Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

I breathe out when he presses into me and he pauses, worry tightening the corners of his eyes.

“Stop?” he asks.

“Don’t you dare.” I reach up and dig my fingers into the solid muscle of his ass, trying to drag him forward. He doesn’t yield. He watches me, waiting for me to relax before he nudges his hips forward.

Again and again, he teases his way inside. It’s not enough. I need more. I try to cant my hips up, but he’s so damn stubborn. Fine. I wrap my legs around him and pull. That gets through to him. He bites his lower lip and follows my lead, seating himself fully with a slow slide.

He’s a beautiful sight, held frozen, muscles flexed, sweating and breathing shallowly.

He leans into my hand when I cup his cheek and ask, “Okay?”

“Want to make it last,” he mumbles.

“I don’t care,” I say. “We have all night.”

He pushes and my skin sparks and he kisses me, moaning incoherently into my mouth. Together, in every sense of the word. The trail of delicate hair on his stomach brushes the head of my cock with each of his thrusts. I drown in sensation. I wrap my legs tighter around his back so I can memorize the way his muscles move; it changes the angle, and that changes everything. A small, needy thing inside of me explodes and destroys all shreds of my control.

I don’t know what I’m saying but the room echoes with grunts and groans and a storm of I love you and he shudders and pulses inside me and the lightning I’ve held back splits me open... Goddess, I’m home, I’m finally home and Finn is with me and he says my name like a benediction and it’s enough. Will always be enough, because he’ll finally be safe.

Afterward, he drags himself from the bed only long enough to clean us both up before returning and crawling under the covers. He hugs me to him and entangles his legs with mine, burying his face into the crook of my neck and mumbling about my needing to stay. He swears he won’t fall asleep because he has to talk to me about something important, but soon he goes lax and crushes me as he slips deeper and deeper into sleep.

I need to leave. Every minute I lie here, the more I’m tempted to stay. To let the sídhe be sealed and never go home and take my chances against the Seelie Court out here with Finn. Except, that would make him an even bigger target. It means that whenever this damn war ends, my mother would hunt us both.

I contemplate waking him to ask if he would come with me. But if he did, the sealing would prevent him from returning. Once Mother has negotiated with the sídhe, it will cut off all entrances and exits until the spell is lifted. Even I have no way of beating such a defense. I’m not sure how long Mother’s closing us in for, and can’t guarantee how the world outside will change while we wait. The passage of time means he could lose his family. He could lose his home once more, and it would again be my fault. I don’t know if he could forgive me the second time. I know I wouldn’t forgive myself.

So I lie here and smile like a fucking moron while I listen to him breathe. I need to go. My brain nags me about the Court and the sealing and duty and honor and Mother’s order to return immediately. My heart weighs down my body until the thought of moving even an inch abandons me. I refuse to lose another second with Finn. We’ve already lost so many, and when I return home, I’ll lose them again.

When the mantle’s magick strips me to a skeleton of what I once was, tonight will be the memory I cling to. The last image to vanish before my eyes will be of the agonized ecstasy of Finn’s face as he came.

When dawn is a short time away, I disentangle myself from him and dress in the silent dark. I glance back once more when I reach the door. The first time I laid eyes on him, I cursed the Goddess for punishing me with such a divine torture. Tonight, I thank her for it.

Finn is my beginning and, as I always knew, he will be my end.

Phineas

I know this nightmare. I’ve been here before. The pain isn’t real.

The blade slips deeper, rasps as it grinds against my rib.

Back bowing at the sound, and the tremor reverberates through my chest. Every nerve electric.

Mab shields herself, the ley line’s rush meeting her winter magick. She smiles while I blaze.

“Beautiful,” she whispers and reaches out. Her finger slides into the wound and runs over the bone.

Please, let me die, I beg the ley line.

This is almost the end of the dream. I’ll wake up and see Roark beside me. But something’s changed. The world feels different. Hazy around the edges.

The sharp bite of ice against my chest jerks me back.

Around me, nothing but the dripping walls of the torture room.

Wait, this isn’t what happens. This is when I wake up.

“Well, human,” a man says from the shadows, “I suppose it’s time to end this.”

Even partially obscured by shadows, I can still make out most of him. He’s taller than me, with black hair and sharp, dark eyes and something about him is vaguely familiar. Cool air wafts off him like wind off a mountain. When the goose bumps rise, my skin pulls tight and I gasp from the agony of that shift when the wounds on my chest gap wider. Warm blood trickles down my body.