Cold Iron

by D. L. McDermott

  She shook her head.

  “You’re safe now.”

  Still no move. Then it occurred to him that she’d been menaced for hours by men who looked—to one degree or another—like him. And now he was looming in the only exit from the space where she’d been confined.

  He drew back from the opening, took his jacket off, and held it out to her. “Let’s get you home.”

  She hesitated, then unfolded herself and slid her legs—long, tanned, glorious legs—from the dank hole. She used the low door to steady herself and stood up, the relief plain on her face. “You’ll feel better when you get outside,” he promised.

  But she stood there unmoving, outside the door to her tiny prison. “He lay on the other side of the door,” she said. It took him a moment to catch up. She was talking about Brian. “He locked me in, and then he lay down out here and told me what he was doing to himself, and what he was going to do to me.”

  His son was not true Fae, but there was rot in Brian, cruelty, as vicious as anything found in a full-blood. And at present he had no idea what to do about it.

  He took a step toward her. “If the memory troubles you, I will remove it.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Or not.

  “And stay out of my head.”

  So she could feel his tentative exploration. Of course she could. She was intelligent, and she’d been exposed to Fae compulsion more than once today.

  “I apologize,” he said. They weren’t words he used often. He ran South Boston, for fuck’s sake. His word was law on the peninsula, and it was scripture to his family. “I was only trying to help, to remove some of the trauma. It was for your own good.”

  “And this?” She turned her leg to expose the mark on her inner thigh. “Was this for my own good? Or yours?”

  He was Fae, so the sight of his scribble on her sensitive inner thigh gratified him. But he had lived among men a long time, was a father and a grandfather many times over, and his motivations filled him with shame. So he was honest. “No. That was entirely selfish. I wanted to be able to find you once Conn’s Druid was out of danger.” He left for what unspoken. “You’re very lovely,” he said.

  And then, because she was still looking at him like something found at the bottom of a pond, he added, “It preserved you from Brian.” And then he realized that the unspoken part of that sentiment was, for me.

  Helene slugged him. Hauled back and hit him square in the jaw with a solid right hook. As good as anything he’d taught his legion of tomboy daughters and granddaughters to dish out—hoping they’d make good use of the skill if ever men treated them as he had just treated Helene.

  She walked, half-bent beneath the low ceiling, out of the room, and he heard her silly fur boots thumping down the stairs.

  Elada appeared around the corner. “How did that go?”

  “As well as could be expected. See that she gets down to the boat.”

  Elada raised an eyebrow. “That one,” he said, “mark or no mark, won’t let you touch her any time soon.”

  “True. But lucky for her, I’m a patient man.”

  Beth and Conn were finally alone. The others had left the kitchen. The Druid voice inside her had gone quiet. With her arms wrapped around his waist and her head pressed to his chest, all she could hear was his heartbeat. He was holding her close, one hand on the small of her back and the other across her shoulders. She felt cherished, warm, protected.

  It was too soon for love, Beth knew that. And he’d made it clear that the Fae never made permanent alliances with their mortal lovers. So be it. Whatever it was they could have together, she wanted it.

  He began stroking her back, his touch at first reassuring and light, then with a subtle pressure that reminded her of the geis tightening on her shoulder.

  That’s when it occurred to her that while she could feel the geis, and certainly felt drawn to Conn, it was not an irresistible compulsion. Not a sure road to madness, as Miach had warned.

  She gently disentangled herself from Conn’s arms. “I want you,” she said.

  He laughed. “Here? Now?”

  She rolled her eyes at him, then admitted, “Kind of. But not the way Miach said. I want to make love with you, but I won’t go mad if it doesn’t happen. I don’t understand it. I can still feel the geis, but it isn’t ruling me, like it was at Miach’s bar, or afterward, when we went home to my apartment. When I wanted you, even in the middle of a malaria attack.”

  Conn glanced at the open door to the hall, put his fingers to his lips, and walked softly over to close it. Then he returned to Beth and spoke in low quiet tones. “Do not allow Miach to see this,” he said.

  He unfastened the pewter clasp of her wooly vest. She felt a rush of sensation when his knuckles brushed her breast. Okay, maybe she wouldn’t die for want of him, but she responded to him as to no other man. The warmth of his fingers undoing the buttons on her blouse penetrated the cloth, heated the skin beneath. He bared her shoulder.

  The quicksilver tattoo lay flat against her skin, but it was no longer the same symbol Miach had drawn. The tail of the knot, just above her breast, was gone. A new line rose from it, as though the pen had dipped and come back up and was now beginning a new character. Beth’s character.

  “You are rewriting the geis,” he said. “The Druid inside you won’t tolerate being ruled by a Fae.”

  “You sound as though that makes you sad.”

  “I don’t want to rule you, Beth. But I do want to touch you.” He was doing so now. “And I want you to enjoy it.” She was. “And because your ex-husband shamed and degraded you and made you feel less than beautiful, I thought the geis might free you to feel.”

  “I feel,” she gasped. His finger had dipped into the lacy cup of her bra and hooked her nipple. He pushed the other cup down and lowered his mouth to it. She felt. The geis, to be certain, increased the pleasure, amplified it. But she felt no compulsion. She threaded her hands through his hair—

  “Your hair!” she said. It was short. Chopped off above his collar. She hadn’t noticed before, in her relief and confusion.

  He lifted his head, his face strangely vulnerable. “Does it distress you?”

  “It was beautiful, but I like this, too.” It emphasized the sharp planes of his face, his harsh cheekbones and chiseled jaw. “But what happened?”

  “Miach. He thought my hair was too conspicuous.”

  “It was definitely memorable,” she admitted, remembering the feel of it brushing her breasts in Clonmel.

  “It will grow back,” he promised, fixing the cups of her bra and starting to button her blouse.

  She felt disappointed and wondered for a moment if the geis was having an effect on her after all, because sex in a filthy kitchen under harsh lights with uncertain allies on the other side of the door wouldn’t normally appeal to her. But she knew it wasn’t the geis. It was Conn.

  “Don’t you want to . . . ” She trailed off. Fuck me sounded crude.

  “Yes.” He smiled wickedly. “Very much. But I want to take my time with you, Beth Carter.”

  “Oh.” The thought made her so hot she could barely think.

  “The geis does have an effect on you, you know. It may not rule you,” he said, popping open the button on her cords and slipping his fingers under the waistband of her panties and then down, down—

  “Oh!” She leaned back against the table for support.

  “But it heightens your arousal.” He stroked her, his fingers hot against her slick nub. He was doing something extraordinarily wicked with them, his index and middle digits. They worked in tandem, sliding back and forth until she was panting and her mouth was open and his descended to swallow the deep, involuntary groan she couldn’t contain as she climaxed.

  “There,” he said, when he lifted his head and her body stopped shuddering. “You
r 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.

  Conn 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.

  Beth 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

  Don’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 dr
opped 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.”