Lord of the Forest Read online

  Had she gone too far? Linnea did not understand what animal impulse had possessed her. Her other self was a gentle creature, except when danger was present.

  He glowed darkly, on fire with arousal. She was both fascinated and repelled by the strange sight. Marius let go of his hot flesh and closed the distance between them, seeming gentle once more.

  She did not recoil when his fingertips brushed her eyes, closing them for a second time. As if by magic they stayed closed. She might as well have been blindfolded as she knelt before him. Then he brushed her lips. She could neither part them nor speak. And then she found that she could not move. She had been enspelled. But why?

  What in the name of the Goddess of All was he going to do?

  Then she heard a snap and a rip, the sound of a green branch being taken from a tree. One swift step forward by Marius, and a firm push had her on all fours, her body trapped between his thighs. Linnea wanted to claw at him, unbalance him somehow and wriggle free but she could not move, could not protest. She could only feel and what she felt was fear. Laced with sexual arousal, to be sure, but that was only the response of the flesh.

  Was that what he wanted her to feel? He kept her motionless as he bent over and lifted her delicate gown. Hot as his body was, she felt a chill race over her skin. Suddenly bared, her soft behind trembled.

  Snap. The green switch in his hand came down, a light stroke that stung. Then another. And another. He was giving her a whipping—that she had not expected. A flush of heat suffusing the skin of her buttocks as he continued, and she experienced a mingled sensation of delicate pain and intense pleasure that was indescribable. Even the sound of the chastising switch, swishing down and snapping at the end of the stroke, was breathtakingly erotic.

  Her slap could not have caused him pain, but he did want to punish her despite what he’d said. Trapped between his legs, there was nothing to do but surrender and let him lash her.

  The sensation was incredible.

  Overcome with intense desire, Linnea regained her ability to move, but only a little. Struggling—it seemed to excite him, he breathed so harshly—she pushed her bare bottom up as far as she could and as much as she dared. She wanted to cry out, beg for more, but the magic touch to her lips kept her silent. He misunderstood. Marius set the switch aside. His large, warm hands soothed the buttocks he had whipped with such consideration, stroking and caressing her flesh over and over like a man warming his hands on some glazed vessel filled with hot liquid.

  The inside of her thighs were wet from her excitement. Keeping her trapped between his thighs, Marius thrust two thick fingers into her sex without ceremony or warning, penetrating her very deeply from behind. The spell that had kept her silent dissolved in her moan.

  But he would not touch her clitoris, which throbbed and ached as if it too had been whipped. All she wanted was to touch herself, relieve her pent-up sexual frustration, and she reached backward with one hand as best she could.

  “No.” Marius stepped his feet apart and freed her from the prison of his legs, though he captured her wrists with one hand and held them. Her hands were weak. Startled, gasping, he gave her a slight push and she sat back on her haunches, her gown swirling about her.

  He let go of her wrists and she rubbed at her eyes, releasing that spell that had closed them with fierce determination, even though it hurt. She wanted to see. She had to see. What had just happened and why she had done it, she was unable to understand.

  You did not do it. It was done to you. The huntress became the prey. My prey.

  That was decidedly not her voice she heard in her head. Or Marius’s. Suddenly afraid, Linnea looked up at the man above her. The dull red spark in his eyes glowed with infernal fire…and to her horror, the handsome face of the Lord of the Green began to change.

  Deep furrows seamed it and a lurid scar cleaved one cheek. Marius-who-was-no-longer-Marius had grown immeasurably old and wicked, his skin like black leather, except for the scar, which pulsed in a thin line of bloody red. Leathern wings with cruel claws at the joints sprang from his shoulders and twisted horns sprang from his long, goatlike head. A rank smell came from the lips that parted in an evil smile.

  “So you enjoy a whipping. I will have to do that to you again.”

  “N-no.” Her gasping reply was barely audible. “Who are you?”

  “You don’t know my name? Can’t you guess?”

  Mutely she shook her head.

  “I know yours, Linnea. And I am beginning to know you. You think far too highly of yourself. Next time I will whip you harder. Your eyes will be wide open. Mouth too. I will let you cry as much as you like.”

  “No!” She gathered her gown about her, as if the fragile folds could protect her from the violence in his gaze. She tried to rise. A gesture from his clawed hand pinned her to the spot. More vile magic. Tears sprang to her eyes as she struggled to rise and flee. One rolled down her cheek.

  He flicked it away with a claw. “You are easy to fool,” the creature growled. “And ashamed, I see. You gave in very quickly.”

  She was ashamed, profoundly so. But the demon had tricked her first and trapped her second. It had all happened so fast and her desire for him—not this unspeakable beast, but Marius—had been so strong that she had been completely vulnerable to a dangerous illusion. Frantically she cast her mind back, trying to remember every detail.

  His curious silence—the growing aura—the unholy odor of the leaves burning against his scorching skin—his strange moodiness and the change in him—

  She had been defenseless.

  He cackled with glee. “What if the real Marius was watching? I expect he would have been excited to see you whipped. How your bottom glowed! Hot and red! Not a mark on you, though. Count yourself lucky.”

  Too late she remembered Marius’s words of warning. Make sure it really is me, Linnea. She was too dizzy, too humiliated to remember the name of it…oh, what was his name? The demon’s wicked magic had brought her to her knees all unawares. She had humbly worshipped him, tricked into submission, passively watching, exciting the vicious joy that shone in his eyes now.

  At least she had not touched him or taken his cock in her mouth. She averted her gaze from it. Hideous to her eyes, it had grown longer.

  “Wh-where is Marius?”

  “Bah. Your mighty steed is crashing around in circles. His anger made him transform too quickly to think and I tied his tail to a tree.” The demon raised his clawed hand and a strand of scarlet liquid shot from it, arcing in the air and hitting the ground with a hiss.

  The strand cooled to a red color as dull as his eyes and then to gray. He reeled it in and wound it up. “With a rope of iron like this, forged by a blacker magic than you can imagine. Such bonds cannot be broken. A centaur with no tail is an ugly sight. Marius will have to rip his own flesh to free himself.”

  He was preoccupied by his own cleverness and cruelty. Linnea tried to creep backwards, still on her knees, but she could not.

  “Stop wriggling,” he sneered. “You will move when I tell you. In fact, you will do everything when I tell you.” He set the coiled strand on a rock, studying her for a long moment. “But not willingly.”

  “Never.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You are exactly the bait I need to catch that idiot Marius. He will hear your screams and get loose eventually.”

  Unable to help herself, she cowered as she watched him spin several more strands. “If you can capture him so easily, why do you need me as bait?”

  He snorted and a blue plume of smoke issued from his nostrils. “For the fun of tying him up again and tormenting him, of course. He is very strong, Linnea. He can endure the pain I would inflict on him. But I suspect he could not stand to see you hurt. Sentimental fool.”

  She was silent.

  “I have planned his humiliation for some time. He is proud but he will kneel before me in the end. And die a miserable death. You get to watch that too.”

  There was no rep
ly she could make to his vicious boasts. But a flicker of hope held steady in her deepest heart.

  “I loathe all of the cursed ones of the Arcan Isles,” the demon went on, “and the feeling is mutual. I will have vengeance upon them in turn. Gideon’s wings ripped off and his precious Rhiannon chained in my cave—hmm, that will be amusing. And that Simeon who calls himself Lord of the Deep will fight to the death to save his Megaleen. He won’t win, though.”

  The demon rattled on, scratching himself in an absentminded way. The last shreds of the false skin that had made him look so like Marius fell off and shriveled. Then she heard sounds in the woods…rustling…branches breaking…but whoever or whatever it was, was far away.

  Marius—oh, Marius. If you can free yourself, come for me.

  He was her only hope. The men among the revelers would not come this far. And they were no match for this leathery monster. She fought the sudden thought that Marius might not be either. If she were free, could she outrun him? Linnea, quivering with fear, looked up at the merciless demon who had tricked her, and knew she could not.

  The obscene length of the organ she’d averted her gaze from bobbed in front of her face.

  “Don’t want to look at it? Of course not. You hardly know me, at least in my own skin. And I did not introduce myself, did I? Do you really care? Your mind is elsewhere. On Marius.”

  True enough. She kept her eyes cast down and said nothing.

  “Yes, you went to him straightaway. You were so eager, Linnea. Masked and tipsy on May wine and even more drunk with lust.”

  She gasped. Had he—?

  “Yes, I saw you two fucking. You are beautiful naked or clothed. I watched you with Marius,” he whispered in an ugly voice, grasping his cock in his claws. “He does not deserve you. But I want what you gave him so freely. And I will have it. That is why I became what you wanted. Him.”

  Linnea clapped a hand over her mouth and looked at what he was holding with horror. She saw eyes, three tiny eyes, blinking in the lumpy flesh of the grotesque head.

  Goddess help her. She had not seen those weird little eyes when first she’d knelt before him. His cock had been exactly like that of Marius, smooth and silky and perfect. The demon was a shapeshifter of uncommon skill. The most intimate details of the manly body he’d assumed had seemed right, and the spells he’d cast had inflamed her lust and overcome her wariness.

  The doe had known better. The doe had tried to warn her by tearing at her clothes. But she’d had to protect her fawns and run.

  “Who are you?” Linnea asked again and wondered if he even had a name. Yes. He did. Marius had said it, even if she couldn’t remember it. If she were to guess—and hit upon it—speaking his name would only increase his power.

  The demon continued to stroke himself. The three tiny eyes closed with perverse pleasure. Linnea watched as the slit in the head gaped under his crude self-stimulation. In it were teeth, sharp and small as needles. He laughed, knowing she was looking. “You almost had that inside you,” he said. His claws tightened around it and the slit oozed drops of dark fluid. She jerked back, seeing the drops fall to the ground and eat through the fallen leaves like acid.

  The foul creature that had enspelled her grunted and then screamed with fiendish delight as he climaxed, pouring his foul seed into the earth. “Ah! Ah! To have you watch—and be so frightened excites me! So good—ah! I come too soon!” His hands were as contorted as his face as he stripped out the last poisonous drops and Linnea shrank back farther. She was only too aware that the force he generated would keep her in his power for however long he wished.

  “Are you—the Dark One?” She choked out the question in a whisper, even more afraid.

  “Some call me that,” he said angrily. “I have lived a long, long time and have many names. Yes, I am the Lord of the Outer Darkness. The great and wicked Ravelle. And as soon as I catch my breath, I will ravish you. And it will be my very great delight to hear you scream my name, not whisper it.”

  She shook her head in mute terror.

  The demon shrugged and gathered up the strands of iron rope. “Rise.” He made the gesture that allowed her to do it. “Walk to the tree and put your back against it.”

  He pointed.

  The tree was not like the kindly, ancient oaks, or the supple ashes and witch-hazels so beloved of sorceresses. No, it was ironwood, gray and cold to the touch. She walked to it and turned around, her spine pressed to its rough length. At the demon’s command, the lowest branches whisked around her wrists and pulled her hands high.

  “Weakling,” he said with contempt. “I might not need my ropes for you.”

  Linnea’s breasts rose out of the diaphanous gown, bare and vulnerable. One did not beg a demon for mercy, she thought, silently willing herself not to cry out.

  Her feet barely touched the ground. He kicked them apart and her ankles were bound in turn by the low branches of lesser trees that stood near, as cold and gray as the first.

  With a single swipe of his claw, he tore the gown apart in front and left a scratch on her chest. A streak of blood welled up from it.

  “Ugh. An imperfection. But a necessary one. Never mind. I wish to see your sex.” He snapped his fingers and was surrounded in an instant by tiny creatures—insects? They made the strange hum that she’d heard. She narrowed her eyes.

  No, though they had wings, they were not insects but tiny demons, miniatures of Ravelle himself.

  Two flew down and she felt infinitesimal claws seize her outer labia and pull them apart none too gently. She was lost in a hellish dream that was all too real, beset by unimaginable evil.

  “All of it,” he told them. One of the little demons pinched at her clitoris and pulled it out. Ravelle’s gaze at her most private flesh made her feel filthy all over. His eyes widened, glowing, burning and—he let out a shriek as a flash of black and white swooped down and stabbed him in the back, again and again.

  The magpie drew blood as dark as the demon’s seed. It spurted from the wounds the bird made, maddening the demon, until his tiny cohorts let go of her and went after poor Esau.

  The brave bird defended itself, but it was harried by many, feathers plucked from its living skin until it cawed in pain. He was losing the fight and then—the fierce imps whirled in midair when Marius, a full centaur, galloped into the stand of trees and reared. The flying imps could not stop him from coming down with a mighty blow of his hooves upon the demon. Bleeding, Ravelle was flung against a tree which bent in an arc and shot him into the clouds above.

  The tiny demons shrieked and buzzed off after their master.

  Flailing wildly and shrieking himself, Ravelle came down furlongs away, crashing through treetops and vanishing in a plume of smoke.

  “Marius!”

  In a fury, he kicked the ironwood trees that bound her into splinters, ignoring their low, agonized howls, and freed her swiftly. “Get on!” She gathered up her ripped gown and mounted him somehow, straddling his broad back and noticing dazedly that he still had a tail, though it was in tatters.

  Off he went, crashing through the forest in the opposite direction from where Ravelle had landed, followed by Esau, diving and swooping through the trees. She reached out her arm to the wounded bird and he grasped desperately for her wrist, flapping unevenly with so many feathers gone. Linnea flinched as the tiny claws of his feet dug in to the marks of her bondage, but the bird held on until she could draw him close to her bosom.

  She clung to Marius’s mane for the rest of the wild ride, her fear pounded out of her by the jolting swiftness of the centaur’s race to safety, ducking branches. Most of the trees leaned back to allow them passage, but a few did not, bending down as if to sweep her off her rescuer’s back and stab out his eyes while they were at it.

  The forest had its betrayers too.

  He galloped on and on, and, finally winded, his sides lathered with foaming sweat, brought her to another pool. He went in circles around it, slowing his pace, gasping. The
pool was untroubled and serene, though that, she now knew, could be an illusion as well. Her fear came back but it was paralyzing, slowing her thoughts to a state that felt like an opium dream. Linnea eased off Marius’s back, hardly able to think. She was barely aware that she was still holding Esau.

  Marius turned to look at her and smiled sadly. “Lucky magpie.”

  Linnea looked down at the bird nestled between her breasts and her hand supporting it. “He is safe enough. Are we?”

  “For now,” was all Marius said.

  “What is this place? Why have you brought me hence?”

  “There is healing here. You will need it.”

  “And you? Your tail is in bleeding tatters.”