Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (11 page)

Helene shook it off with frustrating difficulty. “I wasn’t wondering,” she said. “I’m not Miach’s . . .” She wasn’t certain what she was to him. Or what he was to her. She settled for: “We aren’t in a relationship.”

Deirdre cocked her head and looked at Helene. Her expressive face said she didn’t believe her.

“But I can sense him
all
over you,” said the otherworldly beauty. “And Miach MacCecht does not take casual lovers.”

That news shouldn’t have pleased Helene so much. It was one thing to want to know what it was like in a Fae’s bed. It was another to contemplate a relationship with one.

“He’s protecting me from another Fae,” Helene insisted. “One who wants to bring the wall between worlds down.”

Deirdre offered her a bittersweet smile. “They do love their wall, Miach and Finn, but the truth of it is, it won’t last forever.”

“Why do you say that?” Helene asked.

“Nothing lasts forever,” said Deirdre. “Nothing endures but the earth. Live long enough, and you’ll see empires fall, civilizations die, cities buried beneath the sand. The wall is two thousand years old. It’s like a Roman aqueduct. Well-built, of course. And it still works, but only because it lies undisturbed.”

Helene didn’t like that idea at all. “Miach will stop the Fae who’s behind this,” she said. She had faith in him.

“Miach might stop
this
Fae,” said Deirdre. “But Miach has no control—none at all—of the Wild Hunt on the other side of the wall. He can’t feel them. He is a sorcerer. He knows magic. Energy and mass. Bodies and mechanics. Elada is a warrior. He knows blades and killing and combat. Purblind, the pair of them. At least in this.”

Deidred shifted slightly, from one seemingly artless, perfectly studied posture to another. Helene had the feeling she belonged—that she
was
—on a stage. “But I—I’m an artist. I know emotion. I open myself to it, and I render it in two dimensions. And I can
feel
them.”

Helene felt a chill run down her spine. “What do you mean?”

Deirdre’s eyes took on a faraway look. “The Wild Hunt is agitated, angry, pressed up to the gates, ravening like a pack of wolves. And they’re
expectant
. They’re close to breaking through. I can feel the Prince’s dark hatred, and the Queen’s effulgent cruelty. I could almost paint them, but if I did, if I showed them true and whole, those pictures would drive you mad.”

The hairs on the back of Helene’s neck rose. “We can’t let them break through,” she said.

Deirdre shook her head, her eyes becoming focused, and now sad. “We can’t stop it. Nothing can. We can only, perhaps, postpone it.”

Something silver flashed in the air, and there was suddenly a knife in the Fae lady’s hands. “And defend, when the time comes, what is
ours
. I would open Kevin’s throat before I’d ever let the Wild Hunt have him.”

Helene didn’t doubt it. She realized that all of the Fae she had met, even Conn, now had things—loved ones—to protect in the human world.

Nieve arrived an hour later. She had a bag of clothes from Helene’s apartment and a bag of toys for little Garrett. Helene ran down the stairs when she heard the gates open, but Kevin stopped her before she could walk out the front door.

He apologized for the restriction. “Miach’s instructions. The gates and courtyard aren’t warded. Just the house.”

“So you know what they are, Miach and Deirdre and Elada?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Garrett stormed the house, giggling, and wrapped his arms around Helene’s legs. He held a rubber ball up to her, and she bent down to take it. “Thank you, Garrett,” she said.

Helene’s hair fell over her shoulder as she crouched next to the toddler, and little Garrett made a delighted sound and ran his fingers through the strands.

“He loves long hair,” said Nieve, whose own was short and curly. She came in carrying a baby bag and a satchel Helene recognized—clothes from her apartment. “Must be the Fae in him,” she added with a sigh.

Now that Helene knew how much Fae blood little Garrett must have, if his father was full-blooded, she searched for the telltale signs in his face, but he looked like any ordinary toddler, except for perhaps a slight tilt to his eyebrows and a hint of gauntness in his cheeks.

At a sound from the kitchen, the sensual, melodic voice of their Fae hostess, Garrett was off and running, shouting “Aunty DeeDee.” Elada deposited a portable toddler bed and a heap of bags on the stairs with as much dignity as a two-thousand-year-old warrior could muster when carrying powder-blue plastic, and left. Nieve set off in pursuit of Garrett. And Helene was alone in the hall with Kevin.

“How do you deal with it?” asked Helene. “How do you know that what you feel is genuine, and not . . . what
she
wants you to feel?”

Kevin shrugged. “If we both want me to feel it, then I’d say it’s pretty genuine. Or as good as it gets. But I had a granny who loved to tell stories, and I knew what Deirdre was the first time I saw her. Even if my rational mind couldn’t accept it, there was a primitive survival instinct that told me to be wary of her. I asked her out on a date, but I carried a piece of cold iron in my pocket that night.”

And Helene hadn’t. She’d gone to Miach without a talisman, without cold iron.

“Do you still have it?” Helene asked.

Kevin pulled a disk out of his pocket. It was black and flat and carved with whorls and dots. He flipped it up in the air, caught it, and offered it to Helene.

“Don’t you need it?”

“Its value is purely sentimental. Deirdre gave me an iron ring a long time ago.”

And Miach had given Helene nothing.

She accepted the iron disk with a word of thanks and tucked it in her skirt pocket.

The pretty, hidden house settled into a routine for the afternoon, with Nieve in the garden with Garrett, Deirdre in her studio painting, and mouth-watering aromas wafting up from the converted service ell. Apparently Kevin had once trained as a chef and did most of the cooking in the extraordinary little household. Enticed by the smell of something sweet and spicy, Helene peeked into the kitchen.

The room took up the entire service ell on the ground floor and boasted a giant fireplace at one end, a relic of the structure’s original function, but this was only decorative. The long room was filled with light from the sash windows on two sides, and a gleaming stainless-steel double range was built into a wall of pale-green wooden cabinets. The fridge and dishwasher, sinks and faucets were all modern, decorating-magazine-worthy examples of their kind, but they fit seamlessly into the character of the house, tempered by the custom woodwork and pale hardwood floors.

Helene couldn’t forgo a peek inside the oven, where a roast and a pie baked side by side. The sight reminded her that she’d barely eaten all day. She resisted the urge to slip a knife under the bubbling crust and taste the contents. Turning away from temptation, she climbed the back stairs to the second floor and found other appetites at play, other temptations on offer.

The door to Deirdre’s studio was slightly ajar. It was Deirdre’s voice, breathy, hypnotic, that caused Helene to stop and look. She could see only a slice of the room, but what she saw her made her pulse beat faster. Kevin was sprawled on the chaise in front of the window, sunlight burnishing his tan skin golden. He was gloriously naked, and Deirdre was straddling his muscular thighs, head thrown back, unbound hair cascading to the floor.

Helene took a step closer. The floorboard beneath her creaked and the batten door swung open. Deirdre turned, a sensual smile playing over her lips. She held out her hand, beckoned Helene forward.

There was enough Fae compulsion in it that Helene took the first step. Deirdre bounced on Kevin’s lap, her shapely glutes flexing, her large lush breasts—the kind Helene sometimes wished she had, even if for human women, they’d be impossible without surgical augmentation—rising and falling, nipples a succulent coral pink.

Helene tried to tear her eyes away, and instead locked eyes with Kevin. He offered her an encouraging smile and said, “Come join us.”

Helene wanted to. No question about that. It was a scenario she had fantasized about more than once. The night she had met Conn, she’d wondered what it would be like to join him and another woman. Later she had figured out that he had—consciously or not—
put
that thought in her head. But she was self-aware enough to realize that the suggestion had been planted in fertile ground.

“Perhaps,” Deirdre murmured breathlessly, without breaking the rhythm of her ride, “she prefers her solitary pleasures. Or perhaps she’ll enjoy herself more if we have Miach . . . dial in.”

Now Helene watched as Kevin slid his hands down Deirdre’s porcelain-skinned back to cradle and separate her buttocks, then surged up into her, causing the Fae to throw her head back in an abandoned moan. Helene could not help imagining what it would be like to push the door fully open, step into the room, and approach those conjoined, writhing bodies. How it would be to feel, as she neared, their heat. To wait and watch a moment, and then, to touch them.

Then she realized that she had already done so. She had already entered the room, crossed the floor, come near enough to touch them, drawn by the invitation—and perhaps the command—in Deirdre’s sultry cries.

A thought, not entirely her own, that she should touch Kevin’s broad, muscular chest, run her fingers through the silk of Deirdre’s honey-gold hair, entered her mind. Other ideas and images, even more appealing and crudely erotic, began to fire her mind and body.

Helene turned and ran.

She heard, dimly, Deirdre laugh and Kevin say something chiding to her. But then he gasped, and Helene knew that they were caught up in themselves, in their pleasure, again and that she was, thankfully, forgotten.

Still flushed and flustered, Helene climbed the stairs to her room. Since she couldn’t leave the house, she explored the roof deck above her skylight.

It was tiny, just big enough for two deck chairs and a table. She had a view of the garden from there, could see Garrett running around in circles. Helene closed her eyes gratefully. Her heart slowed, her needs and desires subsided. The sun was warm on her face.

For a brief instant, the invisible
geis
above her knee burned like a brand. Fear clutched her. She could feel something take hold of her mind, and fought to stay conscious, in control of her mind and body. And when she realized that she was going to lose, that the blackness was coming, she fought to remember this—but then there was simply oblivion.

Chapter 8

H
elene shivered. She was cold and wet, water soaking her clothes and streaming from her hair. She was lying on the driveway outside Deirdre’s house, the rough cobbles biting into her back. Anxious faces peered down at her.

Nieve looked worried. Kevin hovered over her shoulder looking equally concerned.

“What happened?” asked Helene.

“The roof deck wasn’t warded,” said Deirdre. “I knew something like this would happen eventually. It’s Druids,” she said. “It has to be them.”

“There aren’t any more Druids, Aunty,” said Nieve soothingly.

“I didn’t think,” said Kevin. He was holding a garden hose in his hand, still dripping. That explained the water. “We only finished building it this year. I’m so sorry, Helene.”

Helene tried to sit up. Nothing hurt or felt broken. “Did I jump?”

“You were climbing down the wisteria when I looked up,” said Nieve. “I shouted, but you paid no attention to me. And I tried other things—I’ve got a little power in my voice, but not like the old man—but I couldn’t get through to you. I screamed, and Kevin and Deirdre came running.”

Helene noted that Kevin wore only pants—no shirt—and Deirdre still looked picturesquely tumbled from their interlude in the studio.

Nieve went on, “Kevin climbed up and brought you down in a fireman’s carry. When he laid you down, you got up and started off toward the gate. It was like you were sleepwalking. Until Garrett started crying and yelled at you to come back. He touched you somehow, and then you collapsed. Kevin thought the water might wake you up.”

Little Garrett was contentedly bouncing his ball on the steps now, but his voice had called her back, and saved her.

“I don’t think we should tell the old man,” said Nieve.

A ball rolled up to her knees and little Garrett came toddling after. He handed her a lollipop. “My turn next,” he said. “I want to climb!”

“So much for not telling Miach,” said Deirdre. “He’s already here.”

Helene didn’t know how Deirdre had known, but a second later the driveway gates opened and Miach’s Range Rover rolled into the courtyard with Elada at the wheel.

The back doors opened first and Beth Carter jumped out.

Helene’s eyes filled with tears. She hadn’t realized how desperately she’d wanted to see her best friend, to confide in her, to know she was safe. The unsuccessful phone calls had left her shaking with frustration and loneliness, unable because of the
geis
on her shoulder to share her troubles with the woman who had always been her closest confidante and staunchest ally.

And who had always been far unluckier in love than Helene. Until now. The brawny blond Fae warrior who alighted from the opposite side of the Range Rover scanned the courtyard, the flanking houses, and the upper story windows with wary eyes, always alert for danger to the tiny Druid to whom he had tied himself.

His eyes settled finally on Kevin Phelan, and there was a warning in them. Beth Carter was his. Conn’s. Helene doubted that Kevin had meant anything by the sweeping assessment he had just made of Beth Carter, a masculine inventory of her curves, her brown liquid eyes and chestnut hair.

Or at least she doubted that he’d meant anything provocative or offensive. Most attractive visitors to Deirdre’s were probably invited to
share
. And Beth had always been rather beautiful, had grown into her fullest beauty in the months since she had met Conn.

Helene was reassured when Miach alighted from the car and offered her a wry smile, aware of Kevin’s scrutiny of Beth Carter. As Beth Carter was not. The archaeologist was totally oblivious to Kevin’s roving eye. Her entire focus was on Helene. She ran forward with open arms.

Deirdre moved in a blur. She
passed
through the space dividing them to appear behind Beth, two silver knives flashing in her graceful white hands. In the blink of an eye she had Beth Carter on her knees on the flagstones, a razor sharp blade pressed to her throat.

“Druid!”
Deirdre hissed.

Everyone in the little courtyard froze.

Helene was less than a foot away from the pair and could see Beth’s chest rise and fall. She knew the terror her best friend must be experiencing. Miach’s son Brian had held a knife to Helene’s throat in Beth’s apartment. Beth had bargained with him to save Helene’s life, but Brian had been a rational half-blood.

Deirdre was neither rational nor half-blooded, and there was nothing sane in her wide Fae eyes at that moment. They were fixed on some far-off point, seeing, Helene suspected, into the past.

“Hurt her,” said Conn of the Hundred Battles, his sword already in his hand, “even a little, and I
will
kill you, Deirdre.”

Deirdre laughed. It was a mad cackle, a far cry from the musical sounds she had made in her light-filled studio. “I’d prefer a clean death to Druid torture, Betrayer. They did not
cut
you, Conn of the Hundred Battles, because you were their lapdog. Because you helped them. As you are still
helping
them now. I can feel you all over this one,” she spat out, yanking Beth’s hair and baring more of the Druid’s throat to her silvery Fae blade.

Miach stepped forward and put his hand over Conn’s sword.

“Beth
is
a Druid, Deirdre,” said the sorcerer. “You are not wrong. But she’s an ally. She’s going to help me keep the wall between worlds in place.”

“The Druids split you open, fool!” cried Deirdre. “Flayed you. Cut you over and over again. How can you suffer one of
them
to live?”

“I don’t just suffer her to live. I’ve sworn to protect her, Deidre, as has Conn. He’s done it because he loves her, as you love Kevin, and I’ve done it because I will protect my family from the Wild Hunt at any cost.”

Tears streamed down Deirdre’s face. “You killed them all when you freed me. I never got to strike a single blow in vengeance, to slit a single throat. They were
all
dead. Even the small ones.”

Miach flinched. Helene didn’t. Elada had told her that the Fae had done terrible things to the Druids. A bloody and horrific feud. But not Beth’s. Not after two thousand years

“Beth,” said Miach, “is our only hope of preserving the walls. We both know they are weakening. I can measure it, but I know you can
feel
it, Deirdre. Our terrible brothers and sisters, clamoring to come back. What do you think they will do with Nieve, and little Garrett? What sport will they think of to amuse themselves with such creatures, Fae in constitution, human in disposition? What use do you think the Wild Hunt will make of your mortal lover, Kevin? Do you think they will allow you to keep his beauty and his goodness all for yourself, unspoiled?”

With an animal cry Deirdre dropped the knife and turned toward the house. Beth rolled away from her with an athleticism she must have acquired recently, because Helene had never known her to be so nimble. Tough, yes; nimble, no. Conn moved swiftly to put himself between his lover and the weeping Fae beauty.

And it was Kevin who stepped forward and took Deirdre into his arms, her pale skin porcelain against his tanned body. He led her gently, into the house, the sound of her weeping striking a chord deep within Helene.

Miach watched her go, then he turned to Helene, and his face took on a quizzical expression.

“Why are you all wet?” he asked.

“You look like hell, too,” she said. It was true. The planes of his bladelike cheeks were hollow; the shadows beneath his eyes had deepened. It made him look feral, dangerous, hungry. But she knew that it was a further symptom of the iron poisoning and the malignant workings of the
geis
.

“You should have stopped on the way and withered the trees on the Common,” she told him.

“I desecrated a good swath of the Public Garden just to look this good,” he said. “The little Druid’s curse is quite virulent, on top of the iron poisoning. Fortunately our
conversation
on the phone seems not to have exacerbated the problem.”

Helene blushed at the thought of their conversation. Was
everyone
going to keep bringing it up? “Have you talked to Beth about removing the
geis
?” she asked.

“I thought that might be better coming from you,” replied Miach. “It was you she cast it to protect.” In a low voice he added, “And I have some cause to believe that you’ve changed your opinion about the pros and cons of having a Fae lover.”

Her mouth felt suddenly dry. She’d experienced the benefits more than once today. On the second occasion, they hadn’t even been in the same zip code and it had still been better than any other sex in her life.

“Yes,” she said. “The fringe benefits are appealing.”

He flashed her a smug smile. She wasn’t sure if she liked that nor not. Then he said, “Now tell me why you look like you’ve been playing in the sprinkler.”

“Our mysterious friend tried to summon me again, but your grandson, with some help from Kevin, thwarted him.”

Miach raised an eyebrow at this. “The whole story, please,” he said.

When she was done telling it, he cursed once more in a language she didn’t understand. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“Nothing fit for your innocent ears,” said Miach. He took a strand of Helene’s wet hair between his fingers, rubbed it thoughtfully. “But I’m glad you are all right. I have arranged the meeting with Finn. His son”—Helene could hear the distaste in Miach’s voice—“is powerful and talented enough to remove the memory parasite, with my guidance, that is. But Beth must free me from my vow first. It isn’t safe for any of us to walk into Finn’s territory if I’m iron poisoned and
geis
-compromised.”

“I’ll speak to her,” said Helene. “I want her to remove the
geis
.”

Miach cocked his head and looked at her. “Because you don’t want me to die?” he asked, a mischievous note in his voice.

“You have your uses,” she said. And she had a piece of cold iron in her pocket. Her fingers were touching it now. He sounded just as he had in his library, when he’d driven her crazy with his hands and his mouth on the sofa. And as he had on the phone. Without glamour. That had all been pure attraction. And if they could find out who was stalking her and stop them, there was a world of possibilities for them to explore. Although there would have to be boundaries.

Miach smiled. “Apparently, there is a new window for me to ward. And I’m going to talk to Deirdre soon. Perhaps—after that meltdown and the waterworks a few minutes ago—I can reconcile her to Beth’s presence in our midst.”

Helene and Beth retreated to the parlor to talk, while Miach and Elada went to deal with Helene’s unwarded window. It struck Helene that Conn would be at loose ends while they talked. He’d threatened the Fae mistress of the household and warned off her mortal lover with a killing look. His welcome would be lukewarm at best.

Not that there was anyone left to snub him. Deirdre had gone up to her studio with Kevin, and Nieve had followed with Garret, whom Deirdre had earlier apparently promised a set of pastels and a roll of very big paper. And Miach and Elada were inspecting the window and roof deck.

“What will Conn do while we’re in here?” she asked Beth. “He looked daggers at Kevin earlier for checking you out.”

“Did he?” Beth asked.

Helene nodded. “Yup.”

“It’s just a Fae thing,” said Beth. “It’s nothing personal. If Kevin spends much time with other Fae, he’ll understand. Conn will apologize to Deirdre, and then I expect he’ll help Kevin make dinner.”

“The man wears a sword on his back,” said Helene. “He doesn’t seem like the domestic type.”

Beth shrugged. “He likes to eat. Food fascinates him. Ancient Ireland didn’t exactly boast a varied, or sophisticated, cuisine. When we travel, he makes up for lost eating. And he likes to bring things back,” said Beth, rolling her eyes now. “When we flew home to Boston from Paris the last time, he had two wheels of runny raw cheese in our bag. Totally illegal to import. And they smelled like rotten eggs. He may have glamoured the customs agents into not seeing them, but everyone on the plane could certainly smell them.”

Beth burst out laughing and Helene joined her.

“Are you happy, Beth?” Helene asked suddenly. “In his world? Are you really happy?”

Beth looked surprised. “I’ve never really thought about it that way. But now that you ask, I’d have to say that I don’t feel like I live in
his
world. But I did feel that way when I was married to Frank. When I was Frank’s wife I saw only his friends, ate only the foods he liked to have in the house, went on the vacations he enjoyed, read the books he read. I know that sounds strange, because Frank was human—or at least mostly human—and Conn’s from another culture, another race, even another time. But it’s more like Conn and I have created our own world. We have places that we like to go that are our places, and books we share with each other, foods we introduce to each other. Although I can’t say that I’ve grown to love the stinky cheese. Why are you asking?” Then Beth’s face lit up. “Have you met someone?”