9

I’m late again.

My carriage disappeared halfway down the lane to Eisling House, and my clothes vanished a few minutes later. So I’m walking naked and barefoot over gravel, cursing my lack of attention to the time. It’s freezing, but I’m so frustrated about my visit to the vault that the cold seems like a secondary concern.

If the King and I had found anything useful, I might be in a better mood. A chapter in one of the books mentioned the Unending Pool, a place in the Fae realm whose water can break any curse. The liquid my Faerie godfather poured over the anklet must have been from that pool. There’s also a well in some part of Faerie whose water interferes with a Fae’s ability to heal or to perform magic. Which doesn’t help me at all.

I found information about kisses, death, and soul-bonds having the power to shatter some kinds of dark spells. There are specific weapons that can destroy charmed objects, but nothing I could obtain in a day or two. I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. Finding those weapons would require quests I have no time for, journeys I can’t undertake with my stepmother’s will confining me to this town.

Gilda can only give me commands when I’m close enough to hear her; but since the anklet connects us, she can exert her will to call me into her presence anytime she wishes, no matter how much distance lies between us. I tested that distance once, at age thirteen, when I tried to run away. I paid for a wagon ride with a merchant and traveled for ten hours before I felt her calling me. The force of the call was so compelling that I leaped from the wagon and began running in the direction of Eisling House. When I finally made it back, Gilda told me to beat my own legs with switches until they bled. I still have the scars all over my shins and thighs.

I can’t leave, which means I can’t search for any of the weapons that might have a chance of cutting through the anklet.

I curse loudly, kicking the cold gravel without caring that I’m bruising my toes. The only thing I’m wearing at the moment is the damned anklet, and I’ve never hated it so much.

Someone is coming toward me, silhouetted by the light from the lampposts flanking the drive. I recognize the silhouette, the outline of the pointed ears, and the sauntering gait. My Faerie godfather is a fool to show himself out here.

I race toward him, and he opens his arms as if he expects me to run into them. But instead I grab his shoulder, turn him roughly around, and march him back toward the house.

“What are you thinking, walking out in the open?” I exclaim. “What if someone sees you? They’ll tell my stepmother, and then she’ll—” I break off the sentence. I don’t know what she would do if she found out I have a Faerie’s favor. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

“What if someone sees me? ” he says. “What about you ? Jogging along stark naked, with those luscious breasts bouncing around— ”

“That’s a compliment,” I snarl, pushing him through the front door. “I get another favor.”

He grumbles, but he conjures a fluffy pink robe for me without being asked. I forget to be angry with him for a second because the softness of the robe around my body is so comforting.

“Thank you,” I say, slightly mollified. “But don’t go outside again, please. Or if you do, take another form.”

“Like this?” He transforms into a naked green-skinned creature with arms like branches and fingers like vines, with flowers growing in its mossy hair.

“Fuck no. Something normal.”

“Of course.” And he turns himself into Gilda.

I recoil instinctively, stumbling back into the narrow table by the front door and knocking off a vase. It shatters, but I’m still backing away, and I step on a shard before I can stop myself. Pain punches through my fear as the sharp piece of porcelain slices into my foot.

Instantly the Faerie switches back to his usual form. “God-stars, I didn’t mean to… shit. I should have made you some slippers—why do I always forget the shoes? Let me see it.”

“I’ve had worse. Can you conjure me a bandage or something so I don’t track blood everywhere?”

He produces a strip of cloth, and while I wrap up my foot, he mends the vase and makes the blood on the floor disappear.

“Must be fucking nice,” I mutter. “Fixing everything with magic.”

“It can’t resolve everything,” he replies. “And it takes energy. As I told you, my energy reserves are lower than that of most Fae, since I have human blood.”

“You said your father is Fae and your mother is human? Are they together?”

“Yes, she has lived in Faerie for decades. My father says it’s his love that keeps her young, but the truth is that humans don’t age in our realm—or if they do, the process is far slower than it is here.”

“So why not stay in Faerie with your family?” I ask. “Why come here, to this miserable mess of a world?”

He crouches in front of me and takes over with the bandage, tightening and tying it. “I like to help people. I serve in areas where the Fae are revered or at least accepted. It’s safer that way for someone like me, someone with limited powers. I’ve been serving humans in need for about thirty years now.”

“And how old are you?”

“Fifty-three.” He rises and holds out his hand to help me up.

My impulse is to reject it, but I relent and lay my fingers in his palm. “Do you visit Faerie often?”

“I do. As I told you when we first met, I was born under unusual circumstances, and my mother is god-touched, which means one of her parents slept with a god-star and was granted the Wretched Sight. As her son, I have a few unique gifts, one of which is the ability to transfer between the mortal and Faerie realms easily, whenever I like, and to travel within those realms as well. I can create portals in the air, similar to the mirror I made for you, and I simply walk from one side to the other.”

“Could you get something for me, if I needed it?” I ask.

“Something like what?”

I describe the weapons I saw in the book, the ones that can cut apart enchanted objects. His face falls as I go through the list.

“I know where two of them are,” he says. “One is in the palace back home, and the other is in Unseelie lands. I can get the first one for you, the Void-Star Dagger—but the Wraith’s Scythe isn’t something I can access. The Unseelie kingdom is a troubled place—less so than it used to be, but still dangerous. I’ll see if I can bring you the Void-Star Dagger tomorrow night. Perhaps it will work on the anklet.”

It’s the best he can do, so I nod. “Thank you. ”

He helps me to a kitchen chair, eyeing my injured foot. “You know I could heal that for you. It would only take a few moments.”

He’s talking about his “vital essence” and its restorative power. He’s offering to feed me his cum.

Heat quivers at my core and buzzes along my skin. I can feel the blood surging into my cheeks. “No.”

“You’d rather limp around the ball tomorrow night?”

He’s right, damn it. With this injury, dancing will be impossible and walking will be difficult. “When you bring the dagger, maybe you can bring another cinnamon roll as well.”

“I’ll be glad to,” he says. “If you’re sure you don’t want immediate relief.”

“You realize you’re asking if you can come in my mouth.”

“That would be the easiest way to do it, yes.” He smirks a little. His burned lips are noticeably better, but they still look raw and painful. I remember how he knelt and kissed my anklet, knowing it would hurt him, hoping his kiss might set me free. It was a lovely thing for him to do, and I’ve looked at him a little differently since then.

After the King and I explored the vault, he didn’t mention wanting to see me a third time. To be fair, I ran away from him again when the clock began to strike, but he could have called out to me. I even lingered in the hallway, just to see if he would catch up and request another tryst. But he didn’t.

The King is wonderful, and my heart aches that I ruined our connection with distrust. But I will probably never see him again, so I shouldn’t feel guilty about taking pleasure elsewhere. After all, I haven’t committed myself solely to him. I’m free to do what I like, within the confines of my stepmother’s laws. And my Faerie godfather is not one of the young men I’m forbidden to fuck. He might look as if he’s in his mid-twenties, but he’s neither young nor human .

There’s no one here to know what happens between us—no one to rebuke me for whatever I choose to do.

“My family might be back soon,” I say. “How fast can we do this?”

He chuckles, and something in the sound tugs at my brain. “I have a fresh memory of you running toward me naked. It won’t take long.”

“Maybe this will help.” With my heart pounding at my own boldness, I rise from the chair and take off the fluffy robe, spreading it on the floor. I seat myself on it, naked, in as graceful a pose as I can manage.

“That certainly helps.” His voice is tight with need, and there’s a pronounced shape pressing against the front of his trousers. He unbuttons them and produces a long, smooth cock, flushed pink, with glistening arousal already beading at its tip.

He steps up beside me, stroking himself, and I try not to think about how much I like watching his ring-laden fingers gliding along his length.

“You fucked someone again tonight,” he says. Not a question. A statement of fact, one I can’t deny, so I say nothing.

The Faerie’s eyes travel my body, lingering with particular fondness on my breasts. “Tell me what it was like. How you felt.”

“Why do you want to know? You and I have a bargain based on a deal you made with my father. Nothing more. And this, what we’re doing now—it’s merely a business transaction. Count it as one of the favors you owe me, if you like.”

“A business transaction… because you’d never consider fucking me.”

Again, a statement, one that sends a wild thrill through my chest. “You’re Fae.”

“And?” He keeps stroking, but he’s looking me in the eyes now.

“It would be complicated. ”

“Your other dalliance isn’t?”

He’s got me there. For a few moments, I can’t figure out how to respond.

“You’re beautiful,” I say at last. “And you’re sweet. And you know too much about me, yet not enough. I couldn’t bear it.”

He hesitates, long fingers curled around his cock. “You couldn’t bear it? What does that mean?”

It means he’s too close to me already, just like the King. And I couldn’t bear to let anyone else that deep inside my body and my heart, only to lose them. I’m already sad about the King—if I went through something similar with the Faerie, it would hurt too much.

Instead of answering him, I tip my face up, open my mouth, and put out my tongue. His lavender eyes heat instantly and he resumes stroking himself. Seconds later he’s moving closer, aiming for my open lips without touching me. His release hits the flat of my tongue, glazing it in vanilla sweetness.

He keeps coming, huffing ragged breaths, maintaining his aim so every drop goes in my mouth. I have to tip my head back to take it all. When he’s done, I close my lips and swallow it down, like a delicious mouthful of runny icing.

Immediately the pain in my foot recedes, and a sense of peace and freshness flows over my body. “That’s quite the trick,” I tell him with reluctant admiration.

He’s buttoning his pants and smiling at me when we both hear the wheels of the carriage on the drive.

“The work begins again,” I say with a sigh.

“At least you won’t be limping,” he replies. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He bends down and plants a quick kiss on my forehead. Then he walks into thin air and vanishes.

When I unfasten the bandage around my foot, the wound is gone.