Bradley forced her into his arms and air finally burst in. She wailed and thrashed but his grip only tightened.

"I'm sorry. I don't care, Ellie. He doesn't deserve you. Please. We have enough human blood. It doesn't matter."

She screamed.

Bradley tried to project images of gardens and waterfalls into her bruised mind. Pain exploded beneath her skull. She lashed out with imaginary daggers. He wouldn't let go.

Erick pried him off and struck him. Through blurred vision, she barely registered the scuffle. Erick's muscled form dwarfed the slender hybrid. Grunts and curses punctuated thuds and cracks.

She couldn't stop shaking. Her mind burned and throbbed and everything around her seemed to melt into the floor. She fell into a pool, liquefied in her own thoughts. Erick's smile swirled above her into the makeshift pirate costume he'd worn for her in their childhood games.

Argh.

"I'm the Dread Pirate Tabitha."

"No, ye be me wee fairy princess, Violet Glass. I be savin' ye from the ice monsters of the depths." He snapped an eye patch into place.

"Girls can be pirates too."

Wait here. He disappeared around the corner of the old cabin.

"Erick?" She chased after him but her tiny legs couldn't move fast enough.

Sweet smells from Gran's kitchen wafted over her. Blackberry pie. "Pie, Erick. Gran made pie. Come back."

He jumped out from behind a tree and pounced on her.

Eleanor laughed and tried to roll out from under him but he was so much bigger, so much stronger. He usually tossed her about like a rag doll until she lost her breath. Not that she ever minded.

But he shook her then, screaming her name. "Wake up, Ellie. Please, wake up."

"Stop. I don't want to play this anymore. Let's take the pie to the creek. We can catch some fish for Gran."

He stared at her, eyes shimmering. The wavy locks at his temples silvered and the grass beneath them rotted until only a splintered floor remained. Blood dripped from his split lip and a bruise darkened his cheek.

Everything rushed back. Oh no. "Are you okay?" He didn't have the magic to defend against a full hybrid. She scanned the room for Bradley.

"He's gone. Ellie, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Did he know now? She scanned his unblocked mind. No. He'd meant he didn't know the touch would hurt her.

She spoke the elven words for healing but he jerked away before she could touch his lip. Her hand glowed between them and he avoided it as if she threatened to pierce him. "When have I ever hurt you?" She sat up and quickly touched his mouth. Blood smeared across her fingertips when he turned away. She barely managed to close the wound and it burned her already aching head.

"That wasn't supposed to hurt?" He rubbed his mouth and rolled back on his haunches.

"It hurts me more than it hurts you. Baby. Let me get that bruise."

"No. Leave it. It'll heal on its own." He grabbed her arm and helped her up into her chair.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Air puffed out from his chest as if she'd hurt his pride. "You think I lost?"

Eleanor smiled. "No," she lied. Should she thank him? It was his fault though. Where were her guards? They'd become lazy since her father left.

She reached for Erick's bruised cheek and caught him off guard. Sparks burst from his skin and deeper depths of his mind fell open, completely unguarded. She meant to speak the healing spell but his fears choked her.

Erick shoved her hand away. "Don't. I'm not your fated."

Chapter Twelve.

December 25, 9544 AR

Valetta, Biston

His lids stuck to his eyes. He rubbed them again and squinted at the clock. Four in the morning. The sun would rise soon and she hadn't arrived. She didn't come. Erick shifted in his throne, ass cheeks numb, back and shoulders sore. Two hours more.

The last few guests sluggishly buttoned their costumes. Locks of dark hair sprayed out from the edges of their masks but they didn't bother to hide the identifying color. Probably knew each other.

Erick gulped bitter ale though he couldn't taste it. The suds no longer tickled his tongue nor burned his throat.

The last woman smiled at him. Radiant with the afterglow of sex, she'd have been his choice tonight if he could feel anything for her. His body demanded Violet, only Violet.

When he closed his eyes, he imagined his lover's mind coursing through his. The way she reacted to him, the way she plucked his every nerve and caressed his every thought when he touched her. He'd never experienced that before, since elves only fucked their true mates and hybrids were so fucking rare.

Violet. Probably the only hybrid who wouldn't murder him while he slept. Gentle. Sweet. Soft. She didn't flaunt magic. She didn't leak spells everywhere she went. But she didn't want him.

Erick gulped the last of his ale. He crashed the mug down and his pink scar blurred past. Earth, he hated that mark. Why hadn't he taken Violet's offer? Mark of love, she'd said. From whom?

From me. A woman's petite hand slid down his shoulder. Violet.

His chest filled. Popping bubbles seemed to tickle his lungs. He snatched her wrist and yanked her into his lap.

Nude except for that damned mask. Heat seeped from her bare cheeks through the front of his pants to where he'd ached all night. Mmm, she felt good.

He kissed her smiling mouth and sucked her pouty lip between his teeth. Hand on the back of her head, crushing her to him, he couldn't get close enough. Too rough.

She squirmed in his lap.

Erick eased up and softened his kiss. "I'm sorry I called you Violet. I should have asked your name." He shouldn't have believed his oath-brother's brat.

His lover jerked back against his arms.

"No. You don't have to tell me your name. Don't go." He tried to pull her close. "Please. I'll call you my pixie. Whatever you want."

Purple light beamed from her mask like eerie beacons but she hesitantly relaxed into his embrace. She swung a leg back and over his lap to kneel over him. Her knees squeezed him and her glowing eyes leveled to his.

A warning mashed his gut but Erick ignored it for the thrilling sparks of her touch. Her hands kneaded his shoulders. A thrilling mixture of pleasure and pain. She found the knot in his back and magically soothed it away. But her touch didn't burn and her lips didn't murmur elven words.

Her hardened nipples pressed circles into his chest with each of her healing efforts. The soft flesh of her petite breasts shook, warm and good.

He wanted to see them bounce excitedly while he gripped her hips and thrust up into her. Oh, he'd make her scream tonight. Countless orgasms to share between them. "Let me in." He needed inside her mind to feel what she felt. He probed but her shields blocked him.

Through a playful grin, she teased, "Wait. Slow down. We have all night."

"I wish. In an hour, maids will come to clean this mess. Then angry citizens will flood in with complaints I can't do anything about." Erick kissed her neck and breathed her intoxicating scent. She dizzied him and pained his impatient cock. "Play hooky with me today. I promise no traps. Just a whole day in my bed. Masks optional."

"Mmm." Her sultry tone caressed his ears as her tender hands glided down his chest and abs. "I can't steal my king from his duties." Her touch slipped beneath his tented pants.

He sucked in breath, abs rigid, cock twitching in excitement. He didn't move, afraid she'd stop, like a bunny startled by a hunter's step.

"Am I a bunny, a pixie, or your fairy princess?" Her fingertips swirled down his veiny rod.

His lungs emptied in a harsh puff and his cock jerked up into her fist. Electricity shot through him and hummed in his groin in an anxious pitch. Her tiny hand wrapped around half his girth. When she completed the circle with her other hand, Erick groaned, words lost in his lust.

She twisted up his length, knowing what he wanted. "No one knows you better," she whispered in his ear and kissed the sensitive spot just below. Her thumbs swirled around the crown of his cock.

The electric hum rose with his hips and rough grunt. Too much. He closed over her hands with his. "Stop. I'm going to come."

"Don't you want to?" Her fingers shifted as much as they could in his grip.

He rasped, "No." He needed to make her his. Coming too early would leave her unsatisfied. He guided her hands back to his chest and her nipples brushed the back of his hands. Earth, he wanted her naked always.

"Chained in the dungeon, where no one would know to look for me?" she whispered.

He hadn't even felt her in that part of his mind. Alcohol must have weakened his blocks. "I didn't know you then." He hadn't cheated with Eleanor.

But his pixie started to pull away.

"Please don't go." His mind scrambled for something to make her stay. He clutched on to the first thought, "I love you." It slipped out too early. He'd never said it before.

Although she stilled on his lap, she didn't return the words. She only stared at him, as if waiting for more.

What else could he say? What more was there?

Earth, she didn't love him. His chest sank into his gut, split in two like a ship on the rocks. Air leaked out, as if replaced by a rising gush of water that threatened to suffocate him. It hurt to breathe.

When her lips pressed against his, his mouth tightened into a hard line. He couldn't kiss her. Even his penis fell flaccid between them, despite the rich perfume in his flared nostrils.

She leaned back, head cocked. "Isn't this what you wanted? Purely sex? Anything more could be dangerous with me."

"No." He trusted her.

Darkness swirled around her as the room chilled. Like Eleanor, she stole heat to keep warm.

His throat tightened but he could live with that tiny bit of magic. It was a necessity for hybrids in winter, right?

Her hands rose to the back of her neck. Her breasts pushed up against his chest and jiggled as she untied her headdress.

He expected the dark hair that spilled down her shoulders. Silky locks sparkled like the midnight ocean. Beautiful. He could wake to her hair tangled around his fingers and draped over his chest.

"Wait," she warned, as if something could change his mind. She pulled the mask from her porcelain face. Midnight lashes fluttered up from starry blue eyes to examine him.

Eleanor.

He jerked up and she fell from his lap.

The room shook. Her image blurred, as he stumbled over her to the floor. His chin cracked on the marble and light flashed in his skull.

"Erick," a man yelled, paining Erick's already aching head.

His sandpapery lids scraped his eyeballs. Like a snowstorm, bright white blinded him and hid color. He squinted but only made out faint shapes. Too much light. It glared fluorescently off the normally dull marble.

Phil's blurry silhouette knelt beside him, blanket in hand. "How much did you drink?"

"Not 'nough." Erick tried to push himself up but his arms trembled and collapsed, dropping his face onto the cold marble.

Oh, the cold helped.

"Where issss she?" Erick slurred out. His tongue wouldn't move right. Had that evil demon put a curse on him?

"Probably asleep. She never left her room."

Erick squinted and scanned the bare expanse of floor. "She uz juss here." Why wouldn't his mouth work?

"You've been passed out for hours. No one else was here."

"Thank Earff." It was just a nightmare. That demonic hybrid hadn't impersonated his lover.

With a grunt, Phil lifted Erick to his feet.

Erick gripped Phil's coat in tight fists to keep upright. The room wouldn't stop wobbling. Even Phil seemed to waver between reality and viscous fluid that dripped down incandescent walls. Where were they?

"Maybe Eleanor should take a look at you."