Chapter Seven
Garlon was leery of the forest, for now it was dense and dark, the moon’s shafts scarcely poking through the canopy overhead. Here, oak and ash, elm, and yew coexisted with pine, the ground grizzled with hawthorn, bracken, and woodbine. They had left the willows behind beside the pool.
Leaves, vines, branches, and tendrils groped him as he followed a narrow footpath behind Analee. He could not shake the feeling that eyes watched them. The centaur, he had no doubt, though Analee didn’t seem to notice, or if she did she made no mention of it. Gone was the sparkling vision of the celebration. Every turn held a dark and sinister air, now.
Garlon was beginning to part the veil she’d cast before his eyes to mystify and confuse. He was beginning to see her intent for what it really was. He was not her guest, as she would have him believe—he was her captive until the dawn. What did she truly want with him? He began to question if he would live to see the first light of the sun.
Garlon had heard of people disappearing after an encounter with the Fae, never to be seen or heard from again. The Otherworld was populated with creatures, one cleverer than the next, who delighted in playing pranks upon Mortals. It had been thus since the fall that separated the races and split the worlds in two. Yes, they were, indeed, a clever lot, but so was mortal man, and Garlon was beginning to regret he’d ever stumbled upon the Clootie Well and its enigmatic goddess guardian. But it was too late for those thoughts now. He would have to play her game, and hope he could outwit her and escape. He had no desire to spend eternity in the Otherworld, a toy for a fickle, uncaring goddess. The trick would be to manage it without invoking her wrath. Judging from the look of her now, from the staccato spring in her step, the stiff set of her lips, and her silence as she led him deeper and deeper into the wood, it did not bode well.
“Have you dominion over these?” he asked her, gesturing toward the trees, as he tried to dodge the branch that swung out and attempted to grip his torso familiarly as he passed.
“I am the Goddess of the Well. There is where my dominion lies. Only the Auld Gods have dominion here among the ancient realm.”
“But they heed you,” Garlon said. “I see them almost bow to you as you pass by.”
“They show respect, yes,” she said. “It is unwise to disrespect any deity. Why do you ask?”
The path they followed narrowed suddenly, or was it that he’d just begun to notice the trees on either side crowding closer? He opened his mouth to speak, but too late. The goddess waved her hand, and a sturdy oak reached out its branches and tethered him by the arms to its vine-covered trunk.
Strolling back and forth before him, she pointed out the obvious. “You are captivated by the Selkie,” she said. “You seek to leave me? You wish to go to her?”
Garlon laughed, trying to remember caution in his words. “Leaving? The boat capsized, and in the sinking struck me on the head. But for that little seal, I would have drowned. She saved my life.”
“I saved your life,” she reminded him, her tone cross.
“Yes, you did,” he returned, trying to gain his freedom, “and you gave me your favors until dawn. There is still some time left before that, and I can hardly do you justice tied to this tree. Turn me loose! Believe me, I perform much better as a guest than a captive.”
She stopped before him. “In due time.”
He shrugged. “You are the one who keeps telling me time is short,” he said. “Suit yourself.”
Her eyes flashed, she seized his arm, where the wound had been. Suddenly, for the first time since she had healed him, he felt the return of the pain. “I saw you two.”
“Then you saw naught but the sort of affection a man might have for his faithful dog.” That wasn’t entirely true, for he saw something in the little seal that struck an affectionate chord and had touched his heart. Inside that sealskin, there lived an entity that could take the form of a woman, a woman who could be his for the taking if he possessed her pelt. A woman with childlike innocence, born of a tenderness that he had never known. There was something of great appeal to that notion.
Secretly, he preferred the little seal’s adoring eyes and benevolent nature, a stark contrast to the calculating coldness now clear in Analee’s eyes.
He was haunted by the image of a woman, shedding her seal skin. A woman that could provoke devotion, and mayhap, love. These secrets of the heart he could never share with the goddess.
Still, it would not do to anger her. His future was still suspect. For all he knew he would never return to his own world. It was more than likely that he would remain a captive in this plane where sinister existence ruled. He had to keep his head in dealing with the Goddess of the Well.
Analee moved closer, sliding her hand over his chest, his belly and lower.
“I do not like tethers,” he said. “Have this ancient one unhand me else I break its branches. I am well able, you know. That I have remained thus is out of deference to you, but I grow tired of this game. It would be wise to let me go now.”
“You change the subject easily,” she observed. “You have not answered my question about the Selkie. You desire her?”
“I give no credence to it,” he said succinctly. “You think I would desire a creature of the sea. Next, you will be jealous of a salmon. Or mayhap you think I crave the affection of a whale? What nonsense!”
Analee leaned her body against his. “Do you think anyone could match the pleasure I can give you? I can bring you delights unimaginable.”
“Dawn draws near,” he said. “You waste time with words. Something you warned me against.”
The goddess laughed. “Time means nothing here, Knight of the Realm,” she said. “Dawn here and dawn in your world are two entirely different things. In my world, it is forever Yuletide.”
She only confirmed what he feared. Dawn might never come for him.
From his fuzzy memory, Garlon recalled hearing that time as mortals knew it did not exist in the Otherworld. Now, he knew this to be truth. It was clear that Analee wasn’t going to release him until she grew tired of using him. There was much he needed to know, much he needed to ask her. He quickly had to learn the way of things, and somehow outwit her.
A wave of Analee’s hand released him from the tree, whose branches once more reached toward the sky as if it had not ever tethered him. The old oak seemed to sigh, the sound whispering through its uppermost branches. It was almost a human sound that called Garlon’s eyes to the treetops, where the silvered moon was visible in fleeting glimpses.
Analee ran her finger along the side of his cheek. When it reached the corner of his lips, she slipped it into his mouth. It tasted of herbs and bee pollen, and of her musky flavor. Why did he think of ambergris, seaweed and salt instead? How strange that in the fragrant forest, rich with the scents of lush foliage, herbs and the peppery tang of pine, he could smell the mysterious sea in all its evocative splendor.
“Come,” she said, leading him deeper into the wood. “A place has been prepared for us to wait for the dawn.”
Those words held a glimmer of hope. Or did they? Was there some sinister purpose to her holding him prisoner? She was a skilled seductress, and a more formidable adversary than any foe on the field of battle that he had ever come up against. She used her sexuality like a warrior did his sword. What fate had she planned for him? There was no question that she had a plan, he could see it in the smile that did not reach her eyes, and in the way she avoided answering him directly. Like a poisonous serpent paralyzes its victim, so had she paralyzed him with her wiles, with the secret powers of the astral that had been known to drive men mad. That he was still aware of her trickery was a good sign. He struggled to regain what few threads of his wit were left, forging those thoughts into a shield for his mind.
“What happens when dawn breaks?” he said at last.
She cast him a sidelong glance. “That depends.”
“Upon you, I know,” he returned. “But surely, you know by now what you mean to do with me at sunrise.”
“That depends,” she repeated, “but not upon me, upon you.”
Now he was intrigued, though he decided to leave that for a bit. “You say time does not exist here,” he said. “How much mortal time has passed since I washed up on your shore?”
“I do not know time, mortal or otherwise,” she replied. “It has neither meaning nor purpose here in the Otherworld.” She shrugged. “Some who have visited here return to find their loved ones long gone to their reward, while their stay here seemed no longer than what you Mortals call an hour. And others…never return.” Her voice deepened with the last words.
He’d come this far. He needed to know what to expect. “Because they chose to stay here, or was it something else?”
She stopped in her tracks and faced him. She was wearing her long, flowing mantle again. When had she put that on? She was as naked as he was when she emerged from the water. The garment was as transparent as a morning cobweb spangled with dew, catching glints from the low-sliding moon. The trees were thinning and the moonbeams picked out the firm, round shape of her buttocks, and the perfect globes of her breasts. Her tawny nipples straining against the gossamer fabric held his gaze relentlessly.
“Some choose. And some are chosen,” she replied.