Alec the Wanderer: Generations of Eredwynn #4 (15 page)

I lay back across her and kissed her gently. “I almost feel as though I should apologize for my behavior. I know that isn’t the way you wanted me tonight, but it was too wonderful for me to find an apology in my heart.”

She laughed softly and replied, “I wouldn’t think of asking for one! I felt things with you that I’ve never felt before. I’ve heard that a little pain with your pleasure makes things more intense; now I know it’s true!”

“Pain? What pain? Did I hurt you? Where?”

“I’ll be fine; your muscled-up hips and my scrawny thighs just met, repeatedly.”

I moved off of her and floated the length of her body, cast a
light orb
and illuminated our bubble. The insides of both her thighs and even a bit of her pubic mound were bruised. Being that noticeable after such a short time, I knew it must have been painful, but she’d never complained. She raised up to look herself.

“Hmm, it actually looks worse than it feels. You have a horribly guilty look, but you shouldn’t. If it had been too bad, I would have let you know. But since I … Move away from me Alec …. Something’s going on.”

I moved back, terrified that my injury to her was worse than she was letting on. Suddenly she began to glow with a blue light. The light started to radiate from her and form into a cool, translucent flame. The flame moved from between her breasts, down her body and concentrated on her injuries. In just a matter of seconds the fire was gone, and the only light was from my orb.

Amanda looked at me and shook her head. “I’ve thought this a lot since I’ve met you, but there’s something you don’t see every day!”

We both looked at the area that had been injured and there was no trace. She told me that she couldn’t even feel where it had been. I held her tightly and kissed her gently. “I promise to behave myself if you ever give me the chance to make love to you again.”

She laughed. “Now that I’m a full Consort and a family member, I insist that you make love to me again. Next time, we just need to make sure that the pain I like a little of doesn’t leave marks. My magic doesn’t seem to appreciate that very much. That was scary, but kinda nifty, too.”

“Yes it was, beautiful lady. Now we need to get to bed if we’re going to be in the mood for Vegas tomorrow. Perhaps you can tell me about the ‘middle ages’, which you and Father were talking about, while we relax. If we get up before the other girls, maybe we can try this again, minus the bruising.”

“That sounds like a plan, as Carol is fond of saying. Wander us back home.”

I laughed and
ported
us straight to James’ room. We slipped under the covers, talked for a while, then drifted off to sleep. My sleep was plagued with dreams of a meteor landing in the swamp, mutating the insects. Except it wasn’t the ants that were changed, it was fleas.

Chapter Thirteen

E
arly morning lovemaking was taken out of my plans. Just as the sun crested the horizon, Carol tapped on the door and came in. I woke with her tap but Amanda slept on, until Carol climbed up on the foot of the bed and bounced her way up between us.

She grinned at me. “I see you managed to get those fabulously sexy clothes off of her, and you don’t have claw marks on your face. Things must have gone well last night?”

I shrugged and nodded. “Well, there is something that I should tell you about.”

Amanda interrupted, “How ‘bout you just get over it! It was no big deal and could have happened to anyone. My magic fixed it and its water under the bridge!”

Carol looked puzzled. “Okay, now I really want to know what happened.”

Amanda shook her head with a little smirk. “We were making love and Alec got a bit over-heated and forceful. I got bruised up a tad, but my magic did some neat healing stuff, all on its own, and it’s fixed.”

“Well Alec, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself enough to get caught up in the moment. She’s not complaining about it and sometimes a woman wants to know she’s with a man and not a scared teen. As long as she didn’t tell you to stop and you ignored her, which I know you’d never do, you shouldn’t look so guilty.”

Amanda nodded with a triumphant grin. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him, but you know men. Hard headed creatures they are! You should have seen the awesome blue flames that fixed me up, Carol. I hope I can learn to use it like you and Alec do. I’d love the chance to help folks like you helped my sis and me.”

Carol laughed and announced, “There is no way to help anyone but yourselves with you two bums lying in bed, burning daylight. Barb and I already have all four packs ready and both tents lashed on. We just need the two of you up and ready, then we’re outta here!”

Carol bounced off the bed and back out the door, like the whirlwind that lived inside her. Amanda and I rolled off the bed and I caught her before she could walk away. I pulled her to me and kissed her, cupping her bottom to hold her tight. “We didn’t get a chance for a morning repeat, but I’m sure we can play in the desert.”

She smiled and rubbed against me. “Are you sure we don’t have time for a quickie?”

At that moment Carol burst back in. “Whoops! Sorry about that, but I knew you’d need clothes. Perhaps not for what it looks like I interrupted, but before we hit the road.”

I laughed. “Come on in, Carol. We can make this even more fun. You could go get Barb and make this really challenging, then we won’t need to go to Vegas today.”

Carol snickered. “Don’t flatter yourself. Amanda and I together would injure you; add Barbara to the mix and you might not survive. I would really like to get going, but if I need to wait for you two, I will.”

Amanda shook her head. “I was just teasing him. Making him wait for it will be good for him. We’ll be out as soon as we dress. Thank you for bringing my clothes; it’s a bit cold in this place to be walking around half naked.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m just trying to be a good wife and looking out for my girls, like the Queen said I should. See you in a bit.” She turned and left the room again.

I winked at Amanda. “Now, where were we?”

“Getting dressed, young man. There’s more to life than making love.”

I grumbled. “I’m so tired of hearing that.”

Amanda cackled. “Perhaps you’ll learn it, then. Actually, I’d like to lay in bed with you all day and see if I could exhaust ‘the wanderer’, but I also would like to stay in the good graces of the head female in the family.”

“Me too, so we better get a move on.” We dressed quickly and prepared to head out. Amanda was dressed in a nice dress that should pass in either location, Vegas or Eredwynn. I thought she was much prettier in that dress, without the colored stuff on her face, than she was when we’d found her. She was certainly a changed person, and all for the better. I’d finally fallen in love with her.

…

We gathered in my room and slung our packs. I explained how things would work. “I’m going to focus my magic on finding a circle that will lead us to Vegas. Then my
remote
viewing
will search out a fairy ring that will take us close to that location. In my travels I’ve found non-magical fairy rings, but doing it this way always finds magical ones that have taken me where I thought they would. When I locate one, I’m going to signal Carol to take us to it so I don’t end up in the position that I was in when we came back from this last trip. You too, Amanda and Barb, might be able to see how viewing done if you’ll hold hands with us while we’re doing this. We can start this trip as a teaching trip.”

Everyone nodded their understanding and I closed my eyes. My magic seemed unusually slow about locating the ring that I needed, but I figured that it was that looking for a specific place in a realm might be more difficult to isolate than just the realm itself. Finally it located a ring all the way on the other side of No Man’s Land in the Wood Elves’ Enchanted Forest. I wasn’t worried, since there was air and that’s all my wife needed to recharge. The jump wouldn’t drain her magic and my family had, more or less, stayed on friendly terms with the elves of the region.

We made the
port
and gathered at the ring. Barbara was giddy. “
Porting
is really cool when you do it, but watching it the way we did just now makes it even more cooler! I bet that sis and I could do it now if we had to. I’d like to watch a few more times just so I didn’t screw up, though.”

I nodded, grinning at her enthusiasm. “That’s probably the best bet, but it’s nice to know you could, if you really had to. When we get back from the realm of cities and closed mindedness, we’ll work on getting the two of you trained properly. We might have to get my brothers to do it, because I think that I’m on my Aunt Alba’s black list. You’ve already met Davie, and he’s the most knowledgeable, so I’m sure he’d be happy to work with you.”

Carol was getting antsy. “That sounds like a plan and we can work out the details later. I’ll go first, then the girls. You follow up quickly; I don’t want just the three of us over there alone. If it’s like last time, the ring will dissolve and I’m not as good at casting for them as you are.”

“I’m right behind you, my love.” And I sent the girls through the ring, kissing them each in turn. Then my turn came. I stepped into the ring and spun. The transition felt strange and seemed to take longer than usual. I came out the other side and found the girls working their fingers in their ears to clear the ringing that I had in my own. We’d come out in a forest, as I was accustomed to doing, but the ring faded away. With it went our easy way for finding a way back home. I’d have to cast for Eredwynn and do things the hard way.

Carol looked at me and she looked worried. “Since you’re doing the same thing we are with the ears, I assume that jump did the same thing to you. What’s that all about? And why are we in a forest and not the desert?”

I shrugged. “Those are two very good questions and I wish I could give you an answer. Amanda, are there any forests really close to Vegas?”

She thoughtfully shook her head. “I’m no expert, because I hadn’t been there for very long, thank god. But none that I heard of. There are some national parks in the area, but I wouldn’t call them ‘close’.”

I shook my head, then summoned up a cheerful confidence that I didn’t feel. “When I’m not sure where I am and where I’m going, I take a note from my father’s first page in Eredwynn and go east! I suggest that we start walking and perhaps find a city or town that has a name sign that you recognize. I don’t think that it’s written in stone that the people we help must be from Vegas. It would have been easier to locate the unwilling working girls there, with you two to help, but I’m sure that trade isn’t only in Vegas in the country you’re from.”

The girls laughed and Barb stated, “The oldest profession in our old world is in every city, or at least that’s what we’ve been told. But I’m in a hurry for lunch time, since we skipped out on breakfast!”

I laughed. “Since we’re in the woods, we can keep an eye out for rabbits or squirrels. If we get lucky, we might even get a deer. I’ll teach you how to dry the meat so it will keep without spoiling.”

Barbara looked appalled. “If we get lucky you’ll kill Bambi? That isn’t very nice!”

“No, if I get lucky I’ll kill a deer. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a ‘bambi’. I don’t know what one looks like.”

Amanda was in stitches. “She was talking about a baby deer in a movie. The deer’s name was Bambi.”

I nodded. “In that case, no, I won’t be killing Bambi. I’ll be killing Bambi’s mother. A doe is always better to take than a buck. They aren’t as tough and it doesn’t cause confusion in the herd.”

Barb was adamant. “If you kill a poor animal, I’m sure not gonna eat it!”

“My love, you had stew at the inn and steaks with last night’s dinner. Where did you think that came from? A stew meat tree or a steak bush?”

Barb huffed. “That’s different.”

“Eating people might be different, but meat is meat. A cow, which I know you’ve eaten, eats grass. A deer eats grass. There is no difference.”

Barb wouldn’t look at me and started walking. Carol caught up with her and put and arm around her. “I’ve been in your stores and shops and have seen how you bought your food. We grew up knowing exactly where everything came from and what it was. I’m sorry if this upsets you, but that’s the way things are. I hope you won’t hold it against us and if Alec does get a deer, we’ll … umm… process it away from you. All right, my pretty little Consort?”

“I’m sorry for reacting that way, you guys. I know it’s another one of those culture things. I know that a couple hundred years ago my ex-country folk used to do the same thing. Heck, there are still people that do it for the fun of it. I’m just behaving like a silly little girl. I love you two and am trying to fit in. I’ll try to help if you have to clean a deer, and I’ll try not to throw up, too.”

I laughed. “If my help is gonna puke on me, I’ll manage alone. Now I have an important lesson that I heard every day from the time I was six until I left home. I have tossed sticks at all three of you ladies and they hit two of you. They were small sticks, so you didn’t notice, but here’s the lesson. If you’re going into an unknown situation, always be
shielded
.”

The sisters stopped in their tracks and focused. They shook their heads, joined hands and grinned. I couldn’t see magic at all in any of my ladies, and it drove me a little nuts. I waited until they’d released each other, and then tossed my sticks again. This time they glanced off of
shielded
bodies.

“Thank you, ladies; now I don’t have to worry about you if we get attacked by wolves or something out here.”

Barb and Amanda walked backward until they were right beside me. Amanda looked at me questioningly. “Do you really think there could be wolves out here?”

“Well, considering we’re not really sure where ‘here’ is, its better safe than sorry.”

She nodded and we walked along for a while in silence. Then Amanda spoke up again, “If something like a wolf did attack us, would our
shield
stop them from hurting us.”

I nodded. “Remember how impressed you were with the power of the
energy
bolts
the girls were casting at the range?” She nodded. “Your
shield
should be able to stop something that powerful. A wolf, or a bear for that matter, wouldn’t have a chance. My father had a man with a sword hit him once, and it didn’t leave a scratch.”

She still looked concerned. “But that was your magic, spirit magic. Who knows about mine and sis? It might not even stop spells.”

I smiled to comfort her. “Are you
shielded
now?” She nodded and I fired a
magic
arrow
at her leg. The spell was absorbed into her
shield
, and I was happy, for a moment.

“What the hell are you doing, you frigging idiot! What if it hadn’t worked? You coulda killed me!”

I laughed. “That was the about the weakest spell there is. If it had gone through your
shield
, it would have hurt, and I would have felt terrible. Your magic, my magic or Carol’s magic would have had you healed before you could call me an idiot. I’m sorry, please forgive me for alarming you.”

“I’m sorry too, I know you’d never do anything to hurt me, when you’re thinking with your big head. It just startled me, but now I know it works and won’t whine about it.”

I smiled and with an amused shake of my head, took the lead. Carol and the girls followed along, chatting about magic and trying simple spells. I knew that I’d have to spoil the fun when we got close to a city or a road with noisy, speeding cars. For now I just listened to the happy noises of a Stephenson wife with her Consorts.

We continued on our eastward track until noon and the girls had me stop for lunch. I gathered firewood and the sisters started a fire that was almost a forest fire before they gained control of the magic again. It was quite a bit more powerful than they expected it to be. Which only excited them into wanting to learn more.