Huntsman's Prey

by Marie Hall

  “You know where it’s at then?”

  Threading her fingers through his, she walked on. “I have a…hunch. A feeling.”

  It was nice walking with her hand in his. And for a second he allowed himself the luxury of memorizing the satiny feel of her skin. He started his tale into the comfortable silence that’d settled between them.

  “Claudia was my wife.”

  She gasped and twirled toward him. “You’re married?”

  “I was.”

  Her eyes immediately went to his empty neck. Marrying in Kingdom took on different connotations than in other worlds. There was marriage. And then there was marriage. The everlasting type. The type that couldn’t be broken, not even in death. Because to exchange the vows of Veritas meant your soul and your intended’s were inexorably linked. So that should one die, the other would too.

  He touched his throat. “We didn’t exchange the vows. I wanted to. She never did. Always insisting that someday I might want to fall in love again, remarry.” He snorted. “Rumpel was absolutely right, I was always a damn fool. Especially when it came to the fairer sex.”

  Her eyes were no longer sparkling. “What happened?”

  “What happened is now I’m happy we never exchanged those vows. That she didn’t want to, because she was never faithful to me.”

  His lips twisted recalling her countless affairs. All within his realm knew it, and eventually, he’d had no choice but to accept the woman he’d fallen in love with, the vivacious beauty who’d always seemed too good to be true, didn’t feel for him a tenth of what he’d felt for her.

  “I’m sorry.” She patted his hand. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

  He sighed. “It wasn’t so cut and dry either. I left her. A lot. I was always doing the Queen’s bidding, always on one hunt or another. She was lonely. I didn’t like it, but I was willing to understand it so long as she didn’t fall in love with another.”

  Her lips twisted, as if she didn’t understand his reasoning, but it wasn’t something he could explain either. He’d been absent, it was only realistic to expect she’d stray.

  “Did she fall for another?”

  He smirked. “Like a stone. A djinn in a neighboring village. His name was Rafa.”

  “You knew all along?”

  “No.” He jerked his chin, rubbing his thumb along her knuckle harder. “No. I didn’t know. She made sure to keep it hidden from me. The affair lasted two years.”

  Her lips tugged downward. “How’d you find out?”

  Coming to a dry bed, he helped her to cross the smooth stone bridge before continuing on.

  “She got pregnant. I didn’t even find out then though.”

  Her small hand framed his bicep. He shuddered into her touch, because talking about his past was bringing up demons, reminding him why he’d locked his emotions away from others for so long. Why he hadn’t looked at another woman for years. Because he’d never wanted to open himself to that kind of pain or betrayal ever again.

  “How?” she nudged him with her hip.

  Brushing fingers through his hair, he exhaled. “The curse. My sands.”

  She frowned. “You weren’t born that way?”

  “No,” he snorted, “I wasn’t.”

  Lissa didn’t say anything else after that. He knew she was curious, could almost feel the vibrations of it pulse through him like a wave. He’d known when he started telling her this story it wouldn’t be easy for him; it was why he’d never shared his tale with another. Not even Danika knew the full of it.

  “Djinn’s are an arrogant bunch. They believe that because they are born in the stars they are gods. A half-breed is a bastard and something to be ashamed of. Rafa grew angry with Claudia and to hurt her in the same way she’d injured his pride, he told her the fate of all half-breed djinn’s.” He looked at her, at her innocent wide eyes, her smooth forehead and soft pink lips. Lissa looked as innocent to him as Claudia once had. Was he being stupid again? He’d sworn after the last time he’d never fall for a pretty face again. “Their child would be sand. Never able to talk with her. Hold her, love her, nothing. He then broke off their dalliance and left.”

  It was easy to read the thoughts moving through her head. How could a child destined to be sand, become his curse instead? What had happened next?

  “That is where Rumpel came into play. Djinn are pure magic, she believed in her heart their child would be at least half magic, she wanted to save him at all costs. Claudia ever only wanted one thing.”

  “And that was?” She asked as they fazed through the trunk of a large floating elm tree.

  “Everything. That was the allure of Rafa, and now that she had his child, she knew she could control that child, make its magic her own. She didn’t love the child, she loved what she felt the child could bring her. So she asked Rumpel what she could do to spare her babe. His answer was that someone would have to be willing to take on the curse instead.”

  “Wait,” she pushed her hand against his chest. “You offered to take it? Why?”

  “No,” he snorted, “I didn’t offer to take it. As innocent as that child was, I wouldn’t have accepted his or her curse. I know, that she knew, once I discovered there was an illegitimate bastard in her belly I would leave.”

  “So how?”

  The path they walked suddenly flipped upside down, causing her hair to float down around her eyes. She shoved it out of her face and nodded for him to continue.

  “She tricked me. She asked me a question in bed that night.” He laughed; hindsight was always so easy to see the deception. His favorite meal she’d taken such lengths to make him, the love they’d made for many hours, she’d been working down his defenses. “She told me a story. About a woman who loved a man, but the man was not what he seemed and when the innocent young woman tried to escape the man punished her. Cursing her. Then she looked at me and asked me, if something like that ever happened to me, Aeric,” he could still hear the haunting echo of her voice even now, “would you take the curse instead?”

  Lissa shook her head.

  “I laughed. The question was foolish and I didn’t understand it, but I said what anyone in love would. I said yes.”

  “And the moment you did—”

  “I turned into this.” He spread his arms calling the sands to him. Her eyes never shifted from his and he didn’t keep the form long, but the moment he was solid again she rushed into his arms and hugged him hard.

  “What did she owe Rumpel for the bargain?”

  He curled his lips and gently pushed her back, because whether he wanted it to happen or not, Lissa was working her way beneath his skin, worming her way into his heart. And he was getting angry that he’d let it happen again.

  “I’ll never know. I left her after that and I haven’t seen her since. My goal is to travel all of Kingdom and see everything I’ve not seen yet.”

  After a moment, she asked, “Do you still love her?”

  “I hate her.” His jaw clenched, and then he turned his gaze to the side.

  They didn’t talk again for many hours after that. Just picking their way back through the winding trail, eventually making their way to a large maze of hedges. Hours had passed since they’d set out, the sky was now darkening and fireflies danced and zipped along the tree lines.

  There weren’t many flowers around; the grass was worn down as if many walked through here. And just ahead a small home in the shape of an acorn glowed a buttery golden color.

  “That’s the March Hare’s home,” she pointed to the cheery white and red painted acorn. A white wicker table set up with tea tray and kettle sat on the patio beside it. “I don’t think Chrysalis will bother us tonight. We’ve backtracked enough and walked far enough that this should be a safe haven.”

  He nodded. It looked good to him. “Fine. But I don’t want to be too close to the Hare’s home.”

  She laughed. “True. He’s been known to be a touch jittery.”

  They walked back
a few hundred paces and then settled down inside an overgrown mossy knoll.

  Aeric knew he should talk with her, should tell her not to worry. He didn’t want her to confuse his quietness as having anything to do with her, but the memories stirred up weren’t pleasant ones for him. He was raw and felt exposed. Not a feeling he’d ever been comfortable with.

  They didn’t speak as they made up their beds. He above ground, her beneath it.

  But an hour later, when the moon was at its highest spot in the sky, he saw her head poke up out of the hole.

  “Aeric?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.” He twiddled his thumbs that he’d placed on his stomach.

  Walking quickly toward him, she didn’t ask for permission, but simply crawled onto his lap, same way as she had last night. And though a side of him wanted to push her off and demand she walk back to her hole, that side was growing smaller and smaller by the day.

  Dipping his nose into her hair, he closed his eyes, feeling the buzzing of his mind instantly begin to quiet.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you. But I’m not very sorry either.” She blinked her feline eyes back at him and again they were a deep and startling blue. Maybe it was the shadow of the night playing tricks with his mind, but he didn’t think so. She was changing.

  He rubbed her hair. “Why aren’t you that sorry?”

  “Because,” her hands slid up his chest, coming to rest against his heart, “then I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

  And this time when she kissed him, it was sweet, and passionate, and perfect. There was no knocking of teeth, or biting and clawing. The night was long, and dark. A perfect time to shed worries and inhibitions. Because the night would keep secrets and he was so tired of being alone.

  Growling, he grabbed her bottom and rolled them over, so that he was now the one on top.

  “Take my shirt off,” he commanded of her.

  Nibbling her bee-stung lips, pale skin rosy and almost glowing in the moonlight, she helped him to shove the shirt off his chest. Leaning back, he jerked his trousers down his legs, and then kicked them off, tossing them aside.

  This time when he lay back on top of her, it was to feel all the silkiness of her rub against the coarseness of him.

  “Lissa,” he grunted, grabbing the plump, pale globe of her breast and bringing her nipple to his mouth.

  She moaned long and low with his first suckling pull. Her nails drove into his scalp like little claws, but it only spurred his desire.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he whispered in between licks and kisses, “you weren’t supposed to happen.”

  “Oh, Aeric,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair and he heard the hurt, but he also heard her passion.

  “Lissa,” he said her name like a prayer and a benediction.

  Wrapping her long legs around his waist, so that the hot center of her was pressed against the hard length of him, she arched her back like a cat.

  “Are you sure, kitten?” he asked through clenched teeth, because if she said to stop now, he would, but it would surely be a deathblow.

  She laughed, pecked his lips, and she looked so beautiful. Vivacious. It knocked the breath out of him. “Kitten? Am I your kitty cat?”

  “Do you want to be?”

  Her lashes fluttered and rather than answer she nudged him with her hips, eliciting a hiss from him as his cock brushed her wet, swollen center.

  Blue eyes enthralled him, ensnared him. Aeric was lost. There’d never really been a chance of him surviving her. At the barest hint of a nod, he slid in and encountered a thin barrier.

  “Lissa?” he asked again, he’d suspected her to be a virgin, but now he had proof. And he wanted to know absolutely that this was what she wanted.

  She proved it, by shoving herself down roughly. Moaning and shuddering when he entered her fully.

  She was so tight, clenching him so hard, that it made him dizzy. Her scent of spring rain was everywhere.

  “Lissa, I’m sorry, this is your first time, I wish I could go slower, but I have to have you now.” He thrust, and each movement was like being kissed by lightening.

  Her heat zapped through him, made his bones ache and his flesh shiver.

  She trembled and squeezed her legs harder, meeting him wild thrust for thrust. Mating with him like a cat in heat. Tiny mewling sounds spilled from her throat, spurring his frenzy, his need for her to even greater heights.

  Her nails clawed at his back.

  “I don’t want gentle, Aeric. But I do want you,” she whispered between heated moans and those words were like a seal upon his soul.

  She’d branded herself in deep.

  “My beautiful, wild kitten.” He claimed her lips, and as he thrust inside her body, he shoved his tongue against her own.

  What they did was wild and rough and uninhibited. It was pure need and lust, and much, much more than that. But he wouldn’t think that far ahead, because here and now, he needed her and she needed him.

  “Lissa!” He cried as a coil inside tightened, taking him to the precipice of no return.

  She tossed her head back then, exposing the long length of her neck, and he buried his face in the column of her throat, laving the hollow of it with wet kiss after wet kiss and when her thighs began to quiver and a scream tore from her throat he fell headlong over the cliff. Shattering into a thousand fragments of nothingness and everything.

  And when he blinked his eyes open, she was there, holding him, moving the sweaty hair out of his eyes and murmuring words he couldn’t quite make out, but heard in his soul all the same.

  They coupled twice more after that. With an almost frantic need to it. But now, hours later, when the forest was completely quiet, they whispered into the dead of night. He held her against him, rubbing slow circles into her back.

  “Do you know the story of Chrysalis?” she whispered.

  He nodded. “Some of it. That she was moon marked, and cursed to eventually die.”

  “Yes. But you know I heard something once, that not only was she cursed, but she was also blessed. That she had a choice and depending on the outcome of it, was the path she’d ultimately take.”

  She pulled slightly back to gaze at him. Just then a balmy breeze picked up and the scent of roses filled the air, mixing with the musk of their bodies. This memory would be forever burned into the recesses of his mind.

  “So she can choose to be good or evil? I’m not planning to kill her, Lissa, you know that.”

  “No,” she patted his chest, “that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m telling you, that to every curse, there can be a blessing. If you let it be. Your sands can strip the flesh off bones, but it can also heal.”

  He cocked his head. “How?”

  She shook her head and he could see the strain of the past few days on her face. She was exhausted and it finally showed. One eye especially looked dark, like there was a smudge beneath it. Figuring it to be dirt, he rubbed at it with his thumb and then frowned. It was gone, but not because of him rubbing at it. Maybe the night was playing tricks with him.

  “What?” she asked quietly.

  “Nothing,” he shrugged, “thought I saw some dirt. We’ll talk more tomorrow,” he gave her a soft smile, “you need sleep. Stay with me tonight.”

  Shaking her head, she stood up. “I sleep better beneath the ground.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you.”

  She didn’t argue.

  ~*~

  Morning came faster than either one of them would have liked. Aeric’s body ached. He was rolling his shoulders from side to side to work out some kinks when she found him. He’d already brushed his teeth and gotten dressed. But she’d been sleeping so hard; he hadn’t had the heart to wake her. It was now well past sunrise. Hopefully they were close today.

  Aeric had the sense that they didn’t have much time, if any, on their side before Chrysalis figured out what they were up to.

  “Hi,” Lissa
said as she stepped her left foot onto her right in a shy stance. “There are a few more hours to walk, we should probably go.”

  She didn’t seem inclined to talk about what they’d done last night, neither was he really. Not yet. After they got the net and found Chrysalis (which he had no doubt they’d do) then they’d tackle this. But it was best to remain focused for now.

  “Yeah,” he stood from his crouching stance and with a final roll of his neck, gestured for her to lead on.

  The trail was moving away from the smoothed grassy trail they’d traveled yesterday and was now more overgrown.

  Neither of them spoke, too busy just trying to get to where they were going. Aeric still wondered how it was that she seemed to know exactly where she was going. Had she seen Chrysalis hide the net? Was she just too scared to tell him that? Or was this really a wild stab in the dark?

  Her hair was no longer blue, it was now fully black. And her eyes were the radiant blue of last night. It was yet another oddity of hers that he found strangely endearing.

  She was wiggling through a narrowish hole in a thorn bush, grunting as she tried to slip through without scraping herself up too badly.

  “Hold on,” he said, as he drew his knife from its sheath and hacked at a vine blocking her way.

  Tossing him a grateful smile, she jumped through. They sustained a few scrapes and cuts, but it was nothing dangerous.

  Hours they’d walked, and it was on the tip of Aeric’s tongue to ask her if they were close but the land began to shift and something about the place made him wary, alert. It was quiet, almost unnaturally so. It was only in the absence of noise that one noticed the loudness of silence.

  Then something he couldn’t imagine happening, was. The sun was setting, then it was rising, setting and rising, over and over. And he stopped walking, staring at a day gone mad. Night and day, night and day, day and night. Over and over and over, the orb rotating so quickly through the sky he lost track of its many revolutions. Lissa stood beside him, with brows gathered.

  “What’s going on?” He whispered and she shook her head. “I do not know, but we are close.”

  When they finally started walking again the sun was where it’d been before the madness began. Shaking his head, he realized he’d never understand Wonderland.