My lids felt heavy and weighted as she took me onto 'er mouth again, her breathing gettin' faster, harder, moonlight streaming across her long, dark hair. I wanted to see her true form, no glamour, but I also knew dat our glamours were da only things keeping a dangerous surge of magic outta the air.
And those wings … The ragged stumps had been hauntin' me all damn day. Took a special kind of sick to cut off a faerie's wings. And Le Gardien du Voile most of all? I wasn't the only one wondering why a goddess hadn't been able to grow 'em back.
My fingers curled tighter in her hair, pulled her closer. My shaft slid deep into her mouth, but not all da way—Ol' Reece was too long for dat shit—and dat extra bit was fuckin' killin' me. I needed to be buried inside dis girl.
The next time she pulled back, I stepped away, her fingernails trailing along the length of my cock and making me shiver. She sat on da floor on her knees and didn't look a bit less like a goddess for it.
I was a lucky man, me. As soon as the rest o' the world found out the Veil Keeper was back, I wouldn't be da only man fightin' to get her into bed.
Reaching out a hand, I helped her to her feet, hooked my thumbs in the waistband of her panties and dragged them down the smooth lines of her hips and off her feet, pausing to press my mouth to the nest of curls between her thighs. She smelled so damn sweet, I felt like my head was spinning.
I stood back up and lifted her again, putting her right back on da counter where she was before. But this time, there was no fabric standing between us. It was just da hard, slick length of my cock resting against her opening.
“Do we need a condom?” she asked, wrinkling her delicate brow like even she wasn't sure what she was askin'.
I raised a single brow, pulling her closer with my greedy hands on her ass, digging my fingers into the soft flesh.
“You da the goddess o' the veil, you,” I told her which was more than enough explanation for anyone. But she sat there for a long moment, those sloe-eyes of hers glimmering like she was processing a whole helluva lot of information.
“The veil,” she said, her glamour shimmering in response to the word.
“You da cailleach,” I said in the language of the old country, that place I never been but that dictated every step I took in life. The veiled one. “You a new soul, but you also a lost one, girl, no?”
“No condom,” she said again, like she'd found some hidden cache of knowledge in her brain that told her I was tellin' the truth. The fae don't get sick the same way humans do and me, I was dia gnéas, I didn't make babies 'less I wanted to.
I cupped da side of her face with one, large tattooed hand, my skin shimmering and flickering in response to her magic. Her eyes met mine just a split second before our lips connected, two hot angry mouths sliding together in tongue and teeth and wild lust.
My other hand slipped between us, guiding the head of my cock to her opening. As we kissed, I pushed myself inside, the tight hot walls of her body squeezing mine to within an inch o' my life. She was almost too tight. Almost.
“Tu te sens tellement bien, mon cher,” I groaned, burying myself to the hilt and using my right hand to cup her ass and pull her close. Ciarah moved her mouth to my neck, kissing and licking and biting the corded muscles in my throat, tense and rigid as I tried to control my urge to pound her into da countertop.
I had to move slow, me.
“You feel so good,” I repeated in English, not sure that dis girl, dis strange soul inside a fae goddess' body, if she could speak French. Hell, I was pretty sure none of the previous Veil Keepers could speak the language. Why should they when there were two dozen fae dialects they had to learn on da other side?
“Faster, harder,” she said as I moved inside her, the slick ridges of her cunt bearing down on me with such force that I almost lost it again. But what kind o' man would I be if I couldn't give dis poor girl her orgasm first? “More,” she whispered, her breath teasing along my neck.
I felt a presence at my back before she saw him, lifting her face to look at Killian standing in the kitchen doorway behind us. I knew it was him from the signature scent of his magic, dis cool breeze that swept into the room and tried to cool my heated flesh.
Using my left hand, I turned Ciarah's face back to mine and thrust my tongue between her lips, moving inside of her with long, sure strokes until I felt her muscles clenching around me, pulsing in rapid flickers that begged to milk da pleasure straight outta me.
As Killian watched, a dark brooding energy surrounding him and prodding at my spine, I fucked Ciarah O'Rourke into da counter and stole a climax right outta dat borrowed body o' hers. Her head fell back and her glamour cracked like a thin sheet of glass, revealing the blue-skinned faerie underneath.
Those sapphire eyes o' hers lit up as her body locked down on mine and drew an unwilling orgasm right outta me, cutting through my own lust-laden magic and taking what she wanted in its place.
Fucking infuriated me, but I couldn't move, no, trapped inside the scalding warmth of her body as her eyes glowed and she stared up at da ceiling like she was seein' something beyond da old walls of the bayou clubhouse.
“The Wild Hunt rides,” she said, holding me in place with legs locked together behind my back. I heard Killian move toward us, a growl escaping from between his lips. All around us, I felt the few people left in the clubhouse stir, cracking the thickness of sleep and coming awake for what coulda been their first real waking moment in a century. “We ride,” she said again, dropping her face to look at mine. “And the souls of the dead join our parade.”
The voice that spoke through me was entirely different from the one Killian had given back when he healed my body. Instead of the weak, thin sound of tight vocal cords, this voice was rich, dark, and sensual. It rang true with the pain of a thousand souls, and the joy of a thousand more, and when it uttered those words it felt like twenty three little lightbulbs ignited inside my consciousness.
All at once, I was connected to twenty-three souls in a way that was both more and less intimate than the embrace I still held Reece in.
“Ciarah, bébé,” Reece panted, his huge hands still gripping my hips while his glamour flickered in and out of view, like he was struggling to hold it. “Ye need t'let me go, cher. The Hunt is coming to your summons; we must complete the ride or forfeit our own souls, y'hear?”
“What?” I croaked, in my still healing voice once more. Releasing my legs from around Reece's waist, I allowed him to slide out of me and step back so I could get down from the bench. “What just happened?”
“You're Le Gardien du Voile, mon cher,” Killian murmured, holding up my borrowed panties by one finger and offering them to me. “You just called your Hunt to arms using magic that hasn't been seen in over one hundred and eighty years.”
“Okay, and what the fuck does that mean?” I snapped, exasperated, as I pulled on my underwear and retrieved the t-shirt from the kitchen counter.
“Oh ho, the minou has a tongue on her, too! But I already knew that, me. We came good and close, Ol' Reece and dat tongue.” He winked an eye the color of autumn leaves and I licked my lips, still tasting him.
“It means,” Killian responded to my question while holding out a gentlemanly hand for me to take, “that tonight, we ride.”
“Take 'er to borrow more clothes from Caley-girl.” Reece nodded back toward the bedrooms where I had left Arlo. “I see those thighs wrapped around me while we ridin' Diabhal and I be likely to crash straight in ta dat dere swamp.”
“Who says she's riding with you, old man?” Killian challenged, but gave me a smile that said he was teasing. It did nothing to alleviate my confusion though, as I could still feel those twenty-three souls connected to me with silvery threads like spider silk. Two of them were clearly tethered to Killian and Arlo, as they glowed faintly with the same silvery substance as the threads. One, I knew was Arlo, which left twenty more.
The remainder of The Wild Hunt?
Once inside Caley's bedroom
, Killian confidently approached a chest of drawers and extracted a pair of dark denim jeans and a halter-necked tank top, which he handed to me before pausing.
“Caley's unlikely to have any boots that will fit you. She is moitié humain and their feet tend to run a bit larger than sidhe.” He quirked a teasing grin. “It's the fairy in us, tu sais?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.” I squinted at him. “But I'm sure I'll be fine in bare feet. It's a warm night. What are we riding, anyway?”
Killian's lush lips pulled into a broad smile. “Seriously? Mon cher, the Veil Keeper has been gone for over one hundred and eighty years. Our fae mounts needed to evolve and adapt with the human world, manifest in a way that would be more readily accepted by the human eye. Eight foot tall horned stallions in fae armor probably wouldn't go unnoticed in the bayou.”
“Oh.” I nodded, as though I understood what he was talking about. Some part of me did understand, but chasing those memories was like trying to nail jelly to a wall.
“Get changed, cher, then meet us out the front. We must hurry. Once the magic has been summoned, we must obey it.” His ice-blue eyes were tight with tension and I could clearly see how taut his shoulders were set.
Nodding my understanding, I closed the door behind him and quickly changed into the clothes he had found for me in Caley's drawers. He'd been correct when he said the healing would help to fill out my frame, as Caley's jeans would've now fit me like a glove, if not for the length. It was nothing a couple of rolls couldn't fix though. The halter top was black, and left my back mercifully exposed.
Despite the glamour concealing the scars, I could feel them every time my t-shirt rubbed over the puckered flesh.
Letting myself out of Caley's room, I started down the hallway. A door slammed open just in front of me and I barely stopped myself from crashing headfirst into Arlo who glared at me with furious eyes.
His brown hair was tousled from sleep, and he still had his shirt and leather jacket draped over one shoulder while he buckled the heavy belt around his hips.
“You sure don't waste time, Veil Keeper,” he sneered, then turned and led the way outside while dressing himself. “You couldn't have waited until morning to summon The Wild Hunt? I barely got an hours sleep, thanks to you.”
“I'm sorry,” I muttered, but not totally feeling like I should be apologizing to him. “I didn't do it intentionally. It just … happened.”
Arlo gave a derisive snort as he threw his leather jacket on and kicked the front door open. “Sure. Just happened. The Goddess of the Veil lets her magic control her now. This bodes well for tonight's hunt.”
My temper flared at his scornful words but I bit my tongue. If nothing else, it still ached to talk so it wasn't worth the strain to fight back.
“There she be!” Reece announced, as I followed Arlo out into the cool night where several men were gathered, all wearing leather jackets and vests sporting the same patch on the back. The skull over butterfly wings suddenly made more sense.
My step faltered as my feet reached the gravel of the driveway and I realized what Killian had meant about their mounts having adapted. An array of leather and gleaming chrome made up the orderly line of motorcycles waiting for their riders, just as fae mounts once would have waited.
“Ah, I see the way you lookin' at our noble steeds, bébé,” Reece smirked as I approached the group of dangerous looking leather clad men. My eyes remained glued to the bikes, like I was waiting to see them change form. Maybe I was? I couldn't remember.
“Don' you worry, Ciarah girl, Old Reece would be mad not t'let you ride his hog … again.” The sexy fae in shades of autumn winked at me and my breath caught. What had possessed me back in the kitchen? I barely knew myself, let alone these men, and yet there I was on my knees with his cock down my throat.
“She's not riding with you, Reece,” Arlo snapped in his dickish tone of voice. “Last thing we need is for you to fuck up the Wild Hunt by copping a feel and sending the magic screwy.”
Reece's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to reply, but Killian smacked him in the gut with the back of his hand.
“He's right, cher,” Killian murmured to Reece in his deep, husky voice. “We can't risk this Hunt going sour. It will be a hard one already, with how many souls must have gone uncollected since we became piégé.”
“She can ride with me,” Arlo announced, and my eyebrows shot up.
“No thanks.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Surely I can ride alone?”
Arlo snorted a laugh and shook his head. “Yeah sure. Get on the damn bike, woman.”
Folding my arms under my breasts, I prepared to stand my ground against this chauvinistic asshole but a nauseating wave of urgency washed through me.
“The Wild Hunt must ride. Punishments must be dealt to those who flout the faerie law.” The words spilled from my lips in that powerful voice, rich with sex and magic, and I gasped.
Those silvery strands of silk connecting me to my Wild Hunt glowed brightly, and around me the leather clad men moved soundlessly to their bikes, kicking them alive with low rumbles and waiting with eyes that glowed like fireflies in the swamp.
Arlo didn't wait for me to protest any further. Instead, he simply picked me up and deposited me onto his bike like I was a goddamn sack of rice. Wordlessly, he swung his leg over, and before I could utter a word we were peeling out of the long gravel driveway.
Faced with the appealing options of jumping off a moving motorcycle or holding on to Arlo's waist, I grudgingly gripped the leather of his jacket and held my body stiff to try and maintain a distance between us.
“What the fuck was that?” I yelled in his ear over the loud rumble of twenty other bikes around us. How I knew it was twenty, I wasn't totally sure. But I sensed the two missing were Fionn and Donal.
“Like you don't know,” Arlo snapped back, clearly still of the opinion that I was somehow faking my amnesia. Wanker.
As we flew past sugarcane fields, the wind whipped through my hair and streamed out behind me like a flag, the two missing bikers joining our parade from a side street. They took up a position at the front of the group, just ahead of Reece, Killian and Arlo—and me, clinging to Arlo's jacket.
“Gardien.” Fionn nodded to me in a respectful sort of way, and his voice sounded inside my head, making it possible to hear him without yelling. “Ye summoned the ancient magic. Send us where you want us to go.”
His words triggered one of those elusive memory bubbles to burst and knowledge washed through me of what I needed to do. Twenty-three bright lights were connected to me through strands of magic, interwoven into my very flesh.
The Wild Hunt.
My Wild Hunt.
But beyond those twenty-three lights, there were just as many dead ones, waiting to be collected. One of my hands raised from Arlo's jacket and I pointed in the direction of the closest one.
“And so we ride,” Fionn responded, and these same four words were repeated in unison by twenty-two other voices within my mind.
#
For hours, my Wild Hunt travelled through the Louisiana countryside at my direction, collecting the souls of all the fae who had died on this side of the Veil. With each soul collected, my heart ached for the pain they were feeling. They were so lost, so alone, trapped in this world that was not their own.
Our own.
But that didn't quite ring true to me. Despite my fae body, I still felt a sense of belonging in this human world.
“How many more, Gardien?” Fionn asked, as the most recent soul attached itself to our parade. She'd been beautiful in life, and a blue-blooded sidhe. How she died, she couldn't recall. Only that she'd been that way for a long time.
My eyelids drooped shut as I searched for more of those broken lights within me, and paused when I found something … different. Unlike my Wild Hunt, who glowed as bright as starlight, or the souls of dead fae, which were the shadowy memories of bulbs blown out, this was something else. I
reached out to it to take a closer look, and a wave of pain and hatred crashed over me.
“That way,” I gasped, pointing in the physical direction of where this poison was radiating from. Without a doubt, this was what that voice had spoken of. A fae law breaker. Someone who deserved to be punished in the worst way.
“Stay with us, woman,” Arlo murmured, releasing one hand from his handlebars and gripping mine at his waist. “I feel you weaving back there. Hold on tighter.”
He was right. I was exhausted. Blindly following magic I didn't understand had me weak enough that I could pass out any second, but picking gravel out of my skin sounded anything but pleasant so I did as he said and gripped tighter.
“This the place?” Fionn asked, as our entourage pulled up outside a run-down shack in the middle of the swamp. From inside, the distinctive sound of a woman's screams cut through the early morning quiet and I nodded grimly.
“Who dat, dere? This 'ere be private property and y'all are trespassers!” a man demanded, flinging open the front screen door and stepping out onto the porch.
Arlo's broad back blocked my line of sight, so I slid from the back of his bike and approached the enraged man brandishing a shotgun. Once I got a good look at him, my stomach clenched and rolled, while bile threatened to rise in my throat.
His glamour was that of a normal human man, but with the magic riding my eyesight I could clearly see through it to the rotted, putrid creature beneath.
My gaze locked on his and in an instant, I saw his lifetime of crimes laid out before me.
Violence, abuse, theft, rape, and murder.
The fae lived very long lives and this vile creature had amassed an extensive laundry list of crimes to his name. Not the least of which included showing his faerie form to human women, in a bid to terrify them while he killed them slowly.
“Asgall Baltair.” My voice was low, thick and heavy with the Veil Keeper's magic. I was the Queen of the Wild Hunt, and this was our sacred duty. “You stand accused of crimes against both fae and humankind. You’ve broken our most sacred laws and threatened our future in this world. How do you plead?”
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