The Immortal Highlander (9 page)

And the thought of watching them all die had filled him with a dark restlessness akin to one he’d not felt since the ninth century.

Name your price,
he’d coolly told Aoibheal.

And then, when Dageus MacKeltar had lain dying, she’d named it. And Adam had placed his hands on the mortal’s heart and given of his immortal essence to restore him to life. He’d thought that the temporary sapping of his immortal strength and power, which would have left him weak for centuries, was to be his price, but she’d taken it even further and made him human, powerless, and cursed.

“So what makes you so sure she’ll just forgive you?” Gabby asked, jarring him from his thoughts.

He shrugged again. “She always does. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to stand eternity without me.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Oh, I see. I keep forgetting how irresistible you are.”

“No you don’t,” he said easily, flashing her a grin. “I see the way you look at me.”

“What I don’t understand,” she pressed hastily on, cheeks pinkening faintly, “is why you don’t just talk to one of the other fairies hanging around. The
féth fiada
doesn’t work on them, does it? Or don’t they want to help you either?”

For a moment Adam was so astonished that he thought he mustn’t have heard her correctly. “What—other—fairies—hanging—around?” he enunciated each word tightly. Surely Aoibheal hadn’t taken that from him, too, had she? Made him no longer able to even perceive his own kind? The
féth fiada
alone wouldn’t have done that to him. It rendered its wearer invisible, but it didn’t render anything else invisible to the wearer.

They’re not your own kind anymore,
an inner voice reminded.
You’re human. They’re Tuatha Dé, and humans—except for the
Sidhe
-seers—can’t see the Fae.

Bloody hell, he could be so stupid sometimes! He’d thought the reason he’d not seen any others of his kind was because she’d forbidden them to spy on him. But no, it was because she’d made him human through and through.

They’d been watching him all along, no doubt endlessly amused by his humiliation. “I said, ‘what other fairies?’ ” he gritted.

Gabby blinked at his tone. “All of them. Any of them. There are oodles—” She broke off abruptly. “Oh, God, you didn’t know, did you?”

“How many Tuatha Dé are in this city besides me?” he growled.

She took a step back. “Well, really just a few, hardly even half a dozen, maybe not even that many, and actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen any at all in over a week, which makes sense because one of them said a while back that they were all planning to leave—”

His hand shot out and closed on her upper arm. “Don’t lie to me,
Sidhe
-seer.”

“I refuse,” Gabby snapped. “I will not, I repeat—
abso-freaking-lutely-will-not
—talk to one of them for you. Hell will freeze over first. We’re not even talking about half-Fae like this Circenn person you wanted me to talk to, these are the real deal, fairies with the power to summon Hunters. Iridescent-eyed, soulless, deadly fairies.”

His smile was chilling. She’d just
had
to throw in that “soulless” bit. What was it with women and their hang-up about souls, anyway? Couldn’t they find something else to obsess about? Like the phenomenal sex he could give them, the money, the fame, the complete fulfillment of their every desire, anything they wanted. But no, it was all souls, souls, souls. “Fine. Refuse. I’ll simply walk around talking to you in public places until one of them figures out you can see me. How many did you say are just ‘hanging around’? ‘Oodles,’ was it? On every street corner perhaps? How long do you think it will take for me to smoke you out? A day? Two? A week? The way I see it, you have two choices: agree to help me and secure my protection—and I vow that I will do my utmost to keep you safe—or refuse and be revealed to
all
the Fae. And if you choose that, I won’t lift a bloody finger to help you, Gabrielle. So choose well.”

“You won’t do that. You need me! You—”

“I will go find another
Sidhe
-seer. I’ve no doubt there are a few others still around,” he snarled. He knew he was no longer seducing, was fully into the forcing arena, but fury had the same effect on his body as lust; it made him primitive. He would not be mocked by his own kind, spied on and humiliated by his own race. And with her “soulless” jibe still ringing in his ears, he was no longer in the mood to play the charming seducer. She thought he was black? She hadn’t even seen pale gray. In fact, she’d seen nothing but lily-white Adam Black so far.

Besides, it was only a matter of time before she was discovered anyway. They’d come to spy on him, to watch him be human and humbled, and he was surprised they hadn’t noticed her already. They must be keeping a bit of a distance, perhaps uncertain how long the queen intended to sustain his punishment, and wary of being too close, in case he suddenly regained his power. As they should be, he thought viciously. “So?” he demanded. “What will it be, Irish?”

“I need to think,” she said tightly.

“You have one hour.”

10

Well, that had to be the shortest-lived plan in history,
Gabby thought peevishly, as she paced back and forth across her bedroom, periodically glancing at the clock that was devouring her precious minutes tick by greedy tock.

Right—she was going to learn about him, lure him into revealing a weakness. A whopping two questions into her dazzlingly expert interrogation, thrown off-kilter by his comment about the way she looked at him, she’d blurted the first thing that had popped into her mind, only belatedly realizing that he hadn’t known. Hadn’t had any clue that the city was thick with other fairies. She’d just assumed that he was either too proud to ask them for aid, or they’d already refused to help him. Never had it occurred to her that he couldn’t even see them.

She just kept digging herself in deeper.

And he was right. It wouldn’t take long, as he’d threatened, for him to smoke her out. Merely being spotted walking down the street with him would give her away to any watching Fae.

She could either willingly help him, hoping he’d truly protect her (and that he could somehow save her from the formidable Aoibheal), or refuse and be abandoned to other Fae, who she knew wouldn’t lift so much as a smugly superior finger to help her. At least this way she had the hope of getting a fairy indebted to her, if that counted for anything among fairies.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know
was another of Gram’s favorite adages.

“Barely,” she muttered.

Puffing her bangs from her eyes with a frustrated breath, she pivoted and paced to the window. Propping her elbows on the sill, she stared blindly out, eyes narrowed, thinking hard.

He’d been furious. Up until now, every seeming emotion he’d displayed since she’d first encountered him, she’d instantly discounted as mimicry, mere trickery, part of his calculated seduction.

But what she’d just seen had looked all too real. Intense, deeply felt, and genuine.

She’d seen not just anger, but wounded pride, and something else, something deeper that had seemed to flash involuntarily through his eyes when she’d made her comment about “iridescent-eyed, soulless, deadly fairies.”

Was it possible, she wondered, bemused by the notion, that since he was in a human body he was actually experiencing human emotion? That all the emotions she’d thought she’d seen had been real not faked?

She had no idea what was possible and not possible when a fairy was in human form. She’d never stumbled across anything like this in the O’Callaghan
Books
. And—she glanced at the clock again—she highly doubted he’d give her any extra time to do some searching.

She could only pray that he
was
feeling, and feeling enough to make him keep his word to protect her, because, unfortunately, her back was to a wall.

Like it or not—and she didn’t—she was going to have to help Adam Black.

“Okay, I’ll do it, but we need to discuss terms,” she said flatly as she walked back into the kitchen.

He’d showered and dressed while she’d been up in her room and was once again leather-clad and sexy as all get-out, long legs outstretched, boots propped on the kitchen table, arms folded behind his head. He no longer looked angry but was once again coolly, almost lazily, at ease.

“A wise decision,
ka-lyrra
.” His dark gaze swept her from head to toe, a palpable, erotic caress that reminded her that, no matter how dead-set she was against him, her traitorous body was all for him. He inclined his head regally. “I am pleased you will aid me, and will consider your terms.”

She bristled at his princely demeanor but refused to be baited. Her terms were critical. “First, I will only approach a solitary Fae. I’ll reveal myself to no more of your kind than I have to.”

He shook his head. “You won’t find a solitary Fae. Have you seen any alone since they arrived in your city?”

Gabby thought about it for a moment. Now that he mentioned it, no, she hadn’t seen any alone. They were always in groups, or at least pairs. Even the one that had walked between her and Marian Temple, blowing her dream job, had only broken away from a small group that it had rejoined when it moved on.

“Why is that?” Her brows drew together in a frown. There was so much she didn’t understand about the Fae.

“Tuatha Dé do not walk the human realm alone. Actually they don’t walk alone much anywhere. Only the occasional rogue Fae will do so.”

“Like yourself?”

“Yes. Most of my kind have no fondness for solitude. Those who walk alone are not to be trusted.”

“Really,” she said dryly.

“Except for me,” he amended, with a faint, insouciant grin.

“I’ll approach a pair, no more. Minimal exposure is my goal.”

“Understood.”

“And you will guarantee not only my safety from your kind, but the safety of my future children. You must promise me that I can live out the rest of my life in peace, safe from being taken by the Fae, or having anyone I love taken. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“How?” she snapped.

Another lazy, appreciative glance down, then up, her body. “You’ll have to trust me,
ka-lyrra
. All I can give you is my word. And though you doubt me, once given, it’s inviolate. It’s securing my word that’s so difficult. But you have it. As you’ve had since the day we met.”

She supposed that was all she was going to get. Anything she did from this moment forward was going to require a leap of faith in some direction. She sighed gustily. “Fine. But you just better understand that, number one, I know how stupid it is to take the word of the
sin siriche du,
but I don’t have any other choice; and number two, if you don’t keep it, I’ll make your existence a living hell any way I can, and if I get killed somehow, I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you. For
all eternity
. And if you don’t think I could, you don’t know the first thing about O’Callaghan women. We persist. We never give up.” Well, her mom had, she amended darkly, but she wasn’t including her mom.

He smiled faintly, bitterly. Her refusal to trust him chafed. He might mislead a bit, rely on disinformation and evasion from time to time, but on those rare occasions he gave his word he stood behind it.

“Come,
ka-lyrra,
you can threaten and malign me while we’re sifting place.”

When he rose and moved toward her, extending his hand, she backed up hastily.

“I am so not doing that vanishing thing you do.” She was firmly in the Dr. McCoy camp when it came to the transporter room on the
Enterprise
. There would be no beaming Gabby O’Callaghan up, down, or anywhere. She liked her feet firmly planted on the ground.

He arched a brow. “Why not?”

“I have no desire to be . . . whatever it is one has to be, to be . . . translated . . . through wherever it is you go,” she said. “No thank you. I’ll stay right here in my world.”

He shrugged. “We’ll drive then.” He waved his hand toward the back door, gesturing that he would follow.

The playful curve of his lips coupled with his suspiciously swift capitulation should have warned her.

She opened the door, stepped out onto the top step, and froze. He stopped behind her, but just barely, crowding her with his big body. Was that his chin grazing the top of her head, his unshaven jaw against her hair?

She took several slow deep breaths, then, “Okay, what happened to my car?”

“That
is
your car.”

“I may not know much lately,” she gritted, “but I do know what I drive. I drive a falling-apart Toyota. A disgustingly powdery-blue one. With lots of rust and no antenna.
That
is not my car.”

“Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota, B.A.”

Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered, and though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway. “Okay, you got me, what’s ‘B.A.’?”

“Before Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasn’t safe.”

Figured the arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch. “I’m not yours, it was too, and you can’t just go around stealing—”

“I didn’t. I filled out all the paperwork myself. And there was a ridiculous amount of paperwork. What is it with you humans and paperwork? You have so much time you can afford to squander it? We have all the time in the world, and you won’t catch us doing paperwork. You are now in every possible regard the legal owner of that car. And no one will ever be able to prove otherwise. The
féth fiada
has many advantages, Gabrielle.”

“I will
not
drive a stolen car,” she snapped as he slipped a hand around her from behind, offering her the keys.

“It’s not stolen,” he repeated patiently, softly, close to her ear. “According to the dealer’s records, it was paid for in full. They wouldn’t take it back even if you tried to give it to them. And if you refuse to drive it, am I to assume that means you’ve changed your mind about traveling my way?”

As his other hand began to slip around her waist, his body brushed against hers, and there was no mistaking the thick, hard ridge grazing her jean-clad bottom. Heavens, did that thing never subside? The rest of him might be mortal, but his immortal erection certainly didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Snatching the keys from his hand, she jerked away.

Nibbling her lip, she glared at the spot where only last night her dilapidated little Corolla had sat. In its place was a brand-new BMW. And if she wasn’t mistaken, it was one of those high-end roadsters. It was red. And shiny. It had all its trim and everything. And it was a
convertible
.

I take care of what’s mine,
he’d said. And a purely feminine part of her had felt a shiver that was more delicious than chilling.

Oh, yes, she was going to hell in a handbasket.

But as far as handbaskets went, she thought glumly, it was an awfully nice one.

“Cincinnati,” said Mael, appearing abruptly at Darroc’s side.

“What? You’ve found him?” Darroc turned, startled. He’d not expected such swift developments.

“Yes. Apparently he’s looking for his half-blood son there.”

“You’re certain of this?”

“I haven’t been to the human city myself, but Callan saw him there only a few days ago. He’d sensed the presence of many Tuatha Dé sifting to that dimension and wondered at it. He confirmed that Adam is there. And that he can’t see us at all.”

Darroc smiled. The power a Tuatha Dé used when sifting dimensions left a residue other Tuatha Dé could sense. Though imprecise, though it scattered swiftly with the passage of time, the residue, when fresh, could be tracked to a general area.

“Excellent, Mael. You’ve done well.”

Adam Black was going to die. And Darroc was going to watch. He would command the Hunters to take it slow, to strike first only to wound . . .

Her handbasket was, to be precise, a BMW Alpina Roadster V8.

Complete with climate-controlled leather seats, navigation system, Harman Kardon stereo, handless phone, and an engine that simply purred with sleek, state-of-the-art muscle.

Gabby guided the ultimate driving machine into the parking garage beneath Fountain Square, eased into a parking space, and turned it off with a sigh of genuine relief. One of the nice things about her Corolla was that she’d never been afraid she might wreck it; it wouldn’t have looked much different if she had. Nor had she ever worried about getting a speeding ticket, because unless she caught a serious back wind, she was lucky to hit sixty in it.

But this thing; oh, this car was almost as dangerous as the fairy who’d stolen it.

Unsnapping her seat belt, she slipped her purse over her shoulder, got out of the car, waited impatiently while he disentangled himself (the roadster wasn’t an easy fit for a man of his brawn), then pressed the little button on the keypad to engage the alarm.

When she’d first slid into the plush leather seats of the dreamy car, she’d popped open the glove box and damned if there hadn’t been a tidy little registration in there, free of lien, with her name on it.

And the bill of sale: $137,856.02.

No doubt about it, her life had plunged from the realm of the absurd into the downright surreal. She’d just driven a car that cost more than a lot of people’s houses did. And already a tiny part of her was busy making the case that, considering she was risking her life, surely she was entitled to some recompense? It was only a car, right? And nobody would ever know. It wasn’t as if she were hurting anybody. He’d said so himself: How was she ever going to convince anybody to take it back when it sure looked like she was the legal owner? And there were no outstanding parking tickets on it. No warrant for her arrest. Which begged the interesting question: “What did you do with my car?”

“Drove it into the Ohio River,” he said mildly.

“Oh.” Well. Nothing she’d not been tempted to do herself a time or two. Looked like she was stuck with the BMW if she wanted to get to work next week. Assuming she lived through the weekend.

“Hurry up,” she said, impatient to get on with things. She couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that her life had only begun its downward spiral and worse things were yet to come.

As they stepped from the dark garage into the momentarily blinding sunlight and began walking toward the square, Gabby scanned the busy streets, searching for fairies. The sidewalks were teeming with people moving en masse down toward the river in the general direction of the stadium. Must be a baseball game, she decided, briefly torturing herself with the thought of normal, pleasant things like hot dogs and beer and pretzels, family outings, and the sharp crack of ball against a bat.

Once again people were out doing things, socializing and having fun, while she was frantically attempting to rectify the latest fairy debacle.

“Just what am I supposed to say when I find these beings?” she asked irritably.

“Tell them that I’d like an audience with the queen at the next new moon.”

“The next
new moon
?” Scowling, she stopped walking. “Why not today? When
is
the next new moon?”