Page 11 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

‘Hmm. Maybe.’ Faye looked back inside the bar which was full of jumping shadows; she saw other people with the same glassy stares as she knew she’d had.

It was as though the band were enchanting everyone there.

She wondered if everyone at the gig was having their own erotic visit from someone in the band, and, if so, how exactly that would even happen.

Thinking that Finn Beatha might be making love to other people as well as her – even if only in her dreams, or a waking vision – filled her with that same, illogical, unhinged jealousy. He’s mine.

Her what? What was Finn Beatha? He had said something about telling her who he was and who she was, which was an odd thing to say. Faye knew who she was. There wasn’t any particular mystery about that.

And why we have come together , his voice repeated in her mind. That was the strange part. That was what she didn’t understand.

‘It was strange. I went…somewhere. That man, the one singing…?’ She closed her eyes and saw Finn again in her mind’s eye.

‘Finn?’

‘Yeah. I saw him on Black Sands Beach. He was…with me there. It felt so real.’ Faye blushed, not wanting to say more.

‘Lucky you.’ Aisha smiled tightly, but then looked away.

She probably didn’t want to admit that she, too, had been enchanted by the band.

Faye wondered if she, too, had had some kind of erotic daydream.

‘I wish I could find myself on a beach with Finn Beatha. He’s…

he’s like a dream, isn’t he?’ Aisha looked wistfully through the open door back at the band.

‘You’ll find someone real,’ Faye reassured her.

‘He’s coming. I’m sure of it.’ She had to try and right herself, try and come back to reality, even though she wanted nothing more than to find a way back into the dream-place, the dissolved state where she could meet Finn and feel his hands on her, feel the ecstasy that he built in her every time he came to her.

Her panties were dripping wet, and she crossed her legs self-consciously.

He brought her to the edge of extreme pleasure, over and over again, and then he had always disappeared, or the dream had ended, at the point just before her orgasm.

Faye had no idea what was happening with Finn Beatha.

How she was connected to him, and why she was having these intensely erotic fantasies.

Maybe it was something to do with the spell she, Annie and Aisha had cast. But whatever it was, she was becoming more and more obsessed with him.

In the dreams, it was as if he was dangling her on the edge of his string, like a puppeteer, like a toy, playing with her, building her pleasure up and up and refusing to satisfy her and give her release.

She had seen the look in his eyes before the dream-state had ended, just now, and it was a calculated and glittering desire.

Aisha sighed and fiddled with a button on her jeans. ‘I guess. It’s just that…’ She trailed off, looking embarrassed.

‘What? You can tell me.’ Faye reached for Aisha’s hand.

Aisha had worked in the shop for a year now, but still Faye knew very little about her.

She had sought out the shop and asked Faye if she was looking for help one day the previous summer; said she’d heard of it as one of the best places in Scotland to get supplies.

Impressed with her knowledge, Faye had taken her on.

But Aisha had never spoken about her personal life, and Faye hadn’t pried further. Annie had, but with little success.

Aisha looked uncomfortable. ‘I…I haven’t ever been with anyone. In that way. You know?’

‘With a man? Or woman? I mean, you made your doll a man, so I’m guessing…

?’ Faye asked gently. ‘You’re a virgin? Aisha, that’s nothing to be worried about.

’ She smiled. ‘I haven’t had many boyfriends.

Or one-night stands, come to that. It’s okay.

Just because Annie’s confident in that way doesn’t mean everyone is,’ she added.

Which made all of this – the dreams, the visions, the fantasies – all the stranger.

Faye wasn’t sexually experienced. She wasn’t a virgin, but she had never really understood what people meant when they talked about wanting sex so badly.

It had always been kind of blah for her.

Forgettable, sometimes awkward. Never, ever like this.

Aisha blushed; clearly, it was hard for her to talk about this.

‘I wanted to go to university. I’m going to be a geneticist. But my parents would rather that I married one and concentrated on popping out babies like my sisters are.

And that’s cool, y’know? That’s fine if that’s what you want to do.

But I don’t.’ Her tone was quietly fierce.

Faye imagined that it would be pretty difficult to get Aisha to do anything she didn’t want to do.

‘Of course! I so admire your brains, Aish. There’s no way I could do what you do,’ Faye replied, though she was struggling to concentrate on the conversation after what had just happened. Get it together, Faye , she reprimanded herself.

‘Well, sure. Though there always have been women doing important work, it’s hard to get to the top, is all. You have to marry the job. Good news if you don’t want to marry an actual person, I guess.’

‘But you still want someone. You’re human.’ Faye finished the thought for her. She allowed herself to remember a moment from her strange dream experience: the moment when she had pleaded with Finn for her pleasure.

Her proximity to Finn had inspired desire in a way that she had never known she possessed. It had been a strange, magical experience. All of her dreams with Finn were inexplicable. And yet, she felt more human than she ever had as a result.

‘You’re human,’ she repeated to Aisha, but she was also speaking to herself. ‘You have needs. And desires. And that’s okay.’

‘I guess so.’ Aisha sighed. ‘Doctoral study is hard. And I haven’t met anyone I like at uni. Or I’m too shy to meet men when I go out. Like tonight.’

‘I know.’ Faye laughed. ‘Look at us. A pair of wallflowers. At least, we’ve got each other.’

Aisha smiled. ‘But you’re beautiful. You don’t know how many guys look at you. You don’t even see it.’

It was Faye’s turn to blush. ‘I don’t know about that,’ she said quietly, though she had always noticed it, and found it made her uncomfortable. ‘And you are a beautiful, intelligent, interesting young woman, don’t forget. Your time will come, Aish. Remember the spell.’

‘D’you really think it’ll work?’ Aisha asked again, like she didn’t really believe, but she wanted to.

‘Is this your scientist brain making you doubt magic?’ Faye asked, with more of a smile in her voice than she felt.

‘No. The more you study genetics, the more you realise how magical humans really are. Anyway, the wisest of us know that we still have so much to learn.’ Aisha stood up, chafing her hands together and looking back into the bar.

‘God knows what’s encoded into our DNA. No, it’s just…

I dunno. Human frailty. Not daring to believe, I guess. ’

‘You don’t lose anything by having faith,’ Faye mused.

It was true, but she felt like a fraud for saying it.

At the moment, she didn’t feel like she had a decent grip on reality, never mind having faith .

Having faith in what? she wondered. Could she have any kind of faith that what was currently happening to her was real?

Could she have faith that she wasn’t, in fact, going mad?

‘I guess. D’you want to go back in?’ Aisha shivered.

‘Sure.’ Faye stamped her feet on the ground; it was cold, sitting outside at night in Edinburgh; the spring equinox was approaching, but warm nights were a long time away still.

‘And…thanks. Sometimes, I feel really alone, y’know? It helps. Having you and Annie around.’ She leaned forward and gave Faye an awkward hug.

‘That’s okay, Aish. Any time.’

Faye took a deep breath and followed Aisha back into the bar.

This time, she would be more prepared.

Dal Riada were still playing. The song wove around her, and she could still see it as a magic in itself, enchanting the crowd.

She watched the faces of the others around her; some were so entranced that their eyes were almost rolled all the way back; they swayed, totally unaware of where they were.

She could sense that they were somewhere else, to all intents and purposes.

The combined, spiralling, turquoise-blue energy of Dal Riada was transporting the whole crowd somewhere – maybe to their own individual beaches, to be seduced, or into another fantasy, Faye didn’t know – and the whole crowd were completely at the mercy of this band.

Part of her yearned to run straight back into Finn’s arms: she still wanted him so badly, and her body resonated with the unmet desire he had lit in her.

And, yet. Finn Beatha seemed to be playing a game with her. A game of cat and mouse, a game of desire that she had been thus far powerless to resist.

It had made her feel human, alive, wanted. But it also made her angry.

How dare this man – this person, who had appeared out of nowhere – think that he could enchant her in whatever way he wanted?

I don’t think so , she thought angrily. I can resist you. I am a witch, I was raised by witches, and no one plays with me. I am nobody’s puppet.

Standing at the bar, Faye imagined herself cocooned in a black cloak with a hood; she imagined drawing it over herself, and closing the seven energy centres in her body, the rainbow-hued chakras that everyone had, head to groin.

Instantly, she felt better, more grounded.

For good measure she imagined tree roots growing out of her feet and down through the sticky wooden floor of the bar and into the dark Edinburgh earth.

Now grounded, she let herself look at Finn again: he was just as beautiful, otherworldly, even. His hair was a lighter blonde in the stage lights, and the horse tattoo on his side seemed to writhe with the music.

‘Aish. We should go and get the train,’ she shouted to her friend, knowing somehow that it would be dangerous for her and Aisha to stay at the pub and get sucked in to whatever magic Dal Riada were weaving on stage.

Aisha already looked half hypnotised again; Faye shook her arm.

‘Aish. Come on. We need to go. Avoid the crowd when they finish.’

It was an excuse, but Aisha nodded, looking confused.

As Faye looked up to the stage one last time, she had the impression that Finn was searching for her. His blue-green eyes scanned the crowd, but she could tell that he hadn’t seen her.

The defence was working, then.

Faye needed to take back some control. Her visions with Finn had been intensely pleasurable. But she needed clarity. How and what was happening? She wouldn’t know by allowing herself to get pulled under, into whatever bizarre, shared fantasy they were having.

Faye raised her hands to her long auburn fringe. Though she was only wearing an imaginary black robe, her hands grasped the edge of where the hood would be, and she brought her loose fists down in front of her face, as if to veil herself completely.

The music pooled around her in sharp, quick drifts, like snow; Finn had brought the flute to his lips again and the female singer with the dark hair in so many plaits keened a gentle melody over it.

Faye’s heart surged; the tune was haunting yet mournful, and she felt an overwhelming longing take her over, though she could not have explained exactly what she was yearning for.

It was as if she was homesick or longing for a love she had never lost.

‘Come on, Aish.’ She steered her friend out of the bar, and as the door closed behind them, Faye felt the spell break again. She stamped her feet on the pavement. Come on , she thought. Come back to earth, Faye.

‘You okay?’ she asked her friend, who looked a little dazed.

‘I’m okay. That was…strange,’ Aisha said, hugging her coat around her.

‘It was. An experience, to be sure. But not one I’m sure I’d like to repeat.’ Faye frowned.

He has no power over me , she thought as they walked away. Finn Beatha, you have no power over me. I resist your enchantments, whatever they are.

Faye pulled the imaginary black robe tight around herself.

Her grandmother had taught her the first rule of spellcraft, when she was a child and just learning her first spells, learning about the elements: air, water, fire and earth, and the fifth element of spirit, which was a combination of all of those things.

Later, when Faye was older, Grandmother had taught her about the planetary forces, the stars, the powers beyond the earth and beyond earth, air, fire and water that made up all of life in this realm, too.

Those were the important basics. But there were rules, and the first rule was Be sure .

To work a spell, the first thing to know was that you would likely get what you asked for. But, did you really want it? Grandmother had taught her to look inside herself, and think, If I got what I thought I wanted, would I be happy?

Faye had asked for a lover, and one had appeared. But it was so far beyond strange – this wasn’t what she had asked for. She had wanted someone normal, nice, available. She hadn’t asked for some kind of astral-plane headfuck.

This wasn’t what I wanted , she thought as she and Aisha walked away from the pub. How is this anywhere near what anyone would want?

Be careful for what you ask for: you might get it , her grandmother’s voice rang in her head. And what will you do then, my darling? What will you do now?