Chapter 15
Fifteen
Elaine
Timur flew through a wide opening in the top level of the Wall. The ceiling was so high here, his wings moved with no impediment. He could’ve easily flown over the heads of the two shadow fae who tried to block our way, but he stopped, hovering in front of them while holding me in his arms.
“I’m here to see Ray,” Timur said.
The men scrambled for their weapons. With their mouths hanging open in shock, they seemed to be at a loss whether to fight or to flee.
“Ray is not—” one of them mumbled, but Timur didn’t let him finish.
“I didn’t ask,” he snapped. “I’ll see Ray right now, and I don’t care what state he's in. You can either take me to him, or I’ll find the way on my own.”
The two men backed away a step, not taking their eyes from us, or more precisely from Timur, who wore no cloak and had most of his dragon attributes in plain view.
His long, spiked tail lashed slowly, menacingly.
His great wings beat the air confidently, as if he was born with them.
His red eye glowed brightly in the shadows of the cave.
“General, is that you?” A large fae man entered from a side corridor.
His head was completely bald, which was unusual for a shadow fae.
They normally wore their hair long regardless of their gender.
His chest armor seemed heavier than that of the others.
An orange stone glistened in the piercing in one of his nostrils.
Like the other two men, this one also gaped at Timur in shock, but he seemed to recognize him.
“Good day, Zayr,” Timur greeted him. “I know I gave you twenty-four hours, but it turns out, I can’t wait that long.
I’ll have that long-overdue meeting with Ray right now.
Would you point me in the direction of his cave?
Or should I fly through all the caves in here until I find him and kill anyone who’d try to stop me? ”
The tone of his voice left no doubt that he would do as he said. Zayr must’ve understood that too. He gave Timur an assessing once-over, pausing on his wings.
“It’d be easier for you to get to his cave from the outside,” he said. “It’s the second patio to the left from here.”
Timur nodded, turning to leave, then seemed to have thought of something.
“Would you and your men get my chair from the beach please? I left it not far from the entrance to the cavern where we met last.”
To my surprise, Zayr nodded briefly before gesturing to the other two fae to follow him.
“He listens to you?” I whispered to Timur as he flew out of the cave.
He grinned. “I asked nicely, didn’t I?”
A spark of humor danced in his blue eye, and my breath hitched.
He joked. In a light, playful tone. With the most incredible smile playing on his lips.
My heart melted, even as I understood that the joy of humor that caused him to smile like that came from me through his tendril still attached to my arm.
I’d never seen Timur like this, and now I wished to see this teasing grin every day.
After a short flight outside, we entered the cave off the second patio on the left. There were two guards in here too. They seemed to be even more shocked by Timur’s appearance and our sudden arrival. They didn’t even try to grab their weapons and just stood there, gaping at us.
One of them then screamed in horror and dissolved into shadows in fear. The other one finally remembered his duty and fumbled for the handle of his sword on his belt.
“Is Ray in here?” Timur asked, already flying past the poor guard toward a short corridor leading deeper into the Wall.
The man glanced in the direction of a wide arched doorway with a set of wooden double doors in a metal frame.
“Wait!” he screamed as Timur immediately swerved toward the doors.
“You can’t go in there!” The second guard suddenly appeared, his shadows solidifying in front of us to block the way.
Timur flew over his head, not sparing him a glance. With a shove of his shoulder, the heavy doors screeched and gave way, opening wide enough for Timur to fly through.
Stale, musty air hit my nostrils. Weird slurping noises and strangled moans reached my hearing before I could see anything in the amber glow of the cave.
Timur made a wide circle under the high ceiling, then descended to a pile of cushions by the wall and sat in them, putting me on his lap.
His legs dropped limply on the floor in front of him, and I held my breath in anticipation of a pained roar from him, a groan, or a grimace at least. But he didn’t react at all, as if the pain wasn’t there or it was dull enough to ignore.
He adjusted his left leg, bending it at the knee and gingerly propping the clawed foot onto the floor rug.
I’d seen him move his legs before, when spreading his knees or adjusting his thighs while sitting.
Those movements had always been slow, careful, and sparse.
Now Timur left his right foot on the floor where it landed.
He made no attempt to move it, and I assumed he had even less motion left in his right leg than in his left.
The spiked spinal column of his tail draped casually over the cushions, looking ominous even when completely motionless like that.
The moans grew louder.
“Who’s in here?” I asked Timur in a whisper.
He waved his right wing, making the stale air move around the brazier nearby. The coals in the brazier came to life. The flames flickered with shadows dancing on the walls.
A wide, low-sitting bed came into view in the middle of the cave. Unmade and messy, with crumpled sheets, tossed blankets, and pillows strewn all over, it appeared empty.
The moans came from the rug on the floor next to the bed where naked bodies lay in a heap.
A woman’s pale skin glowed in the warm light of the brazier.
She lay on her back with her head propped on the hip of a naked human man, who lay behind her.
Her long, matted hair hang like a messy, tangled curtain over her face.
The couple was undeniably human, but I couldn’t tell exactly who they were from this distance, especially in this poor lighting.
“Hello Ray,” Timur said loudly.
The slurping noise didn’t stop. The amber glow highlighted the hard muscles in the back and shoulders of the third figure, a male shadow fae.
Dark like night, he blended with the shadows of the room, making him almost invisible to me.
Only the magical glow of his skin combined with the light of the brazier betrayed his presence.
He lay on his stomach, his face buried between the woman’s thighs. The six black ropes of his tendrils connected to the woman’s leilathas. He ate her out with the gusto of a starving man, like she was his first and last meal and he would die if he didn’t finish.
Lost to his task, the fae man didn’t stop. The woman didn’t react to Timur’s voice either. The guttural noises coming from her mouth hardly sounded like words. Jumbled and strangled with needy moans, she mumbled something impossible to understand.
“Are you okay?” Spurred by worry for her, I got up from Timur’s lap.
The slight tug of his tendril against my upper arm reminded me that we were still connected.
He caught my arm. “Stay with me, Elaine.”
But I couldn’t calm my concern.
“Do you need help?” I called out to the woman.
She paid me no attention. Grabbing the fae man’s hair, she gyrated her hips, rubbing her core against his mouth.
“More…fuck…” fluttered from her lips among the moans and garbled gibberish.
With a clatter of metal, something rolled from under my foot. I bent over to grab it and lifted a tarnished brass cup. It was empty, but a sickly-sweet smell hit my nostrils as I brought the cup to my nose.
The scene in the camp rose in my mind again, when our captors force-fed the golden hyacinth tea to Peter and Maria. The sickening memories of their desperate fucking afterwards flashed through my mind. I couldn’t watch it back then, and my stomach roiled now too.
“She isn’t herself,” I said, dropping the cup. “It’s the tea or the juice…whatever the fuck he gave her.”
The cup rolled along the rug, stopping at an upturned metal carafe with a curved handle.
Another one like that glistened from the shadows nearby.
A wide tray with bitten bread and a half-eaten meal pack was on the bed.
Another one was on the floor. The stench coming from the dishes meant the unfinished food had long gone bad.
Why had no one removed it? Maybe because no one had noticed it, too busy fucking the tea out of their systems.
Except that someone kept bringing them more tea, judging by the several empty pots and carafes scattered around.
“Yeah…right there…now…” the woman rasped in a low, hoarse voice I didn’t recognize, but I realized she must be Mia, the only human woman other than myself who came to Ashgate with our caravan.
She curled her body over the fae’s head and came with short, guttural panting. I averted my eyes, but her orgasm was over quickly.
The fae man’s body drooped heavily. His face remained between the woman’s thighs for a moment, his nose buried in the tight curls between her legs, his chest flat on the rug, his limbs outstretched.
Finally, he groaned, lightly slapping her hip.
“Good, good, Sweet One,” he mumbled, rolling off her.
Mia tipped sideways, her head lolling on the stomach of the man lying behind her.
“Ray!” Timur boomed, finally getting the fae’s attention.
“And who are you?” The fae rolled to his side, staring at us.