Page 23 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

A warning sounded in Faye’s mind, a sense of foreboding.

‘Am I dreaming?’ she asked, turning to him. ‘I know this is Murias. I know you are the faerie king. But we have…we have met before, in dreams.’ She blushed as she said it, knowing everything they had done together. ‘How do I know that this is not a dream?’

‘You are not dreaming.’ Finn’s voice pulled her gaze from the tapestry and back to him. He reached for her hand again, but she refused him and held it to her side, suddenly unsure. ‘Give me your hand,’ he commanded.

‘No. I need to try and keep my head, here. Keep my wits about me. I know the rules of being in the faerie realms. If I touch you…’

‘You know nothing,’ he scoffed. ‘If you fully understood where you are, then you would be far more grateful than you are.’ He took her hand forcibly in his.

She tried to fight the sleepy desire that came over her instantly, but it was impossible. When Finn Beatha touched her, she was under his spell. ‘I…I shouldn’t be here. I want to…I think I should go,’ she protested, but Finn drew her to him again.

‘Those were not dreams, sweet one,’ he murmured, a smile playing around his lips once again. ‘Those were real. And merely a hint of the pleasures that await you in my realm.’

Faye swooned, feeling herself fall helplessly into him.

A wave of sweet, delicious pleasure overcame her.

She felt as though she was being held underwater, if the water was desire.

Some part of her knew that she needed to keep sharp, keep her head above water.

And yet the feeling of submersion – of the sweet submission of allowing herself to go under and be a slave to her own desire – was too strong.

There was a knock on one of the doors and, frowning, Finn stalked across the room and flung it open. Immediately, as he let go of her, Faye felt like she awoke.

‘What?’ he shouted as he opened it; his demeanour had changed, suddenly, in a fraction of a moment; there were sharp edges now, where there had been none before, and Faye felt fear overtake the desire that had just filled her so completely.

There was a murmured conversation which she couldn’t really hear.

Faye stepped quietly towards where Finn stood, curious to see who he was talking to.

In the shadow beyond the carved wooden door, she could see a tall figure standing in a corridor.

Dim candlelight in the hallway gave just enough light to ascertain that whoever it was, they were dressed in some kind of reflective material, a little like armour.

‘I don’t care. Just do it!’ Finn barked at the intruder, making her jump.

He slammed the door and stood with his back to her for a moment, tense.

Faye didn’t know whether to ask what was wrong.

She felt confused again; it was so changeable here.

I should go home, I don’t belong here. What am I doing?

Finn turned to her, scowling, and, without warning, reached up and tore the tapestry she had been staring at off the wall, letting out a shout of frustration as he did so.

Faye, startled, shied away from him. He glared at her fiercely for a moment and, in that brief second, all his former warmth was gone. His deep blue eyes narrowed.

Faye ran to the other side of the room and tried the door.

‘This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have come here,’ she muttered. ‘I…this isn’t right, I…I want to go home.’

But before she could open it, his hand was on her shoulder, and sweetness began to suffuse her whole being again.

‘Forgive me, Faye.’ Finn’s voice was honey again. ‘It was bad news. I apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable.’

She was still tense; despite his soothing presence, her body had kicked into fight or flight response. Finn stroked her arm.

‘You…startled me,’ she protested, pulling away from him.

‘Please accept my deepest apologies, dear Faye. I would never intend to alarm you. My kingdom is in conflict with Falias, the realm of earth, and Gorias, the realm of air. That is something we must speak of. You will play a key part in it, whether you understand it or not just now. But I should not have shouted, my sweet one.’ He clasped her to his chest in a hug that felt tinged with desperation.

‘Dearest Faye, I should never have lost my temper. Please forgive me.’

Faye wondered at his changeable mood. ‘You frightened me.’ She felt that it would be politic to keep Finn happy, whether she meant it or not.

He was keeping her here – when he wasn’t touching her, she realised that.

But when he laid his hand upon her in any way, she was helpless, at the mercy of her desire.

Finn released her from his arm and, reaching past her, gently opened the door she had been struggling with. Immediately, a blare of music pierced the room.

Faye found herself looking down from a balcony onto a large, ornate hall below where a party seemed to be in full swing.

Faeries of all kinds sat at long tables which were piled with food and drink, and a band played on a raised circular stage in the middle of the room, which Faye recognised as the music she had heard distantly all the way through the castle.

It was a little similar to the music Dal Riada had played that night in the bar: a kind of fast, folky music with fiddlers and flutes, but this was performed on unusual wooden instruments and was faster and louder than Dal Riada’s, and the dancers who circled around and around the stage were frantic and crazed.

There were no dance moves that she could discern in particular, just fierce running, jumping, skipping and howling along with the music.

As she watched, one slight-looking female faerie fell down as she skipped wildly to the music and was trampled by at least ten others before she got raggedly to her feet again. Faye’s eyes widened in amazement.

‘Come.’ Finn took her hand and guided her to the top of some golden stairs which led from the balcony to the hall below. He was not barefoot, as he had been on stage at the gig, but wore some kind of gold slippers on which he walked soundlessly.

‘Oh, no. No, I couldn’t,’ she murmured, and stepped back into the room, but Finn held on to her hand.

‘Will you not take a dance with me in my own royal hall?’ he asked, and as he touched her again, that golden lightness entranced her, and the music outside filled her with a wild delight. ‘And I will answer all your questions. I promise.’

At that moment, the song came to an end and the musicians launched into something slightly slower. Faye certainly had questions, but her body had caught the rhythm of the new tune and she felt herself nodding.

Hand in hand, they descended the golden stairs and reached the ballroom.

Finn bowed and clasped her around the waist and swung her into the outer throng of dancers that had formed around the wildest ones closest to the stage.

Faye followed Finn’s lead as they danced in a much more stately fashion, though it still made her dizzy.

The other dancers made way for them as they circled and dipped around the room, and Faye saw that many of the fae nodded and bowed as they spun past.

‘What were you doing in that bar, in…in the real world? Your band. If you are…what you say you are?’ Faye asked him, trying to keep up.

‘You can hardly doubt that I am anything else,’ Finn replied seriously as they danced.

‘But you are correct. The fae sometimes go forth into your world. Not very often, now. Once, human and fae intermingled happily. It was a golden age; I remember it with such fondness.’ He sighed.

‘Now, everything is different. Everything is wrong, out of balance. We all mourn the passing of that time in the human world, where your kind knew us and honoured us in the correct ways. Even though we dance and laugh, sadness is in us all.’

The pipers and drummers paused again and commenced a much slower song.

‘My grandmother said we had a house faerie called Gussie, who kept the hearth swept for us and the milk fresh, but he was very particular about how we honoured him,’ Faye told him.

‘As a child I left a bowl of the creamiest milk and a slice of bread out for Gussie every night, but one night I wanted to put out a scone. Grandmother said no, Gussie would take that as an insult in the same way as if no offering was left at all,’ she said, feeling a blush on her cheeks as she looked up into Finn’s strange eyes.

He was disquietingly beautiful. His hair was a dark gold in the light of the ballroom.

‘Your grandmother was a wise woman.’ Finn smiled. ‘The fae have their ways that humans used to respect. Now, they have all but forgotten us and built upon many of our dwelling places. Disrespected our sacred places.’

Dwelling places. Faye thought suddenly of Rav and his house on the beach. Was that what Finn meant? She wondered if disrespecting our sacred places meant that Finn knew what she and Rav had done on the beach. A wave of shame washed over her. No. Surely not.

Yet, she had felt eyes on her that evening. She had seen the fae in the waves, watching.

Faye blinked hard. It was very easy to forget the real world completely, but the mention of dwelling places had given her a key, a way to connect with reality, a reminder to keep her wits about her here.

She was also still not totally convinced that she wasn’t dreaming especially vividly, and might wake up in her own bed any minute.

‘Grandmother taught my mother the old ways, and they both taught me,’ she said, instead.

They danced slowly now, and the rhythm of the tune patterned her heartbeat in a delicious, sensual repetition.

Finn’s face was close to hers, and their breath met between them.

She was aware of breathing in when he breathed out, him following suit as she exhaled in an intimate synchronicity of air between them.