Stone Song (10 page)

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 followed 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.

“So did Conn die?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“No. He was the finest warrior the Fae had ever produced, and the Druids had a different use for him. They struck a bargain with Conn. They freed him from the mound, but they bound him to a sword. The Summoner. The wall between worlds has many gates, but they can only be opened by the most powerful sorcerers. The Summoner was forged to be both a blade and a wedge. It supplies the necessary leverage for a young mage to open the gate. It was a failsafe, so that if the Druids ever needed to reach the Otherworld, they would have the power, whether their most skilled mages still lived or not. The Druids placed a
geis
on Conn that compelled him to protect the sword at all costs from his own kind.”

“He must have come to hate the Druids,” Sorcha whispered.

“Well, he’s married to one now,” replied Elada, “so I suppose he is either unusually forgiving, which is unlikely, given he betrayed his whole race for revenge, or she is a very special Druid. Do you feel any better now?”

“You mean after story time?”

He smiled. “Well, it always worked on Maire’s boys.”

Sorcha recalled the Prince’s threat to Elada, that his bleached-blond colleen and her litter would suffer, and she felt a flare of jealousy. “Is she your girlfriend? Maire?”

“She was, but we parted amicably. And we were talking about you. How do you feel now?”

“Not great.” Really, really bad. “But I don’t think you can die from unsatisfied lust,” she added.

Elada didn’t crack a smile.

“Please tell me that isn’t possible.”

“Honestly? I don’t know what happens if you drink Fae wine without . . . dispelling its effects in the time-honored way.”

• • •

The girl was shaking, as
though she had a fever and chills. Muscles spasmed and twitched in her arms and legs. If there was an antidote to Fae wine, she needed it.

“I’m cold,” she said. “I think I need to get into bed.”

Elada watched her climb out from under the breakfast bar. She stood on shaky legs, leaning on the counter for support. Her first unaided step was unsteady. Her knees buckled on her second and Elada caught her.

He finally had Sorcha Kavanaugh in his arms, but not the way he had hoped.

There was no way around it. He was going to have to call Miach, and he had no way to predict how the sorcerer would react. He’d promised to bring him Sorcha Kavanaugh, willing acolyte, not Sorcha Kavanaugh, poisoned Druid.

“Where’s your room, Sorcha?” he asked.

“Upstairs,” came her feeble reply. Then she closed her eyes and turned her head in to face his chest. “I like flannel,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. He supposed that was as much sense as he was likely to get out of her in her current state. He’d have to navigate the twisty old house and find someplace to tuck her up warm for sleep on his own.

He carried her through the kitchen, which took up most of the narrow projecting wing, and into the parlor of the main house. It was an old-fashioned room with furniture that managed to appear overstuffed and uncomfortable all at once. So much for bundling her up on a capacious sofa.

Elada found a narrow stair separating the parlor from a similar room on the other side, fitted out as a dining room cum stillroom. He didn’t think the dusty assortment of jars and dried herbs and tied branches belonged to Sorcha. The grandmother, more likely. Elada had his suspicions about her.

Upstairs were three bedrooms. The first appeared to belong to the fiddler. There was sheet music spread across the bed, an unstrung fiddle bow lying on the desk, and a package of catgut tacked to the wall above.

So Sorcha and the fiddler were not living as man and wife. Elada took some satisfaction in that. Tommy Carrell might share Sorcha’s bed on occasion, but they didn’t share the same bedroom. He had been right. They shared friendship and sometimes bodies, but not passion.

The second chamber he found contained a narrow single bed, and for a moment he thought it might be Sorcha’s, but the room was too girlish for a grown woman. The painted white furniture and pink walls were the sort of thing a parent—or a grandparent—might choose for a young child. It was difficult to imagine Sorcha sleeping under the frilled canopies or over the ruffled bed skirt. And there was nothing of the musician at all about the room.

If he’d had any doubts, Sorcha dispelled them by stirring in his arms and opening her luminous brown eyes, the pupils so dilated they appeared almost black, and rasping, “Not here. I hate this room.”

So much for that, then.

The third room must have belonged to the grandmother, and was clearly Sorcha’s now. There was a large standing harp in one corner, and several smaller stringed instruments on the dresser, the kind itinerant bards used to play, neat and portable. There was a chair strewn with vintage dresses and crumpled pink plastic bags from the giant vintage clothing store in Cambridge that she must frequent. And dominating the room was a wide black iron bed, four posts nearly touching the ceiling and topped by an iron tester with rails.

He supposed it had been dressed with curtains and a canopy once, but the cold iron was naked now and to Elada it looked like a cage. He debated setting her down inside it. It would weaken him slightly, but so had crashing through the window earlier. And Sorcha was clearly in a bad way.

He laid her down on the coverlet, careful not to brush against the bedposts or headboard and debilitate himself more than necessary. Sorcha was still shivering, so he pulled back the blankets and tucked her under them. A second later she cried out and flung them off. Then she curled up into a trembling ball and whimpered.

“What is happening to me?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” Although he could guess. “I’m going to call Miach. Rest if you can.”

He crept back down the stairs and called Miach on his cell.

The sorcerer answered on the first ring.

“I suppose it was you who put my wife in a cab,” said Miach.

Not off to a good start, unfortunately, but Elada had no regrets about that particular act. “Would you rather I’d let her walk down Broadway and get on the T?”

“I wouldn’t have let her leave at all,” said the sorcerer.

“Then you would have lost her for good. You know I’m right, even if you can’t admit it now.”

“That remains to be seen. Where is Sorcha Kavanaugh?”

“Safe. Someplace the Prince Consort can’t get to her.” Once the iron muntins in the kitchen window were repaired. But he wasn’t going to mention that part to Miach.