by Michele Hauf
Thinking about acting crazy...he’d been acting like an asshole since the plane landed. But he couldn’t help it. He massaged the back of his shoulder, wincing at the pain that pulsed from where his wings had once been. Mercy, it felt like electric currents zapping in rapid beats and radiating out across his back. It had begun the moment he woke on the airplane and had not ceased since.
He spread out his arms and raised them above his head in an attempt to stretch the muscles and alleviate some of the pain. What was causing the weird phantom pain? Ah, hell. The moon must be nearing fullness. He’d been feeling this pain monthly. He’d always known his body aligned with the moon’s phases. A faery thing.
The pain usually lasted a day and he then forgot about it until the next month. Pissy time for it to happen now, when he didn’t mean to be so awful to Valor. She didn’t deserve his anger. And he most certainly had not needed all those unhealthy bags of chips and—had he really picked up beef jerky?
A knock at the door that sounded like it came from a boot toe hurried him over to open it. Valor carried a stack of tinfoil-wrapped foods that smelled delicious.
“They offered room service,” she said, walking in and handing him half the goods. “But I love sitting in a restaurant listening to others’ conversations. All those cool accents! And I had a drink at the bar. And...I know you wanted some time to yourself. You feeling any better?”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks for this. I’m starving.” He really was in a foul mood. “Are we going to head out today?”
“It’s already evening, and I’m not much for mermaid hunting in the dark. Or a monsoon. The weather report says this rain will continue through the night. There’s a casino attached to the hotel. Maybe we could hang around tonight, then head out bright and early in the morning?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He set the food on the table and peeled open the foil. Savory scents wafted into the room. One of the containers held a burger dripping with cheese. He shoved that across the table. The other offered steamed veggies and white rice. It would do.
The water he’d gotten in the hardware store served them both, and, along with a couple bags of chips, they had a meal.
“You like to gamble, Kelyn?”
“Uh...” He paused with the fork to his lips. Sounded like a trick question to him.
“In the casino,” she added. “I’m not much for the tables, but I do like to play the penny machines. What do they call them here in the UK?”
“Not sure. Shillings? We’re both out of our element here.” He winced and she saw it, so he leaned over the rice and gave it his utmost attention.
“Tell me what’s up with you, Kelyn.”
“Why does something have to be up?”
“Because while I don’t deserve your kindness, you’ve been nothing but a gentleman since we set off on this adventure. So today has been a little unsettling with you playing the silent and pissed act. Did you sleep with your neck twisted on the plane or something?”
He pushed the food container away from himself and hitched a foot up on the end of the bed, tilting his head back against the chair. The position alleviated some of the pain between his shoulder blades.
“It’s a faery thing,” he finally said.
“Really?” Valor wiped a smear of ketchup from the corner of her mouth and guzzled down the last of a bottle of water. “Instead of spreading love, cheer and faery dust, you have a sneer and retreat day? I don’t get it.”
“I can feel my wings,” he said heatedly. Then he cautioned himself not to release his frustrations on her and softened his tone. “It’s like phantom pain. And it hits me once a month right around when the moon is full. Makes me irritable.”
“Are you seriously telling me you’re having a faery period?”
He glared at her.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. Come on,” she pleaded with a growing grin. “You know that was funny.”
Yeah, so she was right. But his smirk didn’t quite touch mirth.
“So you’re in pain. Because of your missing wings?”
“Yes. I’m sorry for being a jerk to you, but I just...” He eased a shoulder forward, cringing at the sting. “It’ll be better tomorrow. Promise.”
“Kelyn, I’m so sorry. What if I give you a back rub? Do you think that would help?”
“I...don’t know.” He’d not thought massage could help, but he hadn’t tried it before. “You don’t need to.”
“Let me try. Seriously. I have some healing magic in these fingers, but not a lot. I think all the working with engines and heavy-duty lifting at the brewery counters most of the vital energy I would otherwise have to heal. But I can give it a go. It’ll feel like a nice warm deep-tissue massage if I work it right. Lie down on the bed. Pretty please?”
No woman had ever said pretty please to him before and made it so sexually inviting. She probably hadn’t intended it to sound that way, but Kelyn felt her innocent suggestion all the way to his cock. And that was not so much weird as something that cautioned him.
But, really? He wanted to feel her hands on him. And who knew? Maybe a massage would bring them closer together, if not help with the pain. He wasn’t averse to a little witchy healing magic.
Chapter 11
Kelyn stood and pulled off his shirt, groaning as the stretch tweaked at his back muscles.
“That bad, huh?” Valor walked around behind him and he flinched when her fingers touched his spine. “I’ll be careful. Just show me where it hurts the most. Here?”
She touched gently where his wings had once sprouted from his back. When they’d been severed, nothing had remained, not even a lump. A thin scar was the only reminder he’d ever had anything back there.
He nodded. “That’s the spot.”
“The scars are like those at your wrists and on your chest.”
“The sigils were a living, magical part of me. Sort of like stripping out my veins when I lost those. But the pain was brief and I don’t feel anything on those places now.” Unfortunately.
He missed having the sigils. He’d once been able to conjure air magic that might have rivaled Valor’s. And the sigils had aided his navigation and enhanced his senses. Having sex with an activated sigil? Mind-blowing. Or so he’d been told. He’d never brought out his wings or exposed his activated sigils to a human woman while having sex. Just not wise.
“Lie down,” Valor said. “Let me get my crystals out of my pack. I never go anywhere without them!”
He crawled onto the bed and lay stomach down. Tucking the mouse alicorn and black ring to the side, he fisted a hand under his chin and listened to her rummage through her backpack. He liked crystals and felt an affinity to selenite and tourmaline. The two were protective and cleansing stones. He wasn’t sure about the circle he wore at his neck, but he thought it could be black tourmaline.
The sound of rocks clacking preceded Valor’s voice. “I’ve got quartz, amethyst and seraphinite. Not sure how the seraphinite will react to a faery. It’s a stone of the angels, you know.”
“Legend tells that we faeries descended from the angels. That we were the Fallen Ones who landed on a realm other than this mortal plane, and that’s how Faery was created. My mother used to tell me faery tales when I was little.”
“The creation of Faery originated from angels? I like that. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my parents. I’m going to lay these on your back and work a little magic, and when your muscles have relaxed, I’ll try a gentle massage. You good with that?”
“Work your witchy magic, witch. I’ll let you know if it hurts.”
“I don’t hurt guys.”
He laid his cheek on the bed and closed his eyes. “You just tease them, eh?”
“A chick’s gotta have a little fun, right?”
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He smirked. The cool touch of the crystals to his back felt great. And he knew when she laid the seraphinite on his spine between his missing wings because he immediately felt the energy in subtle vibrations that shivered across his flesh and into his muscles. It might have even permeated into his bones. He moaned with satisfied relief.
“That feels good?” she asked.
“It definitely hits the spot.”
“And that’s the seraphinite. Cool. Then I’ll let that one sit there a bit and do its thing.”
“So, your parents,” he said as he felt her arrange the crystals along his spine. “You haven’t seen them in a long time? Where are they?”
“Not sure. I never really knew either of them. I was raised by my great-grandma Hector in the 1940s.”
“Hector?”
“Yeah, it’s short for Hectorine. She is a gorgeous woman.”
“Is?”
“Yes, she’s still alive and intends to be so for as long as she can manage. You know we witches can achieve immortality with a spell, right?”
“I’ve heard that. Are you immortal?”
“I am. Or, at least, until the spell wanes. It’s something we have to reactivate every hundred years.”
“And how is it activated?”
She leaned over him, and the sweep of her hair shivered across his bare skin. Kelyn closed his eyes and tried not to groan at the delicious sensation, and it took a lot of effort to remain silent. “You don’t really want the details, do you?”
“I do.” He nudged up his shoulder blade. “Right there. Is that the quartz? It can feel it vibrate in my muscle.”
Valor chanted some words in a language he didn’t recognize, and as they whispered into his subconscious his muscles relaxed even more.
“Good,” she said softly. “The healing energies are beginning to seep into your being. So. The immortality spell that grants a witch a century of life. Not all witches do it, just those of us who are averse to growing old and want to spend as much time as we can living, discovering and learning. It involves a vampire and his, erm...heart.”
“You have to seduce a vampire?”
“Seduction can be a boon to get the vampire to comply, but no. We have to consume a live, beating vampire heart to gain immortality and stop the aging process.”
Kelyn pushed himself up on the bed to glance over his shoulder at her, but she avoided his gaze.
“I know. Gross,” she confirmed. “Lie down.”
He did, and she replaced the quartz that had tumbled off his shoulder. Should he remind her that one of his brothers was vampire?
“We all do what we gotta do and what aligns with our morals, am I right?” Valor asked.
Like sacrificing his wings because he’d wanted to save the girl? “I guess so. No judgment. But if I ever see you eating a rare steak, I promise I will have a moment of judging you.”
“Isn’t that something your brother Blade would do?”
“Would you ever go after Blade for his heart?”
“Absolutely not. I sought a vicious killer when I performed the spell for myself. He had harmed so many.”
“So you played judge and jury?”
“You’re getting judgy now.”
Kelyn laid his head down again and closed his eyes. Who was he to judge what was right and wrong?
“Let’s take the crystals off and I’ll massage your back...”
Setting the crystals up by the pillow, she then straddled him, sitting on his hips. Kelyn’s cock responded to the intimate connection of her thighs hugging his. As long as he was lying facedown, everything would be okay. The touch of her hands on his skin felt like cool water to his aching muscles. She didn’t press hard, only glided back and forth where his wings had once been and down along his spine. His core shivered and he smiled.
“You’ve got great lats and delts,” she commented.
He chuckled softly. “You’ve got a soothing yet stimulating touch. You should be careful. I might respond in ways you hadn’t expected.”
“I think that means you’re feeling better. But is the massage helping the pain a bit?”
“It is. Thank you.”
Her touch grew firmer and she focused on his shoulders for a while, then slowly moved down his back. Paying attention to each vertebra, she glided her thumbs progressively downward. If he could make himself relax, he might even forget about her thighs squeezing against his hips. But his erection was not of a mind to let him off so easily. Damn.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
So did he, but he sure as hell wasn’t going first with this one. “Go for it.”
“Hmm...” She sighed. “Should I?”
“Yes, witch, you should.”
“Okay, fine. I suggested this massage so I could touch you.”
Kelyn smiled at that. Score one for the wounded faery!
“You’re so strong and fierce, Kelyn. Everything about you screams controlled sensuality. Your body moves like a precision instrument. And your smiles and the looks you give me sometimes. And the way your brow furrows when you’re either judging me or challenging me.” She sighed. “But to see you out of sorts because you’re hurting? Makes my heart hurt. And I won’t go there with the s word. Too many sorrys already. But I do want to go here.”
The touch of her mouth to the center of his back, below his neck, startled Kelyn for a moment. Because she lingered, her warm lips caressing his skin reverently, the tiny puffs of breath from her nose sweeping his skin. And as she leaned forward, her breasts brushed his lower back.
“You’re a beautiful man, Kelyn.”
Being called beautiful was weird. He wasn’t. And she was being kind. The sort of kind that a person felt was necessary to make another feel good. He was lacking now. He’d never be the same man without his wings. Could he ever measure up?
The next kiss landed right where his wings should have flinched because of her touch. And he felt Valor’s energy seep into him in waves of heat and violet and—hmm, a twinge of warning?
Yes, that had been a strange zap that tightened his muscles painfully. His body must remember that she had been the reason he no longer wore wings. Get her off, it seemed to say.
And yet his brain could only process the intensity of his growing desire to turn over and kiss her fully and deeply. But when he pushed himself up to begin to turn, she pressed a palm against his shoulder.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me do this.”
The witch’s hands worked more magic than she could probably imagine. Kelyn felt her touch deeply, in his muscles and through to his bones. It wasn’t uncomfortable until she skated over the places where his wings had been severed. But those glancing touches remained brief. Overall, her touch buoyed him like no pink lake could.
The urge to turn over and pull her down on top of him so she could feel all of him was strong. He wasn’t crass, though. Yet her touch did not warrant patience.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“Much.” He nudged the seraphinite on the pillow and glanced aside. “It’s pouring out there. We’re in for the night.”
“I figured that. Want to watch a cheesy movie?”
“Truth?”
“Always.”
“I want to make out.” He turned over beneath her and looked up into Valor’s not-so-surprised grinning face. “What do you think?”
“Sounds better than a movie.” She swept her fingers down his chest. She hadn’t quite sat down on his hips, which was a good thing. But when her strokes lowered to above the waistline of his jeans, Kelyn hissed through a tight jaw. “My magic helped to relax you. I could feel your muscles surrendering and growing lax. But parts of you are very...”
“Tense,” he said with a wink. And, grabbing he
r wrist to stop her from venturing lower, he pulled her down until she was nose to nose with him. He inhaled her witchy scent of sage and cheeseburger and studied her gaze. “There’s only one way to ease that tension.”
“Yeah, I figured. Oh, what’s this?” She studied her fingers, which now glinted with his innate dust.
“You are familiar with what happens to faeries when we get aroused?”
“Right. I thought that was only when they come. Like, from orgasm.”
“Close. Some of us put out dust when we’re feeling...you know.”
“Really? So, whenever you’re turned on? Hmm...” She rubbed her fingers together, then sniffed the dust. “I could use this stuff.”
“Seriously, witch? I thought we were, uh...doing something here?”
“Sorry. It’s just so useful. And hard to come by.”
“My dust is not included on your ingredient list.”
“But you never know—”
He pushed up her shirt and tugged it off over her head, startling her to abandon her absentminded wondering. She wore no bra and her breasts were small and—the word adorable came to mind, but he wasn’t sure she’d like that assessment. Kelyn pulled her down to lick one nipple and she quickly forgot the sparkles on her fingers. She shouldn’t worry about missing out on collecting some dust for her spells. If they had sex, she’d be covered with the stuff. It made having sex with mortal women difficult to explain, so he had often tried to pick up clubbers glittered up to the nines. Come morning? Neither could determine who wore more glitter than the other.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said as he laved his tongue around her tight nipple. “You’ve definitely recovered from your grumpiness.”
“That I have.”
With his tongue, he teased a trail across her heated skin to her other nipple, as if indulging in a tiny treat. He was fascinated by their tightness and the barely there swells of her breasts. Every lick seemed to produce a different tone of pleasure from her. He most certainly was no longer in a bad mood, even if subtle twinges of pain had already returned to his back.