The Wild Road

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Dead, not all of us are dead—

  We’re monsters—

  Not all of us—

  I don’t want to die, I wish I never knew, I can’t live like this, I can’t live—

  So don’t, whispered another voice; Runa, familiar and old. Give yourself to me. Help me. You must. I will not let you go.

  I will cleanse you of your pain.

  Lethe felt grass against her cheek. She opened her eyes, or tried to do, but her eyelids felt sticky and there was a bad taste in her mouth.

  I’m here, Lannes spoke inside her mind, words followed by a torrent of desperate concern. Stay with me.

  She managed to peel open her eyes, just a crack, and was nearly blinded by the color of the grass and the sky. Every line, every detail, was crystalline in its perfection, as though she was seeing the world for the first time.

  Lannes crouched beside her, and his irises glinted with veins of blue light. For a moment she saw past the illusion, her vision filled with lavender skin and sharp bone, but the mask faded back into place, though his eyes remained the same. He folded her into his arms, pulling her up so that she leaned hard against his chest.

  I was with you, said Lannes grimly, his voice soft inside her mind. I heard everything.

  The Sidhe queen stood at the edge of the woods, the vision of the oak, and Runa, fading into darkness behind her.

  “Green eyes,” the queen murmured, meeting Lethe’s gaze. “That blood always runs true.”

  She glided back a step and looked at Will. “You continue to keep strange bedfellows.”

  “I like to keep you amused,” he said, smiling faintly. “And you are, as always, exquisite to behold. My Sidhe queen.”

  She inclined her head, then passed her gaze over the rest of them, lingering last on Rictor.

  “Do not come here again,” she said quietly. “I do not wish the association. Not if someday I am to be free.”

  Rictor said nothing. The queen waited, as if she expected him to speak, and when he did not, her frown became dangerous. But she remained silent and drifted back into the forest, fading like a ghost, disappearing into the gloom.

  “I don’t know about all of you,” Koni said, after a long moment of silence, “but I don’t feel any better.”

  It was late in the afternoon. Lethe was quite certain that the amount of weirdness her brain could handle had reached its limit, and so she found herself seated at a battered kitchen table feeling numb, suffering an odd disconnect between the mundane and surreal, as she watched William Steele don an apron covered in faded cherries and start whistling “Lavender Blue.”

  The kitchen was small, with hardwood floors, large airy windows and a giant fireplace at one end, currently unlit. Lannes stood behind her shoulder. No chairs were large enough to support him. Koni lounged at the table, running his fingernail through some old grooves. Rictor was nowhere in sight, though Lethe had a sense that he might be as close as the hall. He seemed like the kind of man that needed isolation but not distance.

  “So you see,” Will said suddenly, pushing sandwiches in front of them, “things are complicated here.”

  “Why haven’t you told the others in the agency about this place?” Koni replied.

  William picked something invisible off his apron. “Because there are some things that must not be told. Not yet. Perhaps, not ever. This place, what it holds, is one of them. Not even my own grandchildren know of it, though that will have to change soon enough.”

  “Are you referring only to the Sidhe queen?” Lannes asked. “Or are there other secrets?”

  “There are always secrets,” replied the old man. “Now eat. Then rest. Not much else can be done at the moment.”

  Lethe disagreed, but only out of principle. It was her mind on the line, not his. Her life that had been rocked to murder and magic, with no end in sight.

  Her stolen life. A life she had stolen from herself, with help.

  And what she had left behind, those voices in her head…glimpses of memories…

  Her sandwich tasted like sawdust. She remembered Runa sleeping in the forest, and rocked slightly in her chair, overcome with a feeling of pure futility. There was no way she could go up against that. None.

  Lannes laid his hand on her shoulder, and she reached back without thinking, sliding her fingers against his warm skin. She felt sinew and bone and recalled again her brief vision of him in the dome.

  This is a fairy tale, she thought. But what am I? One of the monsters?

  A princess, Lannes spoke inside her mind. A lost maiden.

  She closed her eyes. Are you my knight?

  His hand closed around her own. I’m the thing the knight would kill.

  Lethe squeezed his hand, turning in her chair to look up into his eyes. He avoided her gaze at first, then met it square and true.

  “No,” she said, and felt eyes staring at the back of her head. Koni and Will. She did not look at them but stood slowly and walked out of the kitchen, pulling Lannes behind her. Rictor was in the hall, just where she had imagined him, sitting on the bottom of the stairs. He said nothing when Lannes and Lethe left the house, though his green eyes tracked them with cutting intensity.

  The sun still shone. Looking at the woods made Lethe’s skin crawl, but there were plenty of places that the forest did not touch, and she and Lannes ambled in comfortable silence, finally stopping when they reached a lush meadow overlooking a pond.

  They sat in the grass. The air was warm.

  Lethe said, “Did you know anything like that could exist? Anyone like her?”

  “I knew of her possibility,” Lannes replied, picking at grass. “But it’s not something you think about. Or want to think about.”

  A chill stole through her. Those images, the Sidhe queen’s voice, all were burned into her mind. “I can’t fight Runa, you know. I can’t kill her or hurt her. And not because she’s protected in that wood. I just…it wouldn’t be right.”

  “She’s using you. That’s not right.”

  Lethe leaned against him and ran her fingers over his chest through the illusion of his shirt. He began to hold her hand, but she pulled away.

  “I’m sick of the mask,” she said bluntly. “I know why you use it, obviously, but it’s not you, I can see it’s not you, and not being able to look at your real face is driving me nuts. So take it off. Please.”

  He leaned back, staring, and the trepidation that rolled through their bond made her teeth hurt. Up until that moment, she had thought that he might have seen inside her head the images she had gleaned from their shared vision in the dome, but it was obvious he had not. He did not know that she was already aware of what he looked like. Unless that had been a hoax, as well.

  “Don’t ask me if I’m sure,” she said, when he opened his mouth to speak. “Just do it.”

  Lannes said nothing. He turned away from her, shoulders hunched, still playing with the grass between his fingers. At first she thought he was ignoring her, but then she noticed a shift in his appearance, a subtle one.

  The easing off of his mask happened slowly, in bits and pieces. His skin became splotchy, as did his shirt, until finally he wore no shirt, and she could appreciate a broad chest thick with muscle and skin the color of dusk. Bits and pieces of the illusion frayed from his wings as well.

  Watching it was another kind of enchantment. He had no idea, she realized. Not one clue. To see him like that, so natural, so real, made her heart leap into her throat with a painful stutter. Maybe it was affection, maybe her own eccentricity, but much to her relief she found him almost painfully attractive, and unconditionally masculine. His profile was hawkish and sharp, his long black hair flowing wild around his shoulders between his flowing cape-like wings. Every hard muscle was chiseled as though from stone. He was physically perfect, if rough around the edges. Or perhaps because of it.

  And he was kind. Effortlessly kind.

  Lannes glanced sideways at her, and Lethe slid her hand under his jaw, making h
im fully face her.

  Nothing had changed from her dream of him in the dome—except, this was no vision, and she was under blue sky with the sun shining. No monsters were breathing down their necks. Not yet.

  “I like your face,” she said. “I love your face.”

  Lannes went very still. Lethe slid her arms around his waist and held on. Between their minds, she tasted a thrill of wonder and fear.

  Lethe kissed him. It was no different now, without the mask—no, that wasn’t true; it was even better, she thought, taking a visceral pleasure in being able to open her eyes and glimpse something real and true. His face. Craggy as a mountainside, almost as rough, but his mouth was hard and his tongue slipped against hers, and a thrill raced from her heart to her stomach, making everything tighten, and ache.

  You’re not alone, she told him, so filled with emotion she could not have spoken out loud had she tried. Lannes, you’re not alone.

  He made a small desperate sound, his hands creeping around her waist, and she slid even closer, her mouth moving over his warm skin as her fingers danced across his back, stroking the edge of his wings. Lannes arched his back, breath rattling in his throat. Her fingers slipped across his stomach, sliding beneath the waistband of his jeans. Picking up where she had left off.

  Lethe unbuttoned his pants slowly, leaning back to watch his eyes. And to let him watch her. She could feel him searching her mind, her face—every part of her—for some sign of rejection. Anything.

  But all she felt was reckless tenderness, a need for him that went beyond mere desire, that was rooted deep in her soul, in every breath, in her desire to keep living. She wanted to live. With him.

  Lannes’s eyes darkened, and he grabbed her hand. Lethe tried to pull away, protesting. “You’re not going to stop me this time.”

  “I didn’t plan on it,” he muttered hoarsely, dragging her close. “But you need to know something before we do this.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  “Maybe.” Lannes slid his hands into her hair, holding her face. His palms and fingers were huge and gnarled, his nails dull as silver, and sharp. But he touched her so carefully she hardly felt his strength, and his blue eyes held veins of light.

  “If we do this,” he whispered. “You’re mine. And I mean that, Lethe.”

  “Promise?” she breathed, beginning to tremble.

  Lannes inhaled sharply. “Just like I’ll be yours.”

  Lethe leaned in, pressing her lips to his ear. “Is this a gargoyle thing?”

  “No,” he murmured. “I just love you, that’s all.”

  She bowed her head, sagging against him. Opening her mind. There was so little of it left, her mind, but she bared it all and the link between them burned white-hot, as though she had the sun in her soul.

  I cannot imagine my life without you, she whispered in his mind.

  Then don’t, he told her. Don’t, when you know how I feel about you.

  She wrapped herself around his body. Heart to heart. Massive muscles gliding beneath her hands. Being held by him felt the same as nesting in some soft warm home, and she was hungry for a home, aching to feel safe. She tried to see him, all of him, but he was so big and so close that all she could savor were snatches of his face, and hard muscle, the curve of a wing arched over his shoulder. He smelled sweet, like vanilla and cinnamon. Same man, she told herself. Real man. Not a mask of light and air, but something else.

  He was awkward with her clothes. She ripped them off while he shoved down his jeans. She did not give him time to push them past his knees before she pounced, dragging her tongue over his shaft. His fingers dug into his scalp, and he let out a stifled groan. Lethe laughed.

  “I hope you’re not laughing at me,” he rasped, though his voice also shook, and he ended up collapsing on his knees beside her. “I have a delicate ego.”

  “Nothing about you is delicate,” she said, then straddled him, burying her hands in his hair, kissing the tip of his ear. “Except this.”

  She kissed his eyelid. “And this.”

  Her lips brushed his lips. “And this.”

  “How about my heart?” he whispered against her mouth.

  “How about mine?” she replied.

  She gasped as he laid her down in the grass, his lips and hands caressing her breasts—gently at first, then harder. She arched her back, trying to wind her leg around his hip, but he slid away, moving lower, with an awkwardness that was so tender she could hardly stand it. When he hooked her legs over his shoulder, she said, “Have you done this before?”

  Lannes mumbled something. Lethe said, “What?”

  “I read a lot,” he said, and before she could say another word, he did something with his tongue that made her cry out, bucking against his mouth. He did it again, harder and faster, and she brushed her heels against his wings.

  He stiffened slightly, gasping against her, and when she did it a second time, he stopped and gave her a look that was so hot and hungry, and so harassed, that she didn’t know whether to laugh or beg for more.

  “I don’t have much practice at this,” he said, and his mouth twitched into a smile. “Don’t distract me.”

  “I’ll just lie here, then,” she said tartly, brushing his wing again with her heel. He closed his eyes, exhaling sharply—something she did as well, when he twisted his hips and she got another good look at his shaft. Desire pummeled her, and every part of her—everything—ached to have him inside her.

  She reached down and grabbed his hair, tugging. “Come on.”

  “What if I want to slow down?” he asked, his fingers lingering between her legs as he moved up her body. She swallowed a gasp as he started a fast rhythm of caresses and penetration, and clamped her thighs around his large hand.

  “In me,” she gasped. “Now.”

  Lannes did not laugh or argue. He slid on top of her, and his weight felt so good she almost came just from having him rest heavy between her legs. She wrapped her thighs around his hips, arching her back with a low cry as he pushed slowly into her, filling her body so completely she lost all coherent thought. And when he began to move—slowly at first—she rocked hard against him, forcing him deeper, sharper. He groaned, and she reached around to stroke his wings.

  Pleasure rocked down their link, so powerful she came right then, her orgasm spiking through her with a violence that cut the breath right out of her lungs. And then Lannes started moving faster, harder, grinding her into the grass—and she came again, lost in the mirror of his own pleasure and hers. He did not stop. She felt the building wave of his orgasm, and it was making him wild. She wanted him wild. Lethe did not remember having sex, but seeing him crazed made her so hot she could hardly stand it, and she tugged at his wings and hair, surging upward to bite his shoulder.

  He came when she did that, and the pleasure that surged though their bond sent her over the edge again and again, until it was all she could do to breathe, gasping at aftershocks.

  “Oh,” she rasped, practically blind. “Holy shit.”

  Lannes, still buried inside her, started laughing weakly. The movement made her writhe, gasping, and his hand curved around the back of her head.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, still grinning, and she punched his shoulder with a sharp laugh. He collapsed on top of her again, stretching out against her body, and she hugged him as tightly as she could, afraid he would roll away.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said, his smile fading. “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”

  “Let’s not get to the point where you want to,” she rasped. “Oh, man.”

  He almost started laughing again, and then stopped quite suddenly and said, “Was it strange for you?”

  “Strange?”

  “You know.” He gestured at his face, and then his back, where his wings had finally collapsed around them.

  Lethe stared. “Was it strange for you?”

  “Of course not.”

  She kissed his throat, sliding her hand in
to his hair. “Does this happen often? Between your kind and humans?”

  “No,” he said, holding her tight. “But it’s not unheard of. It’s frowned upon, maybe. But my brother has a human wife.”

  Lethe searched her heart. “It feels…natural.”

  “Oh. Well,” he rumbled, “I’m all about being natural.”

  She bit back another laugh. In their clothes, a cell phone began to ring. Both of them flinched, and Lannes reached out with one long arm to snag his jeans. He dragged them over and fished out his phone.

  “Hey,” he said. A heartbeat later, a wave of confusion poured through their bond. It was serious enough that she started scrambling out from under him, reaching for her clothes. She was almost dressed when he hung up.

  “I’m ready,” she said, her knees still weak. “What happened?”

  “It’s Frederick,” Lannes said, dazed. “He’s here.”

  Chapter Twenty

  He took a risk and decided to fly back to the old farmhouse—for speed, he told himself. Carrying Lethe over his shoulder, he climbed an oak—and once he was high enough, swung the woman into his arms and jumped, wings opening with a snap. He glided just below tree level, and it felt good to be free. Nor did he reassume his illusion. A deliberate oversight. Lethe was in his arms with a look of wonder on her face, and he reminded himself that the people he was heading towards knew him, and what he was.

  He did not have to hide. He was not going to hide, even though something was wrong.

  Something very wrong. There was no other reason Frederick should be here. No way, no how, he should have known where to find Lannes.

  My brother must have told him, he thought, but that didn’t feel right, either.

  Lannes landed behind William’s garden, momentum forcing him to run several steps, narrowly missing the fence post. Lethe laughed quietly, and he hefted her higher, closer, against his body. Everything still tingled. She weighed next to nothing, and it was a miracle to him—a true marvel—that she was looking at his face—his face—with no fear, no question.