Studying the Shifter’s stubbled chin kept Alanna from having to look into his eyes. Those eyes had been deep green when she’d entered the forge; now they were nearly white, his pupils slitted like a cat’s. He was a cat, a predatory cat bred from several species of ancient wildcats, and any second now he’d tear her apart.
And then his two sons would die.
Niall’s towering rage held her as firmly as the iron bar. "You touch my cubs, bitch, and you’ll be learning what pain truly is."
"If you do as I say, they won’t be hurt at all."
"You’ll not go near them."
"It’s too late for that. They’ve already been taken. Make the sword, and you’ll get them back."
The Shifter roared. His face elongated, and animal lips pulled back from fangs. He didn’t shift all the way, but the hand that held the bar sprouted finger-long claws.
At the moment Alanna hated all Shifters and all Fae, especially her brother Kieran, who’d told her that subduing the Shifter would be simple. They will do anything to protect their whelps.
We carry them off, and he’ll whimper at your feet.
Niall O’Connell, master sword maker of the old Kingdom of Ciarrai , wasn’t whimpering, or anywhere near her feet. His fury could tear down the forge and crumble the cliff face into the sea.
"Make the sword." Now Alanna was the one pleading. "Craft the sword, and the little ones go free."
Niall’s face shifted back into his human one, but his eyes remained white. "Where are they?"
"They will be released when you complete the sword."
Niall shoved her into the wall. "Damn you, woman, where are they?"
"In the realm of Faerie."
The Shifter’s pupils returned to human shape, his eye color darkening to jade as grief filled them. Niall’s shoulders slumped, but the iron never moved from Alanna’s throat. "Gone, then,"
he whispered.
"No," Alanna said quickly. "If you give me the sword, they will be set free. He assured me they would not be harmed."
"Who did? Who is this Fae bastard who’s taken my children?"
"My brother. Kieran."
"Kieran . . ."
"Prince Kieran of Donegal."
"There was a Kieran of Donegal in Shifter stories of long ago. A vicious bastard that a pack of Lupines finally hunted and killed. Only decent thing the bloody dogs have ever done."
"My brother is his grandson."
"Which makes you his granddaughter." Niall peered at her. "You don’t seem all that pleased to be running this errand for your royal brother. Why did he send you?"
"None of your affair." Enemies saw your compassion as weakness and used that against you, Kieran had told her. Kieran certainly used every advantage over his enemies--and his friends as well.
"Back to that, are you, lass? What assurance do I have that you’ll not simply kill my boys whether I make the sword for you or not?"
Alanna shifted the tiniest bit, trying to ease the pain of the bar on her throat. "You have my pledge."
"And what worth is that to me?"
"My pledge that if your children are harmed, you may take my life. I wasn’t just sent as the messenger, Shifter. I was sent to be your hostage."
Even through his pain, his grief, and his gut-wrenching fear, Niall couldn’t deny that the Fae woman had courage. He could kill her right now, and she knew it. She offered her life in exchange for his sons with a steady voice, even though she obviously knew that a Shifter whose cubs were threatened was more dangerous than an erupting volcano. And even though she’d said she’d been given a protective spell against iron, Niall knew the cold bar hurt her.
Slowly he lifted it from her throat. Alanna rubbed her neck, though the bar had left no mark.
Niall stopped himself having any sympathy. She and her brother had taken his boys, Marcus and Piers, who were ten and twelve as humans counted years.
He looked past her to the darkening night, to the mists gathering on the cliff path, to the Great Island silhouetted by the blood-red sky. "My youngest, Marcus, he likes to fish," he said.
"The human way with a pole and hook. Will he be able to fish where he is?"
Alanna shook her head. "The game and the fish in the rivers are for Kieran only."
"My mate died of bringing him in, poor love. She was a beautiful woman, was Caitlin, so tall and strong." Niall looked Alanna up and down. "Nothing like you."
"No, I don’t suppose she was."
Shifter women tended to be as tall as the males. They were fast runners, wild in bed, and laughed a lot. Caitlin had laughed all the time.
"Piers, now. He likes to craft things. He’ll be a smith like me. He likes to watch the iron get red hot and bend into whatever shape he tells it. He’d love to have watched me make this sword."
Alanna said nothing, only looked at him.
Niall knew why he was saying these things. He was letting himself start to grieve.
Deep in his heart, he didn’t believe Prince Kieran would agree to release his sons. Fae didn’t play fair. Niall might be allowed to take Alanna’s life in vengeance for his sons’ death, but it would be an empty vengeance. He would have no one left. No mate, no cubs, no one left in his pride.
Niall lived here on the edge of this human village called Baile Icin, because the other members of his pride and clan had died out. Shifters married into other clans, but there weren’t as many females as males anymore, and other clans were few and far between. The Shifter race was diminishing.
"You’ll make the sword then?" Alanna asked, breaking his thoughts.
She didn’t have to sound so eager. "I don’t have much bloody choice, do I?"
Her eyes softened. "I am sorry."
Sympathy, from a Fae? Had the world gone mad today?
"You will be, lass. If my cubs are hurt in any way, you’ll be the first to be very, very sorry.
Your brother, now, he’ll be even sorrier still. So show me this damned silver and let’s be getting on with it."
Chapter Three
Forging a sword was a different thing entirely from the usual practical ironworks Niall produced for the humans of the village. Niall never asked Alanna why he’d been chosen for this task, because he already knew.
Once upon a time, Niall O’Connell had been a master sword maker, before Ciarrai had been made an Earldom by the bloody English. He’d created beautiful weapons used for deadly purpose in the last Fae-Shifter war. The Shifters had won that war, though Niall knew much of their victory had been due to luck--the Fae had already been losing power in the mortal world, and the Shifters had only made their retreat into the Faerie realms inevitable.
It wasn’t often that Shifters from different clans and species worked together, but at that point, Lupine, Feline, and Bear had fought side by side. The Fae had conceded defeat and vanished into their realm behind the mists.
Well, conceded defeat was too strong a phrase. The Fae had gone, killing, burning, and pillaging behind them. Fae didn’t care whether their victims were children, breeding mothers, or humans who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Niall still had his sword-making tools kept safely in a chest at the back of the forge. He hadn’t touched them in years. He shook his head to himself as he laid out his tongs and hammer, grinding stone and chisel. This sword wouldn’t be good, strong steel, but soft silver, which was daft, even if she claimed it was spelled to work like steel. He could craft such a thing, but it would only be good as a trinket.