Page 5

The next morning came faster than I would have liked, and I woke to find that Killian had turned over during the night and had practically burrowed up under me. His face was buried in my neck, and his legs were impossibly entangled with mine. Both arms were wrapped around my waist, and his morning erection was pressed firmly against my stomach. I removed him as well as I could and shook him to get him awake, speaking softly in his ear. “Time to wake up and eat. You’ve had nothing since yesterday, and food will give you energy for the cold.”

He woke up slowly, groggy and disoriented, knuckling his eyes like a child. I disentangled myself from him and was about to get up when I felt a light touch on my arm. I looked down at him curiously. What was it now?

His big eyes were staring up at me. He’d been in the Liminal for about a week now, and the glamour that someone had put on him to make him look plain had been gradually wearing off since he came into our realm. It must be almost gone by now, because he was incredibly beautiful. His eyes, which had been an insipid shade of brown only the night before now glinted green-gold, and his hair was streaked with blond. I could swear it was much longer than it had been last night too.

“Your Highness, may I ask you something?” Killian said softly and ever so politely. Vastly different than he’d been the night before in the Solarian city. No longer so brash and cocky, he seemed exhausted, though almost all he’d done since we left the place was sleep, so I had no idea why. He was much less defiant this morning, though, and I found I missed his cockiness and his swagger a little. Not enough to welcome it back, but still…

“Yes, what is it now?”

He squared his shoulders and pushed his blond streaked curls off his face, inhaled deeply and then blew his morning breath right in my face. Damn it, even his breath was sweet. Oddly, I didn’t mind his closeness. Why did he affect me so?

“I have a-a request.”

“Shocking. Well, what is it now?”

“I-I wonder if you might do me a favor. I’d prefer it if you would…that is, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like for you to go ahead and-and kill me now, please, and not make me wait. Don’t make me ride all day on that awful beast and then kill me somewhere far away from home.” He lifted his chin after that remarkable little speech and narrowed his striking eyes at me. “You just have to. Don’t you see?”

“No, I confess I do not. And you’re already far away from home, boy. Didn’t you notice?”

He flushed and bit his bottom lip. I knew he wanted to say something rude, and it was probably killing him to be so nice only because he wanted to ask a favor of me.

“Well, yes…but the farther away we go, you see, the harder it will be for my soul to find its way home again. You know, once you, uh…do the deed. Once you k-kill me. Your quarrel is really with Lord Ellien, after all, and not with me. I know you don’t like me much, but it really was cruel to make me suffer during the whole of that long, cold night.” He gave me a reproachful glance. Ah, here was that winning personality of his peeping through again.

I was almost glad to see it return. I said—almost.

“Anyway, now that morning has come…” He sighed and squared his shoulders. “I would consider it a huge favor if you killed me now and got it over with. It’s cruel to make me wait. It’s the waiting that’s hardest, don’t you see?”

I made an impatient sound and glared at him. Cruel, huh? I’d made him suffer all night, had I? He’d slept wrapped in my arms, not to mention in warm furs, and there had been little “suffering’ that I could discern, judging from his noisy snores in my ear. Not to mention the cuddling and the hard bulge between his legs. This alleged fear for his life hadn’t exactly kept him awake worrying about it.

“Oh really?” I said. “And what if I don’t grant this favor of yours? Are you planning on haunting me too? Walking up and down the halls of my father’s castle, rattling chains, shrieking and moaning. And wailing, I believe you mentioned.”

“If I have to…but I-I won’t, if you promise to kill me quickly. And I’d appreciate it if you please don’t make me suffer overly much. If you could do it as painlessly as possible, I’d be grateful.”

“Is there a painless way to kill someone?”

“I-I’m not sure. I hoped you might know of one. Maybe you could cut my throat with a really sharp knife?” he asked hopefully.

“I think it would still hurt.”

He shrugged and sighed. “Oh. Maybe it wouldn’t last too long though.”

“In that case, I should cut out your heart. Much quicker.”

“Uh, if you think that’s best.”

I shook my head at him. He was fun to tease, but I was in a hurry. “I have no intention of killing you, Killian.”

He glanced up at me in shock. “Y-you don’t? But I thought… You said you wanted an eye for an eye. A life for a life.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean I wanted to end that life. You had nothing to do with the death of my captain, and considering your young age, your death would be a waste. No, that’s not your purpose. Your life is still mine, but I’ll decide what to do with you. In fact, I already have a plan in mind for you. I intend to make you useful to me as soon as I get you back to my home.”

“Useful, how? W-what do you mean?” he asked, his eyes wide.

He smiled at me. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“But…I don’t understand, and I’d really like to know.”

“It’s not a requirement that you know. Now get up and come eat. We have a long day ahead of us. Surely, you’re hungry by now.”

Killian, who had so far shown more bravery than all of the Solarian tribe put together, looked up at me out of those incredible eyes that matched so well now with his hair—which was getting more golden even as we spoke and was beginning to curl up on the ends. His hair was definitely longer now too, almost past his shoulders. How had he not noticed? Perhaps because he was too busy pouting and moaning about the turn his life had taken, puffing out that full bottom lip.

His lips were a perfect little bow, and his eyes were becoming more exotically tilted in his face and framed by much thicker, blacker eyelashes than before. He looked up and his eyes flashed sparks at me. He stuck his little nose in the air and folded his arms over his chest. Was there anything about him that wasn’t infuriating? Anything that wasn’t delicious? Or that made me want to throw him onto the nearest flat surface and make love to him for hours? I didn’t think so, though my hands itched to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Or kiss him—one or the other.

He had no right to be so enticing, and I wanted to be irritated at him, not to be so attracted to him. I wanted to pull him into my lap and lose most of the day just kissing and fondling him until he begged for mercy. His increasingly pretty face would be an allurement and a distraction—possibly even a trap to ensnare me, if I allowed it. Maybe I should make him work in the castle scrubbing floors on his hands and his knees until he wasn’t quite so beautiful anymore. That might take a few hundred years, but I was willing to wait.

Why did he look this good anyway? He shouldn’t be so appealing, and it was absolutely unnecessary. His father—his real father—had been good looking, in the way of all the Dokkalfar Elves, all with the same gold-bronzed skin, seal black hair and wintry eyes. His name had been King Brendan, and he had died six years or so ago—killed in one of the many fights he had instigated with the Light Elves. Six long years had passed since then, as the Dokkalfar kingdom had slowly withered and faded, deteriorating a little more every day that its true-blood and direct heir, hadn’t been on the throne.

I’d been there not too long ago, when King Hendris, the interim king, invited my father and I to attend talks about a truce in the Northern Liminal. We’d had many such discussions, and none had ever worked for longer than a season. The animosity between Dark Fairies and Elves ran too deep and it was centuries old. Until we started doing something differently, I didn’t think the hostility would ever be any different.

I’d noticed while we were there that the low-lying land nearest the sea was covered in sheets of ice. No doubt in warmer weather in the spring, these would become stagnant swamps. The massive Dokkalfar caves, where the king’s citadel was located, had been eroding steadily since our last visit, slowly being torn away by the relentless waves crashing against them. People said the sea had grown more violent over the years, and much more destructive. I thought it was another sign of how the whole Elven complex of underground caves was deteriorating without its true-blood king.

The king’s throne, made of a magical, rare, red crystal, had begun dulling with age and decay and slowly falling apart. Legend said that once the stone was completely gone, the Dark Elves would be no more.

King Brendan had produced only one son and heir, one true prince that the throne would truly accept. King Hendris, the reigning king, was only a substitute for this true-blood—he was a nephew of Brendan by marriage and not in Brendan’s direct line. He had succeeded his uncle as king when the so-called true-blood son couldn’t be located. The magic in the bright red stone that lay in the heart of the throne and kept the Dokkalfar kingdom thriving would only respond to a few drops of the true heir’s blood needed to maintain it. Without it, the stone would dull and darken and eventually die, taking the kingdom with it.

The child’s mother, a mysterious figure named Ashlin, had taken Brendan’s heir and disappeared in the middle of the night, and he’d never been able to track her or the child down afterward, despite his repeated efforts to find her. One story was that he had been holding her captive in his castle and she had finally escaped. I guess that story was as good as any. The fact was that no one really knew. No one was supposed to know how to find her and the child and no one had any idea what had become of them. Or that was the rumor anyway.

Actually, my father had located the king’s son a while ago and we’d been watching him ever since.

The Dokkalfar people had hoped that the nephew, Hendris, would be a close enough relation to be accepted by the magic of the stone. He was the closest thing they had to a rightful heir, after all, and truly Hendris had done his best and had tried to be a good king. But again, he had been a nephew of Brendan’s through marriage and not related by blood. If the Dokkalfar were to save their kingdom, the true-blood heir had to be found and installed on the throne. Otherwise, despite King Hendris’s noble efforts, it would continue to wither and deteriorate a little more each day. Unless, that is, the true-blood king could be recovered.

My father, for his own purposes, had been searching for the true-blood too, and from the demonic side of his family, he had his own dark sources he’d used to look for him. These sources may have been inherently evil, but they could still be useful if properly managed.

My father was convinced that the long-lost true-blood was a boy who was now living obscurely in England with an English family. The boy appeared to be completely mortal. Killian Honeywood was his name, and according to the demonic sources who had given my father the information, the boy had been glamoured many years ago by a witch to look totally human. The witch had powerful magic indeed, and it was only now, when he was back inside the Liminal realm again that the glamour she’d put on him was finally beginning to crack and fall away. Hell, it was almost gone already.

We’d never heard anyone say how King Brendan had first come across the boy’s mother. She could have been a mortal, as it wasn’t unheard of for mortals to stray into the Liminal unaware and get trapped there. It also wasn’t unheard of for mortals and Fae to fall in love.

Daeneid, the capitol city of the Dokkalfars was on the coast of Alfheim, which literally translated as the “Elf home.” It was the name of the Dark Elf district that belonged to them. In the warmer months, the dark Elves traded with many of the Fae tribes of all different kinds, so possibly Brendan had met the woman there in his own country—one of the mortals taken by the Fae over the years. Or even one of the many tribes of Fae. She could have been there with her people on a trade day each month, when they were allowed inside Daeneid.

At any rate, Brendan met her somehow and they married, but then she was rarely seen by anyone. The rumors ran rampant, and it was said she was being held captive. One fine day, only a few years later, she had apparently escaped him, and she had taken her baby son with her. It had been unusual that any Fae woman would have done so—Fae weren’t particularly known for their mothering skills and the children were most often raised by the fathers. It was all pure speculation.

According to the stories, King Brendan had been frantic and furious when he found out she’d left and he’d searched for her everywhere. But he soon learned she had disappeared without a trace. He never stopped looking for her, though, and since he was immortal, he must have thought he had plenty of time to find both her and the boy.

But immortals could still be killed, like my captain had been, though it was quite rare and usually the result of some freak accident. Brendan had been in battle, however, and though the dark Elves had tried to replace their king with Hendris, it never really worked. The blood stone wouldn’t accept anyone out of the direct line. The Dokkalfar kingdom had suffered—and was suffering still.

To this day, no one had been able to find Ashlin or more importantly, Ashlin’s son—except for my father, who was convinced that the boy I was looking at was Killian Honeywood, the long lost son of King Brendan. My father thought the boy’s mother might have been mortal and had fled back to the mortal realm. First of all, that wasn’t so easy—hundreds of mortals had died in the Liminal, unable to make it back home. And having met Killian and being around him, even though it had only been for a little while—it was more than obvious that he’d been disguised by a glamour that was wearing off. I wondered now if he had even a drop of mortal blood.

“Are you deliberately trying to annoy me or are you hard of hearing?” I asked Killian as he still stubbornly sat there pouting, wrapped up in his fur. “I’ve asked you to get dressed so we can eat.”

He blinked at me and an adorable pink blush stained his already rosy cheeks. “I-I don’t think so. I mean, no, I’m not hard of hearing—I heard you, but I don’t understand why I need to eat. I’m not feeling hungry.”

I frowned at him, and he began to twist his hands together. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m really not hungry. I’m really not trying to annoy you. But I have so many questions.”

“Questions about what? What don’t you understand?” I asked, trying for a softer, more patient tone. Patience was not one of my virtues.

“Why you took me. Can’t you explain it to me? Is this personal in some way? I mean…why was I chosen to be sold to the Fairies? Have I offended you somehow? If I have, I’m really sorry.”

As a matter of fact, he had offended me, from almost the first moment I’d seen him, though of course, that hadn’t been why I’d been sent to acquire him. My father was ambitious, and he had long wanted to take over the Dark Elf kingdom and incorporate it into his own.

As for the people who already lived in the Dokkalfar kingdom, he would enslave them to work in their own mines. To do all of this properly, he had to not only find and install the true-blood Elf king but find a way to control that person as well. He had decided that the best plan would be for me to marry Killian and become not only his consort but also his Regent. Considering the fact that he was only a half-mortal boy—according to my father—and had shown no sign of any of his father’s magic and was therefore severely limited, he should be easy for me to control. In other words, I’d be in charge for the foreseeable future and could order the Dokkalfar people to do whatever I liked. If they refused to follow orders, then they would be handled accordingly.

We had found the boy outside a little village called Maling, not too far from where Sir John’s estate was located. We’d had a tip about where to look from the Solarian Lord Ellien, who had seen the boy on a visit to Sir John’s estate when he attended a tournament a year ago. He’d noticed him because of his skill with a sword, and on a hunch, he had given him an enchanted scarf that showed a person’s true nature for a few seconds when they put it on. When Killian wrapped it around his neck, his beauty had shown through for a moment as brightly as the sun breaking through clouds on a cloudy day.

Realizing the boy had been glamoured, he suspected Killian might possibly be the long-lost Elven prince my father had set a bounty for, and he contacted us about the reward.

When I had first seen Killian, he’d been in a group of young men—some of them his brothers along with a few of his friends, as I later learned—and I’d had no idea which one he was. They were playing one of their insane “tournament games,” called pas d’armes and they had staked out a bridge going over the broad stream leading into the town. They had stopped me and my father there as we attempted to ride into the tiny village.

The day had been a hot one, and we had intended to stop at the small public house known locally as The White Hart, to drink a few glasses of ale and get a meal before we investigated further. My father was going to pass himself off as a traveling physician, and I, his assistant. We had decided to attend one of Sir John’s tournaments and observe the boy there. We were traveling in disguise because mortals could easily spot Fae .

As we had learned over the many years we’d co-existed with humans, they could easily tell the difference between a Fae creature and one of their own if we didn’t transform ourselves or use a glamour.

Our bone structure, our smooth skin and bright eyes, even the length of our hair all marked us as Fae. Most of us preferred not to cut our hair, so it fell to our waist or below, though we males usually kept it tied back. Then of course, there were the ears.

A Fairy’s ears were definitely pointed on the tips. I’d heard it said by mortals that we were so beautiful that we actually glowed as well, though I think it’s fair to say that was an exaggeration. A mortal would suspect us as Fae creatures right away, though, if we didn’t disguise ourselves and most would be too afraid of us to let us approach them. It made it difficult for us to travel in daylight or to even get a meal or a drink at a village tavern unless we traveled in disguise. My father and I had used a glamour to help in our deception. It was better to keep our distance anyway. My father’s appetites could be unpredictable at best.

We didn’t know the extent of Honeywood’s involvement in all of this, but we believed him to be an ignorant pawn, unaware of the treasure he had housed for the past nineteen years or so. As I said, the boy was glamoured to look only human. Possibly his former wife had been the same, or she had actually been one of us. That still remained to be seen.

On the day I’d first met Killian, I was both hungry and thirsty and not in the best of moods, having had to sleep rough in a makeshift camp on the road the night before. The inns had been full because of an upcoming tournament at Sir John’s estate. So, I had neither the good humor nor the patience for foolish mortals to accost me on the roads.

We had ridden up to cross an insignificant little bridge over an equally insignificant stream and found a group of would-be knights—who were just brigands in my opinion. They were “guarding the bridge” in one of their stupid pas d’armes games, or so they said. The phrase meant “a passage of arms,” and it referred to a group of knights challenging other knights to fight at a specific location, such as a bridge or city gate before they let them pass.The challenged knight would have to fight or be disgraced. We weren’t knights in any way, shape or form. They had to know this. And they were all squires playing make-believe. They wanted to refuse to let us pass to satisfy this ridiculous game of theirs and extort money from us.

The one who seemed to be in charge—a barrel chested young mortal with a shock of red hair and a fat, sweating face—challenged us as we rode up to the bridge. The other three or four horsemen who were ranged behind him, looked on with avid interest. One or two of them had the grace to look embarrassed. As well they should.

“Oy, there!” the sweaty lout called out to us. “Anyone who wishes to pass over this bridge must first pay a toll—or he must fight! If he refuses to fight, he must be disgraced. Which do you choose?”

I pulled my horse’s reins to go around my father’s so I could charge this upstart mortal fool and kill him, but my father laid a hand on the reins of my horse to stop me. “No, not yet. You’ll attract too much attention if you kill him. Try to reason with them first. It will draw less attention to us, and I’d like to pass unnoticed by the mortals. It causes too many questions and far too much trouble otherwise. Pay the young fool’s silly toll and let’s be about our business.”

I was outraged by the suggestion. “No, Father, let me kill him. It will only take a minute and then we can go. How dare he issue us a challenge to cross a public bridge?”

“It’s been too long since you were around mortals, son. They’re always annoying. He has no idea who we are, because we both glamoured ourselves to be unremarkable. Besides, what purpose would it serve to kill this insignificant young fool? It will only cause me to wait even longer for my supper and my whiskey. Just pay his toll and we’ll be on our way.”

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” the idiot called over to us. “Will you pay your toll? I don’t have all day!”

“You don’t have five more minutes if you speak to me like that again,” I drawled, and my father had to put up a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.

“How much is your toll?” my father called to the scoundrel.

“Two pounds.”

“That’s outrageous,” I said, fuming. “I’ll just kill him.”

My father waved his hand to indicate it was an insignificant amount. It was to us, though it wouldn’t be to everyone who passed by here today, and besides, it was the principle of the damn thing. I nudged my horse forward to meet the mortal and pulled out a small purse, angrily took out the coins the mortals called money and threw them down at his horse’s feet. He tried to catch them, but missed, and I could see he was angered. Good—I really hoped he’d try something. I found I was suddenly spoiling for a fight and could barely hold myself back.

“Now your spurs too,” the lout said. “I think I’ll have them as well.”

I laughed out loud. I was going to skewer him like a fat worm on the end of my sword. “Come take them then,” I said, with a cajoling tone and a delighted smile.

We would have undoubtedly soon fought—a remarkably short fight—if not for what happened next. From behind him, an even younger looking man quickly slid down off his horse and came running forward, holding up his hand. He was wearing ill-fitting armor and moved awkwardly as if he were unused to it, and his running wasn’t very fast anyway. He came up beside my horse, took off his helmet and looked up at me—and I was startled by the way he looked.

It wasn’t that he was pretty—he was almost remarkably plain, in fact, and seeing as how I was surrounded by beautiful creatures every day, it should have been off-putting, but it wasn’t. Even as plain as he was, I could tell this boy was something special. His hair was wet with sweat from his helmet, and it clung to his scalp in little brown curls and waves. His face was delicately boned, which he probably hated. He had a stubborn chin and hair that was cut way too short, in my opinion. It should have been a manly face, but his mouth was too soft and passionate for grimness, and those eyes had quite the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a boy. It almost made him pretty.

“Sir…please listen to me! I’m so sorry. We don’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

I laughed down into his worried little face. “What a remarkable thing to say. If you didn’t want trouble, then you wouldn’t be out here on the public roads trying to waylay and rob all comers.”

He blushed so hard that his cheeks glowed rosy-pink. Had I called him almost pretty? He wasn’t, but there was definitely something about him. Those pale brown eyes were shooting darts at me and causing a slow fire to build in my loins.

“But this is unnecessary. I-I only want to take your spurs. Then you and your friend can be on your way.”

“Oh, may we? How very good of you.”

“Please, sir. If you’ll just…this can be over if you’ll only cooperate. I-I don’t want this to escalate, do you? May I please just take your spurs so you can be on your way?”

The big lout on the other horse, nudged the boy who was standing between us with his steel-booted foot. “You don’t ask, Killian or say please. You just take them. He owes us a penance, since he refused to fight me. Though he can always change his mind, if he’s not afraid.”

Killian? I looked a bit closer to see if I could see through his disguise. The glamour held strong though, and all I saw was the plain, mortal boy. This had been done with powerful magic indeed.

“Did you hear that, Father?” I called to him. “ Killian here wants to take my spurs.”

My father’s eyes narrowed. As for me. I was beginning to enjoy myself. I grinned at the lout, but the boy shot him a quelling look and then turned away again, ignoring him. He looked back up at me.

“Sir. Please. I’m really sorry, but I’m trying to prevent you and your friend from getting hurt. I don’t want that to happen. Forgive me please, but you’re not a knight, are you sir?”

All those sweet “pleases” and “sirs” were helping his case too. I decided I didn’t need to teach him a lesson about impertinence after all. Probably not, anyway.

“No,” I said, smiling more broadly. “I’m not a knight.” Besides, he was far too sweet to kill. Instead, I asked him, “What will you give me for them?”

“I-I beg pardon, sir?”

“For my spurs. I said, what will you give me for them?”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t have any money, and it’s really not done that way. You see, you have to give us money. You pay a toll.”

“Ah, I see. And pray tell me again what happens if I don’t?”

The one with red hair moved restlessly on his horse and the other young men behind him nudged their horses to come closer. They were spoiling for a fight and by the devil, so was I. It would be a short one, but I was longing to see them all lying bloody in the dirt. Except for the boy at my feet. I might spare him.

“Bracca,” my father called in a languid voice from behind me. He was speaking in the Fairy tongue that was so close to Gaelic. “Stop playing with them. Kill them all except for the boy or let them go. But put an end to this now. I grow weary of it.”

As a half demonic creature, he didn’t need the blood he sometimes drank to sustain his life, but he seemed to enjoy it from time to time. I thought now might be one of those times. The “knights” heard him, and they gave each other nervous looks. They wouldn’t understand the words he’d said, but I was thinking they might have recognized the tone—which hadn’t been at all subtle.

“I’ll make a bargain with you,” I said to the boy. “Give me a kiss, and we’ll call it even.”

His eyes grew wide as the louts behind him began laughing uproariously.

I ignored them and pulled my foot up to the pommel of my saddle to remove my spur and then did the same with the other one. I dangled them in front of him.

“Come closer, boy, and take them.”

Blushing, he took a step forward and reached up. I bent over and clasped his wrist and pulled him up into my lap, armor and all. Considering how heavy his armor was, it would have taken much greater than mortal strength to do so, and the others with him gasped at my casual display of power, perhaps beginning to realize more and more how badly they’d fucked this up. They were beginning to understand on some basic, animal instinct level that they’d bitten off more than they could chew, and they were face to face with actual predators who could eat them right up.

I sat Killian on the horse facing me, and I bent him backward so that he had to pull up his legs and wrap them around my waist. He put his hands on my shoulders to keep from falling off, and I held him still while I gazed down at him, only to find his eyes staring right back at me with a shocked expression. I couldn’t seem to help what happened next—I lowered my lips to his and plundered his lush mouth thoroughly.

He whimpered deliciously and put his hands around my neck. It only spurred my appetite for him. I slanted my mouth over his and imprinted his taste on my tongue. Over and over again.

I thought with pleasure of this boy on his knees for me, that little mouth of his stuffed full of my cock. I shifted as the appendage in question grew harder at the idea. Yes, I’d like to breed this boy—a thing that might be entirely possible if he had some Selkie blood in him and if I used a little magic. I could breed him and watch that little belly grow fat with my child and make him sit on my knee as I rubbed my hands over it. And I’d make him like it.

I leaned forward slightly, inhaling his scent, which was both sweet and masculine. A little sweaty and unwashed too, but that was mortals for you. I’d like to see him in a tub, up to his neck in bubbles and hot water. I could nip at his neck and suck a little of his blood to mark him. I wanted to cover him in little bites to show everyone exactly who owned him.

I could feel the lust rising in me as I sucked on his tongue. He didn’t even try to pull away. I could hear the soft little whimpers start up in his throat, and I moved one of my hands to his groin. His piecemeal armor stopped at his waist, so I slipped my hand under it and inside his trousers, shoving them down so I could rub his prick and drive him out of his mind. He groaned again, breathless with excitement and pushed himself up into my hand. He was leaking and I could smell it on him. He angled his face up to ease the way for my kisses.

I was enjoying the taste of his sweet lips, when my father pointedly cleared his throat behind me. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later. Put an end to this.”

The boy was squirming, gasping for breath beneath me by that time, so I finally relented and pulled away with a last lick at his lips. He was swooning by then, so I tapped his cheek to wake him up and put the spurs in his hand. Then I straightened his trousers, took him by the wrist again and set him back on his feet on the ground. He stumbled and had to grab my leg to save himself from falling.

I could hear the others whispering and murmuring loudly to each other.

“He must be Fae!” they were saying, their voices full of fear and wonder, and I gave the red haired one who first accosted me an evil smile and a wink to let him know who he’d been dealing with. I confess I enjoyed watching the blood drain from his face. Then I pushed the boy away with my now spurless boot and wheeled my horse around to ride back to my father. The two of us rode across the bridge and into the village, leaving them behind us, and I didn’t look back. When we came out again an hour or so later, there was no sign of any of them. They had tucked their tails between their legs and run for home.

“I can read your thoughts, you know,” my father said, “Are you thinking of taking revenge on them?”

My father knew me well, and it was common for Fairies—particularly Dark Fairies—to settle scores with their enemies, or with those who were foolish enough to cross us in some way. My mother, Queen Leticia, had been pure Sidhe Fairy, through and through. They’re a vengeful tribe, and I had inherited many of her traits. When someone insulted or disrespected me, I sometimes enjoyed taking some petty revenge or other on them, no matter how long it took.

It wasn’t without precedent. For example, there was a family once who chose to build their home far too close to a rath , also known as a Fairy fort or stone circle. Raths were really the ancient remains of hillforts, or other circular ancient structures, but since the mortals had attributed them to us, calling them ours, we took advantage of the fact and claimed them right back. The man of the family was warned by other villagers that it was a Fairy rath; but he laughed and said he looked at such things as old-wives' tales. He built the house using some of the stones and made it beautiful to live in, but very soon his cattle died, and his crops went to ruin. His wife left and took the children. Eventually he was forced to move, and the house was torn down. No one would plant crops in the rath or live there again, so the grass grew back over it, green and beautiful, and the Fairies danced there again in the moonlight as they used to do in the old days.

“Not much point,” I said. “The redhead will be dead within a year. He’s not nearly the fighter he thinks he is, and he’ll be killed by a knight during a joust when a splinter from a lance breaks off in his eye and enters his brain. I don’t need to do a thing.”

“Do you see this?”

“I do,” I said. My mother had also passed down to me the gift of sight. It wasn’t the strong gift she had, but I had clearly seen the boy’s death as he had first ridden up to me. It had clung to him like a shroud.

“But he’s not the one I really want anyway. And I’ll have Killian soon enough. When do we take him?”

“As soon as we can. He’s of marriageable age now so there won’t be any delay once we have him secured. You can keep a close eye on him, and we’ll take him as soon as possible.”

“And if it turns out he’s not the Elf king’s son after all?”

“Then we kill him and keep looking. Easy enough.”

I spent the next couple of weeks until Solstice thinking about the mortal from time to time and slowly planning what I’d do with him, once I’d taken him. I had no plans to kill him if he wasn’t the one we were seeking, though. I’d keep him as a concubine. I thought he’d make a fine one. The thing about immortality is that we immortals know we have plenty of time to act. We’re in no real hurry, even though the Dark Elven kingdom was slowly deteriorating.

I even went back to see Killian once when he was unaware. My magic allowed me to cross over into the mortal realm anytime I wanted just to check on my property and make sure he was behaving himself. Each time I went to see him, I thought his glamour was receding a little, getting less and less intense. He seemed to get better looking, or perhaps absence really did make the heart grow fonder, as they said.

I was determined there would be no other lovers for him, and so far, he hadn’t given me any reason to worry. I might have waited even longer and let him mature more before I fetched him—he was sure to be a great deal of trouble to me after all—if not for what I’d witnessed at the next tournament his father had given.

Killian was not a “champion,” like Lord Ellien had called him, for the simple reason that he wasn’t even a knight. Knights were commissioned by the English king, and they were usually soldiers or those who had done some service for the crown. His father, Sir John, was a knight, but his title wasn’t one that could be passed down to his children.

Honeywood used his sons as his squires and kippers, or foot soldiers—unpaid, of course. They took care of their father’s weapons and his armor, and if they happened, on a given day, to be acting as his squire, they might carry his flag or do whatever else he required of them.

A kipper, on the other hand, was traditionally a vassal—little more than a servant—employed by the knight. He could be a fighter of non-knightly status, or a kind of foot soldier as well. It was the right of a knight to seize the armor and weapons of a fallen opponent during a tournament. In the early days, tournament fighting was not much different from open, chaoticwarfare, with few rules, if any. They held no-holds-barred battles that they called a melee , and kippers were called footmen, but it was not their function nor their intention during a melee to participate in the fighting.That would at least have been as honorable as anything else the knights did during a game—which is to say, not that much.

No, a kipper followed his knight into combat only to retrieve armoror weapons from fallen adversaries. If the adversary was not completely subdued or wounded or dead therefore and ready to surrender his weapons and armor, the kipper would bang on the opponent with various, blunt, non-lethal weapons, like heavy clubs, to knock him unconscious for the purpose of gathering the spoils without further protest.Were knights inadvertently killed by this? Most certainly, they were.

So, although it was the right of a knight to seize the armor and weapons of a fallen adversary during a tournament, as time went on, most people began to think of the practice as “unchivalrous.” I would have called it much worse than that. Words like wicked and cowardly came to mind.

Killian sometimes acted as his father’s squire, if none of his other brothers were present. But most often he acted as a kipper, and his face always looked as if he hated every second of it.

Since Sir John also allowed his sons to practice outright robbery, as they did in the pas d’armes , I was not the least bit surprised to see Killian acting like a thief and a scavenger in the aftermath of a melee . One afternoon, a few days later at a tournament at Sir John’s, they were just finishing up after one of their barbarous mock battles and a knight who had been unhorsed was lying on his back in the field, clearly injured. His squire had collected his horse and a few of his weapons, leaving him lying alone and unprotected on the field. The knight had waved the squire away and told him to take his horse to safety first and then come back to help him with his armor and his bleeding wounds.

That’s when I saw Sir John take Killian aside and point the man out to him. They were too far away to hear properly, but I knew he must be telling the boy to go and take as much of the man’s armor as he could carry. Killian looked at the knight struggling to sit up, his face and head bleeding badly, and I saw him shake his head and try to hand back the spiked club his father was trying to force on him. His father pulled back his arm and with an open hand—a hand covered by an armored gauntlet—he slapped Killian across his face and knocked him unconscious and bleeding to the ground. He then strode off, heading back toward his horse.

Furious, I went after him, but by the time I got close to him, he had already received a blow from a passing knight that had knocked him flat, and the kippers belonging to that knight were already descending on him. Good enough for him—and too many witnesses for me to kill him like I had planned to do. I had no choice but to turn away, giving him a good kick before I left. My father didn’t like it when I took the lives of mortals, especially in front of so many witnesses, no matter how despicable they might be, because it drew unwanted attention to the Dark Fairies.

I stayed long enough to make sure that Killian was being cared for and then I left, unable to stomach any more of the so-called “sport.”

I decided that if I waited much longer to take the boy, the stupid mortal who was supposed to be his father might actually kill him. I didn’t see death sitting on my boy yet, but there was a gray cloud hovering nearby him that I didn’t like the looks of. I was determined to take him without any further delay.

I happened to be in negotiation at the time with Lord Ellien over the death of one of my soldiers inside his city. It had been an accident, but one caused by his soldiers, so I enlisted the help of Lord Ellien to negotiate my purchase of the boy so I could come and pick him up. Ellien, who lived near the boy, had made the arrangements with Sir John, who received gold for helping us lure the boy onto Solarian land. Ellien plied the boy with goblin wine and kept him mostly asleep for a couple of days until I could come for him.

The infuriating boy took far too many silly risks anyway. Just the day before, for example, when he saw me arguing with Lord Ellien, he couldn’t stay out of it. He’d come charging in to defend Ellien, though he was outnumbered thirteen to one. Yet he still kept mouthing off and taunting me. He hadn’t recognized me, because I’d been glamoured the last time he saw me.

He wasn’t a large mortal, yet he’d marched over to stand beside the worthless Solarian lord like some famous, legendary hero knight. He was a perfectly formed specimen, though at the moment, he was drooping down on top of the furs like a wilted flower nagging me with questions about how he had offended me and begging me to kill him, so he didn’t have to wait too long and dread it.

Because of the cold weather that he wasn’t used to, his cheeks and lips were rosy-red, chapped by the cold wind we’d ridden through the night before. It only served to make him look more beautiful. I supposed I’d have to make sure he was well-wrapped in furs in the future, since he was apparently of such a delicate constitution.

Even if he were only half some other kind of Fae, he was half Elf too and the combination was a striking one. Fae creatures had been known to use their beauty as a weapon, and anyone who thought they weren’t dangerous, no matter how mortal they looked or attempted to look, was only deceiving himself. But so far, he hadn’t tried anything. Unless this was an attempt to play on my sympathies. If it was, it wouldn’t work, because I didn’t have any. I was attracted to him, though—unreasonably so. He’d soon find out exactly what I had planned for him.

When we left Solaria, forgetting how fragile he was, I’d made him remove his cheaply made boots and leave them with the Fairy Lord. But then he’d fallen out in the snow after only about ten minutes of walking in just his woolen stockings. When I took off his wet stockings to put his feet in the spare boots I carried with me, I found them to be nearly frostbitten and already turning blue. They were pretty little feet for a man, small boned and well-formed with pearly toenails. Damn him—they were almost unbearably sexy. I took them in my hands to warm them so his toes wouldn’t fall off, and he gave kitten-like squeaks as I massaged the blood back into them.

He was proving hard to resist. I’d have to be careful not to wear him out once I had him living with me full time.

“Won’t you answer me? Or at least tell me what you plan to do with me?”

I gave him a smile instead. “You’ll know soon enough. But you won’t be going back to the mortal world.”

“What do you mean, I’m not going back? Do you mean… never? ” he said, his voice almost failing him there at the last. He looked up at me with a fearful expression.

“You’ll be staying with me.”

“As in… indefinitely?” he asked, a little faintly.

“As in forever. You belong to me now.”

He gasped and his eyes went wide. I felt another tug at my heart. “B-but why?” he asked plaintively. “Is it because of what Ellien did to your soldier? I heard you talking with Ellien, you know. You talked about a trade.”

“That’s right.”

“Am I it? Am I the trade?”

“You ask too many questions. We’ll talk later when we get home.”

“But I’m not going home.”

“Yes, you are. You live with me now.”

He looked shocked and said something under his breath.

“What did you say?” I asked him, with perhaps a bit too sharp a tone.

“I said, you don’t have to be so mean about it.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to stop acting like a child, but he looked up at me with those eyes again. They were defiant, but those were real tears trembling on his thick eyelashes. I found myself almost apologizing to him, or as close as I ever got to an apology.

“That was not my intention.”

“Very well,” he said in a prim little voice. He sighed and his voice took on a wistful tone, “It’s just that…back at home, it’s summertime.”

Which meant just nothing at all, really.

I thought of and then rejected several sarcastic replies, almost choking on a couple of them and finally settled on saying, “Yes. Time moves differently in each realm. What is it that you’re saying? That you miss the warm weather?”

“Yes, but it’s not just that. Though summertime is my favorite. This realm is so different. I’m learning that. I-I’d never been out of Kent until I came to the Liminal. Or to Solaria, anyway. And now I’m a long way from home.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“And do you live here all year?”

“I do.”

“What will I do here?”

“Anything I tell you to.”

At least that was what I wanted to say. But one look at the reddened cheeks and those hopeless eyes and I relented. I decided to tell him a small lie to make him feel better.

“No one is going to hurt you, if that’s what you think. Your talk of tournaments intrigues me. Not for any of the silly, thieving games—war is a serious business and should be treated as such. But I believe you know the basics of those other fighting games. Doing your fake battles and your…what did you call them? Melees and the rest. I’ve decided that perhaps these Tournaments might be good practice for my soldiers.

His mouth fell open and he stared at me. “Will you let me participate in your games?”

If I ever did, he’d be killed in less time than it took to talk about it.

“Of course,” I lied. “You’ll be helping me with training. You have some experience there, I think.”

“Oh yes. Do you know the Tournaments, sir? I’m very good at them. I’ve been a squire for my father for years.”

“Hm. What about your education? Do you read?”

“Read? Well, no. Not much anyway. My old nurse taught me a little. And I can sign my name…sort of. It’s more of a mark, really.”

I shook my head. “You need to learn more than that. I’ll find you a tutor.” I held out a hand to him and when he took it, I pulled him to his feet and held his furs tightly around his body. No one else needed to be looking at his body but me, and if they did, I’d have to kill them.

“We have a long, cold day ahead of us. Get under the covers so no one can see you and put your clothes back on again and your boots. And bring this fur with you. I’ll try and find you a hat and gloves. Then come out to the fires, and we’ll get you something to eat.”