Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (24 page)

“She might have been old and frail, but she probably could have called social services and had you removed from your mother’s custody.”

“Just like I wanted to do for Davin,” said Ann.

“Just like you wanted to do for Davin,” agreed Finn. “And with good reason. But social services couldn’t have helped Davin. His father would just have taken the boy back, and no doubt hurt whoever was trying to help him. I’m honestly not certain what to do about the child now. Sean hasn’t shown much remorse for his actions. Nancy isn’t the most responsible parent. But they’re my followers, part of my community, and ultimately, my responsibility.”

“His grandparents are loving and sensible,” offered Ann. “And they sign all his report cards anyway.”

“Perhaps something can be worked out,” said Finn.

“But you have to see why I don’t want to embrace the part of me that destroyed my mother’s life.”

“I do see, Ann, but I don’t agree with your choice. Your mother didn’t know what she was, didn’t know how to control her gifts, didn’t live as part of a community that understood her. But you and I are more alike than you realize. We saw the mistakes our parents made and decided we wanted something different for ourselves. You saw what your college roommate’s family had created, the kind of life they had made, and decided that was a better way of living, a life worth working for. I saw the same in Brigid’s family. The life she and I created was destroyed, but that’s the thing about surviving. You have to honor what you’ve lost by building something new in its place, otherwise you just leave behind the crater where lives once were. We can do that together, but not if you hide from your power. The world we’ve inherited, the challenges we face, are too dangerous. Ann Phillips, schoolteacher, won’t survive the fight that is coming. She won’t survive if the wall comes down and the Queen comes back. Ann Phillips, berserker, though, can go where I go, face what I face. And in my world, no one will condemn you for being a strong woman who makes her own choices, who fights for what’s right.”

“But what if I lose my temper? What if I hurt someone like Mrs. Vandersalm?”

“Do you think that your fears are unique to you or berserkers? Every man or woman, every Fae who has ever gone to war, who has ever had to employ violence to defend what is theirs, what is right, faces the same challenge when he or she returns home. Violence is a habit that can be broken, that can be left outside the door or on the battlefield. Not every warrior becomes a brute. We can be kind and gentle, too. I’ll show you that tonight, if you’re well enough.”

She knew he was right, but it was still a difficult step to take. “Could it be someplace that no one can see? The ink? I doubt the parents at school would be thrilled to discover that their second-grade teacher has giant tattoos around her wrists.”

“I suppose it could be someplace more discreet, although I don’t exactly relish the idea of you disrobing for Miach.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. “Because I’m not into the whole Fae swinging thing.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“The Prince. He wanted me to know what your world was like before the fall. He seemed to think that I’d find it appealing, so he showed me you and your wife.”

Finn looked stricken. “He had no business doing that.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what he was going to show me.”

“It’s not your fault. Where the Prince Consort is concerned, I know where to apportion blame. What did he show you?”

“You were out hunting. You were together.” She colored at the memory of his lovemaking through Brigid’s eyes. “You were very happy. I could feel that. But you weren’t faithful to each other, either. I wouldn’t be okay with that. Even if it is a Fae thing.”

“You don’t have to be okay with it. I’m not sure that I ever was, but it was such an accepted part of our world that I didn’t question it until the Prince set his eyes on Brigid, and there was no way for her to refuse without risking the Queen’s displeasure.”

Ann shivered at the thought. “Does that mean that after Brigid you were monogamous?”

“Not precisely, no,” he admitted.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that most of my relationships have been about sex, not partnership, and no one expected faithfulness. And sex itself, without the partnership, tends to get boring over time. The Fae solution to that is variation.”

“What kind of variation?” she asked suspiciously.

“Games, the kind you and I enjoyed together yesterday.”

“I don’t mind those games. It’s everything else that falls under that heading that I’m not so sure about.”

“Would it shock you to know I’d been with men, as well as women?”

She considered a moment. “It wouldn’t shock me, no. Or upset me, as long as it was in the past. I don’t want to share you with anyone else, male or female.”

“So a threesome is out of the question, then?”

“You are kidding, right?”

He laughed. “I am kidding, but it is a common Fae practice, and I wouldn’t want you to be caught unawares by it.”

“How likely is that?” she asked.

“I want you to be part of my world, Ann. I want you at my side. That means you’ll encounter Fae who practice the old ways, who still live, to the extent possible, as they did before the fall. Some of these Fae will be allies in the coming fight to keep the wall up. Others will be enemies. Better that you not be caught off guard by their ways. I doubt the Prince was offering you a glimpse of life before the fall out of a sense of charity. He wanted to unsettle you, to recruit you to his cause, by driving a wedge between us. I don’t want anyone to be able to drive a wedge between us that way, so I have a confession to make.”

“Are you going to tell me that you’ve been sleeping with Patrick?”

Finn laughed. “No. I can swear to you that I have never slept with Patrick. But, more recently, I thought about joining a Fae and her human lover in their bed. I only really contemplated the idea because I wanted you, badly, but knew we would have a better chance at making something work if I waited for you.”

“When did all this happen?”

“After you came to my house.”

“That was only a few nights ago.”

“Fae appetites can be fierce,” he said.

She looked at him sidelong. “Is that a joke?”

“Only partially, my little berserker. I think tonight, once you regain your strength through the restorative powers of chocolate mousse, we should explore your creamy skin and decide where Miach is to place his ink.”

“Not Garrett?”

“I’d rather Miach did it. Garrett has no experience with berserkers. Miach knew many and inked more than a few before the fall.”

“If I say yes,” she said, “do I have to do it right away?”

“Sooner would be better than later.”

“I’m a little tired of magic. The Druid was . . .” She shuddered. “There was something
wrong
with him. Something strange about his eyes. Something almost Fae. He was powerful. I could feel it. And he was . . . broken. His voice was this thing. This strange thing. I could hear all kinds of different voices inside it, all out of sync with one another. It sounded wrong. I don’t understand how Miach can train creatures like that.”

“Miach’s Druids aren’t like that. It is difficult for me to admit it, because I hate them, and I think I may always hate them because of Brigid, but Miach’s stone singer isn’t evil. And the archaeologist he is training, the one who is bound to Conn of the Hundred Battles, isn’t evil, either. The Prince breaks them in too fast and too hard. Power is always a terrifying responsibility, more so if you aren’t ready for it. When Druids come into their power, they receive the entire collected wisdom of their race, in the blink of an eye. Even before the fall, when the Druids trained their young up from birth to be ready for it, some of them went mad. More, probably, than they realized.”

“Aren’t you worried this Druid will come back?”

“Davin is well-protected now and the Fianna are on their guard. More, we have Garrett to cast a silence on the creature. If he comes back, we will handle him.” He tugged at the towel wrapped around her breasts. “I wanted to make love to you here the other night,” he said. “I almost didn’t answer Iobáth’s phone call.”

“I was tempted to throw your phone out the window.”

“You can’t tonight, because I left it at home. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said. “But still a little fragile.”

“Then I’ll treat you like a china doll, my beautiful berserker.”

“Maybe not that fragile,” she said.

“Let’s see if I can make you break apart, then.”

He unwrapped her towel, bearing her to his sight. He knelt beside her and fanned her wet hair out over the velvet quilt, then kissed her mouth, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly, and finally the place that was already slick and aching for him. She felt cherished, wanted, loved, and—for the first time, really—free to enjoy what he was doing without shame.

His tongue worked magic on her. It moved with a sinuous slowness that seduced her into pulling her knees up, heels on the edge of the bed, and finally, at his urging, let her palms knead her own breasts. Her hips came up off the bed as the first waves of her climax washed over her, and she did, at last, break into little pieces for him.

He entered her slowly after that and rolled them onto their sides, her knee thrown over his hip, her face pressed to his chest. They found a gentle rocking rhythm together, and she resisted the impulse to run ahead of him into her own pleasure and stayed the course with him, waiting for his cock to twitch inside her and his movements to become frantic. When he finally came, she let herself go with him, and the warm rush deep inside her triggered a deeper and longer climax.

“Now we need another shower,” she said.

“That sounds fun,” he replied, nibbling at her ear.

“You haven’t seen my shower.
I
can barely fit in it alone. There won’t be any fun, unless you want to
pass
back to your house naked and shower there.”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “You first.”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “I’m not getting up until I have to. You first.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, then turned it over. “I thought you didn’t have any tattoos.”

“I don’t.”

She felt the bed dip as he reached over to turn the light on. “Yes, you do,” he said, lifting her arm up and showing her a mark just below her elbow, and just past where the Prince Consort had pushed her sleeves in the mound.

She rubbed at it. “How did this get here?”

“It’s Druid ink,” he said, reaching out to forestall her rubbing.

Ann let out a sigh. “In the mound. The Prince said that we tripped a set of wards. There was ink on the floor. He wanted to examine my body for tattoos, but I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea.”

“You should have let him,” said Finn, standing up, naked and beautiful.

“Really?”

“No, actually. We can deal with that ourselves. I’m going to shower. Then we’re going to
pass
home and Miach will figure out a way to get that off you.”

“What does it do?” she asked.

“I have no idea, but whatever it is, it comes off tonight.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

She slumped back on the bed and closed her eyes, listening to the water run in the next room. The floorboard creaked beside her bed and she opened her eyes.

To find the Druid grinning down at her.

In her house.

He had an iron knife in his hand.

A week ago, she would have frozen. She would have known fear. She was past that now. She didn’t think. She acted. She felt . . .
glorious.

She rolled off the bed with the preternatural speed of the berserker and grabbed the lamp off the table. It was heavy and made of glass and it felt good in her hand. Satisfying. Powerful. She swung it up into the Druid’s face before he had a chance to
pass
. The glass shattered. She didn’t cringe at the sound or the shower of tiny shards. It was music to her.

And she didn’t give him time to react. The same speed and instincts that had become hers when she accepted her berserker nature were given full expression now. She slashed his neck with the fragment in her hand and watched the blood pour out, showering her velvet quilt and her carpet and her naked body.

The water stopped running in the other room. Finn opened the door and emerged. The smile on his face faded when he saw the blood.

“It isn’t mine,” she said.

He looked down at the dead Druid.

“Nice work. I take it your power came when called.”

“Yup. Be careful, there’s glass in the carpet,” she said. “And on the bed.”

“Don’t move.” He
passed
around the room, collecting his shoes where he had kicked them off and wrapping his arms around her and
passing
her back to his bedroom at the other end of Charlestown.

He led her into the shower, which unlike hers
was
big enough for two, and he washed the blood off her and together they discovered that the Druid’s tattoo was already fading from her wrist.

“His magic is dying with him,” said Finn. “It must have been a tracking
geis
. Small, simple, probably finite in duration. That’s why he had to come for you tonight, before it faded. He must have been waiting for you to be someplace unwarded.”

He worked shampoo into her hair. It smelled like vanilla and oranges, and when someone came knocking at the door, he ignored it and they let the water run over them until her skin pruned.

He shut off the water and they toweled off. “What will we do about the dead Druid in my house?” she asked.

“Patrick and some of the boys can go and take care of that. And Garrett will go with them and ward your apartment, if you mean to keep it.”

“Where would I live otherwise?”

“Here?”

“I’ll get fat from Mrs. Friary’s cooking,” she said.

“I’ll make sure you get regular workouts.”

“Will you teach me to fight with an ax?”

“Only if you promise to keep it sharp,” he said, kissing her playfully.