Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(75)

He surged to his feet and his face whitened, then flushed with anger.

But he'd asked and so I continued, "Your house is bland and has no personality at all. Maybe you should try some naked statues - "

"Stop it! Stop it!"

I sat back and watched him. He was still a boy who thought he was smarter than he really was. His anger didn't scare me, or intimidate me. He saw that and it made him angrier.

"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?"