Free Soul Kissed by Erin Kellison Page A

and into the Twilight sky. All the creatures of faerie sang a lament of delight.
    And she was just now trying her power. Which meant Caspar was gone to dust and his heir was female. Maeve loved surprises, how they burst within the breast. The stubborn old man hadn’t told her anything!
    The Dolan males didn’t fit Maeve well enough for her to see or to feel or to thrill to the pleasures of the mortal world. Neither did males offer the chance to cross into that realm and partake of the pleasures in person. Only a girl afforded that chance.
    And Maeve was going to snatch it up. A hunger lengthened her nails to claw for purchase in that realm.
    The last female Dolan heir had been such a disappointment—she’d been too obstinate and hard, like the age into which she’d been born. Her death had come before a solemn and gray tribunal of humans. Their faces had been as pinched and cold as the lives they lived. They’d spurned color in their apparel for piety, and had bent the exquisite passions of the body toward the ecstasies of suspicion and hysteria—the witch hunt.
    Maeve enjoyed these, too—anything that quickened the blood was good. But not if they killed the Dolan! Her House had spurned her for madness, and the girl wouldn’t do anything to save herself. She’d wanted oblivion, if only to shut Maeve up.
    So unkind. So ungrateful.
    A loop of rope had gone round the Dolan’s neck.
    Maeve promised her power and riches and sex, one last time.
    The girl did not reach for Shadow. She hummed to herself, urgently, as if that would block the voice in her head.
    A nod from an ugly man in black.
    A brief blur of motion. Then a crack , bringing darkness.
    Centuries of darkness.
    Now Maeve peered through the new Dolan’s eyes at a smoky stack of man nearby.
    Much better view. A Dolan girl after Maeve’s own heart.
    The man’s features were cast in Shadow, though his soul burned bright blue and sharp like a star in the void. A half-breed. Best of both worlds. His shoulders were wide, legs braced. She giggled, imagining what hung between them. The angles of his form, the cut of muscled youth. She wanted to stroke his naked body with her mouth. Take a bite somewhere juicy.
    If the new Dolan heir saw him this way, then yes, Maeve had finally found her match.
    She hadn’t had a girl in so long. The Dolans bore too many sons. They didn’t know that desiring sons was a human conceit, not worthy of magic.
    But a girl . . . !
    The lesser fae that followed in Maeve’s wake made a quailing sound—fear, joy—it didn’t matter as long as the noise lifted to the sky. Twilight’s trees shuddered, the craggy old beasts. They didn’t know fun. Or pleasure.
    “Cari,” the man said.
    Maeve leaned in to taste his voice. Cari seemed to be made for his throat, his tongue.
    Maeve’s heart fluttered. She wanted to be pierced by the star of his soul. Pierce me! She laughed. Human men, young ones, were glorious. She could eat him alive.
    Maybe she would.
    The new Dolan, Cari, turned at the man’s call. Maeve did too; they’d live in tandem like this. One to another. Flesh to faery.
    The new Dolan was a gift.
    Caspar had kept his child secret from her. But he’d loved Maeve all the same to have sired a female for his heir. After the years they’d shared, the Shadow she’d delivered into his keeping, just see how he’d blessed her back.
    Cari Dolan. Maeve would see to it that she had everything.
     
     
    Mason grasped Cari by the shoulders, and shook the Shadow from her clouded eyes. He’d seen many mages work Shadow, but this was the first time he’d seen Shadow work a mage.
    The Cari he remembered had had control. She’d been a credit to her House, everyone said so. She was the example held up to others—accomplished, graceful, smart. Heir to the old and mighty Dolan House. Liv had been friends to her face, but had hated her behind her back. “Perfect Cari.”
    Shy Cari. Sweet Cari. Sly Cari. If you knew what to watch for.
    The