Josh stiffened. “You sure about that?”
“When a Fae says he wants to wipe someone’s name out of memory, believe him. And, as a general rule, don’t get between him and his target unless you’re very tired of living yourself.” Conall worked his shoulders, burrowing deeper into Josh’s arms. “I’m guessing this is what Aine was warning us about, in the message that came back through the Pattern.”
“‘Guard the Guardian,’ you mean.”
Conall nodded. It would have been nice if the ancient Loremaster could have been a bit more forthcoming, but no use trying to put the lightning back in the cloud. “She must have known our new friend was coming through. And if she saw fit to warn us, one way or another he’s definitely going to be a thorn-ball under Tiernan’s scrotum.”
Josh ran his hands, open-palmed, up and down Conall’s arms. “Something’s not right about that. About Maelduin’s vendetta, I mean.”
“There are a lot of things not right about it. Especially the part where he could conceivably kill the guardian of the great nexus.” Conall really, really wished all their problems would go away, at least long enough for him to properly surrender to his partner’s embrace.
“That wasn’t quite what I meant.” Conall felt a kiss stir his hair. “You’ve always told me the only love Fae know, Fae who aren’t SoulShared, is love of family—and that familial love, to a Fae, is something most humans can’t even imagine. And Maelduin is—”
“Tiernan’s nephew. I know.” Conall nodded, slowly, so as not to dislodge Josh’s chin from the top of his head. “But the Guaires are different. Ever since I can remember, House Guaire has been known as the Cursed House, both because of what Tiernan did and what drove him to it.” No need to repeat the whole sordid story, not when they both knew it. Tiernan’s crime, kinslaying, was unthinkable to any Fae, but so was the crime he was avenging when he did it, his brother raping his sister. And instead of being grateful, Tiernan’s sister had been the one to have him banished for what he’ d done. It was obvious to any Fae that love of kin was missing from the Guaire genetic makeup.
“Do you think Maelduin knows the whole story?”
Conall blinked. “You know, he might not. Cuinn said his mother died in childbirth… so he probably wasn’t raised by close kin. And whoever raised him might have decided to spare him at least some shame.”
Josh’s sigh sounded and felt more like a groan. “Someone’s going to have to tell Tiernan what’s going on.”
“That would be me. Though I wish there were three of me right now.”
“I’d be in heaven. But I’d never get any sleep.”
“And you call me impossible.” Conall smiled, surprised he didn’t have to force it. But he probably shouldn’t have been surprised; his scair-anam always knew exactly what he needed. “I hate leaving without finding a way to get Terry out of the wellspring and away from the Gille Dubh. And I hate leaving you and Rhoann alone with our guest, though he’s not going to be going anywhere until I get back to let him out of his bindings. But I don’t have any choice if I’m going to go break the news to Tiernan. And I can’t go anywhere until I at least take a look at the nexus chamber and reassure myself that everything there isn’t about to go boom.”
Josh made a soft shushing noise. “Breathe, d’orant.”
“I know,” Conall grumbled. But it was hard to grumble when his partner was turning him around and trying, with a fair amount of success, to form a human cocoon around him. A cocoon he was going to have to exit much sooner than he wanted to. “Do me a favor?”
“Anything. Name it.”
You would do anything, wouldn’t you? Sometimes Conall wondered how he had endured more than three centuries without the male holding him. “Just tell me everything isn’t about to hit the fan.”
“I would if I could.”
“Damn.”
“I could, you know, kiss you again.”
“That’ll do.”
* * *
The door clicked shut behind Conall, and Josh shook himself, realizing he’d been staring. No Fae Faded into or out of the nexus chamber any more, not if he had any other choice, with the wellspring there as unstable as it was, and Conall had decided he needed to satisfy himself as to how things stood there before going off to let Tiernan know about the state of affairs in Terry’s studio.
Josh had felt the tension in his lover, the product of too many worries and too little he could do about any of them. And Conall wasn’t the only one on edge. Terry, trapped behind a wall even Conall couldn’t figure out, much less do anything about, wasn’t just Maelduin Guaire’s SoulShare, he was—despite Bryce, despite everything—one of Josh’s oldest friends.
Not being able to do anything didn’t sit well with Josh, either.
I have to do something.
And chances were, his best shot at doing something was lying on the floor on the other side of a column of subtly shifting light. Maelduin was their best chance to get Terry back. Josh was sure of it. His own link with Conall had led Conall out of a mirror-trap and back to corporeality, even before they’d completed their Sharing. If Maelduin and Terry really were SoulShares, something like that was possible. It had to be.
Josh was sure the two were scair-anaim. He’d seen SoulShare jealousy often enough to recognize what had happened when he suggested Maelduin might have harmed Terry. Maelduin probably hadn’t been able to help his reaction, any more than Conall had been able to help his.
Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to forget that a blade-dancer wants to kill me.
Wait. Wait a minute. What exactly had Maelduin said?
“Were I not crippled, and my blade bloodsworn…”
Josh shucked off his shirt and tossed it behind a pile of stacked pieces of drywall. Scathacrú stirred on his wrist, Árean on his chest.
Maybe the lethal Fae wouldn’t try to kill him—maybe he couldn’t—but it wouldn’t hurt to even the odds a little.
Chapter Twenty
Kevin’s breath caught hard in his throat as Tiernan’s hooked crystal finger loosened his heavy silk tie.
Tiernan’s chuckle would have been too soft to hear, if his lips hadn’t already been so close to Kevin’s ear the breath of his laughter tickled the shell of it. “You need to keep breathing while you still can, lanan. Else what’s the point?”
“Fuck.” It came out sounding more like a prayer, but that was all right. Tiernan had taught Kevin to love breath play, early on in their relationship, and by now his response when Tiernan slipped his tie up over the collar of his dress shirt and started tugging to tighten it again around his throat was pure reflex: rapid heartbeat, shallow panting breaths, and a hard-on that could have used its own zip code.
“Maybe you should lie down.” Tiernan started slowly backing them up toward their bed, still tightening the improvised noose around Kevin’s neck and working his body against Kevin’s in a way that made Kevin pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it to blackout before he came like a—
“Oh, sorry, bad time?”
Kevin didn’t understand the Faen obscenity his husband whispered. He didn’t need to, though. “Yes, Conall. A very bad time.” He laid a finger over Tiernan’s lips; he didn’t have to turn to identify the speaker, and it required no crystal ball for him to know what his husband’s reaction to the mage’s intrusion was likely to be. “What couldn’t wait?”
“Karma. Which was not one of the human race’s better inventions, can I just say.”
“I don’t think you can put that one on us.” Kevin hoped neither of the Fae in the room noticed the chill sweeping through him at Conall’s words. He didn’t want to have to explain his premonition—not to a Fae mage who didn’t believe in coincidence, and most definitely not to his own husband and the star of said premonition.
Tiernan’s low growl was, under most circumstances, sexy enough all by itself to steal Kevin’s breath. “Draoi-ríoga, can I interest you in a small wager? We’ll see if you can bind me before I can
manifest a knife and pin you to that wall behind you by your balls.”
Caught between a pissed-off blade-dancer and a master mage. I’m not even going to have a chance to duck.
“Not a good idea. You’re going to want to hear what I have to say, and I’m hard to understand when I’m screaming. Or so I’m told.”
“Could you move your thigh?” Kevin whispered.
“What?” Tiernan tilted his head slightly to one side, eyeing Kevin with the every-time-I-think-I-understand-humans-something-like-this-happens expression Kevin knew only too well.
“I can’t zip my trousers unless you move.”
Kevin tried to hide his sigh of relief as Tiernan shifted his weight, but he was pretty sure his husband heard it just the same.
“I’m not really going to hurt him,” Tiernan muttered.
Kevin kissed Tiernan’s cheek. “See? You’re growing a conscience.”
“Don’t push me.”
Banter was better than premonitions, and probably better than whatever Conall’s news was. But the red-haired mage’s patience was finite. “So what is it, Conall?” Kevin’s belt buckle jingled softly as he turned to stand beside his husband, facing their unexpected guest.
Conall didn’t even seem to notice the dangling belt. Houston, we have a problem.
In fact, the mage didn’t even seem to notice Kevin at all. He was staring at Tiernan, who was starting to look uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
“You have a visitor, Lord Guaire. From the Realm.” Conall actually appeared to be just as uncomfortable as Tiernan.
“Bullshit. Or gryphon shit, since we’re talking about the Realm.” The words, the attitude, the stance were cocky as hell… yet a muscle jumped in Kevin’s jaw as Tiernan’s arm slid around his waist, seeking comfort. “I haven’t been Lord Guaire for a century and a half. And I was exiled. No one wanted me, and no one’s going to come looking for me.”
Conall sighed. “No one except your nephew. Maelduin Guaire.”
Only once before had Kevin seen his husband so pale—when Janek O’Halloran, as yet unburdened with his terrifying passenger, had been about to cut Kevin’s throat, on the concrete floor of the storeroom of the old Purgatory. Not a moment Kevin cared to bring to the forefront of his memory.
“Maelduin… followed me here? Now?”
Conall nodded. “Apparently I don’t have to tell you why.”
“No. Not necessary.”
Kevin looked from Tiernan to Conall, and back again. “Anyone want to take pity on the human, and tell me why?” And while you’re at it, explain to me why I’m asking to have my heart ripped out and handed to me?
It was Conall who spoke, finally. “Tiernan killed Maelduin’s father. And he’s here to take payment for his father’s life.”
The arm around Kevin’s waist tightened. “Which, under Fae law, he’s totally entitled to seek.”
“Seek?” Kevin croaked. “Not entitled to take?” The fear he had experienced in his premonition flooded him again, the paralysis, the certainty that if anything touched him, he would shatter. I can’t go on without you. Don’t make me.
Is this the SoulShare talking?
Or is it just love?
“He can try, m’anam.” Soft lips touched Kevin’s rough cheek. “But I don’t have to let him succeed.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Footsteps, one set, approached, where two sets had previously disappeared into a silence so perfect that it had to have been magickal. The tread was too heavy to be that of the slender mage, and the tall Fae, Rhoann, the one with a Royal’s stars drawn on his skin, had not moved—soft breathing and the occasional drip of water onto concrete let Maelduin keep track of him easily enough, even over the persistent memory of leaf-rustle in a restless wind, seeming to carry words just below the level of his understanding.
A door had opened and closed, though; no doubt the mage had gone to warn Tiernan of Maelduin’s presence, and Maelduin’s oath. Which meant that if Maelduin failed to persuade Josh, or Rhoann, to release him in short order, he was going to be dead as soon as his uncle found him, even before he had a chance to attempt to raise his sword. ‘Mercy’ was a concept Fae had had to borrow from humans, after all.
But leaving the task of freeing Terry to strangers was worse than the prospect of dying without fulfilling his oath. And losing his chance to discover whether his strange new emotions were things Terry might want, welcome, let down his walls to receive… that was an even deeper wound.
Never again to wake with an arm around him, a body curved around his…
Enough. Maelduin had not become a scian-damhsa by surrendering. Now was not the time to begin.
“Josh.”
The footsteps stopped. “Yes?”
Rhoann moved closer, bare feet whispering against concrete.
Blind, bound, and flanked by probable enemies. Maelduin allowed himself an inward shrug, nothing the others could see. He had faced worse odds, with far less at stake.
“Bind me or blind me, but you hardly need both. I’m in no position to do you harm.” One step at a time. And let them think he was only pretending to be helpless as a ruse. Maybe they would fail to notice that he was telling the truth.
“True. But you’ve threatened quite a bit more than harm to someone we can’t let you touch. Not to mention the bloody-minded murder you were looking at me a few minutes ago.”
Damn. “I am no basilisk, to kill with my eyes alone.”
No answer, except a gust of wind in Maelduin’s memory. The sound made his heart race and his breathing quicken, with a fear not his own.
Except that it was his own. A human was frightened, and he shared the fear.
We are bound. Even if he somehow refused my magick. Something else binds us.
“Please.” The word should have caught in Maelduin’s throat—would have, if he were asking on his own behalf—but it came almost easily. “I am of no use to Terry this way.”
This silence was different, somehow. “Do you think you’re Terry’s SoulShare?” Josh asked at last.
Admitting ignorance let one’s opponent know he held an advantage—the equivalent of ceding the high ground. However, the high ground was something Maelduin had left behind some time ago. Right around the time his head hit the floor. And every bit of knowledge gained was progress toward freeing Terry, even if it was impossible for a member of the Cursed House to be a proper scair-anam. “You may know more of SoulSharing than I do. I know only ancient legends, and a hint that came through the Pattern with me.”
“What kind of hint?”
“A note. Telling me I had to find my human SoulShare, and regain what I had lost. What the Pattern took from me.”
“Hm. Aine must have tried to warn you, I can’t think of any of the other Loremasters who would have.” Josh shifted his weight. “What did the Pattern take from you?”
“Josh.” An odd urgency shadowed Rhoann’s soft voice.
“Don’t worry, Rhoann, it’s all right—”
The flutter of wings, both feathered and not, cut Josh off—followed by a hiss and the unmistakable, if faint, scent of dragonfire.
Maelduin held his breath so as not to sneeze. “Your definition of ‘all right’ is one with which I am unfamiliar.”
Josh laughed. Maelduin liked the sound, large and warm; it revealed the one who laughed, instead of masking him as Fae laughter would. And then fingertips brushed Maelduin’s temple, and he could see.
The first thing he saw was a miniature golden dragon, diving straight for his face. He cursed and rolled away, waiting for another hiss and the scent of burned hair, or worse.
“Scathacrú!” Josh spoke sharply. “High perch. Now.”
Maelduin dared a quick look back over his shoulder; the dragon was in the process of wrapping its tail around one of the slender metal supports standing in ranks around the room. Once it was settled to its liking, it glared down at Maelduin, opened its jaws wide, and emitted a tiny flame. Purely to establi
sh that it could, Maelduin was certain.
Josh shook his head. “I swear the attitude wasn’t part of the inking.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Admitting ignorance was going to become a habit, at this rate. As was not registering astonishment; Josh had been wearing a shirt when Maelduin lost his sight, but had shed it at some point, revealing a chest and arms covered with brilliantly-colored designs. Dar’cion indeed.
“I think an explanation would take longer than we have—Árean, dammit!” Josh ducked—and now Maelduin was beginning to doubt his sanity, because a savac-duí, a black-headed hawk, had just narrowly missed tangling its talons in Josh’s hair and was now bating to land on Rhoann’s shoulder and glare down as if he, Maelduin, were a lure and it was trying to decide if he was small enough to carry off or needed to be eaten on the spot.
Rhoann flexed his shoulder, wincing, until the bird calmed. “Are you sure it was wise to take off your shirt?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Josh shrugged.
Keeping the bird, the dragon, the Fae and the human all in view was challenging, but Maelduin could just manage it if he laid flat on his back. “Are you sure there is no time for an explanation? Because I would very much like to know how a bird native to the Realm, and for that matter a dragonet, came to a world that knows nothing of magick.” And, perhaps, what either creature had to do with Josh’s shirt.
Josh tilted his head, looking rather like a hunting bird himself. “You really remind me of your uncle.”
Maelduin’s cheeks stung, burned. “Not a welcome comparison.”
“Sorry.” The human, too, flushed. “But he’s the only other blade-dancer I know. And I’ve seen him when his SoulShare’s in danger—it doesn’t matter what the odds are, how great the danger is, nothing gets to him. He watches, he waits, he studies, and when he moves, nothing stops him.”
“His SoulShare?” Maelduin tried not to gape. “Impossible.”
Dark brows drew together. “A friendly suggestion—don’t say that within earshot of Tiernan. I’m still working on understanding Fae humor, but I do know that’s not the kind of joke he finds funny.”
Stone Cold Page 17
