Chapter 7
Callie couldn’t see that she had any other choice.
Free will? What free will? It might appear like she actually had a say in the matter, but Ash had maneuvered her so expertly that she felt like her back was up against the wall.
“Fine. If it’ll mean that I won’t have you holding your saving my life over my head, then fine. You can touch me.”
“I have your permission?”
She nodded, but before Ash could move into her, she held up her hand. “Hang on. What would happen if you touched me and you didn’t have it?”
Ash hesitated for a moment, before admitting, “I would burn. I’d get no power out of it, no strength, and I would burn where I touched you. The human soul means nothing to my kind if it isn’t freely given.”
“So you can’t just grab me. I have to give you the okay?”
“That’s right. But if you touch me and think that it’ll hurt me, know that any touch you give has your permission. It’s only stolen touches that cause me pain. And, believe me, I abhor pain of any kind.”
Good to know. “I give you permission for one touch then,” she said, offering him the top of her hand. “To complete my debt.”
She should’ve known better. Barely a day after they actually met, she should’ve figured that Ash wasn’t the type to run his fingers across her hand and leave it at that. He’d spent their short acquaintance already pushing her as far as he could. Why wouldn’t he do that now?
Instead of taking her hand, Ash leaned over Callie, pressing the palm of his hand to the back of her neck.
Slowly, he applied enough pressure to tilt her head back so that she was forced to watch his gaze heat up, his lips curling in an almost feral smile as he reached deep inside of her and plucked out the piece of soul she so readily offered up to him.
It was a good thing he was supporting her neck. As the rush of pleasure washed over her, her knees went weak. As he touched her, Ash was the only thing keeping her from falling back to the ground.
Almost as good as sex? Ash was selling himself short since, one quick touch, and Callie was on the edge of being orgasmic.
“Whoa,” she breathed out as she locked eyes with him.
That’s all she could mutter.
Whoa.
And then it was done.
Ash took his hand away from her skin with the utmost reluctance.
He wasn’t kidding when he said he got a jolt of power from just brushing his hand against her.
His skin, already so sun-drenched, seemed to glow; his golden eyes did, too.
Everything about him was thrown in sharp relief and, unless she was imagining it, he was just about vibrating in place.
He cleared his throat. And that’s when he said, almost solemnly: “The debt is paid. You no longer owe me for saving your life.”
“Um. Okay.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Where are you going?”
Because he was already halfway toward the front door.
“I must return to Faerie. I must return to my post. It’s for the best.”
She felt dazed. Confused. Part of her wondered if she’d been duped, and an even more insistent part wanted to beg Ash to stay.
If he touched her again, she’d fuck him. As simple as that. She felt so aroused, so hot, so achy that another touch would make her lose control—and that’s assuming she had any to begin with.
He had to go. He was right. It was for the best. But as he backed toward the door, Callie couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Will I ever see you again?”
She should’ve been made leery of the way his eyes went impossibly bright.
The tips of his pointed ears peeked through his long, tawny hair and, holy shit, they were twitching in open excitement.
Her gaze darting low, drawn to the undeniable bulge pushing against his tight uniform pants, she was stunned to see that his ears weren’t the only part of him affected by their touch.
“Oh, Callie,” he purred in a husky voice, “now that I’ve marked you, you couldn’t keep me away.”
And then, quickly conjuring that same faerie fire, he drew a large rectangular shape in front of him.
Instead of shoving something inside of it like he had the burlap sack with the kobold’s body in it, he snapped his finger and the whole damn thing erupted into a wall of red and white and orange flames.
Callie gasped. “What the—”
“Until we meet again,” Ash said before he walked straight into the fire.
A moment later, the fire winked out. Just like yesterday, he was gone.
And Callie was sure she’d finally figured out what he meant by Light Fae portal.
Ash’s portal brought him to another part of the Iron. Using glamour to keep from frightening any worthless human that might be around, he landed softly on the grass and blinked, still partly stunned from his realization.
Callie was his ffrindau.
It wasn’t supposed to be possible. A human destined to be the fated mate to a Light Fae?
In his three centuries, he’d heard whispers of it happening, but while many fae entertained themselves with a little human bedsport, he’d never met a fae who’d bonded with a human before because it wasn’t supposed to be possible.
Of course, he had suspected it. If anyone would’ve asked him, he would’ve bluffed and twisted his words so that they took it as a denial. But he had suspected it before purposely shoving the suspicion far from him.
There was a thin line between love and hate, even thinner than the veil that often separated two totally different realms. In his case, while the fae couldn’t tell a lie, it appeared it was entirely possible to lie to themselves since Ash had been convinced that he hated his white-haired human.
And then his instincts kicked in right as the kobold tore off toward her just as he accepted that the fact he regarded Callie as ‘his’ even then probably should’ve been a clue that things weren’t as they seemed.
Now there was no denying it. He could have excused the way his body reacted, his cock going instantly hard when he found Callie half-dressed.
She was an attractive human and, fae or not, he was a healthy male.
He’d have to be dead not to be aroused. But then he sacrificed the life debt for a touch and, well, that was that.
If he’d been ignoring what was in front of his face, he didn’t have the luxury of that any longer. One touch and everything was different. Everything changed.
He had a mate, and she was a human who seemed to get a kick out of refusing him.
Rejecting him.
Ash might be more concerned about that if there weren’t a few things about being touched by a fae that he had neglected to mention.
Oh, the simple transfer of her bright soul into a being designed to be soulless was as powerful as he boasted, but there was more to it than that.
It was a tether between the two of them that would only be second to their fated mate bond, and now that she’d let him in, Ash could find her wherever she went.
Plus, there was the addictive quality to a fae’s touch.
Callie would start to crave it which meant that she’d be a lot more open to his being around.
Since she’d quickly shut down his offer to take her to Faerie, he knew he would have to spend as much time as he could in her iron cage of an apartment.
He hoped that, sooner or later, he could convince her to join him in his world; after all, once he had claimed her fully, she’d have to follow him home.
Born with the sight as she was, Callie belonged to Faerie.
It wouldn’t be as dangerous for her as it would an ordinary human, and now that Ash had imprinted on her, she’d never have anything to fear.
He would always protect his human, whether she wanted him to or not.
For now, though, she belonged in the Iron.
He wouldn’t bother asking her again to join him in Faerie since it was clear what her answer would be.
Kidnapping her and spiriting her away would only put a wrench in his new plan to claim her as his mate.
And despite not having the gift of her true name, now that it was undeniable that she was his ffrindau, he couldn’t compel her to do anything that she didn’t want to.
The touch might’ve given him some power over her, but her sight had always awarded her a little protection. The truth of who she was to him awarded her even more. As much as it pained him to admit, a Light Fae was on the same level as one of the mortal humans.
Then again, that was how it should be between mates. If not equal, then she should be put on a pedestal, better than he deserved and too, too good for the likes of him.
He’d take her anyway, though. He’d take her any way he could until she consented and gave him the final touch that would make her irrevocably his.
Well, at least he finally understood why he’d been so drawn to her from the first moment their eyes met. That simple touch confirmed something that the rest of him had guessed long before now.
Callie was meant for him, which—to Ash—meant that no one else should have her.
It was still daylight. He had hours of human time left before he’d have to return to Faerie, and while he was buzzing, his cock still hard, his very instincts urging him to go back to Callie, it wasn’t the hairbrush he pulled out of his pocket.
Before he touched Callie, he could’ve used her brush and her pretty strands of pale hair to chase her across her human world; now he could use the tether of their shared touch.
He’d keep it anyway, a token of his female, but he left it in his pocket with Nine’s pebble.
Instead, he grabbed the cheap, broken timepiece with its falsely leather band.
Mitch.
The male whose essence and aura mingled throughout the apartment with Callie’s. Every time Ash’s heightened senses picked up on it, he’d barely been able to refrain from baring his teeth at the hint of a male daring to encroach on his female. Human or not, he was still a threat.
For a fae soldier, there was only one way to eliminate a threat.