Velvet Haven

teasing him. She licked him, and he arched, trying to connect once more with her tongue. Beneath her, his ass flexed, rising up hard between her thighs to nestle between the folds of her sex.
    He moaned as the heat from her core swamped his skin, coating him with her own arousal. Tormenting him more, she dragged her nipples along his back, scraping the pointed tips over his skin as her tongue flicked up his spine in teasing, insinuating lashes. He was shackled, his wrists in black manacles, his fingers curled into fists. On his left hand he wore a ring that bore an oval stone, the color of fire. It was the seal of the king of Annwyn. With her lips and teeth she pulled it from him, allowing him to feel her mouth wrapped around his finger. She sucked it, torturing him. He wanted that mouth on his cock, sucking him in deep, drinking him down.
    “I can’t wait,” he said in a voice that sounded intoxicated with lust. She didn’t answer him, and he growled, pulling at his bonds. “Let me taste you one last time,” he begged. Inside him a fever raged. She rocked her sex against his ass. She was wet. He groaned and shifted, the manacles straining with his immense strength.
    “Once more. Let me you feel you again.”
    “You are too impatient,” she whispered in his ear.
    “I would feel you now ,” he growled, a sound that made her shiver, which he felt all over his body.
    “All right.” Reaching between his thighs, she teased him until he lifted his hips from the bed. He wanted her to reach for his cock. Instead, she reached for something just as hard. Her breasts scraped against his back and he closed his eyes, tortured by the feel of the hard nipples moving along his flesh. She reached over his shoulder, saw her fingers curl around the hilt of the athame. Her body shifted; the petals of her sex caressed his skin. He inhaled her scent, let it wash over him, just like he had done when he had picked the flowers by the reflecting pool. She lifted the athame high in the air. When he turned his head to look up at her through strands of damp, black hair, he felt his entire life force stop, then hang by a thread.
    “After all this?” he murmured. “After everything we’ve done, you would betray me now? Why, muirnin ?”

    Mairi’s grip on the athame faltered. This was her dream. Down to the very last detail.
    She was breathing heavily, knowing what would come next. Tears trickled down her face and she squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to see him.
    “Mairi?”
    She didn’t answer him, but her eyelids flew open and she held his gaze as she plunged the blade of the athame deep between his shoulders. Using all her weight she shoved the blade deeper, feeling it tear through muscle and connective tissue, scraping between two ribs to puncture the tough tissue of his heart.
    She heard Morgan’s voice whisper in her ear, “In a house of mourning, a garden of pain, a path of tears, you will find him.”
    “No riddles,” Mairi screamed, but Bran’s cry of agony deafened her to Morgan’s answer.
    With a flash it was dark and she felt the familiar veil flutter down, covering her body.

    Rain poured down on them and Bran opened his eyes to the sounds of Mairi’s scream. They were on the ground, in a grove. In Nemed, his sacred space. Back home. In Annwyn.
    Rain fell onto his face, and he wiped his wet hair from his eyes. His wrists. They were freed. Pulling himself up, he saw Mairi lying next to him, writhing in pain. Blood pooled beneath her. There was so much of it that the rain could not wash it away.
    “Mairi,” he cried, reaching for her, cradling her in his arms. “What have you done?”
    “Saved you . . . from Morgan’s curse,” she said between harsh breaths. “You’re free now . . . Your brother is free . . . I know where to find him. He’s—”
    “Shh,” he whispered, holding her closer. “Why did you do this?”
    “To break the curse and . . . and save your brother. The thing you want most in this world.”
    “No,” he said, shaking his head as he held her closer, melding her body into his. “You’re wrong,” he whispered. “You are what I want most in life.”
    She smiled, a weak one, and raised a shaking hand to his face. “I love you.”
    His eyes stung, as tears mixed with the rain. “What can I do? How do I fix you?”
    “Can’t.” She gasped as another pain overtook her and her vision dimmed. “Just hold me.”
    “No!” he said, his voice panicked. “No, there