A Little Night Muse (4 page)

The bad things weren’t far at all, just over the next valley,
where the spoors would be growing, where the rebellious
phae
would be taken by the Queen’s Ruiner. She forced herself to
look up at Josh with a tremulous smile. “You are a good man to bring me
here.”

Had she ever met a good
phae
?
Glorious and powerful, yes; never simply good. But Josh’s goodness put him so
terribly at risk. How would he even recognize
phae
peril? He certainly hadn’t seen it in her.

By bringing the
phaedrealii
intrigue here, she was endangering his valley as unfairly as she’d been banished
from her place. The knowledge chewed at her with teeth like Bunco’s, dull and
grinding, but she didn’t see any other way to get home.

Unable to apologize or explain without betraying herself, she
had nothing to offer him except a
musetta
’s
exhilaration. She reached out to tangle her fingers in the waistband of his
jeans. “Let me be your dessert.”

He stepped between her spread knees. “You are sweet.” His voice
was husky.

“No, but I can pretend for you.”

“Adelyn...”

She slid off the stool to her knees and unzipped his jeans in
one graceful move. His erection surged from behind the denim before she had
safely cleared the little steel teeth.

She smiled at him as she tugged his jeans lower. “What were you
thinking over there at the dirty dishes?”

“About you. I was thinking about you.” He propped one bare foot
on the stool, giving her full access.

She slipped her fingers under his sac, caressing the hot, heavy
weight of him. He groaned when she breathed across his damp tip.

“Ah, Adelyn. I want you so bad.”

“You have me,” she assured him. For this moment. As for what
came next...That too would be him, if the jerk of his hips was any indication.
She would give him this. Never mind that the
phae
only took and never gave. This once, she would be
musetta
and he would remember her forever, if only in his
dreams.

Was that cruel? Perhaps. She was
phae
after all. But just once more, she wanted to hear him cry out
her name.

Chapter 6

The winter evening dark closed in before Josh went out
to settle the animals. Wolly glared at him reproachfully as they completed their
tasks and made one last circuit through the barn.

Josh grinned. “You’re just cranky because you’re sleeping in
the living room tonight.”

He had tried to get a call out with the cell signal booster,
which was fairly reliable, but had given him only crackling static. So no word
to his hired hands or to Vaile.

He rarely let tech failures upset him—never seemed to make a
difference—and this time he has happy to let his cozy world get just a little
smaller.

Adelyn seemed content too. She had offered to accompany him on
his nightly tour, but he preferred to keep her curled in the comforter, warming
his bed.

A man could get used to that.

He wanted to finish the belt buckle for her. He had all the
right stones, and the base was delicate enough for a woman.

For his woman.

The thought came out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere really. It
came from somewhere behind his own belt buckle, but it was a strange mix of low
and high, from cock to belly to heart. All of him wanted to put his mark on
her.

And he knew it wasn’t just the sex, fantastic as it might be.
He’d never felt this way about a woman. He’d watched his ex leave without a
word. But Adelyn...

He might never let her go.

Josh paused under the big barn light that filled the yard
outside the stable with a white glow. He took a breath of the cold air to steady
his suddenly racing pulse. Just standing there, but he was moving too fast. He
was practically branding her as his with a big ol’ belt buckle when a girl like
her would be thinking of rings—fine rings, rings with sparkling rocks of the
kind he would never have the chance to touch.

God, was
he
thinking of rings? He
dragged one hand around the collar of his coat.

He wasn’t going to say anything. That would be stupid. He would
wait. He had time. The cattle were fed and watered. The horses and goats were in
their stalls for the night. The hens and their damned rooster were battened
down. Wolly was...

Wolly was staring out into the night, hackles raised and lips
drawn back over shining teeth.

Josh’s fingers twitched. Slowly, he released the belt loop
around his knife and let the sturdy wooden handle fill his palm. He had left the
rifle in the house. Maybe Adelyn...No, she wouldn’t know how to use it. She’d
seemed taken aback by the workings of the shower massager.

Could be one of the usual valley critters, nosing around, but
Wolly had a good bark for all those. This was something else. Josh faded back
from the revealing brightness of the stable light.

He wasn’t letting anything—or anyone—near Adelyn.

Giving Wolly the stay signal and a hard stare, Josh crept
toward the trees, staying out of the reach of the lights.

The quiet of a winter night in the wilds of Oregon had a
particular tone, like the silence after a bell was rung, clean and clear.
Tonight, a jangled tension—and not just his own—raised the hair on the back of
his neck. Something was off.

When everything had been going so right. The coincidence seemed
suspicious.

Despite his steady grip, the knife was cold in his hand. And
still it wasn’t as cold as the blood in his veins. He had never killed a man,
but whoever had bound and burned Adelyn might very well be the first.

The pine needles bent silently under his boots as he threaded
between the blackjacks. The moon had not yet risen but the starlight on the
remains of the snow gave the scene a ghostly, night-vision cast.

Strangely, he caught the first glimpse out of the corner of his
bad eye, but he didn’t have time to wonder about that. He was expecting a man,
so when the shape scuttled low, waist-high, and broad, he was almost relieved. A
grumpy bear wouldn’t be so hard to run off.

But it wasn’t a bear, too small. And too big to be a wolf. It
moved like a predator though, intent and aggressive.

He didn’t think it had seen him. It was circling toward the
house and he had come up on its rear flank. He kept the bulk of a big pine
between them as he advanced.

He was so focused, he didn’t hear the cabin door open or see
the spill of light over the porch.

He heard his name though, clear and beautiful as a second bell
ringing.

“Josh?”

Shit. He hadn’t expected her to come out. Neither had the thing
he was stalking, obviously. It froze on the other side of the tree.

Just for a heartbeat though. Then it sprang toward the
house.

“Adelyn!” he yelled. “Get inside! Now!”

The thing moved fast, freakishly fast, and its dark hide
reflected no light. It would have been invisible against bare earth, but it
stood out against the snow, thin legs skittering over the ground.

On the porch, wrapped in his comforter, Adelyn turned toward
his voice.

He was already running. “Get inside!” he roared. “Go!”

She turned, but the thing—a blur of motion—was almost at the
bottom step. She screamed as she stumbled toward the door.

Wolly burst from the shadows. He launched across the steps to
slam the thing hard.

The two shapes rolled across the yard, giving Josh precious
seconds to reach the fight. Wolly yelped in surprise as he was thrown off. Josh
hauled back and gave the creature a bar-room kick, the boot-powered kind that
could lift a grown man several feet in the air.

The thing shrilled some unearthly cry that iced his spine. It
scrabbled at him with—what the hell?—three legs?!

He dodged away as one of the three spindly legs stabbed at him
again, piercing the edge of his coat. The sharp tip of the leg gleamed as it
went right through the heavy sheepskin.

It spun toward him, oddly graceful. And one bulging eye glared
at him from the middle of its head.

He choked. Shock made him hesitate and it launched at his face.
Instinct as much as intent drove the knife out in front of him. The thing
slammed into him and impaled itself.

It shrieked again, but it didn’t stop. All three legs scrabbled
at him.

Adelyn was screaming, not incoherently although he didn’t quite
understand her. “It’s an imp, Josh. Kill it!”

The broad jaws gaped as it squealed again, and foul air erupted
around its tusk-like teeth. But Josh took the
kill
it
command to heart.

Before it killed him.

Suddenly, the thing fell back. Wolly had grabbed it from
behind. It whirled, thrashing, and Wolly yelped again, not surprise this time
but pain. Josh stabbed with grim precision, to no apparent effect.

“Josh! Take this iron. Strike the eye!”

He half turned toward Adelyn and something was flying toward
him. He reached out to grab...the old horseshoe from beside the front door? How
was that going to help when his knife hadn’t slowed it?

“Get my gun,” he shouted back.

He lunged at the thing. Imp, she’d said. The imp reared back on
one leg, aiming at the fallen Wolly with two sharp appendages.

Josh stabbed the eye with his knife. The imp abandoned Wolly to
whirl on him, wrenching the knife from his hands.

Which left him with the horseshoe.

Holding one end in his fist, he lashed out awkwardly. The imp
flinched, but not fast enough. He buried the blunt metal in its eye.

With a hissing scream, the bulging orb burst into flame.

Josh stumbled away from the fierce blue fire, his heart
pounding. The imp shrieked a rising crescendo of agony. It turned in a half
dozen circles through the snow, blazing a mad corkscrew pattern in the
darkness.

Shock kept Josh pinned for a moment, then he bolted for the
house.

Adelyn stepped out the door with his gun, her face ashen above
the comforter tucked around her. “You don’t need this now,” she said. “The iron
will end it.”

He racked a round as he ran back to the imp. Her words—no, not
her words, the calmness of her tone—rang in his head louder than the gunshots as
he emptied half the magazine into the motionless thing.

The silence afterward hung thick with shadows and secrets, and
the embedded horseshoe stuck up from the imp’s eyeball like the curve of a
question mark.

“Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades,” he muttered.
“Sure wish I had the grenade.”

Wolly hobbled over to shove his nose under Josh’s hand.

Josh smoothed the still-bristling ruff. “You okay, boy?” He did
a gentle pat down. No blood, but the dog turned his head away stoically when
Josh touched his shoulder. Hopefully just a bruise, but something to watch.
Whatever that thing was...

An imp, Adelyn had said. She’d been surprised at its
appearance, but not shocked. She knew what it was. And she knew how to kill
it.

So who—or what—was she?

Chapter 7

Adelyn threw on the clothing Josh had put aside for her
and joined him outside. The night chill bit sharp as any imp’s claws. Still not
as sharp as the glance Josh shot her when she clomped across the yard in an
extra pair of his too-big boots.

She couldn’t meet his gaze and focused instead on the dog
sniffing suspiciously at the still-smoldering imp. “Is Wolly all right?”

“Just sore, I think.”

“He was brave to charge like that, braver than most humans...”
She tried to swallow back the word. Most people refused to believe the
phae
right before their eyes.

But she knew Josh wasn’t most people.

Sure enough, he turned to face her. “What the fuck is an
imp?”

She dragged her gaze up to his. “What do you see?”

“What do you mean, what do I see? A fucking monster with a
horseshoe burned through its eyeball. Its one fucking eyeball.”

“Josh—”

“I’m sorry. But fuck!”

She laughed, then pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
“I’m sorry too.”

He sighed. “Go ahead and laugh. This is crazy.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“I didn’t think I was.” The edge to his tone said he might wish
otherwise. “So an old iron horseshoe through the eye finished it off when a
knife and gun wouldn’t?”

She nodded. “More might follow. I suggest we go back to the
house.”

“And find more iron.”

She nodded again.

With Wolly at heel, they returned to the porch. Josh paused to
stare back at the night. “What about my stock?”

“The imp only went after Wolly to...”

“To get to you.”

She bit her lip. She knew she should be afraid of Raze’s
impatience, if the Queen’s vizier had already sent another spy. She should
probably be even more afraid that the Hunter would be warned by the appearance
of an imp and be coming to kill her next.

But most of all, she was afraid of the look in Josh’s eyes.
Cold and hard as iron, resistant to any illusion. A
musetta
’s seductive allure wasn’t going to distract him this
time.

In the house, she had a brief reprieve as Josh wiped the mud
off Wolly’s coat, murmuring
good dog
while
dispensing small crunchy bone-shaped cookies. Wolly lay down with a soft
whine.

The sound ripped at her. “Let me see.”

Josh stared at her, narrow eyed, then he angled over to let her
crouch beside him. “What can you do?”

She didn’t answer.
Musetta
didn’t
do
anything. Or so she’d always believed. But
just as she inspired tunes and odes, could she encourage the knitting of muscle
and bone? She would never have tried such a thing in the
phaedrealii
, but here...

For a moment, she hesitated, nonplused at her own nerve. Why
did she think this would even work?

Work. Josh used his hands for his work. She would do the same.
She brushed her fingers over Wolly’s shoulder, so lightly the red fur didn’t
ruffle as she let her thoughts drift.

On his belt buckles, Josh etched patterns and laid in his
polished stones so that the pieces became more than metal and rock. He put a
little of himself into each one, and what he left behind was real and true.

The dog was already real and true. If she just reminded
him...

Wolly waggled his stub tail and lowered his head to the cushion
with a sigh.

Josh scowled. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. I...” She lifted her chin. “It’s
magic.”

Josh’s jaw flexed and he stood as if to get away from her.

She gave Wolly a tentative pat on the shoulder and got another
tail wag and no whine in return. She smiled before rising to face Josh. “The log
rack there by the fireplace is iron. You have the iron skillet in the kitchen
and two iron spoons that could be smelted into—”

He took a step toward her. “Why iron?”

“Because that is the only thing that stops them.” She wrapped
her arms around herself, tucking her icy hands close to her body. “Be careful
though. Many things you might think are iron are alloys and won’t have the same
effect.”

“And you know this how?” He took another step closer, looming
now.

She tightened her grip on herself, staring at his chest where
the imp had slashed through his coat. He could have been killed. “I...”

Gently, he put his hands on her shoulders. Despite what he’d
been through, his hands were warm as he trailed down her arms, unwinding her
grip around her belly, past the bandages at her wrists.

He flattened her hands out between them.

Her right palm was blistered from when she had grabbed the
horseshoe and wrenched it off the wall.

He glanced up from the wound and said softly, “You know this
because you’re one of them.”

She flinched and tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go.

“Who are you?” His tone allowed no prevarication just as his
grip permitted no escape. “What kind of person gets burned by iron?”

“No kind of person.” Her voice sounded hollow to her ears. “I
am
phae
.”

She said the last word with the flowing tones of her kind, and
from the widening of his eyes, she knew he understood, on some atavistic level:
She was other.

But he did not release her hands. Of course he didn’t. He had
put a horseshoe through an imp’s eye. He would not be frightened off by a
musetta
.

She let out a long, slow breath. “You humans call us
fairies.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “You aren’t pink. And where are your
sparkly wings?”

She grimaced. “Did you ever read the original fairy tales? They
run red with blood. Pink is the watered-down version.” She tugged at his grasp
again. He resisted another moment then let her go. She paced a short distance
away. “Some
phae
are winged, but I am
musetta
.”

“
Musetta
.” He wrapped his lips
around the word in a way that made her shiver in memory of his lips on other
parts of her. “What does that mean?”

“Your stories call us muses, inspiration to artists, poets and
the like.”

His gaze sharpened. “That’s why you were interested in the belt
buckles.”

“I wondered if you had iron,” she admitted.

“Because you knew that imp might come?”

She hesitated, just a moment too long.

His gaze sharpened another strop. “What is going on, Adelyn?”
He drew out the syllables of her name just a touch, as if he questioned it.

The suspicion stung, although of course she had lied about
everything else.

But how could she explain without putting him in danger? The
Queen had strict policies against initiating humans into
phae
mysteries. At least humans who weren’t trapped in the
phaedrealii
and her bed. Turning the accusation
around, she challenged, “If I had said, ‘I’m a fairy princess in need of
rescue,’ would you have believed me?”

“Probably.”

The way he said it made her think he was telling the truth. Too
bad she couldn’t afford to do the same.

She swallowed back the urge to tell him everything. “I don’t
want you to be hurt because of me.” Merely looking at the rip in his coat, she
felt as if the tear went through her own chest.

He must have heard the sincerity in her tone because his gaze
softened. “I won’t let anyone—or any
thing
—touch
you.” He went to the couch and patted the seat beside him. “Was that imp after
you?”

She wanted to stand on her own, but his big body with the
strong crook of his arm across the back of the couch was too tempting. She
joined him and curled into his chest. “I don’t know what it wanted. But nothing
good.”

“Yeah, I got that part. So what next?”

“No one will come looking for it until tomorrow night. They
prefer to avoid daylight when they might encounter humans who might see what
they are.” She broke off.

Josh sighed. “Humans. Right. Like me. Which you are not.” He
rubbed his forehead as if he could force the new reality into his skull. “And
who is ‘they’?”

“The ones who hurt me. I’m here because of them.” She tried to
stay with the truth, or at least such truth as could be had from the
phaedrealii
. “Our Queen accused me of treason and
wanted me dead. I’m trying to avoid that fate.”

He brushed back her hair. “I’m with you on that. On
everything.”

She smiled, though her throat tightened. No one else in a court
of
phae
who had supposedly loved her had been with
her. Not a one of them had spoken on her behalf. Maybe there was a downside not
knowing anyone’s true name; there was no one to call out to and no one who need
answer.

She touched his chest through the rip in his coat and murmured
in distress when her fingers encountered long scratches. “You took more damage
than Wolly. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

His arm behind her shoulder tightened for a moment. “Let me get
that skillet first.”

When he returned from the kitchen, she threaded her fingers
through his and led him to the bedroom. With careful hands, they stripped each
other naked, avoiding her burns and his slashes, then he guided her into the
shower. They left the light off, and the stars through the skylight turned the
steam to liquid silver.

She bit her lip as he gently cleaned her burned hand and then
pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

“You hurt yourself to help me,” he murmured.

“Actually, it was Wolly who was in trouble,” she reminded
him.

“You hurt yourself to help my dog,” he amended. “Should I admit
that makes me love you more?”

Her heartbeat stuttered. Love? “Josh...”

He kissed her. “Don’t worry about it. Not your fault I fall for
impossible women. My ex-wife only wanted to live in a real city. But you, you’re
a damn fairy princess. You probably live in a castle.”

She did not correct him on the fairy princess part, nor did she
try to dismiss his comment about falling. She was
musetta
. She existed to inspire passions.

In silence, she cleansed his wounds, taken for her. Imps were
vile but not toxic, and Josh’s coat had protected him from the worst of the
damage.

No,
she
was the
phae
who would hurt him.

They anointed each other with the last of the salve she had
brought. Then she led him to his bed and into her body, trying to give as much
of herself as she could. Though what did she really have? She had come into his
world carrying only a few spores and her intent to betray his friend. She would
leave only a withered toadstool ring and more emptiness around him.

For his part, he played her with an almost cruel gentleness,
rousing her to a fierce wanting she thought would tear her apart. He teased and
stroked her to the edge of release, his tongue and cock finding every aspect of
her pleasure. Each time, he drew back, leaving her panting and longing, only to
provoke her higher until she could take no more. With a cry, she arched into
him, convulsing around him. He plunged into her with abandon, and she almost
hoped he had all but forgotten her in his own fury until she looked up and found
him staring down. She came again with his name on her lips, but before she could
say more—what she intended, she had no idea—he kissed her and shuddered into her
depths.

Afterward, he pulled the comforter around them in a cocoon. She
could almost imagine it was a sort of portal, taking them to a hidden place even
the
phae
couldn’t find.

He tucked her close under his arm and she kissed his chest.

“Josh?”

“Mmm?”

“About...about you falling...”

His arm tightened, not a hug, more a warning. “It’s
nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. She didn’t want it be nothing, even though
that would be best. “A
musetta
—a muse—inspires. That
is what we do. That is what we are. We inspire...feelings. And passions.”

“So you said.”

There was an edge to his voice, but she couldn’t stop. “What
you feel isn’t—”

“I’m only half blind, and I’ve been around myself long enough
to know what I feel.” He kissed the top of her head and sat up. Cold air rushed
into the space he left. “I want to check on Wolly and walk around once more.
It’s okay if you fall asleep.”

He didn’t return for a long time, and her tears where they
soaked the tartan plaid turned the yellow threads to gold.