Stone Song (9 page)

When she emerged in the yard beside Gran’s house, gulping in air, her mind was still frozen with terror. Her body shook with horror and revulsion and the only thing that tethered her to reality, such as it was, was the Prince, his fine-boned fingers laced in hers.

But he wasn’t paying any attention to her at all. Their strange passage hadn’t affected him. He was as elegant, as assured as he had been moments before in the Black Rose. And his face was alive with childlike delight. He was utterly fascinated by Gran’s house. He released her hand and stalked to the door, touched the narrow wooden clapboards beside it, but not, she noted, the cold iron latch, hinges, nails, or straps.

“Who built this place?” he asked.

She didn’t want to answer, but she didn’t have a choice. Her cold iron was gone, and the Prince’s whims were her commands. And the Fae wine still had her in its grasp. Even after that horrific journey, she was still in the grip of a powerful, unwanted lust.

At least in the matter of the house,
she
could frustrate
him
by answering honestly. “I don’t know who built it. It was Gran’s house, but it’s really old, and she wasn’t exactly a member of the historical society.”

The Prince turned a baleful eye on Sorcha. “Why are you so sure she didn’t build it?”

“Because it’s been here for at least two hundred years.”

He shrugged. “A reasonable span for a Druid, if she was skilled.”

“My grandmother wasn’t a Druid,” Sorcha said.

“No? Then why did she gird her house with so much iron?”

“To protect me,” Sorcha said, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew that wasn’t right. Gran’s house had been ironbound
before
Sorcha had arrived.

The Prince laughed. “Oh, Sorcha, I think you have more secrets than I guessed. Let’s peel them back, one by one, shall we?”

He ordered her to open the back door and hold it wide for him to walk through and, bereft of cold iron, she complied like the puppet she was. Once inside, he made a cursory examination of the kitchen, eyeing the iron pots and pans with distaste. Then, with preternatural speed, he gripped her arm, spun her about, and lifted her onto the island countertop in the center of the room.

The Prince pushed her skirt up, grasped her below the knees, and yanked her forward, and she found herself lying on the butcher-block surface, her legs hanging off the end, the Prince standing between them.

It was difficult to think straight. She despised him, but she wanted to run her fingers through his long black hair and taste his wide lush mouth. Sorcha gripped the countertop, and she tried to push herself away from him, but he said, “None of that, my pretty black-haired bard,” and when he caressed down her thighs to her aching center, she froze and mewled like a kitten.

He lowered his head and began, at long last, to minister directly to her need with his mouth, and she went boneless for him, her whole being concentrated on the place between her legs. Her arms slid to her sides, then off the counter, where they encountered something cold.

Iron. More than the delicate ring that used to pierce her nipple. A metal bar set into the side of the island. Enough cold metal to cut through her haze of desire, to wake her to the horror of what was happening, but the Prince’s grip was firm and she was trapped. Frantic, her hands yanked at the iron rail but it was bolted to the wood.

Her fingers searched up and down the bar until they encountered something else. A hook. Welded to the bar. A pot hanging from the hook.

Salvation.

She wrapped her fingers around the handle. The Prince was wholly intent on his seduction, his attention focused on the juncture of her thighs. So she lifted the pot off its hook and swung.

The Prince’s reflexes were faster than those of a man, but not fast enough. He raised one elegant hand to deflect the blow, and took the full force of Sorcha’s swing on his wrist. The pot connected with an audible, sickening crack. Momentum carried it farther, and it glanced off one angular cheekbone.

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 to 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
un
natural.