by Chant, Zoe
“Please.” He strained against his bonds, with his full strength, but they held fast. “Please-!”
He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for. To touch her, to worship her, to bury himself in her body…he just needed, with his whole being, his whole soul.
She smiled at him, like a goddess, amused and glorious and maddeningly untouchable. Silk brushed his skin as she leaned over him once more.
“Now,” she murmured, kissing the hollow between his clenched abdominal muscles. “Where was I?”
He lost all track of time. All sense of everything but her. He had always been here, in this sweet place of exquisite frustration and painful ecstasy. He would always be here. He was hers, always, forever.
He was totally in her hands. And she would do with him as she pleased.
He nearly sobbed with relief when she straddled his head, parting the filmy layers of her skirts. He buried himself in her folds like a dying man finding an oasis in an endless desert. Her sweet release filled his mouth, better than anything he had ever tasted.
All too soon she moved off him, though he snarled and strained at his bonds. She moved further down, legs spreading. She was ready for him, so ready. Her wet heat was close, so close—
She kept going, her slickness sliding over the underside of his straining shaft. He did swear then, guttural curses and broken words, arcing his back in the desperate need to sink himself deep into her body.
Tamsin ignored his pleas. She went lower, lower, her tongue trailing down his knotted abdomen.
Her lips closed over his shaft.
The ropes did not break.
The bed, however, did.
Chapter 24
Tamsin pulled off the shredded rags of the see-through gown, tossing them away. “Mission accomplished.”
“Not entirely without casualties.” Cuan prodded cautiously at the shattered headboard, and grimaced. “This is going to be somewhat difficult to explain to the sidhean’s steward.”
Tamsin grinned and stretched, feeling as sleek and contented as a lounging lioness. “Just tell him that your savage human broke it.”
“I am high sidhe. I cannot lie.”
“Then let me do the talking.”
Cuan’s eyes gleamed. “It is rather enjoyable when you take control.”
Tamsin hummed in agreement, arching up into his kiss. She ran her hands down his arms, fingering the silk rope still knotted round his wrists.
“Let me help you with this.” She started picking at the knots. “Maeve may like her court all dressed up in bondage gear, but trailing half a bed behind you might be taking it a bit far.”
“I am certainly never going to look at court fashions in quite the same way,” Cuan murmured. “And I now have serious doubts about the real purpose of Lady Maeve’s dungeon.”
“I told you it was a sex dungeon.” She couldn’t get so much as a single fingernail into the knots. Cuan hadn’t been holding back any of his strength. “This is hopeless. Do you have a knife?”
“Always.” Cuan summoned a sword. He slid the blade carefully under each loop of rope in turn, freeing himself.
A little twinge of guilt went through Tamsin at the sight of the red marks around his wrists. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“You drove me to the very point of insanity.” Cuan dropped the ropes over the edge of the bed. He drew her down, tucking her into the curve of his body, an arm around her waist. “I adored every second.”
“Good. Me too.” Tamsin stifled a yawn. Her eyelids felt heavy. “Crap. We still have to get ready for Maeve’s ball this evening. I suppose there isn’t time for a nap?”
“We have some time.” His voice dropped a bit, going quieter. “A little, at least.”
Something about his tone made her raise her head. She wriggled round in his arms until they were nose to nose. His face was very still. All his earlier playfulness was gone now, leaving…she wasn’t sure what.
“Cuan?” She brushed a lock of hair back from his brow, searching his eyes. “What is it?”
She felt him draw in a deep breath, and let it out again, slowly.
“Tamsin,” he said at last. “I know I should not raise this topic again. And I vow that this will be the last time. But I must ask.”
Her heart thudded as she realized what he meant. She opened her mouth, wanting to stop him, but he put a finger against her lips.
“Please,” he breathed, and there were no walls up behind his eyes now. She could look through them, straight to the center of his anguished soul. “Stay with me. Be my mate. Not out of necessity, or fear. For joy. For love. For what we have together, what we could have. Please. Stay.”
She had to shut her eyes. She could feel the tears burning behind her lids. Without speaking, she pressed her lips to his.
The kiss was long and sweet. She held it, as long as she could, trying to memorize the precise curve of his lips. She would have held it for longer, but he pulled away first.
He nodded, once, as though she’d spoken aloud. “I know. I knew. But still…I had to ask.”
“You could come back with me.”
The words escaped before she could stop them. She cursed herself, wishing that she could call them back.
Awful. Unfair. I’m hurting him enough as it is. This will only make it worse.
“To the human world?” Cuan sounded as though she’d proposed that he move to the Moon. “Tamsin. You know I cannot.”
“I know.” She should leave it there, she should, this was just cruel… “But, but just suppose that it was. If there was a way to strike a deal with the Wild Hunt, so they’d leave you alone—”
She cut herself off before she said too much. But it didn’t matter, anyway. Cuan was shaking his head.
“I am high sidhe,” he said, tone heavy. “Phouka too, but I cannot deny the other half of my heritage. A high sidhe is nothing without a sidhean, a court. True, I have lived without one before, for many cold, hungry years, but still…tell me honestly, Tamsin. Can you look at me, and see a place for me in your world?”
The terrible thing was that she could. She could picture it all too easily. Having breakfast with him in her kitchen, laughing as he tasted sugar-laden chocolate cereal for the first time. Walking with him through the fields, with Angus bounding at their heels. Introducing him to her favorite TV series, her favorite pub, her friends—
The vision popped like a soap bubble. How could Cuan, in all his splendid, magical glory, ever fit into her small domestic world? It would be like trying to keep a wolf as a house pet.
He was doing everything he could to free her from his realm. She couldn’t ask him to exile himself to hers.
“No,” she lied. “No. You’re right. It was stupid for me to even suggest it.”
“Dreams are never stupid,” he said softly. “Even when they are impossible. I am glad that you asked.”
Chapter 25
Maeve’s eyes narrowed. “You are not wearing my gift, little human.”
Tamsin met her gaze blandly. “I’m afraid it met a tragic fate.”
As had the bed. Even a tied-up, spread-eagled fae was ridiculously strong. Next time, she was going to have to chain Cuan up.
Bet Maeve could lend me some…
“Your gift pleased us both very much.” Cuan came forward, offering Maeve a deep bow. “Perhaps too much so. I fear the garment was too delicate for my brutish hands. I can only offer my deepest apologies, my lady.”
Maeve sniffed. She looked Cuan up and down, and her icy expression thawed. Tamsin did not at all like the possessive heat that lit in the elf queen’s crimson eyes.
“I thought that this outfit would suit you.” She trailed her long nails over Cuan’s chest, fingering the gold-studded straps. “Bathed and properly attired, one might almost mistake you for a nobleman rather than a beast.”
Maeve traced the spiraling faemark on Cuan’s pectoral muscle, with slow and lingering appreciation. Tamsin clenched her hands in her skirts, fig
hting down a strong desire to slap the woman.
Cuan, for his part, endured Maeve’s manhandling with an air of stoic martyrdom. His faemarks stayed dark, not showing even the faintest glimmer of arousal.
Maeve’s eyes narrowed again. Her hand closed around Cuan’s bare throat—not tight, but it definitely wasn’t a caress now.
“Yet you are not fully dressed, my beast.” Her voice sharpened. “Why are you not wearing the fine golden collar that I sent you?”
A deep blush crept over Cuan’s high cheekbones. It badly clashed with his dark blue faemarks.
“Er,” he said. “Ah.”
“You can blame me for that one, Lady Maeve.” Tamsin forced out the Lady. Much as she hated the woman, it wasn’t wise to antagonize her too much. “I convinced him that it wasn’t appropriate.”
In a way, it was true. Cuan’s first experience of bondage seemed to have left quite an impression on him. When he’d put his collar back on after a quick and much-needed shower, he’d become instantly—and very visibly—aroused. In the end, he’d had to leave it behind.
Tamsin pressed her lips together, battling the smirk that wanted to spread across her face. “In the human world, we don’t wear that sort of thing in public. Well. Mostly, anyway.”
“But we are not in your world, little human.” Maeve’s tone still had that dangerous edge. “You are in ours. You follow our rules. We do not bend to yours.”
Cuan cleared his throat. With Maeve’s hand around his throat, the sound was rather strangled.
“That is true, my lady,” he said. “Yet still, I find that my mate—ah, that is, my human—is broadening my horizons.”
Maeve loosened her grip. There was a faint bruise around Cuan’s neck—but in the shape of a collar, not the elf queen’s fingers.
One of Maeve’s eyebrows rose. “So it seems.”
Cuan went an even more spectacular shade of red.
Maeve let out a low, purring laugh. She released Cuan at last, stepping back.
“So you have broken my beast to harness,” she murmured to Tamsin. “How kind of you. Basic training can be so tedious. You must inform me when he is ready to learn some advanced tricks. Some things require the firm hand of an experienced mistress, after all.”
“I’ll let you know,” Tamsin said, in the same tones as Over my dead body.
Cuan stared at the sky with the expression of a man praying for the sweet relief of a direct lightning strike.
Maeve laughed again, turning away. “Come, my amusing pets. I have a very special revel planned tonight. It would not do to be late.”
Well, that’s not ominous at all.
Tamsin repressed a shudder. For a short space of time, straddling Cuan as he’d cursed and strained against the ropes, she’d felt…powerful. In control.
Now, with Maeve looking as smug as a cat who’d eaten an entire pet store of canaries, her true helplessness came crashing back. No one might be willing to face Cuan in a duel anymore, but it was clear the elf queen had something else up her jeweled sleeve.
I let myself get distracted. I should have been trying harder to get out of here, not falling into Cuan’s bed.
Not that she regretted the latter—oh boy, she didn’t regret anything there. But in her sex-drunk bliss, she’d forgotten to worry.
And maybe she should have been worried.
Betty had promised to send help, but there hadn’t been any sign of it so far. If some seelie hero was coming to save her, he was taking his sweet time about it.
She wished she’d been able to ask Betty about it directly, but Motley had refused to open another portal to the human world. Tamsin had tried to a couple of times to convince him to try to reach Betty again, but he’d grown so agitated she hadn’t dared to push him.
“Eyes, eyes.” Motley had hunched his shoulders, looking around as though expecting something to leap out of the walls at any second. “Too many eyes now. Can’t. Not safe. They’d notice.”
“The Wild Hunt?”
Motley had shivered. “Them too.”
I should have pushed him harder. I should have tried to get out of the sidhean. What if Betty’s seelie friend has been waiting in the woods all this time? Too late, too late now…
Cuan moved closer to her, looming protectively. He spoke in a low voice, for her ears alone. “Courage, my heart. Whatever this is, we will face it together. Remember that you are not without weapons.”
She touched the iron collar around her neck, hidden under the high halter-neck of the azure ballgown that Cuan had managed to find for her. The press of metal against her skin gave her courage.
“Right.” She lifted her chin, taking Cuan’s arm. “Let’s do this.”
They joined the rest of the court, who were streaming up the vast hill of the sidhean. The high sidhe were even more gorgeously dressed than usual—the women in extravagant dresses, the men in rather briefer attire.
Tamsin was glad that Cuan had insisted on finding her suitable (and suitably opaque) formalwear. The high sidhe might be sneering at her as usual, but at least it wasn’t because of her clothes.
Still, she could have wished for something a little warmer. Tamsin shivered a little in the cool evening breeze. The unseelie never seemed to get up before sunset, though she still wasn’t sure whether that was because the high sidhe were genuinely nocturnal, or just because they liked to party all night.
She stumbled on a tussock of grass, and Cuan tightened his grip, steadying her. None of the high sidhe seemed to be having the slightest difficulty climbing the steep slope, damn them. They all moved as if they disdained even gravity.
Tamsin was wheezing by the time they finally reached the top. The sidhean was a lot taller than Fair Hill. She leaned on Cuan, trying to get her breath back.
“Why did Maeve have to throw her party all the way up here?” she muttered. “Just to annoy me?”
“It is a rather unusual choice of venue,” Cuan murmured back. His brow furrowed as he scanned their surroundings. “But a very attractive one. Lady Maeve must have spent a great deal of time and personal energy on this glamour.”
Cuan was right. The top of the hill was ringed in magical, floating lights, echoing the glorious stars above. All around, low linen-covered tables bore sumptuous delicacies. Illusionary flowers blanketed the ground so thickly, the blooms formed a living carpet that filled the air with a sweet, heady fragrance. Thanks to her iron, Tamsin could tell they weren’t really there, but she could still appreciate the effect.
Maeve’s put a lot of effort into this party.
…why?
“My dear court!” Maeve called. Twinkling lights danced around her as she raised her arms in welcome. “Soon we shall feast and be merry. But before we do, we must welcome our guest of honor.”
Tamsin stiffened, expecting Maeve to single her out—but the elf queen looked up instead. Tamsin followed her gaze.
The night was bright and clear. Without the light pollution of her own world, the stars were impossibly dense, packed together so closely that the whole sky shimmered. The moon hung over them all, huge and full.
The watching high sidhe murmured, stirring. From what Tamsin could hear, they didn’t have any more idea of what they were waiting for than she did. Cuan was a tense, coiled presence at her side.
A winged shadow crossed the moon.
“What the-?” Tamsin breathed. “What is that?”
Whatever it was, it was huge. The creature swooped down, turning from a silhouette to a white, starlit shape. Even when it passed right over their heads, its wings made absolutely no sound.
It’s an owl, Tamsin realized, with the small part of her mind that wasn’t stunned. A giant owl.
Or…not quite an owl.
As the creature touched down, she saw that it had the body of an enormous snow leopard. White, spotted fur blended seamlessly into white feathers barred with small black stripes.
The creature settled back on its powerful haunches, folding its wings.
It had the round, blunt head of a snowy owl, with a sharp flat beak and huge golden eyes. That bright, unblinking stare swept over the court…and Tamsin could have sworn it lingered on her.
The owl-griffin clicked its beak. It hunched down, dropping to a crouch.
There was a man on its back.
Cuan’s hand clamped hard on her arm. His other hand jerked, as though he’d started to summon a sword, and stopped himself at the last moment. She could feel the tension in his body.
The griffin’s rider wore the most ornate armor Tamsin had yet seen—exquisitely articulated, entirely encasing his powerful body. Every plate gleamed like polished silver, set with intricate inlaid gold patterns.
His ornate silver helm evaporated into fading sparkles, revealing long, white-gold hair. His head turned, and Tamsin found herself staring into eyes as cold and predatory as his steed’s.
“Prince Morcant.” Maeve stepped forward, faemarks alight with vicious triumph. “Welcome to my court.”
Chapter 26
He should have shifted.
If he’d seized that tiny window of opportunity—that narrow space of time between the ice-griffin settling its wings and its rider dismounting—they might have stood a chance. If he’d thrown Tamsin onto his back, exerted every muscle, run with all the speed of his phouka blood…perhaps they might have made it as far as the trees.
But he stood frozen in shock a heartbeat too long.
And then it was too late.
“Lady Maeve,” the prince said, cool and emotionless.
He was still a good fifteen feet away, but Cuan knew with a warrior’s well-honed intuition that the distance was no safety. Even standing still, the high sidhe prince screamed lethal speed. Cuan had no doubt that Morcant could put a sword through his chest in an eye-blink if he so much as twitched.
He could probably summon his blade directly into my throat, if he chose, Cuan thought bleakly. Shining Ones, that armor-!