagda says, joining me on the balcony.

  My lip curls. “I wasn’t interested in watching the show. You, however, seem to have no qualms in that respect.”

  He is silent for a long moment, and when he speaks his tone is somber. “You should go to her.”

  Have I heard him correctly? “What did you say?”

  “I said you should go to her. The Raven is … He is not himself. His behavior is erratic and emotional, and I fear that his decision-making may be compromised when it comes to Wynter. He was Morrigan’s advisor, her moral compass and her guide. He was the voice on her shoulder, and he counseled her to greatness because he was able to separate his desires from his duties. But with Wynter, the two have become tangled. I fear it will lead to a decision that may compromise the success of Wynter’s journey.”

  All I hear is the fact that I can go to her. The rest is inconsequential. “You told me that gods couldn’t pass through the shimmer.”

  “And I told you the truth.” He leans in, his brows raised. “So, the question is, how desperately do you wish to be with her?”

  A low growl slips past my lips. Is he insane to ask such a moot question? “How do I get through?”

  “You give up your godhood. You have it siphoned away, drawn out of you as a poison would be.”

  Poison … “Black Annis.”

  “Yes, Veles, Black Annis. She is the only creature in Nawia who could do this for you, but you must be truly willing to give up your godhood, and you must be willing to pay her price.”

  He has lied to me and kept me here when I could have gone with her. My hand is around his throat before I can check myself, and my fingers squeeze. He stares into my eyes flatly, and then I am sailing over the balcony. The floor rises to meet me, but I land easily in a crouch.

  “Go,” Dagda says. “I’ll excuse your physical outburst, but only because I see now that I may have been wrong. I see now that you may have been the best guide for Wynter all along.”

  I don’t need to hear any more. I turn and run out of the tower. Back through the shimmer into Nawia, and toward the loss of my godhood.

  Chapter Nine

  A high wall barred entry to the village, and the gate was barred to us. We’d knocked several times, rung the bell hanging high above us, but there’d been no answer.

  “What now?” I turned to the Raven.

  He shrugged. “Now we break in.” He rose up in a flurry of wings and flew over with ease. A moment later, the gate creaked open. He bowed and swept out an arm. “Please, enter.”

  He’d been acting like this ever since our moment in the hovel. Overly cheerful, playful, and generally annoying. It was as if he’d donned both a mask and a façade and it was driving me crazy. But if this was the way he wanted to deal with what had happened, with what had been said, then so be it.

  I stepped through the gate into the village beyond. Silence greeted me, silence and stillness. My heart sank.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Probably dead,” he said flippantly.

  I shot him a sharp look. “How can you be so glib about that?”

  “Because it is most certainly true.” He walked ahead through a cobbled entrance-square and came to stand beneath a small bell tower. “No one is manning the entrance to the village.”

  “Maybe there’s some kind of meeting?”

  He canted his head. “Well then, let us go investigate.”

  Another wall and another gate stood between us and the village proper, but this one was ajar. I pulled it open, huffing at the weight of it and noting a strange marking etched into the wood—the shape of a leaf—an elm leaf, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  The Raven frowned and ran his fingers over the mark.

  “What is it?”

  He shook his head dismissively and urged me to step into the street beyond. The wind swept over the frozen cobbles, swirling in mini tornadoes close to the ground. No clatter of boots, no voices, and no sounds of life, just the creak of awnings holding signs suspended on thick chains, and the whistle of the wind through the eaves of the buildings on either side of the village square.

  “Deserted …” I walked toward a lone well in the center of the square where the villagers probably would have congregated. Stalls lay laden with goods to my left and right, as if the owners had merely stepped away for a moment, but a closer inspection showed the fruit to be rotten and wrinkled. How long had it sat there? With the cold it shouldn’t have spoiled quickly.

  “Let’s find a bed for the night,” the Raven said. “Maybe some food. We can move on tomorrow.”

  It was barely midday. “This place has a bad vibe. We should keep on moving.”

  “And be stranded out in the cold again once the sun goes down? No.” He shook his head. “We stay here.”

  Irritation flared in my chest. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am,” the Raven said. “This is what I do. I make the wise decisions, and you agree to follow them.”

  Is this how it had been with Morrigan? My head was spinning with his chop and change
in persona. “Well, then, maybe you can pick a personality and stick to it.” I snapped out the words.

  He flinched, and I reveled in a stab of satisfaction—so there he was.

  “Maybe you should partake of your own advice,” he replied smoothly.

  I bit back a wince. Dammit, he had a point. I blew out a breath. “I don’t want to fight.”

  He bristled for a moment longer, and then his shoulders sagged. “No. Fighting would be counterproductive. Let’s find shelter.” He glanced up at the sky. “No doubt the storm will be upon us again soon enough.”

  He led the way through the empty square at a brisk pace.

  I followed at a trot. “Have you been here before?”

  “There aren’t many places I haven’t been,” he replied, but then he came to an abrupt halt.

  I caught up to him and followed his gaze to see a young girl standing a few meters ahead of us. She froze, as if shocked to see us, and then turned and ran, disappearing around the bend up ahead.

  “Wait!” The Raven took flight after her.

  I broke into a sprint to keep up and skidded to a halt at the intersection where she’d disappeared. The alley was empty. The Raven cawed above me and then landed in front of me in a swirl of black feathers that melted as his feet touched the ground.

  “She went in there.” He jerked his head toward a building to our right. “The Rampant Pixie.” He snorted. “I love these tavern names.” He strode off toward the tavern. “Come on. Let’s go and get some answers.”

  The door was firmly closed, and the shutters were locked from the inside.

  “Closed for business?” I peered around his bicep.

  He tried the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. “It does seem that way.” His lips twisted in thought, and he closed his eyes. “But there is energy here. Can you feel it?”

  Now that he mentioned it, there was a prickle skating over my skin.

  “What do you feel, Wynter? What do you see?” He slipped behind me and cupped my shoulders. “What can you sense?”