Terry’s breath caught hard, and Maelduin smiled. A few strokes of the hand, breathless kisses traded, perhaps another condom if Terry insisted, and Maelduin would be clumsy no more and helpless no longer.
Something was pushing on his chest. Terry’s hand. Not hard, not insistently… but pushing.
I do not understand.
“Can I just… look at you?” Terry’s smile was almost shy. “For a minute? I didn’t get to do that much last night.”
Startled, and trying not to show it, Maelduin nodded. Perhaps humans need to take things more slowly.
Being looked at, watched, was a strange experience. It made Maelduin feel more naked from one moment to the next. Not that any Fae of his acquaintance had ever objected to feeling, or being, naked, under the present circumstances.
Besides, it afforded him an excellent opportunity to look back. He cupped Terry’s jaw in his hand and ran his thumb over the soft stubble on the human’s cheek, smiling at the dimple that appeared in response. Terry’s eyes were large, darker than almost any Fae’s. And strange—where Fae irises were subtly faceted, human eyes were all smooth curves, like cabochons. One could almost believe one could see into a human, through windows such as those. The effect was disconcerting, especially seen in dark sule-ainmi, animal-eyes… but Maelduin liked it.
What I ‘like’ is unimportant, compared to what I must do. He ran his thumb over the bow of Terry’s upper lip, a touch imbued with the living magick that had been rising in him since he woke with Terry’s arm around him; he leaned in and kissed where he had stroked. “Have you stopped wanting me?”
“Do I look dead?” Terry put up one eyebrow, then turned his head and kissed the pad of Maelduin’s thumb. “I just want more than…”
Terry’s voice trailed off, and his gaze drifted from Maelduin’s. Then, suddenly, Terry’s hand wrapped around Maelduin’s mostly-erect shaft; and when Maelduin could see his eyes again, they were windows no longer. “You’re right. I want you.”
The magick lingering on Terry’s skin where Maelduin touched him went colorless and dissipated.
…I am not supposed to be the confused one here…
What Maelduin was seeing, sensing, was not possible. Another Fae, fully aware of the existence and potential of magick, might turn aside a concerted attempt at magickal seduction, but not extinguish it altogether. There was no chance a human might do either, none whatsoever.
Terry groaned softly, turning his head from side to side so Maelduin’s fingers tugged at his hair.
What was the human doing, in order to accomplish this impossibility? Arousal was supposed to be fuel for Fae magick, a match set to oil-saturated tinder, and Terry was seeking out sex—Maelduin was already finding it unexpectedly difficult to think, with Terry stroking his erection. Yet Maelduin could not deny what he sensed; Terry’s desire for sex was somehow blocking the magick Maelduin directed at him.
“Did you change your mind?” Terry’s touch was more insistent by the moment, but Maelduin’s magick—unlike his cock—refused to respond. Even the human’s gentle nip in the hollow of Maelduin’s throat, a pleasure it had not taken Terry long to discover how to administer to Maelduin’s exact specifications and perfect delight, brought the Fae achingly erect, but left his magick slumbering.
Terry wanted sex.
Terry wanted nothing more than sex.
Perhaps sharing a soul, the scair-anam bond, was something more than sex, something more than seduction. Something more, perhaps, than any Fae of the Cursed House was in a position to give or receive.
I am in deep, deep trouble.
“I have not changed my mind. Not at all.” But I have to change my methods, if I can. The alternative was a lifetime of clumsiness—a short life, ended by a broken oath and a turned sword.
But what was he supposed to do?
Share…
Yes. If he wanted Terry to be open, to receive him, to want more from him than the touching of bodies, he had to open himself. Of course, one might as well try to shoe a flying horse in mid-air… and the effort was bound to come to naught in the end. Even if he could afford to be diverted from his lethal purpose, no male would want a true union with a Fae incapable of what limited love a Fae could know. But before the end, surely the trying would be enough for Maelduin’s purposes; it would have to be.
Maelduin was almost relieved. Everything finally made sense. He knew at last what he had to make himself do, make himself feel, make Terry feel. It could not be real, it would not be forever, but at least it would be simple.
Maelduin opened his palm along Terry’s beard-roughened cheek, circled it gently, and shivered at the pleasure of the soft abrasion against his skin. “That feels… wonderful.”
“Huh?” Terry blinked. “I mean, thanks, but—”
A gasp cut off whatever Terry had meant to say, as Maelduin browsed kisses over the new growth. He had wondered how the stubble would feel against his lips, and saw no reason not to find out, not when the discovery was so sweet for them both. At the same time, he rolled to pin the lithe human to the bed with his weight, lying in the cradle formed by hard-muscled legs.
“Mmm…” Terry arched up into Maelduin, stroking his back with a touch as gentle as a butterfly’s wings, eyes half-closed as if the lids were weighted. Or as if he were being careful not to have to look Maelduin in the eyes.
Humans are stubborn, but no matter.
He made his kiss as gentle as a Fae might, the slightest brush of the lips, the touch of a tongue asking for entrance, or for capture. Terry chose capture, claiming his mouth briefly as he gripped Maelduin’s ass and drew him closer.
“What do you like, lán’ghrásta?” he whispered against Terry’s mouth, smiling as Terry nipped at lips already pleasantly abraded.
“I’d like to know what that means.” Terry’s fingers dug into Maelduin’s cheeks, kneading.
Maelduin swore to himself, even as his hips jerked in response. “If I had the words, I would tell you.” He frowned, sorting through the list of human words he knew. “A dancer who touches the ground only when he wants to. Who sings with his body.” This was only a fraction of the poetry that was lán’ghrásta, but it would have to do for now.
Terry’s face flushed, and for an instant his guarded gaze gave way to the shyness Maelduin had found so endearing. “Thank you.”
Kissing shyness was even better than kissing boldness, Maelduin decided. Terry’s mouth was soft, and his eyelashes fluttered against Maelduin’s cheek like captive grace-wings before his eyes closed.
“Tell me. Please.” He nibbled the softness of those lips, breathed in Terry’s gasps, laid a hand over Terry’s ribs to feel them rise and fall with those gasps. “What you like.”
“You cannot possibly be real.” Terry swallowed hard.
“Pretend I am. And tell me.”
Once again Terry’s eyes were windows, beautiful eyes that gave away secrets instead of keeping them. Or they would, perhaps, if Maelduin knew how to read a human’s strange eyes.
“Your mouth… on my cock.” Even Maelduin, with a Fae’s enhanced hearing, had to strain to hear. “I dreamed, last night…”
“Then I will give you your dream.”
Why did that bring the shadows back to Terry’s eyes?
Maelduin’s shrug was an inward thing, this time. Surely giving Terry his dream was the way to open him. And he himself would open as well, in the only way a Fae could. The Pattern could ask no more of any Fae—certainly not a Fae of House Guaire—not and expect to receive what it asked.
And why am I worrying about such things, when I have a delectable male in my arms begging me to sate myself on his cock? And the end of a curse, waiting at the end of it all?
Maelduin thoroughly enjoyed the way Terry undulated beneath him, trying to present as much of himself as he could to Maelduin’s mouth as he licked and kissed his way downward. And when he ran his teeth lightly along the male’s trora, the hard ridges of muscle over his hips, he ha
d to grip the base of Terry’s already weeping cock and squeeze tightly to keep him from finishing before Maelduin got so much as a taste.
“Oh, fuck.” Terry already sounded exhausted, in the best way imaginable. “I’m not sure I’m going to—oh, Jesus, now what?”
Maelduin laughed, as innocently as he could manage, as he stroked between Terry’s sac and his entrance, again and again, with a single fingertip, flirting around the puckered hole. “If I could choose a pillow-name, I do not think it would be Jesus. But as you will.”
The little explosions of laughter issuing from Terry as he tried in vain to contain his reaction to Maelduin’s words were delightful and strangely erotic at the same time. “Would you mind keeping your mind in the gutter? Just for a little while?”
I made him do that. Maelduin smiled as his lips browsed Terry’s sac. He lost control because of me. And I like to hear him laugh. No, I love to hear him laugh. “As long as yours is there, so mine will not be lonely.”
There were other sounds, too, he had heard the human make before, delicious sounds. He wanted to hear those, too. His hand still encircling the base of Terry’s cock, tightly enough that he could feel the human’s pulse, he sealed his lips around the almost arrow-shaped head and slowly worked the rest of Terry’s slick length into his mouth. He tasted salt, faintly, and an earthy musk unlike that of any Fae he had ever known well enough to know his or her intimate tastes.
“Fuck…”
Maelduin glanced up, pleased to notice the sweat coming out on Terry’s forehead. But he had no way to comment on it at the moment, so he contented himself with sucking harder, and slipping his first finger into Terry, almost all the way up to the palm. Terry’s back arched, twisted; releasing his cock, Maelduin licked firmly from Terry’s entrance to the base of his sac, toying with the wiry hair before licking again.
He, too, was caught up in the sounds, the scents, the taste of Terry’s pleasure. He thrust roughly down into the rumpled sheets, keening in the back of his throat. And Terry’s hands were fisted in his hair, holding tight, urging his mouth back where it had been. And once Maelduin had obeyed, and his moans vibrated against Terry’s erection, Terry’s whole body trembled, twitched, arched.
“Oh, God… oh, God… oh, fuck…”
Maelduin’s magick heard Terry’s pleading, and it responded. He felt it more than he saw it—Nobles could see living magick if they concentrated hard enough, but Maelduin was concentrating on other things—welling up in him, spilling out onto his skin, a myriad swirling miniatures of the Pattern, waiting for the right moment to fill the human, find the other half of Maelduin’s soul, end Maelduin’s curse.
The right moment. Surely it would happen when release heightened Maelduin’s magick and lowered Terry’s defenses. Any moment now.
“So fucking close…”
Maelduin tasted Terry in the back of his throat. Delicious.
I should end this. Give him what I promised, and take what I came here to find.
Humans had átenna milis, buried in their holds, just as Fae did; Maelduin had discovered this last night. He reached deep with one finger, then two, and knew he had found the át when Terry swore and let go his hair to grip the sheets. Again, and again, finding the rhythm Terry had loved so well the first time. Every thrust of Maelduin’s fingers brought a sharp gasp, and every gasp drove Maelduin closer to an untouched release.
And Terry’s every soft cry threatened to wake… what?
A longing for more. More that could never be, because wishing for love of any kind, or the joy that might come with it, was the act of a child, or a fool.
Now. Before I forget myself. Maelduin drilled deep, sucked hard, tasted salt and musk and groaned with the pleasure Terry needed to feel and hear.
Terry’s cry was raw and cracked in the middle, as his heat spilled down Maelduin’s throat. And the cry, the heat broke something open inside Maelduin; pleasure wracked his body as liquid like molten glass pulsed from him to pool like molten glass in the sheets, the seed of an Earth Fae.
And Maelduin channeled, as he thrust moaning into the bed-clothes, as best he could without knowing what it was he was trying to do. He called up his magick, the living magick that was every Fae’s birthright, and hurled it at the writhing human, to feed his pleasure and by it to bind him. Maelduin hoped.
Magick flared up around them in a halo of brilliant blue-white.
Magick faded, charred to black, and fell away.
Terry collapsed to the bed with a breathless whimper, a faint shiver. Maelduin himself lacked even the breath to curse—it was all he could do to crawl up the bed and fall face-first into the pillows beside Terry.
He ought to be angry, disappointed—but he was not. Instead of anger, there was thunder in his ears, from the pounding of his heart, and at the same time he was wrapped in silence, and an odd sense of anticipation. The combination was pleasant, and even peaceful. Maybe it was a human thing, part of the human world—he had certainly never known any feeling like it in the Realm.
I wish this could last. The thought startled him, coming out of nowhere, as did the sharp pang that accompanied it. It was not a Fae thought, or a Fae wish. And even if it were, it was a wish that would always be beyond the reach or the grasp of a Guaire.
Neither this moment nor its emotions could last. He had no time to linger in an irrelevant peace or long for the impossible. He had to start over. And once he had what he needed—once he had worked out how to overcome Terry’s resistance—the hunt he had barely begun would resume. The hunt that had become his reason for living.
Still…
Is it wrong of me, to be glad I have another chance to try to make the Sharing work?
Terry was still sprawled on his back, arms flung out, trying to catch his breath. Maelduin rested a hand on his arm. “Was it as good as your dream?”
He felt Terry tense, startled, then relax. “Better than any dream.” Gathering himself with an obvious effort, he rolled just enough to reach over and run a thumb along Maelduin’s cheek. “You missed a little. But it’s sexy as hell.” Something unknotted in Maelduin as the human smiled.
Then it all knotted again, as Terry sat up. “Shit, it’s late, I’m supposed to open the shop this morning.”
“I… what?” Maelduin would have panicked, were he not far too physically relaxed for his body to do anything of the sort. He was not sure what Terry was talking about, but the human obviously had some sudden urgent purpose, and it was unlikely that such purpose involved Maelduin.
“I’m supposed to be at work in 20 minutes and there’s no way I’m going to make it.” Terry slid out of bed, padded around to Maelduin’s side. “Where did I leave my jeans?”
“In the other room, by the sofa.” Maelduin hoped he was remembering the word correctly.
“Oh. Right.”
Terry disappeared through the doorway, reappearing moments later with his trousers in one hand and his shoes in the other. Maelduin watched appreciatively as the human worked his way into the close-fitting trousers, then gave way to give him room to sit while he put on his shoes.
When Terry had finished with the laces of his shoes, he stilled, staring at the floor between his feet.
Sweat prickled on Maelduin’s forehead. If my magick had no effect at all…
“Do you… oh, hell… I don’t know what you were doing inside the studio last night, when I found you.” Terry turned, not his head, only his eyes, to look at Maelduin. “And you don’t have to tell me. But if you need a place to stay, for tonight…”
“I do.” Terry seemed to be waiting for him to speak, and when he did it was as if a weight was lifted from his back.
Terry’s gaze dropped again. “Please don’t get any ideas, but I’m not going to throw you out.”
There was something Maelduin was supposed to say. He was certain of it. He tried to remember them, as Terry opened a chest of drawers, took out and donned a shirt, slipped a small leather package into a back pocket and cli
pped a ring of keys to his belt. But perhaps the words he sought were words he did not yet have.
“Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. I ought to be home around eight, I have a client till seven.”
Terry paused in the doorway, turning back. Maelduin had not moved; he had simply watched, enjoying the human’s grace and beauty. The grace was borrowed, true—not stolen, that had been the Pattern’s act, not the human’s—but the beauty was all Terry’s.
“See you tonight, Maelduin.”
Terry disappeared; a moment later, the door opened, closed. Keys turned in the lock.
Too late, he remembered the words.
Thank you.
Chapter Eight
Terry spun the last handle, clamping down the autoclave lid. Out of habit, he tested the seal before flipping the switch to set the machine heating. It had been a good session—Ngai was happy with his lion, and the whole thing had only taken a half-hour longer than he’d planned.
Still… his mind had been somewhere else, for quite a bit more than that half-hour, and as soon as the autoclave started hissing, Terry went out into the lobby, where Josh was hunched over the light table they both used for design work.
“Are you going to be here a while yet?” Terry hated to impose—he always did, not that he did it all that often given that it left him feeling like a schmuck—but something about the idea of Maelduin spending the day all alone in his apartment didn’t sit right with him.
Josh nodded, flashing him a grin before looking back down at his work. The man was so good-natured, it ought to be illegal.
And I walked away from him.
“Yeah, this sketch is being difficult.” Josh tilted his head, regarding whatever it was he was working on from a different angle. “I gave up on it last night, and the night before, but I’m going to be stubborn tonight.”
Terry tried not to wince. It sucked when the guy you dumped what, seven years ago, kept acting like he could read your thoughts. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the autoclave, then? I just loaded it, and I’d love to be able to get home—I have a house-guest.”
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