by Nocturne
“Brave of you to fight them.”
She gave a harsh laugh and fisted her hand on his chest. “Brave? Not me.”
“Then if the Hunters come back, I will just have to kiss you again.” Frustration made the promise sound vaguely threatening.
But she shook her head. “Not if they come back…when. They are relentless. I will never truly escape them. And they mustn’t find you with me. It is too dangerous.”
“Maybe I am dangerous too.”
A wobbling smile tilted her lips. “I will keep that in mind.”
“At least let me walk you home. If you’re wrong and they do come back, I—” he swallowed hard “—suppose I can sacrifice my virtue for you.”
This time, she laughed softly. The sound lifted his heart in ways her wings hadn’t. “My noble knight. Where is your shining armor?”
Fifty pounds of steel would be no protection from her smile. “Must have left it in my other pants pocket. Which way are we going?”
She studied him pensively, and for a moment, the breath caught in his throat. His skin tightened, as if she was looking through his nakedness. Then she nodded. “Just for tonight.”
And he told himself one night was all that he wanted.
Chapter Three
Imogene guided Vaile by the faint, tricky light of the will-o’-the-wisps that winked and teased amid the towering trees. When they had crossed into the primeval forest, he had laced his fingers through hers and stayed close at her side.
The forest rose, cathedral silent, on all sides. Once upon a time, she had played like this with her sylfana sisters, leading human males astray with sparkling lights and lilting voices in the darkness. It had all been mere mischief, a fleeting entertainment, hardly worth the remembering. Except now she knew sometimes the bewitched and bewildered humans never found their way out again.
The ring on Vaile’s forefinger was a thick band in her grasp. The touch of the steel made her shiver a little—just enough to remind her that she was not and could never be human.
How many bones moldered unfound because of her? The thought wrenched a shuddering breath from her belly. Not that the exact number mattered. When the Hunters found her, she would pay for her desires just as the human men had: with her life.
Vaile squeezed her hand. The warmth of his fingers seemed to trickle through her veins. “Are we getting close? You must be tired, and my shoes are soaked.”
She knew her phae vision was sharper than his, making the shadowy forest less daunting, but his concern for her made her feel delicate and cherished—like a true princess must feel. “Almost there. I came to this place because of all the rain. Water runs everywhere here.”
“And you said the Hunters won’t cross moving water.”
She nodded. “That is why I took a cabin surrounded by streams.” She tugged him onward. “There. See the bridge? That’s the only way onto my island. At least I’ll have some warning when they come.”
Where the rickety bridge and stream had carved out an opening in the forest canopy, a blooming cherry tree struggled to make a place for itself between the dark pines. At the bridge, he tugged her to a halt on the mossy wooden planks. “And what will you do with that warning?”
He pitched the question as if merely curious, but she heard the anger in the rumble underneath. “I can’t hope to stop them forever, but I will not let them take me back.”
“What are you saying?”
She set her jaw. “I can’t explain the phaedrealii to you.”
He gripped her arms and stared his command into her eyes. “Nothing is worth killing yourself.”
“Exactly.”
“Right.” He blinked and released her. “Well, that was easier than I thought it would be.”
She rubbed her arms where the hot echo of his grasp was fading. “I mean nothing is exactly why I’d…why I won’t go back. The court life of a sylfana is nothing but a timeless, thoughtless mist of idle pleasures.”
Vaile’s lips twisted. “Sorry to sound dim, but I’m not seeing the downside of eternal beauty and bliss.”
She didn’t return the wry smile. “Our life span runs centuries longer than humans’, but we aren’t immortal. It just seems like forever.”
“Right. Now I see how suicide is your only other option.”
She squared her shoulders, though her conviction wasn’t quite strong enough to tighten her wings. “Many humans are driven mad by a single night in our presence. And I think even my own people have not entirely escaped that fate. Your poets call us merciless. Your church calls us devils. Your adults call us bedtime stories. I just wanted to live for a little while. Simply…live.”
“And fairy princesses aren’t allowed to live?”
“They won’t let me have what they are too afraid to want for themselves. Even those of us who walk in your world for a while always return to the court. In the end, we lock ourselves away from what we most desire.”
“Maybe they have a reason to be afraid.”
She stared at him, trying to see past the rigid lines of his expression. But she’d never been strong enough to break anyone else’s illusions. “A man who dives off cliffs with strange fairies doesn’t know the meaning of fear.”
“Oh, I have fears.” He stepped closer to her, so close that a kiss was almost fated.
She tilted her face up. “I can’t imagine.”
“I was afraid I would never have the nerve to catch you on that beach. I was afraid I’d spend the rest of my life with the image of you running away from me.” In the murk, his pupils were blown wide, like a night-stalking predator, but his smile—the quirk of that soft, full lip—was a temptation she couldn’t resist. “And right now, I’m afraid you’re not going to ask me in.”
So close he stood and yet he didn’t touch her, but the memory of his kiss, of his hands roaming her skin and her wings, clouded her mind like the Lord Hunter’s confusing mist. She had no doubt Vaile’s mouth could lead her astray.
And maybe this time, she deserved it.
She wavered toward him. The cherry tree shivered in the breeze, and pale blossoms drifted around them. The will-o’-the-wisps danced between, illuminating the petals.
Vaile’s lips—which she was watching very closely—quirked. “See? Even the tree gives its blessing.”
“That was just me.” He wasn’t even touching her, but she felt compelled to tell him. “The phae are mostly illusions and lies, but we all have one gift, a knack, that is real and true. Mine is an affinity for breezes. They bring me sweet scents and little presents, like the cherry blossoms. Nothing powerful. The sylfana rarely are.” She closed her eyes. “Your knack seems to be making me babble.”
“Like the brook under the bridge,” he agreed.
“Sorry.” She bit her lip.
“Don’t be. I want to know more about you.”
“We don’t share, usually. According to your fairy tales, we won’t say our names—and we are private about that, because words have power—but it is our knack that reveals our true selves. Telling our knack is more intimate than…” This time she managed to stop herself before she said something embarrassing.
But the breeze fluttered around his shorts again. He glanced down. “The wind brings you little presents, huh? Should I be offended?”
“I couldn’t say. I would need to find out, first, which parts are real…” She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Babbling,” she muttered behind her palm.
One more half step brought him closer still, so that the circling breeze carried the fall of cherry blossoms in a helix around them both.
He tilted his head in the opposite direction of his crooked smile, giving him a charming-bordering-on-roguish air. “Your cheeks blush petal-pink. What other parts of you do that?” He reached out to pluck a blossom from the swirling air and tucked it behind her ear. “I suppose I’ll need to find what is real and true myself.”
She took his hand and led him through the fall of petals. “Then come in.”
*
She let him use the cramped shower in the minuscule bathroom. After ducking under the low lintel of the front door, he’d taken one look around the A-frame cottage’s tiny confines and asked, “Do the seven dwarfs live here too?”
Outside the bathroom door, she left him her baggiest pair of boy’s jeans—and her silly sylfana sisters thought diaphanous gowns of spider silk were comfortable—before she stepped out onto the back patio with its ancient wooden picnic table to shake the last of the sand from her wings. One whisper to the night breeze carried the dust away. Thanks to her knack, this fairy princess didn’t need showers.
What a pity.
While she nibbled on a piece of a chocolate bar, she imagined the water coursing down the hard planes of Vaile’s chest, feathering rivulets through the rings of his hair like the streams coursed through the dark woods. Down the water would go, around the pillar of his… In the cottage, the pipes groaned before she could.
By the time he stepped out to join her, she had her breath under control.
Until he crossed under the dim patio light…then her breath was gone again. Oh, such a human pleasure!
What were lazy sags of denim on her was skintight midnight-blue over his lean hips. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. He had pulled the zipper barely to half mast, and the shadow behind the fly teased her with sights unseen.
She dragged her gaze up. When she had grabbed herself an open back halter dress, she hadn’t found anything that would fit him—not that he had seemed ill at ease with his state of undress out on the beach. Now the crisscross straps that normally felt so free and left her wings exposed seemed a strangling confinement.
He halted beside her on the edge of the pavers where the pine duff softened the stone. He hadn’t put his shoes back on, but he didn’t seem bothered by the damp night on his bare toes. Instead, he gestured at the pale will-o’-the-wisps that danced among the closest pines.
“I thought maybe you would hide your wings and weird lights again,” he said. “Try to make me think I imagined it all.”
“You’ll forget soon enough. Humans can’t sustain the memory of us without our presence. Yet another symptom of our nothingness.” Which was worse? Being nothing, or being forgotten by him? She tilted her face toward the drifting sparkles that were only a shade lighter than her moon-green dress. “Besides, the wisps go where they please. Even our Queen with all her power can’t command them.”
“They follow you everywhere, though. I saw them trailing after you on our beach runs.” He snorted. “I thought I was hyperventilating.”
She slanted a glance at him. “Do you often breathe heavy?”
He grinned. “Only when watching you.”
The heat in her cheeks felt nice in the cool air. “The wisps actually gave me the idea to run away. They would dance in on my breezes. And then dance out again. As far as the phae are concerned, I am not much more significant than they are. I thought if they could just float off so could I.”
“You aren’t insignificant. You aren’t nothing.”
She shook her head, surprised at the intensity in his voice.
He was silent a moment, seeming to gather himself. “What will you do next?”
“Run again. They haven’t caught me yet.” This time, the thought of escape didn’t ratchet up her heartbeat with the thrill of fooling the Hunters. Instead, a twinge, sharp as a runner’s cramp, made her cover her heart with her hand. The blue stone pressed against the pulse of her wrist.
“Not tonight anyway.”
A grim note in his voice made her stiffen.
“You can’t run tonight,” he clarified. “They are out there, looking, and this is as good a place as any to hide. Now, are you going to share that chocolate?” When she passed him the gold foil-wrapped bar, he broke off a square. “Ah, the good stuff.”
He creased the foil carefully over the remaining bar and then licked a chocolate sliver off his fingertip, as if even that tiny taste was a treat to be savored. The steel band of his ring glinted, but the view of his tongue roused a damp heat between her legs and banished her moment of disquiet. A man who knew chocolate was a man to be treasured.
She cleared her suddenly tight throat as he handed her back the bar. “Dark, seventy percent, shade-grown, single origin. You need only one piece. Not that the phae understand that. They prefer multi-night feasts with dozens of courses. The napkins alone would cover the beach in both directions.”
“That must be something to see.”
The intensity of his gaze over the chocolate made her think of the Hunters’ hounds eyeing one of those courses. She laid the bar on the picnic table; if she put it in her pocket, the chocolate would melt in an instant from the heat of her flushed skin.
Her wings flexed forward, curving around her to hide her hands—a silly, nervous gesture. She smoothed back the edges self-consciously. “That is pretty much all you get…what you see. Most of the banquets are illusion. You can have endless courses when the food never fills your belly. The wine is water, and silty at that, or so you notice when you wake the next day with mud under your tongue. The napkins are only dead leaves.”
“Then why not just be happy with a piece of real chocolate? The good stuff, of course.”
“The phae would laugh at you for even suggesting it. Our Queen comes to power based on the force of her illusions. She keeps the throne by her ability to hold the entire court under her spell.” She shrugged. “Besides, everything—even good chocolate—gets old after a century or so.”
He was silent a moment, letting the chocolate melt in his mouth. Finally he said, “Not everything.”
He took her in his arms, a slow embrace she could have fended off—if she wanted to.
“Tonight,” he murmured. “Tonight you can stop running.”
His kiss was even slower than his embrace. She tasted the chocolate first, of course: sweet complexity with a touch of bitterness. The night breeze flirted with the hem of her short dress, shifting over her thighs. His mouth slanted across hers, that full lower lip a soft and generous gift she accepted with delight.
His earthy desire wrapped around her, almost tighter than her own wings and so intense the Hunters’ dogs would be hard pressed to find even a whiff of phae beneath his excitement…or her own.
Her pounding heart left no room for illusion. She wanted this. Wanted Vaile. She wanted him not just for the protection his touch offered but for the warmth that blazed from him, the life she could pretend to live as long as the night lasted.
“Come inside,” she whispered against his lips.
“Gladly.”
She led him to her room. The wisps outside the window provided the only illumination, dancing like silver and gold raindrops over the old glass.
He drew her close to kiss her again and then cast a dubious glance over his shoulder. “Will that bed hold us?”
“Side by side maybe.”
“Well, I don’t want you any farther away than that.” He stroked his hands down her arms, and his fingertips grazed the forward edges of her wings.
She closed her eyes and sighed.
“You like when I touch them?” His voice dropped with another stroke of his hand down her wings, more lingering this time.
“I…I didn’t realize how much.” She stretched against the broad expanse of his chest. “No one else has touched me like this.”
“Silly fairies. Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She fanned her fingers over his collarbone not to push him away but to steady herself. “The phae are afraid to touch, I think. It can be overwhelming, this feeling…”
“What feeling? This?” He ducked his head, and his tongue teased the pulse in the hollow of her throat.
“Any feeling,” she gasped. When he raised his head, she said more steadily, “The phae have always lived under the strict rule of our Queen. For all the wildness of the phaedrealii court, she allows no true freedoms. Feelings are too…”
&n
bsp; His dark eyes glinted, reflecting the wisps outside. “Unruly?”
“Very.”
“And you want to be unruly too.”
She smiled. “That wasn’t my intent. I’ve always been a proper sylfana. But now that you bring it up…”
“Oh, it is up all right.” He bent and lifted her, as easily as one of the hounds might snap a wayward wisp from the air. She shivered a little but not in delight this time. Why had that comparison come to her mind? Maybe because he was strong like the hounds, and lean, so the flex of his muscles played under her palm, denying any chance to pretend she might escape. Not that she wanted to escape him, though.
He laid her down on the bed beneath curls of ivy that decorated the headboard. Smoothing her wings as he pulled his arm out from under her, he stared into her eyes. “If you tell me to go, I will.”
She shook her head and reached for him.
But he resisted her tug on his bare shoulders. He wrapped his fingers around her wrists, gently pinning her to the mattress. “I want to hear you say it. And remember, I’m holding you, so I will know if you lie.”
“Stay,” she whispered.
The darkness of him loomed over her like night. But instead of extinguishing the glow in her core, his nearness only stoked the blaze higher, a bonfire of desire that sparked all the brighter for the shadows around them.
She arched her hips toward him, echoing her words with the curve of her spine. He growled low in his throat and released her wrists, freeing his hands to unknot the halter from behind her neck.
He anchored his arm under the small of her back, holding her in the arch while he danced his tongue from one nipple to the other.
She gave him a breathy laugh and laced her fingers through his dark hair. “That tickles.”
“You wanted to feel.” He traced a slow circle around her areola with his lips, still a tease but hard enough to make her gasp, as if he was drawing the air from her body. “And I want to feel you here.” He settled square between her thighs.
