Lord Dorian and his men raced towards seldom forest, their horses’ hooves leaving a trail of smoke along the white, moonlit ribbon of road.

In the distance, the murky tangle of Seldom Forest could be seen. Lord Dorian spurred his horse harder and behind him. He looked back and saw his men spurring their own horses to keep up.

Good. He’d picked his most brave and loyal men to accompany him on his quest to retrieve Janet. He was counting on them remain brave and loyal when they reached their destination.

But Lord Dorian overestimated both their bravery and loyalty.

They’d but crested the last ridge of their journey when his men pulled their horses up short. Lord Dorian spun his mount around.

“There’s not time to stop,” he yelled, gesturing towards the forest. “Keep going!”

“But that’s the Seldom Forest,” said one man, trying to restrain the dancing horse who seemed to sense his rider’s fear. “Them woods is haunted, they is.”

“That’s nonsense!” raged Lord Dorian. “Are you gypsies now that you let silly superstitions and faery stories sway you?”

The men looked at one another anxiously, torn between defying Crespus and facing what lay in the fabled forest.

“You *will* follow me!” Lord Dorian said. “You will or you will pay the price!”

He turned his back on them then and struck his horse on its haunches, sending it down the hill towards the forest that looked - even in moonlight - blacker than the blackest night.

Lord Dorian could hear his men following him. He didn’t look back at them until they reached the forest edge. “Come,” he said, follow me and steered his horse towards the wood. But every opening, every deer path seemed to disappear as soon as he approached it as the branches and brambles weaved themselves together to prevent his passage. Minutes stretched into hours as he tried in vain to gain entry.

His men noticed this and became nervous again. “This place is cursed,” said one, and spat on the ground.

“Aye,” said another, crossing himself. “The trees move to stop us.”

“Nonsense!” yelled Dorian, even though he well knew the truth. After all, he’d watched the fey folk take his brother so many years ago. But the men were having none of it.

The backed their skittish horses away a bit as Lord Dorian charged towards an opening. This time, in addition to weaving themselves together, a vine lashed out from the wood, knocked him off his horse and recoiled like the arm of a sea serpent. His men, needing no further proof that the forest tales were true, decided to risk Lord Dorian’s justice rather than venture any further. Wheeling their horses around, they were gone.

Lord Dorian tried to retrieve his own mount, but the beast shied from his touch, snorting and rolling back his eye at the forest. It was nearing midnight. He had to get Janet, even if that meant hacking his way through on foot.

He drew his sword and with a cry attacked the mesh of vines that covered one deer path. The vines and branches hissed in protest but finally withdrew, closing up behind him. Somehow, he’d proven himself. He was in. Midnight was approaching. He had to get Janet before it did.

***

Janet was running through a field of glass flowers. She didn’t know how she got there and she didn’t care. The sun was shining, the grass was softer than the finest velvet and a warm breeze teased her hair. She laughed, picking another flower. She had four already, a rose, a tulip, a peony and a foxglove. The glass petals were thin and delicate and shimmered as they caught the light.

Then the flowers began to shake in her hands, their petals emitting a sweet, melodic jingling sound. Janet stared in disbelief, smiling at the sound. And then the flowers began to shake violently just as a cold blast of air chilled her. Janet was trying to hold the shaking flowers when she heard a low wail that increased in intensity until the flowers shattered on their stems.

Janet sat up, still hearing the jingling sound. How long had she been asleep? She did not know. The jingling sound continued, and then the wail…but it wasn’t a wail. It was a horn. She stood, suddenly aware of where she was - and aware that what she had heard was what she’d been waiting for.

Janet ducked behind a tree wide enough to conceal her and peeked around it, her eyes widening as the Queen of the Otherworld and her procession approached, the bells on its steeds and carriages jingling hypnotically.

Even though her heart was pounding in terror, Janet could not help but to be amazed by what she was seeing. The silver-maned horses, so white they shone pranced as if on air. Their riders - faery gentlemen, ladies and knights from the queen’s court - were beautiful. They were the size of ordinary humans, but clearly were not. Their skin was pale and flawless, their cheekbones high and exaggerated, their noses and ears sharp. They were arrayed in clothing in colors that did not exist in Janet’s world. The ladies’ dresses had living flowers growing around the hem. They were necklaces of sparkly dew that glittered like diamonds.

But it was the queen who took Janet’s breath away. Even if she hadn’t been even more gloriously arrayed than the others, Janet would have known her by the imperialistic look on the chiseled face. Her hair was black like Janet’s, actually blacker - black as midnight - but it sparkled with what looked like tiny stars. Her dress was the color of the softest moss, shot through with bejeweled spider webs. Her coach, made of woven branches, was pulled by four prancing horses whose manes were so long they nearly brushed the grown.

But it was what was behind the carriage that made Janet’s heart lurch.

Ruan sat on a horse tethered to the back of the carriage. His hands were bound with a silvery rope, and his head was bowed in resignation of his fate. Janet looked at his face. His expression was so sad, but could anyone blame him? Betrayed by his own brother and consigned to live a life as the legend Tam Lin, he now faced banishment from the human realm into the Otherworld.

He’d known there was a way to save him. Why hadn’t he shared it with her? Janet had learned about how to save him through eavesdropping, by happenstance had she overheard the old witch describe how he could be saved:

“Tam Lin may be saved. He may be saved if a woman who truly loves him will have the courage to drag him from his horse as he rides out with the Queen and her company at midnight and not let loose her hold no matter what.”

So why hadn’t Ruan told her this, for he himself knew she was the key to his fate. Then Janet remembered the cryptic words of the witch:

“Then that woman, if should could survive the tests and torments that would be visited upon her, would have saved the mortal soul of Tam Lin from hell and freed him from his bonds in the Otherworld.”

He’d wanted to protect her. Even in the face of his own doom, Ruan had wanted Janet to be safe. But she didn’t care about her safety. She only cared about saving Tam Lin, and if whatever price she paid couldn’t be as bad as life without him.

With a cry, she launched herself from her hiding place, sprinted across the space that separated them and flung herself on Raun’s horse, grabbing him as she did. They tumbled to the ground.

“Halt!” came a stern female voice, and Janet knew it was the Queen of the Underworld.

“Janet, let me go,” you mustn’t, said Ruan as the queen approached. But with his hands still bound he could not push her away.

“I’m not letting you go,” Janet said fiercely. Locking her arms even more tightly around him, she hugged him to her. “Ask whatever you want of me, Tam Lin, but do not ask me to let you go, for I love you.”

***

Lord Dorian’s muscles were screaming, and although the forest was chilly, sweat poured off of him as he continued to hack through the vegetation that obstructed his path. He’d quickly adopted the mindset that this wasn’t just a forest, but a living enemy to be vanquished. Each cluster of vines and brambles that blocked his path was greeted with a war cry and a fierce blow of his broadsword.

But the forest and its spirits fought back. Thorny vines lashed Crespus, leaving his shirt in bloody shreds. Roots rose up to trip him. Sprites and meaner fairy folk pulled his hair, threw dirt in his eyes - even scratched and bit him. But he pressed on, motivated by the image of holding a weeping Janet and forcing her to watch his brother’s desperate face descend into the underground maw that would swallow him up forever.

He felt an unparalleled rage every time he thought about how Janet had fled to be with his brother. The bastard. Even ensnared by the fairy folk he was able to interfere with his life. Ruan’s very existence represented a chapter of Lord Dorian’s life he longed to close. Had the little bitch stayed none of this would be happening. He’d be at home right now, feasting and celebrating his marriage to Janet as his brother pondered his imminent demise.

Ahead of him, he heard a noise - a growing cacophony of shrill cries and other-worldly chattering. Through small gaps, he could see what he feared he would, a fairy procession and Janet laying on the ground with her arms and legs wrapped tight around Ruan.

With an angry cry, Lord Dorian raised his sword and hacked harder, pushing through a final, defeated wall of brambles and tumbling into the clearing.

All chattering stopped as the assembled procession turned to look at him. Lord Dorian sensed their gazes and looked up. Above him loomed the carriage of the Queen of the Underworld. She stood within, looking down at him with an icy expression on her beautiful face.

“It appears we have not one but two mortals sent to interrupt us this night,” she said.

Lord Dorian knew enough to not test this woman. Driving his sword into the earth in front of him, he bowed low before her.

“Forgive me, Your Excellency,” he said. “My name is Lord Dorian and I only come to bring back what is mine.”

“That which drives you to wound my trees?” she said sharply.

“I had no choice,” he said. “They would not grant me passage.”

“They have their orders,” she said. “As midnight draws nigh on this - our most hallowed night of the year - no man may walk freely into my realm.” She paused. “You must be very possessive of this thing you want to dare breach my boundaries. Where is it?”

Lord Dorian stood. “Not a thing, my queen, but a woman.” He pointed to Janet. “That woman,” he said. “She is to be married to me on the morrow. Yet tonight she flees my house to come here and save this man.”

The queen through back her head and laughed. “Only mortal fools would risk death to retrieve someone who wants nothing to do with them. No wonder you fade as you do. You’re too stupid to live so long!”

Crespus bristled at the insult. “Beg pardon, your grace. I know it is difficult to understand but these are human matters, best let to humans. Please, just release this woman to me and I will be on my way.”

Now Janet spoke.

“Don’t listen to him!” she cried. “For he is not what he seems. The man before you is wicked and cruel. He is the brother of Tam Lin, whom he abandoned to your entrapment years ago. Now he seeks to stop me from delivering Tam Lin from banishment to the Underworld, but I will not relent, for my love lies not with Lord Dorian but with this man that I hold.”

There was an uproar then as the fairy folk began all talking at once.

“Silence!!” the queen had but not speak the word but once. The glen fell silent.

“The woman has taken hold of this man,” she said. “I cannot release her to you.”

“But she’s mine!” Lord Dorian said angrily.

The queen frowned. “Perhaps in your realm,” she said. “But in my realm she falls under our laws. And the law states that she must hang on to this man during her torment. If she does, she will face trials and tests. If she fails to endure these things, she will be released and you may have her.”

Lord Dorian was not used to being denied his own way and the queen’s words infuriated him. Silently, he told himself that once he had taken Janet from his place, he would punish the forest and all the creatures that dwelt there by burning it to the ground. He did not fear Seldom Forest; it would fear him.

“Very well, your majesty,” he said through gritted teeth and stood aside with the others to watch as Janet’s trial began.

***

At first, the irritation was like buzzing mosquitoes around her ears, making Janet long to brush them away. Then, as she realized it wasn’t insects, but tiny faeries flitting about her head, she became afraid. Dozens of tiny, mean faces gleamed in the moonlight. These were not the good fairies in the tales her grandmother knitted long ago, but mean-spirited, winged hobgoblins who revealed pointy teeth as they cackled at her distress.

Janet screamed when those teeth found her ears and neck as tiny fairy knives began to rip her clothes into ribbons, which the fairies removed with glee. As each part of her body was revealed, the nefarious little creatures bit and pinched with glee. Her front was pressed tightly to Ruan, and the ugly hobgoblins tried in vain to wedge themselves between them to get to her breasts. When they could not, they turned their angry attention on her buttocks and thighs. The tiny slaps did little to hurt her, but when they sunk their teeth into the soft skin, Janet could not help but cry out. Yet, she clung to Ruan - who clung back - and resisted the panicked urge to beat the evil little creatures away.

“Enough!” the queen cried. “You have failed, you miserable creatures.” The hobgoblins howled in despair as they buzzed away in shame.

Janet closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. Then she heard her name being called..

“Janet? Janet, where are you.” Janet strained her ears in disbelief. No, it couldn’t be. Her grandmother was dead.

“Grandmother?” she asked, looking up and over Raun’s shoulder and as far as her head would allow.

“I’m here!” Janet’s eyes widened as the slim form of her grandmother emerged from the forest. She looked just as she had when Janet was a child, tidy in her homespun skirt and apron, a mischievous glint in her eye. Janet had loved her grandmother, who despite advanced age never lost her childlike enthusiasm.

The old woman walked towards her. “What on earth, child? You shouldn’t be here! Come, take gran-gran’s hand and she’ll guide you out of these awful woods!”

“Don’t, Janet!” Ruan cried. “It’s a trap! She’s not real!”

Janet’s eyes filled with tears, for she wanted it to be real. But when she didn’t take the wrinkled hand, her grandmother’s face twisted with rage before her old body began to twist and spin so fast it exploded in a cloud of dust, leaving a tiny, furious pixie in its wake.”

“Begone!” cried the queen and the pixie retreated, chattering in fury.

Now Janet heard the light footfalls over other approaching beings and gasped as she saw a group of fairy men and women approaching her and Ruan.

Strong arms wrenched Janet partially away from Ruan but not before she had wound her hand tightly in his long hair. The fairies separated them, but not completely. Because she maintained her grips on Tam Lin’s locks, she still had hope.

The fairies had her on her back now and were looking down at her with a mixture of curiosity and arrogance.

“I’ve never seen one unclothed before,” said a male with hard, unreadable eyes and silvery white hair. He leaned down and placed a hand over Janet’s breast, squeezing it. Janet whimpered and tried to roll back towards Ruan, but a dozen hands pinned her.

“I wonder how she tastes?” asked the silver-haired fairy asked and dipped his mouth to her breast. Janet whimpered and tried to recoil away from the mouth as it closed - hot and persistent through her nipple. But she could not, just as she could not stop a second fairy - a raven-haired being who resembled the queen - from spreading her legs and fastening a hungry, demanding mouth over her pussy. Other hands rubbed and stroked, touching and probing what hidden parts they could.

The faery folk had an energy about them that even a passionate woman like Janet found hard to ignore. Within moments, the dual attentions forced her body into throbbing, orgasmic spasms.

She turned her head away from Ruan, mortified both by her reaction and by the knowledge that these people were touching her in his presence.

The male fairy seemed to read her mind. “Your true love tastes of honeyed wine,” the dark-headed fair said. “See how much she gives me.”

“Damn you to hell, Zephyr!” Ruan called, his voice betraying his helplessness and his fury, for even as Janet held him by the hair, faery knights restrained him.

The silver-haired fairy raised his mouth from Janet’s breast and whispered in her ear. “All this will but end if you let go,” he said. “Just let go.”

“Never!” cried Janet. “For my body is but a body that will heal. My heart ’tis something else entire.”

“Halt!” cried the queen and the seductions ceased.

The queen stepped down from her carriage and walked over to Janet. For some time, she stood there, staring down at her and Ruan. Her eyes were ice cold, her face completely unreadable.

“You have passed this test,” she said to Janet. “Release him.”

“I don’t want to,” Janet cried. In response, the queen produced a wand from inside her cloak and waved it above the couple. Janet felt her arms and hands go weak. She watched helplessly as her hand flopped out of Ruan’s hair.

“You have passed this test,” the queen repeated. “Do not imply that I will go back on my word. Now stand.”

Janet and Ruan stood and instantly two faery knights seized the Tam Lin and pulled him away. Janet cried out and started to follow but the queen ordered her to stand still.

“You passed the first test - to hold on - but there are more,” she said. “Do you want to walk away now, mortal fool?”

“Never,” Janet said, turning a defiant gaze to the queen.

“Very well,” the queen said, and two more knights seized Janet and drug her to a tree with a thick trunk growing at a 45 degree angle from the ground. The knights bent her over the trunk as vines magically appeared to secure her hands and feet on either side. Her spread legs left her bottom and pussy exposed and she groaned in shame.

The queen was beside her again, tipping her chin up now. “So you think you can take my Tam Lin, do you? That is a very arrogance of you, my little mortal. Very arrogant indeed. It demands punishment.”

She turned away to face her guards. “Jaimon!” she called. “Teach this mortal a lesson!”

A large fairy with hair down past his shoulders stepped forward, pulling an arrow from his quiver. Janet gasped, wondering if she were about to be executed. But the fairy knight simply snapped off the tip, leaving but the shaft, which he tested by slicing the air. Janet heard the whistle the shaft made as he whipped it back and forth. The skin on her bottom crawled in apprehension, for she knew without asking what the knight was preparing to do.

Janet had been whipped before, but not like this. The strong but flexible shaft of the arrow met her skin with a searing pain unlike anything she ever felt. She screamed and strained against her bonds, but the fairy knight ignored her, running a hand in circles over the welt before striking her again.

He gave Janet the merciless licks in sets of ten; after each of them, the Queen of the Underworld would come to stand by Janet, wipe the tears from her eyes in mock sympathy and remind her that being set free was as simple as renouncing her claim to Tam Lin.

But she did not, even when she felt herself go from mindless screaming to limp resignation and the queen knew another tactic was in order. She had Janet unbound and tied to another tree, this time standing with her back against the trunk. The rough bark dug into Janet’s injured buttocks and she groaned in pain.

“My maids insist on a turn!” the queen said, and Janet looked up to see four female fairies approach her, their beautiful faces hard with anger and jealousy. It was clear they resented the eyes of their men feasting on her mortal flesh and the first fairy - a red-haired beauty with bluish white skin - slapped her hard across the face.

“Mortal, you come here to tempt our men?” she hissed.

“No,” said Janet. “I have no interest in your men. I come to retrieve my one mortal love.”

“No interest in our men?” the red-haired one asked angrily. “So you think they aren’t good enough? Or is it that you prefer the attentions of women?”

The red-haired fairy grabbed Janet’s breast, teased the nipple to a point and sunk her teeth into it. The fairy man had been gentle compared to this angry vixen. Janet cried out in pain and fear of what was now another dual assault as a yellow-haired fairy parted her thighs to bit the inside of them, traveling up until Janet felt teeth clamp and pull her labia. A finger slipped inside of her and although she pivoted her hips to move away she could not. The waves of pleasure and pain overtook her and somewhere, through it all, she could hear the voice of the fairy queen hot in her ear, telling her again that salvation would come through renouncing her claim to Tam Lin.

But again, the queen was forced to fail. Janet, unbound a second time, collapsed on the ground. The queen approached her limp and sobbing form.

“Well, well,” she said. “You elude me yet again. But I worry not. There is but one more test - a test you cannot possibly win.” She reached down and tipped Janet’s chin up, looking down on the girl with amused eyes. “You, little mortal, will now attempt to please my son to the point that he spills his seed.”

The fairy folk exploded in laughter. “A human trying to best one of the fair folk in the art of seduction! It cannot be done!” someone cried.

“Relent now!” another cried. “’Tis fruitless!” The others laughed anew at the pun.

The black-haired knight, the one who had pleasured her with his tongue, stepped forward. Janet cast a desperate look at Ruan.

“You don’t have to do it!” he cried. “Just let them take me?”

“No,” Janet said, looking defiantly at both the queen and her handsome son. “I shall do it and I shall succeed.”

“Then let’s begin,” said the Prince of the Underworld, and he grabbed her, planting his mouth over hers in a searing kiss. Janet felt her legs go weak and her body fill with the beginnings of a violent shudder. And in that instant, she knew the secret to besting the creature. She had to ignore her own reaction and concentrate on his.

It wasn’t easy. With each touch from his otherworldly hand, her body threatened to betray her and Janet realized what she was engaged in was not sex but sexual combat. When she licked his ear, he countered, making her shaky with lust.

She had to get the advantage, and fast! Dropping to her knees she undid his breeches with nimble fingers, freeing his scrotum and his large semi-hard penis from them. When he reached down to pull her up, she slapped his hands away, and slid her mouth first down on his shaft and then moved under him to take in his entire scrotum massaging his sack with her tongue. The prince was laughing at first, but as his cock began to swell, his laughter turned to moans. And the crowd, who thought no mortal could elicit such a reaction from one of the fey folk, gasped in collective surprise. When the tried to pull back, Janet grabbed his buttocks and slid her mouth on his hardened penis, rhythmically moving her mouth up and down his shaft and occasionally worrying the delicate spot beneath the head of his cock with her teeth.

She gloried in her own power and the sense of victory she felt coming through his throbbing penis. The prince fought to pull back, but his struggle was not with Janet’s inferior strength, but with his own desire to stay nestled in her sweet, warm mouth. With a cry he grabbed her hair as she deep-throated him, as she - excited by the power of her own submission - consumed gulp after gulp of his hot load.

Janet was almost afraid to look at the queen. It was one thing to best her minions. It was quite another to defeat her son with no more weapon than a skilled tongue. But the queen did not look angry.

“Get up, my son,” she said, and the Prince stood and hastily arranged his deflating member back in his pants as the crowd hooted in glee. Now she turned to Janet.

“Our people are tied to the earth,” she said. “And the earth knows what it is to be passionate in all things. You have proven yourself to be passionate in the art of love and the art of pleasure. You will make our Tam Lin a good partner, for he himself has exhibited the same qualities in his service to me which is now -I’m sorry to say - ended.”

She looked to the guards. “Release him to her,” she said. “The mortal girl has won.”

Despite the outcome, the fairy folk won, for they had quite enjoyed the show and developed an admiration for Janet.

Janet looked at Ruan. Would he still want her? When he opened his arms and bade her come she flew to him, truly happy for the first time in her life.

“No!” Lord Dorian’s voice rose above the cheering crowd as he drew his sword and approached the couple. “The woman is mine!”

“It has been decided,” said the Queen of the Underworld. “Under our laws she is free.”

“Your laws be damned!” Lord Dorian said through clenched teeth and turned his sword now on the queen in anger. “Let her go or I’ll cleave you as I’ve cleaved the trees of your precious forest.”

Instantly, Lord Dorian regretted the rashly spoken words as the fairy knights descended upon him, restraining and disarming him with ease.

“Shall we kill this mortal fool?” they asked.

The queen looked coolly at Lord Dorian, who - having been forced to his feet - returned her gaze with fear and pleading.

“No, I think not,” she said. “Having lost our beloved Tam Lin we need another. She reached down and stroked Lord Dorian’s face. “This one will do.”

“No!!” cried Crespus, struggling. He turned his head to look back at Ruan and Janet.

“Brother!” he cried. “You know these folk. Intercede for me. I cannot be banished from my own kind. I cannot. Help me, brother! Help me!”

But Ruan, knowing his brother for what he was, could feel no pity. Fairy justice was brutal, but fair. Crespus had brought his fate upon himself.

He and Janet stepped back as the ground opened beneath before them - the doorway to the Underworld. With a smile, the fairy queen nodded a farewell as her carriage, now bearing the bound body of her latest human victim, plunged beneath the surface. The rest of the procession quickly followed and the earth closed itself back up, leaving no trace of what had happened.

Janet and Ruan had no idea how long they stood holding one another in the forest. Words did not come right away, but none were needed. They were together. He would go back to claim his rightful place as Lord and Janet as his bride.

Ruan turned and plucked a rose that had appeared on a nearby bush. “A gift,” he said, “from the Queen of the Underworld. A wedding gift.”

Then he kissed her gently before taking her hand and leading her gently out of the forest.