This is the promise between faerie and human
So mote it be
Faye raised her voice and called out the words with as much strength and passion as she could muster; anger and concentration shaped her words and sent them to cut the air. You will come to me, she thought, you arrogant, controlling bastard. I will have what I want from you.
Droplets of rain landed on Faye’s hair, but Finn Beatha didn’t appear.
‘Call him again,’ Gabriel said, looking up at the charcoal clouds that massed over their heads. ‘It’s going to rain.’
‘More water can only help us,’ Faye observed, and pulled the hood of her black cape-like swing coat over her head. Now I really look the part, she thought. She called out the invocation again, but nothing happened.
‘Am I doing something wrong?’ Faye appealed to Gabriel. ‘I’m doing what I did before, in Abercolme and in the rose garden. It worked then…’
‘I don’t know. I guess with these things, it’s always about the intention, isn’t it? All the rest’s window dressing, mood-setting, to some extent. You’re supposed to be calling out with a kind of intense passion.’ He gave Faye a half-critical look. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t hear it in your voice. The passion. I’m guessing that when you summoned Lyr, you really wanted to see him. Tonight, I don’t know. You want to see Finn, but you don’t want to at the same time.’
‘I can’t let myself be taken over by it like I have before. He wins if I do.’ Faye exhaled in frustration. ‘I’ve got to keep my focus,’ she muttered.
‘But—’ Gabriel started to argue, and she felt the anger rise up in her again.
‘No! I have to stay in control. You don’t know what it’s like! He’s like… it’s…’ she wanted to scream at her own sudden lack of eloquence. ‘I lose myself. I… forget. Everything except him. It’s…’ How could she explain that the pleasure of Finn and of being in Murias made everything else pale by comparison? That when she was in his arms, she’d sacrifice everything else to stay there, wrapped in the dark ecstasy of his touch? And how could she tell Gabriel how much that loss of control lured and terrified her in equal measure?
‘Faye,’ Gabriel held out his hands for hers and clasped them in his, ‘from everything you’ve told me about your connection with Finn, it’s… deeply passionate. Right? It’s desire that links you.’
‘Yes, but—’ she tried to explain, but he shook his head.
‘Faye. You have to open yourself up to that desire. Don’t judge it. It’s part of you; you might think it’s a dark part, something in the shadows. But the things in the shadows are what give us power. That’s what magic teaches us, right?’
She nodded: he was right, but knowing something and having the courage to feel it were very different things.
‘You’ve got to let go,’ Gabriel said, softly. ‘Call him with all the desire you have for him. I know it’s in you. And he knows, too.’
‘But what if I get lost there again?’ Faye felt as if she was standing on the edge of a cliff. She knew she had to jump; she knew that she would jump. But the thought of the fall rising up to meet her still made her stomach lurch and her head spin.
‘Then you get lost,’ Gabriel replied, completely serious. ‘Maybe that’s what you were supposed to do all along.’
So she began again, letting the desire for Finn overwhelm her, and when the wave came, she surrendered herself to it. Dimly, she was aware that the wave on which the faerie king arrived, riding a black kelpie – half-faerie horse, half serpent’s tail – submerged the whole of the empty, muddy Thames shore. But she was already under Finn’s influence, and couldn’t know whether Gabriel had got out of its way in time.
Finn swung her onto the back of the kelpie, and she clung to his waist as the creature dove back under the water.
Thirty-Six
‘I knew you would come.’
Finn Beatha, High King of the realm of Murias, removed her cowl-like hooded coat and threw it to one side of the palatial bedroom. This time, they hadn’t even had to travel through the marketplace and the court of the Castle of Murias in which he resided; Faye had passed out underwater and awoken, strangely dry, in the room she remembered so well.
She didn’t trust herself to reply, and so remained silent.
‘You called out to me in desire. You called me to be your lover again, sidhe-leth.’ He stood behind her and kissed her collarbone, his hands cupping her breasts. ‘What took you so long?’
His warm hands smoothed the black silk of the dress she wore; already it seemed impossible that just an hour ago she’d been at the party, and moments ago at the muddy tideline of the Thames. Already, her memory of the ordinary world was fading and Finn was filling her senses. She leaned back against him, remembering how his muscled torso fit perfectly against her back; remembering how sure his hands were, how he knew exactly how she wanted to be touched.
‘Are you no longer the human man’s lover?’ Finn breathed against her neck; for a brief second, the mention of Rav made Faye freeze, but she controlled herself with her breath.
‘No.’ She said no more, but it seemed that was enough for Finn.
Faye knew that she had to stay lucid if she wanted to return Aisha to the ordinary world, and she felt within herself for the anger that had made her summon Finn in the first place. It was still there, a fire that burned in a rich velvet blackness that threatened to snuff it out. No, she reminded herself. Tend the fire; use it to burn your way out of here if you must. Yet, at the same time, she had to submit to her desire for her plan to work. And so she turned to Finn and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. There was no reason not to, now. She’d ended it with Rav.
Lyr’s crystal was stuffed into her bra. She panicked about what to do with it if he undressed her.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she said, and it wasn’t a lie: none of it was, as her lips found his and drank his kisses as if they were wine.
The fire of his touch on her skin made its way to the flame of rage that smouldered deep inside her, and when it made contact, acted as a current. The anger flowed into her body and wove itself into her desire for Finn; this, this, her body told her, as her instinct combined kiss with bite, and sweetness with a hunger to consume him she’d never felt before. Faye dragged him to the bed, her nails digging into his perfect, golden skin. She’d drawn blood where she’d bitten his lip and she ran her tongue over it, measuring him with her eyes.
Surprise flashed briefly in Finn’s ocean-blue eyes, but a hungry smile turned up one corner of his mouth.
‘I see that my sidhe-leth has grown claws,’ he murmured as she pushed him onto the wide, deep bed; it occurred to her that the golden posts at each corner of the bed were very like the ones of the bed she’d met him at in her dreams; the place underwater, a bed on a rock where they had made love. Dreams she’d awoken from, hungry for satisfaction. ‘I am your willing subject, tigress.’
She tore off her dress; underneath, she wore only a brief black lace thong and her black strapless bra, which she kept on, hoping he wouldn’t tear it off. He reached for her, but she pulled away quickly, knowing she had to take control. Ripping her dress in half, she took both stretches of the black silk and tied his wrists to the golden bars that linked the bedposts. Finn craned his neck, wanting to kiss her, but she straddled him and sat up, away from his head and shook her head, smiling.
The fiery desire that filled her now was something different to before. She wanted Finn just as much as she had before, lost in a whirlwind of lust. She wanted him inside her, wanted his mouth on every part of her; she wanted to hear him call out her name when he came, urgent and hot. But unlike before, where she’d felt pulled under the waves, unable to do anything but submit to her most shadowy erotic pleasures, now she wanted to render Finn powerless to resist her actions.
Slowly, she caressed him until he was crying out to be inside her, but she refused; instead, she leant forward to kiss him again; to tease him maddeningly, taki
ng her pleasure from him and refusing his; repeating the pattern until he was on the edge of climax.
Last, she made him beg.
‘I want to hear you tell me how wrong you were. To ever refuse me entry to Murias,’ she murmured in his ear as she positioned herself over him. She definitely felt more in control of herself than she had before in Murias. Her desire for Finn was the same, but the fuzzy-headedness was no longer there. Briefly, she placed her hand on the outside of her bra, making sure the crystal was safe.
‘I was wrong. I was wrong, sidhe-leth,’ he moaned, desperate for release. ‘Please…’
‘Acknowledge that I am your mistress,’ she lowered herself slowly, taking him inside her.
‘You are my mistress. I adore you,’ he moaned. ‘Oh, oh…’ he closed his eyes as the sensation overtook him.
‘You would do anything for me. Allow me anything. Say it.’
‘I allow you anything I can grant. Any boon or pleasure that is in my …’ he groaned, and Faye felt her own pleasure build as his cock slid inside her. She leaned forward and buried her face in his neck, moving forward and back, finding the speed and angle that felt right.
‘That is?’ she murmured, as the soft, sweet tightness grew in her thighs and belly.
‘…that is in my power to give, you may have it,’ he murmured; finding his lips, she kissed him deeply.
‘Give me something, then, so I know you’re not lying,’ she whispered in his ear as she moved back and forward, her pleasure growing.
‘What?’ he gasped. She was in control, and Finn Beatha had lost his. ‘Faye, please, I want to…’
If he managed to orgasm, she’d have lost the opportunity. She slowed down.
‘I want to know…’ she couldn’t just come straight out and ask for Aisha. What could she ask? ‘I want to know who has been in your bed since I’ve been gone.’ Perhaps approaching the subject this way would give her a clue; he’d taken Aisha as his lover, so if he named her, it would give Faye a road to other questions.
‘Many have graced my bed,’ he panted, wild with desire. ‘But none like you, sidhe-leth,’
‘What about Aisha? The girl you stole at the concert?’
Faye brushed her lips against his chest and he moaned in pleasure.
‘She was here,’ he murmured.
‘And now? Does she rival me for your affection?’ Faye watched his face closely for a reaction: Finn grimaced, but she couldn’t tell if it was in pleasure or not. ‘Pledge yourself to me. I am your mistress, the queen of your desire.’
‘No, no, Faye, there is no-one but you. I have banished them… all, on your arrival.’ He was breathing fast and his eyes were half-closed. Faye felt her own orgasm near; even though she was concentrating on extracting information from him, it was impossible not to be aroused by Finn.
‘Banished them? Where?’ she panted. She laid on top of him now, her skin against his, hot and slick with sweat. It would only be moments now.
‘Don’t worry, Faye. You will not be troubled by her now,’ Finn muttered, and she could feel her and his climax coming, unstoppable, like a wave. ‘She is deep… deep, oh, oh, Faye…’
‘Deep where?’ Faye held on to sobriety for one last second before allowing herself to be lost in the pleasure that would cover them both.
‘The lower dungeon!’ he cried out.
‘Finn… Finn!’ she cried, meeting his blue-black eyes with hers; his were the dark of the deepest ocean, the deepest places that held mysteries, that were alien lands in their own right. She ground against him: once, twice, more, more, her body cried out, and she gave it what it hungered for.
Her climax came, then, like a wave that crested higher and higher; she rode him, lost in her pleasure, as the ecstasy broke over her and through her abdomen, up to her heart, through her belly and back. It drummed deep inside her; a primal blackness that resonated red on her closed eyelids. She threw her head back and cried out, a long guttural cry.
‘Yes, yes, I swear it, you have my word, oh, oh…’ Finn’s mouth gasped open, and his body bucked with the force of his orgasm in response to hers. Faye kept riding him as the echoes of her orgasm transmitted themselves through her body, out to her fingertips, her ears, her scalp, coming to a slow stop as peace filled her soul and she relaxed against his prone body.
Tenderly, she kissed his lips, his chin, and his chest, before slowly extricating herself from him and crawling to the head of the bed where she undid his wrists from their binds.
Finn enveloped her in his arms and kissed her, long and slow. Faye felt a dreamy languor of him draw her in, but it wasn’t enchantment, just the aftermath of lovemaking, and she didn’t resist it. She’d changed the polarity between them in the act of lovemaking, and the faerie king had accepted it. She was Finn Beatha’s lover again, but she need not submit only to his desire; he would submit to hers, and in so doing, she’d persuade him to give her Aisha. No-one could control a faerie king, but in his wildest moments, she might ask things of him that he would never usually allow, if she was his mistress. Or, so she thought.
Thirty-Seven
The moon outside the castle windows hung heavy; Faye sat up in the palatial bed strewn with unconscious fae creatures and reached for the emerald-green faerie wine that heightened her senses and energised her when she reached exhaustion. Drinking deeply, she looked around her. Finn reigned over a court of servants, courtiers and assorted fae folk that fought for his shifting, tidal favours.
She didn’t know how many days she’d been here. There were no clearly recognisable days or nights, as the light in Murias was always a kind of moonlit dusk or dawn. She slept at no particular time, and was roused by the onset of Finn’s – or another’s – touch. She’d barely left Finn’s rooms, as a parade of strange and eerie fae visitors paid their respects to the King and his most revered mistress at all hours.
Before she’d passed out, she and Finn had been entertaining a trio of river sprites; slender, delicate faerie women who inhabited rivers and helped or hindered humans that came their way, depending on their inclination. Their bodies were long and malleable, cold and slightly blue-skinned; their algae-green hair retained its wetness even out of the water, and Faye recalled its cold kiss on her skin along with their brackish lips. Now, they slept, sprawled on the velvety blue covers of the bed, their flowing limbs contorted like disjointed dolls.
Unlike before, she’d been fully aware of what she was doing. But while she enjoyed the pleasure that was offered her, she waited for an opportunity to elude Finn. Now that she knew Aisha was in the lower dungeon, wherever that was, she just had to find a way of getting there, and getting Aisha back to the human world. Neither would be easy.
Faye had known that returning to Murias as Finn’s lover was a risk, but she’d done it anyway. She knew that she, at least, could withstand the deterioration wreaked by Murias on her body and mind better than one who was fully human. And yet, as she delved deep into the shadow side of her faerie self, it was harder and harder to retain focus on the reason for coming here at all. She told herself that she was building Finn’s trust in her, and that he’d promised to allow him anything; she’d made him promise again and again when she took control of their lovemaking, and he’d agreed, fiercely, as she allowed him his orgasm.
But she’d done nothing to help Aisha, and every moment that she’d been in Murias, Aisha grew weaker. Lyr had told her that Aisha would survive only a few months in Murias before it killed her. How long had she been here? Faye counted the months since midsummer: in the human world, it had been five months. It was too long.
Faye got up carefully and slipped on a blue robe and soft leather boots that lay at the end of the bed; the servant fae had laid out clothes for her again as they had every time she’d visited. As silently as she could, she slipped out of the heavy door and tiptoed into the corridor outside.
Faye knew that there were dungeons in the castle at Murias, but she had no idea where they were, apart from downwards; she to
ok the first stairway she could find and followed it, and then, when that one came to an end, she walked to the other end of the hallway it had taken her to, and went down the next stairs, and the next. The walls seemed to close in, and the air grew less clear and more and more dank, but as far down as she went, there was no sign of anything apart from empty rooms.
Dizziness overtook her and she sat down on the stone floor for a moment to regain her senses. She had no idea of how long she’d been intoxicated. The faerie wine, the faerie food, and Finn’s lulling, dreamy influence on her had taken its toll, and she felt nausea overcome her. How had she thought that she could walk out of Finn’s bedroom and happen upon Aisha so easily? There was magic here, in the castle; Finn’s prisoners would be closely guarded.
She felt the gorge rise in her throat, and her head spun. Faye rested her head on the stone wall behind her, and panic overwhelmed her for the first time since she’d returned to Murias. What was she doing here? How had she thought that she could find Aisha and bring her home when she knew the power of Murias and its effect on her?
Had she really forgotten the horrors she’d seen here before? Her terror at the piles of human bones under the feet of the faeries as they danced, and, worse, the emaciated bodies of the men and women who were still alive, being slowly trampled to death? Had she really forgotten how hard it had been to save Rav from that fate?
Perhaps she had. Among the distractions of the ordinary world, she’d forgotten. She closed her eyes. She knew that she’d been here too long; like before, when she’d overstayed, her body was beginning to reject the excesses of Murias.
Yet when she opened her eyes, she found the High Queen, Glitonea, standing in front of her.
‘Faye Morgan. I had heard that you had returned, but thought that surely it couldn’t be true. You would not return without what you promised me.’
Queen of Sea and Stars Page 21
