Page 27 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

She woke up on what she thought was the third day, feeling sick.

After the first time she and Finn had made love, she had fallen deeply asleep, only to wake still in his bed.

She had been unable to leave it since then.

A deep desire for Finn, like an addiction, filled her totally.

All she could think about was him – pleasuring him, and being pleasured.

She had not thought of home at all in that time.

It was like being in a dream. Perhaps it was a dream; she still didn’t know.

On the second day, Finn had commanded that they be served with faerie wine and deliciously sweet, luscious faerie fruits.

They were nothing like anything found in the human world, but Faye had found herself ravenous, and had taken her fill of them.

Finn had watched approvingly. Eat, eat, my sweet one , he had purred delightedly as she had reached hungrily for one thing, and then the next, slurping from an ornate golden goblet of a rich, purple-hued wine.

He had fed her, like a pet, and she had let him.

Whatever the faerie fruits were, they had kept her and Finn awake – feasting and making love – for what felt like a long time. But they had not been alone.

Flashes of memory, of contorted faces, twining limbs, of bodies and lips, slid in and out of her mind.

Faye felt a wave of revulsion as the realisation hit her of what they had done – what she had done, willingly.

She couldn’t remember how many of them had entered Finn’s chamber, but she knew that he had tied her ankles and wrists to the bed with long, supple golden chains, and had been teasing her again, making her beg him for her pleasure, when they arrived.

Our visitors wish to watch the sidhe-leth and the faerie king , he had said with amusement, and lowered his head to her dripping wet pussy. In front of the faerie host, he had licked her again, unhurriedly, as she felt shame and mortification mix with a dark and wicked desire to be watched.

But now, a sudden, searing headache came over her, and her mouth was completely dry. She closed her eyes and felt her stomach heave.

Faye made it to the bathroom in time and retched until there was nothing left to come up.

She slumped against the wall, the luxurious rugs under her legs, and tried to steady her breathing.

Slowly, she got up, went to the sink and poured some water from a pink crystal jug into her hand and gulped repeatedly until she felt a little clearer.

She was a mess. Her face was pale, smudged with food and stained with wine. Her wrists and ankles were bruised.

How long had she really been here, in the time of the human world? She covered her face with her hands as she felt her humanity, her body, fight back against the drunkenness Murias had seduced her with. She was sick again.

It was a purge of everything she had swallowed without question.

A sudden, vivid memory of making love to Finn in his bed while a host of faeries watched, laughed and pleasured themselves came back to her, and she stared at her reflection in the mirror in shock.

What had she done? Finn hadn’t made her do it, she was fairly sure of that.

She had done as she desired; deep down, she knew that.

She started to cry. She felt the shame for what she had done. This wasn’t who she was. Faye Morgan, daughter of Modron Morgan, granddaughter to generations of strong, practical, magical Morgan women. Had they come to Murias like this? Had they lost themselves in lust and excess?

And yet, even though she was miserable, she also started to feel more awake than she had since she had first entered Murias. Anger gave her clarity; perhaps anger was a tool that could be used against faerie enchantment.

Faye remembered Annie talking about how she made herself cry on stage: All ye got to do is think aboot somethin’ really sad before ye go on.

Like, really get yourself goin’. She could do the same thing.

Faye reached into her memory to the few times she had been really furious and tried to place herself back in the moment.

‘What are you doing, sidhe-leth ?’

Finn Beatha stood in the doorway to the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. He was naked, his hair tousled, but otherwise as golden and beautiful as he had ever been; not dirty and bruised as she was. ‘Come back to bed.’

‘No. I’m leaving. Going home.’ She stood defiantly, trying to look stronger than she felt. ‘That was…what we did – I was not myself. I was drunk, or something.’

‘On the contrary, Faye. You were more yourself than you have ever been. You have started to reclaim your fae nature.’ He smiled lazily, watching her.

‘What does that mean?’ she spat, furious.

‘The fae are lustful by nature. It is part of who we are. Part of who you are. My faerie creatures enjoy watching their king and his consort make love. It feeds them.’

Faye was appalled by the idea of being watched at all, never mind the chilling idea that her and Finn’s sexual activities in some way fed their onlookers. Fed how?

‘And, may I say, it suits you. You were entrancing. Every fae wanted you for their own consort,’ he added.

She pushed past him, back into the bedroom.

‘How dare you treat me like some kind of…sex slave! I’m not your whore, Finn. I’m not…not anyone’s whore?—’

He followed her; Faye felt his bare chest press lightly against her back and shoulders.

‘Never my whore, Faye Morgan. Only ever my willing lover,’ he murmured in her ear.

She was horribly confused. Finn’s touch aroused her; it was unfailing, electric.

Yet, the fleeting memories of the last few days’ revelries fuelled her anger.

She had believed this was a place of magic, of beauty.

She had come here willingly. But she felt sick, exhausted, and now that the permissive haze of faerie had started to slip, she could see cracks in its beautiful veneer.

Finn touched her shoulder lightly, then walked around the bed to the table where a breakfast had been left.

He poured a green liquid into the two goblets and offered her one.

Too late, Faye remembered that humans were never supposed to eat and drink in the faerie realms: to do so risked sacrificing their health in the human world.

‘I didn’t think humans should eat or drink in the faerie world. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.’ Her head echoed; everything was too bright. She wanted to close her eyes. Her anger sat at the bottom of her stomach, not gone, but waiting.

‘Ah.’ He smiled and sat beside her on the bed, biting into a fruit that was somewhere between an apple and a persimmon. ‘But that rule doesn’t apply to you, sidhe-leth .’

‘Why not?’ she asked tiredly.

‘I thought you knew. You are half fae. Sidhe-leth. I have told you this already.’ He chewed the fruit, watching her keenly.

‘I still don’t believe it.’ She sat on the bed.

‘You are half one of us, half human. Your father was of the faerie realm,’ he added.

Faye gaped at him, open mouthed. ‘What?’

‘Your father was a faerie king,’ he said, sitting next to her and taking her hand.

‘My…my father? But I never knew him. He left us,’ she stammered.

‘He was just some guy. Mum said…he didn’t want to be tied down.

He was violent towards her, I think. He wasn’t…

a…’ She broke off and stared at Finn, who took another bite of the fruit and shrugged.

‘Does that mean…am I…are you…my…?’ She felt sick at the thought, but stupid not to have realised immediately what he could have meant.

‘No, I am not your blood.’ Finn made her look at him, serious now. ‘That would not be the way of a king. Your mother loved another.’

‘Who?’ Faye stood up. ‘I demand to know who my father is. It’s my right.’

‘I will not hold that information from you if you seek it. His name is Lyr. He is the King of Falias, the faerie realm of earth. He rules that kingdom with his sister, the Faerie Queen Moronoe.’

‘Lyr.’ Faye remembered Moddie drawing his name in the sand. ‘He threatened to kill my mother.’

‘That is as may be. Still, he is your father. This is how you came so easily into the faerie world, Faye. You would have found your way here much sooner were it not for the fear your forebears instilled in you. Your ancestors were burned for consorting with us, for learning our gifts. And, since your grandmother has passed, you and your mother have lapsed in your responsibilities. You have not honoured us in the way that we demand.’

Faye thought of Grainne Morgan, burned at the stake, spirited away by the Good Folk at the last minute, so that she could avoid the torture of her final moments.

‘Indeed. Grainne Morgan was knowledgeable in our ways,’ Finn said, as if he was reading her thoughts.

Perhaps he was; Faye had no idea if that was something he could do.

‘That is why she was saved. Even though Grainne faced persecution for her work, she never failed us. Grainne kept the old ways, made us offerings, observed the seasonal rites. Grainne and the Morgans before her – and the others like her – kept the balance. You do not.’

‘But why didn’t they tell me about being half faerie? Moddie and Grandmother?’ Faye felt sick again.

‘I suppose they wanted to protect you. But connection to us is how you gain real power. Your great-grandmothers had real power; they lived alongside us. Learned our ways, honoured our lands. They made the appropriate sacrifices: a baby at Midwinter, a woman at Midsummer.’

‘I always thought that was symbolic, the sacrifices. You’re not saying that was real?’ Faye stared at Finn incredulously.

‘Midsummer, Midsummer, Midsummer delight;

go to the faeries on Midsummer night

Take thee a maiden, take thee a wife –

Take thee a bairn for the rest of its life –

Midsummer, Midsummer, Midsummer delight;

go to the faeries on Midsummer night.’

Finn sang the old song, and Faye shivered. She’d never even considered, as a child on the beach with Grandmother, that the song might have some truth in it.

‘That’s brutal. Who would give a baby away? Or go willingly themselves?’ she demanded, appalled.

Finn shrugged again and wiped the juice from his chin.

‘Different times take different meanings. The babies, sometimes people would leave us an ailing one in the woods. It would die if it stayed in your world. We could take it and raise it in the faerie kingdom, then use it to strengthen our stock when it was old enough.’

‘Stock?’ Faye wrapped herself in a silky throw from the end of the bed; an unconscious gesture to somehow protect herself from the truth. Because it was the truth; she knew it, instinctively.

‘Sometimes, the faerie realm sickens without good stock from the outside to make us strong. And we need to be strong, especially when we are at war.’

‘What is this war? You mentioned it before, but I…I was so tired that I fell asleep, and when I woke, we…’ She broke off, blushing.

‘There are four faerie realms: Murias, of which I am king, Falias, Gorias and Finias. We are the four elemental kingdoms: earth, air, fire and water. In the days when the balance was kept with the human world, we were at peace. The elements were in balance. But we have lost our balance with the human world – in the years since it has decided to rape and pillage and infect the land and the waters with its vile pollution, and in the years when the witches have forgotten their promises to make offerings, keep our sacred spaces and observe the seasonal rites – and the four kingdoms have come to conflict over one question.’

‘What is that question?’ she asked fearfully.

Finn regarded her solemnly for a moment.

‘The question of whether we still try to build bridges with humans, or whether we raze them to the ground, once and for all,’ he said finally.

‘Falias and Gorias believe that there is no hope left in humanity, and that the balance no longer deserves to be kept. They believe that a new age of faerie is upon us: one where the fae reign supreme, and all humans will become extinct.’