Page 8 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

“I woke to a draining feeling, as if the life bled from me. It was day, but something blocked the sunlight. Surfacing brought me through a layer of reeking black spread on the water’s surface.

In my sleep, I had drifted to the river’s mouth, near the sea.

Gulls and fish floundered in this inky horror, which clung to everything.

I tried to save the ones I could reach but most were already dead, and I felt as if I were dying as well.

A huge ship hove into sight, a long pipe hung from its side sucking up the black muck with no regard for what lay in its path.

Gods only know how, but I gained the shore.

“By shifting smaller and smaller, I managed to roll in the sand to rid myself of most of the reeking mess.

But I was terribly ill and lay there in the refuse and the reeds until the sun set.

When I could move again, I tried the Veil.

But the passage was closed, the human world cut off from the Otherworld.

I called and called through the night but no one came. No one. Not even someone come to gloat.

“They are gone. I am all that is left.”

The theory, at least, was familiar to Diego. Celtic legends held numerous descriptions of the thin line between the world of humans and magical beings, which in the age of heroes seemed to have been permeable and easy to cross.

“Maybe they just changed the rules,” he ventured. “While you slept.”

“Perhaps.” Finn flung an arm around his waist and drew him closer. “There were those in the court who wanted to remove the passage entirely ever since the last retreat of the ice when it became clear humans would thrive and multiply. The Veil has become less and less…accessible over the centuries.”

“Hold on.” Diego stilled his hand, realizing he’d been combing his fingers through Finn’s hair. “Are you saying you’ve been around since the last Ice Age?”

Finn lifted his head and kissed Diego’s jaw. “Of course I have. You have as well, my hero, though I know you don’t recall now.”

No, he couldn’t be saying… Diego dismissed that line of thinking, able to deal with only so much in one afternoon.

“But someone should have come. To close the boundary and leave one of the Folk stranded…is unthinkable. But perhaps they were forced. Or thought me dead. I don’t know.” Finn heaved a shaky breath.

“So you got to shore and then what happened?” Diego prompted, to distract him.

“The fishermen’s huts were gone, replaced by huge blocks of steel and glass.

Some of these spewed noxious vapors. I was stranded in a purely human world where, unchecked, the human tendencies to conquer and control had run rampant.

Two choices, I told myself—lie down and die, or find out if truly all lay in ruins.

I wasn’t ready to die. And unlike some, I have never held that humans are all senseless, evil savages. ”

“Um, thanks for that.”

“You are more than welcome.”

Finn’s hand wandered down to Diego’s hip. He grabbed it and pulled it back up to his chest.

“I became a dog. One of the best ways to hide in a human settlement. Out in the open. There was a village, of sorts, nearby. Too big for my liking. Too many people and strange machines. But I did learn that humans no longer believe in the Fair Folk. Stories for children, that’s what we’ve become.

The reverence and fear and even love we had once received from humans reduced to ridiculous caricatures of little men in buckled shoes.

” Finn snorted in disgust. “Leprechauns.”

“Ah. Sorry about that.”

“How were you to know?” Finn stroked circles around one of Diego’s shirt buttons.

“I reasoned Eire had become so overrun with humans because it is so small. I could, after all, fly from Ulster to the southernmost tip of Munster in a day. America was rumored to be vast, I recalled. Endless expanses of woods, mountains so tall their heads pierced the clouds. There I would find clean water again and perhaps others who had been left behind. Imagine my horror when I left the ship and found…” He waved a hand toward the window. “This.”

“You were right, though. It isn’t all like this…” Diego trailed off when he realized Finn was unbuttoning his shirt. “Please don’t do that.”

Finn ignored him and tugged the shirttails from his jeans. The hand stroking his stomach felt so damn good. So easy, just to give in. His breath caught when Finn shifted his head to take a nipple in his mouth in a hard-suctioned kiss.

“Holy mother of… Oh, shit…” Diego whispered.

“An odd deity to pray to, but who am I to dictate such things?” Finn smiled against his skin, his hand sliding under Diego’s waistband.

“Stop that! I said no!” Diego hauled the hand back out though his cock pressed achingly hard against his jeans.

He tried to sit up but Finn moved so fast to straddle him, he had no time to do more than cry out in shock.

Pinned, both wrists trapped above his head in Finn’s frighteningly strong grip, he struggled and snarled in helpless frustration.

“Let me go!”

Finn shook his head, curling forward to kiss his eyelids. “Your scent calls to me. You want this. You need me to take you. I need this.”

“Damn it, Finn, I’m not an animal.” Diego stopped struggling and caught Finn’s gaze.

It wasn’t a trick of the light. His eyes actually glowed red when emotions ran high.

“Yes, my body wants sex. I can’t help that.

I’m hurting and lonely, and it’s a natural physical reaction to you being nearby.

But I’m not ready. And I wouldn’t be doing it for the right reasons.

I’d feel awful afterward. Guilty and ashamed and…

I just can’t do this right now. Please. Can you understand that? ”

A low growl rumbled in Finn’s chest, but he cut it short and dismounted to turn back to the window.

“Forgive me. You’ve been nothing but kind to me.

I wished only to help you. You carry such a terrible ball of pain under your heart.

And you will not let the tears flow to release the poison.

It’s no wonder you fall into fits. But you let no one help you.

As if you believe you deserve the agony. ”

Diego wanted to protest. What a thing to say. But he couldn’t recall a single tear since Mitch had left him. Not that he hadn’t felt like sobbing. Why hadn’t he cried? Why couldn’t he?

“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I appreciate the thought.”

“Please, let me help you…”

This wouldn’t do. Finn was close to tears himself again.

“Look, if you really want to help, go clean up that mess in the bathroom. I don’t mind if you keep your water in there for a couple of days. But it doesn’t belong on the floor.”

Finn stared at him, blinking. “Oh. Very well. I didn’t realize.” He rose and returned to the bathroom.

“Don’t you want a mop or some—” Diego followed and trailed off when he reached the doorway. One hand stretched out toward the floor, palm down, Finn watched calmly as the water flowed back up into the tub.

“Never mind.”

He went to the kitchen to start dinner, needing some space to breathe and to think.