Free Stone Song by D. L. McDermott Page B

head and began, at long last, to minister directly to her need with his mouth, and she went boneless for him, her whole being concentrated on the place between her legs. Her arms slid to her sides, then off the counter, where they encountered something cold.
    Iron. More than the delicate ring that used to pierce her nipple. A metal bar set into the side of the island. Enough cold metal to cut through her haze of desire, to wake her to the horror of what was happening, but the Prince’s grip was firm and she was trapped. Frantic, her hands yanked at the iron rail but it was bolted to the wood.
    Her fingers searched up and down the bar until they encountered something else. A hook. Welded to the bar. A pot hanging from the hook.
    Salvation.
    She wrapped her fingers around the handle. The Prince was wholly intent on his seduction, his attention focused on the juncture of her thighs. So she lifted the pot off its hook and swung.
    The Prince’s reflexes were faster than those of a man, but not fast enough. He raised one elegant hand to deflect the blow, and took the full force of Sorcha’s swing on his wrist. The pot connected with an audible, sickening crack. Momentum carried it farther, and it glanced off one angular cheekbone.
    Then the Prince struck it from her hand and sent it flying across the room, and she was defenseless.
    He snarled. It was an animal sound, bloodcurdling and primeval. She grasped the bar on the side of the island like it was a lifeline, her finger searching for another weapon, but there was none.
    The Prince looked at her with murder in his eyes and she realized that she had made a terrible mistake.
    Elada had told her that there were hundreds, if not thousands of others like her. So long as she was useful to the Prince, she would live, but the Fae were a feral race given to sudden cruelty, and there were other potential Druids to replace her.
    The Prince struck her hard across the face with his good hand, then produced a silver dagger from the folds of his coat. It twinkled in the moonlight filtering through the window over the sink.
    Then the moon went out. A shadow covered the iron-muntined window for a second, and the casement exploded inward. Glass and bits of iron rained down onto the sink and the Fae from the Black Rose tumbled through the ruined aperture.
    Elada.
    Sorcha rolled off the kitchen island and dove under the breakfast bar, toppling stools and crunching over broken glass as she went.
    Elada was on his feet in the blink of an eye, a silver sword in his hand, glimmering in the moonlight streaming through the broken window. He was undeniably Fae. No ordinary man could have moved so fast. But in his flannel shirt and well-worn jeans and with his close-cropped hair he was achingly human—even with a silver blade in his hand.
    In one graceful gesture he brought the pale sword to the Prince Consort’s neck.
    “You can’t kill me,” said the Prince Consort, smug even with an edged weapon at his throat and a broken sword arm. “The Queen’s enchantment still holds.”
    Whatever that meant. Elada appeared unperturbed. “Perhaps you can’t be killed,” said her savior, “but you can be hurt. I could, for example, flay every inch of that enchanted skin from your body.”
    The Prince’s eyes narrowed. “Tread lightly, Elada Brightsword, or the Queen’s vengeance, when it comes, will extend to your bleached-blond colleen in South Boston and her litter as well.”
    And then, just like that, he passed , disappearing as though he had never been there at all.
    Elada didn’t lower his sword immediately, but when he did, Sorcha exhaled, because it meant the Prince was really gone.
    Relief washed over her, and with it came the insistent pounding need that had only retreated when she was clutching the cold iron bar in the side of the kitchen island. She reached up now and felt along the countertop until she encountered the jar full of cooking utensils, the one with the iron ladles and small