Storm Bound

by Dani Harper

  With a single smooth movement, Lurien yanked downwards, tearing the sleeves from her golden-yellow gown at the shoulders and tossing them across the room. Her shock gave her no time to react, and a split second was long enough for him to grasp her wrists and cross them in front of her as he pulled her back against his hard body. “I like my lovers unarmed,” he said. “Did you think I would not expect your tricks? Knives and poisons—and let’s not forget that pretty black bwgan stone you draw such power from.”

  At a word from him, the sleeves vanished from sight, and Celynnen gasped. “What have you done? The stone is beyond price! You vulgar oaf, you have ruined my gown and stolen that which is rightfully mine!” She kicked at him, but his tall leather boots resisted her efforts.

  “I have stolen nothing, only sent them back to your chambers. You’ll find them draped quite tidily over your bedstead.” He whispered at the back of her neck, “Perhaps it is you I should bend over your bedstead.”

  “Let me go this instant!” She struggled but he held her all the tighter.

  “I cannot. I have yet to fulfill your earlier command, princess. You are here by your own consent, because you wished to know what I can make you feel. Afterwards, you may judge if you wish me to let you go,” he breathed. “Or not.”

  She spat out a dark spell then, a ruthless arrow of magic expressly forbidden under ancient faery law. It should have slain Lurien where he stood—after it had devoured the flesh from his bones. Instead, he laughed as the magic morphed into a harmless shower of diamond sparks that winked out as they came in contact with the stone floor.

  “This is my territory, Celynnen,” he spoke in her ear. His breath was cool and raised tiny shivers over her shoulders and down her spine. “No magic but mine can be worked here.” The low rumble of rapidly approaching thunder underscored his words.

  Still holding her helpless, he nuzzled aside her waterfall of hair, exposing the nape of her neck to his mouth. His lips were soft for the moment, barely skimming her skin. Slowly, lazily, he tasted her. Such a very small area to be stimulated so, and yet her breasts reacted at once, swelling until her nipples were uncomfortable beneath the exquisite golden bodice that held them.

  “This,” he whispered, “is what I will do between your thighs.” He favored her with long strokes of his tongue, as if he were indeed a panther. And as if she were indeed prey, he bit the back of her neck, a sharp-sweet sensation, and a trickle of moisture ran down the inside of her legs.

  As if he knew what he’d unleashed in her, he released her wrists at last. Instead, he slid his hands down her body to clutch her hips tight into the cradle of his where his rampant cock nudged against her like an impatient stallion. “Undo your gown, Celynnen,” he murmured, and his voice was deep with want as well. “Free your breasts to the open air, and I will call down the lightning itself to caress you if you so desire.”

  Her thoughts whirled as she was caught between extremes. She was overwhelmed with sensation, with desire, with need, with want…She felt. Felt! And craved more. Yet she chafed to be in control, as she was always in control. To command, to be feared and to be obeyed. She was Celynnen, blooded princess of the House of Thorn and heir to the throne of the Nine Realms. But it was her own shaking hands doing the obeying, following Lurien’s suggestions to the letter, and clawing open the front of her golden gown from neck to midthigh.

  He had been right about her lovers. She’d taken more than even she could be bothered to count, and all had quickly bored her. All had been discarded. Her beauty had driven many mad with desire, both human and fae, but none had coaxed this—this wildness—out of her. She dropped her dress to the ground and stepped forth as if from a chrysalis, as he stripped off his hunter’s clothing. They came together with an unexpected ferocity. It was nothing so simple as an act of sex; it was a feral battle between her and Lurien. Wills, bodies, energies, magics—all wrested with one another and neither she nor Lurien prevailed. Perhaps neither wanted to prevail.

  Outside, thunder hammered until it was inside of her too, the vibrations overhead resonating both in the floor and in the bones, pounding in her very blood just as Lurien had promised her. Lightning bolts forked overhead, their violent light broken and scattered by the crystal ceiling until the random flashes became all but continuous. Naked and straining, bodies that had been alternately strobed with bright color and velvet darkness were now luminous with a bluish light of their own.

  That had never happened to her before, and as a member of the royal family, she had lived far longer than most. She’d thought it just an old fable, a made-up romantic tale, that faerie lovers might achieve such a state…

  Celynnen smiled up at Lurien for the first time. It was a real smile, fierce because she was fierce, but neither calculated nor forced. The moment drew out as the living light strengthened, revealing all—each lean muscle on Lurien’s tall frame, the gleam of his eyes and flash of teeth, the strong planes of his features. The blue glow lasted long enough for her to see something else too…

  She screamed out her rage, furious at the sight of that which she abhorred most, and there was a touch of fear in her too. The more her lover tried to calm her, the more she shrieked and slapped at his touch. In fact, she couldn’t stop herself from screaming until Lurien drew away from her completely. The glow of their bodies faded as if it had never been. The lightning diminished and ceased, the thunder slunk away like a beaten dog, until silence ruled and they were both left in complete darkness.

  TWELVE

  Lurien was in the dark in more ways than one. He could hear Celynnen’s sobbing breaths, feel a feral rage radiate from her that bordered on insanity. Even terror and despair swirled amidst the discordant energies she was emanating. Everything he said or did seemed to make things worse, as if she were in a nightmare she could not wake from. Finally, Lurien murmured a spell, and the quartz crystals high above shone with a warm, steady light. Celynnen was on the opposite side of the enormous bed, her back braced against the carved agate post, holding the lion pelt in front of her as if to shield herself.

  From him.

  “Tell me how I have offended. Have I hurt thee in some way?” he asked, not daring to make a move towards her. “How may I comfort you?”

  The look she gave him was like nothing he had ever seen in his long, long life. Her gaze was filled with utter loathing, her beautiful lips drawn back in snarling revulsion. “You,” she spat out. “You are marked.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. At his hand.

  He surveyed it. His struggle with Aidan ap Llanfor had left him badly wounded. Worse, it had left him without a horse, and it was a hellishly long way back to the faery realm—and a healer—from the middle of the Deep Waters. When he arrived at last, the healer had been able to restore the full function of his fingers and hand, but the salt water had made the scarring permanent. It mattered little to Lurien—what kind of hunter bore no scars?

  “This? This offends you? ’Tis but a battle scar, one I earned from a worthy opponent.”

  “Marked,” she repeated. “You are not perfect, you are disfigured. Flawed. Tainted. How dare you touch me with such, such ugliness. You are repugnant, and beneath me.”

  It was his turn to stare. “Beneath you? Is that what you truly believe? I am less because my appearance is not perfect?” His anger flared, and he summoned more light, adding a unique spectrum to the room that highlighted not only the scars on his hand but also many others on his naked body. “These,” he said, pointing to several parallel stripes on his left shoulder. “These are from the poisonous claws of the largest bwgan ever captured alive. And this—” he pivoted to display the back of his right calf, where a ridge of bluish scar tissue ran from the back of his knee to his heel. “This reminds me never to turn my back on a dead warth.” Lurien showed her his back, where three small scars punctuated the skin of his broad back. There was a matching one on his collarbone. “These were arrow wounds, received as I fought off an incursion along our borders.

>   “They are badges of my honor, these scars, every last one of them. Proof of my loyal service to the Nine Realms, to the kingdom.”

  Evidence too, of his only failure. “And this one, here, nearly took my life.” Lurien pointed to his chest, displaying a long thick scar where an iron throwing axe had been lodged in his sternum. Celynnen looked away quickly as if sickened by the sight—and not with any sympathy or sensitivity for what he might have suffered, but only because she found it repellant.

  “I was wounded trying to save your great-uncle and great-aunt, King Arthfael and Queen Gwenhidw, from their betrayers,” he said.

  She refused to face him. Instead, she shrugged her beautiful shoulders, the color of exquisite marble, her pale hair tumbling like a waterfall to pool around her hips. “You did not save them, so what good is such a hideous blemish? Or you, for that matter?”

  What good indeed? “We speak of your blood, your family. Does that matter not at all to you?”

  “The king is dead, and Gwenhidw may as well be, for all the use she is to the Nine Realms.” Her voice was harsh. “In fact, had you not interfered, I would be queen at this very moment. All you have done is delay my destiny.”

  Lurien shook himself free of the past and looked—truly looked—at the creature in his bed. He had been obsessed with her beauty for untold centuries, and despite her proud and selfish demeanor, he had believed there was something more within, a pearl inside the cold and prickly shell. True, he had more motive than his attraction to her. If she would accept him as her consort, the combination of her high station and his control of the Hunt might allow them to work together to stabilize the realms. Never had he dreamed that they would come together with a ferocity worthy of a true mating, not just a sexual encounter. It was so much more than he’d hoped for…

  And now it was so much less.

  “It is apparent to me now that your loveliness lies only on the outside,” he said. She turned to glare at him, her iridescent eyes stunningly beautiful even when they were filled with hatred and loathing. Celynnen had been named for the eternally green holly tree that bore bright red berries even in the coldest winter. Perhaps it was apt that the leaves of the comely plant were laden with sharp thorns that drew blood from any hand that came near it. He had made a grave error in pursuing her—but it was one he could remedy. “I believe I have fulfilled your initial command to demonstrate my abilities, princess. And it is plain that you have rendered your judgment.”

  Her expression said more than he cared to know.

  “However, as I said before, I alone have power in this place,” Lurien continued. “I said you may judge if you wish me to release you. But whether you go or stay is entirely my decision. I could keep you here until you come to appreciate me more…”

  “You would not dare!” she hissed, and actually bared her teeth. “My presence is required at Court, and my absence noted at once. I would be missed.”

  “I’m certain that you would, princess. But not by me.” Lurien waved a hand, noting that her eyes widened just a split second before she vanished. He imagined many eyes would widen when she appeared in the midst of the glittering, chattering Court…

  Without her fine clothing.

  She would hate him forever (if she didn’t already) and attempt revenge from now until time itself sputtered out. That mattered very little now. Better an avowed enemy than a pretended friend—or a lover. Sighing, Lurien sat on the edge of the bed and traced the scar on his chest that had so offended Celynnen. “By the Seven Sisters, I wish it had killed me,” he muttered. If my death would have saved the king. The night the royal couple was attacked, Lurien had answered the alarm and raced to their chambers with every member of the Hunt at his heels. Too late, all of them everlastingly too late.

  The king of the Fair Ones had defended his beloved Gwenhidw against the assassins, all of whom were armed with iron weapons. The queen had had the presence of mind to weave a binding charm to trap the attackers, but all of her skills could not save her Arthfael. He had died just as Lurien and his huntsmen arrived. The murderers died as well, and horribly. Their capture had triggered a hidden spell—one that they were likely unaware of—that incinerated them from the inside out. Within seconds, there were eight piles of flaked white ash that could not be questioned. Still, the Lord of the Wild Hunt and his followers sought to secure the royal residence and searched every room. Without warning, a ninth assassin erupted from beneath a bench, buried a throwing axe deep into Lurien’s chest, and leapt from a window into the clouds high above the rainbow chasm. No body was ever found, though several men loyal to the queen braved the climb into the deep jagged gorge to search for one. Since time began, it had been believed that the jump was simply not survivable, even by a fae, even if that fae had command of all magics. Not even if that fae had wings.

  It had been obvious that the band of murderers were only tools of a larger conspiracy to drive apart the Nine Realms. As the healers worked on him, Lurien had requested that the assassin’s ashes be untouched, left exactly where they had fallen. His hunters might have thought he was raving at the time, but they obeyed him faithfully just the same.

  And when Lurien was well enough to sift through the unpleasant contents of the eight surprisingly small mounds, he found several reptilian scales among the ash in every one of them. Not large, perhaps the size of a fingernail, and the colossal heat of the magic-induced fire had fired them into something more resembling obsidian, but they had once been scales nonetheless.

  Draigddynion.

  The kingdom’s Nine Realms were ruled by the Tylwyth Teg, but they were far from the only inhabitants. In fact, they weren’t even in the majority. There were as many types of fae creatures as there were leaves on an oak tree—all sprung from the same root when the earth was yet new. And every one unique. The chameleon-like Draigddynion were of the dark fae, living in the same dank, forested regions as the flesh-seeking bwgans. Unlike those monstrous salamanders, the Draigddynion were intelligent, a proud bipedal race whose appearance begat their name: dragon men.

  But the Draigddynion didn’t bother with the politics of the Court. They gave a passing deference to the Crown and little else. In fact, they behaved as many of the faery clans did and kept strictly to themselves. Either the assassins had actually been dragon men—or they had carried Draigddynion scales in their pockets. It could be a very clever ruse in case of fire.

  In all the time since, Lurien had been unable to uncover the source of the intrigue. Perhaps because he had to work alone—he dared not share what he knew, save with the queen, because there was no telling who had been compromised and who had not. And also because the intrigue continued to grow, joined by numerous other plots and schemings. As a result, the kingdom continued to unravel, and he felt powerless to stop it. The Nine Realms might have burst asunder eons ago if Queen Gwenhidw had not been as powerful and as committed as she was.

  But even she could not hold it together much longer.

  Perhaps it was natural that Lurien’s thoughts turned to Aidan ap Llanfor. Now there was a just and honorable mortal, one who could put many of the Tylwyth Teg to shame. The Nine Realms could use a leader like that, even if he wasn’t fae. He snorted at that and corrected himself: perhaps especially a leader who wasn’t fae. The blacksmith-turned-grim had more than earned his freedom, however, and he deserved to build a life outside of the shadow of the Fair Ones. It was a point of honor that the Lord of the Wild Hunt would never track him further, yet he trusted that Aidan had retained the silver torc as he had promised to do.

  Lurien shook his head. Surely, it was the most foolish of all wishes that the man might someday use the symbol of his captivity to reach out to a former captor.

  But Lurien hoped nonetheless. After his disastrous tryst with Celynnen, he had nothing else.

  Brooke flipped the off switch on the monstrous orange Shop-Vac. Despite the ear plugs, her head was ringing from having used the loud machine for the past hour. It had done its job, tho
ugh. After George and Aidan had removed all the debris they could, the vast open floor had to be vacuumed thoroughly to get rid of the last of the glass splinters and dust. Olivia had worked along behind her with a mop and bucket. Brooke had told her friend that she didn’t have to do that, of course, but when had she ever won an argument with Olivia? Together, they surveyed the room.

  “It’s safe to walk on now. And like mi madre taught me, I put some lemon verbena and rosemary in the water. It will help to transform any lingering bad luck into good luck,” said the older woman, leaning on her mop. “But I think this place is gonna need a lot more than luck, m’ija.”

  Now, there was an understatement. The antique hardwood floors might be clean enough to eat off now, but the oak boards had plenty of brand new scars. Plus, there was a now-permanent ring deeply branded into the wood where Brooke had drawn her salt circle. For once she was glad for her perfectionist nature—she always took great pains to make her spell ring as perfectly round as possible. Little had she suspected it would someday get burned into the floor! The indentation was four inches wide and nearly an inch deep (and thankfully, the old floors were far thicker than that). I guess I have a template for future circles now.

  That’s if she dared to make any. Brooke still hadn’t tried to cast the teeniest, tiniest little spell, not even a simple housecleaning charm. Who knew what might happen? And right now, she didn’t feel like she could handle one more disaster, no matter how small.

  High above the circle, the gaping hole where the skylight used to be had been covered by a heavy-duty tarp. It was brilliant royal blue, and Brooke hated it heartily—not because she disliked the color in and of itself, but because it was dark. George had said it was waterproof, which was a good thing. Unfortunately it was also lightproof, and the effect was neither cozy nor pleasant. Brooke felt like the vast ceiling had been lowered substantially.