Iron (The Warding Book 1) (11 page)

Those turquoise eyes glittered with disgust. “I assure you that this is no fairytale, nor am I Prince Charming.”

“That’s just fine by me. I’m not Snow White.” I had to grit my teeth to hold back further snark. I took a few slow, deep breaths, and said, “Kaine, I will work
with
you but I don’t want that mistaken as me working
for
you. I will aide you when I am able, and you will respect the boundaries of my schedule. Is that clear?”

His gaze continued to bore into me. I had overstepped my boundaries and the Lord of the Manor was not pleased. He was clearly not used to someone talking to him straight. Especially if their brand of “straight” bordered on rude, with a side of defiant. Though my insides were quivering in a whole new (and much more unpleasant) fashion, I stood my metaphorical ground. I kept my chin high.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to my aching neck, he nodded once. His mouth had compressed to a thin line, but his tone remained unchanged. “Agreed. We will give you as much notice as possible when we require your assistance, and we will do our best to remain respectful of the schedule you must keep to maintain the life you currently live. In return, you will make yourself as open and available to our needs as humanly possible.”

If that hadn’t been said with such frostiness, I might have slid out of my chair. Seana’s warning echoed in my mind, so I pushed for fine print. “Until the Lynx is found.”

This time, I thought I saw another one of those ghost-smirks. “Yes; until the Lynx is found.”

“Agreed, then.” Kaine wasn’t happy, but his feathers didn’t seem quite as ruffled as they had been a moment ago. I warmed a little inside at that. I had stood up to the Grand Poobah and lived to tell the tale. More importantly, I proved I had a backbone, for all the good it might actually do me. Time to roll those dice and use that new spine. “In return for my help, I will need a few things. First, I will need you to teach me about the fae.” His raised eyebrow made me stutter. “Well, maybe not
you
, per say. One of your entourage or something. I need to know what’s going on here. If you want me at my best, I need to be forewarned. I can’t keep bumbling around in the dark, running into these things with no idea of what they are or how to handle them.”

He nodded. “A fair request. Of course, it would be impossible for you to learn all there is to know about my kind and our ways, even should you live two lifetimes.”

His tone made me feel like a pet who had just done a particularly clever trick but I let it slide—as much as I could, anyhow. There was no keeping all of the tartness from my reply. “Because the fae are vast and varied. I get it. I don’t need to know everything. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass who ruled your kingdom five hundred years ago or what fork I would need to use for the cheese course. I want to know what’s here, in Riverview; roaming the streets and preying on my people. I have the feeling that I’m going to see more than my fair share of crazy over the next few months and I want to know what to do when I do.”

This time, he cracked a faint smile, however quickly it was smothered. I got the feeling that there were very few people who dared use such colorful sarcasm in front of him. He inclined his head. “Understood. Between Seana and Mairi, I believe we can bring you up to speed fairly quickly. Is there anything else you require?”

My mind raced. This was it. I was throwing myself in with this lot of crazies, for better or for worse. If the gravity both he and Seana gave this yet unwritten pact meant anything, this was serious business I was getting into. Seana’s warning continued to haunt me. If my word was my bond, so was his. If I wanted something else from him, be it a flush weekly stipend or a goddamned ham sandwich, I had to say so then and there.

“Teach me to defend myself.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before they registered with my brain, but they made sense. I was sick to death of feeling like I had no choice in the course of my future. If I was going to play Lynx Detector, I wanted something out of it, consequences be damned. I thought I saw a flicker of surprise in his eyes, the slightest break in that stoic condescension, but wishful thinking was not out of the realm of possibility. I don’t think he had expected me to agree to this deal in the first place, let alone make demands of my own. I was proving to be something of an anomaly in the eyes of the rigidly structured fae—and that was a point in my book. I sat up a little straighter. “Teach me to defend myself against those things and I’ll help you find your Lynx.”

An unbearably long minute ticked by before he said, in the most deadpan voice I had heard from him yet, “That is your price? You will locate the Lynx, but only if we teach you to kill our kin.”

When I heard it put like that, it certainly sounded a little off color. Backtracking would be a sign of weakness, however, and that was certainly not the foot I wanted to start off on in this relationship. I nodded and hoped my face was as calm as I was aiming for. “Yes. If they’re going to feed on us, I see them as fair game. I want to protect myself and those I love from those slimy creeps when all of this is all said and done.”

“I suppose that is a reasonable request.” He looked me up and down, brow furrowed. I was aware I didn’t look much like the fighting type, big talk aside. “Do you have any foundation to build upon?”

“No, not really. My daddy took me to the range a couple times and I’ve been to a couple turkey shoots but that’s about it.” I swallowed hard and refused to let his blasé gaze of incomprehension shake me. I clarified, “I’ve used a gun a few times, but I’m no expert.”

He sneered and waved a dismissive hand. “Modern machinery is often foiled by those skilled in magic, the fae especially. Cold iron is a vastly superior weapon. You will need to learn swordplay and physical combat skills if you truly want to protect yourself.”

“Then teach me that. Whatever it takes.” For me to walk down the street at night again, I added silently.

“I cannot guarantee you will learn all that you wish,” he warned. “As I have stated, time is of the essence. Should you find the Lynx as quickly as we hope, this may prove an unfair bargain.”

“I’ll take that risk. I’m a fast learner when properly motivated.”

He nodded, lips pursed. He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin; the image of deep consideration. Sweat beaded on my lip as I waited out his silence, itching to beg, to plead. Two more seconds and I would have screamed in frustration. But, when he finally responded, I was blindsided. “Agreed. Your requests are sound, however crudely they may have been put forth. Yet, I find it odd that you have made no mention of the troll that played such a key role in the crossing of our paths.”

Well, shit.

I realized my jaw had dropped and shut my mouth with an audible click of my teeth. How in the hell had I forgotten Goliath? He had seen me—but worse, he knew that I had seen him. Shades and satyrs were all well and good, but he was the biggest threat to my safety. Kaine could train me to be a super solider, a one-woman fairy-killing death squad, and that wouldn’t make one lick of difference if Goliath went home and told all his buddies (and their crazy king) about my nifty little Gift. No skill in the world could protect me from the onslaught that would bring crashing down on my doorstep.

It was too late to hide my surprise, but I tried to play it cool. “I need your help with him as well, yes.”

A slow smirk spread across his face. His eyes positively twinkled. “Define: help.”

I swallowed down the fury that bubbled up in my throat and tried not to sound like I was choking on my carefully worded request. “He can’t let the High King know about me. I want you to hunt him down and make sure he can never tell the High King about my Gift.”

“And by that you mean…?”

“Dead. I want the troll dead.” Anger blazed inside me like a wild, demonic thing. All the fear, all the confusion, all the god-damned helplessness that I had been feeling all week long exploded. “I will never be safe so long as that monster walks this earth and I want you to help me kill him.”

Kaine sat back in his chair, looking relaxed and human for the first time all evening. “Is this your final request?”

“Yes,” I ground out, teeth clenched.

“I will take you under my wing and my retainers will teach you as much as they are able about faekind and how to defend yourself against my bestial brethren. We will do all in our power to hunt down the troll and make sure he can never tell the High King about you gift, agree to dispatch of him once and for all when he is found. This is my solemn oath to you. In return, you agree to remain bound to me until you have helped us locate the Lynx and learn the means with which to break Tiernan’s banishment. Do we have an agreement?”

“Yes.”

Kaine stood and gestured for me to do the same. He took an ornate dagger out of the top drawer of his desk. Without so much as a blink, he slashed his right palm on its razor sharp blade. He flipped the knife over in a one-handed movement that defied logic and offered it to me hilt first with his uninjured hand. I must have been gaping like a carp again, because he said, “All fae pacts are sealed with blood.”

Now Seana’s warning made sense. This wasn’t some drawn up contract, signed and sealed with fancy wax. This was a magical binding in its own right. I didn’t know enough about my Gift to know if this magic would work on me or not, but I had the feeling Kaine would not have purposed it in the first place if it wouldn’t. Too late I realized my mistake. Why hadn’t I asked the pertinent questions? Like, what would happen if either of us broke this bond? I had the feeling it couldn’t be anything good. Was there an escape clause in there, in case this Lynx proved to be a myth, or was I going to be bound to this man until the day I died? Something told me it wouldn’t be that easy to walk away, not if we were sealing the damn thing in bodily fluids.

Shit.

He waited, hand extended, with blood pooling on his palm. It was too late to back out now. It was now or never. I took the dagger with a trembling hand, nearly dropping it when its weight proved much more substantial than I had anticipated. The golden hilt was cool in my grip, the wickedly sharp silver blade already wet with blood. I stared at it for a long moment, stomach churning. My heart hammered so fast I thought I could hear it in my ears. There was no other way. I had already made up my mind. I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut as I drew it across my left palm. The steel was so sharp I barely felt it cut my flesh.

He took the dagger from my hand and held forth his bleeding palm. I let him clasp my own wounded hand, gasping as the string flared to life under his crushing grip. I met his eyes, blinking back tears. He said, “And so the pact is made.”

I echoed, “And so the pact is made.”

A surge of burning pain ran up my arm, like the stinging bites of a hundred fire ants. I cried out, jerking my hand from his grasp. I stumbled back, catching myself on one of the chairs before I fell to the ground. My head spun. It took me a minute to realize that the hand that I had caught the arm of the chair with was the one I had cut—yet there was no pain. My arm continued to tingle, like it once had when I tried to stick a plug into an ungrounded socket (let’s just say I wasn’t the smartest child), but my palm should have been screaming in agony of its own. I looked down at it and saw smooth, unbroken skin. No gash; not even the faintest trace of blood.

I looked back up at Kaine. He was once again seated behind his desk. The dagger had disappeared back to wherever it had come from. He held the quill in his hand once again and it moved in deft strokes as he finished up the letter he had been writing when I first entered. He was the perfect picture of nonchalance.

Good god. What kind of devil had I just bound my soul to?

Chapter Nine

The next morning, I awoke in a strange bed. I hadn’t thought I would sleep well in a house full of strangers, especially since one of them had apparently just become my blood-bound buddy. Maybe it was sheer exhaustion or the super high thread count of their expensive sheets, but I couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes before passing right out. I could hear birds singing outside when I next opened my eyes, curled up on my side, wrapped in a little cocoon of soft, warm blankets. I hated to admit it, but my own bed was not nearly as comfortable.

I yawned and rubbed the sleep-crusties from my eyes. The curtains were drawn but a digital clock on the nightstand told me it was almost noon. The sky had been starting to lighten as I was shown to my borrowed bedroom, so I couldn’t have slept all that long. All things considered, I felt pretty good, despite the harrowing night I had had. It took a moment for the feeling of being watched to penetrate my sleepy haze. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I rolled over and sat up, gasping at the sight of Mairi perched cross-legged on the foot of the bed. I wasn’t a deep sleeper. How the hell had she gotten there without me noticing?

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. She gave me a shy smile, like the new kid at school who was unsure of her welcome on the playground. I didn’t know what to say, exactly. It was pretty creepy to wake up and find her staring at me, but that was hardly the worst thing that had happened to me lately. Technically, it was her home; not mine. Instead of making a fuss I just smiled back and made a noncommittal shrug.

While the thought of the things she could do still scared the holy bejesus out of me, in her human form she was rather normal. She reminded me of a sixteen year old dead set on disobeying her parents, with the bleached blond hair and a hole frayed in one of the knees of her black skinny jeans. Her heavy eyeliner matched her sparkly purple tank top and the black nail polish on her short nails was artfully chipped around the edges. She was cute and harmless, in that rebellious punk rock sort of way. I smiled as I thought back to my own teenage years, chock-full of black clothing, burgundy lipstick, and endless hours of listening to Type O Negative. Ah, the good old days of my misspent youth.