Crangaol, Síofra
Footsteps in the hall woke Fiachra with a start. Shit, did I really fall asleep playing Hellmaw’s Revenge? Yes. Yes, he had. Apparently the Fae metabolism wasn’t fond of working swing shift.
He touched a button, and the screen went from frozen bleeding fire—or maybe frozen fiery blood, it was hard to tell—to black. At least I didn’t drool on the sofa cushions.
The footsteps stopped, but not before sensitive Fae hearing made out the distinctive click of stiletto heels. That’s not Peri—it’s Falcon.
A shiver barely had time to race down Fiachra’s spine and firmly lodge itself south of his waist before keys turned in the locks and the apartment door swung open. Falcon was humming softly, a smile touching perfectly painted plum lips. She was what other drag queens called a “fish”—a breathtakingly beautiful woman. needing little or no makeup to work what was, even to a Fae, pure magick.
The humming stopped, but not the smile, as Fiachra sat up. “I thought you were working tonight!”
“So did I. Russ had other ideas.” Fiachra marveled at the evenness of his voice.
“He did us both a favor, then.” Falcon lowered one eyelid a fraction of an inch, in the sexiest wink since the invention of sexy. “Let me go slip into something more comfortable—”
“Wait.” Fiachra caught his partner’s hand, as Falcon made her way past the sofa.
Dark brows drew together; Peri bleached his midnight hair, but never his brows, because Falcon’s hair was always a perfect ebony waterfall and needed eyebrows to match. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing.” Fiachra could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, like wind-driven waves, almost loud enough to drown out the click of five-inch heels against the hardwood floor as he watched Falcon walk around him, tethered by the hand-holding. “I just want to look at you.”
Falcon blushed; she didn’t let go of Fiachra’s hand, but she still managed to make something of a fuss over the rearrangement of her tight skirt as she settled on the sofa next to him, enough of one that she had to break eye contact to make sure the slit was just so. Which was telling—Falcon was the most direct person Fiachra had ever met, with a keen and level gaze that took no shit from anyone.
Falcon was Peri’s armor. Fiachra had managed to figure that out during the course of a long, mutually pleasurable, mostly drunken night not long after he had gotten his body back: Falcon kept pain away from a wounded human who spent most of his time as other humans’ rental property.
There was just one small problem. Fiachra loved the wounded human. All of him. Falcon as much as Peri. And for Fiachra, as for most Fae, comparatively newly-discovered love was inextricably bound up with that most exquisite Fae art form, lust.
Fiachra had no idea how one went about seducing a human in armor—though no doubt Cuinn could tell him, if he were even slightly inclined to ask.
But he wasn’t. He was just going to have to figure it out for himself.
* * *
Peri knew the look in Fiachra’s eyes. Funny how it had been the same look when those eyes were blue as arctic ice—he liked it better now, when Fiachra’s eyes were even darker brown than his own, but he’d know the look anywhere.
And right now, that look was a complication he wasn’t sure he was ready to handle. Not when it was directed at Falcon.
“Let me go change, aisuruhito—my feet are killing me.” Not quite true; stiletto heels were like bedroom slippers to him, but if he could get out of Falcon’s shoes, he could also get out of the rest of her, and be open to what his scair-anam so obviously wanted. What he wanted, himself, more than just about anything.
“Please stay.”
That got Peri’s attention. His Fae was quieter than most, less...well, arrogant. But as a general rule, ‘please’ wasn’t a word any human usually heard from any Fae. Except under certain circumstances, which usually involved being horizontal. Or against a wall. Or in a swing—
Focus. Fool of a Took.
“Here, let me.” Without letting go of Falcon’s hand, Fiachra slid his other hand down her silk-stockinged calf and slipped off one silver shoe, then the other. His thumbs whispered against the silk sheathing Falcon’s insteps.
“Will you let me in?” The whisper came to Peri in the language of touch the two of them shared—the language they’d found when words had threatened to betray them both. “Will you let me love the lady of my heart, as well as its lord?”
Peri couldn’t breathe. He’d thought about it—who wouldn’t?—about the possibility that Fiachra might want his other side. All that thinking, though, and he still wasn’t sure what he thought.
He leaned forward, intending to catch Fiachra’s hands in his own, but Falcon’s figure-hugging fuchsia silk didn’t have enough give. Fiachra, as usual, knew what he wanted, and reached up instead, to clasp Peri’s hands.
“You’re scared.”
“No. Yes.” Peri hung his head, letting Falcon’s glossy black hair curtain his face. “Hell if I know.”
Gentle fingers brushed hair back from his cheek, traced the line of his cheekbone. “I think I understand. The human kind of masquerade isn’t a Fae thing, but I get it—
Peri stiffened. “Is that what you think Falcon is? A costume?” The thought stung.
The length of the silence that followed was unusual. In Peri’s experience, Fae were almost never at a loss for words, appropriate or otherwise.
“That was the first word I thought of, yes.” Fiachra brushed his lips over Peri’s forehead. “I thought I got it—got Falcon, what she is to you—when you told me where she came from. How she was born. But I must have misunderstood.”
Every once in a while, Peri realized just how lucky he was. He had a Fae who was willing to admit he was wrong. Occasionally.
“I... probably didn’t explain it all that well.” Peri sighed deeply, and felt tension go out of him with the expelled breath. “Wasn’t that the night I introduced you to sake?”
“I think it was.”
God, Fiachra had a sexy smile. It was tempting to lose himself in it, forget about the explanation his SoulShare wanted and deserved. After all, Peri really didn’t need to be any more naked than he was about to be with his Fae in a couple of minutes.
Except that he did.
Peri curled his fingers—Falcon’s slender, elegant fingers—around Fiachra’s hand. “I’m not sure how to explain Falcon. There have been times when she’s more me than I am.”
“How so?”
There were times when Peri could tell Fiachra was using his truthsight. Like now. Not because he thought Peri was lying, but because he truly wanted, needed, to understand.
“You know how I felt after Yoshi died.”
Fiachra nodded. In one of the many bizarre not-coincidences that marked SoulShare relationships, it turned out that Fiachra had been assigned for a while to the investigation of the murder of Peri’s best friend since childhood. “You felt guilty. For being the one who lived.”
‘Guilt’ was another one of those ideas most Fae only had any acquaintance with through their human scair-anaim. Peri supposed a former Homicide detective understood it a little better than most other Fae. “Yeah. And there was a part of me that was seriously anxious to get me killed because of it.”
“I know that.”
“Falcon is... the part of me that didn’t get caught up in the guilt. Or at least not in the crazy aspects of it.” He bit his lip, thinking—though he was careful not to mess up Falcon’s perfect lip paint. “Falcon is the part of me I never had to let anyone touch, just because they paid me. The part of me that kept the right to say no.”
Fiachra went several shades paler than his usual mahogany. “And here I want to…”
“What?” He’d never seen his Fae so… apprehensive? Uncertain?
“Fuck.” Fiachra grimaced. “You know the Fae reputation for dicking around with humans. Taking what pleases us. Sometimes returning pleasure for pleasure, when it suits us. Sometimes not. Sometimes stealing a human from his own world, or hers, and returning them a hundred years too late, or too early—and enjoying the confusion, the heartbreak, as much as the sex.”
“Yes, I’ve read the stories. I went through such a Yeats period...”
“I’m not talking about stories, I’m talking about the truth.” Fiachra was talking past Peri, in an odd way, almost as if he were hoping Peri wouldn’t connect the words with the Fae speaking them. “Fae can’t love, or don’t, or won’t. Even empathy doesn’t matter to most of us. Your consent, or Falcon’s, wouldn’t matter a damn to the Fae I was when you met me. If I wanted Falcon, she’d be mine. She’d even think it was her own idea.”
“The Fae you were—if you ever were—would never have said any of that.” Peri was surprised at how steady his voice was. So was Fiachra, if his wide eyes were any indication. “And you turned away from me, back then, when you knew I wasn’t sure of you. When you could have had exactly what you wanted with a word, and you knew it.”
“I...”
Peri leaned over and brushed Falcon’s parted lips across Fiachra’s. “You may touch, aisuruhito. You, and you only.”
Jesus, his eyes... faceted smoky quartz, hunger as pure as a laser and as unapologetic as... as a Fae. Peri felt sweat prickling his forehead; his hand trembled, until he clutched it tighter around Fiachra’s.
“You’re sure?” Fiachra lifted Peri’s hand—Falcon’s, actually, those were her silver-gilt nails flashing in the light from the side table—and kissed the back of it. “Your first time would be a poor occasion to fuck up this whole consent thing.”
“It’s not—”
Yes. Yes, it is. Falcon was quite possibly the most virginal virgin ever.
Fiachra nodded, as if he were reading Falcon’s thoughts. “So tell me you’re sure.”
“I am.” Peri took a deep, unsteady breath. “Just... let me stay Falcon. As much as I can, anyway.”
His Fae’s smile smoldered. “You are Falcon. That’s why I need you.”
Fiachra had never kissed Peri as gently as he now kissed Falcon. Yet there was a profound hunger in his tenderness, as intense as any Peri had ever experienced, maybe more so. And Fiachra’s hands, cupping shoulders left bare by the sequined gown, whispering of hidden longings freed at last—had he ever caressed Peri so gently?
No. Peri closed his eyes briefly, long dark lashes brushing his cheekbones. No. This can’t work, this won’t work, if I keep comparing how he acts toward Peri and how he acts toward Falcon. I’ll end up jealous of myself, wondering which of me he loves better. I need to just be here, now.
And when he opened his eyes, Peri let go of Peri, and slipped wholly into Falcon. Falcon, whose whole identity was She Who Was Never Touched, wanted the Fae who loved her.
Falcon deserved her happiness.
* * *
Before meeting Peri, Fiachra’s rounds in the rinc-daonna, the human dance, had generally been short and sweet, at least by Fae standards. Peri had changed all that, needless to say.
Falcon…
At least an hour had gone by, not counting the time it had taken to get Falcon out of her skin-hugging silk wrappings. Neither one of them had come yet. Fiachra didn’t care. He was pretty sure Falcon didn’t either.
He’d wanted Falcon since his first sight of her. He’d had the same reaction to Peri, an instantaneous hard-on and a need that went far beyond the physical. And he loved Peri, in a way no unSoulShared Fae was ever going to understand and he wasn’t really sure he understood himself most of the time. Which meant he loved Falcon. As far as he was concerned, that was a no-brainer. And having no brain was something he was rapidly turning into an expert in.
Peri. Falcon. The one he wanted to pleasure, and to receive pleasure from. No matter what was between her legs. His legs.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod...” Falcon’s eyes were wide, her breathing sharp and shallow, her words synchronized with the abrupt jerks of her hips.
Peri never swore during sex—not that way. Didn’t move that way. Yet Fiachra would have known his lover anywhere, even blindfolded. Or blinded.
Falcon was... himself. Just as Peri was herself.
Falcon’s nails dug deep into his ass, and Fiachra officially ran out of patience and philosophy. In fact, he decided, he was going to blow completely sky fucking high in about ten seconds if he didn’t hear someone screaming in the kind of pleasure only a Fae and his scair-anam would ever know.
“Hold on to something,” he growled. “Preferably me.”
Fiachra thought Falcon tried to laugh. But what started out as a breathless laugh ended up something else entirely as he arched his back and pinned their cocks together between their bodies.
He wanted to be inside her, yes. But giving Falcon what she wanted was even better than getting what he wanted. Remembering just in time his promise to keep her covered, he braced himself on his elbows and thrust hard, his cock gliding between their bodies. And when his cock slid along Falcon’s, it was... fuck. It was like an electric shock would feel, if an electric shock felt good. Magick, amplifying his pleasure, and Falcon’s, and letting him feel both at once.
She was feeling it too. Her eyes were wide, dark wells of need and wonder. She moved with him, undulating, clasping him tighter with legs and arms and hands. “Yes—oh God yes—oh, oh, OH—”
Fiachra hunched over Falcon and froze, clenching his teeth against a shout as his cock went rigid—he wanted to hear Falcon—and her cry, liquid and shuddering, pushed him, pushed them both, over the edge. Fiachra couldn’t breathe, didn’t care, pistoned against Falcon, her seed enough to slick them both.
Yes... just yes. Perfection.
“Damn.” Falcon giggled, her head falling back onto the arm of the sofa. And somehow, there was a hint of Peri in that giggle. “I think I just broke—” Her hands left off their fierce grip on Fiachra’s ass, and Fiachra felt her arms moving. “Three nails. Clean off.”
Fiachra’s smile started at the end of his treasure trail and worked its way up. “That means you have seven to go.”
* * *
Orlando, Florida
The scent of death spilled from the door along with the driving, pounding music. So much death, so much pain, enough to sate then all ten times over.
Yet it was all wrong. There was scent, but no substance. None of the power, none of the sustenance they craved.
A promise, nothing more.
The male grumbled inside their head. Another waste of magick. No one’s dead, no one’s dying, and in case you haven’t been paying attention, so far seven of these idiots have assumed you’re a blind drunk drag queen. And they think you’re overdoing the goth.
“Whatever goth is.” The female was feeling petulant. Petulant and hungry. They had taken form on a sidewalk, next to the wall of what was obviously a busy nightclub; how they had not been seen while doing so, or accosted before they woke, she could not imagine. How they were to take the next step on their journey was likewise beyond her ken at the moment.
Things should quiet down by sunrise, just like at Purgatory. Somehow, the male was summoning enough energy to leer. She despised him. You just lie there and let the pretty boys ogle you until then.
A voice floated out the door over the music, over the false promise of death.
“La noche es joven, y todos somos hermosos aquí, ¡bienvenidos a Pulse!”