Bewitch Me: The Red Veil Diaries: A Witchy/Fae Romance

by Marianne Morea

  “He’s not there,” she murmured to herself.

  Ilar stepped to her side, rolling the scroll before sticking it into his breastplate. “Are you sure this is the place you last saw him?”

  She nodded. “We had come down that passage, there, with Xax.” Gesturing toward the stone tunnel, she shrugged. “The hogboon helped us.”

  “Then perhaps the exiled goblin found your mate and is tending him now.”

  Lane went up on tip toe and pecked the man’s scruffy cheek. “You, Ilar, are a genius.” She gripped the guard’s hand and stepped to the edge of the spring. “Let’s go. I have a hogboon goblin to find. On the count of three, jump.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Lane held tight to Ilar’s arm. The membrane between realms was translucent and thin as they crossed the boundary from Faerie into the Middle Course. The feel was gossamer as they passed, the same filmy consistency as when she crossed with Gareth from the human plane through the rock portal near the lilac grove.

  Ilar landed without noise or disturbing the soft ground, holding tight to Lane to keep her from pitching forward into the stone.

  She caught her breath and found her feet before letting go of his arm. She looked around at the ground, and the telltale signs of the fight that ensued a week ago. Or was it a day? Leith had killed Gareth in this spot, but Lane had no clue if time in the Middle Course ran concurrent with Faerie or with the human realm.

  “Is it always so cold here?” Ilar asked, brushing residual film from his arms.

  Lane didn’t reply. There was no sign of Gareth or Xax, and that meant she needed to look for them. Or at the very least, find her way to the rock portal and hope she found her happy ending.

  “Look,” she said, turning toward the Fae guard. “The spring portal won’t reseal itself with the spell I used. I can close it now, but then you’d be stuck here. I know you have to get back to Faerie and report to the queen.”

  “Couldn’t you use the same spell to reopen the portal once you’ve found your mate?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. To be honest, the fact it worked at all was a shot in the dark. Fact is, we both can’t leave the portal unattended. I need you to stay here. Guard the opening against gatecrashers. I’ll go ahead and find my hogboon friend. I’m sure he can help with portal magic.”

  Ilar shook his head. “The queen ordered I accompany you.”

  “I know, but the portal is wide open. Anyone could enter and I don’t want to take the chance. The queen’s new philosophies regarding halflings and Ravens didn’t strike me as popular among her courtiers. Stay here. Guard the portal. I promise, I’ll be back.”

  She hesitated, turning back with Gareth’s knife. “Take this. It belonged to my mate, and it means the world to me. Keep it until I get back.”

  He looked at the small knife and then nodded, his face telling her he understood it was collateral.

  She pecked Ilar’s cheek again and then took off through the tunnel, hunting for anything Xax left behind for her to follow.

  The hogboon had dropped cherry blossom petals Hansel and Gretel style the first time they passed this way. Lane flicked her palm open, and a ball of light swirled, illuminating the passage.

  Xax’s petals were still there, brown and mushy, but still fragrant enough in the rock enclosure.

  Giving Ilar Gareth’s blade meant she didn’t have it to trace a pentacle in the air if she needed it to open the crevice in the rock portal. Xax would never leave it open, not with Eesa still weak.

  The walls of the stone labyrinth seemed claustrophobic, and she needed to stop and recheck the ground or risk losing her way in the maze. The petals Xax left were crushed into the dirt, making them hard to see.

  “C’mon, Lane. You’re a halfling Sidhe and a Raven witch. Double the power. The Fae are connected to nature, do something. Think.”

  She closed her eyes and mumbled an improvised rhyme. It was juvenile, but perhaps it would do the trick. “Light of day in the midst of night, Petals soft white and bright.”

  Cringing at the half-assed spell, she waited with the ball of light pulsing in her hand. Sparks broke off in a swirl, floating to the dirt floor. One by one old petals plumped, their tender white satin glowing in a definite line leading to the outer portal.

  “Damn! It’s good to be a witchy Sidhe!”

  Not wasting another second, Lane took off running. Her footfalls echoed off the stone, and her breath puffed in short cloudy pants. She rounded a corner only to skid to a stop when she saw Xax waiting at the open crevice.

  “I’m not sure what ye did, mistress, but the whole of the grove is alight with magic. Blooms across cherry trees and the lilacs both are aglow, so I knew ye’d returned.”

  He made a tight flourished bow, and she couldn’t resist rubbing his dobby-like ears. “You, my friend, are a sight for sore eyes. Please, tell me…is he…is…” her throat tightened, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  Xax took her hand, careful to keep his taloned fingers loose. “He’s here, mistress. Weak. But whole again and aching for ye.” He pulled her toward the opening. “Come.”

  “I—” She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. “The queen sent someone to help me. He’s watching the spring portal. I know you have reasons not to cross paths with the queen’s guard, and after all you’ve done for me, I won’t bring trouble to your doorstep.”

  Xax’s ear’s flicked toward the direction she came, and his nose twitched. “I have nothing to fear, mistress. Not on this side of the portal. My exile is not the queen’s concern. It was the Unseelie’s doing.”

  He lifted her hand, giving it another tug. “Leave the guard be and come see your love.”

  Heart pounding, she let the Hogboon lead. When they exited the crevice, the entire lesser Fae population was there to greet them. Gareth stood at the center of the throng. Tall and gorgeous as ever and wearing a sexy crooked smile.

  “Gareth!”

  Jerking free of Xax’s hand, Lane ran toward him, not caring the lesser Fae had to jump or risk being flattened.

  “You’re alive! Thank God!” She flung herself into his arms, the force sending his breath from his chest in a soft whoomph.

  He laughed, wincing from the vise grip hug. “Easy, love. I’m not quiet one hundred percent.”

  Crying, Lane buried her face in his chest. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

  His chest vibrated with a soft chuckle. “What? Die or save your life?”

  “Just shut up, Golden Boy, and kiss me!”

  His mouth crushed hers and he lifted her off her feet, spinning her around. Lane poured everything into their kiss. Fear, anger, worry, sadness, joy, and most of all, love.

  Putting her down, he stepped back when her feet touched the ground. His eyes took in every inch of her tearstained face. “I knew you’d figure it out,” he said, wiping her cheeks.

  “I didn’t, actually. It was Tiana. She’s the one who knew you’d be smart enough to find a loophole to cheat death by Fae fire.”

  He smiled. “She’s really something.”

  “I guess. Even if she’s decided to keep Eve and my mother in Faerie a bit longer. She says they can teach her a lot about human resolve.”

  “Resolve?”

  Lane nodded. “She’s adopting a new policy on inter-Fae relations.”

  “Uh oh,” he winced, but not from pain.

  “Uh oh is right. To be honest, she’s a little scary. Fickle and unpredictable.”

  Gareth cocked his head, surprised. “What did you expect, Lane? A straight shooter? Tiana is the Queen of the Sidhe, and that makes her queen manipulator.”

  “I know, but I didn’t expect her to be so stereotypically Sidhe one moment and magnanimous the next. I still can’t believe she helped bring you back. She even sent a personal guard to ensure I got here from Faerie in one piece. He’s still at the spring portal watching for gatecrashers. I had to give him your jackknife as collateral or he wouldn’t stay put. The
last thing I wanted was for him to scare Xax or the other exiles.”

  Gareth glanced past her shoulder to the open crevice at the rock portal. “Then we’ll have to go back together and show your friend it’s mission accomplished. You need to close the portal anyway after he leaves, and if I know Tiana, she’s already waiting for her detailed report.”

  “Well, you certainly know Tiana. And she knows you.”

  He looked at her funny. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Lane chewed her lip as the lesser Fae dispersed back to the grove. Gareth nodded to Xax as he and Eesa stood by their tree. Lane blew them a kiss, touching a hand to her heart as Gareth took her hand to walk down the slope to the narrow crevice in the rock face.

  “Gareth, you were one of the queen’s favorites, right?”

  He shrugged. “Tiana has many pets, but I suppose she liked me well enough. She helped me return from the dead so you and I could be together, so yeah.”

  “Did you and she, you know—” Lane let the question just lay there.

  “So that’s where your last comment came from. Did Tiana and I, what? What is it you’re stumbling over your tongue to ask?”

  Lane felt her cheeks flush, but seeing Tiana, she had to know. “After everything we’ve been through, you’re really going to make me spell it out?”

  He didn’t reply, and she growled low in frustration.

  “Fine. I’m a big girl, so I’m just going to ask. I want to know if the Seelie queen took advantage of her position and made you do her—”

  “What? Bidding?”

  Lane let go of his hand. “No, you big jerk! Her! Did you do HER?”

  “Oh, man. You’re jealous! I die and get brought back from the ether and all you’re worried about is if I slept with the Faerie queen?”

  “I am not jealous.” She sniffed. “Tiana is a beautiful sovereign who’s used to getting everything she wants the moment she wants it. No one tells her no.” She looked at him. “So, did you?”

  “You didn’t wonder about my connection with the queen when you knew she sent me to help with Leith, so why now?”

  Lane folded her arms tight. “Because she gave me the Fae version of the Bene Gesserit box test!”

  “Like from Dune?” His mouth dropped.

  “It’s not funny, Gareth! I thought the woman deep fried my hand!”

  Gareth tugged her close again, but she kept her arms crossed even in his embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Laney. Tiana can be capricious and even cruel sometimes, but she’s better than most.”

  “She handed me some bull about being sure I was worthy of you. That my love for you was just as fierce as yours was for me.” She sniffed again, before lifting her face to his. “Was it torture for sport, or compensation for letting you go? Or just for shits and giggles to see how much I would withstand to have you?”

  He kissed the top of her head, resting his cheek on her hair. “I don’t know, love. It could be all of the above, or nothing at all. Fae who only know their own realm are a funny lot. Maybe Tiana keeping Eve and Aislinn is a good thing. Either way, your suffering got the job done. Even from nothingness, I felt every emotion. As strong as they are right now with you in my arms. I knew whatever you poured into that magic, it would work.”

  Lane exhaled an acquiescent breath. “I suppose I should be grateful you were favorite enough for her to want you to be happy. Now if we could only parlay that into her letting my mother and Eve come home. They’re Ravens, not lab rats.”

  He lifted her chin so he could see her eyes. “We can.”

  “How? I love you, Gareth, but I’m not doing the fry daddy thing again.”

  He laughed for a moment, but then his face softened. “We go back to the Summer Court, together. We ask the queen for an indulgence. Tiana might insist we stay in exchange for Eve and Aislinn, but then they have the choice to either stay with us or return. Either way, you and I will be together. And if we stay in Faerie, that together is a very, very long time.”

  She grinned up at him, loosening her arms to fit around his waist. “Long. As in forever, right?”

  “My bewitching love, anything is possible with you.”

  Epilogue

  “Lane, seriously hope this isn’t some macabre, visit-the-scene-of-the-crime, fetish thing.”

  “Trust me, Gareth. You’re the one who said that thinking about the time I spent in the backrooms was a turn on.”

  “Yeah, that was before I saw what they did to that poor Were kid.”

  Lane nodded. “I know. From what Rémy said, Sean Leighton was not happy at all. He nearly ripped up the truce because Rémy kept it from him so long.”

  “I don’t blame him, but there were extenuating circumstances, plus the Vampire Council gave Sean his due. He watched as they sent those two demented vampers to final death, without their fangs.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s over. Eve and my mother are visiting Caitlan, while you and I are here. So, let’s enjoy ourselves before we head back.”

  “Remember we promised Xax and Eesa we’d stop at the bakery for them.”

  “I know. Chocolate croissants in gold foil paper. I don’t know which Xax wants more. The pastry or the wrapper.”

  She stopped in front of a silver door with a spray of rhinestones. “Yay! We’re here.”

  “Where? Elvis’s dressing room?”

  Up on tip toe, she pressed a kiss to his lips, letting it linger. “No, babe. It’s my favorite fantasy room of all. Glitter Kink. Sexy burlesque with a twist.”

  She stepped back from him and let her long, thin leather coat puddle to her ankles.

  “Holy fuck-me pumps! Lane, what the—? You wore that under your coat on the subway!” He licked his lips at the strappy, crotchless leather and rhinestone bikini and stiletto heels.

  Before he could say another word, she took the feather boa from her neck and wrapped it around his waist, tugging him toward the door.

  “Leather and sexy, glittery toys enough to make any woman spread wide and wet and sigh…” She smiled, crooking her little finger. “Come play, Gareth. I promise, it’ll be something you never forget.”

  “Bewitch me, baby. All the way.”

  Note from the Author

  The Red Veil Diaries is an offshoot of my paranormal romantic suspense series, the Cursed by Blood saga. The underground vampire club, The Red Veil, was first introduced in Twice Cursed, book two of the Cursed by Blood series, and many of the characters from the Diaries are there as well, their lives unfolding and entwined throughout the eight-book series.

  If you enjoyed The Red Veil Diaries and want more romantic suspense with a twist of paranormal, I hope you’ll check out the Cursed by Blood series, too!

  Available in KINDLE UNLIMITED!

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F7N1B4K

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  About the Author

  Marianne Morea was born and raised in New York. Inspired by the dichotomies that define ‘the city that never sleeps’, she began her career after college as a budding journalist. Later, earning a MFA, from The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, she moved on to the graphic arts. But it was her lifelong love affair with words, and the fantasies and ‘what ifs’ they stir, that finally brought her back to writing.

  If you enjoyed the story, please feel free to email me. Reviews are always welcome, especially on Amazon, iBooks and Goodreads!

  More by Marianne Morea

  THE RED VEIL DIARIES

  (Reading Order)

  Choose Me

  Tempt Me

  Tease Me

  Taste Me

  Bewitch Me

  *Charm Me

  THE CURSED BY BLOOD SAGA

  Hunter’s Blood (Shifter Romantic Suspense!)

  Fever Play (Short, fast, and HOT!)

&n
bsp; Twice Cursed (Vamp/Were…Book hangover possible!)

  Blood Legacy (Icy hot vamp romance)

  Lion’s Den (Will make you cry happy tears!)

  Power Play (Hot and Suspenseful!)

  Collateral Blood (Vampire Suspense!)

  Condemned (Vampire Suspense!)

  Of Blood and Magic (Vampire/Witch Suspense!)

  THE LEGEND SERIES (Teen)

  Hollow’s End (Witch Suspense)

  Time Turner (Time Travel Suspense)

  Spook Rock (Ghost Suspense)

  THE BLESSED

  My Soul to Keep (Angels and Demons)

  MT PRESS BOOKS

  Sass Master

  (Sassy Ever After-The Catamount Shifters)

  Lucky Sass

  (Sassy Ever After-The Catamount Shifters)

  Sass in the City

  (Sassy Ever After-The Catamount Shifters)

  HOWLS ROMANCE

  Her Fairytale Wolf

  (Modern twist on Cinderella)

  The Wolf’s Dream Mate

  (Modern twist on Sleeping Beauty)

  Her Winter Wolves

  (Modern twist on Snow White)

  The Alpha’s Chase

  (Marriage of Convenience)