Page 35 of Given to the Fae (The Dark Realms #3)

I make it there quickly and see the missing pack just by the Ring. Leaning down, I swipe it from the ground without even leaving the stallion’s back, and head back the way I came. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the caves, jumping down from the steed and climbing up the rock quickly.

My heart is thudding hard in my chest even though I know I’ve not been gone long, and that my conjures on the surrounding area would have let me know if she’d left.

I’m just getting to the top when I hear a groan.

‘Bryn?’

I stop short as I see her. She’s on the stone floor. Her tunic has been discarded, and her shirt is opened to reveal her body.

‘What are you doing?’ I growl.

Horror and anger war with something I don’t want to name and, thankfully, the former wins.

‘Get up! Put your clothes back on. Whatever this is, it’s not going to work.’

But I hear a stifled sob, and I take a wary step closer.

‘Bryn?’

‘Locke? I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening.’

She writhes on the stone floor of the cave and lets out a whimper.

I’m beside her in an instant, feeling her forehead. It’s hot. Her whole body is. She leans into my touch, closing her eyes and pressing her body close to mine.

’What’s wrong with you?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know. I just… I need...’

She unbuttons her breeches and her hand slips between her legs. I freeze, staring into her wild eyes, and not at what her hand is doing.

She lets out another sob. ‘What’s happening to me?’

‘I—’

‘Help me. Please, Locke. I can’t do it. I can’t make it feel the way you make it feel and I need it to feel that way.’

I swallow hard. ‘You want me to release you?’

‘Yes!’ She nods vigorously. ‘Please!’

I move away from her even as everything in me demands I give her what she wants.

‘I can’t do that, Bryn. It isn’t right.’

My hand runs through my hair, pulling at the strands. ‘Human females don’t even really need that. It doesn’t keep you less troublesome, or docile. It’s another lie they tell to keep everyone following the rules.’

‘It doesn’t feel like that right now!’ she snarls. ‘Please! I’m begging you to help me. You don’t understand, Locke. It hurts .’

A tear slips down her cheek.

‘I can’t,’ I say again, but I try to calm her with a conjure the way I did before when I released her in front of the others.

‘You did it when you were ordered to!’ she spits out.

Her hand leaves her breeches and pinches her own nipple, making her gasp.

‘I know I’m not nice to look at, and my scars are... But you can’t see them now! You can pretend I’m a pretty fae female, and… Please!’

My conjure' does nothing. She’s not calm. I try one to make her sleep, but she just stares at me, her eyes moving over me.

‘Please,’ she whispers brokenly. She kicks off her boots and tears off her breeches, baring her body to my eyes completely.

I avert my eyes. ‘Bryn, I?—’

She looks around wildly and then bounces to her feet, lurching toward the entrance of the cave and to the cliffside .

I lunge after her.

‘Where are the others? I need to find them. They’ll help me!’

‘No!’ I pull her back before she can go over the edge. ‘I’ll help you,’ I tell her, wracking my brains for why she could possibly be acting this way.

‘Did you eat something, Bryn?’

‘What? No, I just started the fire and then I started feeling...hot and now I hurt, and I want...’

She turns into me, clawing at my clothes.

‘Gods, forgive me,’ I whisper, and I put my hand where she wants it.

She’s soaking and she clutches at me with a cry. ‘Mount me. Rut me,’ she begs, and I close my eyes, pushing out a harsh breath.

‘No, Bryn,’ I murmur, ‘but I will help you.’

And then her lips are on mine. Her kiss is unpracticed and my heart sinks when I think that this is perhaps her first one, or at least the first one that was given, instead of taken.

But she isn’t really giving it. This isn’t real. Whatever’s happening to her, it’s got to be some Dark Realm malady.

I kiss her back, hating myself but unable to resist her lips on mine, something I’ve been dreaming about since the first day in The Barrack if I’m completely honest with myself.

My fingers work her between her legs, the sounds of my fingers driving into her filling the cave. She cries out her release, her back bowing as she arches back, her legs shaking with the force of her pleasure.

She quiets, her eyes closing for a moment before she opens them again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I don’t know why this is happening. I’ve never felt like this before.’

‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘When Jak gets back, he’ll be able to help.’

She stays quiet for only a few minutes before she’s clutching at me and whimpering again.

She unbuttons my tunic despite my half-hearted protests, and, I bring her to pleasure again, and then again.

In the end, I unroll my bedroll for us, kicking off my boots to get a bit more comfortable when she doesn’t show any signs of this fever abating.

On the fourth time, I have her legs wide as I lick her cunt, and her cries echo sweetly through the cave.

‘What the fuck is this?’ I hear Jak snarl from behind me, and I wince, but I don’t stop because I know she’s close.

She cries out a moment later, her body clenching around me as she scrapes her fingernails through my hair.

I sit back on my heels and look over my shoulder at the others.

‘It’s not what you think,’ I say, pulling my blanket over her only for her to kick it away a moment later, saying she’s too hot.

‘Then what is it?’ Morgan growls, sounding angrier than he has in a long time. ‘Because you warned me away from her, and the first time you’re alone with her, you’re...’ he lets out a snarl of fury, ‘ releasing her. That’s what I think , Locke!’

I glance at Jak helplessly as she begins to beg me again.

‘She’s been like this almost since you left,’ I explain. ‘We dropped a pack at the Gate so I went to get it. I wasn’t gone for more than a few minutes and when I came back she was begging me to help her. There’s something wrong with her.’

‘So, you thought you’d take advantage?’

I get to my feet and push Morgan hard. ‘We know each other better than that!’

‘I thought we did too, but you’ve been different since we came to the Dark Realms.’

‘Fuck you,’ I grate out. ‘You haven’t been in this cave with her while she cries and begs for pleasure. I’ve made her come four times already, and she keeps wanting more. She whimpers and says it hurts.’ I put my face in my hands.

‘Oh, aye, it sounds awful!’ Morgan mutters, rolling his eyes.

‘It is for her!’ I hiss. ‘When she’s in her right mind, she’s going to hate me!’

She groans from my bedroll.

‘Please,’ she mutters as it begins again.

I look to Jak desperately. ‘Do something. She resisted my conjures. I tried to make her sleep, and it didn’t work.’

Jak’s brow knits together. ‘That isn’t possible. She’s a human.’

‘I know that! And yet...’ I gesture to the woman who’s writhing around begging and pleading and beginning to cry again. My voice lowers to a whisper. ‘I can’t leave her in torment.’

‘Bryn?’ Jak asks, kneeling beside her.

She immediately reaches for him. ‘Jak? It’s you. Please. He says he won’t fuck me, but you will, won’t you? I know I’m not beautiful, but just pretend? Pretend I’m someone else? Please?’

‘I can’t, Bryn,’ he murmurs, looking struck as he bats her hands away gently and looks her over.

‘She didn’t eat anything?’ he asks.

‘She said she didn’t, only that she began feeling too hot while I was gone. Her skin feels feverish to me.’

Jak nods. ‘I’m going to make you a tea,’ he says to her, putting his hand on her forehead.

She lets out a small growl and whips her head up, biting his hand. He jerks it away.

‘No more teas!’ she hisses. ‘I need...’ Her words taper off and tears fill her eyes. ‘I don’t know what I need, but please, please, please make it go away!’

Jak’s eyes are helpless as he looks back at us.

‘I’ll make the tea, but if it doesn’t help... I’ve never heard of this before with a human. She might need...’

‘What?’ I ask. ‘If it’s a plant she needs, I’ll find it!’

‘It might not be a plant, Locke,’ Jak says meaningfully, looking down at my cock that’s been standing to attention for ages now.

‘No. I’m not going to do that to her when she’s not herself. I can’t.’

‘One of us might have to.’

Jak gets up and starts rifling through his pack to find the ingredients for the tea while I begin to work her body again.

‘What are we going to do?’ Morgan asks.

‘I’m going to bring her to pleasure again and then speak to her. She seems to be more lucid just afterward, before the need comes upon her again.’

Morgan nods and dips his head down to kiss her forehead, freezing when she grabs him behind his neck and kisses him deeply.

‘I need you,’ she whimpers. ‘If not your cock, then your tongue at least. It felt so good last night. Please!’

I glance at Jak who nods grimly.

‘Well, this certainly isn’t what I expected when I woke up this morning,’ Morgan mutters as he lays between her wide legs and begins to kiss and suck at her.

She comes quickly and, as she lays panting, I wipe the hair away that’s stuck to her dewy face.

‘Bryn?’

She yawns.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better now, but it comes back. It keeps coming back.’ She sounds close to tears again.

‘I know,’ I say soothingly. ‘But I have to ask this now. You’ve been with others, haven’t you?’

She looks at me blankly.

‘Bulls?’

She gives me a pained look. ‘Only once. Ogdan put me in the block. They had a bull... They told him to use his hand on himself and only to put it in to seed me. He did and then...’

‘Then?’ Morgan asks.

‘He was killed, and the seed didn’t take. But they didn’t want to risk another, so they never did it again.’

‘They killed the bull?’ I ask, confused as to why they’d do such a thing when bulls are so prized.

But she doesn’t answer, her eyes going hazy and unfocused again.

Gods, no wonder she hates the block. I clench my jaw, hating this mission, hating myself for my part in her misery. We need to succeed. This can’t all be for nothing.

‘Here.’ Jak thrusts a steaming mug at me. ‘I’ve cooled it. It won’t burn her.’

Morgan hefts her up to sitting and makes her drink with promises of doing whatever she wants afterward. She finally drinks and we all wait to see if it helps. But the sun goes down and her cries become so plaintive that listening to her is its own brand of torture.

‘One of us needs to do it,’ Jak says. ‘The tea hasn’t helped.’

‘One of us?’ Morgan growls.

I roll my eyes. ‘How do you propose we decide? Straws?’ I sneer.

Jak sighs. ‘No.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Morgan says. ‘She wanted me to last night, but I...’

‘I’ve seen your cock, Mount Morgan. It’s too big. You heard what she said. She’s barely experienced in the ways of males.’ I glance at Jak. ‘You do it.’

He looks shocked. ‘Me? Why?’

I shrug. ‘You’re not so big .’

His eyes narrow. ‘Are you saying my cock is small ?’

‘No, not small. Just...in relative terms, compared to Morgan and me, you’re the smallest out of all of us.’

Jak shakes his head and mumbles something.

‘If you can’t do it,’ I begin, but he gives me a venomous look.

‘Now you think my cock doesn’t work ?’

‘No,’ Morgan cuts in, ‘but you haven’t spent much time with her...and she’s human...and?—’

‘I don’t have a problem with humans!’

‘That’s not what we’re saying. But you’re?—’

‘Gods,’ Jak snarls. ‘I don’t have a problem with Bryn, and neither does my cock!’

Morgan puts his hands up and backs away. ‘You’ll have to do something soon. She’s getting worse.’

I glance down at Bryn, who’s on her front, pressing her face into my blankets to stifle her whimpers.

‘Bryn,’ I say, stroking her hair.

She looks at me, her breathing fast, and she nods, mouthing the word ‘please’ as her hands claw at the covers.

‘Help her,’ I say to Jak.

He looks down at her with a coldness that seems forced.

‘Turn over,’ he says gruffly and grimaces when she winces.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers as she twists onto her back. ‘Just close your eyes and think of someone else.’

His eyes soften. ‘I won’t need to do that, sweetling. Take off the bracelet. I want to see you as you are.’

She closes her eyes and seems to deflate as she takes off the yellow cuff. Her pointed ears become rounded and her eyes dull to that beautiful molten chocolate.

Her hands swipe across her eyes and she takes a shuddering breath. ‘What’s wrong with me? Is it this place?’

‘Remember I told you I was a healer once?’

She nods and he lays next to her on the floor.

‘I’ll sort it,’ I hear him say to her in a low voice. ‘I promise you, Bryn. But, for now, I’ll do this. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to… Not like this.’

His hand shoos me away and I go to the side of the cavern to sit next to Morgan.

‘Shall we leave?’ he whispers, his expression concerned.

I shake my head. ‘We’ll prepare the meal and, afterward, perhaps she’ll be hungry.’

He gets up and begins to sort the rabbits they caught on their hunt, but I linger.

It’s not that I want to watch this necessity, but she’s not herself. What if Jak misses an expression or a sound and ends up doing something she doesn’t want?

And, so I watch and I tell my errant cock that this isn’t an enticing scene, but it isn’t listening.