Curse of the Fae King (10 page)

His Fae side wanted to shower her with fire opals or woo her with soft words. His beast wanted her naked on the floor while he fucked her over and over. She deserved every good thing he could give her. Even if it could never be more than a temporary arrangement.

His beast was an unfaithful creature that lived for sexual conquests. While it forced him to hunt down and fuck new prey every month, he never gave his heart, only his body. Years of meaningless screwing left him cold and empty inside, but he always attended to his bedmates’ pleasure—even tried to make them feel special.

Unlike his father, he took care never to spill his seed inside his sexual partners. Although Leonidas had grown up alongside his oldest half brother—a crossbred Elf—his father had scattered his bastards across the otherworld kingdoms. Leonidas was still tracking them down. His favorite half sister had to be Sylvie, queen to the ferocious Lykae king, but she’d found the Fae aloof and cold. Lykae wildness had proved much more to her liking.

Maybe when his four weeks with Meena ended, he could flash back to his palace and fuck some random woman. He’d be everything his half sister accused him of being—cynical and uncaring—then he could hurry back to Meena’s side. With her, he was hot passion and smiles, not icy control and stiff spine. Brave, outspoken, and headstrong, she’d be a breath of fresh air in the stuffy Fae court. No matter how weak her powers, she’d make him a perfect queen.

He hated himself for the way he’d betray Meena every time his four-week cycle ended. Eventually she’d despise him for it—just as his mother had hated his father for his womanizing ways.

It had never been a love match, but his mother had known that from the start. His father had obsessed over a woman who rejected him, cursed him, and left him to suffer years of mindless sex. Then when his father died, the curse passed to his heir—to Leonidas.

Leonidas’s mother had tried to be understanding. Not that it had helped. By the time he turned ten, she couldn’t stand being in the same room as his father. As a child, he’d hated the disgust in his mother’s gaze. It’d kill him if Meena ever looked at him like that.

“Leo, look.” Meena pulled open the larder door. Inside it was a fifteen-feet-square walk-in freezer crammed with meat.

He’d never noticed how musical her voice when was she dropped the sarcastic facade. It flowed over him like a concerto of airy notes and breathy vibrato. For her, he’d fight his curse-forced desires, but his hard-on throbbed. Why was it every time he looked at her, he felt like a randy schoolboy viewing a porn movie?

He dreamed of a better future—one where he fucked her daily and never bedded anyone but her.

Then she shook his arm. “Come on, Fairy boy, wake up and see what I’ve found.”

There she went again, tormenting him with that caustic edge to her tongue, but with her he found it…charming. Back home, courtiers vied to please him, and high-bred Fae women queued to get into his bed. Meena was freethinking and independent—braver than his most fearsome warriors. Even her ridiculous idea of how a Vampire dressed, from her flowing cloak to her scarlet lips and long evening gloves, amused him. His woman couldn’t stand to touch raw meat, so how would she cope if she had to drink blood?

Meena came in layers like a delicious trifle he’d never reach the bottom of—but he sure as hell wanted to try. He hadn’t the heart to tell her Vampires never painted their neatly filed fingernails black. He just enjoyed that she did. It should have repelled him, but every detail he discovered about her just pulled him closer.

Elves’ Blood, he’d kill anyone who touched her, even though they weren’t fully mated yet. There was no other woman for him, not when she was his true-mate. To claim her, he needed to bite her while she orgasmed around his cock, and she needed to bite him back.
Great
. Now he was thinking of all the different ways he wanted to fuck her instead of the job at hand.

When he left her to bed another, both their hearts would shatter. Irrevocably maybe. Meena awoke his most primitive needs—for family, hearth, and home—and damn it, his future couldn’t include her. His true-mate. Given his curse, he’d never wanted to find the one woman who could complete his soul, and then Meena confronted him on the cliff top. She was made for him, and him for her, but their future was still a blank. Unless he finally tracked down the black-hearted Witch who’d cursed his bloodline. By now, he accepted that Meena was supposed to be his. There wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about it, not if he didn’t want to condemn her to the same misery his mother had endured for decades.

He wanted to choke Elizbetta for the way her curse ruined his life. But the damned Witch had vanished, and even the Witch council didn’t know where she’d fled. Now Leonidas was the paying his father’s dues.

MEENA LOVED WHITBY, with its history, harbor, and picturesque swing bridge over the river. Then there was the Dracula connection. Tourists flocked there to lap up Gothic horror, and she enjoyed dressing as part of the legend. Not that she needed to now that she’d lost her job. Her mother had hidden them in a town full of tourists, and best of all, the place catered to pagan beliefs. Magic shops, with plastic skulls and mystic herbs, sat alongside stores full of chocolate fountains and outdoor bubble machines. Twice a year, the town held a Goth festival. If she couldn’t live in the otherworld, then Whitby suited her down to the ground. Until she fell ass-over-tit for a fabulous green-eyed Fae.

Now she missed the otherworld terribly.

She still couldn’t fathom why their prisoners had lied about using her mum to make her father behave. What if they’d told the truth? Her stomach pitched as though she rode a hyperspeed roller coaster, and nausea churned through her gut. When she thought Leonidas wasn’t watching, she reached up and felt her ears. Yeah, definitely not rounded, not pointed like a Fae’s…or an Elf’s. Okay, that ruled out Mordred Arthington being her absentee dad—probably.

Like my father ever gave a damn about me or my mother—even if he still lived
. He’d vanished before she was born, and her mother refused to tell anyone his name. The elder Witches told Meena point-blank he was dead—but they’d said the same about the Elves.

Her mother just wept and turned away—neither denying nor confirming anything. What if her father had done something terrible? Some of Meena’s earliest memories were of her mother twisting her father’s solid signet ring around her finger and blinking back tears.

When she was younger, Meena fantasized that he was a master criminal or a superhero. Now she realized he was a scumbag who cared nothing for his wife or the daughter he’d sired. Sometimes when she lay in her bed, she’d hear her mother weeping on the other side of the wall. Love was heartbreak and pain, no matter what the romantics said. Much as she already cared about Leonidas, that was one road she wasn’t going to travel. Maybe. Then her heart whispered,
“It’s already too late.”

None of this made sense. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but Leonidas’s eyebrows drew together, and his forehead creased into a frown. Everything about him screamed
Back off.

She reached out and rested her hands on his arm. “It’s no good going all stiff and proud on me. Thanks to Lipstick, we’re in this together. Please, don’t shut me out.”

His face set in cold haughty lines, and he stepped out of reach. “Better we return to your herb farm and wait until my magic returns. Then I will summon the Fae warriors, and we will scour the otherworld for your mother.”

He wants me to forget my mother and leave? Treacherous, cowardly Fae. Or maybe he just doesn’t care enough to fight for me and mine.

She lifted her chin and tossed him the tractor’s keys. “Here. Take Lipstick and go. Don’t expect me to cower at home when my mother’s in danger. Watch out for Fairy dust, or maybe it suits you to have your powers so depleted you can’t get involved.”

Torn between tears and anger, she stormed outside and slammed the door—hard. Sweet Hekate, she’d believed in Leonidas, trusted him even. Given her history, she should have known he’d turn out as two-faced as the Witches she’d thought were her friends.

She had grown up basking in the open affection of the coven, but they proved as false as her Fae. She’d seen affection turn to embarrassment, then rejection in the Witches’ eyes. What if Leo ever looked at her like that? For the first time she understood the sadness that shrouded her mother.

Back in the otherworld, she’d celebrated every time one of her friends grew into their powers. One night with blaring rock music and illicit sips of fermented apple juice was branded in her brain. Even the coven’s senior Witches had laughed at her younger self’s antics, despite their barbed comments about her generation coming into their powers late. Her friends had all gained them eventually—but not her.
How can that still hurt so badly?
Failed Witch. Failed daughter. Failed lover? Wasn’t there anything she was good at?

Her early childhood, surrounded by spell casters and quick-witted Witches who went out of their way to make her smile, had being idyllic.

“You’ll grow into your powers soon, dear.”

“Don’t worry, the longer the wait, the stronger the powers.”

Only there’d been no powers—ever. Gradually the hugs grew less frequent, and her friends started to make sly digs about her lack of prowess. She’d emerged from puberty with double
D
breasts, a peach-shaped butt, and a handspan waist—but no discernible magic.

The Witch council convened a special meeting to discuss her little problem. Her mother took matters into her own hands and moved the pair of them to Whitby while the meeting was still in session. Later, she learned they’d put a price on her head. Maybe things would have worked out better if her father had stuck around, but he’d tossed her on the reject pile before she was even born.

Meena blinked back tears and kicked at a stone. Sweet Hekate, she’d probably have let her father down too.
Gods, can I be any more of a failure? No magic. No job. No friends. No family. And damn it, no Leo—at least not to keep.

Despite her pity party, she still needed to find her mother—and she’d start by exploring in the patched-up barn. She heard Leonidas behind her but blinked back tears and refused to turn around. She couldn’t. Otherwise he’d see how his betrayal broke her.

The barn had the freshly tiled roof the farmhouse lacked, and new plaster marked the recent repairs in the walls. Rutted cart tracks and a maze of footprints littered the ground by the entrance. She marched around the walls like Joshua at Jericho. The only entrance was the heavy oak door, so she edged it open just the tiniest crack. Well-oiled hinges swung it wide.

Meena jumped backward—straight into Leo’s arms. He gathered her into his chest and leaped into the cover of the trees. He rolled midair, taking her weight on his chest, then rolled again and pinned her on the grassy floor. Still angry, she writhed and kicked beneath him. Every buck of her hips, every wriggle of her breasts made his cock hard—again—but she loved the way his erection rubbed against her groin.

Eyes as dark as Whitby jet, he hissed in her ear. “Be quiet and stay still.”

He was strength and protection, willing to sacrifice flesh and blood to keep her safe. How could she not love him for that? Her anger faded, and as for her hips—they just kept right on grinding against his cock.

“I do not cower, but unlike you I know how to be circumspect.” Leonidas kept his eyes on the barn and his body wrapped around Meena. She wanted to argue, but the emerald shimmer of his eyes and the solid length of his cock pressing against her groin sent her into sensual overdrive. When she breathed in his melting chocolate and chili essence, she almost came in her panties. And all the while, her hips begged him to take her on the woodland floor.

Chapter Eleven

Lying beneath Leonidas, Meena moved against him, urging him on. He groaned softly—his cock as stiff as the broadsword he sometimes wielded. Meena wanted him so badly, but he still kept his gaze glued to the barn door. Time for drastic action. She grinned and nibbled on his chin, then arched her back and thrust her breasts upward in invitation. Ha! Now she had his full attention.

She didn’t blink in case she broke the connection between them, but she needed him pumping inside her—filling her, stretching her until she came over and over. Then he lowered his head and crushed his lips to hers.

Savage, primitive Fae. Even without promises or a future, he’s just too hard to resist.

Sweet Hekate, how could this man drive her so crazy? She veered between angry and desperate, but beneath all that, she hungered for him. She needed to get naked right out here in the open. Eyes closed, she nibbled on his lower lip. That was all it took. His lips teased hers, then withdrew.

Meena moaned against his lips and sent her tongue delving after his. With a soft, sensual groan, she undulated beneath him. She didn’t resist when he gathered her wrists in one hand and gently held her arms over her head. Another moan, another kiss, and she surrendered to his delicious dominance.

His erection pressed harder against her pussy and she wanted to stroke and caress his dick until he didn’t know which way was up. Only, pinned at the wrists and hips, all she could do was enjoy.

She needed him more than she needed air to breathe or food to eat. She couldn’t think for the urgent desires he created inside her. Fire flowed through her veins, fanning her smoldering desire into full-on flames. Helpless beneath him, Meena groaned, ready to beg for more.

His lips locked against hers, and his kiss sizzled with heat. When they broke off, he whispered, “Shush, sweetheart. We still don’t know if there’s anyone in that barn.”

Lost in her desire to touch and taste, Meena was beyond understanding. He silenced her every protest with a kiss. And still the rat fink straddled her hips and held her hands over her head—his glorious cock teasing her pussy through their clothes. Time lost its meaning as she lay beneath him, needy and eager—and still no one came out of the barn. She’d denied him, fought him, challenged him, and now she wanted him in the most animalistic way. Another buck of her hips, and he obviously decided they were in the clear.