Lord of the Forest Read online

  Moaning with pleasure, she threw back her head until her long, silken tresses tickled his thighs. He could bear no more. Seizing her about the waist in a surge of unstoppable frenzy, he rolled her over in the cool moss bed and straddled her.

  Talking be damned!

  Penetration was swift and deep. Groaning, Linnea arched her back as he parted her folds one by one until the head of his penis nudged her womb. Gliding on her wetness, he pistoned in and out of her, coaxing her legs up his chest until her heels rested upon his rock-hard shoulders. Cupping her perfect buttocks, he took her deeper still, until the tender nub of her clitoris against his sex sent delicious fire roaring through his loins. His racing heart felt as if it would burst through his breast.

  There was no stopping now, no turning back. He could sense the centaur within growing stronger—feel its pulse, for now two shuddering heartbeats rumbled inside him. He could smell its musk and taste its essence, bestial, feral—deeply rooted in the land and in the mystery of its creation. Was it possible to control the beast now? He could not when the phases of the moon ruled the curse and he had no control. Marius hadn’t expected the transformation earlier at the hidden pool, and he hadn’t tried to beat the creature back.

  Underneath him, Linnea writhed to his rhythm, her fingers laced together behind his neck. Marius swept the leaves away from her breasts, where they had been fondling her nipples, and feasted upon the tawny peaks with his eyes. Swooping down, he took one of the hardened buds in his mouth, sucking it lasciviously, and felt her shudder with delight as his tongue traced the pebbled areola. He felt the warm rush of her female ejaculation and the pulse of her climax as her deep folds gripped him, her involuntary spasms milking him until she drained him of every drop.

  All the while, the oak trees swayed above them, fanning the fever in their skin, while the whitethorns grouped around and treated them to more intimate caresses in their turn. The Ancient Ones were gentle lovers. Marius had known their erotic embrace many times over the ages, for it was in their nature to serve the Lord of the Forest thus, and it was a great honor to be chosen by the tree spirits to receive their sexual attentions. Their ministrations tonight were somewhat subdued. Marius scarcely needed to rely upon them for carnal pleasure with Linnea, Goddess of the Hunt, Lady of the Feast, in his arms.

  The Ancient Ones knew their place, though there had been that odd occasion when one of the more zealous saplings had forgotten himself and run amok. But Marius wouldn’t think about that now, nor would he revisit the sinister image of Ravelle. In only moments, he’d convinced himself that the other stag was only his imagination. With the beautiful Linnea in his arms, he was invulnerable. She would be his and no others for the three days of the solstice feast. The night was young. Lost to all else in her naked embrace, he was soon hard again. The magical celebration had only just begun.

  3

  Marius woke alone in a hammock woven of honeysuckle vines. The heavenly scent of their creamy blooms bruised beneath his body rushed up his nostrils, intoxicating him. The heady scent of pine, ash, rowan, and whitethorn joined the mix. Their combined essence was a perfume Marius loved. This the Ancient Ones knew, and they rewarded him with it often. He inhaled deeply, a soft moan escaping. It beat through his senses like blood pulsing through his veins, grounding him—binding him to the green, to the forest, where he was lord.

  The hammock was suspended between two ancestral oaks, whose branches fanned him with the cool dawn breeze. All around, the rest of the nearby trees leaned their boughs close, protecting him in their lush foliage. All at once, they moved apart admitting Linnea, laden with a skin of mead and a silver tray heaped with delectable-looking fare. The tantalizing aroma of nut-sweet cheese, grapes, apples, succulent pomegranates, Midsummer cakes, and honey reached him before she did. He swung his feet to the ground as she knelt in the moss and set the tray before him. How beautiful she was in the glow of dawn, her golden skin kissed by the sun. She had woven a circlet of wildflowers still wet with the morning dew and wore it like a crown.

  “You should have woken me,” he said, taking a morsel of the offered cheese.

  “There was no need,” she replied, selecting a fruit to offer.

  “I have reason to believe there is danger abroad this Solstice,” Marius said. “I saw something earlier.” He hated to talk of it, but his reason had returned. And his sense of rightness. “It was only a brief glimpse, but I believe it was Ravelle disguised as I am, wearing the Lord of the Feast headdress.”

  Linnea paused, a ripe pomegranate in her hand. She had just raised it to her nose to inhale its fragrance, and he could see the moist shine her warm breath had left on the skin of the blood-red fruit. “Why would the Lord of Outer Darkness invade our revels?” she asked. “They are nothing compared to his in the netherworld.”

  “Believe me, he has his reasons,” Marius said. “It goes much deeper than that. The Great Stag drove him from this isle not a fortnight ago. I’ve been expecting some sort of retaliation.” The mention of her sire struck home.

  He saw a brief tremor in Linnea’s golden eyes.

  “Let us not spoil the feast with dark thoughts,” she said finally, easing him back in the hammock. “Rest and eat. You must keep up your strength, Lord of the Forest. There are still two days to come.”

  “Nonetheless, be careful. I needn’t tell you what a clever shapeshifter Ravelle is. That he has taken on my form troubles me. His vengeance against the Great White Stag. That puts you at great risk. Don’t be alone. And be sure when we’re together that it’s really me. My every instinct tells me to be wary, and I never question those.”

  “I can take care of myself, my lord,” she said pertly.

  Did she not understand how dangerous the demon was? Marius was about to repeat his warning when a rush of black feathers streaked through the trees and landed upon the rim of the tray, where it stole a juicy grape before hopping upon Marius’s shoulder to devour it with its sharp beak.

  Linnea giggled musically. How he loved her laugh—not just the bell-like sound but the way it brought out the little dimples in her cheeks and twinkled in her eyes. He loved the way they sparkled, the way she seemed to glow with an inner light like the rays of the sun. That glorious smile broke over his soul.

  “And who is this?” she said, hand-feeding the bird another grape.

  “This is Esau, my magpie,” Marius said. “He has no manners. Some call him my familiar. I call him friend.”

  “He’s a clever little thief.”

  “He’s an excellent judge of character. He seems quite taken with you. He’s never let anyone but me hand-feed him before.”

  Linnea stroked the bird and took him in hand. “Well, Esau,” she cooed. “I am quite taken with you also, but you must allow me to tend to your master.” Breaking off a small cluster of grapes, she set it and Esau down upon a nearby clump of bracken and returned to Marius. Taking up the ripe pomegranate she had chosen earlier, she bit into the skin until it split and then the juicy pips. The sweet juice colored her lips. Breaking the fruit open, she picked out more and popped them into his mouth. The tart nectar reacted on his tongue. It made his heart race, and he seized her in strong arms and pulled her into the hammock.

  “What are you, little vixen—angel, devil, sorceress?” he panted. “You have bewitched me!”

  “I have told you,” she murmured. “I am spirit.”

  “That I believe,” Marius said. “You have haunted me since we met.”

  His hands slid the satiny length of her spine. Inching lower, they cupped the globes of her buttocks, and he groaned. She was irresistibly soft, warm and willing in his arms, yielding to his touch, to his voice, to his will. The maidens of midsummer were submissive, but she was his. Not just her body, but her spirit, her mind, the very beat of her heart raced for him.

  He’d grown hard, his thick shaft leaning against her belly as she lay atop him in the gently swaying hammock. He moved underneath her, spreading the scent of honeysuckle as
his body crushed more of the delicate flowers. She tasted of the tart pomegranate juice. He licked it from the soft lips so eager for his kiss. When she took his face in her hands, he drew her thumb into his mouth and sucked and teased it with his tongue until his hips jerked forward.

  Having made short work of the grapes Linnea had given him, Esau hopped down from the ferns and flew back into the hammock, where he began pecking at the discarded pomegranate, plucking out the fleshy pips one by one while making loving little pleasure clucks. Tenacious in his attack, he persisted until he’d knocked the fruit to the ground, where he pounced upon it, tossing back his sleek black head to devour it in bits and catch every succulent drop of juice trickling down his white breast and distinctly marked sides.

  “Esau has stolen your breakfast,” Linnea said, her tender lips against his.

  “Magpies are shameless thieves,” Marius said. “Esau is no exception, I’m afraid. Leave him to his pleasure while we take ours, my beauty.”

  “Should we not be resting now, like the others?” she inquired. Her hands, cool and soft, traced the outline of his broad chest and narrow waist and inched ever closer to the throbbing hardness flattened against the soft swell of her belly. It was almost beyond bearing.

  “We are not like the others,” he murmured. “You have already seen me at my worst. Soon the moon will go entirely dark, and it will happen again. The change depends upon it. I do not want the beast to spoil the magic. There is so little time.”

  “How did it happen before if the moon is not yet dark?” she asked.

  “Lately, the beast has been emerging when I am agitated or aroused—or taken by surprise, Linnea.” She only laughed. “I have no control over the transformation when the moon goes dark.”

  “What did you do to anger the gods so greatly that they have punished you thus?” she asked. Her innocent curiosity overwhelmed him. What a strange, complex creature she was, possessed of an awestruck innocence, yet smoldering with sultry passion that defied description. She was at best an enigma, and he longed to peel away the mysterious layers of her psyche and solve what lay hidden behind the veil.

  Marius hesitated. It was a fair question. “We lords of the green who tend the forests of the world are duty-bound to protect the land and creatures in our charge,” he said. “I killed a centaur, and the gods punished me by making me live in the body of one during the dark of the moon.”

  “But, if it was an accident—”

  “What happened was deliberate, and I am punished because I will not repent of it.”

  “Whatever provoked you?” she breathed, incredulous.

  “Surely you have heard the tales,” he began.

  “I do not listen to tales, only truths.”

  “My tale is that,” Marius shot back. “But why darken the day with it, when our bodies are so in tune with Midsummer revelry and our appetites are so eager to be slaked?”

  “Because,” she insisted, “you have piqued my curiosity now, and I would hear of this terrible thing from your own lips, Marius, Lord of the Forest. And why is there no Lady of the Forest at your side?”

  She had shifted slightly so she could fondle his cock. What made her think he could concentrate with that going on? A man would have to be carved of stone to remain clearheaded with such a soft, skilled hand manipulating his sex.

  Idly, but not without intent, he reached for her breast and began working her hard, tall nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “I wasn’t always alone here,” he began. “Eons ago, I had a mate—a wood nymph of remarkable beauty. Our union was to be celebrated during a Midsummer feast. There was a centaur in the forest in those days. Overcome with lust, it chased her. And raped her…” He fell silent.

  “And she died,” Linnea said, answering her own question as his words trailed off.

  He nodded. “Centaurs take their pleasures where they will. They are mindless creatures that have neither intelligence nor scruples. And they are created beings—immortal. There is no female of their species. They are ardent seducers. Few can resist their prowess, but a centaur’s cock would break a human woman, nymph, or sprite in two. Yes, she died, and yes, I killed the creature who killed her, and no, I will never repent of it. For that I was cursed.”

  “I understand,” she murmured, her voice tinged with sorrow.

  “How could you possibly?”

  Linnea smiled sadly. “I do,” she said. “Someday I will tell you how, but this is not that day, Lord of the Forest. Now is our time, yours and mine, but there is something more, I think, than that which curses you burdening your soul….”

  Marius gave a cryptic laugh. “I do not have good luck with women,” he confessed. “Eons later, I tried again to find a willing mate, but the greatest seducer of all, Ravelle, Lord of Outer Darkness, lured her into the netherworld, where she became his concubine. And now…there is you.”

  “Hm. You do not trust me,” she said.

  “That is neither here nor there,” Marius replied.

  Having nearly pecked the pomegranate clean, Esau hopped close, taking an interest in one of the wildflowers in Linnea’s garland, pecking at it with his sticky beak until he’d plucked it free. “Your bird trusts me,” she said, “and he seems not to be the sort easily fooled. Take the gift, my lord. Take it without question. That is the first step.”

  She straddled him then, grinding herself against him as she took his lips with a hungry mouth. Riveting shock waves ripped through his loins as she deepened the kiss, her tongue curling around his, teasing the sensitive depths of his mouth, flitting like a hummingbird, releasing her sweet honey essence. Again he was undone. Seizing her hips, he raised her up and glided into her in one long slow, tantalizing thrust, riding her wetness. He wanted to feel each of her lush folds open to him as he took her deeper, wanted to savor each welcoming embrace as his shaft penetrated her vagina. He wanted to respond to every contraction, every pulsating involuntary spasm, every deliberate tug bringing him closer and closer to orgasm.

  His heart hammered in his chest. Nothing existed but that suspended moment. Nothing mattered—not the curse, or the past, or Ravelle and whatever retaliation the satyr was planning. The moment was theirs alone. Marius embraced it greedily.

  Clasping her slender waist, he raised her up and down upon his penis. Rapturous agony! He could barely stand the sensations ripping through his loins, could barely control his runaway need long enough to prolong his climax. His loins were on fire. It felt as if his bones were melting from the inside out.

  Something he only felt with the approach of moon-dark, when all his senses were heightened. Then he could smell scents reserved for the gods, divine attars and sacred oils. He could hear and feel the restless movement of the Ancient Ones’ roots beneath the ground, though others treading the same ground might sense nothing but the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot. He could hear bees humming in hives and skeps on the opposite side of the isle, and he could listen to the litany of ancestral voices carried on the wind and intuit threatening storms in the air when they were still days off. He could see into the hidden corners of this world and into other worlds as well, and sometimes into the future. But most startling of all was what occurred when moon-dark approached and he became aroused. Then his sense of touch, his ability to feel, and his sexual appetites became so acute, it was almost beyond enduring—a frenzy so rapturous it blurred the edges between pleasure and pain, a euphoria meant only to be experienced by the greatest of gods. That was happening now. There wasn’t much time.

  Linnea arched her back, swinging her long hair like a horse’s mane until its golden splendor teased his thighs. Marius could see the spirit of the antelope in her, in the way she moved. There was a delicacy to her gait, indeed, in every motion. The centaur in him recognized the nervous sideways and backward motions that took her now and then—and when they were not in sexual congress—the long-legged stride for speed. She could have possessed the spirit of a gazelle, a lithe, fleet-footed creature, she certainly had
the lustrous eyes of that animal—or she could indeed be the spirit of the great curly horned antelope her Midsummer mask depicted, or any bovid for that matter. This enigmatic female goddess of the hunt riding his cock had taken his mind, his body, and his own spirit by storm.

  Marius gave a deep-throated groan as the orgasm took him. She knew just how to take him deep into sexual magic than any other female had ever done. That and pre-moon-dark ecstasy triggered a surrender that threatened his reason.

  He wanted to come again and again in that exquisite body. He wanted to keep her. What would happen when Midsummer madness was done? Would she stay with him? He couldn’t imagine it, a goddess like her remaining with the likes of him. He was cursed, both man and beast. He was only an attendant of the Ancient Ones, keeper of a primitive little spit of verdant land in an enchanted archipelago. What had he to offer that would entice her to stay? Worst of all, the great demon of the Outer Darkness wanted his hide—he could not put Linnea in danger—