The Green's Hill Novellas

by Amy Lane

  “Right.” Shep nodded. Then, gravely, “Thank you, Adrian. Have some… have some peace, if you can.”

  Adrian’s smile was… was sweeter than a real angel’s. Shepherd would always remember it when he thought of heaven. “I’ll do that. And you two have some fun. I’m sure I’ll see you again eventually.”

  Shepherd smiled bravely. “Later than sooner.”

  “Later than sooner, my brothers.”

  And with that, they were outside of Adrian’s room, wrapped in the cocooning quiet of their own bright, pale wings.

  Part III: Flying

  THEIR HEARTBEATS were so loud, Shepherd wondered that they didn’t fill heaven with the thunder of their sin.

  Then he lowered his head to Jefi’s, brushed pink, pouty lips with his own lean mouth, and sin ceased to exist.

  Jefi moved his head and caught the corner of Shep’s mouth, the end of his chin, his cheekbone. He stood on tiptoe and rubbed his cheek against Shep’s, his skin like satin, and Shepherd groaned softly.

  “Am I doing it wrong, Shep?”

  “No, Jefi. Your touch makes me real.”

  Jefi exhaled softly and tipped his head back, and Shepherd kissed down his jaw line, down the hollow of his ear, and along his throat. He opened his mouth and laved the little divot where the clavicles met, and Jefi breathed, “Me too. You make me real, Shepherd. Touch me.”

  They did, slowly, and every touch was glory. Shep’s lips on the inside of Jefi’s arm revealed a miracle of soft, pale flesh with the occasional tiny mole or freckle. Jefi burrowed down the neck of Shepherd’s robe, and his palms gliding down his chest, revealed thick, unyielding lumps of muscle under smooth skin. Kiss by brush by stroke of flesh, they painted humanity onto each other’s skin with quivering, gentling, ravenous acts of touch.

  Robes that had previously simply hung and swirled and swung now became tangled around their hands, hanging up on sharp things like elbows and shoulders and knees. And wings. Shepherd grew impatient when Jefi was trying to gain access to his chest. He gave a roar of irritation and ripped his own robe from his neck to the hem, and it fell in tatters at his feet. Jefischa gave the neck of his robe a few ineffectual yanks and almost succeeded in throttling himself. Shepherd rained tiny kisses on his forehead and eyelids before he seized the neck of the offensive thing and shredded Jefi’s garment too.

  Jefi was a marvel of engineering underneath.

  “Wow, Jefi,” Shep murmured. He circled around, palming the space between Jefi’s wings. Adrian’s handprint had faded into the rest of his skin, and now all that remained was the human flush that Shepherd’s touch left on his beloved’s body. Shepherd continued smoothing his hands along the backs of Jefi’s shoulders and palming the sensitized quiver of his upper arms. He stood behind the smaller angel and placed gentle, reverent kisses down the perfectly assembled puzzle that was his spine, and ended with a tongue lave and a playful nibble at the divots that marked each bottom cheek. Jefi gave a high pitched, breathless squeak, and Shepherd moved to the backs of his knees, cupping the insides of his thighs with strong hands when he felt Jefi’s legs tremble. Inside his head he heard Adrian’s voice, Lubricant—lots of lubricant, but there were too many other marvels to discover before he went there.

  They would only fall once. Shepherd wanted it to be the best, most glorious ride since the act of falling came into existence. He wanted Jefi to remember their fall with joy.

  “What?” Jefi asked when he could get a breath. By now he was still standing, but Shepherd was on his knees in front of him. “Shep, what?”

  Shepherd looked up his body—all planes, angles, and secret shadows since his angel façade had faded. “You are so beautiful,” Shepherd breathed, and Jefi’s sex, which had become engorged and stiff with excitement, flexed against his thigh.

  Shepherd extended a tentative finger and traced a careful line down Jefi’s cock. The skin—like all of Jefi’s skin—became more real as he did so, the surface of the thing becoming defined and rough with veins and ripples of erect flesh. Jefi drew in a harsh breath and held it, and Shepherd drew that careful line again.

  Jefi’s foreskin had retracted a little, but it still hugged loosely around the crown, and Shepherd pulled it back just to hear Jefi hiss and moan a little in his throat. His other hand reached down to cup the heaviness of his testicles, and he was delighted with the almost transparent, coarse fur that covered them. “Look!” He very gingerly lifted Jefi’s cock so he could kiss the shadowed little valley between them.

  “Shep,” Jefi whined, and Shepherd grinned wickedly. Jefi wanted more. Shepherd had just been given an explicit demonstration on how to give more. Very carefully, he stroked Jefi’s length and squeezed, making sure the foreskin skated around the crown, making a thick, slurpy sound of flesh and flesh.

  Jefi’s thighs trembled. He tilted his head back and grunted, long and drawn out, and Shepherd was much encouraged.

  Shepherd stroked him again and again and one more time, and then, tantalized by the size and the shape and the wonderful sensitivity, he put that little head of flesh into his mouth and swished his tongue around. Jefi grabbed his head and groaned.

  “Your mouth is hot,” he panted, and Shep grinned around him. Then Shepherd moved his lips down farther, until the end of the thing was uncomfortably in his throat—another new sensation but not a pleasant one, so Shep didn’t linger over it—and then moved his head back. He’d seen humans do this. He’d just seen Green do this to Adrian. Watching up Jefi’s body to see his eyes close tight and his jaw go slack was reason enough to do this and do it often. Feeling Jefi’s hands clench uncontrollably in his hair was another reason. All of it—the texture, the scent, the… oh… oh damn… the taste of Jefi’s skin—Shepherd pushed his head down past comfort just to have the taste of Jefi’s skin fill his mouth completely.

  Then there was another taste, a sweet and salty taste, and Jefi found his words. “You need to stop,” he panted. “I feel like… I’m going to… I feel like I’m falling…. I can’t fall without you, Shep…. Come up here, please….”

  It was Jefi’s choice of the word “fall” that made Shep stop. He didn’t think that God would be cruel enough to send them spiraling down into the world separately just because their new bodies had an unsynchronized involuntary spasm, but he didn’t want to take the risk. He wanted to be as close as possible, buried in Jefi’s flesh, merged inside his skin, as close to being one person as two bodies could possibly get, just to avoid the frightening possibility of falling to earth and not knowing where Jefischa landed.

  “Northern California,” Shep said, releasing Jefi’s body from his mouth and going into study mode immediately. “Foresthill, Green—you remember all that?”

  Jefi reached down, and although his body stayed erect, he sheltered his wings over both of them and framed Shep’s face with his hands. “I won’t need to, Shep. You’ll take me there.”

  Shep knew he had a heart now, because it stopped beating, then and there. What a terrible burden such trust was—but he wouldn’t give it up or throw it off his shoulders for the world. He wrapped his arms up around Jefi’s backside and rested his cheek against Jefi’s thigh until his heart started beating again. Jefi’s hands were stroking through his hair, and Shepherd looked up at him again, knowing that worship was in his lover’s eyes and not sure if he’d take it out if he could.

  “I won’t let you down, Jefi. I swear.”

  He took Jefi’s extended hand and stood. Jefi took his face in his slender, soft hands and pulled Shepherd down into a hard, confident kiss. Shep found his mouth opening, being invaded, and the taste of Jefischa’s tongue in his own mouth was an intoxicating revelation.

  He could kiss Jefischa forever.

  But eventually Jefi broke off the kiss to go exploring on his own. He slid down Shep’s blank stomach and touched his tongue to the center. Shep gasped as a navel appeared, and Jefi giggled into the tender skin of his tummy, making Shep smile and gasp and then grind himself
helplessly against any part of Jefi he could reach.

  Jefi laughed some more, the sound deep and throaty and rich. He sounded… older. Grown up. Fearless.

  And then he fearlessly engulfed Shep’s cock with his mouth, and Shepherd forgot all about the richness of Jefi’s laugh. His vision went black with stars, and heaven became a mysterious place, the kind of place he could fall into just by tilting his head back and….

  “Not yet,” he rasped. “Not yet. Jefi… Jefi, we’ve got to….” Jefi bobbed his head again, and Shepherd found himself in command again. “Lie down, Jefi. Lie down and spread your legs.”

  The rush that flooded Shep’s brand-new bloodstream when Jefischa complied was wonderfully painful. Shepherd gave him a moment to situate his wings, spread out on either side of his shoulders, before he covered Jefi’s body with his own and kissed him again. Their new bodies were heated and sweating, and their movements were no longer slow and exploratory. Their hands, their mouths, their chests, their thighs… every part of their bodies that came in contact was moving roughly, demanding to touch more of the other….

  “Shep,” Jefi panted, grinding his cock against the crease of Shepherd’s thigh, “Shep, my body is hungry….”

  Shepherd kissed him hard on the lips and whispered, “Trust me,” into Jefi’s delicate ear. Then he dragged himself down that pale, slender, perfect, fine-boned, surprisingly strong body and positioned his head between Jefi’s spread legs.

  First he spent some more time at ground zero. Mmmm…. Jefi tasted so good! His thrusts in the back of Shep’s throat made Shep’s whole body writhe, but Shep was getting close, and his body and mind were playing a treacherous game of hurry-up-and-wait. His body wanted to hurry. His mind wanted to wait. His body was starting to win.

  Jefi’s hands were clenching in his hair, and Shepherd took one of them, laced their fingers tight together, and then moved, wrapping Jefi’s hand around his own body and showing him how to stroke.

  Jefi made a sound like “oooooohhh” and did just that, and Shep moved his tongue and fingers lower.

  Lubricant. Lots and lots of lubricant. Shepherd only had one kind of lubricant at his disposal, and he used it liberally. He’d seen Green penetrating Adrian—he knew that Green had prepared Adrian’s body, licked it, stretched it, made it slack and wet and ready to accept Green’s large erection. Shepherd did the same thing, except it was better doing than watching. Jefi’s taste was exciting. The sounds he made as Shepherd stimulated his nerve endings were hot, and the sight of Jefi’s hand on his own cock was etching the word sexy into Shepherd’s brain.

  By the time Jefi’s opening was lax and ready, Shepherd’s own body had been leaking for some time. Shepherd pushed himself up and knelt between Jefi’s wantonly spread legs.

  “This may—I’m sort of big, Jefi,” he said anxiously, but Jefi made a pleading noise, a begging noise, and Shepherd knew he couldn’t stop now. There was nothing angelic about Jefi anymore. His eyes were glazed and half-lidded, his mouth was open, his pale blond hair was mussed around his head, and his cock was rampant, erect, purple, and glistening with spit and pre-ejaculate.

  Shepherd’s mind went blank as he pushed into his lover. He wanted. He needed. They needed possession. MINE.

  The final thrust that seated him deep inside Jefischa made Jefi’s eyes pop open widely and his lips quirk up.

  “Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh….”

  “Does it hurt?” Shepherd asked.

  “It’s goooooooooood,” Jefi sighed. “Hurts gooooooooooood.”

  Shepherd chuckled and began to move slowly, holding his shoulders up with strong arms and sturdy muscles. Jefi let go of his cock and wrapped his hands around Shep’s shoulders, urging him on physically even though he couldn’t seem to make whole real words anymore.

  “Shep… please… please… yes… yes… damn… Shep… please….”

  Shepherd growled and started pounding his hips against Jefi’s thighs, burying his body inside Jefi’s with determination and passion, and then… then… Jefi cried out and wrapped his legs around Shep’s hips, and Shepherd’s vision went dark against his closed eyes, and for a moment, they were on a precipice, looking out at the night sky. For a moment, they hovered, the world at their feet and heaven gentle on their faces as Shep’s body heaved and his lungs gasped and he supplicated…. Please, God… please. Let me be enough. Let me take care of Jefi like he deserves.

  For a moment, they hesitated, and then Shepherd opened his eyes, and Jefi’s wide gray eyes were fastened on him, drinking in the sight of his passion and his lust and his love.

  Shepherd plunged one last time into his lover’s flesh and then buried his face in Jefi’s neck and roared as his body released, and then he and Jefi clung together, shaking in orgasm….

  Stepped off the precipice.

  And flew.

  Part IV: Landing

  ADRIAN KNELT on the floor of his room, gazing through the window he was allowed and onto the crown of his home, Green’s hill.

  “Do you see them yet?” Saint Peter asked over his shoulder, and Adrian shushed him.

  “Wait… wait…. There they are. See?”

  Saint Peter knelt, right there on the floor of the vampire’s room, and peered down to the earth below. In a lovely garden—with exceedingly interesting trees—two naked men huddled under a canopy of feathered wings, touching each other’s faces in wonder.

  “They’ll be all right there?” Peter asked anxiously. “They fell with their wings intact. None of the others did—they can all pass for human.”

  Adrian looked up at Peter, troubled lines written across his eternally young human face. “These two were purer than the others. Why did you set them to guard me?”

  Peter blew out a breath and sighed. “Shepherd would have soured, Adrian. The only thing keeping his soul clean was Jefischa. I… I just wanted them to have a vacation, that’s all. Shepherd’s stubborn about things like duty and obligation. If you hadn’t”—Peter waved his hands vaguely—“you know, done whatever you do, he never would have chosen to fall.” Peter shook his head. “You’re a master, you know. How do you get them to fall so fast?”

  Adrian shrugged. “It’s not something I do on purpose, guv’nor. I really didn’t even have to talk to the others. They just sort of fell on their own. But not these two.” He looked down again and saw Green emerging from the trapdoor that led to the garden. He looked shocked by the new residents of his hill, but when it appeared they were too wrapped in each other to notice him, he sat on a marble bench, pulled out a book, and patiently waited.

  “Was it worth it?” Peter asked curiously after they had spent some time just looking at the happy couple, feeling the sort of pride a set of parents must feel when seeing their children married off.

  “Always,” Adrian answered soberly. “Was what worth it?”

  Peter looked disconcerted for a moment and then continued. “The time you spent with them—the extra effort. Was it worth it?”

  “They were friends.” Adrian shrugged. “Anything to help friends, right?”

  “But Adrian, it must have hurt, opening your soul like that….”

  “Hush, dammit. Wait. The best part’s coming.”

  IF HEAVEN was in Jefischa’s arms, a better heaven was in Jefischa’s arms on the top of Green’s hill.

  When their hearts had quieted down and their breath was no longer deafening in their ears, they realized they had landed. Shepherd rolled to the side and pulled his wings up to shelter the two of them, and they lay staring at each other under a feather canopy.

  Gradually they became aware of small things. The grass below them smelled wonderful and real, but it was starting to itch. The smell of flowers in the sun was borne to them on the breeze, but it was a little cool—almost uncomfortably so—in the shade. The sun itself slanted longways. It was autumn, probably early autumn, and early evening as well. Humans probably didn’t wear shorts in these temperatures, and Shepherd stopped the study of his fingertips along
the curves of Jefi’s jaw to pull his wings closer for warmth.

  “Look, Shep. Your wings have feathers on them,” Jefi said in wonder.

  Shepherd smiled and reached out a hand to caress the slope of Jefi’s wing. They did have feathers—and musculature and definition. Nothing on their bodies was energy and a wish for a form anymore. Everything about them was muscle, sinew, blood, and bone.

  Except their hearts, Shepherd thought with wonder. Whatever was swelling in his chest felt like the swelling chorus of… of… of angels.

  For the first time in four millennia, Shepherd understood Jefi’s love of music, and he let out a helpless, happy laugh as he buried his face in Jefi’s sweaty shoulder. That realization alone was worth the fall.

  “Where are we?” Jefi asked, bringing Shepherd to the here and now again.

  Shepherd abandoned the idea of warmth and struggled to sit up. “I think we made it to Green’s hill,” he said with something like hope in his heart.

  “You did indeed, my boyos!” There was a man—an elf, in fact, with pointed ears and wide-set, alien features, a pointed chin, and long, long butter-colored hair—sitting on a granite bench with the likeness of Adrian sculpted on the side.

  “You’re Green,” Shepherd said in awe, recognizing him. Green nodded and smiled and offered Shepherd a hand to help him stand up off the grass. Shepherd gratefully took it—and understood it for what it was. He and Jefi had not landed alone. They were not in a terrible, frightening place. They were on Green’s hill, Adrian’s home. They would be all right.

  “I am indeed,” Green replied, his voice sounding like Adrian’s but different. Different parts of the world had different accents, Shep recalled, even small countries like Great Britain, and Shepherd wondered at the sound of that accent here on a hill a continent away. He forgot that for a moment and bent to help Jefi up. Jefi immediately wrapped his arms around Shepherd’s waist and tucked himself under Shep’s arm.