Artistic Vision

He ran, trying to outrace the darkness that chased him, but everywhere he turned, every door he opened only led to more darkness. Soon he would have nowhere left to turn, no place to hide. The darkness wanted to devour him, use him for its own ends, make him like…like… He flinched, the thoughts whispering to him from the darkness too evil to contemplate.

It wanted him to bow down, to succumb. To become one with it.

Shane would rather die than do what the darkness wanted.

Flame licked across his senses and the darkness retreated, screeching in rage.

Shane grinned. She’d figured it out, his clever mate, and Shane would get to live another day. “Akane.” He followed that glow to its source, the warmth lulling him. He centered himself in that flame, allowed it to protect him. Shane marched in step with it, pointing out all the places the darkness had tried to hide. The flames obeyed his wishes, destroying the invader, eliminating every trace of the darkness within him.

Shane was finally warm again, oh so warm. He basked in it like a cat in the sun, stretching beneath a heat that smelled strongly of his fiancee. He moaned as the heat licked across his inner thigh, danced across his cock with light, teasing touches. The only bad spot was a constant itch across his arm, the last bit of the darkness trying to escape the purifying fire. Shane opened his eyes to see Akane standing over him in all her glory, fire dancing across her skin, licking at her breasts. Her hair danced in the breeze stirred by the heat of the flames. Her wings were spread wide, the delicate tracery of veins glowing with her inner fire.

She was so beautiful his heart stopped. He must have been a very good boy in a previous life to have earned her love.

Shane stood and immediately grabbed his arm. The pain there was intense, the fire he’d been basking in missing. The cold was a burning pain. From a shallow cut on his arm black ooze gushed forth, the last of the darkness trying to escape its fate.

The darkness gathered itself and leapt for Akane, landing on her stomach and began trying to claw its way in. Akane hissed and batted at it, but it clung to her fingers. She breathed at it, but it dodged her flames, no longer shackled by skin and bone.

When it leapt for her beautiful, vulnerable eyes, Shane lost it. No one, nothing would take his mate from him.

No one.

A strange roaring sound filled the air as Akane tried to bat away the black goo reaching for her eyes. The ground beneath her feet began to tremble. There was a faint, feminine gasp, Jaden’s throaty laughter, and Akane looked up, hoping to see what had surprised everyone.

Multicolored strands of light whipped around Shane’s body in a strangely erotic, lethal dance that entranced her. Within those lights she could see Shane’s visions appearing and disappearing like smoke. His Seeming had dropped, and a snarl was on his face as he glared at the black ooze.

“Oh fuck.” Akane had heard of this. If anyone attempted to touch Shane in that moment they would die a grisly death, whipped to shreds by the fury of Shane’s Sidhe half.

This was either going to hurt like hell or be the most sensual experiences of her existence.

Shane stalked out of the fire pit, the flames of her fire still glowing on his skin and hair. The others stepped away from her at his possessive display, all of them intimately aware of what was coming next. She resisted the urge to back up. It wouldn’t do her any good if she did.

Her mate was pissed as hell, and he had decided to Bind her.

“I vow that from this day forward you shall not walk alone.”

One of the whips of light darted out, decimating the darkness trying to wend its way inside her. Akane gasped at the touch of that light, her whole body on fire for her mate.

Gods above. No one had ever warned her that he would be able to bring her to the edge of orgasm with light.

“My strength is your protection, my heart is your shelter, and my arms are your home. I shall serve you in all of those ways that you require. I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care.”

Akane could feel his power wrap around her, and she gloried in it. Her mate was strong, strong enough to tame the dragon, strong enough to banter with the Hob. The warm caress of it was like bathing in liquid gold, and she longed to lap it up.

“Yours is the name I whisper at the close of each day and the eyes into which I stare each morning.”

Akane opened her eyes to see the last of the darkness fall to Shane’s light and smiled. The Vow was almost complete. Now was the final step. When Shane finished the Vow his Sidhe magic would kick in, binding their life forces together for all eternity.

“I give you all that is mine to give. My heart and my soul I pledge to you.” He lifted his hands to cradle her face between them. “You are my Chosen One. You are my Mate, and you are bound to me for eternity.”

The bands of light surrounding them reared back, then speared into Akane’s body in a rush of power so dizzying she almost fainted. She could feel the joining of their souls as Shane’s magic twined around hers, completing her. The rush of power tingled along every part of her, pushing her into one of the most intense orgasms of her life. She shuddered in Shane’s arms, her dragon song winging through the night sky. When he kissed her, drinking down her pleasure, it merely added fuel to the fire.

Akane rode the wave, barely hanging on to consciousness, Shane’s soul and hers now forever one.

Robin watched Leo Dunne sleep and smiled. The man’s wounds had been easily treated, painful but not life threatening. Bres had fled, his tail between his legs, his redcaps decimated by one man. And that man had not been the Hob. He almost gave in to the urge to laugh out loud at the memory of the look on Bres’s face when he realized what, and who, had taken out every single redcap save one.

Gods above, he loved this family. Would Aileen consider adopting him? He tried to picture what it would be like to have someone so loving and overprotective of someone like him, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his brain around it. No one, not even Oberon, felt the need to protect the Hob. At best, to most he was a carefully honed weapon.

Small arms wound around his neck from behind. Robin held perfectly still, unsure of why Ruby was choosing this moment to hug him. She rested the point of her chin in his shoulder and gently kissed his cheek. “You know, I saw something interesting tonight.”

Robin’s heart pounded. Dear gods, no. If Ruby had seen what he truly was, that would put paid to the rare, uncomplicated friendship the human had offered him. “Did you now?”

“Uh-huh.” And she whispered into his ear exactly what she’d seen.

Robin closed his eyes and waited for the rejection sure to come. He’d lived through it before, many times, but never had the thought of it hurt more.

Instead of the rejection he’d anticipated, the little human pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “You look like hammered shit. You need to get some sleep, Rob.”

He drew in a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding, the relief almost dizzying. She wasn’t going to send him away, protect her family from him. He was giddy with the knowledge that, for once, he could stay. “Didn’t you know Robin Goodfellow never sleeps?”

She chuckled. “Yup, and pigs are going to fly out of my behind any minute now.” She glanced behind her at her rear end. “Yup, aaaany minute.”

He laughed softly. “Your mate is extremely lucky his is a true bond, or I’d steal you away from him.” He would, too, if he didn’t know pretty Ruby would wither and die without Leo Dunne. The thought sent a shaft of pain through him.

He would have loved her so well.

“No, you wouldn’t.” He turned to contradict her, but wound up speechless at the tender look on Ruby’s face. “She’s out there, waiting for you, and she’s going to be everything you ever dreamed of and more.”

He swallowed, unwilling to show even Ruby his vulnerable side. He reached for arrogance instead, never far from him. “Yes, she will be.”

Ruby just tugged his hair. “Get some sleep before your head explodes.”

He winced. She had no idea how close to the truth that simple statement was.