Monsters and Shifters and Men, Oh My! Paranormal Menage and Multiple Partner Romance Stories

by Giselle Renarde

  She hoped…

  The End

  Secrets of the Solstice Sacrifice

  By Giselle Renarde

  Chapter One

  Y Tylwyth Teg, the fair folk, have lived on this mount since before there was a country to speak of. After a skirmish with y gwragedd annwn, the wee folk of the lakes and streams, our great-mothers and fathers settled in these hills and became the gwyllion, good folk of the mountain. There were no human creatures in that time—only the fair folk, existing unhindered in our ways and travels.

  A knock at the door shattered Selyf’s concentration. Like a hare on high alert, he sat poised above his magnum opus. If he stayed very quiet, perhaps the intrusive persons outside his lair would think he wasn’t home and simply go away.

  “Unhindered in our ways and travels,” he repeated back to himself.

  We used to ride wild horses over hill and dale. These days, they’ve all been tamed. We’ve taken to riding wild pigs, errant dogs, even ducks, if we must.

  He could still hear them whispering outside, whoever they were. No, it was no use. The damage to his focus proved utterly irreparable, and he threw down his quill to answer the door.

  Beyond the threshold stood a saccharine pair oozing so much wretched love he was surprised it didn’t drip like syrup all over his polished leather boots. They wore jackets the colour of birch leaves—green to indicate their status as social fae. Selyf would have to remind himself to include a subsection on apparel in his chapter regarding gwyllion social iconography. It would certainly be of interest to those who picked up his book for mere entertainment purposes.

  The printmaker had warned him against publishing a purely academic collection. He’d gone so far as suggest Selyf include various insights on the topics or sex and romance. Hardly an area of expertise.

  Tugging the sleeves of his deep red cassock, he snapped out of thoughts of his manuscript. “Yes? What is it you want from me?”

  He hoped the sharpness in his tone would convey that he was in no mood for visitors. When neither form in the doorway made any inquiry, Selyf let his gaze wander to the female’s face. Her eyes striking eyes found him like a maelstrom, drawing him in.

  “Well?” Selyf said, pushing aside his discomfort. “Speak up!”

  Turning her head from the cradle of her young man’s shoulder, the girl asked, “Professor Selyf?”

  Her voice was neither deep nor lilting, but it warmed his body like a tender embrace.

  “Yes,” he stammered, near a whisper. “Yes, I am Selyf.”

  He recognized at once that he was staring at her, and yet he could hardly bring himself to stop. Her raven hair cascaded around the slender sapling that was her neck. Her lips were the colour of berries. Her height suggested mixed roots, though it would be churlish to ask.

  Placing her hand flush to Selyf’s chest, she introduced them both. “My name is Fay Trysta, and the man you see beside me is my fondest caru, Fay Bedwyn.”

  That word, caru, struck Selyf like a dagger. Of course these social fae were lovers—that much was plain to see—but to hear the word spoken by those pouting lips confirmed his nauseating suspicion. Selyf’s heart hardened to dreaded iron.

  “Yes?” He could hardly bring himself to look upon lovely Trysta, whose hand still lay across his breast, as he snapped, “And? What is it you want?”

  He gazed firmly at the boy, Bedwyn, whose eyes grew wide with alarm.

  “Trysta,” the ginger specimen stuttered. Taking hold of the girl’s wrist, he swept her hand from Selyf’s heart. “You forget yourself, cara. Remember, a red jacket is the garb of the solitary fay. I’m certain the good professor doesn’t appreciate your social advances.”

  Bowing her head, the girl said, “Oh, Fay Professor, I do apologize. Bedwyn and I have mixed roots, as you can surely see. We often do forget the ways of the fae, spending so much time in the human realm.”

  He would have scolded anybody else for daring to touch him so boldly, but knew through his research the “trooping” fae, as they were oft known, greeted one another with warm embraces. Humans were much the same. Surely the girl didn’t intend any rudeness. She was simply raised to be congenial.

  With a deep breath, Selyf replied, “No harm done. Now, if you please, I am exceedingly busy.”

  When he attempted to close the heavy wooden door, Bedwyn held it open. “We’re sorry, Fay Professor, but you’re the only one who can help us now. We’ve been to the apothecary—well, Trysta has, I should say—and even he hasn’t the foggiest idea what to do about her problem.”

  Selyf considered the girl as she rolled a pendant between her fingers. When she looked up, her eyes penetrated to his very depths. Immediately, he glanced away, up to the edge of the doorframe. A black spider nested in a crook where the wood was rotted. If this woman with eyes like the sea had not been standing before him, he would have smashed the creature with the palm of his hand.

  Snapping into the reality of work, Selyf held his wrists behind his back. “Apothecary, you say? Is it a medical problem you’ve come to see me about? You realize I am not a doctor.”

  “We’re beyond needing doctors,” Bedwyn pleaded. “Trysta is beyond them, I should say. It is her problem, after all. Well, when all is said and done, it’s my problem too, I suppose. What I mean to say is, it’s a female problem she’s come to see you with.”

  The boy nodded as though they two shared some secret affinity by virtue of their gender.

  Selyf shook an exasperated head. “Yes, all right, thank you.”

  A female problem was no great feat. Selyf prided himself on his extensive book-knowledge of the female anatomy.

  “Trysta, is it?” he asked the girl, in a desperate attempt to disguise her name’s immediate branding on his soul. “Would you prefer a private consultation, or would you have your dear Bedlam sit in?”

  “Bedwyn,” she corrected. She rolled her pendant so quickly between her fingers it might have caught fire if it weren’t made of gold. “Let’s speak in private, please. Bedwyn isn’t comfortable discussing these matters.”

  Pressing past Selyf, she snuck deeper inside his private study.

  With a satisfied shrug, Selyf turned to the ginger boy, offered a flat, “Goodbye,” and closed the door in his face.

  Racing to the window, Bedwyn waved to the girl. “I’ll come by later on to pick you up. I miss you already, cara Trysta!”

  “Yes, thank you,” Selyf muttered, shutting the curtains.

  Even in the darkness of the study, the unsmiling girl looked more beautiful than anyone Selyf had seen around the hillside or village. When she gazed at him, her eyes were so infused with hope that pressure descended on his chest. He looked around and felt utterly inadequate. His room was cluttered with books and sheaves, with every type of herb and specimen an out-of-practice magical might have in his surroundings.

  Trysta ducked slightly at the subterranean ceiling. Those with human blood tended to be taller than the pure fae.

  “I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you,” Selyf said. He hadn’t any milk for tea, and the half loaf of bread in his drawer went stale three days ago.

  “Oh,” she replied with disappointment in her eyes. Creeping toward the door, she asked, “Shall I go, then?”

  When he realized they were talking at cross-purposes, he leapt to block her departure. “No… food! No food. I have no food to offer you. My advice is yours for the taking. I only hope I can offer a solution to your problem.”

  “You know what you might offer me, for starters?” she asked with a generous grin. “A chair.”

  Her smile was contagious, even to a solitary fay.

  “Please,” Selyf said, indicating the seat across from his desk. “Do sit down.”

  As she placed her bag in her lap and crossed one leg over the other, Selyf slid into the leather armchair where he sat most days and slept some nights. With this beauty in his space, he couldn’t overcome his embarrassment at the bacheloresque mess. Selyf wondered if
he looked as much in disarray as his study.

  “It’s an awful thing to admit,” Trysta began with a slight titter, “but I thought you’d be dreadfully old.”

  “Strange,” he replied, retrieving kernels of his lost sense of humour. “I thought I was.”

  Tossing her dark hair behind her shoulders, Trysta offered a charitable smile. “Of course! You’re a full fairy. Your face does not betray your age, but your intellect and accomplishments are quite another story. Bedwyn and I walked from two villages beyond the dale to seek your audience. There are other magicals closer to home, but we’ve heard tales of your power since we were children. I can’t tell how grateful Bedwyn and I are that you would make time for us.”

  Bedwyn, Bedwyn, wretched bloody Bedwyn!

  Clearing his throat, Selyf hardened his tone. “You speak on your lover’s behalf, do you?”

  “Bedwyn is not my lover,” Trysta replied directly.

  When he met her gaze, he was surprised to find her glaring. Her dark eyes seemed to draw his soul out of his body, until he was all but floating above his desk to join her on the other side.

  “Not in the sense you imagine,” she continued. “That’s why I’ve come to you, Fay Professor. I have a great deal to share with you, but only if you can assure discretion. Bedwyn knows nothing of my troubles, and I should like to keep it that way.”

  “Of course.” Selyf shifted papers out of the way in search of a new sheet. Quill poised in readiness, he bid, “Why not tell me about this female problem to which your ginger boy alluded? And then, if you will, let me know of any failed treatments you’ve received from your doctors.”

  Shaking her head, Trysta let out a wry laugh. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and fondled the pendant hanging between her pert breasts. “It’s all lies. I’ve never seen any doctor for my troubles. I am beyond repair. How could a lowly medicine man help me?”

  Quill still poised above paper, Selyf replied, “It’s rather hard for me to say with so little information. What is the malady you speak of?”

  Wringing her pendant between both hands, she looked all around the room. Even with Selyf’s difficulty empathizing, he could see the girl’s distress. “You can assure me absolute confidence?” she again asked.

  “Oh, yes,” he said in his most faithful tone of voice. If he could have reached across the desk, he would have set his hand on hers. “I am a solitary fay. I have nobody to tell.”

  With a sad smile, she looked into his eye and nodded.

  “My mother is fay,” she said, holding her hands against the bag in her lap. “When she was young, she liked to roam the villages. All the girls did, in those days. My mother and the other girls were convinced the humans couldn’t see them. Now, of course, we know that isn’t the case. There are children as well as adults with second sight, who can see the glow of a particularly bright fairy.”

  “And your mother was one such fay?” Selyf asked.

  Trysta nodded. “My mother’s radiance was significant in those days, or so she tells me. One afternoon, she was quite on her own when a village boy took note of her. The human was young and attractive, and my mother took his attention as quite the compliment. It wasn’t until he started touching her that she realized her folly. He took her for a Corrigan, it seemed. Those bawdy creatures are only too well-known.”

  “Corrigans, yes.” Selyf flipped through his manuscript until he’d come upon his neat description of the species. “Fae known to be young women in the daytime and old women at night. They enjoy quite a reputation.”

  “Yes, well, my mother isn’t one. She tried to flee, but the human was bigger and stronger. Fay Professor, he held her down and raped her. That is the fashion in which I was conceived. That is the shame which has forever branded my flesh.”

  Here, Trysta ceased her speech. Tears rushed down her down her cheeks.

  Flustered, Selyf dug through a desk drawer for a clean handkerchief. He’d heard tears denoted sadness in the human realm, and the last thing he wished was for the girl to feel any pain.

  When he’d found the handkerchief, he rushed to her side. “Here you are,” he said, handing it to her. She pressed the cotton square to her cheeks. “And is this the root of what the daft boy termed your female problem?”

  “Oh, no.” She chuckled, despite her tears. “I’ve not yet begun to describe my troubles, Fay Professor.”

  “Please,” he said, settling against the desk. “Call me Selyf. So few do.”

  She nodded. “Selyf.”

  When she said his name, his whole body seemed to ignite piece by piece. He experienced unusual palpitations, and sent a hand to cover his heart as she continued her account.

  “When my mother discovered I was quickening within her, she returned to the village to show the man who’d caused all the trouble. Mother found the wicked creature, but now he behaved as though she was invisible. No matter her effort, the great brute ignored my mother entirely. And so, she returned to the mountain to wait out the term, all the while wishing for a happy, healthy baby girl.”

  Excellent chapter focus! Selyf reminded himself to include in his manuscript a section regarding sex selection in fay babies. It was the mother’s duty to choose her child’s gender while it was still in the womb.

  “Fay wishes are powerful tools, as you know,” Trysta went on. “But no amount of wishing can fully alter the form human blood has selected. When I was born, my mother soon discovered I was not the thing she’d wished for—not on the outside—and yet she knew I was her little girl. She knew it in her heart, for it was a fay mother’s prerogative to choose her child’s sex. And so, she dressed me as a girl and taught me everything a female child ought to know. I grew up a girl like any other.”

  “I’m not entirely certain I understand,” the professor admitted. “When you were born, your body was not a female body? Is that what you mean to say?”

  The young woman nodded, seeming ashamed. “Against all odds, my mother was right. Her fay wishing had worked to some degree, because when I grew into adulthood, my child’s body became a woman’s. My hips widened, and I sprouted my lovely bronnydd.”

  “Ah, so they’re real?” Selyf asked, recognizing immediately what a stupid comment it was. He wasn’t used to feeling anything but highly intelligent. The misstep was jarring.

  Trysta laughed. “Yes, Professor Selyf, they are quite real. My body is a woman’s through and through—except for one small detail.”

  She indicated her lap, and Selyf immediately understood.

  “And your boy Bedwyn knows nothing of this?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I’m sure you see only his naïveté, but Bedwyn is a dear and kind young man. More than that, he shares my experience of growing up half human, half fay. Selyf…” She placed a warm hand upon his thigh. Her eyes were flecked with mauve when she looked up into his. “I want to share my body with my caru, and when I do, I wish for that body to be fully feminine. I simply can’t live this way anymore. Will you help me?”

  “If he’s so naïve, chances are he hasn’t a clue what you’re supposed to look like down there,” Selyf replied, unable to contain his jealousy. A creature of such intense beauty deserved a learned man, a man of intellect, a magical being! Not some pathetic mixed-blood. “Why not simply undress before him and wait for a reaction?”

  Without removing her warm hand from his leg, she said, “Surely you jest, Professor.”

  “Of course,” he relented.

  Generally, Selyf had no trouble solving problems, but Trysta presented him with a significant challenge. The most striking of his troubles was the inability to concentrate in her midst. Her splendour shook him profoundly.

  “But you must understand,” he said, “I’ve never come up against a dilemma like yours. I admit, I’m not certain how to proceed. Even a fay magical has his limitations.”

  “I understand,” she said. “Human blood is a most stagnant substance. The body becomes set in its ways. That’s why I never bothere
d with the village doctors. I knew they could no more help me than understand me. More than likely, they would have labelled me mad and locked me in a dungeon.”

  “I’m certain you are correct.” Selyf placed a tentative hand on top of hers. “I will do all I can to help you. Please feel free to stay here while I consult my manuscripts.”

  Rising from her chair, she tossed her bag over her shoulder before setting her hand over Selyf’s heart.

  “You have no food,” she said in a voice like floating embers. “Let me fetch you milk and honey from the gwyllion town. We must sustain you as you work.”

  As she buttoned her trooping fay jacket and went out into the world, he placed a wish on the wind for her swift return. It was the first time he’d felt such hope since early childhood. Even then, it was only his mother’s safe return he wished for. The day she was snatched up on the way to market, he ceased his wanton wishing and followed his father into the solitary realm of magical artistry.

  In Trysta’s absence, he pored over volume after volume of potions, spells, and enchantments. The greatest obstacle was in finding a solution that would surely to work on a mixed-blood fay. This problem did not exist amongst purebloods, since they possessed the power to alter their bodies magically.

  For most fae, it took little more than a wish.

  Chapter Two

  Upon her return from the gwyllion town, Trysta spotted her caru halfway up the hill. Her stomach sank as she realized she didn’t want to see him just yet. She needed more time alone with Selyf, without the pressure of knowing Bedwyn was standing just outside the cottage, waiting for an answer.

  Though she generally loved passing the time of day at market, she’d rushed through her purchases so she might return to the professor post haste. She hadn’t the slightest clue what foods a solitary magical might enjoy, so she’d bought a sampling of everything on offer.