"Take it!" she cried. "Take the betrothal ribbon from the sacred oak and bind me to you as your fairy bride."
Breathless from his journey, he turned to see her crouched in a circle of toadstools, her golden hair and porcelain complexion glittering as bright as the moon that lit his way. Just a few yards ahead, he saw a green ribbon pinned to the trunk of an oak amid a tangle of holly. The betrothal ribbon. It was as broad as his wrist was wide and as long as his arm. So he'd made it to the secret dell where the ritual would take place. Nerves surging once more, he picked through brambles toward the tree.
"Hurry," said Calleagh. "Wind it about your wrist. You've only till dawn, my love, and dawn hastens upon us."
He unhooked the ribbon, heedless of the holly leaves that scratched his hands and drew blood, then tied it around his wrist. The ribbon felt…sticky? Curious, he lifted the fabric and sniffed an odour sweeter than any exotic conserve or candy.
Wild honey, from a hive hidden in the branches above, trickled over the oak and the holly, coating the ribbon and setting his wounds sizzling with exquisite pain. Licking his fingers, he tasted nectar mingled with the coppery tang of blood. His stomach tightened, bile rising in his throat. Calleagh's touch on his shoulder set his heart galloping, and he turned. The glow of her smile ought to have melted the sharper edges of his fears. His mouth went dry, the sugar turning to grit.
"The youngest son of a yeoman is always the cleverest." She wet her lips as if preparing for a sumptuous feast, then lowered her voice. "You had no difficulty with the riddles of the spirits, sweet one?"
"No," he whispered, aware Calleagh's fairy sisters would be with them soon, and they, like his kin, knew nothing of the guidance she'd given him for his journey through the forest.
"The first spirit asked, 'What roars in your ear yet has no throat?' The answer was the wind. I would have known as a mere boy."
"You are still a boy." She bridled his objection, pressing her forefinger to his lips and laughing. "Answer this one, my clever boy, and become a man. I prick, I tug, I slip, and I bend. If I don't fit, then lick my end. What am I?"
His cheeks flushed with blood. For once, he wished his mind were not so quick. "Uh…A needle and thread?"
Calleagh grasped his loins through his breeches and squeezed so hard he winced. "Don't jest with me. I feel your answer here. Must I lick it, or will you stand proud for the sight of me?"
Stepping away, she unclasped an emerald brooch at her throat. Her cloak floated to the ground, leaving her standing before him in nothing but a transparent gown that revealed the outlines of her full breasts and the golden hair between her legs. He slid his gaze to her eyes that danced with unspoken promises. Calleagh was beautiful. Yet despite reason, ambition, and all the rewards she may bring, he felt nothing for her, beyond his vague fear of her kind.
"Under the morning dew, I will make you moist," she said. "In the rain, you will weep with pleasure. My secret rivers are flowing for you. Take me now, and make me of your mortal flesh."
Heavens, her flowery words gave him a headache. "But…but…"
His fists balling at his sides, he scrambled for the right words, not knowing if they were of refusal or acceptance. He'd come so far and convinced himself so strongly this was right.
"What is it, my love?" Calleagh pouted. "Don't forsake me now my sisters are with us."
Oh Lord. As she spoke, fairies of every female shape and variety crowded into the dell in a starry myriad of filmy green fabrics and flowing hair. Their quick footfalls and chatter set the undergrowth rustling.
Rising onto her toes, Calleagh drew so close he gasped in her warm breath. He let her unhook the front of his jacket and unlace his shirt, didn't fight as she stripped both away to expose his sweat-flecked skin. The heat of the night pressed in, even the wind through the trees sighing like a lover aching for contentment. Tam suddenly wished he were with anybody but this wench who strained his patience to a breaking point.
From the corner of his eye, he watched a tiny raven-haired fairy use the tip of a long stick to trace a ring around him and Calleagh. As the little fairy carved the earth and flattened the bracken, she skirted the toadstool circle, which reached two yards across. He now stood at its heart. When she threw down the branch, her jet-black gaze met his, sending shivers down his spine. Did she know the truth of what he should do? And—God's bodkins!—was that the forked tongue of an adder that shot from her mouth, slashing the roofs of the toadstools so their flesh split and spewed forth green fire?
Horror seized his guts, even as the snake-fairy vanished behind the wall of flame that rose up from the toadstools. Calleagh pinched his jaw, pressing her thumb to the dimple in his chin and forcing them to face each other.
"She means us no harm," she explained. "It's all part of the betrothal ceremony. Trust me." She lifted his wrist, from which the ribbon still dangled. "Threads wrought from the most ancient fairy hemp will bind us together in this ring of fire. You need only to take me with your body to make me human like you, and we will be as one in the world of men."
"I…uh…I think your snake-tongued sister has unsettled me. If you want us to lie together so soon, can we not go somewhere less…enchanted?"
"You are a callow child. 'Tis fortunate the binding and a kiss will be enough tonight, but there are but five days till the full moon for us to lie together and all to be well." Entwining one of her legs about his, Calleagh rubbed her mound against his rigid thigh. Warmth flushed his skin, tingling toward his crotch, but was that just his acute unease? "Though it would be best to seal it now. Come on, lad. Is it so hard to stiffen your staff?"
"My…my staff?" Must she talk that way? Good Lord, what if she addressed his cock that way for the rest of their lives together? He tried to clear his thoughts. "Are you sure you want to live in the world of men? It's much more pleasant here." It was, in many ways. Moreover, Calleagh could not deport herself in Little Lyndton like this. Rather than envied and admired, he'd become a cuckolded fool.
"We had an agreement." Her whispers sharpened. "I can awaken the serpent between any man's legs. See?" She slithered her fingers down his stomach, tracing the line of hair beneath his navel until she closed in over his loins. Through the fabric of his breeches, her touch was not unpleasant.
"Still so soft, my love?"
He closed his eyes. Would it be better to surrender or resist? She stroked him to a steady rhythm, and he strained to respond. To his slight relief, intimacy worked a scant magic. His cock twitched with life, and he hoped he might harden beneath her hand. He nearly jumped out of his skin when she plunged her hand down his breeches to tug his length and tease his flesh, sending her thumb sliding to his cockhead to smear the merest pearl of moisture. He gulped a lung's worth of stifling air and forced his eyes open. Her smile was much harder than his cock, her face inscribed with artful concentration.
"What man can resist a fairy bride to cherish him for all time?" she asked.
For all time? Her words rang hollow in his heart, and the truth became clear. To take her from her home and sisters would be a great sin. Despite all her beauty, he could never desire her.
"I know what I must do," cried Calleagh. "Let me lick you till you slip your fine staff into my silk purse with ease."
He cringed, her words destroying his last trace of arousal. She fell to her knees, reaching to unlace his already gaping breeches. Gripping her shoulders, he pulled her away.
"I'm sorry. May green flames and snake-tongued spirits consume me, I cannot—"
A roar shattered through the clearing, obliterating his final words and setting the green fire spurring. A dark figure of a man—no, surely this being was too large to be a man—reared through the flames, picked up Calleagh as if she weighed no more than a kitten, and tossed her from the circle. Then he rounded on Tam.
Moonshine glimmered on the newcomer's bold features that contorted with fury, his square jaw shadowed with beard. Tam had felt tall amid the fairy company, but this goliath ha
d him edging backward, feeling small.
And naked.
Tam grabbed at his sagging breeches, tightening the laces before they descended about his ankles. The newcomer's gaze impaled him, making him shudder as if he'd been stripped entirely. The great man's brow was broad, and from his wild mane surged a pair of enormous antlers split into many twisting branches, each flashing like ivory blades. Tam's passions raced, his every sinew stiffening where just moments ago he had laboured half-heartedly beneath Calleagh's touch, and terror crippled him.
He knew this beast.
He may never have seen him before in his waking life, but Tam faced a legend among Greenwood spirits, one who could truly make him suffer for his mistake.
"Herne the Hunter?"
Herne narrowed his midnight-blue eyes, fury smouldering, and thrill vied with Tam's dread. Herne's thighs were as solid as the oaks framing the dell, while the laces fastening his sleeveless surcoat drew tight to contain the mass of his shoulders and chest. Tam urged his feet to carry him away, even if the ring of fire scalded him, but too late. Herne grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard his head ached.
"Are you the reason I have been called? Did you trick her into wedding you?"
"I take nobody against their will," shouted Tam, doing his best to sound brave. He stared awestruck Herne's antlers. "You…you had no right to interrupt us. You do not understand."
Herne leaned over him, sniffing his hair like a cat would a rat to determine whether it was fit to eat. "Honey and spice. You reek of vanity, boy. Stealing a fairy maid from her family is the cruellest act of all."
"I didn't steal anyone. She wanted me. She asked me!"
Tam wriggled but couldn't break free. Herne clamped his wrists, holding them fast. Nausea rolled though Tam. Was this part of a trap laid by Calleagh and her sisters? Before God, he'd heard enough of the wiles of fairy folk, and Herne possessed the strength to rip his limbs off and see his blood drain for the foul spirits of Niogaerst. Or would Herne impale him on those frightful antlers? Maybe that had been Calleagh's true sport all along.
Desperation cracked his voice. "I'm the one who's been tricked. Yes, that's it, tricked! Please. Let me go, sir."
Herne tilted his head, confusion passing over his hard features. "Do I know you?"
The relentless emerald flames pressed them closer, Herne's tightening grip prompting so many fuddling sensations that words failed him. His mind demanded he kick the beast in the balls and make a run for it, but once again his body refused to obey. He stared up at Herne's smouldering eyes, his skin weather-beaten and browned yet marked only by the finest of lines. A further revelation struck.
Now I understand the true meaning of beauty.
Herne growled, pulled Tam to him so their bodies pressed flush, and smoothed his thumb along the line of Tam's cheekbone. Tam flinched as if he'd been branded with an iron, yet the contact sent blood coursing through his veins and rushing straight to his loins.
When Herne's mouth claimed his, Tam yearned to be dominated, to be consumed in his flames like a helpless moth. He parted his lips, letting Herne devour him, balling his fists into the leather of Herne's surcoat to urge him on, and relishing the scrape of Herne's coarse beard against his chin. Herne tasted of herbs and the verdant depths of the forest. Amid the rage of life, Tam sensed also the stillness of rock, the brute strength of ages, and savage, tearing pain.
He kissed back, his tongue slick against Herne's, letting the passion of their union quash the remnants of his alarm. If this was the means by which Herne punished him, then he would not resist a jot. He did not even care if the man kissing him bore the antlers of a stag or the cleaved hooves of the devil. Not when Herne cupped Tam's arse with his massive hands, dug in his fingers, and squeezed so hard his flesh sang. Tam's arousal jutted against Herne's thigh, and—oh sweet spirits—Herne's huge cock pressed into Tam's tight belly, setting him awhirl with desire.
Herne tore his lips away from Tam's as quickly as he had claimed them. Tam gazed up into his dark blue eyes, reading boundless suffering, insatiable yearning—and a glimmer of reflected grey light, too dull to be moon or enchanted flame. Indeed, both moon and flame had fallen away. The first light of morning crept from the easterly edges of the dell.
Herne relinquished Tam from his embrace. Still trembling in the aftermath of the kiss, Tam stumbled back, but not far. The green ribbon that he'd tied about his wrist now entwined Herne's too, binding them together, and it stopped him short.
He stared anew at Herne the Hunter, who appeared equally perplexed by the ribbon pulled taut between them. He looked at Herne's huge, ragged antlers. His awareness of everything that had happened prior to their kiss trickled back, and a sickening realization overthrew his desire. The question escaped his lips before he comprehended its full horror.
"You kissed me and bound me to you in the circle of fire before dawn. Does that not make you and I…betrothed?"
Chapter Two
"Betrothed?"
Herne's growl awoke the roosting birds from every tree and set the branches shaking with squawks and flapping wings. He pushed the lad away with a force that had him stumbling back. The ribbon tore clean in two.
"You dare trick and ensnare me?" Herne wiped his lips, eschewing the taste of honey. Rarely had he struggled so hard to contain his wrath. Then again, a long time had passed since a beautiful young man had stirred his desires so hotly, and he had sworn on his blood he would never let that happen again.
In the space of a heart's beat before some burning force had compelled him to kiss this lad, Herne had become lost in his grey-green eyes and admired the somehow vaguely familiar russet-coloured hair that tumbled to the boy's bare shoulders and shimmered in the first faint rays of morning light. Everything about this boy was well made, his nose straight, his chin blessed with a neat dimple and now set stiffly, as were his swollen lips. Though he'd yielded swiftly enough beneath Herne's kiss.
The lad wiped his mouth more exaggeratedly than Herne had. "You grabbed and bound me." He gestured toward the golden-haired fairy Herne had tossed from the ring of fire, and who now stared at them from amid her pack. "I took nobody against their will. I agreed to the whole thing beforehand. She asked to be my bride and organized everything. Calleagh, please tell him?"
How deep did this treachery cut? Herne rounded on the fairies. "Why have you tricked me with your enchantments?"
The fairies clung to each other, their limbs, hair, and fingers tangling. Several crumpled to the ground and curled into tiny balls, sending hedgehog spikes ripping from the skin of their backs and through their petal-thin gowns. Their ripple of nervous laughter almost had him roaring toward the heavens.
"Who speaks for you, wood-wives?" He took time to choose his quiet words with care. "If you do not answer me, I will turn a deaf ear to your screams next time the Wild Men choose to gnaw your bones." Not that he would truly abandon them. Even after all these years and for all his trying, he couldn't turn his heart cold when his people needed him.
A tiny raven-haired fairy stepped forward, her hands hooked on her hips. "Herne the Hunter, I am the Elfaene, ruler of this pack, and we did not ask you to intervene. Whatever force called you here, we know nothing of it."
Herne frowned at her so heavily his temples throbbed. "You know better than to deceive me."
"Indeed, sir," she replied. "I've watched you lead out the Wild Hunt and smelled the blood that spilled when all England fell in your wake. I have no wish to see our home, our heortland, so fated."
"Those days are past," he told her, his voice steady even as his heart thundered.
"I'm glad to hear this, but it seems some among us have truly been playing games tonight. Calleagh!" Drumming her fingers against her hips, the Elfaene confronted the fairy maid to whom the boy had appealed, who lingered at the back of the watching pack. "Had you come to some agreement with this man?"
Calleagh's sisters turned to stare at her, a couple shuffling aside and exposing her
to the Elfaene's wrath. She flipped her hand. "Yes. Tam and I planned it all. He wanted a fairy bride so his elders would respect him. I wanted to try something new."
"You wanted to leave us? To become human?"
"You know how bored I get, Elfaene. And besides, he is pretty. For a man."
"You told me nothing of this." The Elfaene stamped her foot like a stubborn mule.
"Why should I not have secrets?" asked Calleagh. "I love to have secrets. But I never called on Herne the Hunter. Before he arrived, my scheme was perfect. Everybody was going to get what they wanted."
Calleagh shot Tam a sidelong glance, drawing Herne's attention back to Tam, too. Evidently nervous, Tam shuffled his feet as skittishly as a deer, folding his bare arms to push out long, lean muscles. While a good three inches taller than the loftiest fairy, Tam stood nearly twice that amount shorter than Herne, but then most mortal men did. Tam was neither skinny nor thickset, and perfectly proportioned to his middling height. The rust of hair on his chest matched the silky thatch on his head.
Hardly knowing whether to smile or rage, Herne wondered how Tam provoked this glow of warmth and comfort in him. Such sensations had been alien for centuries. He wished Tam would try to run away before this affair was resolved, so he could to hunt him through the woods and tussle with that young, strong body, which would surely prove beautiful to master—but no, Herne abhorred the prospect. He strove to control his still-pulsating cock before it hardened to the point of agony.
The Elfaene let out a long sigh. "I fear nobody will get what they want now. Herne and Tam. You two kissed each other in the ring of fire before sunrise, and so you are indeed betrothed."
Herne set his expression grim. "Who is responsible for this?"
"I don't know. Magic summoned you here and tied that ribbon about your wrists, but it was not one of us and not likely this unfortunate boy. Some spirit of the Greenwood, fair or foul, must have sought to bind you two together."
Bound to the Beast Page 3
