At the solstice, Maeve rode with her kin in the wild hunt. When they’d passed through a small Welsh town, the only human brave enough to face them was the Blacksmith. He stood at his forge as they rode through the town, his massive arms swinging his hammer sending sparks floating into the air. He pounded the iron, in an echo of the horses’ hooves.

Maeve, like all the fey folk, had a fatal allergy when it came to iron. Yet she found herself staring at the strange, brave human, and the hunt rode on, but Maeve stayed. The hooves grew distant, and Maeve slid from the back of her horse. She watched him swing his hammer and shied back from the spray of orange sparks and the stinging taste of iron in the air.

“Hello Smith,” Maeve called to him.

The Smith looked up at her, his dark eyes meeting hers.

She was stunned at his display of fearlessness. No mortal had ever looked so boldly upon her. Yet, this man had the power of iron to make himself feel brave.

He set his hammer down, sinking the bit of iron into a bucket of water. Maeve flinched from the steam. “Good evening, Lady,” he bowed his head slightly. He wiped his stained hands on his leather apron, “I seek no quarrel with your folk.”

Maeve smiled at that. He may have not seek quarrel, but he made a dangerous choice to watch the Hunt when other humans huddled inside in fear. Yet this man displayed almost no fear of her.

“I seek only company on this shortest night.”

She took a step closer to the forge, yet the iron hung miasma like in the air, stinging her skin.

He stepped from the forge and stood before her. Maeve could feel the heat of his flesh, before she laid a hand on him. When she kissed him, reaching up, grasping the hair at the back of his head, she learned that his kiss burned with iron. His hands, wrapped round her upper arms, seared her skin, as the years of embedded iron made contact with her. Maeve did not break the kiss, rather the burn of the iron, the danger of it, locked her consciousness to her body.

He led her into his house, and she shed her silken garments. Her arms bore red fingerprints from his touch. When he laid her on his bed, the iron filings made her writhe even without his touch. When his hands, his fingertips once more found her bare flesh, they felt like the sparks in his forge, white hot agony that left her panting and begging for more. His rough worn hands kneaded and stroked her flesh.

They both saw the glaring welts rising on her pale skin after his touch. She took his hand and placed it between her thighs, a strangled gasp of pleasure and agony escaping her lips. She thrust her hips at him, and felt nearly unbearable torment of his finger enter her.

“Another” she commanded her voice thick with pain and desire.

She felt two fingers, then three before she rode his scorching fingers. The searing friction and stretching of his thick fingers and the ever present iron wrought her climax, and she near screamed out in the blacksmith’s bed as she orgasmed.

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