Ring of Gyges

by Ines Johnson

  Then he looked back to her and realized. “You swam all the way here from Britain?”

  “Most of the way,” she nodded. “I took a ley line.”

  Ley lines were pockets of energy that witches and knights used to travel around the world. So, she was a witch. A water witch? He’d never heard of such a thing.

  “Well,” said the water witch. “It was a pleasure to meet you, God of the Sea.”

  She bowed her head in deference. She said the words matter-of-factly. Psi didn’t believe they were truthful.

  “But I must be off,” she continued. “I have a very important quest to complete.”

  Vivi came to her knees. She gingerly put one foot under herself. It was as though she were new to walking, like a toddler who was still negotiating the mechanics of the task after months of crawling. Perhaps she was new to the skill if she’d spent most of her life in the waters.

  She made it to standing without any assistance and then she began to teeter in her heels. It was slow going as she headed up the pier. Psi rose and came to her side in just a couple of strides. One of his steps easily ate up three of hers.

  Vivi gave him a sidelong glance. Psi got the feeling that his company was unwelcome. It was a new feeling for him and it amused him.

  “We’re going the same way,” he insisted earnestly. Because he was serious, he was not about to let this extraordinary creature go anytime soon.

  “You’re going to the Nicotera store for the unveiling of this season’s shoe collection?”

  The name of the store sounded familiar, but Psi never paid much attention to shopping. He left that to his sister Demeter who treated spending money and acquiring goods like a contact sport. Psi had no clue where the store was, but that wasn’t going to stop him from getting closer to Vivi.

  “Of course,” he said. “I love shoes.”

  Vivi’s eyes lit up. Then her mouth opened and she chattered on for a quarter hour about the history of Nicotera and his innovative designs in footwear. And that’s how Lord Poseidon of Olympia, second son of Cronus, God of the Sea, found himself having a conversation about shoes with a woman.

  Chapter 4

  “I didn’t care so much about shoes when I was younger,” said Vivi. “Medieval footwear for women wasn’t so interesting because dresses covered the entire leg down to the foot.”

  Vivi teetered over the wooden planks of the pier. She had only practiced walking on smooth surfaces back in Camelot. Lady Gwin and Dame Loren had held her hand for a time as she’d taken her first few steps across the metallic drawbridge of Tintagel Castle.

  The god, Poseidon—Psi—strolled beside her. His casual steps swallowed up the wooden slats beneath them as though they were picks to clean his teeth. He didn’t flash his teeth at her anymore, but he did stretch his lips wide as he looked down at her. He also continued to watch her with what looked like hunger in his eyes.

  “Men’s shoes were much more fascinating,” Vivi continued. “They had elongated toes like a needlenose garfish, raised heels, and feathers. Did you know that the laws once proclaimed the length of the toe of a man’s shoes had to be proportionate to his income and social standing?”

  “Sounds like something an insecure man would do,” he said.

  “How do you mean?”

  He flashed her with those teeth and Vivi tripped. Her left heel caught between two of the planks of the pier.

  Psi’s hands reached out and grabbed her hands. Vivi gasped at the contact. His hands were much larger than Gwin’s or Loren’s. His palms swallowed her fingers up in their center as his long digits wrapped around her wrists.

  Vivi felt caught. Trapped. And then she was airborne again.

  Psi lifted her up into the air, freeing her heel from the plank. He didn’t put her down. He carried her off the pier and set her back down on solid ground.

  Vivi tilted her head up to look at the god before her. She had to look oh so far up since he towered over her. She felt like she would teeter backward, instead of forward. She did stumble when he let her go.

  She felt entirely disoriented with his tenterhooks no longer pressing into her skin. Her hands floated limply to her sides. She watched him turn to the side and stick out his elbow.

  Vivi stared at his protracted arm, uncertain what to do with it. Was he offering her escort like the knights would offer the ladies of Camelot? He was the strangest predator she’d ever encountered.

  She took a deep breath. Then she lifted her hand and rested it in the crook of his elbow. The next few steps she took were effortless with him as her anchor.

  “In my experience,” he said, “most cultures cover the female foot differently than they do the man’s foot.”

  “Too true,” Vivi nodded with confidence, now that they were back on her favorite subject. “As ladies’ gowns inched upwards so too did the heels of their shoes.”

  Beside her, she felt Psi’s body rumble with—was that laughter?

  “The English heel was low and thick, much more suited to boots,” she continued. “The French heel was mid-height and curvaceous.”

  “Hmm, just like the French.”

  “The Italian heel, the stiletto, those were tall and spikey works of art.”

  “Hmm, just like the female form,” said Psi. “I see your point. The female foot has been revered as a powerful sexual stimulus throughout time.”

  “Sexual? Why? You can’t put a foot anywhere inside the body. I know men like to put their appendages inside others’ bodies.”

  Psi stopped walking abruptly, causing Vivi to bump into him. He looked down at her with those wide eyes that were the crystal blue of the open seas. Then the rumbling went through him again. Because she was standing so near to him she felt his laughter like the waves thrashing the side of a boat in a storm.

  “Did I say something funny?” She wondered what it might be? Humor was tricky with her since fish and most other animals didn’t have what humans called a funny bone.

  “I find your candor wholly refreshing, Vivi of the Lake.”

  Oh. He liked her openness. Well, it was no great secret about males trying to get inside women’s bodies. They weren’t the only creatures to exhibit such behaviors.

  “I find the desire to enter another’s cavity very strange,” she candidly continued. “Except if its sand inside of a clam because then you get a pearl. Otherwise, it’s entirely parasitic. Take the pearlfish for example. They climb inside the anus of sea cucumbers and devour the animal’s gonads within.”

  Another rumbling of laughter erupted from Psi. He laughed so hard he doubled over. When he straightened there were tears in his eyes.

  “Oh no, I’ve made you cry. Is it because I spoke about anuses and gonads? I suppose that’s not proper or lady-like talk.”

  Vivi felt her face flushing. That reddening sign of embarrassment had been happening more regularly now that she was able to walk on land and speak with more humans. She was always saying the wrong things because she didn’t have enough practice at being proper.

  Psi reached out and tilted her chin up. He rubbed his thumb over the warm spot on her cheek. His fingers were cold, the same temperature as she was, but she still felt warmth fluttering inside of her. She’d seen men do this to the women they courted, hold their faces in their hand. Was she being courted by the God of the Sea?

  No. That was ridiculous.

  He was likely checking the fat content of her body in case he changed his mind later and decided to eat her. He’d be disappointed. She was very lean due to her life submerged in waters and her diet of fish and sea vegetables.

  Vivi had never had a man touch her. She’d never even stood this close to a man before. Psi smelled of the sea, like home. He made her feel warm. He made her heart flutter. She was perspiring and her breath came quickly.

  Such a strange reaction. He may have been a wizard and casting a spell on her right now. Best to get away from him.

  “Well, thank you for your assistance, my lord.” She bowe
d her head, freeing his hand from her face. “I’ve troubled you enough. Best to be on my way.”

  She stepped away from him, keeping her eyes locked on the ground as she took careful steps. She didn’t hear him follow. She decided that that was a good turn. The only interest he could’ve possibly had in her was for dinner and she’d be damned if she ended up on a god’s plate without at least getting her shoes first.

  All too quickly, solid ground changed to green grass and green grass changed to black asphalt. The increased solidity of the surface allowed Vivi to move quicker.

  Not a moment later, an awful noise filled the air. There was the sound of honking like a gull being strangled. Then there was the sound of high-pitched screeching, like crows fighting over fresh meat.

  Vivi looked up in time to see flashing lights that hurt her eyes. Angry shouts met her ears. As she stood stunned on the black asphalt, fast-moving boats on wheels careened towards her from opposite sides. She was too disoriented by the lights and the sounds to move out of harm’s way. She stood frozen as the boats prepared to crash into her.

  She heard the impact. It was a terrible metallic sound of ripping and screeching and angry shouts. But she felt no pain. Somehow, she was surrounded by water.

  Looking down, Vivi saw that water sprung up from a circular hole in the middle of the street. Though the cold spray surrounded her, she felt the warmth within.

  “Are you mad?” Psi shouted at her as he pulled her closer in the cocoon of his body.

  They were up in the air on a pillow of gushing water as it rose higher and higher into the sky and away from the chaos on the ground. Looking at Psi, his teeth were bared to her again. His eyes blazed icy fire as they glared at her. Vivi shrank into herself.

  “Are you going to throw me over?” she asked.

  He blinked. The fire in his blue gaze instantly extinguished. His shark-like teeth slipped back behind the holster of his lips. He repeated her words aloud, slowly, in what looked like confusion.

  “It’s what my father did when he saw that I was deformed,” she said.

  Psi swallowed hard. He pressed her more firmly into his body, the tenterhooks of his fingers dug painfully into her skin. “I’m not tossing you anywhere. I’m taking you home.”

  His grip was absolute, brooking no room for argument. Even if she could’ve escaped, Vivi was afraid to move. She hated heights. Her greatest fear was to experience the terrifying sensation of being cast into the air from the arms of a man whom she thought loved her… again.

  So she closed her eyes and locked her arms around Psi as he held her tightly to him. He did not let her go as he carried her off into the night. Instead, Vivi’s spirits sank with the knowledge that she’d failed in her quest, her first journey off alone in the world. She’d stood on her own two feet and fallen short of her goals.

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  Also by Ines Johnson

  The Misadventures of Loren (Urban Fantasy)

  Spear of Destiny

  Ring of Gyges

  Hammer of God—Coming March 20th 2018

  The Nia Rivers Adventures (Urban Fantasy)

  Dragon Bones

  Demeter's Tablet

  Templar Scrolls

  Serpent Mound

  Eden's Garden—Coming Soon!

  The Bright Series (Paranormal Romance)

  Bright

  The Moonkind Series (Paranormal Romance)

  Moonlight

  Moonrise

  Moonfall—Coming Soon!

  The Cindermama Series (Contemporary Fairytale Retellings)

  Pumpkin

  Rumpeled

  Beau

  About the Author

  Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher, INES JOHNSON is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are meditating and getting their zen on, she's contemplating how to use the teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations. Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you'll love her books! You can reach Ines at her website www.ineswrites.com or on Facebook.

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