by Lexi Ostrow
Those hopes had been squashed the minute Ciara Miller didn’t do the damnedest thing to stir his sexual appetite. She had been the strongest he’d encountered in over a thousand years. There wasn’t likely to be another with her power before the war, assuming the war ever actually came into fruition.
However, this woman, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to kiss her. To lace his hands through her dark brown curls and suckle her plump lips between his teeth before kissing her until they were both completely sated.
“Hayley, are you nearly finished? We need that sample.”
A voice broke the hypnotized gaze they shared as she jerked her head to the door. His eyes followed hers, even as a small growl of annoyance slipped out.
“Sorry, not quite, I felt something, like someone was watching me.”
The other person remained outside his view, but he heard them snort. “Big brother is always watching. Those damned cameras are an ethical nightmare.”
Hayley, her name seemed suitable as he said it in his mind, smiled and felt it like a punch to the abdomen.
“I’ll get right back to it.”
She didn’t waste any time and didn’t bother to look back in his direction either. So either she hadn’t truly seen him, or she was going to pretend as if she hadn’t. Either way, he was going to find out who she was and why a broken viewing window had led him to her, to someone completely not a part of his war.
He didn’t close the window as he tugged at his coat. His eyes didn’t leave her until he turned to focus on a doorway to his brother. They had a conversation to have, no matter how much he would rather be watching Hayley. He had a Word Speaker to save, and if Huracan hadn’t already punished him for interfering, he just might do the job himself.
Chapter Ten
Eldan could feel the man who’d approached Breena in the forest, even though he couldn’t see him.
“I am King of the Unseelie court. Magic flows through my veins, and I can sense you. I can feel your evil, and I can feel you in my bedroom. Show yourself.” his voice boomed with the command, even though he shook in fear of what the man could do.
Then he was suddenly in front of him. He looked exactly as Eldan remembered him from the weeks prior. His black hair hung to the center of his face but was slicked back with something almost oily looking. The sharp whiteness of his shirt contrasted with the worn black leather of his jacket, and the look of pure evil radiated out of the most unearthly silver eyes he had ever seen. Eyes that suddenly flicked to a golden color as a smile curved on his lips.
“Well, I do so love it when you all think you’re not afraid of me. I’m in a fairly good mood though, so I see no reason to prove to you why the subtle knocking in your knees should really be you trembling in fear.”
He sat down at the desk chair, and Eldan felt a spike of fury at the idea of another sitting in his throne.
“I fear no human. I am a sprite, I am capable of magic and battle the likes of which humans have never seen. What are you doing in my room?”
The man sighed. “Blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I had thought this could be much less messy,” he sounded exasperated.
Eldan watched him flick his hand and suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe. His hands clawed at his throat, and the smile on the man’s face grew even wickeder.
“You have approximately forty-one seconds before you suffocate. Forty, thirty-nine, thirty-eight…”
Eldan felt his eyes bug out as the man’s counting kept lowering. He could feel his chest burning with the need to suck in air, but he couldn’t make his body obey the command to breathe. Then, suddenly, he could again. He dropped to the floor at the shock and sucked in air, over and over again. He hardly felt the man walk up and stand over him as he groveled on the floor.
“Do I have your attention now?”
Eldan slowly nodded his head and saw a hand in front of his face, offering to help him up. Indecision ate at him, but he feared the consequences of what would happen if he didn’t accept the help.
“Fantastic. Now, your daughter has been the most efficient little helper. She’s quite the beauty, and it seems to have done the trick.”
Rage rushed through his veins at the mention of his daughter. She had returned home, and he’d ordered her back, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with another being in charge of her the way he was.
“Leave my daughter out of this. I heard your bargain. She’s already fighting in a war. This one. For her family.”
“Yes, well, she can help you in your little war all she wants. In fact, she and Dale can help you win it for all I care, so long as she’s ready when the time comes for the war she’s agreed to fight for me.”
The fact that he might know about his plans to use Dale frightened Eldan. If Dale was so important to him, and he could seemingly come and go as he pleased, then stealing the Word Speaker for his own use could get them all killed.
“I can see the wheels turning in your little sprite head. Yes, Dale can absolutely be an asset in your war. Fuck, use the little shit as much as you like. He’s been a pain in my backside the past few weeks. I simply need him in one piece when I come calling.”
Eldan’s face scrunched in confusion. It seemed almost too good to be true. “There is no catch to this arrangement? You will simply let me,” he paused to search for the proper word, “borrow your greatest warrior?”
The ice-cold smile slid back over the man’s lips, and Eldan shivered as if the cold permeated the room.
“Yes, you may borrow Dale, so long as your daughter pulls through. Should she not, well, she knows the consequences, but perhaps I could share my plan with you.”
Eldan shivered again, not understanding how many times the man must have interacted with Breena. “If it involves my daughter, it involves my family’s war. What has she bargained for?”
“Oh, for nothing. She didn’t even think to ask. However, should she not possess the tools to bring Dale to my side, I told her that I would allow you to help. You see, while Breena is the only one Dale can connect with, she is certainly not the only one who can enter his world now. I’ll leave you with that small thought. But be warned, Eldan, King of the Unseelie, if your daughter fails to do what I want, there is the chance that she will never come home to you again.”
The words echoed in his mind as the man opened a distortion in the room and stepped through. Eldan could feel the warmth returning to the room, and he hadn’t even been certain the man had been making it colder—sprites detested the cold.
He didn’t like the threat to his daughter’s life, although the other statement caused a smile of his own to slide into place. Dale was going to join the Unseelie court, even if Breena couldn’t do it.
Eldan turned and looked into the mirror across the room. Joy was mixing with cruelty at the thoughts spinning in his mind. “My little Breena has quite a lot riding on her shoulders. For both wars,” Eldan said to only his reflection.
Chapter Eleven
Breena watched in fascination as the spray of water from the faucet slowly arched out of the sink and slammed into the floor with enough force that when Dale diverted it, the carpet was pulling up.
“And that came from your mermaid Guardian, the one before me?”
Dale’s eyes darkened, and she swore she heard a small growl.
“Her name was Nessa, and as much as I feel for you, Breena, if I thought you could lead me back to her, I wouldn’t hesitate to use you. She was the lightness that pulled me from the hollows of myself. I need her.”
The words slammed into her as if he’d somehow swung a thick tree trunk into her body. Pain etched its way over her, and she frowned. They’d agreed she needed a full run down on what he could and couldn’t do, so that they could best work together should another attack occur. Earlier that morning five guards from the Seelie court had come through, and she had somehow been their goal, not Dale. He’d dispatched them quickly, without killing a single one. One minute the doorway had
been shimmering in the room. In the next, he’d sent them all stumbling backward after manipulating the ground, and suddenly, the door had closed.
She’d asked him how they’d known they could come through, and he shrugged, saying he didn’t know how the other side of the fence worked and to stop asking him questions he couldn’t answer.
“You do realize that you contradict yourself every time you speak? Does that come from the immense knowledge you claim you have inside your head?”
She heard him suck in air through his nose, but rather than shout at her, he sighed.
“Breena, you have to understand how difficult this is for me. For years, I could’ve cared less about the war I’m destined to fight in. I even had a foolproof way out, should it begin. When Nessa came to me, well, it was like I could finally see the hurt I was putting out into the world. Then when Ciara and I met, it was impossible to remain who I was.”
She narrowed her eyes on him and nodded. “And I am who you were.” The words were not a question. They were of the same ilk. They’d grown up doing whatever was needed to please their parents. Only he’d grown up dark and tormented, and she’d grown up amidst a war. And war did things to people that there were no excuses for, but also no running from.
“Exactly,” his word was low, barely audible over the background music coming from what he’d called a computer.
“But you do not deny that you feel something for me, that you want me.” It wasn’t a question.
She leaned forward, and the action pushed the chairs they were sitting in slightly closer together.
“No, Breena. I won’t deny that. You’re everything I found attractive in the world— brains, sensuality, beautiful, and deadly. Things would be so different if it had just been a few months ago. So different.”
There was a promise in his words, and a small spark of desire blossomed in her. Being around him had been easier since they’d begun to give into the sexual ties in their bond, but the more time she spent with him, the more she was learning that sex wasn’t all that was between them. They had a shared past, in a sense, and a shared purpose, to fight in a war that they were born into and did not choose. Regardless of what they wanted, they fit together in a way that she couldn’t ignore, and sooner or later, he wouldn’t be able too.
“The sun is going down.”
“Perceptive, Breena. A change in topic when I bring up something that makes you uncomfortable speaks volumes on how you see yourself.”
She flushed at his words. “I am everything you see in me, but those things make me as undesirable to you as they do desirable. Considering I find myself more and more in…love with the idea of you, well, you can understand why I’d prefer to move the conversation on a different track. I’m here to show you what I can offer as your Guardian, nothing more until you accept me.”
She was lying to herself. If he told her to strip down and straddle him, she would do so in the blink of an eye. He didn’t need to know that though.
Dale said nothing in regards to her comment, just gave a clipped nod of his head. “And with it being near sunset, I know where you’re going with this. So my first question, can you make people fall asleep?”
Breena shook her head. “No, there are fairies that can do so, but a sprite is unable to do much of anything in regards to manipulation of the mind.” She kept talking before he could ask the obvious. “What I do occurs during an altered state of mind. I play with energy patterns and create sensations that draw the energy away from the person. I’m not actually changing their dreams. They see what they see, with or without me digging around in their mind.”
He nodded, his lips pursed, and she could tell he found the idea appalling, even after she had explained how much less violent death in that form was than when she cut someone’s throat.
“Just how are you going to show me this? Your powers shouldn’t work on anyone from my world—not yet. That’s the way this works. Your invisible, your powers are invisible. Fuck, my powers are invisible. I’m not understanding how you’re going to show me anything.”
She took a deep breath and forced the words out that she’d been waiting to ask him. “Come home with me.”
“Excuse me?” Dale immediately pulled so far back that the chair jerked slightly on the carpet.
The repulsion on his face hurt, and she slammed her fingertips into her thighs, using the pain to distract her. “You said the powers you received from Ciara allow you to walk in the worlds you read, come into mine. Just for the evening. Just so I may show you this on an Unseelie resident. Someone whom I’ve taken energy from numerous times. You may think the process all evil, but it does wonders for head pains.” She gave a wistful smile, trying to appear as innocent as she could.
She wasn’t lying. She did ease head pains with dream energy draining. The lie was that it would be quick. She had feelings of some sort for Dale, and the idea of trapping him in her world, so that her father might convince him to fight in yet another war, left her queasy. If it backfired, he could hate her forever. If it succeeded, he may still hate her when the oncoming storm lifted, and he was the man he was running from being.
They said nothing. He didn’t even look at her as he thought about the request. When he finally lifted his head, he spoke. His jaw was sternly set, and his eyes showed no sign of emotion whatsoever as he answered her.
“Just for one night, just long enough for me to see how the power you wield will help me if I am convinced we should be paired together. You have no concept of the stress this decision holds, Breena. My choice means not only my life or death but what side of the war my powers belong to if you’re lying to me about who you truly are, beyond what I’ve read.”
She felt her heart breaking just a little and was shocked it could, shocked she had such emotions toward Dale. She didn’t want to be chosen based on a lie. However, if she didn’t convince him to choose her, Leather Jacket would use her family to do the job. Moreover, if she didn’t bring him home to her father, there was no telling what might happen. Like Dale, her father was an elementalist, one of only nine living in either court.
The distraction of Dale opening a doorway took her immediately by surprise. She hadn’t realized he was going to do it so quickly. It was strange to watch it happen. The space distorted and swirled about before a room came into view—Megara’s room. She growled low at the idea of the room he had chosen.
“Leave it, Breena. I can only open the doorway to some place I can remember strongly. I was focusing on your sister’s room as I read, it resonates strongest in my memory.”
Breena still bristled at the idea but didn’t say anything else. When he finished, the space shimmered and swirled just enough to make it look as if they weren’t looking through a pane of glass.
Dale stood up out of the chair. “My recommendation is we get over there while her room appears empty. I have no idea how many of you know about me and the secret of your world, but I’d rather not find out right now. After you, my princess.”
She blew a raspberry at him and stood up from the chair. Her sister’s room was a mirror image of her own, and it still pained her that he couldn’t remember that. If her life was just the story she knew, she remembered just sitting in her room more than once, the description should have been just as strong for him.
Stepping through felt as pointless as all the other times, and she wondered why there wasn’t something more, well, cosmic feeling about it. Dale’s hand pressed into her lower back before she could bring it up, and a spark traveled through her.
“Dale,” her voice was full of lust from just the one gentle touch. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to put your hand on me right now.”
Slowly, he spun her around to face him. His glasses were perched slightly off center on his nose, and she straightened them as he looked down at her. His lips were slightly parted, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her nose.
“Dale,” she said his name again, her mouth feeling much drier.
>
“Breena.”
Her name wasn’t a question, it was a barely choked out statement before his mouth crushed down on hers. She felt her body go to pieces as his mouth explored hers perfectly, and his tongue slipped inside to deepen their kiss. Her hands wound around his neck, and she pulled herself up onto her tiptoes to press their lips together more. Her body was on fire, and she couldn’t help but pray that it would always be like that, every time they touched, because she couldn’t imagine it being any other way.
When Dale finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard. Their shallow, rapid breaths were loud in the quiet of Megara’s empty room. His chest rose sharply with the intake of each breath, and she was mesmerized watching it. There was so much power hiding underneath his lanky form, and watching his muscles rise and fall with such intensity after sleeping with him was exhilarating.
She hadn’t realized he’d gripped her shoulders until he let them go.
“I’m sorry, Breena. It just gets harder and harder not to do that. To not want to do that.”
She flushed. “I liked it, Dale. But I want you to like it too.” The insecurity in her voice annoyed her, but she pushed it away. There was something so open and delicate about the moment, she didn’t want anything to destroy it.
Dale gave a hoarse laugh and kissed her briefly. “Trust me, Breena, liking it is simply not a problem.” He laced his fingers through hers as he took her hand, and the smile that passed between them was warm, genuine. “Come on, then. Let’s go hide out in your room until you can show me this.”