“I don’t know who this Ettie is, but we don’t have castles in clouds, nor do we have a purple sky.”Gwen bolted to her feet, which sent her flashlight to the ground with a thunk. “Who’s there?” Scanning around her, she could see almost nothing in the deep, hazy purple of late twilight. “Show yourself.” Bending her knees, she felt along the ground for her flashlight while trying to keep an eye out for the stranger. “Whoever you are, you’re trespassing on private property.”
Good God, even to her own ears, she sounded like a terrified little girl. She was twenty-two, goddamn it, and had survived darker alleys and more dangerous streets in Boston during college. If she had to, she could sprint back to the field. She could let out a wicked scream. At last, her hand brushed something hard and made of plastic. Grabbing the flashlight and bolstering her courage, she stood and flipped on it on. The beam of light was pathetic and almost unnoticeable. Leave it to Roger to give me a flashlight with near-dead batteries. “Well, you had your chance. I’m leaving, and when I return, I’ll have the owner of this property with me.”
“There’s no need for that.”
The voice came from behind her, and she spun to face this intruder, and almost fainted. Despite the flashlight’s weak beam, she could make out the lithe man’s neat, dark hair and dark eyes, his white shirt and loose-fitting pants.
Goodness, and she probably looked a wreck. Pushing a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear, she could imagine what the day’s humidity had done to her curls, which were always on the edge of frizzy during the humid months. After sitting on the ground and leaning against the tree, she was certain that pieces of bark and grass hung from her clothes. For a second, she was almost grateful for the poor light offered by the flashlight.
“I don’t think that”—he pointed to the flashlight—“will do you much good even if you do know the lay of the land. I think that this will work much better.” He whispered a few words that she didn’t understand and turned his palm up, and like magic, a ball of—what could she call it?—luminescence hovered over his palm and illuminated the space between them.
Gwen gaped at him. In soft, white-blue light, he was stunning. She tried to speak, but her brain and mouth wouldn’t work together. A chill skittered across her skin, and her legs felt as if they would give under her weight. At last, she managed to gather some moisture in her mouth, swallow, and make her lips form words. “What the hell are you?”
“Well,” he said with a cocky grin, “I am a fairy, although I prefer fae. I overheard you say that you wanted a fae who was tall, dark, and handsome. I am tall, I have dark hair and eyes, and I have been told many times by many women that I am quite handsome.”
She didn’t know whether to slap him for his arrogance, to kick him for having eavesdropped on her, or to kiss him for his flippancy. But his directness was unnerving, and she found herself squirming under his dark-eyed scrutiny. Crossing her arms over her chest, she tapped her foot. “Who are you really, why are you here, and how did you do that?” She eyed the orb still floating over his hand before looking him in the eye with an unspoken dare for him to lie to her.
He took a deep breath, held it for a heartbeat, and exhaled as though he was trying to manage the weight of the world. “My name is Teyrnon, but you can call me Tey, of the Stejar Clan of the Aos Sì. I am here because I get to cross from my world to your world, from sundown today until sunrise tomorrow, which is the only time of the year I can do so, and I like coming here. And I can do that”—he nodded toward the light ball—“because I am a fae, and fae can do magic.”
“But . . .” Spilling from her lips, the word seemed slow, elongated, and the ground seemed to shift under her feet. She had to have heard him wrong, she was sure of it. Her pulse roared in her ears, and as she glanced between him and the light ball, the woodland backdrop began to spin. “But fairies don’t”—her knees buckled, and she was falling forward, fast—“exist.”
* * * *
“Well, that was unexpected.”
After setting the orb loose, Tey had barely caught the woman before she hit the ground. He managed to lay her in the soft grass and ordered the orb lower to illuminate her. After hurried words, a small pail of water and a cloth materialized, and as he dipped the cloth in the water and wrung out the excess, he took in her almost peaceful expression and felt something—compassion?—for her.
Most mortal women squealed and jumped around and begged him to show them magic. Then, while doing parlor tricks that any sleight-of-hand artist could do, he’d ply one of them with enough drink to dull her senses, and when she would offer to take him back to her place, he’d spring into action. A quiet spell here, a little cloaking there, perhaps some glamour, he’d have her across the boundary and into the Triéda—the Otherworld, or Avalon or Mag Mell or Atlantis, or whatever one wanted to call it—make wild, passionate love to her; and set her back in her world with only a memory of him needling at her dreams every night. In recent years, he’d become bold and had used the gateways to jump from place to place to claim two or three women a night.
As he pressed the damp cloth to the woman’s forehead and cheeks, he contemplated how easy it would be, especially since they were already in a wood. He wouldn’t need to employ any extra cloaking or glamour since the wood on the other side of the gateway looked the same. But he couldn’t do it.
He had stepped through the hawthorn a second before she had crossed the outer ring of the fairy circle. Hiding on the other side of the tree, he had listened to her talk to “Mr. Hawthorn” and had been unsettled by her sorrow, which had provoked an unexpected urge to protect her.
The woman sighed, and her head lolled to the side. The gap at the opening of her button-down shirt widened, and in the shimmering light, he glimpsed the soft curves of her breasts as her chest rose and fell in even breaths. A little too easy for his liking, lust stirred within him.
He should have expected it, though. Having avoided the high festivals this past year, a brush with anything female would have spiked his interest. Besides, what good would attending the high festivals have done? Nothing, other than alleviate a bit of pent-up sexual tension. Until he found his ruhýana, such events were a temporary salve to his aching. After fifty years of searching the Triéda, and another twenty searching here, he hovered at the edge of giving up the quest of finding his mate and submitting to one of the solitary fae for service. He would have to do that anyway if he didn’t find her in the next five years.
He pushed a curl of hair from her cheek. Despite her pallor, she was lovely. With her oval face, fair complexion, and dark, curly hair that could have rivaled his own, he’d have thought she had some of the Old Blood in her, if he hadn’t known better.
Dabbing at the exposed skin of her neck and collarbone, he was caught by her lips. Slightly parted, they were full and lush, and tempting. Kissing a woman he didn’t know—who was passed out, no less—wasn’t a good idea, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself. He could have sworn that her lips were calling to him to do it, to take her and make her forget.
Crack!
He was on his back, and specks were dancing across his vision before he realized what had happened. Reaching for his jaw, he eased up to his feet and faced the woman. “What the hell was that for? I was helping you!”
“You weren’t trying to help me.” She huffed and righted her shirt, which in the process, to his delight, made the inner curve of her breasts and a little of the valley between them more visible. When she peered at him, the indignation in her eyes made him bite back a snicker. “You were trying to . . . oh, never mind.” She began searching the ground on all fours for her flashlight.
Still rubbing his jaw, Tey dismissed the water pail and cloth and ordered the orb to hover between them to give her some light, and so he could have a better glimpse at her. Watching her, he reveled in the tightness of her ass and pondered those long legs of hers wrapped around him. “Well, a thank-you would be nice. I could have left you on the forest floor for whomever to find tomorrow. Look at me. Now, how am I to land a girl with a big, red handprint across my face?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Are you telling me that you, a fairy, who can do magic, came here to get laid? You are joking, aren’t you?”
Taunting her was too easy, and he couldn’t resist. He crossed his arms, made an exaggerated display of looking from her face to her ass to her face again, and winked. “Nothing wrong with enjoying the fairer sex of another race once in a while.”
“Ugh, men! Oh, finally!” She held the flashlight up, stood, and starting brushing off her pants. “Well, Teynah, Tire, or whatever the hell your name is, I have to go. Thank you for not letting me smash face-first in the dirt. Good luck getting laid.” After an abrupt wave, she spun around and started across the inner ring of the fairy circle.
Oh no. Tey wasn’t letting her get away that easy. Her fieriness was drawing him to her. He liked her apparent dismissal of his handsomeness and her illusory disregard for him being a fae. It made his blood run hot with the challenge, made his mind reel with the possibilities, made his cock swell at the thought of conquering her. Tonight, his first quarry would be no empty-headed sycophant who would spread her legs for him after a smile and a wink.
In three strides, he had a hold of her arm. When she came around, her free fist cocked and ready to hit him again, he caught that one too, crossed her arms in front of her, wrenched her against him, and wrapped his arms around her. Even in the moonless dark of near-night, he could see her anger flaring in her eyes as she glared at him, but more important, he could feel her vibrating with exhilaration. He leaned down and placed his lips a hair’s breadth from her ear. “You know, it is rude to not even give your rescuer your name.”
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