- FOURTEEN #2
"Don't get your hopes up too high," he warned. His fingers slid up my thigh then slipped inward.
"What are you doing?"
"I can deal with the aftermath of me not getting any, but your sexual frustration is making it hard to concentrate."
"Then stop eavesdropping," I said with an eye roll.
"I'd rather do this..." he said, his fingers toying with the waistband of my panties.
"You said... someone could be watching."
"Fuck 'em."
His hand started to slip under. "Jasper," I reasoned, looking around uneasily. "We're almost to the Dark." I had no idea what the average Dark fae was capable of, but if fauns could sexually enslave me and they were Light, I wasn't exactly excited to get caught unaware by a Dark fae.
"Fine," he said, dropping his hand and pulling away, "but I swear to fuck, when we get Jade safe, I don't care if we have to co-opt fucking Baba Yaga's cabin so I can fuck you for three days straight."
"You know," I said with a smile, "I'd really like to see you try to do that."
"Alright," he said, raking a hand through his hair. "Let's get going and see if we can track down Doyle," he said, reaching down for my hand and it was so natural and sweet and unexpected that I actually pulled back instinctively. But his hand just tightened and gently pulled me along.
I fell into step beside him, watching the woods around us get more and more eerie. "Where do you think he might be?"
"My best guess is in Tenray Square."
"Tenray Square?" I repeated.
"It's a village right inside the Dark realm where there is a peace treaty among the Dark and Light so they can trade goods.
But don't let that peace treaty idea comfort you.
Most of the Dark fae play it hard and loose with the rules and it is clear that they run things there and the Light are only there because what they have might be useful.
It isn't safe and you can't trust anyone. "
"Except you and Doyle."
"Even us," he said, stopping suddenly, eyes severe. "If we start acting strange, if we do or say shit that doesn't sound like us, fucking run. Run all the way back to Baba Yaga and stay there until we show up for you or until you can find a safe way back to the human realm."
"Let's not get ahead..."
"Cece, I'm not being paranoid. Shit happens in the Dark realm.
And it happens before you can even think to stop it.
I know you think your shield can protect you and, don't get me wrong, it is an asset.
But even that might not be enough. So pay attention, even to us, and run if anything seems off. Got it?"
The seriousness in his tone had me stiffening. "I got it," I agreed.
"Good," he said with a nod, moving on again. "Just another half an hour or so," he said. "How's your ankle doing?"
I hadn't even felt a twinge, now that he mentioned it. "The girl at Baba Yaga's rubbed some stuff on it and splinted it. It feels a lot better actually. How's your back feeling?"
He shrugged. "Feels like I got ripped open and am trying to close back up," he said, not bothering to sugarcoat it and I appreciated that.
I would have worried if he acted all better.
"But the honey is helping and keeping it clean.
They should be completely closed over in a day and then we can let it breathe so it heals up.
I'll be good as new before we even make it out of here. "
With that small bit of comfort, we fell into silence as the world around us lost the sun, making the sky through the trees look gray and unsettling.
The trees started to twist, the barks gnarled and knotty, looking dead in the middle of summer.
We took a step forward and I felt a coolness settle over me. But it wasn't external.
"That's the border," Jasper answered my silent question. His hand squeezed mine a little tighter. "Another ten."
Then, literally ten minutes later, the woods cleared to a vast open field where a small town was situated in the center.
There were buildings made of various kinds of stone and wood in a straight line.
Small carts and stands were set up, various types of human-looking and less than human looking fae moved about, looked at the goods, bought things, argued, conversed.
If I didn't know it was in the Dark realm and that Jasper was stiff and alert beside me, I would have thought it was quaint, charming, inviting.
"Don't get too curious and don't touch the shit in the stands," he said, moving forward once again.
We had just stopped to talk to a fourth Light fae when something caught my eye. "Hey, Jasper..."
"Yeah?" he asked, a little distractedly.
"Do you think that maybe we should get you a new shirt?" I asked, pointing to a stand that was selling various styles.
He turned to me fully, a boyish smile on his lips. "Got a problem looking at my body?"
I felt my own lips quirk up and I ran a finger up the center of his belly, enjoying the way the muscles underneath twitched, before I settled my hand just under the word on his chest. "No, but every single fae you have talked to has looked at this and stiffened," I said, noticing him visibly start at that information.
I guessed it was maybe easy to forget something so crude, so incriminating had been carved on the skin you had been in for nearly thirty years.
"Good thinking," he said, pulling me toward the stand and stopping to inspect the shirts.
"Barter only," the human-looking woman said. She was somewhat plain-looking with brown hair, pale skin, and a small flecking of freckles over the bridge of her prominent nose.
Jasper paused, looking between the woman and the man lounging behind her in a cart lazily.
Obviously her husband. "You think he's fucking around, right?
" Jasper asked and the woman's back stiffened.
She waved a hand, inviting Jasper's offer.
"This shirt," he said, picking up a dark brown tunic- style one that would be loose enough that it couldn't chafe over his back and chest, "for everything I can give you about the affair. "
"What can you give me?" she asked, obviously not knowing just how well Jasper could read people.
"Everything, Pressa, everything," he said, surprising her. She nodded and he shrugged on the shirt. "She's tall and blonde. Not like me though, a yellow blonde. Green eyes and tits that would make a nymph jealous."
"Jasper," I hissed, uncomfortable for the woman hearing something like that. But when her gaze cut to me, brows knitted, I saw that maybe they didn't have the same kind of socially acceptable norms as humans.
"He's been fucking her behind your barn for the past two seasons.
Right about the time you started to suspect it.
So he's a shit liar or you can smell her.
She reeks of kelp. Oh," he said when the woman, Pressa, nodded in acknowledgment of a fair trade, "and he fucks her raw so if you haven't already stopped offering it up, I'd sure as fuck stop now. "
With that, he squeezed my hand and pulled me along. "That was insensitive."
"She was Dark fae, honey, they don't understand empathy. She wanted confirmation her husband is a dick; I gave it to her straight. She appreciated that. That was actually one of the best interactions with a Dark fae I've ever had."
Well that didn't bode well for our future interactions.
Jasper talked to another two or three Light fae, none who seemed to have seen Doyle, or weren't talking if they had.
So when Jasper lingered for a second, silent, I knew he was poking around in their heads to see if they were being honest or not.
He turned to me, shaking his head, and we moved on.
A door to one of the buildings to our left opened and then there Doyle was.
He was still pulling on his shirt and I felt myself snort, knowing he couldn't help it, and trying to find it funny, not pathetic.
He was supposed to be getting information about Jade, not fucking around.
But then again, Jasper and I had done some screwing around too so who was I to judge.
A woman moved into the doorway with him, tall and brunette, the kind of gorgeous that made even a perfectly attractive woman feel ugly, with glowing blue eyes.
She ran a hand down his chest, stomach, and grabbed his crotch, making Doyle laugh as she whispered something in his ear before she released him and he went down the steps, stopping short at seeing us.
There was the barest of pauses, his eyes wide, a little disbelieving, before he rushed forward, grabbing me hard and twirling me around in a quick circle.
"Thank fuck," he said, meaning it. I clung to him too, trying not to be offended by the scent of that woman all over him.
It was like she was coming out of his pores.
He dropped me back down on my feet and threw his arm out to Jasper who took it and shook it, patting him on his shoulder.
"I'm gonna need the details about this. Are you still... intact?" he asked with a wicked smile.
"Did you seriously just fuck a succubus?
" Jasper asked in turn and the two glanced over to where the woman in question was still standing in the doorway, watching.
Her gauzy light pink dress did nothing to hide her body and you could make out the perfect swells of her breasts and the dark curls covering her sex.
Doyle looked a little proud of himself and I felt my brows raise.
"A... succubus?" I repeated. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, he's going to need some serious protein after that," Jasper said, rolling his eyes. "Did you find out anything about the Dark fae with the white hair? Or did you get too... distracted to ask?" he added, but for once, not sounding mad. Maybe a part of him understood.
"He's over at the camps," the succubus called, making all of us look over. Her voice was hypnotic. There was no other way to put it. It rolled off her tongue like seduction, like she could make you come just by the sound of it.