Once Upon a Twilight

Winter Pennington

Bold Strokes Books (2012)

Millicent and Malinda Hearthwell couldn’t be more different. Though the two sisters have always been close, Millicent is often frustrated by her sister’s inability to be what she perceives as mature and realistic. Too often, Malinda surrenders to her impulses, throwing herself thoughtlessly and headlong into flights of reckless fantasy.On the day before Malinda’s wedding, Millicent finds herself dragged yet again on another of her sister’s wild and imaginative quests. Convinced that she will beseech the Fey Ones to help her escape the dull world around her and her betrothed, Malinda persuades Millicent into riding out in the forest near their home. When things do not go as planned, Millicent realizes she’s lost not only her sister in the deep heart of the forest, but her own way as well.Just when she thinks she can go on no longer, a strange woman from the forest offers Millicent shelter from the storm. As Millicent comes to better know the generous and beautiful stranger, she begins to wonder if perhaps her sister’s far-fetched beliefs might have some merit to them after all, and that maybe, just maybe, fairytales and romance actually do exist beyond a page.

Table of Contents

- Synopsis

- By the Author

- About the Author

- Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

Synopsis

Millicent and Malinda Hearthwell couldn’t be more different. Though the two sisters have always been close, Millicent is often frustrated by her sister’s inability to be what she perceives as mature and realistic. Too often, Malinda surrenders to her impulses, throwing herself thoughtlessly and headlong into flights of reckless fantasy.

On the day before Malinda’s wedding, Millicent finds herself dragged yet again on another of her sister’s wild and imaginative quests. Convinced that she will beseech the Fey Ones to help her escape the dull world around her and her betrothed, Malinda persuades Millicent into riding out in the forest near their home. When things do not go as planned, Millicent realizes she’s lost not only her sister in the deep heart of the forest, but her own way as well.

Just when she thinks she can go on no longer, a strange woman from the forest offers Millicent shelter from the storm. As Millicent comes to better know the generous and beautiful stranger, she begins to wonder if perhaps her sister’s far-fetched beliefs might have some merit to them after all, and that maybe, just maybe, fairytales and romance actually do exist beyond a page.

Once Upon a Twilight

Brought to you by

eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

Once Upon a Twilight

© 2012 By Winter Pennington. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-844-5

This Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, New York 12185

First Edition: June 2012

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editor: Shelley Thrasher

Production Design: Lee Ligon

Cover Design By Lee Ligon

By the Author

Once Upon a Twilight

Bloody Claws

Darkness Embraced: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel

Witch Wolf

Raven Mask

“Millie.” A soft voice tickled my ear. I groaned as the blanket slid off my shoulder. “Millie.” That whispering voice paused, then asked, “Are you awake?”

“I’m making a good attempt not to be.”

“Get up.” A hand shook my shoulder.

“Why the bloody—” I opened my eyes and squinted into the bright glow of lantern light swinging in my face.

“Oh, don’t talk to me like that!” My sister’s pale features contorted in a familiar expression of impatience. She placed her hand against my shoulder and roughly pushed again. “Get up!”

“What time is it?”

“Does it matter? Get up!”

“Get that bleedin’ lantern out of my face.”

Malinda lowered the lantern. “There, Grumpelstiltskin. Better?”

“What’s got you crawlin’ up the cat’s arse?”

She caught my wrist in her free hand and tugged, trying to pull me out of bed. I resisted, stubbornly leaning my weight in the opposite direction.

“Your eloquence is wasted on me, Millie. Come on. We’ve got to get going if we want to be there by twilight.”

“By twilight?” I sat up and blew a disheveled lock of hair out of my face. I wasn’t sure why I braided it every night when it always ended up all over the place anyway. “Where exactly are we supposed to be by twilight? Don’t you have a wedding rehearsal tomorrow?”

“Henrick,” she said, and scrunched her small nose in disgust as if she tasted something sour. “I’ve told Mummy I can’t stand him, and she and father still expect us to wed.” She frowned. Malinda had failed to mention that she’d told the entire household she couldn’t stand one Messire Henrick Alderick Averay.

My sister went to the wardrobe and procured articles of clothing, a cloak, and my riding boots. “Come, Millie, put these on.” She dropped them beside me. “Well?” she asked when I merely stared at her. She put her hands on her hips. Her cobalt eyes so like my own narrowed obstinately.

I cursed softly and tossed the blankets aside to get to my feet. I pulled on the thick pair of riding breeches and discarded my shift for the woolen tunic.

“So, where are we bound?” I asked, unhappily jerking my boots up to my knees. “You’re obviously fleeing and taking me with you. What’s your plan?”

Her lips curled cheerily. “We’re going to the forest.”

I tugged my final boot on and tilted my head. “For what? Are we going to find a witch’s house so we can meet an unfortunate fate like Hansel and Gretel? Aren’t we a little too old for those adventures? Have you lost your bloody wits?”

“No.” She threw the bundle of burgundy cloak in my face. “We’re going to find the Good Folk.”

“Oh, aye.” I gestured at my head with a hand. “You’ve lost it. You’ve gone bats. They’re all twittering and squeaking about in there.”

“There are no bats in my head. We’re going to find the Fey Folk. One way or another, Millie, I’m getting out of here,” she said with a resolute air.

“Mmm, right.” I pinned the brooch after settling the cloak about my shoulders. “We are a bit old for these games, Malinda.”

She turned on me a look of utter determination. “I’m serious, Millie. It’s not a game.”

“And that, dear sister, is what worries me.”

Ever since we were children, Malinda had always found ways of getting us both into trouble. In adulthood, that hadn’t changed much. I could’ve continued to fight and try to resist her, but Malinda was just as stubborn and willful as I, and we’d only be at it and each other for hours. My only real option, if I wanted to get anymore sleep, was to let her have her way.

However, that did not stop me from casting her surly glances to show her my displeasure.

We tiptoed through the house as Malinda led the way to the stables with a skip in her step, not bothering to hide that she was happy she had managed to persuade me into riding out on this insane jaunt with her.

I held the cloak around my body and gritted my teeth. The lantern swung in her hand, the orb of its glow flicking wildly across the grass.

“It’s friggin’ cold,” I muttered.

Malinda turned and flashed me a dazzling smile. A breeze kicked up and tossed the strands of her mahogany hair into her heart-shaped face. She drew the hood of her cloak up to shield against it and said, “Oh, you’ll get over it, sour puss.”

We made it to the stables and, luckily, the groom was still abed. I stood aside to allow her to ready the horses. If she wanted me to go with her…well then, she was in charge of making the appropriate preparations.

She spared me a glance while saddling her silver palfrey. “You’re not going to help?” She bent her head in the direction of Stardust. His dark ears pricked as if he knew he was being talked about.

I shrugged. “You’re the one that wants to do this.”

She released a frustrated sigh that bordered on a growl, but obliged anyway, retrieving Stardust’s saddle and slipping into the stall beside him.

I tried to repress a satisfied smile and failed.

Malinda fixed the bridles on the horses and led them out by the reins. She handed Stardust’s lead to me and effortlessly mounted Luna.

We’d had the horses since we were children, had trained, named, and raised them ourselves with our father’s and our groom’s guidance. Stardust exhaled a bored huff of air before he ducked his head and nibbled affectionately on my shoulder. I patted his wide neck.

“I know,” I whispered to him. “I’m not exactly thrilled about it, either.”

His ears swiveled forward as he nuzzled me lightly. I ran a hand down his onyx face. In moonlight, his brown eyes were as black as his coat.

I sensed Malinda’s rising impatience and mounted, steering Star in her direction. I made a clicking sound, not bothering to set heels to him. More often than not, he responded to the click.

The dry grass crunched under our horses’ hooves as we rode toward the edge of the trees.

“You do realize, Malinda, this is insane.”

Malinda hefted the lantern in her free hand. The full moon was bright above in the inky sky. If I had to guess the time, I’d say twilight was still an hour or so away.

“Insane,” she mumbled, and I sensed her smile crack in the dark.

Irritated, I held Star’s reins loosely and pushed the hair out of my face with my free hand. Why hadn’t I bothered to take the time to braid it again? I looked a right mess, I was sure of it. Though, given that I was willing to slip out of the bed in the wee hours to go chasing faeries with my sister, I was certain I more than just looked it.

I felt it.

Obviously, my sister needed to get away, even if she found only an illusion of freedom, before her wedding. She needed someone to talk to or she wouldn’t have woken me to begin with. She was my sister. My duty was to be there for her, as we had always been there for one another.

“So, how exactly do you plan on finding these…faeries?” I asked. We’d both grown up hearing the local legends, the stories passed down from our mother’s and grandmother’s mouth. I would grant her that the surrounding forest was riddled with tales of old people, tales of young children disappearing, never to be seen again. But taken by the Fey Ones? That, I highly doubted. More than likely, they’d merely wandered in alone and lost their way, which was easy enough to do in such a very large forest.

We’d nearly lost each other on several occasions in there when we’d gone hunting with our father and brothers. On one such occasion, Ian, our eldest brother, had found us both and guided us back to the estate, where our father waited to unleash a verbal scolding.

It had been Malinda’s idea, as it was now, to wander off on our own.

It was always her brilliant idea.

Star nickered softly and shook his head, as if he shared my thoughts and agreed with me.

“We find a faerie ring.” Malinda sounded far more confident spouting such nonsense than I ever would have.

She truly believed that we’d find them.

“You have to stand in it during twilight, when the veil between the worlds is thin,” she added, her voice unwavering.

I caught my tongue between my teeth and bit back a curse. She was the adventurous one, the impulsive one, and my reckless opposite.

I preferred to plan ahead, to think things through before leaping headfirst into them like a wild maniac.

And when I did, she accused me of being condescending.

“You do realize, Malinda, that even if faeries are real, and I’m not saying they are, they’re called the Good Folk for a reason.”

“Your point?” she asked, her brows arching in defiance, just daring me to disagree.

“Not all faeries are nice. The locals call them the Good Folk in hopes they will be.”

The air, moist and cool, clung to my cheeks and bare hands. A faerie ring was compromised of a circle of mushrooms, and though she might find one or two, I doubted she would find a perfect ring of them so soon in the spring. The grass below us hadn’t returned to life and full color yet, though the trees around us stayed brilliant and green throughout the year.

Malinda didn’t respond, making a show of ignoring me as we rode more deeply into the heart of the forest.

I sighed again. In her mad quest, no doubt, she’d get us lost again.

“I should have grabbed a compass,” I grumbled, and Star whinnied. I patted the side of his neck. “I know, I know,” I murmured. “You can find the way back.”

Both Luna and Star had gone out enough times with our father and brothers that if we didn’t stray too far from the main path, they’d get us back home. They were amazingly clever animals, our horses. Yet, if we didn’t stray too far from the main path, I could get us home, too.

I glanced at the sky above to try to determine how much time had passed. The stars and moon had moved slightly closer to the east.

When I turned to look at Malinda, her gaze flicked left and right as she scanned the ground, hunting any hint of a faerie ring.

“So,” I said again, trying to prompt her. “If we find your faerie ring, what are we to do when we find it, hmm?”

“You’re being condescending again.”

I rolled my eyes. “Terrible habit, so sorry.”

“Besides, I already told you. You find it and stand in it during twilight.”

“At this rate, we’ll be sitting on our horses, not standing in a faerie ring during twilight.”

Malinda growled softly again. “Honestly, Millie, do you always have to be so infuriating? For once, why can’t you just believe and trust me?”

“Because,” I leaned over Star’s pommel and ignored it when it dug into my ribs, “you’re already away with the bleedin’ faeries! We don’t need to friggin’ find them for that!”

She glared at me. Suddenly, she set her heels hard into Luna, kicking her into a run.

This time, I kicked Star and set out after her. “Hey!” I called. “What the bloody hell are you doing?”

“Getting away!” she cried.

“From?”

“You!”

I cursed, but gave chase. A little voice inside me screamed, Don’t let her out of your sight! I heeded that voice, knowing that if I did lose sight of her for a moment, I’d be spending the entire day looking for her.

She tried to shake Star and me from Luna’s heels, but Star was fast, and as much as she tried to lose us by veering and guiding Luna through the trees, we persisted in keeping her in our sights.

After what seemed like hours, Luna finally got winded and slowed to a trot. Star and I caught up and I clutched my sister’s arm, digging my nails into the thick material of her sleeve.

“You idiot! You’ve made us veer off the trail! You know that, don’t you?”

“If you hadn’t started yelling at me I wouldn’t have tried to get away!”

“I’m so tired of this,” I muttered. “Your damn impulsiveness has always landed us nowhere but in trouble, Malinda. You’re twenty-three years old now. It’s time to start bloody acting like it!”

“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t act like!” She seemed equally as furious and worked up as I was. “If you’re so mature, why don’t you go back and marry Henrick? I’m sure he’d make a wonderful husband. Together, you could be equally dull!”

I drew in a deep breath and fussed with Star’s reins to distract myself whilst I tried to calm down. The sky ahead was just beginning to lighten.

“It’s almost morning,” I said. “We need to get back to the house before the others wake.”

“No.”

“Malinda, don’t argue with me…”

If I had to drag her kicking and screaming on the back of my horse, I bloody well would.

“No,” she said again, poised and unyielding. “I came out here to find a faerie ring and that’s what I intend to do.”

“Dear, dear little sister,” I said, no longer caring if I sounded condescending. “In the amount of time we’ve been out here, you’ve done nothing but acted like a spoiled and impulsive child and led us astray of the path. It’ll take the entire morning just to try to find our way back.”

“Then,” she steered Luna away from me, “go find your way back and tell Mummy and Daddy what I’ve done. I don’t care anymore. I can’t go back, don’t you get it? I am not marrying that man! I’d find more adventure with a…with a…tree stump!”

“Well, then, I suppose we should start finding you one, because your chances, dear sister, of finding the Fey Ones to scoop you up and rescue you from your boring fate are slim.”

“Just because you don’t share my beliefs doesn’t mean you have to belittle them.” She scowled.

“If you made sense every once in a while, I wouldn’t, but this entire excursion makes absolutely no bloody sense. You’re afraid, so you’re running. How can you not see that? Henrick really isn’t as terrible as you make him out to be. He’ll treat you right and he’s got the heavy pockets to do it. That’s why Mummy and Daddy want you to wed. They want to know you’re safe and well cared for!”

“Like I said,” she said, “if he’s such a fancy catch, you marry him, then!”

I growled at her. She knew I’d never had any interest in Henrick, or anyone, for that matter. I liked being alone. I knew what Malinda had apparently never truly grasped in life: fairy-tale romances didn’t exist. People wed for reasons of security, be it emotional or financial. Sometimes, they grew to love one another, but more often than not, they were simply comfortable.

“There’s more to life than this, Millie. I have to believe there is. If I don’t, I’ll go mad with the tedium of it all. Don’t you understand?”

I licked my lips and sighed. “Malinda, comfort isn’t always a bad thing, and that’s what Henrick can offer you.”

“But I don’t want comfort,” she said. “You know me better than anyone else. Surely, you know that. I want love. I want passion. I want adventure. Not…Henrick!”

“Malinda,” I took her hand and held it when she didn’t draw away, “this is our life. The situation could be worse. He could be three times your age, and at least, if you marry him, we’ll be close and able to see each other.”

“We’ll be three days from each other, Millie.”

“But we’ll still be able to see each other.”

She shook her head and withdrew her hand then. She nudged Luna with her heel and headed more deeply into the forest again.

Defeated, I followed her.

We weren’t riding long before she jerked on Luna’s rein and brought her to a halt.

“Millie,” she said, some distance ahead of me. “Millie!” Her excitement carried through the trees. “Millie, I’ve found one!”

She dismounted as I drew up alongside her horse.

“Look.” She pointed ahead, her face and eyes alight with triumph. “Look, Millie!”

I followed her finger and, sure enough, there, against the dark soil, I saw a ring of perfect white mushroom tops.

Malinda approached the near-perfect circle of fungi with an expression of astonishment and wonder.

“And look!” she cried. “It’s almost twilight!” She clasped her palms together in front of her with unrestrained joy, obviously proud of herself for finding exactly what she’d come searching for.

I rolled my head back and sighed. She was correct. The sky above was just barely both light and dark, threatening to cast a gray haze over the trees and land around us.

I stayed mounted on Stardust’s back as Malinda hitched her skirts up to her knees and stepped into the ring. She drew back her hood and looked this way and that, scanning the forest curiously.

“See anything?” I asked.

“Only your ugly mug. I don’t know why it’s not working.”

“Right. My ugly mug must explain why Henrick’s brothers begin slobbering like dogs every time I set foot in the same room as them.” She ignored my quip. I didn’t bother reminding her that we looked near enough alike that she might as well have been calling herself ugly. When we were younger, we often tried to pretend to be each other and to confuse our family. Of course, too many subtle differences set us apart. I was a few inches taller, less busty, and my hair was crow-black to her brown. We never fooled anyone, but our family often played along just to mollify us. We had the same slightly arched noses, the same cobalt eyes that we’d inherited from our mother, the same creamy white skin, and the same mouth, often drawn in different expressions, as they were now.

Malinda stood, perplexed and pouting. “It should have worked,” she mumbled more to herself than to me. “I don’t understand—”

“Mayhap, you’re forgetting something. Eye of newt?”

She shot me an irritated glance and fussed with her cloak. “No, you dolt. You don’t need eye of newt to summon faeries.”

“Mmm, perhaps a password, then?” I bent over Star’s neck, once again ignoring the pommel. “Maybe something such as ‘abracadabra’ or ‘open sesame.’”

My sister scared the bejeezus out of me by abruptly flinging her arms out, palms up toward the sky, and yelling, “Come, faeries! Come, wild ones! I, Malinda Hearthwell, summon thee!”

I snorted, unable to control myself. In the face of Malinda’s determination to summon the fey, I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself and Star’s saddle underneath me. I gasped for breath as Malinda glared at me, seized by another fit of laughter simply because of her expression.

One thing I was sure of, my loony sister put on a good show. If I gained anything from our trip to the forest, it was the pleasure of watching her make a complete arse of herself.

“It’s easy for you to laugh,” she said, her voice drawn tight with displeasure, “but mark my words, Millie. One of these days life will throw at you something so marvelous and unbelievable that it makes you question all the laws of logic you’ve built for yourself.”

I tried to bite back another laugh and failed.

“Maybe you should stand on one foot, hop like a hare, and touch your nose?” I suggested.

Her expression turned even dourer as she stomped out of the mushroom ring.

“Come on, Malinda,” I said, examining the still slightly dark sky above. A few clouds had begun to gather against the rich blue. “We should go before it starts to rain. It’ll be easier to follow our tracks back home when they’re still there.”

Malinda swung astride her horse but refused to speak to me.

I waited for her to initiate riding and then guided Star behind Luna as they bore us back the way we had come.

The clouds above continued to gather during our trek.

I tried to press Malinda into talking and, like an upset child, she ignored me.

I sighed again.

What could I say to make her accept the path ahead of her? I couldn’t very well force her to want, let alone accept, a life she didn’t desire. She craved too much. She expected too much of the world around her and the people in it.

Didn’t she understand that people were simple? The world itself was very simple and not nearly as complex as she desired it to be. If she didn’t learn to come to terms with the reality around us and to lower her expectations, she would always be disappointed. She wanted the world to be some magical place, with unicorns and rainbows, romance and intrigue, and when reality knocked on her door, she turned it away in hopes that some magical faerie beings would take her away from it all.

It was a child’s wish. Her child within was too bright and too big for the adult body that contained it.

I pitied her, how could I not? She was my sister and I wanted her to be happy, but in order to get there, she had to accept and come to terms with reality and to understand that sometimes, the best we can hope for is contentment.

Malinda was hunched, her hood drawn to conceal her features, as we rode. A heavy silence enveloped us, as did her disappointment and my guilt, guilt for not telling her sooner or often enough that brave warriors, white knights, and monstrous dragons didn’t exist. They were nothing but stories meant to entertain children.

The first tear-fall of rain pattered down on my hand.

“We need to pick up the pace,” I said, though she didn’t seem to be listening.

For what seemed another lengthy stretch of time, we continued to ride in silence. We found our way back to the main path and steered our horses onto it.

The rain began to fall more heavily and I tugged at my hood to better shield my eyes.

Malinda guided Luna to a halt, stopping in the middle of the path.

“What is it?” I asked.

She tugged the rein in her hand and turned Luna to face me. “I’m sorry, Millie. I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Setting her heel hard into Luna’s side, they ran past Star and me.

I cursed and quickly turned Star to chase Malinda, yet again.

The thundering of Luna’s hooves on the ground up ahead mingled with Star’s as we chased them. Malinda had driven her horse hard off the path and into the trees away from it.

A clap of thunder sounded in the skies above, reverberating through my chest. Star whinnied, obviously startled and frightened.

“Malinda!” I screamed as the skies opened up and the rain began to pour. “Malinda!” I tried again but the sudden downpour drowned out my voice.

Star began to slow down and I set my heel to him again. “Hah!” I cried. “Hah! Come on, Star! You bleedin’ mule! Go!”

After a bit of hesitation and a few persistent kicks, he reared, forcing me to cling to him, before he launched us more deeply into the forest in pursuit of Malinda.

I tried to guide Star close to the trees, hoping their branches would shield us somewhat from the rain, but it was pointless.

When he grew winded and started having difficulty traversing the wet soil, I slowed him to a walk.

The rain fell so hard I could barely see ten feet in front of me, even as the sky above began to lighten.

And Malinda and Luna were nowhere in sight. I tried to listen for them, tried to discern Luna’s hooves or whinnying above the downpour, and couldn’t.

I turned Star in a circle. Where was the main path? How far had we strayed from it?

My blood rushed, louder in my ears than the falling rain.

I was lost. In the frantic chase, I hadn’t remembered to pay attention to anything but catching Malinda.

I made a clicking noise and, when Star didn’t move, tapped him lightly.

The best I could do was find shelter from the rain and wait out the storm. Then, I could better search for Malinda and set about the arduous task of finding our way home.

My clothes were sodden. The cool spring breeze turned frosty cold as Star and I walked blindly in search of some kind of makeshift shelter.

The rain had soaked through the hood of my cloak and into my hair. I spotted a wide tree some paces ahead and guided Star to it. It didn’t provide much in the way of shelter, but it would have to do.

Beneath the crown of the tree, the rain was lighter. I wrung what water I could from my clothing, muttering curses under my breath.

“Are you lost?”

I raised my head and dropped the folds of my cloak from between my hands.

A cloaked figure stood just in front of Star. For a moment, my mind had nearly played a trick on me. For a moment, I had believed it to be Malinda’s voice and not some stranger’s.

“No,” I said, my teeth chattering hard enough to rattle my skull. “I’m doing an experiment to see how wet I can get before turning into a frozen prune.”

The figure laughed but didn’t meet my gaze. A slender pale hand reached out as fingers hooked under Star’s bridle. “Come along, then.”

The tall and mysterious figure began to lead Star. Strangely, he followed the woman. Odd, I thought. Star was a very personal horse. The only people he let close to him were those he trusted.

I leaned over and glanced at him, trying to catch his big brown eye with my gaze.

He blinked, but continued to follow the hand that led him.

“My sister is out here,” I said.

“Like as not, as lost as you are. But you’ll not find her in this rain.”

“I have to try.”

“I advise waiting the storm out, traveler.” She turned her head, as if she would meet my gaze over her right shoulder, but her hood shrouded her face from my view. “You’re useless in this and will only succeed in further losing your way.”

I didn’t know where the strange woman was leading us and was too friggin’ cold to care. I wrapped an arm around myself, trying to stay warm and shivering despite my effort. Every inch of my clothing was drenched in spite of any wringing I had done.

The cloaked figure brought Star to a halt and came to help me dismount. Those slender hands reached for my hips, and when she looked up at me, her hood fell back to momentarily reveal her face.

The breath hitched in my chest for a moment, only a moment, a glimpse, and then I was dismounting and blinking rainwater out of my eyes.

Her brunette hair was so dark it was nigh black, her features were beautifully square, and her eyes like honey in sunlight…that much I’d glimpsed of her before she wrapped her arm around me and led me down a cobblestone path toward the entry of a small cottage.

The strange woman opened the door and ushered me inside. It was dark in the cottage, but blessedly warmer and drier than outside.

She moved about the room, setting lanterns and candles to glowing, before she knelt before a small fireplace and set to lighting it.

The fire ignited and she kindled it, tossing another log of wood onto the small stack.

“There,” she said, rocking back on her heels as the flames leapt to lick the wood. She drew her hood back at last, water dripping from her dark ringlets. She smiled warmly as she got to her feet.

I found myself incapable of not staring at her. As she approached, her smile broadened in an unabashed grin.

It took me a moment to realize she had extended her hand. It hovered in the air between us. “I’ll take your garb,” she said, still grinning. “I should have something that will fit you in exchange.”

As if in a trance, I removed my cloak. It wasn’t her beauty alone that made me stare. Something about her seemed familiar, as if I had glimpsed her face once in a dream.

“Do I know you?” I asked, handing the heavy garment to her.

“I don’t know,” she said, taking it and canting her head. For a moment, her grin wavered and then it returned. “Do you?”

I smiled daftly in reaction.

She turned her back and disappeared through a doorway. I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like, bedraggled and smiling like a bleeding idiot.

Why was I smiling like a bleeding idiot? Better yet, what kind of answer was, “I don’t know, do you?”

The strange woman returned with a mysterious bundle of material in her arms. She’d removed her cloak but hadn’t yet bothered to change her wet outfit.

“Here,” she said, pushing the bundle my way. “Try these. They should fit you well enough.”

Silence enveloped us as she held my gaze, and I struggled with the urge to fidget.

What the bleedin’ heck?

Finally, I asked, “Is there somewhere I can change?”

“Oh! Silly me.” She smiled, and in an effort to resist returning her smile, I chewed on my lower lip and raised my brows. “Yes, through that door and down the hall.”

I bowed my head. “Thank you.”

After opening the door to the first room I found I stepped inside. A small bed, chest of drawers, and a nightstand with a lantern set atop of it were the only furniture. The room was quaint and not overly decorated or cluttered. I disrobed and slid the dry linen shift on over my head. I combed my plaited hair out with my fingers, wringing the excess water out over my previous clothing, not wanting to be discourteous by leaving more water than unavoidable on the floor.

The thick gray shift fell comfortably over my bare feet. I scooped up my soggy garments and returned to the living room. The air in the room was pleasantly warm, making my skin prickle beneath the shift.

“Where should I put these?” I asked.

The beautiful stranger stopped hanging her clothes on a line by the fire. “I’ll take them.”

I handed her my tunic and watched as she stood on the tips of her toes and clamped it to the line. The black shift she’d traded her wet garb for rose slightly when she raised her arms. It was loose and light-fitting, but conformed to her body enough when she stretched that I could discern the sharp angles of her shoulder blades as they worked beneath the fabric.

She held her hand out for my breeches and I handed them over as well.

“Place your boots by the fire,” she said. “They’ll dry more quickly there.”

When she was done hanging my clothes alongside hers, I set my boots down to dry.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“A long time.” She stepped into the adjoining kitchen, then returned with two mugs of steaming liquid. “Here, drink.”

Raising the edge of the cup to my nose, I sniffed.

She laughed. “It’s cider, not poison.”

I made an inarticulate noise, feeling sheepish, and mumbled my thanks again.

I took a sip and then another, savoring the sweet and spicy flavor of cinnamon and apples.

“Here,” she said, steering me by the shoulders and toward a chair in front of the fire, her touch light and gentle. “Sit. I’m quite interested in hearing your tale.”

“My tale?”

“Yes.” She sat in the chair across from mine and inclined over her knees with some interest. “You very obviously have one.”

I paused mid-sip and cradled the mug in my lap. “Why do you say that?”

“You were lost in the rain,” she said. “Looking for your sister, was it? What were the two of you doing in the forest at this hour?”

“Yes, I was looking for her. We were…” I hesitated to tell the woman the truth. Granted, it would serve my sister right if I spread rumor about the countryside that she was batshite. However, I wasn’t thrilled at the notion of revealing my hand in her mad charade, and she was, after all, my only sister. She wasn’t really insane. She was just too hopeful and imaginative for her own good. “We were out for a morning ride,” I said, preferring partial truth to an outright lie.

“Is that something you make a habit of?” Her expression told me plainly that she knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“No, we don’t do it very often,” I said. “But she’s to be wed soon and needed the…fresh air.” Yes, that was it.

“Ah,” the woman mumbled into her mug, then asked, “Nervous shivers?”

“You could say that, yes. Do you live here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you…widowed, or something?”

She laughed. “Or something,” she said with a reserved smile. “No, I’m not…widowed.” Her mouth twitched in a telltale of secret amusement.

“Huh,” I said, without thinking much. She appeared to be in her late twenties, perhaps her early thirties. Why would a woman as beautiful as she live alone? She puzzled me.

“‘Huh’?” She started to grin again. “Do you care to further articulate?”

It took me a second to realize she was teasing.

I gave her a narrow look. Two could certainly play that game. God knows, I’d had enough practice with Malinda to perfect the art.

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t think I care to further articulate.” I smiled, knowing I was being cheeky. “Make of it what you will.” I took another long drink.

She laughed and asked, “What is your name?”

“Tell me yours.”

“I’ll tell you, if you’ll tell me.”

“How would I know your name when you haven’t given it to me yet?”

She shook her head, pulling her long legs up under her. “All right. Clandestine.”

I nearly choked on a mouthful of my drink. “You’re kidding me?”

“Aye.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Helle.”

“Now, you really are jesting,” I muttered.

“No, actually, I’m not,” she said. “My mother was a bit infatuated with Greek mythology. I was named after the Goddess Helle, who drowned in the Hellespont Sea whilst fleeing her evil stepmother.”

“That’s…charming.”

“I know,” she said, obviously being facetious.

I chuckled and swallowed the last of my cider, my belly growing warm. My head felt heavy with the craving to sleep. I pushed myself out of the chair and went to see if my tunic was dry.

“You haven’t told me your name,” Helle purred behind me. “What is it?”

“Millicent.”

“Millicent,” she murmured. “Not bad.”

“A bit common.”

“Eh.” She shrugged. “It suits you, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“Dare I ask how?”

“It just does.”

My tunic was still damp. I sighed and listened to the rain patter down on Helle’s cottage.

She stood, mug in hand, and went to the window. “It doesn’t appear it will let up anytime soon,” she said softly before turning back to face me. “You’re welcome to stay until it does.”

As tired as I was, and I was tired…I really needed to find Malinda.

I told her as much.

“Millicent,” she said, and her voice was sweet. “I know the forest, and even I could not find your sister in this downpour. I really do think it best if you pass the day here, at least until it lets up.”

“I need to try,” I said, willing myself to ignore the wave of exhaustion that rolled over me. “It wouldn’t feel right passing the time here, pleasant and in good company, when my sister is out in that.” I nodded toward the window.

“She could have found her way home,” she said. “Have you considered that? If you go tromping back through the forest, you’re likely to achieve nothing more than getting yourself lost again.” She raised her hands to touch my face and her skin was warm. “Please, stay.”

Something in her gaze beseeched me. How long had she lived alone, out here, secluded in the forest?

I was torn. On one hand, I would feel guilty not going back out and finding Malinda. On the other, Helle was right. I’d probably end up getting lost again, and cold, and wet. Thanks to my sister’s brilliance, I hadn’t gotten much sleep. My entire body ached for it.

Helle’s fingers tickled my cheeks, and though I found the gesture odd, I didn’t recoil.

“You’re right.”

“So, you’ll stay?”

“Until the rain stops, yes.”

“I’ll show you to the spare room. You look exhausted.”

I nodded and followed her, my feet as heavy as the rest of me.

She drew back the blankets on the small bed. “Here.”

I slid in underneath them and the bed dipped with my weight, cradling my body and whispering sweet promises of sleep.

“You’re a very strange woman, Helle.”

“As are you, Millicent.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For telling you that you’re also strange?” I thought I heard her grin, but didn’t have the energy to open my eyes and look at her.

“For your generosity.”

“It’s nothing. Get some rest, Millicent.”

I nodded and rolled over, slid my arm up under the fluffy pillow, and heard the door click quietly closed seconds later. In time, I fell asleep to thoughts of my sister, faeries, and Helle…Helle, standing by the window and cupping my face in her hands.

*

“Do you sleep?” I asked as I stumbled upon Helle sitting in one of the chairs before the fire. She laid her book down in her lap and smiled in greeting. “It must be the middle of the night, now.” In spite of my grogginess, I was certain it was late and that I’d slept the entire day away.

“I haven’t yet retired, no, but I do sleep. How do you feel?”

“I woke disoriented. I forgot where I was. I still feel a bit out of sorts.”

She laughed. “Oh?”

“Yes. How was your day and why haven’t you gone to bed?”

“I enjoy the night,” she said, tracing the gold script on the cover of the book with a finger. “And my day went well. I caught up on some reading.”

“What are you reading?” I inclined my head, trying to catch the title.

Helle quickly covered it with her hand. “Tut! I don’t know you well enough to reveal that.” She turned the book facedown in her lap.

“Uh, it must be romance then.” I rolled my eyes, only partly jesting.

“So what if it is? I do get a bit lonely out here, you know.”

The heat rose to my cheeks.

Helle laughed again and I couldn’t recall ever meeting anyone as free with their laughter as she was.

“What are you thinking about, Millicent? You’ve a strange look on your face.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you, Helle. You’re so…relaxed.”

“Relaxed?” She blinked and appeared to be struggling not to smile again. “Is this some sort of poke at my demeanor?”

“I like your demeanor. I didn’t mean any insult, as you very well know.”

I bumped her knee with mine, feeling oddly at ease in her presence. “It’s a compliment.”

“Then I suppose I should offer you my thanks.”

“I suppose you should.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. What were you reading?”

She stood and stepped gracefully around me. “I also suppose I should hide this before your curiosity gets the best of you.”

I caught the wrist of her free hand. “Aw! Come on! What are you scared of?”

“I’m not scared of anything,” she said, “but most people consider sending one’s guests running away to be poor hospitality.”

I frowned. “Ehhh, it really is romance, isn’t it?”

Helle’s gaze smoldered in the firelight. “There’s a bit of that in there, yes. Why are you so off-put by romance?”

“Because,” I said, “it’s not real.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Reality.”

She shook her head. “You’re definitely an odd one…a young woman with absolutely no interest in romance? Can you tell me, truthfully, that it doesn’t intrigue you in the least?”

“Why would it?”

“Lord and Lady have mercy,” she whispered, shaking her head again.

“It’s not real,” I repeated, “and the more girls and women go chasing something like that, the more disappointed in life they’ll be. You have to learn to be happy with what you have.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Am I happy?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, for the most part.”

She sat back, eyeing me incredulously. “You wouldn’t change a thing about your life, if you could?”

I sat in the chair across from her. “Well, I wouldn’t have followed my bleedin’ sister out into the forest.” As soon as I said it, I realized it didn’t sound right and that she could have very well taken insult. “But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you, would I?”

“Probably not.”

The rain filled the silence that stretched between us. I thought of Malinda and hoped she’d found her way back home. At the least, that she’d found somewhere safe to shelter herself until the rain ceased.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Helle asked. “I think you’re scared to believe in romance. I think you’re terrified of being disappointed.”

I snorted. “Scared? Terrified? Of romance? You hear what you’re saying, don’t you?”

“Perfectly.” She reclined with her hands folded over the book in her lap. “I do think you’re scared. And that you haven’t met the right person.”

“The right person for what?”

“To chase away those fears and give you something to believe in. Life offers more than the walls you’ve built around yourself, you know.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like my sister.”

“Perhaps her words have some merit, then.”

I shook my head defiantly. The idea of romance was…absurd. I didn’t understand the girls I had known that stood around fanning themselves and swooning over boys.

No man had ever glanced my way and made my knees weak. Oh, they glanced all right, but I didn’t feel any of the hogwash the other girls spouted about their little hearts going all a-pitter-patter.

“I don’t think you’re ready to hear what I’m reading about,” Helle said, with a slow and somehow baiting smile.

“Just tell me.”

“If you don’t believe in romance, why does it matter?”

The fact that she was being mysterious and keeping something from me mattered. The more someone tried to hide something, the more I wanted to pry it out of them. It was one of the many reasons Malinda had always had such a difficult time keeping things from me. In investigation tactics, I was merciless.

And if Helle didn’t let me in on her secret, I intended to steal the damn book and find out my bloody self.

“Very well, I will tell you,” she said. “If, and only if, you promise not to run or laugh.”

“You have my word.”

“It’s a story about Pallas and Athena.”

At my vacant expression, Helle exhaled loudly. “Pallas and Athena?” she asked.

“I’ve heard of the Goddess Athena,” I offered hopefully.

“But never Pallas Athena?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar.”

“She took Pallas’s name after her death. You’ve really never heard the story? At least some of it?”

“Not that I recall, no.”

“Well then,” she said. “Pallas was a nymph beloved by Athena. They were childhood friends and, eventually, they became lovers—”

“A goddess and a nymph?” I asked. “A female nymph?”

“Yes,” Helle said, seeming yet again unabashed. “You’ve never realized that two women could be lovers?”

I hadn’t actually given much thought to it. I hadn’t really given much thought to the idea of coupling, altogether.

“Oh, dear,” Helle said. “I can tell you’re thinking deeply now. You look thoroughly confused!” Again, she laughed.

“I’m not confused about the idea of two women bedding. I’m confused at what one really gains from copulation, aside from creating a child and continuing our kind.”

Helle’s laughter grew, until she covered her face with a palm. “Lord and Lady, preserve me. Good Gods!” She dropped her hand, her features expressing shock and amusement. “Where on earth were you raised? In a convent? Surely, you’ve touched yourself and know enough to answer your own question.”

The blood rushed to my face and I quickly stammered, “Yes, but…but that’s with myself!”

“Dear Gods, girl, you haven’t even begun to live!”

“I am a woman, not a girl,” I said defensively. It was true. I was a couple of years older than Malinda.

“You’re not yet a woman, Millicent. Trust me when I say that. Do you enjoy it?” she asked. “Do you enjoy it when you…pleasure yourself?”

“It’s a natural instinct.” I wasn’t entirely comfortable answering her question.

“Natural instinct,” she said, before losing herself in another fit of laughter. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re going to kill me. But I’ll take that as a yes.”

I didn’t respond and found out soon enough I didn’t need to. Helle continued either way. “Imagine, if you will, the pleasure you experience with yourself magnified threefold,” she said, “if not more. The point is pleasure. You’re missing experiences with yourself, that first touch that kindles the fire, the anticipation, the aching, the slaking of it…” A distant expression passed over her face. “You are missing out on so much life.”

I rolled my eyes. I’d thought Helle had more to offer than Malinda and her friends, but it seemed even Helle was headfirst up the arse of the roses.

“You’ll meet that person, Millicent, that person that makes you feel exactly as I’ve described, and you’ll remember this conversation and think, ‘How could I have been so foolish? Helle was right!’”

“Uh-huh. Can we change the subject?”

“You’re the one that asked about the book.”

“You’re right,” I said, “but I didn’t ask for a lesson on how I should think and feel.” As soon as I said it, I remembered Malinda’s words and cursed myself.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“It feels a bit like it.”

“What do you resent?” she asked, and the question caught me so off-guard that I didn’t know what to say other than, “Huh?”

“You seem almost resentful, as if love and romance are some cheap trick played on mortals to get them to…procreate. Is that really how you see it?”

I stood and nearly knocked my chair onto its back. “I haven’t felt it, all right!?”

“Oh. So that’s what it is.” Her inquisitive expression changed to one of slowly realized understanding. “You’ve never even thought about it with another person?”

“I’ve thought about it, all right, but I didn’t feel anything but repulsed when I thought about it!”

“Sit back down, please.”

I did, albeit beyond uncomfortable.

“I’m not trying to pry,” she said, “but I am curious to get to know you. Have you done anything more than think about it?”

“One of Henrick’s brothers kissed me once.”

“And?”

“It was disgusting,” I said, knowing I sounded like a child, but it was true. “Malinda couldn’t stop laughing at me because, after he kissed me, I ran inside and gargled with half a bottle of my father’s brandy.”

I grimaced at the memory.

The corner of Helle’s mouth twitched before she reasserted control over herself. She didn’t laugh at me, this time. “You know, the bile only rises when it’s someone that’s not the right…fit,” she said softly.

“I’ll have to take your word for it. I’m not really interested in kissing a thousand lips just to find the pair that doesn’t make me want to regurgitate.”

She chuckled softly, and though she chuckled, she appeared tired.

“You need to get some sleep,” I said.

“I’m enjoying this very unusual conversation.”

“I’m glad. I’m really not.” This time, I laughed, albeit nervously. It was indeed a strange conversation. I hadn’t known Helle very long, but I immediately liked her authenticity, her candor.

“My turn. About the book.” I waved my hand at it. “You’ve been prying information from me. What about you? Do you normally read such books?”

“Yes.”

“So, that means?”

“What do you think it means?”

“Is that the reason you’re not married?”

“Partly,” she said. “The other is, I haven’t found the right fit, either…or at least someone I can tolerate for more than a handful of hours.”

I grinned. “See, now that I can relate with.”

A clock chimed softly from somewhere deeper in the cottage. Helle stifled a yawn against the back of her hand.

“It’s bedtime for you, I think.”

“So it seems,” she said. “I’ll walk you to your room.”

“Thank you.”

In the hallway, she wrapped an arm around my back and pulled me against her lean frame, as if we were the closest of friends and had been for years. “You don’t have to keep thanking me, you know,” she whispered in the dark.

A strange sensation fluttered in my breast.

I ignored it and said, “As you like.”

*

“Millicent.” Helle’s soft voice roused me. “Time to wake.”

I sat up and took the mug of steaming liquid she offered. “It’s tea,” she said.

I nodded and took an appreciative sip.

A look at the window told me it was not yet the bright hours of morning. “It’s still dark,” I mumbled into my mug before swallowing another mouthful.

“The rain’s stopped,” she said. “I thought you’d like to get an early start in searching for your sister. I brought your clothes.” She motioned to the foot of the bed and my boots placed on the floor beside it. “I’ll leave you to make ready.”

Silently, I nodded and busied myself with another long drink. The tea was good, dark and robust, and perfectly steeped. Helle closed the door behind her and I rose to dress. I folded the gray shift she’d lent me at the foot of the bed after I made it, leaving it neatly on top of the coverlet.

Then I finished the last dregs of tea and returned the mug to her in the kitchen.

“I’ll ride out with you,” she said. “To make certain you don’t lose your way.”

Sunlight had not yet caressed the land when we emerged from the cottage. Twilight provided just enough light to see by. Without the torrents of rain to obscure my vision, I viewed the garden for the first time. From cottage to fence, the cobblestone walkway was lined with flowering plants. The clean scent of damp soil mingled with their sweet fragrance. At the edge of the forest, nestled against the fence surrounding the garden, tall stalks of foxglove grew.

She waited patiently while I drank in the sight. “It’s a bit early in the season for everything to be so…tall, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I have a very green thumb.”

“I’d say so, yes. It’s lovely.”

“I’m glad you like it. The garden behind the cottage is filled with herbs. Perhaps, sometime, you’ll see those too?”

“I’d like that,” I said. “You wouldn’t mind terribly if I came to visit you again?”

“No.” She smiled softly, almost sadly. “Quite the opposite. I’d very much enjoy another visit from you.”

We made it to the stables and Star raised his head high and pricked his ears as I approached. He whinnied softly and bumped my hand in a familiar greeting when I raised it to his nose.

Helle disappeared into a stall and I heard her moving about, saddling her own horse. She emerged a few minutes later with a dark chestnut mare. “I’ll ride out with you as far as I can,” she said.

I nodded, slipped my foot into Star’s stirrup, and swung astride. Helle followed suit and began to guide her horse out toward the forest.

Star followed immediately, without any encouragement.

“Odd,” I murmured.

“Hmm?” Helle asked when we caught up with her.

“Oh, he’s stubborn sometimes, but apparently he got a good night’s rest.”

“Ah,” she said, leading us through the wide opening between stone walls.

“Where’s the main path from here?” I asked.

Helle nodded, gesturing up ahead. “If you keep riding in this direction, you’ll find it.”

We rode until the first golden rays of sunlight threatened to break across the horizon. “I stop here,” she said. “Good luck finding your sister, Millicent. May the Gods keep you.”

“Thank you, Helle.”

Silence stretched between us. “When will I see you again?” she asked softly.

“When would you like to see me again?”

“Whenever you wish to visit…”

“Would you like me to return in a few days’ time?” I asked. “That is, if Malinda’s still in one piece and the household isn’t in an uproar. I’ll do my best to make it out here again.”

She dug in a pocket of her robe, procuring a cord with some sort of charm dangling from it. “Here,” she said. “I’d like you to keep this, as a token of our promising friendship.”

I reached across the space between our horses and plucked the necklace from her open palm. The black leather cord hugged a shiny obsidian circle of stone.

“Are you certain?” I asked.

“Yes.” The corner of her mouth twitched into a crooked smile.

I tied the cord about my neck and tugged to make sure my knots were secure. The stone fell, cradled in the hollow of my throat. It felt cool against my skin. “Thank you.”

“I told you,” an expression of impish delight flitted over her features, “you needn’t keep saying that, you know.” She began to steer her mare back in the direction of her cottage.

“I’ll return in a few days’ time,” I said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

I kicked Star lightly and made in the direction Helle had pointed us.

When I looked back, she and her horse were gone. Only the shimmering morning sunlight spilled in her place.

*

I led Stardust to the stables and found Malinda’s horse in her stall.

“So, you two found your way back after all,” I said to Luna, who, ears pricked forward, seemed to be wondering why we’d woken her.

I hung Star’s bridle and saddle on the wall and patted his head before trekking up to the house. The groom could brush him. Entering through the back door and into the kitchen, I found my mother watching Gwen as she set a pot of stew to simmer over the fire. Gwen was close to Ian’s age, and though she was only a few years older than me, we’d never befriended one another. Her mother, Joan, had worked for our family since before Malinda and I were born.

My mother turned her attention away from Gwen. “About time you showed up. We’ve been worried sick about you all morning.”

“Just all morning?” I embraced her briefly and kissed her cheek. “When did Malinda arrive?”

“A bit ago,” she said. “She’s in her bedroom.”

So, Malinda too had gotten lost in the forest and had to wait out the rain before finding her way home. I left the kitchen to find her, then tapped lightly on her door.

“Come in,” she said.

I found her sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at the ivy crown she was supposed to wear for her wedding ceremony.

“How was your night in the rain?” I asked. “Serves you right for running off like you did.”

She turned at the hips, searching my face. “Night in the rain? I didn’t spend the night in the rain. I turned Luna around and came home when it started pouring this morning.”

I blinked, utterly confused. “Mum just told me you arrived a bit ago.”

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “I tried to find you, I did. But I couldn’t, not in that rain.”

She set the crown down and came to me. “Your clothes are dry, Millie. Why are your clothes dry? It stopped raining not long ago.”

I pushed her hands off me and sat down on the edge of her bed with a flop.

“This doesn’t make any bloody sense,” I said. “I tried to find you when you ran off and it started to storm, but I couldn’t find you, either.”

This morning? An entire night had passed when I was with Helle, yet both Mother and Malinda acted as if it hadn’t.

“Are you well?” Malinda asked. “You’re pale, Millie.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.” Obviously, Mother, Malinda, or I had a screwy sense of time. Perhaps I hadn’t been at Helle’s as long as I thought.

But I had, hadn’t I?

“Are you getting married tomorrow?” I asked.

Malinda sat down beside me. “Henrick and I spoke this morning and we’ve decided—he’s decided—to postpone the wedding until late summer. I told him I don’t fancy him, but he wants a chance to win my favor in spite of that.”

“Oh, so now he plans to try to woo you?”

“Precisely.” She practically beamed. She caught sight of the necklace peeking through my cloak and snatched hold of it before I could bat her hands away. “Ooh,” she said, eyeing it, “what’s this, Millie? Where did you find this?”

She held it up to the light, inspecting it. The light caught the dark ring, illuminating a striking surface of swirling rainbows.

I batted her hand away. “I didn’t find it, it was given to me.”

Malinda appeared entirely suspicious. “Who gave it to you, Millie?”

“I met a woman in the forest. She offered me shelter until the rain subsided.”

“That explains why you’re dry, though your hair is a rat’s nest.”

I attempted to smooth it with my palms.

“What’s she like?” Malinda asked. “I didn’t know anyone lived in the forest.”

“She’s intriguing, and knowledgeable and funny, and neither did I.”

“It sounds like you made a friend.”

“I did. I suppose I have you to thank for that.” I gave her a narrow look. “Did you ever find the fey?”

“No.” She pouted.

“And yet, you still believe in them?”

“Of course I do!”

Of course she did. In Malinda’s perspective, the lack of contact was probably nothing more than coincidence.

The day that passed was uneventful. The mouth-watering scent of baking bread filled the house as Gwen worked in the kitchen. I decided to busy myself by rummaging through the library and searching through tomes of Greek mythology. We had several on the subject, yet not a one mentioned the story of the nymph Pallas and the Goddess Athena.

Shortly after supper, I was so exhausted and bone-weary that I retired early.

On my way back to my room, I leaned over Malinda and whispered a warning in her ear. “Don’t bloody wake me up again.”

“I won’t,” she said, smiling. “Promise.”

Now that Henrick had decided to try to appease her by wooing her, I hoped she felt less impulsive about finding an escape, again.

I reminded myself to thank him when next I saw him.

I slept and dreamed that Malinda and I were small children again. Malinda led us out into the forest where we lost each other. I was running, panicked and guilt-ridden for losing my sister, when Helle found me and guided me on my way.

Waking abruptly from the dream, I shivered despite the small fire still burning in my room. I drew the blankets up to my chin and thought of Helle. What was she doing? No doubt, she was probably curled up in front of the fireplace with her nose between the pages of a book.

Romance. I rolled my eyes and, in time, fell back to sleep.

*

The following morning, I woke feeling poorly. I couldn’t stop shivering. My entire body ached as if a horse-drawn cart had run me down in my sleep. I couldn’t find the will to crawl out from between the blankets.

Malinda brought me tea and warm porridge and I drank and ate sparingly, not having much of an appetite. Phlegm rattled in my chest when I coughed, and it was difficult to breathe.

The sun fell and night came. The hours of fitful sleep stretched into days. A few times, I dreamed of Helle. In one of the dreams, I rode out to her and we met in the forest, where she embraced me fondly, her fingers swimming through my hair.

I woke haunted by her touch and her honey eyes, bathed in moonlight and shadows.

The dreams came and went. Some were clear and undistorted, while others I was barely able to recall. But every single time I woke, I thought of Helle. With thoughts of her came a profound sense of longing, a strange emptiness that I had never known before.

Malinda continued to bring me food and drink, insisting that I partake of what I could. She sat on the corner of my bed in an effort to keep me company and rambled on about her visit with Henrick and the gifts he had bestowed on her. She seemed pleased and happier than I’d seen her since she’d learned her hand had been given. She needed to make that decision for herself, and since he had arranged for their marriage to be postponed so that he could take the time to woo her, she seemed less agitated and more open-minded to the idea.

“You should see the gown, Millie,” she said excitedly, “it’s gorgeous!”

When she realized I wasn’t really listening and was dozing off again, she quietly took her leave.

Once again, dreams of Helle haunted me.

In the most recent one, we had sat before the fireplace, drinking and talking in soft voices. She laughed at one point and placed her hand on my thigh.

Then she kissed me, and her lips were soft and inviting.

I woke drenched in sweat. The taste of cinnamon and apples lingered on my tongue as I stared up into the darkness above my bed. It had been days since I had seen her, yet time did not shake her from my thoughts.

Worse, it only seemed to strengthen my desire to see her again.

I closed my eyes, hoping in some part of myself that I could return to the dream and feel her again.

I slid my hand down my stomach, trying to hold fast to the vision and sensations I had experienced in the dream.

Tracing the skin below my navel and toward my hip, I kept my eyes closed. What would her touch feel like? Would it be light and sweet, or commanding and knowing? Would she touch me here? I trailed my hand up higher, brushing across my breasts until my skin prickled. Or here?

I sank down lower in bed and parted my thighs.

Would she crawl over me and kiss me deeply?

Was that what I wanted?

I parted myself with a finger and found myself slick.

God, yes.

I tried to hold on to the memory of her kiss in the dream when I brought myself to a peak of sensation, my hips rising hard as I tried to convince myself that Helle, not the knowing touch of my own hand, was slaking my desire.

I came, clawing at my blankets and imagining tangling my fingers in the curls of her hair, of burying my mouth near her neck when I spent myself.

Afterward, I fell back boneless and heartsick.

“God,” I whispered to the darkness, and buried my face in my hands. “What am I doing?”

Helle’s words swam to the surface of my mind. “You’re missing experiences with yourself…”

No, I thought, as if somewhere out there, she could hear what I was thinking. I’m missing you.

*

On the fifth day, I felt better. Though a bit of a cough lingered, I was able to move about without much physical pain. When I learned that my father and brothers were to ride out to hunt in the forest, I asked Ian to deliver a missive to Helle for me. I dipped the quill in the inkwell and penned, My Dearest Helle.

I hastily crumpled the paper in my fist and tossed it into the rubbish bin.

Dearest. I rolled my eyes and blew a strand of hair out of my face. I sounded ridiculous to myself.

I tried again:

Helle,

I’m sending my sincerest apologies that I’ve not yet been to visit. I’ve felt under the weather the past several days. Rest assured, once I am fit for riding, I will visit you.

And I hope you’ll still be waiting.

Sincerely,

Millicent

I stared at the script, the wobbly stems of my g and y where my hand had trembled slightly.

Ian appeared in the doorway, a bow slung over his left shoulder. His dark hair fell over his brows, veiling an expression of intensity that always lingered there.

I quickly folded the letter and sealed it with a blot of wax.

He took it and slid it into his pack. “How do I find the cottage?” he asked.

I gave him directions to Helle’s cottage as best as I could describe, and he promised to deliver my missive safely. I hugged him briefly before wishing him good luck on his hunt.

That evening, they returned home just as the sun was beginning to set. Ian found me outside as I helped Gwen with the laundry. We spoke little aside from asking how each other fared. Gwen had always been a bit peculiar and quiet, though she didn’t complain when I stepped in to offer my aid. She used to chase me off. Now, I think she let me help out of pity. I suspected she knew I didn’t have anything else to do.

“I followed your directions,” Ian said, as he held the letter out to me. “There’s no cottage out there.”

I took it, but not without muttering, “You obviously didn’t follow my directions.”

“We did,” Father said as he dropped a heap of strung-up rabbits atop a stack of firewood. He and my brother hunted for sport. “We searched all about the place, Millie. It’s nothin’ but trees.”

“Ah, well,” I said. “I’ll go out and find it myself tomorrow.”

My father shook his head and stooped to kiss my mother on the cheek as she approached to greet him. “Doesn’t believe us, does she?”

“You know how she and Malinda are,” my mother said.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re not very much alike, Malinda and I.”

My mother’s blue eyes shone softly in the setting sunlight.

“What?” I asked. “We’re not!”

My father patted her shoulder. “Leave it alone, Patricia.”

“Oh,” I growled at him, “not you too! You’re both friggin’ mad.”

“Millie, there was a time when you were younger that you were more like your sister,” my mother said, obviously trying not to offend me.

“Oh, definitely,” I muttered under my breath.

“I remember a time when we couldn’t get you to stay put,” my father said.

I glared at him. “You’re not helping any, you know.”

He raised his hands in good-natured surrender.

“Come on, Millie,” Ian said, “let’s go inside before you lose your temper.”

“I’m not going to lose my temper.”

Ian flung his arm across my shoulders and ruffled my hair.

I hit him in the ribs. “Would you stop doing that? I hate it when you do that!”

He laughed and acted as if he would try it again, but I ducked and ran inside. I shut the back door in his face and ended up catching his foot.

“Come ’ere, Millie!” He bellowed as if we were suddenly children again.

“You bastard, move your bleedin’ foot!” I kicked at his boot before throwing my weight against the door again when he pushed harder on it.

“Millicent!” my father called.

“Sorry!”

“He’s not a bastard. Your mother and I can attest to that.”

“Open the door, Millie,” Ian said, in a small and evil-sounding voice. I could’ve sworn I heard the smirk break across his face.

I let him in, much to my regret. As soon as I did, he flung his arm around my head and drove his knuckles into the top of my scalp until I pinched him and twisted hard enough that he made a high-pitched sound of pain.

“Who’s the friend you wanted me to deliver the missive to, Millie?” he asked, his dark eyes gleaming.

“A friend,” I said, watching him warily, waiting for him to try to attack me again at any moment.

“Of the imaginary variety?” He grinned and I dove forward, slipping past his opening, and punched him hard in the ribs.

Ian clutched his side, laughing at my feeble attempt to hurt him.

“You arse,” I said.

Of course, that was when my mother decided to walk into the kitchen.

“Millicent Lucinda Hearthwell!” I cringed when she used my entire given name. “Watch your tongue! And you…” She poked a finger in the middle of Ian’s chest, somehow managing to appear imposing even though he was a good head taller than she. “She got that foul mouth from you! The both of you…out of the kitchen!” Ian and I shared a glance, a glance that we’d long used growing up.

It meant, Should we do what she says?

I don’t know, should we? I raised my brows, knowing he’d read the question in my gaze.

Our mother raised her voice and shouted, “NOW!”

Ian nodded.

Yes, we decidedly should.

Laughing, we did.

I set out early the next morning and headed to the forest to find Helle’s cottage. I saddled and bridled Stardust just before the golden sun broke the crest of the horizon. A spring breeze blew, threatening to loosen my hair from its long plait. I pulled the white hood of my cloak up and swung astride Star with a tongue click. Star walked instinctively toward the forest with little guidance from my hands. As we entered the shaded path, he took up a jolly trot, and I laughed at him as he ducked his head and tried determinedly to gain nibbles of greenery. I reclined slightly, shutting my eyes and allowing my hips to follow the flow of his gait.

I followed what I remembered of Helle’s directions and the path I had taken from her cottage to return home. Star and I rode for some time, until the sunlight shone bright above and sent shattering light through the trees’ wooden arms. I paid attention to the trees and trusted my instincts. When I felt we’d gone far enough south, I guided Star through the trees and to the east, toward Helle’s cottage.

When we passed the large tree, I smiled to myself and leaned over to pat Star’s neck. “Almost there, boy.”

He nickered softly and then abruptly stopped to graze. I tugged lightly on his reins to get his attention off his stomach. “Almost there doesn’t mean you can stop to eat, you daft beast!”

His ears twitched as he chomped on the few greens he’d managed to snag. He bent his head back down for another nibble.

“Come on, you glutton,” I grumbled, and kicked him with my heel.

In one of his rare stubborn moods, he refused to budge.

I kicked him again, a bit harder, enough to get him to pick up his damn hooves.

I checked the position of the sun after a while and realized we’d been riding for over an hour.

We should have found Helle’s cottage by now.

Somehow, I thought, I must’ve got turned around.

I knew we’d gone too far and so I turned Star back to the west.

Surely, it was here somewhere? Had I not gone far enough south? Had I gone too far?

No. I’d seen the tree. It was the same tree I’d seen in the rain when leaving Helle’s. I was sure of it.

I rode all day. I stopped near a stream to drink and to allow Star to drink and graze. Standing on a large slab of stone, I shielded my eyes from the bright sunlight that broke through the canopy overhead. I’d gotten myself turned around, for sure. But I could still find my way home by paying attention to the direction of the sun. It was closer to the west now. I merely had to follow it north and I’d come upon the edge of the forest. Growing up near the forest, I’d learned that in order to find my way, it was easier knowing how to first get out of it. Even if I went too far east or west, if I went north far enough and broke free of the forest, I could find home.

Unless it was dark or raining.

I nibbled on a few pieces of bread and cheese from the pack I’d attached to Star’s saddle and thanked my mother for insisting I ride out with supplies, just as a precaution, always as a precaution. It made her worry less.

I dipped the goatskin into the river to replenish what water I’d consumed whilst riding.

“Come on, boy,” I said, leading Star by the reins and back north. The stream was too far south, that I was absolutely certain of.

I caught sight of the main path ahead through the trees and walked farther east again, determined to find Helle’s cottage before nightfall. I had supplies to build a fire and set up a small camp, also at my mother’s behest, but I didn’t relish the prospect of spending the night in the forest.

I had to find Helle before nightfall. If not, I would turn back and go home after a vain search.

I cursed silently, growing frustrated. I knew I hadn’t forgotten where Helle lived. How could I? Yet, why couldn’t I bleedin’ find it?

Star bumped my shoulder with his nose and I paused for a moment to rest my cheek against his.

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” I said, clutching the stone at my throat and thinking furiously. The stone was warm against my palm.

After another couple of hours, I gave up entirely and began to lead Star in the direction of the main path. I had accomplished nothing but going around in circles all day, searching the same ground over and over.

Star seemed to pick up on my irritation, blowing out huffs of air loudly through his nostrils.

The sun was threatening to finish its final descent when I heard the sound of hooves approaching like thunder behind me.

I gripped Star’s reins tight and bowed his head toward the sound until he turned into the movement.

I recognized her horse, first, the dark chestnut mare with a white star beneath its forelock. She’d been riding hard, as if pursuing something or someone. She tugged on the rein held loosely in her hand and brought her horse to a halt.

“Helle,” I said. “What a coincidence.”

“Millicent.” Her lips shaped my name and my heart sped with elation. She smiled somewhat impishly, making my stomach flutter. She canted her head as the mare beneath her pranced in place, lifting and dropping its hooves with a small shake of its head. “Were you looking for me?”

“Aye, but it seems you’ve found me.”

“So I have.”

“I sent a missive for you,” I said, as Star started toward her of his own free will.

“I didn’t receive one.”

“My father and brothers couldn’t find your cottage. I’ve been riding all day in search of it.”

“I’ll show you again,” she said. “If you’ll follow?” It sounded like a question.

I smiled in spite of myself. “Lead on, m’lady.”

Helle’s musical laughter filled the night.

On our way, we passed the large tree again, recognizable by its roots and the small formations in its trunk.

“I passed that bloody thing damn near forty times earlier!” I gazed at her and the tree in disbelief as we drew nearer and the sight of the fence and gardens came into view.

The last rays of sunlight winked out when I dismounted near the cobblestone path and led Star toward the stables. “It’s some sick trick.” I jested.

“Oh? What is, exactly?”

“I ride all bloody day, and once night falls your cottage magically appears?” I shook my head. “I hope you don’t mind having another overnight guest.”

She led her chestnut horse into its stall as I removed Star’s saddle and riding gear. I barely had time to take off the saddle pack before Star’s stomach distracted him again and he shoved his face into a barrel of oats.

“I see you were expecting us.”

Helle slid an arm around my back, and I forced myself to keep my breathing deep and even.

“I did, yes. And no,” she said pleasantly enough, “I don’t mind at all.”

“That’s good.” I tried to keep my focus on anything but the weight of her arm resting against my lower back.

Helle kept her arm around me as we entered the cottage. She drew off her cloak and hung it on a rack by the door. The gown she wore was simple and black, billowing slightly at the sleeves. A chain of gold belted and dropped from her hips, swaying as she moved.

I removed my cloak and placed the saddle pack on the floor.

Helle busied herself in the kitchen. “Tea or cider?” she asked.

I fell into the chair before the unlit fireplace with a flop. “Cider,” I said, remembering the taste of her kiss.

“Is everything all right, Millicent?” I hadn’t realized I’d raised my hand and pressed my fingertips to my lips.

I lowered my hand. “Yes, why wouldn’t it be? I’m just weary from riding all day.”

I took the mug she offered and she bent at the waist, stooping to kiss my cheek.

“I missed you,” she whispered, her breath warm.

My fingers trembled against the stoneware mug.

“I missed you too,” I said, a bit more flatly than I’d intended.

She touched the stone at my throat, the back of her fingers caressing the hollow there and sending a spark of excitement through me. “I’m glad to see you’re still wearing it.”

“I haven’t taken it off since you gave it to me,” I said, then mentally chastised myself.

Why did it seem I was beginning to sound like one of Malinda’s garrulous friends?

Helle withdrew and sat opposite me. “I thought you’d visit sooner,” she said softly.

“I felt poorly. I’m sorry. That’s why I tried to send you a missive.”

Helle nodded and an uncomfortable silence unfolded between us.

“So, what have you been about?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing really.”

“Nothing? That’s what you do out here for fun?”

Helle mumbled into her mug with a small smile, “Essentially.”

It seemed rather tiresome. I didn’t mind moments of solitude, but at least at home Ian, Derrick, Malinda, and Mother and Father were around, and we kept each other company when need it be. I couldn’t imagine what the time passed like for Helle when she was alone, all the time. Even for me, someone who didn’t require or expect a lot of interaction with others, it seemed terribly lonely.

“Millicent?” Helle made of my name a question, and I realized she wanted to know what I was thinking.

“It seems incredibly lonely here, Helle. You told me when we met that you’ve lived here a long time. How have you held onto your wits?”

“An indestructible effort of will?” she asked, then laughed softly. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said at some length. “It honestly doesn’t take much for me to find contentment, I suppose. I enjoy my solitude most days.”

“And others?”

“And others,” she murmured, “I curse it.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a graceful shrug. “I’m glad you’re here, though,” she said, and her gaze lingered on mine for a bit longer than necessary.

“Me too.”

“You really haven’t taken the necklace off?” she asked.

I took another drink and shook my head. “No.”

She smiled, as if knowing that I hadn’t removed the necklace really did please her.

Her honey eyes glistened mischievously. “I take it, then, you’re not visiting me out of pity?”

“You know I’m not.”

“I can’t offer you much in the way of entertainment,” she said slowly. “There isn’t much to do here aside from daily tasks and, well, reading, as you’ve seen.”

I was suddenly struck with what I thought was a brilliant idea. “You could read to me.”

Her brows went up. “To you, huh?”

I shifted in my seat. “Yes. I rummaged through the library at home and couldn’t find anything with a reference to Pallas and Athena.”

Helle laughed. “Of course not!” She rose to her feet and glided toward a narrow bookcase tucked into the corner by the window. “It’s not exactly something human scholars gush freely on and on about.” She scoffed. “Too risqué and deviant, the retelling of that tale. If they made such stories more accessible,” she pushed a book she’d drawn out back into its place, “they’d fear the corruption of women.” Her brows knitted in concentration. “Aha!” She’d apparently found the book she’d been searching for.

“Human scholars?” I asked, finding her phrasing curious.

“Men,” she said. “Silly, ridiculous, and sometimes paranoid men.”

“What’s that?” I asked, gesturing at the black leather-bound book in her hand with a flick of my wrist. It wasn’t the same book she’d been holding when last I’d caught her reading. “I thought you would read the story of Pallas and Athena?”

“No, I’ve something better in mind. Don’t worry,” she smiled as she sat, “it’s another tale you’re sure to have not heard of.”

“What is it?”

“‘Leila and the Fey,’” she said. “It’s got all sorts of goodies in it, romance, magic…”

Out loud, I groaned.

“Eroticism.”

Heat threatened to crawl up my neck and flush my cheeks.

Helle seemed to ignore my discomposure as she reclined, crossing her legs.

She began to read aloud. “Once upon a time…”

I made what I thought was a passable effort to imagine the story as she read. Several times, I became distracted by the sweet sound of her voice, by her lips and her pale hands, by her long legs when they shifted beneath her gown, by her slender fingers when she caught the corner of the page to turn it.

She read for a long while, and for the most part, I gave her my full attention, though it wavered numerous times. It was hard not to be distracted by her—by her beauty, her intellect, her candor.

I felt inexplicably drawn to her.

“You’re staring at me, Millicent,” she noted wryly.

“You’re reading,” I said. “I’m supposed to be staring at you.”

“Have you been listening to the story?”

“Yes. You have my rapt attention.”

You, I’d said. Not the story.

“What do you think will happen?”

Helle had left off at the part where Leila had approached the Faerie Queen and offered herself in exchange for her brother’s freedom. The chemistry between Mab and Leila was tangible, and I could tell easily enough where the author of such a story intended for the two of them to go.

“It sounded as if Mab would kiss Leila,” I said.

“You think so, do you?” Helle asked before she continued reading.

As it turned out, Mab only thought about kissing Leila. She didn’t actually act on it.

I made a noise of protest loud enough that Helle shot me a glance above the book.

“Yes, Millicent? Do you have something to add?”

“Can you not see that Mab’s hesitance is nothing more than a ploy to get you to continue reading?” I asked. “The narrator has already made it abundantly clear that a certain chemistry exists between her and Leila. They’re just dancing around the bush about exploring it now.”

“What do you think should happen, then?”

“If Mab wants to kiss Leila, she should.”

We stared at one another for several moments before Helle dipped her head forward. “Just listen,” she said. “It may be a ploy, but what kind of story would it be if Mab just grabbed Leila’s face and kissed her so soon? Let yourself, for once, I gather,” she said with a hint of amusement, “actually anticipate something.”

I shrugged. “I still think if she wants to do it, she should.”

“I don’t agree. Leila hasn’t had the chance to better come to know Mab. All she knows about her right now is that Mab is her beautiful warden. If Mab kisses her now, Leila might take it amiss. It takes time for trust to build, and a kiss so soon before that trust has been established could break the beginnings of it entirely. I think Mab is wise in waiting. Otherwise, Leila might think herself nothing but a plaything.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” I said stubbornly. “Mab wants to do it. Leila’s already admitted that when she thought Mab was going to kiss her, her knees felt weak. Even if Mab kissed her so soon, they’d still have the opportunity to get to know one another, and hey, Leila might actually begin to believe being a prisoner in Faerie has its benefits!”

Helle laughed. “I’ve a feeling this would be a very different story if you had your say in it.”

“It would.”

“And a short one at that.”

“But to the point. Less pussyfooting.” I grinned.

“And less romance, I suspect.”

At that, I shrugged again. “If Mab had kissed her, they could still have a passionate and romantic night, you know. They’d only be admitting aloud what’s already there on the bloody page.”

“So, if you were Leila, you’d have preferred for Mab to just kiss you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not Leila.”

“Then,” she smiled coyly, “put yourself in her shoes.”

“I don’t have her shoes to put myself in.”

“Now you’re just being difficult. All right.” She closed the book, marking the page where she’d stopped reading with her finger. “Just to help you put yourself in Leila’s shoes, imagine that I’d kissed you that day I brought you to my cottage. What do you think your reaction would’ve been?”

“Utter confusion.”

“And do you think such a move on my part would’ve endeared you to me, made you feel as at ease with me as you do now?”

I thought about it. At least I really tried to. “I don’t know.” The fact that I had pleasured myself and thought about her during our time apart swam to the surface of my thoughts, and I lowered my gaze to hide whatever expression crossed my face.

“I think you would’ve hightailed it back into the forest.”

“Neither of us can say for certain, since it didn’t happen.”

“And what about now? Emotions war within people. Even you, Millicent. Sometimes, you have to give people room for those emotions to sort themselves out, for certain ones to win or lose, for two people to figure out how they genuinely feel about each other.”

“If Mab gives Leila too much room, she may begin to think she doesn’t care or want her, either way.”

Helle placed the book on the small table beside her chair. She inclined, propping her elbow on her knee and her chin on the heel of her hand. “But she does care, as we’ve seen.”

“Then why are they tiptoeing around each other?” I asked, not entirely certain we were still speaking of Mab and Leila. “Why be so…so careful? If you want something, why not give voice to it?”

“Because neither is certain. One of them will make a move only when she is certain of how she feels for the other.”

“One of them will make a move only when she musters the courage to simply do it,” I said. Without thinking, I rose. Helle’s eyes enlarged slightly, barely noticeably, as her head tilted. She watched me curiously as I placed my empty mug next to hers on the table.

“Helle,” I said. Only that, only her name, and she reached out.

Her voice when it came was as tender as her touch on my arm. “What is it, Millicent?”

“I have a confession to make.” My heart had started hammering so fiercely in the side of my neck that I wondered briefly if she could see it.

I felt her rise, felt the stir of air as she moved behind me. Her palms glided up my arms until they rested at my shoulders.

“Yes?”

My stomach churned, in excitement and dread. The world around me seemed to tilt, suddenly thrown off-kilter by her nearness, as if somehow, she’d kicked it right out from under me.

Surely, I’m not a coward.

“I…” The words were there, on the tip of my tongue. All I had to do was say them. All I had to do was push them past my teeth and into the air between us. “I…”

She freed my braid and worked her fingers through my hair. Her nails tickled the back of my neck in a way that brought my breath short and swept away all my thoughts like leaves in an autumn breeze.

“Bloody hell!” I whirled around to face her.

She stepped back abruptly, appearing startled.

“I’m—” She began to apologize, I think, before I threw my arms about her neck and pulled her face down to mine.

I pressed my lips to hers and felt her entire body go stone-still in reaction. I quickly withdrew, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. I bowed my head to avoid making eye contact with her, for fear of exposing my embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

I could feel her watching me and resisted the urge to run or to bury my face in my hands. I forced myself to lift my gaze to meet hers. In the firelight, specks of green stood out like emeralds around her pupils.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because you did this.” I stood up straight and tensed my entire body like an arrow. “You see?”

She laughed and took a step toward me, reclaiming the nearness between us. “Well.” She touched my face, and her fingers swept affectionately across my cheek. “You surprised me, that’s all. If you’d given me a moment to realize what was going on before quickly retreating, you might have discovered something different.”

“And what would I have discovered?” I asked, my voice breathy as the nearness of her body made my skin tingle with longing and the intense effort to control myself.

“This,” she whispered, and then she kissed me, and though her lips were soft and silken against mine, she kissed me firmly, teasing my lips open until I wrapped my arms about her neck and returned her kiss.

Helle spilled into me in a sweet, dizzying rush until I felt as though I were dissolving under her lips and tongue and the sweet taste of cinnamon and apples.

She drew back and I realized she held me with an arm about my waist, held me much more closely than she had been when our kiss had begun.

She smiled lazily, catlike, as if she had just awoken from a pleasant nap.

“Are you well?”

I smiled rather flippantly, feeling drunk and light-headed. I brought my hand up to my chest and patted myself. “I think so, yes, but perhaps we should try that again? Just to be sure.”

“Oh, most certainly,” she murmured. “Just to be sure.”

She kissed me again and that same sensation came over me, the one that made me feel I was melting, melting against her mouth, beneath her hands as they moved on my body and stole the strength from my limbs.

“Helle,” I whispered, clutching her shoulders. “Helle, I can’t stand.” I laughed, feeling even more light-headed.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she whispered, bowing her head and nibbling on my neck. She sank to her knees and caught my wrist to pull me down with her.

She pushed me back onto the floor, and when her hips moved against my knees, I opened to her. When her long body slid between my thighs, I nearly groaned aloud at the sight.

“Are you sure of this?” she asked, searching my face. “Are you sure this is what you want, Millicent?”

A hundred fireflies seemed to have ignited beneath my skin, lighting and fluttering like mad. I touched her cheek, tracing her lower lip with my thumb.

“I feel as though I’ve been quite bespelled,” I said, and she began to withdraw. Fearful that she would pull away from me completely, I cupped the back of her neck in my hand and buried my fingers in her curls. I teased the hair at the nape of her neck. “Yes,” I said, strongly, though my heart still thudded wildly. “Yes, I’m sure.”

She gave me that wide and perfect smile that made my heart sing and my stomach sink simultaneously.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

“A bit…but I don’t want you to stop.”

“We’ll take it slow, then?”

“Let’s just take it and see where it goes,” I whispered.

She lay down beside me and gave me that kiss again, that kiss that went right through me like a blade and echoed pleasantly down to my toes. She traced the curves of my body over my gown, and I mirrored the gesture, kissing her more deeply as I traced the arch of her hip beneath her gown.

Though I wanted it, she did not begin to undress me and I did not begin to undress her. We simply lay there, rolling and kissing on the hard floor, our legs tangling together as we explored each other with lips and tongues and hands.

Helle broke the kiss with a sigh and I buried my face in the bend of her neck, inhaling the warm scent of her perfume on my exhaled breath. I massaged the back of her skull with my hand buried in her hair. I tugged gently. “I want more.”

“You’re certain?” she asked.

I kissed her neck, licking her and tasting her skin like salt and honey on my tongue. I nibbled lightly and her fingernails clawed softly at my back.

“If we pursue this, Millicent, there’s no going back.” She moaned as I bit her again. Following the curve of her neck down to her pale shoulder, I dragged my teeth across her.

She buried her hand in my hair and guided my lips back to her mouth.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asked, searching my face.

“Mmm, not really.” I tried to close the distance between our lips and she drew back with a small smile.

“How much have you had to drink?” she asked, obviously teasing.

“I’m not drunk on drink.” As I breathed the words, the teasing in her eyes died.

She traced my cheek with the tips of her fingers, her other hand stroking tantalizingly down my spine.

“If we do this,” she said, suddenly intense, “I need to know you’ll be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. I need to know you won’t run away from me.”

“I won’t turn my back on you.” I was sure of it. Why would I? I couldn’t fathom it. “I want you.”

I had never said those words to anyone before.

Anyone.

Helle got to her feet and held a hand out to help me rise. “Then, come with me.”

She led the way through the cottage and down the dark hallway toward a room at the back. She opened the door and released my hand when we entered.

When her bedroom was bathed in a romantic glow, she returned to me.

I stared at the large bed in the center of the room, transfixed.

She cupped my face in her hands and whispered against my mouth, “You’re still certain?”

Silently, I nodded, though the knowledge of what we were about to do both excited and daunted me.

I wanted to be with her, to know the joy of her intimately, but what if I displeased her? What if she displeased me? Worse, what if I couldn’t figure out what I was doing?

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at my own thoughts.

Something must’ve passed over my face because she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Her arms wrapped low around my waist as she pulled me against her. Her hands climbed my back and her fingers worked at my gown.

“I’m wondering if perhaps I should apologize in advance,” I said.

“For?” Amusement danced in her shadowy eyes.

“If this goes…awkwardly.”

She freed the last button of my gown before she moved around me and guided it down my shoulders.

The air in the bedroom was warm, but Helle’s hands on me, tracing the curve of my spine, the skin between my shoulder blades…her hands were so much warmer.

She laughed softly. “You didn’t strike me as the timid type.” As she teased me her breath tickled my neck.

She kissed my shoulder. “Such a lovely gown,” she murmured as she pushed the gown down my arms and exposed my bare breasts to the candlelit air. I gasped, rocking back against her as her hands swept over my belly and higher.

“I’m glad you like it,” I whispered, realizing in that moment that I’d chosen it specifically for her, in hopes that she would enjoy seeing me in something more feminine.

She cupped my breasts in her warm hands and I moaned, my nerves tingling and awakening under her touch.

Helle turned me to face her. “You’re beautiful, Millicent.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t even certain I had breath left in me to speak.

Helle peeled my garments to the floor until I stood bare before her. Kneeling, she touched my thighs. I placed a hand atop her curls to steady myself as she placed a light kiss against my thigh before rising. She swept the curls that fell just past her shoulders aside and gave her back to me.

With trembling fingers, I guided the dark fabric of Helle’s gown from her slim shoulders. The chain about her hips clinked softly as she removed it. I unveiled her slowly, admiring the glorious slope of her back, the wing-like arches of her shoulder blades, the indentation of her spine. With the gown bunched at her hips, she turned to me and I stroked my fingers down her stomach. She was so beautiful that it was nearly painful to look at her. I traced the smooth skin above her navel with tentative fingertips, wanting to forever hold the one moment in my life that seemed so perfect, so unflawed.

Somewhere inside of myself, I was surprised by my own reaction to her, at how strongly she affected me.

“What is it about you?” I asked softly, tracing a pattern around her navel and admiring the way her muscles twitched under my touch.

“People are drawn to one another for a reason, Millicent.”

“Is that what this is?” I swept the back of my nails up higher, dangerously close to her pale breasts. Her lips parted then, and the breath that fell from them seemed to echo in my ears.

She snaked her arms about my waist and drew me closer, until her soft, bare breasts crushed mine. “I’d say so, yes…” It seemed as though she would say more, but she didn’t. I felt her lips against my hair, heard another intake of breath from her as if she was trying to catch my scent. I slid my hands over the arches of her hips and toward her back, the material still bundled between our bodies.

I massaged her back and buried my face in the bend of her shoulder, brushing my lips back and forth across her skin. She caught me loosely by the nape of my neck and guided our mouths together again.

She was so warm and sensual…all sinew and honey. My thoughts spiraled in a starry blur under her kiss.

I drew back, summoning the courage to hook my fingers beneath the material clinging to her hips and release her from it.

Helle continued to watch me, and it seemed some trick of light had changed the green around her pupils to golden flecks.

I held my breath at the sight of her when the gown slid to the floor. I traced fingers down her mound and parted her, dipping into her heated folds more on instinct than thought.

She moaned softly before she took my wrists in her hands and drew them away from her sex.

“I think,” she murmured, “I should be the one pleasing you, considering.”

“My lack of experience?” I asked, arching a defiant brow. I felt suddenly defensive, as if, because it was my first time with a woman…with anyone, that I was completely ignorant as to how that particular part of the body worked. Never mind it was the same thought I’d had only moments ago. That I should think it was entirely different than Helle thinking it. “I have one too, you know. I’m fairly certain I can figure it out.”

“Oh?” She steered me toward the bed, making me retreat until the thick mattress pressed against the back of my thighs.

“Aye.”

She reached between my legs and her fingers traced up my thigh. I opened to her and made a soft noise as she found and pushed inside of me.

Helle said something then, but I was like a woman drowning, taken by the sensation of her fingers as they moved inside of me. I couldn’t focus with her touching me and nearly lost my balance.

She helped me to regain it, looping an arm around my back. “Did you hear me, Millicent?”

“What?” I asked, gripping her shoulders as she continued to move in and out of me.

“Lie back on the bed.” She guided me gently by the shoulder. “Place your feet on my shoulders, love.”

Helle sank to her knees when I lay back. She withdrew, making me shudder as she pulled me closer and eased my knees apart.

Her fingers flowed over me. “Yes?” she asked.

I nodded and she smiled beautifully. I placed my feet atop her shoulders as requested.

She kissed me and I flinched, in spite of her gentleness. She touched my knees, palms brushing upward. “You’re still trembling.”

“Helle.” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Helle...”

“What is it, Millicent?” She continued stroking my thighs, her breath a wash of warmth against my damp sex when she spoke.

I covered my face with a hand. “Get on with it, please?”

“So impatient.” She teased me, before she thrust her fingers inside me again.

For a long moment, I hung suspended somewhere between space and time, and then she called me back to my body, called me back with the same mouth that had sent me to the moon with a kiss. Her lips sealed over me and I groaned as her tongue moved against me, sending arrows of pleasure through my limbs.

Helle gazed up the line of my body and I cried out as she sucked me gently, grazing me lightly with her teeth.

Gold circled her pupils.

Gold, like sun’s fire and honey.

*

I woke with the blankets tangled about my hips to the faint gray light of morning. The bed moved and a hand caressed my naked spine and brought tiny chill bumps to my flesh.

“Good morning, Millicent.”

I turned over, greeted by Helle’s lazy smile. She brushed her fingers through my hair, spilling the strands down my back.

“Good morning. Why, might I ask, are you way over there?”

One side of her mouth rose slightly higher than the other as she sidled closer to me. Her bare thighs brushed mine as she continued to toy with my hair.

A rumble of thunder purred above the cottage, as if the skies themselves felt as content as I did.

“You’re awfully quiet,” I noted, watching her.

She swept her fingers in a circle over my buttocks, forcing the blankets lower.

“Just marveling at you,” she said.

I snorted.

Helle laughed softly. “What? Am I being too romantic?”

“Aye,” I said, “a bit.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” She no longer held my gaze but watched her own fingers as they swept down my back and over the swell of my rear. I exhaled a pleasant sigh before rolling over.

Her expression, which had been distant and dreamy, changed. Her gaze darkened sensually while she continued to stroke me, her hand sliding over my stomach and hips, threatening to descend lower beneath the blankets.

I brought my knees up under them and parted my legs in invitation.

Helle’s mouth moved against my cheek as she nibbled a path toward my neck. “Mmm, I take it you’re having no regrets?”

“What makes you figure that?” I asked, making her laugh again.

Her warm mouth moved lower, across my shoulders, my clavicle, over my breasts. I buried a hand in her hair, kneading her scalp and crushing her disheveled curls with my fingers.

She drew my nipple past her lips, sucking lightly, the tip of her tongue teasing me in tiny flicks. I gasped as a flood of warmth spilled from between my thighs.

And then I reached for her, fingers exploring. I felt greedy with the desire to touch her, to call the same delicious sounds from her mouth that she called from mine. I cupped her breast in my hand, playing my fingers over her taut nipple. She raised her mouth from my stomach and moaned softly, which I took as an invitation to continue my exploration.

“Lie back,” I requested, sweeping aside a dark curl that had fallen over her eyes.

“Why?” She appeared mischievous.

I pushed her by the shoulder until she was on her back and climbed on top of her. “Because,” I said lightly, gazing down at her with what I knew was the same dark expression of sensual hunger I had seen in her, “I want to taste you. I want to know what you feel like under my hands and mouth.”

And I want to make you utter the same little noises you had me making all night, I thought, but couldn’t find the courage to say that particular thought aloud. She lay back passive, offering herself to my explorations. I teased her breasts, enjoying the sound that fell from her when I kissed her there. I sucked and teased her with lips, tongue, and a little bit of teeth. I kissed a path down her body, the salt and honey flavor of her skin coating my mouth. I massaged her hips and raised my gaze to meet hers, hesitating above her groin.

Her eyes were flecked with gold around her pupils again, her lips wet, as if she had just licked them.

I felt a smile tug at my lips. “Yes?” I asked.

She laughed again and the sound of it filled the room like sweet music. “By all means,” she replied, and gestured in a sweeping motion with her hand.

I teased her open with a finger and rested my cheek against her thigh, amazed at how natural it seemed to touch her, at the honey that coated my skin and made her slick and warm and soft. She was so incredibly soft, like some kind of fleshy fruit ripened by the golden glow of the summer sun.

I pushed inside of her and she tightened around me as she moaned. I stroked her, marveling at the feel of flesh working with flesh.

She groaned my name.

“Do you want my mouth?” I asked.

“Lord and Lady,” she breathed, “what makes you think I wouldn’t?”

I sealed my lips against her and sucked lightly at first, gauging her reactions to discern what she liked. I pushed my fingers as far as they would go and her hips jerked, forcing me to suck a little harder to keep her in my mouth. When I did, her back arched and her hands stretched up above her.

Her thighs trembled and her hips moved and I followed her movements, curling my fingers and tracing circles inside of her. Her body tightened and fought against my hand. How could such soft flesh be so unbelievably strong?

Her climax built and, when it washed over her, shot through her, she cried out my name. I heard something whoosh through the air and land on the other side of the room.

Afterward, she fell back.

The ragged sound of her breath filled the sudden silence.

Her muscles rippled against my fingers with aftershocks of pleasure when I withdrew.

I knelt between her legs and glanced around the room. “What was that?”

She laughed, passing her hands blindly over her face. “A pillow.”

“Is that normal?” I asked.

Her hands parted as she gazed at me through her fingers. “Do I normally throw pillows?”

“Aye…” I said. “I mean, it’s not a problem if you do, but you should probably warn me every time that you tend to hurl objects with great force when you…”

She laughed and clambered out of bed, tugging the sheet along with her and draping it across her hips. She retrieved the pillow.

“I’m going to put the kettle on,” she said, touching my cheek, tucking the long strands of my untidy hair behind my ear. “You’re welcome to freshen up in there.” She gestured to a doorway nestled between another bookcase and finely crafted mahogany dresser. I watched her naked back as she left, appearing like Venus freshly risen from the sea with the white sheet swaying from her hips and trailing behind her.

She returned moments later with my bag. I took it and headed for the washroom while she slipped off to the kitchen. I stepped into the small washroom and came face-to-face with my reflection in an oval mirror above the washbasin. After I splashed some water on my face, I ran a brush through my hair and cleaned my teeth.

As tidy as I could manage, I emerged to find Helle reclined in bed with a mug clasped between her palms. The sheet was still draped about her hips, though she hadn’t bothered to cover the rest of herself.

She lifted a mug from the nightstand and held it out in offering.

Even after the night we had spent together, I couldn’t stop staring at her. I took the mug and murmured my thanks.

She patted the empty space beside her and I crawled in, careful not to jostle my tea.

The luxuriant mane of her hair was a righteous mess, as she obviously hadn’t bothered trying to make herself more presentable, but she didn’t need to.

Not even a night of passion ruined her beauty. If anything, it only added to it.

I took a sip of tea and she stroked my naked back. “Millicent,” she murmured, “come here, love.”

I went to her and she tucked me into the crook of her arm. I slid my free arm around her back, holding her.

“How do you feel?” she murmured against my hair.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Marvelous. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Why?”

She searched my gaze, flecks of green around her pupils. “Was it everything you’d hoped it would be?”

That and more, I thought, but said aloud, “Why wouldn’t it have been?”

Helle took a long drink of her tea and said at some length, “You know what I mean.”

So many thoughts raced through my mind, so many thoughts I feared to speak, to reveal to her. That and more. I felt strange and different, as if our night together had changed me in more ways than I could fathom. I knew it had. How could it not have? Helle had taken everything I had convinced myself to believe about myself and thrown it into the fire.

She’d incinerated all those careful walls I had built to protect myself. I was no fool, I knew that I held the views I clung to for a reason. I held onto them so I would never be jilted, hurt, cast aside, unloved, or feel unwanted. If I had no expectations, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Yet here I was, nestled in the crook of Helle’s arm, the taste of strong tea in my mouth and somewhere, underneath it, the taste of her still lingering, her touch still ringing through me like the tinkling of bells.

It hurt to look at her, but I knew she did not seek to hurt me. I simply felt as though my heart and mind would burst with the weight of my thoughts, as if my emotions would part my flesh like a blade and burst my skin.

“Your hands are shaking,” she said, her voice tender.

I gazed down at the mug in my hand as if in a dream. The dark liquid quivered and I crawled over her to place it on the nightstand. Our skin brushed and I resisted the urge to face her, to slide my body down hers and feel every inch of her bareness against mine.

She placed her mug beside mine and took my hands in hers.

“I would never hurt you,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that I did, so I gave no response.

Her thumbs brushed over my knuckles. “I know it will take time for you to trust me, Millicent… I can only imagine the thoughts you’re having, but I hope that one day you will find me worthy of your trust.”

Another rumble of thunder sounded, echoing around us. The green flecks in her eyes appeared less bright, more a shade of gray as the rain began to patter down outside the window.

“Will you pass the day with me?” she asked. “I would very much like it if you would.” Uncertainty threaded through her voice, as if somewhere inside herself, she was afraid I would refuse her.

I was afraid I’d never want to leave her side.

But she wanted me to stay.

“Yes,” I whispered.

She smiled and the sweetness in her expression made my chest tight, as if someone had reached inside it with an invisible hand and squeezed my heart.

We passed the day deliciously naked in bed. Helle toyed with my hair while she picked up reading where we had left off with the book. She was determined that I hear the rest of Leila’s story and so I listened half-heartedly, with my head on her breast and the thudding of her heartbeat drumming against my ear. The air that filled her lungs rolled like an ocean wave when she paused to draw a breath, and I closed my eyes, savoring the sound of her voice and body.

I didn’t realize I’d dozed off until she stirred me awake. “You stopped listening a while ago, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “Mmhmm.”

I heard her set the book aside as she lifted the sheet, sliding her body in against mine and draping an arm over my waist. I felt her fingers brush my hair aside, and then her mouth a moment later, pressing a soft kiss against my skin.

“Mmm, I love the rain,” she murmured.

“Me too,” I said, not bothering to open my eyes, quite happy at the prospect of falling asleep in her arms while the rain tapped its watery fingers on the cottage’s roof. “When I’m not lost and stuck in it,” I added, smiling.

“You really think you were lost?” she asked. “I like to think you were exactly where you were meant to be.”

“Where you could find me, you mean?”

“Yes, precisely.”

I shook my head. “You’re incorrigible.”

Her hand slid down my belly and toward my groin. “And you are?” She parted me with little effort and glided a finger over me.

I moaned and reached for her, gripping her buttocks and pulling her more solidly against my backside.

“Damned,” I breathed as she explored me. I arched my spine, pressing myself back into the cradle of her hips. Her lower body moved slightly behind me as she stroked me, coaxing another moan from my lips with a fingertip. “I’m blissfully damned.”

“Blissfully, eh?” Her breath tickled my neck, and I shivered as she eased her fingers inside me. “I suppose I should continue this, then?”

I reached back and buried a hand in the thick mane of her hair. “Oh, yes. Continuously being a more appropriate word.”

Helle laughed and brought me as I cried out her name.

*

I woke with Helle spooning me, her soft body nestled tenderly against my back. The light filtering through the window was dull, but still gray and enough to see by. I rolled over carefully to find that she had fallen asleep, too. I traced her dark brow with a fingertip, hoping not to wake her but unable to keep myself from touching her. I brushed a curl of her dark-brown hair out of her face. Even while she slept, her mouth was inviting. The fullness of her lower lip taunted me, but I resisted it and, instead, began to work the sheet slowly down her hips.

Helle made an inarticulate noise in her sleep and rolled onto her stomach, pushing her arms beneath her pillow. I sat up cautiously, trying not to jostle the bed and wake her.

I drank in the sight of her, the way her hair spilled across her luminous skin. I traced a hand down her spine, between the blades of her shoulders and lower, over the slope of her buttocks. The sheet slid down to her thighs, and instead of feeling strange after all that had happened, I experienced a sense of peace.

I trailed my nails lightly down her skin and gave myself to my reflections.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay forever. As soon as I thought that, an overwhelming wave of sadness gripped me. If Helle had asked me to never leave…

I released my breath.

I had a family and Malinda to think about.

What would Malinda think of me? Did I care what she thought? Would she look at me aghast for bedding a woman?

Would I tell her about Helle?

I wanted to. In some part of me, I wanted to tell her everything when I arrived home. I wanted someone other than Helle to share my feelings with, and who better than my sister?

I frowned, still stroking Helle’s skin. It seemed so complicated…yet it wasn’t. It wasn’t complicated in the least. I had feelings for Helle, and it seemed she had feelings for me. If she didn’t, why bed me? Why would she have looked so fearful that I wouldn’t stay with her? Or was it simply her loneliness that called her to me? Were Helle’s feelings genuine or only a result of long solitude and the need for company and comfort?

I bent at the waist and pressed my lips against her lower back, trying to push back against the tide of insecurity and doubt that rose within me. I gazed down at her perfect skin and noticed a small imperfection near the base of her spine.

I tilted my head, trying to see it better in the low light. No, not an imperfection…it was a mark of sorts.

Once I saw it, I began to try to make sense of it. I traced the mark with the tip of my fingers. It looked to be a star, a star with more points than I had ever seen, wrapped in slender vines. How had I not seen it before? It was black and green and stood out starkly against her pale skin. How could I have failed to notice such a thing?

She murmured my name and I quickly drew my hand away.

“What are you doing?” she asked softly, her voice cloudy with sleep. Her lashes fluttered opened as she blinked at me.

My heart and stomach lurched simultaneously, and I suddenly couldn’t get out of bed quickly enough. I stumbled up, clutching the sheet I’d dragged with me to my chest.

She sat up. “Millicent, what is it?”

My heart was still pounding when I met her gaze again, albeit rather reluctantly.

Now her eyes were as they usually were, but a moment ago they hadn’t been. A moment ago they’d been two different colors. She frowned slightly, obviously perplexed.

“Are you well?”

“What’s going on, Helle?”

“What do you mean?”

“The mark. I didn’t notice it. Why? And your eyes, when you first opened them—”

“What about my eyes, Millicent? And what mark?”

“Don’t,” I said, when she moved closer. I held a hand out to ward her off. “Something’s not right. I can feel it. Either you’ve been drugging me or I’m losing my wits.”

She sighed. “You’re not losing your wits, Millicent, and I’ve not been drugging you.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“There are things I cannot tell you, yet.”

“Things?” I asked, my voice beginning to unravel. “What kind of things, Helle?”

“Come back to bed,” she said.

Stubbornly, I shook my head. “Not until you tell me what you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anything to hurt you,” she said. “Come back to bed.”

“No.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“You’re lying to me,” I said. “What makes you think I want to cuddle with you right now when you’re obviously hiding something? What the bloody hell does that mark mean?”

I felt like I was losing it, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. If I was losing it, I wouldn’t be aware of it, would I?

Her voice when it came was low, nearly drowned out by another roll of purring thunder. “You’re not ready.”

“I think that’s a decision you’d best let me make,” I said. “If you don’t tell me now, I will leave.”

“You can’t leave.”

“I beg your pardon?” I gaped for a moment. “Oh yes, I can. Watch me.” I moved about the room to retrieve my long-neglected clothing. She reclined against the pillows with a melancholic expression that took every ounce of my will to ignore.

“Millicent, please,” she whispered. “Be reasonable. I don’t want you to leave.”

“You can’t keep me here as a prisoner.”

“I promise you, I’m not trying to do that.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.” I pulled my gown on and set about buttoning the buttons in the back myself. I donned the rest of my apparel—my boots, leggings, and cloak—and picked up the saddlebag and left, walking out into the rain.

I found Star in stables and saddled him. I mounted and clicked, signaling for him to go.

It was an odd thing how only minutes ago I’d considered the possibility of never leaving and now, all I could think was to resurrect my walls as quickly as I could and get away.

Star refused to budge and I set my heel hard into his side, harder than I ever had before, and he obliged as I steered him from the stable and out toward the forest.

I spotted Helle standing on the porch, the white sheet wrapped around her naked form, the brown curls of her hair like soaked black ringlets. I tore my gaze from hers.

“Hah!” I kicked Star again into a run. “Hah!”

He ran, his hooves pounding the wet ground and splashing water. He whinnied softly, a complaint about the rain, no doubt, but I didn’t care. I drew the hood of my cloak up and encouraged him forward.

I had to get away.

We rode from the cottage hard, past the large tree and its creeping roots.

Moments later, we burst from the edge of the woods.

Helle’s gaze met mine across the distance as she began to walk barefoot down the cobblestone path.

I steered Star in a circle. “How the bloody fu—”

“I told you,” she said, her voice soft yet somehow carrying like a breeze over the rain. “You cannot leave, not yet.”

Finally, I recognized the sinking sensation at the pit of my stomach: I was afraid of her.

She tilted her head back, the rain falling on her perfect face. Her brown eyes changed again as she raised a hand, gold swimming to the surface around her pupils, pushing back flecks of gray.

The rain stopped abruptly. The gray clouds parted above us as if someone had taken their hands and pushed them apart to reveal the sky blue underneath.

Star shook his head, slinging excess water this way and that.

My hands trembled where they held his rein.

“Did you do that?” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could really think about what I was saying.

“Stop the rain?” she asked, then said softly, “Yes.”

“How?”

“I have warned you that you are not ready for this.” Again, her voice was tender and not at all like she was upset with me, but as if she was still saddened by something I could not fathom.

“Ready for what?”

Helle came to me. She put her hands on my hips and literally picked me up out of Star’s saddle with surprising ease. Before I could push against her, she wrapped a palm about my neck and whispered against my mouth, “I think it’s time you remember, sweet, sweet Millicent.”

“Remember what?” I asked, but before I could press her further, she kissed me, hard and deep and sensuously. Her mouth and lips were wet and cool against mine, tasting of honey and rain.

Thoughts blurred beneath that kiss as images began to flood my mind.

Do I know you?

I don’t know, do you?

I saw her then, saw her reaching out and taking my hand. I heard her voice in my ears, “Are you lost?”

I was so small then, and when I sniffled, she took my hand, her larger one enveloping mine.

“What is your name?”

“Millicent.”

“Well, come along, little Millicent. I’ll help you find your way.”

And she had.

I remembered it clearly under her kiss.

Helle.

Malinda and I had wandered out into the forest when we were children, but it was never Ian that had found me and showed me the way back…

It was Helle.

When she broke the kiss and stepped back, I sank to my knees on the wet grass and buried my face in my hands.

My heart and head felt as though they would break.

“You lied to me,” I breathed, looking up at her.

“No.” She softly shook her head, her wet curls dancing. “I never lied to you, Millicent. I came back for you as I promised I would.”

“You lied.” I said, unable to contain the anger and heartache that accompanied the rush of remembrance. “Every day.” I swallowed hard. “Every day for weeks, for months, I tried to find you. I waited for you to come back to me, to come back and find me, but you never did.”

“I have found you, Millicent. I’m standing here right now, aren’t I? You were a child then.”

“I was a child that relied on you and your word,” I said, wiping at my eyes with the edge of my wet cloak. “You told me you would return. You hurt me when you didn’t.”

“I told you that you would see me again, and you do. You see me now.”

“What are you?”

“Oh, Millicent.” She knelt in front of me and cupped my face tenderly in her hands. “You know what I am. You’ve always known.”

“Why? Why did you make me wait so long? Why did you abandon me?”

She drew me into the circle of her arms and I saw that she, too, was crying. “I never abandoned you. I always watched you. I watched you grow. I watched you when you gave up on me and turned your back on the forest and your heart.”

“And you didn’t stop me.”

“I couldn’t. I had nothing to offer a child. I would not have condemned you to a life of childhood. That’s what you would have remained if I had brought you to Faerie then,” she whispered softly, brushing her lips over my brow.

“Why now?”

“Because you’re a woman grown,” she said, tilting my head so that our eyes met. Her eyes were green, green like olives. “And you’re capable of making your own decisions now.”

“What decision are we talking about?”

“Will you come inside so that we may speak?”

In a daze, I nodded. She tugged on Star’s bridle and whispered softly to him. When she released him, he trotted off to the stable of his own will and I followed her back inside.

Night was falling. She set about starting a fire in the fireplace. I didn’t hear her strike a match; she simply knelt, touched the wood, and the fire leapt to life.

When she turned back to me, her eyes reflected the flames before returning to honey-brown.

“Do your eyes normally do that?” I asked, shivering and taking an unsteady seat.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do they change?” she asked, moving past me and into the kitchen. I heard her place the kettle on the stove. “Magic,” she said, “strong emotion.”

“Why couldn’t I see it before?” I asked.

She sat down beside me, still wrapped in her wet sheet. She licked her lips, almost nervously. “Because I used my magic to disguise myself so that you would not see it. The mark, my changing eyes…” She shook her head softly before pushing her curls back with a hand. “I wasn’t ready for you to know, Millicent. I didn’t think you were ready. I’m sorry if you feel I’ve misled you.”

“You have.”

“It was only for your own protection,” she said quietly.

“Again,” I said, “I think that’s something you should have let me decide for myself.”

“I didn’t want to risk losing you.” She met my gaze and held it intensely. “So perhaps it was partly my own selfish fear.”

“You think?” I asked. “What about the mark? You hid that, too?”

“Yes, but as you discovered, I can’t disguise myself when I’m sleeping.”

“And that’s why I saw it when I woke.”

“Yes.” She rose and padded softly into the kitchen.

I turned and leaned over the arm of the chair. “Helle, tell me what you are. I need to hear it from you.” I rose and followed her. “I need to know I’m not crazy for thinking it.”

She reached out, and when I didn’t recoil, she stroked the wet strands of my hair. “I’m fey, Millicent. I am the guardian of this forest and have been for hundreds of years.”

“Hundreds?”

She nodded and I suddenly felt like I needed to sit back down. However, I didn’t.

“And the rain,” I noted, my mind racing and working as I encouraged my intellect to take over. “You’re capable of calling it and sending it away. Did you call it the night Malinda and I were separated?”

“Yes.”

“Did you call it to keep me here?”

She licked her lips again, but this time, she broke eye contact with me. “Yes, Millicent.” She looked at me then. “I called the rain to keep you for a time so that we could come to know one other.”

“Speaking of time…” I began to pace, ignoring my wet gown as it tried to cling to my legs. I shook it off. “It moves oddly here, doesn’t it? And why am I not able to leave? I rode out into the forest and ended up back at your door.”

“You’re in Faerie, Millicent. Time does move differently here, some days more slowly and some days more quickly than it moves in the mortal world.”

I fingered the stone circle at my throat, still thinking furiously. “That explains a lot.”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed up till now.”

“I did notice. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Understandably so.”

I stopped and faced her. “What else do I need to know that you haven’t told me?”

“I like you, Millicent.”

I snorted. “Do you mean that you like me, like me, or that you’re so bored here in Faerie you thought you’d use me for a bit of entertainment?”

She stared at me for several long moments. “Do you really think so little of me as to believe that I would use you like that?” She stepped toward me, though perhaps stepped wasn’t the right word. She moved in a stalking manner—slinky, dangerously, the sheet hissing across the wood floor. “I heard your sister’s call. And I saw you…” She shut her eyes, as if remembering and seeing it all again. “And I knew the moment I saw you...”

“Knew what?”

“That there was something between us. You called to me,” she said. “There’s a hardness present in your eyes that I long to erase.” She touched my face again. “A hard edge of disbelief that set itself within you the moment I turned away from you when you were a child. When I heard you speaking with Malinda, it broke my heart to know that you had stopped believing in me. I never stopped believing in you.”

“You abandoned me, Helle,” I reminded her, my voice surprisingly calm. “I don’t think you realize that, do you?”

“I realized I created some of that hardness in you, Millicent.”

“No,” I shook my head, “not only that. When you came to me, when you helped me find my way, I thought I had made a friend in you. I thought you would be there for me as you said you would.”

“You always had your sister to keep you company.”

“But I wanted you, Helle! I wanted you.”

“And now?” she asked, searching my gaze. “Do you still want me?”

Of course! I wanted to scream the words at her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. In a part of me, I wondered if she should have left my memories of her buried. I had felt a kinship with her as a child…an instant connection, and she turned her back on that connection and me. I learned through that hard and simple lesson not to expect much from life or the people in it. I think, in some way, I had given my heart to her then, the moment she took my little hand in hers and smiled so beautifully, spoke so reassuringly and softly in quiet confidence.

But I was a child, I reminded myself. I couldn’t have known anything of love then.

Did I even know of it now?

“Millicent?”

“The thought of never seeing you again pains me, Helle.”

“That means?” she asked, a bit uncertainly.

“It means that you frighten me, that this…” I gestured toward her and the cottage around us, “frightens me, and yet, what frightens me more is the idea of living a life without you in it. I just…” I choked on my words and tried again. “I don’t know how to come to terms with this, with all of this, with us.”

“One day at a time, I suspect.” The kettle whistled and she began making our tea. “I thought keeping it from you would have made the transition easier for you.”

“Are you really keeping me here, as your prisoner? If I say I want to leave, will you let me?”

“I told you, I am not keeping you here. Faerie is. There is only one way in and out of Faerie, and that is during twilight, Millicent.” She held a mug out in offering. “That is why neither you nor your brothers could find me. They did not look when the veil was thin.”

“So you’re saying my sister’s insane ramblings have some truth to them after all?”

“Every myth has a grain of truth.”

She walked out during our conversation and returned from the darkened hallway in a black shift. She held dry clothing out to me and I changed in front of her, before the fireplace.

She sat in the armchair before the fire. I noticed her feet were bare when she crossed her legs and watched me, idly sipping the steaming liquid from her mug.

Strangely, even after discovering what she was, her gaze upon me as I undressed and slipped the gray shift over my head still excited me.

Her eyes were gold around the pupils again, as if sunlight threatened to burst forth through the brown.

“They’ve changed again,” I murmured softly.

“A reflection of my mood,” she said.

“And gold would mean?”

She smiled rather slyly over her mug. “Take off your clothes again and find out.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes playfully. It seemed that even if I wanted to be mad at her, I couldn’t.

I took a long drink. “Faerie or no,” I mumbled, “you do make an excellent cup.”

“I grow the herbs myself.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“Do you talk to the plants?” I teased her.

“I sing to them, actually.” She grinned. “A little magic goes a long way.”

“Ah, right,” I said. “Green thumb, was it?”

“Very.”

I lowered my mug. “You’re friggin’ hard to be mad at, you know.”

She shrugged before her lips spread into a wide grin again. “I can’t say I’m disappointed to hear that.”

I gazed at the black window near the bookcase. “And I suppose I’ll be staying the night again.”

“I suppose you should, considering you’ll only end up going around in circles trying to leave.”

“You could have let me leave when night first began to fall.”

“I could have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She set her mug aside and said, “Because I knew if you left now, I would never see you again.”

“I don’t think I would’ve been able to keep myself away.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” she said almost idly. “Fear can motivate mortals to do things they’d never dream of doing.”

“And love?”

“And love,” she said, making it more of an agreement than a question. “I will wake you before twilight if you wish to leave in the morning.”

“You’re giving me a way out?”

“You’ve always had that, Millicent. I’ll not keep you against your will.”

When I was silent, she pressed me further. “What is your will?”

“What’s yours?”

“Let me love you.” The words encouraged my stomach to sink and my heart to pound fiercely. “I know it does not seem as though we’ve known one another very long, but I can love you, Millicent. I already do. If that means letting you go, I will.”

I went to her then and sank down on the rug before her chair. I pushed my hands beneath the folds of her shift, sliding my palms up her legs and to her thighs.

“Are you really so dense you can’t see how I feel for you?”

“I need to hear it.”

“I can love you, as well. I already do.”

Helle laughed and pulled me up into her lap, burying her hands in my hair and massaging my scalp.

“So, you’ll stay?”

“I can’t, indefinitely,” I said, thinking of my family and my sister. “I’m not sure how this will work—”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“You sound confident.”

“I am.”

“Have you already come up with a plan?”

“I did that the moment I gave you this.” She took the stone pendant between her fingers, tracing it with her thumb. “It’s not just any stone, Millicent.”

“Tell me.” I inched my mouth closer to hers.

“It protects you while you pass back and forth, from Faerie to your world and from your world to Faerie.”

“What does that mean?”

“Time passes oddly here, remember,” she murmured against my mouth. “If you stay in Faerie, you remain forever young, but as soon as you pass back to the human world, time catches up with you. The stone shields you from age.”

“Can you tell how much time has passed?”

“Yes, and to some extent, I can control it. Not in all of Faerie, but here, in my cottage.”

“How long have I been here?”

She understood what I meant. “A night and day have passed for you and me, and night has come again, but in your human world, night still envelopes them.”

“So, I haven’t even stayed overnight yet?”

“Not quite.”

“That’s going to take some getting used to.”

She kissed me gently, nibbling my lower lip with just the slightest edge of teeth that made my head pleasantly spin. “I promise you, I will not let the world you come from and everyone in it wither and fade away while you are here.”

“How will I explain to my family where I’ve been?”

“If you stay longer?” she asked, her hands sliding down over my buttocks. My eyelashes fluttered as the fire-lit room blurred in my vision. “How long do you wish to stay?”

“How long do you want me?”

“Forever sounds nice,” she murmured as her lips worked down my neck and toward my shoulder.

I laughed. “Forever is a very long time to a mortal, Helle.”

“You’re immortal here. And you can still visit your family. I’ll see to it.” It sounded as though she was really trying to convince me to stay forever.

“Will you meet them?” I asked.

“Is that what you want?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

“Yes, if it would please you.”

“It would,” I said, twining a damp curl of her hair around my finger. “Can I tell Malinda?”

“About me? She’s not likely to believe you, as much as she wants to believe.”

“Oh,” I said, grinning, “that’ll be the fun part.”

*

Four days I spent with Helle. We passed the time snuggling, reading, making love, and talking about anything and everything. It seemed neither of us ran out of things to do or to say to the other. There was something natural about spending time with Helle in her cottage. In the short time I’d been here, it was already beginning to feel like a piece of home to me.

Too, I found I quite liked the privacy Faerie provided. In four days, I hadn’t bothered to don a single article of clothing. It was a very liberating experience, and a pleasurable one. I came to delight in Helle sneaking up behind me when I was doing something as mundane as pouring myself a cup of tea. I enjoyed the way her hands and mouth moved on me as if she couldn’t stop herself.

We spent a lot of time making love, until our bodies were dewed with sweat and sore. I came to discern the things she took pleasure in, like my hair slithering across her back when I kissed my way down her body, nibbling and placing even more kisses over the swell of her rear. Watching her claw at the pillows while I pushed my fingers inside of her from that angle absolutely thrilled me.

In the world I had known, there were so many boundaries, many of which I had built for myself, but with Helle…those boundaries ceased to exist. They fell away and faded into the mists. We made love at any moment, stopping abruptly during our conversation when she set her drink aside and hoisted me up out of my seat before the fire. She carried me with an easy strength, a strength that she had stopped hiding after she revealed herself to me. She made love to me on the small table in the kitchen, in the hallway, in the bath, on the floor.

I think, too, Helle was a bit surprised to find how much of herself she could be with me. Certainly, I found myself a bit startled to discover she didn’t mind at all when I sank teeth and nails into her during my climax, though the marks never stayed on her flesh for long. I marveled at how quickly she healed.

On the fourth day, she woke me when it was still dark.

“Do you wish to ride out today?” she asked as I pushed the hair out of my face and took the mug of tea she offered.

I smiled sleepily over the brim and pulled her to me with a grip on her arm. She buried her face in the bend of my neck, kissing me as I nuzzled her.

“Will you come with me?” I asked. We hadn’t much discussed the prospect of her greeting my family after the night we’d spoken about everything else. She’d only said that she would meet them if that was what I desired.

She took long enough to reply that I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Hmm, nothing,” she said, affectionately toying with my hair. “I’m merely trying to figure out the details of it, that’s all. Should I ride out with you, you know I should return here before nightfall.” She laughed softly. “Unless you suppose your folk wouldn’t look askance if I stayed with you.”

I ran a hand down her body and watched as her skin prickled. “They’re going to look askance at me simply for having a friend, I think,” I said. “I never really had one of those growing up. Aside from Malinda.”

She guided my hand between her legs and I languidly stroked her, circling and smearing her honeyed desire over her clit.

Her head fell back. I took another long drink of tea and handed the mug to her, my hand still moving between her legs. “Would you be so kind as to place this on the nightstand for me?”

She laughed but obliged. Her lips parted when I slithered down her body and pressed my mouth where my hand had been.

“Lie back,” she said, moving out from under me, and when I did, she flung a leg over my face and lowered herself. I craned my neck and kissed her again, lapping in slow strokes with my tongue. Lightly, I flicked that tiny knot of skin with a relaxed tongue. Her hips twitched and the muscles in her thighs quivered. I groped at her buttocks, squeezing and dragging my nails across her skin.

When she came, she cried out, her eyes shimmering like liquid gold and flowing, sunlit honey. She kissed me hard, our tongues dancing lazily as she struggled to relearn how to breathe.

She drew back with a sleepy and self-satisfied smile.

I traced the sharp curve of her hip. “I didn’t say I was done.”

She laughed, the look in her eyes purely devious. She rolled onto her back and grinned at me. “Well, my love,” she said in that sweet voice, “swing astride.”

I knelt above her. “Swing astride? You’re not going to neigh, are you?”

Her gaze twinkled with mischief. “I think not,” she said playfully, nipping my inner thigh and startling me.

“Good.” I moaned when her face parted me and her mouth found me. “That would be…ahh…weird.”

She laughed with her mouth buried against me. She drew me between her luscious lips and sent me to the stars above.

Afterward, we dressed quickly. I pulled my hair back and braided it after pulling on a spare tunic and riding breeches I had stored in the pack I’d left attached to Star’s saddle. Helle had kindly gone to the stable to retrieve it for me after she dressed. The gown she wore was simple, though elegant—white with touches of embroidered ivy vines at the bodice and wrists. She secured the brooch of a thick red cloak about her shoulders and smiled at me from across the room.

I donned the same white cloak I had worn when I’d ridden out to see her and we left, the sky just barely beginning to lighten above the cottage.

We rode in a companionable silence past the fence and toward the forest. Her mare stayed close to Star, close enough that our legs brushed together.

When we passed the large tree, her voice carried softly to my ears. “What will you tell them about me?”

“That you’re my friend.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you wish me to tell them?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Are you comfortable with this?” I asked.

She cocked her head, her red hood framing her beautiful face. “Yes.”

I nodded, more to myself than to her.

Twilight came in full as we left Faerie behind. We rode to the main path and steered our horses onto it.

After some time, we broke through the woods. The house came into view beneath the lovely morning sunlight. Behind us in the forest, birds twittered softly.

I dismounted and Helle followed suit as I took the reins and led both horses toward the stables. Star grudgingly went into his stall after a bit of convincing. Helle whispered softly to her mare and patted the side of her neck. Luna poked her head out of her own stall rather curiously as Helle’s horse went obligingly into the stall.

“It seems you have a way with horses as well,” I noted on our way to the house.

“With most animals, actually.”

I smiled and took her hand, squeezing it briefly before opening the door and entering.

The kitchen was empty and quiet.

“Odd,” I whispered, finding it unusual this early in the day. “I suppose Gwen’s up to other chores.”

I heard laughter ringing from a room deeper in the house, Malinda’s laughter, then my father’s and what sounded like Henrick’s.

I exhaled a relieved breath. “Come on, then,” I said to Helle, “it sounds as though they’re entertaining.”

Everyone was gathered in the main room. When we entered, all of the men jumped to their feet. As I had suspected, I had heard Henrick’s laughter, but his brother, Brigham, also stood beside him.

“There you are, Millie,” my sister said, as she rose from the low couch and embraced me. “We’ve been wondering where you’ve been.”

“Off playing in the woods again?” Ian asked.

I could feel Helle behind me, but no one in the room seemed to be paying any serious attention to her.

“We’ve matters to discuss, Millie,” my father said from his seat beside my mother. “Take a seat, will you?”

“Actually, I have something to discuss with you, as well.” I stepped aside so that they had no choice but to pay attention to Helle standing behind me.

For what seemed a long stretch of time, everyone stared rather dumbly at her.

I placed a hand on her arm in a measure of support.

“Oh,” my mother stammered, “Oh. I’ll pour another cup of tea.”

Helle gave a reserved smile and murmured her thanks.

Ian cleared his throat and stood, offering his hand in what became a round of introductions.

They were brief and polite, but obviously caught off guard by Helle’s presence and her beauty. Ian kept staring at her, and my younger brother Derrick blushed shyly when he introduced himself.

I took a seat on the empty sofa and Helle sat quietly down beside me, close enough that the line of her thigh brushed against mine.

“So, this is your friend, Millie?” Ian asked.

“The one you accused of being imaginary? Yes.”

“Mummy and Daddy have something to discuss with you, Millie,” Malinda said, her brows pinched as if she wasn’t sure I’d be happy about whatever it was.

I glanced at my father. “What is it?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.

A look of sympathy passed over Malinda’s face and my stomach sank.

I prompted him. “Well?”

Brigham stood, his boots dark against the stone floor, his tunic as dark as his boots, and his brown hair just touching the tops of his shoulders.

“I’ve asked for your hand, Millie.”

“You what?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him properly.

Henrick stood beside him in spite of Malinda’s warning glance and the hand she laid on his arm. “What my brother is trying to say is that he’s always been fond of you, Millicent.”

“I have,” Brigham said. “We’ve known one another since we were children. With Henrick’s betrothal to your sister, it seems only natural that I should ask for your hand.”

It seemed as though someone had pulled the floor out from under me, and not in a pleasant way, not in the way Helle made it feel when she kissed me. I leapt to my feet and felt the blood drain from my face. Helle caught me by the elbow with a look of sympathy.

This was not what either of us had planned for.

Brigham said, “I think you will make an exceptional wife, Millie.”

I thought of Brigham’s kiss when we were children, and it took everything in me not to lose the breakfast of oranges and pomegranates I’d enjoyed earlier with Helle.

“No, Brigham,” I said, then looked at my father and mother. “No. I am flattered, but I cannot accept.”

“Millie,” my mother said, “be reasonable.”

I caught my sister’s gaze, pleading with her with my eyes to step in and help me. She only shrugged, as if unsure what to do.

“I can’t.” I turned to Brigham and tried to handle the matter with some finesse. “Brigham, I appreciate your honesty and your request, but I cannot in good conscience accept it. I’m spoken for. My heart belongs to another.”

“Millie.” My father gave me a narrow look. “We know better than that.”

“You think so, do you?” I asked, suddenly becoming angry.

Ian scoffed and actually rolled his eyes. “You’ve little to no contact with anyone but us, Millie. Why would you think we wouldn’t catch you in a blatant lie?”

“It’s not a lie, you bastard.”

“Millicent.” My mother gasped and I turned on her.

“Don’t Millicent me! I’ll talk how I very well bleedin’ like to and you know it.” I turned my anger on Brigham, realizing that one way or another, I had to drive my point across. “I’d make a terrible wife for you. I’ll never love you and you’ll never bloody love me. I won’t settle for less than I deserve, and I’ll do you the courtesy of not settling for me.”

“It wouldn’t be settling,” he said, and though he was obviously surprised at my outright rejection, he managed to maintain most of his composure.

Henrick patted his shoulder. “Perhaps you should give her time, brother.”

“I’ll give you all the time you need, Millie,” Brigham said with a thread of something that sounded too close to desperation to be comforting.

“Please.” I snorted. “I don’t need time. I need you to retract your offer!”

“I’ll wait for you, Millie.” He sounded even more unstrung.

I didn’t believe for a moment that he harbored the feelings for me that he claimed to.

He just didn’t want me to turn him down.

“Brigham,” I said, holding his dark gaze, “you will be waiting an eternity. I beseech you to find yourself another wife.”

“Millie,” my mother said, pleadingly.

I caught Malinda staring at Helle, her brows drawn quizzically. When she met my gaze again, an understanding I hadn’t expected to find in her washed over her features.

“She’s made her decision,” she said, this time, to Brigham. “She won’t budge, and all you’re doing by persisting, the lot of you, is reinforcing that. You can’t force her hand, no more than you could have forced mine.” She and Henrick shared a look and he nodded.

“But you are giving me time to prove myself,” he whispered to her, speaking as if I wasn’t even in the room. “She’s not even giving Brigham a chance.”

“Because she already knows where her heart lies, Henrick. If you keep pressing this, I will call off the wedding…again.”

A collective silence fell over the room before Helle’s laughter trickled, filling it like sweet and slow-moving molasses. “Oh, you people,” she said, her eyes shimmering with the first glistening specks of green and gold. “So persistent in your foibles and follies.” She stood to all of her height and smiled beautifully, dangerously. She narrowed her shimmering gaze at Brigham and said, “Sit down.”

A shiver washed over my skin at the command, though it was not given to me.

His throat bobbed nervously as he swallowed and sat back roughly on the couch beside Henrick.

My mother’s mug of tea fell and shattered to the floor. She waved her hands over the front of her body, as if warding off some sort of curse.

My brows went up, but not Helle’s. I watched the slow smile that crawled across her profile.

“You know who I am, Patricia Hearthwell.”

My father stood and placed himself between my mother and Helle. “What is the meaning of this?”

Everyone in the room looked either confused or shocked…everyone except Malinda, who smiled smugly and said, “I think Millie’s going away.”

Helle touched my arm, bringing my attention back to her. “It’s time to decide, Millicent. As much as I hate to press you…”

I gazed at my family and understood. The only way out of this mess was by making a decision that put an end to it.

If I stayed, there would be no end to it.

I gazed at my mother sadly and at my father, who didn’t comprehend.

“I made my choice a long time ago,” I said. “Brigham, someday you will understand.”

As I have come to understand, I thought. I made my way back to my bedroom and began to pack. Helle followed silently. Strangely, no one tried to stop us.

I grabbed everything that Star could carry, ignoring the uproar in the room down the hall.

“I’m sorry,” Helle said, breaking her silence.

“Don’t be.” I tied the bag of my clothes and raised my face. “Never be sorry for giving me room to make my own decision, you hear?”

She nodded. “You’re still free to visit them, you know.”

“I know and thank you.” I slung the pack over my shoulder. “However, I think we should give the waters a bit of time to calm.”

Malinda appeared in the doorway. “You better hurry,” she said, “before they hog-tie you and try to force your hand.”

I laughed softly and shook my head. They wouldn’t really, but I knew what she meant: they’d never stop questioning and pestering me; they’d never stop trying to encourage me to do what they felt was right, not what I felt in my heart.

It wasn’t them, really.

It was simply their version of reality. If I didn’t leave with Helle, at some point, it’d still come crashing down on my head. I’d be expected to wed, to have children…

I was not content to live with such a reality.

I took Malinda’s hands in mine and kissed her cheek.

“You’ll come see me?” she asked.

“Always.”

“Good, though I hope you know, I’m quite displeased with you, Millie.”

“For?”

“For hiding her.” Malinda glanced at Helle. “And you and your lot,” she said. “I called you for me, not my sister.”

Helle picked up my other bag of things and grinned widely, like a cat. “You cannot call what doesn’t belong to you, Malinda Hearthwell. I advise you against trying to summon the fey again.” Her eyes turned dark. “There are worse things in the forest than I.”

“Go.” Malinda pushed me lightly. “Go have your happily ever after, you thief.”

The laugh that caught in my throat sounded more like a snort.

“And,” she called after Helle and me as we headed down the hall, “you better be at my wedding!”

The room fell silent when we entered to pass through. My mother’s cheeks were damp and her eyes were red from crying. My father put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. He gave me a look of such utter disappointment that I hurt inside. Henrick and his brother were nowhere in sight, but Ian and Derrick were still there. Derrick wouldn’t look at me. Ian raised his brows when he saw my bags.

“Where do you think you’re going?” my father asked.

“I’m leaving. Plotting my own course. I’m writing my own story.”

He opened his mouth to speak and my mother shushed him with a hand on his arm.

She looked up at Helle, her eyes red-rimmed and seeking. “Will you take care of her?”

“Better than any man ever will,” she said, seriously. “You knew this day would come, Patricia.”

She sighed and looked back at me. “Indeed.”

At my confusion, Helle took my hands in hers.

My mother said, “I knew when you were little,” as if to explain what they were talking about.

“I never told you about her,” I said, sifting through my recollection.

“You didn’t have to, Millie. I knew when the day came and when you went out to wait for her. I’m your mother, after all,” she said. “It was my duty to know such things.”

“And you?” I asked my father. “You’ve no bloody idea what’s going on, do you? What about you two?” I asked Derrick and Ian.

Ian lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

Derrick blushed.

My father said, “You’re running away with a woman and going against the laws of nature, Millie.”

“Oh no,” Helle said, slipping an arm about my waist. “She’s very much going with the flow of it, I reckon.”

My mother embraced me fondly and whispered, “Leave. They’ll either understand in time or they won’t.”

With that, I said one last good-bye to Malinda and we set off to retrieve our horses. Ian and Derrick didn’t seem too keen on saying good-bye to me.

And though it pained me, I wouldn’t sacrifice my happiness for their qualms.

We rode toward the forest, side by side. “You know, we’ll have to wait till twilight to return home?”

“Home,” I echoed, smiling. “It looks like you got your wish.”

“Oh?” Helle’s brows rose as she grinned. “Which wish do you reckon that was?”

“Forever, was it?”

“Ah, yes,” she said, her gaze glittering as she took in the sight of the trees around us. “Well, you know, a faerie’s wish always comes true.” She met my gaze again and winked. “Why do you think most fairy tales always have a happy ending?”

“Because you’re a conniving and manipulative lot that figure out ways to pixie about and obtain what you desire?”

“Aside from that,” she murmured, laughing softly. She steered her horse off the main path. “Follow me,” she said. “I’d like to show you something.”

We rode for some time, our horses climbing the hilly landscape, before we descended into an area that was unfamiliar to me.

Helle dismounted and removed a pack from her mare. “Shall we?” she asked, removing her cloak and laying it across the grass some feet away from the water’s edge. A waterfall split into three watery fingers and rushed down into the clear pool.

I removed my cloak and tunic, my breeches and boots.

Helle’s gaze darkened once she realized what I was doing. I stood barefoot and nude before her and went to the edge of the water, letting its coolness lap at my feet.

A few moments later, I felt the line of Helle’s nude body against my back. Her arms encircled my waist as she picked me up and carried me into the pool. The water held us, licking our bare skin, soaking my braided hair, and sparkling like diamonds in sunlight. Helle’s pale skin shimmered beautifully, perfectly. I shivered as she released some of my weight and I slid down her stomach. Her bare breasts brushed mine and I wrapped my legs around her hips.

“If you think this is beautiful,” she whispered against my mouth, “wait until you see more of Faerie.”

“There’s more?”

“So much more,” she purred.

She kissed me deeply and dizzyingly, her hands gripping my buttocks beneath the waterline. Her lips moved against mine as she whispered, “Do you want to know something about fairy tales, Millicent?”

“Hmm?” I murmured, before drawing back enough to see her face fully.

Her eyes were gold-and-green flecked.

“They always end just as they’re beginning.”

About the Author

Winter Pennington is the author of the Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator series and Darkness Embraced: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel. She can be contacted at Winterpennington@gmail.com, or visit her blog at www.winterpennington.blogspot.com

Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

Slingshot by Carsen Taite. Bounty hunter Luca Bennett takes on a seemingly simple job for defense attorney Ronnie Moreno, but the job quickly turns complicated and dangerous, as does her attraction to the elusive Ronnie Moreno. (978-1-60282-666-3)

Touch Me Gently by D. Jackson Leigh. Secrets have always meant heartbreak and banishment to Salem Lacey until she meets the beautiful and mysterious Knox Bolander and learns some secrets are necessary. (978-1-60282-667-0)

Missing by P.J. Trebelhorn. FBI agent Olivia Andrews knows exactly what she wants out of life, but then she’s forced to rethink everything when she meets fellow agent Sophie Kane while investigating a child abduction. (978-1-60282-668-7)

Sweat: Gay Jock Erotica edited by Todd Gregory. Sizzling tales of smoking-hot sex with the athletic studs everyone fantasizes about. (978-1-60282-669-4)

The Marrying Kind by Ken O'Neill. Just when successful wedding planner Adam More decides to protest inequality by quitting the business and boycotting marriage entirely, his only sibling announces her engagement. (978-1-60282-670-0)

Dark Wings Descending by Lesley Davis. What if the demons you face in life are real? Chicago detective Rafe Douglas is about to find out. (978-1-60282-660-1)

sunfall by Nell Stark and TrinityTam. The final installment of the everafter series. Valentine Darrow and Alexa Newland work to rebuild their relationship even as they find themselves at the heart of the struggle that will determine a new world order for vampires and wereshifters. (978-1-60282-661-8)

Mission of Desire by Terri Richards. Nicole Kennedy finds herself in Africa at the center of an international conspiracy and being rescued by beautiful but arrogant government agent Kira Anthony, but is Kira someone Nicole can trust or is she blinded by desire? (978-1-60282-662-5)

Boys of Summer edited by Steve Berman. Stories of young love and adventure, when the sky's ceiling is a bright blue marvel, when another boy's laughter at the beach can distract from dull summer jobs. (978-1-60282-663-2)

The Locket and the Flintlock by Rebecca S. Buck. When Regency gentlewoman Lucia Foxe is robbed on the highway, will the masked outlaw who stole Lucia's precious locket also claim her heart? (978-1-60282-664-9)

Calendar Boys by Zachary Logan. A man a month will keep you excited year round. (978-1-60282-665-6)

Burgundy Betrayal by Sheri Lewis Wohl. Park Ranger Kara Lynch has no idea she’s a witch until dead bodies begin to pile up in her park, forcing her to turn to beautiful and sexy shape-shifter Camille Black Wolf for help in stopping a rogue werewolf. (978-1-60282-654-0)

LoveLife by Rachel Spangler. When Joey Lang unintentionally becomes a client of life coach Elaine Raitt, the relationship becomes complicated as they develop feelings that make them question their purpose in love and life. (978-1-60282-655-7)

The Fling by Rebekah Weatherspoon. When the ultimate fantasy of a one-night stand with her trainer, Oksana Gorinkov, suddenly turns into more, reality show producer Annie Collins opens her life to a new type of love she’s never imagined. (978-1-60282-656-4)

Ill Will by J.M. Redmann. New Orleans PI Micky Knight must untangle a twisted web of healthcare fraud that leads to murder—and puts those closest to her most at risk. (978-1-60282-657-1)

Buccaneer Island by J.P. Beausejour. In the rough world of Caribbean piracy, a man is what he makes of himself—or what a stronger man makes of him. (978-1-60282-658-8)

Twelve O’Clock Tales by Felice Picano. The fourth collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist Felice Picano. Thirteen dark tales that will thrill and disturb, discomfort and titillate, enthrall and leave you wondering. (978-1-60282-659-5)

Words to Die By by William Holden. Sixteen answers to the question: What causes a mind to curdle? (978-1-60282-653-3)

Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright by Justine Saracen. Love does not conquer all, but when all of Europe is on fire, it’s better than going to hell alone. (978-1-60282-652-6)

Night Hunt by L.L. Raand. When dormant powers ignite, the wolf Were pack is thrown into violent upheaval, and Sylvan’s pregnant mate is at the center of the turmoil. A Midnight Hunters novel. (978-1-60282-647-2)

Table of Contents

Synopsis

By the Author

About the Author

Books Available from Bold Strokes Books