by Bonnie Vanak
“The garden is dying. We haven’t had much rain and last winter the snow wasn’t as deep, so the melt off didn’t aid the growing season.” He flexed his fingers, his jaw taut. “We have tried everything to heal the garden so we can have fresh vegetables for the children.”
Grayson looked at me, his gaze level. “We’ve tried everything except bringing in a Fae to work magick.”
“Ever consider renting one?”
“Most Fae would never set foot upon this land, Sienna. But you are not most Fae. You are Fionn, the most powerful of all.”
Oh damn. He knew exactly what I was, not only a mere Fae. My heart dropped to my stomach and my entire body tensed. Did Grayson bring me here simply to destroy me?
Much as I didn’t want this, my powers surged, as if in self-defense.
“You know? And you’re not terrified? Running away from me?” I spread out my hands, which glowed with pure white power. “You’re a shifter. I’m a Fionn Fae. We aren’t exactly bosom friends.”
“Old misconceptions. I like you for yourself, Sienna. I don’t fear your power. I know you can use it for good. I know because I know you, intimately.”
He caressed my nape, his gaze light and erotic. “You may heal the garden if you wish. I won’t pressure you. The choice is yours.”
I considered the garden, with its brown leaves, wrinkled vines and parched earth. My natural ability to heal the earth rose up, urging me to take action. It was like being a veterinary doctor faced with a sick animal. But still, I hesitated.
“I don’t like being used, Grayson. Is that why you brought me here?”
He sighed. “I brought you here to protect you from the Fionn that tried to kill you, lass. And to have amazing, mind-blowing sexual pleasure you have denied yourself for years. I brought you here because you arouse and intrigue me like no other female has done.”
“So I’m here because you think I need sex?”
“I need sex. So do you. We had a great time last night.”
“So why did you bring me here?” I started to feel panicked. Had I walked into a trap out of sheer trust for this wolf? “Did you bring me here just to help you grow some damn vegetables?!”
“No, I brought you here because I need you just as much as you need me. I’ve wanted you and needed you since the moment we made love in your dreams,” he shouted.
Something seized my heart and refused to let go. Deep inside, I had suspected this, longed for it, but life had kicked me in the ass far too long to believe it.
“It’s not possible.” Even as I said the words, I knew the truth. My heart skipped a beat for pure joy.
“It is possible.” He sat on the ground, his shoulders slumped. “You’re the reason I couldn’t have sex with another woman after we had made love in our dreams. How could I even consider it after what we shared? I’d never felt anything like that before, and I knew without you, I’d never feel anything like that again.”
Suddenly I no longer felt so alone.
I had my beloved wolf, the one who found me in the forest when I was a child and led me home, silently loping away.
My wolf who had shared my innocent, childish dreams as I slept when I was a child.
My wolf who had shared his body when I became an adult and we made fervent, erotic love in our dreams.
Sinking beside him, I framed his face with my hands. “It’s really you?”
Expression wary, Grayson nodded. “Do you mind?”
He sounded vulnerable, unlike the arrogant, confident alpha I’d known.
“Mind? I’m glad I finally found you. So glad.” I kissed his mouth gently. “Your face always was slightly blurred when I woke up. I thought I’d never find you. How did you know it was me?”
“I memorized your face. Waking made you blurry as well, but I kept a sketch pad by my bed and drew your face. Each morning after a dream, I filled in a detail. I didn’t want to forget you.”
Grayson brushed his mouth tenderly against mine. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but had to wait until we could get here, where you’d be safe from intruders. Nicolas and Stephan assured me they would do everything in their power to protect you as well.”
I hadn’t felt this safe and cherished in a long time. I had three strong wolves to protect me, and the wolf of my dreams was finally here with me.
“Do you remember when we first met?” I whispered, unable to stop touching him to make sure this wasn’t still a dream. “When I got lost in the forest and cried?”
“You were only seven.” He smiled beneath my caressing fingertips. “I could scent your fear.”
“Terrified of the dark forest and the noises. I wasn’t afraid of you, though. I hugged you and then climbed onto your back and you took me home. And then you took off before anyone could see you. I guess I was happy to be home, and rescued, that I must have reached out to you in dreamsleep. It wasn’t often, but those dreams were the ones that got me through tough days.”
He cupped my face, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. “You were so lonely and upset you felt locked away from the world.”
“Do you think we bonded in our dreams because we first met in the forest?”
“It may have been the connection we shared when we met. But that’s not important. What is important is that we found each other.”
“That’s why you stalked me.”
“Why I found you, lass. I had to find you. I knew we were destined to be together. And then,” His voice grew rough and deep. “The dreams stopped three years ago. I thought… I’d never see you again in my sleep, until a year ago. I caught a glimpse of your dream of destruction and death and watched your entire world blow to pieces as you screamed. I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t hold you or comfort you. All I could do was watch you sob. I felt so helpless.”
“Until I felt you watching me, and invited you into my mind. You comforted me, and then we made love,” I said softly.
Three years ago, when I had destroyed my family and most of the Fae in my colony. I stopped dreaming. Learned to block everything from my mind. A year ago, I was hungry, so desperately lonely and beginning to doubt my very existence.
I dreamed of the day I killed everyone, and in that dream, I cried for my wolf friend. Grayson entered that dream and soothed me. Although it was only a dream, his presence centered me. I could not recall his face when I awakened.
“You restored my sanity,” I told him, remembering the strength and renewed purpose I had gained from that dream.
“I would do it again, to be there for you. I only wish you had reached out to me sooner. You seemed so damn alone. So very alone.” He kissed my hand. “You never have to be alone again, Sienna. I’m here with you, and so are Nick and Stephan. I’ve waited for so long to finally have you in my arms.”
Then all my hopes crashed. Because when you have high expectations and time and again, they’re smashed to the ground, you learn easily that nothing in life comes without a steep price. Grayson wasn’t that altruistic.
“Is that why you wanted to have sex last night?”
Maybe the flat note in my voice gave him pause. Grayson shook his head. “It was about consummating a long-simmering passion.”
“Sex.” Withdrawing my hand, I felt myself grow cold and distant. “It was all about the sex, those dreams. You just wanted to know what it felt like to fuck me in person instead of in a dreamsleep.”
I was deeply rattled. I wanted this so badly, I couldn’t believe I deserved any kind of joy.
Not after killing my family and my colony.
A frown dented his brow. “It wasn’t only sex, Sienna. Admit it. You know this is true.”
Knowing the intimacy we shared in our dreams, the mind and body connection, shattered all my carefully erected barriers. I had spent years protecting myself, my identity, so none of my people could hunt me down and harm me for what I had done to them.
Knowing Grayson knew exactly what I was, who I was, stripped away my self-confidence.
; “What do you want from me?” I whispered, wanting to back away, wanting to rush toward him.
Seizing a fistful of my long hair, he tipped back my head and stared down at me, all aggressive alpha. “I brought you here because I want you, Sienna. I’ve wanted you like I’ve never wanted another woman. The smell of you, the taste of you, the feel of your body next to mine has haunted me from the moment we touched in our dreams. I am ruthless in pursuing what I want and I want you. But I don’t fuck women who don’t want me. Say you don’t want me and I’ll leave you alone. If you want to leave here, you need only give the word and I’ll send an escort back to your apartment.”
Lying was impossible, because heat flushed my body and he was wolf. He could smell my sexual arousal as surely as he could scent prey hiding from him.
“Tell me,” he said tightly.
“I don’t want to leave, damnit!” I drew in a deep breath. “I want you.”
Grayson’s mouth was firm and commanding as he kissed me. His scent of pine and spice filled my senses as he coaxed my lips apart and plunged his tongue inside. Sexual need made my body soft and pliant, craving him once more.
The wolf could destroy me, but I could not resist. As I kissed him back and tasted him, my mouth moving against his, I sensed a glow rising from my body, the red of passion.
We shed our clothing and tumbled to the earth. Then he studied my naked body. My glowing, naked body.
At first, I pulled away, fearing what he’d see. And then Grayson laced his fingers through mine, his heavily muscled body pressing me against the earth.
“No, Sienna. I know what you are. Don’t fight it. Let it flow out of you.”
His mouth was on my naked skin now, licking the magick rising off my body like droplets from a gentle rainstorm. My breasts tingled as I writhed from the pleasure, and I saw my loins and my limbs glow with white, not passion red.
My magick was seeping out of me like perspiration. And yet I did not care. Grayson knew I was Fae, and the erotic feeling of finally being able to feel again made the magick dance inside me, increasing the pleasure.
He trailed a finger lazily over a pebbling nipple. Moisture gathered between my legs and I moaned as he kissed his way down my body.
Then he put his hand between my legs, exactly where I needed it.
Every Fae cell burst with energy, the craving for connection and bonding sparked by Grayson’s caresses. My people were of the earth, pulled their energy from it and gave it freely to replenish. Grayson and this land needed me, needed what I could give in return for the pleasure. He was a meadow crackling and dry as dust, aching for refreshment.
Sensations built higher and higher, my body growing tight and hot. I was fire and heat, the tightness in my loins gathering, growing stronger…
Grayson cupped my sex possessively and then slid a long finger into me and I shuddered with need, pumping my hips upward against his teasing strokes, as his caresses became more urgent and frantic.
“Come for me, Sienna,” he whispered. “I don’t want to fuck you from behind like the wolf I am. I want to look into your eyes as you come. Look at me.”
When my eyes flew open, I saw his face, ruthless with lust and intent. He stroked harder and I clung to him. His finger stroked my wet core, sliding back and forth. The pleasure built higher and higher, cresting over me as I cried out his name.
Grayson smiled. The swirls of darkness vanished from his eyes. The chiseled angles of his face did not soften, but hardened with purpose.
He brought his fingers to his mouth, sucked on them. “You’re as sweet as frosting, Sienna. I want to lick you all over.”
I opened my arms to him, and he joined with me once more, cupping my bare breasts and thumbing my nipples. He tasted one, his tongue expertly flicking and suckling.
“Grayson, please, I need you inside me, now.”
He lifted his head and gave a lazy smile.
“I’m not done tasting you.”
He kissed his way down the length of my body, his tongue flicking into the tiny indentation of my navel, feeling like warm, wet velvet. Then he slipped further, parting my thighs and settling between them.
The alpha put his wet mouth on me. The shock of his warm tongue against my sensitive clit arched me upward. Each lazy swirl and flick ratcheted up the tension in my body once more. Fae are sexual beings, like shifters. We can make love for hours, with the right partner. And the right partner was here with me, licking my center as if it were ice cream.
The internal glow inside of me pulsed stronger. Moisture gushed out of my body, and with it spilled the sparkling white and red light of my powers, seeping into the earth. Grayson was merciless. He did not stop, even as I surrendered and screamed, the pleasure bursting from me as I climaxed.
He kept kissing me, riding through the spasms until I collapsed against the ground.
Then he lifted his head, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. He mounted me, his gaze fierce and glittering with intent.
His penis began pushing inside my soaked core.
He felt thick and hard as a steel bar, each slide pushing him past the tiny muscles gripping him tightly.
The silky hairs of his chest abraded my nipples as his body slid over mine.
Enough of this. I wrapped my legs around his lean hips and forced him deeper. He threw back his head and groaned deeply.
Grayson began thrusting in earnest, the dance of erotic pleasure I had missed for so long. And yet with him it was different. Emotions raced through me – tenderness and wonder, and an alarming one I recognized as a blossoming love.
I could not afford to love again. Love cost too much. I shoved back that emotion and focused on the pleasure we gave each other.
His hips slammed against me, our wet flesh slapping against each other as I dug my nails into his thick shoulders. Heat built higher and higher again. Climax shimmered just out of reach, a ball of white sparks fed by my magick.
Then he angled his thrusts, rubbing against my G-spot and climax slammed into me so hard I saw stars. I released my magick into the wolf, sending it deep inside with every stroke of his cock, with each tendril of desire making my heart race.
With a groan, he kissed me, his tongue thrusting urgently into my mouth as if he were drawing air from my lungs. The wolf drew out my magick and fueled his own.
And for the first time since I’d ever had sex, I did not care, but felt a satisfaction of my own at giving it freely to him.
Grayson threw back his head and called out my name.
“Sienna, Sienna!”
Warm seed shot inside of me as he bucked against me.
As before, we locked together in erotic bliss as he kept coming, little orgasms pulsing inside me until minutes later when his shudders slowed, stopped. He looked down at me and the flare of tenderness was nothing less than I expected.
Along with the masculine satisfaction and pride.
“I love watching you come,” he said roughly. “I just want to eat you up.”
He flashed a wicked grin. “Again.”
He lifted off me, his cock still locking us together. Finally it shrank to normal size and he pulled out.
The glow had faded from my body as quickly as it had started. Surely he must have felt it. Grayson kissed me tenderly and levered off my body, sweat dripping from his forehead and splashing onto my breasts.
“You shared your magick with me,” he said slowly.
I nodded, unable to find words for the emotions tying my tongue in knots.
“It doesn’t always happen with Fae. You have to freely give it. And then it always returns after the Fae rests. Like recharging a battery.”
Surprised, I levered up on one elbow. “You have knowledge of this?”
Grayson’s expression turned guarded. “I have heard of it.”
Time to confess what I’d never told another living soul. “I have power, Grayson. More power than most Fionn can ever dream of. And I hate it. I hate it! I wish it never happened t
o me.”
“Power can be a curse.” He kissed my cheek. “Or a blessing. It depends on the individual. You have a good heart, Sienna. I have seen you in your dreams, seen how you loved the forest creatures and I felt your anguish as you wept when your mother died. Dreams reveal a person’s innermost desires. I saw no malice in you, no intentions of letting your magick corrupt you.”
Reaching up, I cupped his face. “I saw the heart of you as well, Grayson. I saw a strong, compassionate soul who felt so lost. So alone, despite having people around him.”
He fisted a hand through my hair and then kissed me roughly. “Don’t leave me, Sienna. I need you. We need each other. I’ll make it good for you here. Myself, Nicolas and Stephan.”
Now was not the time to think about the future. I roused myself from the ground. Around us, the plants thrived and the ground was rich and fertile.
Stunned, I touched the soil. We had fucked, hard and fast, in this garden, consummating all the feels we’d shared in our dreams. And this is what happened?
Blue eyes ripe with satisfaction, Grayson watched me.
“Does it surprise you?” His deep voice was a sexy murmur as he pulled me back into his arms. “You’re a powerful Fae, Sienna. When you share your magick, either through sex or other means, it makes life flourish. In your lovers and in the earth as well. It is the heart and soul of what you truly are.”
It didn’t surprise me, but it did prove worrisome. The tight control I’d held over my powers and my own yearnings had slipped. Here, in this somewhat safe realm of Grayson’s territory, I suppose it would not matter. But if I grew too lax outside the perimeters, I’d become a beacon in the darkness for Kallan and the others to find me.
He stroked my hair. “How do you feel?”
A multitude of answers rested on my lips. Confusion and delight, wariness and lassitude. “Okay.”
Grayson stopped his hand. “Just okay?” He raised himself up on one elbow. “We’ve had mind-blowing sex and you’re just okay?”