“No, not witchcraft. Love. You fell under the spell of the Leanan sidhe. She stole your heart. Caindale’s heart cannot be stolen, and he has given his love freely. The Leanan sidhe has no power over him, and yet they love.”
“She was mine,” Flynn said. “She betrayed me.”
“That is her power,” the banshee said. “She cared not for you. She lives by stealing the love of others.”
“It is wrong,” he had said.
“It is not right or wrong. It just is.”
“And I must die? For loving the wrong woman?”
“Many have died for loving the Leanan sidhe. It is the way.”
“She must be punished,” Flynn said.
“You would like to do so?”
“With my last breath,” he said.
“Your mortal life means nothing now. It will be forfeit in a matter of moments.”
Flynn pressed his hand against his side, and his fingers came away sticky with blood.
“This means nothing?” he asked. “I would have killed to keep her.”
“You were not to die this way,” the gray woman said. “You were to forget the laws of nature, to relinquish your life grieving for lost love. But blood is rarely shed and has intrigued us. You are a man different from most. We see promise in you. A wish can be granted.”
He held up his bloody hand. “I wish to punish the bitch who did this. No one leaves me.”
“The Leanan sidhe’s power has been revoked, and she has been sent to the ether world. She was to take love, not give it. She failed. Her life force could not be sustained. Your wish has been granted. Have you another?”
“Then I wish to live. Heal me, leave me, move on, whatever it takes.”
“You will not live,” she said.
“Speak plainly then,” he mumbled. “I am in too much pain for riddles.”
“We must balance the scales.” Her voice whispered through the grasses. “A faery life has been taken. A faery life can be given.”
Flynn shuddered as another spasm of pain ripped through his body. “The pain will stop?”
“There will be no pain,” she said.
“I will have power?”
“More power than you can imagine.”
“What must I do?”
“Take my hand, willingly, freely, and pledge your soul to the fey.”
Flynn had reached out. His bloody hand was taken by the wisp of the dead woman who hovered near him. She smiled as the pain left his body, the air burst from his lungs, and he collapsed onto the green meadow.
Flynn took another sip of wine. He smiled at the pretty woman next to him. She chatted, but he didn’t listen. He nodded in all the right places, allowed her hand to rest on his thigh, but he thought of the green hills of Ireland and his little Leanan sidhe. And the new thorn in his side that looked surprisingly like Remy Caindale. Bastard. He would make them all pay.
Chapter 28
When Arleigh woke up the next morning, she slid her arm across the bed. She followed the warmth and found Ryder’s body. She had been so afraid it had been a dream. If she had opened her eyes and found him gone, she did not think she would be able to take it.
She thought of everything she had done the night before, and her body flushed. She didn’t know what had come over her. Had the memories from eons of temptation, seduction, and fucking finally controlled the human body she inhabited? She could not believe she had been so brash and impetuous. Had she actually… Oh, she could barely think of it. He would think her a whore.
She had been sleeping when he came to bed, dreaming of her faeries. In her dreams, Adelina and all the others spun soft enchantments, weaving a fabric of magic that glistened in the moonlight and sparkled with iridescent colors. Sapphire, emerald, ruby, and gold spun together to form a mosaic of brilliance that made her smile. She had felt warm and loved, cocooned in a safe blanket of protection. It had been a wonderful dream, and she sought to stay in the mystical haven.
But Ryder had fallen across the bed, dropping onto it like a man who had used the last of his energy. He had sighed, an exhausted sigh that spoke of important decisions, desperate news, troubled times. The moment he had lain beside her, something rushed through her that she couldn’t stop and didn’t want to stop. A fire burned inside of her, and only Ryder could help her put it out.
She remembered how much she wanted to lie in his arms, search his mouth with her own, and fuck him. She had thought perhaps she could offer him solace and help him with his worried mind, but he had seemed reluctant, perhaps even angry. She had to convince him. Even as he slid into her, he had been protesting, saying they had to stop. Why would two lovers have to stop? There was no earthly reason.
But the fucking had quenched the fire within her, and her heart had soared when his arms wrapped around her. He was the only man she had ever really wanted, the only one who could still the commotion in her head, calm her troubled heart, release her soul from the bonds of guilt, and make all the madness stop. Ryder. The only man she had ever loved.
She turned on her side and watched him sleep. She wanted to touch him again. She wanted to look at him. She lifted the covers to peek, and saw that he, too, must have been remembering the night. His cock was hard again, rigid, stirring against the sheets.
She raised her eyes, and he watched her.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “’Twas dark, and a lot of last night is a blur for some reason.”
“Don’t you remember what we did?”
She blushed and nodded. “I think I might have tried to persuade you a little.”
“Persuasion? That’s not what we call it at home.”
“I’m not sure what I should call it, but did you like it? Are you angry with me? Disappointed? I acted like a harlot. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He laughed and ran his hand through her hair, drawing her face to his. When he kissed her, she could not feel disappointment. She felt wanted.
“It was a little surprising,” he said. “I woke up afraid I’d dreamed it. Are you really with me? Is it really you?”
“Of course, ’tis me!” She took his hand and laid it along her cheek. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Too much whiskey,” he muttered. “And a very bad day. But you’re here now. And you, well, you seem better, like you want to be here. With me.”
“Of course I want to be here. Are you angry with me for being so bold?”
“No, your boldness was very enjoyable.”
“So I may do it again?”
“Honey, you can do that any time,” Ryder said, “but right now, I want it to be for both of us. Something that won’t be a blur.”
He pushed her down onto the mattress. She reveled in his weight, his leg stretched across hers. The hairs of his chest tickled against her breasts, and his flat stomach pressed against her own. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck. All that was enough, but when his hand reached down and touched her throbbing clit, she thought she would never let him out of her sight again.
She trembled and pushed against his hand, enjoying the small tremors that flowed through her body and the sudden heat between her legs. But she felt the need for something more, a craving, a desire, a yearning that she could not comprehend. She clutched his shoulders, murmuring against his neck.
“Please, Ryder,” she whispered. “I want you to fuck me.”
“Oh, baby, with pleasure.”
He drove into her, and she gasped. The softness of her body eagerly accepted him. Her pussy clenched around the hard length of his cock. When he moved, she clung to him, whispering, whimpering as wave after wave of intoxicating delight rippled through her. Her breath came harder, and she finally pushed her face into his neck and let the tide sweep her away.
His arms tightened. He moved for long, excruciating moments, until she thought she wouldn’t be able to take one more moment. But he continued, merciless, pushing into her body again a
nd again, rubbing parts of her that throbbed and ached and made her tremble under his hands, made her legs quiver, and pleasurable waves passed through every inch of her body. She had never known such pleasure.
“Arleigh.” His achingly tender voice seemed a whispered prayer against her mouth. “You drive me crazy. Are you okay? It feels good? It’s enough?”
A shaky laugh exploded from her. “Enough? I don’t think I can take much more. ’Tis—”
A huge spasm rippled through her body, and she lurched against him. Ryder tensed and thrust against her one last time. His body shuddered above her as he came. The pulse of his cock seemed an unimaginable force tearing through her. She locked her legs more tightly around him, trying to hold herself to the earth. He laid his head on her breast and took a deep breath.
“Is there anything you want to say?” he asked.
She choked out a laugh. “I can barely breathe. You want me to talk?”
He raised his face. “I’m serious.”
His brown eyes sparkled with some sort of challenge. What went through his mind? What did he think she would say?
Ryder gave her a little shake, his entire body demanding an answer. “My heart’s still beating. Don’t you want to remedy that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but there is one thing I’d like to say to you. If you’re willing to listen.”
He closed his eyes. “Get it over with.”
His arms clenched around her, and his jaw cracked in the silence. She pressed her lips against his.
“I love you, Ryder Kendall. You are the only one I have e’er loved.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. His gaze roamed her face with a lurking disquiet, and for some reason, doubt flickered there. She put her hands on his face. She kissed him again.
“Ryder? Have I said the wrong thing?”
He shook his head, and a smile spread across his face.
“No, baby, it was the perfect thing.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing in the world,” he said.
“You looked a little peaked.”
“Honey, I had the worst twenty-four hours of my life. But maybe everything will turn out okay. Do you believe in destiny? In fate? Do you believe two people can be meant for each other? Do you believe in magic?”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you listen to a word I say?”
He kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Only Ryder could make the madness stop.
“I love you, too, Arleigh,” he said. “You are my life.”
“Don’t e’er let me go.”
“No, baby, never.”
Chapter 29
Cameron Flynn took his coat from the man’s hand and shrugged into it. Looking into the mirror, he adjusted the lace of the sleeves and brushed his hair back from his face. He met the man’s eyes in the mirror.
“Get out,” he said. “I need to think.”
The manservant bowed and retreated.
Flynn pulled back the draperies, poured his tea, and settled into a chair at his writing table. He gazed through the window and out across his property. As far as the eye could see and miles beyond, it all belonged to him. He had made sure of that, because controlling the people around became easier if they had nothing and you had everything. He had learned that lesson centuries ago, and he had learned it from Remy Caindale.
Just thinking of the man made Flynn want to kill something. He felt the urge to put his hands around someone’s neck and squeeze. Thinking of Arleigh Donovan caused his hands to flex. What a bitch.
She hadn’t always been that way, of course. He had thought the choice was his. He thought he had conquered her, wrung from her all the passion she displayed, and she had succumbed to him because of his skill, his knowledge, his power. But that had not been the truth. The truth lay somewhere between the darkness of her spirit and the darkness of his soul. They were two of a kind, even then. But he had taken the form of a human, callous and unyielding. She had been but a faery wisp, soft and yielding but existing in a soulless well of amorality. But things had a way of changing, didn’t they? He always made sure of that.
He had expected to toss her aside. The county held a great deal of women that cowered when they saw him or shadowed the path of his life. But the green-eyed bitch had been different. She had not been Arleigh Donovan then. She had been a stranger, a woman who came out of the Irish mists and told tales of foreign lands. She never gave her name, and he did not care to ask. He had granted her sanctuary and had immediately fucked her. But he soon realized, for the first time in his life, the power did not belong to him.
He lusted after her. She filled his head every waking hour of the day, and at night she entered his dreams with a vengeance. He could not stray from her presence. He listened to her words, feeling each one in his head like a flock of birds that swirled and swooped, filling him with need and want and desire.
Every night he fucked her, and it was not enough. He loved her until he thought his heart would burst, his head would split, his body would shrivel and become a husk. Soon he sought her out more often, exhausted, hungry, unable to eat or sleep. He felt his control and his power slipping, and he cared not. He lived for her. He breathed for her. His body belonged to her, and his mind soon became filled with thoughts of only her, until it seemed he could not think at all.
Then one day she disappeared. He tracked her for days, but he could not find her. She had vanished like an apparition, as though she had never existed at all. The only proof he had was a body that had lost its strength, a spirit that had lost its will, and a mind that had lost its reason.
He returned to his estates—a bruised, battered, and useless specimen of a man. He tried to repair his body and mind, but his thoughts were still full of her. He tried to focus on his accounts, on his farm, on his assets. He even, for want of a better idea, focused on his wife. None of it worked.
Then one day he had a visitor. The man spoke of a new woman living with Remy Caindale. Flynn’s blood boiled and his brain, useless for so long, thought perhaps he needed to pay a visit to the mighty Caindale, with his successful estate and personal stable of witches. Flynn had no use for witches, but they had obviously served Caindale well. Remy was one of the wealthiest and most favored men in the county, and the man Flynn hated more than any other. The fact that Caindale had only recently left his boyhood behind seemed of no consequence. His youth would make him an easier target.
He left that day and, on horseback in the hot summer, began a grueling trek across the green meadows of Ireland. The sun left streaks of perspiration rolling across his dirty face. His clothes became wringing wet. His body grew weaker because he refused to stop for nourishment, for water, for rest. He spent days traveling and finally came to a village.
He paused there long enough for one meal, and he listened to the conversations around him. Aye, Remy Caindale would be marrying a beautiful woman, a stranger from a distant county. No one knew her origins or her name. He saw her in his mind. She had taken every bit of memory and reason he had and left enough room for only an image of her. His body grew hot, hotter than it had been in the blazing summer sun, and the familiar ache spread through him, into his head, his limbs, his loins. The hot, burning ache that could be fought only with her touch and the warm wet heat of her pussy. He thought, for one impossible horrible moment, he might dissolve into tears. His love was a torment and his lust an affliction that drove him to the point of insanity.
He reached the Caindale estates and searched through the castle like a thief. Caindale’s fate was sealed if the woman he fucked was Flynn’s.
He found his beautiful bitch wrapped in her lover’s arms. They fucked in the early morning as the sun came over the horizon. He watched the sun’s rays blanket their flesh and turn it golden. He watched Caindale’s hands roam her body and move across her flesh, finding all the hidden delights that belonged to Flynn. He watched their kisses, light and playful in the morning sun,
turn to the hard demand of greed.
In her lover’s arms, she trembled and quivered, moaning in such ecstasy that Flynn’s heart pounded to match the rhythm of their mating. She stared into her lover’s eyes as he took her, her hair unbound and spread upon the pillow, her limbs opened and willing, then wrapping around Caindale with such elegant surrender Flynn knew it would be the last moments of the man’s life.
He left his hiding place, the dagger drawn. They were so caught up in their lust they never heard him. He focused on Caindale as he moved above the woman. Her moans and sighs filled Flynn’s ears until he could not hear the sound of his own breath, feel his own heart beat. She filled his head, and he drank her in, willingly and completely.
The dagger went into Caindale’s flesh easily, finding organs and ripping through them mercilessly. The dying man collapsed on his lover, his blood splattering across the woman and spreading across the bed. Flynn gazed with satisfaction at his accomplishment and knew, as the blood ran from Caindale’s body, he could regain his life, his lust, his love. He turned to her and opened his arms.
But he had made a mistake. He had not thought at all of consequences. It was not surprising, since he had no reason left with which to think. He had such emotion pouring through him that his judgment had become clouded but, for one luminous moment, his sanity returned, and one single thought filled his head. Flynn saw her face and realized he had made a fatal error. The woman cared about Caindale. He had not expected her to care.
Her beautiful face twisted with grief, and such a wail of such hopelessness came from her that Flynn thought the banshee had arrived. The woman he loved, lusted for, killed for, flew at him like a harpy, her nails drawn, her hair wild about her face. She struggled with him, beat at him, and pounded his flesh with no mercy, no regard for his weakened physical condition.
Despite her small size, she fought like the mightiest warrior he had ever encountered. He fell to the floor, bruised and scraped. She pulled the knife from her dying lover and came at him, plunging the dagger into his side with a hard thrust then she collapsed on the floor, crying, the sounds of her heartache filling his head. Flynn struggled to his feet and fled.
Carlton, Amber - Trinity Magic (Siren Publishing Romance) Page 31
