"He's iron kissed." If he wanted information, maybe I could stall him and babble. "I like that term better than gremlin because he can't be a gremlin if they just made up that word in the last century, can he? He's a lot older than that. In fact, I finally found a story--"
"Stop," he said.
I did.
He frowned at me. "Drink. Take two drinks."
Damn. When I set the goblet down, my hands tingled with fae magic and my lips were numb.
"Where is the walking stick?" he asked.
I sighed. That stupid stick followed me around even when it wasn't in the room. "Wherever it wants to be."
"What?"
"Probably in my office," I told him. It liked to show up where I was going to come upon it unexpectedly. But the need to answer him made me continue to feed him information. "Though it was in my car. It's not now. Uncle Mike didn't take it."
"Mercy," he said. "What is the thing you least wanted me to know when you came here?"
I thought about that. I'd been so worried about hurting his feelings yesterday, and standing on his doorstep I'd been a little worried still. I leaned forward and said in a low voice, "I am not attracted to you at all. I don't find you sexy or handsome. You look like an upscale geek without the intelligence to make it work for you."
He surged to his feet and his face whitened, then flushed with anger.
But he'd asked and so I continued, "Your house is bland and has no personality at all. Maybe you should try some naked statues--"
"Stop it! Stop it!"
I sat back and watched him. He was still a boy who thought he was smarter than he really was. His anger didn't scare me, or intimidate me. He saw that and it made him angrier.
"You wanted to know what O'Donnell had? Come with me."
I would have, but he grabbed my arm in a grip and his hand bit down. I heard a crack but it was a moment before the pain registered.
He'd broken my wrist.
He pulled me through the doorway, through the dining room, and into his bedroom. When he pushed me onto his bed, I heard a second bone pop in my arm--this time the pain cleared my head just a little. Mostly, though, it just hurt.
He threw open a large oak entertainment center, but there was no TV on the shelf. Instead there were two shoe boxes sitting on a bulky fur of some sort that looked almost like yak hide, except it was gray.
Tim set the boxes on the ground and pulled out the hide, shaking it out so I could see it was a cloak. He pulled it around himself, and once it settled over him, it disappeared. He didn't look any different from when he'd put it on.
"Do you know what this is?"
And I did, because I'd been reading my borrowed book and because the strange-looking hide smelled of horse, not yak.
"It's the Druid's Hide," I told him, breathing through my teeth so I didn't whimper. At least it wasn't the same arm I'd broken last winter. "The druid had been cursed to wear the form of a horse, but when he was skinned, he regained his human form. But the horse's skin did something..." I tried to remember the wording, because it was important. "It kept his enemies from finding or harming him." I looked up and realized that he hadn't wanted me to answer him. He'd wanted to know more than I did. I think it was the "not intelligent enough" comment still bothering him. But part of me wanted to please him, and as the pain subsided, that compulsion grew stronger.
"You are much stronger than I thought," I said to distract myself from this new facet of the goblet's effect. Or maybe I said it to please him.
He stared at me. I couldn't tell if he liked hearing that or not. Finally he drew up the sleeves of his dress shirt to show me that he wore a silver band around each wrist. "Bracers of giant strength," he said.
I shook my head. "Those aren't bracers. Those are bracelets or maybe wristlets. Bracers are longer. They were used--"
"Shut up," he gritted. He closed the wardrobe and kept his back to me for a moment. "You love me," he said. "You think I'm the handsomest man you've ever seen."
I fought it. I did. I fought his voice as hard as I've ever fought anything.
But it's hard to fight your own heart, especially when he was so handsome. Until that moment, no man had competed with Adam for sheer breathtaking male beauty--but his face and form palled beside Tim.