The Festival Spirit

by Rachel Randall

  Branches plucked angrily at her hair and her dress as she fought her way through, but once out into the other side the clamour of doubts faded. An incredible sense of well-being enveloped her, the same carefree feeling she’d had in the party clearing, dancing amidst the paper lanterns.

  Directly ahead of her was the hill. She could now see it was topped by a copse of tall trees and as she looked, she thought she caught sight of a flash of white amidst the greenery. Eagerly, she started to jog up towards the top, but the further up the slope she got the more her feet dragged. The springy turf felt very good, and the air was sweet and lightly scented, clinging warm and tight as a second skin. It was very tempting to settle down onto the hillside and just lie back and enjoy the gleaming stars in the night sky. She thought, why not?

  Mira settled down in the grass, letting her eyes drift shut. In the morning, she could find her way back to the campsite. Johnny would be there, and she’d convince him to drive her back to civilisation—maybe Lee would come too—then who knows what might happen in the privacy of their hotel? She shivered at the deliciousness of the idea. The three of them, sharing a huge hotel bed. Kissing, all three of them. Wet, slippery kisses on their naked skin. Their cocks, sliding hard and hot across—into—her eager body. Lee would order champagne, then Johnny would—

  The sharp ding of an incoming text message hit her like a cold shower. Are you okay? Is Johnny?

  The distraction freed her from the tangles of the fantasy. Not even daring to take the time to text back in case the unnatural lethargy overtook her again, Mira surged to her feet and raced to the top of the hill. Luminous wildflowers scattered in the grass around the oaks in a wide, patchy ring. She stepped across them, triumph and trepidation making her pulse pound. Then she pulled up short, eyes widening in shock, because there he was.

  Johnny.

  Chapter Three

  She wasn’t sure what she had expected to find, and not until she saw him did she realise she never could have imagined this.

  From a distance it looked like he was just resting, back against the tree, a slender, pale figure against an ancient oak three times the size of any of the others in the forest. But no, his arms were raised above his head, enough that she could see that they were—

  She swallowed, her throat dry with a surge of lust that left her body shaking helplessly. He was bound to the tree.

  Mira forced out a laugh, breathed in, and called to him, “Johnny, what have you gone and gotten yourself into?” When he didn't answer, she fumbled with her phone. There was still some reception, but despite his recent text, Lee didn’t answer her call. Her voice trembled on the message, “It’s Mira—I found Johnny. In the woods.” She paused, at a loss for what to tell him, trying not to worry about what might have stopped him from answering. “I need you to come quickly.”

  She edged closer, taking it all in. Johnny's eyes were closed, his dark lashes stark against his cheeks. His mouth was swollen, lips slightly parted, like he’d just been kissed. Utterly debauched, and so beautiful that just looking at him made her teeth hurt.

  His hands were curled half-open against the tree trunk, yearning towards something she couldn’t see. He was still in the white jeans, but without his t-shirt, the bareness of his collarbone and the luscious stretch of his muscles made her pussy clench. She wanted to devour him with her fingers and lips and teeth. She wanted to mark him.

  Mira forced herself to take a step forward, and another, until her feet were moving of their own accord. Every instinct she had was telling her to touch, to mark, to claim. She took in the scene greedily, hungrily devouring the details, the gorgeous aesthetics of him. Then her heart tripped and stuttered as she got close enough to see that it wasn’t rope but ivy wrapped around his wrists—tender green shoots spiralling across his wrists to hold him in place. Mira had a vivid impression of him growing into the tree, those expressive, talented hands becoming waving branches as his skin became bark and his feet roots.

  “Oh, God. Johnny.” She pressed her palm flat against his smooth chest, measuring the rapid, reassuring thud of his heartbeat. Carefully, she smoothed her thumb across one of his tightly beaded nipples. His body reacted instantly, straining towards her hand, but there was no other sign that he was conscious beyond those instinctual cravings of his body. From somewhere overhead, a crow cawed loudly. Sparks jittered along her skin. The fine hairs on her arms stood on end. “I’ll get you down,” Mira promised him, struggling to focus on something other than how much she wanted him. Whatever had happened here, whoever had done this, Mira had no idea when they would return.

  She tugged at the ivy, trying to rip the leaves off, trying to loosen its hold on the trunk, but it might as well have been wire trapped in concrete for all that it budged. She winced in sympathy as the bonds stretched tighter across his wrists, scoring the skin red.

  Mira stepped back to consider the problem. If she couldn’t tear the ivy free by herself, maybe she could get Johnny to help her.

  She tried everything. Gently slapping his cheeks. Holding his hand. Shouting in his ear. And in final desperation, pinching his nipple—hard. But she had no response beyond the sinuous shifting of his body, pressing as close as he could whenever she’d come too near.

  The heavy bulk of his cock filled out his jeans. His hips bucked as her hand hesitated just inches away. “Johnny?” The heat of him radiated out at her. He was burning hot to the touch, a sheen of perspiration along his throat.

  Giving over to impulse, she leaned in to lick it off. The musky flavour of him exploded across her tongue as his blue eyes flew open. The need she saw in them was like a gut-punch, sending her own lust careening right out of control.

  “You're so—” Mira forgot everything in that moment. There was nothing except the promise of him. Warm, slick want spread between her thighs. “Can I…?”

  His answer came not with words but in the pleading lines of his body, every muscle straining to reach her. Mira brushed her knuckles lightly over the taut fabric at his groin. His breath hiccupped as she very carefully slipped open his top button. Just a little release, but enough for his straining cock to swell harder. She could smell his arousal—an animal scent that had saliva pooling in her mouth. She jerked down the zipper, the creak of the fabric as it gave hugely amplified in the moment.

  Johnny lunged towards her but the ivy held him in place even as his erection pushed free from its bindings. He was thick, and curved just right to stroke perfectly against her. His foreskin had stretched tightly back from his flushed cockhead and moisture welled from the slit there, spreading a slick trail against the denim. Mira wet her lips and crowded close, barely noticing the scrape of bark on her arms as she crowded them both into the tree.

  Licking the straining line of his chest down to his flat abdomen, she discovered the little platinum bar piercing his navel. She hadn’t known he had that, and fuck, the discovery was pure sex. She flicked her tongue across the glittering edge of it. Johnny whimpered as she pushed it deeper into his skin.

  She tilted her face, looking up the length of him to see his expression. “Yes?”

  He trembled in response.

  Mira trailed her fingertips down the dark vee of hair to his cock, then she wrapped her fist around his dick, squeezing hard. His mouth fell open in a soundless O and his head lolled back against the tree, exposing his throat to her. She whined, a high-pitched keen she couldn’t hold back, before she surged up onto her tiptoes to bite down hard on the big muscle between his shoulder and neck.

  The ivy holding him snapped with a sharp crack. His arms wrapped around her as Mira shoved her hands through his hair, yanking his face up to meet hers. Their kiss scorched through her, lighting fires of want beneath her skin. They staggered away from the tree, stumbling onto the ground and going down hard. She was on top of him, straddling his hips, barely registering he was free in her haste to strip off her frock so she could get his mouth on her aching breasts. And finally she was naked, and his hands we
re—

  No!

  The word resounded like summer thunder in her head and Mira bounced back, thrown off Johnny by the sheer force of the mental command. She fell on her arse in the grass. For a frightening moment, all the air was knocked out of her. When she finally caught her breath and jerked upright, she saw that Johnny was staring raptly at the woman from the party. Who, on second thought, was definitely not a woman. Not even human.

  Mira clambered unsteadily to her feet. The fairy—what else could she be?—was cloaked in black, a feathery material of the same texture as her midnight hair. She loomed over Johnny, her ruby lips moving silently. Serpentine ivy began to unwind itself from the tree. Johnny’s eyelids fluttered closed as the fight went out of him with a sigh.

  “Hey!” Mira shouted, trying to catch her attention.

  The fairy rounded on her. She cocked her head, less-than-human with the movement. Like a crow, Mira thought. One that wants to peck my eyes out.

  Keeping a wary watch on her, Mira moved back to Johnny, crouching down to tug him back protectively into her body. He shook his head, as though trying to wake from the dreams the fairy had tangled him in.

  Mira once again pressed her hand against his sternum to feel the comforting movements of his chest rising up and down. She wasn’t alone here, no matter what spell this bitch had him under.

  The fairy’s voice came in her head, echoing painfully. You will leave here. Now.

  “Not without Johnny,” Mira said.

  You trespass.

  “You’re hurting him!” A rush of chill wind punished her for her insolence.

  Mira thought frantically of everything she’d ever heard about fairies. “I could sing for you if you let him go?” she offered, and the cold disdain that met the suggestion told her there wasn’t going to be such an easy out.

  Do you think that this is a game to be won with your paltry human voice? That you can chirp for me, little fledgeling, and at dawn I will let you go?

  “Well, you are at a music festival.” She mustered the last of her bravado. “Backstage passes, for you and all your fairy mates?”

  Invisible feathers ruffled. Your revel encroaches our realm. Do not insult us further.

  In her lap, Johnny made a soft sound. Mira brushed her fingers through his hair and tried to stop the reassuring touch from turning into a caress. Johnny moaned again, a low, sexy rumble. She gritted her teeth from the effort of resisting a heated temptation that was already melting away her resistance.

  “This is your doing, isn’t it?” Mira snapped at her. “Everything I was feeling in the forest, everything I’m feeling now. It’s all your lies. Get out of my head!”

  Your need makes you weak. You are easily led because you spin fantasies for yourself. What is real and what is false magic? All of it and nothing! What need have I for deception when your own desire deceives you for me?

  “What exactly do you want? Tell me and I’ll give it to you. Just let him go.” Panic warred with lust, two emotions she knew were genuine enough. If ever Lee was going to show up, Mira hoped it would be soon.

  The fairy moved so quickly that Mira didn’t see the actual motion, just a chiaroscuro blur before the creature was crouched right in front of them, her enthralling alien features too close for comfort. You cannot give. He has already done so, freely.

  Through the haze of panic, she saw clearly what the fairy meant. That bird’s-eye view of the stage she’d had. The compelling spell of his music, the way he’d drawn them in. Drawn all of them—fifty thousand humans and the fairies of this forest—by holding nothing back.

  “He gave himself away,” Mira said, the implications dawning. The wide Celtic design on his bicep glowed up at her, a brand that had claimed him forcibly. Oh no, she thought.

  A fitting offering.

  “You can’t have him,” Mira said. The words were automatic, but her anger was heartfelt. Her voice gathered in strength as she channelled that anger and ignored the fear behind it.

  He is mine. The fairy’s mouth moved silently again, and Johnny’s body went rigid against Mira. He gasped, a purely sexual sound. His pleasure is mine.

  “No,” Mira told her fiercely.

  The fairy regarded her with flat, black eyes. There will be a price. Another blur, a rush of wind, and she was gone.

  Silken heat and the now-familiar languor swept through Mira. Whatever these fairy pheromones are, she thought, desperately trying to keep her head, if I could bottle them, I’d never have to do an interview again. The grass tickled her skin as she cradled Johnny between her thighs. The distraction helped her, brought her back from the very brink of that soft, seductive place.

  The fairy might be gone but her crow’s voice was still there, tender now, the sound of it as low and liquid as the ache between Mira's legs.

  You have your own desire for him, came the croon. Share it with me. Pay your price.

  “No,” said Mira.

  Silence.

  “Will you release him? If I…share?”

  One release will be earned. But more must be given to find true release.

  Mira swore at the air but the heavy pressure of her presence had finally lessened. They were alone.

  It didn’t help. Nothing did.

  Their little glade was truly a prison. She could walk to the border of those pale flowers but no further. And Johnny was still in whatever thrall the fairy had left him in, even worse than before. With a drawn-out sigh, Mira knelt cautiously beside him.

  Since the fairy had disappeared, he’d been lost in feverish dreams. His hands were pushed through the fly of his jeans, moving on his cock with unashamed, determined strokes that brought him no closer to relief. Mira watched him writhe with answering twinges in her soaking pussy. Part guilty about seeing him like this, part avid to see more, she was at a loss for what to do.

  Her desire, the fairy had said she wanted. Mira had so much of it. But how could she give in to it without hurting Johnny, who was in no fit state to agree to anything? How could Mira give him up to someone else after all these years of wanting?

  But maybe…maybe she didn’t have to. If the fairy wanted desire, Mira would give it to her, but she’d spin her want for him into something intimate yet not personal. No, she couldn’t give up Johnny, not without a fight.

  Out of desperation, she started to speak, letting the words just stream. With her hands tightly wrapped around his shuddering shoulders, with the hot curve of his back pressed against her breasts and belly, it was easy to let go of her secret thoughts, like writing lyrics in her battered notebook. “Lee was teasing me earlier,” she said. “About camping with the festival crowd. Well…he was right to tease.” Her cheeks flushed as she remembered.

  “It started this morning,” she said, because it did, everything that was important here within this circle. “I woke up in my tent, feeling good. The sun was already high. I’d slept later than I thought I would. People passed by but I didn’t have to hit sound check until three. No reason to get up. The people outside they were only shadows to me, painted shadows on the canvas walls. I could hear them, I could see them, but they didn’t know about me.”

  Johnny had gone quiet when she’d begun but now he stirred in her arms, rubbing his head, cat-like, against her. She longed to pet him, all over. But she just couldn’t, not here and especially not when she couldn’t be totally sure whether Johnny genuinely wanted it himself.

  “I was warm,” she continued, looking out at the oak trees rather than down at him. “It was stuffy in the tent, but not unpleasant. Close. Safe. My t-shirt had ridden up during the night, my nipples rubbed against the edges of the fabric. It was…” She hesitated. “It was nice to touch myself there, and,” another pause for breath, “just underneath my breasts, under the curve where it was slick with sweat.”

  She risked a glance down at Johnny’s tense, upturned face and lightly traced a fingertip across his cheek. His eyes were closed and it made the next admission easier. “My clit was fat and
full, gently aching,” she told him in a low voice. She was talking to him now, telling him, not the damn fairy. “I lay there for a while, lazily running my hands across my body. I lifted my bum so I could massage the big muscles there. It felt amazing after sleeping all night on the ground.”

  She began to rub Johnny’s shoulders, slow circles designed to soothe. “I got lost in my body, easing out all those aches. Everything started to build inside me. It was so good, knowing that I could make myself come like that, if I just took my time and let it happen.” She gasped, the excitement of the moment hitting her again. “I wondered what people would think if they knew what was going on in my tent, if they knew it was me.”

  She’d taken a thrill from both the anonymity of it all and the personal risk as a celebrity, which had made her think of Lee and how much he would have appreciated that as well. She’d burned hotter…

  “I stroked myself lightly on either side of my clit and that was all it took to make me feel really, really good. Then I heard it—a rustle and a moan and a very low, very dirty laugh.

  “I’d seen the couple camped next to me when they pitched their tent. She was small, bouncy, blonde. With a little bow mouth, lots of pink lipstick. Very sexy.” Johnny was blindly skating his fingertips over his belly, his thumb flicking the edges of the piercing. “And, um.” She lost her train of thought and looked quickly away.

  “Her, uh, her man had been big, with wide shoulders and a thick neck.” She focused, forcing herself to remember how she’d felt in the moment. “The kind of build where you immediately imagine digging your thumbs into his muscles just to feel the drag of flesh or just to hear his groan when you knead out the tension you know is there.”