Seelie (The Falcon Grey Files Book 1)

by Sarah Luddington

  As unambiguous as ringing bell I heard, “Can’t heal, ties snapped, Leo.”

  I withdrew slowly. “My sister has broken your ties to Elfhame?”

  The corpse nodded.

  “Fuck, that’s why there’s so much food in your room.” It all made sense. He’d been trying to sustain himself the way I did in the human world, through food, but here it didn’t work and his body slowly rotted without Elfhame’s energy to keep him alive. “You need the Breath of Life, don’t you?”

  He rolled his right eye, I think the left had dissolved. I touched his skull again and heard, “No, Fal, let me go. I will make you weak. Marcus needs you.”

  My grief overwhelmed me and I lost the battle to control the memories. Paris and I had been far more than lovers; we’d grown close when Marcus decided to go and play with someone else for a while. He even asked Marcus’ permission, much to his displeasure, to take me exclusively to his bed. There had been nothing between us but honest and straightforward passions. None of the complexities I had with Marcus. That’s how I’d known to come here to enter the citadel, Paris and I used to meet by using the entrances his grandfather built to access my rooms. I’d loved Paris once. A simple love. Probably a healthier one but Marcus always came first and when he wanted me back I’d left Paris. He’d never chastised me for it, always knowing his place in my bed was likely to be temporary, but I’d hurt him. He’d fallen deeply in love with me.

  He was right – this would make me weak – but I wasn’t going to see him dead. Paris was like me, capable of empathy, which among the Seelie was a curse, but we needed it and I wasn’t going to lose him.

  “Not your decision, my friend. I am your Crown Prince, you must obey,” I said. I stroked his cheek, raised his wasted mouth to mine and, as I had with Marcus, kissed him. He tried to stop me. Tried to block me and normally he’d be able to – Paris is strong – but this time he didn’t stand a candle flame’s hope in a hurricane.

  The incantation to give me access to Paris came as a whisper. “Love holds no bounds. I love you and I give my life for yours.”

  I released my hold on my soul and life poured out of me, hitting that dry cracked mouth and stubby wasted tongue with such speed and intensity Paris bucked hard in my arms and I almost dropped him.

  He heaved in the energy and I felt him come alive in my arms. I closed my eyes, opening the other half of me to Elfhame, and allowed the rush of power to use me as a conduit. Those lips filled out and the tongue turned from a dry slug to a living snake fighting with my own. We were kissing, deeply, even as I lost myself to the power. Paris reached for me, desperate, starving, greedy for all I could give, sucking the life from me, and I let him. He turned the hold I had on him in the water, forcing me back against the edge of the bath and kneeling between my thighs, his body becoming sleek, muscular, and perfect against mine.

  I began to lose all sense of time and place, my hands holding a firm backside and a heavy pair of balls resting on my aching cock.

  Paris was the first to pull back. “Falcon the Grey, you are really here,” he whispered in his melodious voice.

  I stared up into bright blue eyes, rich dark blonde hair, with almost black streaks running through it, far darker than mine, now flowing around my friend’s face. I stroked the hair back, marvelling at its softness. “I am here.”

  “You are still channelling life, Falcon, you need to close down,” he said.

  “Take more, take the blood,” I whispered.

  He smiled, a hint of bitterness touching his full lips. “I think Marcus has been there before me, love.”

  I reached a languid hand to my throat and felt my neck, the wounds scarring but closed. “Hmm, but there is always more for you.”

  He bent his head; he’d ended up higher than me in the water, and kissed my mouth. The Breath of Life made me shudder, almost at the point of orgasm. Paris took just a little more and closed me down, moving out of my arms.

  “No, Falcon. You will need your strength,” he said from the other side of the bath.

  I placed my head back on the edge of the stone and felt the rush of magic through my body, making everything tingle. No opiate in the known world would give you this kind of hit and I planned on enjoying it. I allowed the power to recede, leaving me in a state of bliss, before crossing the bath to my old friend.

  “You are exquisite,” I told him. He watched me with those dark blue eyes and smiled softly, his hands unable to resist my advances, and I felt them draw me into his body.

  “You’ve been gone so long,” he whispered.

  “Back now,” I murmured and I kissed him once more. We kissed for a long time. It was wonderful. I loved Marcus but this – this was different – simple, painless, no sub-text – just friendship, sex, tender love. Oh, it was good. I’d not been with a man for a very long time.

  I kissed down his neck and he murmured sounds of contentment, soft moans of pleasure, and his fingers caught my curling hair. He pulled me off his neck and just stared at me. There were tears in his eyes. “I never thought I’d see you again.” He stroked my cheek as if I were a fevered dream he didn’t believe.

  I smiled at him. “If you take the blood, you will know I am real, my friend.”

  He closed his eyes and rested his head back, exposing his throat and broad chest, just above the water line. “You are just one large bundle of temptations aren’t you, Falcon,” he said, not looking at me.

  My right hand moved of its own volition, it brushed up, between his legs and cupped his balls. He sighed and his hips pushed up. A low rumble came from him and one of the things I loved most about Paris began, he started to purr. In his other form, the truest manifestation of his Seelie self, Paris was a wild cat; more like a lynx or small leopard than my sister’s lion form.

  I rolled his balls gently and moved to grasp his straining cock. I didn’t need to ask permission to touch Paris, that had been a revelation to me when we’d become a couple for one brief summer. I spent all our time together stroking him whenever I wanted to and he loved it, brushing against me constantly.

  “Take the blood, while I am here and I am strong, feed from me,” I whispered, nipping his own neck lightly.

  He lifted his head off the back of the bath. “I’ll take it but not from your neck. I have no wish to feed from the same place others have been before.” His expressive eyes darkened and I sighed, my grasp on his cock receding. Paris had never understood or liked my relationship with Marcus.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Your thigh,” he said and he kissed me before I could say anything. His own hand strayed over my back, down my hips and gripped my manhood with painful intensity. Paris didn’t like the dominant game but he knew how to coax me into giving him what he wanted.

  He pushed me back to my side of the large bath. “Sit on the edge,” he said.

  Wordlessly I levered myself out of the bath and sat. He knelt in the bottom and prised my knees open, spreading my thighs wide. He stared up at me and stroked down my chest and I felt his pain at my loss. Paris – the master of emotional disguise – covered the flare of anguish by moving swiftly to envelop my erection with his mouth. I almost died on the spot it felt so good. The most generous of lovers, he simply played with me for what felt like years and heartbeats all at once. He didn’t do anything to force me to orgasm, he merely enjoyed himself at my expense. I ran my fingers through his soft hair and caressed his neck, that low rumble coming constantly. He finally removed me from his mouth and lowered his face to the inside of my thigh.

  I watched in a state of eager anticipation. He closed his eyes, muttered something and pressed his lips to my leg. I felt the sharp teeth and when his jaws closed, so slowly I wondered if it was happening at all, I cried out his name. He tore the skin and drew the wound into his mouth. I felt his body convulse as the blood and therefore the power of Elfhame filled him. He drank. He drank slowly and as he did he held my tight balls.

  I felt lost in a world of sensation
. A lover I trusted and knew well filled me with his desires, even as I filled him with my own small gift of life. When he drew back I pulled him up and he pulled me back into the water; the wound stung but that meant nothing in comparison to the kiss we shared. Deep and slow – I tasted my blood in his mouth; I licked it out and felt him press his strong body against me.

  Our hips moved and our swollen cocks rubbed together, his mouth shifting from my mine to explore my jaw, my neck and shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into the muscles over my backside and beginning to seek more private places.

  A flash of thought coalesced in my mind. Marcus. I should be doing this with him but he’d rejected me constantly and... And I needed this – I needed something simple and beautiful and Paris made it both. I loved him.

  I finally pulled back slightly and turned in the water, giving Paris my back. He didn’t speak, as fearful of breaking the spell as myself, I think. He kissed and nibbled my neck, holding me tight to his chest, one hand on my throat, the other lower. We simulated the dance and I grew increasingly desperate to feel him fill my body.

  “Please, Paris, I need you,” I whispered, almost mad with desire, the muscles in my arms corded tight as I pushed against him using the edge of the bath.

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why I want to wait. I don’t know if I shall ever get to do this to you again. Every time I make love to you, Falcon, I fear it will be the last time.”

  I reached behind me and grasped his head, bending my back so our faces touched. “Dear heart, I can promise nothing, but in this moment, know I want you,” I murmured.

  He kissed my cheek and nudged my legs slightly further apart and his hand guided himself into my body. With the water I didn’t need a lubricant, and I didn’t want preparing. I wanted to feel him fight his way into me, gaining my body one small piece at a time. He held me close and he fought to take what he wanted and what I wanted to give. Slowly he buried himself inside me and for one glorious moment we were one being, tied together physically, emotionally, and through the coursing power of my spirit filling us both.

  A wave of light washed through me, filling me and receding, growing faster. Paris’ control over my cock matched his movements and I pushed back into him, onto him and groaned, desperate to reach the moment of completion. My back bowed, my head lowered and he grew more possessive and powerful.

  “I love you,” he cried out, catching me by surprise. He shuddered and I felt him hit that perfect moment. I released my own restraints and his moment of completion became mine. I cried out, the pleasure a painful surrender of long repressed need. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d had sex. But this wasn’t just sex.

  Paris removed himself from my body and I felt lost once more, turning toward him and pulling him into a kiss so I could still claim a part of him inside me. We enjoyed the kiss for a long time.

  Paris eventually peeled me off his chest. He no longer looked at me, but preferred to stare at the water. “You’ve been gone so long and a lot has happened, a lot has changed.” He’d grown serious. Paris was never serious, never grown-up. He began to vanish from me, withdraw back into his safe shell. The shell which had become a brittle rejection of me when I’d returned to Marcus.

  I sighed. “So I’ve been informed. Can’t we please continue to at least be friends?”

  “You want to pretend I’m not a substitute for your slave?”

  I drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t be cruel. You have no idea what has been happening outside your prison,” I said, irritated now.

  His hand collided with my face and I bit my lip. “Fuck,” I said.

  “You selfish prick,” he shouted at me, pushing me away completely.

  “Me?” I said around a swelling cheek. “You just filled up on my energy and fucked me.”

  “No, I made love to you – not it’s ever meant the same to you as it does me. You merely gave me back what your sister stole and I can’t get any more until I find someone like you to give it to me. But you’ll just swan off again – back to your precious humans and leave us here to rot under your sister’s power!” He continued to shout at me and actually hit the water hard enough to spray me with it.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry the life of my brother means so little to everyone,” I snapped in return. “I’ll give him to you on a plate shall I? So you can deliver him to Leo and curry favour again, or will she ask from you what she’s had from Marcus?”

  Paris froze, the look of horror in his eyes terrible to behold. “I tried to stop her – to save him, even though there is little love lost between us – for your sake – that’s how this happened,” he whispered, all the passions of moments ago nothing compared to his shame.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said. I crossed the gulf between us instantly and took his face in my hands. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to him. You’re right, I’ve been gone too long. We need to stop this madness and we will, I will.”

  The lust had flown and with it our too delicate version of love. We were merely two old friends who’d spent too much time apart and now we were confused.

  “Let me wash you,” I said after a long pause.

  “We’ll end up fucking again,” he warned.

  “Don’t you want me again? And besides I thought you said we were making love.”

  He grinned and his skin coloured. “Always, Falcon, I always want you – always have. And we were making love, for that one moment we were making love.”

  I reached out and he came to me. He raised his hand and brushed his fingers through my short hair. “I missed the golden locks,” he said.

  “Marcus said the same thing,” I murmured, drawing him into my body.

  “Marcus,” Paris said, the sadness clear in his soft voice.

  “Don’t. Let’s just enjoy the moment,” I said, pleading with him to relax.

  He looked at me through his long lashes. “I can’t, Falcon. So much has happened. I know you want what we had, but that man doesn’t exist anymore.”

  I slumped. Defeated and damned. “Marcus said that too.” I turned him around and reached for some soap. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  I washed each of his limbs slowly, trying hard not to marvel at the corded muscle and soft skin. He was almost hairless, unlike me, and it made him softly masculine. He watched me, allowing me to caress him.

  He spoke after a long time. “You’ve been alone.”

  I glanced at his face and the long hair floating around in the water. “I have,” I said, swirling the hair around.

  “You gave me so much life, Falcon,” he whispered.

  “I didn’t do it for a reward. I did it because we are friends,” I said.

  “And when I need more?” Paris asked.

  “Then you will have more. I’ll not see you starve because of my sister’s cruelty.”

  “What if Marcus says no?” he said. He wasn’t just asking about the Breath of Life, I could see that clearly.

  The fear of that eventuality brightened his eyes even further. “He won’t,” I said. “I won’t let him. You aren’t the only one to change.” I spoke slowly and carefully, knowing I was betraying something profound by acknowledging that my relationship with Marcus felt different. I felt different.

  “Falcon, the man controls your every thought and act,” Paris said. “It’s not healthy.”

  I sighed and moved away from Paris, lifting myself from the bath and avoiding any more contact with the Seelie Lord. My erection stood proud from my body once more but under Marcus’ care in times past I’d learnt to ignore my own desires. I began to dry my limbs slowly.

  “I don’t know why I’m the celebrated beauty, you are lovely,” he said. The longing in his voice made my chest tighten.

  I smiled at him and threw the towel at his head. “I’m too butch for Seelie tastes, fortunately for me. Get dressed. I need to leave and go to the palace.” I began to feel the panic that comes from guilt. I’d delaye
d too long by caring for Paris and allowing us to make love. What had Leo been doing to Marcus while I’d been enjoying myself here? How could I do this to him?

  “You aren’t going alone,” he said.

  I began to pull on my clothes, trying to rid myself of the lazy desire I felt for Paris. It was that ‘Sunday afternoon on a warm summer’s day’ kind of feeling. And it overrode my guilt for betraying Marcus, which made me angry. “I am going alone because I’ll not have you hurt by Leo, not again. She’s too powerful.”

  “So are you. I’ve never seen anyone heal a body as wasted as mine and be able to walk afterward,” he said.

  I grunted. He was right, of course, here in Elfhame I’d grown inside, my soul becoming a bright hard power source. I felt like I had a small nuclear plant sat near my stomach.

  “If you want to go, you need to be ready for a fight and you need to be ready quickly. I don’t want to be in Elfhame any longer than necessary. I have other responsibilities,” I said, feeling threatened suddenly by the weight of expectation from Paris. All that paperwork waiting for me on my desk in London suddenly felt like the most important thing in the world. I had to get home to fill out the forms.

  “Falcon, you can’t leave. You are our king,” Paris said.

  I snapped straight. “No, I am not. My father is king and my brother will be after him. I am not the right man for the job. I will not be king.” I picked up my sword and crossbow, walking away from the beautiful man in the bath.

  With the bathroom and its contents holding my attention it took me a long time to find Gifling. I heard her snuffling around in what remained of the kitchen. When I coughed, she dragged her head out of a cupboard and grinned at me, her hands full of kitchen silver and a face more mischief than anything else. The purloined items vanished behind her back and I laughed.

  “I don’t think we need to worry about the family silver, Gifling, but I don’t want to be carrying you and half a hundred weight of cutlery.”

  “Shiny,” she said, her eyes bright.

  I chuckled and poked about trying to find food. Nothing remained and I sat at the large table feeling defeated. Gifling climbed into the table and patted my hand. “Sad Birdie.”