Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales (14 page)

I slide off the pipe and onto the floor, loose-limbed and panting. I follow Arthur with my eyes as he makes his exit. Ambrose remains just beyond the arc, and I see the sweat gleaming across his high forehead. His eyes lock with mine, and he looks as if he might explode.

“Mr. Ambrose?” I begin, meaning to ask if he received my message. My only goal now is to draw him into the room with me. The pipe was not enough—I need to feel
him
inside me. And I need the time after to talk, to persuade him to drop this insanity.

So I let my knees fall open, and I reach up and toy idly with one nipple. But he drops his gaze and strides out of the room.

Thrice defeated, the weight of it is crushing. Groaning, I let my head fall back, spent in both body and spirit. I know the hour is late by the heaviness of my eyelids.

How could I think to tempt him from his purpose, when he believes he must follow through with it to save himself? Better to have kept him talking. Eventually I might have brought him round. What chance do I have if he shuns me?

Even as I work at these questions, I know it is a more primal sense of discouragement that gnaws at my heart. Have I performed my role as a seductress so feebly that he finds me easy to resist? And if so, why should I be wounded by this?

Too exhausted to pursue these thoughts further, and too exhausted to move, I drift off to sleep exactly where I lie.

I'm awakened by the telltale click-and-squeak. Arthur steps into the room, and I can see he's carrying various items. I rise and take the item he holds out to me: a leather collar and chain. I feel a jump of fear in my chest, but an answering swell of hope that this means I'm getting out of my cell for a while. I take the collar from him and fit it around my neck. He reaches up and fastens the clasp, locking it with a key that hangs from a long cord.

Over his arm is draped another dress. Lifting it and holding it out for inspection, I see that though black, it is a quite different affair from the death shroud. This garment is not meant for concealment, but for
display.

So our game will continue.

My cheeks burn and my heart gallops as I take the dress from him. Fitting it around my torso, I hook the corset closed. It's all one piece, a stiff taffeta skirt attached directly to the corset. The skirt is gathered up by stays in the front so that it barely covers me. There is no shirt or camisole; my bare breasts spill over the top of the corset. The mere feeling of exposure in wearing such a garment is enough to harden my nipples.

Arthur grips the end of the chain and steps outside the druid arc, stopping on the other side. He bends and uses a bit of charcoal to scratch out one of the symbols, and then he rises and gives my chain a tug.

“Easy as that,” I mutter, stepping past the line of symbols. Though obviously I couldn't have done the same from my side of the wall.

Arthur leads me in the direction of the room with the kelpie pool, but instead he takes me to my captor's bedchamber, which has the same arc chalked outside the door. Ambrose is waiting there, and Arthur hands him my chain and the little copper key.

Ambrose stands just inside the doorway, naked to the waist except for the key, which comes to rest against his breastbone as he draws the cord over his head. His chest is a brawny expanse of hard muscle that looks soft to the touch. My breath catches, knees wobbling to the point I almost forget to drag my foot through the line of symbols as I pass over. But Ambrose catches my intention and gives the chain a yank. I stumble across without touching them and crash against his legs in my fall.

I remain in this supplicant's pose, cheek brushing the outside of his trousers, helpless as the heat builds between my legs. I'm frightened by the tangled mess of impulses and desires firing through me. I want to flee and I want to worship this man's body, in equal measure. My fevered brain can hardly contain it.

He tugs at my chain to raise me.

I stare up at him, my lips parting to ease the rapid passing of breaths, and his hand comes to my bodice, just under my arm. His expression is impassive, but I see the struggle for control in his glittering gaze. Suddenly he drops his head, sliding his hand under my breast to lift it, and sucks my nipple into his mouth.

Gasping, my hands come to the sides of his head, not to stop him but to hold him there. The hot, wet pressure threatens to unwind me completely. He draws back long enough to shift to the other breast, and as I pull his face deeper into the mounded flesh, his hand slips under the front of my skirt and grips between my legs, startling the sensitive folds of flesh and sending a jolt of hot desire through me.

He releases me and walks toward the bed, tugging the chain so I'm forced to follow.

“Climb onto the bed, Miss Kirk,” he orders.

As I climb up, I notice this chamber, too, has a pool, though smaller than the kelpie pool. More suitable for bathing. The pool is somehow lit from below, and casts its watery light over the ceiling and walls. I wonder if this pool, too, has an outlet to the open air.

Before I can examine it further, he takes hold of one hip and one arm, forcing me onto all fours. Then he takes the end of my chain and hangs it on a hook suspended from the bed's canopy frame.

Moving behind me, he grasps both hips and tugs me backward, until the slack in the chain is taken up and my chin juts forward. He begins wrapping my leg with a long strip of fabric. He does this with both legs, occasionally tugging one or the other to spread them farther apart, until finally he anchors the fabric strips to the bedposts.

Then he grabs my skirt and roughly flips it over my back, baring my thighs and backside. The extreme exposure of this position, cool air on naked flesh and my body splayed for pleasure, tickles and warms my pussy.

I watch him cross to a bureau and pick up what looks like a riding crop. My mouth waters and I swallow hard.

He strikes the crop against the palm of his hand, and then at last he speaks.

“I don't like this game you're playing, Miss Kirk,” he says in a low voice of command.

“Do you not?” I challenge, though my voice is unsteady with anticipation and desire.

“You have forgotten that you are mine to do with as I will.”

“No, sir, that I have not forgotten.”

“Silence,” he snaps, and I hear the crop cut through the air just before the end strikes my bare backside.

I yelp from the sharp sting of it, and feel the answering throb of flesh. The strike was low, near the top of one thigh, and the throbbing tickles the hairs along the outer fold of my pussy.

“Did that hurt, Miss Kirk?”

“You know it did,” I mutter.

He strikes again, and I jerk against my bonds. I feel the moisture pooling around that button of pleasure at the hood of my pussy.

“Did that
hurt,
Miss Kirk?”

“Yes, sir,” I breathe.

“Now, are you prepared to do just as I say?”

It's a game, and yet it's not. I wonder whether either of us really understands the difference at this point.

I swallow again, and I brace my legs as I reply, “That depends upon what it is you say, Mr. Ambrose.”

This time he strikes me four times, in rapid succession, and the pain is blinding—and exquisite. My flesh quivers and throbs, and I arch my back to thrust my ass higher. Suddenly I feel his breath across my buttocks. Cool air, like he's blowing, and it's enough to trigger my release—except that he punctuates this kindness with another strike, this one low, catching the back of my pussy.

My cry this time is ragged, and I sag against my bonds. Moisture runs down the insides of both thighs.

“Are you prepared to do just as I say? If you cannot give me a satisfactory answer, I'll know what to do.”

“And if I
do
give a satisfactory answer?” I ask.

He moves around to my head, and he reaches into my hair, tugging sharply on a handful of curls before rubbing them between his fingers. As my eyes feast on the smooth, sweat-slickened flesh of his chest and the rigid musculature of his hips and abdomen, he raises the crop and I brace for the next strike. Instead he uses the tip to caress my dangling breasts, rubbing and tickling until the nipples are so hard they ache. Then he slides the crop along my side and pushes the flap of leather between the folds of my pussy.

I moan and press against it, and he indulges his captive by rubbing back and forth until I'm rocking and pushing my knees out even farther.

“In that case,” he replies, “I will do exactly the same.”

I close my eyes, and with another low moan my body answers
yes
. Whatever I answer, he's going to fuck me. That is his promise.

So I reply, “You will never control me. You should know that by now.”

“And you, Viviane, are, as ever, over-sure of yourself.”

He moves behind me, and I feel his weight shift between my legs. I hear the rustling of fabric, and then his hand slides into the folds of my pussy, gliding back and forth, slipping easily in and out of my opening. I groan from the urgency building in my belly—the need to feel him buried inside me.

He bends over me, lips against my ear as his hands slide up to squeeze and knead my breasts. “You are mine, Viviane. For this life, and every life to come. Mine.”

His cock enters me hot and hard and I cry out in shock. But my eager muscles clench round him, holding him in place. He grips the sides of my buttocks, forcing them higher, and he begins pumping in and out of me, harder and deeper with each thrust. He works into a rocking, spiraling rhythm and releases my hips to take hold of my hair, forcing my back to arch deeper. Filling me so completely that my release is triggered by the fullness alone. I clamp down on him and scream as he gives a final, violent pump.

With a dark laugh, he collapses onto the bed beside me. I hang in my bonds, panting, his seed spilling down my legs and onto the bedding.

His finger roams down my ribs to my hip, and suddenly he rises again. I feel hot breath against my pussy, and a moment later his face against my backside as the warm velvet of his tongue slips into me. He licks and probes like I'm a dish of something sweet, and I rock against his face. He inserts fingers deep inside me, finding with the tips the same spot I found with the copper pipe. It shoves me right over the edge, and I finish by bucking against his hand like a beast in rut.

Finally, he begins to untie me. With the release of the chain, I collapse onto the bed, blood rushing into stiff limbs. He grasps my shoulder and rolls me onto my back.

He spreads my legs with his knees, cock hard and free from the confines of his trousers. Taking my breasts in his hands, he rolls them above my corset as he thrusts into me. He plants a hand by my head and uses the other to anchor my hip, driving hard into me.

I think I am finished—that I'll rest while he takes his pleasure—but soon I am grasping his arms for leverage to force him deeper. We find our release together, his low, shuddering moan vibrating against my throat.

He raises his head, and for the first time I feel his full, dusk-rose lips against mine, caressing, soft, and wet. It surprises me more than anything he's done since locking me in that cell.

His tongue slips into my mouth, tasting and teasing, and I open wider, yielding to the gentle invasion.

When our lips part, he stares down at me, those loose strands of dark hair tickling my cheeks. He lifts the key on its cord and turns my head, unlocking my collar. He presses a final kiss against my lips and murmurs, “Are you too tired for mischief, my love?”

His words trigger a warm, shivering sensation in my chest and belly. But my mind is again in the driver's seat. “What think you, sir?”

His body trembles with fatigue, and before he can reply I've started up and flung myself off the bed. My downcast gaze remained focused on the pool while he played with me—thanks to the collar I could scarce turn my eyes away from it—and so I have no problem aiming accurately and landing with a noisy splash. But I'm surprised to find the water's quite warm.

Luck is with me, and as I tug free the last hook of my gown, I get my foot against a rock. I use the leverage to shoot into the dark tunnel at the bottom, which I hope will serve as both hiding place and escape route.

Inside the tunnel the water is mind-numbingly cold—a painful contrast to the warm arms I just left—and it requires all my strength of will not to turn back. The splash I expect to hear behind me doesn't come.

The tunnel is too dark to make out much of anything, but when the momentum from my kick is spent, I use the rocks to keep myself moving forward. I feel I'm making good progress—I have breath left, and see that the tunnel opens to light not too far ahead—when I lose contact with the wall. I flail about for a moment, but don't have the air to continue. Intellectually I know I don't need to feel the wall, comforting though it may be. I only need to swim toward the light. So I give a strong kick—and suddenly the light disappears. I thrash and spin in the water, reaching for
anything
to counter the sudden disorientation.

My lungs burn with the need for oxygen, and I know that even should I turn back, I won't make it. Though I've stopped fighting, my body still moves, floating or sinking—impossible to determine, without gravity or any point of reference.

I feel a prick in my heart that he did not come for me. I had no reason to think he would, except to lock me away again. But perhaps he sees this as a conscionable way of solving his problem.

My teeth ache, and I realize I've let frigid water into my mouth. I'll have to breathe soon, regardless of whether there's any appropriate substance to offer my lungs.

My toe touches something solid. I assume I've gone to the bottom, and there is unexpected comfort in at least knowing which way is up.

But I soon realize my error—the surface is moving toward me. Opening my eyes, I find myself bathed in a bluish light. I catch the glint of something shiny, though there's too much shadow and glare to make sense of what's happening. Every fisherman's account of sea or loch monster rises to mind, and I have terror in addition to lack of oxygen to contend with.

I feel something smooth between my legs, and my failing faculties rally.
Llamrei
. Gripping instinctively with my knees, I fling my arms around the kelpie's neck. Water flows over my skin, and a moment later the tunnel end comes into view.

Llamrei breaks the surface, and my lungs behave rashly. I slide from the kelpie's back onto the hard ground, coughing up the water that rushed in with my gasp and fighting for air.

When the spasms finally subside, my eyes find the kelpie. Bright blue light streams from both eyeholes, and as it turns its lifeless gaze on me, I have to look away.

Glancing about, I discover the beast has returned me “to the spot we met.” Night has fallen, but there's a bright full moon washing white light over the fairy pool and rocky landscape.

I hear a creaking and glance at my rescuer. The kelpie's trapdoor has opened. I move closer and peer inside. Some items are piled there, but I can't make them out in the shadows of the beast's belly. I draw them out, and the moment I do, the door slams closed and Llamrei plunges back into the pool.

“Wait!” I cry, not knowing why. But it's as if he was never there. Not a sound but the rush of water over the falls.

Sifting through the items Llamrei carried, I find my own clothing—dress, overcoat, and boots. The night air is chill, so before further investigation I pull everything on, excepting my underthings, which are missing and I assume could not be hastily gathered. I blow warm air into my cold hands, grateful for this unexpected consideration.

The remaining item is my satchel. Inside I find all just as I left it. Notebook, writing implements, a paper bag with an apple and sack of walnuts. On impulse, I flip open the notebook to the last lines I wrote—my inadequate description of the fairy pool. Beneath these lines, in a bolder hand than mine, something else has been scrawled. There's not enough light to decipher the broken script.

I tilt the page this way and that, but give it up when I realize lanterns and voices are coming up the tourist path.

“Miss Kirk? Are ye whole?”

Good Mr. Gordon, looking for his missing guest.

Much fuss is made over me back at the inn, and I learn that men from the village have been searching all night. Whether due to fatigue or confusion or some other reason, I lie to them about where I've been. I slipped on the rocks in the rain and hit my head, I tell them. Woke up confused and wandered until I was lost.

I refuse when they offer to fetch the doctor from the next village, but I accept a hot meal and a glass of whiskey, which I take before a blazing fire in the kitchen. I also accept the kindly attentions of Mrs. Gordon, who draws a bath in the giant copper tub before the fire and rubs my sore and bruised flesh with a warm, soapy cloth.

“Lucky, ye were, not to break a bone falling on the stones like that,” she observes, squinting in the dim light at the darkening marks on my backside and thighs.

“Yes, quite,” I murmur absently.

Whispers and worried glances follow me to my bedchamber. I'm sensible enough to make out talk of fetching the doctor, regardless of my refusal. But it'll not happen tonight. By the time I've donned my nightdress and climbed into bed, the sky to the east is tinged pink. I fall immediately into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

I wake confused and disoriented. The shadows along the lane outside my window and the beach beyond it are long. Several minutes pass before the previous day's events return to me. I calculate I've slept through a day almost entirely, and the supper hour approaches.

Was it all a dream, then?
As I think back over everything, I wonder whether the true events are, in fact, exactly what I told the Gordons last night. The events in my memory seem impossible.

My examination of my skull for a bump from the fall is interrupted by Mrs. Gordon, who is possessed of an arguably supernatural empathy when it comes to her guests—a boon to any innkeeper's wife. She sweeps in with a tea tray and an air of forced cheerfulness. I know she aims to lift my spirits after my ordeal, and I don't resent her for it.

She lingers, chatting about the inconsequential events of her day, long enough to ensure that I drink the tea and eat the oatcakes she has slathered generously with butter. Then she leaves me to rest and recover, issuing an invitation (that has the feel of a directive) to join the family for their supper in an hour.

I hear a girlish whisper as the door closes behind her, and I catch the word “fey.” It's an old word whose meaning varies, but the girl is immediately shushed by her mother, and from the context it's clear enough the Gordons, too, are unsure about the state of my mind.

As the mother and daughter move away from the door, I remember my notebook. I recall very little of what happened after Gordon's party found me, and my gaze moves over the room in some panic. But before I call his wife back, I notice my satchel resting in a chair by the fireplace.

I lift the bag and settle into the chair, grateful for the cheery fire. Retrieving the journal with fingers clumsy with trembling, I flip to the last written page. There, beneath my description of the falls, I find the heavy script I remember noticing the night before:

I love not to be constrained to love;

for love must arise of the heart, and not by constraint.

I would not swear to it, but I believe it is a quote from Malory's book, spoken by Sir Lancelot. The handwriting is clearly not my own.

Breathing with relief that I've at least escaped my ordeal with sound faculties, I sit back in the chair to consider what he meant by it, the fey Mr. Ambrose. Does he refer to Viviane's physical constraint of Merlin? Or his own constraining of
me
? Perhaps both.

Gradually it takes hold of me—a notion that he is not so very fey after all. Believing himself to be Merlin reborn, which led to my shocking imprisonment, was the only sign of disease I observed in him. He was a logical, reasoning man, capable of emotion, passion, and even empathy in the end. Perhaps he spent too much time alone—too much time in studying with monomaniacal focus. It would be enough to rock the foundation of any sound intellect.

As these thoughts turn in my mind, I realize they sound very much like justifications. Not motivated by a desire to excuse his behavior, but by the more startling fact that part of me has begun to believe his story. At the very least he is a druid and a practitioner of magic. I know of no other way to explain the fact that he constructed from symbols an invisible wall that was real only for
me.

And then there is the matter of the
pull.
Easy to explain away as animal lust, and certainly there did exist
that
between us. But each time I peeled off my clothing before him, I was overcome by the sense I had done so many times before. Else how could I have brought myself to do such a thing before a stranger? And when I was dragged by chain into his bedchamber and shackled to his bed, why did it never once occur to me that his violence might do me real harm? Simply because a part of me trusted him, despite the lack of any evidence that suggested I should.

These musings prove too weighty for my exhausted mind and body, and with a warm fire and full belly, it isn't long before I drift off to sleep again. I wake to a darkened window and even brighter fire. Someone has tended it while I was sleeping, and has also draped a wool blanket over me. I suspect Mrs. Gordon had not the heart to wake me for supper.

My own heart is heavy, and there is no use denying it. Illogical and unreasonable though it may be, I feel the loss of Mr. Ambrose. I feel that I must talk to him, once more at least. But how to find him? If I return to the pool, will Llamrei come for me? And
how
to return? Not one of the Gordons would agree to take me there. I am sure of that.

And yet I long to feel his arms around me. To join my body with his.

I rise from the chair, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders, and I walk to the window to look out over the loch. The moon is rising, but my gaze catches on the calm, brightly lit surface of the water only a moment before noting something different about the view.

In the lane below my window, metal glints in the moonlight.

Shoving open the casement I call down in a loud whisper, “Mr. Ambrose?”

Llamrei takes a few steps forward, carrying his rider nearer the window. “Good evening, Miss Kirk,” he says in a low voice that sends a shiver through me.

He is dressed for travel, in a hat and warm cloak, leather bags tied behind his saddle.

“Are you going somewhere, sir?” I ask. I pray the Gordons are abed.

“I am. To Edinburgh, to resume my life,” he says wryly.

I swallow against a growing tightness in my throat. “What shall you do there?”

“Return to the university.” He glances around at the deserted lane. “If they'll have me.”

“I go there in two days myself, to meet Mr. Lang,” I blurt, sounding much like a schoolgirl to my own ears. “To Edinburgh, that is.”

“Ah,” he says politely. “Very good.”

“I thought I might…” He studies me expectantly, and I falter. “That is to say…I wondered if I might call?”

“Miss Kirk.”

I pause to let him continue.

“I must apologize to you. I was…I felt so sure of my purpose. Even now I feel the weight of ages bearing down on me, and I…” He studies me a moment and then shakes his head. “Suffice it to say that at some point my judgment became clouded. My burden is mine to bear, and what I did to you is un—”

“Please don't,” I interrupt, my voice breaking. “I am well and whole.” More whole in fact than I remember ever feeling, though my heart is aching in an unfamiliar way.

“Truly?”

“Truly. I…I had hoped that we might speak again. I've thought about all you said—”

“Och, do not remind me of it.”

“Of course, I'm sorry.” I hesitate, unsure how to continue. Unsure whether he wants me to. Finally, I gather courage and add, “It's only that I believe you are an unusual and gifted person. I should like to know you better.” My face flushes at the recent memories that rise to mind. “Perhaps in Edinburgh we might…”

He observes my confusion, and I catch the gleam of white teeth. It is the first time since our meeting beside the fairy pool that I've seen him smile. It lights his face in a way that raises a swell of longing.

“Shall I accompany you to Kyle of Lochalsh?” he asks. “We could cross over together.”

“You would take me?”

“If you like.”

“Please wait.”

Like a young woman embarking on an elopement, I fly around my bedchamber gathering my things. I don't even bother to dress, only cover my nightdress with my overcoat. I drop my small bag out the window, and he catches and secures it with the others.