Velvet Haven

He tried to see, to look deep within the flickering glow of the candles. Tried to reach out to Death, to use his strength to piece together the rest of the vision.
    And then it happened. His sight swirled for the briefest second, then stilled. The pupil of his right eye dilated, allowing him to see his world. Annwyn was still. Quiet . His left pupil opened to the mortal realm. The same disquieting calm was seen there. But before he could close the portal, he was assaulted by the cries of a screaming woman. Splashes of red swam before both eyes. The acrid stench of burning flesh stung his nostrils, while a low chant of invocation swam in his ears.
    A shadowy image followed, of a hand, delicate and pale, wrapped around the hilt of his athame. A female hand . He reached out to the vision but his fingers sliced through gray fog. The image was gone, having evaporated in tendrils of smoke. The sight, scent, and sounds of the vision were sucked out of him as though a separate entity, leaving him spent, panting, and wondering what he’d just witnessed.
    He had never seen that vision before. There was a dark malevolence to it. In his previous visions, he had merely died. In this one, there had been suffering and pain—and a woman.
    Death, it seemed, was fucking with him.
    Head bent, Bran sought to slow his breathing while his body continued to hum with the life force that surrounded him. He still smelled the heavy perfume of a female nearing orgasm. His nostrils flared, taking it in, that heady, arousing aroma. Shuddering, he felt his skin flicker in awareness at an imaginary caress.
    He was aroused, he noticed. His cock thick. Erect and straining. Pulsing with unspent desire. So this is how death would find him, the scent of a female clinging to his damp skin and her touch rippling along his flesh. He had been at someone’s mercy. But whose? A female—that was all he could be certain of.
    Morgan had cursed him to be brought down by a mortal. He had always believed the mortal would be male, but the hand on his athame was definitely a woman’s.
    Inhaling again, he drew the scent deep into his lungs and shuddered. He had never responded to a human female in such a way before. And yet what Sidhe female would kill her king? Morgan, of course, but he would never respond physically to her. The vision made no sense.
    A twig snapped and he glanced up, snarling at the sound of someone approaching. No one dared interrupt him. Especially not here, in Nemed, his sacred circle of magick. No one would think to intrude on him, the king of the Sidhe.
    “Your magick cannot keep me out, Raven.”
    Except her.
    “What do you want, Cailleach?” he growled between great breaths of air. The sex. He could still smell it on his skin, taste its dew on his lips. It had been centuries since he had felt this kind of lust. And like a slave he was weakening to it. Its heady scent, like a drug, went to his head, making him crave more of it, making him lick his lips so he could taste the fine, teasing drops that lingered on his mouth.
    Swallowing hard, he looked down between his thighs. His cock was near to bursting. He wanted to stroke it, to relieve himself of the ache that was growing in his shaft. He wanted to close his eyes and envision a female submitting beneath him while he got off with his hand.
    He wanted it hard, to empty in forceful thrusts right here in the open grove where everything was primal and male. Where everything was his .
    He needed this release, but he would not have it now that she had arrived.
    “Clothe yourself, Raven, so that I may approach you.”
    “Does the sight of me not please you?” he taunted, knowing his consort, the supreme goddess of Annwyn, was a damn prude.
    “I am not alone. Cover yourself.”
    Bran stood to his full height, his erection slowly dying. But his skin was still alive and vibrant with the remnants of sexual energy. His sigils glowed gold and pewter, especially the ones where the goddess was afraid to look.
    “There is no need to flaunt yourself, Raven,” she snapped in a crisp voice that was more hag than the beautiful woman she was. “I have no interest.”
    “Nor do I.” He’d never been attracted to Cailleach. Not before he became king and coruler of Annwyn, and especially not after. “To what do I owe your visit?” he asked as he shrugged into his black cloak.
    The tall, svelte woman dressed in a formfitting white gown stepped between the trunks of two ancient oaks. At her side