by M. L. Ryan
The Jyryxahal decided to return to Coursodon, mainly to inform V’s family of her untimely demise. They couldn’t say how or where she died—Karttyx made them swear an oath to both the Xyzok and “The Hailey” to never reveal anything about Dekankara—but they didn’t want her loved ones to never know her fate. I gave it another shot to convince them their devotion to me was misplaced, but, as always, none of my pleas swayed them in the slightest. I even ordered them to stop worshipping me, thinking if your deity commanded you to do something, even to renounce said divine being, you had to do it, right? No such luck. They simply smiled, nodded, and continued to venerate the ground on which I stood.
I did persuade them to avoid the human dimension, arguing their reverence was difficult to explain here and could cause problems for me. There had to be lots of Courso more worthy of deification than Hailey Parrish, and I hoped once they got back to their own dimension, they’d focus their misplaced fervor on someone more deserving than a foul-mouthed, magically challenged, occasionally destructive human like me.
Despite their unrelenting and inconvenient commitment to me, I had tears in my eyes while saying goodbye. Rather than the wacko cultists I first met, they turned out to be hard working, intelligent, and loyal to a fault. As the car to take them to the gateway back to Coursodon pulled away from the house, four heads leaned out of the open windows and shouted, “Fucked up!” I could still hear their chants ringing in my ears long after they departed. What more could one ask for from a bunch of wacko cultists?
Rachel and Sebastian continued their love fest, and I did my best to appear as thrilled as they were about the relationship. He did seem to dote on her, and she was over the moon. Still, I couldn’t help but worry it wouldn’t last and Rachel was going to end up heartbroken. The only plus, from my perspective, was Sebastian’s considerably mellower temperament now that he was getting some. His current exemplary behavior made me wonder if monks remain cloistered because maintaining celibacy makes them too cranky for contact with the rest of the world.
One mild morning, I sipped my coffee on the patio and watched Maris and Ferris circle over the yard, pretending to attack the bobcat. The feline ignored them for the most part, although he sometimes rolled onto his back and half-heartedly batted at them as they buzzed him. One big happy family, I thought contentedly. As my gaze followed the hawks to their perch on a mesquite next to the big house, I noticed Sebastian and Rachel through the front window. They were deep in discussion—I imagined the conversation had to do with something pricey and exclusive—when Sebastian stopped speaking and pulled her to him. They didn’t kiss, or move at all for that matter, but Sebastian faced the window and his expression as he held her was one of utter joy and contentment.
Even when Sebastian finally convinced a Brazilian collector to part with the Cézanne still life he’d coveted ever since he watched the artist paint it, I’d never seen Sebastian so enraptured. And suddenly, the truth smacked me upside my thick skull. I wasn’t worried about Sebastian breaking Rachel’s heart; I was terrified she’d devastate him. He truly adored her, and I was pretty sure he’d never felt that way about anyone. Ever. Rachel, in contrast, fell in and out of love the way a runway model changed clothes during fashion week. I had to explain Sebastian’s vulnerability to Rachel without being insulting or breaking any of his confidences. I thought the awkward, but necessary, chat could wait, giving me some time to figure out the best way to proceed.
Within two weeks of eating good food, sleeping in a comfortable bed, and engaging in coital explorations just shy of self-combustion, I felt like myself again. At least physically. It would take a while to work through the lingering psychological trauma, and despite my best efforts to forget, my dreams often morphed into nightmares full of mayhem, fire, and death.
Which was why, about a month after we returned, Alex surprised me with the vacation we longed to take before our unplanned jaunt to Dekankara. I wasn’t thrilled with traveling again, but Alex insisted the time alone would be good for us both. When he described where we were headed—an isolated, beachfront home offered by the Crown Prince of Surjjestri, a Courso kingdom the equivalent of southern Europe and northern Africa—it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
The mansion, located on what in the human dimension was the island nation of Malta, rested in a beautiful inlet, overlooking the bluest ocean I’d ever seen. The place was huge; apparently, the next in line to the Surjjestri throne loved to travel with a huge entourage, but now it was just Alex and me, and a few very helpful and extraordinarily discreet staff. The two men and three women appeared exactly when you needed them, with exactly what you required, and then disappeared when we wanted to be alone. I didn’t know how they managed it. Alex said it was magic.
Despite my initial misgivings, the sultry ocean breezes, the moonlit walks along the beach, and the worry-free isolation began to soothe my restive psyche. One glorious afternoon, Alex and I sipped something akin to margaritas under the shade of a lattice-roofed shelter near the water. We’d closed the fabric curtain along one side to shield us from the direct sun and lounged naked together in a round, spacious, yet cozy, outdoor sofa.
“See, carisa,” Alex whispered, taking a moment to nibble my ear, “here is your cabana.”
“Does that make you my cabana boy?” I purred suggestively.
He moved from my ear to trail kisses along my shoulder. “That can be arranged,” he promised, lifting me from the cushions and carrying me into the water.
The scene wasn’t quite like my daydream when Sebastian dangled me from the cliff. In Coursodon, animals didn’t flock to me, making interruption of the TA Alex was administering highly unlikely. This was also better because it was real. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and as the waves crashed against us, we crashed against each other, again and again, until I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began. Something about sex in the sea—maybe the salt, maybe the rough movement of the water—made me climax fast and hard, and I was finishing my second round when Alex reached his first. In Surjjestri, sex-on-the-beach wasn’t just a high-priced, girly drink.
We lingered in the balmy water for a while after, and then Alex guided me back to the cabana. The air was cooler now that I’d emerged from the water, and to ward off the chill, I pulled an oversized T-shirt over my head with the words, “I’m an intelligent, classy, well-educated woman who says, ‘Fuck,’ a lot,” printed on the front.
Alex raised a Sebastian-esque brow.
“Ulut gave it to me,” I confessed. “It’s a belated holiday gift.”
“Did he have it made?”
“No, I think he found it online. Why?”
The corners of Alex’s mouth twitched, as though he suppressed a larger smile. “Whoever came up with that has you nailed.”
“You know, Blondie, I say it a whole lot less than I think it.”
He laughed for real. “I do know, that’s one of your more endearing qualities,” he said, and plunked down next to me.
I tried to arrange my hair in such a way it wouldn’t dry into a frazzled mess, but gave up after a few minutes of fighting the long curls. To be honest, I was happy I had hair. Because the color of my naturally dark brown locks changed to something more like that of a Harris’s hawk’s feathers after a few form-bends, I worried the loss of most of my feathers in Dekankara might translate into a bald head once I reverted back to human. Fortunately, aside from a slight thinning near the nape of my neck, my tresses remained much as they were before spending four months as Birdzilla—wild and unruly as ever.
We sat for a while, sipping the fresh drinks that somehow materialized while we cavorted in the surf. As I twirled the paper parasol decorating my beverage, I realized between our imprisonment and all that went with it, Alex never explained the circumstances by which he discovered he could deflect lightning.
“Ah, that,” Alex replied sheepishly when I demanded the tale. “About fifty years ago, Sebastian became enthralled with golf. Spent almost every fre
e moment either hitting the links or talking about it. After months of listening to him wax poetic about the damn game, I finally relented and agreed to join him. He couldn’t have picked a worse day for my initiation—the weather was horrid and the forecast called for worse later on. I wanted to beg off, but Sebastian insisted we stick to the schedule. He didn’t know when we might have another opportunity to play at St. Andrews without humans observing us reach the par fives in one stroke.”
“Is that some amazing golf course?” It sounded vaguely familiar, but I knew almost nothing about the sport other than people spent ridiculous amounts of money to smack a little, dimpled ball across well-manicured grass for hours at a time while drinking heavily before, during, and after the game.
“It’s in Scotland, and according to Sebastian, very famous. Anyway,” Alex continued, “nothing would deter him from introducing me to his new hobby, so we played despite the forecast. Everything was fine until the fourteenth hole, when I hit my ball into something called, ‘Hell’s Bunker.’ The rain began then in earnest, and we soon found ourselves in the midst of a quite spectacular thunderstorm. He wanted to play on despite the weather, and as we argued over whether we should make a run for it or not, Sebastian went suddenly silent and looked up at the sky. I remember his hair standing on end and him yelling, ‘Bolt at seven o’clock!’ as he dove out of the way. For some reason I froze, but an instant before it hit me, I lifted my arms and concentrated on diverting the electricity. We survived, although neither Sebastian nor I could stop shaking for over an hour afterward,” he finished, shrugging slightly.
“That’s it?” I exclaimed. “You idiots went golfing during a thunderstorm? I was joking when I suggested that scenario. I thought there’d be heinous criminals and danger involved or, at the very least, some intrigue and damsels in distress.”
“Well, it may not have been the most glorious exploit, but had I not deflected the bolt, it would likely have been extremely dangerous.” He grinned. “On the bright side, if not for our foolishness, I’d likely never realized I was a living lightning rod, and we might have all died on Babo.”
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” I said, wincing at the thought of being electrically crisped on a mountainside rather than simply transported into a living hell. “Still, I can’t believe I waited so long for such a lame story.”
Alex pulled me to him, and I rested my head on his chest. “Do you still love me, even knowing I’m capable of asinine, Darwin-award worthy behavior just like everyone else?”
“Oh, I still love you, maybe more so now that there’s proof you aren’t perfect.”
“You thought I was perfect?” he said, kissing the top of my head.
“Maybe that’s too strong a word,” I teased. “I thought you were only slightly flawed, but now I know you’re hopelessly flawed. Like me.”
I felt his body quake with suppressed laughter. “High praise, indeed.”
We remained nestled together, not speaking, simply content to be together without any worries or the vagaries of life getting in the way. I might have fallen asleep had Alex not broken the peaceful silence.
“You know I adore you, carisa,” he said softly. “And I’ve been thinking a lot about our future. I think it’s time we did something to show how we feel about each other.”
I sat up and eyed him suspiciously. We already lived together, and I wasn’t sure where this was going. “What did you have in mind, matching tattoos?”
“I’m not really the inking type,” he countered. “I was thinking more along these lines.” He reached behind him into the cushions of the cabana, pulled out a small, hinged box, and flipped open the top. The sun was behind me, and at just the right angle that the light bounced off whatever was nestled inside the padded, blue square with such intensity, I couldn’t see a damn thing. Even without knowing precisely what it looked like, I knew exactly what it was.
A ring.
A big ring.
A big fucking engagement ring.
Before I had a chance to consider the ramifications of his proposal, or even get my retinas to recover from the blinding reflection, I heard a throat clear behind us. Peeking around the curtain, I saw one of the apparitional house staff, waiting circumspectly for a response. Alex sighed, wrapped a towel around his waist, stood, and tilted his head to indicate the woman should speak.
She did, but in Surjjestri. Whatever she said, it made Alex scowl, but he nodded and she motioned toward the dense vegetation off to her right. Twelve men emerged, with shiny, metal helmets on their heads and wearing blue, fitted jackets over tight pants, tucked into knee-high black boots. I’d seen these uniforms many times at Alex’s parents’ castles—these were members of the Royal Guard of Alenquai.
The guards arranged themselves in two parallel lines of six in front of Alex, then split down the middle and twirled on their heels, turning inward, creating a narrow row in between them. Through the corridor stepped another, older man, one I vaguely remembered as a general. He bowed and addressed Alex solemnly.
As he spoke, all color drained from Alex’s face, and the box slipped from his fingers onto the sandy ground.
“Alex?” I whispered, taking his hand in mine. “What’s happened?”
Still staring at the messenger, he answered, voice quavering, “It is Kyzal. My brother is dead.”
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About the author:
M.L. Ryan is a professional woman - which is not to say that she gave up her amateur status, but rather that she is over-educated with a job that reflects her one-time reluctance to leave school and get "real" work – and she spends a lot of time in that profession reading highly technical material. She has many stories rolling around in her head, and she finally decided to write some of them. She prefers literature not saddled with excruciating symbolism, ponderous dialogue, or worldly implications. She also doesn’t like plots so reliant on love at first sight that it makes her feel like her head might implode. M.L. Ryan lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband and teenage son, three cats, two dogs and an adopted desert tortoise.
Connect with M.L. Ryan:
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Books by M.L. Ryan in the Coursodon Dimension Series:
Special Offers
Special Rewards
Special Attraction
Special Passage
Special Deceptions
Coming soon, Book 6!
Other works by M.L. Ryan:
Life Companion – A Sci-Fi Romance Short Story
