Iron Kissed (25 page)

“Why did you kill him?” I asked.

“I thought the Hunter would take care of it, actually. O'Donnell was a weakness. He wanted to keep the ring—and threatened to blackmail me for it. I told him ‘sure' and had him steal a couple more things. Once I had enough that I could do my own stealing without much danger, I sent O'Donnell after the Hunter. When that didn't work…well.” He shrugged.

I looked at the silver ring. “A politician can't afford to hang out with stupid men who know too much.”

“Take another drink, Mercy.”

The goblet was full again though it had only been half-full when I'd set it down. I drank. It was harder to think, almost like being drunk.

Tim couldn't afford to let me live.

“Are you a fae?”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head.

“That's right,” he said. “You're Native American, aren't you? You won't find any Native American fae.”

“No.” I wouldn't look for fae among the Indians; the fae with their glamour were a European people. Indians had their own magical folk. But Tim hadn't asked, so I didn't need to tell him. I didn't think it was going to save me, him thinking I was a defenseless human instead of a defenseless walker. But I was going to try to keep any advantages that I could.

He picked up his fork and played with it. “So how did you end up with the walking stick? I looked all over for it and couldn't find the darn thing. Where was it?”

“In O'Donnell's living room,” I told him. “Uncle Mike and Zee overlooked it, too.” It must have been the extra drink, but I couldn't stop before I said, “Some of the old things have a will of their own.”

“How did you get into O'Donnell's living room? Do you have friends on the police force? I thought you were just a mechanic.”

I considered what he'd asked me and answered with the absolute truth. The way a fae would have. I held up a finger for the first question. “I walked in.” Two fingers. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a friend on the police force.” Three fingers. “I'm a damn good mechanic—though not as good as Zee.”

“I thought Zee was a fae; how can he be a mechanic?”

“He's iron kissed.” If he wanted information, maybe I could stall him and babble. “I like that term better than gremlin because he can't be a gremlin if they just made up that word in the last century, can he? He's a lot older than that. In fact, I finally found a story—”

“Stop,” he said.

I did.

He frowned at me. “Drink. Take two drinks.”

Damn. When I set the goblet down, my hands tingled with fae magic and my lips were numb.

“Where is the walking stick?” he asked.

I sighed. That stupid stick followed me around even when it wasn't in the room. “Wherever it wants to be.”

“What?”

“Probably in my office,” I told him. It liked to show up where I was going to come upon it unexpectedly. But the need to answer him made me continue to feed him information. “Though it was in my car. It's not now. Uncle Mike didn't take it.”

“Mercy,” he said. “What is the thing you least wanted me to know when you came here?”

I thought about that. I'd been so worried about hurting his feelings yesterday, and standing on his doorstep I'd been a little worried still. I leaned forward and said in a low voice, “I am not attracted to you at all. I don't find you sexy or handsome. You look like an upscale geek without the intelligence to make it work for you.”

He surged to his feet and his face whitened, then flushed with anger.

But he'd asked and so I continued, “Your house is bland and has no personality at all. Maybe you should try some naked statues—”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

I sat back and watched him. He was still a boy who thought he was smarter than he really was. His anger didn't scare me, or intimidate me. He saw that and it made him angrier.

“You wanted to know what O'Donnell had? Come with me.”

I would have, but he grabbed my arm in a grip and his hand bit down. I heard a crack but it was a moment before the pain registered.

He'd broken my wrist.

He pulled me through the doorway, through the dining room, and into his bedroom. When he pushed me onto his bed, I heard a second bone pop in my arm—this time the pain cleared my head just a little. Mostly, though, it just hurt.

He threw open a large oak entertainment center, but there was no TV on the shelf. Instead there were two shoe boxes sitting on a bulky fur of some sort that looked almost like yak hide, except it was gray.

Tim set the boxes on the ground and pulled out the hide, shaking it out so I could see it was a cloak. He pulled it around himself, and once it settled over him, it disappeared. He didn't look any different from when he'd put it on.

“Do you know what this is?”

And I did, because I'd been reading my borrowed book and because the strange-looking hide smelled of horse, not yak.

“It's the Druid's Hide,” I told him, breathing through my teeth so I didn't whimper. At least it wasn't the same arm I'd broken last winter. “The druid had been cursed to wear the form of a horse, but when he was skinned, he regained his human form. But the horse's skin did something…” I tried to remember the wording, because it was important. “It kept his enemies from finding or harming him.”

I looked up and realized that he hadn't wanted me to answer him. He'd wanted to know more than I did. I think it was the “not intelligent enough” comment still bothering him. But part of me wanted to please him, and as the pain subsided, that compulsion grew stronger.

“You are much stronger than I thought,” I said to distract myself from this new facet of the goblet's effect. Or maybe I said it to please him.

He stared at me. I couldn't tell if he liked hearing that or not. Finally he drew up the sleeves of his dress shirt to show me that he wore a silver band around each wrist. “Bracers of giant strength,” he said.

I shook my head. “Those aren't bracers. Those are bracelets or maybe wristlets. Bracers are longer. They were used—”

“Shut up,” he gritted. He closed the wardrobe and kept his back to me for a moment. “You love me,” he said. “You think I'm the handsomest man you've ever seen.”

I fought it. I did. I fought his voice as hard as I've ever fought anything.

But it's hard to fight your own heart, especially when he was so handsome. Until that moment, no man had competed with Adam for sheer breathtaking male beauty—but his face and form palled beside Tim.

Tim turned to me and stared into my eyes. “You want me,” he said. “More than you wanted that ugly doctor you were dating.”

Of course I did. Desire made my body go languid and I arched my back a little. The pain in my arm was nothing to the desire I felt.

“The walking stick makes you rich,” I told him as he put a knee on the bed. “The fae know I have it and they want it back.” I tried to brace up on my elbow so I could kiss him, but my arm didn't work right. My other hand did, but it was already reaching up to caress the soft skin of his neck. “They'll get it, too. They have someone who knows how to find it.”

He pulled my hand away.

“It's at your work?”

“It should be.” After all, it followed me wherever I went. And I was going to go to my office. This beautiful man would take me.

He ran a hand over my breast, squeezed too hard, then released it and stood up. “This can wait. Come with me.”

 

My love had me drink some more from the goblet before we took his car to go to my office. I couldn't remember what it was that we were looking for there, but he'd tell me when we got there. That's what he told me. We were on 395 headed toward East Kennewick when he unzipped his jeans.

A trucker, passing us, honked his horn. So did the car in the other lane when Tim swerved too much and almost had a wreck.

He swore and pulled me off him. “We'll do that where there aren't so many cars,” he said, sounding breathless and almost giddy. He had me zip his pants again, because he couldn't manage. It was hard with only one hand, so I used the other one, too, ignoring the pain it caused.

When I'd finished, I looked out the window and wondered why my arm hurt so badly and why I was sick to my stomach. Then he picked the cup off the floor where it had fallen and gave it to me.

“Here, drink this.”

There was dirt on the outside of the cup, but the inside was full—which didn't make sense. It had been on its side on the floor mat under my feet. There shouldn't be any liquid there at all.

Then I remembered it was a fairy thing.

“Drink,” he said again.

I quit worrying about how it had happened, and took a sip.

“Not like that,” he said. “Drink the whole glass. Austin took two sips this morning and did exactly what I told him to do. You sure you aren't fae?”

I upended the goblet, drinking as fast as I could, though some of it spilled over and poured stickily down my neck. When it was empty, I looked for a place to set it. It didn't seem right to put it on the floor. Finally I managed to make the cup holder on my door fit around it.

“No,” I told him. “I'm not fae.”

I set my hands on my lap and watched them clench into fists. When the highway dropped us into east Kennewick, I told him how to find my shop.

“Would you shut up?” he said. “That noise is getting on my nerves. Take another drink.”

I hadn't realized I was making noise. I reached up and felt my vocal cords, which were indeed vibrating. The growl I'd been hearing must be me. It stopped as soon as I became aware of it. The cup was full again when I reached for it.

“That's better.”

He pulled into the parking lot and parked in front of the office.

I was so jittery that I had trouble opening the door of the car, and even when I was out, I was shaking like a junkie.

“What's the code?” he asked, standing in front of the door.

“One, one, two, zero,” I told him through the chattering of my teeth. “It's my birthday.”

The little light on the top switched from red to green: something in me relaxed and my jitters settled down.

He took my keys and opened the door, then locked it behind us. He looked through the office for a while, even pulling the step ladder over so he could get up high on the parts shelves. After a few minutes he started pulling things off the shelves and dumping them on the floor. A thermostat housing hit the cement floor and cracked. I would have to remember to reorder it, I thought. Maybe Gabriel could go through the parts and see what we could salvage. If I had to repay Zee, I couldn't afford to lose too much inventory.

“Mercy!” Suddenly Tim's face replaced the thermostat housing in my view. He looked angry, but I didn't think it had anything to do with the housing.

He hit me, so it must have been my fault that he was angry. He obviously wasn't used to fighting. Even with his borrowed strength, he only managed to knock me back a couple of steps. It hurt to breathe afterward; I recognized the feeling. One of my ribs was cracked or broken.

“What?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and told him again, “You need to get your thumb out of your fist before you hit someone or you'll break it.”

He swore and stormed out of the office and out to the car. When he came back, he had the goblet.

“Drink,” he said. “Drink it all.”

I did and the jitters got worse.

“I want you to focus,” he said. “Where is the walking stick?”

“It wouldn't be in here,” I told him solemnly. “It only stays places where I live. Like the Rabbit or my bed.”

“What?”

“It will be in the garage.” I let him into the heart of home.

The bay nearest the office was empty, but so was the other bay—which worried me until I remembered that the Karmann Ghia I'd been restoring was out getting more work done. Upholstery.

“I'm glad to hear it,” he said dryly. “Whoever Carmine is. Now where's the walking stick?”

It was lying across the top of my second biggest tool chest as if I'd set it down casually when I got some other tool. Clever stick. It hadn't been there when we walked into the garage, but I doubt Tim had noticed.

Tim picked it up and ran his hands over it. “Gotcha,” he said.

Not for long. I must not have said it out loud—or else maybe he didn't hear me. I was babbling again, so maybe it just had bled in with the rest of the words that were leaving my mouth. I took a breath and tried to direct what I said.

“Was it worth killing O'Donnell for?” I asked him. A dumb question but maybe it could keep my thoughts focused. He'd told me that, that I needed to focus.

As soon as the thought occurred to me, my head quit feeling so muzzy.

He caressed the stick. “I'd have killed O'Donnell for pleasure,” he said. “Like I did my father. The walking stick, the cup, they were gravy.” He laughed a little. “Very nice gravy.”

He leaned it against the tool chest and then turned to me.

“I think this is the perfect place,” he said.

He might have been handsome, but the expression on his face wasn't.

“So it was all a game,” he said. “All the talk of King Arthur and the flirting. Was that guy even your boyfriend?”

He was talking about Samuel. “No,” I said.

It was the truth. But I could have said it in a way that wouldn't make him angry. Why did I want my love angry with me?

Because I liked it when he was angry. But the picture that ran through my head was Adam, punching the bathroom door frame. So angry. Magnificent. And I knew to the bottom of my soul that he'd never turn that great strength against anyone he loved.

“So you were just using the doctor to shake up the situation, huh? And you invaded”—he liked the sound of that, so he said it again—“
invaded
my home. What did you think? Poor geek, he never gets any. What a loser. He'll be grateful for a few crumbs, eh?” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “What did you think? Flirt with the geek a little and he'll fall in love?”