Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (16 page)

She was glad that she had packed practical clothes herself. Her discarded sweater, turtleneck, and velour pants didn’t look the worse for having spent the last hour on the floor—although she was fairly certain that even with the double glazing, everyone in the house would be able to guess what she and Finn had been doing for the last hour. She did the best she could with her hair, combing it with her fingers and pinning it on top of her head, and she tucked her cell phone into the pocket of her down vest where she could reach it easily.

That didn’t stop her from being terrified of what she had resolved to do. Finn didn’t make it any easier for her, the way he slung a casual arm around her on the way down the stairs, the easy manner in which he conveyed to everyone present that Ann was important to him. There was promise in his affection, of the kind of happiness and companionship she had long since stopped expecting to find, and she was about to give it all up.

She didn’t have any choice. The instinct she’d known all her life, the one that compelled her to protect the weak from the strong—the one that she now knew to be the voice of the berserker inside her—was impossible to deny.

F
inn didn’t want to let
Ann out of his sight, but he knew he would have been wiser to tie her to the bed upstairs and lock the door than admit her to their meeting with the Prince. She was courageous and strong and determined to save Davin, and there was no way in hell he was bringing her with them into the lair of a Druid. Maybe if she had mastered a weapon, learned how to call upon her berserk spirit . . . but no. Even then, he wouldn’t want her along on such an occasion. He’d found something with Ann that he was terrified would be taken from him, the way Brigid had been taken from him.

As soon as this was over, as soon as Davin was safe and the bloody Prince Consort was gone, he was going to help her find her true weapon and train her properly. Finn wanted Ann to walk safely in his world, and that meant being able to defend herself. Not just against petty villains like the Fianna who had harassed her outside the convenience store the other night—but against true foes like the Prince Consort, too.

He saw Nieve walk in the front door, a diaper bag slung over her shoulder that no doubt contained that most Fae of baby accessories, a brace of iron knives. Iobáth was with her, a book tucked under his arm.

“Any difficulty?” asked Finn.

“Nothing Miach couldn’t have warned us about,” said Iobáth, pushing past him with obvious irritation.

Finn turned to Ann. “Would you find Mrs. Friary and make sure she’s made up all the guest rooms and has enough food in the house to serve dinner if Miach stays?”

“Am I allowed to add my own requests?” she asked, smiling slyly.

“Of course. What is it you’re craving?”

“We left the crème brûlée at my house, and I’ve been thinking about it since last night.”

“Really? I thought I had sufficiently distracted you.”

“You did. But now that I have my clothes on again, I want crème brûlée.”

“Then tell Mrs. Friary. I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

Ann headed for the kitchen, and Finn turned to Nieve, who was tucking her coat into the hall closet.

“A word, daughter-in-law,” he intoned, in the voice he used at the Commandant’s House when he expected the Fianna to hear and obey.

She rolled her eyes. He wondered how his son put up with her. She was the bossiest woman he had ever met. Somehow, she even ordered Miach around.

“Anything you say to me will be repeated to your son,” she said.

“It’s not my son I want this conversation held private from. It’s Ann.”

Nieve smiled. “I thought you’d screwed that up for good, Finn MacUmhaill, but apparently you possess some appeal that utterly escapes me.”

“Why did you send her to my house that day? The day your grandfather attacked me with his stone singer?”

“Granddad wouldn’t have attacked you if you hadn’t abducted his best friend and threatened to torture Elada’s wife.”

“Fair enough,” said Finn. “But I’ve apologized for that, and I’ve said I won’t do it again.”

“I think you’ll find that apologizing for kidnapping doesn’t quite cut it.”

“No,” he agreed, “it doesn’t. But I’m trying to make amends. Tell me why you sent her to my house.”

“To distract you, obviously, so we could get Elada and Sorcha out. And for the record, singing your house down was Sorcha’s idea. Granddad and I didn’t plan that.”

“But you knew what Ann was.”

“I suspected,” admitted Nieve. “But I wasn’t sure.”

“What made you suspect?”

Nieve looked up and down the hall. When she was certain they were alone, she stepped close to Finn and spoke in a low voice. “You have to promise that you won’t tell her about this.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I won’t keep any secrets from her.”

“It’s to protect her. For her own good.”

“Secrets never protect anyone, Nieve. Don’t keep any from Garrett. You’ll regret it.”

Her black brows knit. “I thought you didn’t want me married to Garrett at all. Why do you care so much whether or not we keep secrets from each other?”

“Because he’s my son, and I want what’s best for him. But I learned the hard way that keeping things from the people you love doesn’t protect them. It only exposes them to greater danger. I wanted to protect Brigid, too, but I doomed her.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Brigid and I hated court life. We kept our children, kept our lives, as separate from the Queen and her corrupt lackeys as we could. When your grandfather came to me and told me what had happened with Conn’s daughter, I kept it from Brigid at first, because I didn’t want her to worry. When I finally told her what had happened, I kept from her our fear that the Druids were plotting something. She had always been suspicious of them, and I reasoned that if I told her we were worried, I would rob her of peace of mind. If I had trusted her with my fears, she might have been on her guard. She might not have been taken, along with our children.”

“You don’t know that,” said Nieve.

“Don’t I? Brigid was the real strategist in the Fianna. Never me. If she had known what was brewing, she would have made plans.”

“None of you foresaw what the Druids would do.”

“Brigid always said they would turn on us. That was what hurt the most. I answered Miach’s call and left her at home. I never saw her again. But I learned of it when they captured her. My particular jailer in the mound delighted in telling me what was being done to her. Her worst fears—Druid treachery—had come true. Give me some credit for having lived long and seen much, even if wisdom has been slow in coming to me. There are no secrets that are truly for your beloved’s own good. Tell me what it is you know about Ann.”

Nieve sighed. “She doesn’t know herself. It happened when Garrett was in her second-grade class. It was after the winter concert, in the parking lot at school. Shamus Kenny’s father turned up to the concert drunk and sang along with the choir. His wife, Rita, was so embarrassed. Out in the parking lot, she told him all about how humiliated she’d been, and he punched her. Ann saw, and she jumped him from behind. Smashed his head into the hood of his car. He never saw what hit him. And Ann . . . Ann was in some kind of fugue state. She came out of it after the Kennys drove off to the emergency room. Rita Kenny told the police they were mugged but she didn’t see their attackers. I’d never seen a berserker, but I’d heard about them from Grandfather, and Ann fit the bill. She didn’t remember a thing afterward. I told her she’d slipped on the ice and hit her head.”

“Why didn’t you tell your grandfather? Why not give her to Miach?”

Nieve laughed out loud. “Send one more beautiful young prodigy Grandfather’s way? His wife would have gutted me. And Granddad’s no warrior. He wouldn’t have known what to do with her, whereas you used to lead berserkers. And you seemed so lonely.”

“Lonely? With the Fianna?”

“Lonely,” repeated Nieve. “In that big bustling house with followers but no family.”

She surprised him by standing up on her tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek. “I don’t think I’ll ever manage to call you dad, but maybe with Ann, you’ve got a good chance that Garrett will start thinking of you as his father and not as his enemy.”

She headed into the house, leaving him staring after her.

He found Ann in the kitchen, standing at the counter, eating a crème brûlée and watching Mrs. Friary whisk eggs.

“It’s all in the motion,” his cook was saying.

“I’m pretty sure the electric mixer has the same motion,” said Ann.

“Nope,” said his silver-haired and decidedly human chef. “It doesn’t. Ask him”— she nodded at Finn—“who’s been eating his mousse hand whisked for two thousand years. He knew the first time I used the damned machine, and that was the last, too. He took one bite and threw the rest out, thought I wouldn’t notice two pounds of chocolate mousse down the disposal.”

“Didn’t it clog the drain?”

“Yup,” said Mrs. Friary. “That, and he ate a quart of ice cream out of the freezer to make up for it. Loves his dessert, does the lord of the Fianna.”

“It’s your cooking that tempts me, Mrs. Friary,” he said, diverting the spoon Ann was raising to her mouth into his own. Then he kissed her, so she could taste the burnt sugar on his lips.

“Now you’ve spoiled your appetite for crème brûlée tonight,” he chided her.

“Yes,” admitted Ann. “But I’m totally ready for chocolate mousse.”

Dana willing, in a few short hours, they would have little Davin back. Finn didn’t much like the idea of handing him over to the father who had invited his Druid abductor into their community, but that would be a good dilemma to face. And he and Ann could start doing normal things, like eating chocolate mousse in front of the television. He wanted time alone with her like that. It occurred to him that he didn’t have to move back into the big house across the square when the foundation was repaired. He could use that house as an office, a gathering place for the Fianna, and he could live here, with Ann. The idea filled him with a sense of hope and purpose.

He led her into the dining room where their allies had gathered. The table was spread with a map held down at four corners by silver blades. Miach and Garrett stood on either side of the table in wary silence. Nieve stood beside her grandfather, three iron knives fanned out on the table before her. Iobáth lurked in the door to the hall. Sean slouched in a corner with Nancy’s head buried against his chest.

“Where is the Prince?” asked Finn.

“On his way,” said Iobáth. “He followed us to the library and back.” The Penitent cast a black look at Miach. There was more to their library expedition than Iobáth was telling, but that was Miach’s business, and Finn wasn’t going to interfere in it.

“Why didn’t he just
pass
?” asked Finn.

“Because I finished warding the house,” said Garrett. “Now, if the Prince attempts to double-cross us, we at least have some safe harbor to fly to with the child.”

“He isn’t going to double-cross us,” said Sean. “Davin is his flesh and blood.”

The doorbell rang.

“I hope you’re right, Sean,” Finn replied. But he very much doubted it.

Iobáth disappeared down the hall and returned with the Prince, who was armed to the teeth with small silver knives strapped to his arms and thighs and a broadsword across his back.

Finn had encountered the Prince only a handful of times over the last several centuries. Even before the fall, Finn had never cared for court life and had always kept the Fianna as far away as possible from its corrupting influence. When the Queen used to make her progress through the home territories, feasting, fighting, and fucking, a scourge on the land they ruled, Finn would take his band into the field or even to foreign shores to avoid the Wild Hunt.

Today he was struck by just how little the Prince had changed. Like Iobáth, he wore his hair long, in the Fae manner, and bore the weapons he had earned—ensorcelled by his own hands—openly on his person. But Iobáth carried their lost world on his shoulders like his burden. The Prince flaunted it, from the silver leaves woven in his hair to the wire roses embroidered on his coat to the finery of a dozen centuries he wore as carelessly as rags.

Finn suddenly felt aware, now as never before, of how much he had changed. How much more like Miach, with his ties to the human world, he had become since Garrett had been born—never mind that his son was entirely Fae. And now Finn was in love with Ann, who was—in part, at least—human.

The Prince eyed the gathering with unconcealed amusement.

“How it must gall you, Finn,” said the Prince, “to be forced to welcome me into your house.”

“You aren’t welcome,” said Finn. “You’re tolerated. For the child’s sake.”

“We want a blood oath,” said Miach.

The Prince shrugged. “I am happy to take it, but the Queen’s enchantment makes it difficult to draw my blood without iron.”

Nieve tossed one of the newly forged iron knives into the air, showily intending to catch it to show her mastery of the blade, but to Finn’s horror, it was Ann who caught it and took a step toward the Prince.