Seasonal Winds: Winter Wind Read online

  "Get a fucking grip, McDonough,” he snarled under his breath.

  "He is quick!"

  "Be careful!"

  Shadows converged amongst the helictite branches and settled like phantom butterflies with wings slowly fanning the warm air. Eager eyes gazed at the male and followed his movements as he shrugged off the cumbersome thing strapped to his back. Avid tongues circled greedy lips as he unzipped his parka and laid it aside.

  "Broad shoulders."

  "Narrow waist."

  Nearly invisible talons gripped the crystal stems of the helictite bush as the male pulled the heavy sweater from his upper body and tossed it aside. Clad now in his bulky jeans and only a thin long sleeve pullover, the rippling muscles of his pectorals and biceps came into full view.

  "All male,” was the pronouncement spoken in unison.

  Kai sat down on a fallen boulder and began unlacing his heavy boots. The air wafting around him was so warm, it made him sleepy but the vestige from his headache and the continuing rumble of his belly reminded him he had not eaten since rising earlier that morning. Another glance at his wristwatch confirmed it was well past noon. After removing his boots and unzipping his jeans, he peeled the denim down his legs, rolled the snow socks from his feet then slid off the wool thermal underwear until he wore nothing but the pullover and his boxers. He felt the uncomfortable sensation of being watched again.

  "Is anybody there?” he called out, reaching for his jeans.

  "We are."

  He felt a shiver go down his spine as he dragged his jeans back on, hastily zipping them and thumbing the button into place at his waist.

  "You have to stop this, McDonough,” he warned himself and tried to put the growing nervousness from his mind. Opening his backpack, he started removing items he needed to make a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and hot soup.

  He eyed the personal locator beacon and hesitated. Perhaps he should engage the signal and use the cell phone to call for help. For a long moment he just stared at the items then shrugged the thought away. Until he'd used up all his own abilities to get himself out of his present predicament, he didn't want to call in the cavalry. The people of Hot Springs already though him strange. He certainly didn't want them laughing at him behind his back by having to rescue him.

  Once he'd eaten, he was in a much better frame of mind. His anxiety had started to decrease and the warmth of the air surrounding him, the beauty of the cavern grotto filling his senses, combined to lull him as he half-reclined on the ground cloth he'd spread out for the twin-size inflatable mattress he had yet to unroll. He glanced at the high-volume bellows pump he'd brought to blow up the mattress but just didn't have the energy.

  He yawned.

  "Sleep, pretty boy."

  "Then you'll be ours."

  With his stomach full and the warmth cocooning him, he stretched full out on the ground cloth under which he'd smoothed away anything that might poke into the fabric. The ground he'd chosen as his camp site was level and filled with a soft, silt-like sand that hadn't raise a lot of dust when he's unfolded the ground cloth. With his parka rolled up as a pillow, he lay on his back with an arm thrown over his eyes. It was still daylight and bright in the cavern. Between the lulling effect of the tumbling waters, the warmth, and a full belly, he did what any other red-blooded male would do. He went to sleep.

  They flittered down from the helictite bush and converged on the silvery material upon which the male lay. As one, their bodies grew from middling little things to tall and statuesque. Limbs elongated into slender arms and long shapely legs and tufts of feathers became silken tresses cascading down smooth backs. The only thing that remained alien were the sparks in the eyes of the creatures who stood around. The glints gleaming with intent locked onto the male and held.

  "Ours,” the combined voices cooed.

  Chapter Three

  Kai thought himself to be dreaming. He half-opened his eyes as the button at the waist of his jeans came undone. No one was touching him and when the zipper slid slowly downward, he lifted his arm to take a look but there was no one there. Almost as though a gentle hand had been laid to his head, he lay down again and closed his eyes, but he moved his arm to his side.

  Perhaps he returned to sleep for a moment for he felt as though phantom hands were tugging at his socks, easing his jeans down his hips. Not that he cared. He was sapped of his energy and just lay there staring up at the cave's ceiling and experiencing the wash of warm air over the lower portion of his bare torso. Dreamily, he sat up as though a specter had pulled him by the shoulders and obediently he raised his arms, allowing the long sleeve shirt to be slipped from his chest. Once more he lay down, squirming indolently on the ground cloth as ghostly fingers raked through his hair to remove the wool watch cap.

  Sighing, obeying some distant command he sensed rather than heard he shifted his legs apart as far as was comfortable for him and swung his arms upward and outward so he lay spread-eagle there on the cave floor, his palms up.

  With his eyes closed, he could feel the soft wisp of touch that moved over his flesh—fingernails trailing over the ridges of his abs, fanning down over his thighs, trekking across the cusp of his balls and onto the flaccid column of his cock.

  "Umm,” he said.

  "You like that?"

  He opened his eyes, searching for the one who had queried him, but there was no one there. He smiled, wondering at his imagination working overtime. His body was boneless, unable to move, his limbs so heavy he could no longer make them obey. He simply lay there at the mercy of the strange sensations that were swirling over his flesh and awakening the interest in his groin.

  "Nice."

  Warm fingers wrapped around him and tugged ever so gently and he drew in a long breath, releasing it along with all the tension the world had handed him of late. His entire being had concentrated in the span of the nine inches that lay between his legs. Everything was centered there where pleasure and peace began. He envisioned a soft, sensual, heated mouth enveloping him and he groaned deep in his throat.

  Fingernails grazed the palms of both his hands like slow-moving spiders. Sweet little tickles eased between his fingers and over his wrists, up the undersides of his forearms and along his biceps before trailing over his shoulders and onto his chest muscles. His nipples tightened with the phantom touch and he shivered at a delicious little tug, a gentle little pinch. His smile widened as his nipples were given a mild twist, a bit harder tweak, and then nails dragged gently down his sides, delved into the dip of his belly button and into the hair curled at the apex of his thighs. And all the while, those beguiling lips drew upon his shaft and a precocious tongue probed at the slit.

  It had been a long time since he'd known the pleasures of a woman's hands on his body and he gave himself up to this dream, this sweet enjoyment that had taken him over. With the warm air wafting over him and gentle hands plying his willing flesh, he was lost in the delight and more than willing to remain there for the rest of his life.

  "Give yourself to us and we will give you pleasure beyond knowing!"

  "I'm all yours, baby,” he mumbled in his dream-like state. His eyes snapped open at the sound of his voice, and he discovered it was no dream that had taken hold of him, no disembodied hands plying his flesh. His eyes widened.

  The exquisite creature whose hands trailed down his left arm had hair the color of ripe pomegranates. Her irises were a strange rose color, her pupils a vivid crimson color that startled him, but her face was so lovely it made his heart ache just looking at her. With porcelain skin and long, reddish gold eyelashes, and a cupid-bow, cherry red mouth, she made his cock harden even more.

  "I am Rúibín,” she whispered to me. “She is my sister, Gaing."

  Kai whipped his head to the right where a luscious beauty knelt stroking his right shoulder. Her waist length hair was midnight black with beguiling streaks of deep burgundy running through its thick waves. With jet black eyes fringed with black lashes, she, too,
had crimson pupils.

  "She who wields your staff is our eldest sister Aimitis. Beside her is Ómra and—"

  Lifting his head, he was stunned to see a third woman whose beauty outrivaled the other two kneeling at his feet. The woman whose hand gripped his cock had hair the color of polished steel. Although her pupils were crimson like her sisters, the irises were a pale shade of lavender.

  "Ómra is at your right foot and Saifír at your left,” Aimitis informed him.

  Ómra's hair was a pale blonde shade and it curled sweetly around her shapely hips. Like her sisters, her pupils were crimson but her irises were the rich shade of amber—a striking combination that made her gorgeous face all the more alluring.

  With eyes the color of sapphire, Saifír's long tresses were a deep, rich brown, but she, too, had pupils of crimson hue. Of them all, she was the most spectacular and so beautiful his mouth watered to taste the scarlet plumpness of her full lips.

  "We are here to pleasure you,” Saifír declared.

  Their hands were on each of his limbs and Aimitis still had a firm grip on his rod. He became aware of the sweet scent of honeysuckle drifting on the warm air.

  "What are you?” he asked in a strained voice for he was as hard as he could ever remember being and he was staring dumbfounded at the white portion of Aimitis’ eyes as it undulated with vivid black threadlike whips that coiled and twisted.

  "We are the Seoid,” Saifír replied and her gentle smile set his loins to burning with need. “And we are yours as you are ours."

  He tried to get up, suddenly unnerved by his nudity but their hands held him down—firmly but not with discomfort. Fear shot through his veins along with the heavy desire that had him as rigid as iron.

  "I don't know what you are,” he said and he could hear the frantic beat of his heart against his ribcage.

  "We came from far away,” Ómra explained. “We have been here for eons."

  "Since time began on your world and the first of the crystals formed,” Rúibín added. “There are more of us but they have their own Ceardaí."

  "Their own...? he questioned.

  "Creator,” Saifír supplied.

  "Smaragaid, Griancholoch, Íolite, and Coiréal are deeper in the cave system,” Aimitis reported. “They are always given the artists."

  "Just as Ópal, Turcaid, Péarla, and Diamant are given the musicians."

  "We are given the most important of all,” Saifír said. “We are given the seanchaí, the storytellers."

  "That is why there are five of us with you,” Aimitis put in. “Seanchaí are very important to all worlds and as such deserve only the best."

  "And we are the best,” Ómra told him.

  "But...” he began but they shushed him.

  "Enjoy us, seanchaí,” Aimitis said. “Just enjoy us.” She bent over his cock once more.

  He was unable to do anything but squirm under the attention of their soft, white hands. The woman suckling him was an expert at her craft and she was bringing forth such strong, burning delight to his shaft that he had to tuck his bottom lip between his teeth to keep from groaning aloud.

  Despite the pleasure they were giving him, he had questions—so many questions—that had engaged his writer's mind. Though they appeared human, with their strange eyes, he understood they were something else entirely. Beings that could bring him to this wondrous place and keep him there with such gentle ease not only intrigued him, they fired his imagination.

  "I want to know...” he started to ask, thinking of the fall he'd taken into this wonderland.

  "All will be answered, dearling,” Ómra told him. “First comes the pleasure and then the answers."

  It was Rúibín who bent over him and claimed his lips, nibbling on them until he opened his mouth beneath her persuasive assault. As she pressed her sweet little tongue inside, he could not prevent the moan that escaped him.

  "He likes her taste,” Saifír said with a laugh.

  "How would he know?” Gaing inquired. “He has yet to experience it."

  Kai's head spun as the women giggled at that remark. Rúibín's lips tasted of cherries, her sweet breath upon his cheek hinted at honey. Her mouth moved upon his in such a way that it seemed entirely sexual—a parody of the thrust of a man's hot cock into a woman's moist heat. Her tongue swirled inside his mouth, tickled his soft pallet, dragged along his teeth, and dueled with his own. All the while, she caressed his cheeks between her soft hands, holding his head steady for her sultry assault. Her hair prickled his naked chest as she leaned over him, the tendrils seeming to have a life of their own as they tickled his flesh.

  The heat was building inside his body and with Aimitis’ sultry mouth drawing upon his throbbing flesh he was finding it difficult to lie still. His hips were writhing against the ground cover, arching up to meet the pull that was bringing him closer and closer to a climax. With the fingernails of the other women teasing his legs and Gaing massaging his right arm, he lifted his free arm and crooked it around Rúibín's neck, increasing his participation in the seduction. He held her mouth to his and took the force of the kiss and made it his own.

  "He is commanding, is he not?” he heard one of the women ask.

  A fleeting thought of returning to the life he knew went through his mind, but he pushed it aside. His body was dictating at the moment and his mind was going along for the ride. For once, he wasn't trying to guess the motives of the women pleasuring him, but he knew that would come sooner or later. Nothing ever came to him easily or for free. A price—and maybe more than he could afford—would have to be paid.

  "Come for us, Kai,” one of them whispered and another took up the chant and then another. As lips suckled and kissed him, those words drifted through his mind to turn his blood to molten lava and his body into one long, throbbing ache. “Come for us, Kai."

  He felt the itch beginning in his upper groin and it began spiraling rapidly downward, gathering heat as it moved. He was pumping his hips slowly—rotating them in his desire to quell the burgeoning intensity rippling down his cock. Aimitis’ mouth was doing things to his shaft that should have been illegal and he was willingly giving himself up to it. As her tongue fluttered over the slit, he let go and she drew him deep down her throat, pulsing her sweet mouth along him as she swallowed.

  Rúibín ‘s tongue swirled through his mouth as the last drops of essence shot from him and he collapsed, his arm sliding from her neck as he lay panting, dragging heated breaths into his lungs.

  "Good,” Gaing proclaimed as she ran her hand over his chest, spreading her slender fingers through the thick mat of hair nestled there.

  "Very good,” Rúibín echoed. Her hands were roaming over his belly as Aimitis licked the last of his juices from his cock.

  "Now sleep,” Ómra said as she massaged his thigh. “Sleep and rest."

  His eyes felt so heavy and he could not keep them open. Struggle though he did, they seemed to have a mind of their own and slipped shut. Almost immediately, he felt himself drifting on a warm, fleecy cloud with soft, silent darkness closing gently around him like a cocoon.

  Chapter Four

  The Seoid converged deep in the very depths of the cave—in a place no human had ever entered nor ever would. Before a flickering fire, they lounged on plush velvet chaises and discussed their day and the three men they had lured to their lair.

  "He is a very quiet man,” Coiréal said of their artist. “Very shy and terribly afraid of us."

  "Afraid of his own shadow,” Smaragaid scoffed. “He is pleasant to look upon and built fairly well but he is nothing to write home about."

  The women giggled.

  "Ours is a brash, rude young man though hung like a stallion,” Diamant remarked of their musician. “He struggled against us until we were obliged to place a thrall upon him. Now, he is fairly cooperative but his language leaves a lot to be desired. He prefers to be the aggressor and accuses us of raping him.” She looked to Aimitis. “What of your writer?"

&nbs
p; "Very handsome and he did not fight us. I believe he will accept his fate once it is explained to him.” Aimitis smiled. “Writers always do."

  "Writers are the easiest of the creators,” Íolite observed. “You are lucky, Aimitis."

  "What does he write when his creative juices are not blocked?” Turcaid inquired.

  "Horror novels,” Ómra supplied with a shake of her head. “But we should be able to provide him with much inspiration from the lore of our home world."

  "As we should be able to supply our musician new strains of melody, though the discordant ways he will use it will no doubt make our ears bleed,” Diamant said. She turned to Coiréal. “And will you be of help, do you think, to your sculptor?"

  Coiréal shrugged her pretty shoulders. “Though we frighten him, he seems quite taken with our looks and covertly studies us when he thinks we're not looking. I believe we will be able to provide inspiration to him for a new series of sculptures that will take this world by storm.” She blushed. “At least I hope we will."

  "Sometimes I think the Muses ask too much of us,” Gaing said with a sigh.

  "Aye, but none of Them could handle the creators we handle,” Griancholoch reminded them. “Now if the musician wrote opera or your writer wrote epic poetry then Euterpe and Calliope would be here like a shot."

  "And wouldn't know what to do with a man's cock if it was shoved down Their throats!” Péarla said with a booming laugh and the other women joined in.

  "How do you think They inspired the men of Their day?” Turcaid inquired.

  "I'll be willing to bet it wasn't with sex,” Aimitis replied. She leaned back on her red velvet chaise and held her hand out to the crackling fire. “Our writer took to the seduction like a fish to water."

  "It has been a long time since he has dipped his wick into a warm sheath,” Rúibín remarked. “He was overdue for relief."