Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  He reached for her so fast, even he was surprised by how fluidly she flowed into his arms, her heaving chest rising and falling against him as she struggled and tried to batter her way out of his arms.

  “I don’t want another mate,” he growled. “And even if I did, I could never even so much as touch another woman so long as you live. Now that I’ve found you, there is only you, even if you choose not to be with me. Don’t you understand that?”

  “No.” She trembled, her voice cracking under the weight of that tiny little word. Two fat tears slipped down each of her cheeks and dripped onto his shirt. They soaked through the thin fabric quickly, cooling his hot skin and sending a parade of chills marching through his body.

  Lifting his hand, he brushed away another tear as it fell, then leaned his head down to rest atop hers as he held her closer. She relaxed against him, though he could feel that a part of her wanted to stubbornly resist the comfort he had to offer. If she just gave in, just let herself feel what he felt with all her heart, she would never doubt the bond they could experience together again, but she just wasn’t ready.

  “Are you crying because I’m going to die?” he finally asked.

  Just when she was growing comfortable in his arms, she stiffened and lifted her arms between them to push him away. “What? What kind of question is that?”

  “I think it’s a perfectly good question, honestly. If you know I’m going to die, maybe you don’t want to give yourself to me because it will just hurt that much more when I’m gone.”

  “You arrogant…” Her balled fist collided with the muscle across his breastbone and she took two steps backward in a huff. “All you ever think about is yourself. How could I ever… Why would I? You’re so…” she growled and turned her back to him, every part of her body trembling.

  “So can I take that as a yes?” He knew it was probably not the best question to ask, considering the angry boil of her blood, but in all honesty he was trying to make light of a tense and unpredictable situation with humor. Clearly, it wasn’t working. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

  “Finn, you are the most obnoxious, selfish…”

  He reached for her again, catching her off guard as he spun her back into him and cut her off with a kiss. She was so shocked by his gesture, she stood stiff as a board, the clench of his fingertips pressing into her flesh until they both softened and melted into that moment.

  It was everything he had hoped for, her tender mouth pressed hard against his, lips parting in a startled gasp and bringing them even closer together. Finn released his hand and brought it up to the back of her neck, his fingers disappeared into the loose tangles of her braided hair, gently clenching the strands and drawing her face upward. He opened his mouth against hers and swept his tongue out to invite hers to play. At first she didn’t seem to know how to respond, but instinct showed her the way and she was kissing him back, the warm velvet of her tongue dancing with his, her perfect little body snugly relaxed against his chest, her balled fists unclenching and her fingers resting loosely on his shoulder.

  She tasted like honey, or maybe it was just the flavor of her brother’s mead still lingering on her lips. Whatever it was, he wanted to drink her deep and swallow her whole, to feel her naked skin against his skin. That thought woke the beast beneath his skin, the wolf twitching at the prospect of finding a home inside his mate. Just one kiss and he knew he had to have her, knew he would never rest again until he did. Every muscle in his body tightened and rippled in ways that had only ever happened to him before a transformation in the past. He felt like he was about to give into the animal within, and the moment his wits returned long enough for him to withdraw, the hard sting of her palm across his cheek brought him back to his senses.

  “How dare you?” she hissed through clenched teeth, her voice was a hot whisper she surely meant to sound angry, but the flood of emotions rushing through her told him otherwise. She was startled and confused, and she’d meant every word she’d said about thinking him obnoxious and selfish, but she was more than just a little intrigued by his response.

  She wanted him to kiss her again.

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t feel that,” he challenged her. “If you can do that, I will live out the rest of my days pining after you, but never pursuing you.” Any other man might have felt ill-at-ease making such a promise, but Finn knew she could never say those words. “Go on, tell me.”

  She couldn’t. He felt that too. She couldn’t say any such thing because she’d felt it just as strongly as he, and she’d been feeling it since he happened upon her in the woods the night he’d saved her and brought her forward onto whatever path the gods laid out for her to follow.

  “I can’t,” she finally muttered. She drew her lower lip between her teeth and held it there, and then she turned away from him.

  Finn’s hand came up to rest against her cheek, a gentle gesture meant to let her know that he would wait for her until the end of time if that was what she wanted him to do. She nestled her face into his palm and closed her eyes, releasing her lip with a soft sigh.

  “There are far greater things going on right now than the way I feel when I am with you,” she whispered. “It isn’t fair the gods should lay your love upon me too.”

  “Love is not a burden, Princess.” An uneasy laugh stuck in the back of his throat.

  “No,” she agreed, “but it should at least be a choice.”

  “You make it sound like some contractual agreement between two bodies, but we hold no governance over the feelings of our hearts.”

  “Maybe not, but we should still have a choice over the people we love,” she went on. “Don’t you find it unnerving in the least bit that you have such strong feelings for me, when in fact we are still little more than strangers.”

  “We are only strangers in the physical sense of the word, Lorelei,” he pointed out. “In my heart you are all I have ever known. Even before I met you, I felt as if you were missing. I was searching for you, but I did not know until I found you that you were the very thing that had been absent from my life. I am so full when I am near you.”

  Perhaps it did not feel that way for her at all, he thought, tilting his head to study her. She still had her eyes closed, her mouth relaxed and her cheek rested in curved span of his open palm. He could still feel the rhythm of her heart, the frayed tremble of her emotions, confusion tangled with comfort, anxiety mingled with desire. It would be so easy to show her how beautiful it could be. So easy to kiss her again and let one thing lead to another, but then she opened her eyes slowly and peered up at him and he knew he could never have her that way if she didn’t want it too.

  “Do you really think I am stuck up?”

  Finn actually laughed out loud that time, a deep rumble that surely echoed through the house and prodded Roggi from sleep. “What I said before was mean,” he finally admitted. “I’m sorry, Princess. I just… You can’t even begin to understand how this feels for me. To be so near you all the time, yet unable to touch you the way I am touching you now.”

  “I’m sorry, Finn. I…” Outside the door they heard boot steps in the hallway. They seemed to linger for a moment and then pass deeper into the house before silencing completely. “I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment to anyone. Even if my heart keeps telling me you’re the one for me.”

  He couldn’t stop the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, the giddy feeling rising in his gut. He brought his other hand up, fingers resting just beneath her chin as he tilted her face up. He was grinning at her when she finally opened her eyes again to look at him.

  “You just keep listening to that heart of yours, Princess,” he winked. “It’ll keep telling you the truth and when you’re ready to listen I’ll be here waiting.”

  Lorelei chuckled and withdrew her face from his touch. “I didn’t take you for one who understood the benefits patience.”

  “If something is worth waiting for, I can be the most patient m
an in the world.” And just like that the mood had shifted without a word or action to prod it. She shook her head and took a step back, a long breath deflating her chest as her arms dropped to her sides.

  “If you really want to know what the seer told me, I can tell you some, but I cannot tell you who will live through what awaits us and who will not because I don’t know. Yovenna said so many things today, things I can’t even begin to… Half of them don’t even make sense, even as they press so hard on my soul I can barely carry the weight of them. But she didn’t tell me you were going to die.”

  “I don’t know if I should be relieved by that, or even more troubled than I already was.”

  “Who told you you were going to die?”

  “Hodon told me today that all he really knows of what she’s seen is that three of us are to embark on this journey to bring back the Horns of Llorveth, and only two of us are meant to return.”

  She shuddered, he watched the chill move through her like a wave. “She told me that too.”

  Finn finally stepped back and eased himself with a groan into the chair he would be sleeping in. His back ached in anticipation the minute the cold of the wood seeped through the fabric of his clothes, the muscles tightening until they nearly spasmed. He grimaced and groaned, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “But it could be any of us,” she finally pointed out after a long pause. She too backed up, resuming her seat on the bed and staring over at him with glassy eyes. “Maybe it’ll be me?”

  “The Light of Madra?” he snorted. “Highly unlikely, since you’re meant to do such great things. It’ll probably be me.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Would you rather I say it’ll probably be the elf?”

  Her eyes widened and she scowled. “Don’t say that either.”

  “Well, it’s gotta be one of us.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to be any of us,” she proffered. “Maybe not coming back doesn’t mean death, and if it does mean that… I don’t know. Maybe we can change what has been seen, break the cycle, so to speak, and forge a new path. One no seer has ever seen before.”

  Cocking his brow, he tilted his head to study her. “You been talking to Viln?”

  “No, I just… I was supposed to marry Trystay, right? Well, actually he was supposed to kill me, but I escaped before he could. Now we are meant to go on this journey and someone is supposed to die, or not come back, or whatever… but if no one does…” She lingered on that thought as another pair of heavy boots echoed through the house on the other side of the door. She waited until they faded and then said, “That could change everything.”

  “You cannot change what has already been written, Lorelei. I don’t know what the seers in Leithe taught you as a child, but it is known. What has been seen must come to pass.”

  “But we have to,” she said softly. “We need to change everything. That’s what she told me.”

  Even speaking in that low tone she sounded so serious, and when she brought her teary eyes back up to look at him again he could see that she meant what she was saying with every part of who she was. “What do you mean?”

  Shaking her head, she hunched forward with her arms rested across her lap and let loose a long sigh. “Nothing.”

  “No, not nothing. You can’t say something like that and then say it means nothing. Princess, what else did the seer say to you today?”

  “Too many things to repeat.”

  “Then tell me the important ones.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she hesitated. “If I should. It all sounds so crazy.”

  “Remember, I’m mad,” he pointed out with a chuckle, “it’ll all make perfect sense to me.”

  “Have you ever of the Tid Ormen?”

  “The what?”

  “The Tid Ormen,” she repeated. She studied his face then as if waiting for a hint of recognition, but when he shook his head she went on. “It’s a great serpent Heidr loosed upon the world to teach his children a lesson after Foreln put his blade to his own brother without just cause. When Heidr, who can see all things in time, scanned backward through the ages and saw the hardships his own children and grandchildren had wrought against each other, his punishment was swift. From his loom of stars he wove a mighty serpent imbued with the power of time and when it was finished he threw it at the world. It slithered along the sky and through the seas and across the land, set with a single purpose, to catch its own tail.”

  “Huh.”

  “A serpent of fire,” she went on. “The elves say it flows against the grain of time, prevents it from moving forward, trapping the gods and all their children in the same cycle of existence again and again and again and the cycle will only be broken when a child of two gods rises to slay it.”

  Finn could feel a nervous laugh rising in him, but he didn’t dare let it out. She looked so serious, almost afraid of her own words as she spoke them, and he didn’t dare mock her, even if laughter felt like the only way to even stomach such an outlandish tale.

  Swallowing hard, his throat ached. “Let me guess,” he started, “you are that child.”

  Lorelei nodded, a solemn gesture followed by a downward turn of her head that brought the loose tangles of her braided hair back into her face. “I can’t even see how such a thing is possible. You’ve seen me,” she muttered. “I can barely even hold a sword, Finn. How can I slay some mystical serpent set upon the world by the creator of all things?”

  Finn leaned forward in the chair and reached his hands out to cover hers. Closing the space between them, he lowered his forehead to rest against hers, his fair falling in around their faces like a curtain. “One drop of the blade at a time, Princess.”

  He didn’t know how long they sat that way, and though he doubted she would ever admit it, his nearness eased her anxiety. He felt the pace of her heart slow, the rhythms of her body relax.

  “You should get some sleep,” he finally told her, leaning back and beginning to withdraw his hands. She brought one hand up over to rest atop his, holding him there for a moment.

  She lifted her eyes to meet his. In the dim light of the two lanterns in the room, they looked rich and brown, flecks like fire glistening against the dancing flame. She would make a beautiful wolf one day, he thought. He only hoped he lived long enough to see her spirit rise to the surface.

  “I’m not used to sleeping alone,” she admitted. “Will you share the bed with me?”

  “Princess,” he shook his head, remembering how easily her kiss had stoked the yearning wolf beneath his skin. Sleeping with her in his arms could be dangerous, especially after that kiss. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  Tilting her head, the innocence of her soul was almost more than he could take. “Why not?”

  “Because kissing you woke something inside me that I’m not sure I can turn off if I happen to find your lips on mine again,” he confessed. Squeezing her fingers, he patted the top of her hand and withdrew, a cocky smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “And I know you want to kiss me again,” he winked.

  “I’m pretty sure I can control myself,” she rolled her eyes.

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know if I can.” The wolf inside craved the nearness of her flesh, the heat of her body curled up to his, but how long could he keep the wolf at bay with her lying in his arms? How long before the beast’s desires overpowered his own?

  “Please, Finn,” she whispered. “You make me feel safe. You would never hurt me, I know you wouldn’t.”

  “How could I possibly say no to that?” He stood up, the old boards beneath his feet creaking under his weight, the muscles and joints in his body cracking with the movement. “Though I have no idea how we will both fit in that tiny little bed.”

  “We’ll make it work,” she promised.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  For someone not sure if he could control himself, Finn fell asleep like a swift wind sweeping in with a storm. Once they found a comfor
table way to lay together, his soft snores followed, every rough exhale fluttering through her hair and pushing it across the bridge of her nose until it tickled her cheek.

  Lorelei was curled up on her side with the wall to her back and the soft muscle of Finn’s body cradling her against him. Drawing her leg up to rest across his thigh, she was trying to deny her attraction to him, but lying in his arms that way both excited and unnerved her. It felt more than just a little too comfortable; it felt right and safe and a low tingling stirred in her belly that stoked a needful fire inside that sooner or later only his touch would quell.

  Tracing her fingers across his chest, she curled and uncurled the loose tie of his shirt around the tip. Even long after the pattern of his breathing slowed, the occasional snore catching in the back of his throat, she twirled that tie. Sometimes it was so tight, she watched her finger turn dark purple as it pulsed like a heartbeat with constricted blood.

  It terrified her more than she would ever admit when he’d asked her if he was meant to die. Not because she knew the answer, truly she didn’t, but the mere thought of losing him before she even allowed him to be hers startled something inside her only the powerful crush of his lips was able to calm. It was as if he knew that too, that it was the very reason he’d chosen that moment to kiss her for the first time, and though it had been completely unexpected and uninvited, now that his lips had been on hers, she wanted to taste them again.

  She couldn’t count the number of times since they’d met she had found herself staring at that soft, full mouth of his and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. None of her fantasies had come even close to capturing the actual experience. Kissing Finn was unlike anything she could have ever imagined, and she wanted to do it again.

  Lifting her head to look at him, the length of his soft black hair hung down his cheek and she reached up to tuck it away behind his ear. The touch of her finger to his face nearly stirred him from sleep, and though a part of her felt guilty, for the most part she wanted him to wake up and find her staring. Maybe he would be bold enough to roll in and kiss her again, his strong hands wandering over parts of her body no man had ever touched before.