“What about your promise to Beth?” she asked.
“That’s my problem, and right now I find I simply don’t care,” he said.
She did. About his promise, at least. A voice at the back of her mind insisted that this was a bad idea, that she was being selfish, that the terror of the last month and her brush with death today had made her reckless. On some level she understood that danger could feed arousal, understood that an encounter with mortality could make you want to feel alive in this, the most elemental way.
The rational part of her knew that they shouldn’t do this, but the animalistic part of her was coming alive under his touch, and she didn’t want him to stop. She could feel the warmth of his breath through the film of her cotton panties. Wanted him to pull them off and blow on the trimmed curls there. But he didn’t.
Instead he pressed a single finger against the fabric. Precisely where she ached the most. Where she was wettest. Soaked, she realized, through the sheer cloth. He rubbed her gently but firmly, in tiny circles, moving the slick cotton around and around and around her clit until her whole body twisted and arched and needy whimpers bubbled up from her lips.
“That’s it, Helene,” he encouraged her. “Let me do this for you. Let me make you feel good.”
She wanted to. She wanted the release he was offering. She braced her arms, palms down, on the sofa cushion behind her, and her hips rose and fell in a frantic rhythm. She’d sworn she wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t give in to a Fae, wouldn’t risk losing herself to his touch, but just now she was too hungry for pleasure. And when her body found it, the beginnings of an irresistible climax, she cried out and embraced it, spreading her legs wide to experience as much of the incredible sensation as possible.
It broke over her in wracking waves, too many to count, and the aftershocks continued for minutes more, little tremors running up and down her legs. Miach’s hands soothed her, massaging her muscles as they relaxed, steering clear of the desecrated flesh above her right knee where some Fae bastard had written his memory-stealing mark.
And she’d just accepted pleasure—a great deal of pleasure—from another of them. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She shouldn’t be with one of them. They were inhuman and cruel. Deceitful and cunning. Taking a Fae into your bed was dangerous, and more than a little idiotic.
She knew all that, but somehow, right now, Miach didn’t seem dangerous. He didn’t seem cruel. Ruthless, perhaps, but not cruel.
And then he looped his thumb under her panties at her hips and pulled them off and she forgot all the rest of her misgivings. Cool air met overheated flesh and stopped her body’s descent from climax, holding her fast on a plateau of arousal. A little shiver ran through her. Not quite another peak, not quite an aftershock. Then another.
“Good girl,” said Miach. “I knew you were sensual the first time I saw you. I knew you’d be capable of taking everything a Fae lover could give you.”
She shook her head. She was wrung out, replete. She couldn’t come again. She said as much.
“Yes,” said Miach, smiling dangerously. “You can. You will.”
Before, his touch had been muted by the cloth and translated into something familiar and manageable: pleasurable, but not challenging. This was different. This was what it meant to be with a Fae. The first glide of his nimble fingers over her slick cleft was white hot, would have been unbearable to unseasoned, untutored flesh. Only Miach’s earlier attentions and her recent climax allowed her some perspective, made it possible not to cry out like a cat in heat. Her hips bucked, her spine arched. The intensity was almost too much for her.
He stroked again. She sobbed. Choked. Gasped for air. His finger slid deep inside her. For a second it was still while she pulsed around him and she realized that he was waiting for her to catch her breath. Then his finger curled up toward the front wall of her abdomen. She gasped. He stroked. She opened her eyes to find him watching her intently, gauging her response, adjusting his touch to the rhythm of her breath, the tightening of her flesh around his invading digit.
He applied a gentle, constant upward pressure with his finger. His thumb swept her swollen nub and circled again until she teetered on the brink of climax once more.
And he kept her there. His skill, his ability to read her body, to pull her back when she came too near the edge, maintained her in a breathless, frenzied state for what seemed like hours, days, a lifetime. Then without warning he inserted a second finger, and pushed her over the precipice at last.
She spasmed wildly, kicked out her legs and then curled into a ball on the sofa, the pleasure so long deferred, so blindingly intense, it verged on pain. She barely registered him pushing her knees apart once more and protested only weakly when he threw her legs over his shoulders, effortlessly lifting and cradling her buttocks in his hands, and put his mouth to her.
It was all too much. She couldn’t tell where one climax stopped and another began. This, too, went on for longer than she dreamed possible, and she must have blacked out at some point. Because she came back to herself sprawled on the down cushions with Miach sitting on the floor, his head resting against her inner thigh, his eyes closed, a contented, slightly smug smile plastered across his face.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Beth told me it would be like that, but I didn’t believe her.” Her voice sounded raw and husky in her own ears. Had she been screaming after all?
“I thought she had such limited experience with men that she lacked a real basis for comparison,” she admitted, feeling a slight flush of embarrassment.
“That,” said Miach, eyes still closed, “was only foreplay, my dear girl. Only wait until Beth Carter lifts her bothersome geis. Then I will take you into my bed, Helene.”
The geis. She had forgotten all about it.
Kneeling in front of her, he’d looked feral and hungry, arousal flushing his features, but now his cheeks were pale, and he seemed more drained than she was.
“Miach, are you all right?”
He didn’t stir.
She climbed off the sofa and knelt beside him. “Miach,” she said softly.
No response.
She touched his cheek. Her fingers came away bloody. There was blood trickling from his ears. “Miach,” she said again as panic overtook her. She shook him and he stirred a little, then opened his eyes.
“Why are you bleeding?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
He sighed. “I suppose I violated Beth’s geis by pleasuring you, willing though you were. It’s weakened me, given the iron a chance to do its work. The little Druid’s magic is even stronger than I suspected. I think she might be a tad . . . overprotective, don’t you?”
“What can we do?” she asked.
“We can do nothing until Beth arrives. Not even a repeat performance, no matter how much we might enjoy it. I am going to ruin the last of Nieve’s garden, and perhaps wreak a little havoc on the park across the street after all. You are going to Deirdre’s.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m too weak now to protect you. Because there’s no summoning spell written on your skin, which means that the Fae who cast it on you has worked deeper, more dangerous magic than I can fight until I’ve fully recovered. I hate to admit it, but you just aren’t safe here with me.”
• • •
Miach rued his own stupidity and lack of self-control. He was three thousand years old. He didn’t make these kinds of mistakes. But somehow he’d managed to convince himself that Beth Carter’s geis couldn’t pose a real threat to him. It was an oath to an untrained Druid, a novice in the magical arts.
He was as self-delusional as the rest of his race.
Beth’s geis held real power. And Miach had violated its conditions. It did not matter that Helene had been a willing and enthusiastic participant in their love play. He had been the aggressor, or at least the active agent. No matter that he hadn’t even really bedded her. It had been enough to trigger the effect of the little Druid’s prohibition�
�at a time when he could not afford to be weakened.
And it was humiliating for a Fae to appear weak in front of a human woman. Mortals were attracted to the strength and beauty of the Aes Sídhe, to their superiorities. Not to their few frailties. It was entirely possible that Helene would want nothing more to do with him now, not of her own free will anyway. Not without using his glamour on her. And he did not want—had never wanted—Helene Whitney that way.
“Elada will take you to Deirdre’s,” he said. “You and Nieve. You’ll be safe there.”
“I’m not going,” she said. “You were poisoned, Miach. You’re even worse now. You need someone to look after you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. It seemed that the trees in the park had seen their last summer. He would have to consume them. “Better, in fact, without Nieve fussing over me.”
“Why is Nieve in danger?” Helene asked.
“She may not be. But if Finn’s family is involved in this, she and her son will be in jeopardy. You both have to go to Deirdre’s. The Fianna would attack my home on the slimmest excuse if they thought they had a sporting chance of defeating me and mine. But they have no quarrel with Deirdre, and they would not risk angering her, or her friends, by crossing her threshold. Her house is the only safe place left for you and Nieve. Elada will take you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to arrange a meeting with Finn. He doesn’t want the Fae Court back any more than I do. Of that, I am certain. But his children may have been involved in your blackouts. They’re half-bloods. Young fools. They dream of past glory and imagine that the grateful Queen will admit them to fellowship in the Wild Hunt. A vain hope, a childish fantasy. Nothing more. But some of Finn’s get and followers are strong enough to have created the spells I think were used on you, and others are human enough to handle cold iron, could have laid the trap we sprung on the roof. If so, I’ll make a bargain with Finn and let him deal with them.”
“This is because you didn’t find the summoning spell, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t on your skin,” he said. He didn’t want to tell her what the bastard had used. She had been through enough.
“What is it?” she asked. “You owe me the truth.”
They had just been intimate. Somehow that made it more difficult to tell her what he believed. If only he had found the summoning spell written somewhere on her skin. He might not have been able to remove it himself, weak as he was, but he would have been willing to bargain with the one other Fae in Boston who might have had the raw power, if not the requisite skill. Miach could have guided his old pupil, channeled his untutored energies and freed Helene from the deadly compulsion.
Instead, he had found only the locus of the memory spell. Dangerous enough magic, to be sure. It would have to come off, and soon. And that would likely involve Miach allying himself with his enemy, Finn.
Because he had not been able to resist her. He had thought he would be strong enough, but when he failed to find the geis on her back or her belly, when he had cupped her breasts and her breath had hitched, when he had smelled her arousal, honey sweet, and felt her heart beat faster; he’d convinced himself that the Druid’s spell, the Druid’s proscriptions didn’t matter.
It was her legs that had first drawn his eyes when he met her, and it was her legs that had undone him today, blinded him to reason. He’d squeezed the firm muscles of her calves, skimmed the pure geometry of her knees, then felt the swan’s down softness of her inner thigh where he had first placed his own mark.
It was gone now but the memory of tracing it there in Magic Marker had reminded him of the night they’d met and of all the reasons he wanted her. And then he’d seen it, when her legs were parted as he slid his hands up, up, up her silken thighs. Seen, on the simple, sheer cotton panties—a flash of white beneath her navy skirt—the spot of wetness forming. Noticed, too, the hint of musk.
He’d touched her. She’d responded. She’d sighed, and he’d circled his finger in her slickness. And she’d responded again, beautifully. She’d arched and writhed, and he—he’d become fixated on making her come. On showing her how good it could be with a Fae, with him.
If he had stopped after she’d sobbed and choked and given a wordless cry, if he had taken her into his arms or just rested his head on her thigh, all might have been well. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t stopped. He’d wanted to know the contours of her body, to draw things out, to drink in her responses to the invasion of one finger, then two, to see if she was capable of the kind of cataclysm he had suspected.
And she had been. Her entire body had tensed and spasmed that time. Then he’d put his lips on her and given her release once more.
Fool that he was, he wasn’t certain even now that he could have acted differently if he’d known the costs and consequences.
“There was no summoning geis on your skin. That means that the spell was placed inside your body. That it was baked into bread or written on paper, and that you were forced, under compulsion, to swallow it down. The medium is unimportant, and only the magic remains. The spell is part of you now, and it cannot be undone. Not until the Fae who cast it dies—or you do.”
• • •
Helene knew Miach was right. She couldn’t go home. It wasn’t safe. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of staying in the home of another of Fae—particularly one of Miach’s sometime lovers. But if Miach was so anxious for her to leave his house, after he had spent months wooing her from afar, then she was certain the danger was real.
“When does Beth arrive?” she asked. Although she knew Beth was walking into danger, she desperately wanted to talk to her oldest friend. There was no one else who would understand what she was feeling.
“Her plane lands at Logan in a few hours,” said Miach. “I’ll send her straight to Deirdre’s. They’ll take good care of you, Deirdre and her Kevin.”
“And who will take care of you?” Helene asked.
“Elada,” said Miach.
“He doesn’t strike me as the nurturing type,” said Helene.
Miach smiled. “He’s not. Elada’s the killing type. And that’s going to be more useful to me tonight. I need someone to stand guard while I destroy a good portion of the city’s greenbelt. And to watch my back while I negotiate with my enemies.”
“I should have stopped you,” she said. “It’s my fault that you violated Beth’s geis.”
Miach laughed. “No. It is my fault for underestimating the power, and comprehensiveness, of the little Druid’s prohibition. And for underestimating the allure of your charms. You were as compelling, in your passion, as any Fae.”
He looked suddenly vulnerable. “Will you still want to finish what we started, if Beth will release me from my vow?”
“If?” asked Helene, puzzled. “Why wouldn’t Beth release you?”
“Because you are her friend and she cares about you, and I . . . I am a dangerous man.”
“Beth is in love with a Fae,” Helene reminded him.
“Beth is in love with a single-minded warrior Fae. A surprisingly trusty champion who has lived under a hill for two thousand years. You are involved with the paterfamilias of an exceptionally successful crime family, a seducer and a sorcerer. My Fae nature is perhaps the least of your problems.”
He had been so confident earlier, so sure he would be able to win her. Now he was warning her off. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“Because I find that I want you to see me and accept me for what I am.”
“I do see you,” she said. She wasn’t certain that she could accept everything that he was, that she wanted more from him than a brief sexual affair, but today he had put her safety ahead of his own, had courted her body just now at reckless risk to his health. And he had bared his scars, quite literally, to her. There was more to him than it appeared, than she had first suspected.
“How long do I have to stay at Deirdre’s?” she asked.
He looked relieved t
hat she was agreeing to his plan. “For this afternoon, at least. I need to time to arrange a meeting with Finn.”
She watched him cross the room to his desk to call Elada. Blood still dripped from his ears and his nose, disappearing in the rich pattern of the Persian carpet. She listened as he gave his right hand instructions to bring the Range Rover around and take Helene, Nieve, and Nieve’s son, Garrett, to Deirdre’s.
“You’ll be safe at her house,” said Miach. “She’ll afford shelter until I can come to some arrangement with Finn. I am sorry about the Range Rover. I know Elada tried to run you off the road in it, but it is the only armored car we have to hand. Except the minivan. And nothing will persuade Elada to drive the minivan.”
“Where do you get an armored minivan?”
“Quincy,” he replied, without missing a beat.
“That was a rhetorical question. You think this Fae will shoot at us?”
“I don’t know what to think, Helene. But I am certain this Fae has human allies or followers. Compulsion would be too risky for a job like the trap at the museum. Iron is too toxic to the Fae. No sane Sídhe would risk anyone but a trusted follower handling something so deadly. And a hundredweight of iron filings isn’t something you can pick up at the corner store.”
Elada entered the room a few minutes later. Helene had not seen Miach’s right hand since the day he had tried to kill her and Beth Carter by running their car off the road. Elada was the only member of Miach’s household who did not share his blood, and his close-cropped golden hair and gray eyes set him apart from the rest of the MacCechts. That, and the sword on his back, which Beth had explained was cloaked from human eyes by Fae glamour.
Helene knew that to be safe she must swallow her fear of this creature.
The warrior took one look at Miach and tensed, then cast a baleful eye on Helene. She could plainly see he blamed her for the sorcerer’s condition. But he said nothing about it. Instead, he addressed Miach.
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