Cold Iron (17 page)

“There,” he said, when he lifted his head and her body stopped shuddering. “Your lovely cow eyes are wide open for me.”

She was stunned. She’d come. He’d used only his fingertips, standing up, in this ramshackle place, under harsh lights, and she’d come. It took her forever on her own. And it never happened with Frank. Her heart was still pounding, her chest rising and falling like she’d run a mile, and when he buttoned her cords and
licked his fingers clean,
she almost came again from the sight.

“Now, my lusty little Druid. I hope that took the edge off and you can wait until we get home.”

She nodded dumbly, although she wanted to tell him that it hadn’t taken the edge off. It had opened a whole new world. He fastened the clasp on her vest, held out his hand, and tugged her toward the door. Her first step sent an aftershock through her body that made her whimper. Conn only chuckled and slid his arm around her waist to walk her out of the house.

C
onn had glimpsed the desolate
crop circle outside the house earlier. The way Beth skirted it on their walk down to the boat confirmed his suspicion. She’d created it. They were going to have to talk about it, sooner or later, but he hoped not just yet. There were things she needed to know. Ugly things. About the Druids. About what she could become.

But something important—no, beautiful—was about to happen between them, and he wanted that free of taint and fear and sadness. Wanted Beth Carter, archaeologist, all to himself. Beth Carter, Druid, would have to wait.

B
eth panicked when she and
Conn got down to the boat and discovered Helene not there.

“She’s safe,” Miach assured them. “But angry as a hornet. She stormed out of the house after we freed her and is, I believe, making a thorough inspection of the island.”

“Alone?”

“Elada is shadowing her. When she sees for herself that the harbor police have no presence here, she’ll cool down and come back.”

“You could have glamoured her into coming,” Beth said.

“No,” was all Miach had to say.

Beth found her quilt folded neatly on a bench tucked into the prow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liam put his head up through the hatch, but a look from Miach was enough to send him scurrying below again. Beth couldn’t be sorry about it. Yes, Liam had his reasons for defying Miach and, yes, he had been kind to her when Brian wasn’t looking, but she couldn’t forgive him for what he and Nial and Brian had put them through.

Finally, with the first light of dawn visible above the trees, Beth caught sight of Helene marching down the path to the boat, blond hair waving in the breeze. Her arms were folded over her chest, and even at a distance Beth could make out the angry gleam in her eye.

The towering Fae who followed her had hair a deeper shade of gold, cut short like Miach’s, and a thicker, more solid physique than any of the
Aes Sídhe
Beth had encountered so far. He was still impossibly lean, but his muscles, even beneath his flannel jacket, bulged. He had a sword strapped to his back and a dagger at his hip.

Helene clomped onto the boat and pointedly ignored Miach, but when she saw Beth she cried out and broke into tears, throwing her arms around her friend and burbling nonstop. “What happened to you after he took me away?” she asked. “You were so hurt. Your
hand
.”

Before Beth could signal her to quiet, Helene gasped. “But it was broken. I saw it. Broken and bleeding.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Beth chirped. If she shouldn’t show Miach the
geis
, she certainly shouldn’t let him know about the powdered wooden floor and the dead circle of grass. She was already nervous about how much he must have guessed, since he’d witnessed her uncanny and almost successful effort to suck the life out of his son.

But it was too late. Miach crossed the deck to stand over them. Beth could feel Conn tense and knew he was reaching for his blade.

Miach said, “May I?” And lifted Beth’s hand in his own.

“What did I say?” Helene asked.

“It’s okay,” Beth assured her. She didn’t think it was.

Miach turned her hand over in his, scrutinized her palm, her knuckles, and, finally, her ever so slightly crooked ring finger. “Very nice work,” he said finally. “But this one’s a bit off.” He tapped her ring finger.

Then he covered her hand entirely with his, and squeezed. Beth’s heart stopped. The last Fae besides Conn who had touched her hand had mangled it. She felt a frisson of warmth and an echo of pain, then he released her.

Her ring finger was straight.

Miach hadn’t destroyed the decking or vaporized the harbor to do it. He hadn’t drawn the magic from anywhere. He had it inside himself.

She couldn’t quite bring herself to say thank you. His son had kidnapped and tortured them, and would have done worse. But she nodded, and he offered her what passed for a smile and returned to his post at the wheel.

When they reached the dock in South Boston, Helene jumped the rail before they could tie off and strode down the dock away from them. Beth guessed they were somewhere in Fort Point Channel, a neighborhood of decaying warehouses dotted with a few surviving businesses and the occasional redeveloped lot. Not the safest spot in the wee hours of the morning for a woman in short shorts and fur boots. She was about to say as much when Miach sighed and tossed Elada a set of car keys. “Follow her,” he said. “If she won’t accept a ride, then put her in a cab and pay the driver enough to take her home, wherever that is.”

“Back Bay,” supplied Beth, climbing onto the dock and thinking of her own home, her own bed.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Miach asked, as Beth headed for the gleaming silver Porsche.

“Home.” She could practically taste it.

Miach looked at Conn. “I can keep her safe,” said Conn.

“From my idiot family, I have no doubt,” said Miach, as Liam and Nial slunk off the boat and headed for a Range Rover parked near the dock. “Straight home with you two,” he called after them. Then he turned back to Conn and Beth. “From the Fianna, too. But from the Prince Consort, I’m not so certain.”

“Who is the Prince Consort?” she asked. “There was a Fae on the island—”

“Who broke your hand,” finished Miach. “I had it from Liam and Nial before you set foot on the boat. You’ve met him. You don’t need me to tell you he’s dangerous.”

“The Prince Consort,” Beth repeated. “He and Brian thought I might be able to summon the Fae Court without the sword, if I turned out to be powerful enough.”

Miach sighed. “It is possible, yes. And it is another reason you are better off in my home, where I can teach you to control your power, and where I can protect you.”

Conn stepped in front of Beth. “She’s tired, and she’s been hurt, and she is mine. I mean to make her so, in deed as well as in fact, and I have no desire to do that under your roof. You’re a sorcerer, not a warrior, Miach. You can’t fight me and win.”

The dock creaked behind her.

“No,” Miach said. “I can’t. But we can.”

Beth spun to find Elada returned.

Chapter 9

D
on’t be afraid,” Conn told her.

“I’m not. I know you can take him. Liam said you’ve never been defeated.”

Conn eyed Elada with a professional warrior’s cool assessment. “In single combat,” he said.

She looked at Elada. “There’s only one of him.” Although he was the size, she decided, of two normal men. And Conn seemed less focused the longer he was in violation of his
geis
.

“Sorcerers and their warrior companions fight in tandem. A combination of magic and arms. I have only arms,” Conn said, his silver blade and dagger already in his hands.

Elada drew a broadsword from over his shoulder.

“And inferior ones at that.”

“This isn’t fair,” Beth said.

“Real fights never are. Now get in the boat and stay out of the way.” He dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head and pushed her back the way they had come. “And scream bloody murder if anyone gets past me and tries to take you away.”

She didn’t budge. “No.”

“Beth, I can’t match them if I’m worried about you.”

“Then don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.” She’d done so on the island. Of course, Brian hadn’t been full Fae.

“You know how to kill plants. Miach is trained to kill people.”

“You saw the grass.” She’d hoped he hadn’t.

“I saw. We’ll speak about it later. Now isn’t the time.”

“I can fight with you. Even the score. Give
you
a combination of magic and arms.”

“You haven’t enough control over your power. Tandem fighting is a skill that takes decades to master. Miach and Elada have fought together for millennia. They would have every advantage.”

“Not every advantage,” she said, voicing a suspicion she had entertained since Miach had tattooed her in the bar. “Miach is a romantic. He can’t bear the thought of hurting a woman. Or at least it will put him off his game.” She hoped she was right. Miach hadn’t been able to bring himself to glamour Helene.

“He wouldn’t want to hurt a woman, but he might have fewer qualms about a Druid. He thinks you are a danger to his family, and he’ll do what he must to protect them.”

She felt the dock sway slightly as Elada approached.

“And I’ll do what I can to defend myself.” She slid into place behind Conn, so they were back to back and she was facing Miach.

“You are exasperating,” he muttered, but when she looked back over her shoulder, she caught him checking on her out of the corner of his eye, and she was certain he was smiling.

Then the two Fae flew at each other, and Beth forced herself to turn and face Miach, approaching across the dock. Maybe she couldn’t offer him much of a fight, but she might be able to distract him.

“So how do we do this?” she asked.

“Get out of the way, Druid, or you’ll get hurt.”

“This is a fight. That’s the idea. We’re supposed to hurt each other.”

“I have no desire to hurt you. Quite the opposite. I’m offering you and the Betrayer sanctuary. I want to keep you safe from those who would try to use you.”

“Forgive me if I don’t feel safe in the bosom of your family after last night.”

Miach sighed. “Last night was an aberration. You can be assured that Liam and Nial are contrite, and Brian won’t be leaving the island until he repents.” Then he narrowed his gaze. She felt his attempt to attack her mind as a change in the air pressure.

That was all.

His mouth quirked. “You’ve grown stronger,” he said. “But your body is still human, frail.” He swept his hand up in an arc. Beth heard the water churn beneath the pier. The planks under her feet swayed and groaned. Foam boiled on both sides of the dock, then jetted into the air to form a murky brown tunnel, the roof directly overhead. She threw her hands up to shield herself, held her breath, and thought,
stop
. The water hung, suspended in midair for a second, then burst like a rain cloud and splashed down on Beth, leaving her soaked but otherwise unharmed.

She was as surprised as Miach.

Another splash, this time behind her, and she turned.

Conn stood at the edge of the dock, looking over. Elada was in the cold, gray water, and to judge from the profanity rising out of the channel, not happy about it.

“Beth stays with me,” Conn said.

Elada said nothing.

“Miach?” Conn prompted.

“Fine.” His frustration was palpable. “The woman stays with you. Under guard.”

“You insult me,” Conn said.

“You are in violation of your
geis
, weak from it, and besotted with her. I will not judge you for it, but tell me you can be vigilant even while you are having her, and I will let you go.”

When Conn didn’t answer, Beth knew Miach had won. And hurt Conn’s pride. Miach must have known it, too, because he added, “The Prince Consort is not to be trifled with. And the sword is still at large.”

Beth had forgotten. Until Conn had the sword, she was a pawn in a larger game.

“
French fries,” Beth said. Conn
had insisted on taking the Porsche. Elada was trailing them in the Mercedes. They were stuck in the morning commute, wending their way back toward Somerville, and from the dorms and apartments and restaurants they passed Beth could smell bacon frying and coffee brewing and toast burning. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon,” she explained.

“Then we’ll find french fries for you. You’re going to need your energy.”

Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought. Just a taste of what Conn could do to her, in the kitchen hours ago, had set her body alive with anticipation. The feeling hadn’t ever quite gone away. The
geis
again, she supposed. She considered telling him to take her straight home. Then her stomach growled, and she thought better of it.

The Pilgrim Diner near her house was crowded, and Beth was about to accept two stools at the counter when Elada strode in. They waited in awkward silence together for a booth. Once they were seated, Beth scanned the other tables. Her Fae companions, even with their hair shorn, were strikingly handsome. And yet no one was even stealing a surreptitious glance at them.

“You’re using human glamour, aren’t you?” she asked.

Elada frowned. “Of course.”

“How many Fae are there?”

“Free?” Conn asked. “Or in our richly deserved Otherworld hell?”

Elada shot him a speaking glance. “In Boston there is Miach, myself, Finn, his two brothers, and Deirdre, though she is a recluse,” answered Elada. “A hundred or so are scattered across the world. The majority of the Fae—and most of the ancient powerful nobility—are imprisoned, thanks to the Betrayer here, though no one knows how many are in the Otherworld with the Court, and how many are still entombed in Druid mounds.”

“You mean there are Fae who’ve been imprisoned in tombs like the one at Clonmel for thousands of years?”

Elada shrugged. “It stands to reason. There was chaos after we were defeated. The Druids chose the Fae they wanted to exploit, and spaced our prisons well apart, so we could not communicate with one another.”

“Why don’t you search for them, get them out?”

“I rescued Miach,” said Elada blandly. “There was no other I had any obligation to.”

A cold, unfeeling race, as Conn had told her.

The waitress brought Elada coffee. Beth sipped her tea. Conn, she noticed, drank only water, and never took his eyes off the Fae seated opposite them.

“This is swill,” Elada complained.

“They aren’t really known for their coffee,” Beth said. “It’s a diner. Try the french fries.”

Elada ignored her and spoke to Conn. “I would not have to be here at all if you had been sensible and gone to Miach’s. He has a fine house at City Point, with a view of the water. You could have bedded the woman in comfort, and I could be having a decent cup of coffee.”

“I do not need help protecting my woman.”

“History says otherwise.”

Beth didn’t even see Conn move, but he was leaning over the table, his knife at Elada’s throat, faster than she could swallow her tea. She choked and sputtered.

“I have no quarrel with you, Elada, and I am sorry if you suffered for my actions, but do not pretend you would have let such an insult stand had you been in my place.”

An insult. His daughter abused and driven mad, and Conn thought of it as an insult, not a tragedy. Every time Beth started to think of him as human, she was reminded, painfully, that he was not.

Elada made no move for his own weapon. “You are right,” he said.

Conn withdrew his blade and sat back down.

Beth’s french fries arrived, steaming hot, but she had no appetite for them now.

Elada, however, did. He reached across the table, and started to devour her feast. Between bites he confessed, “I hated you then, for betraying us, and did not understand. They carved Miach down the center before I could rescue him, though, and I started to learn. I have lived among humans long enough now to know
why
you did what you did.”

Conn said nothing, and the meal proceeded in silence until Beth was wrapping her french fries to go and Conn was at the cash register paying for their meal.

“You said you knew why he did it,” she prompted.

“Don’t you?” Elada asked.

“No.”

“That’s because you’ve started to believe the same lies we Fae tell ourselves. We aren’t incapable of feeling. We’re out of practice. He condemned us all because he was mad with grief for his daughter. Because he loved her.”

C
onn wondered if they should
have gone to Miach’s. The sorcerer would have made some effort to give them privacy. As it was, he did not think Beth would feel comfortable coming to him with Elada outside her bedroom door.

He was wrong.

He had taken his time in the bath off the hall, the one that was not so intimately hers. He’d washed, and cut away more of his hair to emulate the close crops Miach and Elada both wore.

He’d knocked on her bedroom door, and when there was no answer, he’d padded inside in his bare feet and stretched out across the bed. He did not remove his clothes, because he did not want to embarrass her or presume.

The quilt was back. Muddy in spots, but familiar and comforting and right. He took in the other details about the room. The photos, many of places he had known in another age, where Beth had gone seeking the Fae. Empty mounds, most of them, belonging to Fae like Miach who had rejoined the world. He contemplated the chances that his would be the first occupied tomb she found. Small.

A gift then, from unknown gods. Dana, the goddess of the Fae, would never be so kind.

The door opened. She was not wearing a towel this time. She wore a long robe, belted around her waist, with wide kimono sleeves. The cotton was trellised with roses and nearly sheer. She smelled like rosemary and mint, and he found he was so hungry for her at this moment that he might very well be the one who bore a
geis
for her.

“Beth,” he said. It came out like a plea.

She placed first one knee, then the other, on the bed. “Let’s try this again,” she said, reaching for him. “I promise not to pass out this time.”

“We’ll see about that.” Then he hesitated. “Elada is in the next room,” he confessed. “‘Protecting
’
us.”

She looked at the closed door. “I can be quiet.”

“I don’t want you to be quiet. Perhaps we should—”

As if on cue, the television flicked on in the living room, blanketing them with muffled sound, and Beth kissed him, silencing further debate.

He did not like what she had been through for the last few days, but he was grateful they had not done this sooner. He would have botched it. Oh, he would have taken care to assure her pleasure as well as his own, because satisfying a woman fed his vanity. And after he saw the images in her mind, of Frank and Egan and their snickering molestation of her helpless body, he would have taken the time to dispel her fears. Even if she couldn’t consciously remember being pawed and fondled by her ex-husband’s loathsome friend, the ghost of that experience haunted the corners of her mind. He might, a few days ago, have treated her like glass because of it, but he knew now that there was steel beneath the silk that was Beth Carter.

He wasn’t going to treat her like a toy or a fragile doll for his pleasure. He was going to treat her like . . .

“I’ll make that inspection now,” she said, her mouth curving into a wide smile.

He laughed. “I did promise you the opportunity, didn’t I?”

He stood and removed his coat and draped it over the chair beside the bed, followed by his shirt. He knew how much she liked his chest, the tiny gold rings he wore, the patterns that she had studied in stone, now etched across his living flesh. She crawled across the bed to kneel on the edge and unbuckle his belt, flick her tongue into his belly button. He groaned, and she did it again.

She had no idea how erotic she looked, kneeling on the edge of the mattress, the swirling colors of her gown framing her pale skin, one shoulder slipping down to reveal his mark as it trailed below the veiling fabric and over her full breast. Her hair was piled loosely on top of her head, and while he wanted to run his fingers through it, he refrained. He liked the way it allowed him to see his mark, and what she was doing to him.