Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) Read online

  “My contracts professor would call your claim a distinction without a difference,” said Liam.

  Miach knew he would regret loosening his hold on this younger generation, allowing them to live more fully in the human world outside South Boston.

  “Your contracts professor would be unwise, then, to bargain with a Fae.”

  Liam sighed. “Beth Carter told you to leave Helene Whitney alone.”

  “And I have,” Miach said pleasantly.

  “Then why is she here, with enough magic on her to trip the wards and break every glass in the house?”

  Chapter 2

  Helene had never been to Miach’s home before, but Beth had described it from one of her visits. The sorcerer was tutoring Beth, teaching her how to use her Druid talents. Helene hadn’t liked the idea, could not, no matter what her best friend said, bring herself to trust Miach.

  Now she would have to.

  South Boston was a world removed from the bustle of the rest of the city. Much of it was infill, connecting the old fort at Castle William, originally an island, with the mainland. Separated from downtown by the Fort Point Channel, it had long been a tough neighborhood of immigrants, one group displacing the next until the Irish had come and stuck.

  It was fashionable now to buy houses and condos in the gentrified parts of Southie. The Shamrocks and the Winter Hill gang were only memories these days, but muggings and robberies were still alarmingly common. And of course Miach MacCecht’s close-knit crime family remained, collecting protection money from the bars and liquor stores, receiving their tithe from the goods that arrived at the shipping terminal, the cars that rolled off the container ships. Like the milk and honey, which Beth had told her some Irish villagers still left outside their doors to placate the Good Neighbors, a little taste of everything profitable in South Boston was offered up to the Fae.

  Helene had taken the T as far as the Broadway station, and begun walking. The Back Bay, where she lived, was a neighborhood of cafés and boutiques and grand public buildings. South Boston was a neighborhood of barbershops and bakeries and light industry. Helene had chosen what she perceived to be the safest route, on a well-trafficked street with schools and businesses, but when two shirtless men covered in prison tattoos had started following her and calling out obscenities, she jumped into a passing cab and told the driver to take her to the big house at City Point.

  The driver knew exactly which house she meant.

  Her first thought was that the mansion was ugly. A jumble of spires and porches and dormers with no rhyme or reason to them. But there was an exuberance to the architecture, an undeniable joy in the variety and sheer excess of ornament, that seduced her as she drew closer. From the looks of the outside, she guessed that the individual rooms would be quite charming, the house taking its shape from the interior living spaces more than any architect’s plan.

  It had taken an act of will to come here. The night she had met Miach, she hadn’t known what he was. She’d felt an instant attraction to him, the effect, she now understood, of his Fae glamour. And perhaps, to be fair, of her unconscious desires.

  She was tired of dating men who were intimidated by her. Helene wasn’t petite and curvy like Beth. She was tall for a woman, but she didn’t fit the willowy feminine ideal. Helene was . . . athletic. Tanned. She worked out to stay strong, not slim. She had more than a few freckles across her nose. Her hair was long and blond, but it wasn’t the iron-straight curtain of perfection found in glossy magazines, more the windblown sort that hung in irregular waves.

  The scholars she met at the university, with the exception of a fling with a marine biologist who had turned out to be married, tended to be urban creatures, more at home on asphalt than on a forest trail. And few of them were comfortable dating a woman over five-foot-ten who might be able to bench press more than they could.

  Helene wanted to meet a man who was comfortable in his own skin, who wouldn’t feel emasculated by her height, her strength, or her focus on her career.

  Miach had introduced himself as a doctor. A confident professional with achievements, a breed apart from the introverted scholars and wealthy dilettantes she met at the museum. Their attraction had seemed promising—until she’d discovered what he really was.

  Helene had not believed it at first, but when she and Beth were kidnapped by a renegade band of half-blooded Fae, she’d been forced to learn the truth. The Fae had once ruled over men through their vassals, the Druids. But the Druids had grown weary of the abuses of the decadent, sensation-loving Fae, and turned on them, banishing most of the Aes Sídhe to an alternate plane, where they abided still, always looking for a way out.

  Save the few the Druids had kept prisoner aboveground, such as Miach.

  He had refused to take Beth, in the middle of a malaria attack, to a hospital. Helene had thought he was killing her best friend. She’d threatened to call the police. He’d tried to use his glamour then, to bend Helene to his will, and when that wasn’t expedient enough, he’d used his magic to close her windpipe and cut off her air until she’d blacked out.

  While she was unconscious, he’d inked a geis, a magical tattoo, on her inner thigh. It had allowed him to track her movements. While she admitted that the geis had probably saved her life and allowed Miach and Conn to find her when Miach’s renegade son kidnapped her, the Fae sorcerer had not put it there for her sake.

  He’d put it there to mark his territory. To make it clear that Helene Whitney was his. Later, Beth had made Miach swear to leave Helene alone, but now that she was entering his domain of her own free will, all bets, she feared, were off.

  The girl who answered the door was young and pretty and welcoming, and she beckoned Helene inside with a warm smile. Helene crossed the threshold and felt something almost like an electric current pass through her, like receiving a massive static shock. At the same time the whole house shook, as though a truck had passed in the street.

  A look of surprise and curiosity passed over the girl’s face. “You’re the lady the old man sent the curly lamb coat to, aren’t you?” she asked.

  The Persian lamb coat. Helene still had it in her closet. Longed to wear it. Possibly the most glamorous thing she had ever owned. Miach had sent it by way of an apology—after his son and grandsons had kidnapped her, locked her in a tiny attic, and threatened to abuse her.

  She’d hidden the coat away.

  “Yes,” she said carefully.

  The girl looked her up and down, then wrinkled her nose and said, “He’ll be able to smell it on you. Another Fae’s magic.”

  It was the thing Helene had feared the most. That one of these cruel, soulless creatures was climbing inside her mind. Had done it over and over again. Would continue to do so if she could not find help.

  So she asked the question that had kept her from coming here for so long. “How can you tell it isn’t Miach’s magic on me?”

  The girl looked at her like she was stupid. “Because you tripped the wards on the house.”

  Helene wished Beth was here to explain this strange and hidden world to her, but she wasn’t, so Helene was forced to ask: “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “The old man’s got the house warded—protected—I mean, with boundary spells. They’re only triggered by magic that isn’t his. Otherwise we’d lose a set of crockery and have to replace all the mirrors every time he came back from a stroll.”

  The relief on Helene’s face must have been obvious, because the girl looked at her and said, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m better. Fine, I mean,” Helene said.

  That was at least one of her fears alleviated. Miach was not the one doing this to her. The mosquito bite on her shoulder, nearly a month old, itched suddenly, but she ignored it and followed the girl—Nieve, she said her name was—into the house.

  Nieve ushered Helene past a dining room where a boisterous afternoon meal was taking place with piles of cakes and toast and pots of tea. There were half a dozen small c
hildren seated at the table as well as a sprinkling of adults who shared Miach’s black hair and brown black eyes and—looking sheepish at the far end of the room—Miach’s grandsons Liam and Nial.

  Helene almost turned tail and ran. Liam and Niall had been two of her kidnappers. But then Nieve was leading her up the stairs, drawing her on with a steady stream of chatter. Nieve was not Fae—or at least not full-blooded Fae. She was pretty but not achingly so. She was charming, but used no chilling glamour to coax Helene to talk about herself. Nieve simply exuded warmth and interest, and Helene found herself describing her job at the museum and her apartment in the Back Bay and then, before she knew it, she was inside a huge chamber that looked out over the harbor.

  It was a library. It could easily have been one of the university’s tiny specialized collection rooms, with its polished paneling and embossed red-leather walls. The furnishings were nicer than what a college would have in a space used by students, an assortment of overstuffed lolling chairs and empire sofas covered in silk damask.

  Helene took all this in before noting the room’s principal feature: Miach MacCecht. He stood behind a large mahogany desk, and he wore a human glamour, like the night they had met, but she would never be fooled by that again.

  He was dressed much as he had been that night, in a dark-gray T-shirt that clung to his sculpted chest and hung loose over the cotton duck trousers that hugged his narrow hips. His hair was coal black and close cropped, his jaw chiseled, his cheekbones set wide and high. Like all of his race he was tall, graceful, fine boned, but beautifully muscled, biceps and forearms lean but strong. His black brows crowned golden brown almond shaped eyes. Even with his human glamour he had the exotic appeal of the Celtic peoples, familiar and, at the same time, fey.

  Although she knew how dangerous he was, knew that she should not be attracted to him, she was. She spent her whole day surrounded by beauty, by great works of art. Miach had more than physical appeal. He radiated power. When she had seen him without his human glamour, his features—sharper and more predatory and his eyes an unearthly gold flecked brown—had possessed an uncanny quality that had set her teeth on edge. And still, she had wanted him.

  He stayed behind the desk.

  “Where is Elada?” she asked. Beth had told her that the sorcerer was never without his right hand. It was another reason that even if Helene could forgive Miach for knocking her out cold, there was no way for them to be together. Miach had tried to kill Beth. And Elada had been the one to carry out his orders. He’d tried to run Beth and Helene’s car off the road, and later on taken Helene’s mind over and forced her to sit inside his vehicle while he chased after her best friend.

  “I thought you would rather not see Elada,” Miach replied. “Why are you here, Helene?”

  The moment of truth. She opened her mouth to speak. The bite on her shoulder itched so badly, it burned for a second. Then the words tumbled out: “I’m here because a Fae has been abducting me for hours, almost every day, and I can’t remember what happens.”

  Miach’s entire body, every lean inch of his six-foot-two frame tensed. “What Fae?” The threat of violence laced his words.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice broke. It was such a relief just to be able to speak the words, to talk to someone who believed her. Humiliating tears pricked her eyes. She blinked them back and looked away. Her shoulder tingled. Not an itch this time, more of a stretched feeling, like sunburned skin about to peel. She couldn’t resist scratching it.

  Miach crossed the room faster than she thought possible and arrested her hand. He spun her around and yanked the strap of her tank top down, exposing her shoulder and the top of her breast.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked.

  “It’s a bug bite,” she said, puzzled. The skin looked red and raised now—even though the bite hadn’t been visible before. And it was peeling like a sunburn, spiraling out in a pattern several inches in diameter, larger than a mosquito bite, more symmetrical than a rash. It looked almost like someone had branded her shoulder with a hot iron.

  “It’s not an insect bite,” he said. “It was a geis. A spell.”

  It hurt now, a delayed reaction. She’d touched a hot pan once, recoiling at the sting but not feeling the real pain until several seconds later, when it had hit her in a searing wave. This was much the same, but Miach’s fingertips traced a soothing pattern over her branded skin like aloe being smoothed over a wound.

  “The wards on the house burned most of it off,” he said. “And your words just now did the rest. You must have been fighting it hard, for some time, because it looks likely to scar.”

  “I tried to tell Beth what was happening to me, but the words wouldn’t come out.”

  His fingers were still tracing, still soothing. It felt good. Too good.

  “Stop,” she said.

  His fingers stilled but remained in contact with her skin. “The ink,” he said, “was tinted the shade of your skin. That’s why you didn’t see it. But you fought it, over and over again, forcing it to rewrite itself. It will almost certainly scar now if you don’t let me heal it.”

  Letting him touch her was a bad idea. She liked it too much. But a giant scar on her shoulder didn’t appeal.

  “Go ahead,” she said. She wanted the thing gone. “Someone did that to me, while I was in their power under their glamour, didn’t they?”

  “Yes,” he said, his fingertips exploring the inflamed skin. He touched the other side of her shoulder as well, a look of concern flitting across his handsome face, quickly hidden.

  “But it’s gone now. Neutralized, right?”

  He hesitated before replying. “Yes,” he said. But there was something tentative in his response.

  “So why can’t I remember who it was?”

  “This geis,” he said, leading her to a sofa and sitting down behind her, “was only meant to seal your mouth, to prevent you voicing any fears or suspicions. To prevent you seeking help.” He pushed the straps off her other shoulder, so both were now bare, and began tracing soothing patterns over her skin. “That’s why you weren’t able to confide in Beth. Controlling a living being with spells is rather like programming a computer. One line of code at a time. One spell for each action you want performed or prevented.”

  “Are they all so binary?” she asked. “Spells? Are they all yes or no?”

  “The ones worked with a geis, yes. There are more complicated magics, but they can’t be contained in a simple symbol like that. Several such symbols together, though, can be combined and layered to create more complicated enchantments. You bore one that was meant to keep you silent. You might wear another to take away your memories, still another to compel you to do something else. Now tell me exactly what has been happening.”

  While his hands spread warmth through her shoulders, she told him. About waking up the night after the gala, about finding herself suddenly in her office with no recollection of the last few hours.

  “After the party,” he said, “all of the incidents took place at the museum?”

  “Yes.” It almost came out a moan. His hands felt incredible. Beth had said it was good with a Fae, so good that you forgot everything else in life, became a husk, a shell, pined and starved when they left you. Unless they tied themselves to you permanently.

  And the Fae almost never did that. There was Beth and Conn, of course, but Conn was . . . unusual, she suspected, almost unique. Beth had fallen in love with her brawny Fae champion. Conn seemed to possess more humanity than the rest of his kind, and the couple were in Ireland together now, on a dig. Helene was happy for her friend, who had endured a terrible first marriage and generally rotten love life before encountering Conn, but Helene herself had wanted nothing more to do with the Fae.

  “Are there any security cameras at the museum?” Miach asked. His hands ceased to draw patterns and now began to massage the tight muscles in her neck, and the invitation was clear. She could release all her tensions in his bed, under
his magnificent body, if she was willing to lose what little control over her mind she had left.

  “I already checked the cameras,” she said, trying to focus on what was important. “We don’t have them in the storage areas or the offices—those are accessed with key cards—but there’s twenty-four-hour surveillance on the entrances and exits and in the large galleries. I looked at all the footage, and I wasn’t recorded leaving the building. I spotted myself walking through the rotunda, twice, but I don’t remember doing it.”

  His hands stopped. “Were you by yourself in the footage?”

  “Yes. I was walking from the main gallery, where we have cameras, toward the offices, where we don’t. But there was no one with me.”

  Miach cursed. The oath wasn’t in English, but the tone of it was unmistakable. His hands began kneading her shoulders. “Helene,” he said. “If this Fae was taking control of your mind from a distance, summoning you to meet him, then he’s using dangerous magic on you.”

  And she couldn’t remember any of it. Cold, sick fear washed over her. “What do you think he was doing with me, when he summoned me?” she asked. Her mind skidded away from the possibilities, none of them pleasant. The Fae, as she had discovered, could be inventively cruel. After each episode she’d searched her body for signs of abuse, and found none. She’d showered each time anyway, a ritual to wash away the feeling of violation.

  “Whatever he did,” said Miach, “he will die for it. You mustn’t be afraid, Helene. I won’t let it happen again. I’m going to keep you safe.”

  Relief washed over her. Helene had never thought that a Fae could make her feel safe, but the determined tone of his voice was persuasive. She looked at the pink skin on her shoulder. “You think there’s another geis, somewhere else on my body, don’t you?”

  “Possibly,” he said.

  “But you can remove, it right? Like the one on my shoulder.”