Bastien (3 page)

I am drunk, or perhaps it’s a trick of light and the wheel was never whole.

A lump forms in my throat and I cannot clear it. I choke on the next forced inhale as the third card is turned. The Hermit. Nothing more than a hooded figure, hunched the same way as this hag who presumes to know my destiny. And the scales of Justice tip the other way.

I can’t blink, or turn away. My companions are gone. I am alone in the night, the darkness drowning me in this magic. There is nothing but me, and the cards, and the hands turning them.

My gaze is rapt on the next card to be turned over. The Moon. All the faces suddenly shift, moving now with a life of their own and, while the moon changes phases, the hunched figure of the hermit grows and tears at its cloak, revealing a monster underneath.

My heart races, aching in my chest, and I can hear my own breath wheeze in and out of me on a feral growl. The hag pauses with her smooth hand hovering over the fifth card. She waits as though for divine guidance, her hooded head cocking slightly to the side. She dips a slow nod and flips the card—Strength. A crimson rose blooms on it, its thorns long and needle sharp. The hag’s hand passes over the card a second time and the rose is gone. In its place stands a woman, naked as the day she was born, yet standing tall and straight, looking right at me with a challenge in her eyes.
I will not yield
, her eyes say, and it makes me feel weak.
She
makes me feel weak.

A whirlwind rises around me, so powerful I’m afraid it will lift me off my feet, and I don’t understand how the cards can be so still on that barrel, so steady, as if my future is already written in stone and it’s only my denial that tries to make me stray from the path set out before me. I fight it with all of my might. There is wilderness ahead, danger I can avoid if only I turn my feet around and go back the way I came.

The pull of destiny and my need to escape it tears me asunder, and in my mind I scream for the hag to turn the last card. Finish this—save me somehow.

She does, and everything stills once more. Breath leaves me, as desperate to escape as my own soul. The card is Death. The salvation I demanded stares at me from black holes in a bare skull. This card doesn’t move; doesn’t change. It is absolute.

The previous fervor of my heartbeat stops completely and I clutch my chest, the barrel, anything to regain some semblance of steadiness. As my heart lurches back to life, I tear my gaze away from my own demise and just catch a glint of obsidian in the hag’s eye through a hole in her hood. I find no sympathy there.

“Right,” Louis says. “This has been entertaining, but we’ve tarried long enough.” The hag turns to him as he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a card of his own. Holding it up for the hag to see, he places it into the center of the barrel. Ten of Pentacles.

The hag straightens and becomes all business, pointing to each of us in turn before tapping the card on which ten silver coins glint merrily. The toll must be paid before we are allowed to pass. Each of us pays the coin she demands and only after she’s pocketed her due does she rise from her seat and pull aside the curtain door.

Louis grins. “After you,” he invites.

The women pair off with the men and enter arm in arm through the door. Adeline, who released me and took shelter in Adrien’s arms when the Death card was flipped, looks back at me before she disappears through the door. Only Louis and I are left. I hesitate before stepping through the veil. I try to catch the hag’s eye, but can no longer find it in the shadows of her hood.

She is a statue, as still and uninterested as stone.

Having no other choice I step into the darkness of the shack...

... and emerge on the other side into blinding light. For a moment I can see nothing but bright colors swirling around me. I hear voices as delicate as bell chimes and music as sweet as honey mead. I am not in the Gypsy village anymore, nor any other place in existence. Before me is a dream, a fantasy given shape.

Behind me, Louis claps me on the shoulder. “My lords and ladies of the Fellowship of Depravity,” he says, “Welcome to the Faery court.”

Chapter Five

The cards are instantly forgotten. The door through which we entered is gone, vanished into thin air and all around me is pandemonium, a cornucopia of creatures from myth and legend.

Three girls dance around the gathering, holding hands. It is only when I look closer that I realize how my eyes have deceived me. They aren’t holding hands—they have no hands at all. Rather, their arms are joined together at the wrist so as to make one creature of three.

Not far away, a stunningly beautiful woman covered only with vines and leaves cuddles three ghostlike lizards. They notice my regard and unfurl massive wings, baring rows of sharp teeth in warning. The woman hisses and disappears.

I spin in baffled circles as my mind struggles to make sense of this. Over there, a tall, handsome pair. Their skin is gray, their hair white as snow, and everywhere their bare feet touch, frost blooms across the ground. On the other side, a woman with hair literally made of gold.

Behind her, a behemoth of a man; a monster with horns flowing from his temples, back along his head. His legs are like that of an animal, and giant bat wings are folded against his bare back.

Right before me, a red haired woman laughs and twirls, faster and faster until she bursts into flames and burns away. As her ashes rain down, they swirl closer and tighter, growing thick with smoke until it solidifies and pales, and the woman is back again, dancing off somewhere else.

My companions have left me. They are scattered everywhere, as awestruck as I, approaching creatures with caution. Only Louis remains, a smug smirk on his face. “Well?”

“What is this? Where have you brought us?”

Louis grabs my shoulders and gives me a shake. “To Eden, my boy. Now stop gaping like an imbecile and enjoy! I want to introduce you to our hostess. She is... perfect.” He sounds like a green lad talking about a sweetheart.

I look for Adrien to reason me out of this madness. He is reclined on a bed of moss with a pale haired temptress feeding him grapes. Adeline is in the arms of the bat winged monster, dancing. The twins are watching the gray couple create ice sculptures out of thin air. I’ve lost sight of the others.

Somehow a flower shaped cup appears in my hand. “Go on,” Louis says. “Have a sip. I guarantee you’ve never tasted anything like it.” He toasts me with a drink of his own.

The chalice in my hands is alive, a real flower with petals soft as silk and glowing amber liquid inside. I am mesmerized by the sight of it. I take a sip, taste the sweet, thick nectar and sway on my feet. Head spinning, I look around again with dream hazed eyes. Suddenly everything makes sense as though I’ve known this place all my life. I am in the Faery court. I laugh. “Well done, Louis!”

A figure slams into me, turning me sideways. The woman spins around so fast she becomes invisible, and before I know up from down again, my back is against the wall and a shining silver blade is pressed against my throat. The attacker has hair as black as a crow’s feather and eyes red as fire. She is dressed in what looks like black ribbons wound around her body. She is furious, much stronger than she appears, and I have nothing to defend myself with. Even if I did, I suspect it would do no good against this creature so I hold still and try to appear harmless. The female bares her teeth at me and releases me with a huff. The ends of her ribbons trail after her as she walks away. She leaves bloody footprints behind.

“I see you’ve met Discord.”

Louis straightens and his eyes grow wide. He smiles like a child presented with a new toy and bows deeply to the newcomer. “My Lady.”

The woman is perhaps the only creature dressed as a human. Her gown is a simple sheath of silk, her hair is half braided around her head and flows down her back. She is beyond beautiful.

When she smiles I feel as though the sun has risen and I am blinded. No wonder Louis is so smitten with her.

Louis shoves at me. I remember myself and take a bow. “My Lady,” Louis says, “allow me to introduce my best friend, Lord Bastien Sauvage.”

“I am Lilith. And Louis didn’t tell me he was bringing such lively company with him.” The reprimand is delivered so gracefully I almost miss it.

Louis seems dumbfounded and a little pale. If I know my friend, and I do, it never even occurred to him that we might not be welcome here. “You must forgive him,” I say. “He was utterly smitten at first sight of you and since then completely forgot himself. Now, having seen you for myself, I understand just how he feels.”

Lilith is lithe in form, nearly of a height with me. Her hair is the color of sun and her eyes shine pale like stars. Inhuman. Inhumanly beautiful. God could not have created this creature; she is too perfect a temptation. I find I am not interested in resisting her.

Louis clears his throat. “Right you are, Bastien.”

Lilith ignores him. “Charming,” she says to me. “Bastien, was it? Well, Bastien, you may come with me. This is a tea party compared to what I have planned for tonight. Perhaps we can see if you live up to your name, Savage.”

She offers her hand and I take it.

“But my Lady... Lilith!”

“You can entertain yourself for a while, can’t you, Louis?” she says without even bothering to look his way. “Corral that pack of animals you brought with you. This one I wish to keep an eye on myself.”

I put on my most charming smile. “I am at your service, Lilith.”

“Indeed you are.” Her tone makes me smile. I know what to expect from this one. And I cannot wait.

She leads me through a curtain of willow branches and the world changes again. Here, the lights are dim and everything is in shades of red and black. Fires burn in pits and around them piles of pillows are strewn about. There are creatures here, too. Most of them are writhing together in a tangle of limbs and appendages to a chorus of sighs and moans. The aura of sex and otherworldly magic brushes against my skin, inside my clothes, and makes me unsteady on my feet.

I drink deeply of the nectar I still have and with each swallow I feel more at ease. When my cup is empty, another replaces it. Hands reach out to me and pull back again. Covetous gazes follow me as Lilith leads the way through the throng to a bower in the center. The pillars are reedy trees and the roof is made of spider webs.

Once past the circle of pillars, the empty spaces between them fill with a reflective watery film. I am encased in a mirror box and all around me my doubles stare seemingly everywhere at once. I turn to the closest one. It doesn’t turn with me. I touch the surface, tracing my profile as my rippling reflection reaches out to something else.

Lilith appears next to me. Her dress is gone and she is naked, her loose hair creating a curtain to hide her nudity. She touches my shoulder and my clothing, too, disappears. She hands me another cup, this one black. “Beautiful, is it not?” She tunnels a hand beneath the fall of her hair and moves it over her shoulder, baring her rounded breast. “We are completely alone. No one will dare disturb us here.” She raises the cup in my hand to my mouth and tips it.

I drink and nearly choke on the first swallow. This is no nectar. It tastes sharp as lightning caught in a cup. My insides turn hot with it. Lilith takes the delicate chalice from me and tugs me to the pillows. I am on my back and my head is spinning, but my cock is hard and straining toward the welcoming heat of Lilith where she hovers so close above me. She kisses me, her hand strokes me and I groan into her mouth.

Lust is too tame a word for what I feel. I am on fire, desperate for release, suffocating. Air does not exist unless I’m kissing her. She laughs when I fist my hands in her hair and roll until she is pinned beneath me. Her laugh turns into a moan when I thrust into her to the hilt. My back bows with the pleasure of it and I turn into a rutting animal, the savage she named me.

Her limbs loop around me and she arches closer as I piston in and out of her. Her skin is like the silk she wore to hide it, cool to the touch but searing like a brand. Her nails are claws that leave bloody scratches in my back, but with a caress of her palm she takes the sting away. In the mirrors I can see the skin heal without a mark left behind. I see us together, my own arse and back, her legs shifting restlessly, hungry for more, just as I am.

My muscles strain and I give her all I have, and when her climax lifts both of us into the air, she drags me right after her into the most intense ecstasy I have ever felt. I am weightless, formless. I am nothing but euphoria and starlight. When I return to myself, I ache everywhere.

Another black cup presses to my lips. “Drink, lover,” Lilith purrs. “We are nowhere near finished.” As the liquid pours down my raw throat, her mouth travels over me. She tastes herself on my cock, still hard and ready, takes it into her mouth deep ... so deep. I roar while she sucks me into another climax and am more than happy to return the favor before I mount her again.

And again. And again.

Time means nothing. Another black cup, another whisper of praise, a demand for more, harder,
now
. I am helpless not to give. She robs me of everything and when I am exhausted, too weak to continue, presses another cup to my lips. It is an elixir of everlasting fuck. I don’t care where it keeps coming from or even what it is. All that matters is that while I am drinking it I can keep going as long as I want. And I want more.

Lilith laughs and lets me indulge, luxuriate in her body or fuck it any way I want. Her pleasure becomes mine and everything I am is hers. “More,” I snarl against her neck. “More, more...” the words punctuate each of my thrusts. Her limbs quiver as she clutches me. So do mine. She doesn’t scream her pleasure, she sighs it, and with that one breath steals my soul.

I fall back onto the pillows, gasping for air, reaching for that black cup which is sure to appear. Instead I see Lilith’s face hovering over me. Her eyes shine brighter than ever, her lips red as blood—red
with
blood. “Humans break so easily,” she murmurs with regret and leans down to press a soft kiss to my lips. I reach for her to deepen it, but she holds me back. Instead of a black cup, a white one appears in her hand and she eases an arm beneath my shoulders to help me drink from it.