That great head turned toward him, those eyes drawing closer. Jesus. The blindfold had dropped so one eye was visible. The other crimson orb had enough heat and fire that the glow was faintly visible through the thick covering of the folded tunic. So either this would work, or he would draw back a stump.
As he expected, the horse wasn't too careful about missing his hand with teeth, but at least they only sank into his palm and missed taking off some fingers. Vampires could survive amputation, but often the limbs or digits didn't regenerate. Firewind didn't keep gnawing on him, though. He drew back, apple in his mouth.
“You're smart, strong and fast.” Jacob grunted.
“But you like sugar and apples, and you won't move without direction if you're blindfolded. You're stil a horse. Easy, there . . .” He fumbled for the second sugarcoated apple. The horse shifted, showed his teeth, shook his head again and backed against Jacob's hold, pul ing him a few inches across the ground. He stopped, gave a snort. Jacob could almost hear the click of connection in the horse's diabolical brain. Lying there on his back, hand clutching the tunic, Jacob could be dragged.
Firewind's ears perked up.
“Oh, no, you don't,” Jacob groaned. Those damn broken ribs would keep him from moving swiftly enough to shoot back to his feet and mount the horse again. If Firewind chose to drag him pel -mel through the country side, stomping on him until he was pulp inside a battered skin, there was little he was going to be able to do except let go, something he wouldn't do.
Then he heard it. That haunting song, a sigh of sound that stirred a man's heart and groin at once.
Turning his head, blinking blearily, he saw a trio of the sirens emerging from the depths of the loch.
Great. Instead of being dragged to his death by a waterhorse, he'd meet his end at the hands of three incredibly beautiful naked women who were already turning his mind into a lust-fogged soup, no matter his battered physical state. Given the two choices, they'd be his preference, except his lady would be far nicer to him in the afterlife if the horse kil ed him.
Firewind whinnied, shifted. He pul ed against the fabric, eliciting a pained grunt from Jacob. But the horse's ears pricked forward, a universal y affable equine expression. With a whuff of sound that sounded like the horse version of a pleased purr, he folded his back legs beneath him, the rest of him fol owing, thudding into a resting pose beside Jacob.
He put his head down. His heavy sigh blew sugary apple bits over Jacob, nostrils flaring wide.
“You are foolish.”
The voice didn't come from the sirens. Though it was a lovely female voice, like the sound of wind through the trees, he couldn't turn his gaze from the sirens. He tried hard, knowing that he really needed to get back up on Firewind, get him moving away from here. But his injuries had taken a tol on his will , and it seemed as if the singing was making it worse and better at once.
The sirens drew closer, covered only by their sleek ropes of hair and glossy bits of seaweed and shel adornments in their hair, much like the kelpie himself. They moved to Firewind, surrounding him, petting him, putting tiny white lotus flowers into his mane. The horse made a low, groaning noise in his chest, tossed his head, but submitted to the treatment. Jacob hadn't realized a kelpie could be entranced by sirens as well. While Firewind didn't seem as helpless to their song as he did, the horse was definitely being calmed and charmed by the music.
A smal , slim hand cradled his face then, trying to pul it away from the mesmerizing women who were smiling at him. They had sharp, pointed teeth much like his own vampire ones. Curious. Also a little creepy, but those voices made everything okay.
The hand on his face tightened, then rudely yanked it to the left so he wasn't looking at the sirens anymore. He was looking up at a different face, but a familiar one. Catriona. And looking up at her, the sirens' cal was stil difficult, but he could resist.
Barely.
“Keep looking at me,” she said in that breathy voice. “It will keep you from being completely entranced.”
As helpful as that was, she didn't look pleased with him. Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “A waterhorse is not a horse of your world. Lord Firewind is a member of the Unseelie court, one of the peers of his kind. Restraint and disrespect, such as what the queen did, drove him mad with rage. He and his family line have been the helpmeet of kings.
The siren song is soothing him now, for he is fond of them and their song is tel ing him you are not an enemy. However, when it stops, it is likely his anger will return and he will take it out on anyone foolish enough to try and ride him. You,” she added, as if she thought he was too addled to figure out who she meant.
“It's the queen's quest. I have to do it or my lady suffers.”
Those large gray-green eyes blinked. Before being locked in her tree, he wondered if she'd ever been seen in his world and mistaken for a space alien, with her slim body and those enormous eyes, the fey features. He realized he might not be thinking quite clearly at the moment, but she was quite lovely.
Always before, he'd thought those UFO pictures made aliens look like oversized bugs lacking antenna.
“Vampire . . .” She was tapping his cheeks with gentle fingers to bring his focus back. Finding her hand, he closed his own over the thin wrist.
“Jacob,” he corrected. “My name is Jacob.” She lifted her other arm, showing a halter with reins attached to it. As she slid it off her shoulder, he noted it was made of braided hair, hair that was a match for Firewind's dark mane and tail. Behind her, he saw a groomswoman from Rhoswen's stables.
She was eyeing all of them warily as Catriona rose and moved toward the kelpie.
Jacob tried to struggle to his elbows, concerned for the diminutive dryad as she approached the horse's massive shoulder. However, she crooned to him, and the sirens increased their song. Oh, crap.
He'd forgotten and taken his eyes off Catriona, such that it made his head spin. He wanted to drag his body over to them and grovel at their feet. He wanted to immerse himself in their scent, those beautiful, fathomless eyes, the soft, will ing flesh. It was appal ing, to be standing in his own head, seeing himself react this way. One part of him wanted to resist with everything he had, while every other part wanted to go over and drool at their feet like a happy dog. If Lyssa was here, she'd just give him a good, sharp kick in the ribs.
What did it say about him, that he kind of wished for that at the moment?
When the groomswoman squatted next to Jacob, he barely paid her any attention. But she pinched his arm, hard, drawing his impatient attention. She held up two bal s of what looked like softened candle-wax. With a faint smile of amusement, she tucked them into his ears. Once she was done, the sirens' song was a very faint, pleasant, yearning dream, all owing his will to return. Mostly.
Catriona had gone to her knees and bowed to Firewind. She was speaking to him as she removed Jacob's tattered tunic from his head. When she was done, she held out the halter, bowing once again.
Firewind tossed his powerful head, which probably weighed twice as much as Catriona, but she took it as assent. Fitting the halter over him, she adjusted the reins on his neck, confirming the halter was an exact match for the blackness of his hair. The horse grumbled, but made no other protest.
Jacob gave the groomswoman a short nod of thanks. She was a wiry, pixie figure dressed in the court colors, the brief tunic and hose style suited to working with the mounts. Her eyes were a strong, mint leaf green, her short hair a glossy chestnut.
When she offered him a hand up, he shook his head, patting his ribs, indicating he needed to figure out the getting up part on his own. He expected it would involve something pathetic, like rol ing over to his stomach and pushing himself up on his hands and knees to crawl a few undignified paces. Firewind would probably enjoy watching him fal on his face before trampling him.
Catriona handed off the braided-hair reins to the groomswoman and came to Jacob's side. “Aren't you healing?” she asked. “I thought vampires healed themselves.”
“We do. It's just a bit slow right now.” As he managed to push himself up to his knees, the slim girl gently laid her hands on his chest and back, providing a surprising amount of support for his ribs.
He shameful y had to use her strength to get to his feet. Once there, he swayed a moment, then took a couple steps forward, toward Firewind. She stayed close at his side, steadying him.
“If you are determined to do this, you must touch the halter first.” When he took the wax out, keeping his gaze on her face with effort, she repeated it. “I have spoken to him. He will determine, by your touch, if you are worthy. If you had the power of magic to hold him, as the queen did, his approval would be irrelevant, but it is not the right way to do it.”
“No, it's not,” Jacob agreed. “Did the groom . . .
Wil she be in trouble for providing the halter?”
“No. She is an old friend, and the halter was not in the queen's keeping. Yeshi simply knew where it could be found.”
He looked down at her. Her hair was spider-web soft against his bare upper body, her profile determined but so incredibly delicate it would stir the protective instincts of a stump, let alone him. “Are you doing okay? Since you got back?”
She glanced up at him, a flash of surprise in her gaze. But then it was gone and she nodded, her smal mouth pursed. “It is . . . an adjustment.” Her gaze focused on the pendant. It seemed to please her that he was wearing it, and yet he sensed a wistfulness in her gaze. Clearing his throat, he untied it from his neck, offered it to her. “Since you just helped me, as much or even more than I've helped you, will you all ow me to offer it back, as my gift of thanks to you?”
She glanced up at him, measuring. With a slow nod, she took it back, put it on her neck again, giving him that flash of vibrant green and amber light in the heart of the stone before it settled back into the polished earth color. “You are very kind,” she said.
Turning to the sirens, she spoke in a musical language. They nodded, gave him a detailed appraisal and several very come-hither, incredibly hard-to-resist smiles before they glided back toward the water, generous hips swaying. The cleft of their bottoms were framed and enhanced by the twists of seaweed and shel s in their long hair. The breasts he'd seen before they turned had been ful and ripe, sitting up high, the nipples pink and erect.
