Puca

by Penny Ash

  Kian Sean Puca, you are despicable, he thought with a dry mental chuckle. The child Tammy looked like a drowned rat.

  She led him into a room where several people were using clippers and blow-driers on hysterical dogs.

  “He’s all yours, Ben,” Tammy said in an exhausted voice.

  “Cool, do I get to shave him?” Ben said, grinning.

  Try and shave me and I’ll eat you for an appetizer, boy, the Puca thought sourly.

  “No, just dry him and take him over to the doc, he’s getting snipped today,” the girl said, a gleeful tone creeping into her voice.

  “Ouch, my sympathies, buddy,” Ben said as he led the Puca over to his grooming station and began working.

  The Puca sneezed again and whined. He smelled like a poodle and his hair stuck out every which way.

  He followed the boy to the unpleasant vet’s office and tried to think of a suitable revenge for the indignities he had just been subjected too. For once, his boundless imagination failed him.

  The vet walked in and eyed the wolfhound. The Puca eyed him back and searched for any hint of needles about the man. Suddenly the vet reached 76

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  around Kian’s backside and took a firm grip on the Puca’s privates.

  * * * * * *

  Emma drove up to the animal hospital, looking wide-eyed at the ambulance and two fire trucks parked in front along with several police cars. She jumped out of her jeep, her first thoughts for the safety of Pookie.

  Seeing him with the police, she relaxed. The paramedics were wheeling someone out as she walked up.

  The vet saw her from his prone position on the stretcher and whimpered. His assistant walked over.

  “I think that it would be best if you took Pookie to another vet, one who deals with wild animals, maybe,” the woman said coldly. “Our lawyer will be contacting you about damages.”

  “What did Pookie do?” Emma asked, watching the firemen collect their equipment.

  “That monster bit Henry in the, um, down there, and then managed to chase six cats up into the eaves after he destroyed the operating room. And he chewed up Mrs. Perkins’s best wig,” the woman said.

  Emma closed her eyes for a pained moment and pinched the bridge of her nose. She sighed and went to retrieve Pookie from the police.

  The Puca saw Emma and jerked loose from the police officer holding his leash. He bolted toward her, knocking her down and planting his front paws on her shoulders, covering her face with slobbery licks.

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  He stood over her, staring at her and grinning his huge doggy grin.

  She thought she saw the Puca’s eyes flash with unholy glee as he gave her another lick. She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head, sure she was mistaken. She sighed and wondered if there was another vet close by.

  He snarled, and she turned to see the policeman she’d dated running up to them.

  Emma heard Officer Steven Daniels yelling at her to stay still and looked up to see he had drawn his revolver, aiming at the snarling Puca standing over her. “No!” she yelled, and grabbed Pookie’s collar.

  She wrapped her arms around the Puca and managed to climb to her feet.

  “Steven Daniels, if you shoot this big puppy, I’ll never speak to you again,” she said, glaring at him.

  “Emma, the mutt is dangerous, and you obviously can’t control him. He needs to be put down before he ends up biting someone again, or doing even more property damage,” Daniels said.

  “He is not dangerous! He’s just a big baby,” she snapped, hugging the Puca close. Kian enjoyed the warm softness of her embrace and leaned into her.

  “He’s a menace,” Daniels said coldly. He sighed when she only glared. “Okay, fine, take the mutt home and keep him there. I don’t think you’re very popular around here right now.”

  “Thank you,” Emma said frostily. She looked down at the Puca. “Come on, baby, let’s go home.”

  The Puca docilely followed her to her jeep and 78

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  leapt in. She got in and started the vehicle, slowly pulling out onto the road that would take them home.

  They rode in silence, Emma’s thoughts on just how she would pay for it if the vet did sue her.

  The Puca lay in the back of the jeep and grinned, laughing to himself as he remembered the look on the vet’s face. He huffed and sneezed when he thought of the lady with the false hair.

  Emma pulled up in front of the house and parked.

  She sat there for a long moment with her head bowed.

  The Puca waited to be let out, curious as to why Emma was not opening the door. He tilted his head to one side and looked at her, puzzled. Suddenly he heard the faint shuddery sound in her breathing and realized she was crying. He turned stealthily and flowed into his human form with a shimmer like a heat wave, opening the back with the emergency release and climbing out.

  Kian hurried around to the driver’s door and opened it. “Emma, love, what is it, what has made you cry so sorrowfully?” The sight of the tears running down her face broke his heart. Knowing that he was likely the cause of those sad tears nearly killed him. He reached in and unfastened her seat belt, pulling Emma into his arms and lifting her from the jeep. He strode purposefully to the front steps and sat down, holding her close and murmuring soft, sweet words into her hair.

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  and carried to the front steps. She just could not seem to stop crying. Kian was saying something to her, but she couldn’t understand the words and just shook her head. He pulled her closer and whispered something in a singsong language she had never heard before, rocking her gently.

  “Oh, girl, I didn’t know,” Kian said softly. “I would not hurt you for the world and all that is in it.”

  His warm breath stirred her hair. She shivered with a strange mix of fear and anticipation, like the feeling just before the first drop of a rollercoaster ride.

  She turned in his arms. It seemed she could see the depths of the forest there in his deep hazel-green eyes.

  Her eyes widened. His pupils were oval.

  She gasped, and he touched long slender fingers to her lips. “Hush, my love, things are often not as they seem, do not be troubling your heart over such things as are beyond explaining,” Kian whispered softly. He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her lips.

  Emma felt the shock of his touch all the way to her toes. Her lips parted as his thumb moved over them and she moved forward slightly, expectantly. She closed her eyes slowly as he leaned forward.

  The soft touch of Kian’s cool lips to her forehead was like the jolt from a bolt of lightning. She gasped and held her breath at the rush of heat that flooded through her body. Her fingers pressed into his shoulders as a cool, tingling wave of desire washed over the heat.

  Suddenly Kian stood and gently, carefully, set her 80

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  on the top step. Emma sat there unable to move, watching him disappear around the shed. She was a quivering mass inside, and all he had done was kiss her forehead.

  Emma stood at last, giving herself a little shake, and walked into the house. She passed Tilly in a daze, responding to Tilly’s question with a vague smile and wave of her hand. Slowly walking down the hall to her bedroom, she hummed a soft tune, enjoying the pleasant shivery feeling of excitement still coursing through her.

  Kian just barely managed to keep control over his reaction. He had to get out of there before he did something unforgivably stupid, like take her before the time was right. He turned and walked down the steps, hurrying toward the woodshed where he kept his motorcycle.

  He staggered behind the shed and leaned weakly against the wall, closing his eyes, touching his fingers to his lips. They still tingled from the shock of touching Emma. He felt boneless and liquid inside, overcome with the glamour she cast over him. He took a deep shaky breath and was thankful he had not
kissed her lips like he had begun to do. Oh, my heart and soul, breath of my life, I’d be a puddle on the steps now so I would. And how am I ever going to last through dinner tonight?

  He smiled.

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  Chapter Seven

  mma wandered into the kitchen at last and watched ETilly and Pin working for a long moment. She walked over and offered to help after a few minutes.

  The Brownies looked at each other, then back at her and set her to mixing the macaroons.

  Kian walked into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Emma, flour on her nose and her hair spilling like honey over her shoulders, turned and smiled at him. He sagged heavily against the doorframe, his knees turning to water. A slow curl of desire began spiraling through him. Emma waved him over to the table, oblivious to the effect she was having on him.

  Kian walked unsteadily over to the kitchen table and sat down. He leaned on the table, resting his head on his hand, and sighed. Emma leaned over to open the oven and he was treated to a view down the top of her dress of her softly rounded and full breasts. She pulled a baking sheet full of cookies out of the oven and transferred them to a cooling rack. She took his breath away with the homey way she looked wearing one of Tilly’s spotless white aprons over her pink summer dress.

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  and went over to the cupboard by the sink. She got a plate from the cabinet and put several warm cookies on it, then walked to the table and sat down. Kian watched every move she made, his eyes burning with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

  They all sat down to eat and Emma told them of the events at the vet’s office. She shook her head and laughed, easing Kian’s distress, and began to clear the dishes.

  Tilly shooed her off to have a nice warm bath and they all watched her go, listening until they heard the door of her room shutting.

  Then Tilly rounded on Kian. “One day you’ll go too far, Kian Puca, and there will be none to save you from your folly,” she said severely.

  Pin goggled at him. “M-miss Emma s-said you bi-bit the v-vet!”

  “Well, sure and I did bite the nasty man! What else could be done with him taking a hold on my privates like that! It’s a long time he’ll be before trying that again,” the indignant Puca said, sitting at the kitchen table with a strong cup of whiskey and the plate of macaroons before him. “And just what, pray tell is getting fixed?” He looked up at the ceiling.

  “Ah, we looked it up on Miss Emma’s computer in the library. Getting fixed is neutering, removing the testicles—” Tilly began.

  “What? And what, I’ll be asking; did I do to deserve that horrible fate?” He clutched at his privates protectively.

  “I-I don’t think, um, Miss Emma knows...

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  Um...about us, uh, a-and what, what we are,” Pin stammered timidly.

  “Not even as a child has Miss Emma ever believed in us. To her, we are merely eccentric,” Tilly said.

  “Well then, it will soon be time and past to be teaching her,” the Puca said sternly. “And hopefully before she’s coming up with anymore unpleasant ideas like cutting a poor fellow’s privates off. Aye, the time is coming very soon,” he added as he stood. Oh, my girl, what you almost did, he thought with a chill of near-disaster raising the hair on his neck. While he could change his shape at will, he could not regenerate any missing parts.

  Kian walked down the hall toward the back of the house. He shimmered like he had in the jeep—like heat waves rising from the ground—and suddenly the Puca was in his wolfhound form. He loped into her bedroom. Emma was standing at her dresser, brushing her hair, dressed for bed in one of the oversized T-shirts he detested. He nudged her hip as he passed her and continued out to the private screened porch.

  She saw the Puca wander in and was surprised when he nudged her, pushing her over a few inches.

  She watched him go out onto the porch and returned to brushing her hair. A strong feeling of lethargy settled over her. She gave herself a shake and started toward her bed. There was a shimmery quality to the air, an odd feeling of expectation; and the scent of ozone like just before rain. Emma closed her eyes for 84

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  a second, a wave of dizziness washing over her, a feeling like falling at the edge of sleep.

  A soft whine startled her. It rose into a low moaning howl that made the hair on her neck raise.

  The howl resolved into a deep velvet male voice calling her name. Disoriented, she swallowed hard, staring at the open French doors that led out to the porch, frozen to the spot.

  “Emma,” he called again softly.

  There was a shimmer of bluish light, like distant heat lightning. She took a deep breath, noticing the faint sweet scent of new-mown hay and rain reaching her on the gentle breeze coming in through the open doors. She felt like she was dreaming, like she was moving through a thick fog as she slowly walked toward the porch.

  She stopped at the threshold, half afraid to step through. Something in her heart told her if she continued on, nothing would ever be the same.

  “Emma, my love, will you be coming out here to me, girl?” he said in a soft whisper.

  She swallowed dryly and closed her eyes for a second. Taking a deep breath then and holding it, she stepped out onto the moonlit porch. He was reclining in the hammock she’d had put up, naked except for a gold belly ring just above the fine black hair that led downward, one leg dangling over the edge and swinging gently. He smiled slowly, seductively, holding out a hand toward her.

  He was so impossibly beautiful she could not breathe. Her head spun. Stepping forward, she 85

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  reached out. Their fingertips touched, and an electric jolt shot through her. He grasped Emma’s hand and pulled her closer, compelling her to climb onto the hammock with him.

  Kian pulled her down, sliding his hands up her sides over the old blue T-shirt. He stopped for a moment, smiling. She watched his amused expression as he touched his finger to her chest, tracing the outline of the faded image of the fantasy figure gracing the front of the shirt. A warm tingling followed the trail of his fingertip. She had gotten the shirt at a Renaissance Fair; she liked the drawing of the ugly little Puca. He chuckled, a soft, evil sound that made her hair stand on end.

  Suddenly he looked up into her eyes. He slid his hand through her hair and pulled her down until his lips touched hers. His tongue darted out to taste her, insistently parting her lips to dip inside, twining with her tongue and drawing it into his mouth. She found herself melting into his fiery touch and turned her head, breaking the kiss with a sharp gasp, fighting the strong attraction.

  Emma tried to wake herself up from the strange dream. She tried to push away, but his hot, damp breath against her skin drained all her resistance and she gave in. Lying against him, she tangled her fingers in his thick, inky black hair, tracing over his ear with her tongue, tasting his smoky sweetness. He growled softly, murmuring something in an odd language, and nudged his hips against her.

  Gasping, she bit her bottom lip. Every inch of her 86

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  skin was alive with sensation. Even the soft night breeze, silky and warm, sent shimmers of pleasure through her as it slipped over her body. His hands guided her, his hardness sheathed in her, moving slowly.

  Vaguely she realized her clothes had disappeared, but it didn’t seem important. The only thing that mattered was the tingling fire of his hands moving over her and their bodies joined together. He whispered to her, more beautiful words she could not understand, moaning her name in his velvet voice, until there were no more words left and he groaned, pouring his heat into her. She bit her bottom lip again and whimpered softly, dropping her forehead to his as her body shuddered and rocked against him in a liquid release.

  She fought to catch her breath, the world around them slowly coming back. The moonlight washed him with silver gi
lt, glimmering over his sweat-damp skin. She tried to blink back the tear that slowly trickled down her cheek, looking into his passion-darkened eyes. He reached up and touched his fingertips to her cheek, bringing them to his lips and tasting the salty teardrop.

  “A tear for me, Emma my girl?” He asked softly, his voice filled with wonder and awe. He pulled her back down into his embrace and held her as she drifted off to sleep, moving his hands over her back in long, soothing strokes. “You honor me, my love, and I’ve done nothing to deserve it,” he said, muffling his voice in her hair.

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  * * * * * *

  The sun sent bright stabbing rays of light into the bedroom and Emma rolled over onto her back, smiling. Sitting up, she looked around herself. She was surrounded by pink rose petals. She did not remember falling asleep and how she got to her bed was a mystery, but the dream of Kian and their lovemaking was sharp and clear. She hugged herself, smiling once more.

  A loud banging startled her, interrupting her thoughts. She scrambled out of bed, reaching for her robe and shrugging it on. The shouting and barking erupted as she stepped into the hall, and she broke into a run. Her first guest must be arriving.