Immortal: Curse of the Deathless

Chapter 8 (Part 2: The Fae Realm)

Asher woke up groggily in a bed without any idea how he'd gotten there. He felt like he'd been partially consumed by a giant beast, that was how deeply he was embedded in soft furs. With great effort he managed to disentangle himself from the layers of bedding and rest his back against the headboard. The bed was as large as any he'd ever seen, wider than the skinny room he inhabited in the dorms by a fair margin. A family could sleep on it comfortably without being cramped. Heavy drapery enclosed it all, obscuring the remainder of the room from his view.

An amused chuckle escaped him. "I'm guessing I made more of a fool of myself than usual," Asher said to himself, and started to make his way to the edge of the bed.

A fleshy obstacle halted his progress as soon as he'd begun. A soft moan, although muffled by the heavy blankets, could be clearly heard. A delicate hand tugged at his arm and pulled him into a thoughtless embrace. Asher wasn't too proud to admit that he had to suppress a girly squeal at the realization that he was in bed with an unknown person in a foreign land.

Asher allowed himself to be restrained without resistance, falling back into the blankets with a sharp hiss. From what he could tell, he was as naked as the day he was born. He also couldn't remember the tiniest detail of what had happened after his hasty meal. He stared straight up without seeing anything, focusing all his brainpower on trying to remember the details of the previous night.

All he drew were blanks, so without any other options he eased back the blankets to reveal his sleeping companion. What he saw made Asher gulp. Alarm bells started ringing in his head, and he felt the urge to run as fast and as far as he could to escape from impending doom. Beneath the covers was none other than Áine, daughter of Niaṁ, reigning queen of the Summer Court and sister to the man who wanted to marry his step-sister. Her warm, naked flesh was pressed up against him, and her long, braided strawberry-blond hair was wrapped around his stomach. He started to hyperventilate, and had to force himself to take more quiet breaths to avoid waking his sleeping companion.

His heart beat a harsh staccato against his ribs as it made a serious attempt to leap out of his body. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see the lumps of both his discarded servant garb and Áine's floral dress. From where they sat near the end of the bed, it was obvious they were removed there. Asher decided then and there that Állen would remain as ignorant of the details of the past night as he was himself. If he suspected what Asher was thinking, the righteous fury of a protective brother would rain down on him. He envisioned Állen's fiery sword digging around in his stomach until it extracted seared, ropy intestines. By the time he was through with Asher, there wouldn't be enough left of him to identify his body.

Hot flesh wrapped ever-more-tightly around him. "I thought you would never wake from your slumber," Áine said, interrupting Asher's meticulously planned web of lies that would explain away the exploits of the previous night as an innocent encounter.

Now that I've been found out, should I take the honest approach— or the flippant one?

Straight to the point, "How'd we end up like this?" Asher said.

"You mean you do not remember?" Áine asked skeptically, and Asher imagined he could see the threatening rattle of a snake an instant before it struck.

Áine untangled her hair from his midsection and slid a leg over his body to straddle him. The feeling of her flesh rubbing against his own made Asher's hair stand on end and every sense in his body come alive. Her pale pink lips hovered playfully above his. Áine's gleaming teeth bit her bottom lip seductively and her golden eyes danced. The combination drove all rational thought from his mind, and it didn't bother him in the slightest. He encircled Áine's body with his arms and drew her against him with feral desire.