“Christ, you told me naught of that,” Drustan growled. “
All
of their knowledge?”
“Aye. Masses of the stuff littering my mind. I spoke naught of it as ’twas of no relevance. With the Draghar no longer inside me, I have no temptation to use any of it. And the answer is aye again, I believe I can remove his curse. I, for one, would prefer to be able to see him. I doona care for this invisibility of his at all. ’tis making me uneasy.”
“Yes,”
Adam said, punching the air, elated. “Do it. Right now. Hurry the hell up.” If he’d had the slightest suspicion that Dageus still possessed the memories of the thirteen, he’d have come here first, the instant the queen had abandoned him in London.
But he’d never imagined that Aoibheal might permit those memories to endure; so much of the Draghar’s knowledge was innately dangerous, intrinsically corruptive. He snorted. His queen was slipping. When he was immortal again, they were going to have a long talk. Perhaps it was time he took a seat on her infernal High Council himself and got into the thick of things.
“He says, ‘Would you please try?’ “ Gabby translated, tossing him a wordless little rebuke. He shrugged. Couldn’t she understand his impatience?
“Is it forbidden magic?” Drustan asked Dageus.
“Nay. But ’tis the old Tuatha Dé magic. Not something we were necessarily given to use, though considering the queen left me it, well . . .” He shrugged.
“Do you feel ’tis dangerous in any way?” Drustan pressed.
“Nay, ’tis but a chant in their tongue.”
“For Christ’s sake, would you say it already?” Adam hissed. “I need to be
seen
. I can’t stand this bloody frigging invisibility.”
“ ’tis your choice, brother. I leave it to your judgment,” Drustan said.
After a moment’s reflection, Dageus said, “I see no harm in it.” Of Gabby, he inquired, “Where is he?”
When she pointed, Dageus rose and, circling the area she’d indicated, began to speak.
Or rather, Gabby thought, he opened his mouth and sound came out, but he wasn’t speaking. It wasn’t a single voice that issued from his lips but myriad voices, dozens layered atop one another, rising and falling, swelling and breaking. It was melodic yet chillingly dissonant, beautiful yet strangely awful. Like fire that one could crawl inside of trying to get warm, only to end up freezing to death in it.
It raised all the fine hair on Gabby’s body, and she realized that if this was the old Tuatha Dé tongue, it was not a language Adam had ever spoken around her.
Whatever tongue he’d been speaking on those infrequent occasions wasn’t this. This was a voice of raw power. Such sound could mesmerize, could seduce against a person’s will. It was old magic, undiluted and pure. The kind she’d always imagined the Hunters possessed. A terrible magic.
As it built to a crescendo, she shuddered, closing her eyes.
“Easy,
ka-lyrra;
it’s because you’re a
Sidhe
-seer that it affects you so,” she heard Adam say softly. “It’s why I’ve not spoken my tongue around you. Your instincts to guard, to gather your people and flee, are being roused. In ancient days you would have heard us coming on the wind and secreted your villagers away. Breathe. Slow and deep.”
She did as he said, pursing her lips and breathing through her mouth, trying to wait it out, hoping it would end soon. He was right, the mere sound of the ancient tongue was filling her with a bizarre kind of battle-readiness, a bone-deep urge to round up the MacKeltars and make them hide. Then to ride through the nearby towns, sounding the alarm.
Finally Dageus finished, and she heard Gwen and Chloe say simultaneously, breathlessly: “Oh, my
God
.”
Gabby opened her eyes.
Drustan had risen to his feet and was scowling, an expression mirrored by his twin. Both were glaring at Adam—whom they obviously could now see. Then at their wives, then back at Adam.
Gabby absorbed the looks on Chloe’s and Gwen’s faces, and suddenly felt
so
much better about having had such a hard time ignoring the Fae all her life.
It isn’t just me,
she thought gratefully. She wasn’t a woman of weak moral turpitude, a spineless, undisciplined fairy-abduction-waiting-to-happen; the Fae
did
have something magnetic and inordinately seductive, something women simply couldn’t resist. Adam was affecting Chloe and Gwen in the same way he affected her.
And how could he not? she thought, seeing him anew through their eyes. He was nearly six and a half feet of powerful, gold-skinned Fae prince, his body sculpted of pure muscle, his long black hair spilling to his waist in a dark silky tangle. Clad in those tattooed jeans, boots, an ivory sweater, and leather coat, gold torque gleaming at his neck, he dripped dark, otherworldly eroticism. His chiseled face was savagely beautiful, shadowed with a few days’ dark stubble. Ancient intelligence and barely banked sexual heat glittered in his exotic, dual-colored eyes. The faint fragrance of jasmine, sandalwood, and spicy man that always clung to him seemed suddenly to fill the room with his heady, intoxicating scent. She wondered, not for the first time, if there were some kind of chemical in the scent a Fae gave off that worked as an aphrodisiac on humans of the opposite sex.
He was, quite simply, a living, breathing fantasy, exuding an irresistible come-hither that held an intrinsic, unspoken caveat of danger. He had a come-and-get-me-baby-I’m-pure-trouble-and-you’re-gonna-love-it kind of attitude that provoked a woman’s most primitive sexual drives. Drew her even as she knew she should be running like hell in the opposite direction. Drew her, in fact, in some perverse way,
because
she knew she should be running like hell in the opposite direction.
And now that she was seeing the looks on Gwen’s and Chloe’s faces, she wondered how she’d managed to stay out of bed with him as long as she had.
For that matter . . . just how much longer she was going to be able to resist him.
For that matter, she amended irritably, as she watched Gwen and Chloe watching him,
why
she was. It sure didn’t look like
they
would be.
“Holy cow,” Chloe said faintly.
“No kidding,” Gwen breathed.
The sexy Fae prince flashed them a smile that was pure devilish charm, sexy and playful and mischievous, briefly catching the tip of his tongue between white teeth, before his lips curved, dark eyes sparking gold.
Gabby groaned. She choked on it hastily, camouflaging it with a dry little cough. Her own private stash of eye candy had just been made available for public consumption and she didn’t like it one bit.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Dageus?” Drustan said irritably.
“Och, aye,” Dageus said darkly. “You liked him better invisible too?”
“Och, aye.”
“Should I curse him again?”
“Och, aye.”
Adam threw back his head and laughed, eyes sparkling with gold fire. “Bloody hell, it’s good to be back,” he purred.
18
Dageus and Drustan weren’t the only ones who’d like to see . . . er, rather, not see . . . Adam invisible again.
There were twenty-three females on the Keltar estate—not counting Gwen, Chloe, herself, or the cat—Gabby knew, because shortly after Adam had become visible last night, she’d met each and every one, from tiniest tot to tottering ancient.
It had begun with a plump, thirtyish maid popping in to pull the drapes for the evening and inquire if the MacKeltars “were wishing aught else?” The moment her bespectacled gaze had fallen on Adam, she’d begun stammering and tripping over her own feet. It had taken her a few moments to regain a semblance of coordination, but she’d managed to stumble from the library, nearly upsetting a lamp and a small end table in her haste.
Apparently it had been haste to alert the forces, for a veritable parade had ensued: a blushing curvaceous maid had come offering a warm-up of tea (they’d not been having any), followed by a giggling maid seeking a forgotten dust cloth (which—was anyone surprised?—was nowhere to be found), then a third one looking for a waylaid broom (yeah, right—they swept castles at midnight in Scotland—who believed that?), then a fourth, fifth, and sixth inquiring if the Crystal Chamber would do for Mr. Black (no one seemed to care what chamber might do for
her;
she half-expected to end up in an outbuilding somewhere). A seventh, eighth, and ninth had come to announce that his chamber was ready and would he like an escort? A bath drawn? Help undressing? (Well, okay, maybe they hadn’t actually asked the last, but their eyes certainly had.)
Then a half-dozen more had popped in at varying intervals to say the same things all over again, and to stress that they were there to provide “aught,
aught
at all Mr. Black might desire.”
The sixteenth had come to extract two tiny girls from Adam’s lap over their wailing protests (and had stayed out of his lap herself only because Adam had hastily stood), the twenty-third and final one had been old enough to be someone’s great-great-grandmother, and even she’d flirted shamelessly with the “braw Mr. Black,” batting nonexistent lashes above nests of wrinkles, smoothing thin white hair with a blue-veined, age-spotted hand.
And if that hadn’t been enough, the castle cat, obviously female and obviously in heat, had sashayed in, tail straight up and perkily curved at the tip, and wound her furry little self sinuously around Adam’s ankles, purring herself into a state of drooling, slanty-eyed bliss.
Mr. Black, my ass,
she’d wanted to snap (and she liked cats, really she did; she’d certainly never wanted to kick one before, but please—even cats?),
he’s a fairy and I found him, so that makes him my fairy. Back off.
But everyone seemed to have forgotten her.
Even Adam. Oh, he’d kissed her again once he’d been made corporeal, and it had been another of those toe-curling, breath-stealing, possessive kisses (and it had seemed to greatly alleviate much of the Keltar twins’ bristling), but then he’d gone to sit by the fire and, shortly after that, the parade had begun and he’d hardly looked her way since.
And interspersed with the Maid Parade, Gwen and Chloe had been firing questions (bless their hearts, at least
they’d
seemed to recover nicely from Adam’s impact; Gabby suspected this was due in large part to them being married to such extraordinarily sexy men), and Gabby had sat in silence, feeling as if she were slowly turning every bit as invisible as Adam had been. As if he’d not only cast off his curse but had somehow managed to cast it onto
her
.
Finally, his patience obviously fraying, Drustan had ordered the staff off to bed, firmly closed the library door, then, after a moment’s pause, had locked it and leaned back against it.
Must you endure that all the time?
he’d demanded incredulously of Adam.
Adam had nodded.
Though there are some,
he said with a glance in Gabby’s direction,
who bash me a good one on first sight.
This said with a fine show of rubbing his lip, the one she’d split, and a faint insouciant grin.
She’d had to clench her hands into little fists to keep herself from leaping up and bashing him again. Merely for being Adam. For being so unforgivably irresistible. For being visible, damn it all. Why couldn’t he have just stayed cursed? Was that so much to ask?
He’d
needed
her then. But no more. He could speak for himself; no longer was she a necessary intermediary. And there were dozens of other women who were clearly more than willing to supply anything he might
want,
at the merest seductive crook of a finger. She’d felt suddenly, inexplicably bereft.
Scowling, she’d feigned exhaustion, in no mood to deal with the feelings that watching other women fall all over him had provoked in her. In no mood to hang around and see if they might begin scaling the castle walls and breaking in through windows to get to him.
Gwen had torn herself away from the complex cosmology questions she’d been firing at Adam long enough to show her to a chamber.
Gabby’d been pleasantly surprised to find it was no outbuilding but a lovely suite of rooms on the second floor, with a stone terrace through French doors that overlooked a garden. After Gwen had hastened off, she’d been even more pleasantly surprised to discover a half-full decanter of wine on the bedside table.
She wasn’t so happy about it this morning, however.
Nor about the fact that she’d ended up creeping out into the hall and purloining refreshments from two other “chambers” before she’d drifted off to sleep in a wine-sodden stupor.
She glanced at the bed and scowled. No wonder she felt so awful. It didn’t look as if she’d done any sleeping there; it looked more like she’d done battle for what small part of the night she’d been passed out. The silky sheets were knotted, the down comforter was wadded, and two of the plush velvet bed curtains had been torn down from their hangings. She had a vague memory of being so tipsy that when she’d tried to get out of bed and go to the bathroom, she’d gotten tangled up in them and fallen.
She had another vague memory that she didn’t like at all. She thought she might have cried last night. Over all kinds of stupid things: boyfriends and blown jobs and . . . fairies she couldn’t figure out.
She’d caught herself picking up the phone, thinking of calling her mom at one point.
Right, to say what?
Hi, Mom, I really need to talk to you about this fairy I met? Gram’s dead and I don’t have anyone else?
Ha.
Come to think of it, she brooded, gingerly massaging her throbbing temples, she was afraid she might have actually managed to dial through before she hung up. She couldn’t quite remember, but she’d just stepped over a phone book on the floor. And it was open to the international dialing page, and that wasn’t a good sign.
With a morose little sigh, she pulled her hair back in a clip
very
gently, so all her tiny hair follicles—God, her head hurt—wouldn’t scream too much in protest, then opened the door and stepped into the corridor beyond. She’d never been able to handle alcohol.
Aspirin, she needed aspirin.
A week ago, she brooded, striking off to the left (deciding after a moment’s consideration that any direction was probably as good as any other in the labyrinthine maze of stone corridors) things had been so clear. She’d known exactly who she was and what her place was in the world.
She’d been an O’Callaghan, doing what she’d been raised to do, concealing herself from nasty, inhuman fairies, living a double life, and doing a bang-up job of it for the most part.
Then she’d been an O’Callaghan being tortured by one of those nasty, inhuman fairies, albeit an impossibly seductive one, in human form.
Then she was an O’Callaghan being protected by said impossibly seductive fairy in human form from some
truly
nasty, inhuman fairies.
And now she was just Gabby, currently staying in a dreamy, magnificent castle in Scotland with a Fae prince who did all kinds of non-nasty, non-inhuman things like tearing up lists of names, and returning tadpoles to lakes, and saving people’s lives.
Not to mention kissing with all the otherworldly splendor of a horny angel.
A Fae prince whom virtually every woman in the castle wanted in her bed; and, from the looks of things last night, they weren’t going to waste any time trying to get him there.
And life just sucked.
Adam fisted a hand around the panties in the pocket of his coat and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, as if from such a distance he might somehow catch the scent of Gabrielle.
No such luck; nothing but a crisp Highland wind rushing by as he pounded across the field on the back of a snorting black stallion. And though the breeze was sweet, it was far from the sensual perfume of Gabrielle’s private heat.
Those silky pink panties were one of several things he’d not been willing to leave behind in the hotel room. He’d only removed them from his pocket and tucked them in his bag because he’d planned on getting naked with his
Sidhe
-seer, and he’d not wanted to have to explain why he had a pair of her panties on his person, had she discovered them. He wasn’t certain that was a thing a woman could appreciate.
Ah, but a man did. The soft, sweet, sultry scent of a woman caught on a silky bit of fabric that slipped so intimately between her legs, rubbing against that luscious mound, carrying that unique fragrance a woman only had
there
. A man couldn’t breathe of such a scent behind a woman’s ear or in the soft hollow of her throat, in her hair or in the small of her back.
Only if he was her lover did a man get to know that scent.
He’d known it since the night he’d pilfered her panties, and he’d been so damn close to it a few nights past. He was dying of impatience, about to explode if he didn’t get to bury his face in it soon.
Not the panties. The real thing. Between her thighs, his face, his tongue, not just inhaling, but tasting. Feeling her writhe beneath him in ecstasy, feeling her come against his mouth. Lapping with his tongue, bringing her to peak again and again. Showing her all the pleasure he could give her, binding her to him in the most ancient and sure way a man could.
Unfortunately, other things had demanded his attention.
Not only had Gwen and Chloe hammered him with all manner of questions (many of which he couldn’t find the words in their language to answer anyway, and some of which he’d refused to answer because such knowledge was still too far in mankind’s future) but Dageus and Drustan had waited patiently until the wee hours for their wives to wind down and depart, then begun with questions of their own. He’d filled them in on all that had transpired, from the High Council decreeing Dageus be subjected to trial by blood, to his current straits.
Then, all-too-humanly tired, frustrated that Gabrielle was sleeping somewhere in the sprawling castle without him—they’d not been apart more than a few necessary minutes in days—he’d rather gracelessly imparted what he’d come for, and the twins had been less than thrilled.
You want us to bring down the walls between Man and Faery?
Drustan had roared.
Are you blethering mad?
Not that we aren’t grateful for all you’ve done for us,
Dageus had hastened to say,
but you just told us your queen nigh destroyed our entire clan because I broke an oath, now you’re asking us to do it again?
Hence, after a deep, dreamless sleep of a mere few hours (no matter that he was human in body, his Tuatha Dé mind still didn’t dream), he
still
wasn’t with his
Sidhe
-seer but out riding with the Keltar twins, as he had been all morning, pounding across the lush terrain, rehashing over and over again that he wasn’t
really
asking them to break their oaths, he was only asking them to . . . delay fulfilling them.
Until the last possible minute.
Assuring them it would never go that far.
Realizing that were they to refuse him for any reason, he would simply sift stealthily up behind them and incapacitate them (and their descendant Christopher, who was also a Druid) if he had to, until Lughnassadh had passed. Because, by Danu, he
would
stop Darroc and he
would
preserve Aoibheal’s reign and he
would
regain his power and he
would
see to Gabrielle’s safety for the rest of forever.
In her defense—and all people were entitled to one, no matter how reprehensible their actions; that was one of the first things a person learned in law school—Gabby didn’t plan to do it. There was no malice aforethought. Wanton and willful disregard? She might plead to that. But not to premeditation.
She was a good person. Really. Probably as much as ninety-four percent of the time.
Surely she could be forgiven for the other six percent?
It wasn’t as if she’d left her room
looking
for the opportunity to malign anyone or indulge in a bit of character assassination.
But the opportunity presented itself (as wily opportunities to damn oneself frequently do), and she was hungover, and for the first time in more days than she cared to count, Adam hadn’t been waiting with coffee for her the moment she’d opened her eyes. No, Adam had been God-only-knew-where, with God-only-knew-what-harem in simpering, adoring attendance. And she was grumpy, caffeine-deprived, and lost in the winding corridors of the castle.
So when she came up on the rear of a cluster of maids breathlessly discussing “Mr. Black” as they fake-dusted their way down the corridor, something with a small, mean soul reared its ugly head, baring pointy little teeth.
It didn’t help that all five maids were young and attractive: a tall, leggy brunette, a shorter curvy brunette, a voluptuous redhead, and two willowy blondes. Nor that they were currently debating whether Adam was a foreplay man or a get-right-to-it kind of guy.
“Well, he likes foreplay,” she was startled to hear herself say much too sweetly, “but he’s so terrible at it that it makes you
wish
he were a wham-bam kind of man.”