Threshold Volume 2

by Shelby Morgen

  As she fisted around his wolf’s cock, tying them together, he shattered, pumping her wolf’s body full of his sperm in wave after wave of long, hot release. His voice broke over her, answering her mating cry, and they sang together, both voices tinged with laughter.

  For a long time after they lay together, while she held him trapped within her, tied as wolves. The fact that her body would not release its hold on his cock, that he could not escape without possibly injuring himself, did not seem to concern Roanen at all. Perhaps he was used to mating this way, but she found it strange. Did the women of the Wolf Clan increase their chances of conception like this? Or was the mating done strictly to honor their gods?

  If she had been younger, if she had been more fertile, she knew the timing was right. Surly she would have conceived this time. Had she met this man, this perfect dream lover, when she was younger, surely he would have given her the children she’d longed for.

  “What are you thinking, my love?”

  Were the words human? Or was she learning to speak wolf? Did it matter? She snuggled against the warmth of his body. “I was thinking that such exercise must take its toll on a body, even one so strong as your own. You must sleep, Roanen. Magic alone cannot sustain you.”

  He curled around her, one hand cupping her breast. “If ‘twill please ye, I will sleep for a time.”

  “‘Twill please me,” she assured him as she turned her head to kiss his shoulder. “Everything about you pleases me.”

  Chapter Six

  A soft whisper of footfalls reached her from the empty hallway at her back. Someone was following her. Marylin made her way a bit farther before she turned into a large, sun filled room. The dark presence looming behind her should have had her screaming for help.

  Instead she stopped, waiting for him to come to her. Why should she be afraid? No one would think to harm her here. She was Ayailla. All loved her and feared her. She was a powerful Mage. No. A powerful Shaman. A Mage could not heal.

  Of course she wasn’t nearly as powerful as most people thought she was, but Ayailla had been very powerful, and Marylin knew she would need to be as well.

  The figure moved out of the shadows, appearing almost wraithlike as he moved to her side. “Ayailla loved the Solarium.”

  Yes. She would have. ‘Twas a perfect place to study, or simply bask in the sunlight. “What was she like?”

  “Warm, and generous, giving always of herself, M’Lady. She was much like you.”

  “Pieces of her come back to me from time to time. Yet I fear to remember too much. I don’t want to lose myself to regain Ayailla’s memories.”

  “You are who you are, M’Lady. You are pieces of all your lives. You are young, but you have a very old soul.”

  “Young?” Marylin snorted. “I’m forty-five. I do not feel young any more. Far from it. What I wouldn’t give for your youth, Shammall.”

  He laughed at that, a magical, quicksilver sound. “I have seen the moons cycle more than sixteen hundred times, M’Lady.”

  Math? She hated math. “My ex-husband was a math professor. How old is that in years?”

  “One hundred and twenty three, M’Lady.”

  “One hundred and…” Marylin sat down abruptly on the bench by the window. “Are Elves immortal, then?”

  “Elves? No, M’Lady, I believe not. Neither are my people. Though we are very long lived.”

  “And who are your people?”

  Shammall raise one long, thin eyebrow in a high arch. “The Tuatha Dé Danann of Tir na nÓg, M’Lady. We are called among men by the name of Sidhe, or Faerie.”

  Faerie. A six-foot-four faerie. Marylin blinked, then blinked again, trying to assimilate that information. “My own Oberon.”

  “I do not understand, M’Lady.”

  “Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare was a well-known playwright of almost a thousand years ago. He wrote of the King of the Faeries, Oberon, and his Queen, Titania. They had had a falling out over a pretty human boy she wanted to keep for herself. Or perhaps it was one of his lovers.”

  A smile pulled at Shammall’s straight line of a mouth. “My father has many names, M’Lady, but I have never know him to be called Oberon. Yet the rest of the story fits. The King’s and Queen’s courts agreed to disagree more than three centuries ago. And where Pajja is concerned, there are always women involved.”

  Marylin stared at him incredulously. “Your father is the King of the Faeries and his name is Pajja?”

  “Yes, M’Lady. Well, his Sidhe name is not really Pajja. That is the name Humans call him, as I am called Shammall. Our language is much older than the common tongue, so we take names the Humans will find more palatable to their tongues.”

  “Shammall, the point is that you’re the son of the King—the King mind you—of Faerie! Who am I to have such as you as my—my whatever you are? Advisor?”

  Shammall laughed. “I am not the son of the King of the Sidhe, M’Lady. I am a son. One of hundreds. Sidhe breed true. A Human mother or a Wolf or a Bear, it matters not. My mother was an Elf, one of the elite from the fair city of Talismar. But she could have been a Dark Elf from Élahandara. Twould not have mattered. Sidhe breed Sidhe. My father alone has sought to repopulate the world with Sidhe, siring children with any woman who would have him.”

  “You have every right to be bitter, or even jealous, Shammall. But know that you’re loved. Roanen, too, holds you in his heart as he would a son.”

  “Jealousy is a Human emotion, M’Lady. I know it not. I know duty and honor and good and evil.”

  “And love?”

  For that, a wash of regret passed subtly across his features, gone before most would have seen it. “I know duty and honor. These things I love. These things I live for.”

  Marylin smiled, tucking that information away for future reference. “You will know love, Shammall. Somewhere, someday, when you least expect it. Love will come to you. The moons may cycle many times more before love finds you, but when it does, do not be afraid to give your heart.”

  He looked so uncomfortable that Marylin laughed, changing the subject. “I would know your father’s name, that I might address him properly should I meet him.”

  Shammall frowned. “I think you would find his full name a bit hard to pronounce, M’Lady, but I will tell it you, as there is great power in a Sidhe’s name. You might have need to call upon him some day. He is known among the Tuatha Dé Danann as Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”

  She’d always been good with ancient languages, but this sounded like a mixture of Ancient Egyptian and Old Gaelic with a mouthful of river sand thrown in for good measure. “Try that again.”

  “Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”

  “Paw-edge-ja…”

  “Pawiaeadja.”

  “Paw-ead-ja?”

  Laughing, he tried again, slowly. “Pawiaeadja Adhamhán Élanadhache.”

  “Write it down for me.”

  Laughter lit Shammall’s deep lavender eyes as he printed the words in large, bold script.

  It looked like a mixture of Egyptian and some old Gaelic dialect. Spelled like Gaelic. Mentally she reduced the Gaelic vowel redundancies and worked her way through what was left. “Pawijja Adhaman Elanadash,” she pronounced carefully.

  “Close enough. Should you ever need him, you have but to speak his name.”

  Just saying his name would invoke the King of the Faeries? There is great power in a Sidhe’s name… “And what of you, Shammall? Have you a name I can call?”

  A heartbeat passed, and another. She sensed him weighing her, his trust hanging in the balance. When he spoke, his voice was so low she had to strain to hear. “Shaymmadah Lochlairnen Élanadhache.” Once there was a ‘son of’ in there—son of the house of Élanadhache—but I choose the simpler form.”

  Simpler. Oh, yes. Leaving the articles out made it sooo much easier. Ayailla snorted as Shammall printed his own name below the King’s. Well, at least it was True Gael
ic. She could read it. At least the first name. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Shaymmadah.” She paused to smile up at him. “I was once known as Nylanéfer, High Priestess to the goddess Bast, Protector of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the House of Ra. Now I’m only Marylin Henry, Professor of Ancient History. But I want to be more. Clan Wolf needs me to be more. I sense that Ayailla loved you very much, Shammall. She trusted you. I would do the same. I need your help, Shammall. There is much I must learn if I’m to survive in this time. Teach me. Help me to become Ayailla.”

  The tall, fair Sidhe knelt once again before her. “There is much in a name, M’Lady. Our name holds the key to our soul. Nylanéfer Marylin Ayailla, it would be my great honor to accept you as my pupil. I live but to serve you, M’Lady.”

  “I have not a sword to knight you with, Shammall, but had I one I would name you Sir Shammall, and I would make you my Knight Protector.”

  “‘Tis as well, M’Lady,” Shammall agreed. “I care not for edged weapons.”

  “Mama?” a voice called from the doorway. “Mama? Thee are well again?”

  Marylin looked up, pure terror in her heart. Mother of my children…

  She was, perhaps, four or five years old. Too tall, too thin, with a face that told of too much worry for one so young. Marylin held out her arms, feeling suddenly too shaken to move.

  One hesitant step. Two. Then the little girl was running across the room, her small body flung into Marylin’s arms.

  No. Ayailla’s arms. Whatever it took, however hard she had to work, she would be Ayailla. If not for herself, then for this innocent one.

  “I was afraid. When Papa said ye had taken the full force of Nafésti’s firebolt, I was afraid ye might not know me.”

  She formed the words in her head, her attention to the accent making her critical of every detail. “If Nafésti had blasted every thought from my head, if ye were a total stranger to me, still I would love ye, child. Truly, I have forgotten much, but know this. Never, never have I forgotten how to love thee.”

  Shammall rose, bowing deeply. “I will meet you here in the morning, M’Lady, that we might begin your training.” He turned to the child. “Travanya, perhaps you can help me.”

  Marylin could have loved him for that alone. Travanya. The child had a name.

  The little girl looked uncertain. “How can I help, Mage?”

  “I will be in charge of spells and all matter of combat. I shall leave history to you.”

  Travanya brightened at that. “I’m good at history.”

  “Bring your books, and recite your lessons to your mother, then. I shall quiz you both at the end of the week.”

  Marylin—no, Ayailla—hugged the child tightly. “We shall study together. I like that. ‘Twill be fun.”

  “Shall I get my books now, Mother, or are ye too tired?”

  “Ye can get them in a few. But first, fetch me a brush. We must do something about thy hair.”

  Travanya giggled as she ran from the room, her waist-length tangles winging out behind her like the wings of a large black bird.

  “I thank thee, great goddess,” Ayailla whispered. “Ye have given me every prayer I have ever asked of thee.”

  * * * * *

  “Again.”

  Panting hard, Ayailla swung to face her attacker. Damn the Mage. He could shape shift into almost anything. This time ‘twas a ten foot tall Ogre. She knew them all, now, the enemies of this land. Orc. Troll. Ogre. Élandra—the Dark Elves, whose High Priestess was Nafésti.

  Ogre was, she decided, definitely the worst. Though she’d thought that of the troll. She swung her staff to block.

  “Cataclysm,” Travanya instructed, giggling as Ayailla missed and the “Ogre” landed a training size fireball that singed her robe.

  She knew the history. Some of it she’d seen coming. The change of the seasons. The shifting of the poles. Scientists of her time had passed it off as Global Warming. It had been so much more. Mother Earth, herself, had suffered from their neglect, and had nearly died. Wars and disease and the rising oceans and changing tides had left Earth’s populace on the waning edge. A dying populace on a dying planet.

  The moon she’d named L5 was, as she suspected, an orbiting piece of space junk. Debris from a passing comet’s tail. A new ice age, caused by the ash, brought an end to the global warming, saving what little was left of the landmasses still above water from being lost for hundreds of thousands of years.

  She told the story their way now, both to entertain the daughter she’d come to adore, and to test her concentration.

  “In the long ago before, the magic that had been in the world since the beginning of time fled, hiding from the great unbelief. People no longer acknowledged the gods. Humans ruled, and the races became as one. The gods lost touch with the world.”

  Lightning strike to singe the Ogre’s toes.

  “In this way the centuries passed, and the people began to build machines to take the place of the gods. They worshipped the machines and ignored Earth. The people warred among themselves. Earth suffered, and at last she began to die. Disease and pestilence ruled. Kine and other domestic animals died by the thousands. Famine ruled the lands. The air was no longer pure. The plants and the young trees suffered and died. The great waters rose to swallow the land.”

  Block another fireball and parry with shards of ice. Small. Keep the blasts small. Training size. Behind the Ogre was still Shammall.

  “The machines the Humans had built to protect themselves failed as the knowledge of their maintenance passed away. Eventually mankind was reduced to a shadowy existence, living in caves and under the earth. Earth was no longer strong enough to defend herself, and at last the cosmos itself conspired against her. Asteroids bombarded her, pieces set adrift from another dying universe far from here. Among the debris was the moon of a long ago world, drifting homeless and bereft. That moon sought to join the dying Earth, that they might end their grief together.”

  She would end this Ogre’s grief. She changed tactics, planting her feet and standing her ground. Two shots of pure energy, one from each hand as she dropped the stupid, cumbersome piece of useless wood.

  “Of the gods, only Wind and Rain still maintained hope. Those two roused the others to assist Earth, to revive her from her deadly lethargy. Despair was rampant, but their end was eminent. They had to act to survive. Together they bent their wills to revive Earth’s spirit. The six pleaded with Earth to resist the new moon’s pull. At last she roused herself, shaking off some of the layers of her despair. Still, she was not strong enough to fight the influence of the new moon completely.”

  “M’Lady, you must use the staff.” Shammall’s voice, coming from an Ogre. Ayailla and Travanya both laughed as Ayailla summoned the staff back into her hands.

  “Instead, as is her way, Earth compromised. She made a pact with the new moon to provide him a home, an end to his ceaseless journeying. In exchange, the moon would awaken the old magic. The moon’s compromise was not without price. The tides changed, and the cold returned to the planet. Some of the waters receded as the ice caps froze again, and Earth revealed herself once more to mankind. The tundra spread down from the north, and mankind fought to survive against the elements.”

  The staff had its uses. As the Ogre changed tactics to charge her, its arms flailing wildly, Ayailla lifted the staff, bringing it down hard on the Ogre’s head.

  “The changes the magic wrought were subtle at first. Earth found that there were those among us who could hear her voice once again. The old races, absent since before the magic fled, returned. The gods spoke, and we learned once again how to listen.”

  The Ogre sat rubbing his head, looking as stunned and stupid as a hundred-year-old Fey creature pretending to be an Ogre could.

  “Seven gods we learned to name. Earth our Mother guides us all. Wind and Rain are ever her spokesmen. Wolf and Bear and Cat and Falcon are our totem spirits. We of the Northlands are the first among the peoples of the Eart
h. We are the chosen ones. Our Shamen are gifted with strong magic. We have the task of guiding our people. Our daughters are prized, and welcome in every household on Earth. We follow the Way of the Wolf. To the East live our sisters, who sing the Song of The Bear. Their daughters and their sons, like ours, are great Warriors and Clerics. Where the Earth is warmer the Cat people bask in the sun, in a place called Talismar, where the Elves walk in the trees.”

  “And you will not find a snottier bunch of prima donnas than the Elves,” the Shammall-Ogre added, lumbering back to his feet.

  Ayailla thumped him again on his head, urging him to stay seated.

  “The oldest magic belongs to those who have returned from before. The spirits of the Fey often lead them to serve as Mages. As the Falcons they watch over us, their mission to serve and protect, their ways mysterious.”

  She looked down at Shammall. “Over us, up at us, what is the difference?”

  Shammall growled as he rolled, coming up in a crouch out of her reach.

  “The Dwarves are the keepers of Earth, her core, and her center, and they burrow within her, being privy to her secrets. They are the smiths of fine weapons and sturdy armor for those with the strength to bear such encumbrance. The Humans have scattered, like the Wind and the Rain, living at all points of the compass. Dark races there are, as well, lurking ever in the shadows, but theirs are tales for another day.”

  “Mother, will ye have to face Nafésti again?”

  “I know not,” Ayailla admitted. “But if I do, I shall be ready.” She turned toward the charging Ogre, leveling the tip of her staff this time, blasting him full front with a wave of sleep.

  The Ogre paused in mid-stride, a look of shock on his face, before he tumbled slowly, almost acrobatically to the floor, landing with a thud like a falling tree.

  “I believe,” Ayailla smirked, “That we’re done for this day. Shall we go see what Cook has for us in the kitchen?”