Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed

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.

"Mercy!" Suddenly Tim's face replaced the thermostat housing in my view. He looked angry, but I didn't think it had anything to do with the housing.

He hit me, so it must have been my fault that he was angry. He obviously wasn't used to fighting. Even with his borrowed strength, he only managed to knock me back a couple of steps. It hurt to breathe afterward; I recognized the feeling. One of my ribs was cracked or broken.

"What?" he asked.

I cleared my throat and told him again, "You need to get your thumb out of your fist before you hit someone or you'll break it."

He swore and stormed out of the office and out to the car. When he came back, he had the goblet.

"Drink," he said. "Drink it all."

I did and the jitters got worse.

"I want you to focus," he said. "Where is the walking stick?"

"It wouldn't be in here," I told him solemnly. "It only stays places where I live. Like the Rabbit or my bed."

"What?"

"It will be in the garage." I let him into the heart of home.

The bay nearest the office was empty, but so was the other bay—which worried me until I remembered that the Karmann Ghia I'd been restoring was out getting more work done. Upholstery.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said dryly. "Whoever Carmine is. Now where's the walking stick?"

It was lying across the top of my second biggest tool chest as if I'd set it down casually when I got some other tool. Clever stick. It hadn't been there when we walked into the garage, but I doubt Tim had noticed.

Tim picked it up and ran his hands over it. "Gotcha," he said.

Not for long. I must not have said it out loud—or else maybe he didn't hear me. I was babbling again, so maybe it just had bled in with the rest of the words that were leaving my mouth. I took a breath and tried to direct what I said.

"Was it worth killing O'Donnell for?" I asked him. A dumb question but maybe it could keep my thoughts focused. He'd told me that, that I needed to focus.

As soon as the thought occurred to me, my head quit feeling so muzzy.

He caressed the stick. "I'd have killed O'Donnell for pleasure," he said. "Like I did my father. The walking stick, the cup, they were gravy." He laughed a little. "Very nice gravy."

He leaned it against the tool chest and then turned to me.

"I think this is the perfect place," he said.

He might have been handsome, but the expression on his face wasn't.

"So it was all a game," he said. "All the talk of King Arthur and the flirting. Was that guy even your boyfriend?"

He was talking about Samuel. "No," I said.

It was the truth. But I could have said it in a way that wouldn't make him angry. Why did I want my love angry with me?

Because I liked it when he was angry. But the picture that ran through my head was Adam, punching the bathroom door frame. So angry. Magnificent. And I knew to the bottom of my soul that he'd never turn that great strength against anyone he loved.

"So you were just using the doctor to shake up the situation, huh? And you invaded" — he liked the sound of that, so he said it again—" invaded my home. What did you think? Poor geek, he never gets any. What a loser. He'll be grateful for a few crumbs, eh?" He grabbed me by the shoulders. "What did you think? Flirt with the geek a little and he'll fall in love?"

I had worried that he'd take it too seriously—once I realized I'd been flirting. "Yes," I said.

He shoved me with an inhuman sound and I stumbled back, then fell hard, knocking into a rolling tool tray that spilled a few tools on the ground.

"You'll do it with me," he said, breathing hard. "You'll do it with the poor pathetic loser—and you'll like it…no, be grateful to me." He looked around frantically, then noticed I was carrying the cup. "You drink. Drink it all."

It was hard. My stomach was so full. I wasn't thirsty, but with his words ringing in my ear, I couldn't do anything else. And the magic in it burned.

He took the cup from me and set it on the ground, next to the walking stick.

"You'll be so grateful to me and you'll know that you'll never feel anything like it again." He dropped to his knees beside me. His beautiful skin was flushed an ugly red. "When I finish…when I leave—you won't be able to stand it all alone, because you know that no one will ever love you after I'm done. No one. You'll go to the river and swim until you can't swim anymore. Just like Austin did."

He unzipped his jeans, and I knew with bleak certainty that he was right. No one would love me after this. Adam would never love me after this. I might as well drown myself when I lost my love, just as my foster father had.

"Quit crying," he said. "What do you have to cry about? You want this. Say it. You want me."

"I want you," I said.

"Not like that. Not like that." He reached out and grabbed the end of the walking stick and used it to knock the cup over, so it rolled toward him. He dropped the stick and grabbed the cup.

"Drink," he said.

I don't remember exactly what happened from there. The next remotely clear thought I had was when my hand touched something smooth and old, something that spread its coolness up my arm when I closed my hand over it.

I stared at Tim's face. His eyes were closed as he made animal grunts, but almost as if he felt the intensity of my gaze, they opened.