Mythe & Magick

by Shiloh Walker

  She had to admire his restraint. It had to hurt, the healing of such a painful little burn. Second-degree burns, even small ones, were a bitch, and healing always took heat. Heat on a burn…not a nice feeling. But she sent a cool kiss of illusion as she pulled her hands away.

  “A healer, as well,” he whispered, cocking a brow at her while Arys continued to stare at them, the heat of anger in his eyes making the fire still burning at his feet look paltry.

  The satyr was still unable to do more than blink or talk. Not that he had said even a word, though the fire burned only inches away from him.

  “Only very little. I can do this, because I caused it,” she said, lifting one shoulder. She slid her eyes to the door, and lifted her brows questioningly.

  He bent slightly at the waist. “My most sincere apologies, lady witch. What I was thinking, I know not,” he murmured, shaking his head. He cast Arys a long, meaningful glance through the merrily burning flames and left silently, closing the door behind him.

  She doused the fire and studied the room. Not a singe mark in sight. “Wanna watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?” she asked, her voice brittle, her eyes hard. She crossed the room and stood only inches away, as close to him as the flames had been. “I just found you. And I’ve been waiting for you all my life. I’m not letting you just leave me behind.”

  “This is no pleasure walk I take,” he growled, flexing his muscles. He tossed his head back, his ebony hair whipping around his horns, his eyes gleaming slightly red with his rage, making him look a bit demonic. “Release me, damn it all. Months I may be gone. I know not. Think I would risk you?”

  “Think I would risk you?” she snarled. “I’m a bloody witch! I’m not a young one either, or a weak one, or a foolish one. I’m not naive, and I’m not eager for more power. All I’m eager for is to be with you.” She let him down, hurled herself at him, fisted her hands in his hair and crushed her mouth brutally to his. His arms locked around her and he whirled her around, pinning her against the wall with a ragged groan. Tearing her mouth away, she gasped, “Try to make me stay, I dare you. I’d bet anything I can use that gate to follow you.”

  Arys’ eyes closed and he slumped against her, shaking his head. “I imagine, yes, you could. Pepper, love, understand me, if something happens to you of all people, it will break me. My other half, you feel like,” he murmured, threading his hands through her hair.

  “Then you should understand why I can’t let you leave me,” she whispered.

  “I imagine she will be joining us,” Cray murmured as he paced outside in the small clearing, opening his wings, fanning them in the dappled sunlight.

  “Bloody hell, she will. Arys is fucking enraged,” Daklin said, shaking his head. He had threaded a series of sparkling beads through the set of braids on either side of his head and they made a small clacking sound as he shook his head. He still couldn’t believe she had pinned him against the wall. Wind. Fire. Two elements. She had control of two elements. Complete control, not just a minor gift, but complete control. The witches of Mythe maybe could call one, and in time, those few could learn to control that element.

  That young mortal already controlled two.

  Cray laughed, a rare sound for the fallen one. “She bested you, elf, didn’t she? Never imagined she’d have elemental magicks, did you? Illusions, herb magicks, maybe even a mind magicker or an enchanter like yourself…some sight…perhaps? But not elemental.”

  Daklin scowled at him, his sooty, gold-tipped lashes dropping down over his blue eyes as he made an obscene gesture at the angel and silkily said, “Would you like the ice maidens of the North to come calling on you, Cray?”

  Cray only smiled.

  Chapter Seven

  They heard the door open and turned to see Arys standing there, his hands resting on Pepper’s shoulders. “My lady will come,” he said softly, firmly. “A wildling horse of Faryn’s get will come for her to ride so that travel swiftly we may.”

  Daklin swore in elvish. In Mitaro, he said, “Arys, show some bloody sense. She knows nothing of our world. If we fall upon danger how can she protect herself? We will protect her with our lives, but what if something happens to us? She is safe here in the wood.”

  “I am not leaving her,” Arys said softly in the same tongue, shaking his head. “She is right. I cannot. And she proved good and well that she is not helpless.”

  “But can she use it to fight? Protect? Damn it, you fool, think with your head, not your heart,” Daklin insisted.

  Cray moved closer, saying, “Daklin, the little witch is fully capable of taking care of herself. Like a little mountain cat, she is. She is like a warrior witch of old, I tell you. She will be fine.”

  “Cray, you’ve grown fanciful in your old age,” Daklin scoffed, tossing his long blond locks over his shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest, muscles bulging. The small knife at his bicep winked in the light as he glared at both men, ignoring Pepper completely. “This is insanity. And she’s to travel on a wildling—”

  None had noticed that Pepper had gone stiff and white.

  Her back arched, her nostrils flared.

  Her hands itched, her scalp felt tight. “Arys, something is wrong,” she whispered. He wasn’t listening. The air around her seemed to be drawing tighter and tighter.

  In the tongue she didn’t understand, Daklin continued, “A fucking wildling horse. She’ll be begging to return after a half day. And you’ll not be riding her at all, she will be so sore.”

  Arys narrowed his eyes and advanced on the elf, flexing his hands, the nails on his long hands suddenly resembling claws. “Watch that tongue, elf. Or shall I cut it out? That is my lady you speak so crudely of,” he rasped, his black eyes gleaming red with anger.

  “Then think of her,” Daklin shouted, his voice making the air around them tremble like thunderclouds had just clashed together over head as he thrust a bare, leanly muscled arm at her. The beads in his hair clinked together musically as his voice dropped to a rough whisper that was no less intense for its quietness. “Leave her here. Where she will—”

  The sky opened.

  The men moved quickly.

  But not quickly enough, as they tried to locate the danger they just now started to sense.

  Pepper moved like the black lightning that flared down out of it. She placed herself in the center of the three men, hands wide overhead and closed her eyes as the shield formed while she prayed and worked.

  All I’ve ever needed was myself…

  And faith.

  But now she prayed for strength as well, because what was streaking down at her was like nothing she had ever imagined before.

  Falling to his knees, swearing, Daklin drew the knife at his bicep, but it was too damn late for an enchantment ward. Enchantment took time, and they had none. And the stinking, black, powerful bolt coming down at them was their death. He pricked his finger and made the first mark, just as it hit, and he pitched to his side, clutching his knife, and rolling to his feet.

  Arys moved to stand behind Pepper, protectively, possessively, proudly, at her back, a tiny little smile on his lips as he lifted his face to the trees and called upon his own form of magick while the ground started to shudder and tremble beneath their feet.

  Cray hadn’t fallen—he stood with his powerful legs braced, staring at the witch with wide, rapt, unblinking eyes, wings held tight and close to his body. The area around them was untouched. The immediate area beyond it was blackened and scorched for several yards, including the front half of the iskita.

  Then beyond that, nothing, everything was pristine.

  And they were all four still alive, inside a precise circle around the little redheaded witch.

  Arys stood behind Pepper, his eyes closed…feeding. He was feeding the power he drew from the wood into his witch, who was shielding them. “One more,” she whispered. “I can feel him…he doesn’t know about me…but he is sending one more to make sure he got all of you. He knew Cray and D
aklin were standing close, that first bolt was for them. This last one is for Arys. He wants you all dead. The Four Pillars.”

  The Four Pillars…Ronal…

  Over her shoulder, Daklin met Arys’ eyes. Feeling Cray’s eyes on him as well, he shrugged and said softly, “A warrior witch, eh?” He closed the space between them and made the two marks for protection, one on her left cheek, one on her right, while they waited for the power to build.

  He lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. “My apologies, lady-witch,” he murmured as his own shield surged to life, centering on her, the power feeding her as well.

  She smiled slowly. “Go away…you’re too pretty. You make it hard to concentrate,” she said. Then she leaned her head back against Arys and focused on the black morass starting to form overhead.

  * * * * *

  “Someone tried to assassinate us,” Arys murmured as he moved around his iskita and gathered up what was salvageable. “We must check on Ronal.”

  “That old bastard will be fine,” Daklin said, shaking his head. And hoping. But in his gut, he knew the vampire was well. Little could take a vampire off guard, and the vampire could take to the skies when in danger.

  “We will check,” Cray said. “And then we will meet. Somebody will pay for this…betrayal.”

  He heard a bell peal, followed by a more insistent trumpet. Then Ronal’s deep voice. “Satyr, if you hear my voice, answer me. Now.” Never had the vampire sounded so…insistent.

  Arys moved to the mirror, which was untouched, and stroked the foggy surface with his fingers. It cleared and he swore when he saw Ronal. The vampire was in a killing rage. His fangs had dropped, his face had no color and his green eyes were glowing as he paced back and forth. Several nasty cuts and bruises marred his physique, but they were slowly knitting back together even as Arys stared at him.

  When he saw the satyr’s face, some of the rage left him, and his wide, proud shoulders shuddered as he took a deep breath. “Thank the Father of us all,” Ronal said, moving to the mirror and resting both hands on the surface of it.

  Arys mirrored the gesture and studied the vampire as everybody gathered around behind him.

  Ronal studied Pepper for a brief moment and then smiled at Arys, slowly, satisfied. Then he said, “I had an…incident. And a sickening fear that it had happened to you as well. And only Cray would be able to flee as fast as I. And Cray would never leave his brethren behind.”

  “An incident of our own,” Arys said, moving to the side while the others parted, allowing Ronal to see the destroyed iskita. He absently stroked one of his horns while he wrapped his other arm around Pepper, drawing her close to his side. “It seems as though we have an enemy who was just waiting for a time when he had more than one of us together in one place.”

  Ronal swore, long and vicious, in his tongue, one fist striking the mirror. “I must ask, though I am grateful you survived. How did you? I watched, and if any but I had been in the chamber…”

  Arys pushed Pepper in front of the mirror even though she resisted. “She is how. She felt it. Meet my lady, Ronal. She is called Pepper, and she is from the mortal realms. A warrior witch, Cray has called her. And well said, it would seem,” he murmured, lowering his head to nuzzle her neck. Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he continued, “Felt the dark magick coming, did my lady. Oui, she felt it, she shielded us, saved us. A warrior witch. Pretty, pretty mine.”

  Pepper blushed as he crooned against her neck, while the newcomer studied her with appraising eyes. Warrior witch. It gave her an odd little thrill to be called that. Of course, the thrill could be coming from him pressing his hot mouth to her neck while three other men watched with curious eyes.

  “I believe your lady is embarrassed, Arys,” Ronal said with a smile. A long, slow shudder racked his body and as she watched, the fangs protruding past his lips withdrew slightly and some color reappeared on his face. “It is a good thing that I see my friends alive and unharmed. A good thing.”

  “We must meet,” Cray said.

  “Aye,” Ronal murmured, turning his gaze back to Pepper, his moss green eyes dark with curiosity. “That we must.” He spoke English. Very well, in fact. Better, it seemed, than Arys. “But we will need a safer haven than what I know. I would suggest—”

  “My people’s realm,” Daklin said, stepping forward, lifting a brow.

  Ronal sneered at the elf. “Ever the do-gooder, aren’t you, long ear? But…that is exactly what I was going to suggest, you lovely thing,” he said drolly. “But I have a fear that a vampire would not be welcome in the fair kingdom of the elves.”

  Daklin coolly replied, “If you can keep your sharp teeth away from our virgin women, you are welcome.”

  Ronal smiled. “I prefer my women with more years on them anyway. Got any sisters, Daklin?”

  Pepper whispered to Arys, “I thought they were friends.”

  “They are,” he responded. “Elves and vampires…do not exactly make easy friends. Like fire and ice they are.”

  Cray laughed. “More like heaven and hell,” he offered. “And take your pick, lady witch, of who is the angel or demon.” He nodded his head toward the dark-haired vampire and the fair-haired elf who snapped back and forth through the mirror.

  It was in a small cabin that she spent her last night in Arys’ wood.

  Alone, with her satyr.

  She stared at him nervously as he came through the doorway, uncertain how to take the odd gleam she saw in his eyes. Is he still mad about the fire thing?

  Cray and Daklin had made themselves scarce. Where they had gone to sleep for the night she didn’t know. Hadn’t really cared at the time. And she didn’t really think she cared now…but the odd light in Arys’ eyes was making her nervous.

  He closed the door behind him and studied the small cabin. “Not the iskita, but it shall suffice,” he murmured, sliding her a sidelong glance as he removed the pack at his back and shucked his breeches.

  He was nude when he faced her.

  Pepper stared at him hungrily, curling her fingers into tight fists as she dragged her eyes up his long lean form. So damn exotic, so handsome… Her mouth had gone dry, her nipples were tight and erect and her sex was wet and aching, just from staring at him.

  “Too many clothes, pretty witch,” he said as he closed the distance between them.

  Awkwardly she tugged the shirt over her head, gasping as she felt his hot mouth close over the hard tip of one nipple as his hands went to the waist of her trousers and jerked them down. “Mine,” he purred against her skin. “Say it.”

  “Yours,” she whispered raggedly as he plunged two fingers inside her pussy, twisting his wrist back and forth as he worked his fingers in and out. “And you’re mine.”

  “Yours,” he agreed, crowding against her and pushing her down onto the bed, pushing her thighs apart and leaning in, drawing his wicked tongue up her wet slit, humming in appreciation before stiffening his tongue and thrusting it deep inside, over and over, until she was rocking up against his mouth and whimpering.

  “Tasty, sweet,” he crooned against her, moving up and flicking his tongue against her clit, pushing his fingers back inside her and listening to her scream as she tightened around them and wailed. The silken walls of her vagina clenched down, spasmodically, rhythmically, and as he pushed inside a second, then a third time, she started to come, rocking up against his hand and mouth and pleading in a broken little voice, “Again, oh, please…there, right there, please…Arys…Arys!”

  He covered her quickly and drove deep inside, working past the tightening of her muscles as she came, shuddering as her silken pussy gripped his cock so tightly. Catching her tossing head in his hands, he took her mouth roughly and plunged his tongue deep inside, groaning as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him tightly against her, the heels of her feet digging in just above his ass.

  He reached down and gripped her firmly muscled ass with one hand, digging his nails into her fl
esh and feeling her shocked, aroused little moan as he traced his finger against the opening of her rosette.

  The diamond-hard points of her nipples stabbed into him and he shifted again, bending down and catching one of the rosy, plump tips in his mouth, biting down and suckling strongly as he pushed his cock deep inside her sweet, wet depths. She shrieked and tightened around him, starting to climax again, just as the last one faded, the scream falling, ragged and weak, from her lips.

  Chuckling, he brushed a kiss against her trembling lips and whispered, “Slow down.” Then he shifted onto his knees, draping her thighs over his, spreading her open, staring down where his cock entered her. Arys watched as the tender pink flesh of her pussy stretched tightly around his dark, ruddy cock. The sweet, slick cream from her orgasm made his cock gleam as he pulled out slowly and surged back inside. Sliding his hands under her ribcage, arching her back up, he swiveled his hips and drove his shaft high inside her.

  The satin-slicked, swollen tissues tensed around him and she shuddered, sobbing as her hands fisted in the linens beneath her, her eyes glassy and blind. “Arys…”

  “Sweet, hot little mine,” he crooned, bringing one hand around and stroking the flat of his palm down her torso, resting the heel of his hand on her pubis and circling his thumb over the swollen bud of her clit.

  Each time she started to tense and tighten as she neared orgasm, his hand retreated—stroking her ass, tweaking her nipple—until she was crying and pleading.

  Slicked with sweat, her lips swollen and bruised, she sobbed, “Arys, please, I need you.”

  Lost, needing her so desperately, he released his control, hunkering over her and shafting her with strong, deep strokes. His cock burrowed deep, retreating and then filling her again as he fucked her roughly, his long, lean body shuddering as he rose up and gripped her hips. Driving deep, staring down at where they joined, he watched as he pushed his cock inside the snug embrace of her sex. Watched the feathery curls of her mound tangle with the fine pelt that covered his lower body, and the way her cream had the smooth skin of his cock gleaming and ruddy as he slammed back into her.