Stone Song

by D. L. McDermott

  She opened her eyes and smiled at Elada, then stretched like a cat and arched her back.

  He turned on his heel and left them. The fiddler wasn’t being coerced. Deirdre didn’t like to use her voice on her partners. Her beauty was such that she didn’t have to. And her vanity was such that an unwilling lover held no appeal.

  He passed Kevin on the stairs, carrying two mugs of coffee. His destination was obvious. Elada stopped him.

  “I’m sorry that our stay here is causing difficulties between you and Deirdre,” he said.

  Kevin rolled his eyes. “She’s got the fiddler in there, doesn’t she?”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Deirdre and I have . . . an arrangement in these matters. Certain freedoms.”

  “Which she exercises and you don’t.”

  Kevin shrugged. “Does it matter? She loves me, not the fiddler, or any of the others. I don’t mind the occasional guest in our bed, but I have no desire to invite anyone else into mine on my own.”

  “But you still don’t like it.”

  “The fiddler I mind less than another Fae,” he said pointedly.

  “I’ve got no intention of accepting any invitations from your wife. And we’ll leave as soon as it’s safe for Sorcha. It’s obvious that our presence has added to the tension in your home.”

  “It’s not about you,” Kevin replied.

  “But we’re making the problem worse by being here.”

  “This isn’t about Sorcha or Druids,” said Kevin. “This is about the things that happen when one of your kind takes a human partner.”

  So he was one of his kind yet again. “What happened between you and Deirdre when Helene was here?”

  Kevin held up his left hand. On his fourth finger he wore a cold iron band. “I always wore it around my neck, because I didn’t want to hurt her with it accidentally. When Helene asked us for help, to save Miach from the Druids, I decided to go with her. Deirdre snapped the cord my ring was on and ordered me not to.”

  “Because she feared for your safety.” As Miach feared for Helene’s. And his fear caused him to do stupid things, like conceal the truth from her about his plan to kill Sorcha Kavanaugh.

  “It wasn’t her choice to make,” Kevin said. “And the ring means nothing if she can snatch it away at any time.”

  “You’ve only met Beth and Sorcha. You don’t know how dangerous Druids can be.” It was what Miach had said to Helene, but Elada knew that it didn’t justify Deirdre’s behavior—or Miach’s.

  “I know that my wife doesn’t think I can protect us—her—from this threat, and that she’s slipping further into herself every day now, imagining them coming here for her. The problem is that I can shoot a Druid dead to protect her, but I can’t take away her fear, and that’s what will kill her. This is the only way I know to try to help her, to force her to face this head-on. Having your Sorcha stay here.”

  Elada wasn’t so sure that would help. “Beth and Sorcha are not typical Druids. The ones the Prince is training are as dangerous as Deirdre fears. Has she ever told you what happened to her?”

  “They held her prisoner. They hurt her. That’s all I know. She won’t talk about it. She’s afraid she’ll start conjuring images of it.”

  It wasn’t Elada’s story to tell, but Deirdre had had a hundred years with Kevin to confide in him, and had not managed to do it. And he would never understand her if he didn’t know.

  “I was there,” said Elada. “When we found Deirdre, I was there. It wasn’t like the other mounds. I was kept chained along with two other sword Fae. Our torture was straightforward. The Druids flayed skin and sliced muscle and severed tendons to try to understand why we were faster, stronger, more dexterous than humans. Miach, they cut open from neck to navel, trying to find the spark that generated his power.”

  “She has no such scars,” said Kevin. “Her skin is unblemished, save for the Druid patterns on her shoulders.”

  “They never cut her, no,” said Elada. “They weren’t trying to understand her art; they were trying to warp it for their purposes. The Druids never mastered Fae painting. They couldn’t conjure lifelike images out of the air, couldn’t create the animated dioramas and living canvases that Deirdre can. They had no use for such diversions. Their goal was to find a way to make a weapon of her art, the way they made a weapon out of their bard’s voices and instruments.”

  “I know they wanted her to create images that disturbed her.”

  “She is Fae, Kevin. We have a capacity for cruelty and depravity that dwarfs human understanding. The things they wanted her to paint were nightmarish enough to drive a Fae mad. Their efforts were pure hubris, and they got what they deserved for it. Deirdre, though, got what no creature deserved.”

  Kevin swallowed hard. “Tell me,” he said.

  “She unleashed hell on them. The images they’d asked for had provided a window into their minds, into their own fears. She was chained inside the mound where they were holding her, and she cast a panorama so horrific that the Druids inside the chamber with her bashed their skulls out against the stone walls. No one could get inside the mound without going mad. And the spells they’d cast on her to force her art from her were impossible to reverse. So they buried her alive with the horrors of her mind and the bodies of her victims. She was barely alive when we found her, and she never saw the Druids defeated. That is why she has feared they still existed, all this time. You cannot fix that, Kevin. No one can.”

  “She always told me that Miach rescued her. That’s why I never minded her occasional trips to his bed.”

  “Miach dampened the spells and ventured inside her mind long enough to disperse the images. Then I carried her out of that place. The mound had been abandoned. That is why we did not find her sooner. There were no Druids left there, just grass and earth and stone and the stench of decay.”

  • • •

  Sorcha was too tired to eat by the time Miach finished with her. She’d relearned how to send her hearing over distances and tried to master identifying the signature resonances of individual objects and beings, so that someday—soon, hopefully—she would be able to send her voice as well, with laser-like precisions, instead of bringing down a city block with a single note.

  It was progress. But Deirdre’s icy smile and Sorcha’s general exhaustion made dinner in the dining room an unappealing option.

  Elada was waiting for her in their room. He was lying in bed with a laptop open beside him. His sword lay on the floor beside the bed. The juxtaposition would have been more surprising if he was an ordinary Fae, if he surrounded himself with profligate luxury and walked a path apart from human life, but with Elada the combination seemed natural.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Well, your best friend didn’t kill me, so I think that’s a win.”

  Elada’s face darkened. “Did he threaten you?”

  Yes. “No.” She wasn’t sure. “And I’ve started remembering things I used to do when I lived with Gran.” It was still startling to her. “I can hear . . . almost anything.”

  He closed the laptop. “Like what?”

  You. She’d been able to send her hearing up the stairs ahead of her, to find him. She’d known he was there, in bed, waiting for her, and the thought had filled her with pleasurable anticipation. Gran hadn’t kept any pets while Sorcha was growing up, but they’d taken in a stray kitten that had wandered onto the property, and every day the kitten had lived with them, Sorcha had watched the clock at school, waiting for the bell, anticipating the moment she could get home and see the kitten again. Until one day the kitten had been gone, adopted by a friend of Gran’s, never to be seen again.

  But Elada was here, now, and the thought had made her climb the stairs a little faster. She hadn’t been able to “see” the laptop with her hearing, but she’d been able to find the Fa
e’s steady heartbeat. It was slower, she was surprised to discover, than a human heart. And it had guided her, like a bell in the fog.

  “People, animals, appliances.”

  “So refrigerators won’t be able to sneak up on you,” he teased.

  “Or Fae,” she said. “Like Donal’s followers. I could have heard them, if I’d been listening.”

  “And your voice?” Elada asked.

  “We left that for another day. What did you do?”

  Her Fae rolled his eyes. “I did a poor job staying out of our hosts’ relationship troubles, sharpened my sword, and corrected this morning’s coffee deficit.”

  And he’d put his life on hold for her, to get her here safe. He’d made a promise to her last night, and he’d fulfilled it.

  “You know you don’t have to stay here for me. Miach says Donal and Finn won’t look for me here and that the Prince can’t scry me because of the wards on the house.”

  “You’re safe here, for the moment, but I want to stay, Sorcha. I was serious about what I said at your grandmother’s house. I’ve wanted the chance to know you for a long time. If I didn’t destroy that last night, then this is my opportunity to prove to you that I’m not like Keiran.”

  “I know you aren’t.”

  He rose from the bed in one graceful movement, all coiled strength and speed.

  “No. You hope I’m not. You don’t know me well enough to be certain. I was drawn to your voice, I’ve admitted that. In that way, I’m just like Keiran.”

  “But you didn’t abduct me. And you tried to warn me about the danger I was in. And I think you let me hurt you in the alley, didn’t you?”

  He cocked his head. “Did Miach tell you that?”

  “He didn’t have to. I’ve seen how fast you can move. You could have taken the harp away from me in the alley, but you didn’t.”

  “If I’d introduced myself to you a month ago and we’d been able to do normal things, like go on dates, show each other our favorite parts of the city, favorite foods, favorite movies, then you might be able to fully trust me now. But we’ve got time here at Deirdre’s, and I don’t want to throw this chance with you away. If you don’t want me in your bed, I’ll sleep in another room, and we can forget about last night and start again as strangers.”

  “I don’t want to start again. I want to pick up where we left off last night.”

  Chapter 12

  Elada started breathing again. He didn’t know quite when he’d stopped, but if she’d banished him from her room, he thought he might have slept outside her door in the hall like a dog.

  It was true. Her voice had drawn him, just like Keiran, but the idea of snatching her away and keeping her caged like a songbird repelled him. He didn’t want to just hear her voice; he wanted to know the woman behind it.

  So far, he liked everything he had discovered about her. She had returned to the Black Rose to save her friend. That made her loyal and brave. She had practiced her music in secret through long, seemingly unloved years, and that made her resolute. She’d tried to help him against Donal’s followers today, and that made her generous and kind, because no matter what they had shared the night before, he was still Fae, and she’d been given good reason to hate his kind.

  “I want to pick up where we left off last night. Although,” she added, “I’m not sure that I’d really like to do everything we talked about last night.”

  He smiled. “I think I’ve forgotten most of what we talked about. You’ll have to remind me of all the things you suggested.”

  She blushed and shook her head.

  “Then how am I supposed to avoid those things?” he teased.

  “I’m not good at sex talk without a few supernatural drinks in me,” she shot back.

  “How about we start with something I know you’ll like.”

  Her breath hitched. She was intrigued. That was good. The image of Tommy Carrell’s head between Deirdre’s pale thighs had been burning in his brain all day. He wanted to do that for Sorcha. More. He wanted her to lose herself in it, to enjoy with abandon the way Deirdre had, to thread her fingers through his hair and pull his head down to her pretty pink center.

  “How do you know I’ll like it?”

  He was going to overcome her skepticism. “Because I’m very, very good at it.”

  “Very, very good at it by human standards?” she asked, swallowing hard. He wanted to kiss her throat and run his tongue over the muscles there.

  “Very, very good by Fae standards. With Fae stamina. Would you like me to demonstrate?”

  “Yes, please.”

  • • •

  She had no idea what she was asking for, only that she wanted whatever he was offering, and she’d come to trust him last night and today. It was fast, too fast for the kind of emotional engagement she feared giving in to—but not too fast for this. She knew that even in this safe haven, her life was in danger. She might not live to have children, she might not grow old like Gran, because she had let the music inside her out and she now lived in a perilous state, her fate tied to the violent world of the Fae.

  He backed her to the bed and pressed her down to sit on the edge of the mattress, dragging pillows from the headboard for her to recline on. Then he knelt between her feet and placed his hands on her knees.

  The position felt decadent. With a man like Elada at her feet, she felt like an empress on a throne.

  “You told me your fantasies last night,” he said. “This has been mine all day, to have you like this.”

  They had played games last night, but they’d been gentle games, and he’d guided her the whole time, never letting her stray too close to the edge of her comfort zone. Now she wanted to test those boundaries.

  “Tell me what happens in your fantasy,” she said.

  He smiled. It wasn’t the laconic expression he wore when he teased her about her coffee substitute. This was a Fae smile, full of sensual cunning. “You part your thighs for me,” he said. “And you feel the cool air meet warm flesh.”

  She felt it before she did it. He’d told her that his voice wasn’t powerful like Miach’s, that he couldn’t conjure images like Deirdre, but his words were made flesh in her.

  “Now,” he said, “you fold your skirt back, just a little, to show me where you want my hands to go.”

  His fingers were resting lightly on the insides of her knees, exerting a gentle pressure to keep her legs parted. She folded the wool of her skirt up an inch, and his fingers followed. Another inch, and he moved again, until just the gusset of her panties was visible.

  “More,” he said.

  She obliged him. His thumbs slipped under the sides of her wispy cotton drawers and pulled them down but not off, so they constricted her knees. He moved between them, so his shoulders kept her spread and her panties prevented her legs from falling all the way open. Bound and displayed for his pleasure.

  Sorcha expected him to touch her then, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached into his back pocket. Her mind went immediately to “condom time” with a sense of disappointment. She’d been excited by the idea of having his mouth on her. No one had ever done that for her before.

  She didn’t hear the familiar crinkle of a wrapper when he pulled his hand out of his pocket. She heard . . . silver. He held up a ring. It was small and highly polished with smooth round sides.

  “To replace the one the Prince took from you.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Tommy told me.”

  “Mine was cold iron.”

  “You won’t need it anymore. Not once you have full control of your power. And I promise you’ll never need it with me. Other Fae give their lovers gifts of cold iron, so they feel safe. I want you to feel safe with me, even without it.”

  It was the sexiest thing he had done yet. “Put it on, please,” sh
e said.

  He smiled. “You do it.”

  Now she blushed. She didn’t want to handle herself in front of him. “I can’t.”

  His expression turned heavy lidded. “Then make your nipple hard for me first.”

  She wanted to. The thought of touching herself in front of him was forbidden and all the more alluring for it. She reached a tentative hand toward her breast and covered it through the cloth of her blouse with her palm. It felt good.

  “Open your blouse, Sorcha,” said Elada. “I won’t put the ring on until I decide you’ve completed your task.”

  His erotic demand sent her pulse racing. She unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall open. Then she circled her empty nipple with a finger, tentatively at first, the material of her bra muting the sensation, but soon she was lost to the pleasure of it, her hips rising and falling and her body aching for his touch.

  “Show me your work, Sorcha,” said her Fae lover. She loved the way her name sounded on his lips. She pulled down the cup of her bra with shameless abandon and when he rose up on his knees to thread the ring through her nipple, she almost came from the cool penetration, silver pierced and wanton with it.

  “Now make the other one hard,” he instructed, “and keep it that way, or I’ll stop.”

  Then his head dipped to her center and his tongue lapped at her. He used his fingers to part her and once she was sobbing and begging for release, he began using them to tease her entrance with gentle intermittent pressure until she was chanting his name alternated with “please, please, please.”

  She exploded for him when he plied his fingers and his tongue at once with direct intent, and she was barely conscious when he rolled her to the center of the bed and joined her there, his face still oriented toward her slippery thighs.

  She yanked a pillow from the pile and pulled it under her head, then reached for the fly of his trousers. He tensed for only a moment, no doubt contemplating the wisdom of letting a stone singer take him into her mouth, but then she flicked his head with her tongue and he groaned and it was her turn to make him beg.

  • • •