by Hazel Hunter
Kayla couldn’t see her sister, but imagined Jannon was likely the one whirling her around under the stars. She tried not to feel resentful as she went into a banquet tent, as she was honestly glad Tara was enjoying herself for once. Jannon might be an immortal exiled Fae warrior, and way too old for her sister, but even he was a huge improvement on Dirk Blackstone.
After loading up a tray at the buffet, Kayla went to sit at a table of guests dressed up like peasants. She managed to eat and laugh at the same time as the guests, who were experienced Renfaire visitors, told ribald jokes and sang drinking songs. One younger guy kept asking her questions about the joust while sneaking admiring looks at her, which made her feel less like a wallflower. Everyone at the table looked up when a tall shadow fell over Kayla, and she turned to see Ryan in his knightly finery.
“May I have this dance, my lady?” he asked, holding out his arm.
Although the seething fury that had filled her at their last meeting had dwindled, the relentless tug on her heart hadn’t. Even in his human guise, he was irresistible in costume.
“Is this part of the show?” asked one of the guests behind her.
“It would not do to disappoint, my lady,” Ryan said, smiling. “Do I ask so much?”
He knew damn well he did. But as Kayla glanced around, every gaze in the vicinity was on them. Kayla stood and tucked her arm through his, and every woman at the nearby tables sighed. He walked her out of the tent and over to the bonfire.
“I’m supposed to be a groom,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that back in medieval times magnificent knights didn’t ask lowly grooms to dance.”
“I remember a few knights who spent much time with their grooms in their arms. They simply indulged in a different form of dance.” As they reached the edge of the dancing couples Ryan turned to her. “Take down your hair, and everyone will know I dance with a proper female.”
“Who said I was proper?” Kayla clasped one hand in his, and rested the other arm atop his, and laughed as he whirled her directly into the mass of spinning skirts and thumping boots.
“Waltzing is not medieval, you know,” Kayla told him after they’d made one circuit of the fire. “It came out in the eighteenth century.”
“There were dances like this long before that.” Ryan lifted her off her feet and whirled her around three times. “Like this one. I danced it as a boy at a clan wedding.”
Kayla almost stumbled trying to keep up with his intricate steps. “You’re being awfully nice. What do you want?”
“Only to hold my groom in my arms.” The music ended, and as everyone around them stopped and applauded Ryan looked down at her. “I would like to show you something. You may need to make use of it.”
She resisted the urge to glance down at his pants. “And what would that be?”
“Another entrance to the caves,” Ryan said, his smile evaporating. “I have given our last conversation some thought. Should the Blackstones find a way to enter the camp and attack us, you will be safe there.”
Kayla accompanied him from the bonfire into the woods at the south end of the camp. Ryan stopped in front of an enormous black oak, its long, twisted limbs making shadow play against the moonlit sky. She glanced around it but saw nothing but heaps of dead leaves.
“I’m not seeing the way in. Do we need a rake?”
“Only this.”
Ryan took her hand, and placed it in a small hollow on the tree’s massive trunk. Light flared briefly under Kayla’s palm. The great slabs of bark dissolved, revealing an arched opening and crystal steps leading down into the darkness.
“Now that is a very neat trick.” Kayla leaned in to see the steps ending several feet below in a stone tunnel illuminated by a pair of flickering lights. “Is someone down there now?”
Ryan drew her back as the lights floated up toward them, glittering blue and white, before drifting back down and disappearing into the tunnel.
“Likely not, but wait here.”
“I’m much better at going with than waiting,” Kayla said, following him inside the arch and down the steps. The tree trunk portal closed behind them, but as soon as it did two stakes in the walls flanking the tunnel entrance burst into flame. “Motion sensor torches. I’m impressed.”
“’Twas none of my doing. The spells down here were cast by Elias Moffett, the Fae hunter who built the lodge.” Ryan peered into the tunnel, and took a step back as the two lights reappeared, swirled in front of him, and zipped off again. “Beckoning lights. They’re left behind as guides for those who enter.”
“Guides to what?” Kayla asked.
“The caves are extensive, some parts unexplored.” He held out his hand. “Stay close to me.”
They walked down the tunnel and emerged into a larger chamber with three more passages. The two lights hovered over them before flying into a craggy stone wall and disappearing.
“You’re going to need a pickaxe,” Kayla said as she went over and touched the stone, which dissolved under her fingers to reveal a fourth passageway. “Or not.”
The lights swirled around her, and something tugged at Kayla now. She entered the passage and walked down another short set of hewn crystal steps into a cave filled with mist. The lights grew brighter, and their power reflected off the sparkling walls to illuminate a small spring. Kayla moved to the edge, and felt the steam rising, caressing her face like a lover’s sigh. Logically the small space should have smelled dank and mildewed, but instead a spicy-sweet fragrance scented the air, as if the stone were made of fresh-baked gingerbread, and the pool was filled with hot apple cider.
“It’s a spring.” She bent down to hold her hand over the surface of the water, which felt deliciously warm. She glanced back at Ryan. “How can it be hot at this time of year?”
Before he could answer the lights flew around her head, swirling around her until she swiped at them. The moment her fingers touched the light it stretched into a filament and wrapped around her wrist, and dragged her over the edge into the water.
Kayla splashed furiously before she went under, and more light enveloped her. Her eyes widened as she saw the walls of the pool glowing with thousands of small, polished crystal domes, which began to release colorful bubbles into the water. Ryan jumped in, and put his arm around her as he hauled her up to the surface.
“Wow,” she managed to get out before coughing. She pushed soaked hair out of her eyes and looked at the surface of the glowing pool, which bubbled merrily now. “Is this going to boil us alive?”
“If it had been meant to, we would already be stewed.” Ryan pulled her over to a recess in one side of the pool that formed a little bench. “I think Elias fashioned this for his wife, Lily. She was mortal, and suffered from joint pain when she was older.”
Kayla felt something caress her bottom and glanced down to see bubbles swirling around her hips—her naked hips. “This doesn’t feel like a therapy pool, especially with the pretty lights and disappearing clothes feature. It feels more, ah, romantic.”
Ryan grinned at her. “Elias did enjoy surprising Lily with gifts of magick. This trysting pool must have been one of them.”
“He sounds like he was a loving husband.” Kayla wondered what it must have been like for Lily to spend a lifetime with a man who never aged, had superhuman powers and looked like a God. “He gave up his people for her, right? The Fae exiled him for marrying a human woman?”
“Aye.”
Stars glimmered in Ryan’s hair as he dropped his glamour, and the lights of the pool intensified. Looking into his sapphire eyes made something in Kayla’s chest tighten.
“So the magick was meant for Lily,” she said.
He swam closer, and water streamed from his shoulders as he braced his hands on either side of her. “But what happens now is you and me, my lovely one.”
Kayla curled her hand around his neck, pulling him down until his mouth touched hers. He tasted sweet and spicy from the pool, but when she took the kiss deeper he was all
hot, dark hunger. Water splashed as he turned with her, taking her place on the crystal ledge and holding her on his lap. His hands moved under the surface to grip her waist, and he lifted his head to look into her half-closed eyes.
“I will build you a waterfall by my cabin,” he murmured, using his lips to caress her jaw and cheek. “But it will pour sunlight over you instead of water, so that you never feel cold again.”
Desire had that task in hand. Kayla could feel her softness fluttering and heating even now for him. Watching his face she straddled him, and moved until she could rub her folds over the thick bulb of his cockhead.
“Ryan.” She stroked the pad of her thumb over his full lower lip, and shifted until she lodged him where she needed his heavy girth. “This is all the magick I want.”
He groaned as she sank down on him, his big hands coming up to cradle her bottom. “Oh, Kayla. ’Tis all the magick we need.”
The walls of the cave grew as bright as the pool, painting Kayla and Ryan with their sparkling glints. She held onto his shoulders as she took him in, catching her breath as he stretched and filled her. Rising again, she pulled back her shoulders, offering him her tight-peaked breasts. When he put his mouth on her she thought she might explode, and shook with aching need as he tugged on one nipple and then the other.
The pool grew cooler, or their bodies burned hotter. Kayla couldn’t tell which. All she knew was this dance now, her wet, clenching tightness stroking over his hard, swollen length. The pool lapped at her waist, sending rivulets of the water up to caress her mounds and Ryan’s cheeks, and when he drew back the enchanted spring took them under and into the crystalline light.
She should be drowning, Kayla thought, not whirling and clutching and taking Ryan as he pumped in and out of her. Then nothing mattered but the building pleasure they created, their slick bodies sliding like silk together. When her climax came she put her mouth to his so he could taste her cry of joy, and drank down his moan as he filled her like the rigid shaft pulsing deep inside her body.
Somehow they ended up on the side of the pool, a cushion of warm sweet water shimmering under them as they held each other.
“I’m sorry I was so hateful to you.” She smoothed a wet strand of his pale hair back from his brow. “Christine had a friend come and do a tarot card reading for us. Everything she saw, or said, was pretty bleak. I got a book from one of the vendors, though, and looked up the cards she read for us. Some of what she said was wrong, particularly in regard to you.”
“I have been wrong about you as well,” he said, and stroked her cheek. “I have never seen Fae horses take to a mortal so completely. When you left after we were together, in the barn, they almost tore it to pieces trying to follow you.”
He wasn’t asking her to explain, but Kayla knew it was time to tell him. “There’s something you need to know about me, but we have to go to the barn so I can show you how it works.”
Though the last thing she wanted to do was leave the trysting pool, she couldn’t keep this from him any longer. The look on her face must have told him it was serious. Ryan used his magick to dry them off, and as soon as he did their clothes reappeared on their bodies. From the cave they returned to the surface, and walked across the camp hand in hand.
Inside the barn Wallace was putting Sampson in his stall, and smiled at both of them before he left without a word.
“Your blacksmith is a mind-reader,” Kayla said as she latched the barn door and went to Titan’s stall. “Which brings me to me.” She opened the door, and led Titan out into the center of the straw-covered floor. “Horses and I have a strange connection. There’s no other way to put it than just telling you: I can talk to them in my head.”
Titan looked at her before he heaved a very human-sounding sigh.
Don’t give me any attitude tonight, pal, Kayla thought to him.
She left him there and walked up to Ryan. She whispered to him what she was going to do, making him frown, and then she began telling Titan.
Sidestep, and then show him some break dancing.
The big stallion glared at her back before he began stepping sideways. As Ryan stiffened, the big horse abruptly dropped, rolled onto his back, and pawed at the air before righting himself, shaking off the dust, and coming over to Kayla to nuzzle her hands.
“You used no signals,” Ryan said, his eyes narrowing. “You wish me to believe that you can command them by thought alone?”
“I can if I have to, but I’d rather ask,” she murmured back. “I also know what they’re thinking. I can sense when they’re in trouble, and sometimes, I can call them to me as far as a couple of miles away.” From the doubt still in his eyes Kayla knew she’d have to do better. “Ask Titan a question, something only he would know, and I’ll tell you the answer.”
Ryan scowled and cocked his head back, but just for a moment. Something must have occurred to him.
“During the Battle of the White Cliffs, someone stopped me in my rage by clouting me, and dragged me from the field to the sea,” Ryan said, and reached up to stroke his horse’s neck. “I never knew who it was. Does Titan?”
Kayla met the stallion’s gaze. Well?
I did it. We were losing the battle, and I could not permit him to be butchered by the enemy, or to cut me down in his madness.
The horse shared his memories of the chaotic scene, during which he turned and kicked Ryan in the head, and then used his teeth to drag him by the arm down to the water’s edge.
Kayla repeated everything Titan told her, and added, “Your left arm probably had some strange-looking bruises where he grabbed hold of you. Assuming the Fae bruise.”
“I wore protectors over my arms, but I remember the dents I later found in them. I thought them made by an enemy’s heel, not my mount’s teeth.” He touched his forehead to the horse’s. “Thank you, my friend. On that day, you saved my life.”
Is he going to kiss me now? Titan thought to Kayla. Because I can kick him in the head again, if need be.
Kayla laughed, which made Ryan turn to her.
“Titan prefers not to be kissed,” she said, “but I’m happy to stand in for him. So what do you think my horse telepathy means?”
“You may have some Fae blood,” he told her, looking a lot happier now. “It would explain a great deal that has happened between us. Such as why we are so deeply drawn to each other.” He took her hands, and rubbed his thumbs across her knuckles. “Kayla, I have no right to ask you to come to me—to be with me. I know there are matters left unsettled. But when we were in Elias’s trysting pool, nothing else mattered. I should like to have that again. As many times as I may before we are parted.”
“I think that can be arranged. By the way, Titan would like to take a ride around camp and see all the kids, not that he’ll admit it.” Kayla went to retrieve Ryan’s saddle. “He also likes to take rides at night for any reason,” she said as she saddled the stallion. “It ticks him off when you leave him behind and walk.”
Ryan swung up into the saddle before bending sideways to haul her to sit in front of him. “You will ride with us,” he said, and kissed the side of her neck.
Kayla leaned back against him, feeling completely content. “I can swing that, too.”
Chapter 13
COLM STOOD SENTINEL with Lawrence by the gates as the last of the visitors left the grounds.
“The children’s buffet was a great success,” Colm said. “Ryan will be very pleased.”
“It was—’twas Christine who suggested the pizza and such,” the old man admitted. “She will make a fine mother someday.”
Being reminded of the dancer should have twisted like a knife in Colm’s gut, but he could still feel her kisses on his face. “So she shall.” He walked out to help Lawrence close the gate, and heard soft, muffled sobbing.
“What is that?”
“I will fetch a torch,” Lawrence said, and disappeared into his cottage, returning with a rag-wrapped branch, which he set ablaze with a
lighter. “Forgive me, but I did not inherit the gift of sparking from my Fae side.”
“Stay here,” Colm said, and took the torch from him.
He followed the sound to the very border of the faire’s boundaries. As he held up the torch, he looked from side to side. Emerging from the gloom was the pale, nude body of a woman in the ditch. Someone had left her there, gagged and bound.
“Lawrence,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Go and get some men.”
It was a trick, of course. Dark Fae took pleasure in using wounded humans as bait. Colm moved to just inside the outer boundary as he peered, looking for Blackstones hiding in the brush. The light of the torch flickered over the woman’s arms, revealing her tattoos.
“Christine.”
Without thinking Colm dropped the torch as he emerged from the boundary and ran to her. Something came whizzing at him, and a blade sank into his upper chest, flanked by another that gashed the top of his shoulder before flipping away. Dark Fae rushed out of the shadows, and Colm flung himself on top of Christine to shield her with his body. More blades rammed into his back and legs as the Blackstones crowded around him, jeering and laughing as they stabbed him over and over.
Blood pooled in Colm’s mouth as he lifted his head, and saw Ryan and Kayla on Titan. The mortal woman jumped off before Ryan sailed over the boundary, his mount transforming into a motorcycle. More of the Forever Faire warriors did the same, and plowed into the Dark Fae, knocking them aside as Ryan reached Colm and jumped off.
“You would take on the whole clan yourself,” his friend muttered as he flung Colm over his shoulder, and scooped up Christine with his other arm. “Selfish of you, brother.”
Colm wanted to laugh, but coughed up some blood before he could. Ryan kicked a Blackstone out of his way and mounted the bike while holding both of them tightly.
“Now, Titan,” Kayla shouted.
The motorcycle roared back toward the boundary, clearing it with a high jump before landing as the stallion on the other side. Ryan’s men followed as the Blackstones evaporated into the night.
