Wiping the drops from my eyes, I found a woman with short blond hair curling around her cherub-like face smiling down at me.
“Hello,” she giggled. Her skin had a faint luminescent glow, so I assumed she had faerie blood.
I’d seen this one flitting about the house, cooking and cleaning and stealing looks when she thought no one was watching. Had Fiadh called her Clare or Clara? It was something like that anyway.
I shoved my hair back from my forehead, returning her smile. “Hello.”
She ran her fingers through the water, sending ripples toward my chest. “I was wonderin’ if ye’d like some company?”
The ache in my chest began to loosen when her tongue darted from between full pink lips. Could I go for another round? My cock stirred. With a little help from my magic, I could probably find the energy. “It’d be a shame to waste this water on just me,” I said with a playful splash.
Her giggle was like the chime of a bell. Definitely a faerie.
I lifted a dripping hand, touching the black satin laces across the bodice of her dress. “Shall I help you with these?”
She braced her hands on the side of the tub, allowing me to tug on the bow at the bottom. It would’ve been quicker to use magic, but this was the part I didn’t want to speed up. The moment her glorious breasts fell free. The whisper of her sheer shift sliding down the ancient symbols covering her golden skin, landing in a pool of white at her toeless feet.
Damn, I loved women.
The water rose as she climbed in. When she sank on top of me, her sea-blue eyes rolled back in her head. I caught her moan with my mouth.
The world and its troubles turned to shadows as her body slipped against mine over and over and over until—
“How dare you!”
Shit.
I shoved the faerie off of me. Fiadh stood at the foot of the bed, light green eyes wide and face contorted.
Shit.
Blackness leaked from beneath her skirt.
Her magic shouldn’t be black. It should’ve been white.
“You come into myhome,” she seethed, her voice trembling, “tell me you love me, and then I catch you rutting with a feckin’maid?” The candle flames flared and shuddered.
My ring glowed from her left hand.
Shit.
She still had my feckin’ ring. How had I been so careless? This was bad, but I could make it better. I always did. “Fiadh, please hear me out—”
“Enough! I won’t hear any more of your lies.” Her wrist twisted in a slow circle. She began murmuring in the ancient tongue.
My mouth clamped shut, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t open it. Evanescing was impossible. The wards around the house were too strong.
Shit.
The faerie sobbing at the other end of the tub clutched her arms around herself, trying unsuccessfully to conceal her nakedness. “P-please. D-don’t hurt me.”
“I don’t blame you for being weak willed,” Fiadh hissed, her eyes darkening to the same hellish hue as her magic. “Butyou. . .” She pointed a sharp black nail at me. “Youknow better. Youlied tome.”
The invisible clamp over my mouth moved lower, to my throat. She couldn’t kill me—not unless she possessed an enchanted dagger. I’d only come back the way I always did.
“I gave you everything I had, everything I am, and youusedme,” she said slowly, as if the words were only beginning to sink in. “Just as you usedher.” She nodded toward the sobbing faerie.
My heart constricted in my chest when Fiadh’s black eyes narrowed and she whispered, “I’m going to make you pay.”