Stone Cold

by Rory Ni Coileain

  “Of course. But you’re feeding me first, or did you forget that part?”

  Maelduin could imagine Terry, sprawled out on his back, his hard abs rising and falling with his laughter. If all humans were as perfectly toned as Terry, life in the human world was going to be distracting…

  … assuming he ever wanted to look at anyone else.

  Wait. What?

  “What do you want to eat?”

  “I was trying to tell you.” There was still laughter in Terry’s voice. “There’s a good-sized chunk of roast beef in the fridge, I didn’t feel like cooking for one night before last. And there should be a couple of bagels in there, too. And horseradish mustard. We can pretend roast beef sandwiches are breakfast—I have to get my strength back up.”

  The flood of images accompanying Terry’s instructions left Maelduin feeling dizzy. But at least now he knew what the tall white box against the wall was. Fridge. He tugged on the box’s metal handle, and cold air spilled out. On one shelf was a thin film wrapped loosely around two small round loaves of bread pierced through the center. Bagels. On another was a platter, with a slab of cooked meat tented with more of the clinging film. Roast beef. Maelduin touched the film; it dented under his finger, then sprang back. He could not imagine what it was. At least he recognized the beef. He knew cattle, from the Realm, though they were more often raided than eaten.

  He wondered what a “horse-radish” looked like. That image had not been forthcoming, or else he had missed it in the flood of others.

  Enough.

  Maelduin nearly dropped both bagels and platter in the course of removing them from the fridge. His clumsiness was frustrating—agonizing, even, for one as accustomed to grace in all things as he was. But he could imagine Terry’s smile when he returned in triumph, carefully bearing sandwiches, and the promise of that reward was reason enough to endure the aggravation.

  The film around the bagels made a sack; he shook the loaves out, surprised at the heavy sound they made as they hit the cutting surface. They want cutting, I suppose. He can hardly mean for me to pile one of them on top of the other. A block of wood stood on the cutting-table, handles of some featureless black substance protruding from it and the blades of knives barely visible. Good enough.

  He pulled a knife from the block, and was pleased to note its serrated edge. Perfect for the cutting of bread. He rested one hand on top of one of the bagels, and cut into the heavy bread.

  The knife skidded off the smooth surface; the serrated edge tore into his hand, leaving a flap of skin hanging and spilling blood all over bread and blade and cutting surface.

  Maelduin was too appalled to cry out. He stared at the jagged wound until it started to heal over, the way all Fae wounds not mortal did.

  The blade had turned in his hand. A simple bread knife.

  Without willing it, he looked through the doorway into the room he and Terry had first entered. Everything was as they had left it in their haste, clothing strewn about and Maelduin’s sword, scabbard and belt draped over the back of a divan.

  His oath-blade. He had sworn one of the most solemn oaths known to the Fae, a vow sealed in blood, that the first blood that blade would taste would be the blood of his father’s murderer. If his curse of clumsiness turned that blade in his hand…

  If it did, he would be forsworn. And his own blade would kill him.

  I have to break this curse.

  Maelduin grimaced, his gaze going from his sword to the pictures he had so admired the night before. Terry was the epitome of strength, of grace—everything Maelduin himself had once been, before coming through the Pattern.

  What had the note said, the one that had come through the Pattern with him? It was tucked into a belt-pouch, but he had no need to fetch it to recall its warning.

  There is a flaw in the Pattern, and that flaw has surely maimed you. In soul, or in body, or in some other way only the Pattern knows.

  Maelduin stared unseeing at the bloodstained bread under his hand.

  Your only care now must be finding your human SoulShare, and regaining what you have lost.

  Lost? He had been robbed. The Pattern had stolen everything he had spent a lifetime acquiring, the skills he would need to defeat a Fae who had been a legend.

  And if ‘soul-share,’ scair-anam, was more than just pretty Fae poetry, if he shared a soul with the human male who awaited him in the bedchamber, he suspected he knew where his gifts had gone.

  He needed more than shelter from Terry, and more than time to collect himself. He needed the missing half of his soul, and everything that had left him along with it.

  A muffled roar from the street below interrupted Maelduin’s thoughts, along with the faintest whiff of oily smoke. A ‘truck,’ no doubt. ‘Cars’ made less noise, and the predatory ‘taxis’ announced their presence with blaring klaxons. Or at least, the one that had nearly run him down last night upon his emergence from the underground labyrinth had done so, too late to do anything other than taunt him. Augmented Fae senses were a decidedly mixed blessing in the human world.

  He shook his head, and raised his hand to inspect his nearly-healed wound. Not for the first time, he wished the ancient tales had been less cryptic about what awaited Fae who made the ill-starred crossing between the worlds. Specifically, it would be helpful to know how he was supposed to reacquire what had been taken from him.

  When one Fae took something from another Fae, the death of the thief was the usual solution.

  If Terry shares my soul, I think killing him would be a bad idea. Maelduin closed his eyes, remembering the human’s shivering moans, the sweetness of his surrender. The gentle warmth of the embrace in which he had awakened from nightmare. And I have no wish to kill him.

  If his salvation lay in some kind of rejoining, his answer surely lay in the bed he had just left. By any measure, though, last night should have accomplished his purpose—and it had not, the pink new skin on his hand spoke that truth eloquently enough. Maybe I need to take him more than once. Or differently.

  One thing was certain, though. He could allow himself no more distractions. He could not afford to indulge laughter, or delight, or any of his other strange new-budded emotions. If the opportunity to kill found him before he regained his skill with a blade, he would die. As his father had, and by the same hand. Or his own.

  At least he knew he could safely disregard the stirrings he had felt—no, had only thought he felt—toward the human. They could mean nothing. The Fae of House Guaire were incapable of love, after all.

  Though… I wonder. He stifled a sigh. I wish…

  “I’m staaaaarving to death in here. Wasting away.”

  Maelduin’s wishes were worthless. Especially wishes that went against the truth of his blood and his line, and distracted him from his purpose.

  Shrugging, he tossed the bloodstained bread into a nearby waste receptacle—twice, as he missed the first time—and swept the cutting surface with a roll of soft paper apparently left there for that purpose. Terry’s requested ‘sandwiches’ were not so different from a hunter’s day-meal in the Realm; he channeled two of those, shaping the bread as close to a bagel as he could manage with the undamaged one as a guide, and crafting the roast martola he remembered from the Realm, spiced and delectable. Fae food would not satisfy a human for long, of course, not if the old stories were true. But it would cease to be an issue before it became a problem.

  As a Noble Fae, Maelduin’s command of living magick—commoners’ magick, the sort of magick that created food from nothing—was sorely limited. But this most basic channeling was well within his capabilities.

  It might also solve all his problems.

  According to the tales, once a human ate Fae food, that human was marked, fated to belong to the Realm. To a Fae.

  “I’m coming, lán’ghrásta.”

  Yes, Terry was the graceful one. But not for long.

  * * *

  Starving. Damned right.

  Terry made a
face, then grabbed a pillow and covered his head with it, just in case Maelduin picked that moment to bring him breakfast. He had to keep things light; now was definitely not the time to start waxing philosophical. He’d been given a gift, one night of amazing sex and cuddling, and the possibility of a little more—he had to accept that, and then let it go.

  Which was a problem, since he sucked at both, accepting and letting go.

  Fake it till you make it, Miller. He could pretend not to care about anything but the sex for a few more hours. Forget how he’d totally surrendered to a total stranger. And say ‘so long, and thanks for all the fish’ with a smile on his face. How hard could it be?

  “How are you going to eat with that on your face?”

  For a second, even lying flat on his back, Terry felt dizzy, as if the bed had opened up and dropped him into a bottomless pit. Maelduin’s words were ordinary, but there was nothing ordinary about the way he said them—the other man’s voice was suddenly smoking hot baritone sex.

  Terry’s hand was shaking as he took the pillow off his head. He hoped Maelduin didn’t notice. I really, really need to get hold of myself. The tall, lean blond was just another one-night stand.

  Maybe two, his traitor mind whispered.

  Maybe two. But no more than that. He’d done that before. After all, if he’d ever believed in love, that phase of his life was long over; he had a baccalaureate in Too Stupid To Know A Good Thing When I Had One, signed off on by Josh LaFontaine, and a graduate degree in Love Is For Morons, courtesy of Bryce Newhouse. One-nighters—or two—were exactly his speed.

  Except when he forgot, and started hoping for more. He wasn’t going to forget this time.

  Pasting a grin on his face, he rolled to face Maelduin.

  He was not in love. He wasn’t. But that didn’t mean his new favorite way to wake up couldn’t be to the sight of a stunning naked man, blue eyes so bright they almost seemed to have light of their own, smiling a smile that whispered ‘I can’t wait to be balls deep in you’ directly into his ear and sealed the words with the figurative tip of a tongue, and bearing a roast beef bagel sandwich in each hand.

  A guy would have to be an idiot not to appreciate that. An even bigger idiot than Terry Miller.

  Maelduin’s bare toes caught in the fringe on the edge of the carpet; he stumbled, but managed to catch himself before he went sprawling. And somehow the man had wrapped one end of a roll of paper towels around his ankle and dragged the whole roll all the way back from the kitchen.

  Terry fell back onto the pillow, biting a finger to keep from bursting out in another fit of giggles. God, I haven’t felt like laughing like this in… how long? Just one more thing to lo—

  Cut it the fuck out, you idiot.

  “I am funny?”

  Maelduin had asked that once before, but the words hadn’t smoldered the way they did now. Or at least, Terry imagined they smoldered. It had to be his imagination.

  “You’re, um, dragging a roll of paper towels.” Terry pointed, and just barely managed not to laugh.

  Maelduin glanced down at his foot, then looked back at Terry, and something in those blue-blue eyes melted him. “Does that make you smile?”

  What’s the right answer?

  Why do I think it matters so much? “Yeah. It does.” He cleared his throat. “Someone as perfect as you, being such a klutz? It’s adorable.”

  “Adorable?” Maelduin looked as if he were tasting the word, the way a cat tasted cream. Slowly he smiled. “Yes. For you, I will be adorable.”

  “Only for me? I’d say you’re adorable to anyone with eyes. Or ears. Or…” Hell, he was blushing. He could tell by the way his face suddenly felt sunburned. It matters so much because I used to laugh like this with Josh. Never with Bryce. And never with a one-night stand. Or even two.

  “If you say I am adorable, that is enough.” Maelduin eased himself onto the edge of the bed and held out one of the bagel sandwiches, tempting Terry, apparently not noticing how flustered he was.

  Breakfast in bed. Tempting. Adorable. Domestic.

  Fuck it, the next thing you know I’m going to be inviting him to move in. Buying ‘His’ and ‘His’ bath towels. Learning to like Nepalese cuisine, or monster truck rallies, or Tuvan throat singing. And then kicking him to the curb. Or being kicked there myself, again.

  I don’t do domestic any more. Tears stung Terry’s eyes. And I almost forgot.

  “You know, I don’t think I’m all that hungry right now, after all.”

  “What?”

  Terry flinched—and only then realized Maelduin hadn’t sounded angry. Startled, maybe even alarmed, somehow, but not angry. And now he was looking at Terry like…

  Terry recognized the look. He’d been, oh, four or five years old, out shopping for back-to-school clothes with his mom. And he’d followed her up two escalators before he’d realized he’d somehow started following the wrong flowered sundress. Too scared to cry, he’d bolted and run off, looking for his mom. And right before she’d come racing down the aisle looking for him, he’d caught a glimpse of himself in one of the standing mirrors they put out in the clothing sections.

  And he’d seen the same wide-eyed world-is-ending look Maelduin was now giving him.

  I am most definitely cursed.

  * * *

  “I… thought you were hungry.” This has to work. And he had to calm himself. He knew better than to give away his vulnerabilities. One never ceded the high ground to an adversary.

  Or even to a scair-anam.

  Terry half-smiled. “Maybe not for food.” He looked at the sandwich Maelduin held out to him, and shook his head. “Not right now, anyway.”

  He knows what I plan. Impossible, of course. But a blade-dancer survived on instinct as much as on cold calculation, and his instinct told him the human was resisting him.

  What had that woman in the moving-room, the subway, called Terry’s attempt to devise an alternate plan for bringing the two of them home, when he, Maelduin, had started to breathe so fast white spots had danced in front of his eyes? Looking for a Plan B?

  Yes. It is time for Plan B.

  Humans, he had observed, made a shrug say a great many things. So he shrugged, as best he could while still ridiculously leaning on one elbow and holding out a sandwich. “What should I do with these?”

  Terry rested a hand on Maelduin’s forearm. “Just put ‘em in the fridge. For later.” The sparkle in his eyes left Maelduin no doubt as to what Terry hoped would fill the time before ‘later.’

  “Later.”

  With a smile to match the human’s tone, if not his own mind, Maelduin slid back out of the bed and returned to the kitchen. He doubted channeled food would last long in the fridge. By the time it became an issue, though, Terry would no longer care.

  The subtlety of Fae food had been a bad idea from the outset. This time, Maelduin would do what was necessary to make certain Terry was his.

  Whatever that was.

  How had matters spun so far out of his control, in less than a day? A lifetime’s work and self-discipline, consummated at last, would have been wasted and worthless, had he not come through the Pattern… but the act of coming through the Pattern had robbed him of every fruit of that discipline, left him cursed and clumsy and helpless.

  Helplessness was not a state any Fae could bear. One of the darkest of the many words as’Faein for torture, danamhris, meant, literally, nothing more than ’to be done unto.’ Maelduin could not endure it. Would not.

  Humans, on the other hand, so far as Maelduin had ever heard, had always been largely oblivious to Fae manipulations, going wherever they were led, succumbing gladly to whatever channeling was put on them. So much so that some of the ancient Fae had ceased even to consider toying with humans proper sport.

  But this human did not appear to be oblivious.

  And Maelduin was not toying. He could afford neither to toy, nor to indulge emotions he could not possibly be experiencing in the first place. Af
ter all, his only hope of regaining his skills, of keeping the vow that had kept him alive since he had been old enough to take up a sword, lay in seducing a human.

  Why does this thought disturb me? Maelduin opened the door to the fridge and set the sandwiches on a shelf, taking care not to lean so far into the cold-box that he risked cracking his head on the smaller box on top of it when he straightened. Humans like to be ‘done unto.’ And I will do him no harm—I will give him pleasure for what he will give me. As soon as I can summon the proper magick to make him give it to me.

  The fact that he was worried about causing a human harm was mildly alarming. The reasons for his solicitude—emotions that were an impossibility to anyone of his cursed lineage—were even more so.

  And his target’s possible imperviousness to Fae magick?

  I will pet that cockatrice when I wake up next to it.

  When Maelduin returned to the bedchamber, Terry had swept away the bed-coverings and lay watching the door, with his head pillowed on one arm and his other hand playing slowly over his own body. Displaying.

  Maelduin would have commented, but he was fairly sure ‘displaying’ was a human word he did not yet know. Instead, he gathered himself for a dive, intending to scoop up the compact package of human delectation and roll the dancer over until he was breathless and off his guard—

  “Maelduin, don’t!” Terry’s eyes were wide, and he reached out a hand toward the door as if he could stop Maelduin in his tracks.

  “Why not?” Maelduin tried not to pout.

  And Terry, apparently, tried not to giggle. “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “I… thank you. For your concern.”

  A smile, and a slow approach, suited Maelduin’s purposes better, in any event. By the time he joined Terry in the bed, the human’s eyes were wide, his attention captivated and his arousal apparent.

  Maelduin drew Terry into a full-body embrace, tangling his long pale legs with Terry’s tanned ones; he thrust his hips gently but insistently against the growing heat at the human’s groin, and worked his fingers into Terry’s brown curls.