Page 28 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

Chapter nineteen

Heart of Ice

“ F inn?”

“Hmm?”

“Could you stop a minute? I need to show you something.” Diego waited while Finn drew a few more curls on a Gordian knot of Caribbean Green and Cornflower.

He had hoped they would be able to surprise the wendigo while it slept that morning, but Finn said it would be impossible. With a spirit of wind and ice, he insisted, one had to wait until it manifested and that would not be until evening.

“I’ve set the phone up on speed dial. In case something happens or if you need help and I…can’t help you anymore, I want you to be able to call Tia Carmen.” He held the phone out so Finn could see the numbers. “Press any one of these top buttons and you’ll be able to talk to her, all right?”

“And if she is not at home when it shrieks?”

“Rings, mi vida , we say a phone rings. Then you’ll hear a click and Tia Carmen’s voice will tell you she isn’t home. The answering machine. You know how that works. When it beeps, you say you called, turn the phone off and stay close until she calls you back. Do you have all that?”

Finn’s forehead crinkled. “It seems simple enough.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I will do what I must when I must, never fear,” Finn said, with a dismissive wave.

Then he scrubbed his hands over his face with a sigh.

“My love, if you did not need rest, I would ask you to walk with me in the woods. I feel a melancholy humor creeping into my blood which we can ill afford today.”

“I know. Me, too.” Diego chewed on his bottom lip. “Let’s take our lunch out onto the porch. Almost like being in the woods, right?”

Only a small dark stain on the wood near the window remained of the horrible scene two nights before. The wendigo had taken Tara’s head and body when it fled, and Finn had whisked the remaining blood and gore away on a stream of water he’d coaxed from the air.

The dark patch was reminder enough, though. Diego shivered despite the warm sun on his back. Finn pulled him onto the porch swing and held him tight while he sang to him in the soft, earth-and-water tones of ancient Gaelic.

They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms until the sun settled atop the pines.

Diego broke the silence. “We should get ready.”

“Would you like the bed again, then?”

“No, carino . I think it’s best if I stay out here. If things reach the point where you need to let it possess me, both you and it have to be able to get to me easily.”

“I won’t let—”

“Shh, hush.” Diego put a finger over his lips.

“I know. You want to protect me this time because the last time you couldn’t.

But unless you’ve been spinning some pretty incredible lies, all you have to do is wait until I come back again in another body, right?

Somehow, I get the feeling there’s not the same option if you die. ”

“I couldn’t say,” Finn answered on a hard swallow. “I’ve never died before.”

“Right. The price of immortality. But if everything I’ve ever heard or read is right, if one of the fae is destroyed, that’s it, you’re toast.”

Finn’s brows drew together. “I don’t think I would become a slice of heated bread…”

“Sorry, stupid expression. I mean, I don’t think you’d get to come back again.”

“So I have been given to understand as well.”

Diego took Finn’s face between his hands. “You need to keep your promise. Back off if the time comes. Let it happen. End it quickly. Don’t let me linger.”

“But—”

“No. No wheedling, no arguments. You need to swear to me you’ll do what I need you to do.”

“I—” Finn heaved a shaky breath. “I do so swear, by the waters that sustain me. I will not permit you to linger in horror and anguish.”

“Thank you.” Diego leaned in to give him a swift, hard hug. “Ready?”

“I’ve certainly had more romantic propositions,” Finn grumbled. “Give me a kiss and tell me you love me and I shall be.”

Diego conjured a smile and leaned in to brush his lips against Finn’s. “I love you,” he breathed against his jaw.

“Mmm, much better,” Finn murmured, and seized his mouth in a hard kiss, almost bruising in its desperate passion. He rose, slid out of his jeans and spread a blanket out in front of the porch swing. “Lie down, my love. No, leave your clothes on, if you would.”

“Um, why?”

“I fear your body will chill as it is. Best keep something on.”

“Good point.” But I love the feel of your hands on my skin. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

Finn knelt and crawled up between his thighs. He eased the waistband of Diego’s track pants down and snugged the elastic up under his balls. “You have said that before. I didn’t believe you then either.”

“But my stomach’s all in knots and I don’t— Oh, my God.” Diego’s hips jerked up as Finn bent down to wrap his incredible tongue all the way around the head of his cock. The rush of blood to his groin left him dizzy and panting.

“I begin to think it must be some necessary ritual for you, to protest that you cannot. I shan’t take it to heart,” Finn murmured against his skin. He returned his mouth to Diego, lips and tongue wrapped around his shaft in a double embrace.

“Oh…Finn…” Diego buried his fingers in the cool silk of his hair, black water through his fingers. That feels so damn good . “ Mi vida , I want to do this for years to come. I want you with me always. I don’t want this to end…”

He rolled his hips to match the rhythm Finn set. The breeze carried the spice of their mingled arousal to him and his heart sped. Lips fastened hard around his erection, Finn increased his speed. Anxious fear leaped through him, but the adrenaline rush only added to the arousal.

Strange, I shouldn’t be… “Oh, Finn…”

“I hear you, love.” Finn’s thoughts came to him, clear and warm. “ Hold tight, stay close.”

The tightening rush of orgasm hit half a breath before the seizure. The sudden lurch and plunge terrified him. For a moment, he fell into an endless abyss but soon blue light enveloped him, cradling him in a tender love song…

“Finn?”

“Oof, bucko, you do enjoy frightening the mischief out of me, don’t you?” Finn finished covering the convulsing body on the porch and rose.

“What do you mean?” He regarded his body, disoriented, unable to recognize himself.

“How you jerked away. I had a wee bit of trouble catching you up.”

“Sorry. Do you need a minute?”

Finn’s fingers closed on the air in the now-familiar gesture of negation. “Do you? You seem a bit wavery, my hero.”

He tore his attention away from his face, slack-jawed and drooling. “ How can anyone stand to look at me again after watching that?”

“The fits are distressing,” Finn answered softly. “But more because you suffer than because of the contortions you are forced through.”

“Very sweet, but still—”

“You must shed your self-doubt now, Diego.” Finn’s shape melted as he advanced, his human form stretching and expanding.

The nightmare steed from his first encounter with the wendigo stood before him, tossing his head.

“Your warrior spirit has lain dormant, but it must live in you still. Mount, my hero. Hunt with me.”

A shudder of dislocation ran through Diego. The wendigo had demanded the same thing. “ Damn it, Finn, how am I supposed to mount without a body? I don’t even know how to ride.”

Horse-Finn stamped a hoof. “You are without the limits of flesh now. And you must maintain the connection yourself. I will have other things to devour my attention. For the love of all the gods, stop dallying. The beast begins to stir, and we will soon lose the sun.”

While his limbs appeared made of translucent, golden light, Diego still felt as if he had a body.

Probably part of the problem. He struggled to recall how it had felt the day before, reaching for Finn’s stars, pulling in the lightning.

Then, as if he stepped sideways though a half-open door, he found that strange angle of consciousness again.

Finn’s blue glow beckoned to him, not the horse, not the man-shape, but the true core of his being.

So beautiful… The connection between them materialized for him, bright tendrils, rainbow hued, bridges between their bodies and their essences, stretching back through the centuries.

He came to Finn and nestled close against him, closer than two bodies could ever be.

Finn’s anxiety hit him with such poignancy he wanted to weep, but the love enveloping him, heated and deep-rooted, gave him strength.

He envisioned himself mounted on Finn’s back and found his view of the world elevated to a greater height than he was used to.

“Much better, love. Stay with me.” Finn snorted and took off at a breakneck gallop.

“It’s awake?”

“Stirring. Considering. It feels you coming.” Finn jumped a fallen pine without breaking stride. “I think it’s curious.”

“So we’re in time? It hasn’t killed again?”

“Not yet. It’s famished. Don’t you feel it?”

“I don’t…” As if the thought had conjured it, the wendigo’s chill chasm of hunger reached out for him. “ God…Finn… It feels like it wants to swallow the world whole.”

“If it could find a way, it most likely would.” Finn took a sharp turn and thundered uphill, out of the trees, hooves striking sparks on the rocky ground. “It comes, my hero. You must be ready, but you do not stand alone.”

“I know , mi vida. Neither do you.” Despite the distance from his body, he still found his lightning when he reached for it. Power flooded through him, dangerous, intoxicating.

Underneath him Finn surged forward, muscles bunching and flexing as his body took on yet more mass, sleek, black scales growing up to cover horsehair. The beat of huge wings replaced the drum of hooves. Challenge roared from Dragon-Finn’s throat.

The wendigo’s answering howl echoed off the hillsides.

“Shaman .” Its colder than the void thought knifed into his. “ Banish your spirit guide and come to me. Send it away or I will take another.”

“I won’t let—”