“Are you talking about Lysander?” Her voice is free of any judgment.
“About him, about the King of the Seelie, and you know what, even the Lord Protector.”
“The Grim Reaper of the human world?”
I scoff, but it sounds more like a snarl. “The Grim Reaper. The job is barely worth the title. Taking human souls, bah. What could be easier than overpowering humans? They’re physically so fragile. People like you, parahumans, you’re stronger, but not by much. Not even reaping your souls would be much of a challenge. Unlike the Grim Reaper, those like me, and even Lysander, we only pick on bastards our own size, or a few sizes bigger. That is how I came to fight Apophis and Orion.”
“Would you mind explaining? I’d love to know more about that.”
I do mind, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I need to tell her.
“Two thousand years ago, my powers increased so much that hardly anyone could stand against me, except Lysander, the King of Frost, and a few others, so few that you could count them all on one hand. We were all young and wild, and the Council of the Arcane decided to use our youth and enthusiasm in a productive way, to make the best of it. They assigned Lysander with enforcing the law against trespassers into the mortal world, and me with keeping cosmic threats, like Apophis and Orion, from entering our system of realms. I have been doing it ever since. It was a nasty job, but I grew into it, and soon even felt at home doing it. I had accepted the task as a part of me, I integrated it, sacrificing my soul for the cause, and for the safety of all realms. The job ended up devouring the best in me, but it also gave me a sense of purpose and duty that kept me going even in the worst circumstances.
“But in time the realms began taking my work for granted. Of course, dealing with so much darkness for centuries and millennia takes a toll. One becomes dark and diabolical, because there’s no other way to survive the kind of threats I had to fend off. So members of the other realms started to plot against me. The very realms I was fighting to protect started to give me hell. That’s how my repulsion and anger against them was born.”
“Repulsion? Not hatred?”
I scoff. “Hatred. That’s a feeling specific to humans and parahumans, we feel things differently.” Even though right now I couldn’t be baser or more human, wanting to stick my cock into her the way I do. Our connection grows, burning hot, and there’s nothing I can do to stop sharing all this with her.
“When your people, fire fae, started infiltrating the Winter Realm and assassinating winter fae, Lysander’s subjects, was that your order? Was that some form of revenge for the evil reputation others had started to fabricate about you?”
“You insist on giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
“Because you’re confirming what I knew all along. That there’s a reason behind your actions, even behind your feelings.”
Her accepting tone and attitude breaks through my last defenses. It feels so liberating to talk about all this after millennia of frustrated silence, that it’s scary.
“I never had my people attack random winter fae. The rumors that had started to spread about my people and me are just that, rumors. The truth behind them is very different. But the rumors did a fine job of instilling fear and hatred. Parahumans, fae, shifters, vampires and all kinds of supernaturals made a point of killing fire fae, with the ultimate purpose of getting to me, when in truth my people and I were the first line of defense against the cosmic behemoths. We’d been sacrificing ourselves to keep those who hated us safe, and yes, some of my people might have responded violently to the attacks. Ravaged by PTSD and scarred by their experiences, they were unable to forgive such betrayal.”
“I wish I’d witnessed some of the things you went through,” she says softly. “So I can understand you better.”
“No, Cerys. The smallest part of it would change you forever. The beautiful glow of your face.” I lean forward, unable to refrain from taking her chin between my fingers. “Bitterness and pain would replace it, and that would be a pity.”
Cerys’ eyes fall to my mouth, and her lips part as if she’s fascinated with me.
“I knew you weren’t a villain. That there was a reason behind everything you did.”
I want to bring up the armies of Undead. Remind her that I am, in the end, a villain, no matter what turned me into one. But instead, I bend forward and crush her lips under mine.
The moment I feel her soft mouth on mine she wants to back up, but I don’t let her. I cup the back of her head with my hand, and slide my tongue between her lips. She doesn’t try to push me away, probably too stunned by what’s happening. As for me, I’m not exactly sure either. Her scent, the feel of her, it just pulls me in like an irresistible magnet. It pulls at every part of me. I want to plaster her to my body, rip the duvet away from her, so I can crush her milky breasts under my chest.
My cock hardens so much that it hurts, my jeans tightening against it. I make an effort of will to push myself away from her, but she grabs the lapels of my leather vest and opens her mouth against mine, inviting me in. Even if I could have stopped a moment ago, there’s no way I’m stopping now. Her palms slide under my vest, pushing it off of me, and I don’t even try to stop her.
My instincts scream for me to pull her over me, onto my lap, to push her legs open with my thighs and bring her down to straddle me, but I don’t get to. She throws off the duvet herself, and climbs onto my lap, breaking the kiss and straightening up to let me get a clear view of her.
High realms. The girl is completely naked, her milky skin and perky breasts right under my nose. I cup her breasts and let out a growl as I knead her soft mounds. Her hands wander from my shoulders to my arms, and to my chest, her honey eyes tracing patterns on my skin. At first I think that she’s working some kind of magic, but then I understand she takes as much delight in my body as I do in hers, and my heart leaps.
I want to pull her into me and kiss her with my tongue again, but before I get to, she bends down and crushes her mouth against mine. She slips her tongue inside my mouth, kissing me wildly for minutes on end like she owns me, and I love it beyond rhyme and reason. I never thought I’d enjoy a woman claiming my mouth like this.
She pushes her breasts against my chest, sliding against me, sweaty with excitement. She rubs her naked sex against my cock through my jeans, the scent of her arousal going to my head.
I push my hands into her silky hair, leaning her back and kissing her jaw, her neck, her delicate collarbones that I loved from the start, and ending up taking her nipples greedily into my mouth. At this point I already know I won’t be able to stop. I throw her on the bed, face up, ready to undo my pants and dip my cock inside of her.
But Nazarean meows, wedging himself between us. He’s clearly desperate to separate us because, in his great wisdom as a creature of the underworld, he knows this would be a catastrophe for both of us.
“Oh, realms,” Cerys yelps, as if she just realized that she’s naked on the bed under me. I shoot up to my feet, and shake my head in an attempt to pull my scrambled wits back together. She grabs the sheets on the bed and wraps them around herself, staring up at me as if she just woke up from a dream, and has no idea what has happened.
“I’m sorry, I got carried away,” I growl, cursing myself for having started this madness, fully aware I’m the only one to blame. She’s innocent in this. She just couldn’t resist the connection between us.