Page 5 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

Chapter four

Lugh

“ I think I’ll stay here, if that’s all right.” Diego patted the rock beside him.

The two winged beings, ‘pixies’ he supposed would be the best word, collapsed into each other’s arms in gales of laughter.

“I’m sorry, did I say something funny?”

They sputtered, looked at each other and lost it all over again. “You can’t bathe from there!” the blue one finally hooted, holding his— her…their? —sides.

“I’m not sure I want to bathe right now.”

The green one tossed long wet hair over one shoulder. “Herself said to have you bathe. And you stink. So you should.” She—the movements, the tone, suggested ‘she’—fingered his shirtsleeve. “Do you bathe in your overskin?”

Heat rose up his throat. “I don’t, ah, usually take my overskin off in front of strangers. I’m sorry. I’m just not comfortable.”

“Strangers? But we met, oh, ages ago.” The green one’s smile seemed indulgent.

“Yes, this morning, right. But for humans, that’s still strangers.”

The two exchanged an odd look. The blue one’s wings drooped in a dejected way. “You don’t even remember our names, do you?”

Did you give me your names? “I’m sorry, please don’t be offended. If you told me, I don’t remember.”

The green one whispered in the blue one’s ear. He giggled and brightened, which normally might only have been an expression, while for the pixie it was a phenomenon of light and color. A soft glow suffused his skin, his blue ratcheting up the spectrum from cornflower to cerulean.

“Humans,” he said with a nod and put a hand over his heart. “Scath.”

The green one nuzzled at Scath’s throat while she pointed to herself. “Croi.”

They forgot him for a moment as they twined around each other, her leg sliding up around his hip, his hands cupping her firm little butt. Their lips met in a desperate kiss as if they had been separated for months.

Tiny bell voices had woken Diego that morning, words just beyond human hearing tugging him from sleep.

Two firefly lights had danced before his eyes when he opened them, a feeling of well-being surrounding him despite his sore muscles and his aching head.

The little lights had vanished and these two charming creatures appeared in their place, roughly human in shape and size, with delicate features and translucent wings.

They’d brought him berries and water, teasing him gently while he ate, then had taken his hands and dragged him to a lily-strewn pool, clear as glass, with a little waterfall chuckling at the far end.

Now Diego took an avid interest in the trees and tried not to blush harder. Not that he could imagine them actually doing anything together since the mound between their legs was identically smooth and sexless. They possessed nothing to have sex with unless…

What if their mouths are their sex organs?

He rose to return to the bower, unwilling to play the voyeur. They abruptly broke off their tender immersion in each other and flew to him, gossamer wings whirring hummingbird fashion.

“Come, we are not strangers,” Croi whispered in his ear as she tugged Diego’s shirt from his jeans.

“We know you, Taliesin,” Scath murmured with a nuzzle to his jaw, his fingers making quick work of Diego’s fly.

The name forced the puzzle pieces into place. “You…know me? From before? From a different life?”

“A different form. Always the same life. We would know your life if you were a stone.” Croi kissed the tip of his ear.

They had taken advantage of his distraction to pull his T-shirt off. Scath’s hands slipped below his waistband and slid Diego’s jeans and boxers down to his knees.

“Please don’t—” Diego’s breath hitched when Croi’s delicate fingers traced his nipple. How do I tell them no without offending them?

Scath laughed, a shimmering of silver bells, and seized his hands. “Come! We are here to bathe you, and you still haven’t put a toe in.”

Forced to either step out of his clothes or fall on his face, Diego stumbled after, leaving sneakers, jeans and boxers in a little trail down the bank.

“Wait, wait!” he called out, laughing, as they reached the water’s edge. Gently, he retrieved one of his hands from Scath’s and slipped off his socks. “Nothing worse than wet socks.”

“You won’t need your foot coverings,” Croi assured him.

“I think I’d rather have them when we’re done.

Thorns and stones and things. I can’t fly like you.

” Diego took her offered hand and stepped gingerly into the pool, expecting cold water and mud between his toes.

His breath caught as his foot sank into warm, soft sand, the sensation so unexpected he lurched sideways into Scath’s arms. The pixie’s chest felt cool, like Finn’s would have.

Finn…

“Oh, something hurts him! What is it?” Croi stroked his hair, crooning to him.

Diego swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Nothing, please, I’m fine. I just thought of something. Someone.”

“Fionnachd,” Scath supplied for him. “He wrenches your heart.” He moved behind Diego, blue glow visible as a trail for the eye.

A splash and a soft susurration later, Scath’s hand touched Diego’s back, stroking something into his skin like a fine-grained exfoliate accompanied by the scent of lilies.

“What’s that?” Diego tried to twist his head to see.

“The sand.” Croi’s eyes sparkled with gentle mirth. “It will cleanse you. Take the human stink away.”

“I smell that bad?”

Croi bent to gather a handful of sand from the pool bed and began working on Diego’s chest in slow circles. “It is…different than how humans used to smell. Sharper. With many strange notes in the scent. As if you were poisoned by many small, evil spells.”

Her hands moved lower to caress the muscles of his abdomen.

“You don’t have to—” Diego choked off with a gasp and jerked forward as Scath’s hands cupped his backside, his fingers sliding into the crease in an intimate caress. “Stop that!” He reached back to grab Scath’s wrist, brought up short again as Croi cupped his balls. “ Dios ! Stop! Please…”

He staggered sideways, trying to evade their ever bolder hands, tripped over someone’s foot, and fell headlong into the water. Gasping and sputtering, he resurfaced to the sound of deep, resonant laughter from the bank.

“The féileacán do not understand your reticence, little man.” Lugh leaned against a tree trunk, grinning as he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “For them, there is no distinction between a friendly touch and one meant to inflame desire.”

No distinction? So when I held their hands…

Diego stayed where he was, sitting on the sand, submerged to mid-chest. “Holy shit.” He looked up at Scath, his blue head tilted to one side in a puzzled way.

“I didn’t…that is, I don’t…I didn’t realize.

I’m sorry. I can’t…” He trailed off as Lugh began to laugh again.

“Go, little ones,” Lugh said with an undignified snort. “Leave him with me. You confound him.”

“We were only doing as She asked,” Croi said in a small voice.

“And he enjoyed our company,” Scath added, chin raised. “His root grew stiff.”

Diego covered his crotch with both hands out of reflex, trying to will his cock out of its semi-erect state. Naturally, thinking about it had the opposite effect.

“Still, he is human and will be unhappy soon if you persist.” Lugh pushed off the tree, arms crossed over his massive chest. “Fly away, pretties. You will see him again soon.”

A blue hand and a green one ran quickly over his shoulder before Scath and Croi vanished, replaced by the firefly lights. Now that he understood their nature, Diego could just make out the tiny winged forms within the lights as they darted away.

“Thank you,” Diego said, though he made no move to get out of the water. Lugh had been kind to him, had defended him from the sidhe with the claws and stood by him in the glade. Caution threaded through his gratitude, though. What does he want from me?

Lugh picked a cloth up from the ground and shook it out. “Come. I know you are body-shy. Wrap this around you. I would speak with you.”

Here it comes, then. Diego forced himself to take a deep breath and stepped from the pool into the blanket Lugh offered.

The material settled light and soft around his shoulders, a weave so fine he wondered if it was woven at all.

Lugh settled on a nearby rock, no longer looming, so Diego followed suit and sat down on the next rock over with the blanket held tight around him.

“You have forgotten everything.” Lugh’s tone was steady but resigned.

“I suppose I have. You mean past lives, don’t you? Who I was and what I knew before?”

“You are Taliesin, who has lived as much among the fae as among your own kind. Sometimes you recall, other times not.” Lugh shrugged, a casual lift of his shoulders that caused one of his four braids to fall forward onto his chest.

Diego found his eyes drawn to the glossy black sheen of it, his mind wandering to what it might feel like. “Yes, I’ve forgotten. I only know what Finn told me and showed me.”

“I did not recognize you with your flows so muted and your spirit so wounded.” Lugh’s voice grew soft. He leaned forward, arms on his knees. “There was a time you found joy in my arms.”

“Oh. Um.” Diego tugged the blanket closer.

The short green kilt Lugh wore did nothing to hide the huge bulge of his erection.

His whole body was huge, his hands large enough to crush a pumpkin.

If he wanted to force the issue, there wouldn’t be a lot of choice. “I… Look, you’re incredibly handsome—”

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you. My word of honor.” Lugh moved closer and reached out to put a hand on Diego’s knee. “Your heart is full of pain. Let me help.”

“Please, I’m sorry.” He broke off in confusion when Lugh moved over to his rock and wrapped strong arms around him.

It would be so easy to lean into that embrace, to close the distance to the lush, full lips above him, to give in to this powerful, beautiful otherworldly being.

“I can’t. You’re hot as hell, but I can’t.

I’d just be going through the motions, and I think you want more than that. Finn—”

Lugh pulled back with a sharp laugh. “After he betrayed you, broke your heart? You still remain faithful to him? To a pooka who has no more understanding of faithfulness than a honeybee has?”

“Yes,” Diego whispered, ashamed that he trembled and that the backs of his eyes stung.

“Poor little man.” Lugh leaned forward but only to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. “Poor, beautiful little man.” One hand lifted to cup Diego’s chin, black eyes searching his face. “I could—”

With a sharp cry, Lugh broke off and jerked away, doubled over with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

Did I hurt him somehow? Diego sat stunned, watching the powerful body writhe on the ground, the black hooves beating against the nearest rock.

No, he would have felt the magic run through him and no lightning had sparked from his fingers.

He slid off his rock and knelt beside Lugh, one hand on his shoulder.

“Easy, easy, what can I do? What hurts?”

“Sweet mother,” Lugh gasped out. “Gods…eaten alive…”

Desperate, unable to think what else to do, Diego concentrated on an image of Danu, thinking as hard as he could of her, calling out to her in his mind.

The answer came soft but clear, “ I am coming.”