Tourist Trap by Robin Lythgoe
2011 – Free Download Content of this download can be distributed freely for non-commercial purposes as long as you mention the author’s name. Any similarities between this fictional story and any actual persons are based purely on coincidence.
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Tourist Trap
"Come on. We're almost there!"
Damon let his companion pull him up the grassy slope, laughing and out of breath. Ilyana was beautiful, spirited... and she was his. Had it only been a fortnight since he'd met her? The first time he'd seen her he'd been enchanted by the energy that seemed barely contained in her willowy frame. Her too-blue eyes -- exotically wide and tipped up at their corners --held a fire in them that intrigued him. Wild auburn curls and lips that begged to be kissed softened the angularity of her face.
And kiss them he had...
The wind from the sea whipped her pretty blue dress and molded it against her figure, refusing to let him forget the passion she'd ignited in him. As they crested the hill, he marveled at the events of the last fourteen days. Twining his fingers through hers, he pulled her close to steal a kiss.
She responded with an eagerness that had him wishing they hadn't left the inn. Why hadn’t he come to her little town a long time ago? Fates, but it had been a long time since a woman had stirred him so! Too soon, she wriggled free of his embrace and pulled on his hand, turning him around.
"There. Look!" She was breathless. Laughing. Excited.
The hill fell away beneath them in a sharp bluff edged with a strip of white sand. Beyond that, the sea had created a curving, shallow inlet. In the midst of it a ruin rose from a small rocky
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island. Four pillars lifted so straight and so high that Damon thought they surely must scrape the heavens. White as snow they were, and graceful arches connected them, broken off on the seaward edges as though they had once continued in a full circle.
He couldn't imagine what the edifice must have looked like when it had been new. Even now there was something moving in its simple beauty. It spoke of age and of power.
"What do you think?" Ilyana asked, hugging him.
"I -- it's marvelous." Such a paltry word. "What is it? And why haven't I ever heard of it before today?"
She gave him a secret smile and pulled on his hand again, moving to descend the bluff. "We don't get many visitors here."
Damon laughed. "So you've said. All the terrible stories keep people away."
"And you don't believe them." She grinned at him and skipped down the path.
Damon followed more slowly, then paused on an outcropping of rock to look at the arches again. The closer they got, the more he could feel a presence about it.
"Hurry! We're going to be late!" Ilyana urged, running across the sand.
Shaking his head and smiling, Damon trotted after her. As they splashed through the shallow water, he saw that they were not alone. There were a handful of people at the base of one of the
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columns, and as they neared, another dozen or more rose from where they'd been sitting on the broken remains of steps that led up to the dais from which the columns sprouted.
"Who are they?" Damon asked.
"You'll see. This is going to be amazing. The chance of a lifetime..."
How could he refuse the look of excited anticipation on her lovely face?
The pair of them were greeted with smiles and words of welcome, and the atmosphere took on an air of celebration.
Ilyana dragged him to the center of the circle and up on what might have been a low altar. She looked up at the sky, then at the assembling people and gave them a nod.
Curious, Damon watched as the others drew around them, clasped hands, and began singing. Or chanting. He wasn't sure which, for it seemed a strange combination.
"Is this how your people get married?" he asked, teasing.
"No." The fire in her eyes had grown until Damon could almost believe he saw flames flickering within them. "This is how we live forever."
"I could handle that."
"Probably not."
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Light flickered among the chanters and Damon was shocked to feel his body suddenly pierced right through. The pain of it was terrible and exquisite all at the same time. He looked down at his body to find shaft after shaft of light stabbing into him, driving him to his knees.
His horrified eyes lifted to his lover. Ilyana's hands stretched out to him, and her mouth opened in ecstasy as she drove yet another spear into him. He wanted to scream, to protest, but his body refused to respond. He looked down again to where the light -- her light -- entered him. Vaguely, he realized that his life was being siphoned away.
This was It. The End. How could two tempestuous weeks of fairy tale romance come to this? Desperate, Damon forced one word from his lips. "Why?"
A shudder of rapture went through her, then her heated eyes focused on his. "For immortality." A wicked smile curved her beautiful mouth. "You should have listened to the stories..."
The End!
About the author
Robin Lythgoe started making up stories even before she could write, dictating it to her older sister. Today she writes about fantastical places, wizards and extraordinary journeys and even dabbles in horror as this story testifies. She recently published her novelette In the Mirror. It is available through Smashwords and Nook.
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