Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(61)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"You wanted to know what O’Donnell had? Come with me."

I would have, but he grabbed my arm in a grip and his hand bit down. I heard a crack but it was a moment before the pain registered.

He’d broken my wrist.

He pulled me through the doorway, through the dining room, and into his bedroom. When he pushed me onto his bed, I heard a second bone pop in my arm – this time the pain cleared my head just a little. Mostly, though, it just hurt.

He threw open a large oak entertainment center, but there was no TV on the shelf. Instead there were two shoe boxes sitting on a bulky fur of some sort that looked almost like yak hide, except it was gray.

Tim set the boxes on the ground and pulled out the hide, shaking it out so I could see it was a cloak. He pulled it around himself, and once it settled over him, it disappeared. He didn’t look any different from when he’d put it on.

"Do you know what this is?"

And I did, because I’d been reading my borrowed book and because the strange-looking hide smelled of horse, not yak.

"It’s the Druid’s Hide," I told him, breathing through my teeth so I didn’t whimper. At least it wasn’t the same arm I’d broken last winter. "The druid had been cursed to wear the form of a horse, but when he was skinned, he regained his human form. But the horse’s skin did something…" I tried to remember the wording, because it was important. "It kept his enemies from finding or harming him."

I looked up and realized that he hadn’t wanted me to answer him. He’d wanted to know more than I did. I think it was the "not intelligent enough" comment still bothering him. But part of me wanted to please him, and as the pain subsided, that compulsion grew stronger.

"You are much stronger than I thought," I said to distract myself from this new facet of the goblet’s effect. Or maybe I said it to please him.

He stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he liked hearing that or not. Finally he drew up the sleeves of his dress shirt to show me that he wore a silver band around each wrist. "Bracers of giant strength," he said.

I shook my head. "Those aren’t bracers. Those are bracelets or maybe wristlets. Bracers are longer. They were used – "

"Shut up," he gritted. He closed the wardrobe and kept his back to me for a moment. "You love me," he said. "You think I’m the handsomest man you’ve ever seen."

I fought it. I did. I fought his voice as hard as I’ve ever fought anything.

But it’s hard to fight your own heart, especially when he was so handsome. Until that moment, no man had competed with Adam for sheer breathtaking male beauty – but his face and form palled beside Tim.

Tim turned to me and stared into my eyes. "You want me," he said. "More than you wanted that ugly doctor you were dating."

Of course I did. Desire made my body go languid and I arched my back a little. The pain in my arm was nothing to the desire I felt.

"The walking stick makes you rich," I told him as he put a knee on the bed. "The fae know I have it and they want it back." I tried to brace up on my elbow so I could kiss him, but my arm didn’t work right. My other hand did, but it was already reaching up to caress the soft skin of his neck. "They’ll get it, too. They have someone who knows how to find it."

He pulled my hand away.

"It’s at your work?"

"It should be." After all, it followed me wherever I went. And I was going to go to my office. This beautiful man would take me.

He ran a hand over my breast, squeezed too hard, then released it and stood up. "This can wait. Come with me."

My love had me drink some more from the goblet before we took his car to go to my office. I couldn’t remember what it was that we were looking for there, but he’d tell me when we got there. That’s what he told me. We were on 395 headed toward East Kennewick when he unzipped his jeans.

A trucker, passing us, honked his horn. So did the car in the other lane when Tim swerved too much and almost had a wreck.

He swore and pulled me off him. "We’ll do that where there aren’t so many cars," he said, sounding breathless and almost giddy. He had me zip his pants again, because he couldn’t manage. It was hard with only one hand, so I used the other one, too, ignoring the pain it caused.

When I’d finished, I looked out the window and wondered why my arm hurt so badly and why I was sick to my stomach. Then he picked the cup off the floor where it had fallen and gave it to me.

"Here, drink this."

There was dirt on the outside of the cup, but the inside was full – which didn’t make sense. It had been on its side on the floor mat under my feet. There shouldn’t be any liquid there at all.

Then I remembered it was a fairy thing.

"Drink," he said again.

I quit worrying about how it had happened, and took a sip.

"Not like that," he said. "Drink the whole glass. Austin took two sips this morning and did exactly what I told him to do. You sure you aren’t fae?"

I upended the goblet, drinking as fast as I could, though some of it spilled over and poured stickily down my neck. When it was empty, I looked for a place to set it. It didn’t seem right to put it on the floor. Finally I managed to make the cup holder on my door fit around it.

"No," I told him. "I’m not fae."

I set my hands on my lap and watched them clench into fists. When the highway dropped us into east Kennewick, I told him how to find my shop.

"Would you shut up?" he said. "That noise is getting on my nerves. Take another drink."

I hadn’t realized I was making noise. I reached up and felt my vocal cords, which were indeed vibrating. The growl I’d been hearing must be me. It stopped as soon as I became aware of it. The cup was full again when I reached for it.

"That’s better."

He pulled into the parking lot and parked in front of the office.

I was so jittery that I had trouble opening the door of the car, and even when I was out, I was shaking like a junkie.

"What’s the code?" he asked, standing in front of the door.

"One, one, two, zero," I told him through the chattering of my teeth. "It’s my birthday."

The little light on the top switched from red to green: something in me relaxed and my jitters settled down.

He took my keys and opened the door, then locked it behind us. He looked through the office for a while, even pulling the step ladder over so he could get up high on the parts shelves. After a few minutes he started pulling things off the shelves and dumping them on the floor. A thermostat housing hit the cement floor and cracked. I would have to remember to reorder it, I thought. Maybe Gabriel could go through the parts and see what we could salvage. If I had to repay Zee, I couldn’t afford to lose too much inventory.