Page 24 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

‘Yes, I know,’ he murmured, his lips so close to hers that she wondered if he was challenging her not to kiss him.

She wanted to. The desire to lose herself in his kiss was so great that it took everything Faye had not to dissolve into him.

He seemed to know it, and chuckled, grazing her lips with his softly.

‘And I also know what you desire, my sweet one. Have patience. Good things come to good girls.’ He cocked an eyebrow, then drew her around by her waist, smiling at the many dancers who called out a blessing or a greeting to him as they twirled around the dancefloor.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she breathed, desperately trying to stay focused.

‘I didn’t?’

‘About why you play music to humans. In the band,’ she panted.

The dance was having some kind of hallucinatory effect on her, and she thought she was catching glimpses of things in the corners, in the shadows – gaunt bodies, hanging flesh.

Like in the tapestry, it wasn’t what she noticed first, but when she blinked, echoes of a more threatening nature were all around her.

He gave a little laugh.

‘You are persistent.’

I’m not nearly as persistent as I should be just now , Faye thought. Her head was spinning.

‘Hmm. Well, perhaps I like the audience.’

‘You have all the audience you need here, surely?’ The hall was full of hundreds of faeries, feasting and dancing.

He raised his eyebrow and smiled. ‘Quite so. Well, then. Perhaps it is that we need humans. We need your attention to survive. We need your love.’ He looked at her deeply, and she felt her breath catch.

‘We were banished from your world, or near enough, when you stopped paying us our due. As the spirits of the land. As the ones who give you good luck, help you, keep your babies healthy. We didn’t ask much, but it was too much for humans in the end, and it broke our hearts.

Now, we are mostly confined to our own places.

But as I am king, I can choose whether to go forth into your world or not.

And I choose to be loved again, and give love.

It is no more than an act of a broken heart looking to be healed, my time with Dal Riada. ’

Faye didn’t know what to say in reply. She thought of the rules, in Grandmother’s grimoire:

The Rule of Balance applies between the faerie and the human worlds. Each world depends on the other to exist, and there is a natural ebb and flow between the realms. If one realm seeks to overpower the other, chaos reigns. If they work harmoniously together, peace reigns.

Finn nodded to another couple that danced next to them.

The woman – or, as Faye corrected herself, the faerie-woman – was dressed very grandly in a violet and silver dress with a bodice and full skirt reminiscent of fashion from many hundreds of years ago.

She wore red roses in her dark golden-blonde hair, which was plaited intricately around them.

Her partner was, as far as Faye could tell, human – a dark-skinned young man with a dazed expression who couldn’t take his eyes from the faerie queen in his arms. She was high-cheekboned and full-lipped, and her eyes had the same oddness as Finn’s – as if they were made of jewels that held great depth but still remained somehow impassive and cold.

‘Greetings to you, sidhe-leth .’ The woman nodded imperiously to Faye, and her human partner smiled briefly before he swung the golden-haired beauty away.

‘Who was that?’ Faye murmured to Finn, though she was having trouble focusing on anything apart from Finn and the music, which had entered her blood; it felt as though it was powering her actions from inside a formerly hidden part of herself.

A part of herself that was as wild as the trees and the rivers, and wanted to sing and dance and – most of all, as Finn pressed her against his firm, well-muscled chest – submit to him.

The thought of submitting to him made her thrill with a dark passion that she had never known.

She thought about what it would be like to kneel before him; obey him.

Their faces were so close together now that their lips almost touched.

Faye’s awareness of the dancers around them dimmed so that it was only the two of them moving as one inside the music.

If she inclined her head less than an inch, her lips would meet his; the idea thrilled her more than she had ever thought possible.

‘My sister, the Faerie Queen Levantiana, Queen of Murias, Mistress of the Cup,’ he breathed.

‘And the…the person with her?’

‘Her lover.’

‘Is he human?’ she murmured. ‘Like me?’

‘Yes.’ Finn smiled, and lightly traced the line of Faye’s cheek with his fingertip, causing a pleasurable fire that lit her whole body up in desire for him. She sucked in her breath. ‘But not like you.’

‘Are you…close to your sister?’ Faye was curious about the faerie queen, and Finn’s relationship with her. His eyes had glowed when they met hers, and Faye had felt something pass between them: an unspoken understanding, a deep connection.

‘Of course. She is queen, I am king,’ he replied dismissively, but on seeing Faye’s expression, he explained a little more.

‘She is made of the same stuff as me, the same as all faeries, just as other humans share much in common with you. But she and I are of an old, old family: our forebears are the spirits of the first oceans. What is between us cannot be between anyone else – it is impossible for you to understand. We are Murias, and Murias is us. This is one of the mysteries of my kingdom, sidhe-leth : it would take you many more lifetimes than the one you have to understand.’

She had so many more questions. But, rather than speak anymore, Finn brushed her lips with his fingertip and gently kissed her