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.
That was so not going to happen.
“What if I don’t?” she asked stiffly, bracing herself for the worst.
It arched a dark brow. “What if you don’t what?”
“What if I don’t help you?”
“Why would you not aid me? Such a small thing I ask of you. Merely to speak to someone.”
“Oh, please. Betray myself to more of your kind and fling myself on Fae mercy? As if that’s not an oxymoron. Believe you’d just let a Sidhe-seer walk away and live out her life in peace? I’m not that stupid.”
It leaned forward, elbows on its knees, all amusement vanishing from its features, leaving its chiseled visage quietly regal, dignified. “I give you my word, Gabrielle O’Callaghan,” it said softly. “I will protect you.”
“Right. The word of the blackest fairy, the legendary liar, the great deceiver,” she mocked. How dare it offer its word like it might actually mean something?
A muscle leapt in its jaw. “That is not all I have been, Gabrielle. I have been, and am, many things.”
“Oh, of course, silly me, I left out consummate seducer and ravager of innocence.”
Its eyes narrowed. “I have not ravaged yours. Though I smell it on you. And though I could with little effort, as I am twice your size.”
Oh! Surely it couldn’t smell that she was a virgin, could it? A mere technicality, at that. Flushing, she snapped, “And what guarantee do I have that you won’t?”
A dangerous smile sparked an equally dangerous glint in its eyes. “None. In fact, I guarantee you I will. But I’ll grant you this pledge: When I do, it will be because you’re asking it of me. Standing in front of me. Asking me to fuck you.”
Its words slammed into her like a brick wall, almost knocking the breath out of her, as it had meant them to. It had masculine intimidation down to a fine art. She inhaled sharply, preparing to snap back, to deny, to insist it would be a cold day in hell, but it surged up from its chair and stood, towering over her.
“Enough. Do you intend to aid me or not, Gabrielle?”
Gabby swallowed hard, sifting frantically through her meager options. Damn it all, if she helped it, she just knew she’d end up taken by the Fae. There was no way they’d let her walk away free. No way. They hadn’t spent thousands of years hunting down and destroying the Sidhe-seers, only to let one go now. Especially not one young enough to spawn a whole future line of Sidhe-seers.
And what if they decided to take her mother too? What if they refused to believe Jilly truly didn’t possess the vision she’d bequeathed to her daughter? Happily remarried with three stepchildren, her mom would never forgive her! Not that they had the best relationship as things stood, but she had no desire to make things any worse.
And what if, discovering that she’d eluded them—that they’d been wrong about the last of the Sidhe-seers being wiped out—the Fae began to hunt them again in earnest. Gabby had no doubt that somewhere in the world there were others like her, hiding, keeping their heads down, trying to live normal lives. There were entries in the Books of the Fae that made vague reference to other bloodlines similarly cursed, claiming that once there had been many. Gabby wasn’t fool enough to think that only the O’Callaghan women had figured out how to survive. What if her betrayal caused them all to become persecuted anew? If even one other Sidhe-seer was ferreted out and captured because of her, she would bear the responsibility for their grim fate.
What a mess she’d made of things!
I give you my word, it had said, I will protect you. But Gabby’d not been raised by Walt Disney, she’d been spoon-fed fairy tales of the darkest kind since birth. She was incapable of trusting it. And even if, by some bizarre chance it actually meant what it said, it couldn’t defend her against the queen. Aoibheal held the throne above all four Houses of Fae royalty, and wielded the greatest power of all. If Aoibheal wanted her, Aoibheal would get her. Period.
She had no choice but to fight and resist until the bitter end.
Bracing herself for its rage, for whatever awful thing it would do to her once she asserted her refusal, she tipped her head back, and back more, to meet its imperious gaze.
“No. I’m not going to help you.” She sucked in a shallow breath and held it anxiously.
It stared down at her an interminable moment, gaze inscrutable, saying nothing, doing nothing.
And she waited, nerves strung like tiny wires being ruthlessly pulled by a puppeteer to near-breaking point.
She braced herself to be hit. She fully expected it to hurt her, to attempt to coerce her with physical violence; perhaps even just short of death, and she prayed she would be strong enough to endure. It was a fairy after all. It had no conscience, no soul. She expected it to do whatever it had to do to get its way.
She expected anything but what it did next.
Inclined its head.
Bent to her feet and untied them.
Reached its powerful arms around her, its gold armbands cool against her skin, its silky hair brushing her cheek, its spicy scent enveloping her.
And freed her hands.
As she sat, too confused and afraid to move, it stepped back and rose to its full height, a faint smile playing at its firm, sensual lips.
And vanished.
7
Gabby went to work.
Running on zero sleep and pure nerves, fueled by an icy shower, two Starbucks double-shot espressos, and a need for normalcy, any normalcy.
Maybe her life was falling apart around her ears, but she could pretend it wasn’t.
Besides, despite her exhaustion, she knew she’d never be able to sleep. She was too on edge, too afraid of what it was going to do next, for she had no doubt that it would do something. Had she remained at home by herself, she would have driven herself crazy, her overactive imagination conjuring an endless array of hideous fates for herse
lf.
Initially, when it had vanished, she’d considered resorting to her first plan: hopping in her car and running while the running was good. But somehow she just knew, deep in the marrow of her bones, that running wasn’t going to accomplish anything. She wasn’t sure she believed its claim that it had no other Fae powers but the ability to sift place. She certainly wasn’t fool enough to think that, considering she was the only one who could see it, it had truly gone away and intended to leave her alone.
No, it would never have left her alone if it hadn’t been unequivocally certain of its ability to find her again. Which meant running would be a waste of time and energy best conserved for the battle to come. Besides, she’d reasoned, if she was going to stand and fight, she was better equipped to do it on familiar turf. Here at least, they were in her world, and she knew her way around.
Why hadn’t it hurt her? Why hadn’t it used its immensely superior strength to bully her, to bend her to its will? It could have so easily. She was stymied by its reaction, or rather, its lack of one. It could have done anything it had wanted to do to her as she’d sat there helplessly tied up, but it hadn’t even so much as uttered the slightest villainous threat.
It had vanished. Simply vanished. And it had been smiling. And that made her deeply, deeply uneasy. Like it had something far worse planned for her than mere force.
What could be worse than force?
Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, not knowing when or where it would come.
“O’Callaghan, where in the hell are the Brighton contentions?” her boss, senior partner Jeff Staller, demanded, looming over her tiny desk in her cramped cubicle strewn with files and law books and crumpled wads of legal briefs that just weren’t coming together. “That case was supposed to be filed last week. We’re never going to get a September hearing date now.”
Gabby’s head shot up. Startled, she almost knocked over her fourth espresso of the day. Bleary-eyed, she glanced at the clock. It was two-thirty already. “I’ll have it for you by four o’clock,” she promised.