by Brindi Quinn
Like he could blame me.
He chuckled over my expression and took another drink of wine. “Go on, then.”
Truthfully, this was something I had been wondering about for much longer than the night Luna attacked. Ever since—
‘Sorry to tell you, cupcake, it’s not in our nature to love humans. Even if he told you so.’
Blame it on the mead for me asking now.
I refrained from eye contact: “You said it isn’t easy for a Spirite to fall in love. What did you mean by that?”
“Naturally, because I don’t have a heart.”
I covered my mouth so as not to spit out my latest drink of mead.
“Kidding,” said the conniver. “What I meant is that it can be difficult to differentiate love from lust when it’s between a human and a Spirite.” He stared off into the rising ochre. “We may develop mimicking feelings, but once we taste our ‘prey,’ they usually go away. It’s incredibly rare for a human and Spirite to couple. Not unheard of, mind you, but rare. Like, young Spirites don’t go off to University hoping to date a human. It complicates things, and the human oft ends up with a fractured heart. Some regions won’t even recognize marriage between human and Spirite. People tend to doubt the intentions of one or both.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t mean it to sound so downtrodden, but that’s the way it came out.
Windley’s face was suddenly closer, his hand on my back. “My feelings for you have only grown since I’ve tasted you, Merrin, and there’s where you are unique. I love you in a way different from lust. I’ve known it for a long time. I fell for you fast and then slowly.” He kissed my shoulder. “I want to serve you and love you and beguile the shit out of you. I would do anything for you.”
“Windley…” I touched my forehead to his.
“And the fact that you aren’t running for the hills after what I told you, it’s amplified something I thought couldn’t be amplified any further. I would eat you if it didn’t mean ending your life.”
It felt dangerous for him to be saying things like that, with the mead half emptied.
With my remaining wits, I thought to change the subject.
“Y-you said Pip was like a brother to you. What about Charmagne?”
“Charm’s insane,” he said softly, mouth close to my neck. “If you get the chance, kill her.”
The change in subject did nothing to deter him. I sat paralyzingly still, feeling the thud of my heart and the heat of my face, aware of every pricked hair, as the sky continued to dawn with hints of what was to come.
Windley kissed my cheek and then my jaw, causing my beating chest to reach new speeds. “Are you feeling sleepy yet, lion queen?”
No, I was feeling flush and heavy and…
“I want you,” I whispered, taking a fistful of the back of his shirt.
“Not here.” He brushed his mouth along the edge of my face. “The first time I make love to you, it shall be in a bed.”
Yet he took my earlobe between his teeth. Yet he slid his hand beneath my shirt to the flesh of my lower back. Yet he caressed my skin as though it was the softest thing he had ever felt.
Oh no. The mead was more than half gone—it was nearly finished, and I was nearly drunk. Windley seemed to realize it at the same moment.
Just as slinkily as he had slipped it under, he retracted his hand from my back.
“Sorry, queenie.” He sat up and swallowed deep enough to make his adam’s apple bob. “I drank more than I meant to. Here—” He edged forward onto the face of the hill and patted the ground beside him. “Let’s watch the sunrise. I’ll behave myself.”
But as he turned to extend his hand to me, his silhouette backed by the rising sun, something happened. His eyes were wide, his mouth unclosed.
“What is it?” I shot a look at our campsite, certain there was something behind me.
There wasn’t.
“Goddess damn,” he muttered. “The way the sun’s hitting you…”
I could feel the heat of it, kissing me with the light of morn, feeding into my skin, turning me golden.
I felt beautiful and powerful. Yet…
For him to look at me like that, so openly, so unabashedly—I could hardly stand it. I hit him with my deepest, most dangerous stare, but he didn’t break. Though the most awesome scene was unfolding on the horizon behind him, he didn’t take his eyes from my face.
“You’re so fucking beautiful. I can’t believe you’re mine.”
My fingers curled into his, and he pulled me down onto the hill beside him. Everything about him was designed to be tempting—the way he chewed his lip, the way his eyes read nefarious intent. “I won’t take you here,” he said, rolling over me and sliding his knee between my legs. “But I’ll come close.”
This time when we kissed, it was more ravening than any other time before. I clenched at his hair as he held my waist, thumbs pressed into my hips.
He tasted good, smelled good, felt good. My heart raced through every vein; inside, a thousand snakes writhed. I had never been desired like this, tasted like this. Windley handled me like someone battling restraint.
I didn’t notice the moment he slipped.
The moment the traces of his predatory nature emerged.
The moment his eyes flashed emerald.
I didn’t notice, but across the fields, mounted on a beast much faster than a wallop, a certain lavender-eyed villain noticed.
Chapter 10
We F*cked Up
Once more, captive ones, I apologize for the profanity. I assure you it’s warranted.
I awoke out of sleep the way a child stirs from a nightmare—sharply and confused—to find solid arms carrying me like a damsel.
“Heya… lion queen. Lion queen? Lion queen.”
It was Windley, but he was saying my name in an odd manner, as if questioning both the ‘lion’ and the ‘queen.’
I blinked to be sure it was him. Yes, I knew that face, had come to learn its every shadow over the last eight years.
The uncertainty in his voice was likely the mead. Strong stuff for such a country hamlet. Once, a similar concoction had made me repeat the word ‘clandestine’ over and over until it no longer sounded like a real thing.
“Windley, I think I’m drunk.”
“Oh?” he purred. “Excelllllent.”
A strip of warm light passed overhead—a lantern?
A few strides later and there was another one, fighting the meek night wind.
Night?
But the sun had only just risen. We had been on the hillside drenched in its first glow, wrestling, indulging, skirting the borders of innocence…
“Are those streetlamps?” I said. “Where are we?”
“I’m taking you home, lion… queen?”
Maybe I hadn’t woken up after all. My dreams tended to be extra strange after a night of consumption, and Windley was a frequent player in them.
I reached up to cup his face—solid, not a phantom of dream—and a spark of surprise ignited across him, brighter than any of those overhead lantern flames.
“Windley, you smell strange. Did you get cologne from that trader’s post?”
“Do you like it?” he said.
No, it blocked his natural scent, which I far preferred.
“It’s different. I haven’t smelled you in cologne before.” I tried to look around him but found only the dark of nightfall broken up by a line of flickering lamps. “Did we sleep through day? Where’s Rafe? And what do you mean we’re going home?”
But when I began to push from his arms, I suddenly felt a swell of familiar power.
“Windley, what are you doing?! They’ll sense you, won’t they?”
“Too late for that,” he said, mouth coiling.
“Too… late?”
This was the moment I knew something was wrong.
I knew the taste and smell of him well. Arguably, these are the most primal of the senses, and my attraction to Windle
y was something primal—maybe I secretly wanted to ‘eat’ him too. And because I knew the taste and smell of him better than anyone, I noticed the way his power moved through me differently than any time before, not because it was satiating and warm, but because it felt unnatural.
Like receiving a kiss from a stranger.
The person carrying me may have looked and sounded like Windley, but those were only the shallowest of senses. The others wouldn’t be so easily fooled.
“Who are you!?” I demanded, struggling to get loose of the imposter who dared wear Windley’s face. “Unhand me at once!”
I was met with glowing eyes of punishment—further proof, for they weren’t the green Windley reserved for me. They were red, cherry-like, shining like polished rubies in the dark.
Unfortunately, I could escape them no easier than I could Windley’s emerald ones. Even brighter against the backdrop of night, they did as intended, turning me limp in the stranger’s arms.
“I understand now, why the others are all up in arms about you,” he said, voice becoming deeper…
Deeper…
Deeper…
Until it was no longer Windley’s voice:
“You taste darn good.”
Yet it was a voice I recognized.
‘You must taste darn good if he’s unwilling to share.’
The hooded rogue who had been with Charmagne and Pip in the forest! The one Windley didn’t know from his past and who had held my shoulders in that infuriating, domineering way.
‘Be my pet instead? I’ll treat you decent, darlin’.’
I had never gotten a good look at him!
“Oh my goddess!” I breathed. “Are you Windley’s long-lost twin or something? He never mentioned—!”
Wrong. The deep-voiced stranger let me know it by guffawing deeply.
“No, darlin’, I’m merely mimicking his flesh.”
“Oh.” For a small moment, curiosity overtook my other emotions. “You can do something like that? But I thought it was only your eyes and hair that could change.”
“Is that what he told you? Charm mentioned he was a bit of an ascetic. Truth is, we can change most anything, as long as we consume enough vitality beforehand. This façade only took two human lifeforces. Doesn’t last very long, but worth it not to get blasted by that smoke magic of yours the moment you woke up.”
This villain had drained two humans of their lives so that he could temporarily look like Windley?
Unconscionable!
“One without merit! Let us strip his flesh and melt his bones! Let us turn him to nothing!”
The echoes barraged against my eardrums, thirsty for vengeance, but their efforts were of little use. The imposter’s red-eyed stare was holding me in place, keeping me from spilling into the dark world and harnessing the power locked therein.
The mead wasn’t to be blamed for my heavy limbs. This fiend had been suckling off my energy while I slept!
Well if that wasn’t violating.
“Where is Windley?” I insisted, sinking heavier away.
“Who?”
“Windley.”
“I know. Just messing with ya. Every time you say his name, you send out a little blast of your lifeforce. It’s so crisp. Say what you will about the goody-goody, but at least he knows how to sniff out a good pet.”
I’m not a pet.
The words never manifested, clung to my tongue like sticky honey.
By the tapping of his feet, we were walking along a cobbled street akin to the one that parted the market back home. Those oil lamps meant we were in a city more sizeable than any we had seen in days. The feeble wind carried the wet scent of petrichor. Either it was going to rain, or it already had. Shame I was in a compromised state. Rain in the night was one of my favorite ambiances, the shine of wetted cobblestone one of my favorite sights.
“You’re pretty cute for a human, you know,” observed the fake Windley. “My offer from before still stands. Become my pet, and I promise to handle you soft. Can’t say the same for the others.”
If I could have spoken, my answer would have been ‘no’—possibly the tartest I had ever uttered.
“Looks like you’re trying to speak. That a yes?”
No. No, no, no, no.
“Blink one if you’ll be mine?”
With everything in me, I kept my eyes stiffly propped open.
“Shame. Maybe you’ll change your mind when you see what lies ahead,” he said. “By the way, your name isn’t really lion queen, is it? We heard Windalloy call you it, but it doesn’t sound like any name I’ve ever heard… Oy!” He gave me a shake. “Don’t go falling asleep on me. I’ll ease off a little. It is tough, though. You taste so… I’d like to know how he tricked you into being a willing participant. Those guys always talk about him like he’s some legend. Maybe there’s something to it after all.”
“Where… Wind?” was about all I could muster.
“Maybe I killed him.”
“No.”
I was certain I’d be able to tell if that were true. Like a piece of my soul would be lost along with him.
“Well, lucky for you, Master Ascian ordered me not to. He wants both of you alive, and after seeing that smoke bomb of yours, I actually meant to capture him and use him as bait, but the way you were—all alone and passed out in the exact place the Master felt you’d be—it was almost like a present. Why do you suppose that guy left you unguarded? Was it to take a piss? You sure you wanna be with a guy that just abandons you like that? If you were mine, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”
I was too lost in ruby beguilement to answer.
“Well, if he’s smart, he’ll use a prancelope to come for you this time. That’s how I found you so fast.”
In case you’re wondering: prancelopes are incredibly fast, incredibly unruly beasts unsuitable for taming.
Unless you’re of a race able to woo animals, apparently.
“Shouldn’t have to wait long for him, darlin’. Maybe the two of you’ll be able to muscle your way out of this one like you did last time. Guess we’ll see.”
His voice was hard to read. Even harder because it was coming out of Windley’s mouth but wasn’t one of Windley’s tones. Was he trying to be funny?
“By the way, you aren’t feeling lightheaded, are you? I dosed you pretty good. Consider it a protective measure against whatever magic you’re holding. Seems to have worked. I haven’t seen that green glow of yours from before.”
Green glow? He didn’t know it only manifested on the ground of the Emerald Wood. Good. I’d let him think I was powerless. Escape should be easy enough if they assumed my lack of glow meant lack of magic.
“Give… it… back.”
He laughed. “Really? Do you always get what you ask for? I bet you do. I bet you’ve got both those guys wrapped around your royal little finger, dont’cha? Where did that curly-haired guy come from, anyway? Wasn’t expecting there’d be three of you. He’s going to feel like such a boob when he realizes that was me he saw at your campsite and not Windalloy.”
Windalloy.
Windley.
Wind.
“Oy! I said no falling asleep on me… lion queen.”
No, that name was Windley’s to call me and his alone.
“Merrin,” I said, head like lead, eyes listing into sleep.
“Merrín?” he repeated, incorrectly placing emphasis on the second syllable.
Good enough. I didn’t have the strength to correct him.
He looked like Windley. Felt like Windley. I wished he was Windley. With sleep wrapping its way around me, I met his ruby gaze and ached.
“Whoa, what’s that?” he said, eyes dropping their glimmer for a slipping second. “Haven’t seen that look on a human before.”
That’s because it was love. Love and longing for the real Windley who was somewhere across this foreign land without my protection. Who realized by now, as did I, what had happened. Who was battling guilt over givi
ng away our position. Who was kicking himself for leaving my side.
More than anything, I wanted to tell him to stop self-chastising. Maybe we could use this situation to our advantage? Maybe by bringing my body into their lair, the villains were sealing their fate.
My might was large enough to crash mountains and exile gods. I would take vengeance for the truths he had told me. I would make his oppressors weep a thousand tears for each lash upon his flesh. I would pave a way for him to triumph over those who sought to damage him. I would be an ally to his revenge. Together, we would fight, and together, we would win.
A second time, I reached for the imposter’s cheek. “Wind?”
“Loopy, huh? Not Windalloy. Name’s Edius.”
Right. This wasn’t Windley. It was the stranger’s power at work, drawing my hands to his flesh, making me want to caress his skin. I had to ignore it, collect my wits, and escape his ensnarement because once we reached our destination, there were sure to be at least three more sets of glowing eyes waiting.
“M…err…In…”
The echoes were there but only faintly; my otherworldly Crown set at my feet. I didn’t have the strength to call them nor the lifeforce to wield them. Not with that ruby power slithering through me.
“Where you from, Merrín? You’re accent’s sorta… loamy.”
“N…orth.”
“Ah. Charm suspected as much. You really a queen?”
“Mm.”
“That Windalloy guy’s got game, that’s for sure.”
Windalloy.
Windley.
Wind.
Edius the imposter had stopped walking. “A word of advice, Merrín,” he said. “When the time comes, don’t resist. You’ll want it to be me or Pip who hexes you. Don’t let it be Charm. Things won’t end well for you if it’s Charm.” He leaned to open something—a creaky iron gate by the sound of it. “And don’t go trying to run or anything. Master Ascian wants whatever power you’re hiding, but he wants to hurt Windalloy just as bad. He’ll kill you if it suits him. Your best bet is to play nice. Let him get a taste of you, and he’s more likely to keep you alive.”
I was too late. We had already reached our destination.
Against the dark rain-kissed night, the bright windows of Windley’s childhood home made it seem as if the place was hoarding all light and life.
