by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney
Ivan growled, leaning down to put his face even with hers. His hands on either side of her hips on the bed made her sink a bit, but he kept his nose only an inch from hers. “That isn’t going to happen. You will hold on until I get there. I will find a way.”
She smiled sadly. She would have loved to have more time with him. Fate, that fickle bitch, had intervened, and she would have only the dream times between now and the full moon.
“Do not waste your life on me. Do not give him two victims where there should only be one.”
“Hear me, Vasalisa,” he said softly. It was the first time he’d addressed her by her name. It broke another barrier between them. She felt it give with an almost physical release. She shuddered under the impact.
“I’m listening,” she whispered.
“I will come for you. Koschei the Deathless will pay by my hand for the injuries he has dealt you and those he will deal you before I can prevent them. I will not allow him to kill you. You are mine, Vasalisa Whiteflame, and I aim to convince you to marry me. Do you understand me?”
She blinked, her lips parting in shock. She couldn’t have heard that correctly.
“Did you just say you want to marry me?”
His eyes remained serious, but his lips curved in a smile. “I did. The connection between us is more than physical. You are my match. I know the Rus do things differently, but among the sidhe of the Northlands, when the magic chooses a mate for you, you don’t ignore it.”
“That’s why you wanted to know about reality and the dreamscape,” she said softly.
“Yes.”
“I won’t agree to marry you.”
The smile slid into something knowing and sly. “I can convince you. But to do that, you have to hang on until I get there. I don’t know how long that will take. It should be before Deathless learns the Rus won’t be providing the tribute.”
Her heart beat so hard she thought it might escape her chest. He meant it. Was it possible he could defeat the Deathless? Was he that good? Could he find the secret hiding place of Koschei’s life force?
“Do you know the secret of Koschei’s invulnerability?”
“His soul is outside his body.”
“Yes. Find the soul and you will be able to kill him.”
“It’s on my list of things to do.”
She smiled. It was a tremulous, uncertain smile, but she felt it curve her lips. “What else is on your list?”
“You. Making love to you here, making love to you in reality. Spending long, lazy hours exploring your body, spending days learning your mind. Those are high priority.”
“I think we can make one of those things happen.”
“I’m counting on it,” Ivan murmured, closing the distance between them and sealing their lips together.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her back onto the bed.
Liquid heat spread from her lips outward and down through her body, loosening her muscles and sensitizing her nerves.
The magic pooled around them, creating a buffer between them and the dreamscape. Vasalisa had a moment to wonder how that would translate in the real world before she lost all thought, submerged in the pleasure of Ivan’s kiss.
Vasalisa sighed against his lips, arching to press her breasts into his chest.
He murmured something she didn’t understand and shifted his hands, dragging her further onto the bed. Her shift didn’t want to move, and he muttered a curse.
He lifted her hips and used his knees to nudge her legs apart. The hem of her shift rode up so that her legs were completely bare. He pinned her hips in place with the weight of his, wedging his cock tightly against her exposed pussy.
Vasalisa arched her back, the shock of the cool leather against her heated flesh combining with the pressure of the hard line of his penis against her swollen, dampening flesh to create a cocktail of sensation she’d never experienced.
Gasping, she clung to his shoulders.
“This shift has got to go,” he muttered.
“And the pants,” she gasped. She used a flick of magic to remove first her shift then his leather pants. And they were naked against each other.
She hadn’t thought about their position when she sent the clothes away. Now the shaft of his cock pressed into the sensitive nerves of her clit, the head a hot pressure against her lower belly.
He reared back from her and sucked air through his teeth. “Fuck. Give me some warning.”
She couldn’t form a response. She was busy trying to get air into her own lungs. She hated the loss of his weight, his heat.
Ivan caught her head in his hands, his fingers running along her scalp as he pulled her face up to his and renewed the kiss. It was raw, hungry, a physical expression of the desperate heat flaring between them.
When he released her mouth, her lips felt bruised, but she wanted to do it again.
Before she could try to recapture his mouth, he dipped his head, fastening his mouth to the side of her neck. The suction of his mouth against the tender skin just under her ear had her wrapping her legs around him, trying to drag him into her. She wanted him inside her, wanted him to quench the flames he’d lit under her skin.
“Now, Ivan. Now.”
Ivan shifted, using his hand to tip the head of his cock to her entrance.
He lifted his head from her neck, and her eyes fluttered open. His quicksilver gaze pinned her.
“Mine,” he growled, and pushed into her in a single stroke. His lips fastened on hers again, taking her mouth as he took her body.
He forged a fast, heavy rhythm, driving them both toward climax.
She writhed against him, her hips meeting his thrust for thrust.
Then everything went bright in her head as the orgasm smashed through her.
Vasalisa heard Ivan’s strangled cry as she clamped around him, felt the pulses of his own climax behind hers. She tightened her arms around him.
Please, she prayed. Please let him live through this.
*
Ivan kept his breathing shallow as he lay in the undergrowth. His sword lay across his back and he had removed his armor in favor of mobility. The afternoon sun beat down on his back, heating the sword and his skin.
There was a strange, sweet-sharp smell, like magic mixed with something else, but more muted. Like the ground itself was infused with magic, maybe. That didn’t make any sense, since Baba Yaga’s cottage moved. There wouldn’t have been time to have the magic permeate the ground. Would there?
He dismissed the issue. It wasn’t important right now. The important thing at this moment was getting the golden stallion.
Baba Yaga’s cottage sat in the clearing, or more accurately, stood. It was the strangest, most weirdly fascinating cottage he’d ever seen. It was much smaller than he’d expected, seemingly a single room mud hut similar to the hovels of the poleviks, but with a peaked thatch roof. There were no windows, but chinks in the floor gave glimpses of the sticks under the mud. The fact that he could see the floor was due to the fact that the little hut stood on two long, skinny legs. Not pillars or posts, but legs. Bird legs which ended in bird feet. Which explained how the cottage moved. It walked.
A low wood fence ran around the edge of the clearing, marking a garden and a small outbuilding. Ivan’s hiding spot was a scant few feet from the building, which did sit on the ground. Next to the outbuilding was a secondary fenced area containing two horses. One was such a pure white that it hurt to look at it directly, the other was the shining golden horse.
The stallions stood peaceably in the small enclosure, a state that told him more than even the chicken legs on the house. The stallions didn’t stomp impatiently or bare their teeth in challenge. There was no smell of sweat or stress in the air. It was completely unnatural. Even the plants were strange and twisted, though the horses seemed happy to graze on them. Nothing about this scene sat well with him.
He had two options. The first was to ask Baba Yaga for the horse, to ba
rgain with the old fae for it. The second was to steal it. Well, perhaps steal wasn’t the correct word. Take without asking, to be sure, but he would leave payment.
Wolf had argued for bargaining, explaining that Baba Yaga usually bargained for service. But Ivan didn’t want to waste time in service, time he could use to work on defeating Koschei. Instead, he intended to take the horse, leave the gold, and be long gone before Baba Yaga returned.
Ivan inched up to the fence, careful to keep low and silent. It was like working his way through the brush to catch a hare. Only this time his quarry was much larger.
He paused, scanning the clearing and the house once more. Everything was quiet.
Carefully, he pushed up, muscles straining as he eased slowly between the bottom rails of the fence while staying carefully out of the line of sight from the cottage. The moment he breached the plane of the fence, he felt the magic.
The glamour fell away from the fence, revealing it for what it was, a bone ward. The bones were stacked and piled, an occasional skull mounted on a pike interrupted the circle. The death magic washed over him, making him nauseous.
The horses reared back, crowding into the corner furthest from him, their screams echoing in the clearing.
“I smell sidhe blood,” bellowed a voice from within the hut. “But not Russian.”
Gods damn it, there was nothing to do but brazen it out and try to recover.
Ivan stood, just outside the horse pen. The hut faced away from him, so he couldn’t see Baba Yaga inside.
He crossed the yard, aiming to face her. The hut turned on its chicken legs, keeping the rear wall toward him. The legs were taller than he, so there was no way for him to reach the hut. Shit. A muscle worked in his jaw as he remembered what Wolf told him.
Gritting his teeth, he chanted the words. “Little hut, little hut, turn your back to the woods. Little hut, little hut, face me.”
It didn’t rhyme, and the dissonance of the words annoyed him, but he felt the magic spark in the circle. The hut swung around, turning the door toward him.
He’d been wrong. There were two windows on the front of the hut, along with the door. It gave the little building the look of a face, with the windows functioning as eyes.
The hut sat down. It crossed the chicken legs and sat in the middle of the bone circle.
The black wood door opened.
From the stories, he’d expected a crone, craggy and stooped with age. Given her ability to scent blood, the stories had grown her nose to enormous proportions and made her ugly.
Instead, the woman before him was ageless as any sidhe. Her skin was the color of parchment, a sort of mellow tan, stretched tight across prominent bones. She was painfully thin, the stringy muscles and sunken cheeks hinting at starvation. Her dark hair blew around her face as if in a wind, though the air was still. Her eyes, dark as night, seemed to glow in her face, power radiating from her. Her nose was a bit long, but it was more aristocratic than monstrous. Baba Yaga wasn’t ugly, but she was definitely disturbing. Like something lovely that had been starved and abused. Ivan found it difficult to look at her.
“No Russian are you, little prince. Your blood smells of cold and snow. Do you come of your own will?”
Her voice seemed larger than her body. It was vital and compelling, a strange match for the skeletal body. He didn’t appreciate being called a little prince, since he was neither small nor young. But she was the power here and he the intruder. He would allow the small insult.
“Yes.”
Her dark brows rose. “How came you here, son of the Northlands?”
Ivan frowned. He didn’t know how to answer her. Did she mean by what means of transportation or by what route? Or did she mean for what reason?
“I do not know how to answer you, lady. If you would be more specific in your question, I would be happy to give you an answer.”
She laughed, a booming sound that shook the surrounding trees. “So careful, little prince. Very well. I mean for you to tell me why you seek me and how you discovered my little hut.”
Ivan nodded. He could answer those “I had someone scry for me in order to find you. I seek you because my horse was killed and I have need of the golden stallion. I am on a quest, one which has been prophesied to affect the fate of all fae.”
Baba Yaga leaned on the door frame, her thin arms crossed over her body. “Have you, indeed?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me the prophecy.”
“Gamayune said: ‘Beware the rot rising with the sun. The curse-ridden beast must lead and the beating heart of the sea must be broken by the daughter of dreams. Two paths, only one to life. The old one will aid the young, the bound will aid the free, and that which is sought will be sought no more.’ She also said I am the cause and the remedy, and that should I fail, the fae will fall.”
“Gamayune.”
Ivan nodded, squaring his shoulders. Perhaps she would understand the importance of this quest and be reasonable about the horse.
“And you think you need my horse for this quest. There is no mention of the golden stallion in the prophecy. What bargain would you make for such a prize?”
Ivan schooled his features. Did she not understand she was also at risk? “What might be of interest to you?”
She grinned at him, showing metal teeth much larger than should fit in her mouth. Metal teeth. Iron teeth. He’d forgotten she was also called Iron Teeth.
“Such a cagey one, and pretty, too. It has been a very long time since one of the sidhe came to visit.”
He felt a shadow hand caress his chest. He barely repressed a shudder. He didn’t want her touching him on any level. He firmed his jaw and ignored it. He somehow knew that fighting her on this would go badly for him. The whole thing could yet go badly.
Ivan drew in a breath and focused on the task at hand. He needed the horse, and maybe if she knew why he needed the horse she would be more receptive. She’d helped sidhe before in a similar situation, one with much less at stake. He recalled rumors that Baba Yaga enjoyed a good story. Perhaps this was one he could tell her.
“The Rus still speak of your aid in the rescue of Marinka. Do you know what happened there?”
Baba Yaga’s dark brows rose. “Of course. I did tell her parents how to rescue her.”
Ivan nodded. “Did you know Marinka bore a child?”
The ghostly touch on his chest and shoulders dissipated. He relaxed a bit, satisfied he’d caught her attention.
Baba Yaga tipped her head. “Did she? How interesting. That is a story that might gain you some currency. But not enough for the horse. Perhaps a story for a story.”
Since Ivan needed her willingness to bargain, he smiled. “I will tell you the story and you can decide if it is worthy of payment.”
“You are clever. Tell your story.”
Ivan told her of the rescue, of Koschei’s birth and Marinka subsequent rejection. Baba Yaga’s dark eyes flamed at that news, at the news she had sent the child back to his father’s parents.
“Did she not think they would do the same to the child as they did to the father?”
Ivan shrugged. “I don’t know. But you are right. The child grew to be a powerful sorcerer. He destroyed many fae, many sidhe. He exterminated the Evenki, and fought the Rus on the battlefield, killing Dazbog the Bright.”
Baba Yaga sat on her heels in the doorway. “Deathless is the son of Marinka.”
Ivan nodded. “He is.”
She studied him. “That’s why you’re here.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me. Then we will bargain.”
“The firebird is stealing the golden apples from my father’s orchard. He sent me to capture her and return her to him. I met with Queen Alina as a courtesy as I crossed her lands, and discovered that she has turned Princess Vasalisa over to Deathless as surety for tribute owed by the Rus.”
Baba Yaga hissed a breath through her teeth, creating a strange, sibilant whistle, but gestured fo
r him to continue.
“Vasalisa has been coming to me in dreams. Deathless is torturing her, then allowing her to heal. The apples from my father’s garden are helping her heal, as well. But the tribute will not come this year, so Vasalisa will be forfeit. I cannot allow that to happen. Since my quest requires I go to the Deathless, I will rescue Vasalisa as well as taking the firebird.”
Baba Yaga hummed. “That’s not everything. There is something… ahh. That explains some things.”
She stirred her hand in the air before her, murmuring too quietly for him to hear.
When she stopped, she looked up at Ivan and grinned again, baring the iron teeth and forcing him to suppress a shudder.
“Fate is a tricky bitch, little prince. She’s come back to haunt me. Right now, I’d say she either loves you or hates you, but I can’t tell which it is.”
Ivan frowned. What did that mean?
“Here comes your companion,” Baba Yaga said complacently.
He turned his head. Wolf was floating over the ground, being pulled toward them by some invisible force.
He shuddered. He’d been wary before. Baba Yaga’s reputation was clear, and Ivan had no desire to end up in her stew pot and later as part of her bone circle. But that was a sort of physical fear. This, though, was something else. This was a level of magic he could not fathom. It wasn’t that she was performing this magic – it was, after all, a variation of what he did to carry the saddle bags and saddle. No, what was bowel-loosening here was that she was so powerful that doing magic this impressive didn’t even create a ripple in his awareness. It meant she was so powerful that this was less challenging than putting on her clothing.
In that moment, it was clear to him that he had miscalculated badly. He had expected to face someone stronger than he, perhaps more experienced, but not really unbeatable. It was now terrifyingly obvious that Baba Yaga could take him down before he drew his sword. Not even his mother’s protective rune magic would save him from a power of this magnitude.
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. There was nothing for it but to try to work through the situation. She hadn’t been aggressive toward them. It was still reasonable to expect they could get out of this alive.