Fae High Summer Hunt (4 page)

“Not once? Ever?”

“Never have. Never will.”

A full-blown smile spread across his face.

Her eyes narrowed and darkened with suspicion. “What’s going on in that canny mind of yours?”

“You do know I’ve extracted information from those who’d pose a threat to the Queen.”

“You’d torture me to get me to beg?” She frowned. “I don’t like pain, though I hear some find it adds spice to their coupling.”

“No, you’d find no bliss in torture. For you it’d be more like carnal persuasion.”

Interest replaced the cautiousness. “So persuade me.” The dubiousness in her voice was a gauntlet tossed down for him to take up.

Too many men gave Naeme what she wanted, when she demanded. The woman had never learned the eroticism in anticipation.

He sent eddies flowing over her clit and watched her shiver in response. Baylor formed waterspouts, sent one surging up her passage, another down to tease the clenched muscles of her rose-hole.

Naeme let out a startled gasp. Her mouth fell open, then she shot him a smirk, daring him to do his worst.

At his command water trickled up to wash over her breasts and lap at her nipples. Like the tides created by the moon high above their heads, he created an easy ebb and flow to stroke and caress her nipples, and tiny goosebumps formed around her areolae.

Her soft cries husked out to join the nocturnal chitter, but she never uttered one supplication.

Her unrestrained reaction had his muscles taut as a bowstring and his cock hardened painfully.

Needing to feel her sheath clamped around his cock, milking his fluid out of him, spasming as they came, he upped the ante. Baylor changed the temperature of the water, heating the pool just enough to dissipate the chill.

At the subtle change, an extended tremor racked Naeme’s body. She writhed and shuddered, moaned and gasped.

Time for him to harvest the ecstasy sowed.

He changed the basic chemistry of the water, not quite solid, but no longer liquid—firm enough to support them for what he had in mind.

Baylor crawled up between Naeme’s thighs, sat back on his heels and hauled her up so she straddled his hips.

She let out a surprised yip when he claimed her mouth. When she didn’t evade the kiss, he deepened it with a possessive savagery he hadn’t realised he was capable of. He seldom kissed a woman. Sex was a necessity like consuming food. Kissing indicated a desire for a deeper connection.

Face to face, life-sustaining breath mingling, rife with their Fae essence rarely shared with a lover, they’d become intoxicated with need for each other.

Yes, he wanted that with this maddening, elusive Fae woman.

He gripped her curvy ass, heaved her up to set his cock at her entrance. He pushed her down on him, felt the walls of her pussy separate and close around his cock.

Naeme’s irises glowed like emeralds. She pressed her breasts to his chest.

Sheathed in her to the hilt, he held her in place, savouring her moist heat, her snug pussy embracing his cock. A stark, almost unbearable pleasure raked over his senses. It blinded him to everything but what he felt in Naeme’s arms.

Naeme wiggled and the channel holding him tightly rippled around the length of his cock. “As delicious as you feel planted in me, I must have you stroking deep inside me to douse this fire blazing through me. Make me burn, Baylor, as if I basked in the sun.”

“I do believe some begging is in order.”

She tsked. “We’ll see who begs.” Naeme clamped her hands on his shoulders and gave him a wicked grin that could only mean trouble for him.

She clenched and released her inner muscles, which had him jerking his hips in the rhythm of the pace she set. He gritted his teeth and rode the wave of bliss.

Unable to help himself, he eased her up and down, not enough to make her come but enough to push back his oncoming orgasm.

“By the Goddess’ tits,” he groaned.

“Give me my release, Baylor.” Her voice was a husky demand. She played her hand over his nape, his shoulders and down his spine where she sank her nails into his back.

“Beg me.” He pulled her flat against his chest.

She shook her head.

“Stubborn wench. You won’t this time, but you will someday.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Who am I to stop you from trying?”

Baylor threw back his head and laughed full with the joy of being vitally alive. He gripped her hips as the effervescence of a true blending of the body, the soul and the magical overcame them. Their cries of completion rang out like a concerto for all to hear.

It was a night of myth and miracles. For the time of the Greening was about to begin and there was nothing more wondrous in nature.

Chapter Five

Naeme pressed her sweat-dampened breasts against Baylor’s unyielding chest. She felt revitalised, warmed to the core, as she hadn’t been in a long time. Resting her head in the crook of her lover’s neck, she clasped his shuddering body to hers. His grip on her hips was unyielding. His distended cock pulsed inside her. The mystical attributes that made them fairies roiled and expanded.

“Look around us, Naeme.”

She stirred with reluctance and glanced over her shoulder. Sparks danced in the air like dust motes. “It’s a wonder to behold. All it proves is that our mating will be fruitful. If I agree to your claiming, we might kill each other.”

“With pleasure.” He flexed his hips to thrust his point home.

A spear of bliss shot through her like a starburst. “Hmmm, tempting. But you are in Titania’s service and she is a possessive mistress. I’d rather not incite her wrath again. I couldn’t live away from court for another year.”

“Yet you stayed away for five cycles,” Baylor rebuked. “All you had to do was show yourself during a Hunt to secure your return. The Queen’s moods are mercurial, but she never expected you to stay away for such a long time. All Fae are expected to attend the great gathering to contribute to the Greening.”

Unnerved by Baylor’s admonishment, Naeme pulled back from him to gape up into his face. “What are you talking about? It was just last summer in a fit of pique Titania sent me into exile.”

Her lover transformed into a warrior. The slumberous, sated gleam in his eyes vanished, replaced by a watchful glitter. She pulled back from Baylor. The menace he exuded had turned him into a cold stranger.

“No, Naeme, it’s been five years since you left.” He released her hips and lifted her off him. The water returned to its natural state and they sank into the chilly liquid. The warm sensual languorousness dissipated.

Eyes and face hard with resolution, Baylor gripped her by the upper arms. “What do you remember of your time away?”

“What does it matter?”

“You’ve lost time, Naeme. Don’t you find that odd?”

Fear was alien to her, yet she shied away from delving into her memories. What she could recall came to her as blurry images with no fixed sense of time or place. “Well, I spent some time wandering through the forests.”

“Did you spend all your time alone?”

She tilted her head and quirked a brow at him.

“Of course not, you’d find a companion.”

“I am gregarious by nature. I like company, while you’re almost reclusive.”

“People are a pain in my ass.”

“Only because you intimidate them with that glacial stare of yours.”

Speaking of his icy glare, he fixed it on her and demanded, “Who did you spend time with?”

She thought long and she thought hard. Remembering wasn’t as easy as she’d expected. “Well, I recall spending some time with Eldritch and his Waterfolk.”

“The elves.” The flat intonation had her rolling her eyes at him.

“Yes,” she stressed. The elves were welcoming and generous. “I remember wintering with them.” Naeme frowned—she had no recollection of parting from Eldritch, yet her next memory was with Panos. She didn’t think she had spent all that much time with him, but…

“My most recent memory is my time with Panos.”

“The satyr?”

She heard the disapproval in his voice and bristled. “Yes, Panos. He’s a lot of fun,” she stated emphatically as if she had to say it by rote. “That was until I wanted to leave.”

“Tell me, how did he react?” The bland question didn’t give any hint of what he was thinking.

“Well, that’s the peculiar thing—he was almost desperate to keep me with him. It was out of character—satyrs are not known to form attachments.”

“Did he now? I think you need to come back to court with me.”

Naeme pushed at Baylor’s chest and he released her. She paddled in the water, putting some space between them. “I have not agreed to your claiming.”

“Something’s afoot here. I don’t have time to bandy words with you, Naeme. I had two reasons to join the Hunt. One was to find you. The other was to see to it that my men assembled as many Fae as they could find for this gathering. For the last couple of years, the winters have been long and a bitter coldness has lingered far into the spring. All life in the forest depends on the change of the seasons for it to flourish.”

“Nothing can stop the natural order of things.” Perturbed by what he’d said, she bit her lip to stop it from trembling.

“If the winter is longer, the plants won’t germinate in the spring, ripen in the summer, so that we can harvest in the autumn. The animals will be confused. We of the Fae have a duty to heat up the Earth with our sex magic to sustain the land. I have a suspicion that someone is about to piss on our parade and I don’t like it.”

With a pop and a cloud of sparkling particles forming a haze, Valen appeared. “Sorry to break up your tête-à-tête, but we have a problem I think you should know of as captain of the guard.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” At Baylor’s terse revelation of Naeme’s spotty memories, Valen’s brows shot up.

“Shite, but I think my trouble trumps yours. It may even qualify as a crisis. The woods are oddly devoid of our women. I sought out a few who choose to live within the trees and those I knew left court to participate in the Hunt. Many are missing—your men are rounding up the few they can find and taking them within the wards of Titania’s domain.” Valen focused his attention on Naeme. “We need to get her to the safety of the court.”

“I was just trying to make Naeme see the sense of it, but as usual she’s baulking like a mare about to be bridled for the first time.”

She shot him a speaking glance. “You have such a way with words. Who would want to disrupt the equilibrium by removing the women from the Hunt?” The men exchanged a glance. “I need to know what you’re thinking or I won’t budge.”

“I would think it’s obvious.” Baylor took hold of her arm and, though she resisted, he propelled her up to the moss-covered bank.

A gust of hot air dried her skin, and Naeme found herself clad in supple forest-green velvet. Not a gown she’d have chosen. The long-sleeved garment covered her from her neck to her toes. Not one bit of skin revealed, she thought with disgust, nor any embellishment to draw the eye to her attributes. Still, she found beauty in the starkness of the piece of clothing.

“Since I can’t perceive the obvious, enlighten me.” She folded her arms over her breasts.

Baylor’s stallion trotted to join them. He vaulted up into his saddle and held out his hand out to her “We can only think of one person who’d want to take more time than she is entitled to. The Frost Queen.”

Just hearing the name sent goosebumps over Naeme’s skin and pain shot through her head like a shard. She didn’t hesitate another moment. She placed her hand in Baylor’s, put her foot into the stirrup and allowed him to pull her up to seat her in front of him.

Anger—fury—fuelled the need for vengeance. A cold resolution filled her to a point that eliminated all other needs.

“I can’t tell you why, when or how, but I have the sense I was used.” She turned to Baylor. “I accept your claiming, but know this. I will have my retribution. He dared to muddle my mind.”

“Darling, we all will by doing what comes most naturally to us. As we do at the yearly gathering, our loving will ensure that winters will be mild and short for a time to come.”

The words murmured over her head were a vow. One she would help him keep.

Chapter Six

Baylor kicked his horse into a gallop, and Naeme’s body slammed back onto his torso when the stallion bounded forward. They barrelled towards a thick wall of trees. A startled gasp escaped Naeme’s lips as she gripped the saddle’s pommel and braced for the collision. She felt the tug on body and bone when they passed through the massive tree trunks that had stood as guardians of the forest for more centuries than Naeme had enjoyed.

Nothing impeded their progress. They raced forward with purposefulness shared by master and mount. Tension reverberated from Baylor’s taut muscles—in her head it sounded like the pounding, unrelenting drumbeats of a call to arms.

He lifted a small horn, and its triple warble echoed through an odd stillness that had settled over the night. The whispers, husky moans and grunts on achieving satisfaction that accompanied unrestrained carnality should have rung out through the woodland but there was only silence. The pervading chill in the air increased and with it came an uneasiness she’d never experienced before. Baylor stilled and she angled her head to look up at him, wanting to gauge the mood. He stared into the dense unbroken darkness, his eyes narrowed and his face grew grim.

She heard the pounding of a multitude of hoof beats in the distance. They grew louder and Baylor tightened his arms around her waist. Protected in the circle of his embrace, she hung on when he nudged the horse’s flank and urged it to greater speeds.

Puzzled by his action, she felt forced to ask, “It’s your men you called. Why are we leaving them behind?”

“It’s not only the hooves of my men’s horses that race towards us. It seems there are other entities chasing us—or should I say hunting?”

“How can you tell?” She heard nothing out of the ordinary that would distinguish the sound of approaching riders from anything else.