And now?
Now there were humans at her swimming hole. Not simply passing but lingering. Which never happened.
It wasn't just the stories that kept them away. Those only frightened the locals who heard them. Visitors came, too, wandering past. Yet they'd never stay more than a moment or two, overcome by a sense of unease. A sick feeling in the gut. A voice deep in their heads, whispering to run. Then screaming it. When they reached town, they'd hear of the haunted swimming hole and say, "Yes! I was there," and tell their stories, adding to the legend.
Yet here were two humans, on the rocks above her swimming hole, laughing and talking, not the least bit fazed.
She crept through the trees and then scaled one for a better look.
They'd come on a motorcycle. A loud one that had warned her of their arrival even before they pulled off the highway a mile over. Then they'd hiked and found her hole.
She could hear a woman talking, but from her hiding spot in the tree, she could see only her back as she stood on the diving rock over the swimming hole.
The man sat in front of his companion. Resting on the ground, leaning against a tree, his legs pulled up. He wore blue jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was a lighter blond than the girl's. When he pushed it back, she saw his face. A very pretty face on a very pretty boy. That would be enough to catch her interest. She had a weakness for pretty human boys. But this one . . .
There was more to this one. Something that made her feel . . .
Intrigued? Uneasy? Both at once. Something about him that both pulled her closer and warned her back. Like the swimming hole itself when she had first found it.
She shifted for a better look at the boy. He was a boy. A young man. And yet he did not feel young.
A glamour then? Could these be fae disguised as human?
She narrowed her eyes, looking for the telltale shimmer, but she saw none. Yet they did exude a faint glow.
Fae blood, then. But that would not explain the contradictory aura the boy gave off, of dangerous attraction, of youthful maturity.
She climbed down and slid through the trees, pulling her own glamour tighter in case they glanced over. But they were too engrossed in each other and in their conversation. The girl bounced on the rocks, shedding clothing as the boy said something, and she laughed, and the boy lit up with that laugh, his pretty face glowing.
There's more here. Much more.
She slipped a little closer and--
The boy turned sharply, not toward her but tracking a soft sound in the forest. Hearing it, her heart began to pound. She shimmered between her glamour and her true form, her nails sharpening to claws, ready for attack if he rose and headed in that direction. Yet even as she thought that, she felt . . .
Fear.
No, not fear.
Terror.
Attack this boy and--
Her heart pounded, that nameless terror whipping through her. She smelled the thick loam of another forest, heard the pounding of hooves, caught the scent of dogs, and she gasped.
No, that was not the answer. Could not be. This was a boy. Just a boy.
That smell came again. That pounding of hooves, once achingly familiar, once enough to make her and her sisters raise their heads from the water, alight in anticipation.
The Hunt comes. The souls come. Souls to be dragged to the Otherworld, souls of those harvested before their time, those who deserved their fate. She and her sisters would--
No. That was another time. Another place. Both long gone.
Even the thought of harming this boy sent an irrational blaze of absolute fear through her, but if she let him investigate the source of that sound, if he found what she had stolen . . .
Hers. It was hers.
Her treasure had gone silent. The girl said something, and the boy turned back with a reply that made her laugh again. Then the girl spun and dove into the water far below. The boy watched her go, grinned, his face alight with the glow that said the girl was no mere trifle. He loved her.
Which meant the fae knew exactly how to get them both out of her forest.
She pulled her glamour tighter and crept toward the swimming hole.
One - Ricky
Ricky watched Liv bounce on the rock high over the swimming hole.
"You'd better not be planning to dive off that," he said.
"Fully dressed? Of course not." She shimmied her hips as she pulled up her T-shirt.
"Tease," he growled.
Her brows arched. "Never. All you gotta do is say the word. No penalty incurred. Just declare me the victor, and anything you want? Yours."
"Remind me why we're playing this game?"
"Too much sex."
He rubbed his ear. "Say that again? I could swear you used the words 'too much' and 'sex' in the same sentence, but for you, that's an oxymoron."
"Normally, yes. But it has been a lot, and it's affecting our travel progress. We have one week to ride the Cabot Trail. It's been four days . . . and we're not even at the halfway point. The problem is sex, as much as I hate to say it."
"No, you love to say it. Because you love teasing me."
"You agreed to the game."
"I was drunk."
Yeah, okay, that was a lousy excuse. The truth was that he'd agreed because he'd been so sure how this game would play out. Liv would last about six hours before surrendering. Then he'd tease her for another six, building up the tension until he finally capitulated and then . . . Fuck, yeah.
Which proved that maybe he had been a little drunk. Sober, he'd have realized that there was no way Liv would lose a game so easily, and he'd be the one getting teased. Which was not necessarily a bad thing. He watched as she pulled off her T-shirt and let it fall into the bushes below. No, it was not a bad thing at all. And as she'd said, there was no penalty for being the first to fold. He just didn't like to lose. No more than she did. Which could make things hard. He glanced down at his crotch. Yep, definitely hard.
"So, are you joining me for a swim?" Liv said.
As he watched, she popped the button on her jeans and pushed them down over her hips. Then she stepped out of her jeans, kicked them aside and did a little striptease wiggle.
One might think that after eight days living out of the Harley's saddlebags, Liv would look a little worse for wear. But then one wouldn't know Liv. Her ash-blond hair gleamed and bounced as if it hadn't been under a helmet all day. Half her saddlebag space had probably been allocated to clean lingerie, which may have explained the slow progress of their trip so far.
Hell, no. That was just another excuse. Sexy undergarments were all well and fine, but the only "excuse" for the sex was the fact that it was just the two of them, riding the Harley along empty roads, which even back home was "excuse" enough to pull off for sex. Out here? With no one to stop them, no obligations calling, nothing but endless days of endless riding on endless roads? Yeah, there'd been a lot of sex. Which was fucking awesome but also meant, if they kept it up, they'd have to ride straight through the last few days on the trail with no stops for sex--or hikes or swims or anything else that had made this an amazing trip.
Still, the lingerie was a nice bonus. Very nice. Today it was a pink-and-black set that he didn't think he'd seen before, though he really had to take a better look to be sure. He tilted his head and watched her breasts bounce over the black lace and . . .
Fuck.
His gaze traveled over the swell of her hips, down her long legs to the boots. She'd tugged them back on after shucking her jeans. Sexy little motorcycle boots, with heels, that somehow didn't impede her hiking through deep forest. Or keep her from bouncing on that rock, dressed only in those heels and that very tiny bra and panties that barely covered anything at all.
Fuck.
"You go on," he said, starting to undo his belt. "I'll just be up here. Amusing myself. Since it's the only amusement I'm likely to get today."
"Poor baby. Unfortunately, self-amusement is against the rules. Remember?"
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"Drunk. Remember? Whatever I agreed to--"
"It was your rule."
Fuck.
He was about to respond when he heard something in the forest. It sounded like . . .
A baby?
The sound stopped. It'd been just a single cry, as if to say, I'm awake now.
He listened for fellow hikers but heard only the normal sounds of the forest. Maybe that's all it'd been. The cry of a bird or animal, and Liv saying, "Poor baby," had put the association into his head.
"--would allow a slight amendment to the rules," he heard Liv saying. "Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe."
"What?" He turned back fast, the cry half-forgotten . . . and then completely forgotten as he saw her standing on that rock, naked but for the boots.
She kicked off one boot. "That's a no, then?"
"Wait. What? You were saying . . ."
"Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe."
A slow grin spread across his face. "Permitted or required?"
She pursed her lips in mock thought. "Required would be better. Party A is required to self-amuse in front of Party B, who is required to watch. Fair enough?"
"Hell, yeah."
He finished undoing his belt.
"Also," she said, "there should be a penalty invoked if Party B decides to void the contract during the execution of the exception. How about, if watching you convinces me to surrender, I have to . . ."
She made a suggestion. One hell of a suggestion, which meant he was about to put on one hell of a performance.
"Agreed?" she said.
He grinned in answer.
"Good," she said. "Now, anytime you want to invoke the self-amusement exception, you need to tell me. Verbal notification is required."
"Fine. In case you can't tell . . ." He gestured at his open zipper. "I am officially invoking--"
She jumped backward off the rock and plunged toward the water.
Fuck.
Two - Liv
There is a moment, as you jump from a ledge over a swimming hole, when you may wish to reflect on that decision. That moment is not after you've actually made the leap.
In my defense, I didn't dive into the uncharted waters. I knew better. I just jumped. And the waters weren't entirely uncharted--we'd poked around before climbing to the overhang, and I knew the water was more than a few feet deep. What I did not properly measure was the height of the overhanging rock. It was high. Really high, as I only fully appreciated once I'd stepped off it.
I hit the water with my knees bent, hoping that would help absorb the impact of hitting the bottom. Except I didn't hit the bottom. I kept plummeting, down to an unreasonable depth considering this was a small body of water on a mountainside.
When it became clear I wasn't going to strike bottom anytime soon, I stopped my descent with a few strong strokes. Then I looked up and saw darkness. Complete darkness.
A twinge of panic darted through me. I shoved it back. I hadn't fallen that far, and no matter how much Ricky had been grumbling, he wasn't going to let me swim alone.
I started swimming upward. When the view above didn't lighten, I squelched a fresh lick of panic. Just keep going and--
My head broke the surface, and I gulped air. But everything stayed dark. Pitch black, no sign of the late afternoon sunshine I'd enjoyed a few minutes ago.
Then I caught a voice. A young woman's, her laugh carrying a note I recognized as well as my own. Not surprisingly, given it was my own, in a way.
I'd fallen into a vision of Matilda.
"Gotcha," a man's voice said. Then, "Cach," and a splash as Matilda laughed. A moment later, another splash, as if Matilda had dived and resurfaced.
"If you want me to kiss you, I need to be able to catch you," the man said.
"No, if you want to kiss me, you need to be able to catch me."
The man swore in Welsh again. Everything he said would be in Welsh--I just heard English. As for the man, I knew his voice as well as hers.
"Gwynn," I murmured, and my chest constricted as I heard other voices, these from much more recent memories. Too recent.
"This isn't true, Olivia. You know it isn't. You dream of some fairy prince and say I'm him?" A brusque laugh. "I didn't expect you to fall for romantic nonsense like that--"
"You aren't my fairy prince, Gabriel," I said, barely forcing the words out. "Not by any stretch of the imagination. You aren't Gwynn, and I'm not Matilda."
I squeezed my eyes shut and banished the voices. All the voices.
Sorry, Matilda. Sorry, Gwynn. I don't want to hear either of you right now. Probably not for a very long time.
To my surprise, the vision went silent. Everything stayed dark, though, and when I strained to listen, I caught the sound of water lapping against rock, the noise echoing as if I was in a chamber.
Or an underwater cave.
I swam carefully, one hand always in front of me. Sure enough, after a few strokes, my fingertips grazed rock. I felt around. Yep, definitely rock. And if I couldn't see daylight, that meant the exit was underwater. The problem with that? Finding it when everything was, well, dark.
"Ricky!" I shouted. My voice bounced around the cavern, meaning there was little chance he'd hear me, even less that I'd hear him.
Time to find the exit.
I dove and made my way methodically around the cave, feeling along the wall. Every time I came up for air, I called for Ricky, just in case, but I suspected my voice wasn't leaving this cavern.
I kept hunting until--
There! My fingers found the rough edge of what seemed like a passage out. I surfaced for a deeper breath, and then down I went, feeling my way into that gap, hoping it was an actual passage and not just a nook in the rock. Soon I could see light ahead, shimmering through the water.
I swam faster. A muffled sound came, almost like . . . music? As I broke through the surface, I heard the tinkling of bells. The sun had faded, the sky glowing with a weirdly yellow light, as if warning of a coming storm.
"Ricky?" I called, and again, my voice echoed, but what I heard was not Ricky but Arawn.
I called again. And again I heard that other name, his other name. Arawn, Lord of the Hunt. Arawn, Lord of the Otherworld.
I shivered and kept swimming. I could make out the shore ahead, but it seemed to waver, like I was looking at it from underwater. That yellowish light pulsed, and the bells tinkled. My hands touched down on the shore, and I felt rock. Warm rock as if warmed by the sun. I lifted my head over the ledge and--
I was looking at a distant golden castle, that yellow light shining from it, the tinkling bells coming from it. I gripped the ledge and started heaving myself up. To my side, deep in the dark water, I caught a flash of skin.
"Ricky?" I said, and heard, Arawn?
The figure swam up toward me. I saw flowing blond hair and exhaled in relief. I pulled myself up onto the ledge, turned to face the water, and said, "You need to see this," and heard my words come out in Welsh.
The figure swam up, still almost hidden in the shadowy dark water. I leaned out to extend my hand. Another hand broke the surface. Pale and slender. A woman's hand, wrapping around my ankle and dragging me into the water.
Three - Ricky
"Liv!"
Ricky stood on the rock over the swimming hole. He'd undressed as fast as he could, but she should have surfaced by now. As he squinted down at the dark water, though, he couldn't see as much as a ripple.
He bent his knees to jump and then locked them.
Sure, land on top of her when she's coming back up.
He jogged down the sloping path and cut through the brush for a shortcut. And, yeah, running through brush and bramble while naked wasn't the most pleasant experience, but the scrapes and jabs didn't bother him.
He made it to the swimming hole and stood on the grassy shore, hunting in vain for ripples.
I've lost her.
&n
bsp; Again.
That was Arawn, being as unhelpful as always, the voice deep in his head, like a long-dormant memory surfacing. Which it was. Old fears resurrected whenever Liv disappeared even for a split second. His heart would pound with Arawn's terror and self-condemnation, the memory of losing Matilda to the fire.
The fact that Liv's visions meant she routinely disappeared really didn't help.
One last booming shout of "Liv!" Then he leaped into the water and dove. He started under the overhanging rocks, but when he went down from there, he just kept descending until that alarm in his brain sounded, like an oxygen gauge hitting the half-full mark. Surface or you won't make it back.
He swam up and broke through, gasping for air and looking about as his heart pounded.
Stop and think. If Liv was hurt, she'd float, not sink like a rock to the bottom.
The swimming hole wasn't manmade, which meant it had plenty of nooks and crannies where she could have gotten caught.
Or where she could be hiding.
He shouted for her again, and when she didn't reply, he knew "hiding" wasn't the answer. She'd have heard the panic in his voice and come out.
He swam toward the first hollow and dove to check it out. Then on to the next.
She had to be here. She'd hit her head or something, and he had to find her. If Liv got hurt, Gabriel would kill him.
Okay, kill might be an exaggeration. It'd be the cold death of exile to the wasteland of people Gabriel didn't give a shit about, which encompassed most of the population. Ricky had been inching out of that wasteland, proving he was more than just the biker kid Liv hooked up with. Which would change if Gabriel discovered they'd had a close call on this trip.
Arawn failing again. Failing Matilda. Failing Gwynn.
Ricky dove. He was twisting around when he saw a flash of pale skin, like a fish darting by.
Liv.
She must have been hiding underwater when he'd shouted, not realizing he'd been frantically searching. Just another round of hide-and-seek, their favorite game. Well, second favorite. Chase always came first for Ricky, a true son of the Hunt.
He reached to grab her, but she zipped behind him. Her hand cupped his ass, fingers tickling across it. He grinned, a little too broadly, swallowing water. He swam up just enough to break the surface for air, careful not to move so fast she'd think he wasn't enjoying the attention. That attention continued, fingers on his ass and then on his thighs, tracing between his legs and . . .