breeze itself.”
She thought of the doe and almost smiled. “Some are better at that trick than I.”
“Now it is my turn to ask you what you mean.”
“Before Ravelle appeared to me, I saw a doe and twin fawns. And then a man appeared who I thought was you. She knew better. She tried to warn me. But I was bedazzled.”
By my desire for you. He used it to lure me and he used it against me . She didn’t want to say it because just looking at him, naked, weary, and overwhelmed, made her want to comfort him. He had rescued her, for what it was worth. But she would need her wits about her to escape with her own hide intact.
“He shapeshifted, then.” Marius gave a disgusted grunt. “The real Ravelle can become anything with two legs. He is a monster like no other. I saw him in all his hideous glory, but then he meant to scare me. Who was he for you? A handsome youth? An innocent girl?”
“Neither.” Linnea gave him a long look. “He turned himself into a grown man, tall and strong, who resembled you perfectly in every way. But he stood in the shadows and did not speak. I thought you were playing some sort of game with me. And then—”
Marius rose and came to her. He reached out as if to take her in his arms, but she recoiled. “Forgive me. I don’t need to know everything.”
“And you never will,” she said simply. It had been so easy for the demon to decipher her emotions and deceive her. What had he said to her? I wanted you, Linnea. That is why I became what you wanted. Him.
Ravelle could do it again.
She would stick close to Marius. Talk, she told herself, of anything but what had happened. Just talk. Do not think. But she had to know one thing. “Is there no way—” she hesitated, her voice breaking, “that I might know for certain, if we are parted, that it is you I see and not the demon?”
Marius kept a respectful distance, walking about now, his arms folded over his bare chest. He was as naked as he had been before, although at the moment she found it disturbing. The scratch on her chest throbbed like a warning not to be weak. Linnea turned away, hiding it from his gaze.
“Besides my voice, you mean? You did say that Ravelle didn’t speak to you. He is a master of illusion but the voice comes from the soul. It is harder to feign than flesh and blood.”
She nodded in reluctant agreement. “After a while, he spoke. Not much. He said nothing worth repeating. His voice was different, but—” She broke off, remembering the crudeness with which he bade her to suck and touch his Marius-body, and his coarse sexual display.
Marius did not seem eager to hear the details of the encounter. “You do not have to tell me. I am all too familiar with Ravelle’s brand of evil. It begins with mischief and becomes mayhem. He can barely control himself.”
But he is very good at controlling others. The shame of her humiliation at his hands returned sevenfold. She hoped Marius would not see it in her face.
“There was a way once,” Marius said at last. “The gods who cursed me did it with an amulet of golden stone in the shape of a horse. I will tell you of it later. We must get inside.”
She closed her eyes, feeling faint. There was no shelter here, unless he meant the ground under the tree he pointed to. She felt sick…and she for one had a feeling that the demon had just begun to wreak havoc.
“What is that mark upon your chest?” Marius asked suddenly.
“It is only a scratch. From Ravelle. To remember him by.”
He gave her a grave look and shook his head. “Worse than that, Linnea. Ravelle’s claws hold poison. The scratch must be opened up and the wound cleansed.”
“Will you do that?” she asked softly. Would she let him? She did not want to be touched and with good reason— “No,” Marius said, interrupting the dark flow of her thoughts. “We have tarried here too long while I rested. We simply are not safe out in the open.”
She smiled bitterly. “No, we are not.
Alaska Angelini
Cecelia Tishy
Julie E. Czerneda
John Grisham
Jerri Drennen
Lori Smith
Peter Dickinson
Eric J. Guignard (Editor)
Michael Jecks
E. J. Fechenda