The Elf And Shoemaker

by M. L. Rhodes

  Hallan circled an arm around his waist and leaned on his back. His weight was warm and heavy and so very, very wanted, and when he kissed the nape of his neck, tears burned in Logan's eyes.

  "I can't ever get enough of you," he gasped, as Hallan delved particularly deep. "God, Hallan...please...please stay with me."

  "Logan..." Hallan's hoarse whisper tore at Logan's heart.

  Another soul-deep thrust.

  "I want to see you. Please."

  Hallan pulled out and eased Logan onto his back. He lowered his head between Logan's legs to get him wet again, drawing soft cries from Logan. Then he lifted Logan's legs to his shoulders and reseated himself with a swift thrust that sent Logan spinning all over again.

  "Yes...yes...just like this," Logan cried, his voice hoarse. "I want you just like this, buried inside me, every night for the rest of my life."

  Hallan ground into him and bent down to kiss him.

  Logan captured his face and stared up into those striking amethyst eyes and knew this was what it was all about. More than he ever could possibly have imagined. "I don't know how this all happened, how you found the mirror on your side or why I found it on mine. I just know that I'm in love with you. I'm so in love with you, Hallan."

  Hallan's breath caught. Raw emotion swirled in his gaze. And then he was kissing him again, and driving into his ass with such searing passion, all Logan could do was hold onto him and hope the hell Hallan would be there to save him from drowning when this tidal wave of sensation and emotion crested and crashed over them.

  Hallan raised up and lifted Logan's legs higher. The new angle forced the head of his cock against Logan's prostate on each thrust.

  "Jesus!" Logan cried as new jolts of electricity shot through him. The base of his spine began to tingle. His ass ached. His balls drew up tight. His dick throbbed.

  A hot hand closed around his cock--his, Hallan's?--he wasn't sure. Maybe it was both.

  "I need...need...oh!" The world around Logan splintered. Hot cum covered his hand and Hallan's. His own cries echoed in his ears.

  And then Hallan's weaved together with his.

  They lay for a long time, forehead to forehead, both breathing hard, still shuddering with aftershocks.

  "I'll find a way." Hallan's low determined tone was like a love song to Logan.

  He lifted a hand to Hallan's cheek. "Tell me what I can do to help."

  Their gazes met, fused. "Don't stop loving me."

  Logan's heart throbbed. "Never."

  * * * *

  Hallan lay on his side, his head cradled on an arm, and his hand stroking Logan's bare hip, content, for the moment, to just look at him, this man who'd consumed his thoughts for so long. He couldn't shake the pressing sense of urgency that was like a weight against his chest--the clock was ticking and this dream wouldn't last forever--but lying like this, in the rays of sunlight slanting through the boughs of the tree, he couldn't tear his gaze away from Logan.

  The sun kissed his wavy dark hair with burnished highlights, and brought out the sparkle in his brown eyes. His lean body lay stretched alongside Hallan's, facing him, one leg draped over Hallan's. Idly, he twirled a long strand of Hallan's hair around his finger. He brought it to his lips and kissed it, then smiled, and the sight caused a lump in Hallan's throat.

  "Where we are right now...it's Lamerion?" Logan asked.

  "Mm-hmm."

  "Someplace specific?"

  "This is the meadow near where I grew up. I used to come here as a child and young man. It was one of my favorite places. I played in and under this tree, and then when I was older I'd sit here and read or daydream or come here to collect my thoughts when my head was full."

  Logan rolled to his back and looked up through the branches. All Hallan could look at was him, stretched out and relaxed, completely at ease with his nudity, his solid chest tapering down to a muscular abdomen, lean hips, firm sexy legs. But even sexier still was the dark line of hair that began below his navel and trailed downward to the curls surrounding his half-erect cock.

  "I've never seen a tree like this...silver leaves and silver bark," Logan said. "We don't have anything like this in my world."

  Unable to resist the temptation, Hallan reach over to rub circles around Logan's cockhead with his thumb and was rewarded with a soft hum of appreciation.

  "The tree's a species unique to Lamerion," Hallan said. "There are only a few of them--this one and a small forest of them in the southernmost regions. This one was brought here as a seedling from the south and planted by my grandfather--my mother's father--as a gift to his beloved so she wouldn't miss her home in the south when she came here to live with him. It's called a hallandiell tree."

  "Hallandiell," Logan repeated. The elvish word sounded almost natural on Logan's lips, which teased a smile from Hallan. "It sounds like your name."

  Hallan gave a soft laugh. "That's because I was named for the tree. My full name is Hallandiell Greystone. Hallandiell is the elvish word for watchful guardian. I'm not sure if my mother thought I truly would be a guardian or if she just liked the sound of the word."

  "But you have been a watchful guardian."

  Hallan raised an eyebrow in question.

  "Mine," Logan said in a soft voice.

  Warmth filled Hallan's chest and he leaned in to brush a kiss over Logan's parted lips.

  "You said you used to come here. Do you not anymore? I mean outside of dreams."

  "I would still come here if I were able." Sadness fell over him.

  Logan returned to his side, propped up on an elbow, and rubbed gentle circles over Hallan's chest, around each nipple. But Hallan felt the tension in his touch and his gaze radiated concern.

  "You told me earlier you'd had guards breathing down your neck, and you didn't deny it when I asked you if you were in danger for coming to see me. What kind of danger are we talking about, Hallan?"

  Hallan sighed, hating for their peaceful idyll to be over, but reminding himself that he'd wanted to bring Logan here not only to love him, but to talk.

  "For the past three years I've been forced to live at the high court because the king would keep all those he fears he can't trust under his thumb. He calls us 'guests' and makes a show of pretending that's the case"--his voice was tinged with bitterness--"but in truth we're prisoners. Watched, followed, and never allowed to leave unless he has decreed it and his guards accompany us. But he has a particular fascination with me and gives me a much shorter leash than any other."

  "Have you done something that leads him to believe you're more of a threat than others?"

  "Done anything? No. I think he watches me closest because he both needs me and fears me."

  "I don't understand."

  "He needs me because I'm the potion master."

  "By the potion master does that means there's only one?"

  "Right now, yes. My mother was also a potion master, but King Zolodan exiled her when he took the crown because she had been an advisor to his father, the old king, and to his younger brother Aestorian who ruled for a short while. He wanted to sever all ties to the old because he wanted to take no chance on anyone snatching away his crown."

  Hallan explained the history of the kings, how Zolodan had most likely come by the crown through dubious means, and how Zolodan had effectively rid himself of Aestorian's heirs, at least until his nephew escaped.

  "And so he believes you might be disloyal to him because your mother was loyal to his father and brother? Even though you yourself didn't work for them?"

  "Such is his paranoia."

  "And he needs you because you're the potion master and he requires your skills."

  "That's right."

  "How does one become a potion master?"

  "By being born into a family with that particular gift of magick. The ability to--for lack of a better way to explain it--manipulate plant life. To bind plants' unique properties and structures to others and create new forms, or to enhance the natural properties t
hey already have." He reached over and plucked a white deluviane flower amidst the grass and held it in his palm. It was small, a new one, barely out of the ground and not yet budded out. He focused on it, and within seconds, the stem lengthened and the petals slowly unfurled until it was in full bloom.

  He heard Logan's soft intake of shocked breath next to him. Hallan smiled and handed the flower to him.

  Logan held it like it was a precious gem. "That's why the PASSION oil you made was so powerful and different from anything I've ever known."

  Hallan nodded.

  "But why potions? With this ability, you could alter reality, like... I don't know... make the trees taller or the grass greener."

  "It seems like that could be a temptation, doesn't it? But it's really not. Nature is as it should be for a reason. All things are interconnected, and even one small change could have a ripple effect that might cause harm somewhere down the line. Surely this is true in your world as well."

  Logan nodded. "It is. Though unfortunately not everyone in my world is as respectful of nature as you are. So you do potions because you're working with plants that are no longer connected to the whole? They've been harvested and then you can manipulate them?"

  "It's a bit more complicated than that, but, basically, yes. And because there are rules to the magick...all magick has rules."

  "Like the mirror," Logan murmured.

  Hallan felt Logan's twinge of pain in his own chest. "Like the mirror."

  "Are there ways around the rules? Like, could we break the mirror on my side after you came through so it wouldn't pull you back?"

  He sighed. "The mirror can't be broken by any natural means. Usually only magick works on magick items. Sometimes there are ways to circumvent rules. But even if they can be found...there are always consequences for tampering."

  Logan swallowed hard. "That doesn't sound good."

  Hallan pressed a kiss to his forehead. "It won't stop me from trying to find a way, Logan."

  "I just...I just don't want any 'consequences' to be worse than the problem itself. Promise me you'll be careful?" He settled a concerned gaze on Hallan.

  "I promise."

  "I just feel so damned helpless. I want to be able to help, but I'm stuck in my world with no special abilities. I don't know what to do."

  "I told you...just love me. That gives me more motivation than you can imagine."

  Logan kissed him, sweet and long, their bodies pressed close, skin to skin, heat to heat, hands roaming. It was all Hallan could do not to roll onto his back, pull Logan atop him, sink into his heat, and beg him to ride him. Time was of the essence, though, and he knew it wouldn't be long before they awoke in Logan's bedroom.

  But when Logan pushed him to his back and straddled his legs, leaned down to suck his cock into the moist oven of his mouth and lave it until it was hard, dripping, and slippery, then rose above him with a steady heat in his gaze, as if he'd been reading Hallan's mind all along, Hallan couldn't think of a single reason why wanted to stop him. He separated the globes of Logan's ass and groaned in raw ecstasy when Logan sank onto him.

  "So...so...good," Logan moaned, his eyes half-closed. "I told you...I can't get enough of you."

  Hallan gazed up at him, warm and alive and wholly sensual in the afternoon sunlight, sinking up and down on him, his cock stiff and bobbing as he moved, and knew he'd never be able to get enough either. Never. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he rasped, holding Logan's flexing ass in his hands.

  "Tell me. What do I do?"

  "You make me want to fuck you until neither of us can walk, until we can't move, and we're so much a part of each other there won't be an ending and beginning...just forever, with us tangled together, never apart."

  Logan's eyes closed. His head tipped back. He was the most beautiful thing Hallan had ever seen.

  His hand wrapped around the thick length jutting from Logan's curls and stroked it. Logan whimpered and bit his lip, but never stopped moving on Hallan, only changing his motion enough that as he rode, his cock thrust more fully into Hallan's hand.

  Flames scorched through Hallan, searing his cock buried inside Logan, into his balls, down into his spine, and out to his limbs. Unbidden moans escaped him, sounds he had no control over, that twined together with Logan's cries and whimpers. The scent of their musk, of unleashed lust, and the sweet grass of the meadow swirled through his head, making him dizzy. He couldn't close his eyes, though, because he couldn't take them off the man above him, lost in abandon.

  Logan suddenly opened his eyes and his gaze fixed on Hallan's. "Can't...can't last...much longer," he gasped.

  "Come for me," Hallan ordered.

  Logan's face tightened. His lips parted, full and wet and red where he'd been biting the lower one. His shaft thickened in Hallan's hand. And then with a shuddering sob, Logan came apart and hot seed shot from his cock. Hallan lifted his head, opened his mouth, and caught as much of it as he could, letting the salty flavor coat his tongue, slide down his throat. Then he was coming, too...thrusting hard up into Logan, spilling and spilling, shouting out Logan's name.

  Logan leaned down and licked Hallan's lips, his chin, his cheeks, cleaning up his own cream that Hallan had missed. It was one of the sexiest things Hallan had ever experienced. And then they were kissing again, tongues screwing in a slow dance until they couldn't breathe and had to part for air.

  "I love you," Hallan whispered.

  "I love you back." Logan's smile surged straight into Hallan's heart. And then Logan chuckled, the sound deep and gentle. "I think your prediction just might come true. I'm not sure I can get off you. And even if I can, I may not be able to sit down or walk for a week. My ass has never had this kind of a workout before."

  Hallan grinned. "Good. Get used to it because I love your ass and foresee many long hours just like this."

  Logan's eyes glazed over with lust. "Is that a promise?"

  "Yes. And you can hold me to it."

  "Oh, I intend to." With a groan and another half-laugh, Logan rose up and off Hallan, then collapsed next to him on his side. "But maybe not today."

  Hallan stroked his back and his bottom in gentle motions. "You need a potion."

  "What potion would it be now? A 'my ass aches' potion?"

  Hallan laughed. "No, a 'make my ass ache go away' potion."

  Logan smiled and snuggled in against his side. "Okay, Potion Master, when we get back why don't you just whip one of those up for me?"

  "I'll put it on my list."

  "So...can all elves do magick like you can?" Logan asked.

  "All elves are born with a certain amount of magick on the cellular level. It's part of our make-up. But plant magick is rare. One of the rarest abilities of all, and it's hereditary. Those who have it, traditionally take the title and responsibilities of potion master."

  "So your mother was the potion master to the king, and now you are. When you said the king needs you, he doesn't want to lose your services because you're the only one who truly can do what you do. Except for your mother, whom he exiled."

  "Yes."

  Logan raised up on an elbow to look at him. "But she can come back some day, right?"

  "No. She's gone to the farthest reaches of our world and will live out her days there. There's no coming back. She left me a letter when she was exiled saying she was tired and ready to go. I think her heart was no longer in it. She worked at the high court as potion master for a thousand years. She was ready to move on."

  Logan choked and sat up. He stared at Hallan. "Did you just say a thousand years?"

  "Mm-hmm. First for the old King Danedil, and then for Aestorian for the hundred years of his reign."

  "You..." Logan started. Stopped. Tried again. "When...when you were telling me about the kings I just assumed you meant their reigns were...you know, human length. If your mother was potion master for a thousand years, how long have you been in that position?"

  "Only a short while in comparison. A hundr
ed fifty years."

  Pale shock slid over Logan's features. He stood suddenly and paced away, walking none-too-steadily.

  Concerned, Hallan rose and followed. When Logan stopped, seemingly staring off into nowhere, Hallan wrapped his arms around him from behind. "What is it, love?"

  Logan's shoulders shook with a slow, troubled sigh.

  Hallan skimmed a kiss over one of them. "Talk to me, Logan."

  "How...how old are you?"

  "I'm six-hundred and twelve. Young yet for my race."

  Logan dragged in a shaking breath. "And your mother?"

  "Nearly three thousand at the time of her exile."

  Another breath. Another, this one the shakiest of all. "Are... are you, elves I mean, just long-lived or are you immortal?"

  "Somewhere in between." Hallan spoke gently, sensing this was a shock to Logan. If humans in Logan's world were anything like the humans in his, a long life span might be ninety years. "Most elves live very long lives. None die of old age and we aren't susceptible to disease. It's part of that inherent magick we're born with that I mentioned. But we can be killed by a blade or suffocation or poison just like a human can. And we can give up our will to live and fade away." He pulled Logan back against him and held him close. "Logan, I think I understand why this troubles you. But if you think the fact you're human makes me love you any less, then you're very wrong."

  "Yeah, except for the fact that I'm only going to be around for a short while in the grand scheme of things. If..." He swallowed hard. "If we somehow figured out a way to be together, you'd watch me grow old and die while you'd still...you'd probably still look just like you do today, wouldn't you? Beautiful and young as ever."

  Hallan turned him around to face him. "Do you think for even a second that you could ever be anything but beautiful to me? I don't just love you for what's on the outside. I love you for who are you the inside as well. For who you are now and who you'll become."

  Logan winced. "You say that now, but one day when I'm gray and hobbling around and you're still virile and full of life..."

  "Damn it." Hallan tipped up his chin, forcing him to meet his gaze. "Do you think I'm that shallow? You make it sound like you're a passing fancy for me, like I'll tire of you and move on. But you have no idea of what you speak. I've been alive for over six hundred years and in all that time I've loved exactly once...you, Logan."