Theodore Lewis set down the tray of freshly cooked oatcakes, wincing as the hot metal scorched through the tea-towel he held.
‘Not so bad.’ He nodded down at the bland offerings, hoping he’d added enough treacle to make them palatable. ‘Perhaps a warm cake will tempt him. He must eat something.’
Theodore was determined to see his unexpected guest healed of his injuries and brought back to good health. If only to hold a decent conversation with another living person. It really was no matter that the person in question was curiously lovely, and had clearly been in a dreadful altercation; the mystery and intrigue of the arrival were almost too exciting to bear.
A loosened shutter outside slammed against the stonework, the wind howling its discontent for long hours now. Theodore barely flinched. He’d tend to the shutter later, content that he at least knew the origin of the ruckus. The same could not be said for many other noises he’d experienced in his two-year tenure at the remote and excruciatingly lonely church of St. Ninian’s.
Ninekirks, as the locals called it. An impressive but isolated building hunched in a wide expanse of woodlands and open fields. Theodore could count on both hands the number of parishioners who’d actually walked through the heavy wooden doors to pray with him over those years. He spent an inordinate amount of time polishing the pews to stop himself going mad from boredom and loneliness, and had beamed with pleasure when, last spring, a homely woman had commented on the cleanliness of his church. She’d also complimented his sponge cake; nothing saved a man’s sanity like a kitchen and a decent kitchen garden.
‘Sponge cake would have been more tempting. Should have done that,’ he muttered to himself, transferring the warm oatcakes from tray to plate gingerly. ‘No eggs though, you clod. When the snowstorm dies down I’ll take a trip to Crawford’s farm.’
It would be days before that might be possible; the snow had never come down so hard and fast as it did now.
Theodore glanced out the window, or rather, peered into the haze of white that the landscape had become. Winter showed no intention of ever letting spring invade her territory again. She was in a petulant mood today, whipping her snowflakes into a blizzard that had hammered at the cottage for the entire night. A good thing he’d found the stranger before the storm hit yesterday; he’d not have survived a night in the elements. Now he lay safely tucked up in Theodore’s bed whilst the heavens roared around the church and its cottage.
A silly thrill ran through him as he wiped his hands and set about pouring a small cup of milk. Theodore had not laid eyes on another soul in nearly two months, and even then his visitors had been a bereaved mother and her sister, who only wished to kneel in quiet sorrow by the grave of a long-lost child. Little wonder this new arrival had his body humming with excitement. He was tired of talking to himself, polishing sacred vessels till he could see every spot on his skin in the silver reflection, and re-reading books until he could have rewritten them from memory alone.
Theodore had never prayed to the Lord for a change in circumstances; that was too vain a request. But he’d certainly thanked the Lord profusely yesterday morning. Theodore had trundled off to the woodshed, cursing again the fact it had not been built directly beside his cottage, and found a strange man huddled against a gravestone: lips blue, clothes soaked with blood, a face of the most astounding heart-shape, and eyes of profoundly lovely violet.
Theodore set down the full cup on the silver tray alongside the cooling oatcakes. He turned the plate a little left, then a little to the right, wishing he’d chosen a matching cup and plate with fancier designs; the set with tiny rosebuds would have been much more suitable. The tray was impressive, though: intricate scrollwork carved into the silver, and handles like twisted vines. He saw no need for it to sit in the church cupboard waiting for a mass that had not been held in half a century.
Theodore blew some crumbs from the tray and scowled at himself.
‘The man’s unconscious, you dolt. And very unwell. Hardly about to open his eyes to comment on your china.’ Those violet eyes had only been visible a short moment when Theodore scooped up the fellow and carried him indoors yesterday. ‘Another few sleepless nights like the last, and you’ll be glad to be rid of him. For all you know you are tending a murderer. Wouldn’t be right to give a murderer the decent set now, would it? No matter how enchanting that fiend may look.’
Theodore cleared his throat and set off with the tray; a quick trip in the modest cottage, down the narrow hallway to the last door on the right, just before the backdoor opened out onto a kitchen garden now totally submerged beneath a heavy layer of snow.
Balancing the tray on one open palm, he raised his free hand and prepared to knock. His heart beat quicker than it should; its pace hadn’t much abated since he’d come across the wounded stranger half-buried in the snowfall. For the first time since he’d been virtually exiled to Ninekirks, Theodore felt desperately alive.
The shutters beat themselves against the stonework, and somewhere distant the wind howled like a pack of wolves on the prowl. Gooseflesh rose on his arms, but he blamed the draughts he could not seem to prevent, and knocked softly.
‘I’m going to enter the room now, if that is alright with you?’ he called out. ‘Don’t be alarmed. It is just me. It is not your hurly quill.’
For some strange reason, the stranger in his bed often cried out against a quill.
‘The hurly quill,’ the dishevelled and bruised man would moan, ‘will come, will come.’
Theodore had feared the rage of a fever, but the man was cool to the touch, no matter how the fire was stoked or blankets were piled. Theodore pushed the bedroom door open, wincing as the hinges squealed his arrival. Heat rushed from the room, and the stranger moved restlessly beneath the covers, groaning softly.
‘It’s only me. Theodore. Do you remember? I’ve brought you food.’
‘No!’ The man sat bolt upright, black hair wild, hands raised as though warding off an attack.
Theodore jumped in fright. An oatcake launched from the plate, splitting in two when it hit the wooden floor. ‘It’s me, just me.’
But the stranger either did not care, or did not remember the man who had brought him in from the biting cold and tended to the awful gash upon his shoulder; dressing and bandaging the wound several times since yesterday morning’s discovery.
‘No more, I’ll not surrender…’ Theodore’s unexpected guest struggled beneath the blankets, twisting himself into an ever-tightening cocoon of thick wool and horsehair. ‘Let me go.’ He bucked madly at the constraint; not for the first time.
‘Careful,’ Theodore cried. ‘You’ll —’
The man toppled from the narrow bed, landing upon the side where there was no rug to cushion the fall. The thump was loud and discomforting. So too was the whimper of pain.
‘Oh goodness!’ Theodore set down the tray on the bedcovers, where it sat lopsided amongst the dislodged bedding. ‘Your arm. Oh, dear me…are you alright?’
The stranger’s nightshirt had slipped in the fall, leaving one slender, milk-white shoulder bare; the bandaged shoulder where a terrible gash had bled thick and fast when Theodore first found him in the cemetery.
Theodore moved quickly, dropping to his knees, reaching for the offending blanket that had brought on such a panic. ‘Here, let me free you. Easy now, hush now. No one is harming you.’
Theodore had been woken several times last night by anguished cries, rushing from where he slept on the couch in the front parlour to calm a frightened man who muttered nonsense about wild hunters and the seelie, and how he’d slay them if Theodore would just hand him his sword. Theodore did not believe in creatures of folklore, but knew many did; that they believed his own Lord a fiction, a god made by man, and not by truth. On long, dark nights here in Ninekirks he often wondered if they were right.
But that did not stop him praying to his Saviour as he worked to calm his frantic guest. He’d found over the course of the long night that it was best to whisper his intentions and set his voice low, as he did now.
‘I’m just going to touch your shoulder, now your right hand, and I’ll need to tug that blanket at your waist to have them all come away. Relax now. Well done…very good. Don’t forget to breathe.’
Night-black lashes flickered, violet eyes finding focus. ‘You are here.’
A reply was slow in making its way up Theodore’s tight throat. The change in the man was remarkable. He was alert, wide-eyed. The mottled green bruising that had covered his sharp chin was now gone. The stranger stared at him, studying his face intently; making Theodore conscious of every forty of his years. ‘I am here. I hope you don’t mind…you were uncertain about me during the night.’
‘I thought you were the one who tried to end my life.’ A smile curled pale pink lips. ‘But I see now you were my saviour, and feel much better for it.’
Theodore’s skin tingled at the praise; or perhaps it was their closeness. His knees were pressed against the man’s hip, his arms wrapped around him in an awkward embrace as he worked at the last tangle of fabric. The winter storm thrashed the world outside; the muffled clang of the church’s bell was heard as furious winds assaulted it. Theodore glanced at the small window that rattled against its latch.
‘I do not think you need to worry that those who attacked you will return soon.’ Highwaymen, perhaps. He’d heard rumours of their presence in the area when he first arrived. ‘This blizzard is a force to be reckoned with.’
‘As was the fae bastard that unseated me. But they will not find me here.’
Theodore tried to place the accent. Peculiar, a hint of Glaswegian perhaps, but with an odd inflection he didn’t recognise. Clearly, the man had said fat, instead of fae, as it had sounded.
‘Was it a bandit who toppled you from your horse?’ Theodore enquired gently.
The stranger watched him again in that intent way, a look that should have been discomforting perhaps, but only sent another thrill coursing beneath Theodore’s skin. The man shook his head slowly, amusement bringing a spark to his unfathomable eyes. How old was this fellow? Theodore could not pin the years down; the man’s features, his mannerisms, spoke of youth one moment, then a turn of his head and he held lines at his brow and the edges of his eyes, just as Theodore himself did.
‘Much time and silver was spent turning this church and its graveyard into a haven for dark riders such as me,’ the stranger said. ‘I am hidden well, priest.’
Theodore paused in his untangling, frowning. ‘I am merely a curate, and one with no reverend to assist. What do you mean by time and silver — ’
‘I would not describe you as merely anything.’ The stranger lifted his hand and touched his cool fingers to the back of Theodore’s hand; his nails, oddly, held a hint of the violet of his eyes, their length longer than was usual upon a man. Theodore prayed he’d not felt the shiver that ran through him; a shiver of anticipation, of sharp excitement. ‘You saved me from a cold and miserable night in the elements. I am in your debt, and I shall pay you back in kind.’
A blush heated Theodore’s cheeks. ‘You do not owe me anything. What man of God would I be if I left you as I found you?’
‘A man like many others.’ There was that strange fluidity again; the man’s features suddenly heavy with maturity, his smile dark with delicious secrets. ‘A man like those my liege would have us hunt.’
Theodore froze. ‘I beg your pardon?’ For the first time since he’d come across this stranger by the gravestone, a pinprick of fear found him.
‘Oh my, I have said too much.’ The man’s shapely fingers touched Theodore’s cheeks. His skin was cool, but somehow his touch brought warmth; a heat that chased away the icy prickle of trepidation. ‘Fear not, for you are a decent man. Our blades and hounds will never come for you. Do not be frightened by the storm when it passes again. It is not men like you we seek for our hunt.’
Theodore nodded slowly, the man’s fingers caressing his cheek. ‘I understand.’
He didn’t, not truly. But nor did it matter. He’d allow himself to believe the man’s mind simply knocked about by the incident that had wounded him; so long as Theodore did not lose his company.
The stranger took his hand from Theodore’s cheek. Air rushed into his lungs, a deep breath desperately needed. His body buzzed; a mix of mad excitement and vicious nerves.
The last time he’d felt so alive was the day he approached the Archdeacon; wishing to speak with him of a certain vicar’s poor treatment of those he deemed unworthy of God’s love.
Theodore had spend weeks in prayer, searching for the courage to voice his unhappiness at Father Goodwin’s treatment of women abandoned by their husbands, and the men he’d decided must be sodomites for how they held themselves; no care for the truth or the irony, considering how often the vicar’s wandering hands found their way to Theodore’s body. Father Goodwin was not only a lecherous bigot, but a thief too, dipping his hand into the tithes with abandon, whilst many in his parish went without a meal so that they could give to God.
Theodore had stepped into the Archdeacon’s office full of righteousness and certainty; certain he’d be heard. Only to walk out again, bereft of faith, and find himself on a train a week later, banished to Ninekirks; where there was no one to listen to a word he said, let alone heed his pleas for fairness and charity.
For two years he’d kept watch over a forgotten church; and now realised he too was forgotten. In danger of losing himself entirely.
Until he found himself here, with this perplexing stranger, whose looks and speech seemed otherworldly. A stranger whose touch stirred Theodore from the slumber of these past years.
He should have been terrified.
But he hungered instead.
‘Best we get you off the floor,’ he said gruffly, returning to tugging at the last tangle of blanket snagged at the man’s knee. ‘Let me take care of this.’
‘I like the way you take care of me. But I do not know your name.’ The curve of his lips, the sweep of his cheeks, all mesmerising. ‘Will you give me your name?’
Theodore swallowed. Telling this man his name felt dangerous and thrilling; an exchange that would make them known to each other in unchangeable ways.
And still he was not afraid.
‘My name is Theodore.’
‘Theodore.’ The man caressed the name with his tongue, tasted it on his lips, and swallowed it deep. It was lewd and beautiful. ‘Lovely, gentle Theodore. Thank you for saving me from my predicament.’
Theodore’s heart soared, and an unholy tightness stirred below his waist. Pink shame flooded his lined cheeks; as it had done this morning, waking from a ribald dream to find himself with the most splendid morning glory he’d had in months. His shame came not from finding desire in his heart. So far as Theodore was concerned; if the good Lord had made his children lustful, desirous of pleasure, no man on a pulpit should condemn them for acting upon it.
No, he was ashamed only because his desire was ill-placed. This man was vulnerable and had clearly been through a punishing experience. Just an hour ago he could not hold a spoon to his own lips. An exquisite man, certainly. But beautiful in the way of an artwork beyond understanding; with sharp, bold features and intense eyes that Theodore felt upon him now as he worked. He touched the twist of sheet that had snagged around the man’s knee; as though the fabric had come to life; like an errant vine intent on keeping him a prisoner in Theodore’s bedroom.
He winced against a powerful surge of want: to be touched and held, and seen.
This long isolation had robbed him of such intimacy, and only in that moment did he realise how bereft it had made him.
The stranger’s pale lips tilted at one edge. A hint of a smile, a playful twinkle in his eye. Theodore had the disarming notion that his mind had been read. He sat back on his heels.
‘There you are. All done.’ He expected the stranger to sit up and remove the weight he pressed into Theodore’s body, but he nestled in tighter.
‘You have saved me, again, Theodore.’ His words did peculiar things to Theodore’s belly. ‘I’ve found a good man, I see.’
‘I’m not sure my superiors would agree with you.’ He laughed shortly, aware of how his arm was still wrapped around the man, and how oddly soothing the man’s coolness was.
The stranger sat up, turning, bringing them eye to eye, and their lips far too close; his breath, cool as his skin, caressed Theodore’s mouth; the scent brought to mind a forest after a downpour. ‘Kind Theodore, does a man of the cloth harbour angels and daemons beneath his skin?’
‘No, no…’ Theodore’s throat ran dry with the man’s proximity. Something of the moment felt perilous. ‘Well, of course, there is good and bad in all of us, I believe.’
‘Mmm, yes. You are an astute man.’ The man spoke in a hushed, sensual way; like a lover urging for more, for deeper.
Theodore dropped his arm from the man’s shoulders, ashamed at where his thoughts raced. ‘You should get back into bed. Come on now, you are far from healed.’
‘But you have tended me well. I am much improved.’
That much was true. He was still pale, but that seemed his natural state. The brightness of his eyes had magnified, and the pink hue of his lips had deepened; a blushing colour that Theodore found his gaze drifting to with alarming regularity.
‘An hour ago you could not sit up in bed, I’ll remind you,’ he said. ‘And I’ve seen your wound. I am glad you feel better, but it is not possible that its repaired itself in one evening.’
A deep slash, the kind he suspected had been made by a knife or a sword. A hint of bruising at his back suggested a confrontation gone awry.
‘Perhaps you should check now, kind Theodore?’
The heat from the blazing hearth seemed to sink beneath Theodore’s skin. ‘You should not expose yourself to a chill like this. I beg you, get back into bed.’
The stranger leaned back, resting his weight upon his uninjured arm, causing the nightshirt to fall free of that shoulder too; the fabric came to rest around his hips, leaving him exposed from neck to belly where a faint line of silver-white hair ran from his bellybutton to a location further south. A location Theodore had only glanced at last night as he’d undressed the man, taking him out of his sodden, cold clothes and doing his best to manhandle him gently into one of his own nightshirts. He’d not failed to notice, with a quick glance, a generous spread of silver-white hair above an admirably thick and pale cock, but had been far too distracted by the blood covering the man’s upper body to feel anything but deep concern. The blood that oozed from his shoulder wound ran so deep Theodore had thought it black until the lighting of an extra candle showed it to be a dark hue of crimson.
‘The room is pleasantly warm is it not?’ The stranger sat up, running a fingertip along the bandage that looped around his wounded shoulder, across his chest and beneath his opposing arm to form a loop back at the site of the injury. ‘Too much so, maybe? I see you have sweat beading at your lip.’ His long fingers moved to his own lips, tracing their line.
‘No, no I’m perfectly fine.’ Lord, forgive me, Theodore prayed. For you know me a liar. He patted the bed. ‘Come now. I’ll check the wound just as soon as you are tucked beneath the covers again. That floor is hardly comfortable, and your skin is cool.’
‘That is the way of things for my kind, I’m afraid. We are by nature cool blooded.’ The stranger lifted his arm, reaching for Theodore, who took his hand without hesitation and helped the man shift onto his knees. Now they were side by side, kneeling by the bed; like faithful children ready for nighttime prayer.
There was nothing pious in the way the stranger eyed Theodore’s body. ‘Does my touch bother you, Theodore?’
‘No.’ The word bolted free. ‘No it does not.’
Theodore clung like a drowning man to his belief that the Lord God would not have endowed humankind with bodily appetites if He did not mean for them to eat.
A smile from heaven spread over the man’s lips. Their hands were still entwined. ‘Good. Because it pleases me to touch a decent man.’
Theodore embarrassed himself with a soft inhale, which may have held the echo of a whimper.
‘Cakes. I made you oatcakes,’ he blurted, fighting the urge to run from the room and into the church; to sit beneath the calming gaze of his Saviour. He snatched up one cake, holding it like a tiny, useless shield between himself and what he desired.
The stranger tilted his chin, and youth slid into his features, smoothing out lines and tightening the skin. ‘You made those for me? That is very kind.’
He braced himself against Theodore’s hand and rose to his feet. Theodore dropped the oat cake onto the tray and offered his other hand, but the stranger wrapped his uninjured arm across Theodore’s shoulders, his fingers pressing hard for balance. They danced a slow dance, turning about, chest to chest, with their heights nearly matched. Theodore was careful to keep his booted feet from the man’s bare toes, but his task was made difficult with how closely the stranger clung to him as they manoeuvred about.
Ninekirks struck up a weird symphony. The flames in the hearth hissed, errant snowflakes somehow surviving the heat of the chimney to reach them. While outside, the church bell tolled erratically, and more shutters loosened from their latches with the weight of the storm.
Theodore glanced at the window. Beyond the pane, the day was brought to its knees early; gloom settling across the blur of the landscape, despite it being only barely after noon.
The stranger dragged at him, forceful, purposeful. Pulling them down onto the bed. Theodore cried out, throwing his free hand wide and digging a knee into the straw-stuffed mattress so as not to crush the man. The tray tilted and the cup of milk shattered on the floor; shards surrounded by a great lake of white.
Laughter wound through the howl of restless winds. The stranger smiled up at him, his hand still firmly clasping Theodore’s own. He stretched their arms over his head, resisting Theodore’s attempts to let go, until their clasped hands lay against the pillow; fingertips grazing the headboard.
‘It’s alright, kind Theodore. Let me repay you. You have been alone long enough.’
Heart thundering, Theodore stared down at the man beneath him. He understood what was offered; he knew how much he longed to accept. ‘But you are hurt.’
Black strands shifted against the linen as the stranger shook his head back and forth. ‘No. Not anymore. Look, see for yourself.’ He reached with his free hand to run a pointed fingernail over the bandages. His touch sliced through the material; smooth as the proverbial hot knife in butter. The bandages fell away.
Theodore gasped, ‘No, it is too early—’ He halted, mouth agape.
The skin was unblemished, save for a faint line of pink where a few hours before Theodore had tended the deep wound he feared would grow infected. Astonished, he reached and touched the mark, running his finger over the impossibly healed flesh: smooth, cool and firm. The man inhaled deeply, lifting his shoulder to press into Theodore’s touch.
‘You are truly healed,’ Theodore whispered.
‘All I needed was time.’ The stranger exhaled; slow and deliberate. ‘But you found me, and gave me shelter, and a bed to lie in. Because of you, my healing was hastened.’
‘It is a miracle.’ Theodore could hardly tear his eyes from where his fingers rested on the man’s chest; hairless and so pale he thought he saw a hint of turquoise veins beneath.
The stranger grunted with laughter. ‘If you need think of it that way to reconcile your beliefs, then go ahead, my priest.’
Now Theodore looked to the man’s face, fearing he was being mocked. A question sat on the tip of his tongue. Who are you?
A brutal gust of wind threw itself against the cottage, and he swore the entire building shuddered. Theodore certainly did. He swallowed his question and chose instead to believe this man was a miracle; a panacea for loneliness sent to him by God on a cold and stormy night.
The stranger slipped his hand behind Theodore’s neck and urged him closer. ‘Calm yourself. No harm will come to you.’ Theodore’s tension slackened, and his body slumped. He lay, straddling the man at the hips, their bellies close, their lips closer. ‘The Herlequin will come for me soon.’
Will come. Will come. The stranger had cried during the night. But not for any hurly quill, as Theodore imagined.
A fierce heat filled Theodore; a wash of uncommon jealousy. But protectiveness, too. ‘This Herlequin, did he do this to you?’
Another crooked smile turned Theodore inside out. ‘He is my liege. The leader of our Wild Hunt. We ride for the ruler of the UnSeelie. The Erlking has sent us to bring down monsters I shall not frighten you with, for this is not a night for fear. I fell, you found me. Now, let me thank you. ’
Theodore blinked, taking in the strangeness of the words. Of course he knew something of the Wild Hunt and the Unseelie; the superstitions and myths of deathly riders and faerie folk that did not blend well with the Church’s teachings, save for when the fear they stirred could be useful in controlling the parish. Theodore drew in a breath; ashamed of the harshness of his thoughts. Afraid that everything he loved about his God and His Kingdom now rocked precariously on the pedestal Theodore had placed them upon.
‘You are conflicted, my priest.’
The stranger touched his forehead to Theodore’s own; their noses brushed, and their breaths mingled. Theodore found himself laid out fully over the stranger; their bodies were aligned, the hardness between their legs mirroring each other, their chests rising and falling in a gentle dance, the man’s firm stomach pressed up against Theodore’s softer flesh.
‘I don’t know if I can…’ Theodore swallowed. ‘If this is right.’
‘Does my form offend your god?’ The man’s fingers caressed the back of Theodore’s neck. A simple motion that loosened a knot Theodore thought he would never untie.
‘No. No it does not,’ he said with utter conviction. ‘He made us, and our desires. He knows them all, and judges none.’ A soft sob escaped him; he’d kept those words inside himself so long they had to tear free from his bones, like barnacles chipped away. ‘I need others to know. They must know, they can be safe with Him.’
The revelation settled on his skin, seeping into his blood, wiping his bones clean. This night need not cause him to abandon his Lord; but it would change the way he served Him.
Theodore gazed down into the stranger’s violet eyes and saw his future with striking clarity; let God guide him, not the men who twisted His words and used them like whips upon their parishes.
Beneath him, the stranger’s smile was breathtaking. ‘You are shining, priest. Have you found your way?’
‘I have.’ Theodore smiled back at him, shifting his weight so he could run his finger over the man’s cheek. ‘I have paid enough penance for the sins of another.’
The stranger released Theodore’s hand, bringing his arm back down over his head. He ran his fingers down the length of Theodore’s body, settling them in the small of his back. ‘Then you must let me thank you and congratulate you as well, ’ the man said. He parted his legs, and Theodore fell willingly into the space created between them. ‘The storm shall soon be gone, and I with it. There are no moments like this in the Hunt. We are vicious and unkind; we ride with chaos at our heels, and pound fear into the lives of mortals with our horses and hounds. I crave the madness, but sometimes…I long for quiet. Peace, such as this. Remind me, good Theodore, of gentleness. Show me a desire that is not born of cruelty. Give me a taste of devotion I shall remember and carry with me as a talisman, so I won’t succumb to my hunger for destruction and gorge too deeply. Will you lie with me, my shining priest?’
Snow cast itself down the chimney into the fire again; the hiss was like the sigh of a thousand angels.
Theodore threw off piety and grasped the moment fully. This was not a night for fear.
He pressed his lips to the stranger’s, and lost himself in the miracle who spread himself wide, welcoming Theodore in.
A night, a lifetime, an eternity of exploration began; wet and salty and rough, slow and sensual and heavenly. Theodore moved inside the stranger, sinking so deep he wondered if he’d find his way free. Or if he wanted to.
The stonework suffered as the headboard met the wall violently, time and time again. Each thrust an awakening, all the groans and whimpers and moans a symphonic masterpiece to Theodore’s ear. They exhausted themselves inside one another, atop one another, over one another. Rutting until bodies ached in so many places Theodore could hardly find the strength to withdraw. They grew limp, then hardened again together. Theodore entered the man carefully, gazing down at the slender length of the stranger’s back; worshipping the perfection he found there. He rode him hard because the man begged for it. But Theodore would soon slow and ride him gently; filling him with care and soft whispers of devotion.
A rhythm that drove the Wild Hunt rider wild.
They spent themselves until there was nothing left to give.
Rising from drenched sheets, a pungency upon the air and sweat coating their skin, they slipped from each other’s embrace; not a single regret to be found.
The Herlequin came for his lost rider. The Hunt thundered down; the heavens loosening upon Ninekirks with the ferocity of a hundred storms. The church bell tolled, the wind unrelenting as the riders assembled around the cottage.
Theodore watched from the bedroom window, wrapped in a blanket that covered up the passionate marks made by fierce and unrepentant desire. The stranger had wrapped it around him before landing a last kiss against Theodore’s lips and caressing his well-used arse.
They’d not shared any words. The man had simply walked away. Out into the snowstorm where he strode now; the flakes parting around him, making his way clear.
Dark shadows moved restlessly in the thick snow; high and low, horses and hounds. One greater than all the rest. A hulking shape upon an equally magnificent horse; but all their features were stolen from Theodore by the calamity of the storm.
He watched the stranger bow to the rider; the surrounding shadows moved in closer, encircling the pair. All at once the snow gentled, and Theodore saw the gleam of a dozen eyes as the group turned and looked towards the cottage.
Theodore’s heart pounded, but he held his ground. They would not come for him. His lover had promised him. And if Theodore could believe in anything he had been told tonight, he would believe in that.
The great horse and rider moved forward, the storm leaving a space around them. The Herlequin; it could be no other. Both he and his mount were enormous; too large and strangely hued for this world. Theodore’s breath snagged in his chest as his faith was tested.
Silver eyes settled on him; judging or condemning, he feared to learn.
A smaller horse and rider emerged from the snow-saturated landscape. The stranger, now back in his saddle. Did he wait on his master to decide the fate of the mortal who had dared lie with one of his hunters.?
The Herlequin made a sudden gesture, the flick of a hand towards the cottage. Theodore clenched the blanket tight around him; praying he’d not made a terrible mistake in trusting the word of a man who was not a man at all.
Theodore did not wish to die. Not when he’d only just found out why he wished to live. He had work to do: hearts to heal and broken spirits to mend. He loved his God, but was not ready to meet Him yet.
The stranger bowed again to his master.
And the Wild Hunt continued on its way. The Herlequin led, his horse rearing, leaping upwards and galloping into the clouds, becoming one with the chaos. His riders followed, lifting into the whiteness, one by one, vanishing into the storm until a solitary rider remained.
Theodore’s lover turned to look towards the cottage. His violet eyes, like flames amongst the gleam of endless white. He raised his hand to his head and touched his temple. His lips moved with whispered words.
I will remember.
The talisman he had asked for; the taste of devotion Theodore had gladly given.
Storm winds set the windowpanes rattling; the fire shuddered in the hearth.
Winter took the stranger away.
Theodore watched as the world beyond his window settled. The snow fell gently, and the violence of the storm abated. He did not know how long he stood at that window, but when Theodore finally blinked the sky was clear, the snow no longer fell, and the first tentative creature, a white hare, had emerged in the front garden to cautiously sniff at the air.
The snow was piled high around the house, but oddly, the road itself was clearly visible. He traced its length as far as his eyes could see; so lightly packed with snow he could see the dirt beneath it in places. Likely his boots would stay dry as he left Ninekirks behind.
Theodore drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs. He shrugged off the blanket and picked up the last of the oatcakes that remained. The stranger had eaten the rest, claiming they tasted almost as delicious as Theodore himself.
He considered eating the cake there and then, his stomach growling after long hours of exertion. Instead, Theodore carefully wrapped it in paper and packed it in his rucksack as he prepared to leave.
With months spent on the road, that oatcake would grow stale and hard. It would snap in two when he packed it too carelessly beneath his Bible, all but chased out of a village by a vicar enraged by a wandering priest’s blasphemous notions of tolerance.
But Theodore kept those broken pieces.
The inedible oatcake was his talisman. A reminder on days when the world was too full of cruel creatures that he should never succumb to hopelessness. That somewhere, riding high and wild, was a creature who had shown him nothing in the world was as it seemed.
That even those considered monstrous might one day be gentled by a singular act of kindness.
Theodore heard the Wild Hunt pass by often during the years that remained of his life, a thunderous violence in the midnight sky that terrified man and beast alike. But not him.
He listened to the tales of lost travellers snatched up by the Hunt in beer-drenched public houses across the countryside, and he watched as villagers nailed horseshoes to their doors and made daisy chains for their children to keep them safe from the fae. Sometimes he considered sharing his story, but not once, in the long years that followed, did Theodore ever speak of the night he lay with a rider of the Wild Hunt; the night he’d begun to live.
The stranger kept his promise.
The Wild Hunt never rode for Theodore Lewis. No matter how many times he prayed for a chance to feel the weight of that violet gaze and the touch of those pale hands upon him again.