Faye brushed her lips against his chest, and he moaned in pleasure.
‘She was here,’ he gasped. ‘Please…let me…’
‘And now? Does she rival me for your affection?’ Faye watched his face closely for a reaction. Finn grimaced, but she couldn’t tell if it was in pleasure or not. ‘Pledge yourself to me. I am your mistress, the queen of your desire.’
‘No, no, Faye, there is no one but you. I have banished them…all, on your arrival.’ He was breathing fast and his eyes were half closed. Faye felt her own orgasm very near.
‘Banished them? Where?’ she panted. She laid on top of him now, her skin against his, hot and slick with sweat.
‘Don’t worry, Faye. You will not be troubled by her now,’ Finn muttered, and she could feel their climaxes coming, unstoppable like a wave. ‘She is deep…deep, oh, oh, Faye…’
‘Deep where? You will tell me, so I can laugh at their misfortune.’ Faye held on to sobriety for one last second before allowing herself to be lost in the pleasure that would cover them both.
‘The lower dungeon!’ he cried out. ‘It is the deepest pit in Murias. Down, all the way down the black stairs, to the bottom.’
‘Good…good,’ she cried, meeting his blue eyes with hers; his were the dark of the deepest ocean, the deepest places that held mysteries, that were alien lands in their own right. She ground against him: once, twice,more,more. Her body cried out, and she gave it what it hungered for.
Her climax came, then, like a wave that crested higher and higher. She rode him, lost in her pleasure as the ecstasy broke over her and through her abdomen, up to her heart, through her belly and back. It drummed deep inside her; a primal blackness that resonated red on her closed eyelids. She threw her head back and cried out, a long guttural cry.
‘Yes, yes, oh, oh…’ Finn’s mouth gasped open, and his body bucked with the force of his orgasm in response to hers. Faye kept riding him as the echoes of her orgasm transmitted themselves through her body, out to her fingertips, her ears, her scalp, coming to a slow stop as peace filled her soul, and she relaxed against his prone body.
Tenderly, she kissed his lips, his chin, and his chest, before slowly extricating herself from him and crawling to the head of the bed where she undid his wrists from their binds.
Finn enveloped her in his arms and kissed her, long and slow. Faye felt a dreamy languor of him draw her in, but it wasn’tenchantment, just the aftermath of lovemaking, and she didn’t resist it. She’d changed the polarity between them in the act of lovemaking, and the faerie king had accepted it.
She was Finn Beatha’s lover again, but she need not submit only to his desire; he would submit to hers, and when he was distracted, she would find Aisha.
No one could control a faerie king, but in his wildest moments, she could ask him things and make him answer, as she had just done.
Faye felt the wild delight of being fae coursing through her. It felt like a new beginning. It felt right, as if she was finally coming home. Coming home to her true self, a woman of inestimable talents, cloaked in a cape of glittering, erotic faerie power.
30
The moon outside the castle windows hung heavy. Faye sat up in the palatial bed strewn with unconscious fae creatures and reached for the emerald-green faerie wine that heightened her senses and energised her when she reached exhaustion. Drinking deeply, she looked around.
She didn’t know how many days she’d been here. There were no clearly recognisable days or nights as the light in Murias was always a kind of moonlit dusk or dawn. She slept at no particular time, and was roused by the onset of Finn’s – or another’s – touch. She’d barely left Finn’s rooms as a parade of strange and eerie fae visitors paid their respects to the king and his most revered mistress at all hours.
Before she’d passed out, she and Finn had been entertaining a trio of river sprites; slender, delicate faerie women who inhabited rivers and helped or hindered humans that came their way, depending on their inclination. Their bodies were long and malleable, cold and slightly blue-skinned; their algae-green hair retained its wetness even out of the water, and Faye recalled its cold kiss on her skin along with their brackish lips. Now,they slept, sprawled on the velvety blue covers of the bed, their flowing limbs contorted like disjointed dolls.
While she enjoyed the pleasure that was offered her, she waited for an opportunity to elude Finn. Now that she knew Aisha was in the lower dungeon, she just had to find a way of getting there, and getting Aisha back to the human world.
Lyr had told her that Aisha would survive only a few months in Murias before it killed her. How long had she been here? Faye counted the months since Midsummer: in the human world, it had been five months. It was too long.
She got up carefully and slipped on a blue robe and soft leather boots that lay at the end of the bed; the servant fae had laid out clothes for her. As silently as she could, she slipped out of the heavy door and tiptoed into the corridor outside.
Faye knew that there were dungeons in the castle at Murias, but she had no idea where they were, apart from downwards. Finn had said the dungeon was at the foot of the black stairs, wherever they were. She took the first stairway she could find and followed it, and then when that one came to an end, she walked to the other end of the hallway it had taken her to and went down the next stairs, and the next. The walls seemed to close in, and the air grew less clear and more and more dank, but as far down as she went, there was no sign of anything apart from empty rooms.
Dizziness overtook her and she sat down on the stone floor for a moment to regain her senses. She had no idea of how long she’d been intoxicated. The faerie wine, the faerie food, and Finn’s lulling, dreamy influence on her had taken its toll, and she felt nausea overcome her. There was magic here in the castle; Finn’s prisoners would be closely guarded. But she could make that magic work for her.
She felt the gorge rise in her throat, and her head spun. Faye rested her head on the stone wall behind her, taking a moment.She wasn’t sure why she felt ill; it was probably the fact that she had been here too long, and eaten and drunk the food and drink.No matter, she thought.I have to find Aisha, and I am strong.
She hadn’t forgotten the horrors she’d seen here before – the piles of human bones under the feet of the faeries as they danced, and worse, the emaciated bodies of the men and women who were still alive, being slowly trampled to death. She had not forgotten any of it, but now, she was a different person.
She took out the obsidian wand she had secretly stuffed in her bra. Could she call on the powers of Falias, so deep in the bowels of the castle of Murias? Lyr had said that if she drew the earth sigil with it, it would transport her to his kingdom. She didn’t want that, but maybe she could ask it to take her to Aisha.
It was worth a try.
‘Take me to Aisha!’ she cried aloud, holding the wand up and tracing the earth sigil with it in the space in front of her.
