"Entangle" for Bad Company Muses
“I had thought you would have come to see me after Auberon died.”
The voice sent every instinct she had into overdrive, brought unwanted tingles up and down her spine, and a desperate wish that she hadn’t sent Donagh to oversee the transfer of a prisoner with Dorian. She knew exactly what she’d see when she turned around, knew the lines of his body too well. The smell of him sent memories dancing behind her eyes and an unwanted throb through her body.
“But you had that toy, trying to make him into the man you have always craved. The man strong enough you could let yourself be weak.”
He knew her too well still, knew and remembered what she had told this god so long ago when she was young enough to think she could trust him. Herne the Hunter. The man who had never been her lover, though they had craved each other like a drug. But he would take nothing but the whole of her. Something she couldn’t give him while married to Auberon.
“I had thought you dead.” A lie. She hadn’t thought about him at all. She’d learned long past that it was the safest way to deal with him. Safest way not to be consumed.
“You lie. As long as people act as predator and prey I will live, a fact you have long known. Tell me, have you become such a coward you can’t face me, or are you afraid once you turn around and see me, you’ll realize the folly of your marriage to a mortal man and ask me to kill him for you?”
She spun around too quickly, too angry at the accusations, to think. The god before her was not the Herne she had known. Gone was the naked muscle, the waist length buckskin hair, the loin cloth that covered next to nothing, and the eternal smears of blood and offal and mud. He was taller, leaner, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit that might actually be as expensive as her own clothing. Everything about his cold blue eyes said mafioso or defense lawyer, there was no pity there, no room for tenderness or gentle hope. The same eyes of his older self.
One other thing about his appearance had not changed. The antlers, beautiful, shining and smooth with points that looked sharp enough not to hurt as they pierced your heart, still grew from his brow. She wondered if they still collected icicles in the winter or if that was below the dignity of this new, clean, more animal god. There was no doubt in her mind that he still used them as weapons when it suited him. Once a god began to crave blood, they always did.
“Ah, much better, isn’t it? Now you can see I’ve changed just as much as you have since we last knew each other. Do you approve? I have to admit, I thought of you as I bought this suit. How you would laugh, seeing them try to find a way to turn a warrior’s build of old into something respectable and,” the amused glean in his eyes brought butterflies to her stomach, “civilized. Made wonder if you would rather have me in a red tie or a blue. Then I remembered you alway wore blue to compliment my eyes and I knew. It confuse the hell out of my followers, and was that much better for it. And I’ve been controlling the entire conversation. How rude of me. Before I had over the reigns, may I just say, you are just as beautiful pregnant as I had thought you would be. My only regret is that it is not my child that swells your belly and breasts.”
Once a beast, always a beast. She was disgusted to realize his compliment still had some effect on her. He didn’t deserve to push her buttons, least when she had no desire for him to do so. But let a god in once, and he can always come a knocking. That was part of why she hated them. Insidious, powerful, cruel. They were too like her.
“It is no rudeness on your part, only wariness on mine. The old gods so rarely come to speak with me anymore. I wished only to know what you came to speak of.”
He scoffed, sharply mocking. “The old gods? Those of us who were babes when you were already old, my lady? Truly, I am not sure if I should be insulted or complimented.”
“Be neither, it is simply a way to distinguish those such as yourself from those newly risen to the ranks.”
“That sounds more like the Mab I knew. Too sharp with the gods because she knows choice is most of what kept her from being one of the number. Brave beyond reason, or maybe just the temper.”
“The Mab you knew was a young fool who thought a god of the Hunt might be taught to love rather than realizing she was just another thing for him to hunt. Prey he couldn’t catch so it was that much more wanted. A young woman who trusted too much in her own charms and spoke too much to a man she wanted to bed.”
Herne smiled at her and she saw his teeth were still sharp and deadly as any canine’s. “I am not so much older than you were then. Would you call me a young fool?”
“If you think I’ll be swayed to replace my husband with a worn out god who got made over to ‘fit in,’ then without a doubt I think you’re a young fool.”
Herne snarled, all civilized pretenses falling away for a moment, and her heart raced for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t have the sense to be afraid. But she wondered what his teeth would feel like against her skin when he was that angry. Which, of course was just brilliant of her. Focus on the situation at hand. But before she had mastered herself, he spoke, words biting.
“If you love this human of yours so much, have you told him Mab isn’t your true name? Or am I still the only one you ever mentioned that to?”
She hadn’t. She never told anyone. It was her strength and weakness. The greatest, truest price for the power she had, her true name held power for her like few others. A person who possessed it could own her will, her everything. So no one living or dead knew her full name, even Fate didn’t know. No gods, no angels. Big G God might, but he wasn’t telling anyone. Anyone who had spoken ‘Mab’ and summoned her might understand the power of her complete name. Anyone who knew her would know why she allowed no one to have it.
“I’ve spent a long time looking for it, Mave.” She shuddered and his smile grew sharper. “There are echoes of the unspoken name, because something that powerful doesn’t just rest quietly, Meabh.” Her skin grew whiter than new fallen snow. His eyes narrowed, smelling blood. “Maeve, I’m close aren’t I? I bet I could force you to do quiet a bit like this. In fact, it’s too tempting not to use. Mab Mave Meabh Maeve satisfy me until I cry out.”
She slunk toward him and again he marveled at how she made pregnancy look like strength and sex without trying. He could smell her, sharply female like no other woman he had known. The thrill of a hunt drawing to a close sang in his blood, ringing in his ears. Her hands rested on his chest lightly, drawing his attention to the slender elegance of her fingers, so like a doe’s legs as she ran in flight from the hunter’s bow. His breath grew shallower as those fingers danced down his chest to his belt, removing the gold covered iron belt buckle artfully, then unzipping his pants forced his breath to catch in his throat. Her white fingers traced cool lines down his pelvis to surround his rigid erection. And then her hand went from teasingly cool to painfully cold, to so cold it burnt and spread over his skin. His anatomy below the waist went into agony before freezing solid, a little bit at a time, eating down into his legs and feet. He keened in pain and the freezing stopped spreading. He went to curse her, but that cold hand went to his lips, shushing him for fear she would freeze the rest of him, trapping him in nothingness.
“You aren’t a complete fool, I’ll give that to you. But finding the pieces and putting them together improperly, well, that doesn’t make the necessary whole. So close and yet no where near. All you did was spread a net to trap yourself, magnifying me. As you failed and no harm was done, I have a warning I will give you exactly once. Leave me and mine alone. Stop looking for my name. It won’t come to you and if you had it, it would destroy you a bit at at time. Like all true invocations in has a will and way of its own. Go your way and forget today. Or you will stand frozen for the rest of time, never to be reborn again. Understand?”
He nodded under her fingers. “Now release me.” She was quick and brutal, slitting his throat so fast he blinked twice before he realized he was dead. And then the body was gone, leaving nothing behind. The way of the old gods. Kill them and they rise again, whole. Being crippled or trapped, that was their real fear.
Her knees went weak for a moment. He had been close, too close. She could have been trapped. But Herne wasn’t that smart or focused, something had directed him. Something that wanted her to get a message. Considering it for a few moments, she reached a conclusion. It was clear that her name was finally ready to be heard. And there was only one person she could or would tell. This was going to be an interesting conversation.
The voice sent every instinct she had into overdrive, brought unwanted tingles up and down her spine, and a desperate wish that she hadn’t sent Donagh to oversee the transfer of a prisoner with Dorian. She knew exactly what she’d see when she turned around, knew the lines of his body too well. The smell of him sent memories dancing behind her eyes and an unwanted throb through her body.
“But you had that toy, trying to make him into the man you have always craved. The man strong enough you could let yourself be weak.”
He knew her too well still, knew and remembered what she had told this god so long ago when she was young enough to think she could trust him. Herne the Hunter. The man who had never been her lover, though they had craved each other like a drug. But he would take nothing but the whole of her. Something she couldn’t give him while married to Auberon.
“I had thought you dead.” A lie. She hadn’t thought about him at all. She’d learned long past that it was the safest way to deal with him. Safest way not to be consumed.
“You lie. As long as people act as predator and prey I will live, a fact you have long known. Tell me, have you become such a coward you can’t face me, or are you afraid once you turn around and see me, you’ll realize the folly of your marriage to a mortal man and ask me to kill him for you?”
She spun around too quickly, too angry at the accusations, to think. The god before her was not the Herne she had known. Gone was the naked muscle, the waist length buckskin hair, the loin cloth that covered next to nothing, and the eternal smears of blood and offal and mud. He was taller, leaner, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit that might actually be as expensive as her own clothing. Everything about his cold blue eyes said mafioso or defense lawyer, there was no pity there, no room for tenderness or gentle hope. The same eyes of his older self.
One other thing about his appearance had not changed. The antlers, beautiful, shining and smooth with points that looked sharp enough not to hurt as they pierced your heart, still grew from his brow. She wondered if they still collected icicles in the winter or if that was below the dignity of this new, clean, more animal god. There was no doubt in her mind that he still used them as weapons when it suited him. Once a god began to crave blood, they always did.
“Ah, much better, isn’t it? Now you can see I’ve changed just as much as you have since we last knew each other. Do you approve? I have to admit, I thought of you as I bought this suit. How you would laugh, seeing them try to find a way to turn a warrior’s build of old into something respectable and,” the amused glean in his eyes brought butterflies to her stomach, “civilized. Made wonder if you would rather have me in a red tie or a blue. Then I remembered you alway wore blue to compliment my eyes and I knew. It confuse the hell out of my followers, and was that much better for it. And I’ve been controlling the entire conversation. How rude of me. Before I had over the reigns, may I just say, you are just as beautiful pregnant as I had thought you would be. My only regret is that it is not my child that swells your belly and breasts.”
Once a beast, always a beast. She was disgusted to realize his compliment still had some effect on her. He didn’t deserve to push her buttons, least when she had no desire for him to do so. But let a god in once, and he can always come a knocking. That was part of why she hated them. Insidious, powerful, cruel. They were too like her.
“It is no rudeness on your part, only wariness on mine. The old gods so rarely come to speak with me anymore. I wished only to know what you came to speak of.”
He scoffed, sharply mocking. “The old gods? Those of us who were babes when you were already old, my lady? Truly, I am not sure if I should be insulted or complimented.”
“Be neither, it is simply a way to distinguish those such as yourself from those newly risen to the ranks.”
“That sounds more like the Mab I knew. Too sharp with the gods because she knows choice is most of what kept her from being one of the number. Brave beyond reason, or maybe just the temper.”
“The Mab you knew was a young fool who thought a god of the Hunt might be taught to love rather than realizing she was just another thing for him to hunt. Prey he couldn’t catch so it was that much more wanted. A young woman who trusted too much in her own charms and spoke too much to a man she wanted to bed.”
Herne smiled at her and she saw his teeth were still sharp and deadly as any canine’s. “I am not so much older than you were then. Would you call me a young fool?”
“If you think I’ll be swayed to replace my husband with a worn out god who got made over to ‘fit in,’ then without a doubt I think you’re a young fool.”
Herne snarled, all civilized pretenses falling away for a moment, and her heart raced for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t have the sense to be afraid. But she wondered what his teeth would feel like against her skin when he was that angry. Which, of course was just brilliant of her. Focus on the situation at hand. But before she had mastered herself, he spoke, words biting.
“If you love this human of yours so much, have you told him Mab isn’t your true name? Or am I still the only one you ever mentioned that to?”
She hadn’t. She never told anyone. It was her strength and weakness. The greatest, truest price for the power she had, her true name held power for her like few others. A person who possessed it could own her will, her everything. So no one living or dead knew her full name, even Fate didn’t know. No gods, no angels. Big G God might, but he wasn’t telling anyone. Anyone who had spoken ‘Mab’ and summoned her might understand the power of her complete name. Anyone who knew her would know why she allowed no one to have it.
“I’ve spent a long time looking for it, Mave.” She shuddered and his smile grew sharper. “There are echoes of the unspoken name, because something that powerful doesn’t just rest quietly, Meabh.” Her skin grew whiter than new fallen snow. His eyes narrowed, smelling blood. “Maeve, I’m close aren’t I? I bet I could force you to do quiet a bit like this. In fact, it’s too tempting not to use. Mab Mave Meabh Maeve satisfy me until I cry out.”
She slunk toward him and again he marveled at how she made pregnancy look like strength and sex without trying. He could smell her, sharply female like no other woman he had known. The thrill of a hunt drawing to a close sang in his blood, ringing in his ears. Her hands rested on his chest lightly, drawing his attention to the slender elegance of her fingers, so like a doe’s legs as she ran in flight from the hunter’s bow. His breath grew shallower as those fingers danced down his chest to his belt, removing the gold covered iron belt buckle artfully, then unzipping his pants forced his breath to catch in his throat. Her white fingers traced cool lines down his pelvis to surround his rigid erection. And then her hand went from teasingly cool to painfully cold, to so cold it burnt and spread over his skin. His anatomy below the waist went into agony before freezing solid, a little bit at a time, eating down into his legs and feet. He keened in pain and the freezing stopped spreading. He went to curse her, but that cold hand went to his lips, shushing him for fear she would freeze the rest of him, trapping him in nothingness.
“You aren’t a complete fool, I’ll give that to you. But finding the pieces and putting them together improperly, well, that doesn’t make the necessary whole. So close and yet no where near. All you did was spread a net to trap yourself, magnifying me. As you failed and no harm was done, I have a warning I will give you exactly once. Leave me and mine alone. Stop looking for my name. It won’t come to you and if you had it, it would destroy you a bit at at time. Like all true invocations in has a will and way of its own. Go your way and forget today. Or you will stand frozen for the rest of time, never to be reborn again. Understand?”
He nodded under her fingers. “Now release me.” She was quick and brutal, slitting his throat so fast he blinked twice before he realized he was dead. And then the body was gone, leaving nothing behind. The way of the old gods. Kill them and they rise again, whole. Being crippled or trapped, that was their real fear.
Her knees went weak for a moment. He had been close, too close. She could have been trapped. But Herne wasn’t that smart or focused, something had directed him. Something that wanted her to get a message. Considering it for a few moments, she reached a conclusion. It was clear that her name was finally ready to be heard. And there was only one person she could or would tell. This was going to be an interesting conversation.