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Charging through the trees, he headed for the clearing. Once there he manipulated his wings, lifted from the ground, then spiraled upwards into the sky, his wings flapping vigorously. He soared and soared, his body vibrant with ecstasy, his loins still palpating from the glorious lovemaking he'd experienced.
When he glanced back he saw the two nymphs below, as beautiful as two young goddesses, and yet staring up at him in awe, waving, and still he soared higher, carried on their admiration. The rushing of his blood alone felt strong enough to fuel his flight and it was as if the heat inside his body was glowing all around him.
And so Icarus soared on, magnificent and potent against the expanse of crystalline-blue sky. He noticed that his bronzed arms shone with luminescence, and his wings were barely visible with the strength of the light flooding through them, making them all but transparent. His head burned, as if a crown of sunlight had been placed upon him, and he bellowed his pleasure aloud, bathing his sated body in the heat.
So filled with ecstasy was he that it took him a while to notice the droplets of wax that sizzled and dripped from his wings, and it was too late that he saw the stray feathers that floated down, one or two of which now bore evidence of the intense heat where they had been singed by the sun.
Too late he realized his fate, but he could not regret his dalliance, for the pleasure he'd been given still reigned within him, and when Icarus plunged to his death in the sea, he was still suffused with pleasure—his mind, body and soul consumed with the passions that the nymphs had shared with him in the woods.
A sadness-tinged tale it is, but such an amorous and ecstatic death is a special thing, and has been prayed for by leagues of mankind, both before Icarus and ever since. That, and the ability to fly.
WHERE THE HEART IS
Come home, Rhiannon. Come back to me.
Rhiannon Bryson stirred in her sleep, her awareness sharpening as she faltered on the edge between reality and her dream world. The man called to her again, luring her to him. In the dream she was out on the moors and she struggled to move, to look back over her shoulder and seek out his image. The old manor house was there just as it had been so many times before, shadowed and looming against the high crags. Then he stepped out of the mist that surrounded the house, strode over, and lifted her in his arms.
I know this man.
His face was so familiar that it was etched in Rhiannon's memory, and his heart beat hard and fierce against hers, locking its beat to his own. He held her tightly, so tightly she could scarcely breathe. When he dipped to kiss her mouth time and place morphed, and she was rolled onto a bed. Then he was between her thighs and thrusting into her, stretching her open, claiming her. His body arched and bucked, as if he were desperate to find his release within her. Ethereal touches tantalized her body. Struggling against the torpor of sleep, her skin was feverish, the ache at her center demanding. She felt his kiss against her throat—and at the moment of climax, his bite.
As always, it was the bite that woke her.
Rhiannon's eyes flashed open and she swallowed hard, panting for breath in the wake of her sleep-drenched orgasm. Blinking into the darkness she rested her hand on her chest and found the skin damp. Her core was still in spasm, and she ached for the ghostly presence that had aroused her so. Denying the truth of her situation she threw off the bed covers and sat bolt upright. It was a strange phenomenon, one that she could not ignore. Her pussy was slick—her groin suffused with the heat of her climax—and a man's name was on her lips: Edgar.
The thundering of her heart and the ache of loss made her cry out in frustration. She ran her hands through her hair and looked around her bedroom, sad to be back in the here and now.
"Who are you, Edgar?" she whispered into the night.
That old familiar ache for the place that haunted her dreams lingered. Home. Somehow she knew that. Deep down in her soul she knew that he'd called to her from home.
* * *
That weekend Rhiannon stood on the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors and let the place fill her senses. The atmosphere was like no other, up here where the high crags seemed to brush the sky. It was here that she felt closer to him—the man who stalked her dreams—more so than at any other time in her waking hours. This was the place that made him call to her, she was sure of it. The very thought made her heart beat a little faster, her anticipation building as she hiked out across the landscape. The late-September sun was burning into the horizon, warming the purple and yellow swathes of rough heather on the far hills, picking out the thick, lush moss that covered the rocks. Blustery wind streaked the sky with fast moving wisps of cloud, filling the air with the heady scent of peat and heather.
This place had fascinated her since she'd been brought up here on a hiking trip as a teenager. The dreams started soon after. Strange, erotic dreams they were, featuring an old manor house out here on the high rolling hills, where eerie mist and gaunt shadows suggested movement, ghosts, and strange creatures. As she grew into adulthood, the man had stepped out of the mist and into her dreams.
"Don't go out on the moors alone," she'd been told many a time.
Rhiannon couldn't heed the advice because the place called to her. The sense of timelessness on the moors seemed to tune into her very soul, and the peculiar heritage of the landscape also kept her a lonely bookworm, studying everything she could find as she tried to make sense of her connection to the place. Folklore and legend were just a small part of it. The area had been a hotbed for UFO sightings in the 70's and 80's. All of that, and more—something innate and inexplicable—compelled her to the place.
It was quiet and desolate today, and the silence of the moor was somehow filled with anticipation. That sent a shiver up her back and kept her senses keen as she followed the well-trodden path. It was narrow but worn by footsteps, some places inset with blocks of stone, a testament to how old the trails were.
It was easy to get lost up here, so the guidebooks said, but if you stuck to the path you couldn't go wrong. Mostly she did, but not today. Today Rhiannon strayed from the path into the wild, and yet that wild place felt more familiar to her than her lonely flat in town and the local bookshop where she worked. Here, she felt right, as if she belonged to the moor.
"I know this place," she said aloud as she kept the high crags in her sights. Her words were whispered away on the wind. She hurried on, and reached a spot where an ancient wedge of stone erected on the hill marked out the lay lines on the moor. The occult insignia carved into its head was barely visible nowadays, it was so weather beaten, but she'd read enough about it to find and recognize the sturdy rock.
Rhiannon observed in awe as the lowering sun sent a shiver of light across the ancient wedge of stone, exposing its worn carvings. The thrill of discovery quickly fired her blood. She reached out and touched the stone. Static clung to her fingertips and then shot up her arm. Rhiannon trembled, but could not break the contact. Light pooled around the stone and as she watched, in awe, it was picked up on the far hill and arced across the moor, a prism of startling illumination lighting the underside of the sky. As quickly as it had appeared it was gone, and she withdrew her hand.
The sound of footsteps behind her made her jolt.
Rhiannon.
Her
breath hitched. It was his voice, calling her name. Bracing herself she turned to seek him out. As she did the sky grew dark and the earth fell from under her boots. Skidding down into a ditch, her body rolled, her face hit the ground, and the scent of moss filled her nostrils. When her jaw was forced shut by a series of impacts she coughed and tasted blood in her mouth. The scrape of rough, exposed rock tore at her legs. Pain seared her skin and bit deep into her left leg, and then she felt the thump of hard earth against her back. Winded by the sudden fall, she grunted heavily. Consciousness faded and she was gone.
* * *
