Some days he wished he was blind. This was one of those days.

Lugh mac Connla mac Sétanta mac Lugh mac Ethlenn cursed the over-bright sky of the Otherworld. Lugh wasn't the Lugh of the cycles—that was his grandfather. But he did hold as much power as the Erlkönig—enough so to place bets on possessions and steal other's servants. Basically, a god and Sovereign King for at least an Earth-bound millennia by now.

He hated Fey clothes. He hated the Fey sun. He hated his damned Fey-kissed skin, most days.

But his own peculiar curse didn't allow him to leave Otherworld. That's why he had servants and tools on Earth.

A magpie flew overhead and dropped a white stone in his lap.

A sacrifice was coming.

A crow did the same, dropping a red stone.

I'm owed a blood debt.

The swallow didn't make it overhead, just crashed into him carrying the largest piece of rose quartz it could survive carrying.

Normally that stone was just the half-incubus's comment on wanting to sleep with any female that willingly sacrificed herself to Lugh. In this case, such a small bird and such a large stone were to mark his servant's frustration and total commitment to having whatever that sacrifice would be.

Lugh found a stinging wasp and gave it a gray stone before sending it to his servant.

Wait, not stop, and know your place.

This is all it took to change the heir of the Tuatha's mood—the promise of someone interesting enough to move his servant.

~~~

Maria almost tripped out the door of the still-moving cab. The opening lead to a place that was stationary, a hall of grand entrances. Not knowing what to do, she moved forward down the hall, touching each door as she passed.

"What are you doing, Lass?"

The voice echoed around her causing her to stumble backwards and into the broad chest of a half naked man. Embarrassing enough to make anyone hyper-aware of rippling muscles, fingertips bracing the waist, and something a little too prominent to not be happy to see you. No one had warned her that a touch could come with over-stimulation, like sexual attraction was a living electric current. She had never been so interested in sex before, especially so instantaneously—and she had not even seen this man, yet.

The intensity scared her far more than Goth guy did. At least with him, fear held her in check. It was the lack of it, here, that worried her too-cynical Italian mind. She pulled off him in shock.

The man braced a hand on her shoulder, momentarily. "Don't startle yourself into falling, Lass... Ah forget it."

Maria fell forward onto a bed that had not been there. For a second she thought he'd pounce. She whipped over and pulled herself further back on the bed in a room of pillars and open walls.

That put her eye-level with a joke of a loincloth on an over-muscled auburn man. "Lass, you're going to come half out that dress if you keep tearing around like that. Stay still."

He didn't wait for her to comply, just reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder and allowed the dress to shake out into her normal clothes. "There. I bet you feel more like yourself. Did Préachán send you?"

"Préachán?"

"That half-incubus I have guarding my book."

" No, Crasboeth did." For the life of her, she wanted to look into this man's face, but she couldn't take her eyes off the loincloth. "He can take me where I need to go, but he can't guarantee that my Grandmother will live long enough."

"And so he sent you here to bargain with me." He crossed his arms to think for a moment, rocking in place. "I can keep her alive for this trip and longer, if you wish. This is a well-known power of the Fey, to grant partial immortality."

"What's the catch?"

"You give your body to me. Right here, right now, for the duration of the cab's trip."

"For 10 hours?" It wasn't fear that had her asking why she had to sleep with him for so long, but a deep disappointment that it would only be such a short time. Her obsession with this man had already pushed Nico so far out of her mind that if asked if she knew her boyfriend, she would have said, "Nico Who?"

Maria had no experience with Fey seduction before, so she missed every single alarm that was sounding in the recesses of her mind. If she had been aware, she'd reluctantly acknowledge that she didn't need special temptation. She might have thought something like, but I like regular guys, why is this one so hot? The good thing about innocence was that she didn't have to argue with what she was supposed to feel about lust—it just existed, without pretension.

"Time doesn't pass the same. It will be closer to three months."

Relief flooded Maria. She wouldn't have to pour her heart out in such a short period of time...only to be followed by one alarm managing to surface in her besotted mind. "What's the catch?"

"Clever, lass. Lying with a fey will slowly consume your mind until you forget to crave food. Your make the sacrifice to see your grandmother, but by the time we get there, you wouldn't want to go see her because you'll be begging for more of me." The looming man sat next to her on the bed, lightly touching a strand of her hair, as if he wasn't sure it was real. "And worse, it will be a faded memory that you can't quite remember that you will be starving for."

"Will I remember this conversation?"

"I believe so."

"Then tell me what I need to know. There's more to this." The part that pierced through her haze was that sleeping with this man would consume her mind. Maria was certain this man didn't know that just seeing him half naked already trapped her—waiting on speech was agony. That he was that innocent, himself, made her want to throw caution out altogether.

"The safest way to come down off a fey high is to bed a half-fey on Earth territory. You already know one. And since he's my servant, if you need anything from me, he can take care of it."

Maria nodded softly. She already sacrificed something important when she set out to find the cab: something which she would have to take care of once she made her way back home. Too bad she couldn't remember what exactly it was, as she crawled back out the bed to face him. She hesitated to touch him, but it wasn't because her hands were still.

The man caught her hand, grazed his lips across her knuckles. "Lass, don't you want to know my name?"

"If you're just going to be a hazy memory, do I need it?" Maria was shocked at how good those lips felt on her hands, wondered how they would feel elsewhere.

"I meant that sex would be. I hope I mean more than that, Lass."

She laughed to cover her frustration, but her words betrayed her. "Fine, tell me your name and start already."

"It's Lugh. And I wish I could keep you instead of what is coming."

That was the only apology for 3 months of lovemaking she ever received.

~~~

Maria stepped into the cab from the Otherworld, then back out again at the Garibaldi Hospital. Her legs felt weak—shaky, even. She had to chalk it up to jitters—nervous to see her grandmother after all this time.

The strangest thought she had on her mind was about a man she couldn't quite place, not about her family problems. She had a feeling that there was a god out there who could sate her as no one else could...but outside great sex, there was even less to him than the boyfriend she'd left behind. She couldn't fully remember doing it, to want it this badly. She was aware of...something endless.

The boyfriend....Maria started cursing under her breath. She had cheated on her boyfriend for all that time and didn't even think about him once. How much time was it? Half a day? An eternity? Why had Nico not come to mind until now?!

As soon as the shock of what she had just done left her, Nico again faded from her mind while it searched for memories of this mystery man she had loved.

Why was she so stuck on thinking about this guy she barely knew when her grandmother's life couldn't be guaranteed to live any longer? Wait, that's why she had a need for this man. She had traded innocence for life. Didn't she?

Liar.

Her thoughts just didn't feel like herself.