Cruel Enchantment (20 page)

He gave her a withering look. “Yes,
I’m
giving you stitches. One of the birch ladies is here helping, if it makes you feel any better. She has some healing ability. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Drink.”

She drank down the bitter, warm liquid and after only a moment, she knew no more.

AERIC
scooped the empty cup from the floor and set it by the sink in the small kitchen of the cottage, then he leaned on the counter for a moment. The birch lady, Aurora, had helped Emmaline’s wound to heal, though it would still hurt when she woke. She’d be walking with a limp for a while; though Emmaline’s beefed-up healing ability would help. She’d have a scar, too. No way around it. A nice moon-shaped one from where the bit of concrete had kissed her flesh.

The wound had been worse than he’d told her. She’d lost a lot of blood by the time they’d made it to the cottage. It was a minor miracle she’d been able to stay upright on the bike. She was damn lucky that Aurora had been able to help because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do it on his own. Aurora had left some clothes and clean sheets, too.

He poked around the cabinets until he found some soup and heated it up on the stove. He wasn’t going to think about the fact that he was nursing Emmaline back to health, that he was actually
worried
about her. A wave of cold fear had gone through him when he’d seen all that blood and the magnitude of the wound.

Fuck. He needed a drink.

No, actually, he needed a
shrink
.

Emmaline moaned from the bed and he turned from where he stood at the stove. She roused and pushed the blankets off her legs. The drink the birch lady had given her would work on pain, she’d said, and make Emmaline a little groggy.

“I need to p—” Her gaze caught his and she frowned, falling silent.

Rolling his eyes, he set the spoon on the stovetop, turned the heat down, and went to her. “Come on, I’ll help you get to the bathroom.”

“Thank you.” She was slurring her words just a little. “For everything.”

“You’re nuts to be thanking me for anything after what I did.”

“Yeah, well, it’s no real secret that I’m probably certifiable.”

“Join the club.”

She hooked her arm over his shoulder and put weight on her good foot. Slowly, he helped her across the room to the doorway of the bathroom.

“If you want to distill my help down to its purest element, everything I’m doing is for the HFF and the fae of Piefferburg.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Not this.” She motioned at the cottage. “Not cleaning or dressing my wound. Not helping me to the bathroom. Not—”

“I hate to point it out, but it’s still all for the key. You need to stay alive, remember? You’re the only one who can get it out of here. You’re the only one in the HFF who can open the box.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She looked so disappointed he almost wanted to call his words back.

Suddenly he felt like the lying bastard he was. Sure, what he was doing was for the mission, but he was also doing it because he cared about her welfare. Hell, he even liked her. Respected her, too. He didn’t like to see her hurt. He just couldn’t seem to be able to tell her that.

They made it to the bathroom and she braced herself on the counter. “I’m okay from here.”

“Are you sure?”

She shot him a look. “That drink thing you gave me knocked me for a loop, but I’m not so far gone I want an audience while I tinkle.”

He held up his hands and backed through the doorway. “Just as much, I don’t want to watch you tinkle. There’s soup when you’re ready.”

“Oh, thank Danu, I’m starving.”

He closed the door and turned away.

A few minutes later, he heard a crash. He raced to the door and put a hand on the doorknob, ready to yank it open. “Emmaline?”

“I’m okay! I’m okay! Wait.” The door opened and she stood there on one foot. “See, I’m fine. Wow, what was in that drink? Whatever it was, I want the recipe.”

He helped her to the table, where he’d set a couple of places, and poured them both soup.

“So I wonder who in the Black Tower
doesn’t
want to kill me,” she said between mouthfuls. “Think there’s anyone?”

He grinned. “I’m sure there are a few.”

“I’d lay a bet on that one,” she muttered.

“Yeah, well, you have a rep and it’s not a good one. You made your bed, you know?” He slurped up some soup.

“I’m not proud of it, but I was good at my job.”

“And look at all the great benefits you got,” he shot back.

“Yes, no dental, just death threats.”

“Soon you’ll be out of here and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

She gave a small, unamused-sounding laugh. “Yeah, until the warding around Piefferburg is broken. Then I’ll have to go into the Fae Protection Program.” She frowned. “Except there isn’t one.”

“If that happens and the fae know you played an important role, you’ll get a pass for all the things you did back in Ireland for the Summer Queen.”

“Must suck that you’ve fallen into the job of helping your worst enemy keep her soul attached to her body, huh?”

He took a careful sip of soup and set his spoon down. “You are no longer my enemy. I believe that you killed Aileen by accident and I forgive you.”

She stared at him with her spoonful of soup raised halfway to her lips. Her face had gone white and her eyes were wide.

“Eat your soup.” He sat back in his chair with a tired groan.

“Sorry.” She blinked. “I think that drink is making me hear things.”

“You heard right.”

“I thought you’d never believe I killed Aileen by accident because you’d never accept that she was having an affair with O’Shaughnessy.
I
couldn’t even believe that, Aeric.”

“There are things no one knew about Aileen.” He shifted in his seat and swallowed hard. “Things that might explain a pairing like that, between her and O’Shaughnessy. There might have been a good reason they were together.”

Emmaline kept staring.

“Stop that.”

“I’m sorry.” She ate the mouthful of soup and laid her spoon aside. “I’m just surprised.”

“Denial is a powerful thing.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“And so we won’t.” She looked at the empty, cold fireplace and shivered.

Taking the hint, he went over to the basket of twigs beside it. In a couple of minutes a growing blaze was eating its way through the kindling he’d set up. He threw a log on and turned back to find Emmaline making her way slowly back to the bed. “The birch lady said the drink would make you drowsy.”

“I think I’m drowsy from running from Kolbjorn. Well, and from bleeding. I did a lot of that.” She reached the bed, sat down, and glanced around the room. “Sleep in the bed with me tonight, Aeric. I promise I won’t jump you.” She yawned. “I’m too tired.”

He glanced at the two chairs in the small sitting area in front of the fire and at the wood floor. There was no comfortable place to sleep besides the bed. Yes, he could sleep in the bed with her; it was big enough. The problem was that he wasn’t sure
he
wouldn’t jump
her
.

He pulled out the key-in-progress, the paper with the schematics, and his carving knife from his pocket and sat down in one of the chairs near the fire. “I’ll think about it.”

That seemed to satisfy her. As he started to work, she lay down, pulled the covers over her, and was fast asleep in only a few minutes.

He stayed up to work on the key into the early morning hours. The gentle glow licked over the carpet in front of the hearth and bathed Emmaline’s sleeping form. Finally, when he couldn’t see the key well enough anymore to risk not messing up the close, careful carving, he stood and stretched. Leaving the key and knife on the table near the chair, he stepped over the small pile of metal shavings and decided not to sleep on the floor.

The floor didn’t seem all that appealing when Emmaline was in the bed.

He glanced at the door of the cottage. There was just one more thing he needed to do before he slept.

 

 

SHE
woke up tangled in him. In his scent. In the heat of his body. In the strength of his arms. For a moment, longing coursed through her so sweet and so strong that she almost melted against him. Then she remembered the vow she’d made and disentangled herself from him.

Danu, she’d even managed to slide her uninjured leg between his thighs.

She scooted as far from him as she could and turned over, coming face-to-face with a wooden crutch. Lifting her head from the pillow a little, she reached out and touched it. Apparently he’d hewn it sometime in the night from a piece of wood. Either that or the crutch faeries had visited her, which in Piefferburg was certainly possible, but unlikely.

She tried to get out of bed, but a strong arm reached out, grabbed her, and pulled her back against him. She yelped and struggled, but once she hit his chest she melted in spite of herself. He was asleep and had no idea what he’d done.

It couldn’t hurt just to enjoy it for a few moments, could it? Anyway, he was holding her so tight, it wasn’t like she had a choice.

Groaning low in his sleep, he nuzzled the nape of her neck. Her body flared to exquisite, almost painful, arousal. Oh, hell, she couldn’t do this. If it was any other man, she could resist, but not Aeric. This man was her kryptonite.

She tried to move his massive arm off her, with no results at all. It was like trying to move a boulder. “Aeric?” she whispered. Then a little louder, “Hey, Aeric?”

His deep and even breathing arrested and his body tensed.
Awake
. But he still didn’t release her.

“Uh, Aeric? You grabbed me and pulled me against you like this. I didn’t—”

He moved so he was hovering over her, looking down into her face. Now he had her almost pinned beneath him . . . on the bed.

Oh, no
.

She shimmied out from under him as fast as she could and slid off the bed, using the crutch for support. “I need to, uh—” She jerked her head toward the bathroom and then headed there at a fast limp.

Once inside she leaned the crutch against the wall and rested her palms on the bathroom counter, taking a moment to catch her breath.

Strong
, she chastised herself. She needed to stay strong.

Aeric was the one man who possessed the ability to completely demolish her heart. Under other circumstances she would allow herself to give in to . . . well, whatever it was that was happening between them—mutual lust, she guessed. But she had deeper feelings for Aeric and she couldn’t let her body lead her into a relationship with him—no matter how temporary—because she knew her heart would get involved, too. Then her heart would break and it would take a hundred years for her to put all the shattered pieces back together again.

It was just better not to walk down that path in the first place.

Turning on the tap—how was it there was working plumbing way out here?—she splashed her face with cold water. Raising her head, she looked at her reflection in the mirror.

“Oh, my goddess,” she muttered. “I look like hell.”

Taking her time because of her wounded leg, she took a bath. After she’d brushed her hair and teeth, she exited. By then the scent of coffee filled the cottage, a fire roared in the hearth, chasing away the morning chill, and Aeric sat in a chair whittling away at the key. The scene was sort of cozy and domestic. It made her heart hurt a little, watching him sit there and work, knowing she could look but not touch.

He would never be hers.

Her heart squeezed. She’d known it back then and she knew it now. Delusion wasn’t something she engaged in much, but the truth really sucked sometimes.

“Thanks for the crutch,” she said.

He looked up from his work. “No problem. You won’t need it long. The healing the birch lady did on you, along with your own natural ability, will speed things up.”

“My leg feels better already.” Ah, this was nice; they were both pretending that superawkward moment in the bed had never happened. Just like they’d pretended that whole thing in the forge with the nakedness and the multiple orgasms had never happened. Good.

“I should have the key finished within a couple days.” He turned back to his work. “Then you can get the hell out of this place and not have to worry about Unseelie with scores to settle.”

The news should have cheered her, but it didn’t. “Great.” She moved to get herself some coffee.