Worlds of Obsession (Celtic Otherworlds) (6 page)

             
Carman rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath.  “Of course not, you idiots!  Why would you boys suddenly think you have the power to wipe the mind of a fellow Sidhe creature?  Only gods can do that.  Besides, even if you could, it’s forbidden. 
Strictly
forbidden. 
No loopholes either, I happen to know
”, she muttered, as if she were speaking from experience on that one.  Carman leaned closer and lifted Liv’s hand from where it rested on the cushion.  When she released it, it fell lifelessly onto her chest.  “What did you do to her?  She’s out cold.”

               
Bastien was fighting the urge to go to Liv and put himself between her and the Carman.  Fuck that… between her and the whole fucking world.  He realized with a jolt that he sort of already thought of her as his, because he had found her… he had brought her here.

             
Thankfully Erath was still on top of things.  He was looking at Carman with slightly narrowed eyes.  “What did you say?”

             
“I said she’s out cold, did you drug her Bastien?”

             
“No!  I mean, yes, I drugged her.”

Erath
held up a hand.  “No, what did you say about her being a Sidhe creature?  She’s human…”

             
Carman laughed.  “Silly males.  This female isn’t human at all.  Look…”  She reached for Liv and Bastien tensed, but Carman only pushed aside her hair to reveal the delicate nape of her neck.  There, as plain as day, was the mark of the Sidhe.  A small birth mark shaped like a figure-eight: the symbol of infinity, in both the human and the Otherworld.  One of the few symbols shared in common between the two.  Yet only the races of the Sidhe bore the mark on their skin.  They always had, although the how or why of it had been lost to time.

             
“Oh fuck.”  Bastien took a sudden step back, then snapped his troubled gaze to Carman’s smugly amused one.  This revelation… well, it changed things in ways he couldn’t yet comprehend.  “What is she?” he demanded, staring at the
non-human
female as if she might jump up and bite him at any moment.

             
Carman cocked her head to the side, considering.  “Fae, I think.  She’s a young thing though, only just coming of age.”  She squinted her eyes and let her gaze travel the length of Liv’s prone form, her hand held out above as if she could physically feel the air around Liv.  Maybe she could… Bastien didn’t really know all that much about Witches.  No one did.  They kept their powers secret so that no one actually knew what they were capable of.  Good strategy, that. 

“And there’s some sort of spell on her… binding her
until she’s reached her final form. I think that’s why you thought she was human. Even if she had come into any of her powers yet, she wouldn’t be able to use them.  Poor thing.  I think I can take it off though without much harm…”

             
“No!  Wait.”  Bastien wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.  Maybe there was a good reason someone had bound the female.  “Wait until we know more about her.  When we’re certain it’s safe, I’ll… I’ll bring her to you.”  In the back of his mind, he wondered if Carman was manipulating him to her will, or if he was foiling whatever new scheme she was currently hatching.  It didn’t really matter, because he wasn’t ready to give her up yet.  Too many questions were still unanswered, his cock was still hard, and if Carman was here, something else was definitely up, too.

             
Carman nodded, a little reluctantly.  “All right Demon, but don’t take too long.  It’s unkind to keep her like this, poor dear, I wonder where her family is, or if she’s all alone in the world.  Young females of the Tuatha De are usually very closely guarded.”  She clapped her hands together suddenly with a bright smile and crossed the room with a graceful stride, her long red hair flowing behind her, and her perfect delicate features making her look like little more than a child.  “Well!  This will certainly be a great story for my newsletter… ‘Fomorian Demon holds Fae Girl Hostage’.  I’m so glad I stopped by!”

             
Bastien started towards her with murderous intent.  “Carman!  Don’t you dare…”  But she was already gone, disappeared into thin air, another annoying ability of the Wiccan race.  Bastien growled low in his throat and turned back to Erath.  “What the hell am I going to do now?”

             
Erath snorted with amusement and shrugged, glad it wasn’t
his
problem for once.  “Um, I don’t know, dude.  Let the Fae go?  Keep her locked in your room until she agrees to fuck you?  No wait, that’s what
I’d
do.”

             
Bastien felt his chest squeeze tight at the thought of letting her go, a visceral reaction. 
No… never.
  “But what if she really doesn’t know she’s not human?”

             
Erath only shrugged again.  “Well, then keep her until you figure it out.  What’s the problem?”

             
Hell
.  The problem was, every time Bastien looked at her, his heart beat faster.  Every time he so much as thought about touching her fire burned in his veins and his cock shot rock hard, and it was all scaring the shit out of him.  She was a stranger to him, but his body didn’t seem to care about that.  He wanted her in a way that defied all logic… in a way a male Fomoiri should only feel toward his mate.  And his mate had died long ago.  He had lost his one chance at true happiness. 

But perhaps
, just maybe, he could at least have the physical pleasure that his attraction to this female promised?  Would it be so wrong?  Even though he suspected he was thinking with his cock for the first time in ages, he desperately needed to conduct a little experiment, and soon… to prove to himself it wasn’t her in particular, that any attractive female was going to set him off like this from now on, or at least until things went back to what he had come to think of as normal.  Otherwise he was going to go bat-shit crazy in record time.

             
Erath slapped him on the back as he went by.  “Look man, I’m going out with the guys.  Are you coming or not?  You can lock her in one of the interrogation rooms until we get back.”

             
Bastien ran his hands through his hair, causing some of it to come loose from its binding.  “No… no, I need to think.”

             
“Suit yourself.”  Erath grabbed his black leather jacket off the back of a chair and headed for the garage.  “Can I take your Harley then?” 

“Yeah, whatever.”  A few moments later, Bastien heard the rev of an engine and then the squeal of rubber as
Erath no doubt took a hundred miles off his new tires just going down the driveway.  He sighed and looked again at his little enigma.  He realized he didn’t even know her name.  What kind of name would a girl like her have?  She looked so sweet and innocent, but with a face like an angel and a body like a Siren.  He knew, because he’d seen one before.  The Siren, that is… 

Karis
.

The name echoed in his head as clearly as if someone had spoken right next to his ear.  He stiffened. 

No, not Karis. 

If this female shared a name with his mate, it would be the greatest irony of all time.  But what if she did?  Would it be a sign?  A mandate of sorts…
no
.  Maybe he could just kiss her one time… He shoved his hands through his hair and blew a breath out from between his lips.  It had been at least hundreds of years since he had felt so… completely and utterly conflicted. He should really just see her safely delivered to where ever she belonged and go on with his routine, but…

She was so
achingly
beautiful. 

If she truly was F
ae, that was no wonder.  Many of the most beautiful beings in the human world were not human at all, but Otherworld creatures that chose to live among them.  Her small purse was still wrapped around her shoulder, and he leaned over to carefully unzip it and pull out her ID.  The driver’s license was from Massachusetts, and it listed her name as Liv Johnston.

“Liv”, he whispered, to himself.  No, the name didn’t
quite suit her.  Her name should be something else… something like…

The
old clock on the mantle began to strike ten o’clock, and Bastien realized some of the other guys would be home soon from the early shift.  For some reason, he didn’t want them to see the Fae female.  And he didn’t feel like explaining her right then, either, because he couldn’t.  And because, if he was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t want anyone else near her.  Which was really odd, since he was usually the first to hoist off what he termed ‘babysitting duties’ on someone with more patience for such things.  He shook his head at the strangeness of this whole evening so far, but without further thought he lifted the delicate female into his arms and carried her to his room.  Maybe he should have put her in an interrogation room like Erath suggested, but he didn’t like the idea of her waking alone and afraid in a stark, unfurnished room.

Kicking open the door, he laid her gently on the big, ornately carved ma
hogany bed.  The bed had come with the room when he moved in, and he had always thought it was too big for only one person.  Sleeping here with all of that empty space beside him only reminded him that he would always be alone. He went back to close the door and lock it, more out of habit than anything else, then he turned to the huge walk-in closet to take off his boots and leather jacket.  Wearing just his pants, he went straight to the bathroom to finish stripping and shower.

Standing under the warm spray of water, Bastien
finally reached down to touch himself, sliding a closed fist over his rigid length, gasping and then groaning softly at the contact.  He was still shocked to find himself in this state at all, and he was trying desperately to understand what it meant.  Unable to help himself, his hand slid slowly up and down a few more times, but then he knew he had to stop, or he was going to be in a world of pain.  Fomoiri males could only finish inside of a female, which meant young, unmated males spent a majority of their time trying to persuade females to come to their beds, out of sheer physical necessity.  He had once been just like that, when all that seemed to matter was finding a way to satisfy his body’s demanding needs.  With all the fierce competition to lure females to their beds, and because they spent so much time there, Fomoiri males naturally became masters at pleasuring their partners.  He could still remember every curve of a female’s body… every sensitive place where he could use his tongue to make her beg for him… but that was all a long time ago.

With a sigh, he put on
a tee and loose pair of sweats, knowing he had to leave the bathroom eventually.  When he finally did, the sight of the female lying on his bed had the very effect on him that he feared it would:  it set his blood on
fucking fire
.  Every primitive male instinct he had was clamoring at him to crawl into that bed and cover her body with his.  He could feel the pull towards her almost like a physical force tugging at him. 
She looks like she belongs there… only with me, naked and between her sweet thighs… 
He stopped.  Thoughts like that were not going to do him any good, but damned if he didn’t feel like he was losing his mind.  Maybe he finally was.  Maybe it had only been a matter of time.

He glanced at the p
lush leather sofa near the fireplace, knowing that’s where he should sleep tonight, but after a moment he gave up fighting with himself and instead climbed into the bed and stretched out on his side next to the female so that he could look at her, his heart pounding loudly in his chest, so loudly that it echoed in his ears.  It would still be several hours before the sedative he had given her wore off, then there was sure to be a reckoning of one kind or another.  She was probably going to be scared, and more than likely completely pissed.  In his defense, he hadn’t known she was a Fae with her powers bound.  An adult of that race, male or female, would not have needed any help fighting off just one Vamp, so naturally he had assumed she was human.

Though
the Fomoiri were at an uneasy peace with the Tuatha at the moment, there were still smaller factions which continued to fight, sometimes above-board, but more often below.  Bastien would have to tread carefully, in any case.  If her family had any clout at all, they could stir up one hell of a hornet’s nest over this.

He should really get some sleep before she woke up and he had to find a way to explain himself.

B
ut instead, he watched her.

Her chest rose and fell evenly with each gentle breath, drawing his attention to her full breasts and slender waist.  A lock of
dark hair had fallen over her cheek, and he reached up to tuck it behind her delicate ear.  Instead of dropping his hand back to the bed, he instead traced the line of her cheekbone with one finger, then the outline of her full, rosy lips.  What would those lips taste like, he wondered.  So soft… all of her was so soft.  Something inside of him was coiling tighter and tighter by the second.  Something desperate, needing… hollow.  Perhaps there was a way he could keep her, take care of her… and perhaps such thoughts would only bring him more trouble.