The Castle of Earth and Embers

by Steffanie Holmes

  My heart raced as my fingers grazed the size of his cock, and Rowan shuddered. What the hell am I doing? I’d literally just come from shagging another guy and here I was, making out with Rowan, trailing my fingers over his flour-dusted torso, ripping his pants off so he could take me in a manly fashion.

  What I’m doing is driving it out. All the grief. All the fear. This was exactly why I’d come to Briarwood for, to destroy the grief. All I needed to do that was this beautiful boy with pain in his eyes and his enormous, glorious black cock.

  Rowan’s fingers walked up my spine, leaving a trail of shivers across my skin. He buried his face into the side of my neck, nibbling and groaning into my collarbone as I pulled his cock out halfway and wrapped my hand around it.

  I stroked him slowly, using the pre-cum on his head as lubrication as I slid my hand along his shaft, feeling the slight curve of it. Rowan’s eyes burned into mine, open the whole time as though he wanted to commit every second we had together to memory.

  His hands slid down my shoulders, pushing away the silky robe. It glided down my arms, revealing the tops of my breasts. Rowan reached for them, drawing them out one at a time, his face revenant, worshipful. He bent down and placed his lips over my nipple, his touch so soft, so light.

  A moan escaped my throat and I leaned back and tightened my fingers around his cock. Rowan’s tongue glided across my bud, already hard as a pebble and he suckled lightly, sending shivers through my chest.

  He moved his lips to the other nipple, licking and sucking with the same aching gentleness, while using his fingers to play with the first. A trail of white flour granules extended across my chest, a swirl of glistening stars in the Milky Way. I dropped Rowan’s cock, unable to keep my grip on it when my body hummed with so much electricity.

  Rowan lifted me with surprising ease given his size. I let my arms hang limp and the robe slid completely off me, pooling on the floor at our feet. Rowan’s mouth formed a silent O as his eyes swept over me. Never in my life had I felt more like a goddess.

  He sat me down on another stool and knelt in front of me, his eyes never leaving mine. His hands caressed my body – soft and reverent – as though I were a nymph he couldn’t believe was real. He trailed kisses along my thighs, his dreadlocks teasing and tickling my skin. I arched my back, bringing myself closer to him. Rowan dipped his head, tasting me with a long stroke of his tongue.

  His lips lit me on fire, sending flames straight to the ache in my stomach. He drew his tongue back and stroked me again, his eyes trained on my face, watching and reveling in my reaction. The raw sensuality of watching him as he licked me in my most intimate spot nearly sent me over the edge.

  He licked with rhythmic strokes. Of course he did. This was Rowan. He kept meticulous time, never altering his steady pace until I could anticipate each glide of his tongue, and the knowledge of it drove me closer… closer…

  When my orgasm came, it crept along my veins like a hot flush, slow and languid before bursting forth and consuming me – a thousand stars dying in a cosmic blaze inside my body.

  Behind Rowan’s head, I could see a row of bread loaves all lined up along the windowsill, each one on its proofing cycle. Rowan, the Earth-user, the one who made the garden grow and the food delicious and who would move the earth itself.

  My body rocked and shuddered, the fire retreating into a warm glow. Rowan wrapped his arms around my middle, resting his head on my thighs and staring up at me with eyes heavy with want. “Do you want to stop, beautiful?” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “I want you inside me.”

  Rowan leapt to his feet and embraced me, his body warm against mine. Our skin – milky white and smoky black – warmed each other as our limbs twisted around together. Rowan’s lips met mine, urgent and yielding, but still so soft, so kind, so different from anything else I’d ever known. His hand stretched out across the table, grabbing his wallet – the surface also dusted with flour, like every other part of him. Inside, he drew out a condom.

  “Corbin gave this to me. I never expected I’d need it,” he said, a laugh in his voice.

  I took it from him and tore it open while he shuffled out of his jeans and boxers, adding them to the pile of clothes on the floor. I stifled a gasp as I took in his body – not because his thin frame more muscled than I expected, but because of the scars that traced over his dark skin. Thick welts across the fronts of his thighs, their surface lighter and slightly raised. Faded splodges that might have been burn marks on his lower torso. It looked like someone had tortured him.

  I traced a line across one of the scars and Rowan shuddered, his eyes filling with pain. “I know I’m ugly,” he whispered. “If you don’t want—”

  “You are not ugly,” I said, grabbing his cock and rolling the condom over the tip, my fingers dancing down his glorious shaft. He was so long the condom wouldn’t even go down the whole way.

  “And you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” Rowan whispered. I fell against him, my legs fitting over him. I held his cock while I got myself into position, then sank down against him. We both moaned as his thickness entered me, sliding in halfway as I closed around him, my body not yet prepared for something so big and thick.

  Rowan kissed my, his tongue seeking mine. His eyes burned into me. I used my heels against the island to rock back, driving him deeper. With each inch I managed to take inside me, the intensity of the sensation grew. So much… so much of him, and all for me.

  With a final thrust, I took in the last inch, my muscles contracting around his length. The slight curve in his shaft touched me in places that had never been touched. The ache built again, just from the sheer excitement of having him completely inside me.

  Rowan’s fingers trailed up my spine, and I gripped his flour-dusted shoulders as I drove up with my feet, sliding up his shaft and then grinding my hips back down against him, pushing him deep inside me.

  Sitting together like this felt so intimate, wrapped up in our own cocoon of bodies. Rowan gripped my ass with his hands and thrust up to meet me each time I came down. We moved slowly, and I felt every shudder of his cock, every inch of it caressing me inside.

  My second orgasm came quickly, a total shock. The pressure rose like a tornado out of nowhere, and consumed me. I slammed down on Rowan’s pelvic bone, tossing my head back as my walls convulsed around his thickness, my own body pulsing with release. Rowan pressed his hand against my stomach, as if he hoped to feed on the ache through my skin.

  Rowan’s mouth fell open in a silent gasp as his body shuddered against mine and his huge cock jerked out his own orgasm. Even with the condom, I’d never felt a guy come with such intensity before.

  We collapsed against each other, gasping aloud as our bodies flooded with warmth. Rowan stroked my back, his fingers leaving tingling trails as his touch set my hairs on end. He nuzzled against my cheek. To my complete surprise, he looked down at our bodies, still pressed together, and burst out laughing.

  “What?” I glanced down. There, across my stomach, was a perfect impression of Rowan’s hand, fingers splayed, rendered in white flour. Like the mark of Saruman on my pale skin.

  I laughed too, wrapping my arms around Rowan and kissing his soft cheek. “Some people just give hickeys.”

  We slid apart, and Rowan disposed of the condom while I pulled on my robe and tied it around my waist. I watched his wiry frame bent over the trash, and the reality of what just happened hit me.

  Two guys.

  I slept with two different guys in the same night.

  I rubbed my eyes, unable to believe that it was real, that I’d really done that. What would Mom and Dad say if they knew? I may not have shared their views on religion, but I’d always thought I was with them about not being a wanton slut. And yet, here I was, standing in the kitchen, where the food was prepared, having just had my fifth orgasm of the day. What would they—

  They can’t say anything, because they’re dead.

  And ther
e it was, the reason. I’m in pieces, every part of me scattered across the cosmos. I am ash and dust and I wish I could put myself back together again but I don’t know how and when I’m with these guys, it feels as though being broken is okay, it’s allowed.

  But it will never bring the Crawfords back. It will never heal me. I’ll never be whole again.

  Rowan straightened up, and he must’ve seen the look on my face, because his own face fell. “Maeve, are you okay?”

  “No, I mean, yes. I mean, I—” My words choked on a sob. My pain reflected in Rowan’s eyes, and I couldn’t bear it. My gaze fell to the scars along his thighs. I can’t do this. I can’t bear his pain as well as mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed, as I turned on my heel and fled for the stairs, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  30

  MAEVE

  Everyone grieves differently, Arthur said. You have to give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get yourself through the pain. And then you have to forgive yourself for all the shit you end up doing.

  Arthur’s grief had driven him to hurt someone. Rowan’s pain had given him the furious need to control. And me? The loss of my pastor father and god-faring housewife mother had driven me into the arms of two of my new housemates.

  In the same night.

  Was that slutty? I had no idea. I didn’t have a moral barometer, but I’m pretty sure it was. I could call Kelly and ask her, and I knew I would soon. But for the moment, my head was too messed up.

  Corbin was still sleeping in my bed, so I padded through the empty great hall and slipped outside into the courtyard. The night air brushed my body, fanning the robe across my bare skin. A thin line of red snaked across the corner of the sky – sunrise was not far away.

  I slumped into one of the overstuffed bean bags, and stared up at the sky, mapping the constellations I recognized. I wondered if I would be able to find a local astronomy club.

  But why? I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. I’m not going to MIT. I won’t be getting into the space program. My parents won’t be watching me graduate with honors.

  Nothing in my life was turning out the way I hoped. Now what was I? A slutty witch living in a castle in a foreign land, trying to protect the world from a fae invasion.

  I laughed as fat tears rolled down my cheeks. This time, I let them fall. The whole thing sounded completely ridiculous. Because it was. I could barely even think about what I’d learned and seen over the last week without wanting to commit myself. Maybe I should?

  I wasn’t sure what I believed any more. I didn’t really think I was a witch, but I couldn’t deny that I’d definitely been feeling the heightened sex drive Corbin had referred to. The fact my pussy still ached from having two different guys inside me spoke to that.

  The fae were real enough, and the portal, too. I’d seen them go inside that sidhe and disappear. They absolutely had stolen two children.

  The dreams… those I couldn’t explain. The memory of what Blake had shown me plagued on my mind – the gaping, horrified faces of my guys, the charred earth, the broken sky, the two empty stakes waiting for their next victims…

  If what Corbin told me was true – if all this was true – and I do nothing, then that vision was our future. Even if all this was some hallucination I invented in my grief, then fighting the fae may help me heal. Either way, Jane needed her son back. There was everything to gain by fighting, and nothing to gain by closing my eyes and pretending this wasn’t happening.

  The red streaks across the sky turned golden in hue, and light crept across the courtyard, bringing clarity to the darkened corners and cracked stones. I wished it would bring the same clarity to my life.

  “Maeve?” A voice called to me from above.

  I glanced up. Corbin’s head hung out of the tiny tower window, the breeze ruffling his dark hair. “You’ve got a text.”

  “Throw it down!” I yelled, leaping to my feet and holding out my hands.

  Corbin flung my phone into the air, and in a display of skill and dexterity I’d never before displayed in gym class I managed to catch it. The screen showed a number I didn’t recognize. I read the text:

  It’s Jane. The police called off the search yesterday. I don’t know what to do, and if I stay in this house a moment longer I’m going to get very brassed off. You said I could come to the castle? I’d probably better wait until the sun has actually come up.

  I texted her back.

  Come anytime you want. I’m awake.

  A moment later, my phone beeped again.

  Good. Expect me in twenty minutes.

  “Maeve, come back to bed,” Corbin called down.

  “Or stop yelling across the courtyard,” Flynn’s head appeared over the side of the second-floor walkway. “Some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep.”

  “An extra hour isn’t gonna help you, mate,” Arthur called down, sticking his head out from the other side. “Hi, Maeve. Why are you up so bloody early?”

  “She was helping me with the bread,” Rowan called up. I whirled around. Rowan stood in the doorway to the great hall, properly dressed now in jeans and a t-shirt, a familiar dusting of flour along his forearms obscuring his intricate tattoos. He glanced at me with a concerned look, but his eyes didn’t linger.

  “Now that we’re all here…” I waved my phone. “Jane’s coming over. The police called off the search for Connor. I told her she could look at our books.”

  “Do I have to put on pants?” Flynn called back.

  “Yes,” the other three guys chorused.

  “It’s really your decision,” I added.

  Flynn huffed. “Fine. But there better be a dram of Irish whiskey waiting with my breakfast for this. The nerve of forcing an Irishman out of bed before noon.” His head disappeared over the rampart. Corbin and I exchanged a look and I burst out laughing.

  And you think this is what took my son?” Jane frowned at the book open in front of her.

  I nodded, smoothing down the page of the yellowed folklore book. Different types of fae were depicted on the page, each one with a description of their traits and whether they were Seelie or Unseelie. “I know it sounds crazy, but I saw them with my own eyes. They took your son through a sidhe – that’s a doorway into their own realm. I tried to stop them, but it didn’t work.”

  Behind me, Corbin clambered down the ladder with another stack of books in his hands. His expression said he thought showing these to Jane was a bad idea, but I admired the fact that he didn’t try to challenge me. Corbin believed so strongly that I was supposed to lead this coven that he was casting aside his years of leadership without a thought. Or maybe it was the fact that no one who saw the bags under Jane’s eyes and the fury etched across her face would be able to withhold anything from her.

  Jane turned the page, peering down at a woodcut of fairies stealing a human child in the night and replacing it with one of their own. Her expression was unreadable. “I’ve seen pictures like these before. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the fae. She believed in all sorts of superstitions.”

  “You had sprigs of rowan at your front door,” Corbin said, kindly. Jane’s face flushed briefly.

  “Yeah, and horseshoes in most all the rooms. Those were my grandmother’s traditions, and I kept them up even though I think they’re naff. According to her, fairies don’t like rowan or iron. It’s actually her cottage I’m living in. She left it to me when she died a couple of years ago, as well as all the furniture and gardens. I had no idea she’d done that until a lawyer came to see me, but it kind of made sense. She and my mother don’t exactly get along. No surprise, because my mother is a cow, but Grandma always had a soft spot for me. I just wish she’d been able to meet Connor…” Jane trailed off. “I’m rambling.”

  “Rowan’s making some of his amazing hot chocolate,” Corbin said. “Nothing seems as bad after a glass of hot chocolate.”

  “Anyone who says that hasn’t had their baby taken by fair
ies,” Jane snapped back, but her eyes were a little warmer.

  Something occurred to me. “There was a horseshoe over Connor’s bed.”

  “Yes,” Jane said. “How did you know that?”

  Guilt flushed my skin as I remembered that I’d been snooping in Jane’s house. Before I could confess, Corbin piped up. “An iron horseshoe should have deterred the fae. Climbing into the room and taking Connor would have been extremely painful to them. So why did they do it?”

  Jane slammed the book shut and dug for the next one. “You guys are the experts. You tell me.”

  “You said they seemed listless,” I remembered. I pulled a book from Corbin’s stack and settled into the corner of the sofa. “That might have been the effect of the iron.”

  “And what was with that pumpkin?” Jane wrinkled her nose. “With the scrawled-on face?”

  “Fae would often leave behind an object that they charmed with glamour to look just like the child,” Corbin said, flipping through another folklore book. “There’s stories from Ireland of mothers realizing their children had been taken only when their baby suddenly turned into a vegetable and by then it was too late. I wonder if you distracted them before they could finish the glamour spell and they decided just to take Connor and run for it.”

  “Why choose Connor, though?” I asked. “Surely there would have been other children without horseshoes who’d be easier to kidnap? Do you think there was a reason they specifically wanted Connor—”

  “That’s them,” Jane said suddenly. She jabbed her finger at an image in Corbin’s book. “That’s the creatures who took Connor.”

  “Spriggens,” Corbin read. “I’ve never seen these guys before. Something as small and delicate would usually not be able to penetrate the doorway between our worlds.”

  “These are Seelie,” I said, pointing to the description. “I guess that confirms it. The Seelie and Unseelie are working together, just like Blake said.”