by Brindi Quinn
Beau was right in the advice she’d offered me:
‘It’s easier than you’d think… and also more painful than you’d think.’
Chapter 5
Wallops and Gazelles
Under the morning sun, it was as if those words had never been spoken.
Windley was lively, flirty, normal.
Well, not normal, exactly.
“Hand me that knife, chap?”
“Are you sure you want the knife? Wouldn’t you rather have a spoon?” said Rafe, though all spoons were back at camp with Albie and the cavalry.
“Damn it, Merrin! Do you see? Do you see what your spooning has done to me?! We can’t have Rafe knowing who’s in charge here!”
“Her Majesty is a queen. She’s in charge by default,” said Rafe.
“He’s always like this.” I folded my arms. “Why can’t a woman spoon a man? I see nothing wrong with it.”
“Argh! It has nothing to do with you being a woman! As I said before, the taller person should be the big spoon. That’s why it’s called the big spoon!” He stuck out his bottom lip. “Besides, you feel nice to cradle, and how can I smell your neck if you’re behind me?”
Smell my neck?
“Y-you’re the one that opened yourself up to being taken from behind! I didn’t force you to roll away.”
“Actually, you did.” His stare turned dark. “But it shan’t happen again. I’m prepared to take you by force next time if necessary.” He lifted his chin cockily, stretching his neck in such a way as to further define his jaw while lifting his lip to show his pointed eyetooth.
Effective.
It was hard to see him as the same person who had shown such softness the previous night. Not only was his past more complex than I ever imagined; his spirit was too.
“Just let me know if you want me to cut off his hand, Your Majesty.”
“Let’s start with another appendage, shall we?” I cooed.
“Is that what you’re thinking of?” Windley turned up his hand, high and mighty-like. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Always undressing me with that stare of yours.”
“It’s going to be so much worse this time, isn’t it,” Rafe grumbled to himself, “without Sir Albie to keep them on good behavior.”
Windley had opted not to share with Rafe the details of our encounter with Ascian and the others. Only that Windley could no longer safely use his magic because it served as a beacon for the ‘unfavorable something’ after him—a vague something from his clouded past. Rafe was oblivious to the true pain hidden behind Windley’s play and jabs, and that was the way Windley wanted it. If Charmagne was right about one thing, the devilish guard was good at pretend.
If I didn’t know him so well, I might have been fooled, too.
But I saw it. Gaps in his mien. Longer than normal contemplations into the distance. Stealing glances at me as though they were the last he would ever take—as though he were trying to imprint the image of me permanently into his mind.
He was so certain I wouldn’t love him after I knew the truth, and I was equally certain he wasn’t the villain he thought himself. In fact, I strongly suspected he was a victim.
We were both wrong, it would turn out.
Windley’s insufferable nature was a defense, and my imagination strayed over what horrors might have caused him to willfully forget his past and begin a new life in a land where his kind was either unheard of or rare.
These thoughts made my companion darkness curdle.
“The lavender-eyed man has the least merit! Least of all the creatures that walk on two legs! We will punish him most.”
Yes, it sounded like a fine plan. Even without yet knowing Windley’s story, the omens of it were damning for the man with the lavender eyes.
For the one called Ascian.
When we broke from the trees into the plains of gold, it was as if we had been birthed from the forest into the stretching unknown. The wind that had only played at us while in the wood now stirred itself in full force around the edges of our clothes, as if tempting us further into the harmony of swishing grass.
I tried not to think about the gilded blades stained red over at the massacre site.
I tried not to think of the life I had also taken.
“Okay, we’re here.” Rafe shifted his weight impatiently. “What’s this miraculous other mode of travel you alluded to?”
Windley pointed into the distance where large gray beasts roamed and smaller horned ones pranced. “There,” he said.
Wallops, he had called them last time. And gazelles.
“You mean to catch one and ride it?” I said.
“Not quite catch.” He winked a rapscallion’s wink.
“Seduce?”
“Tch! NO,” he avowed. “Entrance.”
Rafe glanced at me sidelong. “Seduce.”
“Seduce,” I agreed.
“I liked it better when you were scared of her,” Windley taunted Rafe before turning to me: “But I’ll need to use quite a bit of energy to do so, so the others will be able to sense where we are.”
“Meaning we must be quick about leaving afterward,” I said.
“And I won’t be able to do it alone,” he continued.
Meaning I would once again be feast for a devil.
But you know I wasn’t disappointed about that part.
“Okay.” I gave him a nod. “How do we go about it?”
If he tried to hide his delight, his mouth betrayed him. “Wallops—the bigger ones with trunks—they’re pretty easy to tame. My power doesn’t work on all animals, but they’re an easygoing breed, also much faster than they look and strong enough to carry the three of us at once. That’s the tricky part. I can’t entrance three separate creatures for us. They’ll only obey if I’m the one steering them. I just need to get close enough to lock eyes with one. The grass should be loud and tall enough to mask us until we’re close.” He pointed. “As long as we stick to that thicker patch there.”
“They look rather imposing,” I said, sizing up the creatures that appeared larger than any animal of the forest. “Will they bite?”
“Bite?” Windley chuckled. “No. They have tusks as a defense, but they’ll run before fighting.”
So he said, but as we crept through the veil of cashmere grass, the low autumn sun baking at our necks, the true size of the wallops became apparent the closer we neared. They were huge, and we wouldn’t be able to mount them unless they bent down and let us.
But Windley wasn’t anything if not confident. He set his sights on one wallop in particular, off to the side of the others, that was using its trunk to pull at stalks of grass.
“He’ll do. His aura feels pleasant. You ready, Merrin?”
Probably more than I should be.
I think we’ve sufficiently covered that I’m a glutton, captive ones. But just to be sure—
The thought of his tingling, love-like sensation moving through me again was enough to set my blood ablaze. I offered him a shaky nod, and as Rafe looked on, lacking any sign of enthusiasm, Windley took my fingers into his hand like a person picking the last of a rare flower, and lifted them slowly to his mouth, never taking his eyes from mine.
But when my fingers were close enough to feel the heat of his mouth, he released them.
“Wind?”
“This will be better.” His stare turned even more intense, as if homing in on any hidden flecks of color stored in my eyes, as if counting my lashes one by one. Then he took my face in both hands and leaned in.
My heart skipped once because I hadn’t expected it and twice because kissing was still relatively new to us. The third time it skipped, though, that was because I could feel his affection through every intentional movement.
The way he held my face, it was like he was restraining himself, keeping me safe from himself, steadying himself.
Everyone should be held that way, at least once.
A fiery shiver convulsed through me as my hands f
ound and tugged the back of his hair.
And then it all changed.
That first bit, that was just him kissing me. I could tell the moment it transitioned to feeding off me. Waves of warmth, pleasure, desire throbbed from the deepest part of me and out every inch of skin, through my fingertips and earlobes, through every goosebump on my neck and arms. I wanted to curl up and crawl into him, for him to swallow me, for me to become a part of him.
And I loved him. My heart was bursting for him, my veins writhing for him.
“Ah!” Windley wrenched himself away with a sudden jerk. “C-careful, lion queen. I haven’t… Your fondness…” he swallowed. “I took too much. Are you okay?”
I was in no state to answer him, for he was now looking at me with swimming, gleaming, candescent apricot-colored eyes.
“Chap!” Windley hushed. “Mind coming over and taking her shoulders? I’m afraid she’ll collapse when I let go.”
“Don’t look at me with those things,” Rafe spat, shielding his eyes in his arm. “I’m not interested in becoming your lover.”
“Shame,” said Windley, “you’re missing out.” But it was half-hearted. He was still gazing at me just as strongly as I was gazing at him, and before Rafe could take my shoulders, he gave them a squeeze and groaned. “Merr… I want more. But I already took too much…” He set his forehead against mine and brushed his hands over my shoulders and up my neck and then back down.
“Get on with it,” Rafe said, taking hold of me. “You have a beast to seduce.”
Windley let go of me with reluctance and the moment he did, my knees buckled, but Rafe was there to catch me. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could look nowhere else but at him.
And something peculiar I hadn’t experienced before—there seemed to be a trail of apricot-colored glimmer following behind him.
I wanted to follow it.
I would have if he didn’t explicitly tell me to, “Stay with Rafe,” as he cautiously approached the wallop.
At his presence, the other wallops hasted away, their large feet thunderous against the prairie’s ground. All but one—Windley’s prey. That one froze, right eye marked on the Spirite. He was saying something to it, coaxing it apparently, and reaching out his hand in a beckoning motion. The wallop took a step backward, yet at the same time, it slowly began to extend its trunk, still holding a gathering of golden grass. It looked to be fighting itself, wanting to flee as much as it wanted to make contact with Windley’s coaxing hand.
The latter won.
The moment the wallop’s trunk met Windley’s flesh, its apprehension dissolved, and it began to nuzzle him like a feline prodding to be pet.
I might have found it funny to see such a large creature leaning into Windley, had I not been lost to an apricot-induced trance.
The next moment, the wallop kneeled, allowing Windley to mount by grabbing the creature’s giant ear and placing his foot on its bent knee to hoist himself up and over.
“Like that, Rafe,” he called to us. “Can you bring the Queen? Looks like she’s deep in it. Just steady your arm around her waist, and I’ll summon her over.” From across the way, he bequeathed me his glowing stare. “Still with me, my queen? Come to me now.” From atop the wallop, he reached out his hand.
“Hell, that guy’s scary,” muttered Rafe.
I barely heard him, caught up in Windley’s invitation. I took a step, but my legs were at half-strength, so Rafe escorted me through the grass and to the creature’s knee where he helped lift me into Windley’s arms.
Windley’s gaze was no longer colored, but the remnants of his spell lingered in me long after the fields of gold had transitioned to fields of blue petals.
Blue is a somewhat rare color, isn’t it? Besides the sky and sea? To see it stretch across the ground in such waves was a thing of foreign beauty, as if each individual flower, dainty on its own, conjoined together to create a rug of unnatural blue low to the earth and as far as the eye could stretch.
Windley was right. The wallop was faster than it looked. Everything about the beast seemed slow and lumbering, but when Windley commanded it to run, the prairie flashed by in a blur.
I sat between the two guards, resting my cheek against Windley’s back while Rafe held me steady from behind.
“How long is this going to last?” barked the magician.
“Uh… a while.”
“Geez, next time contain yourself.”
“Yeah.” Windley rubbed his hair guiltily. “I won’t let it go that far. With her it’s hard as shit, mate. You have no idea.”
But deep down, I wanted it to go that far and farther.
It was evening before I could speak, and what I came up with was rather unimpressive.
“Hey,” I said into Windley’s shirt, voice like dusty air.
“Queen Merrin!” Windley whirled around and took my shoulders to inspect me. “Has it finally left you?!”
“I think so.”
“Thank goddess! Look, I’m sorry, Merr. Really. I didn’t mean to take so much. I clearly can’t fucking control myself when it comes to you. I need to figure out a better way to deal with this.”
His scorned hound act was back. It seemed he’d been brooding all those hours.
“It’s fine as long as it worked,” I told him, too embarrassed to admit how much I had liked it. “But why did you choose apricot? For your eyes, I mean.”
His fluster was replaced by a curling, catlike grin. “You mean why didn’t I choose green?” He leaned in closer. “That color’s reserved for you, my queen.”
Rafe cleared his throat loudly from the rear.
Windley wrinkled his nose before turning front. “We’re traveling through the night. Any objections?”
Rafe put a hand to his stomach. “Not if it means food in the morning.”
“We’ll have to hunt or scavenge,” I said. “Sir Albie has all the money.”
“Or if we find a town, I can… coerce supplies out of someone,” said Windley.
“We aren’t bandits!” I chided.
“Trust me, their experience will be well worth whatever we take from them,” said Windley.
Rafe gave me another of those sidelong glances. “Seduce?”
“Seduce,” I agreed.
Windley tisked at us.
“And if we should happen upon a town of all men?” Rafe said from the back.
Windley shrugged. “Plan remains the same.”
“Wouldn’t that be… strange for you?” I said. “Using your powers on men?”
Ignorant of me, but I didn’t know that yet. Maybe some of you can relate.
“Not at all. You saw me use it on Phylo, didn’t you?”
That was true—back on our way to the Necropolis.
“I connect with spirits first, bodies second,” Windley continued. When neither Rafe nor I said anything, he elaborated: “Meaning, while I do notice physical appearance, I connect firstly with a person’s spirit; therefore, the type of person I’d least like to touch is one with an ugly or dirtied soul. Their physicality matters far less. But don’t worry—” He caught my eye mischievously. “You, my queen, have a delicious body and soul.”
Again, I found my eyes settling on his mouth. He knew it, too, for it twitched at the corner.
It was unfortunate Rafe was sitting so near.
The last hints of sun were settling to one side of us, as over the opposite horizon something else was rising. None of us spoke of it, but we all watched trepidatiously to see whether or not the moon would don Luna’s sparkling face.
“Phoo, you’re in the clear, chap.”
But Windley spoke too soon.
And his proclamation was like a taunt.
Eyelids had been hiding her giantess eyes and for a brief moment, they flicked open. The goddess Luna could have been looking anywhere—moons are huge and can certainly be seen across great lengths—but it felt as if she were looking directly at us three villains trotting the flowered fields on the ba
ck of a tamed beast.
“Oop. Nope. There’s our gal. Who do you think she’s more upset with? The man who rejected her or the queen who exiled her to the skies?”
“Not helping, Windley!” I scolded.
But Rafe was distracted by something else. “Wait, what day is it?”
“Chap?”
Rafe furrowed his brow. “Shouldn’t she be gold by now?”
The gilded lunar festival at the dawn of autumn when the moon shone gold for three nights only.
“You’re right,” mused Windley. “This would be night two of the Clearing’s festival.”
Yet she was her normal frosty color, as she had been the previous night.
“Maybe she can’t turn gold after I destroyed her body?” I said.
“Or she’s just that pissed,” said Windley. “I’ll feel much better after we reach the coast and our boy’s pacted Soleil.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said, eye on the moon, “why are you so certain it’s Soleil we’ll find at the Edge of Nowhere, anyway? Is your lore really that specific?”
“Simple. Rafe said Soleil is the sun goddess, yes? And the Edge of Nowhere is said to have been painted by a goddess, yes? What typically paints a horizon?”
It seemed like something I should have been able to put together on my own.
“A sunset,” I answered.
“Or sunrise,” said Windley, prudent.
“Not bad. I guess you have your moments.”
Windley winked over his shoulder. “Let’s just hope Lady Sun takes chap’s side, eh?”
Possibly worried over the same thing, Rafe was quiet the rest of the eve, watching Luna slowly climb the sky and pass overhead.
Making an enemy of a goddess wasn’t ideal, but I told myself it had to be this way. For Beau.
And for her baby.
I tried to keep alert, but Windley was warm, the night cool, and the ride lulling.
I fell asleep not quite grasping just how dangerous it was to make enemies with a goddess.
Foolish of me, really.
Chapter 6
Luna’s Treachery