Medusa's Heart: A Contemporary Paranormal Erotic Romance Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  He lifted his head and cleared his throat gruffly. “I need to feed you,” he said.

  They ordered food at the cook house, and John asked for it to be packed up to go. They were invited to join others seated around the tables, but when John indicated he was taking her on a picnic, they were treated to some teasing remarks and suggestive comments about the best place for a “private” picnic. The banter left Medusa chuckling and John rolling his eyes as they exited the tent.

  “Circus people,” he grumbled. “Minds in the gutter.”

  “You mean you’re not planning to ravish me after lunch?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just meant there was no reason for them to point it out so blatantly. And who says I’m waiting until after?” He grinned at her.

  As they moved beyond the tents and wagons, she realized where they were headed. “You’re taking me to see Lianthe,” she said, gladness filling her heart.

  “Yes. Which is why I brought this.” He produced a shiny red apple. “I assume there are some similarities between horses and unicorns. You okay with stopping on that knoll up there to eat first? I’m hungry enough to eat my own shoes and don’t want to offend her with my stomach growling.”

  As they moved toward the picnic spot, she told him about her conversation with Charlie. “It seems sad to me,” she said. “For so long, I couldn’t reach out to anyone, because of the spell, and I was on an island by myself. They’re standing side by side and it seems like there’s even more distance between them than I experienced.”

  “Maddock is a complicated guy.” John acknowledged. “He’s like a monk—almost. Never known him to be with anyone. When I was going to dungeons where I could play with subs, he went with me a few times. He watched in this intense way, like he was creating scenes in his mind, but he wasn’t a public player. Then there’s the superstition thing.”

  “What superstition?” Medusa pushed away her unreasoning jealousy at the mention of the women he’d been with. He was with her now. Though in truth, she didn’t know a great deal about his world’s customs toward committing to one person. It certainly hadn’t been the norm for men in her world. She wanted to ask him, but she quelled the insecurity, focusing instead on the story he was telling her.

  “You remember I told you that we call him Mad Merlin, comparing him to the Merlin in the story I told you about King Arthur? In the legend, Merlin was eventually removed from Arthur’s side by a sorceress named Nimue. There’s a lot of different lore surrounding the character, even more than the stories about you.” He split a bag of chips with her, giving her half. She liked the way they crunched, and their saltiness. “But she ends up using his magic against him to trap him.”

  Medusa frowned at the idea of the wizard trapped against his will. “What does that have to do with Charlie?”

  “When she was a toddler, because of the gifts she displayed even then, Charlie’s parents and her village were afraid of her. They put her in a sack, weighted it down and threw it in a lake.”

  “Oh Goddess.” Her eyes widened. “How horrible.”

  “Yeah, people can suck.” John shook his head. “Three hours later, she walked out of the lake, alive, water plants draped over her hair and body, wearing the burlap like a dress. Another family who lived in the hills took her in and no one ever bothered her again, at least not there. As time went on, they started calling her Lady of the Lake. Which is also what Nimue was sometimes called.”

  “Surely he doesn’t think…”

  “I don’t know what he thinks. I just know he won’t talk about her, and yet whenever he’s around her, you can see that draw between them clear as what’s between the sun and the moon. It’s another reason Yvette wants to put his head through a wall most the time.”

  “How extraordinary.”

  “No, I think Yvette wants to put most of our human heads through a wall most days. Very ordinary reaction for her.”

  She chuckled. “But she acts in some ways as if she doesn’t want him anywhere near Charlie.”

  “She has no patience for him being half-assed about it. She won’t let him fuck with Charlie’s head like that. It’s probably pretty normal for someone like Maddock or Charlie to do the two steps forward three steps back thing because of all their other shit, but Yvette is way older than them.”

  “You did not do that,” she said. “I have, but you haven’t. From the time you set foot upon my island, you were sure. Even after you met me and found out who I really was, and how I was different from what you imagined.”

  He took her hand. “I told you my mom read your story to me. I didn’t tell you that she did it because I mentioned to her that I was dreaming about a woman with snakes in her hair. She told me it sounded like Medusa, and bought a book about you. So it was me, and my dreams of you, that initiated her reading your story to me.”

  He slid a thumb across her wrist pulse, that almost unconscious caress he preferred that kept her connected and sexually aware of him at once. “Remember that I told you I dreamed of a man who called me by the name you chose for me, John Pierce?”

  He stopped and faced her, gray eyes on her face. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “When we first met, I wasn’t sure you were the same man. In the dreams, your face, it was not always clear. But I started having the dreams when I…became a woman. Started my courses. We walked along the beach, you touched my face. At times you spoke to me. Called me snake-girl.”

  She remembered how it had struck her to the core, the first time he’d called her that. She’d barely been able to speak for a few moments, and had almost flown off, ending their conversation. The similarities had been too unsettling. She took a breath. “As I became older, the dreams became more intimate. Things like we have done, started happening. Like you…commanding me, and me taking pleasure in obeying your will. I dreamed of you binding me, scattering rose petals over my flesh, doing things that had me waking among the other girls…damp and shuddering.”

  He had shifted closer, expressions that were both unreadable and potent on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me all that?” he said, low.

  She looked down at her hands. “After Ukrit, like my dreams of Lianthe, you vanished for a while. Or if I dreamed of you…you became him. And I could not bear it. It was so frightening I think my mind, or the minds of my snakes, helped me, and always woke me up or changed the dream to something different. It was only several weeks before you arrived that I had started to have them again, without them becoming nightmares.”

  He touched her face, lifting her chin so she met his eyes. “I want you to look at me when you tell me things like that,” he said, a note to his voice that made her quiver. She also saw his pain for her, the cold anger that Ukrit would infringe upon the dream. It made her remember how her anger at Ukrit for infringing on what she gave to John Pierce had helped shift a nightmare to a dream. Yet she had to tell him all of it.

  She hesitated. “Also, after Ukrit…for a time, there were other reasons I didn’t want the dream.”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “I am afraid you will…misunderstand my intentions.”

  A grim smile touched his face. “I’m with you, however you need me. All that I require is your honesty.”

  “You require much more than that at times.” She swallowed. “But I do not mind such demands.”

  “Glad to hear it. Medusa.”

  The note in his voice as he spoke her name told her he knew she was hedging. “When you dreamed of me,” she said, “Did you not ever feel like your fate was being set for you in ways you resented?”

  “Do you want me to answer for myself, or are you trying to tell me how you feel?” His voice slid into neutral, which hurt her stomach some, but he’d demanded honesty out of her. She would not be a coward.

  “Both.”

  The hurt that flickered through his eyes dug jagged edges into her heart, but she steeled herself to hold his gaze without flinching.

  “Okay.” He pursed his lips. �
��No, I didn’t see it that way. I thought of you the way a kid does when he imagines himself as a knight or a superhero in the midst of this big adventure. Then we grow up. Like I told you, I couldn’t hold onto the superhero shit. But I held onto you. I’ve never left the fairy tale, in all its magical, bloody glory. I’m still all the way in it and wanting to be exactly where I am.”

  He withdrew his hand, though he caressed her fingers before he did it. “But that’s why I asked if you wanted to return to your other life,” he said steadily. “No matter how many things pointed me toward you, I ultimately chose that path. I want you to feel the same.”

  “And if I don’t choose you, John Pierce? How is that fair? When you have risked all for me unconditionally, with no plans to compel me to stay at your side.”

  He stroked her face. “That’s the risk everyone takes when they fall in love. Our story’s just a little more dramatic than most.”

  She grasped his hand, taking it back to her heart. “I look into your eyes, and I see the dark paths you have walked. From the beginning, you understood the loneliness, the despair, because you have been there. You have stood in blood and wondered if there would ever be anything else.”

  “Because we can empathize with one another isn’t enough.” He set his jaw. “If you decide to be with me because I understand a lot of things you’ve experienced, because I helped you get off the island, because I made you laugh…that’s still not enough.”

  “What will be enough?”

  “You’ll know it, and so will I.” He swallowed, and she detected that vulnerability that could break a woman’s heart when she saw it in a strong man’s face. “I love you,” he said quietly. “And I will always have your back. That won’t change. But there’s a part of me that’s just like Yvette said. A caveman who wants to drag you off by your hair and say, you’re mine, and that’s the end of the discussion. But that’s not love.”

  A pained smile touched his lips. “Well, okay, it can be an aspect of love, but one that sort of has to be kept in check. So there’s something I need you to do. I know you care about me, and that you’ll always have my back, too. As part of that, I need you to wait and be sure. To take the time to choose me, or not. We’ve barely met, and now we’re in a whole new place. Nothing’s guaranteed in life, but when and if you choose me, I want you to feel pretty good about it.”

  “I do.”

  “Yeah. But you asked me about whether or not I resented having fate make choices for me. Fate’s been doing that all your life. In the form of your father, Ukrit, your powers and the spell that kept you isolated. We may seem in every way like we’re fated to be together”—he locked eyes with her—“but this time, you tell Fate to fuck itself, and make your own choice. That’s the only way I want you to come to me.”

  He took a breath. “I’ll wait as long as you need to make that decision. Whatever that decision will be. I know you’ve been worrying about it, so if you want to do something for me, stop. Take that weight off your heart. Live your life and decide who you want to love. That’s all I want from you.”

  She blinked back tears. Did he know his voice had become raw as he spoke, revealing the depths of his feelings, his understanding of what he had to lose, but also his willingness to face that if it became necessary? She’d told him she wanted to be in love with him, and that was true. She couldn’t deny anything else he’d said, but she could offer him this.

  “I am making choices every day.” She looked down at their clasped hands and moved closer to him, laying her other hand on his chest and gazing up into his face. “And I want to be exactly where I am now, in this moment.”

  She’d never initiated a kiss with him like this. When she rose onto her toes to put her mouth on his, she felt the pleasure of it, of choosing him, even for this one act. He put both arms around her, as her own slid up around his neck. He took over the kiss fairly immediately, which she craved. He understood that, too, cupping her skull, her snakes winding around their shoulders as he delved deep, scraping her teeth, playing with her tongue, growling as she rubbed her body against his, against the evidence of his arousal.

  He eased her back, reluctantly. “I am going to eat, woman, and then I’m going to ravish you. But I am eating first.”

  “That’s your priority?” she teased him, pleased at his sexy smile that banished the seriousness between them. For now.

  “I want the stamina to make you pay for tormenting me. Making you hoarse with three or four climaxes should do it.”

  With that thrilling and yet harrowing threat, he took her hand in a firm grip again. He guided her up a hill to a copse of trees, where they could spread out a blanket and have their repast beneath the shade of the thick branches. As they ate their sandwiches, he drew her attention to the centaurs in the distance. Greygirl moved ponderously among them, the dragon young flying above. Medusa held her breath when one of the adult dragons appeared and soared over her and John, headed for the herd. The centaurs stopped and formed a ring, heads lifted toward the dragon. One blew a horn.

  “Tragar’s eyesight isn’t so keen, because he’s blind in one eye. He has a good sense of smell, but centaurs smell enough like a mix of deer and horse that sometimes Tragar can confuse them with his dinner until he gets his claws into them. The horn and the circle alerts him.”

  The dragon bugled an acknowledgement and the centaurs dispersed into a wider pattern again. The dragon young ascended to play and circled their father. Medusa gasped in delight at the aerial acrobatics that ensued, Tragar dipping and spinning with them, helping them practice their dexterity.

  “Have you ever met the dragons?” she asked.

  “Not directly. They really are an ancient race. Most of them live in the Fae world now, and they’re far more comfortable with Fae than humans. Yvette, Tragar and Jetana have a pretty unusual relationship. Tragar had a run-in with some of the Unseelie and he prefers this world to the Fae one. Eventually, though, I expect he’ll make amends and go back, because the young will be safer living and growing up there.”

  Finished with his meal, John stretched back out on the ground and surveyed her with male pleasure. “So was it your whispered matchmaking with Charlie that nearly gave her a panic attack?”

  Medusa felt alarm. “Did Maddock hear?”

  “No. I don’t think so. He was too busy trying to tell me his latest theory of what-the-fuck that I’m too dense to understand.” He tugged her hair and did a playful form of boxing with Earthson, bumping his closed fist lightly against the snake’s nose as the snake wove up and down, back and forth. “That is one weird little snake.”

  “He’s the friendliest of all of them.”

  “Which is kind of unusual, since small guys tend to be more defensive.”

  “Perhaps he realizes because he is the smallest, he has less chance of success with aggression.”

  “Maybe. But sometimes it’s the smallest cat that can puff up to the biggest, meanest size to scare everyone else off.” He winked and picked up a finger-sized carrot, biting into it with a crisp snap. “So I heard from Clara that she came to see you after your bath this morning, before you walked into that firefight with Maddock and Yvette. What did you talk about?”

  “She wanted to be sure I was all right. Said I could join her on the day’s chores tomorrow if I wished. We’re going to help Charlie fit costumes for the next performance, cook cornbread with the kitchen people and do laundry linens. There are so many ways to help here. You never have to be bored.”

  He smiled, leaving off his play with the snake to wind his hand around her hair. “No one’s ever going to accuse you of ducking work.”

  “Why would I do that? Everyone is happier if the work is shared. It is done sooner and we have companionship and conversation while doing it.”

  “Not everyone feels that way. Glad you do. Now be quiet and come down here.”

  She obliged, despite the mild insult, because his heated mouth was waiting and she was still vibrating from the memor
y of it earlier. She relished the strength of his hands that pulled her close, roving down over her backside and thighs, up her sides to her shoulders. Easing her over his hips, he had her straddle him, her hands resting on his chest and hard abdomen. He cradled her there by bending his knees up behind her and clasping both her hands to let her rock against his grip. His gaze roved over her.

  “Take off the dress.”

  The command shot pure need through her. She freed her hands to do it, and closed her eyes when his hands immediately captured her breasts, thumbs stroking slow over the nipples. Very slow. She had worn nothing under the dress, something he showed he’d noticed with his observation now, in a deceptively lazy, purring tone.

  “That pretty embroidery concealed your nipples, but it was driving me crazy. I could tell from the nice way your breasts were quivering when you moved it was just you under this. But since Yvette made that Neanderthal comment, I figured I’d just prove the point if I groped you while we were in her tent with her and Maddock.”

  She smiled at that, but her breath was starting to shorten. He rocked her against his legs, forward, back. Her eyes stayed fixed on his strong features, his intent gray gaze.

  “Touch yourself, Medusa. I want to watch.”

  She was self-conscious, until she thought of how she’d felt, watching him do the same under the waterfall. Cupping her breasts as his hands slid away, she emulated how he’d been touching her, because it had felt so good. Earthson doubled back and slid over her shoulder into her hair, leaving a tingle of sensation along her neck, because that was where John’s hand had just been.

  He clasped his hands on her waist and hips, flexing slightly, letting her feel his hold and strength as she obeyed him, arousing herself with her touch.

  “Now put your hand between your legs. Stroke yourself. Make yourself feel it. I want you getting wet.”