by Nadine Mutas
Right. His job as Arawn’s enforcer would keep him here. If he wanted to take some time off to go into Faerie, he’d have to ask Arawn…and none of them wanted Alek to be forced to ask Arawn for anything else after he bargained his freedom away to the Demon Lord in order to help Lily.
“I’m sorry I can’t go with you,” Merle said.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine.” Hazel gave her a reassuring smile. “Even if you can’t use your magic right now, your presence here should keep Juneau and her witches on their toes. If she finds out I left, at least she’ll think you’re still here to hold down the fort, and she won’t be as tempted to try an attack. Although it’s best if she doesn’t even find out. You need to make sure word doesn’t get out that I’m gone—or that you’re holding back on using your powers. Let her think our ranks are still strong.”
Merle nodded.
Hazel turned to Tallak again, who was still on his knees outside the wards’ perimeter, looking pissed as hell. “Let’s go find my children.”
“He’s not yours,” Tallak snarled. “He’s my son.”
Merle had never seen Hazel as cold as when she looked at Tallak now, her eyes narrowing. “I nursed him, I bathed him, I rocked him to sleep. I wiped his tears and heard his first laugh. He took his first steps on my hand, and ran into my arms when he was scared. I have loved him as much as my own flesh and blood daughter, and he is mine in every way that counts. You’d do well to accept that, demon.”
Please tell me we can plant a camera on them when they go, Rhun said mentally. I’d pay money to watch this unfold.
Merle pinched him.
What? he asked, his face oh-so innocent. This is better than any telenovela.
Calâr retreated farther into the shadowy bushes across from the Murray mansion while continuing to watch the surprising scene playing out in front of the house. His disappointment over arriving just after Tallak—even though he’d raced to make up for the head start the demon got when he left the throne room—morphed into thrilling anticipation when he learned the young half-breed had already taken off into Faerie.
Such potential, so close to his grasp. He could still make it, could reach Roana’s child—Basil—before the witch and the demon got to him. And then, if he played his cards right, he could win the boy’s trust, and finally be able to test the limits of the possible.
Three hundred years he’d been waiting for an opportunity like this. That precious piece of knowledge in the annals of fae history, deliberately drowned into oblivion for fear of someone using it, and all that was left was the shallow hatred of demon-fae offspring to the point that any half-breeds—as rare as they were—were murdered on sight.
It still boggled Calâr’s mind that not one of those once privy to the truth had ever entertained the vision and ambition to use this gift. How could they see this chance for greatness—and not grasp it?
Well, all the better for him that no one else had ever done it. He certainly didn’t want to be on the other side of that equation when it came to pass.
Now he just had to make sure to delay the Murray witch and Tallak while he raced into Faerie. But how? His mind worked furiously.
There was one major road into Faerie from here, the fastest route. He could take it but make sure to cause some sort of massive disruption behind him to block the road for a while. Tallak and the witch would either have to wait until the way cleared, or find an alternate route into Faerie. Both would buy him time.
Enough to find the half-breed first.
Chapter 14
Pain.
Isa’s body was on fire. Waves of needle-fine agony rolled through her, followed by torrents of twisting, crushing, stinging pain while her organs were being compressed to the point of exploding.
Yanked out of the depths of sleep, her mind blanked at the pain wracking her body. Thoughts and impressions and lingering images of a dream fizzled into nothingness in the face of such devastating torment that an involuntary scream tore from her.
Pain and darkness—and a taste of death, drawing ever closer.
Through the flaming ruins of her mind, a voice filtered, made it past the lightning bolts of agony shooting through her nerves.
…got you…here…fine…
Every cell seemed to tear apart, her skin dissolving in acid.
That voice again, breaking through her pain, fighting it back.
“It’s all right. I’ve got you. I’m here. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”
Basil.
With a choked sob, she pried her eyes open, and the boundaries of her world began and ended with his face. Even in the dark of the night, the fire having long burned down, every contour and line of his features was so clear, so vivid, finely honed like the marble sculptures of ancient human civilizations, beauty set in stone.
Her hand shot up of its own accord, her fingers gliding over his cheek, his nose, his lips. His eyes widened. The flecks of light brown in them sparked, shone like crystals struck by the sun.
“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.
Another wave of pain slammed into her, and she dropped her hand, balled it into a fist. Basil pulled her closer into his arms, buried his face in her neck, one hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair. He murmured words of comfort, a trembling edge of agony in his voice, as if he, too, was hurting.
She grabbed on to him, dug her fingers into his shirt, held on to him for dear life. He was her anchor, keeping her afloat in a sea of torment, making sure she didn’t drown.
When the last sting of the seizure subsided, she found herself with her nose pressed to the crook of his neck, inhaling the warm earth of his scent. His heat seeped into her bones. He was still stroking her hair, his breath fanning against her ear. They both moved their heads at the same time, and in the next second, her lips brushed over his.
The fine cascade of pleasure that ran through her rocked her to the core, made her gasp. He studied her reaction, with his face so close to hers there was hardly any space between them, and slowly, deliberately, returned the soft kiss. Her nerve endings lit up again—this time with arousal.
Her mind still raw from the seizure, she wasn’t thinking, her guard stripped away, exposing the hungry, primal creature underneath. She leaned forward, met his mouth again, with more pressure and urgency. More, she wanted more.
His fingers tangled in her hair as he obliged her request, thrust his tongue between her lips. Reason and sense nullified by the storm of pain that had wrecked her, she only craved, demanded, needed.
She rolled her body against his, seeking more touch to wash away the memory of pain. He half-groaned into her mouth, and gently bit her lip as he moved his hand down from her head over her back to her butt, pulled her against him—and his hardening shaft.
Feeling his desire for her fired off another cascade of sparks. She rotated her hips, rubbing against him, and moaned when he tightened his grip on her bottom. His mouth moved to her neck, where he kissed and licked along the lines of her throat. What would it be like to feel the heat of his tongue against her nipple? Within the flash of a second, nothing else mattered more than finding out.
She slid her hands to her front, unbuckled the clasps that held her reinforced tunic together, fumbled with the tie on her undergarment.
“Let me,” he murmured and took over.
Less than a heartbeat later, he pushed aside the fabric covering her breasts, and the chill night air brushed her skin. Her nipples pebbled, anxious for his touch. And he didn’t make her wait.
Tracing the dark ring of her areola with one finger, he pinched her tight bud between thumb and forefinger, just enough to make her back bow and her breasts strain toward him.
“Your mouth,” she rasped. “I want your mouth.”
The glint in his eyes mirrored the wickedness of his smile. “So demanding.” He licked over her nipple, then blew on it. “So perfect,” he whispered, and closed his mouth over her breast.
He sucked, let her feel h
is teeth, made her writhe under the zings of pleasure that arrowed straight down to the juncture between her legs. Molten lust flowed through her, centered throbbing in the spot she wanted him to touch above all others.
As if reading her thoughts, he brought his hand from her bottom to the front of her hips, cupped her over the fabric of her pants. She uttered a choked sound at the wonderful pressure of his hand on her aching core, and rubbed herself against his fingers.
Her nerves were on fire, for the best of reasons.
He moved on to her other breast, licked and nipped and sucked until she was strung tighter than a bowstring drawn back with an arrow. Her arousal had reached the level of dull pain, and she craved relief with a force that made her tremble.
Ever attuned to her needs, he made short work of the fastening of her pants and slid his hand inside, through her intimate curls to the swollen, sensitive flesh already slick with her desire.
Ye Fates.
Dropping her head back against the ground, she closed her eyes on a sigh, while she succumbed to shivers of pleasure at his touch. He slid two fingers inside her while he rubbed the heel of his hand over her mound, massaged the throbbing center of her arousal at the same time as he pumped his fingers in and out of her.
His teeth brushed over her nipple—and then he bit.
Starbursts of pleasure behind her eyes, an earthquake of lust and sweet, sweet relief rocking her body, warm bliss surging into every last corner of her soul.
He did something wicked, a twist of his hand, another finger added—and she came apart at the seams once more in a vicious, addictive high of an orgasm unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
She floated down from that rush of rapture, aided by hungry kisses on her cleavage, her neck, while the gleaming gold of Basil’s hair became her focal point, the night air chill on her exposed skin…and those torn-down walls of reason and sense rose again. She blinked at the twisted reality she’d allowed to unfold.
Oh, no. She hadn’t actually—
She bit back her sound of dismay. When her eyes met Basil’s, she shook her head, pulling her garments together over her chest.
“I shouldn’t have done that.” She scooted out of his arms, struggled to her feet. With trembling hands, she fastened her pants. “I’m sorry. This can’t happen again.”
“Why not?” Basil sat up, his expression part lingering lust, part open concern, with a hint of frustration. “Talk to me, Isa. I’m sure we can work it out.”
“Not this,” she whispered, her heart twisting into a knot of barbed wire.
She shook her head again when he wanted to argue, grabbed her sleeping mat, and moved it over to another corner of the cave. Lying down with her back to him, she closed her eyes tight, gritted her teeth. Her body still tingled from his touch, her core throbbing with the aftershocks of the most exquisite pleasure she’d ever felt.
She wanted nothing more than to crawl back to him, to give him the same kind of pleasure, to see him come apart under her caresses. She yearned to fall asleep in his arms instead of five feet away from him, wrapped in the shame of her thoughtlessness.
Because thoughtless she’d been. She should have never let it come this far, should never have encouraged the passion between them to flare into a blinding blaze. It wasn’t fair to him.
She needed to save his life soon, before her soul broke under the pressure.
Basil flopped down face first on his sleeping bag and stifled a groan of frustration. His cock was so hard and aching, he thought he might explode like an untried teenager. His fingers still carried the scent of Isa’s arousal, driving him crazy with lust.
Gods damn, but she’d been so passionate, so unrestrained, demanding her pleasure, begging for his touch, and he’d been more than happy to deliver. After that first kiss, he’d known there lurked a fierce hunger underneath her composure, but this just now? It had blown his estimate of the level of her passion out of the water.
And, of course, now his desire to get her naked and riding him into blissful oblivion had only increased a gazillionfold.
Based on her retreat, however, that option seemed highly unlikely to ever become a reality. She’d apologized to him. Apologized. As if she’d done something wrong. What was going on with her? What was the reason behind her adamant resistance to give in to her attraction to him? How bad did it have to be that she couldn’t even tell him? I just don’t get it.
He thumped his forehead on the ground a few times and valiantly tried to convince his balls to just let it go and stop hurting. By the Powers, she was killing him.
Chapter 15
“I think this is it.” Isa stopped and pointed at something in the distance.
Basil stepped up to her side on top of the little hill and looked. Nestled into the trees across the clearing was a small cottage, seemingly fused with the pines surrounding it.
“Let me guess,” he said, “wood fae?”
“Looks like it.”
It had taken them all morning to hike to the lake and find the dwelling Rinnar had described, Isa’s hawk keeping them company. At one point, the raptor had dropped a dead mouse at his feet, and Isa insisted he ought to take it as a compliment. Now the noon sun hid behind a layer of clouds, the rarely-changing winter sky of Oregon. They were lucky it hadn’t rained while they’d been on the road.
Basil’s lingering consternation about the status quo between him and Isa—they hadn’t talked about last night, and Isa had gone back to treating him with friendly distance—dissolved in the face of his anticipation and the thrill buzzing in his blood. This was it. The house of the couple who supposedly took in Rose. She could be in there, right now. Luck willing, he’d be able to leave for Portland again today, with Rose.
And Isa?
Damn, there it was again, that sting in his chest, that cramping in his guts. She still owed him a life debt, so she’d probably have to come with him, but how would things go on between them? How could he help her resolve what forced her to keep her distance to the point that she wouldn’t even let him in emotionally?
He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. First things first. Find Rose, get her out.
“Let’s go,” he said to the fae who had become his own personal addiction.
Isa nodded, unfastened her bow, and drew an arrow.
“Good idea,” he murmured while he did the same, nocking his arrow on the bow’s string without pulling it yet. He’d be ready to shoot within a second.
They advanced on the house while keeping to the cover of the trees surrounding the clearing. He scanned the area for any signs of movement. Squirrels rustled in the leaves on the ground, the branches of the trees. Here and there a bird startled, flying from its perch on top of a pine.
Not a hint of magic in the air, neither witch nor fae. Which didn’t have to mean anything—Rose and her captors might simply not be using any of their powers right now.
Isa stopped about a yard away from the cottage, her forehead furrowed.
“What is it?” he whispered close to her ear.
She shivered, inclined her head toward him the tiniest bit. “Even for wood fae architecture,” she whispered back, “this looks almost too overgrown.”
She indicated the facade of the cottage with a nod, and he saw what she meant. Creeper plants covered the walls of the house until the windows were barely visible. The intricately carved wooden front door stood a foot ajar, and vines twined around it in a way that made it clear the door had been open for quite a while.
His heart sank. “You think it’s abandoned?”
“Let’s find out.”
With their arrows still nocked and ready to shoot, they approached the front door. When Basil wanted to go in first, Isa bumped him back with her shoulder.
At his glare, she said in a hushed voice, “Life debt, remember?”
He tightened his jaw, nodded, and stepped back. Isa pressed herself to the wall next to the door, her bow with the nocked arrow raised and pointed toward the
opening of the front door. With her foot inching forward, she pushed the door open farther.
The loud creak of the old hinges made them both cringe.
Great. If anyone was there, they’d sure know someone was sneaking up on them now.
Isa apparently figured as much, for she rushed inside, her weapon at the ready. Basil followed her a second later. His eyes adjusted to the gloom within a heartbeat, and he took in the dilapidated state of the room.
Roots had grown through cracks in the wooden floor, vines crept in from holes in the ceiling and the walls, old furniture lay overturned, coated with dust. No one had lived here for quite some time now. Basil exhaled, lowered his bow halfway.
Isa checked all nooks and crannies, keeping her arrow ready to shoot, despite all signs pointing to them being alone. “Basil,” she said quietly, her gaze on something on the floor.
He joined her, examined what she’d uncovered with her foot. A wooden doll, recognizable as a toy, even though it had been assaulted by time and neglect.
His pulsed raced. “She was here.”
“It could be another child’s.”
“And how likely is that?”
She inclined her head, conceded his point. “It’s been many years since a child lived here, though. Since anyone lived here.”
He huffed out a breath. “Yeah.”
A scratching sound came from the other room.
They both whirled around with their arrows ready to fly, aimed at the door. His pulse a fast drumbeat in his ears, Basil followed Isa as she approached the other room. Before she ever made it there, the door burst open with a bang—and a swarm of flying creatures poured out.
Isa’s arrows swished as fast as the flutter of the fae’s wings, downing half a dozen of them. “Kill them!” she yelled at Basil. “They’re flesh-eating.”
The fuck?
But he was already jumping into action, firing one arrow after another, each one finding its bloody aim. The fae creatures screeched, the air filled with the click of their teeth and the sound of their beating wings.
