Page 22 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

‘Oh!’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say and felt stupid straightaway.

Finn let go of her elbow and bowed to her, though his eyes never left hers, and his smile was mischievous. ‘The faerie realm is pleased to have you here.’

‘You? How did you get here?!’ Faye spluttered, shocked.

For a brief moment, a clear vision of Mistress of Magic replaced her opulent surroundings: it was a dark day, rain battering at the windows, and she had been arranging the stone mantelpiece which displayed her biggest crystals.

A row of large amethyst crystal clusters sat next to a number of extra-large yellow-gold citrine and smoky quartz crystals that had been polished into pyramids and pillars.

On days like that, the shop was a snug, safe haven, with the hearth fire flickering cosily.

She clutched at the memory as if it could steady her.

‘I am of this place,’ he replied, as if that would explain everything. ‘I hoped you would come.’

‘You’re… faerie folk?’

‘You know that I am.’ He fixed her with an intense gaze. ‘And you should know by now that you are, too. If you were in any doubt, your admittance to my kingdom should have made all things clear.’

‘I…I didn’t think about that. It just happened.’

‘It just happened because you are half faerie. Our stock runs in your veins. Hence, you were able to breach the membrane between your world and ours. Hence, the guardians let you come,’ he continued, his face serious.

‘It is a great privilege that you hold. You should be more grateful.’ He raised an eyebrow haughtily.

Faye gazed at his perfect, beautiful and yet slightly androgynous face.

He was so gorgeous, so perfect, that he seemed slightly unreal.

There was no imperfection in Finn Beatha, as far as Faye could see.

His high cheekbones were perfectly angular, his eyes luminous, large, long-lashed.

His chin was strong, perfect, and, as her eyes followed the sinuous line of his neck down to his collarbone, she could see the rise of his muscled chest under his clothes.

Now, he wore a dark blue jacket with gold piping on the shoulders which looked somehow military; fitted trousers of the same material highlighted his strong thighs and calves.

His dark blonde hair had the same golden flecks in it as she had noticed before – exactly the same colour as the wool she had used on her poppet doll in the spell.

But this time, he wore a golden crown, studded with pearls and opals.

‘I am grateful. But I didn’t exactly choose to be here. And…I am not a faerie. I am a human.’

Moddie. She remembered that she had been following her mother through the crowd. ‘I have to go. I need to find my mother. She’s here…’

‘She resides with us now. You will see her again in due course.’ Finn took her hand, and she felt the return of the light-headedness that had overcome her earlier, but this time, at a much greater intensity. Instinctively, Faye fought his power, though it was strong.

She tried to do what she had in the Edinburgh bar – to shut down her energy centres and cloak herself in darkness to regain some kind of control, but it was impossible to retain enough focus to do it properly.

She kept finding her mind wandering, and the focused power she was used to raising and directing in spells and ritual eluded her, like snow blown into drifts and eddies by a strong wind.

‘What do you mean? How can she…How can I…?’ But Faye’s words trailed away as Finn drew her to him, his lips inches from hers.

She could feel his strength, and she knew that she was powerless to resist him. He held her effortlessly in a tight, hard grip. She struggled, but it only made a cruel smirk play around his mouth.

‘Try to get away all you like, sidhe-leth . You are mine, and you are within my kingdom now. Here, I am all-powerful. You only breathe here because I will it. The blood only continues to course in your veins because I permit it to. Say it.’ His grip tightened on her.

‘S-say what?’ she stammered. Being this close to him was like a drug; something raw and wild swept through her.

She felt, suddenly, as though nowhere else in the world existed, and as if she herself was changed: her old self was sloughed away, and some new yet original, as yet unknown self remained.

‘Say that I am your lord and master. That you only exist here with my permission.’ His blue eyes glittered with desire, and something darker.

Ownership. Faye felt a dark thrill run through her body at the thought.

In her dreams, he had told her that he owned her.

That he owned her pussy. And in those dreams, she had readily agreed, so deep in desire had she been.

‘I only exist here with your permission,’ she repeated dutifully, looking up into his eyes. He still held her tightly in his grasp, and she could feel the hard strength of his body against hers.

‘And?’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘And…you are the lord and master of this realm,’ she added, reluctant to say that he was her lord and master.

Whatever he was, he was not that. Faye had only ever met Finn once, and seen his band play in a bar.

Granted, there had been many times when they had seemed to meet in her dreams, but she was still not sure whether they counted as real or what the purpose of the dreams were.

‘You are half faerie. Believe me when I tell you that our meeting is fated, and that yours is an important destiny in the faerie realms,’ he said.

‘Hmm. I see that I have some work to do to make you realise your true purpose, and your position under me,’ he drawled.

He stroked her face with one hand, tracing the line of her full lips with his fingertip.

‘No matter. You are a wilful one, it would seem, but I am stronger.’ He released her, and stood in front of her, appraising her.

‘Still. I am not so much of a monster to know that this all must seem very strange to you. So, temporarily, I will grant you some…kindness, as you adjust.’

‘Thank you.’ She raised her chin defiantly. ‘But you haven’t answered me. What is my mother doing here? Is she safe? Is she here in spirit? Did she…become fae, in some way?’

Faye needed to know, even though her very being felt enrobed in lassitude, even though she knew that for every moment she spent in the faerie world, she was being sucked deeper and deeper into its magic, and it would be more difficult to get back to the human world.

She remembered some of the other rules she had read in Grandmother’s grimoire: Do not eat or drink in the faerie worlds.

Leave offerings. Keep your wits about you.

‘I will answer all of your questions, Faye Morgan,’ he said, a wry smile returning to his lips. ‘But first, follow me. I will show you this great land of mine.’

He released her from the embrace and took her hand again. She didn’t want to follow along, and yet she did. She wanted Finn to answer her question, wanted to know where Moddie was, how she was here, why she was here. If that had really been her mother. And yet, Faye followed, mute.

There was a part of her that knew she was being entranced, that this was a strange place where she very well might get lost. Faye fought it as hard as she could, and, just for a moment, as she focused hard on Mistress of Magic and on the rain on the windows and the leaping firelight, she felt her own power return a little.

She pulled her hand away from his, concentrating on the vision of the shop to steady herself, but he took her palm in his again, chuckling in amusement, and Faye lost what brief advantage she had gained.

Know that the longer a human spends in the realms of faerie, the more difficult it will be to return to the mortal world.

All Faye could focus on was the energy coming through his palm and into hers.

It was a tingling wave of headiness she’d never felt before, and it circled her, so that she felt she was walking in a cloud.

Finn’s touch was electric; as well as putting her firmly in a dream state, she realised that she was also violently, shockingly full of desire for him.

Again. She realised how wet she was. He chuckled.

‘My sweet one can hardly contain her excitement at being here,’ he observed, casting her an amused glance. ‘Do not think that you can conceal anything from me, Faye Morgan.’

They walked through room upon room filled with tapestries and treasures; each one flickered with that strange candlelight and hummed with a distant music.

‘Do you know where you are?’ he asked her, as they stood in front of a vast tapestry.

It depicted two grand fae seated on thrones.

On one side sat Finn Beatha, dressed resplendently in blue and gold robes.

On the other throne sat a terrifyingly beautiful fae queen.

Around them swirled a pattern of interlinked creatures: sea serpents, kelpies, mermaids, eels, shoals of fishes, gilled creatures that she didn’t recognise.

The faerie queen’s hair was the same dark blonde, flecked with gold, as Finn’s, and she had the same prepossessing blue eyes as he did.

Faye found that she could hardly look at the queen’s face without an odd feeling descending over her.

It was a different feeling to being with Finn; when she looked into the faerie queen’s face – even just in the tapestry – as perfectly beautiful as she was, Faye felt an inexplicable sense of horror.

Both Finn and the faerie queen next to him wore the same crown of rose gold, with six tall spikes and an inner cap of pearls and opals.

Faye remembered it from Grandmother’s grimoire, and the memory made her shiver with recognition.

Somehow, she had thought that what her ancestor had written was fictional.

Or, at least, from another time, when the worlds were different, and faerie was closer to the human world.

But the grimoire had depicted the crown perfectly. What did that mean?

‘Do you know where you are?’ Finn repeated, breaking into her reverie.

‘Y…yes. I think so. The faerie realm of Murias,’ she responded, the name feeling strange on her tongue.

‘Indeed. Murias, the Castle of the Cup. The Palace of Water. This is my royal court, where my family has always resided.’

‘ Your court?’ she asked, noticing that the noise – clapping, laughing, and the wild music – was growing louder.

‘Yes.’ He smiled at her; his eyes were like warm sapphires.

‘So…you are a…king?’ She already knew the answer to the question but asked it, anyway.

‘A faerie king. My sister is the queen of this place.’ He pointed to the tapestry, at the terrifyingly beautiful woman sitting on the throne. ‘The Queen Levantiana.’

‘How long have you been here?’ she asked wonderingly. Grandmother had told her that the fae were as old as the world itself.

‘Many moons. Many centuries, in your time.’ He smiled, raising her hand to his mouth and kissing her palm.

‘I was a child once, but long ago, in your eyes. We do not age as you do in the human realm. I played here, with my pets and the other faeries of the court until I grew to be king. When we could not sleep, my sister and I, the faerie pipers played us lullabies. When our hearts were broken, in the days when we were foolish in our love with mortals, they played to cheer us and mend our sorrows.’ He smiled at her expression.

‘You do not think our hearts can be broken? The fae creatures have suffered much at the hands of humans.’

‘I…I don’t…I mean, I didn’t…’ Faye shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve only ever heard about faeries enchanting humans, not the other way around.’

‘Well, sidhe-leth , believe me, it can happen.’ He gazed meaningfully at her, and Faye had the same sense of disquiet as before.

She pulled her hand away from his. Immediately, her head started to feel a little clearer; she looked around her at the room they were in. It was as grand as the others, but when she looked harder, she could see that the walls and the floor had shadows of tree roots within them.

Faye peered at the scene on the tapestry again and saw that in the background, there appeared to be a great ball or revelry of some kind happening.

The figures of Finn and Levantiana had initially commanded her gaze, but when she really looked at the whole picture, she realised that several human figures hung upside down among the creatures of the water, by ropes attached to their ankles, their faces obscured.

And, under the feet of the faerie revellers, there were skulls and bones.