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

back so many times?”
    “The answer to that question most likely lies in your museum,” he said. “We will go there together and review the security footage for the days and times when you blacked out. If your Fae attacker was in the building, he might have been caught on camera. I should be able to spot him, even if he wore a human glamour. The Fae can hide from humans, but not easily from one another. And there are only so many free Fae aboveground. I will likely recognize him. Then I will find him, and kill him.”
    Now came the part she suspected she wouldn’t like. “And if you can’t spot him in the surveillance footage?”
    “Then you will agree to one of the other options. Elada’s protection, or my search of your body for the geis .”
    The thought of his hands on her body made her flush. But it was a purely physical longing. And it probably owed more than a little to his glamour. Beth had said that the truly skilled Fae could insinuate themselves in your mind before you noticed, unless you kept your guard up at all times and learned how to shut them out as Beth had. And even then . . .
    “I’ll agree, if you will make an additional promise,” she said.
    He smiled. It drew attention to his wide mouth and his sensual lips. He liked bargaining with her, because he intended to come out ahead. “Make your condition,” he replied.
    “You’ll stay out of my head. I don’t want you. I will never want you.”
    His smile didn’t fade. “Agreed.”
    It was too easy. Her brief brush with the Fae had shown her that they never gave anything away for free. “What’s the catch?” she asked.
    “Your condition is based on a false premise. I have no need to be in your head. Because you do want me,” he said.
    “Maybe. In some ways. But it’s like wanting chocolate cake for breakfast. I know I’ll regret it later, so I’m resolved not to indulge.”
    Now his smile grew wider. “Does that mean you’ve never eaten chocolate cake for breakfast?” he asked.
    “That isn’t the point. I want you to stay out of my head.”
    “Very well,” said Miach. “I’ll keep out, until you give me permission to enter there.”
    “I’ll never do that.”
    “You never thought you would come here, either.”
    “I had no choice.”
    “You did have a choice. Between an unknown Fae assailant, and me. You chose the devil you know.”
    “That doesn’t mean I’ll dance to your tune.”
    “Perhaps not, but most do, when the music is played by a Fae.”
    She shook her head. “Beth told me how it ends for humans, an affair with a Fae. Madness and death. Wasting away, pining.”
    “I told you it wouldn’t be like that. It didn’t end that way for Beth. It wouldn’t end that way for you, Helene. You’re not a peasant fresh from the fields. You’re an educated woman with a strong mind, a career and interests. You’ve had lovers before me, and you’ll have others after.”
    “You talk as though my capitulation is a certainty. But you’ve agreed to stay out of my head, and you can’t seduce me, because Beth placed a geis on you.”
    “A minor impediment,” he said. “That only means that the first time, you’ll have to seduce me.”
    She didn’t like his confident tone. It was possible that she had failed to see some loophole in their agreement, that he had some other means of beguiling her. Beth would know, but Beth wasn’t here. And there was no one else who could help her. She knew too little about his world to be bargaining with a Fae, but she had no choice but to trust him, at least until Beth came home.
    • • •
    M iach called for his Porsche, and Liam brought it up the gravel drive to the back door. Helene made polite compliments about the garden, which Nieve beamed at, as the garden was her preserve, but it was the car that captured and held the leggy blonde’s attention.
    Helene liked the little roadster. He could tell by the way her eyes traveled the sleek body and the way she sighed with