Dark Glitter Page 5

  “What …” I tried to speak, but my voice was no longer obeying my commands. She got the drift though.

  “What am I doing? Besides killing you, of course?” Her eyes gleamed in excitement as she bent low, bringing her nose to touch mine. Close enough to kiss.

  “I'm damning you. I'm sending your soul into torture. Where or how, I have no idea, but I assure you … it'll suck.” She grinned wide, then kissed me—the sick fuck—while sliding her lethal knife across my neck and severing all the vital veins and arteries that would ensure my death.

  The pain was all-consuming, my lips parted to scream, but all that I achieved were bubbles in the spurting blood pouring from my neck and bathing Caroline.

  Darkness crept in with merciful speed, but as my life slipped away, the sketchy runes glowed with an ominous light. Hoodoo or not, Caroline’s spell was somehow working … and in my final moment, I knew true fear.

  #

  I woke up surrounded by a different sort of darkness, a soft charcoal color that, if I blinked enough, could be penetrated. It was easy, lazy darkness, the black of a winter night in Louisiana.

  “Ciarah,” I whispered aloud, testing the sound out on my tongue. Two perfect little syllables—KEER-ah—trailed across my lips and floated around the quiet room. I was sitting upright in a large bed that smelled like black musk and amber, the smoky hint of vetiver teasing my nostrils when I lifted the navy blue blanket to my face.

  Pausing, I closed my eyes and listened to the distant stirring of a car's exhaust.

  Ugh.

  The thought of getting in a car again made me feel nauseous, all of the metal surrounding me, trapping me inside. I felt like … like maybe once upon a time, I hadn't had these issues. Once upon a time, I'd wanted a car more than anything.

  “I just don't fucking see how this girl could be Le Gardien du Voile,” a voice said from outside the window, muffled by the echo of motorcycles outside the clubhouse. I thought it might've been Arlo, Caley's not-boyfriend-but-brother, but I wasn't sure.

  “Like you would know, you,” another voice said. This one was clearly Reece; the accent was unmistakable. “You were born on this side o' da Veil. What d'you know about Le Gardien du Voile?” Hearing the differences in the way the two men spoke, it was clear Reece had a bit more skill with French. “Wait till my Mère gets a look at her, then we'll know for sure.”

  “Seems like an easy fucking coincidence. After more than a century of looking for her ass, she just drops out of the sky like it's no big thing? I call bullshit. What a crock. I've probably got the enemy sleeping in my damn bed.”

  “You always got an enemy in your damn bed,” Reece said with a deep chuckle.

  “This from the man who had a ballistic pixie on his ass today? I don't fucking think so, bro.” There was the sound of a door opening and closing, footsteps … and then the bedroom door cracked open, spilling light into the room. “You're awake,” the man said—it was Arlo for sure. He sounded almost disappointed.

  “Ciarah,” I said, taking several long, deep breaths to open up my throat. “Ciarah O'Rourke.”

  “Ciarah O'Rourke?” Arlo asked, pausing at the edge of the bed—his bed, apparently—and staring down at me with a strange mixture of fascination and disgust. “Doesn't sound like no Veil Keeper's name to me.”

  He made a noise under his breath.

  “You got a few hours left until dawn; this is your chance to get some sleep before we start grilling your ass.” I couldn't remember a lot about who I was—even now, the dream I had was fading away, the edges burning like a sheet of parchment exposed to flame—but I did know this one thing.

  Arlo was a prick.

  “I've been sleeping for years,” I said, and I wasn't quite sure where the words had come from. They were rough, and it was still painful to speak, but it was better than being silent. I'd been silenced for a long time; I wasn't about to keep quiet a moment longer. “What's a Veil Keeper?”

  “For the love of fucking Christ,” he said, shaking his head and putting his hands on his hips. I couldn't see him well in the dark, just shades of gray that made up a mountain of a man, but I had to admit that his smell was intoxicating. “You gonna keep playing this amnesia crap?”

  I just stared at him because I didn't know what to say to that. It felt as if there were two people living inside my brain, two voices fighting to be heard. At this moment, they were both still whispers, barely audible gasps of memory that floated to the surface like bubbles. If I tried hard enough, I might be able to pop one and get a little tidbit, but that was about it.

  “Well, if you're done sleeping then get the fuck out of my bed. I'd like to get some sleep before this shit goes south. Go keep Caley company; she's a fucking insomniac.”

  I moved the covers away from my bare legs and noticed that Arlo's gaze dropped down to them, sliding up to my bare thighs. A small part of my borrowed panties was visible beneath the baggy t-shirt I'd worn to sleep in. I'd shed Caley's denim shorts; they just weren't very comfortable.

  Arlo stepped back, closer to the window. A shaft of moonlight peaked through the curtain, falling across his face, leather vest rustling as he shrugged out of it.

  As soon as he did, I noticed the color of his skin shifting from sun-weathered brown to a shimmering silver, like moonlight on a dark lake. It reflected back at me and made me blink, my mind taking in the horns that had appeared on the top of his head, a rack of antlers fit for a king of the forest.

  “The Horned God,” I whispered, but I had no idea where that information had come from. I scrambled to my knees and reached out to him, my fingers curling in his black t-shirt. “You're the new Horned One, the Lord of Death and Resurrection.”

  “Sure seems like that memory of yours is on its way back,” he told me as I leaned close and breathed in his scent, that same muskiness I'd picked up on his blankets. But this close to him, there was the fresh smell of green things, of the wild … of me naked pressed into the dirt while the Horned One pleasured me with his cock.

  Ah.

  Where did that one come from?!

  “You're the Warrior?” I asked, crinkling my brow and pausing as my mind shuffled through information. The Horned God, like the Triple Goddess, has three aspects. The Warrior, the Father, and the Sage. That was important. I didn't know why, but it was vital. “You have it then,” I gasped, my voice and body trembling. “The Spear of Lug.”

  Arlo's face tightened, and he reached up, curling his fingers around my wrists and prying my hands off of him. With his glamour dropped, his hair was dark and slightly curled, the horns curving up into the shadows, shimmering white as bone. When he touched me, I felt the earth shift and tremble.

  “The Spear's been lost for years,” he said, curling the corner of his lip up in a snarl. “You sure seem to know a lot about a lot for somebody with am-fucking-nesia.”

  “I'm not lying,” I whimpered as his grip on my wrist tightened. A shard of a memory flashed across my brain, of being bound in iron, of pain. I tried to tug my wrist free but he held tight, pressing me backward onto the bed and pinning my hands above my head.

  “No,” he murmured, hovering over me and running his nose down the side of my neck like he was smelling me, “of course you're not. Fae can't lie. But you …” He shifted his face to smell the other side of my neck. “You reek of magic that's not your own.”

  His nose brushed lightly down the length of my throat and his hot breath caressed my skin. My skin rippled with a memory un-remembered, something ingrained in my flesh that begged for more.

  “Please,” I gasped, unsure if I was begging him not to hurt me, or begging him for something else.

  “Don't flatter yourself, Ciarah O'Rourke,” he sneered my name like he didn't believe it, like he suspected I had found a workaround for the fae can't lie rule. “Now, I'm getting in. Are you staying or going?”

  His burning gaze raked down my body to where the oversized t-shirt barely covered my borrowed panties, and my breath ca
ught at the sudden, suffocating blast of magic when his glamour snapped back in place.

  “Going,” I whispered in a weak sounding voice. I hated it. I hated sounding weak. For all the confusion inside my head, I knew without a doubt that I was not a weak woman.

  Arlo's forest green gaze held mine for a long, tense moment before he abruptly released my wrists and pushed up off the bed.

  “Then go. Caley is down in the bar drinking with the club whores. Maybe you can go join them.” His emphasis on the word join made it sound like he was calling me a whore, too. Maybe I was. My body certainly remembered the feel of a man's hands upon me. Remembered the feel of being pleasured, dominated, and worshiped. “Don't forget: when dawn rolls around, Fionn will be back and he'll expect answers from you.”

  When I reached the door, I paused and looked back at him. Prick, he may be, but I couldn't deny his attractiveness. Now stretched out on his bed in the exact spot I'd just vacated, with arms folded under his head, he watched me like a hawk might watch a mouse.

  “How did you lose it?” I asked, chewing my lip nervously. “The Spear of Lug. It was your sacred duty to protect it for all time.”

  “My predecessor,” Arlo grunted. His jaw tightened with anger and his green eyes flashed dangerously. “Shut the door behind you, Ciarah O'Rourke.”

  #

  Arlo never had given me any direction to the bar where Caley was supposedly drinking with the club whores, so I found myself wandering aimlessly through the quiet building and opening doors at random. After my fourth wrong guess, I gave up trying to find this damn bar, and returned to the kitchen I had already passed. It was dark, and dead still. Shards of moonlight dissected the floor and frogs croaked their nighttime song while my fractured brain coughed up another slice of memory.

  Hands tipped with claws made of iron raking through my flesh. Waves of nausea causing bile to rise as the deadly metal poisoned my body. Shadows parting to reveal a face crafted of nightmares and despair. Sobs of terror and sick, twisted laughter.

  “You lost here, bebette?” Reece's molasses voice caressed my ears and I snapped from my memory with a gasp. “Somethin' got you spooked, girl? You be paler than a virgin's creamy white thighs.”

  “That doesn't make a lick of sense,” I informed him, frowning. “Who says you need to be a virgin to have pale thighs?”

  Reece's red-brown eyebrows shot up, obviously not having expected me to reply. My voice was still thin and tight but as Killian had promised, it was improving with use.

  “Well now,” Reece grinned, advancing on me as I took a couple of steps backward, “you mighta proved Old Reece wrong, here. Because these thighs are as pale as they come.” His index finger trailed up the inside of one of my exposed thighs, reminding me I'd left my borrowed shorts on the floor of Arlo's bedroom. “But you sure ain't no virgin. Are you, cher?”

  His finger brushed lightly over the thin fabric of my panties, igniting a fire that pooled in my belly and caused my nipples to tighten.

  “Says who?” I challenged in a breathy voice, trying and failing to keep from pushing my hips forward into his touch. I'd backed up as far as I could go, with my shoulders against the fridge and an enormous Cajun fae in front of me.

  “Aw now, bebette, ain't no need for you ta be honte. Old Reece know these things, just as sure as he know you more than you seem, Le Gardien du Voile.” His glamour rippled with a pulse of magic that made my pussy clench and his red-gold skin gleam under the moonlight, before settling back into his human-like appearance.

  “I'm not ashamed,” I replied, my elusive memories translating his Cajun words effortlessly. “I'm curious. You said you were dia gnéas, but I don't have any memory of this. Will you show me? What it means to be dia gnéas?”

  Reece's brow shot up once more, but his palm cupped me through my unapologetically damp underwear. “Girl, you don't know what you be askin'. When the sidhe come together …” He shook his head, but his eyes gleamed with a wild and primal excitement that I wanted nothing more than to unleash.

  “Show me,” I taunted. I'd already forgotten my purpose in coming down here in the first place. It hadn't been to seek out sex, but why not? What was stopping me?

  “Hmm,” Reece said, teasing up the evening's memories with his fingers. The rest of my brain may have been a fractured mess, but I had no problem recalling our moment in the bathtub. “Sadhbh might not be happy if I took advantage of da Veil Keeper,” he said, smacking his lips in a way that made the fractured stumps on my back stir, like the beating of long-dead wings.

  They might not be visible through my glamour, but I could feel them.

  “Sive,” I sounded out, the word rhyming with the number five. It was a name, I thought. Or some part of me did anyway.

  “Fionn's wife,” Reece said, sliding his hand up and under my shirt. His brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “She won't like this … but I sure as shit will.”

  Taking hold of my hips, he lifted me up onto the counter, stepped between my thighs, and captured my mouth with his own.

  Dis sweet little t'ang was a trap waiting to fuck Ol' Reece. I knew dat and yet, well, I just couldn't help myself. Somethin' old and ancient was living behind dis girl's eyes—whether she knew it or not. Scared the living crap outta me.

  But I was going to do this anyway, me.

  This girl smelt like ol' magic, this tangy taste that got on the back of my tongue and made me drool like a damn dog. It mixed with da sweet scent of magnolias and dat distinct flavor of a woman that's wet and ready.

  “You want me bad, don't you, girl?” I asked her as I stepped between those creamy white thighs. Her skin was soft and warm, her wet panties pressing up against the front of my jeans.

  She didn't answer me, cutting off conversation by teasing my lower lip wit' her tongue, encouraging me to take over and guide da kiss. That was okay by me. I lived for dis shit.

  Pressing the hardness of my cock against the girl's wetness, I let my right hand move up toward her breast, cupping da tender flesh in my fingers and squeezing until she cried out against my lips. She wiggled her body closer to mine, encouraging me to go hard and fast, fuck her real easy and quick.

  But, nah, dat was boring.

  Breaking our kiss, I slid her oversized t-shirt up and tossed it aside, examining the human glamour she was wearing like a new outfit. Pretty white skin sparkling in the moonlight, perky ripe breasts, and a full round mouth dat I just had to see wrapped around my cock. Mm. That was a definite. Been a while since I got my cock sucked—that pixie girl woulda bit it right off at da base.

  “C'mere, girl,” I said as I stepped back and heard a needy moan slide from her throat. She was like an animal just uncaged, as wild as my Meme down on the dock. An animal. All fae were animals. No, we were worse than animals.

  Animals don't kill for fun, no.

  My hands dropped to my jeans and flicked open the button, dragging the zipper down nice and slow for effect. She watched the entire exchange with sloe-eyes and partially parted lips. Hungry. Dat's what she looked like, dat girl.

  Maybe I shoulda been more scared o' her than the pixie?

  “You want me to suck your dick?” she asked, her voice this ragged sexy whisper that I liked far too much. Oh yeah, I was really into dis one. Most interesting woman I'd met in a long fucking time.

  “You don't want to?” I asked, freeing the long, hard length of my cock from my jeans. The girl's eyes followed the motion, her throat tightening as she examined me from her place on the counter. After a moment, she slid forward, her bare feet slapping against the tile floor.

  Outside, I could hear Meme grunting, keeping all them males outta her turf. She didn't like 'em near the nest.

  But in here? It was dead silent; you coulda heard a pin drop. The clubhouse was unusually quiet—Fionn didn't want a lot partying or hang-arounds with the Veil Keeper in residence.

  The Veil Keeper.

  Well, Ol' Reece be damned … never thought I'd have Le Gardien du Vo
ile suckin' on my dick.

  The girl dropped to her knees in front of me, pushed her long dark hair over her shoulder, and wrapped her fingers around the base of my cock. Oh, shit yes. Those long, thin fingers were warm, the grip tight. And the magic … I could feel dat ancient energy prickling across her skin and into mine.

  My balls tightened and I swear to fuck, I almost blew it right dere. Barely got started and I was ready to come? Who the hell was dis girl and the fuck was she doin' to me? No dia gnéas I ever met finished so damn quick in his life. Eh, at least I had the magic to get it up again, and again, and again. There was no end for ol' Reece if I didn't wanna be done.

  The girl—the Veil Keeper always used to be named Gràinne although there was definitely somethin' different about this one—leaned forward and put her lips against the head of my cock. Her eyes flicked up ta meet mine, making my throat feel tight. A growl rose up from my chest, turned my mouth into a wild scowl.

  My fingers curled in her hair, but she reached up and slapped dem away.

  Oh, we had a wildcat on our hands.

  “Maybe another time,” she whispered, letting her breath play across the wet tip of my dick. I was leaking pre-cum, getting myself ready ta fuck. Between da two of us, we had more than enough wetness to make it work. And we were about to add a whole lot more.

  “Whatever you say, bebette,” I growled, just before she slid her mouth over the aching flesh o' my cock. Hot, wet heat enveloped me, lips sliding along da length of my shaft, her tongue cradling the underside as she took more, more, more o' me.

  I rested a single palm on her head, but she didn't seem to mind that, sliding back and drawing a long, low groan outta me. I sounded like a goddamn gator, me.

  “Fuck, girl, you sure are good at dis for somebody that don't remember their own name.”

  She pulled back, breathing hot against the quivering tip of my cock.

  “Ciarah O' Rourke,” she said, flicking her tongue in a circle around my shaft that had my hips bucking and my fingers digging into her hair. “My name is Ciarah.”