“There has to be another way,” she insisted.
There were other ways. She wasn’t going to like any of them. “You could stay here, with me, and when he summoned you next, I could follow you and kill him.”
“No. This was a mistake,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“Then Elada is coming with you. Someone has to watch you, Helene. Whatever Fae did this to you, when he summons you next, he will see that the geis on your shoulder is gone. He will know that you are aware of him—and that another Sídhe is involved. If he wishes to remain undiscovered—and if he realizes that you are under my protection, he will—the easiest way to ensure that will be to kill you.”
She shook her head. “I am not under your protection.”
“Beth Carter is my ally. You are her closest friend. I am obligated to keep you safe. My ties to the little Druid demand as much. And my interest in you demands the same.”
“You promised Beth you would leave me alone. She told me it was a vow, a geis.”
“And I will obey it until such time as she lifts it from me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because you will ask her to. You’re an intelligent woman, Helene. The advantages of taking a Fae lover are impossible to ignore.”
“You mean like madness and death.”
“Only the weak and simple-minded go mad,” he said. “And I have no need or desire to prey on such women. There are more than enough beautiful and strong-willed females in the world to choose from. Most of them would not hesitate to become my lover. Once you understand what you have to gain, you’ll come to my bed of your own free will.”
“Well, you certainly make a persuasive case for hooking up,” Helene remarked acidly. She plucked her bag off the floor. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “I’m leaving. And if Elada follows me, I’ll call the police. Beth said you and your family are shy of the police.”
The police were a nuisance. Not the local beat cops, who were Southie natives and knew what was owed the Fae, but the police from across the channel could make trouble for Miach and his family, and their followers. They would notice things that they should not. Even the most dilute half-bloods in Miach’s extended family were preternaturally long lived, looked thirty when they were as old as seventy, were forced to change names and identities every few decades in this modern world of record-keeping and bureaucracy.
Miach had survived the intense interest of the Druids, their crude experiments on his body. They had searched inside his chest for the source of Fae power with the primitive implements of the first millennia, splitting him open at the sternum, prying apart his ribs. He still remembered the excruciating pain; he still bore the scars. And he did not care to contemplate what the men of this age would do to his family with their new technology, their drugs, machines and engines, if they discovered the existence of the Fae.
He could not allow Helene to call the police.
He could force her to stay, use his glamour to overpower her resistance, get inside her mind and plant a false trust in him. But that would be risky. It might, for one thing, violate the geis Beth had placed on him to stay away from Helene Whitney. And violating his geis would diminish him. He couldn’t afford to be weakened if he was to face and kill whoever was doing this to her. And more worrying still, depending on what kind of sorcery his unnamed adversary had used on Helene, his own magical tampering might harm or kill her.
The other option was to knock her out cold and lock her in the house. But that was almost certain to violate his geis.
Nor could he order Elada to follow her if she threatened to call the police, so long as there was any other alternative. The bond between sorcerer and right hand went two ways. They protected one another. He could not send Elada into unnecessary danger when other, less direct possibilities existed.
“Don’t go,” Miach said. “I won’t send Elada after you, if you’ll make a bargain with me.”
Helene eyed him suspiciously. “Beth told me never to make a bargain with a Fae.”
“Sound advice,” he said. “A fine general rule. But you have very few choices at the moment. If you cannot see your way clear to accepting my help, then as soon as you leave this house, you will be at the mercy of the Fae who put that geis on you.”
She paled. “I could call Beth,” she said.
“We will call Beth. The Druid needs to know what is happening here. But she is three thousand miles away. It will take her a day or more to return home. During that time this Fae could summon you again. And this time, afterward, you might not wake up at your desk. You might not wake up at all.”
Don't miss the next two installments in the Cold Iron Series!
In Book Two in the Cold Iron Series, Helene Whitney's only hope of escaping an unknown assailant lies with the Fae sorcerer Miach MacCecht, a man she knows she can never trust—and who may prove impossible to resist.
Silver Skin
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In Book Three in the Cold Iron Series, Fae warrior Elada Brightsword risks everything to save the woman he loves, a powerful bard whose voice can shatter the strongest magical constructs.
Stone Song
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* * *
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Donna Thorland
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition February 2014
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ISBN 978-1-4767-3439-2
Cold Iron Page 28
