Where Wild Things Roam

Revelations

Ian    

“Baby?” I whisper, but I already know from her breathing and the way her arms hang relaxed and heavy around my neck she’s fallen asleep.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how she does it, sleeps beneath me. Tiny as she is—or maybe enormous as I am—how is this remotely comfortable for her, squashed into the bed, my crushing weight over her, the heat of my body burning into her? I’m not soft and yielding like she is. Amused, I kiss her plump lips and she stirs, murmuring my name.

“Darby?” I try again, this time pressing my hips into hers with an unhurried thrust. Even that miniscule movement, scant centimeters total, sends a rippling aftershock through me at the sensation, her velvety walls caressing my length, swallowing me. My c**k twitches, hardening as another dark jolt of desire shoots into it.

I could wake her. Leisurely. Build the pressure gradually this time instead of with the urgent explosiveness of a volcano like before. Make love to her in a second slow dance. Maybe a third. Then a fourth.

No! I force the addicting thoughts out of my head. I have something else to do yet tonight.

Pulling the blankets over us, I warm her cocoon, sliding out from beneath it when it’s too hot for me to stand. I tuck the edges tight around her, and Darby rolls to her side, sighing in contentment.

My feet are silent as I pass over the rug near the bed and the red oak of the closet, tug on some sweatpants and lace up my trainers. As my head pops through my t-shirt, I catch sight of Tessa, watching me dress from the closet door.

Interesting. Usually she asks. This is the first time she’s ever insisted.  Expecting compliance, I head to the courtyard door.

 She’s followed, stands at heel looking up at me imploringly.

 Even I can hear the reluctant resignation in her voice.

The night air is cool, a light breeze hissing through the conifers and deep into the forest. I start off at a jog, circling the packhouse at a distance before connecting to the drive not far from the entrance gate. I wait as it opens, shifting from foot to foot to keep my muscles warming, then dart through as soon as it’s wide enough. The gate reverses direction immediately as soon as my hand touches the access panel.

 My feet pound the packed earth beneath me as I hit a comfortable stride, following a trail I know instinctively leads to the homestead. The night noises are familiar, even relaxing— crickets, the rustle of leaves as nocturnal animals move about, the quiet call of an owl. Only the Luna lilies, the ruffled edges of their petals lit with a muted photoluminescence, seem to notice my presence, pulsing brighter as I approach and pass.

It’s no time at all before I’m rounding the old entry to the homestead, following the curving path that used to lead to the barn and beyond it, the fields. I can give that to Jack, for dragging me and now Sean out each morning, rain or shine, on the long run that primes our bodies and minds for the day.

I can still feel the remnants of the medicine man’s circle, still smell where each person stood. I have no idea what I’m doing, certainly none about what he said, but I position myself as he did, walk the path to the east, then around the circle deosil, repeating a simple invocation to hold open the magic, protect it and quietly invite the Powers That Be to join.

Returning to the center, I focus my thoughts on Arianrhod. It’s dark of the moon, perhaps not the best time to invoke her, but I can’t do this without the preparations already laid out before by someone with magic, and if Darby’s ever called such a circle, even used anything beyond the wild elemental magic I’ve seen, I’ve never heard about it. It’s certainly nothing I’d ask Mattie’s coven for.

My mind begins to wander as call after call to the moon goddess yields only silence, both in the night and in my heart.

Darby is the daughter of the Horned God.

Unbidden, the thought leaps into my head. Perhaps it’s him I should invoke. No sooner do I give consciousness to the vague musing then there’s a thunder in the depths of the wood amid startling scurrying animals and alarmed bird calls as the wave rolls toward me. Still, I wait, all my senses straining when the shockwave passes my position in the circle.

Amidst the trees, a faint glow begins, blue-white luminous and ghostly, moving towards me. Across the field, the lily light grows stronger, steadier. Whatever comes, they recognize, even honor, the same way they do in Darby’s presence.

The nearer it draws, this power I’ve called to, the more I convince myself it must be Arianrhod. The light reminds me of the lifelight in Darby, with the sole subtle difference, Darby’s light was faintly rosy and warm. This one is ice cold.

I’m completely unprepared when a great stag emerges from the trees, standing over seven feet tall with a wide rack of horns, an astounding nineteen tines or points in all. Like Darby’s light, the aura around him is unwavering, radiating steadily a few feet beyond his manifested avatar, lighting up the trees and earth beneath him like moonlight.

‘Summon.’ Interesting. I thought it was in supplication. No wonder he pisses Darby off. I wonder vaguely what would make the Mother Goddess let him warm her bed. Then again, he’s the first god I’ve ever met and pretty damn impressive, so maybe they’re all like that. “You’re Darby’s father. I’m her mate. There are things I need to know.”

He lowers his head, shaking it as if in a no, sharp piercing points toward me, and paws at the ground. Even large as I am, even with others—Jack and Sean—bringing down such an animal would be perilous. On my own, and against a god in this form, this isn’t an option I want to pursue.

Imperious and uncompromising, he meets my wary gaze again.

“She’s my mate.”

Laughter. It rolls across the field and into the forest like thunder.

Well, that was a d**k thing to say. And if he’s the one causing it, an even bigger d**k thing to do. “Why?”

Well, there’s no denying that.

Every single person who’s come into my life since Ivan took the arrow meant for me has been so much more: Darby, obviously. Sean and his charm, Lili and hers, Anna and her thunderbird, even Jack and Tessa with their crazy fast shifts.

At least I’m entitled to my feelings of inadequacy. I still want Darby to carry my mark though, to carry my children, but there’s a lot going on here, only a small portion of which the Horned God has let slip during this conversation. “Drawing together for what?”

The air above me vibrates and rumbles, then collapses into itself like some invisible building being demolished, churning roughly and with a force that knocks me to my hands and knees. Now carrying choking dust and stinging debris from the earth, it surges outward in a shockwave, battering the trees at the edge of the clearing, snapping weak branches and feeble saplings too inflexible to withstand it.

Well, that was a damn overreaction! Keeping my eyes on the Horned God, I rise, dusting myself off.

That’s when I hear it. Disembodied voices in the wind, some raised in angry hisses, others firm in their position, all of them speaking in the Old Tongue.

I curse myself. I should have had Darby give the language to me too. Despite all the unrecognized words that slip by me, one definitely stands out—my name—and each time it’s followed by a word I don’t know.

It comes from every direction, almost as if it were the voice of each tree, each time answered by a nebulous pressure, a coiling presence inside my mind. The monarch stag shakes his magnificent head wildly, pawing at the ground as the argument rages around him. At last he raises his head and bellows.

Silence.  

 “A bargain then—.”

With nothing more than that, the stag fades into the trees. Around me, the lilies resume their gentle pulses and the sounds of the forest return.

Well, f**k.