Page 18 of Fae Mates

“I’m riding this female’s back,” said the cat. “There’s no way I’ll let you jostle her about while you rut against that rock. We’ll wait for you to finish.”

* * *

Ten cringeworthy minutes later, McVittie patted one of the hands covering my ears, indicating that it was safe for me to step out from behind the eucalyptus’s thick trunk. Coltrane’s loud moans had faded into panting breaths, the same kind that a centaur would make at high speeds, so I made myself imagine that he’d just returned from a long journey instead of a prolonged session of rutting against that awful stone.

I emerged, keeping my gaze firmly on the centaur’s saddle and not on the side of the rock, which glistened with an iridescent liquid. And I certainly didn’t catch the look of intense satisfaction on Coltrane’s face.

“Get on with it,” said McVittie in a voice that implied I was no stranger to spunk and a massive hypocrite for masturbating at the sight of Prince August stroking his cock to completion.

I mounted the centaur and placed my hands over the sawn-off horn of his saddle.

Coltrane turned his head to the side and glanced at me through the corner of his eye. “You’ll have to hold me around the waist, or you’ll fall off.”

“It’s alright,” I replied.

“And fall off with me on your back?” The cat made a hissing sound in my ear.

“Bloody hell, alright!” I grabbed onto Coltrane’s waist.

“Much better,” the centaur said with a purr.

There was no point in replying. It was obvious to anyone with a set of eyes that Coltrane had sawn off the safety horn at the end of his saddle so he could get his passengers to hold onto him. Clenching my teeth, I endured what sounded like a post-coital neigh and held onto his flanks with my thighs.

We galloped through the forest, with tree trunks blurring at our sides, through sun-drenched clearings, and out into a road that was paved with white stones instead of cobbles. McVittie explained that faeries had built the highest levels of the Mound, while human slaves constructed the lower levels, which accounted for the differences in magical cushioning and aesthetics.

The sun shone on our backs, casting long shadows, and morning mist streamed out from the surrounding forests. We continued down the Mound’s steep roads until we reached the village of earth-dwellings that resembled anthills where we had first met the seeing hag.

Coltrane stopped at a fountain in the town square, where groups of hags dressed in black crowded around a noticeboard. “Here we are,” he said. “If you want door-to-door service, you’ll have to pay extra.”

“We’ll walk the rest of the way.” McVittie leaped off my shoulder onto Coltrane’s, who pulled a money bead off his collar and patted him on his furry black head.

While one side of Spindlewinder village consisted of anthills, neat little cottages lined the other side, each as unique as the next. From the sizes of them, they were one-roomed dwellings about half the size of the homes that humans occupied in Doolish.

McVittie trotted at my side, chatting amiably about the village. Apparently, hags lived here during the day, and winged dormice occupied it after dark. I wondered if the mouse who had been Pokeweed’s wet-nurse had come from here.

My brows drew together as we passed a pristine, white cottage with a wooden door and a window box full of poppies. It was so small, I couldn’t imagine it containing anything larger than a chamberpot. I’d always thought humans were the least fortunate on the Isle of Fae. I guess I was wrong.

I eyed a tall cottage that leaned to one side like that tower in Italy. “Have you lived with Mistress Catha for long?”

“As a familiar?” he asked with a bristle in his voice.

“No.” I frowned and continued down the cobbled street. McVittie might be a cat, but even I could tell that there was an intelligent human beneath the fur.

“She took me in after I ran away from home,” he said. “I did odd jobs in exchange for food.”

“What kind?” I asked.

“Mostly spying on her neighbors to see what they were saying about her.”

“Isn’t she supposed to be an all-seeing hag?” I muttered.

“The magic doesn’t work how you’re thinking,” he replied. “If anyone could tell the future or read people’s bad intentions toward them, they’d position themselves in the right place and rule the world. Or worse, they would murder people based on what they might do in the future.”

“Hmmm…” I glanced over my shoulder at the figure clip-clopping on the cobblestones a few paces behind.

“Never mind the centaur,” said McVittie. “We need to find out what kind of enchantment has ensnared your you-know-whats and how to break it.”

“Right.” Despite being told to ignore Coltrane, I couldn’t help turning back to take another look.