Reluctantly I wrapped the stone back in its cloth and put it back in its drawer. I still felt its warmth radiating through my body as I crawled into bed. I hugged the delicious sensation to my bones and fell into a deep sleep …

And straight into Faerie, as if there were a trap door beneath my bed that led directly to that grassy bank beneath the willow tree where Liam lay waiting for me, his bare flesh awash in the golden light of Aelvesgold.

“Am I really here in Faerie or is this a dream?” I asked.

“Is there a difference?” he replied, drawing me down beside him. I was naked, too, and drenched in the same golden light. We lay side by side, not quite touching, but joined by the same golden light. “It’s one of the gifts of Aelvesgold – it links true lovers together no matter how far apart.”

I snorted. “You’re making that up.”

He laughed, a deep throaty sound that made the willow branches tremble and something deep in my belly tremble too. He lifted his hand over my breastbone, holding it about an inch above my skin. I felt golden light caress my skin. He moved his hand, over one breast and then another, the Aelvesgold running like warm syrup over my skin. “Am I making this up?” he asked. “Are you telling me you can’t feel the connection between us?”

He moved his hand lower, swirling the hot syrup in spirals around my belly. It pooled in my navel and dripped between my legs. When it reached the cleft between my legs, I moaned and arched my back.

“Yes, I feel it,” I moaned, rolling over and straddling him. “Why haven’t we done this before?” I asked, riding the gold wave and coming down on him. “Why don’t we do this forever?” The gold light moved with me, a wave of heat that lifted me up and then down onto him. I guided him inside me and that heat pushed up into my core. I looked down but the light had grown so bright, so dazzling, that I couldn’t make out his face.

“Liam?” I cried, as he rocked into me, our bodies moving as if controlled by some external force. “Liam, is it really you?”

In answer, he drew my head down to his. Through the glare I saw his eyes: black with specks of green, as they’d appeared when I’d met him in Faerie. “Who else would it be, lass?” he whispered as the gold light began to spread inside me. I felt it filling me up and then it burst, encircling us both in a golden corona of pure pleasure.

“Ah,” Liam’s voice crooned in my head. “That’s why we can’t do this forever, love. We would never want to wake up.”

I collapsed beside him, onto a bed of velvety moss. “What’s wrong with that?” I asked, gasping sweet draughts of air. He turned to me and I could just make out his lips smiling through the golden haze.