Outcast (Book Two of the Forever Faire Series): A Fae Fantasy Romance Novel (7 page)

H
UNDREDS OF COPPER
torches blazed against the twilight blue of the sky, and marched along the crowded path leading to Forever Faire’s Winter Feast celebration. Three additional dining tents had been erected for the banquet, and special blue-white banners and flags adorned the rest of the encampment. In the jousting arena Gavan pitted himself against targets rather than an opponent, showing off his mastery of the lance as the spectators cheered and applauded. The mortal crew worked every stall, shoppe and performance stage to entertain the visitors, while the Fae presented sparkling white silk roses to every girl child and blue pinwheels to the boys.

Kayla manned the horse pen, leading the gentlest of the Fae’s horses over to the fence to be admired and petted by small hands. She also kept an eye on Tara, who stood outside the costume tent handing out soft garlands of flowers and ribbons for the smallest infant girls to wear.

“Let me look after them,” Wallace said as he came into the pen. “Go and have something to eat. If you tell me you are not hungry, I will send Ryan to fetch you.”

Kayla took off her squire’s hat and perched it on his much bigger head. “I am hungry, thank you. Have you seen Christine?” When he shook his head, she sighed. “She must really be pissed at me.”

Wallace grunted. “Then she will have to stand in line.”

Kayla went to grab Tara so they could take their break together, but when she reached the costume tent she found another woman manning the garland racks. “Did my sister just leave?”

“She went dancing with one of the guys,” the woman said, nodding toward the couples waltzing around the bonfire, where a band was playing ancient tunes on medieval instruments.

Kayla couldn’t see her sister, but imagined Jannon was likely the one whirling her around under the stars. She tried not to feel resentful as she went into a banquet tent, as she was honestly glad Tara was enjoying herself for once. Jannon might be an immortal exiled Fae warrior, and way too old for her sister, but even he was a huge improvement on Dirk Blackstone.

After loading up a tray at the buffet, Kayla went to sit at a table of guests dressed up like peasants. She managed to eat and laugh at the same time as the guests, who were experienced Renfaire visitors, told ribald jokes and sang drinking songs. One younger guy kept asking her questions about the joust while sneaking admiring looks at her, which made her feel less like a wallflower. Everyone at the table looked up when a tall shadow fell over Kayla, and she turned to see Ryan in his knightly finery.

“May I have this dance, my lady?” he asked, holding out his arm.

Although the seething fury that had filled her at their last meeting had dwindled, the relentless tug on her heart hadn’t. Even in his human guise, he was irresistible in costume.

“Is this part of the show?” asked one of the guests behind her.

“It would not do to disappoint, my lady,” Ryan said, smiling. “Do I ask so much?”

He knew damn well he did. But as Kayla glanced around, every gaze in the vicinity was on them. Kayla stood and tucked her arm through his, and every woman at the nearby tables sighed. He walked her out of the tent and over to the bonfire.

“I’m supposed to be a groom,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that back in medieval times magnificent knights didn’t ask lowly grooms to dance.”

“I remember a few knights who spent much time with their grooms in their arms. They simply indulged in a different form of dance.” As they reached the edge of the dancing couples Ryan turned to her. “Take down your hair, and everyone will know I dance with a proper female.”

“Who said I was proper?” Kayla clasped one hand in his, and rested the other arm atop his, and laughed as he whirled her directly into the mass of spinning skirts and thumping boots.

“Waltzing is not medieval, you know,” Kayla told him after they’d made one circuit of the fire. “It came out in the eighteenth century.”

“There were dances like this long before that.” Ryan lifted her off her feet and whirled her around three times. “Like this one. I danced it as a boy at a clan wedding.”

Kayla almost stumbled trying to keep up with his intricate steps. “You’re being awfully nice. What do you want?”

“Only to hold my groom in my arms.” The music ended, and as everyone around them stopped and applauded Ryan looked down at her. “I would like to show you something. You may need to make use of it.”

She resisted the urge to glance down at his pants. “And what would that be?”

“Another entrance to the caves,” Ryan said, his smile evaporating. “I have given our last conversation some thought. Should the Blackstones find a way to enter the camp and attack us, you will be safe there.”

Kayla accompanied him from the bonfire into the woods at the south end of the camp. Ryan stopped in front of an enormous black oak, its long, twisted limbs making shadow play against the moonlit sky. She glanced around it but saw nothing but heaps of dead leaves.

“I’m not seeing the way in. Do we need a rake?”

“Only this.”

Ryan took her hand, and placed it in a small hollow on the tree’s massive trunk. Light flared briefly under Kayla’s palm. The great slabs of bark dissolved, revealing an arched opening and crystal steps leading down into the darkness.

“Now that is a very neat trick.” Kayla leaned in to see the steps ending several feet below in a stone tunnel illuminated by a pair of flickering lights. “Is someone down there now?”

Ryan drew her back as the lights floated up toward them, glittering blue and white, before drifting back down and disappearing into the tunnel.

“Likely not, but wait here.”

“I’m much better at going with than waiting,” Kayla said, following him inside the arch and down the steps. The tree trunk portal closed behind them, but as soon as it did two stakes in the walls flanking the tunnel entrance burst into flame. “Motion sensor torches. I’m impressed.”

“’Twas none of my doing. The spells down here were cast by Elias Moffett, the Fae hunter who built the lodge.” Ryan peered into the tunnel, and took a step back as the two lights reappeared, swirled in front of him, and zipped off again. “Beckoning lights. They’re left behind as guides for those who enter.”

“Guides to what?” Kayla asked.

“The caves are extensive, some parts unexplored.” He held out his hand. “Stay close to me.”

They walked down the tunnel and emerged into a larger chamber with three more passages. The two lights hovered over them before flying into a craggy stone wall and disappearing.

“You’re going to need a pickaxe,” Kayla said as she went over and touched the stone, which dissolved under her fingers to reveal a fourth passageway. “Or not.”

The lights swirled around her, and something tugged at Kayla now. She entered the passage and walked down another short set of hewn crystal steps into a cave filled with mist. The lights grew brighter, and their power reflected off the sparkling walls to illuminate a small spring. Kayla moved to the edge, and felt the steam rising, caressing her face like a lover’s sigh. Logically the small space should have smelled dank and mildewed, but instead a spicy-sweet fragrance scented the air, as if the stone were made of fresh-baked gingerbread, and the pool was filled with hot apple cider.

“It’s a spring.” She bent down to hold her hand over the surface of the water, which felt deliciously warm. She glanced back at Ryan. “How can it be hot at this time of year?”

Before he could answer the lights flew around her head, swirling around her until she swiped at them. The moment her fingers touched the light it stretched into a filament and wrapped around her wrist, and dragged her over the edge into the water.

Kayla splashed furiously before she went under, and more light enveloped her. Her eyes widened as she saw the walls of the pool glowing with thousands of small, polished crystal domes, which began to release colorful bubbles into the water. Ryan jumped in, and put his arm around her as he hauled her up to the surface.

“Wow,” she managed to get out before coughing. She pushed soaked hair out of her eyes and looked at the surface of the glowing pool, which bubbled merrily now. “Is this going to boil us alive?”

“If it had been meant to, we would already be stewed.” Ryan pulled her over to a recess in one side of the pool that formed a little bench. “I think Elias fashioned this for his wife, Lily. She was mortal, and suffered from joint pain when she was older.”

Kayla felt something caress her bottom and glanced down to see bubbles swirling around her hips—her naked hips. “This doesn’t feel like a therapy pool, especially with the pretty lights and disappearing clothes feature. It feels more, ah, romantic.”

Ryan grinned at her. “Elias did enjoy surprising Lily with gifts of magick. This trysting pool must have been one of them.”

“He sounds like he was a loving husband.” Kayla wondered what it must have been like for Lily to spend a lifetime with a man who never aged, had superhuman powers and looked like a God. “He gave up his people for her, right? The Fae exiled him for marrying a human woman?”

“Aye.”

Stars glimmered in Ryan’s hair as he dropped his glamour, and the lights of the pool intensified. Looking into his sapphire eyes made something in Kayla’s chest tighten.

“So the magick was meant for Lily,” she said.

He swam closer, and water streamed from his shoulders as he braced his hands on either side of her. “But what happens now is you and me, my lovely one.”

Kayla curled her hand around his neck, pulling him down until his mouth touched hers. He tasted sweet and spicy from the pool, but when she took the kiss deeper he was all hot, dark hunger. Water splashed as he turned with her, taking her place on the crystal ledge and holding her on his lap. His hands moved under the surface to grip her waist, and he lifted his head to look into her half-closed eyes.

“I will build you a waterfall by my cabin,” he murmured, using his lips to caress her jaw and cheek. “But it will pour sunlight over you instead of water, so that you never feel cold again.”

Desire had that task in hand. Kayla could feel her softness fluttering and heating even now for him. Watching his face she straddled him, and moved until she could rub her folds over the thick bulb of his cockhead.

“Ryan.” She stroked the pad of her thumb over his full lower lip, and shifted until she lodged him where she needed his heavy girth. “This is all the magick I want.”

He groaned as she sank down on him, his big hands coming up to cradle her bottom. “Oh, Kayla. ’Tis all the magick we need.”

The walls of the cave grew as bright as the pool, painting Kayla and Ryan with their sparkling glints. She held onto his shoulders as she took him in, catching her breath as he stretched and filled her. Rising again, she pulled back her shoulders, offering him her tight-peaked breasts. When he put his mouth on her she thought she might explode, and shook with aching need as he tugged on one nipple and then the other.

The pool grew cooler, or their bodies burned hotter. Kayla couldn’t tell which. All she knew was this dance now, her wet, clenching tightness stroking over his hard, swollen length. The pool lapped at her waist, sending rivulets of the water up to caress her mounds and Ryan’s cheeks, and when he drew back the enchanted spring took them under and into the crystalline light.

She should be drowning, Kayla thought, not whirling and clutching and taking Ryan as he pumped in and out of her. Then nothing mattered but the building pleasure they created, their slick bodies sliding like silk together. When her climax came she put her mouth to his so he could taste her cry of joy, and drank down his moan as he filled her like the rigid shaft pulsing deep inside her body.

Somehow they ended up on the side of the pool, a cushion of warm sweet water shimmering under them as they held each other.

“I’m sorry I was so hateful to you.” She smoothed a wet strand of his pale hair back from his brow. “Christine had a friend come and do a tarot card reading for us. Everything she saw, or said, was pretty bleak. I got a book from one of the vendors, though, and looked up the cards she read for us. Some of what she said was wrong, particularly in regard to you.”

“I have been wrong about you as well,” he said, and stroked her cheek. “I have never seen Fae horses take to a mortal so completely. When you left after we were together, in the barn, they almost tore it to pieces trying to follow you.”

He wasn’t asking her to explain, but Kayla knew it was time to tell him. “There’s something you need to know about me, but we have to go to the barn so I can show you how it works.”

Though the last thing she wanted to do was leave the trysting pool, she couldn’t keep this from him any longer. The look on her face must have told him it was serious. Ryan used his magick to dry them off, and as soon as he did their clothes reappeared on their bodies. From the cave they returned to the surface, and walked across the camp hand in hand.

Inside the barn Wallace was putting Sampson in his stall, and smiled at both of them before he left without a word.

“Your blacksmith is a mind-reader,” Kayla said as she latched the barn door and went to Titan’s stall. “Which brings me to me.” She opened the door, and led Titan out into the center of the straw-covered floor. “Horses and I have a strange connection. There’s no other way to put it than just telling you: I can talk to them in my head.”

Titan looked at her before he heaved a very human-sounding sigh.

Don’t give me any attitude tonight, pal,
Kayla thought to him.

She left him there and walked up to Ryan. She whispered to him what she was going to do, making him frown, and then she began telling Titan.

Sidestep, and then show him some break dancing.

The big stallion glared at her back before he began stepping sideways. As Ryan stiffened, the big horse abruptly dropped, rolled onto his back, and pawed at the air before righting himself, shaking off the dust, and coming over to Kayla to nuzzle her hands.

“You used no signals,” Ryan said, his eyes narrowing. “You wish me to believe that you can command them by thought alone?”