Chapter 16

16

It was a quiet morning for Molly, which made her suspicious. Allarion wasn’t due for his next long sleep today, but even then, sometimes his projects were so quiet or so far away that she didn’t hear. Bellarand too could sometimes disappear and not be heard from all day.

But that both of them were so quiet had her a little worried.

So when Bellarand stuck his big head in the open top of the split door, she was more relieved than startled. She didn’t even mind when he nickered with disappointment that she hadn’t jumped with fright.

“And where have you been?” she asked.

Come, human. I need your thumbs, was his answer.

Quick as he’d come, his head disappeared back outside.

Baffled, Molly untied her apron, trading it on the peg by the door for her overcoat. Sliding her arms into the warm brown wool, she opened the bottom half of the door to follow Bellarand to the back of the manor, where a shed kept some ancient-looking hardware mostly dry.

Using his horn, Bellarand snagged a beaten tin bucket by the handle to give over to her. Inside lay a hammer and a collection of old nails. Take this, he told her, and grab that, too. He pointed his horn at an old set of folding steps.

“This won’t help,” she warned him, “I’ve hidden the carrots where you’ll never find them.”

That’s impossible, he retorted, tail swishing. I have but to plumb the depths of your mind, and depending on my mood, I may not be gentle about it. But carrots are for later. For now, bring that and follow me.

Molly didn’t know if he was joking, lying, both, or neither. Heart in her throat, she picked up the stepstool and hauled it with the jangling bucket behind the unicorn. She kept her grumbling to a bare minimum, too, just because she didn’t feel like chancing having the overgrown pony hoofing through her mind.

She paused at the tree line, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Molly had never ventured deeper than a few trees; all her time here, she’d kept to the drive or lawns surrounding the house. The wood was so vast, so different …she couldn’t help a quiver of trepidation.

Come along, prodded Bellarand, keep up.

Molly pursed her lips and followed the unicorn, not wanting to seem a coward.

She shivered as they delved between the trees, leaving behind the meager warmth of the late-autumn sun. The air within the forest was cool and dense, rich with the scent of earth and decay. Browned leaves crunched underfoot, and Molly had to watch her steps for fear of catching a hidden root with her boot.

Bellarand led her with confidence, never deigning to inform her why she was hauling the supplies through the forest.

It became immediately clear, though, when they came to a towering oak tree littered with holes in the bark.

“Oh, no,” she groaned. This was about the squirrels.

I asked for your help, not your commentary, he huffed.

“You didn’t ask at all,” she reminded him. Plopping the supplies on the ground, she planted her fists on her hips.

Please, Molly, help me?

She snorted. She was already here.

Unfolding the stool, she set it where he pointed and then hammered nails to attach it to the tree. All the while, the furry residents of the tree poked their little heads from their dens, angrily chattering and shrieking down at them.

Oh, yes, I’m coming for you now. Run, run while you can, Bellarand taunted.

More than a few acorns and twigs came sailing at them from above. Molly yelped when the sharp end of an acorn poked her head.

“All right, that’s it!” Covering her head, she retreated away from the line of fire.

You see? Menaces, all of them.

Molly would’ve said something about the squirrels just defending their homes, but all her thoughts were wiped away at the sight of Bellarand climbing the stepstool. It creaked under his weight, but still he climbed, gaining ground.

Acorns came flying in vicious volleys, but he didn’t stop, his red eyes burning as more and more squirrels gathered in the branches above.

The tip of his horn had just reached the first den when an ominous crack echoed through the forest.

From one moment to the next, the stepstool collapsed under his weight, splintering into a hundred small pieces. Bellarand whinnied in outrage as his horn scraped down the bark then sank into the tree.

He landed on his front hooves, but when he went to shake his mane, his horn stuck in the tree.

The squirrels barked in triumph as Bellarand bucked and pulled, trying to free his horn.

Molly pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

“D-do you need help?” she called, trying to contain her giggling.

No, he grumbled. Leave me.

“Are you sure—”

YES, he bit out, twisting his head to start working the horn loose.

Biting her lips together, Molly did as she was told, her peal of laughter joining the squirrels’. She wiped at her eyes, wet with how hard she laughed.

But as her boots crunched leaves and the breeze rustled her unbound hair, Molly’s laughter slowly died in her throat.

Coming to a stop, she realized she’d been watching her feet, not the way, as she followed Bellarand here. They’d gone deep enough that she couldn’t see the house beyond the trees—only more forest.

Her laughter turned to trepidation as she turned in a circle. She could faintly hear the chatter of the squirrels, but the trees cut the sound. Turning, turning, she couldn’t tell which direction Bellarand was, nor where the house would be.

Molly was a creature of the city and house—she’d never spent any real time in the wilderness. Give her crowded buildings and overpopulated city squares, that she could handle. As she stood alone in the forest, the trees seemed to lean nearer, the ferns rustling with the wind as if they whispered to her.

The cool dampness of the air clogged Molly’s nose as her heart nearly beat out of her chest. The exposed nape of her neck prickled with awareness of dozens, if not hundreds of eyes, watching her, waiting…

She was about to open her mouth and call for Bellarand when the ferns parted. Molly stared as the leafy fronds created a pathway for her between the trees.

A warm weight settled at her back, as if to push her along.

Was it…the house? The estate?

Allarion.

Sucking in a breath, Molly tried to be smarter and chipped off bark from trees she passed, marking the way she’d come. Not that her previous spot hadn’t been entirely lost, but at least she knew it was somewhat close to where Bellarand and the squirrels did battle.

As Molly went, heart caught in her throat, the dense foliage continued to part, easing her way. That feeling of assurance didn’t leave her, a gentle press on her shoulder that seemed to say, that’s the way .

When the trees began to thin and the forest lightened, Molly quickened her pace. For a hopeful moment, she thought the forest had led her back out to the house.

Instead, Molly found herself walking into a clearing—a meadow, blanketed in soft grass and bordered on two sides by moss-covered boulders. Berry bushes crowded round what sounded like a babbling stream on another side. And at the center lay a figure covered in roots and vines.

The bottom fell out of Molly’s stomach.

She knew that silvery hair.

“Allarion!” she gasped, running for him.

Molly stared at his prone form, his eyes closed, as roots and vines crawled over him. Little brown and white tendrils slithered up his arms and legs, and clusters of mushrooms pushed through the dirt by his head and feet. Ivy reached green fingers from the forest beyond, wrapping around his fingers and hair, and three great tree roots had erupted from the ground to secure him in a wooden vice at the hip. Wherever they touched him, a faint blue glow emanated from him, and his black veins stood in even starker relief against his skin, gone bone white.

They’re eating him!

With a yelp, Molly fell on him, ripping at the roots and vines. She dug her nails into the dirt and pulled, plant matter snapping in her fists. The smell of sap and dirt filled the meadow as she frantically clawed at the plants, desperate to free him.

“Allarion! Allarion, wake up!” she cried.

Still the roots came, and Molly threw her weight behind pulling off one of the large woody roots. It clung to him tight, refusing to budge. She pulled and pulled, knees dragging through the dirt, but she couldn’t free him.

“No!” she cried, flinging off roots and leaves. “You can’t have him!”

Something curled around her wrist, and Molly screamed. Throwing herself backward, she struggled to free her arm, yanking with all her strength to get away, shoulder burning under the strain.

“Molly.”

She gasped at the sound of her name.

Only then did she look at what had taken hold of her.

A hand. With purple-gray skin and long, tapered fingers.

Panting, Molly looked up the macabre form of Allarion covered in wriggling roots to see his eyes open and focused on her.

A sound of alarm buzzing in her throat, Molly crawled toward him, putting her hands on his shoulders to try helping him sit up.

“What are they doing?” she demanded. “Help me get them off you!”

“Please, don’t worry for me, sweetling. This is all perfectly normal.”

Another sound, this time a shriek of utter disbelief, escaped her. “This is not normal! ”

He had the decency to wince. “I must ask for forgiveness again, my Molly. I’m afraid I failed to explain how it is I share my magic with the land.”

Molly fell back onto her bum gracelessly.

“They’re eating your magic?”

“Of a sort. They are certainly absorbing it. I come here to give over my excess magic.”

“To help strengthen the circuit,” she said, remembering how he explained the fae and their relationship to the magic inherent in the world.

Allarion smiled softly. “Just so.”

Ever so carefully, Molly laid her hand on his chest. “So…they aren’t hurting you?”

“No,” he said, his hand coming to lay atop hers. “The opposite, in fact. I rest and they take what the forest needs. It binds us together.”

Molly had a hard time swallowing back her gorge as it tried to rise in her throat—the sight of him there, roped to the ground by earthly bonds, was difficult to reconcile.

They lapsed into quiet, and before her eyes, the flora began to creep over him again. Her skin crawled and tingled when tendrils began to poke and flutter at her hand, and Molly bit her lips together, catching the scream in her mouth.

It was an odd feeling, but not…bad.

Strange. Not her favorite. But not bad .

Allarion chuckled softly. “Breathe,” he reminded her.

She pulled in a breath, her discomfort slowly giving way to interest. The plants were ever so gentle with her, and they seemed just as careful with Allarion. Even the woody roots of the trees held him loosely, never putting their weight on his middle.

Before her eyes, more roots began creating intricate webs over him, rebuilding what she’d broken. Soon, he was almost cocooned in foliage, her hand with him.

Molly laid down in the grass beside him, marveling as moss sprung from the earth to pillow her head. Allarion watched her with a gentle gaze, his face one of the only places free of plant life.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asked in wonder.

“Today, about two hours. Before, every few days since I’ve been at the estate.”

“This is how you gave the house life?”

“For the house, it was more a matter of working on it. Everything I touched to repair it was imbued with my magic.”

She couldn’t help a smile at that. “You brought it to life, piece by piece.”

“I suppose I did, yes. But the estate itself, the forest, is different. It is already alive—sentient. It will never listen to me the way the house does.”

“I’d think not. It’s a forest. ” If it did obey him, she doubted its woodland creatures would be harassing Bellarand so. Or…perhaps it would, if Bellarand annoyed the fae enough.

“How long do you lay here for?”

“Usually a few hours. I think they’ll be done with me soon.”

“Bored of your taste?”

“Indeed,” he laughed. Beneath the mat of foliage, his hand squeezed hers on his chest. “I will admit, it was a…harrowing experience the first time I came here. I wasn’t sure if the forest would accept me and my foreign magic. The earth could have swallowed me up as easily as it took the magic.”

Molly tried not to think about that. “You didn’t do this back in the faelands?”

“No, there wasn’t a need. My kind’s bond to the faelands was already forged in ancient times. Between that and my people, the circuit was strong. At least until…”

“Amaranthe,” she finished. Molly had found he didn’t even like speaking her name.

“Indeed. Although, the first centuries of her reign weren’t so polluted. It was only when the end was in sight that she usurped the order of succession.”

First centuries. Molly chewed her cheek; she’d willfully not thought much about how truly old Allarion was—and it went far beyond the gap between their own ages. Everyone knew fae were nigh immortal. Did that mean, even for all his talk of fate and mates, he would live well beyond her mortal years?

A jealous heat burned in her belly to think of him moving another human woman into the house after the appropriate mourning period for her.

“Allarion…how old are you?”

Whatever she thought his response would be, it wasn’t the hearty chuckle he gave. He smiled at her, showing off those fangs, and Molly couldn’t help sidling a little closer, drawn inextricably by his pull.

“Now that is a complicated question for most fae.”

“What, do you stop keeping track?” she joked half-heartedly.

Her stomach swooped when he nodded in assent.

“In your human years, it is many, I think. I remember a time when your kingdom was not a kingdom at all, but many small lands, with their own chiefs.”

Molly swallowed hard. “That was over a thousand years ago.”

“Truly? Well, over a thousand, then.” He rolled his head to the side to regard her with those unnatural eyes, the roots folding and twisting with him. “It doesn’t feel like a thousand years, if that makes sense. Time passes differently for fae, particularly in the faelands, surrounded by our magic. Life is simply…life.”

Molly struggled with the idea, turning it over in her mind. “I suppose…life doesn’t feel fast to the mouse who only lives a few years. It’s just their time allotted.”

One side of his mouth ticked up. “Indeed. Just their time.” His face took a familiarly serious mien as he said, “But I must tell you, connected to me, your human life would be much longer. Not that of a fae, but not human, either.”

Her mouth fell open in shock. “H-how long?”

“That I cannot say. Only that with our lives intertwined, yours shall lengthen and mine shall shorten.”

“What?” she gasped. “You’ll die?”

“We all do, someday. Even fae. My end shall just come a little sooner now.”

“But…” Guilt gnawed at her to know that being tied to her was somehow a death sentence for this strange, incredible man.

His hand squeezed hers under the roots, offering his comfort. Molly held on tighter as the world spun.

“Don’t despair,” he said gently. “It isn’t about the number of years but how they are lived.”

She clung to him and those words. The prospect of having so many years—of outliving everyone and everything she’d ever known—expanded before her mind’s eye, an incomprehensible journey she couldn’t fathom. Like trying to see the path through the trees, her mind pushed against thinking in such lengths and temporality.

Molly rubbed at her temple. “That’s…going to take a while to accept.”

His mouth lifted in a wry grin. “We have the time, sweetling.”

Despite herself, Molly guffawed. Snorting with a laugh, she propped herself up on her elbow, the worries of living for more years than she could count left in the grass for now.

There was something far more pressing, right in front of her.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Molly leaned over Allarion to kiss him.

His lips went perfectly still under hers, but that was all right. She kissed him gently, a slow introduction, savoring the feel of him.

She heard his sharp intake of breath, and then his warm hand cupped the side of her face.

Molly pulled back at his touch, looking just in time to see the smallest roots disappearing back into the earth and the large tree roots sliding away from his middle.

“Molly.”

She met his kiss with a smile as he pushed up to capture her mouth again. Free of the plant life, Molly framed his dear face in her hands, holding him at just the right angle.

Molly loved kissing. It’d always been her favorite part of flirting and even fucking. Too few of her past lovers hadn’t kissed beyond a cursory duty to get into bed. Even Finn, who’d preferred to use his mouth to talk too much during sex. It was a shame, because a good kiss could make Molly amenable to quite a lot.

And now she knew—she loved kissing Allarion.

“Show me,” he murmured against her lips, those purple eyes sparkling.

So she did. Molly showed him just how she liked to be kissed with teasing strokes and playful nips. He followed her lead, chasing her tongue when she coaxed his into her mouth to tease and circle.

His taste sparked on her tongue like his magic, electric. He tasted of spring water and ancient rites and somehow, the color purple. He was warm as cinnamon and cloves, smoky as a bonfire, and rich as the earth beneath them. This fae might have been the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she couldn’t get enough.

Those big hands gripped her waist, his fingertips somehow so gentle but piercing with their need as he pulled her down to him. She laid over him as surely as the roots and vines had, cocooning him in her.

As the birds chirped and the forest distributed Allarion’s magic, they lay in that meadow, kissing. Molly nearly melted with his sweetness, how every moment he learned and acted. He seemed to delight in pleasing her, and soon it was him delivering nips and laves, sparking a needy heat between her thighs.

Molly moaned into his mouth in encouragement, fusing their mouths together in something a little deeper, a little hotter. His hands roamed her back, kneading the wool of her coat in desperate circles. She gasped his name, needing air, but he gave her no quarter, those warm lips trailing down her neck to suck at her pulse point.

“Molly,” he groaned, “tell me not to.”

She was beyond words, mind too fuzzy with pleasure to make sense of what he said. Molly caught his mouth with hers again, sinking into his kiss. She needed less thinking, less talking, and more of him.

Fates, I should’ve been kissing him this whole time.

A hissing sound slithered against her lips, and Molly shuddered to feel those fangs. She traced each with her tongue, her cunt throbbing at their sharpness.

His fingers sank into her sides, and a needy sound escaped her throat.

“ Azai —”

Ah, there you are. Without care or shame, Bellarand clomped into the meadow, stalking right up to hang his long face over them. He unceremoniously nudged Molly with his muzzle. Come along, I need more thumbs.

“We’re busy,” Allarion grumbled.

No, you’re not. You’re laying there playing with your mouths. You can do that any time. Quit lazing about and come be helpful.

“I told you before, I’m not helping you murder woodland creatures,” said Allarion.

Molly laughed, rolling off him onto her back. She wouldn’t be riding her fae in front of the unicorn. She didn’t need to hear how two-leggeds were disgusting or a critique of her form or whatever other asinine thing Bellarand thought.

Allarion’s face scrunched into nothing less than a pout to have her retreat, and it was Bellarand who got the brunt of his displeasure.

“You need to give up this pointless feud with the squirrels,” he told the unicorn.

Me? They are the ones who started it. War criminals, all of them.

“If you would simply parley with them…”

Molly lay in the soft grass of the meadow, chuckling under her breath and watching the branches and leaves sway in a soft breeze as her fae and his stubborn pony argued over the merits of eradicating every squirrel on the estate.

Just another day at Scarborough, where strangeness was the norm.

Touching her lips, still tingling from his fervent kisses, Molly smiled to herself. Maybe not just another day. Maybe a very special day. A beginnings sort of day.