As spring slips into summer, Lyra lures a handsome human man into the lake to become her summer lover.
The first section contains world building, physical descriptions. Scroll down to the first break to skip.
*****
It's another unusually hot May morning, and the lake lies flat as a mirror. The cold water welcomes me as I slip from the diving rock, sending ripples through the thin shroud of mist clinging to its surface. Only the movements of my body, the sinuous curve of a water snake, and the swallows wheeling low disturb the stillness.
Even the breeze withholds its breath, gone surly and silent after so many gusty spring days spent as my lover. But we've been through this before; the wind has never been quick to share me with a flesh-and-blood lover.
I dismiss the mist with a wave of my hand, revealing my reflection in the water. Like a playing card Queen folded in half, Colin's perception of me flows from my upper thigh to stretch across the surface.
He sees a human woman in the summer of her life--hips that invite, a sensuous curve of stomach, a waist that narrows to ripe breasts, pinked from the water's chill. A heart-shaped face with catlike grey eyes, framed by a bolt of dark, silky hair. And my mouth. He stares at it when we speak, enamored of those sensual, provocative lips--always pillowy, now flushed from the cold thrill of the plunge. When I look at him, it's with a knowing smile that promises exquisite kisses or tantalizing riddles. It keeps him up at night, imagining both.
Little wonder he's so taken with me.
I swirl my fingers through the water's surface, and for a moment the image trembles, glamour broken. Unvarnished, I am rangier in form, my features sharpened and exaggerated. Though the points were clipped in infancy, the subtle elongation of my ears remains noticeable. My true form is not unrecognizable, or even obviously inhuman, but it lacks the domesticated softness they find so appealing in each other--and the weathering we find so intriguing in them.
For all the elegance and sophistication cultivated by my race, we Fae are to humans as coyotes are to dogs. My brother Aelanthir, a courtier of moderate esteem, has warned me that such an observation would be lethally uncouth in the Court Under the Hill--even as he laughs at it.
But I am
not
in attendance at the Court Under the Hill, or even a citizen of Faerie. I'm one of the many Changelings they've exiled to the human world over the centuries, discarding their undesirable offspring in exchange for more pleasing human children. There are many reasons a Fae infant might be deemed inadequate. In my case, it was because the Oracle of the Court Under the Hill prophesied that my ability to weave enchantment would never grow beyond the simplest spells.
Had I been more beautiful--or lowborn enough not to tarnish the line--they might have kept me anyway. But for a striving, upper-society family embroiled in Court intrigue, I'd be a liability for as long as I lived.
So they harvested a human child to be doted upon like a rare orchid or a clever bird. And I was left among humans, ignorant of my origin until my dear brother stepped from the shadow of a rowan tree to see what had become of me.
I'd done well enough for that age. I'd grown into a strange but striking woman, too tall for her time but healthy and able, and wed not unhappily to an innkeeper's eldest son.
And I was
strong.
I'd come into nearly the full strength of my kind, and it had served me well in the violent human world. Swift enough to run down a deer, quick enough to snap its neck, and strong enough to carry it home. Even tempered to avoid attention, my sturdiness was boon enough during many rowdy nights at the inn that my husband's family overlooked my oddities.
Some Fae reclaimed their Changeling siblings, as was the fashion then. But I hadn't wanted to leave this world, only to be kept as a pet for sport or sentiment. And Aelanthir, excessive in his filial affection for our class and kind, wanted me to
live
far more than he wanted to parade around an uncultivated sister until she became passé.
So instead of dragging me back Under the Hill, he taught me the simplest of our enchantments. Glamour, to blend among humans. Persuasions, to bend their bodies and minds to my will. Divination with whatever came to hand. And how to make a consort of the wind--bound by geis to my blood, and so my right even in exile. Even if it was, at times, a sulky companion.
All these thoughts vanish from my mind as a small, languid whirlpool forms to reveal my summer lover.
Colin is handsome. Taller than me at nearly six feet, with a strong, lived-in build. Gym-polished in all the usual places--chest, shoulders, back--but with long legs honed by running the trails that line the lake and ridge beyond it. His thick, wavy hair, silvering at the temples, catches the morning light. Green eyes that sparkle when he's pleased. A nose once broken and set slightly off-center--an intriguing, increasingly anachronistic detail that makes me wonder about his youth. A square jaw softened by a short, neat beard. And he always looks as if he's on the verge of telling me a secret.
His stride is steady, his form deliberate, as he runs the long trail up the ridge and around to this secluded side of the lake. He's shirtless this time, his chest burnished by the sun since the day he joined me for an impromptu swim. I smile at that. He's hoping to find me out here again.
I wade into cooler, deeper water. He'll assume I'm naked, of course, but I'll give him no reason to linger at the edge of the lake. Even the saffron dress I'd left out last time, billowing like a flag to catch his eye, now lies folded on the shore.
Though he's desired me from the start, it's taken most of April to make him bold enough to bed me. I've seeded his dreams, sent the cajoling, alluring chiming of my bells on the wind, and employed other charms besides. I even feigned a sprained ankle so he'd have the excuse he needed to wrap his arm around my waist as he half-carried me home from the nearest trailhead.
The birds hush as he approaches. I hear his footsteps slow, the whisper of his body parting the sweet honeysuckle and silverberry as he follows my trail through the brush. I blow across his image on the lake, dispersing it back to the depths.
.................................................................................................................................................................
He finds my dress folded neatly on the bank, then scans the water. Only my eyes and hair are visible above the surface, dark as river stones and camouflaged by the dappled shadows. When his gaze finally lands on me, I straighten, smile, and wave: so companionable, so without artifice.
"Colin!" I chirp, as though I'd hoped but not expected him to return. "Back for another swim? The water's even better today."
"Good morning, Lyra." His eyes crinkle, his smile is genuine and edged with excitement. Just standing on the shore--having sought and found a naked woman in the water--is a touch of transgression for him. He's half in a fairytale already, and only one a single step outside the carefully ordered, walled garden of his tame modern life.
"I'd like to," he admits, "but maybe I shouldn't."
"Nonsense," I admonish, voice low and teasing.
"Nobody
should... look." I point to the rusted 'No Swimming' sign, bent under bindweed and dangling by a single nail.
"Has that been there the whole time?" he asks.
"Maybe. But what better to base a friendship on than a little mutually assured destruction?" I cup my hand to the side of my mouth, like I'm telling him a secret so sensitive I don't want it read off my lips. "I won't tell on you if you won't tell on me."
He grins, a hint of the rake in his eye as he stares at my mouth. "As long as you're sure you don't mind me intruding on your morning swim. Again."
"Not at all," I laugh. "In fact, I brought a second towel, just in case."
His eyebrows lift.
"And haven't you earned a little treat? You went hard this morning." I wrinkle my nose delicately and add, "You're all sweaty."
"I suppose I am," he chuckles, his smile warm but uncertain. "You're trouble, you know that?"
I shrug, letting the water catch the light. "Surely not. And didn't you have more pep in your step last time, when you jumped in right after your run?"
A grin tugs the corner of his mouth as he glances at the diving rock. "Alright. But only because I've always said it's bad luck to argue with mysterious women in lakes. It's just a swim, right?"
Still he hesitates, shifting his weight from foot to foot, a last shred of propriety holding him back from stripping in front of me. I let his discomfort hang there, savoring it like the fleeting fruit it is, before giving him a gentle push.
"A wise man," I coax, pointing to the rock with a finger, "doesn't try to cross a chasm with short steps. Jump in."
Then I duck under the water and push off from the bottom. My body flashes just beneath the surface--breasts, waist, hips--then vanishes as I kick deeper, releasing my breath and letting the water swallow me like a stone.
I hear his splash overhead, see the line of his muscular legs as they tread water, his tan unbroken from ankle to mid-thigh, where his running shorts would normally sit. He calls my name, turning in the water, and I surface.
"Do you dive? You were under a long time," he says. His shoulders bunch toward his ears against the chill. They are fine shoulders, heavy for a man who works at a desk. They roll forward, making him slouch, except when he knows he wants to be looked at.
"Was I?" I ask, distracted. It's so easy to lose track of time underwater, and I'd rather talk about something more interesting. "You know, I was starting to worry about you, Colin. I haven't seen you run by in a while. I thought it might be your poor, ravaged thighs."
His startled laugh is nearly a bark. "My ravaged--what? Why?"
I hug my knees to my chest, bobbing aimlessly, arms tracing slow circles in the water.
"From running back in those soaking wet shorts you insisted on swimming in last week. I thought of leaving another balm out for you, but..." I shrug and tilt backward, letting the water cradle me before righting myself with a gentle twist. "I didn't want to make you feel bashful all over again."
"That's..." He pauses, his jaw shifting as he imagines rubbing his chaffed groin with some unguent I'd prepared for him. "...very thoughtful of you, Lyra. That balm you gave me, after I helped you home that day--it was very good for soreness. I even told some of the guys at the gym about it."
"Is that so?" I ask lightly. "I hope you also told them where to find me."
