Lust. Charlotte Featherstone

muscles, a sight that you’re afraid you will never understand the power of, or feel your own cheeks heat with a rush of physical longing at such a masculine, virile sight.

       Picture, if you can, never feeling any heat warm your blood when a man’s gaze caresses you, lingering on breasts that should make you feel womanly, but instead, from which you feel disconnected. Indifferent. Sexless …

       High and mighty they call me. Frigid. But I am neither of those things. I am Chastity—my name, and my virtue. It is who I am, my entire being. It, I fear, is my prison.

       ONE

      “YOUR HIGHNESS, THE TIME HAS COME.”

      He knew it. Heard the wails for what seemed like days now, the resonance ringing in his ears. Not even here, in his private solar, was he free from the cries that seemed to haunt his court. Another howl, worse than the keening of a banshee, echoed through the castle, whispering through his blood and settling deep within his black soul.

      The curse was upon them.

      Niall, king of the Unseelie Court, son of Duir and the most powerful of the Dark Fey, stood before the enormous hearth with legs braced wide and hands clasped behind his back. Unblinking, he watched the orange flames engulf a blackened oak log, sending sparks sizzling up the flue and into the chamber. Another female scream rent the air; its chilling sound found its way once more inside him as he fought to show no outward emotion.

      “Your Highness—”

      “Who is the maid who struggles to bring her child into the world?”

      “Gertrude, female of Irian.”

      Niall shut his eyes against the pain of knowing his cousin would suffer this night. Irian, despite his Elvish blood, or perhaps because of it, was his best warrior at court. It did not matter to Niall that his cousin was a Half ling Fey. Irian was loyal and trustworthy, and like a brother to him. More than the blood brother whom Niall had shared a womb with. Irian’s mixed blood had never been of consequence to Niall, until now.

      “It was a mistake to allow him within the inner sanctum,” the seer of the fey growled. “He has incurred the Mother Creator’s wrath, and now we shall all suffer.”

      Niall held himself still, breathing deep, willing his anger to tether. “It is not the Mother Creator who has cursed us, Gwynad, but my mother.”

      He heard the seer growl behind him. The tip of the old man’s yew staff slammed against the gold tiles, but Niall ignored Gwynad’s theatrics—no one cowed him, especially this wizened old mage.

      “How did the female come to be at our court?” he asked, grasping at anything at all that might tell him she and her babe would be spared from his mother’s hatred and the curse that shrouded his court.

      Gwynad sighed and rustled forward, his velvet robe whispering against the floor. “The girl was a servant. Irian purchased her from a mortal. Thirty pieces of silver, and a blessing on the mortal’s child.”

      “It seems an even transaction,” he grumbled, despite the growing unease in his belly. The woman—Gertrude—had not cried out in the last few minutes.

      Gwynad pressed closer, his voice a hushed whisper. “She did not want to come to the Unseelie Court despite Irian’s assurance she would be treated like a princess. She tried to persuade the mortal to take her back, but then Irian and his crazed Elvish blood took over and he stole her, carrying her here as though he were god of the underworld and her an innocent maid.

      “She was not willing, nor has she softened,” Gwynad hissed, reminding Niall, not so subtly, of the curse his mother had placed on his court.

      Irian loved the mortal. Niall knew that. But he also knew that Gertrude had never grown to love Irian. They were doomed, as was their babe. As was the Unseelie Court.

      Suddenly the door to the solar was thrown wide, the thick oak ratcheting off the wall. Behind him, Niall heard the enraged breathing, smelled the scent of sorrow mixed with the sweet smell of death.

      “She’s gone.”

      Two words filled with gut-wrenching agony. Niall closed his eyes against it, steeling himself in opposition to the pain he heard in Irian’s voice.

       “Damn you, she’s gone!”

      Slowly Niall turned, bracing himself for what he would face. Draped over Irian’s arms was Gertrude, limp and pale—lifeless. She was dressed in a white gown, from the waist down the snowy fabric was coated red. His lover’s lifeblood dripped onto Irian’s boots and puddled between his feet.

      “She will be afforded a fey burial as though she were your wife, Irian. As you are a prince of the Dark Fey, she would have been your princess. She will be buried as such.”

      Niall looked up into the anguished face of his brother of the heart, willing Irian to look at him, but the warrior was consumed now, and the only thing Irian saw was his dead mate lying in his arms.

      “What of the babe?” demanded Gwynad.

      Irian growled, took a menacing step toward the seer, but caught Niall’s eyes and steadied his raging blood.

      “It is a boy. He’s … alive. I do not know for how much longer. The mortal midwife says he has been born too early.”

      “Gwynad,” Niall commanded, “fetch a woman to feed the child.”

      The old man looked at him as though he were mad. “We have not had a child born to this court in years, Your Highness. There is no milk to be had from our women.”

      “Then you have my permission to steal a wet nurse from the mortal realm.”

      “And bring more disaster down upon us?” the seer thundered. “Your Highness, I beg you. There can be no more stealing from the mortals. Our court is dying! We must find a way to break your mother’s spell—”

      “And what do you think I have been doing since I claimed the throne?” Niall roared in frustration. “Sitting on my arse, having a merry party? Is that what you think I do in here all damn day?”

      The seer bowed and took a step back. “I know you have been searching for a way—”

      “Enough!” Niall barked. “Gwynad, you will order two servants to take milk from the cow Farmer Douglas leaves out in the pasture for us to avail ourselves. I gifted him and his wife with a child through my magic. The cow is a tithe. Go now.” He turned his gaze to Irian. “Let us bury her in our way, my friend.”

      A sob escaped Irian as he looked down into his dead lover’s face. “She didn’t want that, to stay here with me and our court. She begged me, Niall, as she saw her impending death, to free her. I … promised her I would.”

      Swallowing hard, Niall watched Irian sink to his knees, weeping over Gertrude’s lifeless body. Not for the first time, Niall cursed his mother, the queen of the Seelie Court, for the spell she had cast. He cursed his father for allowing decades to go by without bothering to search for a way to lift the spell. But most of all, he cursed the day his mother had taken his twin and left him at this court to watch his people dwindle and die.

      “Irian,” he murmured, resting his hand atop his cousin’s shoulder. “We will avenge her death. I promise you that. I will find a way to break this curse. You will find another woman, Irian—you will. And she will want you and desire you as fiercely as you desire her.”

      Irian looked up at him, his black eyes glowing like onyx through a veil of anguish. “We are all cursed, Niall. The court is dying. Despite the riches we have and the bounty of food in our trenchers and the comforts of our chambers, we are cursed. We have every material thing a fey could desire except the love of a woman and children to see to the survival of our race.”

      “I will break this damnable curse, Irian. I will do whatever it takes. I vow that.”

      Irian’s