by Melissa Marr
“Fuck it,” he said cheerily. “Loved you for almost a damned decade. Had to watch others be where I wanted, but if you’re mad enough to want me, I’m done arguing.”
Siobhan helped him to his feet—and discovered that without restraint, his hands were everywhere.
“You have the perfect arse, Siobhan. Like a firm apple.” Tavish had both hands on her bum, squeezing and caressing.
“I had no idea,” she murmured, pushing him back slightly. Although she was sure he truly wanted her, feeling the obvious proof of his desire straining toward her, Siobhan also knew Tavish. Sober again, he’d be mortified that he was so amorous in public. He was a wonderful lover, but not as public about it as many in their court.
Siobhan started to steer him toward his room, trying to ignore the stares and even a smattering of applause and remarks of “it’s about time” or “finally come to his senses, has he?”
“I shall compose a sonnet for each breast,” Tavish declared, voice low enough that only she heard. “Two sonnets. One for the left, and one for the right. Perhaps a Rondeau on your apple cheeks, though.”
“A what?”
“Lyric poem,” he said, speaking in that exaggeratedly correct way of the truly drunken.
They’d made it to the edge of the room when Tavish looked at her and said, “Let me love you, Siobhan. Let me be impulsive and enjoy this sunlit madness.”
“If you try to walk away in the morning, I’ll stab you myself this time,” she warned.
“As you should,” Tavish said before kissing her thoroughly.
In a moment, she realized his hands were unfastening her buttons, so she half led, half dragged him to his room where they made love stumbling and drunken and desperately until he sobered—and then did so again and again with more care and soft words.
The next morning, Tavish and Siobhan met the Dark Court’s guests. Aislinn had left Seth resting in her chambers, so it was only the regents and their advisors—and the two tiny tiger cubs. They rolled and romped as if they’d always been a part of the Summer Court.
The current and former Dark Kings had arrived; their semi-human consort, Leslie, was not there. And as Siobhan looked around the jungle-like room, she realized with a near human awkwardness that she was currently sitting in a room with her two past lovers, her future lover, and her best friend.
Tavish looked uncomfortable, so she leaned over and kissed him speechless. He was still sore from the injury Urian had inflicted, but he was upright and therefore determined to be at the meeting.
“Well done!” Irial said. “That’s one way to keep the old boy in the Summer Court.”
“Irial!” Niall and Aislinn said simultaneously. The tigers pounced into Aislinn’s lap, and she gently put them on the floor.
Tavish shrugged slightly. “He’s not wrong.”
When no one spoke, he added, “I’d still rather we murder you than meet with you, but my queen, my friend”—he nodded toward Niall—“and my . . .”
“Lover,” Siobhan filled in. “Beloved, I hope?”
He squeezed her hand and repeated, “and my beloved seem to think you have redeeming qualities.”
“They are sometimes not evident, but they are present.” Niall took a long drink of whatever libation he was consuming before adding, “The Dark Court appreciates your consideration and patience, Tavish.”
Irial opened his mouth to reply, but a band of shadows covered it immediately. The former Dark King raised a brow and looked at Niall pointedly.
Tavish snorted as Niall ignored his own beloved.
“While Irial is not under the command of my court, I will give my word as Dark King that he has no ill will toward your court—or you.” Niall looked briefly embarrassed. “And as both a man and king, I want you to know, Siobhan, that I had no idea at first of the way Keenan misused you.”
Siobhan did not miss the key omission in that statement. Niall was, however, a creature who ruled the things of nightmares. He had become the Dark, and so he was—and previously had been—more shadowed than sunlit.
“You were good to me.” Siobhan looked at Irial. “Both of you.” Then she shrugged and added, “If Ash didn’t need me, I’d thought to defect to your court.”
“I thought as much,” Irial said quietly, as the shadow-wrought gag vanished. He looked immeasurably pleased with himself as he noted, “That’s why I provoked him.”
“What?” Tavish asked.
He tapped his own chest. “Chaos, my dears. Cha-os. My lovely granddaughter needs you, and love”-- Irial looked around at them—“love makes madness seem rational. If you love our girl Siobhan--”
“Woman,” Siobhan interjected. “Not a girl.”
“And not yours,” Tavish added. “My woman.”
Aislinn laughed. “Well played, grandfather.”
And at that, Irial preened. “Love. For it, we would do the impossible.”
“Yes, but could we address the topic at hand?” Niall’s tone was stern, but no one there could miss the look in his eyes as he glanced at the embodiment of Chaos. The Dark King was in agreement—and in love.
“And perhaps after that, discuss the topic of what gifts one can send the Summer Queen?” Siobhan added.
“She likes them,” Irial said, pointing at the sleeping tigers curled into the Summer Queen’s lap. “It was an excellent gift.”
Tavish lifted his glass to the Dark King and then to the Summer Queen. “I do not envy either you.”
Irial frowned, but after a moment, he sighed loudly and said, “Now, let us address the matter at hand. My lost son . . .”
End
COLD IRON HEART
How far would you go to escape fate?
In this prequel to the international bestselling WICKED LOVELY series (over a million copies sold), the Faery Courts collide a century before the mortals in Wicked Lovely are born.
Thelma Foy, a jeweler with the Second Sight in iron-bedecked 1890s New Orleans, wasn’t expecting to be caught in a faery conflict. Tam can see through the glamours faeries wear to hide themselves from mortals, but if her secret were revealed, the fey would steal her eyes, her life, or her freedom. So, Tam doesn’t respond when they trail thorn-crusted fingertips through her hair at the French Market or when the Dark King sings along with her in the bayou.
But when the Dark King, Irial, rescues her, Tam must confront everything she thought she knew about faeries, men, and love.
Too soon, New Orleans is filling with faeries who are looking for her, and Irial is the only one who can keep her safe.
Unbeknownst to Tam, she is the prize in a centuries-old fight between Summer Court and Winter Court. To protect her, Irial must risk a war he can’t win--or surrender the first mortal woman he's loved.
COLD IRON HEART Chapter 1 Tam
Voices rose and fell in the streets of the French Quarter. A woman with hair that seemed as delicate and white as if spiders had woven it walked arm-in-arm with an elegant man with a bone topped cane. They were only humans. The inhuman ones who strolled the French Quarter were even more remarkable. Invisible to the eyes of the city’s mortals, faeries slithered and danced along the edge of the city where the water moved and the iron-laced buildings ended.
“She’s a pretty girl,” a lion-maned man purred.
The creature beside the maned faery stared at her as if Tam was ghastly. “If you like their sort.”
And Tam felt self-conscious, awkward and embarrassed. She wasn’t ugly. Plain, perhaps, maybe even a little too fit for a woman. Her hair was too red. Her eyes were too curious. Her body not soft enough. Her hands rough from working with metal or laundry. She’d earned every muscle though, taking in wash when she needed and working her art as often as she could. Nice women were able to be fashionable. Wealthy women were able to be delicate.
And the other kind of women, those who worked over near Canal Street selling favors, were allowed to be luscious. Maybe if money wasn’t scarce, she’d have voluptuous hips and breast
s, but the softness of a woman required excess money for foods that were too dear for her to buy. Her curves were there in outline, but she was neither lush nor delicate.
Thelma Foy suspected she’d be forgettable if not for her hair and her mouth, which was fuller than most and noticeable because of her habit of saying the wrong thing, the audacious or dangerous thing. Other than that, she was merely Tam, a woman who wanted to find a place in the world and maybe a bit of comfort if she could. That meant, for now, pretending she didn’t hear invisible men discussing her.
“She’s perfect,” the other one said.
He was the real complication in Tam’s life. Irial—a faery whose name she’d heard the others whisper as if it were a prayer--watched her with a different kind of studiousness. And despite every bit of logic she possessed, Tam watched him back. How could she not?
He was beautiful: close-cropped hair, blue-black eyes, and Creole skin. He was wearing fine trousers and a crisp shirt. Although he had no jacket, he had completed his attire with a sharp vest. Tam thought he very might be the most handsome man in the whole of New Orleans.
He also wasn’t visible to any human but Tam.
With effort, she pulled her gaze away from him and opened the door of yet another jeweler’s shop. She needed to focus on business, not beautiful creatures. If she didn’t sell her jewelry, she’d have no food.
Inside the shop, the man, because they were always men, looked past her as if a husband or father would materialize behind her. When he saw no one, he looked Tam up and down. Proper ladies didn’t wander around in shops alone.
He took in her worn and patched dress, and he saw her lack of gloves. She watched him weigh her and decide if she was an “abandoned woman,” a woman who sold her affection. She wasn’t, and her appearance made that clear. Her hair was controlled, pinned and forced into as modest a look as she could manage. And, most tellingly, her bosom, shoulder, arms, and legs were all modestly hidden.
She was not a woman who sold her body in Storyville. But she was also not accompanied by a man. No husband. No lover. No father. Tam was poor, unaccompanied, and instantly dismissed.
“Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” She stepped further inside the shop, admiring the gleaming wood and glass display cases. They filled the space in a way that said that the wares inside were worth attention. It was not crowded. Each piece of jewelry was nestled in its own place. It was exactly the sort of space where Tam would love to see her own work. Diamonds and rubies sparkled like the stars in the clearest skies, resting on velvet displays. Lesser gems adorned other pieces.
“I have work to sell . . .” Tam pulled out the pieces she’d brought. Carefully, she untied the scarf she’d wound and tied around her jewelry. Her hands shook as she gently lowered the scarf onto that glass case, but her nerves faded a little when her pieces were spread out in front of the shop owner. She knew they were good.
“Mmmm.” He was a short man with tufts of ear hair like wisps of smoke.
Tam swallowed her fear, her instant words of desperation, and said, “They’re fine pieces.”
It was a bit bold for a woman, but she wasn’t built for simpering or false modesty. The work was equal to that in the displays. The gems weren’t as precious, but the settings were equal to that of a queen’s jewelry.
“Did you steal these?” The shop owner stared at her, his gaze taking in Tam’s sewn and re-sewn dress and her worn boots.
“No.” Her hands, calloused and stained from hours handling metals, were held at her side. The urge to defend herself vied with the hunger in her belly. She needed the sale. Calmer, she repeated, “No.”
He stared at her, assessing.
Tam wore none of her own work. Doing so was—to quote her Gran—like lipstick on a pig. Sparkling jewelry stood out, and thieves saw no reason not to steal what they assumed was already stolen.
“I made them,” she told the jeweler levelly, just as she had told the others who’d sent her away.
The jeweler continued to stare at her in silence. He didn’t laugh outright. Instead his lips pressed together like her Aunt Ethelreda had so often done. Distasteful. Unpleasant. He held his mouth as if a lemon slice was suddenly slipped under his tongue.
Tam wasn’t surprised to hear him say, “Women don’t make jewelry.”
That wasn’t true, of course. She knew several women who did metalwork, as well as one who cut and polished stones, but their work was credited to a father, brother, husband, or in one case, a son. Behind the scenes, there were others like her.
“We do create art,” Tam argued quietly, her voice far more level than her emotions but wavering slightly from the effort. “Look at these. Please. Just look at them.”
She gestured at the pieces on the worn bit of cloth that she had wrapped them in to carry them here: A ring, perfectly formed and polished with a cairngorm set levelly; a brooch, twisted vines of silver holding a polished thistle blossom; and a locket with such polish that she could see the lights glinting in it. The locket was a particularly lovely piece. She’d painstakingly etched a rose vine around it.
“They’re fine pieces.” The man looked again at the cairngorm ring. “I’ll buy that one from you, and if your father or brother wants to sell more wares, we can do business.”
This was it, the moment of decision. Tam could either walk away or accept the lie he was willing to offer to justify his willingness to buy a piece. Neither option was appealing, but there wasn’t a third choice. Women weren’t in possession of a great many choices in a man’s world—and even here in a city where a woman could be educated or own property, it was a man’s world.
“The pieces are all for sale,” Tam said, re-positioning the locket to its best angle. Each tiny thorn on the roses was impossibly there.
Selling her work was the best outcome she ever had when she tried to find her way into the jewelry business: the sale of a few pieces and a lie. What she wanted was an apprenticeship. What she found were closed doors and derision.
“Let me see them in better light,” the jeweler said.
He swooped them into his palm and walked away. At such times, she feared that he’d simply keep them. A man could say she was lying, that she was a thief, that no woman could create jewelry such as this. There was little she could do if such a thing happened. At best she could go see the other jewelers who rejected her and ask them to acknowledge seeing her work.
Behind her, the door opened and closed.
“When you enter a shop, close the door behind you, young lady,” the jeweler said without looking up.
“I thought I had.” Tam glanced to the door where the dark faery now stood. The shadows in the store seemed to stretch out to caress him, as if they couldn’t resist.
Irial smiled at her, and she had to struggle to pretend not to see him. If ever there were a man—a creature—striking enough to lure her away from her plans of spinsterdom, Irial was the one. Her gaze slid over the width of his shoulders as she forced herself to pretend to seek the phantom wind that had opened the door.
“Courage,” Irial whispered as he walked close behind her.
Tam stiffened. Faeries ought not speak to her. They were to think that she couldn’t see them.
Better a faery than a human come so close, though. Human men were anything but appealing to her. They spoke to women as if they were either daft children or dolls. They made the rules, controlled business and laws, and women had to learn to make do—or marry. It was outrageous. At least the faeries seemed to treat men and women, or the faery equivalents of them, the same.
The female ones could be as monstrous as the male ones.
Humans weren’t like that. Men acted, and women reacted. Men decided, and women coped. It was absurd. Tam had hoped it would be different in New Orleans. The city was even more vibrant than Chicago. The first legal “red light” district? Who could imagine such boldness, such audacity? It made the city seem forward-thinking, so Tam had moved.
; Not to work in the sin dens, but in hopes that a city where women were educated, where they owned business, would be better for a female artist, too. She’d had such dreams.
“Would you be interested in purchasing the pieces?” Tam asked in a ladylike, gentle voice, hating the need to use such a tactic. “Few women could resist their beauty.”
“This one.” He held up the ring and quoted a lower price than the piece was worth.
“If you doubled that, I’ll give you a second piece,” she gestured at the brooch.
“Double for all three.”
Reluctantly, Tam nodded. She couldn’t afford to refuse—or to demand more. She needed money to live. Everyone did, but a woman alone had fewer options for finding it. Selling a few pieces of her jewelry here and there meant she had enough to afford rent and food. Selling these would allow her a full four months if she was careful. Three if she bought more supplies to create more pieces and try yet again with another jeweler. Creating art wasn’t reliable work, but if she sold it, she earned enough to live on for months. No other job would pay so well—at least no other job that allowed her to stay clothed.
Work in a brothel—or marrying a man—would pay better, but with men came children. Children were a whole set of demands that would end her ability to create jewelry, and worse still, they’d lead to a level of risk that she couldn’t fathom. Hiding her ability to see the fey things was hard. Hiding a child’s ability? That was a terrifying prospect.
As Tam waited for her money, she tried not to look at the faery who was studying her yet again. Shadows from the wall seemed to ooze toward him, as if they had a mind or heart. She understood the impulse. He was breath-taking, but some prickle on the back of her neck reminded her that faeries and humans never mix well.
“Here you go.” The jeweler handed her a bag.
Again, she was left hoping he was honest. Counting the money out would be insulting, and if he’d shorted her, she couldn’t expect to get money. Life was about power, and Tam had none.