Stone Song

by D. L. McDermott

  Then the Prince struck it from her hand and sent it flying across the room, and she was defenseless.

  He snarled. It was an animal sound, bloodcurdling and primeval. She grasped the bar on the side of the island like it was a lifeline, her finger searching for another weapon, but there was none.

  The Prince looked at her with murder in his eyes and she realized that she had made a terrible mistake.

  Elada had told her that there were hundreds, if not thousands of others like her. So long as she was useful to the Prince, she would live, but the Fae were a feral race given to sudden cruelty, and there were other potential Druids to replace her.

  The Prince struck her hard across the face with his good hand, then produced a silver dagger from the folds of his coat. It twinkled in the moonlight filtering through the window over the sink.

  Then the moon went out. A shadow covered the iron-muntined window for a second, and the casement exploded inward. Glass and bits of iron rained down onto the sink and the Fae from the Black Rose tumbled through the ruined aperture.

  Elada.

  Sorcha rolled off the kitchen island and dove under the breakfast bar, toppling stools and crunching over broken glass as she went.

  Elada was on his feet in the blink of an eye, a silver sword in his hand, glimmering in the moonlight streaming through the broken window. He was undeniably Fae. No ordinary man could have moved so fast. But in his flannel shirt and well-worn jeans and with his close-cropped hair he was achingly human—even with a silver blade in his hand.

  In one graceful gesture he brought the pale sword to the Prince Consort’s neck.

  “You can’t kill me,” said the Prince Consort, smug even with an edged weapon at his throat and a broken sword arm. “The Queen’s enchantment still holds.”

  Whatever that meant. Elada appeared unperturbed. “Perhaps you can’t be killed,” said her savior, “but you can be hurt. I could, for example, flay every inch of that enchanted skin from your body.”

  The Prince’s eyes narrowed. “Tread lightly, Elada Brightsword, or the Queen’s vengeance, when it comes, will extend to your bleached-blond colleen in South Boston and her litter as well.”

  And then, just like that, he passed, disappearing as though he had never been there at all.

  Elada didn’t lower his sword immediately, but when he did, Sorcha exhaled, because it meant the Prince was really gone.

  Relief washed over her, and with it came the insistent pounding need that had only retreated when she was clutching the cold iron bar in the side of the kitchen island. She reached up now and felt along the countertop until she encountered the jar full of cooking utensils, the one with the iron ladles and small salamanders in it. She grabbed one at random and clutched it to her chest.

  Her Fae savior cocked his head to look at her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Maybe.

  “Stay there,” he said.

  She had no intention of moving from under the breakfast bar. The cold iron was helping her to think clearly, but it only sharpened her understanding of her predicament. It didn’t do anything to decrease the physical effect of the Fae wine she’d drunk. And if she closed her eyes, if she allowed her mind to wander, erotic visions swam inside her head, more adventurous than anything she’d ever fantasized about before.

  She could hear Elada moving about the kitchen, crunching over broken glass and bits of iron. Sorcha listened as he walked from the stove to the pantry and back again, then stopped.

  “Do you have any pot holders?”

  “Are you going to bake a cake?”

  “Your door latches are all iron,” he said.

  “Oh.” She hadn’t thought about that. “There are mitts in the drawer next to the range.”

  “It’s an iron range,” he observed.

  She heard the drawer open and close.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for something to put over the window.”

  She should get up and help him. He couldn’t touch half the things in the house. But she was afraid that if she got up, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from touching him.

  • • •

  Elada surveyed the ruined kitchen, the broken window, and Sorcha Kavanaugh huddled beneath the countertop where she had rolled after he’d burst in.

  The kitchen window was done for. He could feel the welts where the iron had come into contact with his shoulders and back. A necessity, but the destruction of the window was a pity, because until it was fixed, Sorcha would be vulnerable here.

  He didn’t think the Prince would return right away. The bastard’s arm had appeared to be broken in at least two, possibly three places—which made him like Sorcha Kavanaugh even more. And while the Prince had some of the skills of a mage, he wasn’t the sorcerer that Miach was. Knitting bones back together was fine work, and for anyone with less skill than Miach, which was everyone, it took time.

  Elada knelt beside the little bard to get a better look at her. Her black tights were torn, her blouse was open, her hair was wild, and she was bleeding from several small cuts, but as far as he could tell none of her bones were broken. In other circumstances, he would have found her dishevelment sexy, the blood and destruction deeply appealing to his Fae nature, a vision of the violent goddess who had created his race, but Sorcha had just spent an evening with the Prince Consort, and he wouldn’t wish that on any creature.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Her pulse was racing, her breathing was shallow, her muscles were taut, but he didn’t think that was from shock or injury. Still, he should make sure. He reached for her. She shrank back.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.

  He held up his hands. “Okay. I’m not going to touch you. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t injured.”

  “I’m not.” Her hands were clasped together around an iron ladle, white knuckled.

  “Did the Prince . . .” Elada struggled to find the words. They rose in his throat like bile.

  She shook her head once more. “No. But I think I need to be alone now.”

  Which meant the Prince had done something to her. If there was a way to kill the Queen’s lover, Elada was going to find it.

  “I’m sorry, Sorcha, but you can’t be alone right now. The Prince could come back. Until that iron window is fixed, you won’t be safe here. And even once it is fixed, you’ll be a prisoner in your own house now that the Prince has found you. You have to come to Miach’s.”

  She shook her head once more. “I can’t go anywhere right now. I need to be away from . . . your kind.”

  He didn’t like being lumped in with his kind, but it was hard to blame her under the circumstances.

  “I never really introduced myself, did I? I’m Elada.”

  “I know your name.” She offered him the ghost of a smile. It gratified him. “And I’m grateful for your help, but I’m not myself right now.”

  There was something intensely focused about her eyes, her voice, and she was trembling, but not from cold—although the house was freezing. She wasn’t trying to hold horror at bay, she was trying to hold something in.

  “Tell me what happened with the Prince,” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Then she looked up at the window. “I don’t suppose you know any all-night emergency welders?”

  “I do have some friends in the building trade,” he offered hesitantly. Under other circumstances, he might have picked her up and carried her bodily out of the house, but not after her encounter with the Prince. “I could call a friend and see if he will come. But I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  She looked suspicious. “I was joking about the all-night welder. What kind of builder fixes ironwork in the middle of the night?”

  “The kind who doesn’t ask t
o see permits and prefers to be paid in cash,” he admitted.

  “You mean a criminal,” she said.

  “A business associate,” Elada corrected.

  “So it’s true. The Fae do run organized crime in Boston.”

  “The Fae offer protection. And only to the Irish in Southie and Charlestown, and their extended families and businesses.”

  “That’s extortion,” she said.

  “That’s what humans who don’t need protection say.”

  She sighed. “Call him.”

  “Come out from under there,” he countered.

  “I’m good here for now.”

  The forced smile on her lips said she wasn’t, but he didn’t know what to do for her.

  He dialed Bobby Crane on his cell phone. The Cranes were not Fae, but they were loosely associated with the MacCechts by marriage. Usually when Bobby did ironwork after dark, he was cutting through bars, not welding them back together, but Elada had no doubt the tradesman would do the work if the price was right. And that he would keep the job secret if Elada paid him enough. No one wanted to cross Miach MacCecht, but being owed a favor by Miach MacCecht’s strong right arm was no small thing.

  Bobby didn’t answer at first. When he called back a few minutes later, it was from a job—the un-welding kind—on the North Shore, in Lynn, to be precise. He was willing to do Elada’s work, but he couldn’t get there for at least four hours.

  It would have to do.

  He hung up. Sorcha Kavanaugh was still underneath the counter, knees drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped around her calves. Her eyes were closed, she was clutching an iron ladle, and she was taking long deep breaths.

  Something was very, very wrong. If Miach were here, he would be able to sense whether the Prince had cast a geis—a spell written on the skin—upon her or worked some enchantment, but Elada had no such sensitivity.

  “My friend won’t be here for several hours, Sorcha. You can’t spend the whole night under there.”

  He approached her warily, as he would a cornered animal, and slid under the breakfast bar beside her. When he was close, he could see what he had missed earlier, her dilated pupils, fast pulse, and flared nostrils.

  She wasn’t in the grip of fear, she was in the grip of arousal.

  His body answered instantly, but he fought his natural reaction, because hers, coming on the heels of the night’s events, was decidedly unnatural.

  And he had seen human women in this state before.

  His first thought was Fae and selfish. He wanted her. Sorcha’s craving would soon be such that he’d be able to lay her down on top of the broken glass and bits of iron and use her hard and fast and she’d beg him for more, tell him to never stop. They would revel in each other for hours, lost to all inhibition.

  His second thought was human, but no less selfish. If he made love to her like this, he’d never have anything more with her than one night.

  • • •

  Sorcha hugged her knees and kept her eyes fixed on the broken glass on the floor. Broken glass wasn’t sexy. Old linoleum wasn’t sexy. Cold iron wasn’t sexy.

  The Fae beside her, though, was. And he’d just saved her life.

  He probably thought she was crazy. Or in shock. She was neither. She was horny. A despicable word, one she’d never liked and which didn’t do justice to what she was feeling. It was more than lust. It was compulsion. Need. And it wasn’t going away.

  Elada had folded his tall frame under the breakfast bar and sat down next to her, careful to keep a foot of distance between them.

  That was good, because she was afraid that if he touched her, she wouldn’t be able to control herself. She hated the Prince, and she’d been willing to have sex with him, but she liked what she knew of Elada. And the way she felt now, she’d probably tear his clothes off to get at him.

  “Sorcha,” he said, “did the Prince give you something to drink?”

  She felt her face flush with mortification. Oh god, he knew. It was humiliating and awful. “He was going to hurt Tommy,” she said. “So I drank it. I had no idea what it would do to me. What was it?”

  “Fae wine, probably. How are you feeling now?” he asked.

  Like shredding your flannel shirt and climbing all over you. “Like I’m going to go crazy unless I . . .” There was no good way to say it.

  The Fae beside her made a sound she couldn’t interpret. Then he said, “Is there someone I can call?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a lover, Sorcha. Do you have a lover?”

  She felt the bone-deep pain of rejection. It was like being flung back in time to her teenage years, when she’d put all of her hopes and dreams for acceptance and happiness on one boy after another only to be rebuffed again and again. Not for herself, she later understood, but because she was the oddball, the kid with no parents and a crazy grandmother.

  It answered any question she might have had about whether Elada was attracted to her or not. She did her best to swallow the hurt, the idea that not even a creature from a race famed for its appetites wanted her. That the Prince had wanted her indicated only that he was unusually perverted for his kind. Elada’s perusal in the bar had been automatic male behavior, not interest. And apparently he didn’t have enough curiosity for even a pity fuck.

  “Tommy,” she said.

  The Fae beside her bristled. “The fiddler?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “Because you’re passionate, and the fiddler isn’t.”

  “Tommy is the sweetest man I’ve ever met.”

  “He plays soulfully, I’ll give him that,” said Elada, “but not like you do.”

  “He tried to save me from the Prince.” And then it dawned on her. “He must still be at the Black Rose.” For a second, worry and adrenaline cut through her arousal. “I need to call the police. I think he may have been hurt.”

  “The police have already been to the Black Rose. Your friend was taken to the hospital. He’s got a few broken fingers, but he’ll recover. Though not,” he added drily, “in time to be of service tonight.”

  Sex with Tommy had always been comfortable and comforting, but that wasn’t what she wanted right now. And she didn’t think she could satisfy the cravings she was feeling herself. The images running through her head had progressed from erotic to decadent. They were things she never would have dreamed of trying with Tommy, whom she knew and trusted, but now she was afraid that in her current state she would do them all with the next able-bodied man she met.

  “How do I make this stop?” she said.

  “I’m not sure,” said Elada. “I’ve never tasted Fae wine myself. I was young when the Court fell, and even when the Wild Hunt was free, the stuff was rare. It’s almost impossible to find now, though I doubt there’s much demand, even among the most depraved Fae. It’s what Balor gave to Conn’s daughter.”

  “Who?”

  Elada cocked his head to look at her. “You live in a house girded with cold iron and you don’t know the story of Conn of the Hundred Battles?”

  “This was Gran’s house. She never told me fairy tales.”

  “This isn’t that kind of fairy tale. Would you like to hear it?”

  He was humoring her, and she was grateful for it. “Yes.” Anything to take her mind off her body’s treachery.

  “Conn was a great champion in single combat, a darling of the Court. The Queen sometimes took him to her bed.”

  “I thought the Prince Consort was her lover.”

  “The Prince Consort was her lover, and was expected to be faithful to her alone, but she was not expected to be faithful in return. And Conn was legendary. Undefeated. There was no weapon he was not a master of. He could have had any woman at Court, but he kept a mortal mistress. The Queen mocked him mercilessly for it, and her courtiers fol
lowed suit, but he would not give her up.

  “This was tolerated while Conn’s mistress was in the full flower of her youth, because the Fae worship beauty, and keeping a beautiful human pet was understandable. He built a cottage for her, and visited her often. She bore him a daughter, a half-breed, who possessed the best qualities of both races. She was fair and sensitive and kind, and Conn would not permit any Fae to make a pet of her.

  “But when Conn’s mistress was no longer young, when her beauty began to fade and Conn visited the cottage still, the Queen became jealous. Conn should have given the woman up then. The Queen’s spite has always been a dangerous thing. But he was Conn of the Hundred Battles, and if he was inhuman in any way, it was in his pride.

  “So the Queen sent Conn away from Court on an errand and ordered Balor to bring Conn’s daughter to her. She made the girl drink Fae wine, and gave her to Balor and others to use for their pleasure. The girl died, and her mother followed, trying to defend her, and Conn . . .

  “Conn betrayed us to the Druids. He helped them carry out their revolt. That is why he is sometimes called the Betrayer.”

  Sorcha had never heard the story before. When she thought about all the things Gran and the old men had told her about the Fae, she couldn’t think of a single story in which one of the creatures had been named. It made them more human, to know their names, and to know that they did feel some human emotions, jealousy and protectiveness and—if she understood the story right—love.

  “What happened to Conn?” she asked.

  “After the Druids defeated the Fae, they double-crossed Conn and chained him inside one of their mounds, just like the rest of those they spared from exile in the Otherworld. The Druids began as human, but the magic the Fae gave them changed them, and the magic they acquired by study changed them more. Their powers came close to rivaling those of the Fae, but they were greedy for knowledge, and they wanted to know exactly where our magic came from, so they went looking for it with their iron knives.”

  It was horrible, what her ancestors had done, and the thought should have cooled her wine-fueled ardor, but it didn’t. If anything, she felt worse now than she had earlier. Her skin was so sensitive it felt painful to the touch, the silk of her blouse, the wool of her skirt like sandpaper. Chills racked her.