Only Fools Rush In

"Do not go into the wild woods at night."

It was an ancient adage, spoken over candlelight at children's bedsides. It was repeated in desperation as the children got older and wanted to stretch their freedom. It was shouted to caravans as the grown children rode away to work or schools, and it was eventually passed down from the grown children to their own kin. No one seemed to ask why it was unlucky or forbidden to go into the woods at night -- clearly, anyone with a brain would know that it was extremely dangerous. There were creatures in the woods. There were robbers, phantoms, and monsters. Only a fool would try to venture through the shadowy trees after the sun went down.

Unfortunately, Evan Evanovich was incredibly foolish. He was the kind of foolish person that acted first and thought later. He was the kind of foolish person that was brash, loud, charismatic, and more than a little charming. He was also incredibly drunk the night that he wandered into the wild woods. He had been looking for a place to take a piss behind the tavern when he'd noticed the woods looked particularly inviting.

"Lads, why do you suppose they want to keep us away from the woods at night?" he shouted to his comrades, who were in the middle of a rowdy game of darts, and also an impromptu dance battle with some orcs from the next town over. They were all terrifically busy, and so they didn't answer.

"Hm. No good reason I can see," he said, answering his own question as he peered into the darkness. There was nothing quiet about the night, and therefore nothing frightening. In Evan's (particularly addled) mind, there could be no real danger as long as the crickets kept chirping, the laughter kept its riotous rhythm, and the drinks continued flowing. He took a step towards the darkness. Then another. He was about to turn back when he saw the tiniest flicker of warm, ivory light in the distance.

He blinked.

"Lads," he muttered to no one in particular, "I'm about to check this out." He stumbled closer to the light, peering at it, but as soon as he got close enough to touch it, it dodged out of his grip. Then it vanished completely. He stumbled back, sputtering in disbelief. In less than a moment, a second flicker of light shone just a few yards deeper into the woods.

"Aha!" he said, laughing and walking towards it, now fully out of earshot of the tavern. "What are you, you brilliant little thing...?" again, he reached for the light, but it flickered out a moment before he could touch it.

This game continued deeper and deeper into the woods -- Evan following a trail that was unmarked, led only by the warm ivory light that seemed to call to him. He chased it, in turns growing excited and then weary, as it escaped him again and again. Finally, the light went out for the last time, and Evan stumbled, realizing he'd nearly tripped on a root. He looked around. Or rather, he tried to look. Now that the will-o-the-wisp's light was gone, he was swallowed in almost complete darkness.

"Hello?" he called in confusion, hearing a soft sighing. It sounded suspiciously like a young woman, and Evan whirled around. "I'm not trying to interrupt any happy couples tonight," he announced loudly. "I'll just take my leave, then."

The woman's voice giggled and there was a rustling sound in the trees nearby. He blinked in confusion. He had no idea where he was. He felt even more stupid than usual -- which was saying something, as Evan was a very self-aware idiot. He cleared his throat.

"Um, I'm sorry to bother you, madam," he said, stepping in the direction of the giggle, "But would you happen to know the way to the path...? I mean, the path back to, uh, civilization? Or, more accurately, any tavern where I could get another drink... I just, ah -- whoa!" he nearly fell backward as a woman dove from the darkness and tackled him to the ground, covering his mouth with a hand, motioning for him to be silent.

Evan's eyes went wide as he looked at her. She was magnificent: dark-skinned and positively glowing in the moonlight, her braids positioned around an impressive set of white antlers. Then he saw behind her, the white light. He reached for it, and the woman shook her head vehemently, and she patted Evan down. She apparently found what she was looking for -- a half-full set of matches -- and lit one, holding the flame to her lantern. It blazed to life, and the little white light made a horrible shrieking sound, turning blue, and then black, somehow still burning furiously.

"Not this one," she shouted into the darkness.

The little white light shrieked again, turning red and orange and blue again. The strange woman laughed.

"Nice try," she said coldly. "If I want to make a deal, I know where to find you. No. Not this one. This one is mine."

"Um," Evan said. The light blinked at him, and the woman with antlers whirled on him in anger.

"Keep your mouth shut," she hissed. "I'm negotiating for you here."

The white light shrieked a third time, even louder. The sound was ancient -- a scraping, keening shriek that ended in a little huff of discontent.

"Yeah, I mean, I hear you," the woman said loudly, swatting away Evan's hands as he tried to stand. She got even louder, as if for Evan's benefit: "Nah, there are better things to eat in these woods! This one's kind of scrawny. Hah! I know, right? Yeah, well, good luck. Let me know if you're still coming to cards next Thursday, alright?" The shrieking turned plaintive. Then, at last, the white light bobbed away. As it disappeared into the grove, the woman with antlers visibly sagged in relief.

"That was close," she sighed, and stood, holding the lantern in one hand and brushing off her apron with the other.

"Scrawny?" Evan asked as he stood up and pulled himself to full height.

"That was a will-of-the-wisp, you ungrateful prick," the woman snapped, holding her lantern up so that her pretty brown face was washed in lantern light, casting her features into shades of warmth and cool shadow. Her full lips and pointed ears were rosy with blush -- it must have been the adrenaline -- but her eyes were somehow soft as a doe's.

"Scrawny?" Evan repeated, fully miffed at this point. He was really working his way up to a still-somehow-half-drunken tirade. Or, he would have, if the woman didn't interrupt him.

"Here are your matches," she said, chucking them at his face. "That was a will-of-the-wisp. I just saved your life."

"Hardly," Evan replied, "I had the situation under control." He did his best to smooth down his wavy blond hair and shot the antlered woman his most charming smile.

"You were two seconds away from becoming Ickagreg's second breakfast," snapped the woman.

"... the will-of-the-wisp's name is Ickagreg?" he asked, blinking as the realization-- the realization that she may be telling the truth-- dawned on him. "The will-of-the-wisp is a man?"

"Yes. Try to keep up, alright? Let's get you back to that tavern."

"Wait," he said, holding up a hand.

"What now?!" she asked, exasperated.

"How do I know you're not going to just drag me deeper into the forest and eat me?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "You said, 'This one's mine'. How do I know you're not just as evil as Ickagreg?"

The woman snarled and stepped forward, holding the lantern up to both of their faces. Evan backed up, surprised by her boldness, and found himself pressed against the cool bark of a large tree. Cornered. She narrowed her dark eyes and Evan drunkenly found himself observing that she had quite long eyelashes.

"First of all," she said, her voice low and deadly, "Ickagreg does not eat his victims. He lures them back into the bog where his little frat brothers, Ickabob and Ickaderrick, live. They are both too lazy to go through the trouble of killing anyone, and neither of them have real teeth. They just have rows and rows of acidic gums. Imagine, like, the most parasitic deepest deep-sea slugs, waiting for some dummy to stumble into their trap, so that they can stupify you in the bog and then gum you over for two or three days until you finally die of starvation. All you'd be able to hear is them shrieking in their bog language about how your bones are still too crunchy."

"Ah," said Evan, turning a bit green around the gills. "That seems a bit, ah, unpleasant..."

"Secondly," she said, "Ickagreg is not evil. He is usually quite discerning about what he eats: plow horses and lost sheep, kelpies, and sharp-toothed megabats. He probably needs to get his eyes or ears checked because clearly, he was trying a new flavor on the menu."

"Ah," said Evan again.

"The new flavor was you," she snapped. Then, sarcasm dripping from her voice, she said, "A modern dish -- a rare variety of idiot. Maybe if you were lucky he would have roasted you with his bog fires! That would've really brought out the -- mmm -- the real subtle notes of this flavor of stupid."

Evan laughed weakly. "That's funny," he said.

"And lastly," she said, rolling her eyes, now close enough to kiss or spit on him, "I will have you know, you judgmental and entitled city boy, that I am not a will-of-the-wisp. I am a succubus."

Evan felt his eyes widen and a delighted drunken smile light his face, which he immediately sensed was the wrong reaction, judging by the way the woman's eyes flickered with rage fires. He tried to tamp down his excitement by switching to a charming smirk.

"What the hell just happened to your face?" she asked, her rage turning to genuine confusion and perhaps a touch of disgust. She crinkled up her nose as if she'd smelled something rotten. "Are you... are you really drunk enough to think I would spend the night with you?" She backed away from him, her mouth jerking downward in what was now apparently more than a touch of disgust. "Ugh. Okay. Well. I guess they don't teach kids how this works anymore."

"I know how it works!" Evan said, incorrectly assuming she meant his sexual prowess.

He gestured to his pants, his blood singing with alcohol and anticipation. "I know what a succubus is! I know how this works!"

"Oh, my gods, you really are the village idiot," she said, smacking herself in the face in pure exasperation.

"I am not. I am Evan Evanovich, son of Bertram Evanovich... who actually, yeah, my dad was, in fact, the village idiot. But I'm not. I'm an adventurer."

"Sure. Listen. I meant, they don't teach you what a succubus actually does. It is a symbiotic relationship. I am often sought out by guardians and witches and wizards of the forest, who wish to sustain me. They see what I bring to the forest... and to the night... and they know that I am an invaluable asset to this place."

"So... uh..." Evan's hands fell limply to his sides.

"So I don't fuck any random dude who wanders into my woods and needs rescuing," she snarled. "I get to pick and choose who pleases me. It is a privilege. Got it?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah," Evan said.

"So we can go back to your little tavern, now, city boy," she said dismissively, turning her back and starting to walk away.

"Oh! Yes. Um. I suppose a 'thank you' is in order," Evan said.

"Yeah, I would think so," the woman said.

"Then I would like to submit a formal thank you, miss...? What did you say your name was?"

"I haven't said, Evan. And that was very much on purpose. Watch the branch." It snapped back and smacked him in the chest, the leaves tickling unpleasantly under his chin.

"Oof! Well, I'm all ears," Evan said. "You saved my life, the least I can do is listen to your troubles."

"How drunk are you?" the woman asked in astonishment. "Why on earth would I offer you my name?"

"Oh." he laughed at his own stupidity. "So that I can submit my petition of thanks in writing to the nearest forest office, I guess I was thinking... you don't have a little gnome who does your paperwork? Not a little satyr that stamps all your letters and tells you that you don't have enough points of identification? I'm surprised. Ickagreg seems the type to love bureaucracy."

The woman looked at him incredulously. He started to sweat, but offered his widest smile and doubled down. "You know what I mean? Some dudes just live to stand in line. Some guys just love to sit around in a waiting room, patiently filling out forms and waiting their turn. You know the kind of guy I mean... right?"

"I do, actually," she said, finally cracking a smile. "You're a human man... you don't count yourself as one of those men?"

"Nah. I haven't filled out paperwork properly since grade school. I can barely sign my name on a dotted line, if you can believe it."

"Oh, I can believe it," she said drily. "But... grade school...?" she paused in her walk and looked over her shoulder at him.

"Yeah. Times tables. You know, those word problems... 'Billy has six watermelons. The Orc Prince Selarius has fifteen. If Selarius eats half of Billy's watermelons, how many -- ' "

"Ah, okay, I see, I see. We had something similar, actually."

"Oh, yeah? Where did you go to school?"

Her smile disappeared. "Nowhere you would know. Hurry up, the sun will be rising in a few hours and we have to get you back before they come looking for you. We don't want them to end up in a swamp, or as a Kelpie's dinner, or down a ravine."

"Wait. Wait -- I'm sorry if I -- please slow down -- look, I'm sorry if I offended you in any way. Miss -- Miss --!" he tripped over a rock and stumbled to the ground, scraping his ankle and shin. He hissed at the pain, tried to stand, couldn't. He looked up and tried to find her shadowy shape in the darkness.

"I'm right here," she said, her voice surprisingly soft this time.

"Oh. Sorry. I... I seem to have scra-a-aped..." he felt the world spin around him.

"Don't tell me you faint at the sight of blood," she sighed.

"I absolutely faint at the sight of blood," he said, his voice high-pitched and reedy.

"Then don't look. Look at me. Evan. Look at me." she said, grabbing his face and tilting it towards her so that he was forced to stare into her beautiful doe's eyes. For a tantalizing moment, he was frozen. Her hands were rough but warm on either side of his face. He stared at her in amazement. He found her so beautiful, so irresistible, somehow so safe.

"You're incredible," he said softly. "Thank you for saving my life."

Then he fainted anyway.

When Evan woke up, he was in an modest cabin with the sun streaming through the window and soft, fuzzy blankets wrapped around his naked waist. He pulled the blankets up over his face and groaned as his hangover throbbed through his head.

"Oh, good. You're up," came a now-familiar woman's voice. Evan poked his nose over the blankets to see the woman watching him, long legs crossed one over the other, the sunlight warming her face. She tilted her head back and Evan spotted hair-thin gold chains and links, along with feathers, decorating the woman's antlers and braids.

He looked down, then back up at the woman.

"Did we...?" he tried, his voice squeaky.

"No. We absolutely did not," she said. "You were drunk. You were also passed out. You were also injured. You were also as limp as a raw steak."

"Oh -- my ankle!" he said, lifting the blankets to look at his perfectly healed skin.

"Yeah. I told you it was a symbiotic relationship," she said, biting her lower lip and smirking at him. She stood and walked over to where he lay, handing him a hot ginger lemon tea with honeycomb. He sipped it delicately and felt the hangover immediately dissipate. He sighed in relief, all the pain gone. She sat down on the bed beside Evan.

"Thank you," he said again. "That's twice you've saved my life now."

"Hmm," she murmured, reaching out and taking the tea cup from him, their fingers brushing against each other.

"I suppose I... owe you," he said in realization. He looked at her earnestly. "How can I make it up to you?" it was the most earnest he had been in a long time. "I know there's a temple near the southern edge of the forest. I could bring you offerings -- I could find some magic artifacts -- I know I'm kind of stupid but I'm actually a pretty good adventurer -- I'm good at finding things -- "

"Evan, shh," she said, pressing a finger over his mouth. He suddenly noticed how close she was, how warm and soft and immediate.

"Um." he said, eyes widening, feeling his blood rush. "Listen. I'm really sorry about last night. I just want to thank you for everything. I know you saved my life. I know that now. I just want to make it up to you. I feel terrible about it, I..."

"Melika." she said.

"... Melika?"

"Yes. My name is Melika." she leaned into his neck and left a long, lingering kiss against his collarbone. He found himself leaning into her touch, craving it.

"Oh," he said in realization as he felt her healing magic radiate through her mouth and into his skin, "Oh. I see how I can make it up to you."

"Oh, do you?" she asked teasingly, pulling back onto to kiss him on the mouth, her tongue demanding.

"Yes," he breathed between heated kisses, "Anything for you. Anything you want, Melika."

"Hm. I want this chest," She said, tracing the front of his collarbone with the tip of her pointer finger.

"It's yours," he said immediately.

"I want this mouth," she said, tipping his chin up so that he was forced to look down through his lashes at her. She kissed him hard.

"It's yours,"

"I want this cock," she said, sliding her hand down and shocking him by straddling him without hesitation. She gripped him, making him gasp. His eyes fluttered shut. "I want this cock," she repeated, more demanding, her voice only betraying the tiniest thread of neediness.

"It's y-yours," he stuttered out, and she grinned in satisfaction, stroking him into a rock-hard erection. "Just tell -- oh, gods -- just tell me what you want. Anything y-you -- anything you want," he opened his eyes in a daze to see her tilting her head, considering.

"What can you offer me?" she asked.

He blinked at her. "Well," he said, his voice hoarse, "I am an idiot when I talk, but my mouth is pretty good at doing other things."

Her eyebrows shot up. Without waiting to hear her reply, he grabbed her by the waist and flipped her onto her back, kissing her hard, grinding into her. His touch was firm but gentle, even-handed and slow but enthusiastic, and soon her back was arched. She let out a high-pitched sigh. He kissed her until her sighs turned to heavy moans, and he slid a hand up her thigh to find her soaked under her short leather tunic.

He tugged it down and looked at her body in awe -- she had tattoos and scars, but her muscles underneath were toned and firm. Her skin was sweating in a sheen of anticipation -- she looked up at him hungrily.

"What are you going to do, Evan?" She asked, her voice hoarse with want.

"You saved my life," he said again. "I will spend my days showing you that you made the right choice. I will honor you in any and every way I can... starting here." He traced her inner thighs until he reached her soaked center, making tiny circles around her clit.

She gasped, her eyes shutting tight as her back arched.

He dove down, his mouth licking eagerly, his lips slipping against her expertly. He felt her struggle under him and held her down, feeling the magic course through the both of them.

"You are... you are pretty good at this, city boy," she managed through the pleasure as her thighs began to shake. She chased the sensation and cried out as he brought her to the edge and then kept her there, teasing her with the tip of his tongue. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at him, tangling her fingers through his blond curls. He smirked at her and sucked on her hard, slipping a finger in and curling it ever-so-slightly. The sensation forced her over the edge. She cried out wordlessly, thrusting her hips forward into his mouth. She gushed for him, her shoulders curling up to her pointed ears as she shook. As the sensation subsided, her muscles went slack, but a moment later, she was propped up on her elbows, eyes glowing.