Noah comforted Laoch, his own cheeks covered with tears for Laoch’s pain. He nuzzled against Laoch’s face placing gentle kisses everywhere, trying to calm him. The next thing he knew, Laoch was kissing him back. It was startling, and it was heaven.
Laoch was nuzzling back and placing tentative kisses along Noah’s jawline, then his lips. Noah opened to him and Laoch slipped his tongue into his mouth, teasing and tasting, exploring. He withdrew, dropping his eyes but Noah wouldn’t let him retreat into his guilt again. He took over the kiss, sinking his fingers into the silky platinum tresses that Laoch always wore loose and plunged his own tongue into Laoch’s mouth, suckling on his tongue with a desperation that lit a fire in him.
Suddenly, he found himself draped over Laoch’s body, grinding against him as they continued to kiss. He was hard as a rock, but he was surprised to find that Laoch was too. He rutted against Laoch until he felt a hand tugging at the zipper of his cargo pants. Swatting the hand away, he popped the button and slid the zipper down, freeing his aching shaft.
He’d given up wearing underwear after the first couple of days there, since he spent so much time jerking off to control his raging libido. Laoch opened his own pants and Noah shoved his hand inside, moaning when he encountered the thick velvety monster that pulsed in his hand.
Noah tugged at Laoch’s clothes, berating himself for letting Laoch put his pants back on, and Laoch managed to raise his hips enough for Noah to drag the offending garments down to his thighs. He pushed his own down and hissed at the sensation of skin-to-skin contact, slick fluid bubbling out onto Laoch’s groin and lubricating the slide of their bodies against one another. Neither of them had uttered a word. They just rutted and kissed, panting and moaning softly, the wet sounds of their movements echoing obscenely off the cave walls.
It was hot near the fire and sweat soaked their clothes and hair. Laoch wore only pants, his chest still covered by the makeshift bandage and his skin glistened in the firelight. Too soon it seemed, Noah came shouting Laoch’s name, his hot seed pooling on Laoch’s ridged abdomen. He continued his grinding against Laoch until the Fae gasped, his body tensing and arching against Noah’s, thick ropes of cum painting them both.
They lay there, their hearts pounding and their lungs struggling to pull in air, Noah slumped over Laoch in a pool of their mixed release. “Thank you,” Noah whispered before they both dozed off, exhaustion enveloping them both.
Noah woke to a pair of frowning violet eyes staring at him… again. He eased off Laoch, wincing when the drying seed from their love-making pulled at his body hair. “Stop it. You’re thinking too hard.” He smoothed the frown lines away with his finger. “One day at a time, okay? Just live in the moment. No regrets.”
Laoch blinked and nodded. “No regrets,” he repeated.
“Stay put, I’ll get something to wipe you down.” His shirt had taken the brunt of the damage. Peeling the dried material off was proving to be worse than removing a bandage, so he shucked his pants and stepped into the edge of the waterfall. He removed the shirt and rinsed off while Laoch watched with a heated look, then washed the shirt out as well as he could.
He didn’t bother getting dressed before he wrung the shirt out and brought it over to Laoch. He was just going to get wet again anyway and it wasn’t like they hadn’t already seen each other’s goodies earlier.
“Note to self,” he said out loud, “get completely naked first next time.” He certainly hoped there’d be a next time. Laoch laughed, then winced when it hurt his wound, but he was still smiling. Wiping him down was easy. For whatever reason, Fae had very little body hair. “Damn near pulled out all my hair trying to get this thing off,” he said as he finished and got up to go wash his shirt again.
He nearly face-planted when Laoch said, “That would be a pity. I love your little chocolate treasure trail.”
He turned around slowly. “Little?” he repeated.
“Well, everything looks proportional.” Laoch let his eyes trail up and down Noah’s naked body, leaning on his right side with his head propped up in his hand. His pink tongue slipped out to wet his lips and Noah’s dick perked up.
A reclining half-naked Laoch with all that long hair trailing over his body was sexy as fuck. Laoch slowly batted those violet eyes at Noah and his heart stuttered. “Are you using your Fae allure to seduce me?” he asked, “because that’s really not necessary.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Laoch replied, rolling over on his back and trailing one arm behind his head as he arched his back off the ground and raised one knee, maintaining eye contact with Noah.
Noah gasped and tossed the dirty shirt over his shoulder, rushing back over to Laoch. Whatever had held him back before, now apparently the floodgates had opened. Noah had heard that the Fae were highly sexed and had a short recovery period. He was thrilled to know it was all true. Laoch was insatiable. They spent the whole day engaged in hand jobs and blow jobs, till Noah had to stop before his dick fell off, or so he claimed.
Laoch looked a little better but he still couldn’t cast a portal. Noah wasn’t sure he cared. He was reasonably certain that Laoch’s wound was healing okay and at the moment he was in paradise. Would Laoch’s attitude change once they were back in civilization? Probably. He’d be back to battling Cillian and training Tiger, till his heart finally gave out. The idea was depressing but he didn’t let on about it to Laoch.
Chapter 16
After two days of trekking through the snow, TJ’s team was only halfway to the research center. “Aaagh! I hate snow! I left the Res to get away from this shit!” Little Wolf growled. He was small and built much like Tiger but had bronzed skin and ice-blue eyes. His long black hair was much coarser than Tiger’s silky hair and he wore it in two braids, fastened with silver and turquoise bands. His mother was a Navajo medicine woman and his father was a Scots / Irish trader. He had learned to track and handle a bow and knife from the tribe, then he trained and served as a medic during the war.
Tiger laughed and slapped his shoulder. “I thought you said you left because you were tired of cactus and dust.”
“That too,” he snickered. “And scorpions! Evil little fuckers!”
TJ dropped back to Little Wolf’s side. “Are you whining again? Maybe I should make these hikes a regular event,” he said drily, scanning the terrain. “Your turn to check our back trail Wolfy.” He turned serious. “My back itches. I feel like there’s a crosshair centered right between my shoulders. Watch yourself.”
“Think I should go with him?” Tiger asked.
“Nah. He’ll be fine. He like a damn snow fox. If anyone’s back there, they’ll never see him coming.” He picked up his pace, heading back up to the front of the column to make sure Tristan stayed on course.
They were heading into another forested area and it would be dark soon. Probably a good place to camp for the night. TJ didn’t want to be caught out in the open at night, especially if he was right about them being followed.
“Everything okay?” Remi asked when TJ caught up to him. TJ looked back down the trail, shaking his head. “Just a gut feeling but I think Cillian’s goons followed us. I don’t want them dogging our tracks all the way to the pass. Pretty soon they’ll figure out where we’re headed, and they won’t need to follow us anymore. I sent Wolf back to check it out.”
“You’re probably right. What’s the plan Teej? Take them out after dark?” Remi’s marine instincts kicked in and he was ready to go. “We should make camp far enough into the forest to have cover. We can set things up to look like we’ve bedded down for the night, then work our way around them to take them out one at a time. They won’t have a chance to use portals or whatever fucking abilities they have.”
TJ grinned in the fading light. “I like it when you go all ‘marine’ on me. You know, you’re wasted behind a desk. We could use you on the team.”
Remi grinned back. “Hey, I’m always here when you need me.”
TJ studied Remi for a few
moments. “Yeah. Yeah, you are.” He walked away, slogging back up the line.
Tiger caught up with Remi as the line kept moving into the forest. “What was that all about?” he asked.
Remi smiled and looked away, shaking his head. “He likes me. Wants me to join the team.”
“Ooooh, scary,” Tiger quipped, giving an exaggerated shudder.
“You have no idea, babe. I honestly think that man is certifiable.”
“Maybe. Maybe we all are. Who else would do this shitty job? But… we get results and that’s all the top brass cares about.”
TJ finally called a halt several miles into the forest and they set up camp. Everything looked like business as usual. They settled around a campfire preparing a meal, chattering and joking around. Forty minutes later Little Wolf drifted into camp and casually took a seat next to TJ.
Little Wolf kept his voice low. “You called it Cap. We’ve got about a dozen mixed humans and Fae following us. That may not last though. The Fae have instructions to bring more men through once they figure out Laoch’s location… and they have instructions to kill all of us once they don’t need us anymore.”
“You’re sure?” Remi asked from the other side.
Little Wolf didn’t look up, he just chuckled. “I heard them talking about it from three feet away. They also have instructions to kill the humans with them when their mission is finished up here.”
“Where are they now?” TJ asked.
“Well two of the humans are about thirty feet behind you in the trees and the rest are camped maybe two miles back. Be glad they were stupid enough to send humans to spy on us because the Fae would’ve been listening to our entire conversation. They probably thought they were too good to stand around in the snow for hours. In fact, consider this information passed along to our Fae brothers. I’m sure they heard every word.” He whispered, “Isn’t that right Tristan?”
Tristan, who stood a good ten feet away watching them, gave a little nod.
“Okie-dokie then. Wolf, would you like to put the two little sheep out of their misery, so we can pow-wow about how we’re going to handle this?”
Little Wolf smiled, white teeth standing out in the dark like a Cheshire cat. “My pleasure Cap.” With that he got up and faded away in the dark. Ten minutes later he sat back down, wiping blood off his knife and sticking it in the side of his boot.
*****
The mission went much like the one at McNair’s compound. TJ waited until about midnight then his men filtered out into the forest. Their primary targets were the Fae. They needed to be eliminated first and quietly before they could escape or use their abilities. The humans could be cleaned up afterwards.
TJ knew that all communication was shit in their current location so there was no fear that they would be able to contact anyone for help. There were four enemy Fae against TJ’s four, one of whom was only part Fae. Tae was not a fighter, so he stayed behind.
Little Wolf’s elimination of the two humans outside their camp left six humans to deal with. That meant TJ, Tony and Little Wolf would have to try to take them all by surprise... quickly and quietly. Hopefully, most of them would be asleep. It was a brutal business, killing men in their sleep, but TJ’s team would do what they had to.
Tristan and Eoin would not have agreed to killing the humans, especially under those circumstances. They’d only come along to provide protection against the renegade Fae and, more importantly, to cast portals back to Aurora.
Taking the Fae quietly would be a near impossibility. Their increased hearing and the use of swords almost guaranteed that as soon as they went after the Fae, all hell would break loose, but TJ hoped that the noise from the other locations would distract them for the few seconds needed to strike. TJ had paired Remi with Tiger, hoping that he would balance out Tiger’s lack of Fae abilities.
Comms were a no-go. One whisper, one click from the comms would alert the Fae. TJ had come to realize how lucky they were that most Fae would never attack humans. If they did, it would be near impossible to effectively engage them in battle. No wonder the Fae feared humans learning what they were truly capable of.
Once they moved out, they were on a countdown. Everyone needed to hit their marks simultaneously. When the countdown reached zero, there was little noise initially, then a few shouts and some gunshots.
Tiger and Remi lunged at their prey; all chance of surprise ripped away. Unfortunately, they were faced with two Fae who had crossed paths at the last minute during their patrol. One threw a dagger at Remi, hitting him in the chest so hard it lifted him off his feet and slammed him into a tree. He crumpled and lay motionless.
The other Fae started to cast a portal as the first one covered his back. He smirked when he realized who now stood before him. Cillian would reward them handsomely when they dragged the half-breed Fae before him. His victory was short-lived.
Glancing back at Remi who lay motionless on the ground with a blade in his chest, Tiger turned on them and screamed in rage, throwing his empty hand up towards the two Fae. A blinding beam of light shot out of his hand striking both Fae and the half-formed portal. In an explosive flash, the Fae, the portal, and a large section of mature trees and soil were obliterated.
Tiger stood frozen, chest heaving, with his feet planted wide, his sword hanging from his right hand and his left hand still extended, palm forward, fingers splayed, toward the spot where the Fae had stood. His normally violet eyes now glowed in pure silver. He couldn’t see anything, blinded by the intense flash. The bewitched silver bracelet still rang with a tone that was slowly fading, as was the glow in his eyes.
TJ and the others ran into the clearing, scanning the area for hostiles, taking note of all the debris and blood that floated in the air, settling slowly to the ground. Remi groaned and tried to roll over, but Little Wolf moved swiftly to his side and pressed his shoulders down, assessing his injuries. He removed Remi’s tactical vest. The knife was embedded in the breastplate of his tactical vest but hadn’t penetrated through the backside. He’d been knocked out when he hit the tree, but Little Wolf didn’t detect any signs of a concussion.
His only injury was bruising to his chest and back. He tried to breath but couldn’t take a full breath until Little Wolf injected him with a muscle relaxer. Taking small painful breaths, he looked up at TJ, rubbing his chest. “Did we get them all?” TJ didn’t respond. He looked back at Tiger who had now lowered his hand and was swaying drunkenly on his feet.
Remi followed TJ’s gaze. He called out, “Tigger? Babe? Are you okay?”
Tiger slowly swiveled his head toward Remi’s voice. Remi jerked in shock at the blind eyes of his beloved. TJ helped him to his feet and Remi staggered over to Tiger, throwing his arms around him. “Tigger? Talk to me sweetheart,” he pleaded.
Tiger let go of his sword and reached up, his fingers trailing lightly over Remi’s face. “Remi?” He sighed, closing his eyes, and passed out in Remi’s arms. Remi scooped him up, gazed around at the destruction, then back at his mate. “What the fuck… ?” he muttered. He glanced at TJ. “Tell me we got them all.”
TJ gave him a single sharp nod. “We got them all,” he replied. His men had reported in via comms once the fighting ended.
Remi turned and headed back to camp, cradling Tiger against his body.
TJ picked up his katana and followed Remi.
Tristan, Micael and Eoin surveyed the damage. The half-blood had single-handedly taken out two full-blooded Fae. But how? They knew nothing about the spelled bracelet. It appeared to them that he’d used a Fae ability, but Fae couldn’t use their abilities on each other. They were amazed, perplexed and worried.
The rest of the team filtered back to camp slowly. No one bothered to clean up the enemy camp or bodies. The wildlife in the area would move in and when someone finally found the site, it would look like they’d been attacked by predators.
Remi took Tiger to their tent and laid him gently on his sleeping bag, covering him with his own to
be sure he was warm. Little Wolf came in to check on him. When he was done, he pulled Remi outside near the fire. TJ wandered over to listen to what he had to say.
“His vitals are good. Other than the blindness, I’d say he’s just exhausted. Whatever he did must have taken a lot of energy. For now, I’d say let him sleep. The blindness could just be temporary from the flash.”
“Wolf, his eyes were fucking glowing when I got there!” TJ hissed in a low voice.
“Yeah, I saw it too. The thing with his eyes… the glowing and the color change… I’ve never seen anything like it.
Remi spoke up. “I have… sort of… when we mated the first time. It wasn’t exactly the same but… there was a flash when we linked but it wasn’t… it didn’t damage anything… nothing blew up. And… I’d swear his eyes were glowing, but later I thought I was just hallucinating… but they were still violet.... not like they are now. The thing with the silver eyes… the ring… it seems to expand when he’s….”
“Aroused?” Tristan interjected as he walked up.
“Yes,” Remi replied. “Or really pissed, but it’s never completely filled his eyes to the point of losing all color.”
“The things you noted about your bonding are perfectly natural for Fae. However, the current state, the overriding silver, I believe may be due to his body being pushed beyond his normal limits. How that was accomplished, I have no idea.”
Tristan shrugged. “Simply put, he should not have been able to do what he did, even if he were a full-blooded Fae. What he did, was not Fae. We cannot affect each other using our abilities. Unless he’s manifested a new ability that no Fae has ever known before.”
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