I'd need to be careful in the future and stop doing things like tossing Arlo out a window and into the swamp. I wanted us to be equals; I did not want to lord myself over them the way Rosinée was doing with her husband.
“Not me, girly, I meant you can be your own lover. As long as you get that special little shiver of pleasure,” Papa Cocodril wiggled his eyebrows at me, “then the spell will work.”
“I can masturbate?” I clarified and the old man chuckled.
“Oui, you can be your own lover and the universe will love you just as good.”
I finished the last few bites of my gumbo and turned to look Rosinée in the dark brown of her eyes.
“Make me a fae's bargain,” I said and my voice radiated with power. I wasn't even one hundred percent sure what I was doing.
“A fae's bargain,” Rosinée ground out through clenched teeth, but like she knew she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. “Fine.”
“Two fingers of liquid from my cunt,” I said blatantly, “in exchange for the key that was entrusted to Papa Cocodril by the previous Lord of Spring, the one that unlocks the Spear of Lug and the location of said spear, delivered no later that one hour from now.”
Each word I spoke perfumed the air with the sweet scent of flowers as my wings burst from my back and uncurled over the back of the chair. A glow suffused the room as power took hold of my lips.
I held out my hand and Rosinée offered hers.
“I agree,” she said as I sliced her palm with a fingernail and her breath hissed out in pain. I let her do the same to me and we clasped hands, smearing our blood in an ancient ritual of power and promise. If one of us were to break the bargain … we'd drop dead.
Not even a goddess like the Veil Keeper could escape the pain and punishment of a fae's bargain.
Standing up, I wiped my palm on my naked hip and stared down into Rosinée’s ice-blue eyes. I didn’t trust her, not with the fae’s bargain, not even with my truth telling powers, but bringing myself to orgasm with a little masturbation was not a high price to pay for that key.
And if she somehow managed to wiggle out of our agreement with careful words and well-placed tricks … I would kill her. Or my Lords would. Fuck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rafe tore her throat out. The two of them couldn’t be the best of friends since he’d jumped into the fight with the rougarou to save Arlo. I hadn’t seen that part of the conflict with my own eyes, but Reece had told me all about it.
“I’ll be back,” I told the odd couple, leaving the hut to stand in the middle of a tiny island in the Louisiana bayou. If I was going to do this with the allotted hour time slot, I’d have to do it here, and while outside seemed like a much less palatable option for most people, I was fae. I was Veil Keeper. I was divine. The Horned God was my consort and the earth was our bed, so I had no problem finding a mossy patch of ground and relaxing against the trunk of a large tree.
Scanning the trees and the rippling waters around the island, I looked for a pair of red wolf’s eyes but couldn’t find them. Wherever Raphael LeRoux was hiding, he was laying low. It was below me to call out and ask him not to peek. Fuck, that would only encourage him to look, I bet, asshole that he was.
So I decided instead to close my eyes and think of my three fae Lords, waiting for me at the edge of pack property. I could feel them, tethered to me by magic, and I reached out on silent wings as I dropped my hand to my inner thigh and trailed my nails along my skin, imagining that it was Killian’s long fingers approaching the wetness of my cunt.
“Mon cher?” I heard him ask from miles away, his voice as warm and silken to my ears now as it was when he was actually standing beside me.
“It’s me,” I told him … them. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was communicating with them, but I didn’t care. That knowledge was buried somewhere deep in the Veil Keeper’s psyche, and I was accessing it through sheer need. That’s how much I wanted them. “I need your help.”
“Girl, you don’t gotta ask Old Reece twice for help wit’ dat.”
A surge of violent heat shot through my body making me gasp, taking my pathetic clumsy attempts at teasing my inner thigh and squeezing my own breast and turning them into impossible acts of erotica. My thumb tracing across the hardened peak of a nipple became Reece’s thumb, the fingers dipping inside my heat became Killian.
“Arlo?” I asked, but he was silent when I called out to him. His refusal to answer me seemed purposeful, almost defiant. “My Lord of Spring?”
“I’m not helping you impregnate that fucking swamp witch whore,” he growled out, making my skin ripple with pleasure. Even though he was being a complete ass, the sheer desire and possessiveness threaded through his voice turned me on even more, a feat I didn’t think possible with Reece’s sex magic poisoning my veins.
“We need the key, Arlo,” I whispered with my magic, biting my lower lip as I traded out two fingers for three … then four, the power rolling between the four of us convincing my aching body that it was Killian’s cock instead. My hand on my breast became Reece’s, and the sound of my own groaning turned into Arlo’s as it hit my ears.
“Fuck,” he growled, and I could just imagine him reaching down to take hold of his own cock, stroking himself to the vision of me lying naked and prone in the swamp, fucking myself with my hand, teasing my own nipple into a hardened pink point. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
I worked my body with the help of Reece’s magic, my magic, the careful dance of my thumb on my clit, my fingers buried in hot wetness. The orgasm rose inside me like a phoenix from the ashes, brilliant and flaming, cast red-hot arms of pleasure across my skin as I arched my hips toward the sky and opened my eyes, tears blooming at the edges.
As I did, I caught a glimpse of a man in the trees, his hand wrapped around his cock, his red eyes half-lidded and heavy with desire. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but our eyes locked at just the right moment and the magic swept through me, convincing my body that it was Raphael’s hard, muscular form atop my own, driving me to the precipice of pleasure and over the other side.
I came screaming, my voice echoing around the crowded bayou and stirring up turtles, gators, birds … and sprites. But fuck them. If they saw, I hoped they enjoyed the damn show.
Rafe however … I was fucking furious with.
Panting and shaking, my body trembling with the aftereffects of my climax, I rose to my feet and felt the whisper of the magic I’d shared with my lords drifting away in the musty bayou breeze. Catching Rafe’s eyes had cut my connection to the other three.
“You fucking piece of shit!” I snarled as I stormed through the bushes toward him and cracked him hard across the face, not caring that his cock was half-hard and fresh seed glimmered in the palm of his right hand. I’d taken him straight to orgasm right along with me, and I hadn’t even meant to do it. “Who gave you permission to watch?”