Storm Warned (The Grim Series) (19 page)

“Nice way to treat a gift, asshole,” he told himself. When he was young and his mom was ill, and he was angry at the whole damn world most of the time, he’d come home with a note from the teacher about his latest outburst or scuffle
.
Aunt Ruby would sit him down privately and hold what she called “a social autopsy.” Kind of like
CSI
investigating a social error—
Here’s the corpse of the situation, what do you think killed it?
—with the hope of preventing further fatalities. Often as not, it boiled down to missed cues.

Hell, he’d done more than miss a signal this time. Caris hadn’t gotten a chance to give him a cue of any kind, not in time at least. He’d bolted from a musical dream that turned into a nightmare, and the very first time he heard her singing, he practically jumped down her throat.

Liam had seen something in her face
then
, all right, something that didn’t add up.

Okay, moron, think.
He’d probably been too loud, but he hadn’t yelled, not exactly, and he hadn’t been particularly rude. He’d even said
please
. Puzzlement in her eyes at his strange request would have been understandable. Concern for the crazy guy with the head injury, certainly. Rolling her eyes at him for being “cranky as a wet cat”—as she’d once put it—would also be an appropriate reaction. So would some solid indignation, if she thought he was criticizing her talent or insulting her in some way, although he’d
said
her singing was beautiful.
Yeah, so lovely that you asked her not to do it! Who wouldn’t believe that?

Instead, Liam had seen a raw, deep hurt and an even deeper disappointment, laced with grief and anger.
I hit a nerve of some kind
, he thought. But he couldn’t begin to guess what it was connected to.

On top of it all, what the hell had struck his own nerves? Liam was as baffled by his outburst as he was by Caris’s reaction to it. Maybe he should have told her the real story. That he’d turned his back on his own music—and then it had turned its back on him. He could neither play nor write, and worse, he didn’t want to. And dreaming of Caris’s song, that primal, enlivening tune, had set off a terrible struggle within him. He was torn between following it and running away from it.

Her music had not only made him feel; it made him feel much too deeply, tearing him wide open and laying bare much more than his heart: it had uncovered his goddamn
soul
.

And while his gut might persuade his heart to consider a relationship, his soul was not on board with anything of the kind. His soul was where his music lived—or
had
lived—and it was definitely closed for business, windows and doors nailed shut. If Caris could cross that barricade with only a casual tune, how on earth could he bear to have her around?

Boundaries.
He’d have to set boundaries, that’s all—and in the moment he thought it, he realized how crazy that was.
You can come this close to me, but no further. You can make me feel this much, but no more. Yeah, right, that’ll work. Not!

Obviously, it just wouldn’t work out. She’d have to go, that was all there was to it. He could still send her away, back to wherever she came from, couldn’t he? It wasn’t too late to ask Morgan and Jay to give her a ride, not too late to pull back from where his heart was headed. Not too late to put the brakes on and . . .

Hell yeah, it was too late.

Liam slumped back on the couch. He’d had the very same dream twice, heard Caris’s strange wild song in that dream and again in waking life. It wouldn’t matter if he sent the flesh-and-blood woman to the other side of the damn world. He had no control over the dream woman that lived in his head or the tune that was stuck in there with her.
And when you have that nightmare again, or think about Caris for the hundredth time in a day, what are you going to do
then
, smart guy?

He had no idea. But for now, he’d better be thinking up a damn good apology. It might be too late to fix things—Christ, he hoped it wasn’t—but she deserved to hear him say that he was sorry. Of course, that meant he had to fight his way off this frickin’ couch and follow her . . .

The back door slammed behind her, but Caris didn’t even notice. She walked briskly into the living room to find Liam standing unsteadily, with his hand braced on the bookcase for support. The surprise of seeing her nearly took him down again, but he grabbed a shelf with his other hand and tried to adopt a casual pose. Normally she’d offer to help, ask if he was okay, but at this particular moment, she didn’t care.

“How dare you,” she said. It was not a question, and the fury that was in her made her voice thick. She’d barely gotten halfway across the yard before raw anger erupted from somewhere deep inside her and turned her right around. “How
dare
you tell me not to sing!”

“Caris, I was wrong. I’m sorry. I just got myself up to see if I could follow you—as you can see, I wasn’t nearly fast enough. I want to apologize, explain—”

“Let me explain something to
you
, good sir. I grew up with everyone and their dog telling me it’s a wicked, wicked sin to sing, to make up songs, to play music,
to be who I am
. And I’ve spent an even longer time without the ability to sing or play or do any of those things that make me
myself
.”

Her feet took her across the room until she was within what her da would have called “spittin’ distance” of Liam Cole. She had to look up into those vivid blue eyes, but she wouldn’t let them mesmerize her this time. She needed music like she needed air. Hadn’t she always told herself that it would better to be alone than to be with someone who couldn’t understand that? It was yet true—though she hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. Still, the words had to be said. “There’s no denying there’s something between us, Liam. We’ve done nothing but make eyes at each other since we met. But you need to be understanding that if you cannot abide music, then you cannot abide me. I’ll not be separated from it again.”

Fully expecting that she’d burned her bridge, Caris turned to leave, but a big hand on her shoulder tugged her back.

“My turn,” said Liam. “You’ve said your piece, and you’re right. You’re right about all of it, except for one thing.
I don’t want you to be without your music.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, because that’s what happened to me.”

When she looked up into his eyes this time, she saw the shadows in them too, all the anguish and the anger she’d glimpsed at their very first meeting. His words registered slowly in her brain, perhaps because she was afraid she hadn’t heard them right.
Dear heavens, does he feel the same way about music as I do?

“Will you tell me?” she managed at last.

He closed his eyes and nodded once.

SEVENTEEN

T
he moon was at its apex. Lurien might not be enthused about the party, but he would not draw attention to himself by being late. He entered casually through a side door of the massive throne room and stopped still . . . If this was indeed the majestic hall in which the queen had so recently called a great gathering of her people, then every whit of its formality had been very well hidden. The towering agate pillars glittered with the many-colored reflections of thousands upon thousands of floating lanterns. The glowing lamps hid almost the entirety of the vast vaulted ceiling, save the high clear center of the dome itself, which was reserved for the moon to shine through. Lurien was almost embarrassed for the orb—it was at its fullest and most perfect, and it had garbed itself in warm yellow gold for the occasion, yet its light was all but swallowed up in the splendor below.

Cleverly tooled shapes cut away from the gently rotating lanterns cast countless, ever-changing shadows on the polished walls: creatures of every kind, from every realm and every world. Lions danced with unicorns. Deer pranced with warths. Songbirds circled bwganod. Lurien frowned however at the numerous dragons among the shadow figures—dragons with great horned wings, dragons that breathed fire, dragons with sharp teeth and long tails . . .

As if that didn’t make Lurien uncomfortable enough, Gwenhidw had neglected to mention that she had planned a
costume party
. Frustrated and furious, his powerful fists clenched hard enough that they would have driven his nails deep into his palms if it hadn’t been for his black leather gloves. For reasons he could not fathom, his queen’s main mission in life seemed less to expand the kingdom and more to imagine new and awkward surprises for her
llaw dde
.
Surely no right hand in the history of the Nine Realms has had to contend with such a security nightmare.

The seventy-nine envoys had been joined by all their advisers and assistants, and every one of them was masked.
Masked!
And from the crush of guests in attendance, it was obvious that countless invitations had gone out beyond the palace walls. Like the myriad shadows on the lofty walls, the costumes drew from both fae and human realms. The effect was nothing short of fantastical. Lurien was looking out over a sea of wildly imaginative guises and headdresses that bobbed and bounced as the wearers danced, pranced, minced, conversed, and even sang—some quite badly.

For the most part, Lurien could not distinguish who was an envoy and who was not—except for a few of the larger and more obvious creatures such as the kelpies and the glittering fire drakes. It took every ounce of his self-control not to stare, however, as a huge basilisk slithered by him wearing a kitten mask . . . Meanwhile, an entire contingent of knee-high coblynau, dressed as human football players replete with shoulder pads and helmets, were sampling more or less continuously from the groaning boards of exotic foods that lined one wall. Elaborate silver fountains had been strategically placed around the vast dance floor, dispensing jewel-colored streams of exquisite wines and rare ales. A pair of eerily beautiful
undines
with large, luminous eyes lounged in one of the bigger fountains. Their notion of costuming appeared to have been to paint their naked bodies with crushed gems. As each enticing curve caught the light of the multicolored lanterns overhead, it was hard to argue with their choice.

Still Lurien’s dark eyes didn’t linger. He was studying the crowd, seeking the person behind the party—though whether to throttle her or protect her he didn’t yet know. Perhaps both. At one end of the cavernous room, the great Glass Throne sat empty upon the green jasper dais, save for a shining drape of silver fabric carelessly tossed over one clear arm.
Of course she wouldn’t be there. She’d be in the very midst of the chaos.
He changed his focus then, looking instead for the hunters he had assigned to watch her. Lurien alone wore black, and only black. It was as much his signature as his waist-length dark hair, and it was eminently practical when trying to blend with shadows while hunting or while carrying out his duties to the queen. What his men would be wearing, however, was anyone’s guess. They were not soldiers, per se, but simply trusted followers and friends, loyal to him and, more important, to their queen.

“She’s all right, you know,” a silky voice whispered in his ear.

Lurien whirled to find himself face-to-face with a lioness. The mask was exceptionally realistic, right down to a muzzle wrinkled back to expose long bared fangs. Ever the hunter, he admired the big cats that still roamed the human world and wished that such felines lived in the Nine Realms. Automatically he scanned the rest of the costume—and discovered that the leonine fur was not a garment at all. Rather it was a whisper-thin pelt that blushed over a completely naked female body. Golden nipples peeked shamelessly from the fine, soft fur that defined rather than covered rounded breasts. The only marking on her tawny pelt was a long narrow stripe of palest gold that ran all the way from her delicate throat to the enticing female cleft between her long, shapely legs.

He wrested his gaze back to the lioness’s face, and one of her amber eyes winked at him wickedly. “Aurddolen,” he acknowledged, finding that his voice betrayed him. His attempt at disapproval came out mixed with amusement—and interest.

“Come, I’ll show you the one you seek.” Aurddolen linked her arm with his and guided him through the jostling throng of revelers to the tightly packed dance floor. Here, the dragon-woman-turned-lioness stopped. “See?” she half shouted to him.

He didn’t see, not at all. Where the dancing was at its most feverish, the Lord of the Wild Hunt studied the crowd—and finally focused in on a tall fae dressed as a terrifying warth. As the unlikely creature stepped lively to the tune, the tip of a diagonal scar across its throat became visible for a mere eyeblink. It was enough to identify Trahern, one of the men he’d assigned to the queen’s side. And only Lurien knew that the scar was from a long ago battle with a
real
warth.

Quickly, he discerned Iago, Wren, and Nodin—and even as he continued to search for Gwenhidw, Lurien made a mental note to commend Nodin later (with much jesting) for his unlikely mermaid costume. Finally a monstrous black horse cleared some of the dancers in front of Lurien with a burst of flame from its nostrils. The nightmare creature with glowing yellow eyes was a pwca, and several of them had accompanied their envoy to the palace. It seemed to be having a fine time. Festive flowers, copper bells, and silver ribbons had been braided into its long mane, and sparks flew from its sharp silver hooves as it danced nimbly . . .

Gwenhidw!

Thankfully, a lifetime spent stalking prey made him shout her name only in his mind. As if she’d heard him just the same, however, she wheeled and insolently flicked him in the head with her long tail. Before he could protest, Aurddolen seized his arm and dragged him into the crowd.

“I told you she was fine,” she shouted into his ear. “You’ll only draw attention to her if you stay.” She grinned then and raised her mask so that her lovely and unconventional features were revealed in the shadow of the lioness’s teeth. As a wild tune began, she grasped his hands and playfully whirled him away.

Lurien didn’t dance as a rule, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how. He knew this tune and its implications. It was part music, part sexual enchantment, and lovers often used it to excite each other. The charmed song was a long one, building slowly from something light and merry to a final frenzied culmination—and at that point there would be many uninhibited couplings in the midst of the dance floor. No one would think twice of that, of course, particularly if they had visited the ever-salacious Court.

So Aurddolen thinks to play with the Lord of the Wild Hunt?

Lurien closed his gloved hands over hers, and their gazes locked. It was satisfying to see her sudden understanding that she had just lost control of this encounter, and before she could think, he spun her swiftly across the floor. With grace and power, he ably threaded them both through the pulsing crowd, and as the music demanded more, he made bracelets of his strong hands and slid them over her wrists and all the way up her slender arms. Manacled thus, she could neither escape nor strike him should she wish. Aurddolen didn’t appear to want to do either one, so far at least, but he found himself with an urgent craving. He pulled her close and bent his head to her ear. “Unfasten my tunic,” he said, in a low resonant tone he knew a draigddynion could hear despite the background noise. “I would have us skin to skin.”

Her eyes widened, and her pupils swelled from narrow catlike slits to round black moons. Only the barest glimmer of amber iris was visible, as if eclipsed by desire. As the throbbing beat and anxious keening music intensified, she brought her hands up with difficulty—he wasn’t foolish enough to let her go—and slowly undid the rich black leather that covered his chest.

She spread his open tunic wide, splaying her hands across his muscles as she did so, and he wanted more. As the music pounded faster, the dance brought their bodies close, closer. Her golden nipples, her soft breasts, the fine velvety fur she had cloaked herself in—all brushed over his skin and electrified it. He leaned into her so that his own nipples could be lightly caressed by hers, and his cock immediately reared within in its leather confines, fighting to be free like a stallion fought its bridle.

Enough
, thought Lurien. He flexed his magic like a well-toned muscle, willing both he and Aurddolen far from the sights and sounds of the writhing crowd.

The palace had many gardens, but unlike most, this one was private. It was one of the few that was neither manicured nor maintained but instead permitted to grow as wild as it wished. Lurien had claimed it long ago as a personal sanctuary, a place to come and think, or simply to compose himself when life at the palace irritated him beyond all bounds. He was coming here a lot lately . . .

The exquisite statuary was nearly overgrown by prowling vines. Riots of night-blooming flowers were attended by tiny white
ystlumod
, batlike creatures unseen during the day. Their trilling song was usually soothing, but Lurien didn’t even notice it this night. Instead, the enchanted tune from the party was still pulsing hard in his veins. He stripped off his gloves and shrugged out of his tunic, grateful to be rid of them. The cool night air was soothing to his feverish skin, but he did not wish to be free of the fire inside. Not yet.

“I like it here,” whispered Aurddolen, drawing her mask from her head. Her long tawny hair fell in a wild cascade of braids down her back, and she smiled broadly at him. “Shall I resume my usual skin, my Lord Lurien, or do you like the fur?” She chuckled: “I’m able to do feathers as well. A lesser known feature of the Draigddynion royal family.”

Feathers?
That certainly presented some intriguing prospects . . . His mouth quirked as he reached out and stroked the side of her lovely face, running his fingers down her throat and around a velvety breast. Circling his hand over her hip and down her thigh, he imagin
ed
all that softness
rubbing full-length against him. “Your pelt is alluring to the senses in every way, but I believe I find your true form most appealing.” His answer obviously pleased her, and he watched, fascinated, as the fur seemed to withdraw from sight. Once again she was covered in minute pearlescent scales of palest gold. The full moon gleamed from each and every one, and Lurien sucked in a breath at the exquisite beauty of her. But he planned to do far more than look.

And so did she. Aurddolen approached him with a subtle swagger that undulated the curves of her hips. She kept her eyes on his as she boldly unfastened his knife belt and threw it over her shoulder. She refused to free his shaft all at once, though. Instead she teased at it, brushing it with her fingertips, revealing it a fraction at a time. It swelled and strained toward her, and a quiver ran up and down Lurien’s spine. He very nearly moaned aloud as she breathed on its tip. It was too much and not enough all at once. Impatiently, he willed his leathers away completely. He stood naked, and the fiery heat of his proud cock was eased not at all by the cool air. Instead, his magic crackled within him and around him, and a sudden wind picked up and sent the ystlumod fleeing in fear.

A storm was coming, one that heeded only the Lord of the Wild Hunt. Lightning would strike the garden repeatedly this night—and still the dragon woman was unafraid. With claws that were only partially retracted, her hand slid around his erection, gripping him hard as she worked his nipples first with her soft full lips and tongue, and then with her teeth. Lurien growled out her name and pressed her down to his cock. She laughed at him, then set her lovely mouth to work as he tangled his hands in her hair.

Thunder rumbled nearby as he fought to stop his hips from rocking. He rode the fine sharp edge of pleasure, and his breath hissed between his own teeth as hers scraped him. Merely watching the exotically featured woman made his pulse pound in his veins, and he was captivated by the utter perfection of her comely backside . . . He knew what he wanted then, what he wanted
now
. In a flash, he had pulled Aurddolen to her feet and turned her in his arms so that delicious ass was grinding into him. He held her tight with one powerful arm, then parted her legs with his knee, making it easy to slide a hand between them. His cock rubbed insistently against her hip, yet Lurien took his time exploring her wet heat. Pressing his fingers into her again and again, he began to splay them inside her, erotically stroking the soft walls of her core. The honeyed scent of her pheromones wafted upward, dizzying him and eroding his control.