Lord of the Forest by Dawn Thompson Page B

then screamed with fiendish delight as he climaxed, pouring his foul seed into the earth. “Ah! Ah! To have you watch—and be so frightened excites me! So good—ah! I come too soon!” His hands were as contorted as his face as he stripped out the last poisonous drops and Linnea shrank back farther. She was only too aware that the force he generated would keep her in his power for however long he wished.
    “Are you—the Dark One?” She choked out the question in a whisper, even more afraid.
    “Some call me that,” he said angrily. “I have lived a long, long time and have many names. Yes, I am the Lord of the Outer Darkness. The great and wicked Ravelle. And as soon as I catch my breath, I will ravish you. And it will be my very great delight to hear you scream my name, not whisper it.”
    She shook her head in mute terror.
    The demon shrugged and gathered up the strands of iron rope. “Rise.” He made the gesture that allowed her to do it. “Walk to the tree and put your back against it.”
    He pointed.
    The tree was not like the kindly, ancient oaks, or the supple ashes and witch-hazels so beloved of sorceresses. No, it was ironwood, gray and cold to the touch. She walked to it and turned around, her spine pressed to its rough length. At the demon’s command, the lowest branches whisked around her wrists and pulled her hands high.
    “Weakling,” he said with contempt. “I might not need my ropes for you.”
    Linnea’s breasts rose out of the diaphanous gown, bare and vulnerable. One did not beg a demon for mercy, she thought, silently willing herself not to cry out.
    Her feet barely touched the ground. He kicked them apart and her ankles were bound in turn by the low branches of lesser trees that stood near, as cold and gray as the first.
    With a single swipe of his claw, he tore the gown apart in front and left a scratch on her chest. A streak of blood welled up from it.
    “Ugh. An imperfection. But a necessary one. Never mind. I wish to see your sex.” He snapped his fingers and was surrounded in an instant by tiny creatures—insects? They made the strange hum that she’d heard. She narrowed her eyes.
    No, though they had wings, they were not insects but tiny demons, miniatures of Ravelle himself.
    Two flew down and she felt infinitesimal claws seize her outer labia and pull them apart none too gently. She was lost in a hellish dream that was all too real, beset by unimaginable evil.
    “All of it,” he told them. One of the little demons pinched at her clitoris and pulled it out. Ravelle’s gaze at her most private flesh made her feel filthy all over. His eyes widened, glowing, burning and—he let out a shriek as a flash of black and white swooped down and stabbed him in the back, again and again.
    The magpie drew blood as dark as the demon’s seed. It spurted from the wounds the bird made, maddening the demon, until his tiny cohorts let go of her and went after poor Esau.
    The brave bird defended itself, but it was harried by many, feathers plucked from its living skin until it cawed in pain. He was losing the fight and then—the fierce imps whirled in midair when Marius, a full centaur, galloped into the stand of trees and reared. The flying imps could not stop him from coming down with a mighty blow of his hooves upon the demon. Bleeding, Ravelle was flung against a tree which bent in an arc and shot him into the clouds above.
    The tiny demons shrieked and buzzed off after their master.
    Flailing wildly and shrieking himself, Ravelle came down furlongs away, crashing through treetops and vanishing in a plume of smoke.
    “Marius!”
    In a fury, he kicked the ironwood trees that bound her into splinters, ignoring their low, agonized howls, and freed her swiftly. “Get on!” She gathered up her ripped gown and mounted him somehow, straddling his broad back and noticing dazedly that he still had a tail, though it was in tatters.
    Off he went, crashing through the forest in the opposite