CHAPTER 13 PORT
H oney and blackberry . The scent reaches me just as Max and I are wrapping things up in the forest after another grueling workout session.
I turn to face him with wide eyes. “Do you–”
“I smell it, too,” he says. His nostrils flare as his eyes close, soaking up the smell. “Gods, she smells just like cinnamon and chocolate .”
One of my eyebrows shoots up at this revelation. “That’s what she smells like to you?”
Max nods. “What is it for you?”
“Honey and blackberry.”
The smell grows more potent by the second, and our conversation quickly withers away as we turn to face it. It’s like she’s getting closer, but that can’t be. Can it? She certainly shouldn’t come to the volcano; it’s flaming hot, anyway, not to mention catastrophically dangerous. I assume she’s some sort of faery of the Earth, unfit for a dragon’s fiery, rocky existence. Moreover, Cory said she’s the protector and healer of the town, why would she venture out this way?
Max shuffles beside me and I see him hiking his satchel higher up his shoulder. He laughs, running a hand through his wild dark hair, then starts off into the forest again.
“What – what are you doing?” I stutter.
He turns to face me, smiling brightly. “Why, I’m going to find a faery!” He turns to walk away again, and I run and grab his shirt sleeve.
“Max!” I whisper, suddenly afraid that Cory will somehow hear us talking about the girl. “Cory said she’s his , remember? What would he do if he found out we went searching for her?”
Max rolls his eyes and shakes my hand off him. “We’re a pack now, Port. We’re obviously not going to hurt her, and as long as we don’t actually bed her, Cory won’t mind a bit.”
I blush at the thought of it – the thought of actually meeting the faery, then the idea of sleeping with her. Max laughs as my face reddens, and he claps my shoulder with his strong, large hand. I bury my face in my hands and groan.
“Oh, gods,” I mumble.
“You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?” he laughs. I look up at him and scowl, though there’s no real menace in it. He smirks and continues, “Why don’t you come with me, and you can make that imagination a reality, huh?”
My jaw drops as he winks, in shock at his blatant teasing, and he laughs even harder. I give him my best threatening glare (although I know there’s no chance I’m actually intimidating him) and reach to pull him back towards the volcano. He skillfully dodges my grab, though, and I stumble. Now genuinely annoyed, I growl and lunge for him once more; again, he just barely escapes my grasp.
“Oh, you’re in for it now,” I yell, launching after him as he starts sprinting down the overgrown footpath, laughing all the while.
Max is a good fighter, but I can be faster than him; I keep pace easily as he bounds down the earthen path. Occasionally, he turns around to glance at me, and cackles when he sees I haven’t gotten any closer. There’s a reason for that, I’m still debating internally between how bad of an idea this will be once Cory finds out, and how much I would love to actually see her in person.
We keep sprinting and covering ground at high speed, when all of a sudden a strange fog creeps in, wrapping everything around us. It’s all grey and uneven, and has an eerie feel to it. Max starts to get tired and eventually stops his laughter to focus his breathing on the run, while I decide to gain on him. He turns around just as I launch myself after him to catch him; his eyes go wide as he yells in shock.
“Curses!” he yelps.
Then the two of us tumble through the grass and the weeds, finally coming to a stop underneath a large sugar maple. Max’s back thumps against the tree’s trunk, and I gasp as he grunts in genuine pain.
“Max!” I call out, worried.
He holds up a finger, and I go silent despite my sudden fear. He takes a deep breath in, then exhales with a few coughs; I know this fog doesn’t feel good in his lungs, it feels like poison in mine too. But Max is focused on a different problem at the moment. He starts to rub his spine gingerly as he moans in pain. “Realm’s Mother, that hurt.”
I can’t help it –I start to laugh. At first he fixes me with a wicked glare, but after a tear drops onto my cheek from laughing so hard, his hard expression cracks and he grins at me, too.
“I told you I’d get you,” I barely manage to wheeze out, still cackling.
Max winces as he laughs, and I ruffle his hair tenderly in some sort of apology. He smirks at me, and I feel my smile widen at the sight of it. I’m so busy staring into his midnight eyes that I barely hear it: footsteps.
His eyes shoot wide open, and I grab him up quickly. The two of us lunge behind a nearby fallen oak, several paces away from the now-stone footpath. He opens his mouth to say something, and I clap my hand quickly over it to keep him quiet.
“Shh,” I whisper, just as the scent of the faery, Mili, reaches me in full force.
I gasp as a mist of honey blackberry air perfumes my thoughts, my bones, my very soul. The footsteps, gentle footsteps, grow nearer and nearer, but I can’t help myself–I close my eyes and soak in the sweet, honey-berry energy all around me. Max leans in close to my face, and mouths, Holy gods, she’s gorgeous! I barely stifle a laugh at the sight of him all flustered, but he elbows me and I manage to keep it together.
She’s gorgeous all right. Sensual and graceful, with long, raven-black waves cascading down her back, with elegant, pointy ears peeking through. The curves of her body are as alluring as they are delicate. Her figure moves with a fluid grace, her long legs—firm and toned—carrying her effortlessly through the forest, leaving whispers of magick and longing in my soul. My cock goes primal in my pants at the sight of her, all hard and ready to strike. I want to be respectful, but I can’t help it, I’ve fantasized about her and now here she is, even more beautiful in person. The two of us squat even lower, hiding beneath the fallen tree’s trunk as the faery draws ever-nearer to the sugar maple we’d just landed at. She walks gingerly, as if treading on sacred ground, and I take a more thorough look at the tree as a result. As Mili nears the maple, murmurs of energy emanate from it, seeming to respond to her presence.
The tree’s branches lift softly, as if sighing, when Mili kneels beneath its boughs. She bends all the way to the forest floor, pressing her forehead to the roots twisted at the bottom of the great maple’s trunk. I feel myself frown as I watch the faery quiver softly; when she looks up, the sparkle of fresh tears shines on her cheeks.
“She’s crying!” Max whispers. He almost stands, wanting to go to her, but I pull him closer to me and motion for him to stay hidden. I stay perfectly still while he finally settles back down beside me, then watch as he turns back with furrowed brows to gaze upon the faery.
Her voice reaches us, quiet as a whistle of the wind, as she says softly, “Grandmother, I have to go.”
My eyebrows shoot up – where could she be going? –and she continues.
“The devastation in the valley has become too great to manage. The crops have all withered to dust, the Sun doesn’t reach us anymore and we’re surrounded by greyness. The townspeople have all fallen ill, and Chrysthinia–” she chokes on a sob. “Chrysthinia will not wake up.”
I feel a dagger of ice secure a spot in my chest at her sorrow. In times of great strife like this, usually, it’s because a spirited force (be it a faery, dragon, god, or spirit) has launched an attack on the land. I can’t imagine, though, who could have caused such pain for the people of Ethelinda; beyond that, I simply cannot fathom who would wish this on such a good-seeming faery as Milica.
“My powers are no match for the agony my people are facing. The past fortnight has brought devastation I’m not capable of reckoning with, and I cannot in good conscience attempt to remedy these wrongs alone. I have to go to the volcano, Grandmother.”
Beside me, Max gasps, and my eyes go wide just as Mili’s own shoot open. Her head whips around, lightning-fast, before settling on the sight of Max and me hunched behind the rotting oak.
She startles at the sight of us, and Max (curse the fool) starts to laugh in a tone that, if I didn’t know him, would certainly register as menacing. As he starts to laugh, Mili leaps to her feet and starts to sprint off down the stony path leading to Cory’s dominion.
Then, to make matters even worse, a pair of translucent wings unfold from her back, and she starts to fly. She soars incredibly fast – much faster than we can run. We could shift into dragons and go after her, but that would scare her even more. I don’t want to risk terrifying her further, so I scowl and turn to Max.
“Godsdamnit!” I yell, watching her vanish from sight. “Max, what in the Realm is so funny?”
“I don’t know” he replies quickly. “She saw me and I panicked. I thought laughter would, you know, lighten the mood.” He stops his laughing suddenly, eyes going wide as he registers what we’ve both heard. First, how can the town suffer such terrible tragedies without neither Cory nor us knowing anything about it. Second, did she say she’s going to the volcano?
“ She’s going to the volcano ,” Max emphasizes, shell-shocked.
“Not just that, Max – she’s going alone .”
Max stares after her a moment more, before sighing and shrugging at me. “I suppose we’d better start running after her, then.”
I feel my eyes widen even more when the idea’s spoken aloud; if we run, she’ll certainly think we’re hunting her. Max is right, though – it’s more dangerous for her to arrive confident and alone than terrified and accompanied by the two of us. After a brief pause, I nod, and the two of us take off running after her.