by Anne Bishop
When she crested, she felt a sting on her shoulder, as if he’d bitten her. Moments later her arms and legs went numb. She couldn’t move them, could barely move her fingers enough to scratch at the grass.
Then she crested again—and didn’t care.
Still unbearably excited, she opened her eyes. When had he put on that strange cowl that stuck out at the sides and came down so low it shadowed his face? Eyes gleamed at her, and when he smiled…
Something wrong with his mouth. What was wrong with his mouth?
Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except him, because he was still moving inside her.
As she crested the third time, she felt him spill inside her and relax. She gasped for air, trying to form words to ask him to move. When he shifted slightly, the salty sweat on his skin burned her raw breasts.
One of his hands clamped down over her mouth before she could draw a full breath. The other hand fumbled inside the sack he’d dropped beside them.
He held the long, thin knife up where she could see it. Then he raised himself up enough to make a slice across her chest just above her breasts.
“Yes,” he said, slicing her arm open from shoulder to elbow, “fear is delicious. It will soak into this ground with your blood. Do you know what will happen then?” He smiled at her. “Since this is an access point, the fear will seep through this grass into the pasture it is anchored to. Then it will shiver into anyone who walks through that pasture, and as the fear takes root, those people will be open to the Dark Guides’ whispers. Things will happen. Small things at first. But each choice that comes from the dark feelings will make a tiny change in the landscape. And the fear will grow, like a weed among flowers, creating fertile ground for even darker feelings. You will be a seed that helps dim the Light.”
No! No no no!
He laughed softly. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that why you opened the wall?” He made another slice down her arm, almost as an afterthought. “I had thought of keeping you for a while, but even though you are far more insignificant than you want to believe, you are still one of the enemies.”
As he raised the knife, Nigelle finally understood what she was looking at and what she’d done by poking that hole in the wall inside the forbidden garden, finally understood where the dark, secret landscapes anchored in her garden had come from.
And as the knife came down, she understood one other thing.
It’s afraid of Belladonna.
After It had drained every heartbeat of fear It could from the girl, It dragged her across the grass and through the flower bed, leaving the body on the rust-colored sand. The bonelovers would find the remains soon enough.
The Dark Ones’ spawn couldn’t be trusted, but they could be useful. Discovering that the Landscapers and Bridges didn’t remember what they truly were—or had been long ago—had been delightful. They were still the enemy, and even though they didn’t have the power the True Enemy controlled, they stood in the way of Its changing the world into an endless hunting ground.
So now was the time to strike, when so many would be in the buildings instead of the gardens. In the gardens there was more chance of them escaping, no matter how quickly Its creatures attacked. But in the buildings they would be nothing more than prey. By the time they realized the Eater of the World was among them, it would be too late.
It walked over to the pool of murky water, changing Its shape to match Its creatures in that landscape.
Moving swiftly through the water, It shuddered as It thought of that one sealed garden. Then It dismissed the thread of fear before the feeling could become a strangling rope.
By the time It was done with this place, that sealed garden would be an island no one could reach.
The ground beneath the circle of sand-colored bricks shifted. Altered. Hot, bubbling mud oozed up, pushed its way through the cracks between the bricks.
One brick tilted. Sank. Another brick tilted toward that empty space. Sank.
Another. And another.
As the change reached the center of the circle, the sundial, that hated reminder of the dance between Dark and Light, wobbled, fell, broke.
Sank.
Chapter Nine
Lynnea woke slowly, the scent of clean linen and cool air giving her a sense of well-being.
Until she opened her eyes. And remembered.
After crossing the bridge, she didn’t know how long or how far she had walked before she had caught a glimpse of steady lights that indicated some sort of settlement.
There had been lights before that, the bob and weave of lanterns held by people moving around in the dark. And there had been music, a cheerful sound coming from a distance. She’d almost followed the lights and the music, but a feeling had come over her, as if the ground under her feet were trying to hold on to her, making every step a battle of wills—as if something all around her were whispering, That’s not what you want. That’s not what you’re looking for. And then…
Come to me.
She remembered the man’s voice, and thought, He needs me. She didn’t know why she was so certain of that—no one had ever needed her—but it had been enough to make her turn away from the lights and the music and keep moving until she’d reached a low rise and had seen the steady lights shining below her.
Then it all became a blur of struggling to reach something that remained out of reach. Maybe it would have been easier to give in, to get swept along with whatever forces were trying to draw her away. And maybe she would have given in, except…
He needs me!
The world snapped back into focus when she crept out of the alley where he had found her.
She’d never seen a man who was storybook handsome, but he was. And the clothes he wore. Denim was considered workingman’s cloth because it was sturdy, but she’d never seen a pair of pants that fit a man like that. And the shirt that made his eyes so impossibly green. And a leather jacket. Mam would have called him a bad influence just because of the way he looked.
But he’d been kind. He’d been annoyed about something, angry even, when he’d first seen her. Having lived with Pa and Ewan, she recognized temper in a man’s eyes. But he’d taken her to a place where she could eat and had given up his room so she could sleep.
“Sebastian,” she whispered. Just the sound of his name warmed her, gave her heart a fluttery lift. “Sebastian.”
Then her mood sank. She hadn’t found the man who had called to her when her thoughts had been mired in despair and she’d been yearning for something better. She hadn’t found the man who needed her. Just looking at Sebastian was enough to tell her he wasn’t the kind of man who would need anything from someone like her.
Even worse, she was in the Den of Iniquity. A vile, terrible place. A place decent women shouldn’t even know about, let alone ever see.
Which didn’t make sense, because Mam and her women friends knew about the Den. Even the younger women in the village knew about the Den. It was probably the most famous dark landscape in Ephemera. But, oddly enough, it wasn’t an easy place to find. Some of Ewan’s friends had tried to get to the Den last year. They’d crossed over a bridge and found the bad section of a large town, and one of them had gotten beaten and robbed, but they never found the Den.
So what did that say about her?
I guess Mam was right. I must be a bad person.
Why else would she have ended up in the Den when all she’d wanted was to find a safe place? But she did feel safe. Wasn’t that a strange way to feel in a place like this?
Pushing aside the sheet and light blanket, Lynnea sat up and looked around the masculine room.
She went into the bathroom, took care of necessaries, then experimented with the water taps on the tub until she figured out how to fill it.
Hot water just by turning a tap. How decadent!
Maybe being a bad person wasn’t so bad after all.
She soaked in the bath for a few blissful minutes before remembering the door that co
nnected with another bedroom. Was someone in the other room waiting for her to finish? Using the washcloth and lightly scented soap she’d found along with two clean bath towels, she scrubbed her skin and washed her hair.
After wrapping her hair in one bath towel and drying off with the other, she did her best to clean the tub for the next person’s use before she returned to the bedroom.
There was a storage chest at the foot of the bed. On top of it, neatly folded, were clean clothes. Cotton pettipants that would modestly cover her legs from waist to knee, and a cotton undershirt that—
She picked up the undershirt and tried to figure out what the extra layer of material was for. Then she blushed and dropped the undershirt.
Mam had always said only loose city women wore brassieres in order to push up their tits and entice men to act like fools. Or, worse, act like animals after a bitch in heat.
Did Sebastian think she was a loose woman? Probably. She had offered to have sex with him. Hadn’t she? She’d been so tired when he brought her to the room, she couldn’t remember if she’d said it or only thought it.
Or maybe this was the most modest underwear available in the Den. The rest of the clothes didn’t look much different from the everyday clothes worn by well-to-do farmers’ wives and daughters, even if the material wasn’t ordinary.
The long-sleeved blue top was stretchy enough to pull over her head. The sleeveless, dark blue jumper was cut around the neck and shoulders so that a half finger of the top showed above it. It fell to midcalf and buttoned up one side. The socks came up to her knees, and the shoes were sturdy enough for a long tramp through fields.
Country clothes. She wasn’t sure why she felt disappointed, since the clothes were new and of nice material, but dressed like she was going to a simple harvest dance made her feel less able to cope with whatever was beyond this room.
Returning the towels to the bathroom, she found a comb inside a small cabinet between the sink and the mirror. When she’d done what she could with her hair, she stared at her reflection and winced. The natural wave in her hair—the wave that had made Mam so angry she’d threatened more than once to cut Lynnea’s hair right down to the scalp—seemed to be celebrating its freedom by being wavier than usual. She’d lost all her pins between the bridge and the Den, and nothing short of wetting it down and pulling it back in a tight bun would get rid of the waves—and even that didn’t work most of the time.
Nothing to do about it.
Just as she walked back into the bedroom, someone knocked lightly on the outside door. Then Sebastian walked into the room, still dressed like a bad influence and looking more handsome than she remembered.
And her heart made a funny little bounce.
Now he knew what getting kicked in the gut felt like.
His little rabbit cleaned up too damn well. Wholesome and pretty, sweet and a little shy. And uncertain. Definitely uncertain. As if some part of her that should have bloomed into something glorious had been savagely pruned back over and over again—and had still refused to completely wither and die.
She doesn’t belong here. His heart twisted painfully at the thought. When he’d slipped into the room after she’d fallen asleep and taken her old clothes to Mr. Finch to get replacements, he should have chosen garments from the usual racks instead of asking the little man for a “country costume.” Maybe dressing her like one of the succubi would have dimmed the wholesomeness, would have made it easier to seduce her and feast on the mindless pleasure he could make her feel.
But he’d selected clothes more suited to the kind of landscape he suspected she’d come from, and now…
She scared him. He looked at her and knew that, for all these years, he hadn’t played the lover for those lonely women in the other landscapes out of any sense of pity or kindness or even enjoyment. Yes, he’d needed to feast on the feelings brought out from sexual pleasure, and the money and gifts he’d received for his services allowed him to live quite well by the Den’s standards, but now he wondered if he’d been drawn to that particular kind of woman because he’d been looking for her. Just her.
And now she was here, where she didn’t belong, and he…
A few hours. Just a few hours with her—and, maybe, the pleasure of being her lover. Just once.
Her fingers brushed the skirt of the jumper. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“I’m glad the clothes please you.” He crossed the room and lifted a hand to brush his fingertips over her hair. “How did you do that?”
“Oh.” She raised her hand to touch the other side of her head. “It just does that. I don’t have any hairpins.”
“That’s good. It’s lovely the way it is.”
She looked at him as if he’d just threatened her instead of giving her a compliment.
What had her life been like that a compliment made her afraid?
“You’ve been asleep for a few hours. You must be ready for another meal.” He trailed his fingers down her arm until he reached her hand. Linking his fingers with hers, he led her from the room.
The trembling started as soon as they reached the street and she took a good look around. The main street didn’t look quite as seedy as it had a few hours ago, but this was the Den, and a place that never saw the sun developed a different kind of character from the bad places in other landscapes where the night and its predators ruled for only a piece of each day.
Dressed in those clothes, which made her stand out rather than blend in, his little rabbit practically screamed “prey,” and even with Teaser sending out advance warning, the other incubi couldn’t resist drifting into the street to study her. But none of them would approach. Not when he’d so clearly claimed her for himself.
As he led Lynnea to a courtyard table at Philo’s, he automatically scanned the other customers, noting the faces that belonged to visitors. When he was younger, he used to take note of the strangers to see which ones would be the most likely to enjoy his kind of fun, and he still did. But over the past few years he took notice because the Den was his home, and there were some kinds of trouble he didn’t want here. And, somehow, when someone made him edgy, that person never found a way back to the Den.
“Welcome, welcome,” Philo said, bustling up to the table with a full tray. His glance at Lynnea still held wariness, but he relaxed a little after a quick appraisal of her new clothes. He set two cups on the table, along with a small pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar. “Food, yes?”
He was gone before there was time to say anything.
“He didn’t ask what we wanted,” Lynnea said, looking timid and uneasy as she studied the courtyard.
“Half the time he doesn’t,” Sebastian replied. He tipped his head to indicate the cup in front of her. “Philo makes it strong, so you might want to add some cream and sugar.”
She picked up her cup and took a sip. Her eyes widened. “Oh, gracious. What is this?”
Sebastian grinned. “Koffee.”
After taking another sip, she added a sugar cube and a little cream, then sipped again. “Oh, my.” She sounded like a woman who had been stroked in just the right way.
Watching her, Sebastian raised his cup to hide a smile. Even the erotic statues in the courtyard couldn’t compete for his rabbit’s attention when there was koffee.
By the time they’d finished the first cups, Philo returned and set two plates on the table. Slices of steak, buttered toast, and an omelet filled with potatoes, onions, peppers, and sausage. He refilled their cups and went to check on his other customers.
Sebastian picked at his food, just to have something to do. He needed to find some way to set his plan in motion, but Lynnea dug into her meal with such enthusiasm, he didn’t want to spoil her appetite by talking about anything that might upset her. So he ate while he watched the incubi and succubi trolling for prey, watched the visitors wandering down the main street looking for a brothel or a gambling house or a tavern where they could drink themselves blind. The Den was a place where
the vices frowned upon in the daylight landscapes were openly celebrated. If a man wanted to lose a month’s pay drinking, gambling, and whoring, the residents of the Den were more than willing to help him. If a bored, rich wife wanted to buy an incubus’s time and particular talents, that was her choice—and if there were repercussions in her own landscape, that was her problem.
Of course, the residents always found it entertaining when a bored, rich wife and her equally bored, rich husband ran into each other in a brothel corridor. And those confrontations confirmed what the Den’s residents had known all along: In its own way, the Den was more honest than the daylight landscapes, because the few rules that existed applied to everyone, regardless of gender or species.
When Lynnea finally leaned back and let out a sigh of contentment, Sebastian pushed aside his plate and took her hand. The touch made her tremble, and the little rabbit stared at the wolf who was trying not to drool over the coming feast.
“Tell me what you want, Lynnea,” he said. “If you could have anything you wanted for a few hours, what would it be?”
She licked her lips. His pulse spiked, but he didn’t allow himself to pull her into his lap and kiss her until they were both too mindless to know or care where they were. He just held her hand and waited.
“I’d like…” She closed her eyes. “I’d like to be strong and brave. I’d like to stop being afraid all the time. I don’t remember what it feels like not to be afraid.”
“Done,” Sebastian said softly.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression baffled.
“Did I mention I’m a wizard as well as an incubus?”
The words had barely left his mouth when he felt something snap open inside him, as if a part of him had been waiting to be acknowledged. The truth of it slid through him, filled him.
Guardians and Guides! He was a wizard.
Couldn’t be. Wasn’t possible.
