Frost (Frost and Nectar #1)(29)

“And what do people do for fun?” I sipped my coffee. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you?”

“I do know, as it happens. In Faerie, the summer season starts on what you would call May first.

And that’s when we celebrate Beltane.”

“What happens then?” I asked.

The look he gave me was incredulous. “You really don’t know? Even the humans celebrate it.”

I shook my head. “Not anymore.”

“Well, they should. It’s when the veil between the worlds thins. Once, humans offered us food and drink. I suppose I never see it these days. No wonder we’re starving here.” The wind whipped at his dark, wavy hair. “Beltane is a fire festival. The children decorate the trees of the forest and thorny bushes with yellow ribbons and flowers, like flame. And after they go to bed, we sacrifice to the old gods. Usually, it’s one or two humans who have trespassed in our realm.”

My stomach swooped. What the hell had I gotten myself into here? “I asked you what you did for fun, and your answer is human sacrifice? How do they die?”

“We burn them.” He slid me a sharp look. “It’s not quite as terrible as it sounds. They’re drugged ahead of time, and there are drums to drown out the screams.”

I must have had a horrified expression because he added—somewhat defensively, “It’s our ancient tradition, and we still have a sense of the sacred here in Faerie. A reverence for the primordial forests, the bounty and mercilessness of the earth. To ask the blessing of the old gods, we lead the cattle between two bonfires. It helps to protect them. Then there are the forest rituals. Our gods are very important to us, and stags are, too.”

I glanced back at the castle’s flag. “Is it some kind of masculine thing?”

“A stag can move back and forth between the realms of the living and the dead, the human and the fae. They’re powerful, dominating. They’re like nature itself—mystical, beautiful, and brutal at the same time.” He met my gaze. “They take what they want. And for this one festival, this one night a year, the old god Cernunnos blesses us. The mists twine through the forest oaks. For one night, the Horned One transforms the worthy males into stags. We race through the forest and fight each other.

Sometimes to the death. If I ever lost a fight in my stag form, I’d be dethroned.”

Okay. Maybe the king had a darker side than I’d imagined. “None of this sounds…fun. It sounds sort of horrific.”

When he met my gaze, his eyes burned with a cold intensity. “But that’s what we’re like. The fae.

We are creatures of the earth and mists. We are warriors. And when we are at our best, we transcend our bodies and commune with the gods. When was the last time you really felt alive, Ava?”

Not anytime recently, I’d give him that. “I have no idea. Probably yelling at you in the bar.”

“That’s quite sad.”

I sipped my coffee. “Just so I’m clear, it would be better if my ‘good time’ involved murdering people in the woods?”

“There are more pleasurable sides of Beltane,” he said, his deep voice turning sultry.

I felt something coil tight inside me, but I ignored it. “Do you batter baby animals to death with clubs or something?”

He turned to me and tucked his finger under my chin, lifting it so I couldn’t look away. His pale eyes burned with a dominating ferocity that made my heart race—an otherworldly power that transfixed me and made me want to drop my gaze at the same time.

“No, Ava. We fuck each other hard up against the oak trees, rending the forest air with the sounds of our ecstasy. We fuck around bonfires, bathed in their flames.” He leaned in closer, his finger gently stroking the side of my face. With his lips by my ear, his earthy, masculine scent wrapped around me like a forbidden caress. “When was the last time you lost yourself in a pleasure so intense, you forgot your name? That you forgot your own mortality? Because that is what it means to be fae. I could make you ache with pleasure until you forget the name of every human who made you think there was something wrong with you.”

He stroked a delicate tip of his finger up my pointed ear, so light, and yet such a forbidden thrill that it made me shudder and clench tightly inside.

His eyes met mine again, and I felt that illicit, electric jolt of excitement at the unexpected intimacy. That close studying, like he was reading me. And that I was failing some sort of test.

“You fuck each other around the bonfires…” I repeated, like an idiot.

He traced his thumb over my lower lip. “And if you think I can’t see how much that excites you, if you think I couldn’t hear your heart racing, Ava, you are mistaken. Because if it were you and me, in the oak grove on Beltane, I would have you screaming my name. Calling me your king. I would have your body responding to my every command, shuddering with pleasure underneath me, until you forgot the human world existed at all.”

I couldn’t remember how to speak. “I see,” I managed at last.

“If I could,” he purred. “I would teach you what you really are, and I would make sure you never forgot it.” His gaze lowered to my mouth like he was going to kiss me, and I was surprised at how much I wanted it. And even more horrified at the disappointment I felt when he didn’t. “But that won’t happen, of course. Because nothing can happen between us.”