5
Far too many things to lose,
Gabby thought glumly.
Her virginity. Her world. Her life. And—if it had its wicked way—probably in precisely that order.
At the very last moment, just before its lips claimed hers, its grip on her face relaxed slightly and she did the only thing she could think of: She head-butted it.
Snapped her head back, then forward again, and bashed it square in the face as hard as she could.
So hard, in fact, that it made her woozy and gave her an instant migraine, making her wonder how Jean-Claude Van Damme always managed to coolly continue fighting after such a stunt. Obviously, movies lied. She wished she’d known that before she’d tried playing action hero.
Fortunately, it appeared she’d hurt it more than she’d hurt herself, because she recovered faster.
Fast enough to land a direct hit with her knee to its groin while it was still looking dazed.
The sound it made as it doubled over sent pure panic lancing through her veins. It was a sound of such affront, of such animalistic rage and pain, that she really,
really
didn’t want to be around by the time it managed to recover.
As it sank down to the floor, groaning and cupping itself, she dashed past it, making a frantic beeline toward the back door. There was no point in bothering with the front door. She’d never be able to outrun it on foot. She needed her car.
She darted through the living room, skittered around the table in the dining room, and burst into the kitchen.
Looming ahead of her—freedom—an open rectangle of doorway, splashed with morning sun.
She could still hear it cursing, three rooms away, as she reached the threshold. The hell with her luggage, she thought, leaping over it, she’d be lucky to escape with her life and she knew it.
Vaulting through the open doorway, she—
Slammed into Adam Black’s rock-hard body all over again.
She screamed when it caught her roughly, lifting her up until her feet dangled helplessly above the ground. The expression on its stunning dark face was icy and terrifying.
It crushed her against its body, tightening its arms around her until the air was whistling as she tried to suck it into her lungs. And she knew, if it tightened its powerful arms just a little bit more, her oxygen would be cut off completely.
It kept her like that for long painful moments, and she went perfectly still, face buried in its neck, its torque pressing into her cheek, willing herself to be soft and limp, to exude a nonthreatening air. She sensed instinctively that she’d pushed it to the brink, and if she evidenced even the slightest degree of resistance, it would respond with even greater force.
Her body wasn’t going to be able to withstand greater force.
So it was true, she thought dismally as it held her immobile, the Fae
could
move about in the blink of an eye. One instant it had been lying on the floor three rooms behind her, the next it was in the doorway in front of her. How on earth was she going to escape something that could move like that? What else could it do? Suddenly her mind was stuffed to overflowing with all Gram had ever taught her about the Fae, all the horrifying powers they possessed. The ability to mesmerize humans, control them, bend them to their every whim.
Could she
be
in any deeper shit?
After what seemed an interminably long time, it drew a deep, shuddering breath.
Just as she was drawing a shaky breath to start apologizing, or more accurately, begin begging for a swift and merciful death, it said with silky menace:
“Now it’s not just my
lip
you’ll be needing to kiss if you’re wishing to make amends with me, Irish.”
Five minutes later Gabby was securely tied to one of her dining-room chairs with her own clothesline.
Wrists bound behind her to the ladder-back chair, ankles snugly roped to the legs.
Dispiritedly she wondered how it was possible that a person’s life could go so thoroughly to hell in a handbasket in so short a time. Only yesterday morning the biggest worry on her mind had been what to wear to her interview. Whether Ms. Temple might think a black suit too severe, a brown one too modest, a pink one too frivolous. High heels too flirty? Low heels too butch? Hair up or down?
God, had she really worried about such things?
Mornings like this certainly put one’s life in perspective.
Dragging a chair around to face hers, Adam Black dropped into it, legs spread, elbows on its knees, leaning forward, mere inches from her. A long silky fall of midnight hair spilled over its muscular shoulder, brushing her thigh. The thing clearly had no concept of personal space. It was much too close. Just as she thought that, it raised a hand toward her. She flinched, but it only grazed her cheek with its knuckles, then slowly traced the pad of its thumb over her lower lip.
She tossed her head defiantly, averting her face. A finger beneath her chin forced her to turn back.
“Ah, yes, I like you this way much better.” Its dark eyes glittered, sparking gold.
“I don’t like
you
any way.” Jaw jutting, she tipped her nose skyward. Dignity, she reminded herself. She would not die without it.
“I think I got that, Irish. Best bear in mind you’re at my mercy. And I’m not feeling particularly merciful at the moment. Perhaps you should endeavor to
keep
me liking you.”
She muttered something she rarely said. A thing Gram would have washed out her mouth with soap for.
Its eyes flared with instant heat. Then it laughed darkly, wiping blood from its lip with the back of its hand. “That’s not what you were saying a few minutes ago.”
“That’s
not
how I meant it and you know it.”
Its laughter stopped abruptly and its gaze turned cold. “Ah, but I’m afraid I’m a very literal man,
ka-lyrra
. Don’t say that to me again unless you mean it. Because I will take you up on it. And I won’t give you the chance to take it back. Just those two words. Say them to me again and I’ll be all over you. On the floor. Me and you. Say it. Go ahead.”
Gabby gritted her teeth and stared down at the hardwood floor, counting dust bunnies.
No more than you deserve, Gabby,
Moira O’Callaghan chided in her mind.
I raised you better than that.
Great, she thought mulishly, now everyone was ganging up on her. Even dead people.
The finger was back beneath her chin, forcing her to meet its shimmery gaze. “Got it?”
“ ‘Got it,’ ” she clipped.
“Good.” A pause, a measuring look. “So tell me, Gabrielle O’Callaghan, what exactly is it you believe my people do to the
Sidhe
-seers?”
She shrugged nonchalantly—in as much as she was able, tied so securely—not about to admit to anything. A shee-seer, It’d called her, the archaic name for what she was. She’d encountered it in the
Books of the Fae,
but never heard it spoken aloud. “I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”
It made an impatient noise and laid a finger to her lips, shushing her. “Irish, don’t dissemble with me, I have no patience for it. The
féth fiada
doesn’t work on you, and you called me by name. I admit, when first I caught you looking at me, I was perplexed, but there’s no other explanation for your behavior. It’s why you fought me. You know all about my race, don’t you?”
After a long moment Gabby swallowed and nodded tightly. She had well and truly betrayed herself, first by being caught looking at it, then by telling it to “go to hell” by name. It knew. And it was clearly not in the mood for games. “So what now?” she asked stiffly. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I’ve no intention of killing you,
ka-lyrra
. Though indeed there was a time a
Sidhe
-seer’s life was forfeited if caught, my people haven’t spilled human blood since The Compact governing our races was negotiated.” It swept a fall of hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear, its hand lingering, tracing the curve of her cheek. “Nor do I plan to hurt you, unless you hurt me again, at which point all bets are off. As of this moment I’m willing to wipe the slate clean between us, consider your hostility a misunderstanding. Allow that a wee thing like you—believing your life in jeopardy—would feel driven to fight dirty against a man like me. However, if you hurt me again, you’ll pay tenfold. Understand?”
Gabby nodded stiffly, wishing it would stop touching her. The mere brush of its hand made her skin tingle, made all the muscles in her lower stomach clench. How dare the embodiment of her worst nightmare come packaged as her hottest fantasy?
It leaned back in the chair, swept its hands through its long dark hair, then laced its fingers together behind its head. Its powerful arms rippled with the movement, cut shoulders bulging beneath the black T-shirt, massive biceps flexing, gold armbands glinting in the morning sun spilling through the tall windows. It took immense effort to keep her gaze firmly fixed on its face, keep it from sweeping down over all that fairy perfection.
The
Books of the Fae
contained dozens of tales about how, in the days of yore, on nights when the moon hung fat and full against a violet dusk and the Wild Hunt ran, young maidens had raced into the forests, hoping to be taken by one of the exotic Fae males. Had gone willingly to their doom.
Gabby O’Callaghan would
never
be such a fool. Whatever it had in store for her, she would fight it every inch of the way.
“A
Sidhe
-seer,” it said, dark gaze scrutinizing her intently. “It never occurred to me to look for one of you, that any of you might still be about. Aoibheal believes the Hunters eliminated the last of you long ago, as did I. How many others of your bloodline have the vision?”
“I’m the last.” For the first time in her life she was grateful she had no other family members who shared her curse. There was no one else to protect; only her own survival was at stake.
While it studied her, she pondered its words.
Ah-veel,
it had said: the High Queen of the Seelie, Court of the Light.
Hunters:
The mere word iced her blood. As a child they’d been the bogeyman in her every closet, the monster beneath her every bed. Handpicked by the queen and dispatched to hunt the
Sidhe
-seers, they were ruthless, terrifying creatures that hailed from the Unseelie King’s hellish realm of shadow and ice. She might not know all the Fae by name—there were too many, and they donned too many different glamours for that—but Gram had taught her about the most powerful ones at a young age.
“Your mother is no longer alive?”
“She doesn’t have the vision.”
Stay away from my mom, you bastard.
“Then how did she protect you?”
Gabby flinched inwardly.
I can’t protect her, damn it, Mother! How can I protect her from something I can’t see?
Jilly had shouted at Moira O’Callaghan on that dark, snowy night so long ago. Three days later her mother was gone.
“Who taught you how to hide from us?” it pressed. “Not that you did a very good job at it.” A smirk curved its sensual lips. “But then, women never have been able to keep their eyes off me.”
“Oh, you are
so
arrogant. I just couldn’t figure out if you were a fairy or not,” Gabby snapped.
A dark eyebrow arched. “And you thought the answer to that question might be found in my pants? That’s why you were looking there?” Its dark gaze shimmered with amusement.
“The only reason I looked there,” she said, flushing, “was because I couldn’t believe you would just so blatantly . . . re-rearrange your—your . . .” She trailed off, then hissed, “What
is
it with men? Women don’t do things like that! Move their . . . their personal parts about in public.”
“More’s the pity. I, for one, would find it quite fascinating.” Its gaze dropped to her breasts.
The raw sexual heat in its gaze made her nipples tighten. Made her shiver. How could its mere gaze have as much tactile impact as if it had dragged a velvety tongue across her skin? “It was your eyes that threw me,” she gritted. “I thought all fairies had iridescent eyes. I was off-kilter, trying to figure out what you were.”
“My eyes,” it said lazily, gaze raking slowly back up to her face. “I see. So how is it you learned to hide?”
Gabby blew out a breath. “My grandmother was also a
Sidhe
-seer. She raised me. But she’s dead now. I’m the last.” She couldn’t resist asking, “So why don’t you have iridescent eyes? And why do you bleed?”
“Long story,
ka-lyrra
. And one you’re about to get very involved in.”
At that, another shiver kissed her spine. “You’re really not going to kill me?” she said warily. She was exhausted; mentally, physically, and emotionally wrung out. Her head was still pounding from head-butting the fairy, and she was desperate for reassurance, any reassurance. Even if it came from her enemy.
“Oh, no,
ka-lyrra,
” it purred silkily. “That would be such a waste. I have far better uses for you than that.”
Well, she’d gotten her “reassurance.”
Too bad it wasn’t even remotely reassuring.
6
Far better uses indeed,
Adam thought, leaning back in his chair, watching emotions skitter across her delicate features like sunlight rippling across a loch. Anger warred with exhaustion, frustration dueled with fear.
By Danu, she was beautiful. But beauty alone had never been enough to pique his interest. Passion was his magnet. Mortal fire drew his immortal ice.
And what a fiery thing she was. Defiant. Brave. Aggressive. The golden glow of her immortal soul illuming her from within was more vibrant, more intense than most humans, a hot amber aura surrounding her, marking her as a veritable tempest-in-a-teapot of passion. Half his size and still she’d fought him like a wild thing, a hissing spitfire with a lethally hard head and deadly knees; and although he’d just suffered more pain in the past half hour than he had in his entire existence, he was not particularly displeased. Pissed off in a fundamentally male way, but not displeased.
He had his very own
Sidhe
-seer. One who made him burn with lust. Touching female flesh on a human body was exquisite. He’d been right: Sex in human form was going to be incredible, a new experience, a rare thing in an immortal’s existence, and all the sweeter for it. Merely crushing her against the door, feeling her generous, sweet ass cushioning his cock had made his body shake with desire.
Shake. Him. He’d never trembled in his life. Never suffered even the mildest involuntary shudder.
A shameless voyeur, he’d spied on lovers uncounted over the millennia, avidly watching them, studying their bedplay. He’d watched giants of men, hardened warriors with scarred bodies and iced hearts, men made brutal by war and famine and death, tremble like inexperienced boys from the mere touch of a woman.
He’d never understood it. He’d wanted to understand it. He did now.
The press of her hips against his heavy loins had flooded him with raw, primal aggression. Never had he felt such an overwhelming imperative to mate. Never had he had such a vicious, raging hard-on.
And even now, despite his residual pain, he hungered to touch her. Resented the very air that separated their bodies. Needed to feel her again. Shifting in the chair, he moved his knee between hers so it was brushing her inner thigh, not missing how her leg instantly tensed. Ah, much better. For a moment he couldn’t drag his gaze from the ripe press of her round breasts against the soft fabric of her shirt. Christ, he couldn’t wait to get his mouth on them.
But not by force. He might tempt, lure, and manipulate, but none could accuse the consummate seducer of resorting to something so banal as force. Not him. It was a point he prided himself on. Those who fell prey to his machinations fell of their own accord. When they chose to take what he offered—and they always did—any black marks on their souls were their own.
A
Sidhe
-seer. He’d never have even thought to go searching for one.
Gabrielle O’Callaghan was a wild card of the finest sort, a possibility Aoibheal hadn’t taken into account when she’d levied the
féth fiada
against him, believing them all long dead.
As had he.
The last
Sidhe
-seer he’d encountered had been over two thousand years ago, in the first century
A.D.
, deep in a towering, lush forest in Ireland; a wizened and withered old crone. He’d not bothered to alert the Hunters; she’d been courting Death’s kiss anyway. He’d sat and told her tales for a time, answered her many questions. A few years later he’d returned, gathered her fragile, dried-up husk of a body in his arms, and taken her to a secluded beach on the Isle of Morar. She’d died looking out at an ocean so intensely, brilliantly aquamarine that it made humans weep. She’d died with the scent of jasmine and sandalwood in her nostrils, not the stench of her filthy one-room hut. She’d died with a smile on her lips.
But this one—could he have been more blessed by Fate? Young, strong, defiant, beautiful. And why not? Fate was a woman, and women always aided Adam Black. As would this one once he’d allayed her misgivings.
She’d been raised to fear and despise his kind and would require a thorough seduction. Once, the mere fact that he was Fae would have inspired unstinting obedience, but the world had changed much since such times, as had the nature of women. They were stronger, far more independent. No longer were they willing to spend their lives hidden in a forest, forswearing the bearing of progeny lest they pass on the vision and, one day, have to watch the grim, nightmarish Hunters slay their offspring.
Ah, yes, times had changed, as the Tuatha Dé had changed, too, been forced to change when Queen Aoibheal had accepted the terms and many limits of the sacred Compact on behalf of their race. No longer were they permitted to spill human blood, lest The Compact be voided, and any Tuatha Dé who violated it condemned to the grimmest fate for one of their kind: a soulless death. Although, should the queen or any of his race, for that matter, hear hint of the existence of a
Sidhe
-seer, the Hunters would still be instantly dispatched, they would no longer be permitted to slaughter their prey.
However, Gabrielle O’Callaghan didn’t know that, as the terms of The Compact were secret from all mortals but the MacKeltar, a Highland clan of ancient bloodline descended from the first Druids, and sole keepers of Man’s end of the treaty.
Hence, when he’d appeared at her door, she’d believed she was fighting for her life. Adam shook his head. Even on his worst days in his worst centuries, when he’d been the worst kind of immortal, ungoverned by any Compact, he’d not have killed this one. Played hard and rough with her? Certainly. Killed her? Never.
Ka-lyrra,
he’d called her, not realizing just how accurate it was. The
ka-lyrra
was a creature native to his homeworld, Danu. Silky-pelted, exquisitely marked, with huge, phosphorescent eyes, velvety paws, and a striped, tufted tail, its delicate beauty tempted, but its bite was dangerous, even to a Tuatha Dé; not killing but causing madness of considerable duration. Few were they who could woo it; few were they who dared to try.
Indeed, the appellation suited her. She was certainly maddening; only the second mortal woman he’d ever encountered who hadn’t melted into a puddle of accommodating, adoring femininity for him. Even the crone
Sidhe
-seer had been girlishly flirtatious with him. At the end, he’d gifted her a glamour of beauty and taken her last breath with a kiss.
“Well?” she snapped, jarring him from his reverie. “What ‘uses’?”
Adam studied her. Anger had won the battle for control of her facial muscles, drawing her lips in a delicate sneer, flaring her nostrils. Still, apprehension shadowed her lovely eyes. He didn’t want her fearing him. Fear would interfere with his plans to experience human sex with her and use her as his intermediary to regain his immortality. “I told you I have no intention of harming you, and I meant it. I merely seek your aid with a small problem.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “You seek my aid? How could I possibly aid an all-powerful fairy?”
“I’m not all-powerful at the moment.” Now she would begin to relax.
“Really? Do tell.”
Her eyes narrowed a bit too calculatingly for his taste. Relaxed was one thing, but he had no intention of walking around on constant guard against those treacherous knees. “I may not be all-powerful, Gabrielle,” he said softly, “but even diminished, I am far more powerful than you. Indeed, far more powerful than most humans. Need you a reminder?” He stretched lazily in his chair, fully aware of how his body rippled and flexed.
She growled, actually growled low in her throat at him.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, lips curving faintly. Small and currently helpless as a kitten, she sported a lion’s share of ferocity; her lush, five-foot-four-inch body jam-packed with six feet of temper. “Listen well,
Sidhe
-seer . . .”
Gabby listened well indeed while he talked, eyes narrowing, taking meticulous mental notes.
What he told her fanned the spark of hope in her heart into flame. Not only was he not all-powerful, but he was actually trapped in mortal form.
All that splendidly masculine body is
human
?
cooed a breathy, traitorous voice in her mind.
Oh, shut up.
How was it possible that a fourteen-year-old version of herself was still skulking around inside her head?
And not only was he flesh and blood—which explained why he’d bled and didn’t have typical fairy eyes—but he’d been cursed by the full triumvirate power of the
féth fiada,
which, he told her, made it impossible for humans to perceive him. Effected illusion and affected memory, weaving chaos like a cloak around him. Except for her—descended from an ancient line of
Sidhe
-seers on whom Fae magic didn’t work the way it was supposed to.
Further compounding his problems, he could no longer traverse realms. He was stuck in the human one.
Gabby couldn’t believe he was telling her all this. He was revealing, without reservation, that he posed no otherworldly threat to her. That he couldn’t carry her off, couldn’t summon the Hunters. And he was stripped of his fairy magic to boot!
Though he refused to answer when she asked for what offense the queen had punished him, she didn’t press. She didn’t really care. What mattered was that, in his current condition, he posed no greater threat than any other human man—albeit an extraordinarily large and strong one.
She was going to survive. She really wasn’t going to die today! After all, he couldn’t kill her; she was all he had, the only one who could see him. He
needed
her.
That realization went a long way toward calming her nerves. She wasn’t dealing with impending death, she was dealing with impending battle, and those were two very different things.
Wait a minute, she thought suddenly, frowning as her mind latched on to an inconsistency: He claimed to be powerless, but was still able to move in the blink of an eye like a fairy. How could that be? She needed to know precisely what she was up against. “I thought you said Aoibheal stripped your powers. Why can you still move like a fairy?”
He shrugged. “It’s the only power she left me—the ability to sift short distances.”
“Why would she leave you anything at all?” she pressed, wondering if he was telling her the truth.
“I suspect,” he replied dryly, “so buses wouldn’t run me over while I was trying to adjust to my new form. She wishes me to suffer, not die.”
“But she left you nothing else?”
He shook his head and gave her a chiding glance. “Don’t think to escape me, Gabrielle. I won’t permit it. It would be unwise to think me”—he paused a moment, as if choosing his next words with care, and smiled faintly—“impotent . . . in any way.”
“And why do you want me to talk to this Circenn Brodie person?” she forged on, refusing to acknowledge his thinly veiled threat.
Think him impotent?
With all that testosterone and virility dripping from his pores? Ha. She’d as easily mistake the Sahara Desert for the North Pole.
“Because he has the power to return me to the Fae realm.”
“Is he a fairy too?” She stiffened instantly. No more fairies. There was no way she was going to reveal herself to another one, especially not one that possessed all its powers.
“Half-Fae. But he chooses to reside in the mortal world.”
Still too dangerous, even if only a half-blood. “And after I act as your intermediary and he takes you back to Faery, then what?”
“Then all will be made right, and I’ll be invincible again.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant, what happens to me? While you may be the most important thing to your egotistical little self in your narcissistic little world, guess what—so am I in mine.”
His eyes glittered and he laughed. Tossed back his dark head, white teeth flashing, muscles in his corded neck flexing, and she bit back a soft, appreciative moan. His body might be human, but it was dusted with Fae exoticness, from his incredible gold-velvet skin, to those eyes that flashed with shimmering gold sparks no human had, to his flat-out intimidating sexual presence. Potent, larger-than-life Fae essence bottled—and not quite capped—in a mortal body. And a perfect mortal body at that.
Simply deadly. A pure fairy could not have tempted her so. She would have kept telling herself it was a “thing.” But now that she knew he was all human male beneath that black T-shirt and those snug, faded jeans, he seemed like an entirely different—
Eew!
Her spine went rigid as the back of her chair. She snapped up straight so violently that she nearly toppled herself over.
How long had she been thinking of it as “he” and “him” in her mind?
Oh! She wanted to spit, to scrape the foul taste of her own betrayal off her tongue! Had her grandmother taught her nothing? She closed her eyes, shutting it out, painstakingly rebuilding its it-ness in her mind.
After a few moments she opened them again.
It
had not yet answered her. “I said,” she repeated, “what about me?”
“Anything you want,
ka-lyrra,
” it purred. “You have but to name it.” Its gaze raked over her body appreciatively, hungrily, those dark eyes promising the fulfillment of any fantasy she might harbor in her deepest heart. It wet its lower lip with its tongue, caught it with its teeth, then gave her the slowest, sexiest smile she’d ever seen. “Whisper in my ear, Gah-bry-yil, your deepest desires, and I shall make them yours.”
Yeah, right,
she thought acerbically (stoically refusing to ponder, for even a moment, its offer of unlimited sexual fantasy that was making her stomach feel kind of sick, but not in a sick way at all), it would forget about her in a heartbeat. The moment it was its impervious, all-powerful, immortal self again.
But she’d be willing to bet no
other
fairy would. If it was, indeed, Aoibheal herself who’d punished it, barring it from the Fae realm, wouldn’t she want to know exactly how Adam Black had gotten back to Faery without her royal consent?
And that would lead the formidable queen to Circenn Brodie (assuming this Brodie person didn’t just immediately hand Gabby over) and ultimately to Gabby herself. And then the Hunters would come thundering down on nightmarish hooves to steal her away and—if they no longer killed mortals as it claimed—she could look forward instead to a lifetime of servitude to a host of arrogant, cold demigods.