by Eden Ashe
Thad smiled, but it did nothing to ease the malice emanating from him as he lifted a hand and pointed at her. He grinned. “Fairy mine.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter 8
What the hell was that about? Nathan stared at the spot his uncle had just been standing in. Gritting his teeth, his arm still looped around Katenia, he turned and yanked the flimsy screen door open, and roared for his aunt.
“What?” She snapped as she came scrambling out, an old leather-bound book clutched to her chest. “Since when do you think you have the right to bellow at me?”
He leaned down until they were at eye level, and bared his teeth at her. “I am not playing games with you, Aunt Mellie. I want to know what the hell is going on. Where did you get Katenia? How do I get her home? And how do I make her fairy-sized again?”
His batty aunt peered up at him, her wire-rim glasses perched on her large, hawk-like nose. “Don’t use that tone with me. If you don’t like your gift, you say so. You don’t get nasty.”
He curled his free hand into a fist so he didn’t strangle her. “She is a person,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “Not a gift.”
She waved that away with a flick of her bony fingers. “Semantics.” She sighed and leaned to the side, peering at Katenia. “What’s wrong with her? She seems like a viable female to me.”
Feeling like he had missed the moment his family had turned bat-shit crazy, he took a step toward his aunt, deliberately crowding her space and making her scramble back a step. “You did this to her. Quit the games, quit talking, and fix her!” he roared.
“Nathan.” Katenia’s soft voice barely penetrated the haze of his fury.
“In a second,” he snarled, his attention still on his aunt. “I’m waiting.”
Mellie shook her head, but he was glad to see the fear in her eyes along with the disdain. Good. She should fucking be afraid of him. “I can’t,” she said, her naturally sharp voice like nails on a chalkboard. “What’s done can’t be undone.”
“Bullshit!” He straightened and pointed at her. “Bull. Shit. You’re still playing games, and I want to know why.”
Mellie lifted her chin. “Does she want to go home, nephew? Have you even asked her?”
Sure if he stayed for another minute he’d do something he’d regret, he grabbed Katenia’s arm. He leaned down into his aunt’s face again. “You have two days to figure out how to fix your mistakes. All of them. Or you can find out exactly what kind of madness runs in my veins.”
* * * *
It was like the man had grown wings. Still unsteady on her feet, Katenia was having a hard enough time walking without the man dragging her along with him. She knew if she said something, he’d slow down or carry her, but she wanted away from this place as bad as he did. She was just grateful he hadn’t left her behind in his fury.
He was silent as they got into the vehicle and on the road. He’d barely glanced at her while he’d helped her with the weird belt thing, but his fingers were clenched so tightly around the wheel, she was sure he was going to pop a knuckle.
“Nathan?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked violently for a full minute before he ground out a single grunt that could have been “Yeah”. She wasn’t sure, but she went with it anyway.
“Your aunt and uncle—” she started slowly, only to have him cut her off with a flash of temper.
“They’re behind this, and they’re up to something. Thad is Mellie’s younger brother, and he’s never been right.”
Because just thinking about Thad made her want to vomit, she hesitated saying what she felt, but if they had kidnapped her, they could do it to another fairy on the land that rightfully belonged to the wee creatures. “What did he mean by ‘fairy mine’?”
“Hell if I know.” He let go of the wheel with one hand long enough to shove it through his shoulder-length hair. “But I’m going to find out. Until then, you’re staying with me.”
Katenia closed her eyes as her brain, which screamed bad idea! loudly, warred with her heart, which was on a non-stop loop of mine!
She willed back the tears flooding her eyes. The entire situation was out of her control, and no matter how much she hated it, she wasn’t going to collapse into a helpless female. Her sister, Chaela, was good at that. She’d bat her big blue eyes, and the entire male population of the Lillie Valley would collapse at her feet, begging to come to her aid.
Thinking of Chaela had a small smile tugging at her mouth. While her older sister had let everyone wait on her, always the princess, Katenia had been out learning. Talking to the bugs and the trees and the birds, learning how to help every living thing. She’d become a healer, as well as an impartial ear to listen to grievances and complaints. She understood the circle of life and the basics of how nature worked, and she used it to help the forest creatures live in harmony.
Nathan shot her a quick look. “Are you alright? I know I told you we’d get you home tonight—”
“Stop.” She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. She could feel his tension, the frustration at what he thought was his inability to help her, but she didn’t think he’d failed at anything. “Thank you.”
He snorted. “For what? My crazy family got you into this mess.”
“Exactly,” she said, patting him on the arm. “Your family. Not you. Besides, you’ve never met my family. My Uncle Finn once cursed one of my brothers and turned him into a toad.”
Nathan’s brow shot up. “That’s not in the same ballpark as kidnapping, Katen.”
“I don’t know what that means.” She sighed, feeling a little dejected. “I don’t understand most of what you say.”
His face softened, and his hands finally relaxed on the wheel. “It means it’s not even close to the same thing.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “But it was ten years ago, and he still refuses to change Linx back.”
He chuckled softly. “And what did Linx do to deserve being turned into a frog?”
“Not frog. Toad. Totally different.” She grinned at him, then winced. “He, ah, slept with Finn’s current mate of choice.”
He glanced at her again as he slowed the vehicle down, the beautiful gardens once again turning into cold buildings and ugly asphalt. “I didn’t think fairies took the mate thing seriously.”
“Mostly we don’t. It’s very rare for any fairy to commit to another for eternity, and Uncle Finn certainly isn’t one who would ever do such a thing.”
He let out a low rumbling sound of frustration. “Then why did he care?”
“It wasn’t the first time Linx had done it, and Finn had warned him he wouldn’t be happy if he had sex with Luania before Finn was done with her.”
A dark scowl crossed his face, all easiness gone. “What about you? Do you have anyone at home that isn’t done with you?”
Katenia shook her head, and turned her gaze out the side window. “I don’t want to talk about it, Nathan.”
“Too bad,” he snarled, yanking the vehicle to a stop, and turning toward her. He reached out and gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I don’t sleep with anyone who’s already taken, Katenia. If you have a boyfriend, or someone at home you are fucking, you need to tell me, right now. I don’t share.”
Confusion rippled through her. “We’re not having sex… I’m not having sex.”
He snarled at her. “Then what is it you don’t want to talk about?” he asked on a near shout.
She glared at him. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About—” Her voice cut off before she could get the last word out, a little worried about the vein pulsing in his temple. Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. She knew she owed him the truth, but if she’d learned anything about him at all, answering wasn’t going to satisfy him. “The Elder Council has been trying to pair-bond me to someone. When I go home, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to stop it.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be able to stop it? You don’t have a choice?
”
“No,” she whispered, forcing herself to hold his gaze. He was so big, and terrifying in his sheer size, and they were in a cramped space. While she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, it made her uncomfortable. She blew out a breath and said the words anyway. “I won’t have a choice. As a fairy turned human, for no matter how long, I will be tainted goods. If I am not banished, I will be forced to pair to Aeron, to be used only to keep the royal fairy bloodline pure.”
Chapter 9
Nathan jerked his car door open. “You’re not going home. You’re moving in with me. I’m not sending you home to be a fucking broodmare.”
He slammed the door before she could argue with him. The hope in her chest was not good. While it sounded wonderful to be kept by him, she wasn’t human. This wasn’t her world. And if they didn’t know what had turned her this size, it could be anything that changed her back. She couldn’t let her heart get involved when she knew there was no possible way it could ever last.
She refused to look at him when he opened her door. An impossibly tall glass building towered above her. “Where are we?”
“My building.” He grabbed her arm and led her toward the door. “I’m in the penthouse. I know you hate elevators, but it would take us until tomorrow morning to make it all the way up the stairs.”
She nodded, exhausted trying to understand half of what came out of his mouth. Then she stilled, her stomach dropping at the determination in his eyes. “Elevator? The metal box?”
He nodded, the vein in his temple still pulsing. “I’m on the fiftieth floor. I could carry you up, but it would take us hours.”
She swallowed hard and told herself to be brave. “How long… If we take the metal box, how long before we get to your home?”
“Two minutes. I have my own elevator, so we don’t have to let anyone else on or off.”
Katenia nodded, pretending she understood what he meant. “Okay.” She straightened her shoulders, and nodded again. “Metal box it is.”
“Hey.” He snagged her hand when she started forward and tugged until she turned to face him again. The storm of fury still raged in his eyes, making her feel awful, like she was taking advantage of his niceness. He let go of her hand and reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You look at me when we get inside of it, alright? You look at me, and you focus on breathing, and it will be over before you know it.”
She moved her body closer to his. Something squeezed her heart when he bent toward her without missing a beat, closing the height distance between them so she didn’t have to crane her neck. “How do you breathe in a metal box?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
“You don’t have to,” he murmured, the air between them pulsing with raw need. “Do this instead.”
His mouth closed over hers. She barely had time to grip his shoulders to steady herself before he banded an arm around her bottom, lifting her to his hips, until he was the one having to tilt his head back. A ding sounded, but she ignored it. She wound her arms around his neck, because all she could do was hold on. His mouth took hers with such complete possession, she wasn’t sure there would be anything of Katenia left when he was done.
But her Nathan didn’t just take. What he gave to her was so much more than what he demanded of her. It was as if he was pouring his soul into her own. He wrapped her legs around his waist, then returned his grip to her bottom like it was his lifeline, while his mouth devoured hers and the world spun and tilted around them. The sensation of falling filled her belly, as if all of her was tripping over her need for him.
The groan that sounded in his throat was the most erotic thing she’d ever heard, and desperate to hear it again, she yanked open his shirt and shoved her hands inside to explore his chest. Her soft moan of pure female appreciation blended with his dark growl of need, and the next thing she knew, she was against the wall, his hands under her shirt.
“Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.” She chanted it under her breath while he gripped her head and pulled it back, his tongue and lips tasting her throat, devouring her skin.
His gaze was hot, smoldering on hers as he nudged her head to the side with one hand. He scraped his teeth over her throat, her collar bone, then dragged his tongue over the swell of the breast he palmed and lifted to his mouth. Her head dropped on a ragged gasp. She never would have believed in a million years that her breasts were this sensitive. Or that someone would enjoy them this much.
Nothing about her fit their strict standards of beauty. Female fairies were slight creatures—gently rounded hips, small breasts. It was another reason Katenia had never been fully accepted by her people, even though her bloodline was purer than most. Her breasts were too big, her hips too wide. Instead of small and delicate, she was round and curvy.
It was as if Nathan worshipped the one part of her body that made her the most insecure. She could love him for that alone. For making her feel accepted and wanted, for the first time in her life.
He flicked his tongue over her nipple, and rational thought vanished. She wasn’t sure when he’d gotten her out of her shirt, or even laid her down on a bed, but as he kneeled over her, his gorgeous chest bare, she couldn’t seem to care.
“Where are we?” she managed to ask, her voice trembling with the shivers racing over her skin. “How did we get here?”
“My apartment.” The most beautiful, crooked, cocky smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “And it was magic.” He winked at her and leaned down, trailing his lips down her belly, then up to the valley between her breasts. His hands molded around her hips as his mouth moved lower again, gently nipping at the sensitive skin along her hipbones and around her navel. “Sweet Jesus, woman, you’re perfect. So fucking beautiful.”
Her heart soared, no longer caring why this was a bad idea. She slid her hands around his biceps, and lifted her hips to help him pull off her pants. When she was naked underneath him, he sat up again, and stared down at her in wonder. The storm of fury raging inside of him had been replaced with a blue fire that was all lust.
He gripped her feet gently, then slid his large hands slowly up her body, molding and testing every inch, as if memorizing her. His fingers shook, his face awestruck as he touched her. Dazzled by his passion, her heart ached and her body trembled. He took his time trailing his lips and tongue up her body, until he leaned down to take her mouth in another dizzying, drugging kiss.
She was clinging to him, her body desperate for release, and so ready to beg him when he pulled her up with him so she was kneeling on the bed.
With his dark blue eyes intense on hers, he lifted her hands and placed them on his chest. “Touch me,” he ground out. “However you want. Wherever you want. I want to feel your hands on me before I take you.”
His hand slipped between her legs. She gasped as his fingers slid over her wetness, once, then twice, light, butterfly touches that made her want to beg and scream for more.
His cocky grin was back as the pad of his thumb brushed over her sensitive nub. “You’re so wet for me, baby. Now touch me. Show me how bad you want me.”
Her body felt like a live wire, every nerve ending ready to spark until she ignited in flames. With her eyes locked on his, she dragged her hands over his chest, down his torso. She dipped her fingers into the tops of his pants before she pulled them away, all the while soft whimpers tore out of her, begging him for release.
“Soon, baby,” he promised, a low, almost violent groan rumbling through him when her fingers gently found him through the front of his jeans. His head dropped back, the corded muscles in his throat working violently as if he was fighting himself. “So close. Just a little bit more.”
Realization hit her, and she grinned with it. She nipped at his tattooed shoulder as she unfastened his pants. When he was free of confinement, she wrapped her fingers around the long thickness of him, and he gave her what she so desperately needed. His fingers plunged into her, sending her body shattering somewhere among the stars.
Chapter
10
She was beautiful as she came, with her head thrown back and her perfect, curvy body convulsing around his fingers.
With his heart trying to jackrabbit out of his chest, Nathan dragged himself to his feet long enough to shed his jeans and boots, and yet it was still too damn long. Grasping her hips, he lifted her off the bed. He turned, straddling her over his lap as he sat on the edge of the bed. She lifted graceful arms and stretched, her body still trembling with aftershocks, before she collapsed against his chest. She purred like a contented cat, and her hands were everywhere on him, trailing heat everywhere her fingers touched.
“Mmm.” She licked at his throat. “So that’s what the big deal with sex is. Never could figure it out.”
Nathan barked out a laugh. He twisted her hair around one of his hands and gently tugged her head. “No way, baby.” He arched her until she was resting against the arm he had curved behind her. He dropped his head, his tongue scraping over her nipple, and when she moaned, he pulled it into his mouth and sucked. “That was just the warm-up. I’m nowhere near finished with you yet.”
She fisted his hair as he dropped his mouth down again to worship her breasts. He held her body still, wanting her to feel all the pleasure he was determined to give her, and when he slipped his fingers over her heat again, his thumb brushing over her clit, she went crazy in his arms.
“Nathan!”
He grinned, loving how she restlessly moved against him, her mouth and hands all but devouring his body.
In one fluid move, he laid her on her back and followed her down, using his knees to spread her legs apart. Once he had her where he wanted her, and knew she was ready for him, he hooked his arm around her waist and lifted her hips, his mouth devouring hers as he drove into her.
The fairy came unglued. She met him thrust for thrust, all inhibitions gone as she moved with him, and when he altered the angle until he managed to go deeper, she shattered on a scream. She hooked her legs around him, her short nails digging into his shoulders, as she rode the storm with him.
