As I drained him, I felt the pieces of buckshot lodged in my skin push forward, dropping from my wounded flesh to the ground around me, much like the piece of iron had earlier. The wounds sealed themselves up, left tiny spots of puckered pink flesh that soon faded.
My vocal cords were next, this soothing wash filling my throat, stealing away the pain and the dryness, the uncomfortable tightness when I began to speak. But it was the last bit that hit me the hardest, the itch and tingle of those jagged scars on my back. Without even knowing why, I found myself crying silent tears, tearing the energy from the wrongdoer's body and using it to fuel my hunger.
A strange, stretching sensation emanated from my back, pulling and teasing and beckoning my skin into new shapes, rising up and away from my body in a glorious spread of gossamer flesh. I stared straight ahead, into Reece's umber eyes, and I saw his hands trembling, his tongue playing across his lower lip.
“Mon Dieu,” he whispered, “holy shit.”
My head dropped back and I felt the play of my own dark hair against my ass, my eyes looking up at a tangled canopy of oaks and clumps of sea green Spanish moss. And as the last drops of energy seeped from the fae's body into mine, I used the tired, achy muscles on my back … to lift my wings.
My memory was already a mess, a canvas with a picture long obscured by splashes of red and green and yellow paint. Each time I stopped to think, it felt like I was teasing one of those splotches with a single fingernail, desperate to scratch it away and see what was hiding underneath.
Because having wings … it was a memory I was having trouble bringing up.
I sat on the edge of Arlo's bed—I had no idea why they kept putting me in there—and tried to orient myself to the new weight on my back, the massive spread of purple, green, and blue wings that looked like stained glass.
The first time I'd seen them in the mirror, I'd let out a scream.
Sitting here now, staring across the room at my own reflection, I had no idea what to think. Any microscopic movement of my back muscles caused them to twitch, to flutter, to bend. And I could feel them, too, just like any other part of my body, like I'd grown two new arms right out of my back and knew instinctively how to use them.
Could I fly?
I didn't know the answer to that. I hadn't had time to ask questions either because after draining the swamp man, I'd promptly passed out. I didn't even know how I'd gotten to the clubhouse, waking up in Arlo's bed and smelling that smoky vetiver hint of his all over the linens. There was another scent in the room, too, faint but intriguing, the scent of his seed. Whether or not it was normal to be able to sense that—or to pinpoint the fact that the smell was coming from the trash can next to the bed—I wasn't sure.
But it intrigued me. Oddly enough, it aroused me.
“Seriously?” the biker in question snapped, leaning against the door frame, shirtless and glowering at me. “You still haven't put those things away? You'll be getting fairy dust all through my sheets.”
“What?” I spun around to look at his sheets, and my wings knocked over the bedside lamp. It hit the floor hard, the base shattering, and I cringed.
“Seriously?” Arlo shouted. “That was a fucking joke! We're not pixies for fuck's sake! Just … put your damn wings away before you break anything else. Please.”
“I …” I shivered slightly under his intense, furious gaze, and felt my wings quiver with me. “I don't know how.”
“Oh for the love of …” He crossed the room in two quick strides and sat on the edge of the bed beside me. “You need to just focus on the muscles supporting them. Here.” Reaching his arms around my body, he stroked a firm line down my back with two fingers on either side of my spine. “This muscle.”
The touch of his skin against mine was electric, and as he stroked those newly awakened muscles in my back, I could feel my dripping core pulse and clench with arousal. His fingers were strong and sure, and my body begged to feel them inside me, even just for a brief moment.
Breath caught in my throat, I arched my back a little under his hand, pushing my naked chest forward to touch his. My hard nipples brushed over his smooth skin, and I saw him suck a sharp breath in.
“Ciarah,” he warned. “Pull your fucking wings in, then put a shirt on. You're not gonna win me over with a quick blow job like you did that asshole, Reece.”
Despite his words, his fingers still stroked a tantalizing path up and down the base of my wings, turning me on more and more by the second. Was it always like this when someone touched my wings? I couldn't remember, but it felt … familiar.
Focusing hard on what he was asking me to do, I felt a sucking sort of sensation as my wings retracted, folded and sealed beneath my skin, leaving Arlo's hand splayed flat against my naked back while my breasts pressed to his chest.
“Who said anything about my mouth?” I responded, hitching up a knee and exposing my naked, throbbing cunt as the sheet fell away from me. Why I was naked, I wasn't altogether sure, but I wasn't complaining. Whether it was due to my amnesia or not, I was perfectly comfortable in the nude and felt no shame in exposing myself to this man. This fae.
Arlo's pupils dilated and his nostrils flared, taking in my scent the same way I had been able to smell his lingering in the trash can. His hand left my back and trailed down the side of my rib cage, brushing the curve of my breast and then skating over my hip to my open thighs.
“Keeper, you don't know what you're doing,” he warned in a voice low and thick with desire. “You're provoking the beast in me, and he cannot be tamed. He will not be tamed.”
His fingers stroked over my swollen sex and I moaned softly, wanting more. Needing more. As my eyelids fluttered, the image of his fae self, of the Horned God, faded in and out over his face and it made me wild with wanting him inside me.
“Cernunnos,” I whispered in a voice not quite my own, “it's been too long since you claimed my flesh. Have you forgotten what it was like? To join our bodies as one under moonlight, to be wild and free?”
“Gardien,” Arlo murmured. “You're confused. This body is new to you, and I am not the Cernunnos you once knew.” One long finger slid into my wet heat and my walls clenched around it, holding it captive and demanding more.
“Cernunnos, lover, betrayer, don't you see how much I missed you?” That voice whispered from my throat, and I shuddered with pleasure as Arlo slid a second finger inside me. He stroked my inner walls with the skill of an immortal, with hundreds of years of practice under his belt. In the back of my mind, I knew I ought to be concerned about the words falling from my lips, but I was too far gone in the exquisite torture of Arlo's fingers inside my pussy.
“Ciarah,” Arlo's deep, husky voice caressed my ears with the sound of my own name, “are you in control, or is The Veil Keeper still controlling you?”