Zarrin shivered, his odd human form momentarily shocked by a new surge of heat. Joseph still permitted himself to be held.To be kept, Zarrin thought with unabashed hunger.
He stared into Joseph’s defiant but nonetheless sparkling gaze, and was more than a little awed at the gift he was being given, even if Joseph was a bit embarrassed.
“Inconsequential prince no more,” Zarrin growled for him, as close to a roar he could get in this body, “I am your dragon.”
“Mine,” Joseph gasped, the word torn out of him, and when Zarrin leaned down to kiss him, there was nothing at all left between them.
A Wolf’s Faithfulness
IT WAS LATE in the season for a wedding, more autumn than summer, giving rise to talk of a baby to come. Cal only wished the couple well, and smiled to think of their eagerness to be together. He caught a glimpse of them through the crowd that had gathered to share food and music, gave a nod to Alba when their eyes met, then he moved on before his presence might be interpreted as an ill-omen or something similar.
Cal had not been invited to the nuptials, of course, but he had not been expressly forbidden, either. It was a careful line the villagers of Hillston walked when it came to those of Folk-blood amongst them and the ceremonies of their Church. Cal, or Cally, to some, did not let it bother him for baptisms or deaths or saints’ days. It was only weddings that left Cal too full of longing to be still. It had been like that since the days of his childhood and had only worsened now, with his twenty-eighth year approaching.
There would be no wedding for Cal. And in less than a month’s time, he would be gone. When he returned… he tried not to think of that.
He pulled up his green hood as he left the village, taking the path that would lead to his father’s home. Cal did not like the cold, and it would be cold indeed when night came, but he continued on the path even after he had reached the turn toward his father’s dwelling. By then, the sun was setting.
His father had moved away from the village around the time of Cal’s birth, built a new house nearer to the Wildwood, where the trees began to thicken and gnarl and climb around each other. The closeness and size of the trees was one of the reasons the Wildwood was famous, and how it had remained despite the greedy efforts of the local lords. Black oaks with branches interlocked and heavy with leaves, and trunks wider than a house, dulled axes and resisted fires. No roads could be built through the dark woods, and even the humans brave, or foolish, enough to enter it had the sense to leave before night fell.
Music could be heard in the Wildwood at night, they said. Bargains could be struck. Innocents, particularly special or talented ones, could be lost forever, snatched up by members of the Faery Queen’s procession. Cal’s father was touched, the villagers claimed. As much as Cal’s father was respected, he was also feared for living so close to a place that thrummed with heathen magic, for keeping the fae child they imagined had been left on his threshold.
Cal had no fear of the Wildwood. He knew the woods as well as the village, and if he went far enough into the trees, climbing over branches and leaping from one branch to the next before dropping to the forest floor and the secret paths again, he would hear no church bells.
There were also other reasons to enter the wood this evening. One other reason.
“Here again, Callalily?”
“Aye,” Cal answered without thinking, though he was certain he had not crunched any leaves beneath his shoes. He stopped and pushed his hood down to his shoulders, exposing his brown-gold hair and his pale, slightly pointed ears to the cold. He didn’t turn to look at who spoke, instead giving himself a moment to shiver and flush and wish desperately that time would slow.
The woodsman always snuck up on him. Sometimes, Cal had the suspicion that the woodsman could find him anywhere in the Wildwood, in this world or in the one just out of sight, no matter how Cal hid or took pains to move silently. It was a warming thought. A fantasy for the lonely nights to come. Someday, Raymond might come for him.
Cal tried in vain to tug the sleeves of his tunic down over his hands, but left his mittens in his belt. The mittens were clumsy, human things, and though he was part human, and chilled, he wanted to be his most beautiful whenever Raymond was near.
The sun would have helped with that, but the light was already fading. Cal could have worn less, run barefoot over roots and earth. But the sight of Cal bathing in the river had not driven Raymond to embrace him. Cal was growing more and more certain that nothing would.
The coming seven years would be bleak, and tears pricked at Cal’s eyes as he gave in and turned his head to look.
Raymond took his breath away.
Unaffected by the creeping approach of winter, Raymond’s head was bare, his black hair, sparsely shot with white, was short but beginning to curl around his ears. His sleeves were rolled nearly to his elbows, his skin, paler in the winter but currently still darkened from the summer sun, was streaked with dirt or bits of bark. He wore a leather jerkin, which was not tight, although the laces were knotted. He must slip it on when getting dressed without tying it properly. His axe was loose in his hand instead of strapped to his back, the sharp head resting on the forest floor.
He was large, the woodsman. Humans did not usually achieve that sort of height, but Raymond carried it easily, like the way he swung his axe, or how he hefted massive branches with one hand when he believed Cal did not see him.
He worked and lived in the Wildwood and somehow, somehow, had managed not to catch the eye of anyone in the Hunt. Cal could scarcely believe it. Even Cal could see Raymond was special, and Cal was a mere half-fae.
Raymond raised his head when Cal didn’t speak. “Is something wrong?”
The rumble in his voice was close to a growl.
Cal sighed for that, too. “Am I here so often?” he asked innocently. Well, in truth, without much innocence. He had never been one for lying.
But Raymond did not shout for him to leave, or turn his back on him, or continue to work while Cal flittered around him—although he had done that last one a few times in the early days of their knowing each other. Cal, smitten, helpless, had snuck into the Wildwood again and again, and each time, Raymond had spotted him and continued to work without comment. Perhaps swinging his axe a little harder, but allowing Cal’s presence despite the pointed ears and the too-perfect skin and teeth, the inhuman colors of his eyes.
Raymond had not remarked on any of it.
He also did not go into the village except to sell wood or buy supplies. In the nearly two years Raymond the woodsman had managed the trees of the forest for the local lords, he had not attended any weddings or services, had not gone to the fête, did not court or allow himself to be courted, although he drew heavy stares of longing as he made his way through the village.
He arrived in Hillston and seemed to have no intention of staying, much like the other woodsman driven off by the magic in the wood—scared of their own shadows, more like. But he had stayed, for no reason he had ever shared. He had a cottage too, in the middle of a clearing he had made himself, a cottage Cal had seen but never been invited into.
