The Immortal Highlander
Page 35

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.”