Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  Remembering that I have a part to play, I struggle to free myself.

  “Show her who’s stronger,” orders Levi from the sidelines. “I’m not paying to see lovemaking.”

  Holding my wrists in one hand, Jack’s other hand comes down and smacks across my cheek.

  My eyes water, but I’m more shocked than hurt. He slips his thumb into my mouth and tugs my jaw open, raising his eyebrows. “So you’re going to fight me?”

  I bite down on his thumb and wriggle underneath him.

  He cuffs me again. But he’s pulling his punches, and this time I anticipate him, flowing with his hand so it lacks the intensity of the first blow.

  Holding my jaw open, he rises on his knees, and I’ve barely managed to suck in a breath before his cock is in my mouth.

  “That’s it,” purrs Levi.

  Jack’s hands slip into my hair, cradling my head, a tender contrast to what happens next. His hips thrust forward and I feel him in my throat. He’s buried so tight and so deep I can’t even gag. He tugs my head back so he can watch my face as he fucks me, a slow grind in and out. The hot and naked desire in his expression, combined with the softness that just touches his eyes…it does something to me. Makes me forget what he wants me to forget.

  Flame flickers in his irises and he closes his eyes, tipping his head back as he continues rocking in and out of my mouth. His golden hair seems to recover some of its glow, but this may be wishful thinking.

  “Don’t come,” Levi orders. “I have a particular desire to see you feeding on her.”

  Jack’s eyes open, and he lets out a sigh. No question he’s rekindling—the flame in his eyes burns bright now. I direct two quick blinks at him, and he dips his head and lowers his lids.

  “I’ll help you,” continues Levi, and the next thing I know he’s stepped to the head of the bed, behind me. He takes hold of each of my wrists with his cold iron pincers and leans over me, watching Jack.

  Immobilized again, I stare as Jack sinks between my spread legs. His tongue is warm and wet as he flicks at my clit and I give a little cry. A moment later I’ve forgotten where I am again. Fuck, I’ve all but forgotten my name. Levi gives a low growl of appreciation as Jack’s tongue glides like velvet over my pussy. I lose sight of my role in this charade and begin bucking my hips against his face.

  Levi laughs. “You are skilled, my man. She’s forgotten herself.”

  I stiffen, afraid I’ve ruined it, but the look on Levi’s face above me is pure lust.

  We need to get to earnest fucking, I assume, before Jack gets back his light. It’s time to up my game and bring us all to the crisis point.

  As Jack continues to lick and suck at my pussy, now sliding long fingers inside me, my eyes meet Levi’s. “Let me touch myself.”

  The monster’s nostrils flare, and he releases my hands. I take hold of my breasts, pinching the nipples and rolling and rubbing them together. Levi reaches into his pants, freeing his cock, and his hand begins to rub up and down the shaft as he watches my hands.

  I close my eyes, letting out a sharp cry as a thousand light jars explode inside me.

  When I open my eyes, Levi is devouring me with his.

  “I think I could almost manage to fuck you myself,” Levi hisses. “Maybe I’ll keep you for a pet. Would you like that?”

  Suddenly the bindings around my ankles release, and Jack flips me onto my stomach. He grips my hips and drives his cock into me. The bed creaks and moans and even begins to scoot across the floor. At last he tugs my ass into the air and thrusts deeply, shouting with his release, “Be gone, you devil!”

  Yellow light floods the shack, and I glance up to see Levi with his arm flung across his face. Jack launches off the bed and grabs him, and the bloodsucker lets out an owl-like screech. Jack folds him in what looks like a great, tender embrace and steam rises, filling the room like fog. I hear a thud and jump off the bed, moving closer to them so I can see.

  Levi is crumpled on the floor, reminding me of a salamander my brother kept for a pet but forgot to give water to. Jack kneels and gathers the withered, leathery carcass and carries it outside. I hear the splash of the watery burial.

  Swamp Light

  I sink down onto the edge of the bed. Tugging the quilt free, I wrap it around my shoulders. I’m relieved and unharmed, so I don’t understand why I begin to shake.

  Pulling the quilt closer around my shoulders, I wonder what kind of person gets off on being raped while being watched by a murderer.

  Wasn’t exactly like that, sugar.

  This last thought has such a Sadie-like tone I glance up and look around. Nothing but my creaky bed and steam seeping out the open window.

  No Jack.

  I suppose he’s slipped off into the swamp. It’s what I would do. He doesn’t owe me a damn thing. I carried him around in a jar for two days, so I figure the refueling probably just makes us even. Besides that, he saved my life.

  Folk see lights in the swamp sometimes. Lights that can’t be explained, the wrong color for town lights or pirogue lanterns. I wonder whether Jack has cousins here. I hope he does. No one should be the last of their kind. Except maybe vampires.

  I lie back on the bed and curl into a ball on my side, watching the last of Levi’s steam merge with the dawn-tinged mist that’s rising from the swamp. I should get in my pirogue and take Maud her money, but I just can’t find the will. For the first time in as long as I can remember, my solitary existence tastes bitter as chicory coffee.

  “Maud’ll have a nice long laugh about this one,” I murmur.

  “Not sleeping, love?”

  I start at the sound of his voice. The room is suddenly brighter than the dawn.

  “No,” I reply.

  There’s a pause, and when he speaks his voice is quiet and soft. “I’ve saved this for you.”

  I turn, and he hands me the brooch. My fingers close over the hard, cold thing, and I find that I no longer care to keep it. But it’ll have to go back to Maud. It’s not her fault my lantern is gone. Maybe she can use it to buy fuel after all.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He gives a nod. “I’ll be going now.”

  My throat tightens, and I begin to tremble. “I’m sorry about the jar. I didn’t really understand.”

  He gives a coarse laugh. “You’re sorry?” He settles next to me on the bed. “Are you cold?”

  Strange to feel a chill in August, but I do. I nod.

  He reaches out and touches the cheek he slapped earlier. “Can I give you back some heat?”

  I’m not sure what he means to do, but his touch is soothing, so I say, “Okay.”

  He stretches out along my back and puts an arm around my waist, snuggling me into his chest. I can feel the heat of his body even through the quilt.

  But he tugs on it and says, “Let’s take this away. Skin on skin is better.”

  It certainly is. I release my grip on the quilt’s edge, and he lifts it and spreads it over both of us.

  His hot, hard chest presses against me. Only it doesn’t feel hard at all. It feels soft and safe.

  “Has it left a bad taste?” he whispers above my ear.

  I close my eyes, and a tear trickles down into the bedding. I don’t even know who I am right now. This vulnerable, weepy creature.

  “Love.” He raises himself over me, and I turn and look up into his face. “Will you let me wash it away?”

  Suddenly my breasts are tingling. I feel warmth even in places he’s not touching. But I reply, “I’ll be okay. Thank you for saving me.”

  He smiles. “We saved each other, eh?”

  “Yes.” The close eye contact is intense, and I let my gaze fall to his chest. “I’m not used to needing to be saved.”

  He studies me a moment and replies, “What you mean is you aren’t used to letting others save you.”

  I give him a halfhearted scowl. “What makes you so smart anyway? You’ve been in a jar for two hundred years. Before that you spent all
your time leading people into swamps.”

  “People spend a lot of time in swamps in their own heads. Leading people into real ones sheds a bit of light on that.”

  I study him warily. “I think you might be a philosopher, Jack.”

  “Well, two hundred years is a long time to think. Mostly it just made me horny though.” His hot hand comes to rest on my stomach.

  Laughing, I cover it with my cool one. “I’ve heard those guys loved their orgies.”

  Next thing I know he’s moving to lie on top of me.

  “One for the road?” I tease, raising my hands to caress his shoulders because I can’t help my damn self.

  His gaze is bright with lust, and with his own natural light. His lips curl in a grin. “I avoid roads. Too predictable.”

  “Lots of hazards in New Orleans That Was. You’ll learn that soon enough. Predictable is safe.”

  Suddenly I feel the tip of his cock against my pussy, and I gasp as he glides right in.

  “Did you predict that?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  My mouth hangs open a moment, my insides clenching around his cock. “In fact, no.”

  With a gentle rocking motion, he begins to enter and exit in small, delicious thrusts. “And do you feel safe?”

  “I…”

  His hand comes up to touch my face, thumb grazing the outline of my lips. The way his gaze flicks to my lips before he bends closer causes my heart to flop like a puppy in my chest.

  He ducks his head, lips meeting mine, and I feel the buzz of energy beneath his skin. But the contact is soft and subtle—his lips glide, tasting first, then caressing. The tip of his tongue touches my lower lip, and I open my mouth. His tongue slips inside, and a little moan rises in my throat. After our hard, desperate fucking, how is it that this silken contact makes me ache with need?

  I realize that lying here, bathed in his light, for the first time since I was a small child I’m not afraid of anything.

  He draws back to look at me and I whisper, “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “I feel safe.”

  Raising my knees around his hips, I reach down and grasp his ass. He responds with a powerful thrust. I hook my feet around him to keep our bodies tightly connected as he locks into a harder rhythm and the bed begins its creaky march across the floor.

  He watches my face as he fucks me, and again the intensity is too much for me. Glancing down to where our bodies are joined, I see pink light pulsing under the skin of my belly.

  “Have you fucked a regular woman before?” I ask, alarmed.

  “Is there any such thing, love?”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “A mortal woman, I suppose.” He gives me that up-to-no-good grin I’ve seen on my brothers’ faces a thousand times. “Well, aye.”

  “Is this normal?”

  He glances down at my belly, and his grin broadens. “Wish we could see it in the dark. A living jack-o’-lantern, eh?”

  “Jack!”

  He laughs, pleased with himself, and replies, “It’ll not be like your friend Sadie, if that’s what you mean.” He closes his hand over one breast, rubbing the nipple with his thumb. “Now try and focus on this instead.”

  I close my eyes, finding it hard to do anything else as he takes hold of the other breast, kneading them together and plucking at the nipples.

  On the knife-edge of coming, I have to move if I want to prolong it. I press my hands to his chest and let him know I want to switch up. He sinks onto his side, then his back, all the while holding my hips against his.

  I feel wonderfully full of him as I settle onto his belly and begin to rock. In this position there’s no “out,” only in in in, and he groans each time my pussy presses against his abdomen. Bracing my hands on his stomach, I ride hard, breasts quaking with each impact. He squeezes my hips in his hands, arching up as he comes so my knees leave the bed, and I erupt in a fountain of light, heat splashing over my skin.

  I sink down onto his chest, breathless.

  “Warm now?” he asks hoarsely.

  “Mmm,” I reply, wriggling to feel the friction again between my legs. The fact I haven’t really slept in two days smacks against me like a wave, and my body goes heavy on his chest.

  I close my eyes, but it’s still bright as midday. “How do you sleep?” I mumble.

  “I don’t. But I can go so you can.”

  My heart gives a heavy thud, and I shift against him, uneasy. “You know,” I begin, trying to keep my tone light, “you could hang with me awhile. I can show you around. Teach you what you need to know about your new now.”

  He’s quiet for a few breaths, and I sigh, preparing for the inevitable. I’ve become dangerously attached to this unexpected break in my loner routine. My muscles tense in preparation to rise.

  “Purely selfless motivation,” he says at last. “Is that it, love?” I can hear the smile in his voice.

  “Well, I won’t lie to you. A rechargeable lantern is a handy thing in these times.”

  He chuckles. “So a trade is what you’re after, then?”

  “And maybe ‘a bit o’ fun’ now and then.”

  He gives a loud bark of laughter this time. “I consider myself an expert in fun. Maybe I can teach you a thing or two as well.” The way he says “thing”—like there’s no h in it—is beginning to have the same effect on me as the lines of his naked body.

  “Sounds like a win-win to me,” I reply, burrowing again into his chest.

  His hand comes up to stroke my curls, and I don’t remember ever feeling more content to just be.

  “You ever been to a sandy beach, love?” he asks.

  “No. I’ve only seen pictures.”

  “In Ireland people go there to sun themselves. Nap in the sand in the full light of day. Close your eyes, and I’ll describe the ocean for you.”

  6

  The Dragonfly Prince

  COUNTY GALWAY, IRELAND—AFTER THE BIO HOLOCAUST

  Wedding Day

  Today is the day that I’m bound to a monster.

  It’s not like it sounds. I’m no victim of ambitious or scheming parents, like you find in history books and fairy tales. Those were the old ways. Though in my time—in the years since the transgenics engineered a virus that all but wiped out humanity—many of the old ways have returned.

  But I chose this for myself. In fact, my da is sick about it, and my brother is still threatening to interfere, which would ruin us all.

  For the monster that I am to marry is a chieftain’s son—Dayne, of the Tuatha de Danann. According to my education, given to me by parents and elders who lived before the Bio Holocaust, the Tuatha de Danann were a powerful mythical race. Early conquerors of Ireland who invaded from the north. Many centuries before the last modern age, they were said to have landed on the shores of Connemara, not far from my village.

  But Dayne’s people are transgenics—created by scientists in laboratories—who have styled themselves after those conquerors of old, perhaps because their genetic modifications have left them looking more like a dark tribe of fairies than men. Their DNA has been, says my da, polluted with DNA from other living things—insects, and even plants. It’s a thing I would not believe if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

  My sigh is loud in the stillness of the empty cottage. I finger the dress sent by my betrothed’s family, a shimmering lavender work of art that’s like nothing in my experience. He does not wish to see his bride, I presume, in dull homespun. Women of my village weave fine cloth that suits for our own weddings, but apparently it does not suit for the bride of a Tuatha de Danann.

  The color of the gown is fortunate, according to Aine, the woman who helped to raise me after my mother died. It complements my fair skin and vibrantly red hair, which my da compares to the fall leaves of my namesake tree, the rowan. Aine will come soon to help me dress, and to weave my long locks into a plaited headdress.

  I have never met the creature I am to marry. My brother,
Jamie, calls him a “dark prince” and says he’s a thing of nightmares. He means to scare me into changing my mind, I think. He may yet succeed.

  But to go back now would be to break the treaty. The marriage is intended to bring peace between us. The Tuatha are powerful, and I hold no hope they will treat us as equals. My only hope is the marriage will prevent them from finishing the work of the Bio Holocaust by killing us all.

  It is not an entirely unrealistic hope. Not long ago, an Irishman returned home from the transgenics’ seat of power in Spain. He told us that a transgenic prince fell in love with a human woman and spoke out in favor of preserving humanity. The implosion of that royal family is believed to be the reason smaller factions like the Tuatha are grabbing land and power. I’m not naïve enough to hope Dayne will fall in love, but an alliance with his people could protect us from other factions. Because the transgenics have no love for men, who first created them and then cast them aside as abominations.

  Still, sometimes I can’t help but wonder, “Why me?”

  “Indeed, child.”

  I glance up to see Aine entering the cottage, and realize I’ve spoken the question out loud.

  “To think I’d live to see the day when the Darcys would marry the flower of the family to a devil within the walls of their own castle…”

  With this, Aine reminds me of the answer to my question. I’m marrying into the Tuatha because, as the very distant ancestor of the man who built Clifden Castle in the nineteenth century—which the Tuatha have now claimed as their own—I’m the only thing like royalty in the village.

  And also, as I now remind Aine, “I’m the only one who’ll do it.”

  She makes a motherly disapproving noise and presses me into a chair. Slipping a comb into my hair, she begins dividing it into sections.

  “What I still don’t understand,” she continues, “is why it’s them that’s asked for this marriage. They certainly don’t need our cooperation to lay claim to this place.”