Page 17 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

Chapter twelve

Wise Woman

“ F inn? Querido , you’ve been crying.” Diego woke in the warmth of the afternoon sun with a red-eyed Finn curled up against his side.

“Not a bit of it. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Yes, you have. What’s happened?”

“I was worried for you.”

The lie was so obvious that Diego didn’t pursue the question. If Finn was simply trolling through memories better left alone, he didn’t want to make things worse, and if it was something important, Finn would tell him in his own time.

Diego’s stomach growled and Finn bent to kiss the bare skin above his jeans. “I will fetch you something to eat.”

“Not crickets, please.”

“As you wish.” Finn made no move to get up, though, stroking his long fingers through Diego’s hair. “They wish to try again this evening. With those who can help you keep the way open.”

Something’s off here. “ Mi amor …if I’m holding the Veil open here, who’s going to go talk to Tia Carmen?”

“I have thought on that.” Finn rose, brushing grass from his hip. “It must be me. There is no one else who knows how to find her. No one else she might give a hearing.”

“What? No! I can’t send you into the city alone! What if you have an asthma attack…”

Finn had already strolled away, though, dismissing Diego’s protests with a vague wave of his hand.

“Damn it.” Diego sat up to scrub his hands over his face. His muscles ached as if he’d run up forty flights of stairs, making him wonder whether Morrigan’s enforced sleep had been the only thing holding off a seizure.

As if the thought conjured her, she settled beside him on the grass, tearing at a freshly caught trout with her sharp teeth. She held out the partially mangled fish. “Are you hungry, Intrepid One?”

“Um, thanks, no.” Diego tried not to gag at the sight of exposed fish guts. “Finn’s bringing me something.”

She shrugged and returned to demolishing her catch.

“Finn says he’s going through if I can open the Veil again.”

“Do you trust him?” Morrigan mumbled around a bite.

Diego turned that over, certain the question came from some history between them. “Do I trust him to come back, to do what he says he will? Yes. Do I trust him to be safe doing it? Not so much.”

She growled into her fish.

Diego changed the subject. “Have you gone in to see Lugh?”

“A hole in the ground is no place for a raven,” she said with a snort.

“It’s hardly a hole. And Angus is in there. Caverns aren’t all that natural for eagles, either.”

“He had no choice, and would gladly follow Sionnach’s bushy tail into a morass if need be.” Morrigan bit the head off her fish, crunching through the bones with evident relish. “I will lend you my strength this evening. Mine for the sidhe , Eithne’s for the Fomor.”

Hungry a few moments before, Diego wasn’t certain he could ever face fish again. Madre de dios , who knew fish bones made so much noise? “Because you like me so much?”

She let out one of her strange, hacking laughs. “I do like you, little human. But aside from Danu and Balor, Eithne and I are the strongest, the farthest-seeing still standing.”

On the last word, Finn wandered back out, carrying, of all things, peaches and grapes. Morrigan abruptly took her leave.

“You go into a cave, mi vida , to find fruit?” Diego hummed in delight at the scent of fresh peach and bit eagerly into the one Finn handed him.

“Nathair has a garden, love. I’ll take you there sometime.” Finn stared after Morrigan’s retreating back, tense and distracted.

“She doesn’t think much of you, does she?”

“Ah…no.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

Finn shrugged. “There is not much to tell. It was long ago. I borrowed her orb. She took offense and beat me to within a hair of my life. I gave it back. Since then, she would find fault with me if I sat still as stone for a thousand years.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t, um, borrow things without asking.”

“It was pretty and shone. I was simply curious and had no intention of keeping it. Not as if I could see with the blasted thing.”

“See what?” Diego lay back with his head on Finn’s thigh, wanting both his touch and a good view of his face.

“Some fae…” Finn hesitated, the little crease forming between his brows that appeared when he tried to find the right words.

“They don’t truly see the future. But they speak prophecy when the fugue takes them and they see…

places we don’t. Easóg uses a silver bowl.

Morrigan uses an orb of some lovely yellow stone with tiny branches trapped in it…

” He drifted off, apparently lost in the memory of this fascinating object.

“Dendritic agate?”

“More than likely.”

“You’ve no idea what I just said.”

“Not the slightest notion.”

This was what Diego had missed more than the sex—this easy companionship, the way each could draw a smile so readily from the other.

He reached up to curl his hand around the back of Finn’s neck and pulled him down for a tender kiss.

Finn hummed against his lips and licked the peach juice from his chin before he pulled back to gaze at Diego’s face, desire sparking in his black eyes. “Tease.”

“Sorry.” Diego tugged on the leg of his jeans, which were suddenly uncomfortable. “Balor seems to think this illness has to do with a prophecy. You wouldn’t know what he means?”

Finn sat back on a deep breath. “We all know the one, my heart. It is a dark one, one which struck Morrigan and Easóg in the same moment, though they were miles apart at the time.”

“And? What was it?”

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to ask someone else?”

“Not if you know it.” Diego put the peach pit on the ground and wrapped his arms around Finn’s neck. “Tell me, querido . It’s all right.”

With a shudder, Finn rested his cheek against the top of Diego’s head, his voice rumbling soft and low in his chest as he recited,

“The strongest lie wasting

The many-voiced stilled

Silken wings tumble earthward

To halve the whole

Leaves only silence

No earth

No song

No light

No life.”

“Rather…ominous.” Diego swallowed hard. “What does it mean? Halves of what? Is it a reference to the fae being divided?”

“If anyone knows, they have not spoken.” Finn shrugged. “Seems a lot of nonsense to me.”

The dismissal showed Diego how unsettled Finn was by the recitation. Too damn tense. Neither one of us thinks straight that way. He slid down to nuzzle at Finn’s hard-packed stomach, his scent a siren call to his tightly strung nerves.

“My heart, my light,” Finn said in a strained whisper. “Please don’t, unless you intend to do more than dip a toe in the water.”

“Hush, mi vida , don’t worry. I want total immersion.”

Finn stroked his hair, encouraging him lower, until Diego’s tongue reached out to tap the crown of his erection. With a low growl, Finn rolled down onto his back. “My love, could you— Oh, sweet mother of—” He broke off with a gasp when Diego plunged halfway down his shaft.

Wild and enticing, the flavor of Finn’s skin only made Diego want more.

He sucked harder, taking him in until the head hit the back of his throat.

The way Finn gripped his hair and writhed beneath him sent shockwaves of pleasure to his groin.

A sensual being, even when he felt poorly, Finn had never been hard to please, and his delight at every touch, every lick and caress, held more eroticism than some lovers’ entire repertoires.

“Diego,” Finn whispered. “Turn for me. I would taste you as well. Please.”

More than happy to oblige, Diego repositioned himself so his knees straddled Finn’s head.

Anyone might see them in their shaded, grassy spot, but for once, he could not have cared any less.

Long fingers pulled the buttons open on his jeans and peeled the denim down to mid-thigh, letting his cock spring free, already hard and aching.

Finn’s incredible tongue wrapped around his head and halfway round again and Diego moaned with the dizzy rush of pleasure. Unable to speak, mouth full of Finn, he showed him how much he appreciated the attention by tonguing at Finn’s little slit and plunging down his length again.

Growls and whimpers of ecstasy replaced any coherent speech or thought for a good while after that as they devoured each other.

Diego cupped Finn’s balls, rolling them gently, pleased when the skin tightened under his thumb.

Finn’s sounds became more desperate, his hips rolling faster, and Diego pressed two fingers to the sensitive stretch of skin just behind his sac.

The reaction was spectacular. Finn arched up off the ground with a strangled cry, his fingers digging hard into Diego’s thighs.

The first splash of his sweet and salty seed hit Diego’s tongue and he felt his own balls draw up tight.

With two deep thrusts into Finn’s eager mouth, Diego came in hard pulses, his muffled cries of pleasure sending Finn into twitching aftershocks.

There might have been something in the universe more pleasurable, but as Diego lay panting with his head on Finn’s thigh, he was hard-pressed to think of one. “Better?”

“Yes, my hero. Thank you,” Finn gasped out.

Diego flopped down beside him and settled Finn’s head on his shoulder. “ De nada, corazón . Now, I have the bad feeling I won’t be able to talk you out of going, and honestly, I can’t think of another solution. So talk to me. How will you get there?”

Finn raised his head and blinked at him in honest confusion. “Through the Veil.”

“Yes, but when I opened it the last time, the door or gate or whatever led to our house. How would you get to New York from there?”

“Why would—” Finn’s brow furrowed, then smoothed as understanding dawned.

“Ah. I see the confusion. You choose the spot, my heart. Or that was how it always was before. You most likely had been thinking of home, and that was where you opened the Veil. If you wish to open it in the city, you must consciously choose to.”

“Simple as that?”

Finn shrugged. “Must everything be complicated?”