The Taming

Haunting Presences

Calisto sat with Elsabet on the edge of that bed, feeling the moment fading away. She knew she wouldn't have much time with Elsabet. That brief surge of energy that the valkyrie had given her was going to abate until she wouldn't be able to appear at all.

"Why are you so angry with him?" Calisto asked sorrowfully. Thinking of the words. Bast had written earlier.

"I hate him." Elsabet corrected tonelessly.

But Calisto knew better. "Do you really think he's so bad?"

"I hate that I can't stop thinking about him." She choked on a sob. "He makes me feel things I worked hard to kill long ago."

"You feel for him, when you don't want to feel anything." Calisto said sympathetically. Recalling a time when a man had made her feel that way.

"Yes..." Elsabet admitted. "He makes me...crazy."

"Crazy." Calisto laughed. "That's certainly one description for it, isn't it?"

"Mmm." Elsabet agreed sadly.

"That's what love does to us." Calisto said. Wishing she could rub the other woman's hair in an offer of comfort but her ability to touch had faded with Elsabet's moment of deep emotion.

"And he," Calisto paused, knowing she tread where she shouldn't, but thinking of the pain Bast had confessed in his journal. "He is an exceptional man. If you knew the half of what he's done for the people of this country."

Calisto saw Elsabet was unwilling to comment on that.

"Somedays I think you're right. Other days I think he is only exceptional in face, and form."

Calisto chewed her cheek, hesitating a heartbeat before trudging a bold trek in order to see where it might lead. She reminded Elsabet of a few things the valkyrie had said before. "He is as kind as you've said before...And so very attractive."

Elsabet nodded absentmindedly.

"It's no wonder women fall all over themselves for him." Calisto watched carefully for discomfort in Elsabet. That would mean that her words were planting seeds in the other woman's head. Seeds that would remind her of the deep attraction she felt for the man, all around. And perhaps even of feelings she might have.

"Dorena did."

"Who?"

"There was another woman here." Elsabet sighed. Bitterness still lingering in her voice.

"That's Elengard."

"No. Dorena."

"What's a 'Dorena'?" Calisto frowned. Momentarily distracted.

"I don't know." Elsabet still stared at her ever-mobile hands. "A woman."

"He wouldn't have brought her here without a reason." Calisto probed.

"Oh, I'm sure he had a reason!" Elsabet's cheeks flushed, and she slammed her skirt down. Averting her attention to the wall across from them. Ripples of fury tumbling off her.

"I doubt it was that reason..." Calisto chided. "He doesn't have it in him."

"I believe he finds his pleasures wherever he goes." Her chin jutted as she gestured angrily with it.

"I believe you're wrong!" Calisto defended. Feeling very protective of the man that'd been her friend so many years. "You've asked before how I knew him. Let me tell you!"

Elsabet frowned at her. Her mouth tightening and suspicion darkening her eyes.

"Oh, I do not believe it will be what you expect!"

"Tell me." Elsabet straightened to give a prompting gesture. Her expression was dispassionate, but Calisto knew better.

"I was, like every other woman, hypnotized by his quick appealing smile. His lips which are so fast to turn up in a cocky grin. His rumbling laugh which causes goosebumps from a woman's thighs up..."

Elsabet tossed her a quick wide-eyed look.

Calisto hoped that thinking about it, as she spoke it would remind Elsabet of all those features.

"Yes, I'm quite aware..." Calisto murmured in response to her expression. "You thought you were the only one?"

Elsabet stared at her for a long while.

Calisto was sure Elsabet was torn between jealousy, curiosity and agreement. Calisto pressed on upon seeing Elsabet begin to shift slightly. Disconcerted by discussing Bast's appeal. "You cannot deny he generates raw animal sensuality like most men sweat." Calisto half-laughed. "He can look at a woman with eyes that see straight into the needs of her soul."

Calisto drew a long breath. Knowing Elsabet might not take her next confidence well. "We used to swim together."

"What?" Elsabet's blue eyes darkened, and her pretty blue eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"It was inappropriate." She admitted. "But I'd persuade him to disrobe with me and we'd race to the island in the center of Widow's Lake in Feglen Forest. Swim races. We played like children. He-"

"What is the point of this little tale?" Elsabet cut in.

"Well, I met him long before my precious Raese. And I thought myself quite in love with him for a long while. His personality and his golden body. Dear Lord, every inch of that man looks like a priceless carving!"

Elsabet looked appalled.

"Don't you look at me like that." Calisto lifted a thin black brow. "You've thought it."

"Were you lovers?" Elsabet's face darkened into a storm cloud.

Calisto relented. "Never." She sighed. "That was the point I was getting to. We were good friends but alas, he'd have none of me. He said we weren't well-suited. Which I presumed to mean I wasn't one of his full-figured brunettes...But now..."

She eyed Elsabet assessingly. "I'm gathering it was more than that."

"What was it?"

"I've no idea. But it seems he lost his love of full-figured brunettes, for something more. Besides, by then my Raese came along..." She sighed dreamily before a flash of pain overtook her. "Now I'd tell even the Great Protector that I'm a taken woman, for no man but my husband could ever touch my heart."

"What's so amazing about this Raese?" Elsabet queried, her lips twisted in doubt and voice still rough as she leaned forward.

"My Raese Merlinus, or Merlin, as many have called him. Was the mightiest lover I've ever known. He stole my heart and has kept it in the palm of his hand ever since. When I close my eyes I can still see his face. When I listen carefully, I hear his voice in my mind. When I yearn for a man's touch, it's only his I crave. He's my everything."

"Yearn for a man's touch..." Elsabet turned it over like a foreign phrase. "I never thought I'd 'yearn for a man's touch'..."