The Care and Feeding of Griffins (43 page)

The wizard
’s smile faded.  “They?” he said, but it was for her benefit, for the pretense of harmlessness he effected.  He knew who she referred to.

She shrugged one shoulder. 
“Tilly and the others.  Mostly Tilly.”

“
Tilly.”  He laughed, a sour sound.  A fitting name for the appointed ‘lord’.  “The minotaur, of course.”

“
He…”  Taryn’s face was wonderfully distressed.  “He really doesn’t like you.  He won’t tell me why.”

The city of Dis, charred and smoking
…the screams of the dying as they choked on the ashes of the dead…the clouds of crows, feasting on blackened, moaning lumps no longer discernable as Cerosan…the blood of the old lord boiling on the stones where his son lay unconscious…

“
He doesn’t have much of a reason,” the wizard said finally, and shrugged.  “I made mistakes.  He’s holding a grudge.  But I’m glad you snuck out, risking his wrath and all.”

“
Yeah.”  But she didn’t smile.

“
Cheer up, Taryn,” he said, with a gentle push at her mind.

She still didn
’t smile.  “What…”  She sighed and shook her head.  “I told myself I’d never ask, but—”

“
Then don’t ask, Taryn,” he said, and pushed hard this time.  “Have another biscuit.”

She did, eating slowly and with vague distaste showing on her troubled face.

She wasn’t going to let this go.  She needed a story.  Ah well, he’d give her one.

“
Humans have always come to Arcadia,” he said.  “In ancient times, I understand it was the dragons who opened the roads between the worlds, but humans were the ones who really put them to use.  We traveled to hundreds of them, settled dozens.  And humans…well, it should come as no surprise when I say that humans really aren’t very nice when they’re exploring.”

“
No,” Taryn said, dropping her eyes.

“
Humans with magic tend to be worse.  Arcadia had suffered sorcerers in the past.”  The wizard affected a slight shrug.  “When I came here, I came alone, which was a point in my favor.  I made a few mistakes as I was setting up here—taking goats that didn’t belong to me, for example—but nothing too big.  Nothing unforgivable.  And then one day, my first winter here, I bumped into a group of horsemen out on the plains.  We had an argument over who had the right to hunt a particular nyati.  I should have just backed off, I know, but I was tired of the hostility.  I did something stupid.”

He raised his hand and blue sparks flowed from his fingers to cloak his arm. 

“It’s purely defensive,” he explained as her eyes went wide.  “A strike could cloud the mind for a few minutes.  Little more than a distraction, really.  But up until that moment, no one in Arcadia knew I was a wizard.  And everything happened very fast after that.”

He fell silent, as though reflecting on a dark memory, but he was really feeling out her responses, tasting the guileless sorrow and pity that flowed through her heart.  He warmed to his story, beginning to enjoy himself. 
“They came for me that night.  I surrendered to them, like an idiot, thinking that I could try to explain.  They put me in chains and burned my camp.  They meant to kill me, to trample me to death beneath their hooves.  I had to use more magic to get away, and that pretty much sealed my fate in Arcadia.  They hunted me across the plains and I came here.  And here is where I decided that I could either let them kill me or I could make a stand.  I stood.  It hasn’t been easy,” he finished.  “They make an effort every few years to burn me out, but I keep hoping someday…I’ve tried to apologize, believe me.  But they don’t forgive.”

Her hand came to his shoulder,
a consoling touch.  “I could talk to them,” she said.  “They might—”

“
No, Taryn.  Don’t tell them anything about me.”  He softened the push behind his command by saying, “They wouldn’t believe you, anyway.  They’d only think I was hypnotizing you or some fool thing.  Like that was so simple.”  He rolled his eyes.

She shared his disdain with a faint, uncomprehending smile.

“Like every race without magic, they think wizardry means fireballs and armies of undead soldiers.  But real magic is about exchanges, you know.  It’s not fairy dust, it’s physics.”  The wizard handed her another biscuit and she picked at it politely.  “I have some sway over animals, I’ll be the first to admit that, but it’s just impossible to control a sentient mind.”  Without help.

“
I get it.”  And she sympathized with a heavy sigh.  “But these aren’t unreasonable people.  In time—”

“
It’s been fifty years, Taryn,” he interrupted.  “And they
are
unreasonable.  You just don’t realize that because you aren’t a magus like me.  If you were, please believe me, they would have killed you long before now.  Maybe they think they have good reasons.  I know the conquering wizards of my world’s history have slaughtered their millions and they might have come here, but no rational race of people would continue to judge by that example.  No, I have my hopes for a truce someday, but I’m not pushing my luck.  And you, Taryn, you’ve got to promise me that you won’t try to make it happen.  You actually have a chance at a happy life here.  I don’t want you to lose it because you tried to help me.”

“
I promise,” she said and her shoulders bowed.  “I wish—”

“
I know.”  He held out the plate with its last bannock.  “Eat, Taryn,” he said, and pushed hard against her resistance.

She finally did, wincing unconsciously with each bite.  The wizard watched with quickening pulse at it was consumed. 
“Of course, now I’m too full for pheasant,” she remarked, washing it down with tea and a shudder.

He scarcely heard her.  His thoughts were aligning to work the spell to draw and bind the sorcerer
’s clay.  He spoke a Word, felt it flare out from him in a burst of energy and sink into her.  Her fledging inquiry broke mid-word into a violent spasm of dry coughs; her hands flew to her belly and twisted there, as though trying to claw her way in and remove the thing that birthed itself inside her.  The griffin came on the run, squawking distress, and the wizard reached down and picked the animal up, holding its squirming body against his chest as he watched his Taryn succumb to his spell.

“
Sorry,” she gasped, groping for her cup.  She drank, coughed again, and finally straightened.  “Wrong pipe or something.  It’s okay, Aisling.  See?  I’m fine.”  She took the griffin from him and let it preen anxiously at her hair before returning it to the floor.  One of her hands rubbed at her stomach as she watched her animal retreat, and then she flinched.

He could actually see the difference in her as the magic in the satyr-skin chair was Augmented.  The color in her cheeks spread out.  Her thighs opened slightly.  He could see beads of sweat popping on her brow.

“Tell me your name, Taryn,” he said softly.  His blood was roaring in his ears.  It was an effort to remain calm, remain seated.  “Tell me all the name your mother gave you.”

She looked at him, her eyes darting around briefly as though she had to hunt for him.  Then she focused, and she frowned. 

His smile faltered.  He reached out and touched her hand, pushing at her will, feeling it strain beneath his attack.  “Tell me all your name, Taryn!”

“
You’re…not…”  She tried to pull away.

Still not enough.  Not yet.  But soon.  This was Earth-born, after all, this was the mind that came from generations of stock that never knew magic.  Ignorance was her weakness, true, but it was a weakness that didn
’t come without lending a certain irritating resistance.

“
Kiss me, Taryn,” he told her.

She leaned forward, her brows knitting with discomfort even as she pressed her lips to his.  There was hunger in her kiss, satyr
’s passion flowing through her.  Unwanted, surely, but irresistible.

The wizard let her kiss, relishing the invasion she sent so unwillingly against him, but drew back eventually. 
“Do you want to kiss me?” he asked.

“
No,” she whispered.  She looked so bewildered, so desperate.

“
Do you want me to touch you?”

“
N-no.”  Her breath had quickened, shortened.  Tears threatened.

“
But you want to be touched, don’t you?”

She looked at him with her wet eyes.  She nodded.

The wizard smiled.  “Then touch yourself, Taryn.  And enjoy your touches.”

She resisted.  He pushed
—not hard, just a tap really—and he felt her buckle and fall before his will.  Her lashes fluttered and her hands rose to grip her breasts through her shirt.  Her nipples peaked through the thin fabric.  She gasped, her eyes rolling back.

“
Stay on the chair,” the wizard ordered.  “But come forward, Taryn, as far as you can, and open your legs.  I want you to touch your womanhood and I want you to enjoy it.”

She obeyed, her legs parting as she scooted to the edge of her seat.  Her fingers slipped beneath the waist of her pants.  He could see them moving, like the hand she left at her breast.  He could hear the slick sucking of her arousal, and he could see tears trickling from her eyes.

The wizard pulled his robe off and let it drop.  She looked up into his face and began to cry.  “Easy, Taryn,” he said with a taut smile.  “Be easy.  Relax, Taryn.  Shh.”

And she did relax, her face still pinched with the awfulness of her obedience.  Her hands were still at work at her body.  The fork of her clothing was stained with her damp desire.

“That’s enough,” he told her.  “Put your hands on me, Taryn.  Not there.  Close on my man’s rod, Taryn.  Yes.”  He closed his eyes, savoring the touch that so lightly gripped him.  He folded his hands around hers, showing her how to move, how to milk him.  Every slow pass of her fist was its own heaven, its own hell.

She was virgin, yes, and in a moment, he would go back to fetch the first vials to be filled by that potent nectar she was so diligently producing for him.  But for now, ah, there were things even a virgin could do.

She fought his command.  He had to push, push hard, and after so many days of sleepless summoning, it was a battle in the truest sense of the word.  But in the end, though it took five commands and brought on a blistering headache, his will dominated and the pretty mouth opened.

The wizard sank his hands into that fall of radiant red and pulled her roughly around him, penetrating to the back of her throat.  His virgin had no schooling, that much was clear, but reflex made her swallow and that was pleasure enough for him.  The wizard thrust at her in the rhythm he wanted, panting out instructions with breath that grew increasingly coarse. 
“Suck, Taryn.  Oh, that’s it!  No teeth, Taryn, not at all.  Use your tongue, Taryn, just the tip.  And stop crying, Taryn.  Right now.”

How easy it would be to simply take her and be done.  As easy as pulling her from the chair and bending her over the table, as easy as pinning down her struggling fists and having his will with the body that so consumed his thoughts.  But that would be a waste, not just of her virgin assets, but of th
e act itself.  The oldest magic was found in sex, but its power came from its intimacy, its sharing.  Rape was only a sexual act in the basest possible sense and it would get him nothing.  This, the possession of her puckering mouth, was somewhere in between, and he knew the anchoring effects of his seed would not be as strong as if she’d knelt to take him willingly, but the Augment was there and would supplement much, and in any event, he was beyond caring.  He wanted the feast, but he would content himself with this one bite.  Just a little something to whet the appetite.  How appropriate that it so chiefly concerned her mouth.

The wizard made an effort to utilize this stolen time, educating his soon-to-be creature in the ways of pleasuring him and bombarding her beleaguered mind until she moved on him without his constant command.  He schooled her in the methods of lips and tongue, in the pacing of sensation.  Soon she was licking at him with the skill of a courtesan and the enthusiasm of a collie.  She was devouring his sensitive head, drawing him in with newfound expertise until her lips were sealed tight against his base.  She was lathing him until he dripped with her saliva, sucking bruise-spots onto the sides of his shaft, taking him in with perfectly-mimed gluttony even as her eyes screamed abuse.  Eventually, he tired of even these talents, and ordered her to suckle swift as he plunged into her wet mouth.

He pumped hard and fast, all his body burning and tight with pleasure, groaning freely as she received him.  She was so obedient, so wonderfully receptive, and the scented oils of her enspelled arousal was there to sweeten his senses.  Her resistance was always there, a shadow in his mind and will, but the athleticism of her tongue could easily deceive one to imagine genuine passion.  He wanted her to desire him, of course, and eventually she would.  But he didn’t require it today.  Today, he needed only submission.

“
Swallow, Taryn,” he gasped, and pushed fully into her as his seed came.  The convulsions of her working throat brought him to a dizzying plateau of pleasure, and then he was ebbing away, back to clarity, back to the limitations of mortal flesh.  “That’s good,” he said, patting her in much the same fashion as he would his cat.  He stepped back, shivering as he came free of her still-sucking mouth, and grinned down at her fondly.  “You can stop now.  That’s enough.”