Bound to the Beast

by Kay Berrisford

  Fairy arrows.

  Finally, after he'd sought her for days, the Elfaene glided from the undergrowth into his presence. He could not keep the exasperation from his voice. "I have called and called, wood-wife. You refused to answer, and now you lame my horse?"

  "I had nothing to say to you about the boy. We found no answer beneath stones or in the waters. I come now because the Wild Hunt sought you." She placed a second arrow in her quiver and smiled serenely up. "I feared they'd seduced you into leading them through our forest, but you cannot wreak destruction on a limping steed. Beneath your silly man-rage, I am sure you are grateful we stopped you."

  "I would not have ridden with them." His horns were rampant, his blood still up, but his grip remained steady on the reins. "I need your counsel concerning my betrothal. We made a discovery at the abbey I wish to discuss."

  "Very well," said the Elfaene. "But with the hunt at large, I will not linger here. You must come back to our heortland. We will mend Cernunnos; horseflesh is easy to stitch, lick, and heal. But you know our lore."

  Yes, he knew all visitors to the fairies' home must have their wrists bound to show submission, their eyes blinded by an emerald cloth when they arrived and left, so they would never remember the way. "There is nothing I desire less than to be bound by your kind."

  "Then I leave now without hearing a word," she said, still smiling, "and the boy will surely die."

  *~*~*

  They tied Herne's wrists behind him using binds of twisted yew. As a fairy leaned from the branches to place the blindfold about his head, he twitched to show these silly little beings how he could snap their securest tethers like straw if he chose. Still he let them lead him, a humbled giant with the pack's laughter tingling like cowbells in his ears. So now he let himself be humiliated, all for that whelp.

  When a fairy finally removed the cloth from his eyes, a flash of light blinded him just as thoroughly. Squinting against the onslaught, he discerned no dell, no trees, although they had to be there. Thickets of oak hid the fairies' heortland, hung with mistletoe sacred to the druids of Herne's long-lost age. But a myriad of tiny illuminations dazzled him. Fairy eyes? Yes, somehow he knew they were, each staring, all mocking him.

  Turning around, he realized he waited before the seat of the Elfaene, and every tiny path of light streaked down on her. She sprawled on a throne woven from human bones. The skull of an ancient elk crowned its back, the horns so vast they reached to the lower branches of the tree that grew dimly visible behind—and reminded him of what value she placed on the lives of man or beast.

  As succinctly as he could, he recounted for her all he and Tam had learned in the abbey.

  At his request for a fairy bride to come forward, she flapped her fingers dismissively. "I will not help you. If you were to bring me a willing human, I might consider it. But to offer one of my daughters to become human, knowing the world of man would take her from me forever? Never. None would be willing."

  Herne's wrists chafed against the yew, his hands still bound behind him. "What about the maid, Calleagh? She was willing before. More willing than Tam ever was."

  The Elfaene snarled. "My heart nearly burst when I thought the lad had succeeded, and I'd have stood back and watched her be taken. Never again. Besides, Calleagh is gone."

  "You sent her away for what she did?" he inquired.

  "No. She is missing. She vanished a few hours past and has travelled beyond the forest to the open lands and the villages. We will not pursue her there."

  Calleagh remained keen to tangle with the world of men. This was promising. "The villages are within the Greenwood realm. She cannot pass without?"

  "No," replied the Elfaene. "None of our kind can. But when she returns to the trees, we will find her. Do not think of ensnaring my daughter, Herne the Hunter."

  He returned her stare with one of equal zeal, the strength of his resolution shocking him. I am sorry, Elfaene. I will not hesitate to ensnare your fairy daughter, if that is what it takes to save Tam.

  The fairies led him from her presence and brought his horse, healed so well the stallion did not as much as drag his leg. Once left alone, he took a moment to gather his thoughts while his eyes adjusted to the night. Beneath towering beeches, he bowed his head. His feelings for Tam swept aside all other loyalties. Did these passions govern Tam also? Still, they could never be together.

  Herne resolved the time had come to tell Tam the whole truth.

  Chapter Eleven

  On his second day alone, the heat grew sweltering and Tam desperate. He'd scoured the last of the scrolls, and he'd found no more solutions to his quandary. He had, however, discovered a summoning potion for fairies and settled on this as his plan of action. He gathered the ingredients from the monks' garden, although he lacked woody nightshade to complete the spell. After patching up his clothes the best he could, he sank down against a pillar in the cloister, a pile of lavender and ginger root beside him, and considered his options.

  Herne could be as far off as Kent or Cornwall by now, in which case he'd forgotten Tam already. He'd need the fairies' help to summon Herne back, let alone transfer the betrothal. Wild Hunt or no, Tam would have to break his word and venture out to find the nightshade.

  Only his fear of Godda and the Wild Hunt made him hesitate.

  He couldn't believe Herne had deserted him. Damn it, he longed for that beast of a man more and more as the days stretched on. He missed Herne's voice and his touch, both tender and rough, and even Herne's grumblings about Tam's vanity. It proved impossible to deny Herne's strength made Tam feel safer. With Herne near, he doubted he would have suffered those torturous dreams about the Hunt. In truth, even Herne's stubbornness amused him as much as it irritated him. Herne was, in some ways, a little like him.

  He sank his forehead into his hand, now well healed, as he considered what path might be safest through the forest. He noticed his bare feet were pressing into the spongy moss of the forest floor. When had he taken off his shoes?

  No, this was not real; he had to be dreaming, although he had no recollection of growing sleepy. No breeze licked his skin, and he was naked.

  He could sense Herne the Hunter, smell his earthy scent. But instead of a man, Tam stood beside an oak of massive girth, its branches heavily laden with acorns and bright, frilled leaves. His cock ached already, jutting out like the scabbard of a broadsword. He laughed softly, acknowledging to whom his body belonged. Fear didn't keep him from running. This was why he lingered.

  Pressing his back to the trunk, he stretched his arms high above him, as if awakening from a long rest. The bark felt rough, hard, scraping against his arse that tightened in anticipation. Then a stubby shoot prodded the small of his back, and he moaned, needful.

  Herne. Fuck me, bind me, and mark me as yours.

  The oak seized his wrists with thick stems of rough timber that contorted his arms back about the trunk, stopping just short of causing him pain. Woody snares about his ankles tugged his legs likewise, bending them at the knees to pull back around the tree. His cry caught in his throat, where his pulse pounded uncontrollably. He might be torn apart by this oak, this ungodly monster, yet these fetters set him rippling with delicious heat. A thick branch wrapped about his stomach, pressing him hard against the oak. He snatched a ragged breath.

  Please fuck me. Please fill me.

  As his senses screamed for penetration, he felt a thick wooden tendril creeping between his arse cheeks toward his entrance. He gasped, then bit his lip. Goddess, he wanted this…this beast…this spirit…this damned oak inside him.

  "Herne! I'm yours."

  He cried out, nearly choking on a stab of bittersweet pain as the thick wood pressed inside, easing and opening him. "Yes," he said, panting. "Yes."

  The wood felt smoother and slicker than he'd expected, the contact less tangible than the pain of his stretched limbs. He wriggled, thrusting his hips, straining toward the thick, penetrating member, but he could not incite the shatterin
g power he craved. He clenched his teeth, willing the branch inside him to engorge, to thrust harder, to do something.

  He felt a twist of torment shadowed by a moment when he hurtled toward ecstasy. His cock wept as the wood struck him deeply, his carnal being incinerated by the merest twinge of bliss—and then oblivion.

  Tam opened his eyes. Still sagged against the pillar, he squinted across the garden, too bright even under the clouded sun. His cock still hard, his heart raced, and he felt slightly foolish. Herne the Hunter, for all his strangeness, was not a damned oak tree. What man would understand the strange mastery he wanted and still respect him?

  A man with antlers that spread like an oak's branches might.

  He tugged his collar, pulling his sticky shirt from his skin, as he conceded one truth. If all else failed, he'd prefer to belong to Herne rather than die at the hands of foul spirits.

  He hauled himself up, stretching stiff shoulders and limbs and finding his hopes sprang as lively as the bees on the lavender. He grinned at the prospect of seeing the brawny jolthead again, if just to rip his clothes off and demand he finish what the oak tree started. But no, he still prayed matters would not come to that.

  However delicious their coupling might prove.

  He'd not reached the other side of the cloister when a loud bark from Dewer set his ears pricking up. He scarcely resisted dashing to the gatehouse as swiftly as the dog, but thoughts of the Wild Hunt returning caused him to hesitate. He hung back, peeping from behind a pillar until Herne passed under the gatehouse, a man of oak even without his ragged antlers. Tam struggled to conjure an air of coolness as he strode out to meet him. God's teeth, he felt ready for Herne.

  "I am sorry I've been so long." Dismounting his horse, Herne looked at Tam and nodded stiffly.

  Was that all the greeting he got? Tam's pride forced a bristle of anger into his tone. "I was on the brink of leaving to master my own fortunes. You bring good tidings, I beg?"

  After tethering Cernunnos, Herne closed the gap between them with three large strides. "I have no good news."

  "You…you spoke to the Elfaene?"

  "She will offer none of her daughters. There is still hope for Calleagh, but she is missing. I have searched many hours and will find her if I have to scour every village. Have you had any progress?"

  "Precious little. But I have all the ingredients required for a fairy-summoning potion, save woody nightshade." Though without nightshade, the potion was useless. The stuff was like catmint to fairies.

  Herne took a small pouch from his belt. "I gathered some and used it a day ago to try and summon the Elfaene. It proved no use alone, but coupled with the other ingredients, luck or Calleagh might bless us."

  "Oh." Tam was almost impressed, but he bit back his compliment.

  "Summoning potions are not very powerful," continued Herne. "If she hears us, she can still choose not to come, although they are always worth a try. But Calleagh aside, there is another reason I came back." He drew a swift, sharp breath. "I needed to see you again."

  Tam nearly screamed, And I you! Instead, their gazes locked together.

  With a fluid and natural motion, Herne gathered him into the embrace Tam had yearned for since they'd parted. Although at first startled, Tam held him just as tightly, burying his face against Herne's shoulder. Herne's body felt as solid as the foundation rocks of the abbey that no king's army could destroy. Tam's senses drank of the pain racking through this impenetrable fortress of a man, screaming from his every pore, filling Tam's heart till it seemed it would overflow. His dilemmas fled his mind as he stroked Herne's back, pressing his lips to his neck and dropping a tender kiss. When Herne pulled out of the embrace, his blue eyes grew large and liquid.

  "You stayed in my thoughts all the while we were parted," he said, cupping Tam's face as he smiled mournfully. "'Tis madness, but I cannot deny it."

  "I thought about you also," admitted Tam, pride momentarily forgotten. This man suffered greatly, and his gaze struck Tam's heart as surely as his touch undid him. "Is, uh…is there anything I can do for you?"

  Releasing him, Herne nodded. "I must not stay long, but you will assist me with assembling this potion. Then you will eat and drink with me. We must talk."

  Was that all? "I'm not really hungry. I—"

  Herne furrowed his brow, blasting Tam with the weight of his sincerity. "For us to feast together is my request, Tam. Do not refuse me."

  Tam chose not to, although the awkward silence dominating their labours together proved as trying as the heat. He itched to talk right then, but Herne concentrated on building the fire, preparing the potion, and then the hart to be spit-roasted. He hushed Tam gravely whenever he spoke, quelling him with brief promises that they would settle all, but soon.

  Herne offered no objections to Tam's attempts to improve the meal with seasoning. This task afforded Tam some occupation, while his mind burst with questions. What of the oak and the holly? Together, the riddle and his dreams seemed to convey a weighty message, but Herne might crack that scowl to laugh at him if he started quoting love poems. Besides, his studies had since taught him the answer to the riddle might not be as obvious as he'd believed. In some distant time Herne must have known, the spirits of the oak and the holly had been at constant war, grappling for kingship over the rising and falling year. Hardly locked in the embrace of heortlufu.

  Having cast the summoning potion across the meadow outside the gatehouse, Herne sat down beside him on the broken stone slabs, his roughly hewn features delineated before the glow of the fire. Herne passed him the bowl of wine, but even the mixed odours of venison and wood smoke could not pique Tam's desire for food.

  "Now we wait for Calleagh," said Herne.

  "How long?" Tam passed the bowl back.

  "If she is not outside the abbey before the moon has passed halfway west, you will remain here, and I will ride to the Greenwood villages to cast the spell again. These are the only places I have not yet scoured, although…they are unlikely places to find fair folk."

  "I see."

  So Herne would leave him again shortly. Sighing, he picked up the ginger root, unused in the meal or the spell, and fiddled with it as he sought to broach the subject most pertinent to him. He felt Herne's gaze drilling into him. When he looked up, he started. Was that a glimmer of laughter in Herne's eyes?

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing," replied Herne, smothering his laughter with a frown as he lowered his stare to the ginger root. Tam's curiosity grew. This man had arched his brow mysteriously at ginger before. He looked down at the gnarled brown root in his hand.

  "Little makes you smile, Herne the Hunter, let alone laugh. Why ginger?"

  "You don't want to know."

  "By Niogaerst or the devil, yes, I do."

  "Very well. Pass it to me." Tam obeyed, taking the bowl of wine back in return. Herne used his knife to peel the ginger root carefully until it tapered at one end, the head still bulbous. Then he held it for Tam to see. "Many, many years ago, when such exotic foods were first traded to these shores and we saw them rarely, a young man I once knew discovered a rather…unusual use for peeled ginger. It can produce the most blistering sensations when inserted inside one's passage."

  "Oh!" Tam smacked his lips. Although ginger was a rare luxury, he'd peeled it once or twice and learned how it stung his skin, especially when dampened.

  Herne was no longer smiling. "It also heightens the…experience, shall we say, when the man or woman so encumbered is also thrashed."

  A lump formed in Tam's throat. He'd been beaten enough by his brothers to know there were kinds of humiliation and pain that could never be wished for. But the prospect of Herne dominating him in such a way had him clenching his buttocks, his face flushing as when he was trapped in the fairies' web and Herne first touched his thigh. Oh heavens, he wanted to feel that ginger root inside him.

  "Herne, I…I…"

  No, he couldn't ask for that. Not now.

  He breathe
d out slowly. His blood still raced, and damn, his cock throbbed in his breeches again. He forced his mind back to the important things he had to say.

  "If we were to fail to find Calleagh—"

  "We cannot fail."

  "We might." He took a gulp of wine and ran his tongue along his lower lip. "If you had to make me yours, what would my life be like?"

  "We cannot speak of that."

  "You promised we would talk. Please answer my question."

  The tinge of desperation in his voice proved cutting. Herne regarded him warily. "I live simply and without comfort."

  "Yes, but we could change that." Tam smirked. "You would not prevent me doing as I chose, I trust, within the limits of being your bound partner and…well, strange, like you."

  "I would not enslave you, if that's what you fear, but I can offer you no life. I have spent too long alone to be good company. You speak of your future, of your hopes and prospects. I dwell on my past, and it is dark there."

  Tam swallowed hard. No, life with Herne would not be endless yuletide revels, yet still the option wasn't so terrible. Couldn't Herne change? "The past is over. You wish never to lead the Wild Hunt again."

  "It may not be my decision," replied Herne, frowning.

  "What? So you will ride with them? This summer, so the Spanish will land for sure!"

  "I did not say that either. I will fight to free you, but I warn you now. When these antlers are rampant, I am a dangerous man. I have killed, and I have bled. I have learned restraint, but I am no good playfellow for you."

  "I'm not seeking a playfellow." Tam took another sip of the wine and smoothed his lips together. "Why are you so opposed to our union? I would choose such an existence over death. I have thought on this for long hours alone, and I hear everything you say, but still I would be willing—"