Bedeviled Read Online Free PDF

kind of weapon was better than nothing.
    “If you could stop talking for a moment, I could explain—”
    “Explain what? How I wandered into the Twilight Zone? I don’t think so. You’re a part of this screwy mess somehow, aren’t you? So why would I listen to you? And by the way, why do you have a knife, and how did you get in here anyway? What the hell is happening to me?”
    “Maggie?” Eileen’s voice.
    Instantly the gorgeous giant spun around, going into a deep crouch and pulling the knife at his belt free all in one fluid motion.
    Maggie saw light glitter dangerously on the silver blade and did the first thing that popped into her mind: She swung the milk jug in a wide arc and slammed it into the back of the guy’s head.
    He dropped like a stone. Milk erupted into a geyser as the plastic shattered, and the white wave coated her, him, and splashed across Eileen’s face as well.
    “Wow,” her niece said, smiling at her with pride as she wiped milk from her face. “That was amazing. Who’s he?”
    “I don’t know.” But now that he was unconscious, Maggie took her first steady breath in quite a while. Still, she had to admit that even out cold and covered in milk, he was quite the honey. Too bad he was some kind of criminal.
    Maggie was still shaking when her less-than-alert “watchdog,” Sheba, a golden retriever who’d never met a snack she didn’t want, sauntered into the room, walked up to the fallen giant and began to lick the milk off his face.
    “Oh,” Maggie told her, “thanks so much for your help.”
     
    Culhane woke up to find himself tied into a chair, with Maggie Donovan and a child looking down at him. A yellow dog was stretched out atop his feet.
    He couldn’t even recall the last time he’d been taken down in a battle. And yet this one mortal woman had done just that. Not only had she caught him unaware, but she’d knocked him out and tied him up. She was definitely ready to answer the call of fate.
    Taking a breath, he shook his still-wet hair back from his face and accused, “You hit me.”
    “You pulled a knife on my niece! Not to mention the whole breaking-and-entering thing,” she pointed out, dropping one arm around the girl, who’d come to the door behind him unnoticed.
    Bad enough that he’d been so distracted by this woman that he hadn’t heard the child’s approach. But to have this female insinuate that he would have harmed the girl was an insult he would not accept.
    Culhane glared at her. “I am a Fenian warrior for the Fae of Otherworld. I do not harm children.”
    She blinked at him. “You’re a what for who ?”
    “Fae,” the girl said, nudging her aunt with an elbow even as she looked at Culhane with sharper interest. “Isn’t that like Faeries?”
    “Oh,” Maggie murmured, looking at him a little differently. “Now, that’s a shame.”
    Culhane muttered a curse.
    “What’s a Fenian, though?”
    “We don’t care,” Maggie told her.
    Still feeling the insult and the humiliation of his situation, Culhane ignored the interplay between the two females and looked at the girl. Her eyes were wide and interested, but there was more there, too, he thought. A stillness. A watchfulness. And temper, along with a courage that outmatched her years. That he understood and admired. He met that young gaze and gave her a formal nod. “I wouldn’t have harmed you.”
    She studied him for a long moment or two, and Culhane waited for her to make up her mind about him. Finally she shrugged and said, “It’s okay. I believe you.”
    “Well, I don’t,” her aunt said, and Culhane’s gaze slid back to the woman who was the reason for his presence in this place.
    There was temper in her eyes, as well. He found it less admirable in her than in her niece.
    “You try my patience,” he said, glaring at Maggie.
    “Hah! You’re the intruder here, Sparky.”
    “Are you really a Faery?” the girl asked.
    “Fae. I am Fae,” he said.
    “Picky, picky . .