A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford

Chapter Thirteen

By then, you’ll be dead.

It wasn’t the first warning of its kind that Caldamir had leveled at me, but this one stung the hardest.

“And why’s that?” I demanded. “Why will I be dead by the next festival?”

“Because you’re a human,” Caldamir answered, his voice sounding suddenly tired. “Humans can’t live in the fae realm. You’ll be lucky to live until the end of the week … let alone the end of the summer.”

I shook my head.

“But the pool—”

“The pool is only a temporary fix,” he said, cutting me off. “It won’t spare you from dying, only prolong it. You’re only human.”

“Yeah well, unless she’s not.”

It was Tethys that said it, still seated on Caldamir’s other side. He wasn’t looking at me now. He was watching the fae rising from their seats, a different kind of trance upon their faces.

“Not now,” Caldamir said, something like danger in his voice. “It’s not possible.”

“I mean,” Tethys said, ignoring him, “take one look at her and tell me you don’t see it.”

“Enough.”

Caldamir stood, the chair scraping out behind him. “We need to get Delph out of here before the court gets too rowdy. Unless you’re about to tell me your Midsommar rituals have changed, Nyx.”

Nyx’s beaming smile told him everything he needed to know.

“You sure you don’t want to join in?” Nyx asked me, one hand reaching out to cup mine. He drew a finger along the inside of my palm, teasing at the tender new skin that had replaced the work-worn callouses. His eyes became hooded, and his lips parted, tongue darting out to tease at their upturned corners. “It’d be an honor to show you a true Midsommar at the Woodland Court. A proper birthday present for you, if you will, if Caldamir told us right.”

It wasn’t until I saw the hands slithering over his shoulders and onto his chest, those hands attached to the most beautiful of fae women who’d appeared behind him, that I understood what he meant. I’d misread the restlessness of the court.

My own heat rose in my cheeks, fueled even hotter by the fact that the first instinct that ran through my head wasn’t to say no.

“Please, as if she wants to spend the night with you and a couple of saplings.”

Nyx’s head snapped up to glare at Tethys. Before he could say anything, however, Caldamir was reaching for my arm.

“We should go, now.”

Nyx’s lip stuck out in a pout, but then a second pair of hands joined the first, this from a dark male fae nearly as beautiful as Nyx himself. He knelt at the prince’s side, and any hint of annoyance faded away from his face.

“Your loss. One of these years, Caldamir.”

Armene stood up, as did Tethys… though Tethys without quite as much determination as the other two. I saw the way his eyes roamed the room, drinking in the sight of the debauchery quickly turning into something more.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Nyx,” Armene said with a bow.

Nyx didn’t answer. He was far too lost in the lips brushing across his skin and the hands pulling at the already scarce swaths of fabric draped across him. The cathedral around us gave a slight shudder as the sigh of wind passed through the open windowpanes.

The fae, in turn, responded.

The male fae kneeling in front of Nyx moved between his knees and nudged them apart, his hands searching for the ties that held his trousers in place. They moved hungrily, deliberately, egged on by the moan that escaped his prince’s lips.

Caldamir took hold of my arm. “We should get going.” His eyes met those of Armene and Tethys. “We’ve much to discuss.”

Try as he might to pull me away, however, I remained rooted to the spot—too enthralled to move. I was hardly a blushing virgin, but I’d never seen anything like what was unfolding before me. It stirred that heat within me, the heat that pooled between my thighs and made a deep yearning tug at something primal.

Ties undone at last, Nyx’s full length sprang forth with another moan. I barely had time to lay eyes on it in all its impressive glory before the dark-haired male leaned forward and took it up in his mouth. His lips parted to suck in the pink tip, his head moving forward and then back in time with Nyx’s increasingly labored breaths.

The more I watched, the more impossible it was to look away—especially when Nyx’s eyes opened again and found mine.

The female at his side undid one of the straps of her dress, exposing a perfect breast which she promptly brought to Nyx’s lips. My own bodice felt suddenly tighter as the prince latched onto her and started to suckle like a newborn babe, one hand lifting up to knead her other breast while the second moved to dig into the hair atop the fae’s head now bobbing rhythmically between his thighs.

All the while, his gaze remained fixed on me.

It wasn’t just them, either—Nyx and his two consorts. In the matter of an instant, the entire hall had transformed into a writing mass of bodies. The air, once honeysuckle sweet, grew thick and cloying with the scent of sex.

Hands reached out to me, pulling at the hem of my skirts and the ties of my bodice.

The female at Nyx’s side pulled free of his hungry lips and stepped forward to take my hand. Her dress, undone on both shoulders now, slipped to pool around her feet, fully exposing her willowy fae body.

She pulled me toward her out of Caldamir’s grasp for an instant. Her body moved behind mine, nudging me closer to Nyx’s sprawled figure.

“Join us,” she whispered, placing her lips near to the back of my ear, her voice as thick as they honey dribbling from Nyx earlier. “We’ll show you pleasure like you’ve never known before.”

Emboldened by the female, the male kneeling before Nyx drew back, leaving the prince to groan in frustration as his manhood throbbed, wet and glistening, against his exposed chest.

He started to rise, eyes fixed on me too as he reached out, trying to pull me into his place. “We’ll make it well worth your while.”

Behind me, the female reached around to grope my chest, her fingers finding the laces of my gown and starting to undo them. Still, it wasn’t until Nyx himself reached out a hand, breaths panting, that I nearly succumbed.

And I would have too, if it weren’t for the sudden, stern hands that clamped down on both my arms and this time didn’t let go.

“Come, Delph.”

Caldamir pulled me out of the two fae’s hands and whirled me around to face him, instead. “I can promise you, there’s no worse time to make a deal with a fae than at Midsommar’s end.”

Behind me, Nyx let out a frustrated growl. “There you go, ruining everything, Caldamir.”

Caldamir ignored him.

He was so close to me that I could see every line that furrowed the outer corner of his eyes, the only sign that he might be a single day older than me. This close, I could almost taste the wine he’d drunk still lingering on his breath.

He let go of my arms and instead held out a hand to me. “Come, Delph. Unless you really want to find yourself entrapped so soon.”

Blame Midsommar, blame Nyx and the heat he’d stirred in me, or blame myself—I wanted to taste the wine he’d drunk. It was for that very reason that I only stared down at his hand for a moment before I took it reluctantly.

I didn’t need a mirror to know my face had finally flushed red enough to be visible even here, in the fading darkness. I let Caldamir drag me out of the hall, bodies parting at the last second to keep from being run over by him.

“I—I wasn’t going to make a deal with them,” I finally managed to splutter out when we spilled into the cooling air of the night. Outside the cloying air of the cathedral, my thoughts finally started to clear too. The moon had begun to rise, its silvery light casting a new set of shadows upon the ground.

“Are you so sure about that?”

It was Tethys.

He’d appeared a moment after us, and not without casting one last longing look through the door of the dining hall. From where we stood, we could still hear the sounds of coupling—the sighs and grunts and rhythmic motion of bodies joining together.

“Aw, lighten up love,” he said, sidling up to my side and throwing a hand over my shoulder. “It’s only natural to want to join in. It’s a natural fae instinct.”

“Shut. Up.”

This time Caldamir’s hands had balled up into fists at his sides. “End of discussion.”

He pulled my hand again, and this time he wasn’t gentle as he marched us back down the winding paths away from the crescendo of noise.

Tethys, it seemed, was not so ready to give in.

“No, Caldamir, it’s not the end of discussion. You can’t tell me you haven’t been wondering the same thing.”

“Just not now.”

He pressed on, despite Caldamir’s refusal to so much as look at him. “When, then? When it’s already too late? Or have you forgotten already that you’re not the only prince here with a duty to his people?”

Caldamir finally dropped my hand, but only so he could spin on Tethys. I’d never seen someone move so quickly. In an instant, he was pressed up against the dark fae’s chest, their eyes locking. Caldamir was several inches taller, but not enough to make Tethys so much as flinch back. If anything, he met Caldamir’s rage with a fire of his own.

“You speak to me of duty?” Caldamir said. “What is it you think I’m trying to do? Why do you think I brought her here in the first place?”

Tethys still didn’t back down. “I’m just saying … if she is what we think she is … then we need to act, fast.”

“I have to agree with Tethys on this, as much as I hate to,” Armene said, breaking his silence at last.

Caldamir took a step back, but he was hardly backing down. He angled his body between the two of them, as if trying to decide who presented the greater challenge.

“If you’ve been thinking the same thing I have,” Armene continued, “then you know—you both know—this might be our only chance. We may never get another opportunity like this. It won’t be long before others start to think the same thing we are.”

Caldamir squared his jaw. “If they haven’t already.”

Neither Tethys nor Armene responded. The moon had grown higher now, its light catching on the fae’s sharp, angry features.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked in the silence of heavy breaths that followed. “Or are the three of you just going to fuck already?”

All three sets of eyes turned to me. The weight of it was enough to make me squirm.

“You should have some respect for your betters. Language like that—” Caldamir started, but I’d had enough.

“Won’t matter if I’m dead,” I said, squaring my own shoulders despite the way breath seemed to want to evade me. “I’m going to die soon, anyway. So, nothing matters. Right?”

Even Caldamir didn’t have an immediate answer to that.

I pointed back toward the cathedral behind us. “What’s stopping me from going in there and letting the Woodland Fae tear me apart?” All three of them flinched for a second, a sight that was strangely gratifying. “At least then, I’d die my own way. I could imagine worse ways to die.”

“Unless,” I said, moving to point at them instead while slowly taking a half step in their direction, “there’s another reason you still need me alive. Something to do with whatever it is you’re trying way too hard not to tell me.”

Armene glanced over at Caldamir. “She deserves to know.”

Much to all of our surprise, mine perhaps more than anyone, Caldamir agreed.

“Fine. We’ll tell you everything.”