by Nara Malone
The stallion tossed his head, nostrils quivering as she moved close. Ronin caught her shoulder, fingers clamping down. Her body quivered with longing, even now.
Reality could be stranger than fantasy. There might be a logical reason for a horse in the living room. The logic escaped her.
The stallion’s blue-eyed gaze bored into her. The eye color rare but not unheard of in the breed. His stare communicated intelligence, as if he expected her to understand something important.
“Maille—”
She put a finger to her lips, and fortunately, it was enough to silence Ronin, if you overlooked the heavy sigh that followed his acquiescence. He let go of her shoulder too. As if he, like their four-legged visitor, knew Maille was the one to handle the situation.
Cautiously she stepped over the pillows and quilts, padding barefoot across the hardwood to meet the intruder. Animals in need of assistance might not be the norm in every house, but it had always been the norm in this one. The golden stallion lowered his head and pressed his muzzle against her chest, just above her heart.
She cupped his chin gently, lifted his head, ran a hand along the powerful curve of his neck. The creamy locks of his mane fell over her fingers. He sniffed at her nose and she exhaled softly into his nostrils. His ears flicked forward and back, he bumped her chest lightly, as if trying to impress upon her the urgency of his summons. He seemed calm enough, now, to mount.
“I have to go with him, Ronin.”
She didn’t wait for Ronin’s answer, following as the stallion backed out the door and swung around on the porch. She managed to grasp his mane and pull herself onto his back by pushing against the porch railing with her feet. Not the graceful Hollywood-style leap she might have wished. Maille’s effort was more akin to a crab scrabbling its way up a dune. Add to that she was naked again, she didn’t want to linger over the thought of how she must look from Ronin’s view. Given her state of undress, her mount proved magically comfortable—his hide silky soft and broad back comfortably padded.
Once settled, Maille looked over her shoulder at Ronin. The stallion shifted and pranced under her, impatient to be off. She clutched at his mane to stay astride. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
If she would be back. Where she was going.
“Don’t wait for me, Ronin. Just bank the fire before you go.”
The stallion leapt from the porch as soon as she faced forward.
Before Ronin could bolt after Maille, a pulsing vortex, blacker than the deepest part of the ocean, formed between him and the door. It beat the air and washed over his skin. Icy fingers pressed him back through the door.
Crouching again, his fingers tightened on the poker. Not that it would be any defense against the shifting, formless thing in front of him.
Laughter rattled his eardrums. That mixture of mirth and menace could only be Her.
Swirling black liquid that matched the black of her heart should have been clue enough to this second visitor’s identity. Mere was paying a visit.
In front of him the liquid expanded, took the form of a silhouette and then the shape of a Goddess so physically beautiful it was no wonder there was no beauty left to grace her spirit.
Her smile disappeared. A lift of her eyebrow slammed Ronin to his knees while his cock rose, forced into a painfully engorged salute to the mistress of his fate. She paced in front of him. Sleek. So tall, that were he not on his knees, she would still tower over him.
“Really, why do I bother with you?” She tossed silver-blue locks that coiled like a river of fat snakes down her back. Her skin gleamed in the firelight—polished obsidian. He was sure her heart was made of the same.
Silver tattoos of stars and crescent moons decorated her naked body. On her forehead, a crescent moon turned on its back as if it were a boat and three teardrops poised just beneath. Fitting, given that everything Mere did ended in tears.
“I hear your thoughts, little man. Best you control them before you discover there are fates worse than the one you endure.”
Ronin emptied his mind and bowed his head.
“Incompetent as ever, you are. Or maybe worse. You can’t even manage to fuck a woman satisfactorily.” She tossed her hair again and glared. “That used to be your only redeeming quality.”
Ronin, teeth clamped around his tongue, tried desperately to think of something besides Mere’s taunts. Maille, on the beach astride that rogue stallion, did the trick.
Of course Mere was behind it. He couldn’t stop himself from pointing that out. “As if that stallion showing up to carry her off wasn’t your doing. Is this a new way you’ve found to torment me, then?”
“Shut up. You only reinforce my opinion of you every time you open your mouth. As if there is anything I could do to you that you didn’t deserve tenfold.”
“I’ve paid for my sins. Paid and will keep paying into eternity. What is enough? What will ever be enough for you, Mere?”
“You tell me, Ronin. You, so proud of your prowess with your dick. Plowing every young girl silly enough to be charmed by empty words and easy smiles. No thought for broken hearts, ruined futures. And when time came to reap what you had sown, did you face your guilt like a man?”
“I was young and foolish too. I didn’t think. It shouldn’t have taken Deidre throwing herself from a cliff to make me think.”
“And you still call throwing yourself off to escape the guilt thinking? One sin is as great as the other. You haven’t changed. Haven’t learned yet. Be quiet so I can think of a way to sort this mess that’s found you now.”
His head came up. Mere hadn’t done this? If she’d hit him with one of her thunderbolts he couldn’t have been more stunned. He wasn’t certain how he knew. Couldn’t guess who was powerful enough or stupid enough to fuck with Mere. But someone had gotten the upper hand with the Goddess.
With a flick of fingertips and a shower of sparks, she slammed him to the floor and sent him skidding to the other side of the room on his back. “Another word. Another thought from you without my leave and I’ll hit you so hard you’ll think that Taser you got zapped with on your last visit ashore was a pleasant little tingle.”
Ronin crawled back—it not being permitted to stand in Mere’s presence—and knelt close enough to deny fear but at a distance respectable enough not to get him fried alive. Much as he might have liked to tell Mere what he thought of her, to take on the worst she could throw at him, he couldn’t risk it with Maille at Mere’s mercy too.
Mere’s mercy? Mere had no mercy.
He managed not to flinch when a silver lightning bolt whizzed by. Ronin bowed his head.
Mere strutted closer, so close he could smell the musky perfume of her cunt. Like a drug in his blood, craving rose. He fought it with an image of Maille, of her face in the firelight, those huge, sad eyes. He kept his eyes on Mere’s feet, one tattooed with a pentagram, the other with a crescent moon.
“Not that I owe a little worm an explanation, but the stallion, Trey, isn’t one of mine. Occasionally, magic chooses its own course, a path none of us intended. For instance, you aren’t worthy to lick that girl’s feet. Yet, her tears summoned you and there is nothing any of us can do about that.”
Mere grabbed his hair, yanked his head back and stared hard, her mind slicing into his like a knife. He gritted his teeth and refused, poured every ounce of will he had into not closing his eyes. That she released her hold and whirled away before he broke stunned him again. Had the Goddess just blinked?
“Don’t flatter yourself, my little sea slug.”
“What then? Why are you here?”
She put her hand on her hip, ran a cutting glance from his face to his cock.
“No!” He shot to his feet. “No, you can’t send me back.”
She had hands on both hips now, stalked him with predatory jiggle of breasts. Goddess help him, he couldn’t look away.
“I can’t what?” she hissed.
He dropped back to his knees. Not in fea
r. No. He needed to appease her enough to negotiate.
“The magick has been wrought, Goddess. Her tears called me. I’m here at her bidding.”
“Do you think me stupid?”
“No, Goddess.”
She turned away again, spat in the fire and it went out. Only the shimmer cast by an oil lamp on the kitchen counter lit the room now, outlining twisted, elongated shadows.
Her power pulsed like a heartbeat in the darkness.
“Goddess, forgive my simple mind. Who does the stallion belong to?”
“I don’t know.”
He tried to process that. More astonishing than the fact she didn’t know was the fact she admitted as much.
“He’s enchanted. A kelpie, is he not?”
Her rage was cooling. She sounded tired when she responded, “He’s like a kelpie. But not a true kelpie. More like Maille.”
“Like Maille? She’s not mortal? Is that how…” That must be it. She was immune to his magick. She had superhuman power. Power beyond mortal magick.
“Ronin, is there a brain in your head at all, or did all your thinking power land at the end of your dick?”
“But—”
“If she were immune to magick would either of you be here?”
“But how is it possible she resists me? No human mortal—”
“Oh, she’s mortal. Mortal doesn’t equal powerless, but… Well, either she will tell you the rest as she learns it, or you’ll figure that part out yourself should you grow a brain or heart in time.”
“I don’t understand. There’s no time to figure out or discover secrets. She’s gone. You’re here. I assume you’re here to send me back to the sea.”
“Would that I could. Would that I could. But, as you said, I can’t undo the magick I wrought when I cast the first selkie into the sea. Given your bumbling and Maille’s stubbornness, it looks like you will be free in a few hours. You’ve no idea the trouble this will cause.”
“Sorry, Goddess.” He didn’t dare risk a visual collision with those lush breasts or the scalpel-like dissection of her gaze, so he returned his attention to her feet. “Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t understand how my freedom is anyone’s but yours to control.”
“Idiot.” Another silver bolt whizzed past his head. “Maille’s not immune, but she has the inner strength to resist you. She has the power to break the curse. And since you can’t seem to manage the simple task of bringing her to orgasm, you could be the first selkie ever to break the chains that tie him to the sea.”
Freedom? He slammed the door shut on the thought. Didn’t trust it. Or Mere. He’d been certain the talk of curse breaking had been wishful thinking on the part of eternally damned selkies.
Mere reopened the door. Insisted he face temptation. “Imagine, no more crawling on your belly. Even after all this time your pride chafes when you crawl.”
Aye, it did. She had him by the emotional balls and she wasn’t done twisting.
“Don’t be thinking you’ll step into a new life with the woman who saved you. You’ll go back in time, pick up right where you left off. We’ll see how long it takes you to prove me right about you.”
“And Maille, what will happen to her? She’ll be with Trey?”
“Maille will go on with her life without a memory of you. I suspect Trey hopes to step in and deliver where you have failed. Don’t let it go to your head, but there is chemistry between you and Maille, a connection that unleashes her power.”
“You said she was mortal.”
“Mortal doesn’t mean powerless, Ronin. She may not walk in the realm of Goddesses, but enchanted blood flows in her veins. But, if you don’t fulfill your duty, her heart will remain locked, and the power within will wither there. There’s a price for freedom, Ronin. Remember that. Will you let Maille pay?”
She left him then, snapping her fingers and setting off an explosion of darkness that knocked him flat and blinded his senses.
* * * * *
Rather than riding off into reality, the stallion galloped briefly through breaking waves before swerving into the cover of dunes and doubling back. When he stopped, no amount of urging interested him in moving forward or back to where he’d found her.
Maille slid from his back.
He nudged her toward a path, vegetation trampled right up to a narrow opening between dunes. Maille already knew what she’d find there.
She backed away, the stallion cut her off, gave her a firmer bump.
“It’s not a good idea. The mare, take me to her. She needs help more.”
He pressed close, his chest against her back, his head dipped over her shoulder. She wasn’t fooled by his low nicker.
“You’re not going to charm me into this.” She ducked under his head and crept around him. Careful not to startle him as she inched away toward open sand. He snorted, stamped, neighed. She kept going.
She sensed the pony, far up the beach. The connection so weak Maille wasn’t sure if it was distance or dwindling life force that scattered the signal the way static scattered a television picture.
He cut her off before she made it out of the dunes. His whinny so piercing, Maille had to cover her ears. He herded her, as if she were some prize mare he’d collected, and firmly escorted her back to the pony’s nest.
With another stamp and warning flash of teeth, he made his desires clear.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stay if you go and bring the mare back.”
Satisfied, the stallion took off in a mad dash that sent sand spraying her skin and hair. Rather than follow him up beach, she followed snuffling sounds, picking her way among the sand burrs, to a nest of trampled grass in the shelter of dunes. A foal, wet from the womb, lifted its head at her approach.
Maille squatted to inspect the filly, the newborn still weak and resting on her side. But she lifted her head to investigate the newcomer. Eyes wide and bright with the infant drive to be moving, exploring.
“Aw, baby girl.” Maille plucked a bit of straw dangling from the fuzzy baby forelock, resisting the urge to stroke and soothe. “Sorry to say I’ve been right where you are. My mother couldn’t get away fast enough, or far enough either.”
Probably for the same reasons. The newborn a mirror of the father and nothing like the mother. A baby too alien to ever be fully accepted as hers. Even on her deathbed, Maille’s mother had looked at her daughter and seen the father, said his name—Elan. It was the last thing she’d said.
Maille shoved the memory away. With a sigh, she closed her eyes. Every minute she spent here took her deeper into the old ways she’d worked hard to leave behind.
Energy hummed in the earth under her bare feet and rose though her body as she pressed a palm to a spot just over the filly’s heart and let go her resistance. The stallion’s presence was faint. Far up the beach. No trace of the mare’s life energy. Had she left the mortal plane? Perhaps she was just beyond reach of Maille’s rusty skills.
The foal snuffled Maille’s hand and she was tempted to lean in, greet this little life in the same way she had greeted the father—a mingling of vital breath that would bond them as life friends. But at the last minute, she pulled back. Best give it a little time. No point in bonding when Maille wouldn’t be around long. The mother should be the first bonded. If she was alive. A weight settled in the pit of Maille’s stomach as she considered the possibility that wouldn’t be the case.
Still she scooted back, not wanting the foal to imprint on her if there was any chance the mother might return. It wouldn’t help matters if Maille’s scent was clinging to the little one. For now, the baby was out of the wind and in a bed of dry grass.
Something was off about the situation. Her training as a wildlife biologist supplied data. Her instincts as a scientist weren’t comfortable with where the data led. The foal looked just like the stallion, a sleek palomino. She’d noticed the mare when she had passed by here earlier, a small but sturdy wild pony of the sort you might find along the barrier islands hundreds of
miles to the south. While it was true most horse breeding was done either through artificial insemination—or in vitro for the most valuable animals—who in their right mind would implant such a small pony with an embryo for such a large breed? Or why spend that kind of money and then risk the foal’s and mare’s life by implanting in such a small pony?
The elements of this little scene were so technical, practical and beyond the scope of normal dreaming she had trouble sticking to her original hypothesis. Given that riding off on the stallion hadn’t changed anything, she was running out of theories.
A lifetime ago on this very beach, the world had been full of magick. Butterflies wooed nectar from flowers with a song. Whales and dolphins let her swim with their pods. Birds sang ballads about ancient lands and enchanted princes. Maille learned the arts of a beast whisperer, how to heal them with herbs and laying on of hands. How much of that had been the fantasies an old woman encouraged to entertain her granddaughter?
Most of it?
All of it.
She’d worked hard to earn her degree, to learn science that gave her skills to make a difference, to protect wildlife. She may not be a beast whisperer with magick to heal ills, but in the end, the same goal had been accomplished.
She broke a piece of beach lavender and inhaled the soothing scent. A flash of her sitting cliff-side on a sunny afternoon penetrated the void in her memory. She remembered breaking a sprig of lavender then and inhaling when she had been hiking that morning. Remembered too she had flown to Maine landing the day before, arriving at Wolf Harbor by bus late in the evening. She was here to sell Gram’s cottage.
Sell the cottage? Viselike tension constricted her chest. A decision easily made far away in the Chihuahuan Desertof New Mexico. But a choice that wrenched hard now that she was here, where she could smell the wild heather and taste sea breeze on her lips.
Now was not the time for second-guessing choices. That could wait for later. One question still remained—how had she gotten from a patch of sunny heather cliff-side that morning to naked and injured on the beach at night?
