Hunted: A fae fantasy romance (Fae Magic Book 1) Page 13

  “I didn’t know you could do that.” He rested his forehead in the crook of her neck, his weight on his elbows. He didn’t think he’d ever felt this good, this relaxed. He didn’t want to move.

  “Me either. My power is of earth...you must be affiliated with earth energy as well.”

  His cock started to slip out, and he adjusted to stay within her warmth for just a little while longer. Their breathing slowed as he stayed there and allowed himself to be.

  To feel the heat of the warm sun on his back. To smell the crushed grasses mixed with the scent of lavender on her skin. To feel the unknown unfurling before him in a voluptuous temptation of possibility.

  To pretend, just for the moment, he might be allowed a lifetime of pleasure.

  “Logan, you’re squishing me.”

  “I don’t want to move.”

  “Need...to...breathe.” She pushed at him.

  He rolled off and tucked her in the crook of his arm and she nestled in. She was tiny, he’d forgotten just how tiny. Her personality, her energy, and her commitment to her cause all made her seem like a much bigger person. His breathing seized up as a sense of claustrophobic doom enfolded him.

  If the queen didn’t kill her, old age was still death’s handmaiden. She was human and vulnerable, and he was destined for pain.

  She would die and leave him alone.

  He fought the fear rising through him, knowing his path had suddenly shifted again.

  No longer did he have the heart to use her as leverage against the queen. He’d have to find the prince another way. And that meant tracking down this prophecy of the queen’s and defusing it, one way or another. Otherwise, he’d be forced to hide not only her, but himself, her family, and his uncles. The Black Queen had no mercy.

  “What time are we leaving for the meet?”

  “You aren’t going.”

  “This is my family, my life.” She sat up, leaving him with only a hollow space. “I’m going.”

  Her absence from his side was a physical ache, as if she’d somehow taken a piece of him when she rolled across the grass. If having her a few feet away felt this bad, how would it feel if she were gone?

  Panic started low in his abdomen and reached its fingers up to squeeze his heart.

  “I forbid you to go.” He stood and gathered his clothes, his arms and legs moving in short, jerky unfamiliar movements.

  Turning her back, she rose and did the same. Her words came out hard as steel and just as sharp. “If you don’t take me with you, I will find a way to break this contract, to leave you. I will find the bitch queen myself and demand answers!”

  Logan’s lungs contracted and a bitter taste filled his mouth. So this was how it felt to care for a woman—as if at the thought of her loss, everything in his body were in pain.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Trina had to get away from the look on Logan’s face that said the rocking of the world was more than sex. Because it was obvious his face lied.

  To him, what they’d experienced together hadn’t been any more than a good fuck. She knew it. He knew it. So why did his face deceive her into thinking he cared?

  There was nowhere to go but the cottage. She started walking.

  “Trina, wait.”

  “Why?” She kept walking, her face averted. “What do I have to gain by standing here talking to you? You’ve made it clear you’re not taking me with you to the meet. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  She’d made another stupid mistake by giving in to her body and his desires. Now he’d put her in her place. She was to stay here, clean, and be a good servant. She would never be able to save Brianna, Cassie, or her aunt. Because of her stupidity, they would all die.

  “Please.”

  She sighed and turned back. His head was bowed, his eyes peeking out from under cascading, miraculously untangled hair, and he was nude. Splendidly and confidently nude, the sun glinting off the silver ornaments in his silky hair and playing on the perfection of his muscular pecs.

  His absolute state of gorgeousness reminded her of the gap between them and it was more than depressing.

  Even in this humble stance, holding his bundle of clothes with one hand outstretched, he couldn’t help being every inch the arrogant elven lord, one of the rock stars of the fae. He was a fabulously sexy man, superior in body, magical skills, and everything that counted. But he was ultimately still fae. And by definition, lacking humanity.

  Despite that, his penitent expression tugged at her.

  “You have one minute.”

  “I’m sorry.” He seemed sincere, his words awkward and stumbling. “I’ve never been in this position. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m asking. Please hear me out.”

  “I’m listening.” She crossed her arms, toe tapping. Waiting. “You’re using up your time.”

  “All right.A rippling breath rolled through him. The space between his words took so long to fill, she almost gave up and went into the house. But then, just when she was about to give up, he spoke, the words pouring out in a pressure ridden torrent. “I’m not sure why it’s happened, but I’ve grown...attached...to you.”

  Her stomach flipped.

  “You’re telling me that you—the person who has trapped me here against my will, forced me into this bargain, threatened not only my death, but the death of the few people I hold dear—you are attached to me?” Her arms dropped to her sides and she spun around, muttering under her breath, “You elves are crazier than I thought.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand. Hell, I don’t understand.”

  The stress in his voice sounded sincere and she found she couldn’t leave. She turned back, her hands gripping the shreds of her dress.

  “You are shrewish, short-tempered, and human. You will be an old woman before I can even blink, but the thought of you risking yourself by going to the meet is...well...it’s painful.” He ran his hand through his hair, exposing his pointed ears.

  She frowned. “Painful?”

  He took a step towards her. “I don’t know how else to put it.” He took another step. He was close, so close she could make out the individual crystals in his eyes. Her breath caught. “And the worst part about it is this anger of yours, this insistence I let you go or you’ll find a way to leave. This is painful also.” He took the last step, closing the gap between them. “I’m not used to this. I don’t know what to do. I have a need to keep you safe, keep you here. But if I do, you’ll hate me. And that hurts, too.” He held out his hand, stopping short of touching her arm. “Please reconsider.”

  “Reconsider my leaving, or reconsider going?”

  “Both...either.” He shook his head, bewilderment flitting over his features. “I don’t know.”

  He was asking. Not demanding. Deep lines bracketed his cheeks, his lips pressed together. If he were human, she’d think he was in pain.

  “If you think you care for me, you have to see I need this. I need to do something, or I will burn up from the frustration.”

  The muscles in his neck and chest flexed. “I understand. It doesn’t make me happy, but I understand your need to go. You can go.”

  She released the tight breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  “But, you must do exactly as I say.” His smile was dark, bereft of any amusement. “It’s not an easy trip and you’ve already tasted the dangers of the Forest.”

  A shadow passed over the clearing and she shivered. She’d won the battle, but had it been worth it? If someone as powerful as Logan was worried, what danger had she fought to be exposed to?

  TRINA EYED HER BULKIER jaw line and her newly dark-shadowed eyes. “How long does this last? It feels weird.”

  She didn’t recognize her older, tougher, and sexier glamoured reflection in the antique mirror. Didn’t think even her aunt and cousins would know her now.

  “You know, you could sell this in Hollywood for millions of dollars.” She tilted her head to the side and tried to see the back of he
r lightened hair. “A wave of your hand and hours of makeup and special effects would be complete in seconds. As long as the magic didn’t run out before they stopped shooting the scene.”

  Logan’s movements were fast and twitchy as he paced from window to window. His uncle’s late arrival wasn’t helping his nerves. He came over and placed his face over her shoulder, and examined their altered side-by-side reflections with a critical eye.

  “T’will last ‘til midnight Alice, then the pumpkin will appear and so will the rags.”

  “Cinderella, not Alice.” But there was no bite in her tone.

  He winked at her in the mirror.

  She smiled uneasily back, and shifted her weight on the tall stool. Things had changed between them. She wasn’t sure how to handle Logan treating her as a person and not a possession. The thought that one of his kind could actually feel any sort of emotion for someone like a human was disturbing.

  This was almost too much like friendship. He made it so easy to forget and become comfortable with him, but she knew it would be another costly mistake.

  Outside, the light faded, the trees casting long shadows across the clearing. Logan lit the lanterns. Trina tilted her chin from side to side, angled this way and that to see if she could spot any resemblance to the Trina she usually saw in the mirror. And it wasn’t just her face that had changed.

  She eyed the breasts spilling over the low-cut top of the tight-laced, black leather bustier. “Do you think the dress is really necessary?” she asked. The dress was black and flirty and once again, very short. She tugged the bustier up and Logan’s gaze dropped to her cleavage, his pupils growing large and dark.

  He leaned in and murmured against the skin of her neck. “You’d best stop pointing it out to me, lass, or I won’t be inclined to let you go after all.”

  She ignored the responsive softening in her pelvis and lifted her eyebrows at him.

  He laughed and pulled away. “Nay, it’s necessary. You’ve never been to a Traveller meet, but I have. They’re wild and rambunctious parties and there will be many dressed more loosely than this.”

  “I do like the boots.” She pointed a toe of the thigh-high, black boots. In them she felt taller, sexier, and maybe a little dangerous.

  “It’s the best I can do. Glamour has never been my strong point.” Logan said.

  “If I don’t even know it’s me, how do you think anyone at the meet will?” She gingerly touched her nose, testing the feel. The new longer, pointed shape felt odd under her fingers, wrong.

  “You still have those distinctive, green MacElvy eyes. You’re still petite and, unless you are a superb actress, you will walk the same, talk the same.” He eyed her critically, one finger tapping his jaw. “My mother was gifted in this area. My uncles have told me she could even change the shape and size of people with her glamours.”

  Trina shuddered, turning from the girl in the mirror to inspect Logan’s own subtle changes. Still a black-haired, blue-eyed fae, but a different, angular, sharper version. His long hair, braids, and ornaments were gone, his short hair and leaner face giving him the look of another man. He now looked like the other elves she’d seen, slender blades intent on destruction.

  Who was he?

  She faked a smile to hide her confusion and fear. “I think you’ve done an amazing job.”

  “My mother could have made the glamour last longer, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.” He laughed, familiar Logan looking out through sharp Logan’s face.

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s not with us anymore.” He moved back to the window and stared outside.

  “My parents died when I was ten.” Even now the pain of the memory thickened her vocal chords, making her words soft. “They were one of the queen’s first casualties.”

  “Well then, we have something in common. My mother began to fade when I was an infant. She was nothing but a shade by the time I was three, and totally gone soon after. But I can’t blame the queen, it was her cousin that was at fault.” He turned back from the dark shadows filling the glass and stared into the mirror from across the room. His somber eyes found hers in the reflection. “My mother faded from my father’s lack of caring. One might even say he murdered her by neglect.”

  A cold trickle worked its way from her neck down her spine. She froze, her stranger’s gaze locked on his in the mirror. “You’re related to the queen?”

  “Hah! Yes and no.” He paced the small cottage floor. She watched, her eyes tracking his rapid movements in the flecked, silvered surface.

  “Before your family was chosen for annihilation, my entire race was almost wiped out. My uncles are Fir Bolg, another fae race. Our people were the kings and queens of the fae, for thousands of years the rulers of Underhill. Then the Tuatha De Danann came.” A cool breeze blew through the closed-up cabin. The lantern light flickered and dimmed.

  Trina rubbed the raised hair on her arms.

  “We warred for longer than even I can imagine. My uncles grew up fighting, grew tired and bitter. Men, women, even children, fought to expel the Tuatha, but my grandmother feared for my mother, her only girl out of eight children, and kept her safe at home.” One of the lanterns blew out.

  Trina shivered in the semi-darkness. “What happened to her?”

  “It’s an old story, one of seduction, loss, and betrayal. She didn’t know he was Tuathan until it was too late. He’d dallied long enough to get her pregnant.” Logan’s face in the shadow of the last lantern was grim. “Then he told her the truth—she would never be good enough for him, a royal prince of the Tuatha De Danann, the people who were killing her people, one-by-one.”

  Logan stopped and stood looking out at the night, his dark head and shoulders bowed. Finally he spoke in a near whisper she strained to hear. “It’s a slow death, fading. The movement from being here—to not being here. I have memories of her sliding into vague transparency until you could hardly see her. Until all that was left was a silent ghost moving around the castle. And then, like a mist on a summer’s morn, she was gone.”

  He stayed by the window, almost hidden in the shadows. The breeze in the cottage stilled.

  A sudden crack echoed into the night. Trina jumped, then laughed. They both smiled at the fallen broom, still shuddering on the floor next to the closet.

  “Enough looking through a dark glass for one night.” Logan left the window and picked up a small velvet pouch. “Now for the finishing touches, let’s make you smell like a different creature altogether.” He grinned, his real grin peeking out, despite the distorted face and the shadows still haunting his eyes.

  He pulled a handful of sparkly dust out of the pouch, and tossed it over her head. “There, the last enchantment.”

  The powder shimmered, and danced, and settled on her skin, prickling and icy cold.

  “That’s awful!” Trina wrinkled her nose at the reek of lilies. “Couldn’t you have chosen something else? What does it matter how I smell?”

  “It’s not perfume, silly girl.” He laughed. “It changes your underlying smell, the one that says who you are. We’re changing the scent others can use to track you.”

  His playfulness fled, he placed his face on her shoulder, pressing his warm cheek to her chilled skin, his tip-tilted eyes dark and concerned in his altered face.

  “This is risky for you, Trina. If the queen finds out you’re not dead, she will be even angrier than she is now. And she is very angry. She’s losing control.” He held her tight, constricting her shoulders in a painful grip. “I don’t want you to go.”

  She squirmed away. She was having trouble keeping up with his lightning quick changes tonight. If she was in danger, so was he. He risked everything for her, for her family. He could still kill her and deliver her to the queen and none would be the wiser, instead, he was stretching out on a limb for her. She wished, for his sake, her new sympathy for him was enough to stop her, but her responsibility to her family was stronger.

  “I’m going.
I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I know why I am. My family is depending on me. And if I ever want to have a shot at any kind of a life, I’m depending on me too. This might be our last chance. You seem sincere, but you’ve changed alliances before,” she said. “I’ve no reason to think you might not change again.”

  She dropped off the stool and walked over to retrieve her new cape. Earth-shattering sex aside, this was her chance to save her family. To have a normal life, to watch children run without fear of his kind. Maybe even to be less afraid herself.

  “I’m going. Let’s go over the plan.”

  His face had shut down into something truly foreign. The face of a fully Tuathan fae now. Slender and fine boned. The enemy.

  Which one was the real Logan? The Tuathan Logan that came from the Black Queen? Or the Logan she thought she’d caught a glimpse of earlier—a man she might be able to trust. Were any of these faces really his?

  She wrapped the dark cape around her shoulders in an attempt to warm the cold invading her bones.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logan’s Fir Bolg uncle was of average human height, stocky with large muscles and a rolling weight-lifter’s gait. She could see where Logan got his gorgeous blue eyes, but unlike Logan, Rinnal’s face was covered by a full black beard.

  “So, yer the lass Logan’s been hiding from us.” He flashed a brilliant white smile and she couldn’t help smiling back. Logan had charm, but Rinnal beat him by all measures.

  “We need to get going.” Logan gave his uncle a dark look as he pulled the cottage door closed behind them. “Stay,” he ordered. The hounds obediently scattered around the clearing.

  “Aren’t they coming with us?”

  He shook his head. “We’re taking the tunnels so as not attract attention when a portal opens up next to the meet. The hounds will just get in the way.” They approached the opening in the hedge and Trina looked out at the lurking forest floor.

  “We could ride there.” She sensed the forest awakening at her presence, a creeping hunger held just beyond the thorns of the hedge. She hated Solanum, but she’d take the creature’s danger compared to the forest. “I’m not sure these boots have thick enough soles.” She eyed her impractical heels dreading walking on the ground outside the safety of the hedge. She’d wanted to go, but now, she was having second thoughts.