The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  “You!” Lorelei screeched. “Interfering again. What’s the matter? Can’t you find a man of your own?”

  In answer, I dove straight at her, talons fully extended. At the last second, she ducked and evaded my attack. My claws grasped a hank of her hair and ripped it out. She screeched and flailed her arms, reaching for my wingtips. I beat the air backward to evade her grasp, and landed on a branch just above her head.

  Lorelei snarled and snapped her teeth at me. “So now you’ve become a hunter, Doorkeeper.” Through her defiance, I heard the fear in her voice. It made me hungrier for her blood. I spread my wings out for another attack and her eyes widened. “Keep your prize. I like my meat fresh and this one’s nearly dead.”

  As I dove, she plunged into the pool in a great wave. My claws grasped only water. I could just make out her long, sinuous white body cleaving the black water, and then she vanished in a flash of light. I felt an urge to follow her, but then I recalled what she’d said about young Stewart. I swiveled my neck and saw that he was still lying on the muddy bank. The water level had risen above his head. He’d drown if I didn’t do something. I flew over him and snagged his shirt collar in my talons, dragging him backward. It was hard work: he was a big guy, his sopping clothes and rubber waders adding weight. I got him halfway out and then cocked my head to his chest to listen for breathing. Even my acute owl senses couldn’t pick up any.

  I gave one more screech and then I willed myself back into human form. I tilted back the young fisherman’s head to clear his airway and struck his chest, once, twice, three times. Opening his mouth, I winced at the reek of chewing tobacco, but still I blew in. I repeated the procedure until he heaved and spit pond water in my mouth. I spat, wiped my mouth, and sat back on my heels to watch him cough and retch, unsure what else I should do but not feeling right about leaving him. It was too late to try to follow Lorelei anyway. Besides, now that I was in human form, my bloodlust had dissipated.

  When he’d finished coughing up water, I patted him on the back and, not sure what else to say, said, “Thataboy. It’s okay.”

  He turned and stared at me, his eyes going round as marbles and then going up and down. Crap. I was naked. I started to cross my arms over my breasts, but then thought Heck, what’s the point? Covering myself at this stage seemed kind of cringing and undignified.

  “You!” he gasped. Was he about to faint? Or attack me? He might think I was the one who’d tried to pull him underwater. “You!” he spluttered again, staring at me wide-eyed as he painfully pulled himself into a sitting position. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my entire life!”

  I snorted pond water out my nose. The guy was … what? Nineteen? He lived on a farm with his father and grandfather. How many naked women could he have ever seen?

  “Thank you,” I said, wiping my nose. “That’s nice of you …”

  “I mean it! You’re more beautiful than …” He creased his brow, clearly trying to think of beautiful women of his acquaintance. “Angelina Jolie!”

  I laughed again. He was kind of cute. “Well, I don’t know about that, but again, thank you. I’m just glad you didn’t drown. You know, you really shouldn’t fish here.”

  His eyes went even wider. “Are you the Lady of the Lake? Did I break a rule so you had to punish me?”

  “No! Or … er … yes!” I straightened my spine and shook out my hair. “I am the Lady of the Lake,” I intoned in a deep, sonorous voice. I used a little bit of what I’d learned as an owl to make my voice echo-ey. “I protect these woods and streams. Tell all your friends that no one should come fishing here. Or else!”

  “Or else what?”

  “Um … or else they’ll feel my wrath!”

  He furrowed his brow again. “But you saved me,” he said. “Only so you could spread the word. Next time I won’t be so lenient.”

  “You’ve got feathers in your hair.” He leaned closer to me, not at all cowed by my act. “Hey, you’re not the Lady of the Lake, are you?”

  I slumped, disappointed at myself for not being able to pull it off. Angelina Jolie would have. “Okay, you got me.”

  “You’re an owl princess!” he said, plucking a feather from my hair. “You’re one of those animals that turn into beautiful women. My nana told me stories of your kind—selkies and swan maidens.”

  I sighed. I would get the one fisherman raised on animal-bride tales. “I’m not an owl princess.”

  “You are! And I’ve got your feather, which means you gotta come with me and be my wife.”

  I punched him in the arm. “That’s the thanks I get for saving your life?”

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing his arm and looking hurt. “You don’t want to marry me?”

  “Sorry, but no. Not that you’re not a perfectly nice young man … um …”

  “MacKenzie Stewart, but my friends call me Mac. I just got my associates degree in ag business from SUNY Cobleskill. I’m a partner in my family’s dairy farm. I’m going to turn the whole thing organic. You should like that, being a bird and all … Oh, gosh, we do raise chickens, though. We could go free-range if that would make it better … and I guess I could become a vegetarian …” His brow creased again, no doubt wondering if I was worth giving up Big Macs. “… or maybe you don’t mind eating meat, you being a carnivorous bird.”

  I looked at Mac’s eager face and sighed. Poor guy. He must not meet many girls who wanted to come live on the family farm. He seemed willing to do about anything for me. “Thank you, Mac. I’m flattered, but I’m sure you’ll find a nice human girl … as long as you stay out of these woods!” I added in my Lady-of-the-Lake voice.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, cowed at last. Ma’am? Would he have called Angelina Jolie ma’am? “But I wish there was something I could do to repay you for saving my life. Can I do some … heroic deed, or something?”

  “Yes,” I said, shivering. “You can give me your shirt.”

  I walked back toward home in Mac Stewarts’s flannel shirt, which thankfully came down to my knees and only smelled a little of cheap cologne and man-sweat. I followed the stream back, keeping my eyes and ears open for Duncan, sorry I no longer had the vision and hearing of an owl. The woods felt darker and denser, as if the trees had moved a few inches closer to one another and were readying themselves to pounce on me. I called Duncan’s name, my voice frail in comparison to the powerful hoot of the owl. I felt frail. As an owl I’d felt as if something had opened up inside of me, but I no longer felt that channel of power. Instead I was depleted, weaker than ever. When I reached my backyard, I didn’t need any special powers to find Duncan Laird. He was sprawled out naked across my back steps, the gash on his chest black against his human flesh.

  I let out a cry that could have been the hoot of an owl for her wounded mate and ran to him. His eyes were closed, but when I knelt beside him and touched his arm he stirred and moaned. His eyes flicked open, revealing a slit of glittering blue.

  “Cal …” he managed, his voice sounding like the croak of a frog.

  “What happened? What did this to you?” I touched the edge of the gash on his chest and he moaned. There were fainter scratches in his skin, which looked like they had been made with claws.

  “An undine …” he said. “Not Lorelei … another … one …”

  “I knew it couldn’t have been Lorelei, because I was with her.” A loud moan interrupted this thought. I could tell him what had happened to me later. “Should I take you to the hospital?”

  “They wouldn’t be able … to treat this,” he muttered, turning slightly to the side. I gasped at the sight of his back. It was scored with slash marks.

  “I’ll get Diana,” I said. “She’ll know what to do … or Liz …”

  “No,” he said, grabbing my wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong for a wounded man. “You can do it … You have the power of the Aelvesgold in you. Just …” He looked anxiously toward the edge of the woods. “Just … help me inside.”

&nb
sp; I put his arm around my shoulders and got him to his feet, then realized I should have opened the door first. But Duncan held out his hand and the door flew open. “You still have so much power,” I said, ushering him through the door, “even though you’re hurt.”

  He stumbled over the threshold and we both nearly crashed to the kitchen floor. “Not so … much,” he croaked with a strangled laugh. “But you … you have all the power I need.”

  I tightened my grip on his waist, noticing in spite of myself how firm his muscles were and how warm his bare skin. In the library I settled him on the couch, pulling an afghan over him to spare his modesty … or mine, I supposed. He was probably in too much pain to think about being naked in front of me, but I was going to have to concentrate, and Duncan Laird’s naked body was … distracting, to say the least. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was distracted. When I knelt beside him on the couch I caught him staring down the opening of my flannel shirt where a button had come loose. “Where did you get this?” he asked, fingering the worn fabric.

  “From a fisherman named Mac,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Long story. I’ll tell you all about it after … What am I supposed to do, Duncan? Tell me! You’re losing blood!”

  He smiled weakly and took my hand. A heat flash moved straight from my hand into the core of my body as if he’d touched me … somewhere intimate.

  “The Aelvesgold in your body is reacting to mine,” he said. “You can use it to perform a binding spell on my wounds.” He guided my hand over the deepest gash, the one on his chest, holding it barely an inch above his flesh. “Concentrate on the heat between us.”

  I blushed again. There was heat between us, and not just of the Aelvesgold variety, but I tried to concentrate on the Aelvesgold right now. I felt the warmth of his torn flesh radiating just below my palm and the pulse in his wrist above mine. As I focused on the heat, it grew and spread. He moved my hand slightly, in a small circular motion, and the heat moved with it. I saw it now: a syrupy red-gold light, like the liquid Aelvesgold Liam had moved across my body when we’d made love in Faerie. Only this light was stained red, perhaps because Duncan was wounded.

  Duncan slowly guided my hand along the length of the gash in his chest while the viscous light coated the edges of his wound. He winced once and I stopped, but he grimaced and told me to go on, saying it only hurt because I was binding the skin. I nodded, and focused my energy on directing the Aelvesgold into his flesh. As I did, I felt the Aelvesgold building in me as well. Every inch of my skin prickled with energy. The rough couch upholstery was like sandpaper on my thighs; the flannel shirt rubbing against my breasts made my nipples harden.

  Duncan took my other hand and, moving the afghan, guided it to a long gash on his thigh. Gold threads sprung from my fingertips and interlaced across his body between my hands, weaving a criss-cross pattern over his skin.

  “This is different from when you bound my wounds,” I whispered, looking into his eyes. “It’s …” I faltered when I saw how he was looking at me. His eyes burned with desire. I felt its pull as I’d felt the pull of the gold threads of Aelvesgold in the woods, connecting me to everything. He reached out to stroke my face. As his hand passed across the table he knocked over the glass of scotch I’d left on the table earlier. Its smoky aroma jarred me with a memory of Liam. I pulled away, breaking the connection between Duncan and me. Sparks flew into the air, cascading over the couch, burning holes in the upholstery. One landed on Duncan’s bare skin and he cried out in pain.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, leaping up to put out the smoking cinders. “I guess I’m not ready …”

  Duncan seized both my hands in his and gazed deeply into my eyes.

  “It’s all right, Callie. I didn’t mean to rush you. I didn’t realize you were still attached to the incubus.”

  “I’m not!” I objected.

  Wordlessly, Duncan turned my hands over and held up my palms. An intricate network of golden spirals was inscribed on my skin. They looked like the Celtic knotwork designs in the margins of the Book of Kells—an ancient script of magic.

  “These are wards,” Duncan said. “Internal wards to protect you from unwelcome advances. They mean your heart is spoken for.”

  EIGHTEEN

  I think I would know if I were in love,” I objected, seating myself on the chair opposite the couch and pulling the flannel shirt over my knees. “The whole problem with Liam was that I wasn’t in love with him. If I had been, then he would have become fully human.”

  “I didn’t say you loved him,” Duncan said, leaning back on the couch and arranging the afghan over his chest like the folds of a Roman toga. “I said your heart belonged to him. He must have bound you to him. He doesn’t want you to love anyone else.”

  “No, he wouldn’t …” I began, but then I recalled what he’d said in my dream about the threads of Aelvesgold linking true lovers. Had that been his way of telling me that we were bound together?

  “The bastard,” I swore. “He might as well have put a chastity belt on me.”

  Duncan looked at me curiously. “So you don’t want to be bound to him?”

  “I most certainly do not! I want to make up my own mind about loving him …” Too late I realized what that sounded like. Duncan looked away from me, something flickering darkly in his eyes—disappointment, I guessed, although it looked almost like anger.

  “So you’re really not sure how you feel about him.” He started to get up, remembered he was naked under the afghan, and cast a spell that conjured clothes—tightly fitting jeans, a soft white shirt, and a black leather jacket. The perfect outfit to make me sorry that he was going. He winced as he adjusted his shoulders under the jacket.

  “I haven’t healed your back,” I objected, following him to the door.

  “My wounds will heal,” he said with a wry smile, “probably faster than your feelings for Liam will change.”

  “How can I know how I feel when I have these wards on me?” I asked. “Is there some way I can remove them?”

  Duncan turned to me in the doorway. The porch light shining through the red pane in the fanlight cast a ruby streak across his face, making him look like a savage in war paint. “Do you really want them gone?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “They can be removed the same way as the wards that are blocking your power can be removed. Through transformative magic.”

  “But that hasn’t worked,” I objected.

  “It is working,” he said. “You felt the power tonight when you were an owl, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but then it faded.”

  “But you were still strong enough to heal me. And the fact that Liam’s wards are visible is a sign that you are growing powerful enough to shed them. One more transformation and you’ll be strong enough to break through them all.”

  He leaned toward me. I felt the wards flare up on my skin, but I clenched my fists and willed them down, long enough for Duncan Laird to place a chaste kiss on my cheek. “See,” he said, leaning back, “you’re stronger than you think.”

  I was expecting the dream that night. Liam was there beneath the willow tree, wearing nothing but leaf shadow and honeyed sunlight, but I was dressed in a magnificent gown embroidered with a thousand golden spirals.

  “Ah,” he said, reaching for my hand. “You’ve found them!”

  I snatched my hand away from him. “You branded me!” I hissed. Coils unwound from my sleeve like long supple snakes and hissed with me.

  “It’s not a brand,” he said, holding up his hand to the rippling coils. “It’s the history of our lovemaking written on your skin.” The coils approached his hand tentatively, as if sniffing, and then slipped onto his hand and wound themselves around his wrist and forearm, twining themselves into golden patterns on his skin. As they traveled up his arm I felt a corresponding tug on my arm pulling me toward him.

  “You bound me to you!” I cried, pulling back, even in a dream det
ermined not to give in to his seduction.

  “I am equally bound,” he replied, looping his arm in the air and wrapping a long skein of twisted thread around it. The dress made of coils unraveled as I fell to my knees by his side. The threads spread across his chest and I felt a corresponding tug in my own chest, a tightness coiling around my heart and tickling my bare breasts. My dress had vanished. Golden coils writhed on my bare skin. I knelt naked on the mossy bank beside Liam, entwined with him in a shimmering net of desire.

  “Our desire,” he whispered, crouching beside me, our knees touching. “When we make love, we create friction.” He lifted his hand and held it, palm out, an inch above my skin. Gold tendrils quivered in the air between us. My nipples tingled and hardened. He lowered his hand to my navel and twirled his fingers. The spirals coiled back on themselves and formed a knot. There was a tightening in my core, a small knot of tension that felt … good.

  “We can shape that heat and tension …” He moved his fingers and the spiral knot began to revolve. The warmth expanded and spread. I moaned. It felt delicious … so what if he was binding me to him …

  “No!” I cried, grabbing his hand. As soon as our hands touched, the golden coils tightened, taut as violin strings. His eyes locked on to mine. He squeezed my hand and the knot inside me exploded. I came, gasping at the suddenness and force of the orgasm. Liam cried out at the same instant, his face suffused with golden light. The spirals around us unwound and snapped in the air, sputtering and sparking like loose electrical cables. As their energy rippled outward the air buckled and cracked with thunder and lightning.