By the Magic of Starlight (The Forbidden Realm) (5 page)

He could tell she was warring with herself. Her gaze shifted. Her eyes scanned over his body. She watched him, studying him as if for the first time. Was that desire making her eyes go darker and narrow, or something more like repulsion? It didn’t matter. Whether she wanted him or not, he was aching for her. He felt his blood pound, his cock still solid and throbbing for more of her touch. But he wouldn’t take her. He’d let her go if she wanted. She could go straight to the council and he wouldn’t stop her.

Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head slowly. The war raging within her was over and he would know where things stood. He was prepared for the worst, but prayed to the Skies she might at least say she forgave him.

“I still want you, too.”

He could see that it cost her to admit it. She hadn’t wanted to, that much was obvious. But when her dark, gleaming eyes met his, he saw the same helplessness he felt against their overwhelming passion. They were slaves to it now.

“It’s what they warn us about when we’re young,” she said. “Giving in to even a tiny bit of passion chips away at our control. I know what we did was wrong and I’m really angry at you for misleading me about this, Kyne, but by the Skies, I just can’t stop wanting you.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear this.”

He reached for her and pulled her into him for a kiss. There was a moment of hesitation, then he felt her melt under the almost tangible blanket of heat and desire that enveloped them. It would have been so easy to lose himself in the growing passion between them, but he would not. He’d be sensible about this if it killed him.

“Wait. We can’t do this, Raea. I just told you what will happen if we do.”

She pressed herself close against him. She was soft and warm and he was on fire. “We can find a way. Do you have Sizing Dust?”

He shook his head. “No. What about wishing? You can make that happen, right?”

“Of course.” She dug into the pouch at her belt and pulled up a bit of glittering dust. “Go ahead, wish for it.”

He didn’t even have to think about it. The only thing between him and a whole lot of satisfaction was his damn human weakness. How perfect if it could be wished away with little more than a word.

“I wish we were both human-sized!”

He wished it with all of his might. Raea tossed her dust in the air and they watched it filter in colorful sparks through the night hair, glittering in the moonlight and finally fading as it settled on the undergrowth around them. They waited. By the Skies, nothing happened!

Raea shook her head. “No good. Your wishing privileges must have been revoked—they probably found out you’ve escaped!”

“Damn! I didn’t realize they could do that.”

“I didn’t, either. I thought it was nothing more than rumor, an idle threat to keep everyone in line. Maybe not, though. There’s no other reason my dust didn’t work—your wish simply won’t take.”

“What about you? Can you make the wish?”

“If the council can dampen your magic, they can dampen mine, as well. Or worse. They can track me! I’m a registered Wish Fairy; they could let me keep my magic and then track me as soon as I start granting wishes.”

“They can do that, too?”

“Wishes granted for humans during our regulated shift times are routinely logged, just for record-keeping purposes,” she explained. “I’ve never heard of the council monitoring wishes within the Realm among ourselves, though, but they do have the ability.”

“So you’re saying that if you make us larger, they can track us and find us.”

“They might. Do we take that chance?”

And give Swift the proof he needed to bring charges up against Raea as well? Hell no. They’d just have to keep their hands off each other for a while.

“I can’t endanger you that way,” he said, his desire for her becoming an agonizing ache already. “We need to control ourselves.”

“But it’s so hard,” she protested. “I don’t know why, but the longer we are here the more I want to touch you, to feel you inside me again! It’s strange how much I want you right now, Kyne.”

He had to agree. He’d always found her appealing, wanted to make love to her long before they ever did, but right now what he felt was unusually strong. He craved her like a starving man craved a meal. His body was virtually humming with this longing and he didn’t know how long he could go before giving in to it. The craving was becoming nearly unbearable.

“I want you, too, Raea. More than I ever have. I can’t understand it, but it feels… unnatural.”

“Maybe it’s just because we know we can’t do this, and that makes us want it more?”

“I don’t think I could possibly want you more.”

“Then take me, Kyne. Who knows how much longer we’ll have together? Let’s make the most of it now.”

She had an excellent point. Excellent breasts, too. He reached for her, pulling her tightly against him and kissing her. He started at her lips, but quickly moved down to her neck, to her delicate collarbone, then to the soft valley between those wonderful, excellent breasts. Her feathery clothing brushed aside easily. That was good; if it hadn’t cooperated, he’d have ripped it right off her body.

He wanted her like a raging torrent. That she was willing, clinging to him with desperation that matched his, only made him harder, more eager to claim her again. And again. Just now it seemed that no amount of kissing or stroking or plunging inside her could ever slake this burning heat inside him.

By the Skies, he was going to give it his best shot, though.

“We’ll just have to remember not to let this go all the way to completion,” he murmured between kisses. “I won’t let myself come with you, Raea.”

“All right, but we can certainly do everything else, can’t we?”

“You’d better believe we can,” he assured her.

There was no way he would waste another minute. It was almost as if some wild, primitive instinct drove him now. It seemed, actually, to come from somewhere outside him, somewhere in the very forest around them. But he didn’t care.

All he knew was that he wanted Raea, and she wanted him. Perhaps he couldn’t do this the way he might prefer to, with half-crazed animal abandon, but he could sure as hell make her scream his name to the skies. He leaned her back into the bed of leaves that covered the forest floor beneath them and ran his hands up her thighs.

She moaned in anticipation. He smoothed her belly, her hips, and explored her swollen, wet center. She was ready and so was he. He’d never been so ready in his life and, honestly, he couldn’t quite understand it. Not that he was going to take the time to question! Raea was fairly glowing with desire and he was lost in her pleasure. He leaned in to kiss her on her most sensitive spot.

“I can’t take much more of this, Kyne,” she whispered. “I’m going to come already and you’ve barely touched me!”

“I know. Something strange is happening to us, but I’m not complaining.”

“I want you inside me. Please, Kyne, just for a while. You’ll be careful, I know, but right now I need you.”

By the Skies, there was no way he could say no to her now. Her fingers dug into his back and she was pressing herself against him, grinding herself on his cock so that he thought he might literally explode. He would give her what she wanted. He’d simply make sure that he didn’t get carried away.

Which was a task for someone with much more self-control than he possessed. He nearly groaned in release as he slowly sank his cock partially into her. She rocked against him and he gave her a little more. She moaned and he growled, momentarily losing his hold on reality and plunging fully, deeply into her.

She took all of him and he could feel her muscles gripping him, begging for more. He couldn’t give it to her, though. Whatever this strange new passion he felt, he didn’t dare give in to it. All he could do was grit his teeth and cling to the few shreds of control he still had.

She moved underneath him, arching her body toward his in exactly the right way to make him choke on that control. He pinned her firmly to the earth, praying he could hold himself together long enough to give her some pleasure. For now, all he could do was gasp for air and hold back the wonderful, powerful surge of sensation. He couldn’t risk moving even an inch.

His cock throbbed, responding to her tightening and clenching around him. His command wouldn’t hold long. He could not even partake of her nipples, peaked and straining against her thin clothing. She was fully in the throes of her passion and watching her nearly undid him. At this point, the least little thing would send him over the edge.

But then, from somewhere in the distance, he became vaguely aware of a sound.

He froze. His senses were so focused on her that it physically hurt to wrench them away, to concentrate on what he’d heard. He hadn’t imagined it, though. Somewhere nearby—and getting closer—he detected a low, mechanical whine. He realized, in fact, it had been there all along. It was only now increasing in tone, though, so that he noticed it. And worse, there was another sound, too.

Footsteps. Coming closer.

It took every ounce of control he had to slowly pull himself away from her. The very motion of that nearly sent him into release. The night air was cold on him as he fell back against the damp ground.

She sat up and batted her dark lavender eyes at him. “I’m sorry. I forgot you needed us to take this slowly.”

“By the Skies, Raea, I nearly lost it there. But listen, do you hear that?”

“I… yes! There’s some kind of droning sound, and… someone’s coming!”

“Someone human, from the sound of it.”

Kyne pushed himself up onto his elbows. The effort of it was exhausting. He could barely breathe, his want for Raea’s body was so strong right now, even in the face of approaching danger. Desire was a tangible force, like a current surging through the very air around them. It almost felt like pain. The most delicious pain he’d ever experienced in his life.

There was no doubt in his mind that whatever they’d been feeling, it was a hell of a lot more than mere lust. Something was affecting them, something he knew for a fact he’d never encountered before. Something that could only be dangerous.

There wasn’t time to contemplate now, though. The footsteps were definitely coming their way, directly toward them. Somehow they were going to have to find the strength to pick themselves up and go hide.

He honestly didn’t think he could make it.

Raea could barely reach her hand toward her pouch. Why on earth was she so drained? She’d never known passion to leave her so fully spent, especially considering that neither she nor Kyne had actually fully spent themselves in this last go. What was happening to them?

It could only have something to do with these heavy, approaching footsteps. Every instinct in her told her they needed to move, to leave the area immediately, but she could not. Their only hope was that she had enough strength for one last wish. It might get them detected, but she had to risk it.

She found her pouch and extracted a full handful of it. As strange as she felt, there was no telling how much would be required. She tossed it with all the force she could muster and wished with all her might.

The glittery glow fell around them and dissipated in the darkness. Instantly her arms felt lighter and she could take a deep breath. She glanced over toward Kyne to see if he’d been affected. He was gone.

Good. One look down at her own body and she could relax. It had worked.

“Raea!” Kyne called suddenly.

“Shh. I’m right here,” she whispered. “I wished us invisible.”

“Oh. Good thinking. I couldn’t even move but… I’m feeling better now. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just knew we needed to hide but I suddenly had no strength.”

“Can you move now?” he asked softly, his voice barely a part of the breeze.

She heard him rustle the leaves and knew he was coming toward her.

“Yes, I’m fine. The dust must have counteracted the passion… or whatever it was that came over us.”

“Come on, then. I think we should go up.”

“Agreed.”

She was only too happy to try out her wings. Yes, she could fly. Her strength was returning and they could escape. She felt Kyne’s hand reaching for hers so she took hold of it. Together they rose up into the lower branches of the tall trees surrounding them.

“Where should we go?” she asked quietly.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to go back to the nightly gathering place. She did think they ought to go somewhere, though. Kyne, however, chose to light on a branch and pause there.

“What are you doing?” she said, his hand still fast over hers. “We need to leave now.”

“No. I want to find out what’s going on. Look, there’s a light.”

He may have been pointing, but of course she couldn’t see that. She searched the dark forest below and eventually her eye caught a faint glow. Yes, it was the cold, blue light from a lantern, or a flashlight, maybe. Either way, it clearly signified human. She kept very quiet and watched.

The light pushed through the undergrowth and now she could see the figure who carried it. A man. She usually didn’t mind being this close to them. Often she found them rather fascinating to watch. This one, however, was different. He felt dangerous.

Aside from the flashlight he carried, the man held some sort of electrical instrument. It appeared to be a small box at the end of a wand. Wires and antennae sprouted out of it and a little red light glowed at the top. The high-frequency whine she’d heard earlier clearly emanated from it. The man waved the box over the ground as he walked, his footsteps taking him in ever tightening circles until he was standing over the very spot where she and Kyne had just been. It was too intentional to be merely coincidence.

If she’d been able to see Kyne she would have given him a worried look. Maybe he would have recognized that as a cue to leave now. Since she couldn’t see him and since he gave no indication of being ready to leave, she squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. His squeeze meant they were staying put.

Now another light caught Raea’s eye. This one wasn’t man-made. She knew magic when she saw it. A fairy! No, two of them. They appeared just behind the man.

She wanted to call out and warn them, but a puff of dust glittered in the night, and she knew they were saved. The fairies had noticed the man and were quickly making themselves invisible, or leaving, or using some sort of magic to hide themselves from human detection. She held her breath as the glow from the dust faded.

But the fairies were still there, as big as life! In fact, they were bigger than life. The two tiny fairies were gone, replaced by giant, human-sized fairies. She nearly fell off her branch. Not only were they not hiding from the human, they walked toward him, and called to him, in fact!

Worse, she recognized one of them. The younger fairy named Wain, who had been assisting Dorn back at the Council Hall.

He actually smiled when the human turned to them. “Baylor. Have you located him yet?”

The human nodded a greeting. “There you are, Wain. Yes, I found him. He was here just a matter of minutes ago.”

“Well, where is he now?”

“Gone, it appears.”

“Figures. The way you humans go tromping around, he probably heard you and left the area long before that machine of yours could even detect him.”

“I detected him. How else do you think I knew where to come searching?”

“You got lucky that this is where he reappeared. We still aren’t certain how he got out of that locked room in the Council Hall.”

“Was he alone?”

“Of course he was alone. We’ve been careful to get no one else involved. Er, why?”

“It’s just that… this energy trail is especially strong,” Baylor explained. “Too strong for one fairy alone.”

“No one was with him, and he hasn’t had time to go tell anyone what happened. Your equipment is faulty.”

“Or maybe yours is. You really have no idea how he got away from you tonight?”

Wain clearly did not appreciate being questioned by a human. “He must have had some dust that we didn’t know about and wished himself away. Our apprehending agent was careless.”

“You didn’t see him escape? Weren’t you monitoring him?”

“He was temporarily unmonitored.”

“Seems like poor planning on your part,” Baylor muttered, waving his contraption around and studying the ground, the air, and the tree trunks in the space nearby.

“That’s none of your concern. Now what I want to know is why he ended up here. You don’t suppose he knows about—”

“Of course he doesn’t know about it. No one does. I’ve made sure of that,” Baylor assured him. “Now you should go before the Regulator starts affecting you.”

Whatever those words meant, Raea didn’t like them. She and Kyne had nearly fallen victim to whatever this Regulator was and the fact that it clearly was human in origin made her more than a little uncomfortable. She squeezed Kyne’s hand again. He squeezed back, but didn’t budge from his spot. She supposed she could have wrestled herself away from him and flown off on her own, but the fact that she was still feeling clear-headed and strong must indicate whatever had affected them before was no problem to them now. At least, she hoped that’s what it indicated.

“We’re safe for the time being,” Wain said with an unconcerned shrug. “We used Sizing Dust and that helps offset the effects. As usual, you humans underestimate the true power of magic.”

Baylor seemed unimpressed. He tipped his mechanism to glance at his watch. “You have precisely twelve minutes and twenty-seven seconds before that dust can’t hold off the Regulator. Since it’s clear your quarry is long gone from here, I suggest you leave this forest before you have to find out whether or not my calculations on timing are correct.”

“Fine. You’re useless to us anyway. Just see that the work here continues as planned. If he shows up in this forest again, you know what to do with him.”

“I know, I know. Now get out of here. If any of my people see me out here talking to fairies, I’ll be the butt of their jokes for the rest of my life.”

“Make sure you contact us if you pick up any intruders.”

“Like I didn’t just do that?” Baylor practically growled at them. “My sensors worked just fine. He appeared, he was here, but now he’s gone. You should be, too.”

“Very well. But we’ll keep an eye on you, Baylor. Don’t make us regret bringing you in on this project.”

“I already do.”

The fairies didn’t bother to respond. Or maybe they hadn’t heard him as distinctly as Raea had. They tossed out some more dust and were gone once again. Baylor remained, though, so Raea still couldn’t relax.

In the empty quietness the human waved his device around again, shaking his head in frustration at whatever information it was giving him. Whatever that equipment did, it was not helping him locate them now and she was grateful for that. At last he flipped a switch on it and the little red light turned off. He shook his head.

“Wherever you are, Kyne, you’d better make sure they don’t find you.”

Glancing around once more, he pushed his way back through the underbrush and left the area. Raea watched the beam from his light as it filtered through the leaves, his footsteps crunching away until they could barely be heard. She waited just a few more moments before stating the obvious.

“He knows your name.”

“Yes. He does.”

“Do you know him?”

“I do.”

She wasn’t going to let him leave it at that, even though it was pretty clear he had no intention of saying more on the subject. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Baylor.”

“I know that. I have ears. But how do you know him? Who is he?”

Kyne let go of her hand and sighed loudly. The leaf on the branch nearest him fluttered. She was just about to swing her arm out to smack him and force him to answer her question but finally he spoke. She was totally unprepared for his reply.

“He’s my father.”

*     *     *

Kyne was having a hard time taking it all in. Wain—a Council Assistant, no less—was in league with a human? And not just any human—he was working with Baylor. Of all the wicked, evil humans out there, Wain had somehow linked up with his father! No wonder things here felt so wrong to him. Things were wrong. Very wrong.

And he was going to figure out why.

“Go back to the gathering place, Raea. Don’t let anyone know you were with me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get to the bottom of this.”

“On your own?”

“Yes. Go home.”

“No! Everyone’s after you, Kyne. You can’t stay here. Come with me.”

“And go where? Whatever is going on here, the council is in on it. I can’t go back there, but you can. And you should. Go now.”

“No. We are in this together. I can help you.”

“You can distract me, and I don’t need that.”

“I’ve got dust and you don’t. I can help you, Kyne. Like it or not, you know you need my help.”

“I don’t want you involved in this. Whatever Baylor was talking about, there’s something here that disrupts us, that damages us. You can’t stay here, Raea.”

“Then neither can you. We were both affected, Kyne.”

“Wain said the Sizing Dust offered some kind of protection. Maybe the dust you used for invisibility does the same thing. Maybe that’s why we were able to get out of the way.”

“In that case, according to your father, we’ve got only a few minutes left before it wears off.”

“Then I suppose if you’re not going to use the time to fly away from here, we ought to get busy snooping around.”

“I’m glad you see reason.”

“Yes, but I’d much rather be able to see you.”

“Now don’t get started on that again. We need to keep focused on what’s important.”

He was tempted to tell her that stripping off her flimsy fairy clothes and gobbling up her delicate little body was pretty damned important to him, but he knew these five minutes would go by quickly. If Baylor was to be believed, whatever it was that protected them from this strange depleting effect would stop working and they’d very likely end up as they were before. As much as he wouldn’t mind it, he also had to remember they had no Sizing Dust and that would pose a bit of a problem.

Besides, if Baylor had sensors to detect them, as soon as the protection wore off he’d no doubt know they were here again and summon his fairy cohorts. By the Skies, there was no good reason under the sun for decent, law-abiding fairies to work alongside humans for any sort of project. Especially one that included strange human devices and trumped-up charges for Kyne.

“Listen,” Raea said, her voice close behind him as he fluttered down from the tree. “Can you hear that sound?”

He listened. Yes, there was a sound. It was low, an indistinct hum that he had initially ignored as the usual buzz of a forest at night. But she was right, this was something slightly different. It droned on in too even a tone to be insects or rustling leaves.

“It’s coming from there, where those rocks jut up from the earth,” he said, pointing.

It was a useless gesture, of course, but she must have found the spot on her own. The brush of her wings began moving in that direction.

“It is. There’s a dry creek bed just through these shrubs. It looks like we’re in a valley at the base of a hill. The rocks seem to be covering something.”

He followed her voice and the droning hum got louder as he approached. Whatever was making the noise clearly was hidden under the rocks. Without some sort of magic, there was no way they were going to get under them to investigate further. He laid his hand on the largest of the rocks and found it to be warm. Too warm to have been hidden here under the forest canopy all day.

“What’s making it so hot?” Raea asked.

“I don’t know.”

He moved to the next rock. It was warm, too. How could that be? They seemed to be standard rocks, the same material as any other rocks he might expect to find in this area. What would make them hot to the touch? Were they heated from below?

He moved to another rock and put his hand on it. But this one was soft. And it had breasts.

“Um, that’s not a rock,” Raea said.

“No. I like this much better than a rock.”

He jolted when he felt her hand unexpectedly reach for his groin. She made contact and must have intended for that. She giggled, but did not remove her hand.

“This feels something like a rock.”

“And you know why that is,” he said. “It’s because of you, Raea. Even invisible you make me want you so badly.”