And she was crying, and had cried, extremely loudly—his ears were still ringing. The whole tower had to have heard her punishment, which was just as well. It was good for everybody to know what happened to even the lady of the house when she crossed the wizard.
He made shushing noises as he put his fingers around the ginger root and she squealed in protest to the pain. But once it was out, she gave another sob, sounding both relieved and tortured as he threw it away and let her drop down to her toes, letting her have control of her body once again.
She stood awkwardly, her shoulders sloped and crossing her arms across her naked breasts. He came to her and helped her stand up straighter, pulling his arms tightly around her and kissing the top of her forehead as she continued to cry.
There wasn’t much for her—she wouldn’t tilt her head up to even look at him. She merely huddled into him as she continued to shake and tremble. Finally, after long, quiet minutes, he turned to pull down the bed covers, picked her up, and laid her belly down on the mattress. She hugged a pillow under her body and rolled away from him, still refusing to look at him. “Come, now. Your lesson’s over; now you can go back to being my sweet one.”
When she didn’t respond, he tugged his boots off his calves and then laid down next to her, bringing her body to his chest. As the minutes passed on, his heart began to sink, miserable on her behalf.
Maybe he had punished her too hard. Maybe she was too delicate for the birch? He stroked her hair behind her ear so that he could murmur to her, “Tell me if there’s something else wrong?” he asked.
“I’m just…” she gave a shuddering cry. “I’m just…” She swallowed. “I’m not ready to tell you yet.”
“Tell me what?” And then he remembered—what she hadn’t been telling him. “You’re not ready? How so?” he asked her with a cooing tone.
“I’m just not. I will, but… But not yet,” she assured. “I want to wait until you love me again. Because you’ll need to love me a lot before I tell you.”
“Love you again?” he asked. “When did you think I stopped?”
“You don’t even like me. I don’t do anything but piss you off,” she murmured. “You don’t have to marry me, Ashcroft, just because you had a moment of weakness. It was cute of you to demand it at first, but I won’t hold you to it. I know you were just trying to be romantic.”
She sounded so pathetic, and so ridiculous, he just had to laugh. “My dear, why in the universe would you think such a thing? I wouldn’t have taught you such a firm lesson if I didn’t plan to marry you and spend many happy years at your side. I do not find marrying you to be an obligation. It’s really my dream to look down on you and call you wife.” He brought his hand over to wipe the tears off her cheek. “I forgive you everything. This was just a lesson. When I fell in love with a girl a small fraction of my age, I had a feeling I’d be teaching a few.” He kissed the back of her neck. “No, I love you more than ever, if anything.”
She crunched her body into a ball. “I’ve never had… anybody touch there before. It was…” She closed her eyes. “Horrible.”
“That’s only because I put ginger in there, I assure you. It was meant to make an impression. Believe it or not, there are more uncomfortable things that I can use there if you don’t start behaving like a good girl. But if you ARE a good girl, next time I put something into that orifice, you’ll enjoy it.”
She rolled her face into the pillow, looking like she wanted to smother herself with it. He laughed, he couldn’t help it. She was being so dramatic. He pulled her back and rolled her around to face him. “Future Lady Medwin, you might as well know this well and now—I plan to use this naughty bottom of yours far more to make you moan than to make you cry.”
She blushed and averted her eyes until he raised her chin up with his finger and kissed her lips. “You know how sexy you are when you’re blushing?” he asked, and then stroked her cheek with his thumb.
She glared at him.
“I should probably marry you before you change your mind, shouldn’t I?” he teased, pressing his nose onto hers.
“Why? I’m able to change my mind?” He would be worried about that concept if he didn’t detect her smirk.
“Absolutely not,” he assured simply. “No, I plan to make you my good little wife come hell or high water.”
“And why would I want to be a good little wife?” she sniffed, teasing back more freely.
He brushed his fingers down to her cunny, which was just as wet for him as he knew she’d be. He pressed his thumb to her clit and delighted as she chewed her lip with delight and closed her eyes, as if to savor the touch. “Because good girls get one very long life of this,” he promised.
She moaned and ground against him. “I don’t know if I’m convinced. I think I need a bigger sample,” she purred.
He chuckled. God, she was naughty. But did he love her!
Chapter Eleven
Alice fully realized that no one in the universe was freer than she was right now. She was immortal, after all. She wasn’t even a slave to time. She wasn’t tied to her hive anymore. She wasn’t locked in some man’s room.
Yet she couldn’t help but be miserable.
The spare boots of Moriarty’s that she had stolen were far too tall and too big on her feet. She felt like she was wearing flippers as she walked slowly and clumsily through the blanket of snow around her. Moriarty was big enough that even his coat hit her at mid-thigh and the sleeves covered her fingers quite well. She was still in pajamas, but who cared? She could get a loan from someone, somewhere, surely. Maybe the hotel she’d met Moriarty at still had her purse?
It was worth a try. Once she found the Earthside, at least. She’d never been in the Otherworld before, although she’d certainly heard enough about it. Hopefully the entrance was nearby, or she’d find someone or some town that knew where the entrance was.
Either way, she had to go. She was too miserable to say at the tower.
She’d been crying for so long because of physical pain, she’d forgotten how much rejection stung. She’d been rejected all her life. But she thought Moriarty was different. After all, he had treated her differently. He had treated her like a queen. And then, as soon as there was a close and tender moment between them, zoom! He ran out of the room as quickly as he possibly could.
He didn’t want her. He didn’t want a relationship. Why did she think any differently? She was just a charity case for the fix-it man.
She didn’t want just to have a meaningless fling with him. She liked him. A lot. He’d taken care of her, he’d gone through hell with her—he’d done more for her in the last month than anybody had in her whole life put together. But now she had to release him for his own good. She wouldn’t make him feel like the bad-guy for declining what he simply didn’t have a taste for. He didn’t want her. He just wanted his freedom, too.
Although she wasn’t too happy about giving him his freedom. She was visibly seething; grumbling as she trudged and stomped through the thick, cold snow. She couldn’t help being angry, although she didn’t think Moriarty deserved it, she still felt so stung—stung to the core. And being angry was better than crying.
She trudged down a road blazed by a snowy fence line and a foot and animal prints that swept lines back and forth, seeming to lead to a village somewhere. The sun was quickly setting, which wasn’t convenient. She knew it meant that if there was a village, she’d better find it soon, because it was going to get dark, and she didn’t see any streetlights around. Once the sun was down, the lights were out.
She trudged more quickly in Moriarty’s large, leather shoes that went up to where her coat ended. They looked far, far better on him.
She came up on the slope and looked down the long road. There was a village there alright. About five miles away. Lanterns were getting turned on out in the distance. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she hissed. Her luck sucked.
She heard the snow behind her crunch and turned, somehow exp
ecting to see Moriarty, realizing that there was still certainly a strong part of her that hoped he chased after her.
Instead, she saw the most horrifying things she’d ever seen outside of a horror movie—a half of a dozen pale faced, hooded men with bright red eyes, sunken in, dark and wide, taking up most of their faces. Their mouths were full of razor-sharp teeth.
What sort of dark devilry would even create creature likes these?
She easily had never been so frightened in her life, and her body froze as if she was suddenly made of stone, although her eyes brushed over the features of these creatures. Her knuckles balled and she visibly snarled.
Which was new. She’d never snarled in her life; she surprised herself by baring her white teeth at the creatures.
“What do we have here?” said a voice from behind her.
She closed her eyes and wondered how this nightmare was going to continue when she turned around. She couldn’t imagine scarier than the cloaked beings in front of her, but she braced herself for worse, none the less. Slowly, she tilted her head, and saw a blonde haired handsome, tall man right behind her, coming along her side to stand in front of the hooded demon like men.
Yes, the man was handsome; even in the dim light she could see that; but he was frightening. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up promptly. “What sort of girl goes around bumping into things this time of night?” the man asked.
Her lip moved over her teeth, and she stopped baring them as she looked at him pace around her. Now, she was too bewildered by him to put an intelligent sentence together. “I…I…” she stammered. There was something about this man that was dangerous—everything in her gut told her so beyond common sense. She could see that this man wasn’t keeping the monsters at bay—he was their master.
He smiled and looked her up and down. “You’re dressed very interestingly. I’m guessing you’re not from far away. Where are you from?”
She swallowed. “I-I’m trying to get to Earthside,” she rasped.
“No, no… That’s where you’re going. I’m much more interested in where you’re from. You look… familiar.” His blue eyes blazed into her.
He suddenly stepped close to her and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her hands to her side, and then leaned his head in to smell her. “Mmm. The smell of a witch.” He grinned. “Mixed with something else… Hmm.”
“I’m not a witch,” she said, trying to struggle out of his firm grasp.
“You’re from Ashcroft of Medwin’s. From the tower over the hill? Fascinating. I swear that man is collecting a whole harem of witch pussy. But why?” He let her scramble out of his grasp and she fell on her ass in the snow behind her. He hummed again. “Who is your sire?”
“I’m not a witch!” she hissed again, glaring up at him.
“I will let you live if you tell me your sire’s name. What faction are you?”
She had no idea what he was talking about.
He sighed. “Fine. If you won’t play with me, I’ll let them play with you. They love playing with their food, you know. Do give me a shout when you’re willing to cooperate.” He snapped his fingers and even more demons—even ones that looked different; these were tall and pale with claws—came out of the dark shadows falling around her.
They lunged towards her.
It was a blur what happened next. But she knew that something within her stretched threateningly towards the ground and lunged back, tearing with her nails and fingers and legs at whatever she found with them.
She had never fought in a war before, of course. The last one had happened about a century before she was even born. But she had heard others talk about battle with a glint in their eye. The other nymphs would giggle how they and the Valkyrie in the South could give any monster a run for their money. They might be small, but they were vicious as a venomous snake.
But she felt more so, because after she crunched her palm through a sharp toothed face, she turned her hand and blasted a strong current of electricity and wind toward a backward attacker. She didn’t seem to even have to touch them. When there wasn’t anything around her to attack, she settled over her fifth body and panted, looking around her dizzily. The blond wizard laughed and clapped his hands with delight. “Mmm!” he hummed, delighted. “What are you?”
“Come here and find out,” she hissed, her eyes wandering towards the tree lines to her left and right. Creatures were assuring that her fight wasn’t near over. But she could take a wizard down—maybe not an army of monsters.
He snorted. “And spoil my own fun by ending the festivities too early? I haven’t been this entertained in quite an age.” He snapped his fingers at more monsters that were waiting in the wings for her.
She took a deep breath. She was so tired; her brain felt stretched like she had been working brain teasers all day without stop. But she tried to focus; she would not give the wizard the satisfaction of her loss. She didn’t want to further her acquaintance with him.
But quickly, she found herself overpowered, overstretched, waiting another wave while she sat back in the snow after shooting off a last spell.
She tried to scramble against the snow until her back hit up against a tree. She then saw something small and furry sprint through the shadowy darkness behind the monsters. Probably something else that wanted to eat her…
She saw a flash of red sprint past the blonde man, and the cloaked creatures, and then it reared in front of her, facing them, in a protective, aggressive stance.
It was a fox—a very beautiful, black-eared fox with very white and sharp teeth. It was growling ferociously, like it wasn’t afraid of hooded, hungry demons at all. The demons looked at him, their hollow-red eyes looked confused, but then they continued to descend.
And then the fox wasn’t a fox anymore. It was a man—a man with two very sharp rapiers who knew how to use them. He was so quick, so graceful, and the weapons moved like they were attached to his body. It was over quickly—black blood spattered everywhere, two demons were minus their heads and crumpled against the snowy ground—but it was hypnotizing while she watched it. Without getting a good look at him, he lunged towards the blonde.
The blonde man laughed, side stepped, and then tossed a glowing spell at him.
The spell, which moved quickly through the air like a glowing red orb, deflected off of the hero’s blade. The blonde stopped smiling and sneered. The hero made a lunge, but in the second it took to reach the blonde man, he’d disappeared.
The hero growled lowly, but then turned and marched toward her, putting his blades into the sheathes hanging at his waist, staring at her with a dark look. “Moriarty!” she breathed.
For a second, she was very, very happy to see him. Her heart fluttered.
In the next second, when he yanked her gruffly out of the snow and bent her over his arm, planting five very quick, very hard slaps against her cold, numb bottom, and then she clasped her hands over her hind end and stared at him with a hurt expression on her face.
Silence engulfed them both as he grabbed her upper arms into his firm hands. “Why did you leave me?” he demanded, his own expression beyond hurt.
“I—” she began, but then didn’t follow it up. She merely dropped her eyes to the snow. How could he play at not knowing why she’d gone.
When she’d made it clear that she was too ashamed to answer, he said, “What are you?”
Her head snapped up and she looked at him horrified. He further explained, “I’ve never seen a nymph do that, Alice. I’ve never seen a nymph fight that way. You were using magic. You were like a witch.”
“I… I don’t know. I’ve never done that before, either,” she admitted, panting. She was happy to change the subject. “I don’t understand why they’d come after me.”
“Because you’re in the Northwest Realm and its sundown,” he countered crisply. “There’s always things waiting for a quick meal, checking the tower for weaknesses. I don’t know why Lachlan was here…” He stared in the p
lace where the wizard had stood. His face was very, very stone-like and dark. “Come. We have to talk to Ashcroft. And after that, I’m introducing you to your hairbrush.” He quickly began marching her back in the direction of the tower.
That… that didn’t sound like it was going to be very fun. Despite the fact that Moriarty was easily the most overly groomed male she’d ever seen, he had a feeling that he wasn’t talking about primping her. She pulled against him. “Moriarty, no! Wait, I—”
“Shh!” he shushed, his voice demanding. “Those aren’t the only things out here that would like to have you as a morsel,” he gestured to the bodies. He continued to drag her, but got quickly tired of her trying to catch up with his long stride, then bent just to haul her over one of his shoulders. He kept one arm around the back of her knees, and then other on the hilt of one of his rapiers.
She was about to further complain, but as the sky went black and the moon rose, and she could only make out the snow on the ground and dark shadows, and sometimes a glowing set of eyes watching them. “Moriarty,” she whispered. “There are things… out here.”
“I know,” he replied quietly yet curtly. “It’s night. Obviously, you didn’t talk to Charlotte long enough today to learn from any of the small amount of experiences she’s actually had. Just close your eyes, Alice.”
Yeah, right. She’d never close her eyes again. “Why’d you come get me?” she asked quietly.
“Why do you think?” was his retort. “I told you to stay where you were. I was gone less than one hour! I needed to clear my mind. I like to think that if you needed to do the same, I wouldn’t climb out of a forth-story window to take advantage of your absence. Especially if you stayed by my bedside for a whole month, trying to ease your suffering, barely sleeping or eating right along with me. I’d like to think I’d grant you a small amount of leniency, even if you did act slightly insensitive for a moment or two.”
Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson Page 20
