Perhaps I hadn't made myself clear enough, when I'd laid my claim. Perhaps he needed a fucking reminder, right here and fucking now in front of my entire Wild Hunt.
“Ciarah.” Killian snatched my hand, halting me as I was about to storm over there.“Ciarah, he is not foolish enough to let her touch him. He's just trying to make you mad.”
My ire turned to Killian in a single glare, and he wisely dropped his hold on my hand. Thank the Veil one of these stupid fae men respected my power.
Well, Arlo was about to learn that lesson the hard way. I'd had enough of his insolence. It was time he made a choice. Accept his position as Lord of Spring or forfeit it permanently.
Even as ancient as I—the Veil Keeper—was, I would not force a man against his will. It would be his choice, but if he chose badly it would also cost him his position in The Wild Hunt. After all, this was my Hunt and all the men in it belonged to me.
My black patent leather heels clicked across the hard floor as I approached the stripper and her audience, and Arlo watched me, his jaw set stubbornly and his glare hard.
This was going to be enjoyable.
“Do you not speak English?” I asked him as I approached and stood in front of him. The big man towered over me, covered in ink and bullshit, glaring with defiance. I understood—he was the typical alpha male type. And he should be. I needed him strong and powerful to fight for me, defend me, pleasure me, but I also needed him to be a willow branch.
He could bend and not break.
I knew that firsthand.
I had been twisted, tortured, all the best attempts to tame had been thrust upon me.
I'd bent … but I hadn't broken.
I'd do the same to Arlo.
“The fuck are you talking about?” he growled down at me, every bit a god. There was this arrogant gleam to his eyes, this set to his jaw. Upstairs, he'd almost succumbed. Hell, I thought he had. But I should've known better. It takes more than a hand job to bring a god to his knees.
“Do you not speak English?” I repeated, putting my hands on my hips. Several of the people gathered around us were staring now, men sipping beers, women running their fingers through their hair and licking their lips.
This was going to be a spectacle.
How fun.
Vague memories told me fae court was all about spectacle.
We might be in a dirty clubhouse in the middle of the bayou, the air humid and smelling of swamp, the music loud, the drinks in plastic cups … but this was still court. Her court. My court.
“Because I know what I told you not once, not twice, but three times. I warned you, Arlo. Now.” I paused and my nostrils flared at the same time he gritted his teeth. “Shall I repeat my warning in another language? Sidhe? Gaelic? Because if I have to, I will tear my memory apart until those languages come back to me, and I will repeat myself. One. More. Time.”
“What are you getting at?” Arlo asked, low and quiet. Dangerous. He would be a dangerous man to anyone but me. His green eyes shone with a brilliant light and his tongue slid over his lower lip. “I haven't broken any of your rules.”
“Toeing the line is close enough. It's willful disobedience,” I snapped as Rafe came out of the other room and paused, raising a silver eyebrow and leaning against the wall with one shoulder to watch the show. I ignored him.
“Disobedience?” Arlo scoffed with a shake of his head. He lifted his chin and looked down at me. “I'm not really the type to be disobedient, Veil Keeper. Because I ain't the type to be obedient in the first place.”
Laughter rippled around the room—male and female alike.
This was going to turn into a battle of wills, wasn’t it?
Well, I wasn't going to lose.
“You have two choices now. Take off your cut and walk out those doors, climb on your bike and leave the Wild Hunt. Or, you can be my Lord of Spring. In that case, leave your cut on but take off your pants.”
More laughter swirled around me as the spectators stood and sipped their faerie wine, glamours flickering in and out. With a wave of my hand, I shattered them all like glass. A collective gasp went up from the crowd and then … silence.
Arlo now stood above me with his horns curving over his head, his silver skin gleaming, his eyes like rare jewels. His rage was a palpable fucking thing.
“You want my dick?” he asked with a bit of swagger, but this time, nobody laughed.
“Leave the Hunt. Be my Lord. Those are your choices.”
I stared him down, feeling every moment of helplessness and torture from the past five years pushing against me like an iron weight, burning my skin and crushing me to the floor. It felt like my ribs would break, my skull would crack, my insides would ooze across the floor. Because for years, they did. For years, I was barely a person, nothing but flesh and blood and meat. And for years, I had no choice in the matter. It wasn't a matter of fighting hard or fighting smart or being clever—I was trapped.
This time, today, here, I had a choice.
I would not be bullied or abused. And maybe, if I had to assert myself more than usual to make up for all that time, then Arlo would have to learn to love me despite it, for it … or else he could leave. The only vulnerability I would show in this moment was me picking him.
“Oh, come on, brudder, don't be a damn fool, you,” Reece said, appearing at Arlo's side and then turning his eyes to mine. Without his glamour, they were the color of autumn. Without his glamour … he was pure sex. His magic flowed in the room like honeyed wine as he reached out and brushed his fingers down the other man's inked shoulder.
Arlo shuddered and grit his teeth, lifting his hands up to his hair like he was about to go insane. I understood. It wasn't easy to give up control. But to be here, with me, he'd have to learn. I couldn't be subjugated or dominated or crushed under male feet for the sake of pride. Whatever the Veil Keeper was like in the past, I couldn't speak to her rules, her wants, her desires … I could only speak to mine.
“Fuck,” Arlo choked, reaching up to his vest and slowly removing it. “I'm out then. I can't do this, be treated like a …”
A single tear rolled down my face and Arlo paused as I dashed it away, his nostrils flaring.
“Are damaged things not worth being loved?” I asked him, and he went completely still and then stopped, letting go of his cut and reaching out to me. “No. If you couldn't accept me when I was strong and only when you saw weakness, maybe I don't want you as a Lord. Maybe you're not right for it.”
I spun away and headed for the exterior doors, Arlo following after.
I made it out to the railing, leaning over the water and choking on a sudden rush of pain. Tears streamed down my face, but from where or why, I wasn't sure.
“Don't touch me!” I shouted when Arlo put a big hand on my shoulder and I spun around, throwing him off. Killian and Reece stood nearby, and the crowd watched through the open windows and doors. “Don't touch me,” I repeated with quiet menace.
“Keeper—” Arlo began to say in a strangled sounding voice but Reece cut him off with a smack to the head.
“Our goddess has a name, best be usin' it at times like this, no?”
Arlo turned to glare at Reece, but once again was cut off by the older fae man. “She be more dan jus' some bedtime story yo mama told. She be here, a real damn woman and you been actin' a real damn fool.”
Turning his cheek to Arlo, Reece speared me with his autumn gaze, so sharp it made my breath catch.
“Ciarah, this couillon need a lesson, see? He need ta understand, you more dan jus' a goddess, more dan jus' Le Gardien du Voile. You still be a woman, an' a woman sore in need of some love in her life. Now, I don' know what you been through, me. But I do know when a woman need love. It's in my magic, see?” Reece stepped closer to me and the world around him faded into obscurity. Nothing mattered except me, and him, and the words he was saying.
He was dia gnéas, a god of sex, and it rolled off him in waves as he stepped closer still. His
magic reached me, touching my skin cautiously, then creeping over me in comforting ripples that lit up my nerve endings and flooded me with the truth behind his words. Reece meant every damn word he was saying and I could already feel more tears rolling down my face as he continued.
“More dan dat, Ciarah. You deserve dat love, and Ol' Reece be more than willin' to give it.” His eyes still locked on mine, he sank gracefully to one knee and a flash of something older transposed over him, someone older, of a different time, and I realized I was seeing a flash of the last Lord of Autumn in this same position, about to pledge his fealty to the Keeper.
“Ciarah, ma déesse, Gardien du Voile, I offer me as your Lord of Autumn. From now til forever, Ol' Reece will be by your side. Knight, Protector, Confidante, and me hopes Lover.” He threw a saucy wink at me. “Dis pledge be given free and un-coerced. My life be yours, ‘tit fille.”
His head dipped, breaking our intense stare, but I knew what I needed to do as sure as I knew how to breathe.
“Reece,” I sighed, my voice husky and low with magic as I surrendered to her lead. I already knew what we needed to do, but she knew the words, knew how to activate the magic behind those words, so I'd take a backseat and learn. “A pledge freely given I humbly accept. Let it be known, my Lord of Autumn has been appointed.”
As we spoke these words, magic snapped out from my body and into nature, carrying my words and spreading them to all fae creatures this side of the Veil. All now knew of my Autumn Lord, and that alone was cause for celebration.
It had been hundreds of years since the last Lords were chosen, so many of these fae would never have experienced what would happen next … but so long as they lived now, they'd never forget it.
Reece's head lifted once more, his eyes shining bright with my magic as it seeped into him, beginning the magical bond which would only be completed with the sharing of pleasure. The look on his face though, was more than lust. It was sheer rapture, unadulterated joy, and dare I say even the stirrings of true love behind those rust gold eyes.
I held out my hand, intending to raise him to his feet and seal our bond, but paused when Killian stepped forward into the little bubble of magic surrounding Reece and me.
“Ciarah,” he said quietly, speaking my name with reverence, and I withdrew my hand, waiting to see what he, too, would say.
Despite my previously spoken claims to their cocks, I hadn't truly expected them to formally offer themselves as my Lords so soon. Could I be this lucky? Was Killian about to pledge fealty as well? Surely not …
Killian held my gaze, and slowly sank to one knee beside Reece while fresh tears ran down my face. For so many years I, and Gràinne before me, had known nothing but the touch of unkindness. Of hate, pain, fear, and despair. We'd been bent though not broken, and inside me she was falling to pieces remembering the all-consuming love of her Lords, her Knights, already gone from this world.
“Ciarah,” Killian said again, his gaze serious and solemn, “I too offer myself, freely and un-coerced as your Lord of Winter. My soul to join with yours, forever to support, never to betray or deceive. My life is yours to keep. This is my pledge, if you will accept, mon chéri?”
Kill ended his words with an uncertain edge, his clear blue eyes showing his fear and self-doubt, his obvious worry that I may not accept him. But his fears were unfounded, and the tears I cried were those of such joy that it hurt my heart.
“Killian,” I whispered, this time taking the lead from her, as she wept for her lost loves in the shadows of my fractured mind. “A pledge freely given I humbly accept. Let it be known, my Lord of Winter has been appointed.”
The magic snapped out from me once more in a tsunami, and I dimly heard cries of joy and celebration from the clubhouse where so many fae were already gathered. The party tonight would be one of legend, to be told from father to son, mother to daughter, for centuries yet.
Never had more than one Lord been appointed at one time before.
I raised my head to look at Arlo. Finding more than one lord in a single night was something that may never happen again in the history of this world or any other. But standing on an old deck outside the clubhouse of a motorcycle club, listening to the frogs and the gators, the distant chatter of sprites, this was not a conventional knighting ceremony.
New guardian, new world, new traditions.
“Even butterflies without wings deserve flowers,” I said as Arlo gaped at me and I closed my eyes, letting my head fall back as my wings unfolded behind me. Butterflies. I remembered butterflies. Sometimes, my captors would bring big cages full of them and then slowly and without mercy, they would present them to me one by one … and tear their wings off. Shadowy fingers stained with bright colors, thrashing insects, my own body screaming in violent melancholy as I remembered the pain of losing my own wings.
“Even without wings,” I repeated, opening my eyes and looking at him, reaching up to rub the tears away. “Go inside and find yourself a clubwhore,” I continued, making a split-second decision. If Arlo accepted my proposal now, it would be because he didn't want to leave the Wild Hunt and not because he actually wanted me. “I won't bully you. If you want to stay, stay. But I no longer wish to have you as my Lord. Reece, Killian.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he murmured in that beautiful accent of his, keeping his chin lowered in deference.
“Oui, mon cher.”
“When we're done here, you'll move my things out of Arlo's room and into an empty one. We'll be sleeping in there together from now on.” I crossed my arms over my chest and beat my wings in a slow, easy motion. Just feeling them on my back made everything okay. I didn't need Arlo. Fuck, I didn't want him if this was his attitude. I was worth more than this. But I also didn't want to bully or pressure him either. “I set you free—go on now.”
“Ciarah,” he started, but I shook my head.
“I apologize for the way I've treated you, Horned One. You deserve more respect than that. But I am telling you now to go; please respect my wishes.”
I curled my wings around me like a shield, a blanket, their warmth and smell so soothing after so much time without them. Yes, every once in a while, my captors would drag fae before me, fae that reeked of pain and death and corruption. In my weakened state, it was impossible to resist the pull, and I'd take their souls … heal … and then feel myself torn apart all over again.
Those few moments of being whole made being torn apart hurt so much worse.
The purple and turquoise colors of my wings blended together, as if the two shades were dancing a waltz across the surface, the edges a rich velvety black like the night sky, dusted with silver that reminded me of stars. I remembered my wings as different shapes, different colors over the years, and old knowledge locked away inside my head whispered that each time a new soul took over the Veil Keeper's body, her wings changed to reflect the spirit inside.
These wings didn't just belong to Le Gardien du Voile, they belonged to Ciarah, and the person inside of Ciarah, the spirit that made me, me.
“Thank you for your service, Arlo,” I told him, nodding my chin and turning away, focusing on the two men offering their souls to protect me. The last guardian's knights … had not been very lucky. And these two, they knew they were promising themselves to a queen who would end up in the middle of a war.
One that they might not survive.
When I didn't hear footsteps, I looked back and found Arlo staring at me with a hardened expression, his body trembling in either rage or lust, I wasn't exactly certain.
“I'm the fucking horned god,” he growled out, his words colored with truth. “You're the maiden aspect of the goddess.”
“So if I am?” I asked, because I knew that to be true. The Veil Keeper always held the title of maiden, the youthful and energetic manifestation of the goddess, the feminine aspect in nature. Out there somewhere in the world, the mother and the crone would be watching me.
“We're meant to be mates,” he snarled, and that, t
oo, rang truthful.
“I'm not interested in fated bonds or destiny. What I'm interested in is freedom of choice and dedication. Don't feel obligated to me, Arlo. I don't want that burden.”
With a violent snarl, Arlo dropped to one knee and dipped his head. Every impulse in me cried out for my fingers to reach forward and curl around one of his horns. But I didn't. I stood stone-still and stared at his dark hair, the leather vest draped over his back with the words The Wild Hunt.
“I pledge my life to you, Veil Keeper,” he growled, more beast than human.
“I need more than a life, Arlo,” I said, and I wasn't trying to be greedy. It was just pure and simple truth. I needed knights with passion and not just obligation.
“Take everything I have then,” he snarled, “but it's not much. I don't have a lot to give.”
It broke my heart to hear those things—especially because the truth in them was more vibrant than anything he'd said to me thus far.
“But if you want it, it's yours.”
Arlo was panting now, his eyes downcast. I could see the shadows of demons tracing across his skin, dancing behind his eyes. I knew what they looked like because I had so many. I'd been beaten, torn apart, put back together, and then ripped to shreds all over again. I couldn't remember the faces of my enemies, only that they had eyes that gleamed like fresh blood under cold moonlight, and disembodied smiles.
“I want it,” I blurted, before I could stop myself. My breath hitched and I spread my wings wide. The moon caught on the edges and cast shadows over my knights. My lords.
My wings were different, like no other creature on earth, with three distinct segments on either side, their colors as vibrant as fresh paint, their shimmer as bright as stars.
Three knights, offering themselves to me at once.
This would be a … messy fucking ritual, wouldn't it?
Sex was to everything to the fae. Currency, threat, promise, love, hate … and the ties that bound.
Glancing up, I saw Rafe watching me through the window, his red eyes flashing with something primal as he stared out at us. I looked back at him, my gaze full of defiance. Another staring match would’ve ensued if Amelie hadn’t covered his eyes with her hand this time. She really was the perfect righthand woman. I wondered if she and Rafe were an item?
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