Cruel Enchantment

by Bast, Anya

  “I heard what the Seelie queen did to you. I think you have been punished for your past. I’ve also been told about the key.” He paused and took a breath, as though summoning courage. “I came here to offer you peace.”

  She blinked. Wow, that was a surprise. “Thank you.”

  “Not friendship, just peace. If the Shadow Queen ever lifts her edict, I still won’t come after you.” He paused, then growled, “But no tea and crumpets.”

  “Okay, I can live with that.” A smile flickered over her mouth. “One less enemy in the Unseelie Court. That leaves . . . what? . . . only, like, a couple hundred left. Awesome.”

  “Two less, apparently,” Kieran replied with a pointed look at her sheet. “You and Aeric have obviously become . . . close.”

  Emmaline’s cheeks heated.

  “Do you want to come in for a drink or something?” Aeric asked him.

  “No. Like I said, I’m ready to offer her peace, not have a drink with her.” He turned away, his eyelids half lowered in an expression of dislike. “Good luck bringing the piece back.”

  “Thank you.”

  He left and Emmaline stood staring at the door. “That was unexpected.”

  Aeric shrugged and walked to her. “No. I knew he’d come to his senses eventually. Kieran is a good man. He loved his brother, but the things Diarmad did back then nearly killed him. He tried to get him to stop. He couldn’t stand feeling the pleasure that Diarmad got out of the murders, having to live through every one as if it was he, himself, committing them.”

  “The psychic link?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when I killed Diarmad, Kieran knew it, felt it. It was like I killed him.”

  “Yes.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “So is that what Kieran meant when he said he’d been punished for his brother’s sins?”

  “Having to experience all of his brother’s kills and his death was definitely punishment, but that’s not what he meant. The family of one of the Seelie Diarmad killed paid to have a curse placed on both the brothers.”

  “What sort of curse?”

  “Since Diarmad showed no love for those he killed, he and Kieran were cursed to never be able to feel it for themselves. If Kieran ever falls in love, he’s destined to die a slow, horrible death and be claimed by the sluagh. Any woman he falls in love with will share his fate.”

  “That’s pretty harsh. Who laid the curse?”

  “Priss. She’s known as the Piefferburg witch now.”

  “The Piefferburg witch? She’s still alive, then. Won’t she lift it?”

  “She says she can’t. Once a curse is created and spelled upon the cursed, that’s that. There’s no reversing it. Kieran is damned.”

  “It’s too bad we can’t talk to Calum.” She looked thoughtful. “Did you know that there are all kinds of fae texts left over in Ireland? The HFF had a hell of a time locating them and then getting them somewhere safe, somewhere the Phaendir couldn’t locate and destroy them.”

  “We figured. It’s not like the Phaendir and their human roundup posses allowed us our sacred books and historical documents. I’m glad to hear they’re safe.”

  “I’m the only fae living outside Piefferburg. There aren’t many of us, but we’re around—the ones who escaped the Great Sweep. Three, including myself, work for the HFF. Calum is the oldest of us and, besides being a jovial drunk, he is the one with the greatest knowledge of the old texts. He spends most of his life examining those books and translating them from Old Maejian. He’s looking for clues about the whereabouts of the third piece even now.”

  “Yes, even though his Old Maejian sucks. Does this have something to do with Kieran the Damned? Because you lost me.”

  “I don’t buy that there’s no way to dissolve the curse. Calum loves stories about the cursed and in every one that Calum ever told me there was some magickal antidote.”

  Aeric grinned. “True love’s first kiss breaks the spell?”

  “Sorry, no. Usually it involves a lot of blood. When I get out of here, maybe I’ll ask Calum about it. I think the Piefferburg witch is holding out on Kieran.”

  “She’s not the kind of woman you push.”

  “No. I know that. I’ve heard the stories. Still, I think there might be a way to untwist the curse. It wouldn’t be easy and it certainly wouldn’t be painless, but I do think it’s possible.”

  “Find a way, do that, and Kieran might just decide he wants to have tea and crumpets with you after all.”

  She grinned. “Maybe I can redeem myself one miracle at a time.”

  He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head. “Count one already.”

  Laying her head against his chest, she closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of his skin, enjoying the heat of his body and the steady thump of his heart. His arms came around her and she wallowed in all that was Aeric. Never in all her life would she have predicted she would share an embrace like this with him, and it was better than anything she’d ever imagined.

  “Is there anything else you want to tell me about the night you accidentally killed Aileen?”

  “What do you mean?” She looked up at him.

  He hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Like the Piefferburg witch, I think you might be holding out. So, anything else you want to tell me, Emmaline?”

  The mood shattered, she turned away from him. She pressed a palm to her eye socket, remembering what Aileen had said: Tell Driscoll I love him. “Do I want to tell you anything more about that night? No, Aeric, I don’t.”

  “So there is something,” he said wonderingly. “It was only a suspicion.”

  “Just leave it alone, please.”

  He turned her to face him and forced her to look up at him. “You cared about me back then, right? Enough to try and cover up the evidence of her affair. Do you care about me now?”

  Tears pricked her eyes. “I don’t sleep with men I don’t care about.”

  “If you care about me, you’ll tell me everything about that night that you can remember, so I can find some closure.”

  “That I can remember? Aeric, I’ve replayed it so many times in my head it’s burned into my brain. And I don’t want to tell you this because I care about you.”

  “Emmaline, tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No. I’m too afraid.”

  “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m making it up, just so I can get closer to you.”

  “I’m done thinking you’re a liar.” He dragged her up against his chest and kissed her breathless. “And, baby, you can’t get any closer to me than you already are.”

  “I’ve sacrificed a lot to protect your memory of Aileen,” she whispered.

  “That false memory almost killed you. You should be wishing it gone forever. Anyway, that memory is already destroyed. Gone. Just like her portrait in my forge.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Aeric.”

  “I already know the truth. Nothing you could tell me would be any worse than what I’ve already heard. I think she was in love with O’Shaughnessy.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. If he already believed Aileen had been in love with him, there wasn’t much point in not telling him the rest. “Okay.” She backed away from him. “I’ll tell you this. After I do, we’ll have no more secrets between us.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  She drew a careful breath. “As Aileen lay dying in my arms, she told me to tell O’Shaughnessy she loved him.”

  Aeric closed his eyes for a long moment, saying nothing. “Ah, there’s closure.”

  “I’m sorry, Aeric.”

  He opened his eyes and shook his head. “Maybe she was with me because we were expected to be together, because our parents had always planned it that way.”

  “O’Shaughnessy was dark, twisted. I don’t understand—”

  “I do. Aileen had a darkness inside he
r, too. I thought I’d helped her banish it.” He gave a rough laugh. “I was so naïve, so . . . arrogant to think I could do that. It was deep inside her, that twistedness. Apparently she found a match in O’Shaughnessy. He gave her what I couldn’t.”

  She went cold with surprise at the implication. After drawing a careful breath, she said, “Then I’m glad you couldn’t give her what she wanted.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up slowly against his body. “But I might have what you want.” His mouth came down on hers.

  Her body warmed and melted at the press of him. His lips eased slowly over hers with a thoroughness that made her think of bare skin, the tangle of limbs, and soft sighs of pleasure. The touch of his lips on hers seemed to drop her IQ, too. That was the only way she could explain the fog her mind settled into.

  He pulled the sheet away from her body and drew her back toward the bed. She couldn’t think of a single reason to protest. His body slid like hard silk along hers, coming down over her and pinning her in place. His jean-clad knee slid between her thighs and his palm skated slowly from her knee to her rear, where he cupped and settled her against him until her bare sex rubbed against his groin.

  Emmaline shuddered with pleasurable anticipation. His hand pressed hers down against the mattress as he hovered over her, kissing her deeply and thoroughly, seeming to promise that was the way he’d make love to her, too.

  He eased a hand between her thighs and stroked her there. Pleasure ignited and caught fire at the touch of his fingers on her and inside her. He petted her clit and watched her expression as she melted into sexual need.

  “Come inside me,” she whispered.

  “Not yet. I love to watch you come,” he murmured. “I love being in total control of myself while I watch you come undone beneath me.”

  That answer, along with the look on his face, nearly did make her come undone.

  He eased a finger deep inside her and then added another, thrusting as steadily and slowly as she wanted his cock. Dropping his head to her breast, he sucked one nipple into his hot mouth and then the other. He knew just how to touch her, where, and how to use just the right amount of pressure to drive her crazy.

  She moaned his name, her back arching as an orgasm played with her body. He stroked her clit just right, raising his head so he could watch her when she shattered. Gripping fistfuls of sheet and blanket, she cried out as the pleasure crashed into her.

  When the waves were ebbing away, he reached down and undid the button and zipper of his jeans. She put her hand over his, rising from the bed and pushing him down onto it.

  “My turn to be in control,” she murmured, freeing his cock.

  Lust flared darkly in his eyes as she lowered her mouth to him. She slid the smooth head between her lips and pushed his length in as far as she could take him. He groaned and his head fell back into the pillows. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

  She nibbled and licked her way up and down him, discovering all the sensitive places that made him groan her name. It made her feel powerful, rendering such a strong man helpless this way. Giving him a sly look, she ran the underside of her tongue over the smooth crown and used the tip to lick the especially responsive place just along the bottom edge. Aeric made a strangled sound and she forced herself not to smile. She was feeling pretty pleased with herself.

  Suddenly she was on her back with him above her. By the time she’d let out a yelp of surprise, it was all over. He hovered over her, his eyes heavy lidded and a predatory expression of sexual need on his face.

  Maybe she hadn’t rendered him as helpless as she’d thought.

  He roughly kneed her thighs apart and settled between them. Positioning her sex against him, he slid the tip of his cock inside her and her breath caught. Inch by slow inch, he eased the rest within. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as he rolled his hips, thrusting slow and easy, over and over. She felt every ridge and vein of him intimately, had never felt so filled—so totally possessed by any man.

  “Baby,” he breathed into the curve of her throat, “fuck, you feel so good. Like hot silk.” He hooked her leg over his hips and braced her against the mattress to drive deep inside her.

  Their gazes collided and held. Being eye to eye while he was buried so deep inside her made the moment intensely intimate. He leaned forward a little and kissed her, the roll of her hips meeting his thrusts in a perfect rhythm. His mouth rubbed slowly over hers, making her shiver. He parted her lips and brushed her tongue with his.

  Taking her wrists in his, he pinned her to the mattress and lowered his mouth to one nipple and then the other, sucking and gently nipping them until she squirmed beneath him. His hips rolled and he thrust faster and harder, making the bed move against the floor. The sound of their bodies coming together and their mingled breathing and soft moans filled the room.

  She shattered, the muscles of her sex milking his pistoning length and forcing his climax. He groaned her name and came deep inside her, his cock jumping several times with the force of it.

  He collapsed on her and then rolled to the side. Pulling her against him, his hands lazily played over her, stroking her breasts and between her thighs. She stretched like a cat and let her hands play, too, roaming over his fine body as though she could gain nourishment from touching him.

  She couldn’t believe she was here in bed with Aeric in postcoital bliss. The last few weeks had been almost too much to comprehend. Few weeks. The key was almost finished. Heaviness invaded her bliss.

  Soon she would be leaving Piefferburg.

  Danu willing, she’d be back to deliver the piece of the bosca fadbh, but then she’d be gone after that task was finished. She would have no opportunity to develop this . . . whatever this was with Aeric. And, anyway, whatever this was was just sex, right?

  She might fall in love with Aeric. Hell, she already was in love with him. She’d never really stopped loving him, not ever. But it was different for Aeric. After all, she’d killed Aileen. Even if it had been an accident; even if Aileen had been cheating on Aeric when it had happened; even if Aileen had been doing the unthinkable at O’Shaughnessy’s side—Emmaline had still killed her. How could he ever get past that?

  There was no chance this relationship with Aeric was going anywhere past the bedroom. She would take what she could get from him, though. If it was just sex, so be it. She would soak up every moment of it and keep the experience locked away in a special part of her heart to be cherished on some cold, lonely night in the future.

  So be it.

  NINETEEN

  HE was falling in love with her.

  Aeric stared across the table at Emmaline, going icy still for a moment at the realization. Out of all the women in the world to fall in love with, did it have to be this one?

  Laughing at something Melia said, Emmaline took a bite of her apple cake. They were having dinner with some of the Unseelie fae in the Black Tower who didn’t want to kill her. When she laughed, which, granted, wasn’t often, she did it with her whole body. With tiny lines creasing the corners of her eyes and unafraid of being heard. He couldn’t even tell that just days ago she’d been recovering from a trauma that would have broken most other people.

  Yes, it had to be this one.

  Aeric had been with many women over his lifetime, though no one could rightly call him a womanizer. When he entered into a relationship with a woman it was because he was interested in all aspects of her, not just because he wanted her for sex. He could count all the one-night stands he’d ever had on one hand. For such a long-lived male fae, it was an abnormally low number. Gabriel would need all the fingers and toes of everyone in the Black Tower to count his.

  Emmaline was by far the most interesting woman he’d ever known. There were still facets of her that seemed mysterious and completely unknowable. He wanted to know them all and, gods, he wanted to make her laugh more often.

  He wanted to take the shadows out of her eyes that en
tered whenever the Summer Queen was mentioned. He wanted to erase the hurt of her childhood, give her her parents back, slay all her dragons. Right now he wanted to get her out of here and spend some time with her alone, listen to the sound of her voice, and maybe eventually feel the slide of his skin against hers.

  Yeah, he never did anything halfway. He never felt anything in a lukewarm way, either. When he hated, he hated. When he wanted revenge, he wanted revenge.

  And when he loved, he loved. He did it with everything he was, throwing himself into it completely.

  It was nice to see her having fun tonight. His friends were being good to her. All in all, he guessed most of the Unseelie who didn’t have a blood score to settle with her would be accepting of her past. After all, the majority of the Unseelie in the Black Tower were able to kill or maim with their magick. They were well acquainted with death and the various ways to cause it. Ultimately, Emmaline probably had more in common with the Unseelie than she did with the people of her birth-right.

  She and Aelfdane cleared the table and Melia brought out coffee. They went to sit in the living room of Aelfdane and Melia’s comfortable apartment to drink it and talk. Bran’s crow settled onto his shoulder and seemed to fall asleep. It was that kind of a get-together—very relaxed.

  “This is such a nice, normal evening.” Emmaline sighed and sank into an armchair. “I can’t remember the last time I had one.”

  “We’re happy to have you here,” answered Gabriel.

  “It’s extra nice none of you want to kill me,” she replied, taking a sip of her drink.

  “Nope, we don’t want to kill you. Just give you dessert and coffee,” said Melia.

  “Yummy coffee, too.”

  Bran stroked the feathers of the crow and glanced at Emmaline. “So, tell us about what it’s like to live among humans.” He’d been remarkably understanding about Aeric stealing his bike off the street in Goblin Town.

  “Humans?” She sipped her coffee, weighing her answer. “They’re complicated. Not much different from the fae.”

  “Less dangerous,” chimed in Aelfdane.

  “They’re plenty dangerous. You don’t need magick to be a menace. After all, look what they did to us.”