Bride of Fae (Tethers) (11 page)

Dandelion pulled in his wings and settled behind a hydrangea. He was close enough to hear Lord Tintagos chatting up his guests, trying especially to charm the lady with peacock feathers in her pale gold hair.
The peacock feathers made her interesting. More interesting than Tintagos deserved.

“This is manufactured wilderness,” Lord Tintagos said. “My great grandmama had the stream dammed to create the lake, and she had the maze put it in to impress the Duchess of Devonos.”

“
The
Georgiana?” said the dark-haired lady.

The other male
sighed and refilled his glass. Dandelion felt an immediate revulsion. It wasn’t the affected nonchalance or the infuriating smirk on the man’s face. Dandelion couldn’t explain his visceral disgust. He’d never seen the man before that he was aware of.

“She visited one summer
,” Tintagos said. “My poor great grandmama! After all that expense, the duchess spent the whole month crawling over the ruins of Tintagos Castle with her children looking for the Dumnos ghosts.”

“That’s very sad,” the peacock lady said with a flirtatious smile. She was obviously aware of Lord Tintagos’s feelings for her, but Dandelion detected no reciprocal eagerness. But then human alliances were often no different than those of the fae.

Never love matches, fae marriages were made for strategic reasons. If Cissa weren’t his sister, he’d approve a match between her and Max. Especially now. Idris had offended too many gobs. One by one, they were withdrawing from the faewood, extracting themselves from the fabric of the Dumnos fae community.

Idris didn’t understand. You can’t make a goblin do what a goblin won’t do.

The biggest problem in a match between Max and Cissa was that the gob was clearly in love. Disaster. Everyone Dandelion ever knew who fell in love ended up miserable or dead. Look at Aubrey. Or Queen Sifae.

“Wyrders
do
magic,” the peacock feather lady said. “Fairies
are
magic.”

Lord Tintagos leaned back on his elbows, apparently enthralled. The lady explained aspects of fae and wyrd with surprising accuracy.

Wyrders
do
magic; fairies
are
magic.
Not bad. Dandelion liked that. Wyrders came close to magical power. They could channel and direct it, but they never embodied the forces they controlled. Pretenders. Murderers. He was glad the high gods let them be driven into hiding.

“The fae didn’t end the wyrding folk,” the human woman said. “The monks did.”

Well…on that point she wasn’t entirely correct.

First, the wyrd was never
ended
. Severely diminished, yes, but wyrding folk continued on in hiding. Look at Elyse!

Second, the monks didn’t act alone, not in Dumnos.
In driving out the wyrd, they had had assistance from the vengeance-thirsty fae.

Dandelion and Cissa had been kept from the fight—Idris said they were too important to risk—but when it was over, they both sang songs of good riddance to all wyrders. Fae and wyrd should have been natural allies against the monks, but the wyrd made it impossible.

“One fairy left something behind,” Lord Tintagos said. Dandelion’s attention snapped back to the picnic. “I have it still.”

Glory was right. The human couldn’t resist bragging. He offered to show
his friends the cup.
Yes, Tintagos. Do tell us all where it is.

“I have it locked in a glass case with a steel frame made of non-Dumnos iron and salt lining the border.”

Sod it.
There was no way to retrieve the cup as long as it remained inside the mansion.

“I was right!” said a voice behind him. “I knew he’d tell.”

“Morning Glory.” Dandelion whirled around. “What are you doing here? Idris—”

She made a silly face and fluttered her wings. “I’m not defying Idris.
You know I can’t.”

That much was true. As a Dumnos fae Morning Glory was bound by Brother Sun and Sister Moon to obey Idris’s orders.

“I'm not here about the cup.” She peered through the hydrangea, searching until her gaze landed on Tintagos. The green of her eyes intensified as if he were a sparkly object.

Good for her. Glory was usually inseparable from Cissa. She should have some fun of her own. “I think your pet is interested in Lydia Pengrith,” he said. “The one with feathers in her hair.”

“It seems he is.” Glory was full of desire for Lord Tintagos—not delight, Dandelion was relieved to see. It wasn’t love. She wanted merely to play. Her nose crinkled at Miss Pengrith. “I don’t think she likes him well enough,” Glory said. “I’ll have to help him there.”

“I’m sure he would appreciate it, Glory.” She wasn’t wearing her tether. If she discovered something about the cup in the bargain, how was Idris to know?

They both noticed some movement in the rhododendrons along the walking path. “What’s that?” Glory said.

It moved again. “Not what,” Dandelion said. “Who.” A fairy he didn’t recognize.

“Her clothes are strange,” Glory said. “And exceeding ugly. Not human. She couldn’t be a gob, could she?”

Doubtful. Goblins were ugly, but their clothing was always sublime, well tailored, and made of the finest fabrics and skins. “She’s not of the Dumnos fae,” Dandelion said. “She’s….”

She’d seen him. She was staring right at him, into him. A jolt charged through his heart, and he had to catch his breath. What magic had she hit him with?

She averted her gaze, but he sensed she was quite aware of him here across the clearing, more so than the human party they’d both been watching. Her clothes were hideous, but her eyes were…lovely.

“She’s not a goblin,” he said with more hope than certainty.

“
She could be a spy,” Glory said. “Maybe Idris sent her to watch you since you don’t wear your tether.”

Bile rose in Dandelion’s throat.
“Stay here.” Banishment he accepted, even welcomed, but this was outrageous. “I’ll give her something to take back to Idris.”

He raced over to the rhododendrons. She was gone from her hiding place but made a racket trying to escape. He zipped through the trees and caught her easily. Almost too easily. Her slowness would seem on purpose if her fear didn’t feel so genuine. And she wasn’t just slow, she was weak. She strained against his grip with all the power and fury of an angry kitten.

“What are you doing here? Are you spying on me? Did Idris send you?” Great gods, she smelled awful.

“Did you hear that?” Lydia Pengrith’s voice carried through the vegetation
. “Someone’s there in the trees.”

Sod it. The spy couldn’t very well answer with his hand
clapped over her mouth. He had to get her away from the humans. He dragged her further into the brush as she struggled against his grip.

“Ack!
You kicked me!” His shin burned with pain. Enough of this.

He extended his wings and held her close. He could feel her heart pounding like a frightened bird’s. What horrific picture had Idris drawn to make her so terrified? He stroked her dark brown hair.

“I have you,” he said, more gently than he’d intended.

He threw fairy dust in the air and wrapped his wings around his captive. The dust settled, rendering them inaudible and invisible to the humans. He flew back to Mudcastle with the girl trembling in his arms. He was furious with Idris, but he couldn’t stay mad at the spy. She wasn’t even very good a spy. Maybe Idris had blackmailed her into doing this.

“You can go back to Idris right now.” He put her down in the center of the hut. She must be stunned. She didn’t even try to fly away. “Tell him I’m no threat. I’ve turned solitary.”

She seemed distracted, half listening. Her attention had fallen on the moonstick inlay design on the new rocker. “Beautiful,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

No, you’re beautiful.

The words popped into
Dandelion’s mind like a surprise, but they were true. Her blue eyes were large enough to get lost in. Her soft-looking lips reminded him he hadn’t kissed anyone in…years? Desire stirred in him, an urgent
wanting
. How odd.

But not unwelcome.

She seemed fascinated by the hut’s decorations and comforts—the rocker, the flower boxes. Even the door and windows.

Turnabout fair play, Dandelion couldn’t stop looking at her.

Up close, her clothes were worse than ugly. They were appalling. A length of black cloth wrapped around her lower torso barely covered the top of her thighs. The white shapeless boots—of some horrific shiny material he didn’t want to contemplate—looked painfully uncomfortable. A plain navy blue tunic ended in a straight line below her hips. Not a ribbon anywhere. No piece of lace. No jewel. Nothing pretty. No self-respecting goblin or leprechaun had made any of it.

How could
anyone live like that?

He looked for some sign of joy about her. Nothing. Her eyebrows were all scrunched up. He touched her face and again searched her eyes. She had a headache. No wonder. Who wouldn’t, wearing that stuff?

He blew her pain away, and her eyebrows relaxed. She uttered a little moan of relief and looked at him gratefully.

Unexpected.
And satisfying. He should fix her clothes too. He squatted to get a better look at the fabric covering her legs.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Has Cissa seen this?” He pulled the stuff away from her knee and let it snap back against her skin. “This isn’t glimmermist.” Her scent was repulsive—and yet he was attracted to her. She was from no fae court he recognized.

She twisted away from him. “I don’t know any Cissa.”

He rose to his full height, and she took a step backward, her pupils dilated and her lips parted, a sexual response. Again, unexpected. Again, not unwelcome. The burl oak bed was behind her, and he pictured them in it together—without those horrific clothes between them. He could just pick her up and fly her over there.

He touched her throat. “Where is your tether?” Her pulse fluttered beneath his finger
, and the urgency within him intensified.

“What’s a tether?” She hesitantly touched his forearm as if
to make sure he was real. A surge of excitement raced through him.
Who was she?

He tilted her chin and pushed her hair back, exposing her ears. Round. No hint of green in the eyes. He sensed magic about her, but that could be fairy dust residue. This fae was either very young, or…

“You’re human.”

“Stop the presses!” No missing the sarcasm. She looked around the hut again and asked, almost hopefully, “Am I dreaming?”

“Yes.” How convenient. The fairy dust had muddled her. “You’re dreaming.”

He made her float up from the ground until her face was near his. Human women liked that. He kissed her softly, tested her reaction. No resistance and a little sigh of pleasure. In fact, she kissed him back.

“Tell me your name.”

“Beverly.”

“Beverly.” He repeated her name like a prayer and kissed her neck and throat. “Let’s make you more comfortable, Beverly.”

“Mm…nice dream.”

The boots were first to go. She wiggled her toes and stretched. He smiled, again thinking of a kitten.

One by one, he removed the other material insults to her form and tossed them on the floor in a pile. The sad imitation of glimmermist covering her legs had none of its powers. Cissa wouldn’t be interested. On the pile.

The last two bits were improvements on instruments of torture which passed for human female undergarments these days, but no fairy would touch them. He unhooked the top piece and freed her breasts then slipped the final garment down over her hips and off, both to the pile.

Where her clothes had been too tight, he kissed the indentations in her skin and watched
them smooth out and disappear. He glided his hands over her belly and hips and down her backside to send warmth and relaxation through her body. He kissed the skin between her breasts and breathed in her fragrance, relieved that the off-putting scent had belonged to her wretched clothing.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and gently squeezed his upper arms as she kissed his forehead. When she ran her fingers over his shoulders, he shivered. He wanted to taste every part of her. He closed his mouth over a nipple which hardened as he teased it with his tongue, and she pressed against him. Encouraged by her moans, he
cupped the breast and sucked.

“Hello!” Goldenrod came through the door bearing two winesacks. “Is Glory—oh
, dear. A thousand pardons!”

Dandelion took in
several deep breaths to calm himself down and stepped away from Beverly, suspended in the air with her eyes closed.

“Need any help?” Goldy smiled wickedly at Beverly and back to Dandelion. “Either way? No?”

“You have the worst timing, Goldy.”

“Yes, my prince.” Goldenrod clucked his tongue and went to the hutch to put away the winesacks.