Page 10 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

Mine. He is mine, my…my… She shook her head. It was as if she was enchanted, obsessed by a force beyond herself.

He is not my anything , she rationalised.

The drummer, in a kilt and wearing what looked like a wolf pelt around his shoulders, started pounding out a fast rhythm with his hands on two large drums.

Finn cried out, a kind of animal whoop, a silver flute in his hand, and put it to his mouth.

He started playing a fast jig, following the quick drumbeat; Faye felt herself going into a kind of trance as the other instruments joined in and the singer began singing over the top; Faye thought the words were Scots Gaelic, but she couldn’t be sure.

As the song picked up momentum, Faye watched as the individual auras of each musician shone bright around their heads. Finn’s was the same glittering gold as before – in fact, all of the band members’ auras were gold. It was odd. Faye had never seen that before.

The singer was tall, with long black hair in convoluted braids arranged on her head and cascading down her back.

The plaits were ornamented with silver clasps in the way the Celts had worn their hair, and tattoos wove their way down her arms; it looked like they had been done in blue woad.

All of them had spirals and other symbols painted on their faces in the same style.

Then, the band’s auras started to merge.

Faye had never seen the merging of auras before, and she watched with a sense of wonder as a field of gold light intensified around the band. And, now, as the drum beat in the core of her, Faye watched as the light started to form a spiral, reaching into the crowd.

Faye closed her eyes and let the music and the gold spiral energy come towards her, let the rhythm reverberate into the deepest caverns of her body.

She had no fear of swaying and falling over, because she was so tightly packed in there was nowhere else to go.

The music entranced her. It made patterns in her mind, whispered secrets into her in words she did not consciously understand, yet her body understood them all too well.

Dal Riada were weaving a song of lust, and pulling every single person in the audience into it, like a sticky web of throbbing, wet and aching desire.

As soon as Faye closed her eyes, everything changed.

She was immediately somewhere else, with the same feeling as when she was doing magic: it had the same vividness, the same sense of almost-reality.

Her eyes fluttered open in surprise; no, she was still in the pub, with the band on stage.

Yet, when she closed her eyes, she was on Black Sands Beach, and Finn Beatha was playing the flute.

There was no one else there. It was night, and a full moon sat pregnant and heavy in the clear black sky above, reflected in the black water.

Finn took the flute away from his lips and looked straight at her. She felt her whole body come alive, like a pleasurable fire engulfed it. He started singing, and she knew he was singing to her. To summon her to him.

She didn’t speak much Gaelic, so she couldn’t exactly tell what the song was about, but she didn’t need to know: the call in her blood was unmistakable.

In the dream-vision, her feet sank into the black sand, pressing between her toes. Even though it was a vision, a waking dream, she had the same feeling of erotic lassitude that she had in the dreams with Finn.

Finn continued to sing, never looking away from her. In her waking dream, she came to him, as if she were attached to Finn Beatha by a golden rope and he was pulling it in, closer and closer.

Finally, she stood in front of him. In this dream-vision, she was wearing a flowing white dress and an elaborate rose gold pearl and opal necklace.

It was long, with many strands of jewels that framed her breasts, the lowest opal resting just above her navel.

She was aware that she was naked under the gauzy material, but not cold; the dress fluttered against her skin in the light, warm breeze.

He did not seem human. There was something so odd about him; otherworldly.

Finn stopped singing, pulled her to him and kissed her.

Faye experienced a strange sense of falling when their lips met, a sweetness and an underlying sense of longing, as if he was in some way a faraway home she had never imagined she would find.

One of his hands was on her cheek, the other, softly, on her neck, and his touch made her dizzy.

She was no longer aware of her feet on the black sand, only of him, his smell, like smoke and seawater, and the feel of her hands in his hair.

The same gnawing, hungry desire that Faye had felt for Finn Beatha in her nightly dreams returned, and as he pressed her to him, he paused kissing her to murmur in her ear: That’s it, my sweet one. I knew you would come. Let yourself open to me.

Now, he wrapped his hands around her waist and held her tight against him. She could feel him harden immediately, the long, thick shaft of his cock pressing against her. She moaned, involuntary noises of need and want as he kissed her again, more deeply.

Good girl. Open for me , he murmured, as he reached between her legs, through the deep split in the gauzy, white dress.

His hand found her dripping wet; she was so wet that she was ashamed by it.

Like an animal in heat, Faye seemed unable to control her body, which responded to Finn Beatha in lustful desperation. He growled in lust.

Look at you. So wanton. So in need of me , he murmured, his eyes dark and lidded with desire.

She wanted him so badly. She wanted to be filled completely, taken and held and possessed by him.

Please , she murmured. She could still hear the music caressing her, see and feel its patterns weaving around her.

She wondered how Finn was able to be playing on stage and be here with her, here, on Black Sands Beach, but part of her knew that it was magic, and part of her didn’t care.

All she wanted was him. Was he human, or something else?

She had been raised to believe in magic; she had been taught about spirit and elemental beings.

She knew that there was all kind of magic in the world – and other worlds – that most people would struggle to understand.

Please, what? he replied, his fingers stroking her gently. She was so wet that his fingers slid easily from her swollen clit to the slick opening of her: up and down, up and down, he stroked her, so gently that it was hardly a touch. She groaned, pushing against his hand, wanting more.

Please , she moaned. Please. I want… she trailed off, not wanting to say it. Not used to saying these words out loud. Unused to articulating her desire.

What do you want, sidhe-leth? he asked softly, his strong hand still stroking her. Spirals of pleasure intensified in her abdomen and started to reach out into her back, down her thighs. His touch was like multiple soft mouths, licking, sweetly devouring her.

She did not know what those words meant: sidhe-leth .

It was Scots Gaelic, that she could guess, since Dal Riada sang in the ancient language.

She knew sidhe meant faerie hill or barrow, a place where the fae lived, or could just mean faerie.

Grandmother had said it sometimes. But she had no idea what sidhe-leth meant.

Nor did she care now. All Faye wanted was Finn.

I want you…inside me , she breathed, closing her eyes, the music spiralling around her, thumping in her heart and her abdomen, her wetness, a song of desire and want and need. Please.

Soon, my sweet girl , he replied, as his strokes grew firmer. She cried out, wanting release, wanting him. She was so close; she wanted to come so desperately. That’s it. Scream for me , he said, as the first wave of orgasm started to rise. Say my name. Beg me to come. Beg me for your orgasm.

Finn , she cried out. Please, please.

You do not have the privilege yet of calling me by my first name , he growled, his voice thick with lust. He took his hand away.

In time, my darling. In time, if you are a very good girl for me, then, perhaps, I will allow it.

But I have much to tell you about who I am and who you are, and why we have come together. All of which will come in good time.

Someone nudged Faye hard and she opened her eyes, returning to her body in a sudden shock of weight and heaviness.

She gasped and reached out for Aisha, who was still next to her.

For a minute, she didn’t know where she was or how she had got to this noisy place from Black Sands, and she felt faint and wildly frustrated.

Again, Finn Beatha had built her pleasure up to an unbearable degree and then refused to satisfy her.

‘Hey. Faye! You all right?’ Aisha held her by the shoulder and looked into Faye’s eyes. ‘Ach. It’s too hot in here. Let’s get some water and go somewhere to cool off,’ she said, and guided Faye out of the bar.

Faye sat at an outside table and waited while Aisha went to the bar for two pints of tap water. She returned and handed one to Faye.

‘You okay? You went peely-wally there for a second.’

Faye took a long drink of the cold water.

‘Yeah. Thanks. I don’t know what happened.

I went into a kind of trance,’ she admitted, not wanting to explain what had actually happened, which was that, somehow, Dal Riada’s performance had acted as a – what?

A gateway into a waking dream in which Finn Beatha had seduced her, yet again?

‘It’s that kind of fast drumming. Like a rave. It puts you in a trance headspace. I read something about it…like, at a certain number of beats per minute, it has that effect.’ Aisha drained the rest of her water.