This wasn't just me without the glamour. It was me when my power was upon me, when magic was in the air.
"My God, you're sidhe," he whispered.
I turned those glowing eyes to Alistair. I expected fear in his eyes, but there was a kind of soft wonderment. "He said you would come if we were faithful, if we truly believed, and here you are."
"Who said I'd come?"
"A sidhe princess to feast upon." He spoke in a voice that held awe, but his hands slid under my dress, fingers curling over the band of my panties. I grabbed his wrist and slapped him with the other hand. Slapped him hard enough to leave a red imprint of my hand on his face. We had all the proof we needed to put him in jail. I didn't have to play along anymore. You can take the energy of Branwyn's Tears and turn it from sex to violence, or so they say in the Unseelie Court. I was going to try. I was really going to try.
If he'd hit me back, it might have worked, but he didn't. He collapsed his body on top of mine, pinning me to the bed. He was so low on my body that his face was level with mine. There was a moment where I looked into his eyes, and I saw the same stricken need in his eyes that I felt in mine. The Tears cut both ways. You could not use it to seduce without being seduced.
He made a small sound low in his throat and kissed me. I ate at his mouth, one hand going to the ponytail holder that held his hair back. I jerked it out, spilling his shoulder-length hair around me like a silken curtain. I plunged my hands into his hair, two fistfuls of it, held tight, while I explored his mouth.
His free hand tried to reach down the dress for my breast, but it was still too tight. He pulled at the cloth, and my body jerked with the force of it as the cloth ripped, and his hand spilled inside my bra.
The touch of his hand on my breast jerked my head back, freed my mouth from him. I was suddenly looking behind us at the mirrors on the far wall. It took me a few seconds to realize something was wrong. Part of it was distraction. Alistair was kissing my neck, working his mouth over my skin, ever lower. Part of it was someone else's magic. Someone powerful didn't want me to know they were watching. But the mirrors were blank like the eyes of the blind. I looked up at the mirror above the bed, and it was empty, too, as if Alistair and I weren't there.
Then I felt the spell like a great sucking wound, drawing my power to the surface until it spilled from the pores of my skin, and up, up into that mirrored surface. Whatever it was, it was feeding off my power like a psychic leech. It pulled the power slowly like sucking up a straw. I did the only thing I could think of. I shoved the power into the throat of the spell, force-fed my power into the magic. They hadn't expected that, and the magic shuddered. There was a figure in the mirror, but it wasn't Alistair or me. The figure was tall, slender, covered in a hooded grey cloak that hid every inch of the body. The cloak was illusion, an illusion to hide the witch at the other end of the spell. Every illusion can be stripped away.
Alistair's mouth bit gently on my breast, and my concentration shattered. I looked down at him as he drew my nipple into his mouth. It felt as if his mouth drew on a hot line that went directly from my breast to my groin. It tore a gasp from my throat, made me writhe under his touch. A small part of me hated that this man could make my body react, but the larger part of me had turned to nothing but nerve endings and engorged flesh. I was sinking deeper into Branwyn's Tears, drowning in them. Soon there'd be no thinking, just sensations. I couldn't think to draw power. All I could smell, feel, taste was cinnamon, vanilla, and sex. I took that sex, that need, and wrapped it in my mind, and shoved it into the spell. The cloak wavered, and for a second I almost saw what lay behind it, but Alistair went to his knees, blocking my view.
He pulled his underwear down his hips, his thighs, and I was suddenly staring at the hard, gleaming length of him. It took my breath away for a second, not because he was so wonderful, but just out of pure need. It was as if my body saw the cure for all this need, and the cure was lying flat against Alistair's belly. I don't know if it was the sight of him nude or the power I'd shoved into the spell, but I was feeling more myself. A throbbing, nymphomaniac self, but still it was an improvement.
I sat up. The front of the dress was torn away, my bra pulled down so that my br**sts were bare. I said, "No, Alistair, no. We are not doing this."
A prickle of energy spilled over the bed, running in goose bumps on my body. Alistair looked up as if he saw something I didn't, and said, "But you said to only use small amounts. Too much could drive her mad." He listened, face intent. I heard nothing.
Whatever was in the mirror wasn't hiding from Alistair, just from me.
Alistair opened the bottle. I had time to say "No." My hand went out as if to ward off a blow. He threw the oil on me. It was like being touched by some great liquid hand. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but scream. He poured the oil down the front of my body. It soaked through my dress, to the skin underneath. He raised the skirt, and this time I couldn't stop him. I was frozen, overwhelmed. He poured the oil over the satin of my panties, and I fell back onto the bed, my spine bowing, hands scrambling at the sheets. My skin felt like it was swelling, stretching with a desire that narrowed the world down to the need to be touched, to be held, to be had. It wouldn't have mattered who it was. The spell did not care, and neither did 1.1 opened my arms to the na**d man kneeling over me. He collapsed on top of me. I could feel him tight and heavy against the satin of the panties. Even that thin piece of cloth was too much. I wanted him inside me, wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything or anyone.
Then something floated down from the mirror. It was a tiny black speck, but it held my attention, compelled it. It got closer, and I could see that it was a small spider, hanging from a silken thread. I watched the spider float slowly to Alistair's shoulder. The spider was small and black and shiny like patent leather. My body was cooler, my head clearer. Jeremy had managed to get something through to me. I knew now that the magician on the other end of the spell had kept them all trapped outside the house.