Beguiled

by Maureen Child

  “Ifreann take me,” he admitted. “For humans, you’re pretty entertaining.”

  “Aunt Maggie’s not all human anymore,” Eileen reminded him. “And she’s Queen.”

  Bezel’s gaze moved over her paint-stained jeans, green-streaked hair and spattered hands. “Yeah. I’m getting that royal vibe.”

  “And, I’m not all human, either,” Eileen reminded him proudly. “I’m part-Fae, too.”

  Which brought Maggie back once more to thoughts of the grandfather she’d just found out was alive and well and living in Otherworld. When she told Nora about him, her sister was going to want to search for GrandFae and Maggie wasn’t sure that was a good idea. After all, they might not have guessed that he was still around, but she was betting he had known about them. Which made her wonder just why the hell he’d never come around.

  “It’s ready!” Bezel announced, and jumped off his stool, carrying his platter of, Maggie had to admit, great-smelling roast Torkian. So she put off thoughts of her grandfather in favor of a hot meal she hadn’t had to cook herself.

  God knew, there’d be plenty of time later to worry.

  A few hours later, Culhane shifted into Maggie’s bedroom and went perfectly still. Moonlight speared through the window and lay across his sleeping Queen in a silvery caress. Her hair spilled around her head like a dark red halo. Her lashes made soft half circles on her pale cheeks. Her mouth was curved as if she were enjoying her dream, and that made Culhane smile as well.

  Her dreams would soon bring her more enjoyment than she would have thought possible. Three long strides took him to the side of her bed. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress, then reached out with one hand to gently brush a lock of hair from her forehead. She stirred, shifting position, pulling the sheet down from her shoulders. Culhane’s gaze locked on her breasts—full, ripe and hidden from him by nothing more than the sheer fabric of her nightgown. He wanted to lift it from her, bare her skin to his gaze. But that would wake her and he wanted her to sleep deeply. Tipping his head to one side, he quietly studied her and felt a powerful surge of desire grip him. Years he’d waited for her.

  At first, she’d been nothing more than a random prophecy he’d found in an ancient scroll. But he had believed and held on to the promise of her in his darker hours. Then she was a girl. A part-Fae girl who touched his heart when he’d thought it long dead. Finally, she was Maggie, his Queen. She’d defeated Mab, come into the power that had been foretold and now she was, for him, the One.

  The one woman, mortal or Fae, who could bring the mighty Culhane to his knees.

  She sighed in her sleep and he leaned over her, his face just inches from hers. She still had no idea just what she was. How much she was becoming. The moonlight was soft and a breath of wind slipped beneath the partially opened window. It was cold and carried the scent of coming rain. Maggie, unaware of his presence, slept on, lost in her dreams.

  All around him, the house was silent, as if the building itself had taken a breath and held it. She was alone in the house, he knew. He sensed it. Her friend Claire—the woman McCulloch spent too much time lusting after—wasn’t there, though in the last few weeks, she had been spending more time here than not. Maggie’s family was in the house at the back of the yard and even Bezel was tucked away in his tree.

  This moment was theirs. His and Maggie’s. Even if she didn’t realize it. If she wouldn’t allow his touch when she was awake, he would stir her soul, her mind, her body, in her sleep.

  Should he have been ashamed of intruding on her dreams? He wasn’t. He would do what he must to bring her to him. To show her what it would be like when they came together. As it was meant. “You will feel me, Maggie,” he whispered. “Your dream will become reality.”

  Then he laid his hand to the side of her head, closed his eyes, focused, and built her dreams.

  Maggie knew she was dreaming, but still she sighed as Culhane’s hand cupped her breast; then that sigh became a groan when his skillful fingers tugged and pulled gently at her hardened nipple. Her center went hot and wet and needy and she whispered his name, turning into his touch.

  “Culhane . . .”

  “I’m here, Maggie. With you. Always with you.” He bent his head and took first one hard, sensitive nipple into his mouth, and then the other.

  She whimpered, arching into him, in need, needing so much. His hands slid over her skin and in the moonlight, his green eyes glittered silver as he lifted his head to meet her gaze. There was want stamped on his features. A hunger deeper than any she’d seen on his face before. A need so deep, so rich, she quivered at the thought of fulfilling it.

  But this is what she wanted, too. She wanted him inside her. Wanted to forget what had brought them together. What threatened to tear them apart. She wanted only the touch of him. The slide of his skin on hers. The silken glide of his long, black hair against her heated body. The taste of his mouth. The thick, hot length of him, buried deep within her.

  She wanted it all.

  Now.

  “Take me,” she whispered, cupping his face in her palms. “Please, Culhane, take me.”

  “I want nothing more,” he vowed, and slid down along her body, hands exploring, mouth trailing hot, damp kisses on her skin.

  She called out his name again and lifted her hips from the bed, demanding fulfillment, but he ignored that maneuver and instead, tortured her slowly. With more kisses. Each caress was a testament to his strength and her hunger. Her skin flamed, her blood boiled and still she hungered. Still she needed.

  His mouth moved lower, down, over her abdomen, across her thighs, and then to the very heart of her. Maggie felt his breath on her most sensitive flesh and held her own breath while she waited, praying, hoping that he would end the torment and give her what she so desperately needed.

  Then he took her, his mouth closing over her center.

  She jolted, moaned his name aloud and moved into him, lifting herself for him, fisting her hands in the sheets beneath her so that she wouldn’t slide off the edge of the world.

  His lips and tongue worked her, moving over her, in her, tasting, seducing, licking. His breath brushed her skin, his hands cupped her behind, lifting her higher, holding her off the bed, his fingers kneading her flesh even as his mouth took her places she’d never been. Never thought to be.

  Maggie felt as if her whole body were alight, sparkling somehow with an inner brilliance that was spilling through her system, engulfing her, claiming her.

  Then he pulled back, drawing away from her, leaving her body pulsing, humming, screaming for the release that was so close, that even in her dream, Maggie could sense it.

  “No, don’t stop, Culhane. Don’t leave me like this. . . .”

  “Come to me, Maggie,” he whispered, his mouth beside her ear now, his breath sliding across her cheek. “Come to me and I will make you scream my name. Together, we will share pleasures so rich, so deep, neither of us will be whole without the other ever again.”

  “Now,” she pleaded, and hated the whine in her own voice. But she ached for him. And he was already gone. Slipping from her dream as easily as he’d arrived.

  Maggie knew the moment he left her, because she felt a chill and the light within her flickered briefly, then whiffed out. As if a candle had been snuffed. As if a freaking power plant had been hit by a rocket and been completely destroyed.

  “Culhane?” Jolting upright in bed, Maggie pushed her hair out of her eyes and fought for breath. Whipping her head from side to side, she searched the shadows for any sign of Culhane. Had it really been a dream? Or had he actually been in the room, doing those things to her, and it had only been her own brain making her believe in the dream?

  A dream. That was all it was. Which meant, she thought, that now her own body was torturing her.

  “Just perfect,” she muttered, and flopped down again. Staring up at the moonlit ceiling, Maggie waited for dawn, sure she wouldn’t be sleeping any more that night.

&nbs
p; Outside her window, Culhane watched her. And smiled.

  Two days later, Maggie got home late. She’d done five windows, killed a demon who’d sneaked up on her when she was painting Tina’s Knit and Yarn Shop, and then had ended her day with a parking ticket. She was covered in streaks of brightly colored tempera paint, her back ached and she was so hungry she was willing to fight Sheba for a cupful of kibble.

  That’s when her day went from bad to crappy in the blink of an eye.

  “Finally!” Nora flung the door open, reached out to the front porch, grabbed Maggie’s arm and dragged her into the house. Nora let go just as quickly, looked down at the smudges of white paint on her own palm and said, “Jeez, do you not wash the paint off you when you finish a job?”

  Since Maggie was covered in paint and Nora was boasting a tiny smear, she couldn’t work up an apology. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll never believe it,” Nora said. “I even called Madame Star to tell her and she was surprised. She hadn’t seen this coming at all.”

  Since Madame Star was Nora’s favorite psychic and couldn’t “see” her own tush, Maggie wasn’t entirely surprised by this revelation.

  “See what? What’re you talking about and can it wait until I’ve had a shower at least?” Maggie plucked a strand of hair from the side of her face and shifted her gaze to examine it. “I’ve got globs of green paint in my hair, thanks to that stupid demon scaring me, and the paint’s hardening as we speak.”

  “No, this can’t wait.” Nora’s eyes were sparkling and a grin kept tugging at one corner of her mouth. “It’s too exciting. Now come on; he’s in the kitchen.”

  “He? He who?”

  But Maggie didn’t get an answer as Nora headed off at a trot, clearly expecting her sister to follow. Which, of course, Maggie did, albeit more slowly and cautiously. As she got closer to the kitchen, she heard voices rising and falling and then Eileen’s laughter. She could pick out her niece, and Bezel. But there was a new voice in the mix. Male. And despite the hopeful leap of her heart that it might be Culhane, she knew right away it wasn’t. This was a voice she didn’t recognize.

  So Maggie braced herself, just in case a glamoured up demon had infiltrated the house.

  Following Nora into the familiar room, ready for whatever the strange new life she was living might throw at her, Maggie’s gaze swept the scene in an instant. Eileen and then Nora, at the table, laughing as the golden chrysanthemums in the vase on the table swayed and dipped on their own, as if dancing to music only the blossoms could hear. Then there was Bezel, standing off to one side, his long, spidery fingers dug into Sheba’s fur, holding the golden retriever in place as the ancient, ugly pixie stared daggers at the stranger sitting at the table with Maggie’s family.

  The stranger looked about thirty-five. He had dark red hair, shining blue eyes and a wide, laughing mouth. He was waving his fingertips at the flowers, clearly orchestrating their magical dance, but he stopped short when he spotted Maggie. Grinning, he stood up, spread his arms wide as if expecting her to rush into an embrace, which so wasn’t happening, and announced, “There’s my granddaughter. The Queen. Don’t you have a kiss for your grandFae?”

  “Can you believe it, Mags?” Nora asked from her spot at the table. She was watching their grandfather with stars in her eyes and even Eileen looked completely taken with the man. “Our grandfather’s alive.”

  “And making flowers dance. BFD,” Bezel muttered.

  The stranger ignored that remark and winked at Maggie. “Of course I’m alive. Immortal, remember?”

  “He just showed up,” Bezel muttered. “Shifted in out of nowhere.”

  Maggie nodded, but couldn’t look away from the Fae in front of her. She hadn’t had a chance yet to tell Nora about their grandfather. Every time she’d tried to in the last couple of days, Nora had been sick to her stomach or had been arguing with Quinn over some damn thing or other, so she’d put it off. Thinking she had time. After all, it wasn’t as if good ol’ gramps had bothered to check in at all over the years. She hadn’t considered the possibility of him showing up now.

  Although clearly she should have.

  Silence stretched out in the kitchen until it was almost a live thing, pulsing out around them. As if everyone in the room were holding their breath, waiting to see Maggie’s reaction.

  Well, hell. She didn’t know what to think.

  There he stood. The guy who seduced Gran so long ago in Ireland. This was the Fae who’d started their line, then never once in all these years bothered to stop by to see if they were alive. This was the guy who’d made it possible for her to be the freaking Queen.

  Maggie was in no mood to thank him for that.

  “You knew.” Nora’s voice suddenly sliced through the quiet. The scrape of her chair legs against the wood floor sounded like a scream. “You knew we still had a grandfather and you didn’t tell me.”

  Maggie kept her gaze fixed on the newcomer, but said, “I meant to.”

  “Great,” Nora snapped. “You meant to tell me about Jasic—”

  “Jasic?”

  He bowed slightly.

  “And Quinn meant to tell me that he deliberately gave me a boy baby so he could raise him to be a warrior. But nobody actually tells me anything.”

  Finally, Maggie turned a quick look on her sister. “A warrior baby?” she asked, her mind instantly filling with the image of a sword-wielding baby sliding from the womb, then shook her head. Not the time. “I’m sorry, okay? I did mean to tell you. Culhane only told me a few days ago, but—”

  “Ah yes, Culhane the Mighty,” Jasic whispered.

  Maggie’s head whipped around and she pinned him with a hard look. “You know him?”

  “I know of him,” Jasic said, examining his fingernails as if trying to read a foreign language. “We don’t mix in the same circles.”

  Bezel snorted.

  Jasic’s lip curled at the sound.

  “You should have told me, Maggie,” Nora said, more quietly now. “He’s family.”

  More than temper, there was hurt in Nora’s voice and Maggie cringed to hear it.

  “I’m sorry, Nor. Really. But”—she looked at her grandFae again—“why are you here?”

  “To meet my family, of course,” he said, waving both arms expansively. “I would have come sooner, but I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Sooner,” Maggie repeated, and thought to herself, You’ve had more than thirty years to drop by. Why now? And all of a sudden intruding was okay? What had changed? What had motivated this surprise visit? Why was she so suspicious of a Fae she’d never seen before?

  “Of course,” he told her, moving out from the table to walk across the room toward her. His smile was wide and bright, his eyes shining with sincerity and his arms were open, still inviting an embrace she hadn’t given him.

  “You’re the Queen now, Maggie,” he soothed, his voice nearly musical. “I didn’t want to be in the way. I thought to wait until you had settled in before . . . reac quainting myself with my loved ones.”

  Loved ones. Maggie shot a look at Bezel and saw the pixie’s eyes roll so far back in his head, they practically disappeared. She knew just how he felt. Jasic was smooth and charming and handsome, and Maggie didn’t feel a thing toward him.

  Should she, though? Weren’t feelings for family grown and nurtured? Should you really be able to meet a stranger, think, “Oh, he’s my grandfather,” and turn on the affection? She didn’t think so.

  “Isn’t that wonderful?” Nora said, sniffling a little as she wiped away a stray tear. “So thoughtful. Putting you first, Mags. He’s been so brave. And so lonely.”

  Jasic’s features slid easily into a sorrowful expression as he wrapped Maggie in a hug she didn’t feel completely comfortable with.

  While he held her, Nora kept talking. “He didn’t come back before, because he didn’t want to upset Gran and Grandpa’s marriage. And then when they were gone, he saw that we were fine, so he
didn’t want to upset us.”

  “A real giver,” Bezel muttered.

  Again, Maggie had to agree, but couldn’t really say so, since her face was currently buried in her grandFae’s shirtfront. She and Nora hadn’t been fine, after all. Nora had been married to a bona fide creep and Maggie had been struggling with her own sense of loneliness. No family nearby until Nora had divorced and moved home. If Jasic had shown up then, she might have welcomed him as he so clearly expected to be now.

  But things were different these days. She had more company than she knew what to do with and a grandFae showing up out of nowhere was really more trouble than blessing.

  Boy, she wished her best friend, Claire, were around. A psychic and a witch, Claire might have been able to get a vision telling Maggie exactly what Jasic wanted. But was there ever a witch around when you needed one? No. So she’d have to handle this situation on her own.

  Jasic patted Maggie’s back as she tried to pull free.

  “He came now,” Nora was saying as she walked to join them, “because he wants to know us. To be part of our family. He’s tired of being alone, Maggie.”

  Jasic lifted one arm to draw Nora close, too. He held them both as Nora finished.

  “He thinks Gran would have wanted him to be with us.”

  Maybe, but they’d never know for sure, would they? Maggie managed to squirm free and then stepped away from the group hug before Nora could start singing “Kum ba yah” or something. Maggie idly wondered whether she would have been this cynical a few weeks ago, then assured herself that yes, she would have been. Why was Jasic tired of being alone now?

  Could it possibly be because his granddaughter was the Queen? Maybe he had hopes for a nice retirement or whatever in the palace? A quiet, more reasonable voice in her head asked, did it matter? Would it kill her to be nice? To help him out? No, she told herself, it wouldn’t. But she couldn’t help wondering why GrandFae was all of a sudden so lonesome for family.