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FREE FICTION FRIDAYS #9 THE FOREST LORD

Hey everyone! Welcome back to Free Fiction Friday! I'm back to posting installments of my fantasy series, The Forest Lord. Hope everyone enjoys it!

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The Forest Lord #9; by Tucker McCallahan:

“Only limited information exists in the journals and lore books of the guild.” Kala crouched near the fire, sharpening her blade. “I remember they destroy plant life.”

“True.” Iym’s voice drifted on the night breeze. She sipped wine from a skin and stared at the glowing embers under the flames. “It is both a curse and a source of great pain for them, that they cannot touch or be close to the flowers and trees they so revered in life.” She shuddered and wiped her mouth. “They’re compelled to tree-walk as druids, yet every time they do so the trees they use die.”

 “I am not so full of fear that I’m unable to name that which we face.” Jhul whirled around to face the group who sat around the small fire.

T’Riss gave her a weary look. “If an elven vampire carved those runes, Jhulryna, a bit of fear would be healthy.”

“I put stock in truth, not superstition.” As usual, her chin jutted forward in defiance.

“I watched a male fall down dead in his tracks just by meeting the scarred visage of an elven vampire. Another who locked gazes with the creature was paralyzed, just as if he’d been gored by the claws of a ghoul.” Memories haunted Zak’s green eyes. He pushed into T’Riss’s side, his arm firmly around his mate’s waist. T’Riss held him close, turning to press his lips against Zak’s forehead.

“You battled such a monster?” Kala gazed intently at the pair. T’Riss nodded, still holding Zak.

“We took a bounty on one. Tracked its black thumb. Fought it under the sun for it feared the dark, and blinded it with sap from an iron bark tree.”

“Magic is almost useless against them,” Zak murmured. “Fire, ice, charms, holds, illusions… all worthless. Spells fall away from them as if they’ve never been cast.”

“What works then?” Iym didn’t move any closer but her ruby eyes flashed as they reflected the firelight.

“I had some luck with lightning.” Zak shook his head in resignation. “But make no mistake, it healed almost as fast as I injured it.”

Smoke had been uncharacteristically quiet since they made camp. Jhul strode over to where he cleaned his strange weapons.

“What say you, human?”

In a movement that was as calculated as it was graceful, Smoke tilted his head up and fixed Jhul with a steady, patronizing look.

“S’not any kind of bloodsucker.”

“Elven vampires do not feed on blood.” T’Riss spoke to the fire, but his voice carried to Jhul and Smoke.

“What do they eat?” Smoke’s blue-gray eyes traveled over Jhul’s body in a manner that left no doubt about what he was hungry for. Jhul pretended not to notice his blatant admiration of her figure. She would’ve pulled off her feigned indifference, too, save for the continual clenching of her jaw.

“Vitality. Charisma. Your personal magnetism. An attack by an elven vampire leaves you horribly scarred.” T’Riss held Zak tightly and leaned forward staring intently at Smoke. “You said you saw several of the murder victims. Were any of them disfigured?”

For the first time since they powered down the mechanical mounts, Smoke looked interested. He snapped the irregular cylinder back onto the over-sized frame of his revolver. Removing silver bullets from his pocket he packed the cylinder full and with a flick of his wrist nestled it snugly in place between the barrel and the hammer. Snapping his long arm out straight, Smoke sighted down the barrel at some unknown point off in the distance, his eyes cold. Then as quick as he aimed, he relaxed his elbow, spun the awkward weapon, and grinned cheekily at Jhulryna before holstering it low on his hip. He turned a grimly serious face to T’Riss.

“They were savaged. Can’t say if that counts for disfigurin’ or not, mate.”

“An elven vampire’s attack is distinct. The scarring is usually to the face.”

Smoke shook his head. He picked up his second revolver and began reassembling it. “Nothing like that. Although…” He cleared his throat and gazed intently at his weapon as he spoke. “When my sister Justina was found, they thought at first she’d been slain by a ghost.”

“Why?”

“Her hair had turned white.”

 The group sat in silence contemplating the creature they might be facing as the forest whispered around them. Finally Iym stood and drew her cloak tighter around her slender form.

“If it’s undead we face, rest assured our goddess has imbued me with the strength to turn them away.” She bobbed her head at T’Riss and Zak. “As always I shall take second watch with Kala.” Gazing around at the rest of the group, she murmured, “Du’ased v’dre ulu jal.”

T’Riss and Zak rose as well, T’Riss’s arm around his mate. The leader of the group turned to the gunfighter who had finished cleaning his weapons and stowed all his cleaning supplies away. Now he sat at the fire’s edge smoking a thin, hand-rolled cigarillo that burned with a pungent, sweet scent unfamiliar to T’Riss.

“Zak and I will take dawn watch if you’re able to remain on guard.”

Smoke slowly nodded. Jhul edged closer to both the fire and the gunfighter. “I’ll remain on watch with him.”

If he was surprised by Jhul’s offer, T’Riss didn’t show it. He simply nodded and led Zak by the hand into their tent.

Several long moments passed before the silence grew unbearable, and Jhulryna edged even closer to Smoke.

“That’s chanan you’re smoking, isn’t it?”

Smoke held the cigarillo – half gone – out to her. “Did you want some?”

“Is it red chanan or white?”

“Red.” Smoke smiled, still holding the smoldering offering. “I’ve no wish to drive anyone mad.”

Jhul took the cigarillo from his fingers and drew on it, pulling the sweet smoke into her lungs. As an herbalist she was trained in the uses of hundreds of herbs and natural medicines. Red chanan was something she’d only had the opportunity to sample once, as it wasn’t native to the drow lands, and it was excessively expensive. Just as she remembered, though, a sense of lassitude blossomed within her, warmth and pleasure spreading slowly through her torso and then out to her limbs.

“Smooth, isn’t it?” Smoke took the cigarillo and laid it on his lips.  

“Perfect.”

They finished it in silence, pausing only to add wood to the small fire so that it wouldn’t die. Smoke spread a thick blanket out and gestured to it. “No reason to be uncomfortable.”

Jhul laid her staff down and settled cross-legged onto the blanket. Staring up at the human gunfighter, she admired the square angle of his jaw, so much broader and heavier than the males of her race. He was so different in so many ways from every male she knew. He sat beside her, the bandolier of bullets he wore clinking against his black powder bombs. He turned his head, and the firelight glinted off his blue-gray eyes.

“Are you fully recovered from the battle?”

She nodded. Her heart hammered against her breast bone. Maybe it was the chanan; she couldn’t believe what she was considering. Then the moment was there, and she took it. Turning to face Smoke, Jhul unfastened her robes and let them slide down her body to pool around her waist. Surprise flickered in his eyes, then amusement, and finally hot lust.

“You saved my life,” she whispered. “By the laws of my kind, you’re entitled to lay with me, to use my body in whatever way you see fit.”

Smoke gazed at her slate-colored skin revealed in the firelight, the shadows playing over every curve and bend. She was formed exquisitely, her breasts perfect mounds of flesh topped by hardened nipples. Her silvery hair cascaded around her shoulders like a royal cloak, wrapping her in decadence and majesty. Smoke had never wanted to touch a female so badly.

Leaning in, he gentled his lips against hers in a kiss so light it was almost no kiss at all, just lips sampling textures and flavors. Jhulryna melted forward, eager for more, to taste this curious human male. But before she could, she realized that he hadn’t put his arms around her to hold her. Rather, he’d reached around her, drawn her robes up, and was fastening them around her neck once more.

It was on her lips to say she didn’t understand, but she was afraid she did.

He didn’t want her.

Shame and embarrassment hotter than lava flooded her veins. She tried to pull away from him but he caught her in a grip so strong she couldn’t escape.

“Let me go,” she hissed. “You’ve made your preference clear.”

“Stop fighting me, kitten.” His lips brushed her ear and sent hot tingles racing down her spine. Damn him! “You don’t get it.”

“I did as I was required by our laws. My duty is fulfilled.”

“And if I’d done what you offered we would’ve had a mess on our hands.” Smoke shook her. “Don’t think I don’t want you, Jhul. I want you stripped bare, belly down, crying out my name like it’s the only word you know. But taking you here? Like that? Not gonna do it.” He crushed Jhul against his body and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. “When I have you it’ll be on my terms, not some made-up reason so you can feel absolved for letting a human touch you.”

She jerked free of his arms. “It’s not like that.”

“No?”

“No!”

Smoke laughed as Jhul scrambled away from him. He extracted another chanan cigarillo from a slender case in his pack. Lighting it up, he bent his knees and rested his arms on them, gazing out into the forest. Jhul turned her back to him and watched in the opposite direction until Iym and Kala came to relieve them.

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