“Honestly? I haven’t a clue.” Joe shrugged, all casually blunt. As if it wasn’t her life or her death that they were discussing. “But couldn’t hurt to try. What else have you got to do?”
“You’re a prat, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Pretty much.” He set down his beer. “So that’s a ‘yes, I’d love to risk my neck to help you,’ right?”
London snorted. He was right. What other choice did she have? Wasn’t that the story of her life since becoming enchanted? Not having any choice but the one that fed her addiction to the Touch, no matter how dangerous or morally questionable? “Just tell me the job.”
“I need to check out some guy who’s come to Tiernan’s attention.”
“Why do you need my help? You’ve got skills.” And wasn’t that the truth? The man handled a gun like the Marine Corps Special Forces that he’d been. All focused and professional, even in the heat of a firefight.
“But not the right equipment.” He winked with a randy flirtatiousness that was altogether delicious on him. “This dude’s a real ladies’ man. You could probably just do the hair-flip thing and get him to spill his guts.”
“My hair’s too short to do the hair-flip thing.” She slid her fingers through her close-cropped, dark hair. The style looked good on her, she thought, but more importantly, it kept it out of the way. One time having her ponytail snatched in a scuffle was enough for her. And since she frequently worked for vampires, she could imagine one using her hair like a handle to force her to arch her neck. No point in making it easy.
“Then do the sultry batting-eyelids thing. Work it, girl.”
“This is the part where I slap you, right?” she joked.
“Nope. This is the part where you think it’s an easy gig and if it gets you in good with a Sidhe, then it’s worth admitting for five minutes that you’re a sexy woman.”
She smirked at him. Admittedly, she might be somewhat attractive by human standards. But compared to the fey, she was the epitome of average. Even if Joe thought she was easy on the eyes, she knew this flattery was all about leverage. “You’re so full of it.”
“Part of my charm.” He dug a folded bill from his pocket, tossed it down on the counter for the bartender, and then extracted a slip of paper and handed it to her. “Meet me at the pier in Newcastle tomorrow. The arrangements are all set up.”
London watched him walk out. Nothing wrong with the way his jeans fit when he swaggered. The cocky chap hadn’t for a minute doubted that she’d agree to this job. In truth, she’d not at all been offended by the suggestion of sex appeal to get an advantage. It was nice to know Joe thought she had some.
Smiling a little to herself, London unfolded the paper. It was a flier for some bloke claiming to be a druid. He was having some kind of a ceremony at Cashtal Yn Ard, an old burial site on the Isle of Man.
London’s smile vanished. The Isle of Man. Wizard territory.
Chapter Two
For someone on Donovan’s hit list, London couldn’t muster enough fear to obliterate the utterly fabulous feeling still tingling and flexing beneath her skin. Kieran’s Touch, his glorious Sidhe magic, lingered powerfully within her body. The stroke of his fingers, the warm scent of his skin, the taste of his kiss, his eternal and youthful fey sexiness— all of it rolled over in her mind on a loop. She obsessed worse than a teenage girl with her first crush. Although Kieran’s Touch was truly amazing, it wasn’t London’s first experience with the Sidhe. This magnificent feeling, and the addictive intoxication that simulated the heights of romantic love, was nothing but a side effect of the magic. It wasn’t real. Not for her. And certainly not for Kieran.
Eating breakfast in the teahouse across from her flat, London watched everyone coming and going on the bustling Dublin street. This was the first time she’d staked out her own apartment. It chilled her to the core of her soul to recall Donovan ordering her death as he’d nearly crushed her throat himself. But instead of killing her then and there, he set the earthborn Unseelie upon her, like a leopard dropping a fawn before his young, teaching them to hunt for themselves.
And had those teenaged Unseelie not mucked up the job, she wouldn’t have escaped.
Not for a second did she imagine that Donovan would accept this failure. Not for a second did London imagine that she was safe, even on the other side of Ireland. Thank the heavens that she’d not put her address on her business card, only the city. Depending on how clever they were with investigation techniques, she wouldn’t be all that difficult to find. Luckily, the fey in general relied more on magic than technology, otherwise a half-hearted Google search would have them beating down her door. So for the two nights since she’d escaped the Unseelie, London stayed in a hotel a couple blocks up the street.
Staking out her flat, watching for possible assassins, seemed a far better way to spend the morning than sitting in that very apartment jumping over every incidental sound. With her netbook and her phone she could conduct business right from the safety of the window booth, and pay her rent of it with the purchase of a Cream Tea.
She smoothed the flier Joe had given her, considering the information it provided. At first glance, it didn’t appear vastly different from any other modern pagan gathering. At University she’d known a couple of modern pagans. Their claims of mystical knowledge stemmed from what they could glean from books, other humans that passed on an oral tradition, and imagined spiritual connections they might feel in meditation and ritual. Not from direct contact with the Sidhe who populated to Celtic pantheon. The Sidhe didn’t play at being deities any more. London had uncovered that fact within the first week that she’d been enchanted.
What made this Riley Flynn stand out was his claim that he had firsthand knowledge of the Sidhe deities. He claimed proficiency in the secret powers of the true druids and would share them for a price. That, despite what the historians might think, the druids had in fact once been a sect of ‘blessed’ humans who served the Sidhe. All these claims hit too close to the mark for coincidence. If this bloke actually knew anything about the real Sidhe, then he’d be a serious threat to their safety and secrecy.
No wonder Joe’s boss wanted him to check out this fellow.
London plunged herself into research on the Internet. From what she could find, Cashtal Yn Ard wasn’t even a druid site, just a circle of standing stones that were the last remnants of a Neolithic burial ground. That detail didn’t seem to matter as much as the Stonehenge-like venue with an impressive view of the hills and sea. A perfect setting to invoke the sense of ancient mystery and power.
Riley’s personal website clinched it. London almost choked on her tea when she saw the splashy headline.
Druid of the Sidhe.
London flipped through the entries on his blog, pressing her fingers to the pulse in her temple. Riley gave detailed accounts of his Sidhe encounters, calling them gods and goddesses. He even described the Touch, which he called a ‘blessing.’ No doubt about it, the man had experienced the Touch— from the initial devastation as the magic burned a path through the soul, to the heights of sexual arousal and love, to the longing and desperation as the magic faded over time if not replenished.
But if he was an enchanted human, why the bloody hell was he on the Isle of Man?
Her cell phone chimed with a text message, bringing her out of her mental investigative zone and back to the teahouse. London had been so consumed with her research that she didn’t know how long she’d sat there. She’d certainly not been keeping an eye out for the Unseelie sworn to kill her. For a moment her hand hesitated over the phone, loathed to check it and find some other cryptic threat, but the message was not from the Unseelie this time, so her heart rate immediately dropped to half the thundering speed it had jumped to.
Instead, the text came from Selena. London thought the vampire mistress would have long since laid down to rest for the day. It wasn’t even the early morning anymore, with the sun fully breaking over the horizon. The messag
e read: You’re going to just love this. My place. ASAP.
Selena loved sending vague summonings, figuring people should come when she called. And after living for however many hundreds of years, she’d long since passed the age of explaining herself, or her motives, to anyone.
Chapter Three
It didn’t matter that it was daylight out. The Satin Club, which was the center of Selena’s empire, never closed. The windows were coated with blackout paint that prevented the sunlight from seeping in, no matter the angle. London waved to the bartender as she headed through the mostly empty club, and he called her over. “Hey, take this tray up to the Mistress and I’ll love you forever.”
“You said that last time.”
She waved him off, but Trent persisted, “Yeah, but this time I mean it.” He smiled that brilliant smile of his, not in the least hiding those fangs.
“How can I resist that charm?” London winked at him, grabbed the tray he’d left on the bar, and headed up the steps. Considering the contents of the two glasses, there was little mystery as to what she might find. The blood was for Selena, and the orange juice would be for her donor, whoever that had been last evening.
She balanced the tray as she climbed the steps to Selena’s private chambers on the second floor. Given the early hour, London took a chance and knocked on the bedroom door, rather than the one to the office. She’d deduced right and the door opened to her.
The man who greeted her was no one she’d ever seen before. No way she could have forgotten a man like that. Her eyes lifted, and lifted higher still, as he stood well over six and a half feet. Possibly even seven. His dress shirt hung untucked and open, revealing a handsomely smooth and muscled chest. Fresh bite marks marred the perfection of his pecs and on both sides of his strong neck, though not over the veins, but rather upon the muscled slope joining his neck and his shoulder. His stylishly cut, blond hair was mussed in a just-got-laid way, which didn’t hide the elven points to his ears.
The man was Sidhe.
In her shock, London didn’t notice that she dropped the tray, but the Sidhe gracefully recovered it before the drinks spilled. After handing the goblet of blood to Selena and then taking the orange juice for himself, he placed the tray on a side table. Smiling softly at her, the Sidhe half-leaned, half-sat on the vanity. The pose, in those designer black slacks and the opened shirt, seemed insanely GQ to London. Like the image should be on the cover of a magazine and not something seen in real life. His amused, blue eyes sparkled as he drank the juice, watching her for some sign of recovering her senses.
Every Sidhe that London had ever met had attacked her. Most with the intent to kill. Although she craved their Touch, and needed it to live, the Sidhe themselves were as merciless as feral werewolves. That was the fact. Under all the haze of enchantment it was easy to be mystified into forgetting the deadly truth. Even though this sexy Sidhe affected a laidback manner, London didn’t trust it for a second. Rico had been just as relaxed when Selena had introduced her to him, too. Right up until he’d attacked, cursing her with this addiction to the Touch for which there was no cure. This Sidhe before her now had the drop-dead good looks that could hypnotize like a cobra’s stare, and London couldn’t fight the inner fear that he’d strike just as wickedly if she risked even the slightest move.
Selena broke the silence. “London, my dear friend, I believe I have found you a client.” The sense of déjà vu was nightmare ferocious, only she wasn’t dreaming. The vampire had said almost the same words when she’d introduced London to Rico. Selena didn’t seem to notice, but instead tilted a small vile in her hand, which gave off a light of its own. Giving her attention to the Sidhe, she asked, “Have you a number where I can reach you if I find anything useful?”
Seemingly nonplussed at London’s reaction, the Sidhe spoke. “I have not. If you discover anything, send an emissary to Sneem and give word to the one called Jonathan and your message will find me.” His smooth and resonant voice washed over London’s senses, so much so that she didn’t want him to stop speaking, as if her ears yearned for more. The notion would be insane, if the speaker had been other than Sidhe. Their aura of magic and beauty possessed ten times the lure of a vampire. The addiction of her enchantment made it that much more impossible to resist.
“If your quest is as dire as all that, then you can’t rely on such antiquated methods,” Selena teased him. “If all I have been told of the Mounds is true, then you’ll require an aide to help you navigate the necessary technologies and make arrangements for you.”
Although Selena affected a more formal style of speech when talking with the Sidhe, when she spoke to London she returned to a more direct, modern cadence. “Set him up with a cell phone. He’ll also need your investigative talents to find a number of items of interest.”
For a moment, London thought the Sidhe might protest, but Selena rose from the bed and crossed to him in a gliding vampire move that London rarely witnessed. The effect was nearly as if Selena had traversed the room without her feet touching the ground. It was one of those little, vampire tricks that added to their mystique and found its way into legend. Rarely did the vampire mistress bother with such efforts to impress, which in itself clued London into the fact that this was no ordinary Sidhe. She entreated him, “Do this for me. Allow London to assist you. Pay the price she must exact. She is well worth it, I assure you.”
Selena leaned into his embrace like a lover and the man accepted her as if they were. She said, “And as for the final item of our agreement, if you promise to protect her from them, she will lead you to the Unseelie.”
Oh, crap. London’s gaze flicked from Selena to the Sidhe. Donovan already wanted her head on a platter. And now they wanted to send her back to his doorstep?
Chapter Four
“I am far too Seelie to depart from a negotiation without disclosure, in full, of the terms to which I am agreeing.” Even though his arms circled Selena, the way his gaze hit so solidly upon London sent a shiver of vulnerability through her. He could crush her; she felt that in the very moment his full attention slammed into her. Physically, for sure, but more than just that. This was no young Sidhe without a clue. This man had the same direct stare as Donovan, one that heralded a power beyond anything she could imagine. This was the power that convinced her ancestors that the Sidhe were nothing less than gods. Even if he’d not been so tall and insanely handsome, just the force of his gaze alone held the strength to overwhelm her. “Know you the whereabouts of those Sidhe called the earthborns?”
“I know where they are.” London admitted that just by the weight of his expectation for an answer. It popped out of her without even thinking. Balling her hands into fists so the pain from the bite of her fingernails jarred her from her breathless obsession, London cut a glance at Selena, who calmly waited for London to spill the beans. No way was she going to risk betraying the Unseelie to the vampire, even if they did want her dead. Bringing her focus back to the man, she added, “But I won’t tell you if you plan to hurt them. Or if you’ll betray them to Selena or anyone else who’d hunt them.”
“Of this, you can be assured. I am not their Champion for naught.” The man straightened, as if she’d grazed his ego with her mistrust. “What is this payment you must extract, of which Selena spoke?”
Talk about being put on the spot. Just how much should she reveal? She’d figuratively spilled her guts to Donovan, and he tried to literally spill her guts for it. She knew she was a screw-up. What was the statute of limitations on newbie ignorance? Best to keep it short and sweet, and hope that if it came to it Selena could keep the Sidhe from killing her. “I’ve been enchanted.”
So far, so good. The man hadn’t even blinked at that, so she pressed onward. “The one who first Touched me was killed. I need another Sidhe to take me on.”
“Take you on?” Just a short question, and yet even that brief moment of hearing his voice as he spoke directly to her sent a heat burning through her body that made her blus
h. The reaction was nearly obscene, but that was just the effect the Sidhe had on her and no amount of being around them lessened that even in the slightest.
Rather than allowing her addiction to send her into erotic fantasizing, she needed to focus. This was more than business, or even pleasure. This was about her future and her sanity. If she ‘screwed the pooch’ on this one there was no telling if she’d ever get another chance. “To hire me on a permanent basis, in exchange for the Touch when I need it.”
London panicked when the Sidhe approached her. She dropped back a step, more than half expecting him to attack her. Rico had done as much when he first cursed her. As had Donovan, when she’d confessed her mistakes to him and threw herself on his mercy.
But rather than attacking, the man spoke with infinite kindness. “You were ill-treated?” He showed her his empty hand, and then reached for her with a gentleness that stunned her. With a tender curve of his palm, he cupped her face. His thumb caressed her cheek and London trembled from even so slight an affection.
And then he Touched her.
A warmth like the sun spread over her skin. She’d been Touched by Kieran just two days before, so there was only a slight void within her, but this Sidhe blessed her with a loving light that at once filled her with wonder and joy. All her doubts vanished like vapor. All her fear of him evaporated. He awoke her from the nightmare of her curse that had shrouded her for months into the dawning of a new and glorious reality.
Her breath caught as his mouth lowered to hers. In a kiss as tender as his caress, his lips pressed to hers. Nothing could have prepared her for what she felt. Not the raging sexual attraction that so often accompanied the Touch, but an uplifting and consuming sense of unconditional love.
Remnants of Magic (The Sidhe Collection (Urban Fantasy)) Page 16