A Total-E-Bound Publication
www.total-e-bound.com
Moonlit Ménage
ISBN # 978-0-85715-187-2
©Copyright Bronwyn Green 2010
Cover Art by Natalie Winters ©Copyright July 2010
Edited by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2010 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way
, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom
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Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.
Sultry Solstice
Celtic Fire
MOONLIT MÉNAGE
Bronwyn Green
Dedication
So many people to thank and I have no clue where to begin…typical.
To Jess and Charlotte for joining me on this particular trip through the labyrinth and for bringing your faeries out to play, too.
To Kris who cheered and whined and threatened to send me itty bitty faerie bits in the mail until the story was finished.
To Chris who kept me sane by making me laugh even when I wanted to cry.
To Chel and Kel who make me smile every day.
To Claire who gave me the chance in the first place.
I heart you all.
Chapter One
The softly babbling river behind Brontë Matthews and the breeze dancing through the leaves provided accompaniment to the haunting melody spilling from her fingertips. It pulled at her, drawing her into a swiftly moving current of emotion. Unease and pleasure swirled together, flowing through her as rapidly as the water. It was as if the music wove a spell, drawing out her hidden feelings for the two men in front of her—desire, confusion, longing, lust. The song echoed her every emotion.
Closing her eyes, she tried to grasp the next, elusive phrase from her memory as her bow danced across her viola. In her mind’s eye, she could see the cascading notes, scrawled across her composition notebook, but they vanished into a smudge of ink. Frustrated and unable to recall the phrase, she repeated the previous line and lifted her bow from the quivering strings. The last note hung suspended, trembling in the still morning air.
“Where did you hear that?” Quillen Davies demanded.
Brontë slowly lowered her instrument to her lap as his voice slashed through the tranquillity of the moment.
“What do you mean?” she asked, studying his face. His normally relaxed demeanour had vanished, and horror replaced the laughter always apparent in his eyes. She looked to his friend, Tarran Ashe. Though he was usually the more taciturn of the two men, he looked as upset as Quill. She frowned. What the hell was their problem?
Quillen bent his head closer to hers. “I mean, where did you hear it, cariad?” Worry increased his accent’s musical lilt, contrasting sharply with the husky timbre of his voice.
He watched her through the black fall of silky hair that partially obscured his deep green eyes. Darker than the lush foliage around them, they seemed to hide a wealth of secrets. Strange how she’d never noticed that before. Shaking his hair from his face, he scowled—his sculpted lips turning downward. In the month she’d known him, she’d never seen him so much as frown. Now, he practically glowered at her.
She glanced at the other man. Tarran’s pale grey eyes were narrowed as he glared at her, too. Of course, that wasn’t much different than his usual expression, but there was something pinched—something that looked off somehow.
Apprehension and confusion gnawed at her.
The river gurgled pleasantly in the background, but a chill she couldn’t shake settled over her skin like a damp, cloying shroud. The trees of the Gwydyr forest seemed to crowd closer as if listening to them. What had started out as a peaceful morning had quickly become ominous and unsettling. For the first time since arriving in Wales a month ago, she felt like an outsider—an interloper. She was supposed be here working on her graduate degree at the Bren Gwyrdd Music Conservatory. In fact, she hoped to complete this song as one of the requirements of her composition class. But the way Quill and Tarran acted, she was beginning to feel like she’d committed a crime.
How was she supposed to explain that the song had come to her in a series of dreams? Who would believe it? Each night, she dreamt a little more of the melody. The sounds were so vivid, they’d wake her from a sound sleep until she was forced to scribble down the tune, lest it vanish from her mind forever. It was true that the subconscious mind was capable of amazing things, but composing entire songs? Not entire songs, she corrected herself. She still didn’t have the ending.
Tarran reached out and took her hand, enveloping it in his much larger one. “We’re not trying to scare you, love.” His usual, deep, smooth tone was clipped and sharp sounding.
“No? Well, you’re doing a pretty good job. What’s going on? What’s the problem with the song?”
Seeming slightly more relaxed, Quill shoved his hand through his hair and met her gaze. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course it is,” she said with a sigh. She glanced around the sunny spot she’d fallen in love with. She’d visited this stretch of land nearly every day since arriving on the campus. The menacing sensation started to fade somewhat, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, or perhaps the forest itself, watched her.
A slight movement beyond Quill drew her attention. For a moment, the trees seemed to loom larger behind him, becoming darker and menacing. Her gaze skittered away from him to the black, glossy eyes she was sure were watching her from the brambles. She squinted, and just as quickly, the ominous air of the Gwydyr Forest vanished, and what she’d thought were eyes were nothing more than knots in a gnarled, old tree. She shook her head, clearing the remnants of her altered vision.
“Well?” she asked, when neither man seemed motivated to explain.
Both men exchanged a weighted look. If she believed such a thing were possible, she’d suspect them of communicating telepathically. Who knew? Maybe they could. They had an odd friendship at best. They spent more time bickering than anyone she’d ever met, and there always seemed to be an undercurrent of tension and deeper meaning beneath the surface of their words. But there was something else—respect and loyalty and an almost brotherly fondness.
The men were so different, but they both evoked the same longing and desire within her. They both called to the needy, wild part of her she’d had no idea existed. She’d experienced desire, but this was unlike anything she’d ever encountered. This was primal and raw, and she felt it for both men. It was insistent, plaguing her whenever she was with them, haunting her when she wasn’t. What was wrong with her that she wanted them both with a need that bordered on desperation? She did her best to ignore the yearning as she had been for the last month.
Tarran traced patterns on the palm of her hand with his thumb as the silence stretched out betwe
en them. A shiver worked through her despite the warmth of the day, and for a moment, she forgot she was still waiting for an answer.
Shaking off the fog that had descended, she pulled her hand from Tarran’s grasp. “Okay, enough avoidance. What’s with the song?”
The men exchanged another look. Finally, Quill’s eyes brightened. “Do you have any songs in the States that are considered universally offensive?”
“Pretty much everything on the scream-o music scene.”
He nodded. “There you go then.”
She frowned. “So you’re comparing this song to scream-o death metal?”
“When you put it like that…”
“Yes,” Tarran interjected. “Yes, we are. Never play it again.”
“You guys can’t be serious. There’s nothing wrong with this song—well, other than the fact that it doesn’t have an ending.” She frowned, disappointment sharp. “And apparently the fact that I didn’t actually write it since you both seem to know it.”
“It’s an ancient tune.” He paused for a moment before continuing brightly. “Think of it as an ancestral song that no one wants to hear. Ever.”
“So playing this song is equivalent to committing some grievous insult to the entire nation?”
Quillen nodded. “Right.”
“You two are full of crap.”
“Please, Brontë. You need to believe us.” He frowned slightly. “You never did tell us where you’d heard it,” he reminded her.
She sighed and laid her instrument in its case. “It’s going to sound crazy. Well maybe not as crazy as pissing off an entire nation via a simple song.” She rolled her eyes, but continued. “I’ve been dreaming it.”
Both men froze, staring at her as if she’d announced she was about to give birth to Satan’s two-headed love child.
“You heard it playing while you were sleeping?” Quill asked hopefully.
“No. I mean, snippets of the song come to me in these bizarre dreams. Sometimes the dreams are normal like flying or falling and I hear bits and pieces of the melody. Other times, I’m surrounded by these odd creatures who are dancing wildly in the forest, urging me to play faster. It’s all very odd.”
“I’ll say,” Tarran muttered, shooting a sidelong glance at Quill. “That’s very odd. Perhaps it’s your subconscious warning you not to play it.”
“Enough already,” she snapped. “You’ve got to know I don’t believe a word you’ve said, so why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
Quill tilted towards her. “Please, Brontë. It’s really complicated. We need you to just trust us. Please.”
She glanced at Tarran from the corner of her eye. He nodded solemnly.
Something was really off here. The guys, who rarely agreed on anything, were clearly of the same mind on this lunatic topic. It was ridiculous. At first, she’d thought they were joking, but they were serious. Worry practically vibrated off them in waves. And she was positive they weren’t telling her the truth. Packing up her instrument and telling the guys she’d see them later, she left to go to class. None of this made any sense at all. Perhaps she should give her sister, Emerson, a call. She was a psychologist working in a psychiatric ward. Maybe she’d know what to do with these two.
Quill watched as Brontë disappeared down the light-dappled path that headed back towards the campus. At least in the daylight she’d be safe to wander the woods, and after dark, he hoped she’d stay locked in her living quarters. He continued to stare after her. The sun created a nimbus of her shoulder-length red hair and her pale skin practically glowed, begging for his touch. His fingers itched to caress her bare legs beneath the hem of her skirt. “She doesn’t believe us,” he muttered.
“Got all that from that clusterfuck of a conversation, did you?” Tarran rolled his eyes.
“Well, it’s not like we can tell her the truth.” He sighed and laid back on the sun-warmed grass.
“None of this would even be an issue if you’d come back to court already.”
“I’m aware,” Quill snapped. “In fact, it would be even less of an issue if I’d never left in the first place, right?”
“Your words. Not mine.”
“I’ve heard you think them often enough.”
“Why? That’s what I want to know more than anything. What is your fascination with the humans?” Quill opened his mouth, but Tarran held up his hand, momentarily stalling his answer. “I understand your attraction to Brontë. She’s different than the others, but I just don’t get what you see in the rest of them.”
Quill opened his mouth again, but Tarran was nowhere near done.
“Seriously—they’re destroying the planet, polluting earth, sky and water, killing or mutating natural life everywhere.”
Quill sighed. He’d heard it all before. “Finished?”
“Not remotely.” Tarran barely took a breath before starting in again. “They haven’t a care for anything save their own petty needs.”
“And the Sidhe are so different?” Quill bit out. “Seelie…Unseelie…self-centred narcissists, the whole lot of them.”
“Don’t forget, you’re every bit as fey as the rest of us, and sooner or later, you need to return. Time is running out. The Solstice is almost upon us.”
Quill closed his eyes and let the sun beat down on him. Slowing his breathing, he tuned into the quiet rhythmic pulse of the earth beneath him. The insistent thrumming repeated Tarran’s message. Time was short. He was needed in his own realm. If he didn’t return for the coronation, chaos would ensue. Both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts needed their rulers to maintain any semblance of order. He had no desire to go back, to be yoked by the crown. Worst of all, the crowning required a sacrifice. A human sacrifice. And he was pretty sure he knew whom the faeries had chosen.
Reading his mind, Tarran asked, “You know where this is all leading, right?” Quill glanced at the other man who stared off in the direction Brontë had taken.
“I won’t let it happen.”
“What?”
Quill sat up and glared at his sometime friend. “The Sidhe can take me, crown me, use me, but I won’t let them have her.”
Tarran’s head whipped around. “You don’t have a choice. You can’t stop it.”
“Watch me.”
Without another word, Quill vanished, materialising in a deeper, older part of the forest—the sacred grove where he and Tarran would be crowned. The place where the High Courts would gather to sacrifice the human whose blood would bind their reign.
He shoved his hand through his hair in frustration, shaking off his human glamour and reclaiming his natural form. The sense of peace he normally experienced in the grove was absent. Thoughts of Brontë consumed him. There had to be a way to avoid the bloodshed. The thought of her life running in crimson rivers to soak the earth sickened him. He understood the necessity behind sacrifice. The blood of the human bound them to their thrones and their thrones to the earth. While he’d never liked the ritual, he’d never actively fought it. That was about to change. One way or another, he’d find a way around it. He wouldn’t accept the crown with her blood on his hands.
He honestly didn’t know what it was that drew him to her. Over the centuries, he’d had plenty of mortal women, hundreds of them, if truth be told, but none had ever held his interest the way Brontë did.
She was lovely, but it was more than that. The worlds, both human and faery, were filled with women far more beautiful than she, but she drew him like no other. Fiery, red curls framed her pale face. Intelligence and humour sparkled in her wide, blue-green eyes and her soft, full lips begged to be tasted. Unlike the lithe fae, she was short with ample hips and full breasts. He ached to lose himself in her lush body, to watch his cock disappear between her damp lips, to feel the wet grasp of her pussy as he pounded into her. Her breath rasping softly in his ear as she urged him to take her faster and harder. Blood surged to his cock, and he absently stroked it, wishing it was her hand caressing his length.
Sighing, he pushed away the image of Brontë, naked and willing. No amount of flirting had drawn her to his bed. He could tell she was interested, but she held herself back. He could compel her, using spellwork and other glamours, as Tarran had pointed out time and time again. Perhaps he was being foolish, but he wanted her to come to him on her own. Of course, time for that was running out. Once he was crowned, he wouldn’t be able to visit the mortal world nearly as often as he did now. By the time he was able to cross the veil again, she may have already left the country to return home. After all, time passed differently—unpredictably in Faery.
His heart clutched in his chest at the thought of never seeing her again. Though the other man hadn’t admitted as much, he suspected Tarran felt the same way. Quill had seen the hunger in his friend’s gaze. Brontë may have brushed aside his interest as teasing, but he was sure the other man was as serious as he was.
When was the last time they’d taken a woman together? It had been at least a century. He couldn’t even remember what she’d looked like. In his mind, Brontë’s face superimposed itself over their former lover as he imagined her taking both men at once. He pictured sliding in and out her needy body in tandem with Tarran, her gasping cries echoing in his ears. His erection throbbed, and he sighed. Of course, he couldn’t imagine her agreeing to a threesome. Not even in his wildest dreams. He preferred his women experienced, or at least, adventurous—not innocent and wholesome like Brontë.
Despite his preferences, he wanted her. Badly. He closed his eyes remembering the way she gave herself to the music—letting it absorb her until she’d become part of the melody, her breath and heartbeat the harmony, her body bending and moving with the rhythm. A trait far more Sidhe than human. But she wasn’t Sidhe, and that was the problem.
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