Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (9 page)

Oh
god!

Everything had been heightened. Senses, needs,
desires
. Everything had been possible. Even what she wanted with Finn. What she had needed, and taken, from Finn.

And now he was holding her. The climax had shattered a tension in her that she hadn’t even been aware of. “What did I just do?” She ought to be ashamed and embarrassed. If past experience was anything to go by—although, frankly, all bets were off here—he was about to laugh at and belittle her.

“You, my lovely girl,” he said, combing through her hair with his fingers as though he could be happy doing that, and just that, all day. “Why, you just went berserk.”

“That’s not exactly news to me.”

“But I mean it quite literally. You’re a
berserker
. It’s what you are, what you do. Or at least it’s what your kind used to do. I haven’t encountered one of you in two thousand years. And even then, not at such . . .
close
 . . . quarters.”

She didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Does that mean I’m some kind of Druid?” she asked. “The creatures you hunted and killed?”

Finn shook his head. “Not a Druid. No. Not that. Nor a Fae. You’re human enough. Almost. Well, not
entirely
. The gift of the berserker was present in the Fomoire, the strange people who were already in Ireland when the Fae arrived. The berserkers were fearsome Fomorian warriors with ingrained instincts to protect the weak, and hair-trigger tempers. In their berserk state, with a modicum of martial training, they’re the equal of any Fae. Since it was not a power present in our race, we tried to breed with berserkers and create a warrior class to complement the Druids. But the two groups despised each other. Your trace of Fae blood is why you are not swayed by my voice, and it is one of the reasons the Druids hated your kind. Indeed, when the Druids staged their revolt, they slaughtered the berserkers first.”

“All of them?” asked Ann.

“Well. Evidently not. Though your existence surprises me. We believed the Druids had, in fact, killed all the berserkers, down to babes in their cradles.”

It was too much. All of it. She didn’t want to be a berserker. She didn’t want to think about mass slaughter. And she didn’t want to think about what she had just done with this man. Creature.
Fae
.

“I want to go home,” she said. Away from all of this. A hot bath and a good meal and a night’s sleep, and she would wake up and this would all be forgotten. Wouldn’t it?

She climbed to her feet. The slickness between her legs was a tangible reminder of what she had just done with this Fae, with Finn. Her body ached in all kinds of places, and there were already bruises forming where she had been tumbled about in the van and manhandled by Sean.

The warehouse seemed suddenly cold now that she wasn’t in Finn MacUmhaill’s arms, and the urge to return to his embrace was strong. She fought it. She didn’t know if she really wanted to be part of this strange and frightening new world.

“You can’t go home yet,” he said. He rose in one smooth movement and reached out to touch her bruised cheek. “If we don’t do something about that eye, you’ll have a shiner in the morning.”

“I’ll put a bag of frozen peas on it,” she said.

“Peas will only take the swelling down. My son can heal the damage.”

“Is your son a doctor?”

“Better. He’s a sorcerer. He can make sure you don’t end up with a black eye tomorrow, which you might have a difficult time explaining at work.”

“Or to the police,” she replied evenly.

“You
could
charge Sean with kidnapping, but since
he’s
the one with a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm, it might not be such a clear-cut, straightforward case.”

“Oh my god,” she said. It was her worst nightmare. She’d hurt someone again. “I had it
under control
,” she said accusingly. “Before this. Before . . . before meeting you.”

He cocked his head and looked at her. “How, exactly, did you control your berserk state?”

“I learned exercises that helped me to manage my anger,” she said.

“You mean you learned tricks to suppress your birthright and abilities. Not how to call on your power when needed, like the moment Sean snatched you off the street. If you had control of your berserker, you could have summoned it to fight him off. You wouldn’t have needed any rescue.”

“Yes, but no one snatched me off the street before I met you.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you the other night. Our world is dangerous, Ann. But the other night I thought that you had a choice, that you could walk away from it and us. You can’t. I see that now, and so should you. That part of you that is Fae and berserk will always be with you, even if we—you and I—never cross paths again.”

“I want to go home,” she repeated.

“And I’ll take you. Just as soon as you let Garrett take a look at your cheek.”

She was in a decidedly unsavory neighborhood with a pack of criminals, so she didn’t have much choice. Ann followed Finn outside where the air blowing off the Charles was brisk and fresh. The strange Fae with the long white-blond hair and the broadsword was there, leaning against the hood of the van. The one they had called Patrick was slouched beside the warehouse door, looking nervous.

“Bring me my car,” Finn said to him.

“We have the van,” said Patrick.

“We are
not
driving Miss Phillips home in the van you used to abduct her. Bring me my car.”

Patrick had the good grace to look sheepish before he nodded and vanished into the earth. Ann supposed he had
passed
. She was just glad Finn hadn’t suggested taking her home that way.

The door to the van was rolled back and her kidnapper was sitting in the opening. Another, younger, Fae had a grip on Sean’s arm. The younger one made a short, sharp motion, and Ann heard Sean’s shoulder pop back into place.

“Now let’s see the wrist,” he said.

“No,” said Finn. “Set his bones in a splint. He can suffer while they mend.”

“I was within my rights,” said Sean. “The girl took my son.”

“I didn’t,” said Ann. “I haven’t seen him since the end of school yesterday.”

“
You,”
interjected Finn, looking right at Sean, “conspired with a Druid to work magic in my domain. Nothing you did from that moment was lawful because you were no longer a member of the Fianna.”

“The boy was going soft, encouraged by her,” said Sean. “He needed the ink, and your son refused because of your quarrel with him.”

“I would have refused anyway,” said the young Fae who had set his arm, who must be Garrett. But that couldn’t be right. Garrett couldn’t be Finn’s son. Finn looked barely thirty. Garrett was clearly in his twenties . . . Ann’s mind reeled even as the conversation went on around her.

“Your son was too young to have his destiny chosen for him,” Garrett continued to Sean. “I told you that. The marks you wanted would have forced him down one path in life, following the sword. Just because that was your choice doesn’t mean it will be his.”

“We need to find my boy,” said Nancy McTeer. “If child services doesn’t have him, then where could he be?”

The Fae with the long hair stepped forward and spoke. “The answer is obvious. The Druid has the child.”

Nancy McTeer screamed and collapsed. “This is your fault,” she wailed at Sean, pointing. “Your fault for having him marked.”

Ann had the feeling of having walked in on some family drama, the awkward guest at the dinner party when the secrets start to come out and the cutlery begins flying.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” said Finn. “We have to find the Druid and recover the child.”

“You’ll help us?” Sean asked, incredulous.

“For the boy’s sake, yes,” said Finn.

“Show me where you last saw the Druid,” the long-haired Fae with the sword said to Sean, “and I will track him.”

“Go with Iobáth,” Finn said, nodding. “Call me as soon as you find something.”

Sean, Nancy, and the long-haired Fae—Iobáth—departed. Ann sat in the van’s open door and allowed Garrett to examine her. He ran his hands down her arms and legs, over her rib cage and stomach, then up to her face. His palms felt strangely warm against her cheeks, and for a brief moment his touch stung. Then he stepped back and turned her face this way and that.

Ann noted how closely he resembled Finn. The same hair, the same eyes, the same feral chin balanced by high, wide cheekbones.

“You’ve got no broken bones or internal injuries,” he said. “And I’ve taken care of the bruises.”

“It won’t change how she feels the next time she walks down a street by herself,” said Finn pointedly.

“And how am I to blame for that?” asked Garrett. “For not tattooing Sean’s child?”

“No. You were right to refuse Sean,” said Finn. “But your wife knew, or suspected, what Ann was when she sent her to my house the first time.”

Another jarring piece of information for Ann to process. She had gone to Finn’s house that day because little Garrett MacUmhaill had missed over thirty days of school during his second-grade year. Nieve MacCecht, the child’s mother, had given Finn’s address as her residence. Wrongly, Ann had assumed that Finn was the boy’s father. Finn had corrected her, claiming that the child was his nephew, but that couldn’t be right either. Everything she had heard tonight indicated that little Garrett was in fact Finn’s
grandchild
.

She stood up and felt faint. She must have swayed, because before she knew it, Finn’s hands were on her shoulders steadying her, and he was looking into her eyes but talking to Garrett. “Are you sure about the internal injuries?”

“Yes,” said Garrett.

“I’m fine,” said Ann. “Just tired.”

“Hungry, probably, too,” said Finn. “Berserking takes a lot out of you.”

Now that she thought of it, she
was
hungry. And not for the cold cereal sitting on top of her refrigerator. “I’m starving,” she said.

“I’ll have dinner for us sent to your house,” said Finn.

“Takeout does sound good,” she said.

Her Fae rescuer whipped out a new smartphone, which confirmed her suspicions about Finn MacUmhaill’s relationship to modern technology. A few clicks and he seemed satisfied. There were only a few places that delivered to her end of Charlestown anyway, mostly pizzerias and Chinese restaurants, but Ann didn’t care what it was as long as it was hot.

She didn’t know much about cars. She had never owned one herself because Boston’s public transportation was so good and parking was so difficult to find, but even she could see that the little silver coupe that pulled up with Patrick at the wheel was a ruinously expensive model. Patrick left the motor running and the door open, and Finn slid smoothly behind the wheel while Patrick went round the other side and held the passenger side open for Ann.

Garrett followed them to the car, stood at the driver’s side window, and asked, “What about the Druid?”

“The Penitent will call when he runs him to ground,” said Finn.

Garrett nodded, but he didn’t step away, and Ann sensed that he was waiting for something. She leaned across the console and said, “Thank you. For treating my bruises. And for rescuing me.”

“You’re welcome,” said Garrett. “My son wishes he could do second grade over again just to be back in your classroom.”

“Mr. Feeny has that effect on people. Tell him third grade doesn’t last forever,” said Ann.

“You’re good with children,” he said, stepping away from the car. “That must come in handy with my father.”

Finn sighed. “Wait until your son is grown, Garrett. Fatherhood looks easy when it’s all seesaws and bicycles and swimming lessons. It gets harder when it’s alcohol, cars, and girls.” He rolled the window up and put the car in drive. They shot off down the narrow road hugging the water.

Chapter 8

A
nn watched how Finn handled the car with ease. There was something sexy about it, this mastery over speed and metal. Then a remembered piece of fairy lore surfaced in her mind. “How come you can drive? I mean, aren’t cars full of metal? And aren’t fairies allergic to it or something?”

“We can’t handle cold iron. There’s precious little iron in modern cars, and all of it is dilute, smelted into alloys that are mostly in the frame and under the hood. No direct contact with the driver in any case.” He turned to her and smiled as they shot out onto the main road leading back into Charlestown. “Any other questions?”

“Yes, actually. How can Garrett be your son?”

“That isn’t really a question about the Fae.”

“Isn’t it? He’s at least twenty. You’re barely thirty. Those numbers don’t add up.”

“You won’t like the real ones much better.”

“Try me,” she said.

“Garrett is my son. He is twenty-six. And I am older than I look.”

“How old?”

“About twenty-five hundred years, give or take.”

She tried to process that. “The first time we met, you told me that Garrett was your nephew. But he’s your son. The child I taught in my second-grade class last year is your
grandson
. Why did you lie to me?”

“I wasn’t sure how you felt about dating older men.”

She laughed. It felt good. It was an amazing relief. She laughed so hard it brought tears to her eyes, and then she cried a little because it had been a very, very long day.

Finn pulled up in front of her house and killed the motor. He surprised her by leaning across the console and kissing her. He held her face in his hands while he did it and she could feel her heart pounding, the excitement as vivid as if they were kids in high school and she was being kissed, really kissed, open mouths and wet tongues, for the first time.

“I’m beginning to believe you really do like me,” she said, quite stupidly.

“I like you a lot, Ann Phillips,” he said. Then he was out of the car and opening her door and offering her his hand.

“You can’t park here,” she said. “It’s permit only, and the neighbors will report a skateboard if it doesn’t have the right stickers on it. I’m astonished there was even a space here at this time of night.”

“There wasn’t,” said Finn, “until ten minutes ago. I gave Patrick your address and instructions to make sure there would be a space. And the police here won’t tow my car.”

She ought to have found that disturbing, but at the moment it was a relief. One less thing to worry about. “You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

“There’s dinner coming, remember?” he said.

“Oh. I can pay for it when it comes,” she said.

“No,” he said, taking the keys from her hands. “You can’t.”

He let them in the apartment. A few minutes later the doorbell rang, and Ann understood that Finn wasn’t just being chivalrous, unless Sal’s Pizza now employed silver-haired Irish housekeepers and delivered meals plated on bone china complete with wine and crystal glasses.

“Most people just order pizza when they don’t feel like cooking,” said Ann once the housekeeper had gone, leaving the table set with double damask linens and a feast for two.

“Most people aren’t retaining a cook, a housekeeper, and a wine steward on salary with nothing for them to do until the foundation is repaired,” said Finn, lifting the cover on the platter at the center of the table. “Chateaubriand for two, carrots, potatoes, and I expect there is crème brûlée for dessert. Mrs. Friary is a creature of habit.”

He seated himself at one end of Ann’s tiny table and poured the wine. With the table set with bright white linen, delicate china, sparkling silver, and faceted crystal, the meal felt somehow more intimate than what had transpired between them at the warehouse.

“This is not a date,” she said. Dates didn’t start with a kidnapping, feature oral sex, and end with fine dining, not even in Charlestown.

“Would you prefer pizza in front of the television, served on paper plates, by yourself?” he asked, carving into the roast. The aroma made her mouth water. And she didn’t particularly want to be alone right now.

“No.”

“Then sit and eat,” he said. “And you can ask me the questions that are burning in your sharp brain.”

“And you’ll answer? Anything?”

“And I’ll answer,” he confirmed. “Anything.”

She accepted a thick slice of meat, red at the center and crusty brown with spices at the edges, a dollop of béarnaise sauce, creamy yellow and flecked with tarragon, and a little mound of glazed carrots and roasted potatoes that tasted better than vegetables had any right to taste. Between bites she said, “Tell me about your wife.”

An unguarded look of surprise and grief crossed his face. “That isn’t the kind of question I was expecting.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she had died recently,” said Ann.

“You have nothing to apologize for. Brigid died two thousand years ago, at the hands of the Druids.”

“Oh.”

“Who told you about her?”

“Nancy McTeer.”

Finn sighed. “She tried to come to me at the gathering of the Fianna this week, but it isn’t permitted for anyone but members of the band to attend. Humans are only admitted when they are attached to a Fae, and she was there without Sean.”

“That sounds medieval,” said Ann. “And stupid. Like a tradition that exists for its own sake.”

“The Fianna are a fighting band. Traditions instill a sense of esprit de corps in such groups. They bind men together. We may not always share a common cause, but we will always fight for one another. Since my last battle with Miach, the Fianna have been defecting to his banner. It was a delicate time to break with tradition, and Nancy has always been a troublemaker, so I didn’t admit her. But she was waiting outside my house later that night when I came home, and I saw the bruises on her face. I tried to get her to leave Charlestown. Sean isn’t good for her.”

“Sean isn’t good for any woman,” said Ann.

“The Druids tortured him,” said Finn. “He was a poet, if you can believe it, before the Court fell. After his captivity, though, he was never the same.”

“That’s no excuse for hitting a woman,” said Ann. “And Nancy might be a handful, but don’t go blaming her for not leaving him. This isn’t a neighborhood where children, especially girls, grow up with a lot of opportunities.”

“I don’t blame Nancy for her circumstances, but I do question why she was talking to you about my wife.”

“I don’t. I grew up in a place that wasn’t very different from Charlestown. When women have limited opportunities, when they don’t have access to education and can’t envision a life for themselves different from their mothers’, they see other women as competition instead of allies. Nancy didn’t see me as an educator, a partner in her son’s well-being. She saw me as a rival.”

“For what?”

“Power. The only kind she’s ever had access to. The kind she derives from being Sean’s lover. He’s important in the Fianna, isn’t he?”

“He is,” agreed Finn.

“Nancy derives her rank among the women she knows from him. And you don’t have a lover at the moment, which puts her at the top of the heap. Unless you meet someone.”

“I have met someone,” said Finn.

Ann wasn’t going to touch that yet. Not yet. “Nancy thought I was using her son to get close to you. She wanted me to know that you were emotionally unavailable.”

“This is beginning to feel an awful lot like a date,” said Finn. “Let’s talk about something else. You must be curious about your abilities and . . . needs.”

Now it was Ann’s turn to feel uncomfortable. She blushed. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m not a nymphomaniac or an exhibitionist.”

“I never thought you were.”

“And I’m not . . . aggressive.”

“You’re a berserker, Ann. You’re made of aggression. And for the record, I like that. I like a woman who can take what she wants. Even from me.”

Her face heated. “I don’t do things like that, normally. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do,” he said. “Pent-up desire. Unnaturally pent-up. When was the last time you had a good, long, slow fuck, one that really satisfied you?”

Never.
But she wasn’t going to say that. She didn’t like vulgar talk. It wasn’t sexy. It didn’t turn her on. Not that she had that much experience being turned on. Except that she was turned on now, nipples tight and an insistent pulse throbbing between her legs, and all he was doing at the moment was holding her hand, swirling his thumb around in her palm, drawing circles that mimicked the way she touched herself when she was alone.

“That doesn’t excuse what I did,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I didn’t even ask you if you wanted that.”

“I think you know that I did. Or at least I hope that my performance was suitably enthusiastic.” He licked his lips. “You seemed to enjoy it.”

She flushed once more.

“I intend to do it again later. With some variations I hope will please you.”

She almost dropped her fork. “You can’t mean that.”

“Then you weren’t pleased?” he asked, smiling slyly.

“You know I was. But that was . . . this would be . . . ”

“That was fast and hard because you needed it. This will be slow and leisurely because you need that, too. And next time you go into a berserk state, you won’t have to make do with whatever man crosses your path.”

“I thought you said you enjoyed it.”

“I did enjoy it. But the next man might not. Or, you may not particularly care for the next man but you’ll take him all the same because sex and violence go hand in hand with your gift.”

“So you’re going to sleep with me as a public service?”

“I’m going to sleep with you because I’ve wanted you from the day I met you and I know berserkers. My tongue will have barely taken the edge off your desire.”

He was right. Despite everything she had been through that night, she was almost painfully aroused just thinking about going to bed with him. She found she didn’t much care if he was emotionally unavailable. He was physically available, and she had never had that before. But she didn’t want to replay the humiliation she had experienced as a young woman.

“Did you really mean what you said? About liking a woman who takes what she wants?”

“Have I given you any reason to doubt my word?”

“You lied to me about having a son.”

“A man who appears thirty but has an adult son is not an easy thing to explain. And my relationship with my son isn’t exactly uncomplicated. In this case I gain nothing by lying, except perhaps a sexual experience not entirely to my taste. I have enough stature in the world of the Fae that I don’t have to settle for such a thing.”

“But you might do it for the novelty, to laugh about tomorrow with your friends,” she said, unable to hold back the experience that had shaped so much of her sexuality.

“What an utterly pathetic specimen your first lover must have been. Any man who is afraid of a strong woman is afraid because he doubts his own masculinity, his own prowess.”

“It wasn’t just the first,” she said.
One
she could have laughed off and dismissed.
One
she could have gotten over.

“Ann,” he said gently. “You’re no ordinary woman. That’s why you couldn’t find a man strong enough for you. But you don’t have to hold back with me.”

It was so tempting. And dangerous. “What about our bargain? You promised to protect Davin. If we go to bed together now, will you still help him?”

“I was always going to save the boy. I made that bargain with Ann Phillips, schoolteacher, so she would be able to give herself permission to enjoy bedding a man she desired. But you aren’t just Ann Phillips, prim, repressed schoolteacher. You’re a berserker. You don’t need excuses to enjoy yourself with a man.”

“It feels wrong to think about myself while Davin is missing.”

“Iobáth is tracking the boy. He is second only to the Prince Consort in his ability to track. He
will
find him. But until he does, there is nothing you or I can do.”

“And Davin’s tattoos? Will you let them shape his future? Make him into something he isn’t?”

“If possible, my son will remove the tattoos. Or find some way to counter their influence.”

“You and your son don’t seem to be on the best of terms,” she observed. “He was expecting you to thank him tonight. Why didn’t you?”

“Because he shouldn’t need to be thanked for fulfilling his obligations to the Fianna.”

“It wasn’t the Fianna who were in trouble tonight,” said Ann. “It was me.”

“And you’re going to be mine, Ann Phillips, and I am the leader of the Fianna.”

“Leadership isn’t that simple, even on the playground, but parent and child relationships are the same, no matter how old you are. Your son wanted something from you tonight, and it wasn’t just a thank-you. It was approval. Why do you withhold it?”

“Because he has disappointed me.”

“He’s a doctor, or at least he’s the Fae equivalent. How can he be a disappointment?”

“He married a woman who isn’t good enough for him.”

“You’re forgetting, I’ve met his wife. Nieve is little Garrett’s mother. She’s smart and resourceful.”