Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8

by Samantha M. Derr

  Tamlin ate the scone in silence and swallowed. Anabiel ate the other, gulping the sweet treat too fast to taste it, and regarded her love once more.

  "What is this catch, Tamlin?" she asked.

  He closed his eyes, then pulled Anabiel close, pressing his hips to hers. At first, Anabiel didn't understand. And then, she felt it.

  Or rather, she didn't feel it.

  Her paw traced the line of his hip—a hip she realized now was too curved, too wide—and cupped the place where a todd would keep his organ. There was definitely something there, but it wasn't what belonged on a todd.

  "You…you're—"

  "—different," Tamlin finished, gritting his teeth.

  Anabiel blinked, her body going still. But she didn't recoil, and she didn't let go.

  "Were you…was it the Dark Queen?" she asked.

  Tamlin shook his head. "I've always been so. I'm not…whole."

  The corner of Anabiel's lip quirked, and her whiskers twitched. She knew they needed to flee, that the fey would be upon them again soon, but—

  "I'd understand if you let go, Belle. You aren't the first, but—"

  "But I'd be the last," she said. "Tamlin, how many times have you gone through this?"

  He bared his fangs and looked away. "Too many," he replied softly. He started to pull away, but Anabiel tightened her grip.

  "Tamlin Todd, you are a fool if you think the only reason I'm doing this is for what's between your legs!" she said, and kissed him soundly.

  That kiss tore a sound from him, something between a ragged scream and a triumphant howl, and he kissed her back with all his heart.

  "I can't give you kits," he said, his green eyes shining in the moonlight.

  "Don't care!" Anabiel replied, kissing him again. She wanted to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until the sun rose. She fumbled with his shirt, her paws sliding up the length of his body, and—

  A hunting horn sobered the pair, and they both turned toward the sound. A second horn sounded, followed by the eerie baying of faerie hounds.

  "We need to run!" Anabiel hissed. She grabbed his paw and ran.

  "Where are we going?" he asked as he swatted aside underbrush and tried to fix his tunic.

  "The village!" she replied. "We need to get to my family's barn! Every Hunter's Moon, Father marks the doors with boar's blood, to ward it from faeries that might befoul the hay. We'll be safe there until dawn!"

  Anabiel wasn't sure how her father and brothers would react to a strange not-todd in their midst, but they'd be preoccupied for the night with their own pursuits. With any luck, no one would know until morning. By then, they would have made their vows and no law in the land could separate them.

  They raced through the forest, but the sounds of hounds came ever closer. Tamlin's breathing became ragged, and even Anabiel began to tire. They burst out of the forest so suddenly that Anabiel was nearly blinded by the unfiltered moonlight. "There, across the field! Don't let go!" she said.

  Tamlin nodded, and looked over his shoulder. "Don't look, Belle," he said. "Don't look back!"

  But she did. Barreling through the trees were three white hounds, with eyes as red as blood. The sight of those rubyeyes caused every muscle in Anabiel's body to seize in terror. Tamlin growled and pushed her, hard, and it was enough to break the spell.

  "Go!" he said.

  The barn was just ahead. They were almost there! They raced across the dying hay field, stems bleached by moonlight. Behind them, the hounds howled, their breath fogging the air before them in great bursts. Anabiel slammed into the barn door, throwing it open with all her might and tumbled forward. Tamlin, refusing to let go, hit the ground with her and kicked the door shut.

  Tamlin and Anabiel lay in the dust, gasping, and listened as the three faerie hounds snarled and paced just outside the door.

  But the hounds could not enter. The boar's blood line along the doorstep prevented the fey things from setting so much as a toe inside.

  "Are we safe?" Anabiel asked. "Do you think they'll try to dig their way inside?"

  Tamlin frowned and held her tighter. "I don't think so."

  Suddenly, the hounds went silent, and a slurred voice cut through the night.

  "Anabiel? What's going on out there?"

  Anabiel went very, very still. It was the voice of her father coming from outside, on the other side of the barn.

  "Anabiel?" Tamlin murmured. Anabiel frowned, and realized it was the first time Tamlin had heard her true name.

  "Belle for short, I take it?" he whispered, his whiskers tickling her ear.

  "Hush!" she said, and led him to one of the hay piles. They burrowed inside and waited.

  The barn door creaked open.

  "Anabiel? You in here? That better not be you with the butcher's wife again!"

  Anabiel blushed crimson under her fur, and Tamlin pinched his muzzle shut with his other paw to keep from snickering.

  "Butcher's wife?" Tamlin whispered into Anabiel's ear.

  She glared. "She wasn't married at the time!" Anabiel protested.

  Tamlin chuckled, and her father's ear swiveled toward the sound. He curled one lip and bared his fangs at the darkened interior of the barn. Anabiel shuddered in Tamlin's arms. She knew that look. Her father was a breath away from a drunken rage. In spite of herself, she whimpered.

  Anabiel's father threw his ale bottle into the hay, nailing Tamlin between the eyes and making him yelp.

  "Get outta there, Anabiel. I can smell you from here. And who is the whore with you?" he growled.

  With a sigh, Anabiel and Tamlin slunk out of the hay, still holding hands.

  "Father, this is Tamlin. My betrothed," Anabiel said stiffly.

  "I was just about to exchange vows with—" Tamlin began.

  "You are not marrying my daughter," her father rumbled. "Vixens don't marry vixens."

  "Tamlin isn't—"

  "Just because it dresses like a todd don't make it one!" he roared. He closed on her, his breath reeking of stale beer, and tried to grab her.

  Tamlin was faster. He yanked Anabiel away and stood between her and her drunken father. Anabiel's paws clutched Tamlin's waist as she ducked behind him.

  "Belle, I don't think your father is going to give us his blessing," Tamlin said dryly.

  The hounds howled outside the door again, and Anabiel's father perked up his ears.

  "Being hunted, are you? That why you came in here?" he growled.

  "Father, don't open the door!"

  "Why not? Afraid a todd will finally make a vixen out of you?"

  Anabiel laid her ears back. "Father, that isn't the sound of todds howling!" she said, but her father was too far gone to hear her.

  "It sounds like your brothers," Anabiel's father leered. "I think sons of mine are todd enough to make vixens of both of you!" he cackled, and kicked the barn door.

  "Father, you can't!"

  "Oh yes I can, Anabiel. You're a vixen and it's time you started acting like it! And if it has to be you own brothers to make you one, so be it!" He kicked the door again, and again, until it flew off its hinges. The doorframe screamed in protest and cracked, one broken board stabbing into the earth and breaking the line of dried boar's blood.

  Three pale faerie hounds bayed and burst into the barn. Anabiel saw her father look at the hounds, uncomprehending, just before they fell upon him.

  "Quickly, while they're distracted," she said.

  "Belle—"

  "I told him not to open the door!" Her voice cracked and tears flowed down her cheek, but she swiped them aside.

  Anabiel and Tamlin snuck out while the hounds feasted.

  "Now what?" Tamlin asked.

  Anabiel thought for a moment. "Back to the spring. It's almost dawn. They won't be able to reach it in time. I think."

  Tamlin was about to protest, but a savage snarl from inside the barn sent the pair off and running again. They made it to the spring just as the eastern sky began to brighten.
>
  But standing at the edge of the spring was Faerie Queen Maeve, the Queen of Air and Darkness.

  "Hello, Tamlin," she said.

  It was Anabiel's turn to stand between her partner and harm. "You can't have him," she said.

  "Him? Oh, Tamlin, have you not told her yet? You cannot gain another's love through trickery!" she laughed.

  "He's todd enough for me," Anabiel replied evenly. "You've lost, Dark Queen. Tamlin is free of your curse."

  The Queen of Air and Darkness stopped laughing. "Oh no. Not yet. There's an hour yet before you can claim victory, little Belle. And I think you've had it too far too easy."

  "You call that easy?" Tamlin protested.

  "Silence, you!" The Queen snapped two blackened fingertips, and Tamlin hissed. Anabiel felt her Tamlin change in her arms into a giant serpent. His soft fur hardened into scales, his limbs withered, and his muzzle yawned with two great fangs.

  "Will you still love him while he digests you?" the Queen cackled.

  Tamlin thrashed like a mad thing, his coils undulating under Anabiel's paws, but she refused to let go. She squeezed him tighter, locking her fingers behind his scaled back.

  The Queen growled, and snapped her fingers again. The scales became fur once more, but grey and brindled. Tamlin had become a feral wolf! He howled and struggled, but Anabiel dug her fingers into his fur and held on tight.

  "Tamlin, Tamlin it's me!" she cried.

  He couldn't hear her. Anabiel ground her teeth and wrapped the silver chains around her own hands, gripping the canine's scruff with one paw. "I'm not letting you go, Tamlin. I promise."

  The Queen snarled and changed Tamlin again, this time into a rooster. Anabiel yipped and clutched at him, and managed to get him back into her arms. The rooster crowed and kicked, claws shredding her tunic, but she held on.

  The Queen screamed in fury and snapped both her fingers, and this time, Tamlin changed into a burning log.

  "How long can you hold him, Belle? Will he still love you when the sun rises and he sees how you've been scalded?" she taunted.

  Anabiel glared, tears streaming down her cheeks from the heat, and dove into the spring with the burning ember of Tamlin held tight in her arms.

  There was a burst of bubbles, claws twining in her fur, and suddenly everything was gold and light and she could breathe again.

  "Anabiel? Anabiel!"

  "Tamlin? I didn't…" she coughed. "I didn't let go."

  "No," he choked. "No, you didn't."

  The sun lifted over the horizon, bathing the world in tawny light, and the Queen of Air and Darkness stood before it, smiling. All trace of her anger and fury seemed to have melted away with the dawn. "Ah, it was a good night."

  Anabiel snarled, her ears laid back and her teeth bared. She wasn't fooled, not in the slightest! "You lost, Queen of Air and Darkness."

  "And so I did," she said graciously. "I concede defeat. Very well done, Anabiel. In the course of a single night, you have managed to ensure all oaths were paid in full."

  "What? All oaths? What are you talking about?" she asked.

  "I promised Tamlin he should stay with the faerie until he found his true love, which he did. My oath to the slaugh for a tithe was kept by way of your father, just as I promised, and you have rescued your true love, just as you promised. A good night's work, I think."

  "You…you planned this. All of this!" Tamlin accused.

  Queen Maeve smiled, baring perfect white teeth that were no longer fangs. "I'm the Queen of the Night Fey, Tamlin. Of course I did."

  The sun rose higher, burning away the morning dew, and the Dark Queen winced at the light. "And here, I must leave you." She snapped her fingers, and the chains binding Tamlin fell to dust. "Fare you well, Anabiel and Tamlin, wherever you may fare." The Queen of Air and Darkness bowed, stepped back into the shadows, and was gone.

  Tamlin and Anabiel were alone. Slowly, gingerly, they let go of each other. Nothing happened.

  And shortly after, they embraced again.

  It is said that Anabiel and Tamlin returned to the village just long enough to pack before heading out once more into the Winterwood. Anabiel's father and brothers were never seen or heard from again, although there are those who say that by the light of a full moon, a spectral todd might be seen pacing at the edge of the forest, throat torn and eyes empty, with three white hounds at his heels. As for what became of Tamlin and Anabiel, well, it wouldn't be a faerie tale without a happily ever after.

  Honor in Mercy

  Mercedes Vox

  17 Augustus, 117

  Storm clouds never failed to form over the arena after I won a match, as if the gods themselves were angry with me for exiting victorious.

  I leaned an aching shoulder against the archway separating the barrack of the resident familia gladiatorium from the sands of the Amphitheater at Rusellae. For five years, I had been champion of the venue. Although I wasn't the tallest, the most muscular, or even the strongest of Messalla's gladiators, I was by far the best, cherished by my master and revered by Rusellae's citizens. A double-edged sword accompanied that degree of adoration. While I had earned privileges denied to other gladiators, my popularity kept the wooden hilt of the coveted rudis of freedom far from my grasp. Messalla would sooner separate his cock from his body than free me.

  My reprieve from this life of deadly servitude would come only at the expense of my own blood reddening the sands of the arena. I put the mouth of the wine-filled amphora to my lips and drank deeply to dull the pain of that knowledge. As the last bout of the day entered its waning moments, the closest of my brothers came to stand beside me.

  Naevius slung an arm across my shoulders. "Messalla will gift us with wine and women for such decisive victory." One side of his mouth quirked up into a lopsided grin, and he nodded toward my amphora. "Your presence guarantees less of the former and more of the latter for the rest of us. Gratitude for your preference of cock over cunt, Noctua Audax."

  I took another swallow of wine before handing the amphora to Naevius. "What do you know of the special event planned by Messalla to close today's games? Your ability to ferret out villa gossip is far keener than my own."

  After partaking of the drink, Naevius barked out a sardonic laugh. "As if Messalla needs more reason to envy hated rival, House of Bucco has made acquisition of a renowned Aegyptian bestiarius, who will grace our sands on this day before Apollo's four horses escort the sun from the sky."

  There would not be enough wine in all the Roman Empire to douse the flames of covetousness burning in the breast of our master, Decimus Fabius Messalla. He had long been obsessively jealous of the House of Bucco's location in the seaport city of Ostia, due to trade advantage and proximity to Rome. Only rarely did senators or citizens of Rome holding high station ever visit Rusellae, whereas the practice was common in the Amphitheater at Ostia. Even the fact that our home arena was a hundred years newer than its counterpart in Ostia provided Messalla with cause for envy, as Romans often valued antiquity and pedigree to a ludicrous extent. Ambition to place his name on the lips of Emperor Hadrian, on the throne for merely a week, would most certainly result in Messalla endeavoring to equalize the talent composition of his training ludus against that of Bucco.

  I retrieved the amphora from Naevius and emptied half the remaining contents into my belly. This day would not end well, and I intended to see it out with as much liquid salve for my soul as I could swallow and remain standing.

  *~*~*

  The final gladiatorial match of the day ended with Bucco's injured combatant declaring surrender by raising the two-fingered gesture of the missio. Trumpets sounded from the pulvinus box overlooking the arena, and Messalla rose from his ornate daybed cushion to address the crowd. With no dignitaries from Rome in attendance, it fell to the lanista, as owner of the local house sponsoring the games, to also act as judge and decide the fallen man's fate.

  Messalla opened his arms as if embracing the crowd. "On this auspicious day, when est
eemed colleague from House of Bucco honors House of Messalla with his presence, I am inclined to exercise leniency toward his wounded slave. What say the people of Rusellae?"

  Although typically rife for blood, the crowd of almost five thousand responded to Messalla's query with a resounding, collective chant. "Let him live! Let him live! Let him live!"

  With a smile as bright as the sun, Messalla thrust his right hand forward with his thumb extended parallel to the ground. With a quarter turn, he pointed the digit skyward. The crowd erupted into cheers, applause, and stomping, with the resulting noise loud enough to shake the very ground under my feet.

  "Send him away standing," Messalla shouted over the din. "Recall my generosity when you speak of me!"

  Two attendants from the visitors' barrack on the opposite side of the arena ran onto the field to render aid to the injured Bucco gladiator. Once they had disappeared into the bowels of the amphitheater, Messalla held up a hand to silence the spectators.

  Messalla turned toward his right and smiled at Servius Modius Bucco, the gluttonous collection of lard from Ostia. "I grant you the honor, respected lanista, of introducing the newest gladiator representing your prestigious house."

  Bucco struggled off his daybed, not bothering to put down the roasted leg of hare on which he had been feasting. Red-faced and out of breath, he addressed the crowd. "From the uncivilized wilds of Aegyptus, I bring you Volcacius the Lion-Slayer and his quarry, the king of beasts!"

  A tall, black-skinned man strode onto the sand from the visitors' barrack. Armor fashioned of expensive hammered-bronze and links of iron rings adorned him, and he carried both a net and a spear. The trapdoor in the center of the arena opened. A heavy iron chain affixed to a wide collar attached a massive Barbary lion, muscular and dark of mane, to the rising platform. The animal roared, displaying impressive fangs made for rending meat from bones.

  Volcacius's proficiency proved impressive, his demeanor confident to the point of arrogance as he circled the lion and teased it with taunting jabs of his spear. Just as I thought Volcacius bore the net only as a prop of intimidation, he spun the lead-weighted web of rope over his head and let it fly at ground level. Although the lion did not become entangled in the net, the force knocked the animal's legs out from under its body, leaving it vulnerable to close-up attack.