“I only went in the summer. It was hot enough then.”
“Ah,” he said. “My home’s colder than Loch Arach, so I never minded much.”
“Ugh. As cold as this?”
“Not really.” In truth, it was colder in winter, and so were Scotland and England. But there he’d had fires and thick walls, and the cold itself had been different. Winter was winter. The forest was…emptiness.
Toinette was warmer against him, though, and Erik felt warmer as well. He buried his face in her hair. The scent of her, mingled with the pine needles she’d put back behind one ear, drowned out the smell around them for the first time since they’d entered the darkness. Against his side, her breasts were full and firm, and the long muscles of her waist taut beneath his hand. His cock stirred, proving that joy, or at least desire, was yet possible in one or two areas of man’s life.
“Mmm,” she said as Erik idly stroked the length of her back. The sound vibrated against his neck, and when she spoke, it was with small puffs of hot air. “This your idea from the start?”
He laughed. “Would that I were that brilliant,” he said, and then, reluctantly, for the sound of her pleasure and the slight rocking of her hips were rousing him further, “or that we had another to keep watch. Though that itself might not help matters.”
“Bah,” said Toinette, “we’d just have him keep his back turned and hum. You don’t have much solitude on a ship, and Iwaswed.”
She didn’t argue the main point, though. Theoretical guards might or might not have let them take matters further, but their lack was a very definite obstacle.
For a time, they settled into a balance between desire and alertness. Neither moved away; neither moved faster or toward more intensity. Erik caressed Toinette’s back and sides in a slow, steady rhythm, never truly approaching breasts or arse. For her part, she kissed his neck, stretched against him, and ran her hands over his chest, but kept it all light, not surrendering to urgency—nor even to the idea of a struggle.
It was what it was. Erik’s cock pulsed, aching, but there was pleasure in the ache, and the moment would have been most certainly worth any pain.
They lasted like that until the light began.
It was the same unnatural light that Erik had seen from the beach and grown used to there. In the forest, it was far brighter, spreading out in rings of green witch fire from, of course, the temple. No pain accompanied it, but with every flash he felt a vague pressure on… He didn’t know what, precisely, but supposed it was the part of him that was kin to beasts, that bled and breathed and ate just as a dog or a horse did.
The light grasped that and pulled. In replacement, it offered…other things. Itself, or the shadow it cast.
No, Erik said inwardly. For him that was all it took. For a man without dragon’s blood, he thought rejection might be harder; for an animal, the offer would be no offer at all.
Against his chest, Toinette swore in what sounded like Muscovite. He still welcomed the touch of her breath, still wanted his arms tight around her, but the feeling of pleasant, lazy lust was gone. Neither of them moved.
“Should have expected this, I suppose,” said Toinette. “Would have, if I’d thought about it. Where else would the light come from?”
“It explains why part of the island is normal. This power doesn’t stay this strong very far out.” Erik peered off into the forest as the flares of green radiance washed over him. The oddness of the forest went beyond the darkness, and the power in the temple clearlycouldreach further, or they would have long since been at sea, but the worst of the changes seemed to be where the light fell. “And what happened to the elk. The female and her young went too close. Poor souls. They’d never have understood what went wrong with them.”
“That might be better than the other way,” said Toinette. “To know what you lost.”
“Mmm,” he said, neither agreeing nor disputing.
They watched the light. After Erik had refused it once, it had no further pull on him, he found. It was only a change in the sky. “I think,” he said, “that it’s safe enough to sleep. In watches, of course. And minding each other as well as the woods.”
“I’ll go first. Let you know if you start looking demonic.” Toinette clearly made an effort to speak lightly. When she went on, after a time of silence, Erik first thought she was trying to change the subject, distracting them both from the possibility of transformation—and what the one who remained unaltered would have to do. “How long do women live, if they breed with us?”
“Pure mortals? Two hundred years or thereabouts. So I’ve heard. I’ve not seen it firsthand, though Cathal’s wife doesn’t look past thirty, and she can’t be younger than fifty.”
“Oh,” Toinette said. “My mother may yet live. I’d wondered.”
“Likely,” Erik replied, choosing his words with care. This was unsteady ground. “When did you last see her?”
Toinette laughed shortly. “When I was almost thirteen. I believe I was one of the last few. She took the veil shortly after I left, became an anchorite. Walled up in Somerset. I made inquiries fifty years back, and she lived then, though the abbot was loath to speak of her. There are those who think she’s a saint, for having lived so long, or a prophet.” She wound her words out like thread on a spindle, one long unstoppable strand that then came to an abrupt halt: “She’s quite lost her wits.”
As with the light, Erik had known what was coming, or should have, and yet it left him frozen and staring. “I’m sorry,” he managed.
The shoulder beneath his arm moved in a quick shrug. “I didn’t know if that happened always.”
“No,” he said. “No, my cousin took a mortal wife.”
“And she’s not mad? Well. It was…” She sighed. “I didn’t think so, really.”
