Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel)

by D. L. McDermott

  “The geis on your shoulder was light magic, a simple spell, temporary, requiring little time and less energy to cast. A summoning spell is a different matter entirely. A geis is only one of several different ways to work one, but none of them are easy to remove. Summoning spells have to be woven into the body and mind. And if this Fae has used the most tenacious—and dangerous—means of calling and controlling you, then nothing will sever that connection except death. His, or yours.”

  • • •

  Miach watched the blood leave Helene’s face. He had enjoyed touching her, had gone on rubbing her shoulders long after the skin there had healed.

  And she had let him. A promising sign.

  But this was not how he had imagined meeting her again. The first time he’d seen her, the leggy blonde had been wearing the most absurd costume—shorts, fur boots, and a fuzzy sweater—and she’d been trying to wrest her cell phone back from Conn of the Hundred Battles. Which was like watching a puppy attack a statue.

  Miach had wanted her instantly.

  Her looks, naturally, had appealed to him. At five-foot-ten, she had the stature of an Amazon. Her tanned skin spoke of time outdoors, of the warmth of the sun, of long wooded trails, of rocky, wild beaches: the natural world of the Fae, before they had fallen. He’d pictured how she would look flushed and naked in his bed, her muscled calves wrapped around his waist, her golden skin contrasting with his pale Fae complexion.

  She kept her hair long, as all the Fae once had, but as Miach and Finn and those who dwelt in human cities no longer could. It attracted too much attention, and the Tuatha Dé Danann were no longer numerous or strong enough to lord it over the race of men. Their only choice, if they wished to live like civilized beings, was to pass unnoticed in the world of men, or hide like Miach’s family in Celtic enclaves where memories were long and the locals were willing to pay their tithe to the Good Neighbors, the Fair Folk, the Aes Sídhe, in exchange for protection.

  Helene’s flamboyant dress had excited his Fae love of ornament. The scallop of lace thong peeking out from her shorts, the beaded flowers on her soft fur boots. Today she wore a knitted cotton tank top in cornflower blue that clung to her gentle curves over a slim pencil skirt in chocolate brown. It was a subdued costume for Helene, if you missed the all-grown-up Mary-Jane shoes in matching shades of blue and brown that added two inches to her already unusual height.

  But his desire for her had been kindled by more than just her appearance.

  The fierceness with which she had defended her friend from the stoic Conn had hinted at an equal ferocity in bed. And when Miach had sent Elada after the two women with orders to kill Beth Carter, Helene had cleverly waylaid Elada and thrown him off the Druid’s trail, at great personal risk to herself.

  She had been attracted to Miach as well, he sensed—until he knocked her unconscious. He had done it to prevent her from taking Beth Carter to the hospital, where conventional medical treatment would have killed the little Druid. But there had been no way to explain that to Helene at the time, and so he’d chosen the most expedient route to saving Beth Carter’s life.

  It might have been possible to win Helene back if that had been his only transgression, but Helene also blamed him—quite wrongly, in fact—in her kidnapping. That had been Miach’s renegade son Brian’s doing, and none of his.

  And to all this add that he had promised Beth Carter, whose help he would need to keep the wall between worlds intact, that he would not pursue Helene. Such had been the geis he’d accepted.

  But Beth had never considered that Helene might come to him.

  With good reason. After the kidnapping, Helene had wanted nothing to do with Miach.

  Now her life depended on her placing her trust in him. And because Helene had come to Miach, it might be possible to circumvent some of the intention of Beth’s geis. It would be a tricky thing, because if he violated the Druid’s prohibition against seducing Helene Whitney, he would be weakened by it, made vulnerable to attack by his enemies.

  But if Helene came to him—not just to his house but to his bed—willingly, it might not violate the geis. And a geis was only as strong as the Fae or Druid who worked it. Beth was still learning to harness her power and might not have been able to channel her full intention—which no doubt had been sweepingly broad—into the prohibition. If so, Miach might be able to enjoy Helene without untoward consequences.

  “You must let me search your body for another geis,” he said.

  “No.” Her refusal was absolute.

  “Then this Fae will be able to summon you again. The wards on my house will protect you, but set foot outside its doors without me or Elada, and we can do nothing to stop him.”

  “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 diluted 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 by using 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 each other. 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.”

  Chapter 3

  Helene knew that he was right. She had very few choices. None, really. But she could not accept his help if it meant that she would end up in his bed. That was just trading one form of oblivion for another, no matter how much she wanted him physically. It was impossible to have a fling with a Fae. Their glamour was too intense. Even if becoming Miach’s lover didn’t drive her mad, it would erode her will, her independence, her personhood. There was no way to remain immune from the sway of the sorcerer’s voice, his eyes, his intense charisma.

  Unless they struck a bargain she could accept. “What do you propose?” she asked.

  “If your surveillance cameras didn’t record you leaving the building, then this Fae took you somewhere inside the building.”

  “But why?” she asked. The question had been plaguing her. “What could he possibly want in the museum? What could he possibly want with me?”

  “Perhaps there are Fae artifacts in the collection that he desires. Some trinket he is searching for. Your position as chief fundraiser allows you to move freely through the building.”

  “If he just wanted to steal something, why would he have to come back so many times?”

  “The answer to that question most likely lies in your museum,” he said. “We will go there together and review the security footage for the days and times when you blacked out. If your Fae attacker was in the building, he might have been caught on camera. I should be able to spot him, even if he wore a human glamour. The Fae can hide from humans, but not easily from one another. And there are only so many free Fae aboveground. I will likely recognize him. Then I will find him, and kill him.”

  Now came the part she suspected she wouldn’t like. “And if you can’t spot him in the surveillance footage?”

  “Then you will agree to one of the other options. Elada’s protection, or my search of your body for the geis.”

  The thought of his hands on her body made her flush. But it was a purely physical longing. And it probably owed more than a little to his glamour. Beth had said that the truly skilled Fae could insinuate themselves in your mind before you noticed, unless you kept your guard up at all times and learned how to shut them out as Beth had. And even then . . .

  “I’ll agree, if you will make an additional promise,” she said.

  He smiled. It drew attention to his wide mouth and his sensual lips. He liked bargaining with her, because he intended to come out ahead. “Make your condition,” he replied.

  “You’ll stay out of my head. I don’t want you. I will never want you.”

  His smile didn’t fade. “Agreed.”

  It was too easy. Her brief brush with the Fae had shown her that they never gave anything away for free. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

  “Your condition is based on a false premise. I have no need to be in your head. Because you do want me,” he said.

  “Maybe. In some ways. But it’s like wanting chocolate cake for breakfast. I know I’ll regret it later, so I’m resolved not to indulge.”

  Now his smile grew wider. “Does that mean you’ve never eaten chocolate cake for breakfast?” he asked.

  “That isn’t the point. I want you to stay out of my head.”

  “Very well,” said Miach. “I’ll keep out, until you give me permission to enter there.”

  “I’ll never do that.”

  “You never thought you would come here, either.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “You did have a choice. Between an unknown Fae assailant, and me. You chose the devil you know.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll dance to your tune.”

  “Perhaps not, but most do, when the music is played by a Fae.”

  She shook her head. “Beth told me how it ends for humans, an affair with a Fae. Madness and death. Wasting away, pining.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t be like that. It didn’t end that way for Beth. It wouldn’t end that way for you, Helene. You’re not a peasant fresh from the fields. You’re an educated woman with a strong mind, a career and interests. You’ve had lovers before me, and you’ll have others after.”

  “You talk as though my capitulation is a certainty. But you’ve agreed to stay out of my head, and you can’t seduce me, because Beth placed a geis on you.”

  “A minor impediment,” he said. “That only means that the first time, you’ll have to seduce me.”

  She didn’t like his confident tone. It was possible that she had failed to see some loophole in their agreement, that he had some other means of beguiling her. Beth would know, but Beth wasn’t here. And there was no one else who could help her. She knew too little about his world to be bargaining with a Fae, but she had no choice but to trust him, at least until Beth came home.

  • • •

  Miach called for his Porsche, and Liam brought it up the gravel drive to the back door. Helene made polite compliments about the garden, which Nieve beamed at, as the garden was her preserve, but it was the car that captured and held the leggy blonde’s attention.

  Helene liked the little roadster. He could tell by the way her eyes traveled the sleek body and the way she sighed with pleasure when she slid into the leather seat. That gratified him. There were Fae who despised all machines, the noise and smell and smoke of their engines, but Miach was not one of them. The Fae ability to pass almost instantly through great distances was a limited gift. Most of the Aes Sídhe couldn’t carry very much with them when they passed. Small items, yes, but the weaker Fae had difficulty with even a satchel or long blade.

  And only a very few could carry another person with them when they passed. Miach could, but it drained his energies and left him useless in a fight. The Prince Consort was capable of it. He had abducted Beth Carter to Ireland that way.

  There were still Fae who scorned any other means of crossing distances, but Miach had seen the possibilities in transportation as far back as the trading ships that had plied the Irish Sea, that brought back cargoes of spice and silk and later a delicacy the Fae had once had to pass great distances to sample: coffee. For Miach’s life today, with his business interests and his family, cars were a necessity. He’d even acquired a minivan for Nieve and Garrett and Garrett’s little cousins, although Elada refused to drive it—even just to reposition it in the circular gravel drive.

  The Porsche, however, was no minivan, and Helene Whitney clearly appreciated it. In Miach’s experience, a woman who appreciated a fine car was a sensual woman.

  And she was still ogling the car’s details when they crossed the Charles River. He found that very encouraging . . .

  A few minutes later they became bog
ged down in the slow streets that ran through the university. The neighborhood surrounding the school was all narrow lanes lined with Georgian redbrick buildings and painted clapboard houses. The students walked in the streets, crossing back and forth between their classes and the bookstores and cafés that populated the square. It was charming, if you didn’t need to be anywhere in a hurry. As the minutes dragged on, Helene stopped examining the car and started to fidget. She had something on her mind.

  When a juggler on stilts waded into the street and the traffic came to a complete standstill in the square, Helene turned to him and said, “I’m grateful for your help, but I want you to understand that the fact I came to you doesn’t mean anything. I came to you because I had nowhere else to turn.”

  “How flattering,” said Miach. And completely untrue. Helene Whitney was a mistress of self-deception. She could have driven straight to Logan Airport, hopped on a flight to Ireland, and gone to Beth Carter. But she hadn’t.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, sounding almost chastened. “I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not like Beth. I’m happy. I haven’t had terrible experiences with men. I like my life the way it is. I’m not looking for anything else.”

  “But you don’t have a lover at the moment,” said Miach. He knew because he had made it is his business to know. When she had begun dating a marine biologist on the faculty, he’d considered warning the bastard off. The measure had been unnecessary. The man had been married, and careless. Helene found out and ended it immediately. That had pleased Miach. The Fae were sensation hungry, could be hedonists when they chose, might invite others into their beds for novelty or sport if all parties were agreeable, but they prized loyalty. And so, it seemed, did Helene Whitney.

  “No,” she agreed. “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Yes, it does. You’re older than Beth, aren’t you?” he asked. “Thirty? Even if you don’t look it. And you’ve never been married. You date, but nothing lasts longer than a few months. That means you’re looking for something and aren’t finding it. That you aren’t satisfied.”