Seelie (The Falcon Grey Files Book 1)

by Sarah Luddington

  He breathed hard and shallow, his eyes haunted as if he faced an executioner’s rope, but his back was straight and he’d walk up that scaffold alone, with pride.

  I didn’t know how much it cost him to admit but I could imagine. Paris, the man all the women and most of the men at court wanted in their beds, loved me.

  “Good timing as always, Paris,” I said, trying to be gentle. We’d made love, I’d wasted time looking for Marcus to feel Paris inside me, what did that mean? I tried hard not to consider the implications.

  The right side of his face creased into a wicked grin and he shrugged. “Better now than never, my friend.”

  I thought about it for as long as I felt I could under the circumstances, about ten seconds, and opted for the coward’s way out. “Can we talk about this later?”

  He snorted with derision. “You mean before or after you’ve fucked Marcus?”

  I felt my expression harden. “I know you don’t understand or like what we have but it works and I like it. Need it even.”

  “You liked what we had too. We were happy before he called you back to him like a stray dog,” Paris snapped, his soft temperament only able to cope with so much crap from me.

  I shook my head. “Not now. It’s not the time.”

  “Just tell me you care,” he begged. “Tell me what we did earlier wasn’t just a fuck.” He spoke with true exasperation and pain in his voice. I’d never known him so easy to read. In the months we’d been intimate I’d rarely felt like I’d seen the true man under the gloss and cleverness. It was one of the reasons I’d returned to Marcus when he’d finished playing with someone else.

  “Of course I care, Paris, or I wouldn’t have saved your life, but right now I need to save Marcus. I told you that when I held you in my arms,” I said. “I also said I couldn’t promise anything.”

  “Not good enough, stop trying to escape me. I know you care, but do you love me? You’ve never told me – never. Now, Falcon, cold light of... Of a day when we are about to face down your sister and I’m probably going to die. Tell me you at least love me a little, even if you aren’t in love with me as I am you.”

  I couldn’t ignore Paris’ pain.

  I nodded. “Alright, I care. I care a great deal, it would kill something inside me to lose you, but, Paris...” I ground my teeth in frustration. “I don’t know what else to say. I love Marcus and he comes first. He always has.”

  I watched Paris’ shoulders slump and he nodded. “Fair enough. At least you’ve been honest. I won’t mention it again.”

  “Let’s just settle everything down. Now isn’t really the time for a heart to heart.” Though I remembered a similar conversation in a nasty jungle war during the eighties with a corporal I’d known in the SAS.

  “Fine,” Paris said, pushing past me toward the door and Leo’s rooms.

  I sighed heavily but quietly. I knew I was at least half in love with the fool but I couldn’t deal with him and Marcus right now. My Dominus had to come first.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  We opened the door to Leo’s room quietly. The heavily decorated surface felt rough under my hand and we stood either side listening intently in case of more guards. I carried a bolt in the crossbow; Paris held his sword and dagger. Nothing, no sound.

  I tapped my ear and closed my eyes, allowing my other form to show itself, thus making my hearing sharper. Paris followed suit and I watched his eyes flick to that of the wild cat he was in his true form. He cocked his head and then drew back to his human-looking form, probably not wanting to waste energy.

  He shook his head. We couldn’t hear anything. We walked into the room. A mess of girly femininity faced us, rather than the room of a grown woman who also happened to be a psychopath. I don’t know what I expected from Leo, but this wasn’t it – there were frills, cushions, a lot of pastel colours and items of girliness I didn’t understand. We walked through the antechamber and into the next room. A bedroom. A large bed. Coverlets, embroidery and general softness.

  “Weird,” I muttered, picking up a cushion with the stitched picture of a romantic scene on it.

  Paris put his finger to his lips and tapped his ear, then his nose. I inhaled. Marcus. I could smell him. I could also hear two heartbeats. I hoped one belonged to Marcus.

  “Guards,” Paris mouthed silently. I nodded and we crept close to the door. I now smelt blood. Paris touched my shoulder in solidarity. His sense of smell was as powerful as my own.

  I raised my crossbow and placed another bolt between my teeth. Paris put his hand on the door and looked at me. I nodded once and he threw open the door.

  I saw a figure stood at the back in shadow. I fired and reloaded. Paris rushed the entrance to prevent anyone from killing Marcus. He engaged another guard and I lost focus on the fight because of what I saw in the middle of the room.

  Marcus. At least I assumed what was left in the cage was Marcus.

  “No...” I whispered.

  “Falcon, some help here,” Paris called, fighting for his life.

  “No...” I repeated, stepping over the threshold.

  “Fal!”

  I glanced to my left. Paris was against the wall, the guard holding his throat and about to crush his windpipe. I fired the crossbow. The body of the guard hit the ground. Paris slumped and gasped.

  “Marcus...”

  A cage hung from the ceiling. This was the room my sister’s soul truly reflected. Not that lacy nightmare next door. The cage was maybe four foot by four foot. Inside, crunched up tight was a bloody pulp. He’d been stripped of his glamour, the muscle shining in the candlelight. No skin, no hair, no fingernails and cut open in various places by a very sharp knife.

  “Marcus...” I stepped to the cage but couldn’t raise my hands.

  “We have to get him down,” Paris rasped.

  Things happened and the next time I looked the cage sat on the floor and Paris was screaming at me. He couldn’t open the lock.

  “Falcon, snap the fuck out of it.” Paris stood directly in front of me and the slap smarted even more than the one he’d given me in the bath.

  “Ow.”

  Paris breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t get the lock open and you losing control isn’t helping.” He sounded frantic. “There are spells here, Falcon. She’ll be coming, we have to see if he’s alive. I can’t reach him to find out and he’s not moving.”

  Blood covered the black floor. I shook myself and knelt before a lock, bodily fluids seeping into the leather of my trousers. The lock wasn’t a lock you could pick. She’d fused it closed with power. I grabbed it and poured a tiny amount of my rage into it. Fire erupted and the lock melted through my fingers. My flesh was unharmed, I merely felt warm.

  Paris flung the lid up of the cage. He reached inside and forced his hand under the pulp of muscle that used to be a strong jaw. The fleshy skull rose. No eyelids. The eyes were blank and cloudy.

  “Falcon, I can’t feel anything but I don’t know what I should be looking for,” Paris said. His panic didn’t touch me. I stared into those milky green eyes and knew the answer.

  I touched Paris’ shoulder. “It’s over. I lost. He’s dead.”

  “No, no, Fal. He’s not dead, it just looks like it. You thought I was dead but I wasn’t. Check his energy. I can’t do that bit. I can’t check. I have no connection to Elfhame. I can’t see her moving through you or anyone else.”

  “Paris –”

  “Just fucking check!” he yelled at me.

  “You won’t find anything,” said a rich and amused voice from the doorway.

  I didn’t bother turning. “Hello, Leo,” I said.

  “Well played, brother. I felt sure you’d come for me first,” she said.

  “What would have been the point? It’s him I want but you never did understand love,” I said.

  “I think I understand it very well. He brought you here, didn’t he? That’s all I wanted and I lost so few of my men along the way. Rather clever o
f me, don’t you think?”

  I finally turned to face my sister. “What do you want, Leo?”

  She grinned. God, she was beautiful, even I could see that. Almost the same height as me, with slightly lighter blonde hair, the thick tresses wound into ropes and shining with some kind of wax. It fell past her hips. Her eyes were deep blue, luminous and large, with dark lashes. Her figure matched those Victorian paintings of the Valkyries; her shoulders were broad, her waist tight, her hips solid and round under the golden velvet gown. Her large breasts were firm but heavy. I’d seen men hypnotised by those breasts.

  She walked into the room and I moved to shield Marcus and Paris, who remained on his knees beside the cage.

  “Your loyalty to your Dominus is wasted, he’s quite dead. I stole everything you gave him,” Leo said.

  I had no reason to believe Marcus was alive but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of giving into my grief. “I should imagine you felt glutted. Marcus was powerful for being with me and Elfhame wants me home.”

  She stood close to me and we were eyeball to eyeball, her heeled shoes giving her an extra couple of inches. “Is that the plan, brother? Are you here to take the throne off me?”

  “No, Leo, I have no wish for the throne,” I said, watching her but also seeing the men who filled the doorway behind her. Some were Hunters, some lords of the court. “I want you dead though, so I think I’ll be working toward that goal for now.”

  She smiled, her teeth straight and white. “If you move in any way to threaten me our lovely Paris here will be my next plaything. I’ve learned so much about pain because of our generous bear. I have a new coat of fine fur thanks to him and a cat stole to go with it would be lovely,” she said brightly.

  Paris rose behind me. “You can do what you like to me, Falcon the Grey will be our next king,” he said. The firm voice had threads of fear within it but he would not abandon me.

  “How sickeningly sweet,” Leo said. Contempt leaked from her and she dismissed Paris as any form of threat.

  “You still haven’t told me what you want, Leo,” I said, trying to distract her from Paris.

  “I want you to be mine, Little Bird,” she said quietly.

  The intimate name hit me hard. She grinned when she saw my unhappiness, her first win. “I will never be yours, Leo.”

  She leaned toward me slightly and I smelt wine on her lips. “You are wrong, Falcon. You will be mine. I will keep you as my pet, while I slowly take Elfhame from first our father and then you. If I transfer the power slowly she won’t know who sits on the throne. We are identical twins, brother dear. We aren’t different enough.”

  I leaned into her and whispered. “But she knows I’m the one with the cock, Leo, and that’s all she cares about. I can see it everywhere. Elfhame is dying and you are the reason.”

  Her lip curled in hate and the calm sanity vanished under the wave of loathing. Her whole face twisted into a hellish parody of the lioness. She shoved me back and I didn’t have anywhere to move, I’d pressed myself so close to Marcus’ cage. I fell into his body and yelped in horror when I touched that mess of sticky flesh. Completely disorientated by my contact with Marcus I didn’t register the rough hands grabbing me and hauling me off my feet. Leo placed a hand on my head and Elfhame lurched horribly, pain arced through my limbs, Paris screamed my name and the world went dark.

  The pain in my jaw woke me. The sides of my face hurt and my lips tingled.

  My arms were sore, my hips hurt and I felt air around my genitals. I moved my tongue and finally things began to make sense. My face was held in a clamp and my jaws were prised open. My arms were bound behind my back, the wrists tied to the opposite elbows. My ankles were tied to my thighs and something kept my legs apart. I’d been stripped naked. I tried to flex my back and stomach muscles but I couldn’t move, all I could do was grunt and roll my eyes.

  My heart raced and a cold sweat broke out. I heard a long low moan to my left and saw Paris. He’d been chained to a cross and his clothes flogged off his back, along with some of his skin. He turned his head slightly. He could see me and I could see the rough wooden ball-gag in his mouth. Tears stained his cheeks.

  I liked restraints. I liked feeling the pain when I fought against them. I loved the security of them as Marcus fucked me or punished me. I liked being gagged for long periods of time; not being allowed to speak gave me a kind of peace, a sense of being nothing without the person who spoke for me. I craved the heavy smack of a whip, cane or crop. I loved the sore marks which would last for hours, sometimes days, and I enjoyed stroking the bruises. I liked the ache in my balls when they were hurt and I grew hard whenever he’d dedicate some time to punishing, or training, my over excited cock. Candle wax falling over my tied body would have me so desperate for him that by the time it came for me to suck him, he be deep in my throat and able to stay there because I needed him so badly.

  I liked pain. It made the world very simple. My only function to please my Dominus and to please him I had to endure whatever he wanted from me without argument or complaint. I had to say thank you afterwards and offer to take more, whether I could manage it or not. Marcus constantly pushed my limits, leaving me squirming in unendurable agony, until I thought I’d puke or pass out, then he’d stop or flip the pain to pleasure and whisper his love and adoration at my strength, my ability to endure. I’d be left gasping with shocked tears on my cheeks at how I’d coped and I’d feel him moving inside me, filling me, loving me and caressing me. When he’d eventually allow me to come, it would be painful I’d need it so badly.

  He’d cradle me, stroke me, feed me and keep me warm. He’d nurse my wounds and he’d tell me he loved me for making him so special. He’d kiss my sore mouth, my eyes, my balls and he wouldn’t leave me until I told him I could cope alone. This might take days but he was never harsh, never angry, just a constant gentle coaxing so I could take more for his pleasure.

  This wasn’t going to be anything like being with Marcus.

  This would be a world of hurt I already found unendurable.

  I tried to change form but it was pointless. Leo was far too powerful. She’d layered spells into the equipment holding me and into the walls of the room.

  I heard voices and Paris jerked against his restraints, panicking. Paris didn’t like pain. He didn’t understand it and didn’t want to sample it. He didn’t like being dependent on someone else and he certainly didn’t play the submissive or the victim. I wanted to tell him not to fight, it would hurt more, but all I could do was breathe and moan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SI X

  “Falcon, you’re awake, good,” Leo said, walking through a heavy door just in my eye line. “Paris was beginning to bore me. It’s no fun hurting one of you when the other can’t see.” She approached and reached above me, turning something. I swung around, able to see Paris more clearly. I hadn’t consciously realised I’d been suspended.

  “He doesn’t like pain does he?” she whispered in my ear. “You should have seen him fight, even more glorious than last time. You pushed a great deal of energy into him, you must care about him very much. I thought taking Marcus would break you but it seems you had a secret he didn’t know about... This lovely creature.” She walked to Paris and stuck a finger into one of the lacerations. He screamed around the gag.

  “Leo, I thought we agreed we weren’t going to kill them? We need Falcon alive and able to function, he’s going to fight you if you kill Paris.” A new voice and familiar, but out of place.

  Leo frowned and pouted. “You aren’t any fun.”

  “I’ll be a lot more fun if you followed orders occasionally. You were not supposed to kill Marcus and you weren’t supposed to use Swane to train him in your depraved games. I had to control a potential rebellion among the Hunters when they discovered your games with one of their own,” the man snapped, still out of view. I recognised the voice but I couldn’t place it and the scent hadn’t reached me. “You are out of control. The damned
Slugh was supposed to be it, the thing which forced the Prince back to us, no Dvergar, no Marcus, no Hunters. You are bad.” He sounded properly angry.

  Leo’s face fell with the harsh words and her whole body seemed to fall into itself. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come here, slut,” the voice commanded.

  “Please don’t,” she whispered.

  “Here,” he demanded.

  She walked past me and a moment later I heard a harsh slap, then another. “What do you say, slut?”

  “Sorry, Master,” Leo sobbed.

  I was honestly shocked. I had no idea Leo was a submissive to someone. Who the hell would be man enough?

  “Hello, Falcon,” the man said as he walked into view.

  The bottom of my world fell out. A high pitched whine escaped me. The man before me was Aquila, Commander of the Hunters. Smaller than me but hugely strong and one of the fiercest Seelie I’d ever met. He reached out and I heard Leo yelp. She was yanked into view, Aquila’s hand tangled in her hair.

  “This wasn’t what I wanted,” he said, shaking her head, as if she were a kitten.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Blood stained her lips and her cheeks where both flushed from the slaps. “I did it to please you.”

  “It doesn’t,” he hissed at her. “I make the decisions – remember?”

  “Yes, yes, I remember.” Her eyes were panicked and feverish. This was domestic abuse, not the coaxing of a dominant showing their submissive the way something should be done correctly.

  “Good.” He threw her away. The muscles in his naked arms flexed, reminding me of his immense strength. He stepped toward me and studied my predicament, making me horribly vulnerable. This man ruled the Hunters for my father. He was known to be strict but fair, strong but capable of compassion. He’d been kind to me and Marcus when we’d arrived under his care. My father had given orders we were to be trained but kept separate; I could love a man but not a slave and my father was so angry he’d had me badly beaten by his personal guard, just about the only time I’d been actively parented.