A Flame Rekindled
I smiled as Seamus kindled the fire and invoked my name, the faith a gentle frisson down my back. He poured a shot of the local liquor onto the little embers, and they blazed high in a beautiful blossom of near-invisible flames.
I smiled as Seamus kindled the fire and invoked my name, the faith a gentle frisson down my back. He poured a shot of the local liquor onto the little embers, and they blazed high in a beautiful blossom of near-invisible flames.
I was not about to be caught between two alpha satyrs with their blood lusts up. I raised my hands and looked for a way to get out of here that ideally didn’t involve getting ankle-deep in intestines.
The air was so cold that my breath froze on my lips, and even the water coming out of my lungs turned chilly on my skin within a second. It was getting hard to keep my eyes open. My pretty silk wraps clung to my skin, frosted over, crackling with every breath and feeble movement.
The bag of Ankhiale’s ashes sat in the middle of the coals, protected with the finest alchemy a goddess could buy. It was even cool to the touch.
Part of me hated myself for this weakness, mooning over a lover like someone out of a bad romance novel. Part of me thought the other part of me was an idiot.
“Tell me you didn’t touch the horn! For the love of Cernunnos, tell me you didn’t touch that damned thing!”
I felt my horns instinctively emerge and I flung him off of me as I grew into the shape of the Horned Beast’s Wrath – nine full feet of ram horned muscle, a full mouth of flesh-tearing teeth, and a whole lot of angry. I saw red.
“By the holy fires, Ankhiale, I will see you dead beneath the burning eyes of the Heavens or die myself in the attempt,” I swore.
“Why do you smell like burnt blood and sausage, love?” “Assassin dark elf in the elevator, and those stuffed pork trotters you like,” I said.
Something hit me from the side, hard enough to send me flying across the path and crashing into one of the giant mossy pine trees.
“Hes, darlin’ love, you’re not the flirtatious type, so what was that all about? You’re usually so regal and serene on nights like this.”
A flash of movement caught my eye, a shape among the smoke, half-seen on the edge of the forest.
“The fact that I can see your pulse poundin’ in your throat, love,” he purred, and leaned down to give me a kiss. At the last moment, he jerked his head back and licked my nose instead before hopping backwards out of arm’s reach.
Leave behind the greens and browns of the Highlands and take your place by the bonfire. Be a satyr’s girl, for once in your life. Dance under the moon with me, for Equinox?”
The sober-ish one was screaming, trying to reload his gun, dropping bullets in his fear, and the pungent scent of his terror was thick on the air. He managed to get one shot off, which was a mistake. The bullet didn’t even slow Seamus down – but it did piss the rest of them off.