Wildwood (29 page)

‘Tie his hands again.’

I hesitated. The gun jerked.

‘As has been pointed out, I could use him in the wood, so I’m not set on killing him right now. But I will check the knots, Avril.’

There was no choice but to obey, though I wasn’t quite so cruel with the binding as he’d been. My fingers trembled. I wanted to press my face to the smooth skin of Ash’s back and feel his warmth, smell his sweetness.

‘Now get on your knees,’ Michael commanded, opening the other man’s knife.

Slowly, Ash knelt, and the long wet grass clasped his thighs. I put my hand on his hair and he turned his face to my palm. Even his lips felt cold.

‘Normally I’d be reluctant to resort to your crude blood-and-shit mechanics,’ Michael commented, approaching with the knife and Ash’s shirt. ‘But you’ve rather forced my hand, you two.’ He squatted and grinned wolfishly at the other man, clearly conscious of the striking picture they were presenting, bared to the golden meadow and the looming wood and the rising sun. ‘Takes us right back to the 60s, doesn’t it?’ Running the knife-point down the bound man’s inner arm, he selected the precise place and twisted the tip, indenting the skin over a narrow blue vein. ‘Except,’ he added with a sneer, ‘that you never left.’ Then he pushed the point home, deep. Blood began to run out at once – alarmingly quickly.

Ash drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. I felt sick.

Michael planted the knife in the earth at his side, making sure it was out of my reach. Then he laid the shirt to the wound, soaking up the blood. Ash leant away from him against my leg, pressing his face to my thigh. When the cloth was bright red and sodden Michael sat back and wiped it over his chest.

I couldn’t watch. I held Ash tightly and looked at my hands in his hair or at the grass or at the dark oak canopies bulking out above the mist or at the car that stood ticking as the engine
cooled
– anywhere but at Michael Deverick painting himself in his enemy’s blood. The world seemed to spin. I wondered if I should make a grab at the knife, but I couldn’t believe it would be successful and I knew Michael was ready for me. My mouth seemed filled with glue.

He was thorough. Every inch of his skin, front and back, got baptised, including face and hands and scalp and crotch. I saw it from the corner of my eye. Then he threw the red shirt at my feet. ‘Your turn, Avril.’

‘No.’ Ash sounded hoarse. ‘It’s not necessary.’

‘Afraid it is. She’s my guarantee you’re going to behave yourself, Ash.’

Ash hesitated. In the gap I grabbed the shirt and pressed it to the cut, ignoring the wetness under my hands as I tried to close the wound by pressure alone. He winced. ‘No. No need. I’ve already sealed her.’

‘Oh?’

‘Cunt and mouth and arse. On the first day of the waxing moon.’

‘Jesus.’ Michael sounded partly amused, partly scathing. ‘You fucking Neanderthal.’

‘What’s he done?’ I demanded.

Ash didn’t answer, so Michael spoke for him. ‘He marked you as his own for the duration of the month, Avril. He laid claim.’

I met Ash’s pain-filled gaze, sickened and hurt yet again, and asked, ‘D’you ever do anything without some creepy magical reason behind it?’

‘Avril … I thought we might have to run back here. I was trying to ensure you’d be safe.’

He’d screwed that one up then, I thought. But I held on tight to the wadding. ‘I just thought you wanted me,’ I whispered.

‘Do you doubt that?’

Michael cleared his throat. ‘Sorry to interrupt you sweet young things, but time is money. Get him shipshape, Avril. We have some walking to do.’ He turned away to the pile of Ash’s discarded clothing, which he began to put on. I nearly lost it then. He’d been a grisly red like a pantomime demon, but even as he stooped for the first garment I saw the blood streaks on his back fading into nothing, soaking into his skin.

He always was vain, I thought dizzily. Then he pulled on my old white jumper and my gut clenched in anger.

‘Avril,’ Ash whispered, recapturing my attention.

I took my own T-shirt off to make a bandage, twisting it and tying it tight around his arm. By the time I was done and sure there was no serious leakage, Michael was dressed in his stolen clothes, had thrown his own into the car and locked it and there was no sign of blood on him.

The three of us made a strange posse as we faced the wood. Michael looked so out of character in Ash’s cast-offs, with the rucksack hitched over one shoulder and those long trousers crumpled up around boots that were slightly too big for his feet, but possession of a gun does tend to mute criticism. I was shivering, only a Lycra sports bra between my chest and the damp breath of the morning. Ash was barefoot and naked but for his bandage and the scarf binding his hands at his back, though he tried to hold himself with grace. I had to help him over when we climbed the gate.

Grange Wood had changed; I felt it within the first few paces. No rooks flew up clamouring this time – in fact there was total silence from the birds that should have been bustling about the leaves all around us. The silence was thick, like another manifestation of the golden mist. I felt it pressing against my eardrums like a held breath and I cringed, sure that the exhalation would be an unbearable roar. The ground felt strangely taut beneath my feet, as if it had been heaved
up
by pressure from below, and the soles of my feet itched with discomfort.

‘Michael …’ I wanted to say that this was not a good idea, to ask whether he couldn’t feel the intent regard of the wood turned on us, but then I saw how pale he’d gone and knew I would be preaching to the choir. His jaw was set, his lips pressed into a narrow line, and he was looking about him with undisguised mistrust.

‘Lead on.’

Ash obeyed and we turned uphill towards the centre of the wood. He moved slowly, stumbling every once in a while; his tied hands impeded his balance and I think he’d lost enough blood to make him dizzy. I walked close behind him, ready to grab his arm if he really lost his footing, and Michael brought up the rear. Our feet stirred the leaf mould and with every step I felt the pulse of the wood beat up into my bones, filling my skull with its thick surge. A sweet farmyard aroma wafted around us then vanished as we began to climb.

Ash didn’t take the same route as the last time he’d led me to the Green Man, nor the one we’d come back by. I wondered if he was stalling for time or whether the routes themselves changed, but said nothing. My mouth had grown dry. Brambles caught at my trousers and I welcomed the clinging stab of the thorns in my skin as relief from the oppressive build-up of pressure all over my body. I wanted to scratch my nails down my arms and sides. I wanted to tug at my hair. I wanted to rub myself between the legs.

We’d been walking long enough and the incline was steep enough to have us all breathing hard when Michael, stubbing his boot against a root, lurched against me and grabbed at me to steady himself. The gun clipped my hip and his open hand slapped hard against my buttock. I stopped dead, paralysed by the shock waves. As Michael caught his breath his palm
lingered
where it had landed. He did not miss the fact that I didn’t shrug him off and I saw the rise of his eyebrows before I looked away again, flushing. ‘Still … needy?’ he enquired. ‘You’re unbelievable, Avril. How many men would it take to wear you out?’

I’d hardly have believed it myself, except that I knew what was going on; I’d felt it before. This time, though, it was much stronger. The pulse of the Green Man was throbbing in my blood, plumping tired tissues and making nerve endings itch.

‘He’s awake,’ said Ash, who’d turned to look at Michael’s hand fondling my arse. ‘He knows his book is here and he’s fighting his bonds. You’re out of your mind, Deverick. You can’t control him. You can’t even keep your mind on the job.’

Michael released me to run his hand over his crotch, squeezing what was already a notable bulge. His mouth quirked wickedly and he leant in to breathe in my ear, ‘Looks like I’ve got wood.’ Then the humour snapped out of his eyes and they became glittering sapphires once more. ‘Get a move on.’

It was warm now we were walking and the golden mist seemed more like steam. There were no trolls this time, no summer stags. Nothing dared stir in the wood, nothing but the power of the Green Man that bled through soil and rocks and bark and flesh: the power of green growing things and red running things and dark devouring things, all the power of a primeval world seeping out from that prison, sending the wood into panic. I saw trees that were only just turning yellow for autumn already brandishing bright green sprays of new leaves from the same twigs, and white blossom springing out on branches of Midland hawthorn eight months ahead of its true time, and I smelled the garlic reek of spring-flowering ramsons. It was a power that surged in me just as surely, making me wanted to dance, to run, to fight, but above all to
open
my legs to a thick hard cock. That’s what the life force is about after all. As a species and as individuals we will risk pain and ruin and death for the chance to fuck. We live to fuck. Now I was squirming with discomfort, and hiding it badly. My clit felt like an overripe berry swollen with juice and ready to burst.

Ash led us to a steep rocky defile, and I had to go ahead to help him balance, pulling him up the steepest bits. Weakened by blood loss his muscles felt cool under my hands, and as we got right to the top he swayed against me. Gasping, Ash and I struggled to steady ourselves. Our lips nearly met; our gazes did, and I saw him fighting to regain focus. I slipped my arms about his waist and our bodies brushed together. Though I was hot enough that my tanned skin was glazed, my nipples stood poking up against the Lycra that bound them, the rubbing of the fabric almost painful against those stiff points. He couldn’t push me away, not with his hands tied behind him. He couldn’t shield his crotch from me. I looked down between us, belly to belly.

Then suddenly he swayed, staggering in my arms, and I knew his legs were giving way. I backed him hurriedly against a tree trunk and for a moment it seemed to give him support, but then he slithered to his knees, head sagging. A crimson runnel had worked its way from under the bandage and was sliding down his inner arm.

‘Give me your belt!’ I demanded, turning to Michael who stood breathing hard at the top of the rise. He looked askance and I barely held on to my temper. ‘I need to tourniquet his arm!’

‘Come and get it then.’

Even though it meant coming right up in front of him I did, uncinching the webbing belt and drawing it out through the loops about his waist. The familiar scent of his aftershave made
the
skin on my neck prickle. Michael didn’t trouble to hide his amusement. He couldn’t have hidden his arousal if he’d wanted to; the thick cylinder of his erection was pressing up against the fabric of Ash’s stolen trousers. In my dizzy state it was nearly enough to distract me from my task and I hesitated, my fingers drawn involuntarily towards it. Michael hooked his hand in the front of my pants and pulled me up against him, hard. ‘Slut,’ he said.

‘Let me see to Ash,’ I whispered. My pulse was nearly choking me.

With a nod of his chin he let me go. I wobbled over to Ash, grateful for the chance to fall to my knees myself. Binding the cloth belt about his arm was a welcome task, forcing my trembling fingers back into use. Ash sat quietly, eyes shut and lips parted, his breath ragged. I stroked his face but got no reaction. When I stood again Michael was glowering at me and cradling his groin.

‘This is crazy. I can’t even think straight. Avril, get your pants down; I’m going to have to make use of that beautiful arse of yours.’

I stared.

Michael’s mocking gaze flicked sideways. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Ash? Gives you a chance for a bit of a rest.’

A blush of rage darkened my cheeks. ‘And me?’

‘You?’

‘Cock or bullet – that’s my choice now?’

Michael grinned. ‘Avril, if I offered you cock or the riches of Solomon’s treasury you’d choose cock. If I offered you cock or eternal life you’d choose cock. You’d always choose cock because cock’s what you love and what you want and what you need. You need it right now. Mine – his – doesn’t matter, does it?’ He lifted the gun negligently. ‘If it makes you feel better about it then, yes, that’s your choice. Now drop them.’

It isn’t a pretty thing to admit, but I was glad he had the gun. I kicked off my trainers and walked over to where a fallen tree made a support. Then, turning my back on both men, I lowered my trousers, stepped out and bent over, hands on the bark, presenting Michael my backside wrapped in Miranda’s lacy white knickers. I was sure he must be able to see the darkened fabric of the damp gusset, and even as I braced my trembling legs another warm trickle of moisture escaped my inner clasp. I felt so open. He wasn’t wrong about me being a slut, either; he was going to fuck me at gunpoint in front of the man who loved me – and I welcomed it.

Michael’s hand brushed my sex. I could hear the harshness of his breathing. ‘Very pretty,’ he commented, running his fingers up the inside of the lace edge, across the curve of my bum, back down into the deep cleft beneath.

‘No.’ It was Ash’s voice, hoarse but forceful. ‘You can’t.’

A red-hot wave of shame washed me from head to toe, but I pressed back against Michael’s hand anyway and I’m not sure he even heard the protest. ‘Take them off,’ he said, as he had done in my living room weeks ago, but this time it was unequivocally an order and I hooked my fingers into the panties and drew them down to my thighs. The taut fabric dug into my flesh as I spread them further for him. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘No, you’ll kill her!’ That got our attention at last. ‘If she leaks afterwards, Deverick, she dies. We’re in too deep – you mustn’t do it!’

Michael looked at him coldly.

‘Put it in her mouth,’ Ash concluded bitterly. ‘It’s safest.’

Michael picked me up, turning me to face him. ‘You hear that, Avril? Your boyfriend wants you to give me a blow job. He wants me to fuck your mouth and shoot my come down your throat.’ He pushed me to my knees and rubbed my face roughly against his groin. ‘D’you like that idea?’