“You’re the Treeman.”
“Yes.” He lifted their linked hands and kissed her knuckles. “And I want you to be protected—and I don’t mind having another mark on my body.” He smiled and his teeth were white. “Especially if you continue to pay attention to them during loving.”
He’d called it loving, but then, he always had with her.
Heat flushed through Jenni. “Uh-huh. But if I get the tatt on my nape, that means I can’t put my hair up again, or cut it, either.”
“It will be beautiful.”
“The tatt will probably be red.”
“Probably—maybe some silver like mine—”
“And whatever color human skin makes the tatt,” she concluded.
He walked her over to a web, stared at it, shook his head. “No, too high, you’d only get a few wide lines of the pattern.”
“So we won’t be having sex. Somehow I think we’re the exception to the dryad parties tonight.”
He rubbed his fingers against her cheek. “I enjoy sharing loving outdoors with you, but at this temperature…I don’t want you undressed and vulnerable.”
She didn’t think he wanted to be in that state, either.
His hand went to the hilt of the long knife he’d strapped to his thigh. “Even though I can handle shadleeches.” Another glance to her. “As you can.” He’d always been good at thinking them equals. One of the reasons he was so attractive.
They walked closer to the webs—beautiful, intricate—and oddly enough Jenni did begin studying them as patterns that might be marked on her skin forever. “Hmm,” she said.
“What?”
She tapped her bicep. “A rather common place to have a tatt, but maybe that’s all to the good. I can take off my coat and unravel the seam of my sleeve….”
The spiderwebs gleamed like silver floss. Would the shadleeches see them?
They sure would see Jenni and Aric. She suppressed a shudder. Fighting them twice in one day. And how had the dryads—all the Treefolk all over the world—coped with infestations twice a day? Not to mention the other magical Folk.
Aric replied to her comment about her shoulder. “Pedestrian, and you aren’t.”
“What about you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll take off my shirt.” His smile quirked. “We can keep each other warm.”
“You don’t mind if I call fire energy?”
“Energy isn’t the same as flames. As long as you don’t burn anything, I’m fine with your using the elements. You were careful enough this morning. Excellent control.”
She nodded. “Thank you again.”
He squeezed her hand. “I trust you, Jenni.”
He seemed to be waiting, so she responded with the truth. “I trust you, too.”
“I know. We’ve faced the shadleeches and fought them together.”
This time she couldn’t stop the shiver at the memory of how they’d feasted on her. Her face throbbed where she’d been bitten this morning and she touched it. There was no scar because of her fire magic and Aric’s Treefolk poultice.
Her throat went tight. “You think the shadleeches will come tonight.”
Again his fingers tightened on hers in reassurance. “We took out some of Kondrian’s.” Satisfaction laced his tones. “But there are local ones. They love dryad magic.”
Jenni thought of the brownies. “Any magic.”
“I think they like Treefolk more than Lightfolk. Treefolk and shadleeches are both born of the Earth.”
“Huh. What about exotic taste?”
Aric’s smile was quick. “I sure like the taste of fire Lightfolk.”
She refrained from saying anything about Synicess. They walked in quiet for a couple of minutes with only the sound of night animals and bird noise around them. There were spiderwebs everywhere, with sparkling spiders busy, then vanishing with a pop when their artistry was finished. Jenni studied them closely and the little magical creatures did get bigger as they spun their webs, as if they were eating. She got the idea that when they vanished, it wasn’t death, but going to live in the greenspace.
She followed Aric, using her magical senses to see well enough to keep on the path.
He said, “I’m taking us to the edge of the forest, where they like to enter. We’ll pick out our spiderwebs there.”
“Fine,” she said, then stopped.
Aric quirked an eyebrow at her, but she pulled some hair clips from her jeans pocket and arranged her hair in a bun high on her head. He smiled again and stroked her cheek with his marked finger. Jenni’s neck felt bare and vulnerable. She wondered how much it would hurt. Not as much as a shadleech bite, not as awful as feeling herself being drained.
A few minutes later, Aric made a low humming noise and pointed to a tiny web that the spider had just abandoned, complete with a couple of dewdrops—already there was enough moisture in the air to gather on such webs. Sure wasn’t Colorado. Probably still had frost on the brown grass in the morning.
“That one for you. Gorgeous, lacy, unusual.”
Sure didn’t look like standard free clip art of spiderwebs that Jenni had found when she’d surfed the Net on Aric’s computer earlier. Denser, more delicate. If she had to have a pattern… Stiffly she let Aric turn her around so he could guide her backward into the web.
His fingers slipped around her neck, gathered a few tendrils of her hair that he stuck under a clip deftly enough that no more strands fell.
Jenni braced herself.
“You need to dip your knees a little, walk backward no more than three steps.” His brows came down. “Should wrap right around the back of your neck perfectly.”
“Urgh,” said Jenni.
He pressed on her shoulders until she was about the right height. She bit her bottom lip and he tapped it. “Don’t do that, you don’t want to bite through it.”
“No.” She sucked in a breath, thought about breathing through pain and took three steps back.
Fire! Ice! Acid! Jenni’s scream got trapped, her eyes watered. Aric jerked her close and held her. She writhed, not in a good way. One breath in, and, “Uh, uh, uh!” Her knees went out as the fire raced up and down the lines of the web searing her skin. She didn’t fall because Aric’s arms were wrapped around her.
“Use your magic!”
More fire on her skin? She didn’t think—
He shook her and her head went back on her neck and she cried out. “Use your magic!”
She summoned it, hot, hotter, hottest. Maybe hotter than that which ate her skin. Pushed it out, along the tracery she felt on her neck.
Relief. She turned her head against Aric’s solid chest and wiped her tears away. Then she just trembled in his more relaxed grip, gulping air. Glad she hadn’t peed herself.
“Shh, shh,” Aric soothed.
More than a minute passed before she felt she could stand on her own two feet. The real pain had subsided, but left a stinging. She could deal with it.
“Let’s take a look,” Aric said.
Jenni’s breath broke on a cracked laugh. “Not like you to be impatient.” Now that his arms weren’t clamped around her, she dug into her left jeans pocket for a nice large handkerchief and wiped her eyes, blew her slightly runny nose.
He let her stand by herself, cupped his hands and a greenish-gold ball of light pulsed into being. “Turn around, lovey, let me look at the pretty tatt.”
Jenni grunted, but did as he said. “Don’t touch it.”
“I won’t.”
“I think it would have been less painful with damn needles.”
“Mmm-hmm. Very beautiful. Tiny lines of silver outlined in red.” He kissed it, but instead of feeling more hurt, the touch of his lips brought balm. He’d put his mouth on the complicated center of the tatt and ease radiated out along the previously aching lines.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore! You helped. Thanks!”
When she turned back, his eyes were dark and serious. “Kisses can be magic. I
wondered if one might help, backed by intent….” He paused. “I plan to always help.”
That had her shifting feet, scuffing the thick bed of needles.
“Your turn,” he said lightly.
“What?”
He jutted his chin to several webs strung between trees and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Find a pattern you like for me.”
The odd tension of increased intimacy settled on Jenni. Yes, they were doing this together, and the more adversity they faced as a couple, the more they bonded. Was Aric her heart’s desire, or a part of it? Was she being stupid again to fall in love with him? Would he do the same?
She walked away in a hurry, scanning the trees. Now that she’d survived the tatt, she’d use a bit of her magical energy for a lightball. When she called her glow globe into being it was yellow-orange and much brighter than Aric’s had been. Of course, she used fire energy, not plant energy, and the basis of Treefolk light was the luminescence of mosses and mushrooms and the like.
“Pretty light,” Aric said shortly, and she knew he’d tensed, too. He wasn’t looking forward to being marked again, either.
“You don’t have to do this. Certainly not for me.”
“Yes, I do.”
She didn’t know whether he was answering one or both of her statements, but she knew from his attitude that she wouldn’t move him.
“All right.” She could feel the creeping edge of exhaustion, but if he wanted a partner, she wouldn’t disappoint.
Scanning the webs and the trees, she looked for a small spiderweb. An image of one about three inches large by Aric’s shoulder and under his collarbone had come to her as pleasing. She spotted one. Simple, a few lines, and wisps. “There.” She pointed.
His face changed and she wasn’t quick enough to read his expression. “Not this one?” He flicked a hand at a huge drape that would cover his chest.
“I wouldn’t put you through the pain of that!”
“No?”
“Ar-ic.”
“I’m just wondering how you feel about me.”
“I care. And the wondering’s mutual. I wonder how you feel about me,” Jenni said, heart thumping hard.
CHAPTER 23
ARIC ANSWERED, “I CARE, TOO. MORE THAN I should.”
That eased Jenni’s emotions a little—at least about their relationship. “And I’m sure I don’t want to talk about this. Particularly not now in a deep and gloomy forest at night.”
“You’re sure you don’t want the big spiderweb to mark me?” But his gaze was examining the smaller web she’d chosen, his pecs flexing as if already feeling the sting.
“If the big one would protect you better, then maybe. But we don’t know that, do we?”
“We know very damn little.”
“More than we do,” said a new voice.
Jenni didn’t jump, and neither did Aric, as the guardians walked into the small clearing. Now that she thought on it, she’d sensed the potent magic of the two guardians.
Aric bowed. “Greetings.”
The dwarf snorted. “You don’t have to be courteous. You don’t want us here.”
“Not much,” Aric admitted coolly. “But you’re here for a reason?”
“Yes. The Eight heard of this protection for the dryads against the shadleeches.”
“I told them myself,” Aric said. He glanced around. “Did they send you to check it out?”
“Not quite.” The dwarf’s laugh was the low rumble of settling rock.
The elf bowed to Jenni. “Princess Mistweaver Emberdrake.”
She inclined her torso. These two were completely out of the status game, beyond noble rank. “Greetings.”
“The Eight didn’t ‘quite’ send you here?” Aric pushed the question.
“We go as we please,” the elf said.
Jenni didn’t completely believe that. She figured that what spurred these two were responsibility and curiosity. Good qualities in guardians.
The dwarf went over to a low stump and sat. “Though they do believe halflings tell the truth most of the time, and they’ve seen your skill…” he nodded to Jenni, then looked at Aric “…and should know your magics, Paramon, the Eight sometimes don’t appreciate how important information from and about halflings can be.”
“We do,” the elf said. He made a casual gesture. “They are wrapped up in discussions of the ritual for the bubble event, what they want to do with the energies, how they want to shape the creativity.” He smiled and stopped Jenni’s breath at the beauty of the expression.
“Politics, maneuvering,” the dwarf grunted. He looked around, pulled a face. “Pretty forest but the trees are too big.”
“Thank you,” Aric said.
The elf waved and a good-looking staff appeared in his hands. Jenni thought that it might have even been part of the forest around them, but now appeared polished and just the right size for him. Of course. This was a being who had more magic than any she’d ever met—including Kondrian. Despite the guardian elf’s charming ways, she should remember that.
“We are interested in this shadleech protection.”
“We are interested in any armor against any Dark,” the dwarf said. “Tell us all about it.”
So Aric did and when he was done, the guardians scrutinized his thumb and the back of Jenni’s neck and stared at the spiderwebs around them.
“No idea what the effect of such web-etchings have on Lightfolk, huh?” asked the dwarf.
“Leafswirl didn’t mention any full Lightfolk who have been marked and tempted shadleeches,” Aric said.
“Why are we always the first to try something new?” the dwarf said.
“Because we are.” The elf went up to a web. “I think this tiny one would suit you.” He cut the web with such skill that it suspended from his blade in a complete pattern.
“Huh.” The dwarf stripped off a couple of layers of armor and shirts. He looked at Aric. “Were you going to do this, or not?”
“I am.” Aric smiled. “It hurts.”
“You said that. Both of you.” The dwarf bobbed his head at Jenni. “And it’s a pretty forest with too-big trees and close to the damp ocean in March. I’m cold. Let’s do it.” He glanced up at his companion. “And why am I always the one of the two of us who goes first?”
“Because you’re tougher.”
“Huh.”
“And I have a bit of healing.”
“Jenni?” Aric called her attention back to him. His smile was easy, now. He trusted these two.
Well, with all they’d done for her, she trusted them, too. She only wished they’d arrived before she’d had to back into the web herself. She turned to the web she’d chosen for Aric. It had lost a little definition in the middle, but was still beautiful. Linking arms with him, and bringing the lightball closer, she said, “I think we can angle you just so.” She positioned him so that the web would hit the top of his pec under his collarbone, near his shoulder.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes,” Aric said. His chest rippled.
“Try not to tense.” Though she knew that was easier said than done.
The elf brought the dangling web toward the dwarf’s hairy shoulder. “Ready?”
“Right. Lay it on me.”
There was a sizzle and a yelp. Dwarven curses.
Aric turned to look at the two and Jenni gave him a little push into his web. His cry of surprise turned into pain and heavy breathing. As soon as she saw the thin silvery lines sink into his skin and leave equally silvery scars, she placed her lips on the design and kissed him.
He sighed, put his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes and his magic rose and traces of blue-green outlined the delicate silver.
“You aren’t doing that to me,” the dwarf said to the elf. He shifted from foot to foot, not quite hopping.
“Summon your own magic to deal with it, then,” the elf said. Then he clapped a hand over his friend’s shoulder and the dwarf shou
ted—but cut off his yell with a huffing sigh.
“All right. I’m good.” His lips curled as he slanted the elf a glance. “Your turn, and I think you should have a nice line down your manly torso.”
“What?” the elf asked.
“A pattern down your side. Strip.” Stalking away, the dwarf plucked a long web from a branch, whisked it around once so that it doubled and redoubled into a few inches wide.
“Ouch,” Aric said and Jenni kissed his shoulder again. He smiled. “Thanks, but that’s not what I meant.” He nodded to the elf, who stood bare-chested.
“They’re good companions,” she said.
“Partners, but not lovers.”
“No. But such friendship is rare.”
There came a long, hissing sound and the air around Jenni’s ear shuddered with oaths beyond her hearing.
“Kiss me again, Jenni,” Aric said.
She looked up at him and his gaze was quiet, his lips tender, and she knew she’d fallen in love with him. Again. Perhaps had always loved him since her brothers had brought him home and she’d seen him that first evening. Stupid. But she kissed him again.
She sank into the kiss, quietly inhaled his scent that matched the forest, but had an extra little spice that she recognized as his elven nature. His lips were soft and when she opened her mouth and his tongue touched hers, all of her inflamed.
The kiss lasted an eternity of seconds and she thought she saw magic bloom in the darkness of the forest.
Aric broke their embrace. His smile was lopsided and his hand slid from her shoulder to link with her fingers. He turned and they looked at the guardians. The elf and dwarf were studiously watching a white, sparkling spider spin its web and vanish.
“Maybe you should tell your mother about the kiss thing,” Jenni said, trying for lightness.
She saw Aric shift into mental-communication mode, then grin. “She—they—all the dryads know.”
Jenni frowned. “I bet we didn’t get the full story on that butt tatt.”
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