12 Nights Of Christmas: Solstice Magic Read online

  Nights Of Christmas: Solstice Magic

  Willa Okati

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2005 Willa Okati

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Changeling Press LLC.

  ISBN (10) 1-59596-312-X

  ISBN (13) 978-159596-312-3

  Formats Available:

  HTML, Adobe PDF,

  MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader

  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  PO Box 1561

  Shepherdstown, WV 25443-1561

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Katriena Knights

  Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

  This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Chapter One

  “Ho-la! Ho-la! Solstice time is here again! Come all ye, and dance about! Drink your fill, take your favorite pleasures as you choose, and make merry as you can! Come, come! Sing with me now!”

  Sprightly, infectious music sprang up from the fiddler, spoon-player, and drummer in the corner of the village tavern, where all in the village of Nayanka had gathered to celebrate their greatest holiday. The landlord, a burly man with a beard thick as a pelt and a belly that spoke of a fondness for his wares raised his voice in a deep, hearty laugh, and lifted his tankard to the skies. “Drink!” he roared again, his pleasure deeply real. “Drink, and dance! Solstice celebration!”

  “Solstice celebration!” the crowd of villagers shouted back, already pairing off to dance the reels. Eager hands reached for eager hands. Songs and laughter filled the air to bursting, as did the sounds of soft leather boots treading out happy patterns on the stone floor. Every man and woman bore a brilliant smile as they seized one another to celebrate.

  And why not? What did they have to worry about? Their world might be one of snow and ice, but their own fires burned hot. The gods were pleased with the village of Nayanka, and thus it flourished. They’d dance and drink, and then slip off in pairs, either discreetly or with laughter and teasing, to fuck the night away. In spreading their seed, they honored the gods and hoped to light a spark of life that would blossom into spring.

  Spring, and a bumper crop of babies along with the next harvest.

  Well-pleased, the landlord bellowed his mighty laugh. He wiped his hands on his apron and vaulted over the bar to catch a serving maid by the wrists and whirl her about. Her giggles of mock-scandal rang out in a silvery tinkle.

  As they spun, they bumped up against a figure sitting in the darkest, most shadowy corner, all by himself. He held a mug, but no instrument, and not even his toes tapped to the music. As the dancers righted themselves, they recognized him — and not with pleasure.

  “Aleksi,” the landlord grunted. “Aye, well.”

  And he was off, without a second thought — at least not one he spoke aloud.

  Aleksi knew damned well what he’d be thinking, though. Aleksi the Useless, taking up space and souring our luck. May the gods overlook him one more time, and honor our celebration of the Solstice.

  May spring come again despite this idiot’s wintry gloom.

  Aleksi huddled down on his low wooden bench, head ducked. He didn’t want to look at the revelers any more, to see them so happy when he lived sunk so deep in gloom. He’d never have come to this idiot celebration, except that village law required all who could walk put in an appearance, and those who couldn’t walk be carried.

  Even fools and failures such as himself.

  Aleksi took a careful sip from the mug of Solstice ale he’d purchased with one of his carefully hoarded coins. Sharp, sour, and sweet, it tasted of cinnamon and cloves. Rare, expensive spices purchased from traveling tinkers, hoarded thriftily, and used only once a year. Men, women, and children paused briefly in their wild dancing to raise mugs and cups to their lips. From the burliest to the youngest, they took only tiny swallows, the better to savor the rare spices.

  Aleksi drank, and tasted only bitterness. He made a face.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  The voice startled him into looking up. A young girl, no older than seven winters, stood before him dressed in finery of sunny yellow and leaf green. Two glossy dark braids tied with gilt ribbons draped over her shoulders. She looked at him without fear, too young to hide her curiosity.

  “It’s good,” she said with a frown. Then, changing her tack with the swiftness of a youthful mind: “Why aren’t you dancing?”

  Aleksi shook his head and looked down. “I don’t dance. Go on, child. Back to your mother.”

  “Why? Everyone else is stepping light. Why aren’t you?”

  “Go back, I said!” Aleksi’s voice came out sharp enough to cut. He clutched his fingers tight around his mug. “All I want is to be left alone.”

  “Why?”

  Aleksi raised a thin hand to rub the bridge of his nose. “Go,” he said, voice low and angry. “Honor the gods, and leave me be.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t make any sense.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Pause. “Are you really a holy man? My babushka said she could tell from your tattoos. But you don’t make medicine, or hold services, or anything at all. Why?”

  Aleksi shook his head.

  “Da says the gods don’t like you.”

  Aleksi sat, silent as the grave.

  The girl lifted the end of one braid and twirled it, eyeing him in deep thought. “Is it true you like men better than ladies?”

  “Where did you —”

  “Silly. Everyone knows.” She grinned at Aleksi as if they were conspirators. “My cousin Berin’s tilted the same way. He likes you.”

  Aleksi winced. “Go,” he said. “Leave me in peace.”

  “Berin wants to ask you to dance but he thinks you’ll say no. You never dance, or laugh, or smile. Why?”

  Aleksi made no answer save to shake his head once. The girl rolled her eyes. “Da was right,” she muttered. “You are useless.” Tossing her braids, she sailed back off into the whirling dancers. A boy near to her own age caught her by the waist and twirled her about. Her laugh, innocent and young, rang out bright with merriment. Aleksi was forgotten, just like that.

  Good.

  Aleksi knew that there were no secrets in a village so small as Nayanka, but leave it to a child to dredge up all that most folk were too close-mouthed to speak of to his face. He knew they chattered about him and spun all sorts of fancy stories to while away dull nights huddled by their hearths. Everyone wondered why he’d come to live among them on the snowy steppes. Him, a holy man with the mark of big city breeding. A priest, he supposed they thought.

  Well, they were wrong. Damned wrong. He wore the intricate inkings he’d earned during his years in the temple, true enough. Loops and whorls from eyebrow to chin on the left side of his face, the designs spreading down the whole of his body to his fingertips and toes. Runes and sigils sacred to the gods.

  Aleksi couldn’t hide those. But he could show, in other ways, that he was no longer a man of the gods. He had let his shaven hair grow, untamed and uncut, until it touched the center of his back in a tousled mane of black. He’d removed the golden rings and bells from his ears. Still, ink told one tale, and folk made up plenty more to fill in the gaps.

  Behind
his back, they called him what he was no longer and would never be again: holy man.

  Magician, priest, speaker-to-the-gods. Able to call them down in song, to ply their favor with sweet notes plucked from a harp, and raise his voice in prayer. More, he had the knowledge of all herbs that grew in the midst of their snow-covered world. Where to look, how to harvest them, and what needed doing to extract good medicines.

  His were meant to be hands that guided infants into the world and saw that mothers and children both lived; his, the hands meant to prepare bodies for burial in the ice.

  But those hands lay idle, cupped around his mug of ale, as they had been at rest since his arrival in Nayanka. No one pressed him, but he knew they whispered behind his back. Curiosity, scorn, frustration — no one able to understand why he would not help.

  If I only could, Aleksi thought. But it’s gone from me now. I’ve fallen from grace, dropped hard and fast to earth, and there’s no power in the heavens above to raise me up again.

  No one in Nayanka knew the truth. Given to the priests as an infant, Aleksi had shown talent beyond his years. A shining star, he’d raced from apprentice to journeyman, from journeyman to master-in-training, but when it had come time to take his final trials, he had…

  He had failed.

  The gods did not answer his prayers; the goddesses stoppered up his magics. Sacrificial fires remained cold and unlit. The temple virgin provided for consummating his rise to power, male as per his preference, grew bored, then could barely hide his amusement as Aleksi’s efforts grew frantic.

  In the end, the Master-Father priest of his Order had put an end to the trials. Taken Aleksi aside, shaken his head in sorrow, and pressed a silver coin into his palm.

  Aleksi’s fist had closed around it, the rough edges cutting into his flesh. He didn’t need to ask what it was. He knew. It was symbolic of the wealth he’d need to make his way in the world, away from the sheltering Brotherhood he had grown up among.

  The high temple had no room and no place for one whom the gods disdained. Bad luck, and worse yet, both knew Aleksi would soon be laughed to shame. He had raised dark eyes to the Master-Father and stared, helpless. Where do I go now? What do I do?

  The Master-Father had sighed without a word or a fare-thee-well. Aleksi was no longer his charge. Without regrets, he had turned and walked away.

  And so, too, did Aleksi.

  He left the temple that night, when all else were sound asleep and would not see him go in shame. He took nothing with him but the clothes on his back, the fur-lined boots on his feet, and enough food to last him for a few days’ journey.

  Theft? Perhaps. He hadn’t been able to care. Somewhere deep inside he had gone numb and cold as the snow that fell, fell, fell forevermore in the outside world, never ceasing. Their land was a cold place, and the gods’ fires the only thing that warmed the folk’s hearths and homes and hearts.

  Not Aleksi. Not anymore.

  He glanced out the window at the rising moon and calculated the time out of long habit. The villagers would expect him to stay until the midnight hour and Solstice, but there were hours yet to go. The music and laughter made his head ache. Perhaps, if he stepped quietly enough, he could slip out and go back to his cave. Bar the door, curl up on his lonely cot, and sleep away the hour of the year’s rebirth…

  “Ho, there! Aleksi, it’s good to see you. Happy Solstice!” A man, warm as coal from dancing with all his might, plunked down on the bench beside him. His hair, a mess of ebony curls, had been tied haphazardly away from his face with a length of twine. Escaped ringlets clung to his cheeks, the fair skin flushed red from dancing and ale. His smile, white as the snow, shone at Aleksi. “Hail, brother, well-met.”

  Aleksi felt his own face heating to a dusky rose at Berin’s notice. His throat grew clogged. “Berin,” he said.

  Berin. Beautiful Berin. Laughing, loving, alive. A wood-crafter blessed with the gods’ own skill. Clever hands, nimble fingers… square, hardily-formed body yet quick and light as a floating feather… lips, so full, so perfectly sculpted that they begged to be kissed…

  Aleksi had spent many a shameful night in his cave, never able to sleep well, and spun himself fantasies about their meeting just like this.

  Berin approaching him with warmth and a smile.

  Berin, taking Aleksi’s hand in his own.

  Berin, leaning in to kiss Aleksi, impulsive and brave. Not to mock him, but because the flames of desire burned in his own belly.

  In his dreams, Aleksi was brave. He would take Berin’s hand and lead him back to the caves, or to a pine grove, and lay him down. Lavish his body with kisses as he unwrapped his leathers and furs. He would have magic again, to protect them against the cold.

  Berin would writhe beneath him, laughing and gasping with pleasure as Aleksi’s lips captured him in a spell of lust. He would reach for Aleksi’s clothes in turn, stripping them off while he smiled that so-bright smile.

  When he had finished, and both lay naked in the snow, unafraid and warm, Aleksi dreamed of many things. Sometimes he slid down the length of Berin’s body and took the man’s swollen cock into his mouth, tasting the salt of his skin and the tang of his seed. Satin over steel. Berin would moan, his back arching up, fingers curling into the snow. Urge Aleksi on, wanting more and yet more.

  Sometimes, they would lie together and kiss, exploring each other’s mouths with lips and tongues, rocking soft and gentle together, cocks slick against their bare bellies. Their breath would grow fast, fast, faster, and then…

  Or perhaps, when Aleksi was desperately lonely, he would imagine Berin stretched out on his belly or back. Legs raised to slide over Aleksi’s bare shoulders. He would smile, wide and warm, as he reached out for Aleksi and drew him close. Opened for his cock to slide past the tight muscles and into slick heat fit to make him forget all his failures.

  By then, Aleksi could usually bear no more. Whispering a prayer to deaf ears that Berin would forgive him, he’d reach for his own cock beneath his worn trousers and thin bed-furs. Take the pulsing length of it in hand and begin to pump up and down. Dry, so that the pain punished him — but for all that, the thought of sinking into Berin’s depths, of hearing him wail his pleasure, of feeling him toss and grip and clutch and kiss… ah!

  “… Aleksi! Here, where’ve you drifted off to?”

  Aleksi blinked, startled out of his daydream. Berin sat beside him in the flesh, not in his dreams, grinning broadly. “Wool-gatherer,” he said with a friendly nudge. “Here, has your drink gone cold? Want me to pour this back in the pot and get you a fresh mug? It’d be a pleasure. Great brew this year — best I’ve had yet!”

  Aleksi blinked. “Why is that?” he asked, without thinking.

  Berin’s eyes flickered, almost shy. “Good company makes good drink,” he said, reaching to take the mug from Aleksi’s suddenly nerveless fingers as Aleksi stared. “Or so I’ve always found.”

  Berin placed the mug at their feet. As he bent, his eyes came level with Aleksi’s groin. Aleksi realized too late, with a heart-thumping jolt of embarrassment, that his fantasies had caused his cock to swell. There could be no mistaking his hardness, nor would any fool not know why he’d gone erect.

  Berin glanced up through his eyelashes, then, with a small smile, slipped down to the floor on his knees. His hands, gentle if callused from hard work, moved to caress the bulge of Aleksi’s cock. Despite himself, Aleksi sucked in a ragged breath. “Don’t.”

  Berin’s grin turned sly. He rubbed harder, his thumbs working a clever dance. Aleksi could feel the pounding of his heart. He couldn’t help it — his hips moved of their own accord, thrusting into Berin’s touch.

  “You are a pretty thing,” Berin breathed. “I’ve wanted you for many a month now, Aleksi. Be damned to who you were, or what folk say. I know what I crave.” He rubbed harder, chuckling as Aleksi moaned. “I think you do, too, eh? Here. How do you like this?”

  Without shame, Berin nuzzled his way between Ale
ksi’s thighs, which parted for him like water. He laid his lips atop the bulge of Aleksi’s erection, first in a gentle kiss, then, suddenly, suckling strong and hard.

  “Ahh!” Aleksi could not hold back the cry. He could not stop his hands from grasping at Berin’s thick curls. Could not calm his breath, coming in sharp, quick bursts. The heat of Berin’s mouth through the thin fabric of his trousers, only a few threads away from his cock, inflamed him with a fire that terrified his very soul.

  “Ssh,” Berin murmured. “Come. Celebrate Solstice with me. I want you. Want you so very, very much.”

  Aleksi shuddered hard. “No,” he said. He closed his eyes tight and held his breath. The orgasm threatening to break over him teetered — held — retreated.

  With one rough shove, he pushed Berin away. “No, I said, and no, I meant!” Aleksi stood, knocking Berin down. He could feel curious eyes resting on them, but didn’t give a damn. “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he grated. “I’m not fit for you. Not for any man.”