That caught his attention. Slowly turning on his heel, Ash’s expression this time was unreadable.
He bowed his head slightly. “So I am. If you don’t know that the fae are incapable of telling a lie, then it would follow that you’d doubt my word. And perhaps you should. While every word I speak is true, things aren’t always as they seem. But believe me when I tell you this: there’s a reason we’ve met. I don’t know what that is just yet, but I will figure it out. Until then, I’m not going anywhere. You might as well get used to it.”
Callie was silent for a moment. It was good to hear that the fae were forced to tell a truth if not the truth, but for Ash to smugly tell her that she had no choice in the matter now that he had fixated on her?
“What the— no. It doesn’t work like that. This is my apartment. My home. I let you in today”—because, to the twisty fae, her opening the door probably counted, even if he swept in without an actual invitation—“but that doesn’t mean I’ll always be available to humor you. I have a life. A job. I don’t have time to deal with an arrogant fae male I just met.”
“You make excellent points there. To them, I have one thing to say. Leave all of your human responsibilities behind. Come with me to Faerie. Maybe things will be much clearer there.”
Callie blinked. Oh. Look at that. Now they were back to this beautiful male being certifiable again, weren’t they?
“No.”
He pursed his lips, an expression that somehow made him seem even more stunning. Probably because it just highlighted the cutting edge of his cheekbones, she decided.
“You do so love to refuse me.”
She shrugged. “That’s the great thing about being human. I get a choice. It’s this amazing thing called free will. You should try it some time.”
It was, on the surface, a flippant comment, but Callie was testing him. She needed to know just how much trouble she was in now that he’d come to see her again.
“I get what I want eventually, human. You’d do well to remember that.”
She raised her eyebrows. A tricky fae answer. She should’ve expected as much.
Well, two could play that game.
“And you’d do well to remember that my name isn’t ‘human’. I don’t know what it is you want from me, but—”
“That again? You still don’t know what I want?” Ash scoffed. Damn it, even that was attractive. “You seem a grown human to me. Untouched, yes, but I didn’t take you for an innocent. You must know.”
Callie fisted her hands at her hips.
“I’m no innocent,” she retorted. “And I don’t know where you get off calling me ‘untouched’ like that since my sex life sure as hell isn’t any of your business—”
His golden eyes lit up with a predatory gleam. “Oh, but it is now.”
Callie pointedly ignored that. “—but, anyway, I’m no virgin, either. You’re right. I don’t know that much about your people. I told you before, you’re the first fae that’s actually spoken to me. But I’m a pretty girl basically on her own in a big city. I’ve dealt with my fair share of pervs. If you think you can waltz in her and expect that I’m going to fuck you, then I’m sorry. You’re wasting your time.”
“Am I?” Ash sidled closer. “You owe me a debt.”
She’d been wondering when he would bring that up. It wasn’t an accident that he didn’t mention it before now. She was sure of that.
“So you want to have sex, is that it? You saved my life, so now I have to sleep with you or… what? You’ll kill me?”
Because, to Callie, the literal meaning of a life debt was just that. He saved her life and now her life was forfeit to him. If Ash pushed it, he could twist it so that her murder would be justified—well, to a fae, it would be.
“I won’t take your body or your life, but I’ll settle on a piece of your soul. Give me that, and the debt’s even. Then we can discuss fucking each other—because, I promise you, Callie, that we will eventually… once we’re on a more equal footing, of course. We owe each other nothing except honesty. I can’t lie to you and I expect you to treat me the same.” He paused for a moment, letting his words break through the sudden shock clouding her mind. “Do we have an agreement?”
Putting aside his absolute certainty that they would end up in bed together, Callie just resisted the urge to gape up at him. Ever since the event in the park, she had decided he had only followed her home to make sure he could collect on his life debt. Sure, she began to see—even without relying on her sight—that there was more to it than that now that he’d come back again, but to just put his intentions out there like that?
And if he really couldn’t lie to her, then he meant every last word he said—including that he would wipe the life debt clear for a piece of her soul.
If only she knew that that meant.
“I’m not agreeing to anything just yet,” she said carefully, “but say I did. What does it mean, give you a piece of my soul?”
“It’s very, very simple. You give me permission to touch you. Nothing intimate,” he added before she could interject again, “though it certainly can be. A brush of your hand against mine will do, my fingers against your cheek… there has to be a touch. I won’t take much. You’ll hardly miss it. But for one of my kind, it’ll give me a rush of power and a pleasure that’s almost as good as sex. You’ll experience the pleasure, too, so don’t fret that it’ll hurt.”
“And… and that’s all? You touch me and then I won’t have to worry about the life debt anymore?”
“I told you that I couldn’t lie, didn’t I?”
True.
And Callie really, really hoped she could believe that.
7
Callie couldn’t see that she had any other choice.
Free will? What free will? It might appear like she actually had a say in the matter, but Ash had maneuvered her so expertly that she felt like her back was up against the wall.
“Fine. If it’ll mean that I won’t have you holding your saving my life over my head, then fine. You can touch me.”
“I have your permission?”
She nodded, but before Ash could move into her, she held up her hand. “Hang on. What would happen if you touched me and you didn’t have it?”
Ash hesitated for a moment, before admitting, “I would burn. I’d get no power out of it, no strength, and I would burn where I touched you. The human soul means nothing to my kind if it isn’t freely given.”
“So you can’t just grab me. I have to give you the okay?”
“That’s right. But if you touch me and think that it’ll hurt me, know that any touch you give has your permission. It’s only stolen touches that cause me pain. And, believe me, I abhor pain of any kind.”
Good to know. “I give you permission for one touch then,” she said, offering him the top of her hand. “To complete my debt.”
She should’ve known better. Barely a day after they actually met, she should’ve figured that Ash wasn’t the type to run his fingers across her hand and leave it at that. He’d spent their short acquaintance already pushing her as far as he could. Why wouldn’t he do that now?
Instead of taking her hand, Ash leaned over Callie, pressing the palm of his hand to the back of her neck. Slowly, he applied enough pressure to tilt her head back so that she was forced to watch his gaze heat up, his lips curling in an almost feral smile as he reached deep inside of her and plucked out the piece of soul she so readily offered up to him.
It was a good thing he was supporting her neck. As the rush of pleasure washed over her, her knees went weak. As he touched her, Ash was the only thing keeping her from falling back to the ground.
Almost as good as sex? Ash was selling himself short since, one quick touch, and Callie was on the edge of being orgasmic.
“Whoa,” she breathed out as she locked eyes with him.
That’s all she could mutter.
Whoa.
And then it was done.
Ash took hi
s hand away from her skin with the utmost reluctance. He wasn’t kidding when he said he got a jolt of power from just brushing his hand against her. His skin, already so sun-drenched, seemed to glow; his golden eyes did, too. Everything about him was thrown in sharp relief and, unless she was imagining it, he was just about vibrating in place.
He cleared his throat. And that’s when he said, almost solemnly: “The debt is paid. You no longer owe me for saving you life.”
“Um. Okay.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Um. Where are you going?”
Because he was already halfway toward the front door.
“I must return to Faerie. I must return to my post. It’s for the best.”
She felt dazed. Confused. Part of her wondered if she’d been duped, and an even more insistent part wanted to beg Ash to stay.
If he touched her again, she’d fuck him. As simple as that. She felt so aroused, so hot, so achy that another touch would make her lose control—and that’s assuming she had any to begin with.
He had to go. He was right. It was for the best. But as he backed toward the door, Callie couldn’t help but ask, “Will I ever see you again?”
She should’ve been made leery of the way his eyes went impossibly bright. The tips of his pointed ears peeked through his long, tawny hair and, holy shit, they were twitching in open excitement. Her gaze darting low, drawn to the undeniable bulge pushing against his tight uniform pants, she was stunned to see that his ears weren’t the only part of him affected by their touch.
“Oh, Callie,” he purred in a husky voice, “now that I’ve marked you, you couldn’t keep me away.”
And then, quickly conjuring that same faerie fire, he drew a large rectangular shape in front of him. Instead of shoving something inside of it like he had the burlap sack with the kobold’s body in it, he snapped his finger and the whole damn thing erupted into a wall of red and white and orange flames.
Callie gasped. “What the—”
“Until we meet again,” Ash said before he walked straight into the fire.
A moment later, the fire winked out. Just like yesterday, he was gone.
And Callie was sure she’d finally figured out what he meant by Light Fae portal.
Ash’s portal brought him to another part of the Iron. Using glamour to keep from frightening any worthless human that might be around, he landed softly on the grass and blinked, still partly stunned from his realization.
Callie was his ffrindau.
It wasn’t supposed to be possible. A human destined to be the fated mate to a Light Fae? In his three centuries, he’d heard whispers of it happening, but while many fae entertained themselves with a little human bedsport, he’d never met a fae who’d bonded with a human before because it wasn’t supposed to be possible.
Of course, he had suspected it. If anyone would’ve asked him, he would’ve bluffed and twisted his words so that they took it as a denial. But he had suspected it before purposely shoving the suspicion far from him.
There was a thin line between love and hate, even thinner than the veil that often separated two totally different realms. In his case, while the fae couldn’t tell a lie, it appeared it was entirely possible to lie to themselves since Ash had been convinced that he hated his white-haired human.
And then his instincts kicked in right as the kobold tore off toward her, and he realized that the fact that he regarded Callie as ‘his’ even then should’ve been a clue that things weren’t as they seemed.
Now there was no denying it. He could have excused the way his body reacted, his cock going instantly hard when he found Callie half-dressed. She was an attractive human and, fae or not, he was a healthy male. He’d have to be dead not to be aroused. But then he sacrificed the life debt for a touch and, well, that was that.
If he’d been ignoring what was in front of his face, he didn’t have the luxury of that any longer. One touch and everything was different. Everything changed.
He had a mate, and she was a human who seemed to get a kick out of refusing him.
Rejecting him.
Ash might be more concerned about that if there weren’t a few things about being touched by a fae that he had neglected to mention. Oh, the simple transfer of her bright soul into a being designed to be soulless was as powerful as he boasted, but there was more to it than that. It was a tether between the two of them that would only be second to their fated mate bond, and now that she’d let him in, Ash could find her wherever she went. Plus, there was the addictive quality to a fae’s touch. Callie would start to crave it which meant that she’d be a lot more open to his being around.
Since she’d quickly shut down his offer to take her to Faerie, he knew he would have to spend as much time as he could in her iron cage of an apartment. He hoped that, sooner or later, he could convince her to join him in his world; after all, once he had claimed her fully, she’d have to follow him home. Born with the sight as she was, Callie belonged to Faerie. It wouldn’t be as dangerous for her as it would an ordinary human, and now that Ash had imprinted on her, she’d never have anything to fear.
He would always protect his human, whether she wanted him to or not.
For now, though, she belonged in the Iron. He wouldn’t bother asking her again to join him in Faerie since it was clear what her answer would be. Kidnapping her and spiriting her away would only put a wrench in his new plan to claim her as his mate.
And despite not having the gift of her true name, now that it was undeniable that she was his ffrindau, he couldn’t compel her to do anything that she didn’t want to.
The touch might’ve given him some power over her, but her sight had always awarded her some protection. The truth of who she was to him awarded her even more. As much as it pained him to admit, a Light Fae was on the same level as one of the mortal humans.
Then again, that was how it should be between mates. If not equal, then she should be put on a pedestal, better than he deserved and too, too good for the likes of him.
He’d take her anyway, though. He’d take her any way he could until she consented and gave him the final touch that would make her irrevocably his.
Well, at least he finally understood why he’d been so drawn to her from the first moment their eyes met. That simple touch confirmed something that the rest of him had guessed long before now.
Callie was meant for him, which—to Ash—meant that no one else should have her.
It was still daylight. He had hours of human time left before he’d have to return to Faerie, and while he was buzzing, his cock still hard, his very instincts urging him to go back to Callie, it wasn’t the hairbrush he pulled out of his pocket. Before he touched Callie, he could’ve used her brush and her pretty strands of pale hair to chase her across her human world; now he could use the tether of their shared touch. He’d keep it anyway, a token of his female, but he kept it in his pocket with Nine’s pebble.
Instead, he grabbed the cheap, broken timepiece with its falsely leather band.
Mitch.
The male whose essence and aura mingled throughout the apartment with Callie’s. Every time Ash’s heightened senses picked up on it, he’d barely been able to refrain from baring his teeth at the hint of a male daring to encroach on his female. Human or not, he was still a threat.
For a fae soldier, there was only one way to eliminate a threat.
But Callie was human. This Mitch was obviously human, too. In the Iron, he knew the humans tended to massacre each other even more mercilessly than in Faerie, but he carried a piece of Callie’s soul inside of him now. Her response at his touch told Ash that he would be able to seduce his mate eventually, but if he killed that male?
She’d never let him touch her again.
Good thing that Ash was clever. Tricky. Determined.
And he had a watch that would lead him to the human, and whatever glamour it took to convince this Mitch to leave Callie in his care.
After all, he was her mate. No one would take better c
are of her than he would.
Ash told her that the fae couldn’t lie, and he also told her that she wouldn’t be able to keep him away.
Three days after he left her apartment, Callie was beginning to think one of the two things couldn’t be true since there had been no sign of Ash since.
She couldn’t understand why she wanted him to visit her again so badly. Though she didn’t expect him to show up at Buster’s or anything, he wasn’t at the park when she purposely stopped by, and if her heartbeat picked up whenever someone approached her apartment, disappointment set in every time that it wasn’t her golden fae.
She should’ve known better. If that touch felt as good to him as it did to her, he’d probably gotten what he wanted out of her already. Then again, he had made it clear that he wouldn’t settle for less than getting into her bed, so maybe she was just being an idiot for hoping that he’d come and see her again.
But he hadn’t, and on the fourth evening, she huffed and drowned her sorrows in a pint of ice cream.
Add that to how strange Mitch had been acting lately, and Callie was feeling more than a little alone. She blamed it on the pressures at his office since her roommate seemed to be almost living downtown. Over four days, she’d seen him for maybe a grand total of twenty minutes. He looked pale and wan, a glazed look in his deep brown eyes, and dark purple circles underlining them. She didn’t want to bother him, so she made quick small talk and just reminded Mitch that she was there for him.
Maybe when he finally got that promotion, she could take him out to celebrate. Kill two birds with one stone and all that. Show Mitch she was happy for him while also getting out instead of waiting around for Ash to reappear.
The next morning was her off day and though it was out of the ordinary for Callie, she allowed herself to really sleep in. It was almost nine when she got up and, feeling a hunger deep in her gut, decided to make breakfast.
Ha. As if food would feed the craving she hadn’t been able to kick yet.
She wanted dick. Plain and simple. And though she knew Mitch would shuck his boxers and give her exactly what her body needed, the idea of banging on her roommate’s door left her feeling shaky.
Glamour Eyes: a Rejected Mates Fae Romance (Wanted by the Fae Book 1) Page 6
