by Michele Hauf
She hadn't spoken a word yet, nor had he. So when she reached out a hand, and Kai took it, his heart pulsed in expectation while his brain screamed traitor.
He pulled her inside and crushed a brutal kiss against her mouth. Rissa wrapped her legs about his hips and her fingernails clawed into his bare shoulders, wanting more, seeking to cling and affix to him.
It was the vampire inside her, he suspected. He hated that she was using him to survive. And then, he was only glad that he could give her what she needed. Life.
Marching into the living room, he set her on the back of the massive black leather sofa. He stripped off her dress and she shoved down his jeans, rendering them both naked. His skin hummed as it married to hers in a union that felt so right, perhaps even…destined. He belonged to her in ways he could not fathom, and did not want to argue.
Pulling her from the couch, he turned her around and she bent over, wriggling her peach-sweet bottom in a silent tease. A lash of his fingers between her legs proved she was wet for him, and he wasn't about to spend time on foreplay. That would come later. Right now he needed to hilt himself inside her to find that familiar fire that was hotter than his forge and which controlled his very soul.
Rissa cried out in that joyous, encouraging way that told him she liked what he was doing. He reached for her arms, sliding them back and gripped her wrists, riding her well and hard.
***
Hours later, Rissa rolled over in the bed on top of Kai. They hadn't spoken more than a few words to one another. Words weren't necessary. Their bodies were hungry for one another and the answers were too easy.
Besides, she was determined to satiate the man—to death.
She licked down his stomach, passing the ridges of abdomen that tensed under her touch. Perspiration glistened on his tanned skin. Not a single section of him was soft. He was all hard. Hard as the blades he fashioned.
Hard as her heart?
No. You're not like that! You know you're not. You…love this man.
Indeed, Rissa's heart was too soft to continue with her treacherous plan to drain Kai's life energy. Her heart had surrendered to love days ago. Despite the outcome that would see her lover dead, surely within days, she must abandon her wicked plan to kill him with sex. She wanted him alive, his heart beating, and able to love her thoroughly.
If only she could kill the Unseelie king, then she would be free to show Malakai how much she loved him, and not lose him in the process.
"Killing me…" he muttered as she moved to kiss the head of his cock. "Sweetly."
Could he know? She'd not revealed her curse to him. She should confess all. He would kick her out of bed and his life, and perhaps have a chance for survival.
But resist the pull of his body, the call to her soul to bond with him as intimately as possible?
Kai's hand moved over her head, directing her to the motion he loved. She licked up and down his shaft, worshipping it. The way he growled and shifted his hips spoke satisfaction. If he were going to die, she would give him a happy death.
Taking him into her mouth, she suckled and laved at him until she could feel he would not grow any harder, and the thick vein on the underside of his cock pulsed. Gripping his testicles and squeezing gently she rocketed him to climax and drank it all, licking him clean as he grew semi-soft.
When she looked up he propped onto his elbows, staring at her with that blessed-out heavy-lidded expression she recognized all too well. He was growing weaker. While she was growing stronger.
"More?" he asked weakly.
She nodded, even as her heart broke into more and smaller bits.
Kai settled against the headboard and the multitude of pillows piled there. "Let me watch you until I'm ready to go another round. Three orgasms takes something out of a guy."
"Casanova isn't claiming defeat?" she teased.
"Never, sugar cube. But you know why I'm weak."
Rissa sat up on her knees, her mouth dropping open. He did know. Maybe? How he knew, she couldn’t guess at. But it was too heavy a conversation to have right now. She wanted to continue to make love as if their worlds were perfect and nothing could ever part them.
"Then you just watch," she said, and drew her hands up her stomach, tweaking her nipples with her fingers. She pinched them, and cooed at the pain. "You like that, don't you, big boy?"
"Yes," he gasped, and gripped his cock. "Show me how you like me to touch you, Rissa. Hard or soft?"
"Mm, both."
Biting her lip, she squeezed her nipple again. The pain was sweeter when he was lashing and nipping at her, but to have his eyes on her as she demonstrated what she liked was equally as erotic.
Kneeling, she spread her legs, and glided a hand to her moist folds. Achy and swollen from his vigorous attentions, the slightest touch hummed throughout her system like shock waves. Slicking a finger over her clit, she gasped and murmured in tones that sang her pleasure.
"Yes," he encouraged. "There is where I like to put my tongue and lick you until you scream. Faster."
Focused on his hand gripping his cock, Rissa dashed up her pleasure to the next level with her hand. Arching her back, she leaned forward and nipped at his knuckles, wrapped about what had become again an erection. He splayed out his fingers and put them in her mouth, so she sucked them as rapidly as she fingered herself.
Scent of his skin and sex and the cedar walls and steam from the shower he'd taken earlier mingled in a heady perfume that coiled about her skin and permeated on a scintillating mist. She wanted to mount him, but when she tried to pull away from his hand, he gripped her jaw and held her close to the head of his cock. But not close enough to lash out her tongue and lick him.
Rissa moaned in protest, wriggling her hips as she felt climax creep upon her core. Kai's thumb pressed her bottom lip and she bit down until she thought she'd break skin, but did not.
And then he gripped her hair and pulled her forward, her palms slamming against his chest and her legs straddling his hips. He rammed his cock up inside her, and she continued to finger her clit as she rode him. His body shuddered, his shoulders plowing into the pillows. His jaw tight, he growled. When orgasm flashed in her center, Rissa cried out at the same time her werewolf lover howled into the night.
***
It was nearing dawn, the time of the faeries, the time betwixt night and morning. Kai had slipped out from under Rissa's arm and leg as she lay sprawled in a sweet sleep. He'd difficulty standing. Had felt as if he'd run a marathon. Then he'd stretched out his arms and breathed in deeply and recalled the cold kiss from Ooghna. That had brought up enough strength to pad outside naked, and watch the sun rise.
It was dark yet, though the stream glimmered with dawnshine. Fragile-legged insects skimmed the water's surface, darting here and there. Being in nature, unclothed and bathing in the air, the light and sounds and scents always restored Kai in ways that only an animal shifter could understand.
While he was human, he was also animal. His nature was that of the wolf, a predator fiercely protective of family and his own.
"Family," he muttered, feeling that dream long lost now.
He'd succumbed to the leanan sidhe again, and could only guess his death drew near. The fix Ooghna's kiss had provided would not last much longer. He wondered if he could still even lift a sword in one hand?
Yet thanks to the deal made with Ooghna both he and his sister would be free of the curse the moment he gifted the sword to the warrior. Then, he could love a damned faery if he chose to.
Stupid choice, eh? He smirked at his idiocy. And then it didn't matter. Love was a weird muck of desire, hate, and chance all roiled together. He'd not asked for it, but now that he had it, he wouldn't give it up until the soul bringer arrived to claim his newly departed soul.
Lifting his head, he smelled her the moment she walked out of the back door, silently closing it and padding on bare feet up behind him. Sugar and fruit. Sex and fiery desire. And death. He'd never give her up; never
stop making love to her.
What a hell of a way to die.
Stopping behind him and slightly to the side, Rissa didn't speak, perhaps as captivated by the dawn as he had been. She touched his shoulder and Kai gripped her fingers. He wanted to slip inside her again, to lose himself in the inevitable death. To run his hands over her skin. To kiss her everywhere. To learn her. To make her family, his own, to bond with her as only werewolves could bond with their mates.
Such a bonding required he shift to his werewolf form. Mating with faeries was usually a delicate thing. But he would be careful with her, just as he knew his werewolf would be. The most incredible bonding would occur with her in true sidhe form.
“Will you show me your wings?” he asked.
“You haven’t seen wings before?”
“A few times, but only in social situations. Never privately.”
When he thought she might cringe from his touch, he couldn't stop the urge to make the connection and swept his fingers through her hair. Soft and long, it spilled over one shoulder, revealed by the wide neckline of one of his tee-shirts she must have found in a drawer. “Show me, Rissa. Unless it embarrasses you?”
“What? Showing my wings?” She tugged at the hem of the shirt. “I don’t want to drop my glamour completely. There are things…”
“I'm aware of the differences in faeries to other breeds. Longer fingers, longer torso, delicate, pointed ears.”
"Just my wings, yes?"
"Please," he breathed.
With a nod, she pulled the shirt over her head and handed it to him.
Kai could feel the change in the air as Rissa straightened and closed her eyes. It grew sharper, more defined. Crisp, like a brisk January morning, yet without the chill or snow. A shimmy of her shoulders then unfurled wings that brushed his face with a grass green scent. Emerald and fuchsia and azure designed the gossamer appendages that resembled a dragonfly's wings yet with elaborate laced edges.
“They’re lovely. So deeply colored. Can I…touch them?”
A brow quirked above her bright violet eye.
“I’ve never touched a faery’s wings before. They look so soft.”
Rissa smiled, almost compliantly, he thought. “Yes, I'd like that.”
He sensed she wasn’t comfortable, perhaps nervous. But not embarrassed. He looked over the wings slashed through with iridescent glimmers of pale violet. Long filaments stretched from the tips of each quarter section. Each moved like an appendage, and one curled loosely about his ankle.
Eager to touch, but not wanting to frighten her, he lowered his fingers over the suede-soft thin membrane. Carefully, he traced along the hard cartilage-like section that ribbed the upper wing. It was warm and flesh-like. And yet he sensed it might be scaled as if on a butterfly wing, and so he did not retrace over his path for fear of damaging a portion.
Rissa's approving murmur softened his apprehensions and he spread his hand wide, pressing a palm against the thinnest part. Ichor must flow in veins he could not see because he could feel the vigor of life beneath.
Did he give her that life when they made love?
She curled back a wing, and the filament coiled loosely about his wrist as if a curious sea snake then slipped away. Cool. And not at all disturbing. In fact, it turned him on, and—yes, he got a hard-on.
Drawing his fingers toward her spine, he stepped closer, positioning himself directly behind her, and leaned to kiss her at the nape of her neck. The wings beneath his touch shivered. The gorgeous smell of summer meadow filled his nostrils and dizzied his brain.
“You do know what it means to touch a faery’s wings?” she asked.
“No, what does it mean?”
“Your parents didn’t teach you that?"
"I was only warned to stay away from faeries. The last thing my father would have ever done was to condone touching one."
"It’s a sexual thing, Kai. It feels…exquisite.”
Sexual? He’d had no idea. Kai retracted his fingers from the highest wing bone, but then, he clasped the thickness of it firmly. He couldn't deny his own desires had surfaced. “You want me to stop?”
“What do you think?”
Her hair sifted across the tops of her wings and tickled his face. He leaned in to kiss the glossy hem of it all and swished it aside to reveal her spine where the wings joined her body. A kiss at the base where the strongest, thickest parts of her wings rooted lifted a shiver through Rissa. Goosebumps spotted her skin. Kai smoothed a hand across her neck to warm them away.
The tickle of her touch along his back clued him she’d wrapped both wings about him. It was a sexy kind of loose hug, enveloped in gossamer and summertime meadows.
He stretched out both arms, gliding his fingers across the fabric of her wings. Rissa's sigh prompted him to press his erection against her derriere. Slipping one hand around to clasp across her waist, he drew her up tightly. Her feet left the ground. A kiss to her wing felt the ichor rushing against his lips.
“Oh, Kai. Every touch to my wings brings the ichor rushing to my breasts and core. It’s incredible.”
Incredible was putting it lightly. He’d never before stood wrapped within a faery’s wings, feeling so close to a climax, and yet without a single kiss or stroke to what were the usual sexual hot zones.
Sliding an arm over one wing, he spread his fingers across it and pressed the wing against his face. His breath permeated and heated his palm, and stirred a delicious moan from his lover.
And he felt her shudder within his arms. Wings fluttered minutely but madly. Her summer scent gushed into the air, along with a glitter of faery dust, and he breathed the taste of her climax, sweet, soft and sensual.
“Did you just come?” he whispered, noting the fall of dust onto the stones at their feet. “From me stroking your wings?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
And without thought, Kai spoke his heart. "I love you, Rissa."
Her exhale was audible. And he thought he heard her heartbeats thunder as if racing toward the edge of a cliff. A wisp of her hair brushed his elbow and shivers rode his skin.
"I wish you did not," she said quietly.
Stepping away from him, with a shiver of her shoulders, suddenly Rissa's wings furled and they receded into her skin. It happened quickly, so fast as when Kai shifted to wolf, that he would not have believed it had he not witnessed it.
"I know what you are," he said. "Leanan sidhe."
"And still you can love me?"
He nodded. "I understand you must have sex—you literally drain a man of his life—to survive. I wish my love was returned, but it's not important. What is important is that I have known love."
"But I—"
"Kill me slowly, sugar cube. I want to make love to you as often as possible, and die in your arms as I come over and over."
"I hate you," she gasped. "I hate that you can love me."
Despite how painfully her words cut across his heart, Kai pulled her into a hug that she initially struggled against, but then she calmed and her arms banded about his back and her legs found hold about his hips. Locked together in a wicked bonding neither could fight.
"I don't mean that I really hate you," she whispered against his ear. "I love you too, Kai. I tried to walk away, to give you your freedom. But this part of me that demands life will not relent. It's a curse."
A flash of hope grabbed him by the heart. "If it's a curse, it can be broken?"
Her eyes searched his then she breathed out a heavy sigh. "Only by killing the Unseelie king who cursed me. An impossibility. I've not the strength or a weapon powerful enough. What of your curse?" she asked. "You'll lose your heart if you love a faery."
"I made a deal with Ooghna, the faery champion. She will release me from the curse in exchange for the sword I've made."
"Really? But, don't you forge weapons from iron? Why would the champion…?"
"It's a faery sword. The metal changed as I forged it. It's unlike anything on this
earth. And it…sings."
"Sings?" Rissa pulled away, meeting his gaze with a wondering stare. "And you made it thanks to my inspiration?"
He nodded. "I've felt you've been my muse. Ooghna explained it is the leanan sidhe's gift to her dying marks."
"Yes, an unfortunate gift. Show it to me."
"I—"
"Now," she insisted firmly. "Please?"
Without setting her down, Kai wandered over the stones and moss to the shed. He nudged open the door with a foot and carried her inside to set on the wood table where the sword lay. Both naked, their bodies gleamed as he flicked on the overhead light, but the sword shone the brightest.
He tossed the tee-shirt to Rissa and she pulled it on as he gestured toward the weapon lying on the table.
Rissa gasped and put a hand out to touch the blade, yet retracted. "It's very powerful. I can hear it."
"Yes, of course, if you're faery you should be able to. And Ooghna heard it too. I only heard its song when I was forging it. It still sings?"
"It is…Glamoursiege," Rissa said.
"What does that mean?"
"That is the name of this sword. I just…I can hear it speak its name. Oh, Kai, this sword has great power. You can do much with it. Perhaps even…"
He met her gaze, her mouth open in mid-speech. She shook her head, dismissing what she was about to say. The pale faery shivered and drew up a knee to hug against her chest.
"Even what?" he encouraged.
"No, it's not possible. You've already promised the sword to Ooghna in exchange for your life."
He clasped her by the back of the neck, none too gently. "My life is worth nothing without you, Rissa. I would do anything to free you from the king's curse. Tell me how I can save you?"
She exhaled, her body bowing forward over the sword, and the gleam reflecting in her violet eyes as she said, "You could defeat the Unseelie king with this sword, and break my curse."
