What an idiot she’d been. Not once had she thought to check up so far in the middle of the door. She’d only checked the crack and crevices along the outer edge.
Stupid, stupid, nymph. Now, think of a way to use that to your advantage.
“I’m still here, ogre.” She thought it rude to call each other by their species and not their names, but she didn’t know if ogres even had names, and she refused to give the brutes hers. “You know we’re too small to force our way out of here and too large to fit through the cracks. Did you expect us to turn into mist and float away?”
Her mind kicked into gear as she tried to think of a way to reach the small window in the door after she shifted her size.
“When do you plan to feed us, or are you going to starve us to death?”
“Nymphs don’t eat.”
Boy, they really are stupid, aren’t they? Thal took a deep breath. “Yes we do, and we need water, too. Otherwise, we’ll all die. Is that what you want?”
“No. We don’t want you to die. You smell nice.”
“Not after they’re dead, they don’t,” another ogre added.
At least she thought it was another ogre. They all sounded alike. Either that, or this one was crazier than that hatter she’d met all those years ago. There was something in the way he made his hats that had driven him mad.
“That’s true.” The muffled sound of shuffling feet came through the door.
“We’ll bring you something to eat in a minute.” The corridor was silent for a moment, then, “What do nymphs eat?”
Mainly they ate vegetables and fruit. However, as long as the ground lay dormant, the ogres wouldn’t find anything that wasn’t rotten. “We-we like to eat nuts. Do you think you can find enough for us?”
“We can get nuts. We can get berries, too!”
“No berries! Just the nuts, thank you.”
Thal closed her eyes and prayed the intelligence-challenged ogres wouldn’t bring back the berries they, themselves, had been eating. They would all be too drunk to escape. She wrinkled her nose. They would also be extremely flatulent.
With luck, any of the nuts they found would be dried, not fermented. The others needed them for strength.
Time ticked by as it always did. Just when Thal decided the ogres weren’t going to return with a meal, two walnuts hit the floor with a loud crack. More noise came from the other cells as the ogres threw more nuts into the other rooms. The sound gave her cause for hope.
Listening closely, she counted. Unless she was mistaken, the ogres dropped fifty-two more nuts, all together. Did that mean they held twenty-six of her kin prisoner?
“There’s only one way to find out,” she whispered to herself.
Hurrying over to the walnuts they’d dropped before her, Thal finished cracking open the already damaged nuts, quickly eating one. The other, she removed from its shell. Ripping the sleeves from her top, Thal tied together one end of a sleeve, stuffed the meat of the nut into it and tied it closed. She then used the other sleeve to fasten her makeshift pouch to her belt.
Feeling her way back to the door, she pressed her ear against the thick metal and listened. The sound of distant snoring greeted her. With any luck, all of the ogres were now asleep. Shifting her size to her working size once more, she felt the door and hooked her fingers in the small window. She had an idea—she only hoped it worked. If it did, all she’d have to do was crawl through the small opening and drop to the floor on the other side. She only hoped she managed the feat without breaking her neck.
Chapter Four
“I dinnae know what these three expect tae do if we do find the nymphs and those who have taken them. They’re only two-feet tall, for Christ’s sake.” Kiran glared at the three tiny beings who led them through the barren wood.
“They do hae their magic.” Gaige shrugged as they headed for the craggy hills where their three magical companions swore the ogres had taken the nymphs.
“I dinnae like it. They shouldn’t be here. There are no leprechauns in Scotland.” Kiran crossed his arms. “We hae the ugly, wee men, but not these oddly dressed buffoons.”
Gaige shook his head with a grin. “Larin, what do ye expect us tae do when we find those responsible for taking the nymphs?”
Larin spun around, his face almost as red as his hair. “Are ya both as daft as ya look?” He glared at them with a snort. “Yar both polar bear shifters. If anyone in this forest can strike down a scent-struck ogre, it should be you two.”
Kiran glanced at Gaige. “Aren’t ogres huge?”
“And polar bears aren’t?” Ian shook his head, his little round belly jiggling. “The two of you can easily take on a whole pack o’ ogres.”
“A whole pack? No one said anything about an entire group of the drooling monsters. Kiran imagined the giant wart-covered creatures who weren’t quite human chasing them with clubs. “Maybe those are trolls,” he said thinking aloud.
“Nope. The ogres took ‘em. No doubt about that.”
One thing was certain, they wouldn’t have any privacy until they found the creatures in question and freed any nymphs they might by holding against their will.
“C’mon, ya slow movin’ nits!” We have the nymphs to save, unless, o’ course, ya like the idea of suffocating slowly as the planet dies.” Ian turned to them, his silver-green eyes practically shooting sparks. “I don’t know about you two big lugs, but I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do we,” Larin spoke up, wrapping his arm around Ian. “We’re only one thousand years old. To the old ones, we’re little more than babies.”
Kiran met Gaige’s gaze. They both rolled their eyes.
“Only one thousand, eh?” Kiran asked.
“Don’t you patronize us!” Liam shook his finger at them. “You people expect to die after only two-hundred years, or so.” He brought his hand to his chest. “While we live to be thousands of years old.”
“Tens of thousands.” Ian puffed his chest out.
“Who knew the wee folk could get so testy?” Gaige shook his head with a grin.
“O’ course we’re angry. The fate o’ the world is in our hands. Doesn’t that do anything for ya, man?”
Kiran sighed. It did do something for him, but what did the little men want them to do besides take on a pack of ogres?
“Shut your holes, now.” Liam held his hand up. “We’re nearing their cave. We’ll need to watch them for a bit before we attempt to mount a rescue, since we don’t know how many of them there are.”
“I thought you said we could take on an entire pack?” Crossing his arms, Gaige raised a brow.
“You can. But the question is, how many packs are sleeping in that cave?” Ian waggled his brows. “There could be two or three packs, if their females are willing to take on more than one male. If they are, they won’t accept a male of the same pack.”
“I didn’t know ogres did that kind of thing.” Kiran glanced at Gaige. Just because their people had menage relationships, it didn’t have them believing that others lived the same way. In fact, they were aware that humans rarely did such things.
“Well, your people aren’t the only kind that likes a little spice in their life,” Larin said with a smirk.
“We never thought we were, though triad relationships aren’t the norm in any world, especially with humans. In the human world, triads are almost as rare as unicorns.”
“You should see the fae folk. They’re as bad as the proverbial rabbits.” Liam snorted. “They have no feelings of remorse. They only wish to fulfill whatever desire they have, at the moment.”
Sitting on the ground, they all settled in for what might prove to be a long wait.
“What’s that?” Kiran pointed toward something he couldn’t quite make out.
“It’s the nymphs! They seem to have rescued themselves.” Liam moved out into the open and waved his hands. “Over here! Come on, Kalysis. We’ve come to help.”
“Who are they?” One tiny female pointed at Kiran and Gaige. “We refuse to be captured again.” She held up a small knife and brandished it before her. “We just want to go home.”
“And who will protect ye after ye get there, wee lass?” Gaige bent at the waist and addressed the group. “We,” he paused, gesturing to Kiran, “know who you are and what you do. We’re willing to protect you until you can bring life back to the forest.”
“And just what do two puny humans intend to do to save us from ogres? They are very real, and very addicted to our scent. Ogres are easily three times your size.” She eyed them, her gaze filled with barely hidden contempt. “They would eat you for breakfast and then turn their attention back to us. Go home and forget you ever saw us. It’s the best thing you can do.”
Kiran eyed the nymph with shock. “For the love of everything holy, I hope this nymph isn’t who I think she is.”
Her chest puffed out, drawing his attention to her tiny breasts heaving beneath her equally small blouse.
“She’s too small.” He turned his gaze to Gaige and shook his head. Waving his arm toward the wee lass, he snarled. “She’s too fucking small!”
He started to shake. How could the fates play such a horrible trick on them?
“What in the hell is the matter with you two lads?” Larin glared at them. “She’s a nymph. O’ course she’s small.”
Gaige turned to the little man and pinned him with a stare. “Why have you brought us here to her knowing full well she’s too small for us?”
“Look here, you two idiots. I’m a nymph. Nymphs are small. I’m sure you knew that before if you knew about us. I’m offended that our size rubs you the wrong way, but you should have realized before seeing us that we are small in stature.”
“For a wood nymph, your size is as it should be.” Kiran sat on a log and lowered his head to his hands. “However, you’re a bit small to be our mate.”
Chapter Five
“Mate?” Thal glanced at the brownies, who really weren’t brown at all. They had taken on more of the appearance of leprechauns in her opinion, but she knew the little people could change their appearance at will.
Generally, all of the other kin could change their appearance in one fashion or another. The nymphs changed their size, and the leprechauns, fae folk and others made themselves ugly or beautiful, as the mood struck.
She glared at the humans. “Human males don’t have mates. They sleep where they will, even when they have promised not to do so.” She stuck her knife in her belt and the other two nymphs she had armed did the same.
“We aren’t human, lass.” The taller of the two, a giant really, stepped forward. “I’m Gaige Dunbar and this is my cousin, Kiran MacKenna.” He bowed slightly.
Thal leaned against the nearest tree. Their height made her dizzy. Even when she shifted her shape and made herself taller, she wasn’t that large.
“We’re shifters.”
That got her attention. “What do you mean, shifters? Can you make yourselves smaller, too?”
“Too?” They both said at the same time.
“Ye get smaller than that?” The one the other introduced as Kiran waved his arm at her, his expression filled with shock and no small amount of disappointment. He glanced at the other man. “The implications of that boggles the mind, cousin.”
“Aye,” Gaige agreed with a nod. “That it does.”
Thal might have enjoyed their discomfort if it hadn’t meant she and the others couldn’t shift their size and make a run for it. It was nearly daybreak, and the ogres would soon find that they had escaped. It wouldn’t take the beasts long to find them here in the woods just beyond their smelly cave.
A loud roar filled the barren glade where they stood and Thal panicked. “Whatever you planned to do to protect us, plan to do it now. The ogres have obviously just discovered our disappearance.”
The two men glanced at each other and, with a short nod, they shifted their shape into that of two huge white bears, the likes of which she had never seen.
“Climb on their backs, they’ll carry us to safety,” one of the little men called as he jumped onto the larger bear.
“You want us to ride the bears?”
The large animal looked her way, piercing her with eyes as blue as the morning sky and nodded. Slowly, they both lowered themselves to the ground, making it a bit easier to climb aboard their hairy backs.
With a shake of her head, Thal ran to the bear who once was Kiran and climbed up to sit behind his neck. The bear shuddered beneath her as she grabbed a handful of hair and made ready to ride the beast to safety.
Once they all had a seat, the bears took off, their large paws digging deep into the damp ground as they practically flew through the woods. After about fifteen minutes, the bears stopped near a spring and lay down, panting.
Heat rolled off them in waves. The bear she rode was so hot, it had made her uncomfortable to sit astride him for even another second. Sliding to the ground, she stood silently as the bears dove headlong into the river’s frigid waters.
“Why have we stopped?” Thal turned to the little man who seemed to do most of the talking. “I’m called Thal.” She hoped that introducing herself would cause him to do the same.
“I’m Liam.” He gestured to the other two with red hair. “This is Larin and Ian. We’ve come to help.” He glanced toward the two bears still swimming in the river. “And we brought the bears to help ya.”
“Some help they are, playing in the water like a couple of babes.” She snorted.
“Don’t hold that against them, Thal.” Ian shook his head. “Yes, they can be hardheaded and a bit slow, but they’re not playing in the river.”
Thal crossed her arms, raised a brow and met his gaze. “Then what would you call it?”
“They’re cooling off. Polar bears overheat quickly. They’ll get sick if they don’t stop from time to time to cool off again.” He glanced toward the river. “If they hadn’t found this river, they could have died if they carried us much farther. Did ya feel the heat coming off them?” At her nod, he continued. “That same heat would have killed them. They don’t usually shift their shape this late in the year. It’s dangerous for them. They did so to keep you and yours safe. Ya might not want to give them grief over having to stop to cool off.”
“They risked their lives for us?” A lump formed in her throat as she stared out over the bank of the river and watched the two, who had at some point changed back into men, diving below the surface of the water and staying submerged much longer than she thought possible for their human-looking bodies. “Why would they do that?”
“They’ll do anything for ya, if they think you’re their mate. They’ll even die for ya.”
“Die?” Thal brought her hand to the center of her chest. “I wouldn’t want them to die for me.” She didn’t know what it was about the two men, but something about them made her want to know them. Never before had she ever thought to want the company of a male. Now she stood staring at two whom she wanted to get to know much better.
With a shake of her head, she turned away from the water. She couldn’t entertain the idea of spending time with the men. They weren’t the kind of males she should see. Her mother would probably die of an attack to her heart if she took up with two full-sized men.
It would mean that Thal must stay large, and her mother wouldn’t want that. The legends told of only a few nymphs who mated with humans. Eventually, they had left their homes in the woods and never returned. It would kill her mother to lose her that way.
Nymphs were flighty creatures by nature. They loved the wood and they mated only to beget offspring. The males, were always left with their fathers and the females kept and trained as nymphs and sprites to reawaken the world after its winter sleep.
Still, something about the two men awakened some strange thing deep inside her, and that thing wanted her to shift her size and show them she could be the kind of female they needed.
“They are strange creatures, are they not?”
Spinning around, Thal faced her mother, who stood staring at the two men wearing a resigned expression.
“Their kind is few and far between, my heart.” She grasped Thal’s hand. “You must see if what they say is true.”
“But, mother...”
“Shh...” Her mother covered her lips with her fingers. “Can you not imagine a wood nymph with their strength, longevity and ability to shift into something other than what you see now?” Her mother nodded toward the river. “Get to know them. Then, if you feel as though you can live the life they offer, go to them and never forget where you came from.” Dropping her hand, her mother turned and walked away. “You don’t have to live this life unless you want to, Thal. Your mother has said goodbye to a sister and another daughter. The legends you have heard are true. The nymphs were your kin.
“There is something about us that draws the other kin from their hiding places to claim us.” Her mother smiled gently. “Who knows?” Turning, she began to walk back to the others. “One day I might find a bear shifter, or two, of my own.”
Chapter Six
“I feel better now. Are ye ready tae get moving again?” Gaige rolled over onto his stomach and swam toward the bank.
“Aye,” Kiran replied with a sigh. “Ye know, it’s just our luck that our bonny lass is a wood nymph and too small tae do anything about being our mate than tease us with her perky little breasts and round little ass.” Kiran followed Gairge from the water and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the lass in question glaring at him, her arms crossed over her wee chest and her toe tapping the soft green ground beneath her feet.
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