Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
30
Talia
Corwin must have cast one of the fae spells to hide us from human eyes, because he carries me away from the stairway where he found me with a flap of his wings and no concern at all about who might see us below. I cling to his shirt, tucking my body as closely against him as I can, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Even though he’s right here, both physically and within me through our inner connection, the bond demands more. I’m burning to meld right into him, as if I can get close enough to make up for the days and days when we were much too far apart, when even our bond was muted.
And it isn’t just me. The same need sears through him, making his arms tighten around me.
Soon, he says, even his inner voice ragged with urgency. His wings flap harder, the speed of his flight making the wind whip through my hair and tousle his dark curls. We’re almost there, almost away from them.
I sense it when he spots the portal he arrived through. He dives with a warble of the wind and careens through it so quickly the passage is little more than a brief blurring of my vision and flip of my stomach. Then we’re whooshing through into the fog of the Mists’ fringelands.
Corwin spins, still holding me tightly, and snaps several magically charged syllables at the portal we’ve just come through. It wavers and contracts to a much smaller shimmering surface, and I can tell from the impressions that trickle through him to me that he’s sealed it off to ensure no Murk follow us. It’ll only hold a day or two, but they have no hope of reaching me right now.
Relief washes over me, with a sharper surge of desire right on its heels. I lift my head, and Corwin is already dipping his to meet me.
The impact of our first kiss after so long apart sizzles both of us like an electric shock. I find myself twisting in his arms, wrapping my own around his neck and my legs around his waist, kissing him harder.
I need, I need to reinforce the bond that was nearly severed by confirming just how entwined we are in every possible way. I’ve never felt this kind of carnal longing before, ringing through every nerve and amplified by the answering desire radiating through my mate, as powerful as the lightning bolt that first bound us together.
No coherent thoughts pass between us now, only that flaring of emotions and errant words. You… My soul… So long…
As our lips crash together, tongues tangling, I’m only vaguely aware of Corwin moving us until he’s laying me down on the floor of the carriage he must have ridden here in. His wings are still spread above us like a dark canopy.
He devours my mouth and then kisses my jaw and my neck. Everywhere his hands and his hot breath touches me, my skin lights up with giddy quivers.
The twist of need between my thighs burns deeper. I wrench at his pants, and he tugs down mine as he kicks his the rest of the way off. His shaft slides against my core, setting off a pulse of pleasure so intense I moan.
Corwin buries his face in the crook of my neck as he lines himself up. My hips arch to meet him, but he hesitates just for a second, with a wild spark of recognition. It’s your time. You’re fertile.
I’ve avoided full sex with all of my mates during those days of the month before, but not a single particle of my being can bear to wait now. I don’t care. I need you.
And I need you, he replies with a strangled sound, and plunges into me.
Another moan escapes me with the heady rush of being filled so swiftly and completely. My knees lift to grip Corwin’s thighs. I sway into his thrusts, urging him as deep as he can go. As the pleasure and pure joy of being completely connected again swells through me and flows between us through our bond, our mouths collide with more frantic kisses. Our hands roam all over each other’s bodies. The muscled planes of my mate’s body flex beneath my fingers.
My mate,Corwin thinks with a shudder of breath. My soul. Mine.
Mine,I echo back to him, clutching him with all my strength. The wave of ecstasy builds and builds, carrying me higher with every gasp and rocking of our bodies. My fingernails dig into his shoulders, and he groans at the delight that sparks with the pinch of pain.
I’ll never let them take you from me again. Never.
Corwin bucks into me, his rigid length finding that perfect spot inside me again, and again, and—
My release blazes through me, tossing me over the peak and leaving every nerve tingling, spurred higher by the burst of bliss as my soul-twined mate follows me.
In the shaky aftermath, Corwin hugs me to him, as if we really could melt into one being. I inhale his cool, foresty scent, letting it wash any remaining hint of the Refuge’s dank tunnels from my lungs. Then my mate raises his head.
We’re no longer alone. Sometime in the middle of the mad collision of our bodies, my other mates reached the fringes. Sylas, Whitt, and August have come up by the side of the carriage. August looks awkward, but his expression is bright with love and relief. Whitt’s lips are curled in an amused smile, and the intensity of his gaze heats my skin all over again. And Sylas…
I’ve never seen my Seelie arch-lord so overcome with emotion. He holds himself as tall and noble as always, but I don’t need a soul-twined bond to recognize the mix of anguish and elation in his mismatched eyes.
We’re bound together too, me and the three of them, in every way we possibly can be. We swore ourselves to each other what now feels like years ago—but we never had the chance to even start to consummate that official commitment.
A fresh surge of longing rushes through me. I need all of my mates—I need them with me; I need them in me.
Corwin recognizes my hunger, and perhaps my Seelie mates do too, even with only sight and scent to go by. Without a word, he draws back, giving them a soft smile and a nod. As I sit up on the lightly padded floor, I reach for them. They leap in to join me.
“You’re all right?” August says, nuzzling my shoulder, trailing his fingers down my back.
Sylas strokes his firm hand over my hair with a growl. “If those mangy rats hurt you—”
They did, but not in any way that seems to matter right now. “I’m okay,” I say, my voice quavering. “I just—being so far away from you—not knowing if I’d ever—” My throat chokes up. I catch Whitt’s gaze where he’s knelt in front of me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t reach out to you better.”
Before I can say any more, he touches my cheek. I can see all the same love glowing in his eyes as when he gave me his true name. “You did everything you could. It killed me not being able to reach out to you. But you’re back with us now, and that’s what matters.”
He tugs me in for a kiss, nearly as urgent as the ones I just shared with Corwin. A hum of approval resonates from Sylas’s chest, and he dips his head to nibble my earlobe. August switches from nuzzling to marking my shoulder with his mouth. The same need buzzing through me thrums in the air between us.
My body seems to move of its own accord. I can’t resist the yearning in me any more than I could with Corwin. I yank Whitt closer, run my fingers into the thick waves of Sylas’s hair where they fall to his shoulders, and lean into August’s embrace.
In the haze of passion, I’m not totally sure who’s stroking their hands over my breasts, who’s lifting my shirt to kiss a path down my spine, who’s delving deft fingers between my thighs where I’m still slick from my first homecoming. All that matters is the growing inferno we’re caught up in. Even Corwin, watching from the bow of the carriage, gives off nothing but approval and a sense of rightness.
I unfasten Whitt’s slacks first. As his hardness springs free, he groans and pulls me onto his lap to straddle him. His mouth reclaims mine, one hand braced against the floor of the carriage for balance, but I can’t help noticing that his other arm moves stiffly as he reaches to tug my shirt right off.
I pull back just an inch, remembering the vague answer I got from Corwin about what my other mates have dealt with while I’ve been gone. “Are you hurt? What happen—"
Whitt cuts me off with another desperate kiss. His answer spills across my lips. “Nothing that isn’t already healing, mighty one. And being with you makes me feel as if it’s all already behind me.”
I can’t help kissing him again, making a note in the back of my mind that I need more answers later. That thought is swept away a second later by the thrust of Whitt’s shaft into me.
I whimper and sink into him, wanting all of him. He kisses me hard, cupping my breast as he rocks me up and down on him, my other lovers caressing me everywhere else.
“I love you,” he murmurs between kisses. “My mate.”
When I choke up this time, it’s with nothing but happiness. “I love you too. All of you. So much.”
He slides his hand down to fondle the sensitive nub just above where we’re joined, and my second release surges over me. I tip back my head, and my cry is swallowed by Sylas’s lips. The giddy wave crashes over me.
Whitt sits me down on one of the side benches, panting in the aftermath of his own finish, and August is there in front of me in an instant. My gentlest lover dapples kisses across my lips, cheek, and neck until I’m whimpering for more. When I grip him through his pants, he lets out a strangled sound.
“Oh, my sweetness,” he says roughly. “Nothing was right without you.”
“I’m here now,” I say. “I never want to be apart from you again.”
His next words come out fierce. “We won’t give them a chance.” Then he’s kissing me with ardor to match, stealing my breath.
The moment his pants are loosened, he enters me, filling me to the brim, his tongue delving between my lips at the same time. I’m so sensitized now, so adrift on the pleasure of this moment and the moments before, that I’m spiraling toward my peak with just his first few thrusts.
I try to hold on, reveling in the exquisite stretch of August’s hardness inside me, in the tender words that tumble from his mouth, but it’s a losing battle. I clench around him, and he joins me with a ragged grunt.
August caresses my cheek as he gives me one last, lingering kiss, so sweet my heart aches with it. Then he eases back to make room for Sylas, who’s been stroking his fingers over my naked skin.
The Seelie arch-lord gathers me against him. He steals a quick kiss before pulling back to meet my eyes. “Will you welcome one more of your mates, my love?” he asks hoarsely.
As if he needs to protect me from himself. As if I don’t want him, need him, just as much as the others.
“I couldn’t want anything more,” I say, tugging him back to me. I didn’t realize how just empty I felt trapped among the Murk until now, with all my mates around me.
Sylas lies me back down on the floor of the carriage, his powerful frame braced over me. He kisses my mouth and down my neck to my chest, where he sucks one nipple and then the other into his mouth. I squirm with the sparks of pleasure, my sex throbbing again for this final act of completion. My chest hitches. “I need you.”
Sylas growls, and if he meant to take this slower, that intention must vanish with my plea. I raise my knees, and he presses forward to meet me, filling me slowly but steadily until I’m gasping with the blaze of sensation. At this point, it’s all I can do to cling onto him and ride the maelstrom, spinning into bliss with every pump of his hips into mine, losing myself with a shudder that spreads even more delight all through my body.
The Seelie arch-lord comes in me with a fresh flood of heat. Then he rolls off me and eases my body up into a sitting position again, so all of my mates can gather around me.
In their ring of heat and adoration, I let my muscles go slack. Now that the wrenching compulsion for connection has been satisfied, my previous exhaustion is rolling back in.
But it doesn’t pull me completely under. As my mates murmur more words of affection and fond caresses, memories of everything beyond this moment start creeping back in.
The impending war. The curse. Orion and his horrible Heart.
I jerk back into alertness. “We have to get back. There must—in the winter realm, the curse, it’s taken more people. And the full moon is in two days?”
Corwin kisses my temple. “You needed this closeness to be yourself again,” he says. “We’ll speed back—if you’re up for the journey now? It won’t help anyone to push yourself after the ordeal you’ve already experienced.”
I squeeze his hand. “I think I’m up to a carriage ride.” I can nap during the trip back. And then—
Another thought strikes me, so hard and piercing I flinch. My mates ease back. “What’s wrong?” August asks, his body already tensing to leap to my defense.
“I—” I don’t know how to tell them this. I’ve just realized that they don’t know the facts I’ve come to accept over the past several days—they don’t know how entangled both I and my powers are with the leader of the Murk and the magic he wields.
Would they even have wanted to share this interlude with me if they did?
My expression brings a shadow across Sylas’s face. “Whatever you’re facing, we’ll see it through with you. You can tell us.”
How can I admit to them that I’m the tool of their greatest enemy, an instrument meant to bring about their downfall?
But I have to. I can’t hide this from them. The fear of what could happen to them is already gnawing at me with every moment I stay silent.
“There’s a lot I have to tell all of you,” I say, the words stinging my throat on the way up. “But we should go back to the Heart as quickly as we can. I’ll tell you on the way there.”
Whitt glances across the hazy forest toward a wooden carriage that he and his half-brothers must have arrived in. “Why don’t we take our craft, then? It’s larger.”
“Of course.” Corwin glances at me with curiosity and concern, but he doesn’t press for me to speak right away.
We pull our clothes back into order and clamber out of the gleaming winter carriage. The Unseelie arch-lord dismisses it with a few words and gestures, leaving a sheen of frost on the ground that melts within seconds. We settle into the summer carriage without delay.
I sit in the widest middle seat with August and Whitt on either side of me, Corwin across from me, and Sylas setting the vehicle into motion from the helm. As it weaves between the trees, he moves to lean against the starboard side between the two benches, watching me.
Whitt gives my knee a gentle squeeze. “Go ahead, mite.”
My throat constricts. All at once, my eyes are burning with tears.
I force the words out before my mates get too caught up in worrying about me to really listen. “I—I found out where my powers come from, and why I can heal the curse. It’s all because of the Murk.”
My mates stay still and silent as I lay out everything important that happened and everything I learned, from the moment Donovan’s pack-kin led me into the woods through to my escape from the Refuge. When I stumble over some parts, August grasps my hand, and Whitt slips his arm behind my back.
I can sense the tension in all of their stances, but they don’t withdraw from me. Not yet, anyway.
When I finish, there’s another long moment of silence. Corwin extends a tendril of affection and horror at my mistreatment my way, but I can tell he’s disturbed by more than just that.
He glances at Sylas. “Can we trust the cure she offers, then? The Murk may have worked something worse into it, something that’ll harm us more in the long run.”
“Orion didn’t mention anything about it working that way,” I say. “He said the point of the curse was so that all the fae of the Mists would start counting on me, so it’d hurt you when he took me away. But… there could be more to it that he didn’t talk about.”
“It could all have been lies,” August says abruptly. “There’s nothing stopping them from lying. Even if they’ve made some kind of false Heart, for it to give them enough power that they could cast a spell that huge… It’s impossible, isn’t it?” He sounds more hopeful than certain.
Sylas shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’d have thought an awful lot of things we’ve seen the Murk do in the past few months were impossible, but yet they happened. And it explains a lot of things that I didn’t fully understand before.” He pauses. “Aerik even told me that the reason he and his cadre came out of the Mists the night they stumbled on Talia, they were hunting down a rat. One of the Murk led them right to her.”
A shiver passes through me, even though it’s only confirmation of what I already knew. “I thought I was connected to the Heart of the Mists—everyone was saying I was blessed. But it’s not that at all. It was the Murk’s magic all along.” The power in me comes from that horrible orange mass with its jittering light. Just the memory of it makes my skin crawl.
“That might not be true,” Whitt says thoughtfully, still running his hand up and down my back in a soothing motion. “You said this Orion and the other Murk didn’t show any sign of suspecting you could use true names. They left the bracelet on you and had no idea you might have used it to form a wrench. That power didn’t come from them. Perhaps the Heart of the Mists recognized what you could do for us and welcomed you regardless of the Murk’s intentions.”
“Its powers do work in inexplicable ways,” Corwin says.
“So what do we do now?” I have to ask.
Sylas rubs his jaw. “I think we’ll return to the Heart of the Mists as quickly as we can and consult with our fellow arch-lords. Talia is ours far more than the Murk’s now. We’ll let nothing challenge that. But how to proceed with the curse—we should come to a consensus that the entire rulership is satisfied with.”
I don’t know what’s worse: the thought that people might die while I stand back because the arch-lords are too suspicious of the source of my cure, or the thought that I might hurt the sickening fae worse if I do cure them. But the rest of Sylas’s words and the obvious agreement from my other mates reassures me. They’re not casting me aside.
Tears well up anyway, all the emotions that’ve been churning inside me spilling over. August hugs me to him and grabs a folded blanket they had ready, tucking it around me.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he says. “And you met it with as much courage as I could expect from any of our warriors. Get some rest. You’re not on your own anymore.”
I’m tired enough that I manage to sleep cuddled up against him for the rest of the brisk flight home. When we reach the Heart, I wake up just enough to walk groggily to my bedroom in the border castle. The last thing I remember is August lowering me onto the bed.
When I wake up next, I’m alone in the room, unsure how much time has passed. My head still feels muddled, my chest heavy, but I can’t bear to doze any longer.
I push myself onto my feet and limp through the halls to a room on the summer side with a balcony. As I step out, fresh sweet air tickles over my skin. I breathe it in deeply, savoring it, but it doesn’t release much of the tension inside me.
In the distance, my pack-kin are moving around the pack village and the castle of Hearth-by-the-Heart. I turn toward the true Heart itself. The glowing white mass, like a ball of pure sunlight, pulses in its steady rhythm just south of the balcony.
The ripples of its energy flow over me with the warm breeze, momentarily soothing. But do they feel quite as strong as they used to?
I frown, stepping all the way to that side of the balcony. It’s hard to remember exactly how big the Heart of the Mists was before, exactly how potent its magic. Maybe I’m imagining things. Still, cold fingers close around my gut inside of the summer heat.
This Heart may have embraced me. My mates may have happily welcomed me back. But Orion is still out there with the Heart of his own making, and I’m connected to him too whether I like it or not.
The one thing I know for sure is that he’ll stop at nothing to use me to destroy everyone and everything here I care about.
* * *
* * *
What do the Murk have in store for Talia and her men—and what news will Madoc bring when she sees him again? Find out in Chained Soul, the eighth book in the Bound to the Fae series. Get Chained Soul now!
Want access to early cover reveals, exclusive teasers, and more? Join Eva’s reader group, the Minions of Magic!
