Outcast (Book Two of the Forever Faire Series): A Fae Fantasy Romance Novel (8 page)

“I can if I have to, but I’d rather ask,” she murmured back. “I also know what they’re thinking. I can sense when they’re in trouble, and sometimes, I can call them to me as far as a couple of miles away.” From the doubt still in his eyes Kayla knew she’d have to do better. “Ask Titan a question, something only he would know, and I’ll tell you the answer.”

Ryan scowled and cocked his head back, but just for a moment. Something must have occurred to him.

“During the Battle of the White Cliffs, someone stopped me in my rage by clouting me, and dragged me from the field to the sea,” Ryan said, and reached up to stroke his horse’s neck. “I never knew who it was. Does Titan?”

Kayla met the stallion’s gaze.
Well?

I did it. We were losing the battle, and I could not permit him to be butchered by the enemy, or to cut me down in his madness.

The horse shared his memories of the chaotic scene, during which he turned and kicked Ryan in the head, and then used his teeth to drag him by the arm down to the water’s edge.

Kayla repeated everything Titan told her, and added, “Your left arm probably had some strange-looking bruises where he grabbed hold of you. Assuming the Fae bruise.”

“I wore protectors over my arms, but I remember the dents I later found in them. I thought them made by an enemy’s heel, not my mount’s teeth.” He touched his forehead to the horse’s. “Thank you, my friend. On that day, you saved my life.”

Is he going to kiss me now?
Titan thought to Kayla
. Because I can kick him in the head again, if need be.

Kayla laughed, which made Ryan turn to her.

“Titan prefers not to be kissed,” she said, “but I’m happy to stand in for him. So what do you think my horse telepathy means?”

“You may have some Fae blood,” he told her, looking a lot happier now. “It would explain a great deal that has happened between us. Such as why we are so deeply drawn to each other.” He took her hands, and rubbed his thumbs across her knuckles. “Kayla, I have no right to ask you to come to me—to be with me. I know there are matters left unsettled. But when we were in Elias’s trysting pool, nothing else mattered. I should like to have that again. As many times as I may before we are parted.”

“I think that can be arranged. By the way, Titan would like to take a ride around camp and see all the kids, not that he’ll admit it.” Kayla went to retrieve Ryan’s saddle. “He also likes to take rides at night for any reason,” she said as she saddled the stallion. “It ticks him off when you leave him behind and walk.”

Ryan swung up into the saddle before bending sideways to haul her to sit in front of him. “You will ride with us,” he said, and kissed the side of her neck.

Kayla leaned back against him, feeling completely content. “I can swing that, too.”

C
OLM STOOD SENTINEL
with Lawrence by the gates as the last of the visitors left the grounds.

“The children’s buffet was a great success,” Colm said. “Ryan will be very pleased.”

“It was—’twas Christine who suggested the pizza and such,” the old man admitted. “She will make a fine mother someday.”

Being reminded of the dancer should have twisted like a knife in Colm’s gut, but he could still feel her kisses on his face. “So she shall.” He walked out to help Lawrence close the gate, and heard soft, muffled sobbing.

“What is that?”

“I will fetch a torch,” Lawrence said, and disappeared into his cottage, returning with a rag-wrapped branch, which he set ablaze with a lighter. “Forgive me, but I did not inherit the gift of sparking from my Fae side.”

“Stay here,” Colm said, and took the torch from him.

He followed the sound to the very border of the faire’s boundaries. As he held up the torch, he looked from side to side. Emerging from the gloom was the pale, nude body of a woman in the ditch. Someone had left her there, gagged and bound.

“Lawrence,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Go and get some men.”

It was a trick, of course. Dark Fae took pleasure in using wounded humans as bait. Colm moved to just inside the outer boundary as he peered, looking for Blackstones hiding in the brush. The light of the torch flickered over the woman’s arms, revealing her tattoos.

“Christine.”

Without thinking Colm dropped the torch as he emerged from the boundary and ran to her. Something came whizzing at him, and a blade sank into his upper chest, flanked by another that gashed the top of his shoulder before flipping away. Dark Fae rushed out of the shadows, and Colm flung himself on top of Christine to shield her with his body. More blades rammed into his back and legs as the Blackstones crowded around him, jeering and laughing as they stabbed him over and over.

Blood pooled in Colm’s mouth as he lifted his head, and saw Ryan and Kayla on Titan. The mortal woman jumped off before Ryan sailed over the boundary, his mount transforming into a motorcycle. More of the Forever Faire warriors did the same, and plowed into the Dark Fae, knocking them aside as Ryan reached Colm and jumped off.

“You would take on the whole clan yourself,” his friend muttered as he flung Colm over his shoulder, and scooped up Christine with his other arm. “Selfish of you, brother.”

Colm wanted to laugh, but coughed up some blood before he could. Ryan kicked a Blackstone out of his way and mounted the bike while holding both of them tightly.

“Now, Titan,” Kayla shouted.

The motorcycle roared back toward the boundary, clearing it with a high jump before landing as the stallion on the other side. Ryan’s men followed as the Blackstones evaporated into the night.

Kayla took Christine down and covered her with her jacket, while Ryan carried Colm into the red cottage. Lawrence spread a blanket before the fire, where Ryan gently lay him, and Colm smiled a little as he heard Gavan cursing outside.

“He hates ambushes,” Colm told Ryan, and shifted his gaze as Kayla and Christine came inside. The dancer fell down beside him, her bruised face streaked with tears. “Do not cry, my lady. We prevailed this night.”

“You are a crazy man,” she told him flatly before she looked at Ryan. “Am I mortal enough to heal him?”

“I cannot say,” Ryan told her softly.

“Then get out and I’ll try.” Christine handed Kayla’s jacket back to her, and began unbuckling Colm’s belt.

With great effort he found her hands with one of his. “No, my little dancer. I love you for it, but I cannot have you.” The room was dimming. He couldn’t hold on to her hands. “I love you, Christine.”

Though more words were in his mind, his lungs refused to move.

“Colm,” she cried, almost too dim to hear. “Colm.”

He strained to hear her, but found there was no sound at all. The great, long arc of his life played in front of his eyes. Centuries slipped past, no more than a string of moments, like glittering jewels on a delicate chain. Love and loss, love and loss, and finally love again. As the images faded, peace settled on him.

Until Christine’s soft lips brushed his.

Colm had imagined many ways to die. But her mouth on his, catching the last of his life, turned out to be the finest of all.

R
YAN LEFT KAYLA
with a sobbing Christine, and went out to tell the men that the Blackstones had taken their brother from them.

“Fucking cowards,” Gavan shouted.

He mounted Sampson, and drew his blade as he wheeled the big horse around to jump the boundary. Seething, Ryan stepped in front of him.

“This is what they intended, to draw us out in a furious quest for vengeance. I will not give them what they want.”

“Then I will,” Jannon said. He swung up on his mount. “You can remain here and nursemaid the mortals.” The sound of approaching motorcycles made him give Ryan an ugly grin. “It seems they are stupid fucking cowards.”

Ryan turned to see a horde of bikers coming at high speed toward the boundary, but as they drew closer his blood froze in his veins.

“Gavan, Jannon, stay where you are. Where is Tara?”

“I was out looking for her when we heard the commotion,” Jannon said. “She left the dance suddenly and went off toward the lodge, but I did not find her there.”

Gavan stood up in his stirrups. “Ryan, those riders are not the Blackstones. They are– Blind me, they are mortals.”

As the first biker reached the outer perimeter of the boundary, he deliberately laid down his bike, tumbling off it to roll in a crumpled heap just outside the protective barrier. More bikers inexplicably did the exact same thing, falling atop the first man. Ryan counted thirty bodies and smashed bikes before he realized what they were doing.

“They’re making a bridge of bodies.”

Dozens of bikers crashed into the heaps of bodies and machines, growing the pile higher. When the last of the mortals had sacrificed themselves, the shadows beyond them began to seethe.

“Sound the alarm,” Ryan shouted as he drew his blade, and looked over at Kayla and Christine. “Get the crew to the lodge. Take them down into the caves.”

“You do it,” Christine said to Kayla, and pulled on her jacket. She started picking up stones. “I’m staying.”

Kayla hesitated.

“Go,” he bellowed.

Ryan felt the dark, furious surge of his power well up inside him as he faced the bridge made of dead flesh and twisted metal. If he went berserk, he knew he would build another, out of any living being that crossed his path. As Kayla took off at a run, he glanced over at the red cottage.

“Forgive me, my friend.”

More motorcycles came screaming up the road to the gates. But when they reached the piles of bodies and bikes, they used them to launch high into the air, over the reach of the spelled barrier. Blackstones jumped off their bikes and landed on the ground, ringing Ryan and his men. But their motorcycles did not join them. Instead they transformed. In the air overhead, dozens of dragons swirled in furious flight. Scaled, orange-eyed, and immense, they swooped down, blasting swaths of fire.

K
issing Ryan Sheridan
on a lumpy couch in a secret Fae pleasure palace had to be the most excellent moment of Kayla’s life. He had the best mouth for kissing, too: beautiful lips and a clever tongue and oh, the way he tasted. A banquet of bliss. She also couldn’t keep her hands off him, but that was his fault for having so many smooth, hard muscles. He was a treasure map of a man, and she wanted to explore all the lovely booty he was keeping from her.

Ryan ended the kiss on a sigh. “More of that, and I will show you how to use this lounge.”

“Then kiss me again,” she said, rolling over and pulling aside her hair to expose the back of her neck. “Right here. I love feeling your breath on my nape, right before you do– Yeah, like that.” As he fastened his mouth on the spot his body pressed her against the rise of the cushions. He lifted her shirt so he could work his way down her spine. As soon as he reached the small of her back she shivered. She reached down to unbutton her jeans.

“Permit me,” he murmured. In the next instant they were both naked. His big hands smoothed over her bottom. “Now this part of you I could happily kiss for a year or more.”

Kayla wriggled her hips to rub back against his caressing palms. “It’s not as nice as Christine’s, but I think it’s okay. Oh.” He slid his fingers between her buttocks and stroked her rosebud. The warmth in her belly turned to a wild, excited heat. “You are a wicked man, Sheridan.”

“Kayla love, you have only begun to know me.” He rubbed his thumb against the tight pucker as he kissed the curves around it, and then nuzzled her with his lips. When she tensed, he stopped. “There is nothing to fear. I want only what you are willing to give.”

“I know that,” she said, and pressed her hot face against the cushions. “I’ve just never…done anything quite
this
wicked.”

He turned her over onto her back, and looked down at her with a decidedly hungry smile. “Would you wish to?”

Now she understood the purpose of the lounge. The prospect of trying it out should have given her pause. This was the only virginity she had left—the last, untouched part of her that she could offer him. Her own curiosity burned inside her, too, wanting him and only him to satisfy it.

“I believe I do,” Kayla said at last, and glanced down at the thick swell of his erection. With anyone else she might have been afraid, but this was Ryan, and he’d tie himself up rather than hurt her. “I’ll need some help on how to manage it, though.”

“My brave lady.” He ran his hands from her shoulders to her hips. “Only be open to me, and I will show you the rest.”

Kayla wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him tightly for a moment, and then released him. Slowly she turned over, stretching herself out for him. Ryan clasped her hips, lifting and draping her over the rise of the cushions.

The lounge moved under Kayla, puffing up under her cheek to support her head and extending two rests for her arms. As soon as she moved her hands to the latter they filled her palms and stroked her wrists, as if reassuring her. Then Ryan knelt behind her, and pressed his mouth to her sex, his tongue gliding from her slick folds up to the tight opening. Kayla groaned as he lavished slow, wet kisses there, and woke all the slumbering nerves to a throbbing awareness.

The erotic torment soon swept away the last of Kayla’s tension, and replaced it with a shivering, wild anticipation. Ryan moved over her, tracing the taut muscles of her back with his lips as he slipped a hand under her to caress her aching breasts.

“Now we begin,” he told her, his voice as rough as his touch was gentle. “You have only to be a flower now, and open your sweetness to me.”

Kayla nodded, too wound up to speak, and felt his hot, satiny dome poised between her buttocks. She gripped the soft supports under her hands as he fit himself to her little bud, and pressed in. The stretching of her tight opening to accommodate the heavy bulb of him made her take in a quick breath, but the heat of the heartwine spread through her hips to encircle him.

“Oh, Ryan.” The sensations of his penetration and her body’s response fluttered through her, stroking her insides and teasing her nipples. “More, please. I need more of you, all of you.”

“Easy, love. We have time enough to play all night.” He worked gently inside her, sinking his hard shaft into her by exquisite degrees. The deeper he pushed, the more his muscles coiled against her. “If only you could feel this, how you glove me. You wrap me in chains of the sweetest softness, Kayla.”

She groaned as he filled her to his root, and her whole body shook under him as the pleasurable shock of his possession racked her. “This is…not what I thought. Ryan, you need to, ah, do something.”

“Something like this?” He remained planted in her as he filled his hands with her breasts. He tugged on her nipples until she shuddered.

Kayla would have laughed if she wasn’t burning up for him. “Think lower.”

His slow withdrawal made her bite her lip, and then he plowed back inside, steady and tender all at once. Her bottom tightened as his thrust created a dark, delicious friction. It fed a bite of bliss to her now-ravenous need.

“Again, like that.” She lifted her hips, and when he stroked out and in again she gripped him with the strong muscles of her channel, making it his turn to groan. “Oh, yes, like that.”

Ryan kissed her shoulder. “You make me forget this is your first time, love.” He nipped her ear lobe. “I wish to be gentle.”

“That’s nice.” She squeezed him tighter. “I don’t want nice. I want more.”