Bound for the Forest

by Kay Berrisford

  “It says Healdor,” explained Brien, his voice a low, sincere rasp. “This page announces the lore of the protectors who may channel the Power of the Sky God.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that. I can…see it.”

  Scarlet flicked to the next page—only to discover that all that remained was a ragged strip of paper at the spine, less than half an inch wide.

  “The rest of the pages dealing with the lore are missing?” Brien frowned. “Did you take them out?”

  “No!” Realizing a good dozen sheets had been desecrated in this fashion, Scarlet rummaged through what remained, confirming that the only pages left dealt with ingredients for spells. “The lore is gone! Somebody must have come here and taken those pages.”

  “Arya?” Brien suggested.

  “No, I don’t think so. She would have told me. There’s only one other person who knows where this cottage is, and who ever showed any interest in the Aeboda. That’s your sister.”

  Scarlet stared through Brien, his eyes momentarily unseeing. It made sense that Jemima should take the pages concerning the protectors. That part of lore was of far more interest to her than Niogaerst, about which she was so often nonchalant. But why now? And why take them, not just read them? No, maybe it made no sense at all. Scarlet jumped up, scanning the messy room with a new urgency.

  “Whoever was here has been careful, but…look at the dust there. One of the jars might have been moved.”

  Brien laughed. “Just my luck to miss my bloody sister yet again!”

  “I don’t know if it was her. It makes more sense if…if…” Scarlet spiraled back to face Brien; a lump clogged in his throat, but he choked it back. “It was the spirits. I’m sure of it. I wish they’d leave me alone or just get on with it! Those pages must have held the answers, and they don’t want me to know.”

  He slammed his fist onto the counter, knuckles clenched white. The jars clinked out a warning, and the captain closed in at Scarlet’s side. Brien touched Scarlet’s shoulder; despite himself, Scarlet felt his anger wane a little. He screwed his eyes tight. Brien’s heavy breath rustled the hair on his brow.

  “Listen, Scarlet. I’ll tell you what you are. I’ve known it for some time now.”

  He shuddered only slightly as Brien’s thumb traced the line of his cheekbone. “When…when you first saw me, you told me I was a pixie. But you meant that…as something dirty.”

  “Maybe I did back then, but I don’t think so anymore. You’re a beautiful man, and you’re strong too.”

  Brien’s hand slipped down to cup his face, and Scarlet’s eyes flew wide. He closed his fingers on top of Brien’s, but he could not bring himself to push him away. It had to be that natural draw between them that Arya had told him about, and damn it, Brien’s touch sent a flash of fire through his veins. “I’m not strong,” he stuttered. “I’m not like you.”

  “I never said you were like me,” whispered Brien. “But you are strong. You fight hard, you’re as stubborn as steel, and it’s not magic that makes you so damned irresistible.”

  “Irresistible? But…but I thought you wanted Urhelda?”

  “No. You know as well as I that there is nothing between me and that girl that can ever compare to this.”

  With that, if nothing else, Scarlet could not bring himself to argue. Brien’s breath scorched against his lips, his large frame cocooning tighter about Scarlet’s by the heartbeat. He could feel his body surrendering—and, so much worse, his mind. He wanted this so badly.

  “The spirits…are real.” Scarlet’s voice sounded strained. “How can you even question it? It is everything in this forest—and this thing between us. It’s…it’s the reason it’s so hard for me to fight this.”

  “This is called attraction, Scarlet. This is about the pleasure of another person’s company, and about simply wanting to be together. This…is what’s real.”

  Brien grasped him by the shoulders and shook him gently. Scarlet’s lips were already parted in a silent gasp when Brien plunged forward to claim them. The touch of his mouth was even more exhilarating than Scarlet recalled, his overpowering flavour spiced by the gin. Scarlet felt his senses lurch as he raised himself onto his toes, parting his lips wider and inviting Brien to intensify the kiss. Coarse stubble scraped his chin, and he dug his fingers into those broad, flexing shoulders. Yes, this is what they came here for.

  “No!” Scarlet twisted himself from the cradle of Brien’s arms. “I am bound to the forest. We can’t spend time together unless you… you…” He studied Brien’s furrowed brow for signs of understanding. How could he ask this untamable man to stay with him? “I can’t come with you,” he said, trying to put into his voice all the anguish it would bring to him if things were to go further—and then if Melmoth Brien chose to walk those long, green paths away from him.

  Still frowning, the captain merely pressed his lips together, betraying…a glint of comprehension? Or what was it?

  Scarlet gritted his teeth. “I…I can’t. If I was to be bound to another, the oak would never reclaim me. It may already be too late.”

  “Is this all about him, then?” Brien’s countenance transformed, growing wild and furious as he gestured toward the discarded Aeboda. “That creature daubed on the pages of fiction, that freakish Green Man? It is his touch you crave, you poor fool?”

  His captain’s eyes gleamed with raw anger, and Scarlet staggered backward—not at the impact of his fury, but at the revelation therein. Melmoth Brien may still deny Holgaerst with his tongue, but in his heart he was starting to understand well enough. He knew exactly what had passed between Scarlet and the Green Man, of their once-sacred coupling. What else would muster this raging jealousy?

  Scarlet tried not to heed the strange leap in his heart, hissing, “How dare you speak of him that way?” But as Brien redoubled his glare, his arms folding in front of him and demanding of an answer, Scarlet’s thoughts and words became more and more tangled. His fear told him it might be best to deny all, if just to cling to Holgaerst and beg and hope to the last. But it was not the Green Man he wanted. The plea tore from the depths of his being. “I was his, but I no longer belong to him. I don’t even know if I ever wanted him to start with. I don’t know what I want anymore. But I need him. If he doesn’t take me back, I’ll die, plain as that. Why can’t you understand? Why can you not see what I need?”

  “I understand exactly what you need.”

  The words were grave, and Scarlet wanted to believe him with every minutia of his being, but was it enough? Scarlet turned away, shakily running his fingers through his hair. Then he grabbed the bottle of liquor, tipped his head right back, and drank. Some of the liquid spilled down his chin as well as his throat.

  He hadn’t a clue who he trusted less, Brien or himself, to stop what had been set in motion. As he drank, he resolved that he’d find the strength to lash out and run. The bottle was a weapon, if it came to that.

  Carefully a much stronger hand pried the bottle from his lips. Scarlet gaped up at Brien, feeling more like a messy child than a grown man on the verge of an escape. “We should go outside,” said Brien, calmly replacing the bottle on the dresser. “Let’s cool off. Or…seeing as the drinking seems to have started for the day, we could dance.” He leaned forward, his broad body seeming to curl around Scarlet’s again, his voice soft and knowing. “You do like to dance?”

  This was another joke, it had to be. Scarlet fumbled for a grip on the dresser behind him, just to keep his knees from buckling beneath him. Because yes. He loved to dance. When he was a little younger, he used to dance often for the druidesses, basking in the warm glow of their admiration as much as in the frenzy of the music and motion. He’d understood then what it meant to be beautiful—although in recent years, age had brought with it self-consciousness, and he had danced for them less and less.

  But win or lose his fight, why should Scarlet not experience that rush of air and ecstasy against his skin just one more time?

  Brien bac
ked away toward the door. Scarlet stared at the hand that stretched out toward him, the crisp hair on the tanned forearm. His captain grinned. “Come on. Let’s go outside.”

  Tentatively Scarlet reached out his hand. Brien seized it. The contrast between Scarlet’s slender fingers and his own was so enthralling that he only just remembered to stoop low enough under the door so as to not knock himself out. He tugged the woodsman behind him.

  The clouds had cleared, and bright sunlight filtered through the trees, glistening on the damp cobwebs and across a sea of snowdrops—and on Scarlet’s sandy-blond hair. It felt fresh outside, of spring. He held Scarlet at arm’s length, admiring and breathing, knowing full well that they ached for each other mutually.

  “So are you going to dance?”

  The woodsman chewed into his lower lip, shaking his head. “No. I ought not… Oh, I don’t know. There’s a spring over behind the ash there.” He gestured with his head, flicking his silky hair. “I want to splash my face.”

  Brien didn’t let him go; he didn’t quite smile, but he ran his thumb slowly over the back of Scarlet’s hand and watched the woodsman’s eyelids grow heavy. “Please dance for me, Scarlet.”

  “I…can’t. There’s no music. I’d look a fool.”

  “No music? How can you say that? This is the Greenwood. There’s the song of the birds, there’s the voice of the wind in the trees—and there’s a spring, you tell me? That tuneful bubbling and rushing we hear is a brook, I dare say…and you, Scarlet. You could never look a fool.”

  Scarlet threw back his head and laughed his most delectably filthy laugh, the tips of his lashes flecked gold in the sunlight. “If I’d said what you just did, you’d have told me I was a backward country clot!” He stopped laughing as Brien tugged him forward. Brien slid his hand possessively to his wrist, his other arm looping around Scarlet’s waist and drawing him in.

  Scarlet’s eyes were slightly glazed, and now the woodsman giggled. The gin had had its effect, although nothing could be as intoxicating as the effect that Scarlet was now having on Brien.

  “Dance for me,” he said.

  “I…don’t know. My head feels…odd.”

  Brien took Scarlet in an intimate waltz hold, the giddy woodsman hanging back in his arms. Naturally Scarlet would not know the more scandalous dances of Mayfair or Paris. Brien could lead him, yes, but that was not what he really wanted.

  He could sense that Scarlet was capable of something far more wild and interesting, and if he was going to make this happen, he would have to delve further back into the depths of his childhood memories. Yet a jaunty, rustic reel to a drumbeat would not do either. No, Brien needed to summon up something rather more elemental.

  A long-forgotten song swelled inside him. In a deep, gravelly voice, Brien began to sing.

  And he shall bring the birds in spring

  And dance among the flowers…

  Wonder spread across Scarlet’s face like the flush of fever. As he sang, Brien took two light steps across the forest floor, leading the woodsman with him. And then Scarlet’s feet began to move, his slender hips to sway. Brien, in full voice now, released him.

  In summer's heat his kisses sweet

  They fall from leafy bowers.

  He picks the nuts and honeyed fruits.

  The kiss of fall surrounds him…

  Scarlet shut his eyes, lifted his arms above his head, and danced because it appeared he simply had to. His moves were strange and slightly jolting; it should not have been graceful, yet somehow it was. His hair fell forward across his face; he sucked a strand into the corner of his mouth and whirled upon the spot. His smock clung to his slender hips as they swayed and twisted, and then it slipped off one shoulder, revealing his golden-pale flesh. By the final words of the song, Brien’s throat was so clogged with lust that he could barely sing.

  The days grow old and winter cold.

  He draws his cloak around him.

  But it was not a cloak that was now enfolded tightly around Scarlet. Brien lunged for him, catching Scarlet as he tumbled back and laughed, hopelessly fey. For a heartbeat, Brien reveled in the wonder of Scarlet’s smile—those claret-coloured lips that parted generously, revealing neat white teeth, the tip of a glistening pink tongue. He’d never seen anything so magical in all his life.

  Brien’s rock-hard erection dug into Scarlet’s stomach, and his laughter faded. He felt the woodsman’s body quake. It was as if Brien had finally captured a wild animal. But still, would Scarlet bite?

  Either way he had to have him.

  A rasping growl bubbled up from deep in his chest and could find its expression in only one word.

  “Mine.”

  Scarlet hitched his lip in a savage snarl, finally wrapping his arms about Brien’s shoulders. “Then in the name of the Goddess, claim me now.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Scarlet pulled Brien down into the kiss he’d wanted since their first in Arden. After that he ceded control. Brien’s tongue was electric as he explored and possessed his mouth, their lips fused by a smoldering heat. Then the pain struck. Brien’s teeth ensnared Scarlet’s plump bottom lip, biting him and marking him, stopping only when he drew a drop of blood.

  “Mine,” Brien reiterated, releasing the pressure. Taking a firm hold about Scarlet’s trim upper arms, he pushed him back against the elm.

  The merest glance at his glowering countenance had Scarlet’s breath hitching in his throat: Brien brooded like the weald in the grips of a tempest, the passions of nature having no reversal now. “I want to undress you,” he growled.

  Scarlet hesitated for an instant, tasting the coppery tang of blood on his lip. He’d danced for Brien, he’d craved that kiss over life itself, and now his body screamed for more. Brien had made him no promise, but words faded in significance when need was this strong. And Brien’s desire was as strong as his. It reverberated through him every time they touched, until his fears quit his heart for the darkest corners of his mind. He was all but deaf to them now—deaf to everything but Brien’s commands. Scarlet gave an almost indiscernible nod and raised his arms. Beneath Brien’s gaze, he felt as elegant as a swallow in flight.

  Brien yanked off Scarlet’s smock with a flourish that saw a seam tug and snap. Without hesitation, he then ripped apart the crude knot that held up Scarlet’s trousers. The material fell with a placid shush, pooling at his ankles. Brien braced his thickly muscled arms on either side of Scarlet and slid his gaze down Scarlet’s naked body. The intensity of the captain’s admiration made him tremble.

  A blush spread from the base of his throat, flaming up his already pink cheeks. He was aware of his exposure, of his slightness in comparison with this colossus of a man. His focus dropped to his own butter-coloured navel hair that trailed down into his nest of honey curls and to his cock that jutted out beneath, shouting his need for the world to see.

  Or just for Brien. The man’s attentions made him shiver with anticipation; in that moment, he believed he was a creature of peerless beauty. Scarlet pressed his palm to his chest, trying to calm the thundering of his heart in vain. And then it struck him: Brien, his brow furrowing with concern, was transfixed upon his birthmark.

  No! Not now.

  The awareness ignited only a murmur of pain in his abdomen. He barely flinched, but desperate words formed on his tongue, of apology and refusal, although he doubted he could find the strength to push the man away.

  Brien reached down and stroked the glowing hazel as gently as he had teased across the back of Scarlet’s hand. Scarlet’s flesh simmered beneath his touch, warmth seeping through him like a soothing balm and melting the sharper edges from his fear. His head lolled back against the bark, eyes rolling upward. His throat stretched vulnerably, his arms crushed, by his own volition, behind his back. Brien’s fingers slipped across, wrapping around Scarlet’s shaft, squeezing and sliding, then pulling gently. As he slowly increased the friction, the fire in Scarlet’s belly swamped the final hint of any pain.<
br />
  “You want me to comfort you like this, always.” Brien’s voice was inarguable, and Scarlet’s throat too constricted to speak. As they fixated on the depths of each other’s eyes, the silent exchange sent Scarlet’s frenzy up another notch. Without words, he trusted this man absolutely; he wished to have no choice.

  “Oh, Captain, yes. I’m yours—only ever yours. Fuck me, use me…please!”

  The brief kiss was crushing, claiming. And then Brien grabbed Scarlet and threw him to the forest floor.

  He hit the ground with a soft thud, rolled back onto his elbows, and stared up. Brien seemed to tower over him, as tall as the trees. The former soldier tore off his neck cloth, his breeches, and then his shirt, revealing the thick covering of chestnut hair, from the sprawling width at the bottom of his neck to the wiry dark line at his navel. Then, without shifting his gaze from Scarlet, Brien bore down on top of him.

  Straddling Scarlet’s slim hips, he pinned him to the ground. His cock, large and needy with the tip already oozing moisture, jabbed up across Scarlet’s stomach. Instinctively Scarlet arched his body toward him.

  Brien captured both of his wrists in one powerful, encircling fist, and Scarlet inhaled sharply, the skin pulling tight beneath his ribs. Brien ripped away what little power had been left to him, and Scarlet wanted to do nothing to resist him as the large hand restraining him pitched his body into turmoil. Scarlet moaned, his prick smearing wetly across Brien’s thigh, and he thrashed within the limits of his enslavement. With the other hand, Brien reached into his pile of clothing, pulled out Scarlet’s yellow neckerchief, and, holding part of it between his teeth, ripped it in two. He tied a strip about Scarlet’s wrists.

  His captain was binding him. Nothing had ever felt so right.

  Leaning forward, Brien whispered, “Does that feel as good as it looks?”