Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) Read Online Free PDF

cops, who were Southie natives and knew what was owed the Fae, but the police from across the channel could make trouble for Miach and his family, and their followers. They would notice things that they should not. Even the most diluted half-bloods in Miach’s extended family were preternaturally long lived, looked thirty when they were as old as seventy, were forced to change names and identities every few decades in this modern world of record keeping and bureaucracy.
    Miach had survived the intense interest of the Druids, their crude experiments on his body. They had searched inside his chest for the source of Fae power with the primitive implements of the first millennia, splitting him open at the sternum, prying apart his ribs. He still remembered the excruciating pain; he still bore the scars. And he did not care to contemplate what the men of this age would do to his family with their new technology, their drugs, machines, and engines, if they discovered the existence of the Fae.
    He could not allow Helene to call the police.
    He could force her to stay by using his glamour to overpower her resistance, get inside her mind and plant a false trust in him. But that would be risky. It might, for one thing, violate the geis Beth had placed on him to stay away from Helene Whitney. And violating his geis would diminish him. He couldn’t afford to be weakened if he was to face and kill whoever was doing this to her. And more worrying still: depending on what kind of sorcery his unnamed adversary had used on Helene, his own magical tampering might harm or kill her.
    The other option was to knock her out cold and lock her in the house. But that was almost certain to violate his geis .
    Nor could he order Elada to follow her if she threatened to call the police, so long as there was any other alternative. The bond between sorcerer and right hand went two ways. They protected each other. He could not send Elada into unnecessary danger when other, less direct possibilities existed.
    “Don’t go,” Miach said. “I won’t send Elada after you, if you’ll make a bargain with me.”
    Helene eyed him suspiciously “Beth told me never to make a bargain with a Fae.”
    “Sound advice,” he said. “A fine general rule. But you have very few choices at the moment. If you cannot see your way clear to accepting my help, then as soon as you leave this house, you will be at the mercy of the Fae who put that geis on you.”
    She paled. “I could call Beth,” she said.
    “We will call Beth. The Druid needs to know what is happening here. But she is three thousand miles away. It will take her a day or more to return home. During that time this Fae could summon you again. And this time, afterward, you might not wake up at your desk. You might not wake up at all.”

Chapter 3

    H elene knew that he was right. She had very few choices. None, really. But she could not accept his help if it meant that she would end up in his bed. That was just trading one form of oblivion for another, no matter how much she wanted him physically. It was impossible to have a fling with a Fae. Their glamour was too intense. Even if becoming Miach’s lover didn’t drive her mad, it would erode her will, her independence, her personhood. There was no way to remain immune from the sway of the sorcerer’s voice, his eyes, his intense charisma.
    Unless they struck a bargain she could accept. “What do you propose?” she asked.
    “If your surveillance cameras didn’t record you leaving the building, then this Fae took you somewhere inside the building.”
    “But why?” she asked. The question had been plaguing her. “What could he possibly want in the museum? What could he possibly want with me?”
    “Perhaps there are Fae artifacts in the collection that he desires. Some trinket he is searching for. Your position as chief fundraiser allows you to move freely through the building.”
    “If he just wanted to steal something, why would he have to come