Page 9 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

Chapter seven

Memory

“ D o you feel ill, Fionnachd?”

Nathair’s gentle question startled Finn from his brooding. He held Faolchú propped against his chest again while Nathair coaxed him into eating slivers of rabbit but Finn’s thoughts had wandered far afield.

“I am well enough,” he answered. “Considering the state of things.”

“I only ask since you are so pale suddenly.”

“Bloody caves. If there were somewhere to swim, a river or a pool, perhaps I might not feel so….”

“Confined?”

Finn nodded, not trusting his voice.

“Ah, well, if that’s all it is.” Nathair wiped the blood from Faolchú’s muzzle and stood. “There is a place that might suit.”

Finn slid back to return Faolchú to his blankets, but a rough-padded hand gripped his wrist.

“Take me,” Faolchú whispered.

“Take you where?”

“With you. To the pool.”

“Ah, someone else feels confined.” Finn kissed his ear and knelt beside him. The magic danced over his skin in warm, blue eddies. His body stretched and shifted until a coal black horse knelt on the floor of Faolchú’s sleeping niche. “If you can climb on my back, I will bear you there.”

Faolchú drew in a deep shuddering breath and threw an arm across the arched equine neck.

Every small effort a struggle, he panted and grunted as he forced his ailing body onto Finn’s back.

Nathair had to help him the last bit of the way, but at last he lay sprawled atop Finn’s back, clawed fists tangled in his mane.

As smoothly as he could, Finn rose, an ache around his heart as he realized how easy it was to bear Faolchú.

As if he prepared by decreasing in mass to release his tenuous hold on his long life until the first strong breeze would suddenly carry him away, all the strength and fire that had been Faolchú reduced to thistledown in the wind.

“Hold on as tight as you please,” Finn told him. “But no snacking.”

“Snacking?” Faolchú whispered.

“Don’t bite my neck.”

Faolchú let out a soft snort. “You used to like it.”

“That, bucko, was a different sort of biting.”

Nathair walked beside them, his hand on Faolchú’s hip to steady him, and led them through the maze of corridors.

When the scent of water reached Finn, his ears pricked forward and his step quickened.

They turned a corner and once again the rock opened before them to reveal a massive cavern, like the Great Hall and Nathair’s garden, but this one made Finn prance sideways and whicker in wonder.

A dark pool stretched out before them, smooth as polished obsidian.

Gentle, moss-covered slopes bounded three sides of this pool, while the far wall rose in a sheer cliff of glittering rock, a mosaic of smoky hematite, rose quartz and mica.

Phosphorescent minerals dotted the cavern’s roof like stars on a winter’s night, bathing the space in a soft, enchanted light.

“Do you like it, Fionnachd?” Nathair asked.

“Oh, I think it might do,” Finn allowed in an airy tone.

Nathair chuckled and coaxed him down the bank to a spot where the moss grew thickest at the water’s edge. Here, Finn knelt again and leaned to the side to help Faolchú roll off. As soon as his passenger lay safely on the ground, he tossed his head, shifted to salmon, and leaped into the water.

The dark pool was cool and soothing along his scales, as he let the water sluice away some of his misery. Under the surface, a different world lived and breathed—the soft music of the sightless fish, the endless fascination of the play of light filtering through the water.

I could stay here with the cavefish. Their world is beautiful and simple…if I could live without Diego.

He flipped his tail and shot upward, sleek body breaking the mirror surface of the pool.

Ever-widening collisions of ripples fanned out from his impetuous movements.

Finn stopped to watch, salmon head poking out of the water, and caught sight of Nathair and Faolchú on the bank.

The massive wolf-head lay cradled in Nathair’s lap, Faolchú’s eyes closed as Nathair stroked his ears.

They are lovers. More than lovers. I have been so blind.

The epitome of the Alpha wolf, Faolchú had always made love where and with whom he pleased.

He chose lovers as some chose breakfast, as his whims suited him, and few ever refused him.

That he had finally found a mate in this gentle, scholarly garden snake astounded Finn, but the evidence lay before his eyes.

He swam to the shallows and shifted back to his own form, sitting waist deep in the water and staring at the glittering cavern roof.

How hard it must have been for Nathair to watch his powerful champion failing, how heart-wrenching to know he could lose him soon. Why did the heart insist on love when inevitably loss followed?

A bit of song tugged at his memory—a winter’s day when the winds howled around the house. Diego had insisted Finn remain inside and had turned on the boxes which played music. A woman’s voice, rich and haunting, had filled the room.

“Who is it, my love?”

“That’s 10,000 Maniacs.”

Finn had blinked in astonishment. “Surely she is only one person. And she sounds quite sane.”

“No, querido.” Diego laughed. “That’s the name of the musical group.”

“Odd name.”

“I guess. Lots of bands give themselves strange-sounding names so people will remember them.” Diego crossed the room and knelt on the sofa, straddling Finn’s lap. He leaned in to plant a soft kiss on Finn’s lips. “I don’t suppose you feel up to a little bit? Or are you too sleepy still?”

Finn slid his hands under Diego’s shirt to caress up the smooth muscles of his back. “I think I could be persuaded.”

Diego smiled that heartbreaking, beautiful smile and yanked Finn’s T-shirt off over his head.

He closed the distance again, soft lips pressing against Finn’s insistently, begging for entry until Finn opened to him with a moan.

Desperate fumbling had them both naked within moments.

Wrestling for top, they tumbled to the floor.

Finn ceded control in deference to his love’s fierce need, rolling to his back and letting Diego part his thighs.

Their cocks rubbed together in delicious ways as Diego moved above him. Suddenly Finn found himself seized in a crushing embrace, Diego trembling against him.

“My hero, my heart, what is it? What distresses you so?” he murmured into Diego’s thick, black curls.

“I love you so. My heart feels like it might shatter sometimes,” Diego whispered.

The woman’s voice sang about the man in one-nineteen taking tea all alone.

He stroked the smooth skin of Diego’s buttocks, those lovely, rounded globes that fit so well in his hands.

Soothing, encouraging, he waited until Diego pushed back toward his hands, rolling and grinding against him.

Diego’s lips fastened on his pulse point, and the room spun in dizzy, lurching circles as all the blood rushed to Finn’s core.

“Take me, my love. Now. Make me howl.”

Still shivering, Diego shifted, and with a fierce cry, impaled Finn on his rock-hard shaft. Finn arched and gasped, the momentary pain fading into a heated wave of need.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Hush. Don’t stop.”

Diego slowed, though, each thrust deeper than the last. He curled over to take Finn’s nipple between his lips in a hard suck.

“Love, please…”

“Hmm?”

“More, faster, don’t torture me so.”

Finn cried out as Diego fisted his cock and drove in hard, hammering into him. The tight pressure built in Finn’s groin until he did howl. The world exploded in a thousand bright suns as he came, the woman’s voice rising to a crescendo on the score to Aida …

A cry echoed through the cavern as the memory overwhelmed Finn. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he buried his face in his hands.

A splash behind him signaled Nathair’s approach. His hand fell on Finn’s shoulder. “This place was meant to cheer you, Fionnachd. Instead, you weep. Forgive me.”

“No, no, the cavern is wondrous and soothing,” Finn choked out. “I… There is someone I miss so terribly.”

“Ah. Is it someone we can find for you?”

Finn shook his head. “No. I thank you, but he’s on the other side.”

Nathair stroked his hair. “Come lie down with us. You are heart-sore and weary.” He tugged at Finn’s hand until he rose out of the water and waded to the bank.

Faolchú held out his arms, and Finn nestled into them, Nathair settling at his back.

Naked and melancholy, the three of them clung together, afraid for each other and anxious over what might be.

They slept huddled close like a litter of new pups, needing comfort and warmth most of all.

“You block the flows, still,” Lugh explained patiently. “You must reach out, open yourself to the magic, as you did with Fionnachd.”

“I can’t, damn it! You make it sound so easy, but I can’t!” Diego flung back in frustration. The rock he had been trying to warm stayed stubbornly cold. “I can do little things here, but I can’t just make the magic do whatever I want.”

“You defeated an evil being of great power, pulled the flows in from all around you—”

“With Finn . During a freaking seizure. I was in the hospital for two weeks afterwards.”

“It is pain you fear, then? Incapacitation?”

Diego ran his hands back through his hair. “Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t know. I know what it felt like with Finn, and I can’t get it to work like that now.”

“He acted as your guide.”

“Yes. He…he made love to me. He said my barriers were lowest then. That it was easier to reach for my mind to help me.”

Lugh reached over and ran a fingertip down his arm. “Diego…I would do that for you. Guide you in that fashion if you wish it.”

Anger surged up the back of Diego’s head in pinpricks of heat. “Damn it, stop it! How many times do I have to tell you no! Is that why you’re helping me? As an excuse to get in my pants? Carajo , Lugh, you are worse than any human I ever met in any bar!”

“Your pardon, please.” Lugh gripped his hand, his eyes pleading. “I only meant—”