Read Online Mistress of the Solstice by Anna Kashina - Free Book Online

was
nearly as bright as daylight.
    When no other sound followed, Wolf almost decided to return to his
slumber. Then he saw Ivan.
    The boy sat by the old fir at the far end of the glade, barely visible
in the deep shade of the drooping branches. He was still, staring
unseeingly into the distance.
    Wolf got to his feet and padded over to Ivan.
    “Well?”
    There was no answer. Wolf sighed, swallowing the rising worry.
    “I’m pretty sure you
aren’t kikimora,
lad. Care to tell this old beast what happened?”
    Ivan rolled his eyes and opened his clenched fist.
    Wolf nodded. “You got it!”
    The silvery net shimmered in the moonlight. Spread out in the
boy’s hand it looked airy, almost insubstantial,
gossamer, like a harmlessly unfolded spider web.
    “Why are you just sitting here,
boy?” Wolf demanded. “Get up! We
have things to do!”
    Ivan didn’t respond.
    “What did Leshy do to you?” Wolf
asked, feeling the cold hand of worry grasp his heart again.
    “He showed me where the Net was,”
Ivan said. “But I had to get it
myself.”
    “And?”
    “It was in a hole of a tree, on an
island in the middle of the swamp.”
Ivan’s voice was slow, distant. “A
kikimora guarded
it.”
    “Didn’t I teach you
the kikimoras cannot harm you if
you come to the swamp by Leshy’s
bidding?”
    A pause. “She was…a little
girl.” Ivan’s adam’s
apple bobbed as he swallowed. “She’d
gone to the swamp to play riddles, to make a wish to save her dying
mother. She was five at the time. She still looks five.” He fell silent.
    Wolf fixed the boy with a long stare, his head level with
Ivan’s face.
    “So, old Leshy spared your feelings. He
didn’t show you all the others—hundreds and thousands
of tormented souls who bargained with him over matters of life and
death, and ended up his powerless toys. He didn’t show
you what it takes to put the madness in their eyes, to make their
memories spark that sickening laughter. He didn’t tell
you how he makes a kikimora, a task so cruel that even Immortals never
speak of it. No, he knew how easy it was to break the spirit of a
sensitive lad like you. One little girl child—and you go all mushy
and decide to give up.” He turned his back to Ivan
and curled up on the fir-covered ground. “Why did I
even bother with you?”
    For a while there was no sound.
    “I’m not giving
up,” Ivan said.
    Wolf waited.
    “It’s just
so…wrong.”
    Wolf turned, so that he could see the boy out of the corner of one eye.
“Nobody said this was going to be
easy.”
    “I know.”
    Wolf peered into the boy’s face. There was more sense in
Ivan’s eyes. Some of his old self shone in their blue
depths.
    “We don’t have much
time, lad. We have to make it to the glade by the castle before the
moon sets, remember?”
    “But—” Ivan
jumped to his feet, with the look of someone who has just become
aware of the time. “It is late. How are
we—”
    “Hop on to my back,” Wolf said.
    He was glad to see the horror in
Ivan’s eyes. It looked like he’d
managed to teach the boy proper respect after all.
    “But you never—”
    “Get on, boy. If all’s well you can
still get there before dawn.”

 
    Marya

    K irill was insatiable. As he took me again and again
with carnal passion, he drove me to the point where I could not stop
either, shaking in climax after climax to his rhythmic moves. I never
had such a good lover before. Or perhaps I forgot?
    When he finally rolled off me and fell asleep by my side, I briefly
wondered if I should keep him, but dismissed the thought. I tried it
before and it never worked. All my love slaves had outlived their use,
became shadows of their former selves in a matter of weeks. Perhaps it
was my father’s jealous magic that never tolerated any
man by my side. Or perhaps it was my own, the magic of the Mistress
of the Solstice that drew life and love out of everything living, the
magic that taught me the hard way not to keep any mortal