Summer of the Unicorn Read online

  He saw Siri in his mind, tumbled among the colorful flowers, their delicate blooms crushed and fragrant beneath her writhing body. Saw her long golden legs part for him, the arms beckon. He saw her witch’s eyes blackly purple and passionate, her smile feline, her voice a siren’s. And he felt the silk of her hair, the satin of her flesh.

  He could feel her cradle him with strong, seeking limbs, hear her whispered desire. He could see the silver-furred triangle of her sex, feel the wet heat of her need for him. His eyes closed now, breath rasping as he leaned against a rough-barked tree, Boran imagined how it would be.

  —

  He watches her head move restlessly, soft moans escaping her perfect lips. He tastes the sweetness of her mouth, and his tongue rasps the sensitive hardness of her pointed nipples. He guides her hand to stroke his manhood, feeling soft fingers surround and caress the turgid flesh even as his hands fill themselves with her breasts.

  And as passion builds he caresses her body, guiding her patiently until she is a wild thing, feral in her need, writhing and pleading. Then he spreads her legs wide and lifts them high, his demanding manhood probing her wet flesh, seeking entrance. He feels her slick heat surround him, the taut membrane barring his way—only for a moment. Hears her startled, hurting but passionate cry when the barrier gives way and he thrusts deeply into her once-virginal passage.

  He feels her tightness and heat, feels her legs close about him as her hips lift with instinctive need. Feels the soft quivering flesh of her belly against his, the demand of her hard nipples against his chest. And, watching her blindly seeking face, he luxuriates in the sensations while be braces himself above her and thrusts powerfully.

  She moans and whimpers, clutching at him with hands, gripping with legs, her belly rippling with every movement, the blood flush spreading rosily over her swollen breasts and up her graceful throat. Her mouth open, eyes glazed.

  He moves faster, thrusting, plunging deeply into her welcoming heat, holding a tight rein over his own desire in order to drive her mad with hers. And he can see her face tense in a mask of need, see her eyes widen, feel the coiling, spreading tension of a female body poised on the brink of a small death. And then, in that flashing instant, he drives his body into hers with punishing force, as deeply as possible, causing her to lose her breath in an animal grunt, and as he holds himself buried in her, he brutally rips away the wall he has built in her mind.

  Between one heartbeat and the next…she remembers.

  Her eyes widen now with horror, with mind-numbing anguish, and the hands that sought his body in passion now push frantically as she struggles, broken cries escaping beautiful lips twisted in an obscene parody of passion. Terrified by his seared face and single gleaming eye, by the twisted, petrified hand cupped stiffly around her cringing breast like the dead thing it is, she screams again and again, animal cries of agony, her body twisting frantically to escape him.

  But she’s impaled, pinned in place by his heavy weight as he laughs and bucks on top of her, and pours himself into her, violating the sanctity of her chaste womb forever. And as he withdraws his spent member from her body, he forces her to remember that she invited this. She was willing, passionate. She gave herself to him.

  And he looks down on her, limbs spread limply in the crushed flowers, the gleaming silver triangle of her sex marred now by her own blood and traces of his seed, and he laughs as he sees the terrible anguish in her face, the knowledge of what she has lost to him….

  —

  Boran steadied himself against the tree, his hoarse, panting breath finally easing. He turned his gaze to the pool where the sorceress casually dried her naked body among the flowers, unconscious of the watcher in the woods.

  “You’ll surrender to me, princess,” he whispered. “You’ll willingly spread your legs for me. I’ll brand you mine before he has a taste of you. And when I’ve finished with you, there won’t be much left for him. But you’ll enjoy it, princess. For a while.”

  He stood in the concealing darkness of the forest and absently adjusted his trousers, watching as Siri and her unicorn guardian set out for the cabin.

  “Soon,” he murmured.

  Chapter 6

  Hunter opened his eyes and said, “But there’s no sea.” He grappled with his own words silently; they made no sense. Piece together reality, he told himself firmly.

  He was in bed. In the cabin. Alone. The narrow shelf she’d made into a bed for herself was empty. Morning sunlight shone through windowpanes.

  Ah. He’d been asleep, then. Presumably dreaming. About the sea. Hunter closed his eyes with a frown, flipping through the pages of his subconscious looking for the dream. Siri in a moonlit pool, he remembered suddenly, naked and beautiful. Laughing. Just beyond his grasp. He’d reached for her, and then—There had been no pool, but Siri had stood by his—bed?—dressed and holding a basket. Her lips had moved, forming words. She was going to get seaweed, he should sleep.

  Seaweed?

  “But there’s no sea,” Hunter murmured, opening his eyes. Satisfied with having unraveled a puzzle, he didn’t really notice at that moment just how big a puzzle he’d been left with. Instead, his mind occupied with the reality of last night and the dream which had followed, he linked his hands together behind his neck and stared at the heavily beamed ceiling, thinking of Siri. Lovely Siri.

  There existed, he knew, few things or beings which remained “beautiful” irrespective of opinions governing standards of beauty. A rose was lovely—unless one was allergic, when it became an instrument of torture. The view from a mountaintop was usually breathtaking—unless one suffered from vertigo, when sickness and dizziness blinded one. And a lovely woman was considered lovely by some—but not by others.

  Musingly, Hunter thought of the possible reaction if Siri were to walk the corridors of some busy spaceport with her graceful warrior’s stride. He pictured her at diplomatic balls, royal banquets, and merely wandering through some of the better-known tourist cities. And he knew that she’d cause a first-class riot wherever she went. Hers was truly that rare beauty, that curiously charismatic aura which would inevitably halt conversations in midsentence, draw all eyes, and cause the unwary to slam head-on into certain immovable objects such as walls.

  Hunter chuckled to himself, picturing that likely series of events. Then he sobered, realizing that quite probably Siri would never leave this valley, and that the only other beings aside from himself who would ever see her beauty would be men too soulless to appreciate it.

  Beauty to drive men mad…

  Yes, the Huntmen would see her in that light, because she stood fiercely between them and a source of gold—the unicorns.

  One thought led to another, and Hunter found himself exploring, as he had countless times, the bond between her and the mythical creatures she guarded. The unicorns trusted her with their very existence; the trust they felt for her was a tangible, visible thing, glowing in their dark eyes and evident in each gentle nudge. And Siri returned that love a thousandfold.

  Hunter stirred uneasily, restlessly in his bed. Was it possible for Siri to love a man with that riveting, selfless devotion? Or had she given all that she had to give to the unicorns?

  Abruptly, a new and startling thought occurred to him, and Hunter sat bolt upright. He had missed it! Bombarded with unicorns, Guardians, Mermaids, and dragons, he had somehow missed a possible solution to the entire problem!

  Siri entered the cabin just in time to hear him say triumphantly, “The Guardians!”

  “You awaken very strangely,” she noted dryly, crossing the room to place a basket on the table.

  Impatient with this trivial aside, Hunter fixed his gaze on her. “The Guardians. You said no creature that ever lived is extinct; the Guardians wouldn’t allow the unicorns to die!”

  She looked at him, her ebony eyes veiled. “Which two would you have them save?” she asked softly.

  “What?”

  Her voice still soft and emotionless, she s
aid, “If the Guardians were to offer their protection, only a mated pair would survive to be the seeds of a new herd. That means that nine Unicorns would have to die first. If the Guardians stepped in.”

  Hunter felt elation drain away. “But…the Guardians would step in, if necessary?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? They save the other animals.”

  Eyes still veiled, voice still soft, she said, “Yes…they save the animals. And I don’t know how to make you understand that Unicorns aren’t animals. They’re a race of dreams. Dreams are created and nurtured in the hearts of men, and dreams live or die in the hearts of men. Hunter…” She sighed and shook her head. “You should see that more clearly than I. For me, the Unicorns began as reality; for you, they began as dream.”

  Hunter took a deep breath, still fighting to see, to understand. Because if he didn’t understand, there was no way he could find his way past the wall between them. “And the Guardians won’t save a dream?”

  “Dreams are what men make of them.”

  “And women are the keepers of dream?”

  Siri looked at him, conscious of a flicker of warmth in the coldness of her pain. “You’re close,” she murmured. “So close to understanding.”

  “Help me.” It was half command, half plea, needing.

  “I’m trying, Hunter.” She sank down in the chair, gazing across the room at a man with this terrible need to understand, searching within herself for something that would help him, perhaps help them both. “Each race,” she said slowly, “has purpose. A reason for being. For mankind, the purpose is building, growing. For womankind, the purpose is nurturing. And millions of years of evolution never change those very basic traits. In Nature, the traits of each animal balance out those of other animals. Meat-eaters help control the population of plant-eaters. Insects pollinate flowers; flowers provide food.”

  “And unicorns?”

  Siri groped for words. “Unicorns…are the proof that mankind, for all his technical and scientific advances, can still dream. Can still cherish a myth as a myth, with no need to prove or disprove it.” Very softly, she said, “The Unicorns know their own origins. Do you know what they believe?”

  “What?” Unconsciously, he lowered his own voice.

  Siri smiled. “Like any race, they possess…legends of their own, and a Creator of their own. They believe that their Creator was a gentle dreamer, who came upon the twisted horn of a gazelle one day, and dared to make of it a legend. And that gentle dreamer was a man, a man who endowed his creations with the traits he idealized in women.”

  Hunter listened, fascinated and curiously moved.

  “He molded them,” Siri went on softly. “He gave them grace and strength and heartbreaking beauty. He gave them a trumpeting call that could be heard for miles. And he gave them their Dance. He made them gentle and kind. And he chose as their homes cool, shaded forests and sunny valleys.”

  She looked down at her hands, folded atop the table, then back at Hunter. “Once, Unicorns felt no fear of man; how could they when their own Creator was a man? But they were shy, elusive creatures. They lived in peace, harming no living thing. And men came, because they valued golden horns above dream. And they killed. Can you imagine the devastation, the heartbreak, for the Unicorns? A race they revered as gods came to kill them.”

  Hunter nodded, trying and failing to swallow the lump in his throat. Her words evoked images too painful to forget easily.

  Siri nodded in her turn. “So they went into hiding. Heartbroken and stunned. Unicorns no longer peopled forests and valleys. Mankind was not yet ready to release his dreams from his secret innermost heart. And while the dreams were hidden, the Unicorns were, too. They learned to fear man.

  “But their Creator had idealized women, and the Unicorns did as well. In time, only a woman could win the trust of a Unicorn. And when men began using…maidens…to trap Unicorns, even that instinctive trust became a hard-won thing.” Almost inaudibly, she said, “But what’s hurt them the most, what’s nearly destroyed them time after time is that they’ve had to kill men in order to survive.” Ebony eyes fierce with the rage of grief, she stared at Hunter. “How would you feel if you were forced to kill, again and again, your image of God just to survive?”

  Siri rose to her feet jerkily, needing to move because stillness was abruptly unbearable. “Do you know why Cloud acts the way he does now?” she asked unsteadily, memories rushing in to add to her pain and confusion. “Why he’s listless and why his eyes are heartbroken? Because his son was brutally killed by a man, and because Cloud killed that man in the first rage he’s ever felt in his long life. His horn and his soul are stained with the blood of his god and he’ll never be able to forget that!”

  Driven by an instinct not to be probed or ignored, Hunter left his bed and crossed the room swiftly to her side. He drew her into his arms, intent on comforting and nothing else, unaware that it was the first truly selfless action of his entire adult life. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I didn’t know, Siri…I didn’t understand.”

  Too overwrought to be conscious of the chemistry between them, Siri blindly reached for the comfort he offered. His body was warm and strong, offering a shelter and an anchor she’d never needed before. She felt the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek and the soft intimacy of his breath stirring her hair. Her arms went around his waist briefly, holding him because in that moment, for the first time in her life, nothing else was so vitally, compellingly real.

  Siri didn’t cry. But for a moment—a single split second out of time—she wanted to relinquish burdens that had never before felt heavy, and needed to turn her back on responsibilities that were tearing her apart. In the last days, she had learned the bitter weight of the burden of responsibility and wondered what life would be—could be—like with total freedom. For a moment. Then, torn by bewilderment and anguish, she drove the rebellious emotions back into hiding. Total freedom didn’t exist; she knew that. And her life was the one she had been born to.

  Hollow comfort. That talisman no longer worked.

  She drew away from Hunter gently, eyes veiled as she gathered the reins of her control tight. Turning away from him, she picked up the basket and carried it to a small work-shelf by the hearth. She said nothing, because there was nothing to say and because she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  Hunter, obeying once again instincts that seemed to grow stronger and more certain with each passing moment, followed her lead and said nothing. He returned to the bed to find and don his shirt and boots, then came back to the table, intending to offer his help in preparing the morning meal.

  That was when his earlier, unnoticed puzzle loomed in his consciousness abruptly and demanded a solution.

  “Seaweed?”

  Siri half-turned at the blank query, eyeing Hunter with a somewhat strained smile. “You are an odd man. You awake with strange words on your lips and seem prone to store information in your mind until you decide to study it.”

  “There’s been too much to absorb all at once.” He defended himself reflexively, then blinked. “What information?”

  “I told you I was born inside The Reaper.”

  “I remember.”

  “And that my mother is a Mermaid.”

  Hunter winced. “That, too.”

  “Then isn’t it reasonable that a certain inference should be drawn from those two facts?”

  “Nothing is reasonable in this valley.”

  “The question stands.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then cautiously sat down in the chair. Cautiously because the fine line between reality and impossibility had grown fainter. Again. “Are you trying to tell me that there’s a…”

  “Sea inside The Reaper. Yes.”

  Carefully, Hunter said, “Seas beneath mountains aren’t unknown, but it’s impossible for a mountain this far inland to hold a saltwater sea. The ocean is hundreds of miles away.”

  Siri leaned back against the hearth an
d folded her arms, staring at him patiently. “Unicorns are impossible. Dragons are impossible. Mermaids are impossible. You’re quibbling over a sea?”

  Hunter rubbed a thumb along his jaw, nodding slowly. “Forgive me,” he murmured. “I forgot to whom I was speaking. And where I am. Of course there’s a sea. It only stands to reason that there’s a sea.”

  “I thought you’d get the point.”

  “Does the ocean feed the sea?” he asked curiously.

  Siri had turned back to her meal preparation. “Yes. There’s an underground river from the ocean to The Reaper.”

  Hunter was busy coming to several realizations. “The lake. It isn’t mineral water; it’s seawater. That’s why the unicorns won’t drink from it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your mother…um…lives in The Reaper?”

  “Not really. She comes to visit. But it’s a long journey through the river, and she misses the other Merpeople if she’s away from them too long. And for most of the Winter, of course, the Merpeople have to remain in the deepest part of the ocean because it’s so cold.”

  Merpeople? Hunter wondered distractedly; the meaning, he felt, was clear, but the very concept bewildered him. “Is she here now?” he asked finally.

  “Yes,” Siri responded, feeling restless. She could hardly dismiss his questions now after having decided to answer them, but her veneer of serenity was painfully thin.

  “Can I meet her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Several reasons.”

  “Which are?” he asked, impatient now.

  “One: You’d have to get past Bundy, and since he was born to guard that passage, I doubt you’d be able to. Two: My mother avoids men because of the loss of my father. And three—” She turned to face him, forcing a smile. “Do you really want to fall in love with a Mermaid and drown?”