TDWP: The Devil's Run Pt. 6
A long, near-musical howl behind her caused more than Andrea's pulse to jump. Even as her steps skipped a beat, a thrill shivered though her body. It was a mix of emotional flavors, and did, yes, include a touch of fear. But what struck her as oddest was the fact she knew that voice, even though it was not "human" sound at all.
Though Andy had been leery of running without her shoes, the difference in how it felt to run was astonishing. Her steps were more sure, her pace felt unstoppable. She'd been worried about sticks and stones, about sharp intrusions. It wasn't like she had callous, but it was as if her feet always knew where the softest grass grew.
If it weren't for the seriousness of the journey, she might even have enjoyed it. And it did not change, that she was actually weary and had been for a long time. But she ran, if not at full speed, with alacrity.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of white in the shadows and then it disappeared, retreated.
She breathed out, without actually vocalising, "Miranda."
If she had a question about how the shifter would guide her, she found out. If she started the wrong way, she got snarled at and sometimes even out and out startled into going a different way. Miranda would appear, still human in form, but teeth bared and dangerous, right in front of her. Andy would turn on near instinct, and bolt in a direction opposite. As long as she headed the right way, she would catch her in those side glances. Or, because it was Miranda, a rare backward glance, one which Andy never attempted while running from the other two shifters, and yet it made her look oh, so vulnerable; which caused Miranda to push.
And there would be a different kind of awareness, not quite so visible, except now and then in a hint of gleam of the eye or the way she thought she saw Miranda grin, that felt different. She could sense, could feel a rising excitement and tension building, not just in herself, but in Miranda. The silver-haired woman was enjoying the chase and it was a primal thing, a call to the wild parts in Andy. And then there were the noises. Growls would change in intonation, or a howl would sound, and Andy's body responded with trills of need and she secretly hoped to reach that waterfall soon; very, very soon.
The path took a familiar turn much more quickly than she expected. Andy heard the water first and that remembered need for it, picked up her pace. She dug in, perhaps surprising the shifter, but Andy suddenly needed the coolness. The path just opened for her, and she pelted down the final steps, lifting the roll up and off. The pool came into view and she could practically taste the relief.
It wasn't exactly that she forgot Miranda was chasing her, so much as... the refuge... the call of it... pulled so very sharply. She dropped what she held on a sunwarmed stone with careless abandon and was on the edge of making a leap.
She was grabbed from behind, one arm wrapped around, and lifted. Andy yelped despite herself as she felt her feet go off the ground. It was full body contact, back to front. She was carried, in an odd kind of surprise and struggle, forward - exactly where she wanted to go, but not the way she'd expected. The other arm...
She heard the shredding sound before she registered just what was happening. The black t-shirt, which wasn't hers to begin with, was torn, from the neck and straight down the middle; all without those dangerous claws ripping into her skin. The remnant fell to the sides, like an undone sweater, exposing soft breasts and plump, taut nipples.
Water splashed around her and the mere contact of it caused her to cry out. An audience might have thought the scream was one of fun, but it was the result of hot flesh contacting cool water, just like last time.
"I've got you." It could have been a claim, but Andrea heard the reassurance. She simply could not respond to it. She shuddered and cried as Miranda dragged her further into the water, imprisoning her in an uncompromising clasp. Well, perhaps an audience would not have seen fun. They might have seen terror. Or rather, Miranda's People might have seen one thing, while her own another. And Humans would have seen a struggling woman fighting an overpowering capture.
Capture. Oh, she was caught at last. Almost... Almost..
They were both in the water now, chin deep and she knew that her feet would touch the ground, but not yet. Certainly, Miranda's stance was absolutely firm. The corner of her eye caught the drift of color and Andy suddenly understood why the shifter had wanted the pool. Or at least part of the reason.
The other was now apparent too. She must have known Andy was overheating, felt the fever upon her brow.
Andrea felt the release of her jean's snap, the loosening as a zipper was undone. If she thought, for a moment, that the heavy fabric was safe from Miranda's assault, she was mistaken. The pants were torn from her body, just as easily as the shirt had been, and more completely. The only saving grace, was, Andy stilled long enough to watch dirty blue fabric be tossed out of the water to land with heavy splats on the ground.
Then she felt Miranda's hand slide through the waistband of skimpy underwear, from hip to middle and down. Andy gasped as the shifter's free hand cupped her and bucked lightly, instinctively into the grip. "Mine." It was a command and an owning. Not once did she let Andy go.
Andy was loathe to argue, but there was a technicality. "Not yet," she managed.
It wasn't the water, though it was cold enough and eventually it might have happened. No, it was the growl that followed raised the hairs on her body as her skin prickled in response.
A single fingertip moved, and Andy felt the careful slide of claw and flesh brush very, very intimately against her. The writer's hands clasped the arm that grasped her tightly, but she'd been in an everlasting state of excitement since she'd first spotted Miranda, despite the circumstances. All it took was that one sweet stroke and a very sincere burst of pleasure pushed the next shuddering scream. She was bent forward as her body shook out of her control, and the next thing she knew, what was left of the shirt she was wearing disappeared.
As she recovered and was distracted by the sudden absence of a barrier between her back and Miranda's breasts, the final cloth barrier, was destroyed and removed. She was now as naked as Miranda.
The next part was as necessary as the previous, but she took her time. Now that Miranda had information she could use and would. She pulled them down, slowly, giving Andy plenty of time to catch her breath, if she actually needed to, which the editor wasn't quite convinced of, but Miranda might be many things; she was not a water breather. She had to.
So they went under the water together. Another time she might have let go, but she'd understood instinctively that the rules of "capture" required that she hold on. She thought she knew to what point, but for now, this wasn't just about their need for each other.
The water felt good, cleansing. She didn't want any blood from the other shifter to be any part of this. She used sand, carefully scrubbing herself and Andrea, who'd had all sorts of foreign essences on her, and switching hands to hold the younger woman when she needed to. It was quick, but thorough and not too rough, or at least she tried not to let it be. Yet. Though she was not as careful with her claws and had known she'd shocked Andrea when she'd made a very deliberate counter scratch along her wounded thigh and other cuts she'd received; She touched everything except the first Marking bite. That would take a different effort, though this was all, at the moment about the mystical, the symbolic act. It was not about healing. That would also come later.
She knew what she was doing, but Andrea had yet to understand and wouldn't for awhile.
Several small dunkings and emergences later, she knew it was time and she was far more than ready. Her own need pulsed fiercely. The need to be clean had been sated, and her need for Andrea was rising exponentially the longer their bodies remained in contact..
The girl had stopped wiggling in her grasp and was leaning against her, eyes closed.
Miranda's lips quirked. She loved the peaceful way her Andrea looked, but it was time to shake things up.
She moved, and as easy as it had been to carry the brunette into the water, it was easier to take her out of it. This is because she used both hands to carry the girl, one arm slung under her legs and the other supporting her back. She snapped out an order, "You will undo the roll and prepare the blanket."
Before Andrea could respond one way or the other, her feet were on the dry ground and she was being propelled forward. Miranda's hold had shifted and now her hand held the woman by her hair, at the scruff of the neck, tight, without being brutal. But it gave her some leverage and Andrea enough freedom of movement to act in concert with her wishes.
The girl knelt and where she did, grass grew, cushioning her. Miranda somehow doubted that Andrea was aware of this, but it was not the time to point it out. She was doing good to speak in full sentences for what she wanted anyhow.
"Hurry. I want your mouth on me."
Those rough words seemed to catch Andrea like a lightening strike. The girl pitched forward, and wrestled with knots suddenly gone too complicated for her turned on mind, but they undid, finally in her desperate grasp. The small amount of goods the blanket hid, were dumped to the side and it was unfurled with a graceful snap of her arms. The blanket seemed to float to the ground in slow motion, compared to Miranda's sudden urgency, but it eventually settled flat and ready.
They did not bother with smoothing anything out. Miranda all but pushed Andrea onto the blanket and turned her around, pressing her back so she could kneel on one knee and straddle her. Andrea reached out, not un-oblivious to the demand of the pose and the way Miranda's hand gripped her hair. She gripped Miranda's hips with a surprising strength, though, perhaps the shifter should not have been startled at all, and pulled her to meet her lips; and tongue.
This time it was Miranda who gasped, as Andrea began an insistent invasion, stroking her tongue and pushing along the velvet line to the sweetening ruby of her need. The brunette's eyes closed and she hummed into the contact, seeming to drink Miranda up with a burgeoning abandon. It was delicate, persistent, deep and amazing. Andrea drew Miranda's desire in quick delicious strokes, which heightened the fire that had already been blazing in her; ever since she saw Andrea, ever since she started the hunt.
The only thing that kept her from breaking contact from that heated, stirring contact to throw Andrea down, was that the spiral hit hard and fast and took her under. Pleasure thundered through the silver-haired shifter, and she threw back her head, eyes gone icy-white blue, to roar it out. Her hand clenched in reaction, tightening her hold and she pulled her Nymph back and up, and when the cry was done their mouths connected in a hard kiss, the kind that bruised.
The ache was eased, and fiercely so, but as soon as their lips connected it erupted back into life in her and visions, potent ones, played in the back of her mind, threatened the minimum composure she'd worked for. She growled into the kiss, let her tongue plunder and invade and be received. She leaned down, or was pulled, until they were both nearly prone. Miranda's free hand anxiously stroked down the younger woman's side and curved around to capture one luscious breast.
The anxious kiss broke, but only just, and Miranda's teeth and lips scraped down Andrea's vulnerable neck. She broke skin, tasted blood. The urgency scaled in her. Intentions changed and her touch changed, becoming rougher and at the same time silkier.
She rolled a tight nipple between her fingertips, played it without quite pinching, and then drew a claw down it; without cutting, because that would be an absolute sin to break perfection. Andy arched toward her, and they moved, repositioning, because of the younger woman's need to open for her. Miranda moved between her legs, drawing her claws along the underside of one of the younger woman's breast and scoring just enough to sting, while she captured the other between her teeth. She pulled without biting and then surrendered to the urge to suck, to lick and taste.
Andrea pushed up against her. Her body, which had cooled was heating again, and it was if a river of passion had been ignited in the younger woman. Miranda felt the sliding wetness, knew that Andrea was hungry for her, needful of her. Her claws raked down, stopping at the tip of Andrea's rib cage and then moving to her side and down her torso, before sliding around one of her thighs.
She inhaled. The woman's scent was even more aphrodisical, calling Miranda to a deeper passion until she felt as if she wanted to be inside the girl's skin. Brunette curls wrapped wetly around her fingertips, but she didn't linger there, nor, did she tease Andrea this time. She willed her claws away, not willing to harm the girl with what she needed to do next, which was to be inside her. To fill her.
Two fingers pressed in and Andrea jerked and pushed. Her hands suddenly anchored around Miranda's arm and she held her in place. "More!"
Well.
Andrea rocked and cried out, "More. Miranda." It was a heartfelt demand, almost a mystical push and Miranda, who normally exercised great control in any circumstance, felt the strangest sense that something was on the horizon. She looked up an was caught by the light in Andrea's eyes, "Fill me."
Miranda carefully released her grip in Andrea's head and grasped her at the shoulder, the one not bit, pushing her down. She withdrew her other hand, but only enough to allow her to plunge back in with three fingers instead. The pressure was astonishingly sexual, primal. Her thumb brushed across Andrea's jewel as she thrust.
And suddenly it wasn't just Andrea wanting more. Those visions hit again, the need to take her mate, the need to fill her mate, the need to be in …
Andrea cried out, was caught in the next great wave of pleasure. Miranda felt it, felt the way she clamped around her and shivered, and she felt so powerful. She wanted more.
As if hearing that unspoken, not even really thought out impulse, Andrea responded. "Yes!"
It was an invocation, a provocation.
Miranda, who never shifted without her will, was pushed and pulled from the inside. Silver hair glinted in the sunlight, covered her and then receded, but not before the change in her aspect was wrought. She felt the briefest form of dizzy, and then an unexpected heavy, throbbing sensation. It was distracting enough that she stopped moving, stopped thrusting.
Andrea, even as anxious as she was for release, paused. "What?"
"I... I..."
They both looked down, from different angles. Astonishment ghosted along their faces.
The brunette's eyes, chocolate dark, popped wide and she squeaked. "What is that?"
Miranda's voice was rough, her own azure gaze equally wide, "Me."
A self check, where she leaned back and felt herself down there had her exhaling relief. It was one thing to fantasize, to hunger, and Freud could go to blazes, because it had nothing to do with envy, but it was quite another in reality. But she was wet and she was still excited enough to know that she ached to a delicate point and all it would take is a few touches from Andrea to set her off, but now... she stared down at the thick, long muscle that seemed to point exactly where it and she wanted to go.
"How?"
Miranda knew, but it was so rare. As always there were rumors, myths... stories. She had heard of it, had, since Andrea erupted into her life, felt deeper compulsions, but this was the first time the physical aspect had ever... She pulled from the stories and generalized. "I'm an Alpha," which was true enough, "and you..." It was the first time she would say the word and she had no idea how the girl would respond, "... are my destined mate."
"Oh." Andrea took a moment to process. Then she exhaled a near worshipful, "I want that." Which turned imperious. "Give it to me."
Miranda's grin turned very toothy. Her hands grasped the younger woman by the hips, drawing her forward. Andrea's legs were already splayed, but she reached forward, grasping hold.
Miranda gasped at the surging response. It took her aback, while at the same time filling her with an incredible urgency. And then, what Andrea did once she had hold, the smooth, almost tender stroke... It thrilled her in an almost pre-verbal way. The, "oh," that burst from her lips was just shy of a grunt
Andrea's grin was just on the cusp of cheeky, but her expression could otherwise have melted steel. Or hardened it. Miranda felt herself thicken. Andrea pulled her forward, gently, until the tip was brushing against the silky line and then, just a little deeper. The brunette rocked, causing them to slide together and then, pressing her against a point that gave, she held still. Miranda tempted by everything, captured the brunette's lips in another demanding kiss.
"Please. Please, inside me. I need you." Andrea whispered as the kiss deepened.
Miranda pushed, achingly slow, but wanting to feel every point of connection as it happened until she was settled deeply, wonderfully, with Andrea wrapped like heaven's velvet around her.
She breathed through her nose, struggling for control, unaware of the near animal sound of need she made. Then Andrea said, "More. Please, please take me. Please..."
"Are you trying to break me?" At least, that was what she tried to say, but then, as if her hips had always known what to do, she moved, pistoning, at first slowly and then with deeper, more rapid plunges, with a hungry verve.
The beast showed in her eyes, her voice, her teeth and touch. Miranda was driven. Mate. Mine. The words rolled in her head and the more they did, the more she focused on them. Andrea held to her, shockingly, clung and pulled and bucked back with an equal, surprising ferocity. Miranda felt the skin on her back get scored, smelled a hint of her own blood. Smiled.
Until the younger woman tilted back and she was reminded, that her mate, her Andrea had been Marked. The wound, still raw and red and unhealed, wasn't just a mere irritation. It was something that could not be born. A different kind of noise, one that only arose with dangerous intention, with results administered far too quickly, snarled past.
Andrea had time to open her eyes, see the literal physical shift and feel the brush of silver fur against her cheek, to register that she felt a powerful fullness, before she felt sharp teeth latch onto the already wounded shoulder; piercing and covering the bite.
It should have been followed by a bellow of pain, but a lightening shock, roared through them both.
The ground shook and erupted around them. Finger-like spikes of stones, thick and impossible, rose around them; not encasing them, but as if the ground were called to rise.
Miranda did not let go, did not cease taking what was hers, was oblivious to all the heady danger of the buckling earth. She wrapped her arms around a glowing Andrea, lifting her, pulling her closer, driving into her. Claiming her.
Energy spiraled around them, through them. Andrea ground against Miranda, taking in the greatness of her, abandoning herself to the moment. Her eyes opened and were filled with a greening light. She held to Miranda, one hand on her powerful shoulder, the other on her thick thigh. Her toes dug into the dirt, pushing her forward onto her mate. She pulsed against the shifter, hips rotating as well as rocking, inner velvet clenching and unclenching. Grass, vines and flowers shredded the blanket upon which they rode, rose around them, like a shield.
Miranda cried out as she felt her ankles captured, wrapped around, "bitten" by thorns, but she refused to let go, held to her mate, pounded into her. She growled her possession, refused to fight the rising fire in her blood. Hers. Hers. Hers. From the very first, hers. Everything that was Andrea, hers. Body, hers. Babe, hers. Everything, hers. Everything.
She claimed it. She wanted it. She needed it. Her mate and mage. Her Nymph. Hers.
Then she heard the companion words. At last. At last.
"Yours." Andrea's growl was a thing of light and magic. "Mine! Yes!" Then, where before she was merely glowing, she shone, erupted. Light blew out from her, through and past Miranda, in a great bubble. The stone that had grown around them shattered, pulverized, as Andrea cried out her culmination, her rising. Trees grew, transformed and vibrated. Miranda clung as profound waves of pleasure rushed through her and she poured into Andrea, spilled and gushed into the light, and was nearly just as shattered as the stone, but re-formed; equally claimed.
Her jaws finally loosed. Around her ankles the vines disappeared, seemed to melt into her skin as light and then were gone. The wound on Andrea's shoulder poured out more light, then closed over, leaving only a perfect imprint of Miranda's more human teeth.
Andrea flung her arms around Miranda and they clung to each other, riding out the cascade as one.
Once again in the pool, this time they rested languidly in the shallow portion. Andrea reclined against Miranda, whose hand splayed loosely on her belly. The cool water and shade was a boon. They were both mildly hot from their exertions and ready for respite; momentarily.
Miranda nuzzled Andrea's neck, pecking a light kiss where a more traditional kind of love-bruise rose. She ignored the gentle rise in her libido, knowing it would become demanding soon enough.
"How will we manage?" she muttered. A mated pair, especially early on, remained close to each other. She glanced around at the changes around the waterfall. It had been green before, in the sense that it was part of the forest and pretty, but now it was beautiful, gorgeous, as if heaven's finger had touched the ground; which it had. She gazed with affection at her Andrea.
"Manage?"
"You're a Nymph. I... am the editor of Runway."
Andrea laughed. "Among other things. And since we're putting it that way, I'm a freelance writer. I can pretty much..." she sighed. "Be where I want to be."
Miranda looked to the side and blinked in confusion. "But... I thought, given location..."
Andrea turned around in her arms. She gazed into blue eyes that were anything but ice. Then she said, very seriously, very calmly. "You think I am bound to this land?"
"Aren't you? I mean, given..."
Andrea dared what no one else ever would. She pressed her fingertips to Miranda's lips, effectively shushing her. "No. No I am not. I am not ever going to be ..." She winced a little, but she had accepted this as how it was and she tried a different way, "Most Nymphs, yes, have specific locations or talents. I think we're both aware that things have changed for me." Behind her, the water rose in the pool and fanned out like a fountain, before dropping away. "Think of me as a Catalyst, Miranda. One might call me a forest nymph, but even then, you could drop me in the desert..." She laughed, "And I'm not sure it would remain desert. Or it might, depending. I am, what you might call, a very rare breed of Nymph. My family..." They would be incredibly shocked, but happy at her transformation. She wasn't sure how they might take her mating. "... will be surprised, as it was assumed that I would be largely powerless. The majority of my kind are indeed bound by their land, but those like me, are born to ensure that there is always land to be bound to. There are, however, ways around it, for travel, but I've never needed them, even in the beginning. I guess now I know why. But, honestly, Miranda, I think my real calling, my real power, may be even simpler."
"And that is?"
"Loving you. Being with you."
Miranda's breath caught and her heart warmed. She pulled Andrea tight to her and whispered against her lips, "That might be my calling too. My Andrea."
