The shift of surroundings was enough to draw the attention of us all away from mouths and hands. We were in a dark place, for the only light was the glow of our bodies. But it was a brighter glow than just the three of us held. It made me look beyond the men touching me. Frost, Rhys, and Galen were like pale ghosts of themselves. Doyle was almost invisible except for the lines of power. There were others glowing in the dark, almost all the vegetative deities and Nicca, standing with his wings glowing around him. They’d gone back to being a tattoo on his back until tonight. I didn’t remember Nicca touching the mead. I looked for Barinthus and Kitto, but they weren’t here. It was as if the magic had picked and chosen among my men. By the glow of our bodies I saw dead plants. Withered things.

We were in the dead gardens — those once magical underground lands where legend had it that faerie had its own sun and moon, rain and weather. But I had never known any of that. The power of the sidhe had faded long before I was born. The gardens were simply dead now, and the sky overhead was only bare, empty rock.

I heard someone say, “How?” Then those lines of color flared bright: crimson, neon blue, emerald green in the dark. It forced cries from the dark, and sent Abeloec’s mouth back between my legs. Mistral’s mouth pressed into mine, his hands eager on my body. It was a sweet trap, but trap it was, laid for us by something that cared little for what we wanted. The magic of faerie held us, and we would not be free until that magic was satisfied.

I tried to be afraid, but I couldn’t. There was nothing but the feel of Abeloec’s and Mistral’s bodies on mine, and the push of the dead earth underneath me.