William tried to kick at her when she got closer to him. She hissed and shoved his leg to the side, twisting him in the air as he hung. Her needle caught his thigh as he swung back, jabbing him hard. He fought the injection but she was quicker. The medicine burned its way into him. Everything became a blur as his limbs deadened into heavy, useless weights.
William opened his mouth, but any threat he would have made was lost under a slacken jaw. His eyes rolled and his head dropped forward. There was nothing he could do.
St. Joan’s hand ran onto his cheek as she pulled his face back up to meet hers. He felt her breath on his lips. “She will be so tasty. Happy hunting.” As his mind lost the fight with oblivion, he felt warm lips move against his.
*
Rachel didn’t move as the thin ball of light drew steadily closer, growing in diameter. She stared at it, unsure that it was actually there. After days in darkness, she couldn’t trust her eyes. The light bounced, moving up then down in a steady rhythm, like a fat speck of white, glowing cotton caught in the wind. It made its way progressively forward, taking what seemed like hours to cross the inky darkness.
She wasn’t sure when it happened, but more specks had appeared behind the first, and their combined glows threw light onto her prison cell. Her eyes ached from endless hours of shifting to see her way in the darkness, a fruitless activity until this moment. She detected a flutter inside the light. Wings? Arms? A tiny smile?
“Fairies?” The small being’s body blurred with movement, so it was almost impossible to see more than a glimpse within the shifting motions. Even as her eyes began to recover, it was hard for her shifted vision to focus in on the creatures. When she concentrated her hearing, she could detect a high-pitched buzzing but couldn’t make out a language.
Looking beyond the fairies, she saw the inside of her prison for the first time. No wonder she couldn’t find a way out. There was no door within the stone hole, only the marks of her claws as she’d tried to dig her way through the walls. The fairies had entered through a crack in the ceiling, near a round hatch. In the dark, the hatch would be undetectable, but now with the light, she could see it carved into the stone.
Her limbs shook as she stood, ignoring the fairies as she reached towards the hatch. She wasn’t tall enough. Her arm throbbed where she’d been cut. It had healed over some, but without energy, her body couldn’t complete the job. She was so hungry and thirsty from being walled into her prison cell without nourishment, and she knew she wouldn’t have lasted much longer. The thought had occurred to her more than once that St. Joan had left her there to die a horrible and slow death.
Rachel rolled a rock under the latch and stood on it. Her legs shook as she fought to keep her balance. The heavy rock lifted a few inches and then fell right back into place. With a grunt, she pushed harder, rising up on her toes. The fairies became agitated, moving faster around her arms and wrists. They helped her without actually touching her. Not one to refuse assistance, she lifted up and pushed harder. The fairies blurred into a thick stream of light. Even her shifter eyes couldn’t pick them apart. They pulled harder, lifting her off the ground. Rachel’s feet kicked in the air as they hauled her up.
Light streamed in from above as the stone was taken off her hand and tossed aside. A larger being grabbed her fairy-ringed hand and hauled her out of the hole with some difficulty. The woman glowed with an inner light, a shimmering, almost translucent brilliance. The tiny fairies circled up Rachel’s arm, moving onto the arm of the light being only to melt into her translucent skin and disappear. As they did so, the woman’s features darkened, and the light inside her dimmed until she was flesh.
The woman released her hold, and Rachel fell to her hands and knees on the ground. When she opened her mouth to thank her rescuer, her throat was too tight and dry and she merely croaked. She’d been right to think of her prison as a grave. Around them, ancient gravestones jutted from the ground.
“You must run, strong one,” the woman whispered, her lips barely moving. “Follow me. I will lead you.”
Rachel tried to protest, but a light entered the woman’s eyes and her body was translucent once more, as fairy lights tore apart her form into a swarm of tiny white dots. They created a trail through the air, drawing her attention to the nearby forest.
Rachel pushed onto her hands and knees and began to crawl. Her naked body, smudged with dirt and blood, and thinned with starvation, had to look strange crawling out from the scarred earth. The graveyard was in an overgrown clearing. Many of the graves had been abandoned by caretakers long ago, left to weather and age beneath a dense overgrowth of weeds. One grave stood out because of the care it had been recently given. A strange skull was carved into the top with wings sprouting from the side of its head. Beneath the carving, the grave marker read, “Here lyes buried the body of Mr. Samuel St. Joan who departed this life August ye 16th 1901 in ye 162nd year of his age.”
Rachel didn’t think too hard on it as she crawled past. The fairy lights were pulling further away, and she’d lose track of them soon if she didn’t hurry. Shifting always hurt, but this time was worse. She cried out as she dragged herself forward. Joints popped and muscles stretched so hard they tore. Her human cries turned to the whimper of an injured wolf as she limped along the graves towards the forest.
Each step burned. She willed the fairy lights to slow down and circle back. She heard the buzzing noise they made, but it was too hard to concentrate on sounds that far away. By sheer willpower and determination she managed to limp her way into the forest. The calming scent of wild nature rolled over her like aromatherapy. She breathed deeply, taking in her surroundings, letting them become a part of her.
The ache in her stomach worsened as the pain in her limbs subsided. She resisted the urge to hunt in the forest, though the primal drive was strong. As a wolf, raw meat satiated on a base level, but with a human consciousness, she couldn’t bring herself to hunt prey for food. A tremor worked over her and she jerked, partially shifting back into human form. She cried out, a half scream, half whine.
Rachel tried to hold the shift so she could heal faster, but it was too hard. Her body jerked again, and she rolled onto her back to finish her transformation. When fur became flesh, she stayed on the ground, breathing hard. The fairy lights were gone, not that she could see too far because of the trees. Not knowing what else to do, she rolled over and pushed herself to her feet. Naked, dirty and sore, she put one foot in front of the other and stumbled her way down the narrowly beaten path. The woods didn’t scare her. She could handle the woods. It was the being lost and naked in a foreign country part that bothered her.
Limping along, she held her waist, trying to ignore her growling stomach and aching head. Not that she wasn’t grateful for the help, but she really wished her rescuer wouldn’t have taken off so fast.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she whispered, renewing her determination.
Chapter Ten
“We always liked you, Duncanis.”
Douglas eyed the tiny fairies as they swarmed around his panther head. They were a sub-species of fairy, brought forth centuries ago with an ancient magic long since abandoned. The tiny creatures were of one mind and many bodies. It was said a spell blasted a single fairy into many parts.
Those parts began melting together in front of him until a single, solid woman kneeled on the ground. When they were one, Rara continued, “I always thought you a powerful creature. I like cats.”
Rara reached out to pet him. Her skin shimmered when she touched him. There was power in her, so much power, and yet she would not use it for much beyond an enticement for pleasure. Fairies could not help themselves. They were all things natural and reproductive. They were fertility to the earth, new life and old death. Their bodies were made of the seasons.
Douglas lifted his head and closed his eyes as he shifted to human form. He stayed on his hands and knees. “Have you seen the Cononious chief?”
“Is that why you sum
moned me here to the sacred stone?” Rara looked to the nearby offering table to the pile of leaves and flowers he’d thrown on top.
“Yes. I am looking for the chief, and a woman who may be with him. She’s special. I must find them.”
“Special?” Rara shook her head. “St. Joan is many things, but not special. Those shifted lips I have tasted in return of a favor. She is strong and replenished me. She tastes of the forest, and of the river, but there is nothing special in that.”
“So you have seen her? With the chief? What about Rachel? Was there another woman with them?” Douglas pushed back on his heels. “Please, you must tell me.”
“I must do nothing without the price being paid.” Rara gave him a meaningful look. Her eyes moved down to his cock.
“I would,” Douglas lied, “but to do so would mean your death.”
Why did every fairy insist on trying to seduce his kind? Yes, shifters had a potent sexual energy that fairies had a strange fascination with, but it was to the point they all had a death wish. Fairies made that energy worse with the very pheromones they released when aroused. It fell onto the shifter to be strong, for the two races did not blend together well. Every century a shifter would try it, thinking they could control it, and every century his kind would be reminded of reality by the bloody mess that resulted from the joining.
Rara pouted. “Shifters.” She turned to leave him. Her body became translucent as part of her left arm flew away.
“But I can ensure you get an audience with Kristoff.” Douglas reached for her right arm to keep her from leaving.
“Mm, vampires.” She smiled. Vampires were notoriously hard to find for fairies. They ran in much different circles. Vampires preferred to live next to big cities where the food supplies were. Fairies avoided humans. Both tended to be flighty and did not stay long in one place.
“Vampire king,” Douglas corrected.
“A little blood and he will last a week.” Rara nodded. The fairies from her arm hovered over them. “It is agreed. Ask us.”
“Was another woman with St. Joan and the chief? Her name is Rachel.”
Rara shook her head. “No. She was not with them.”
Douglas felt disappointment slam into his chest. His heart pounded wildly. He didn’t like the fear that washed over him. He began to shake. Weakly, he said, “I need you to lead me to the Cononious chief.”
She nodded. “Try to keep up. The last wolf did not follow so well.”
“Wait, what wolf?” Douglas demanded. He’d started to let go of her arm only to tighten his grip. She yelped and her arm exploded into tiny fairy lights. They danced around the forest away from his reach as Rara stood, armless, before him.
“The woman shifter St. Joan kissed me to free for her. Poor wolf was trapped underground. I would have said no, but St. Joan is a shifter, and she seemed busy with the Cononious chief playing in the forest. I tried to get the wolf to follow me, but you summoned me here and the wolf did not keep up.” Rara smiled. Some of the fairy lights came forward to move along his naked spine. His flesh tingled with pleasure, but he resisted the drugging euphoria of her touch. His body did not want the fairy woman. He wanted Rachel. Only Rachel.
“That is the woman I seek. St. Joan did not want to rescue her. She wants to kill her. You must tell me where—”
“Kill?” Rara narrowed her eyes. Her body jerked back from him as if blasted by a hurricane. She burst into lights, swirling angrily in the air. Her voice became a buzzing chorus of sounds that he could barely understand. He spoke many languages, but rarely had a need to listen to fairies gossiping in their native tongue. “I will have no part of killing, Duncanis!”
Like an enraged swarm of bees, the fairies dashed into the forest. Douglas shifted, surging after them. He supposed saving William should have played more heavily in his mind, but the Cononious chief knew the risk of their stations. Rachel did not. This was the closest he’d been to finding Rachel since she disappeared. He couldn’t lose her trail now. Besides, William would want him to rescue their future wife first.
*
William woke up already shifted, bleeding, hungry and very confused. He growled frantically as he sniffed the air. Meat. He needed meat. His jaw snapped as he watched birds fly overhead. Jumping, he tried to catch them at their impossible height. Then another scent lingered over him, just beyond a strange concentration of fairy urine marking the forest floor.
Meat. His primal mind whispered to him as he growled and surged into the forest. The one thought lingered desperately in his mind, drumming in rhythm from his brain to his running feet. Meat. Meat. Meat…
His vision tunneled as he sped through the forest. The stretch of his muscles felt good against his many wounds. The scent of live prey became stronger. The beast inside him had complete control. A flash of pink flesh showed in the trees, standing out against the brown and green. He darted right, then left, dodging fallen logs as he left the path. His prey turned as he burst forward through the brush. He didn’t think, didn’t stop. His teeth found tender, soft flesh. Blood filled his mouth and he clamped down harder. A scream pierced the air, but the sound only fueled his feverish predatory drive.
Meat.
*
Douglas kept the scent of the fairies in his nose as he chased them through the forest. Miles melted beneath his paws. He didn’t care if he had to run to the end of the earth to find Rachel. He would save her.
Desperation filled him. If he lost her he wasn’t sure what he would do. When he caught up to Rara, she was standing in solid form before a tree. She pointed at it. Douglas sniffed the blood-soaked air. William’s scent was strong. Ropes had been cut and discarded on the ground. Nearby, the charred earth attested to a fire pit.
“This place smells like a fairy’s toilet,” Rara said in displeasure. “Such things are not done in the forest. St. Joan tries to hide herself from you.”
Rara burst into the smaller, dancing lights and filtered back into the trees, this time much slower than before. Douglas did not wonder at the fairy’s changing moods, from anger to irritation to indifference, for fairies had notoriously short attention spans.
Douglas moved away from the bloody tree and began to circle the abandoned campsite. Ringing around the area twice, he caught the faintest hint of William’s scent and began to slowly track it through the woods.
*
Rachel screamed as the wolf tightened its hold on her arm. It took her a moment to recognize William in her surprise. He was so strong and her body weak from starvation. She’d resisted the urge to hunt too long. When her distaste for killing was finally outdone by her need for food, it had been too late. She had been too weak to run the woods.
She’d been stumbling aimlessly in her human form, searching for berries or water, when William found her. His teeth pressed deeper. She hit him on the side of the head with her fist as they twisted on the ground. Dirt flew around them, a thick and choking cloud. Her fist flew back, striking a stone. Without thought, she grabbed it and hit him again. He yelped and let go. Blood trickled down her flesh, the gush made worse by the hard pumping of her heart. She rolled from him with the sheer force of adrenaline and threw the rock at his head. It struck him in the nose.
“William,” she yelled. His grey body she would know anywhere, but something was off about his eyes. “William, stop. It’s me. It’s Rachel.”
She breathed hard. The blood loss started to make her dizzy. She lifted her arm, trying to hold it above her head. Blood trailed down her side and the limb dropped weakly.
“William,” she whispered as he circled her. He growled low in this throat. “Please. Rachel. I’m Rachel.”
Rachel fell to her knees, unable to control the shifting of her body as it went into defensive mode. She knew if the wolf overtook her, she’d fight to the death—her death.
Survival kicked in. Her body strained with the shift. Feathers sprouted from her arms as she fought the wolf inside her, only to smooth over with the flexible c
ollagenous fibers of her shark skin. It had been a long time since that form tried to overtake her. The shifting war inside her body burned. She screamed in pain.
“Rachel,” a hoarse voice said. She caught a glimpse of William shifting back. The wild hunger had left his eyes as he crawled near her. His naked body was smeared with mud and blood. “Bloody hell, what did I do?”
Shaking hands touched her and the shifting war instantly calmed. Her body jerked as she looked up at him. He cradled her arm where he’d bitten her, examining it with a look of horror and pain.
“What did I do? What did I do?” he repeated over and over again.
Rachel wanted to reassure him, to swipe the agony from his eyes, even as the current white heat of pain radiating over her arm was his doing. She twitched on the ground. He leaned in and tried to kiss her, but hesitated and pulled back.
“You’re not healing. We have to heal you,” he said. “What did I do?”
*
William tried not to move Rachel on the ground as he looked around the forest for help. There was none, only Rachel bleeding from where he’d nearly torn her arm from her body. The gash was horrible to look at, the limb raw and limp.
The only way he knew was to give her his energy through sex, but how could he make love to her after what he’d done. He saw the pain in her eyes, was pretty sure there was anger there too. How could he kiss her? Make love to her? Like this? After that?
“Rachel, I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to help you.” In truth, after what he’d been through, after the cutting and the drugs at St. Joan’s hands, he didn’t feel stable enough to help her. He felt the pull of the wolf inside him. If he gave her his energy, would he simply turn wild again and attack to regain it back? “I would give you everything I am to save you.”
Let the Wild Out Page 10