Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

fingernails turned long and black, almost into talons, and she dug into his chest with them and began to slowly rake across and down to his left. Padraig cried out, and both his hands clutched at the Morrigan’s wrist—not to pull her hand away but rather to force it deeper. Blood welled underneath her nails and began to run down his ribs and belly; Padraig moaned and wailed and his hips began to buck uncontrollably as she tore at his chest.
    I wondered if he had any customers in the front of the store. Tailor shops are not usually so fraught with pain and ecstasy.
    Padraig screamed when the Morrigan’s nails sheared off his left nipple. She pulled her hand away then; Padraig let go of her wrist and fell to the floor, jerking and trembling.
    “We can go now,” she said, stepping over Padraig’s twitching body and through the black curtain, leaving me alone with a man having a bloody epic orgasm on the floor.
    I wanted to kneel and heal up his chest but suspected that the Morrigan would object in violent fashion. I didn’t know what to do. “Well, thanks! Um. Have a nice day!” I finally said, and followed after the Morrigan. Once through the curtain, I saw that the shop was empty and the Morrigan was heading for the front door. “Aren’t you going to help him?” I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the noise Padraig was making.
    She stopped and turned, perplexed by my question. “I just did, Siodhachan.”
    “He’s losing a lot of blood and he sounds like he’s in pain.”
    “Yes, but he’s also in pleasure. He’ll live. And, besides, he asked for it.”
    “He asked to be mutilated and—whatever else that is?”
    “He will ejaculate for five more minutes and then pass out.”
    I blanched. “Is that even possible?”
    “Yes. When he wakes, he will experience the most intense period of creativity he’s ever known. His designs will make him one of the most sought-after tailors in all Europe.”
    “Oh. So that’s what he asked for?”
    “Yes. I’m not a goddess of craft, like Brighid, but I do what I can.”
    “He didn’t ask to lose a nipple and be permanently scarred, did he?”
    “People who court my favor know what kind of goddess I am,” she replied. “And there are still plenty of people willing to make Faustian bargains. They tend to focus on the results rather than the costs to achieve them.”
    She turned away, signaling an end to the conversation, and I sighed in defeat. I hoped Padraig would think it was worth it in the end.
    We exited the shop, closing the door on the tailor’s rapture and ruin, then hailed a cab. The Morrigan told the driver to drop us off at the corner of Kirkegata and Rådhusgata.
    There’s a seventeenth-century building at that location that currently houses one of the finest gourmet restaurants anywhere. It’s the sort of place where you have to dress up to walk through the door and even the toothpicks are posh. Dinners are served in four to six courses, and there’s not only a professional waiter but a professional sommelier at your elbow.
    At some point the building had been painted a belligerent shade of mauve—it was
mauve
, damn it, andproud. It was a generous two stories tall, with frequent narrow white-framed windows blessedly interrupting the Great Mauve Wall. Above a gray cornice loomed a black-shingled roof, which had architecture of its own, allowing for an attic room or three and their concomitant windows. Movement up there drew my eyes, and I spied two enormous ravens perched on the eaves, seeming to look straight at me with equal parts gravitas and gloom. Each one of them had an eye that gleamed white.
    “That’s an overdose of Poe, isn’t it?” I said.
    The Morrigan, seeing the ravens, gave a short bark of laughter. “There’s no Poe involved at all. Use your head, Siodhachan.”
    I remembered we were supposedly meeting members of the Norse pantheon and said, “You don’t mean
he
is here—”
    The Morrigan slapped me. “I said use your head, not your mouth.”
    “But how can he—”
    I got slapped again.
    “Right. Sorry.”
    The Morrigan took a deep breath and closed her eyes, clenching her fists at her sides. It was the first sign I’d seen that she felt the least bit nervous about this encounter.
    “How do I look?” she asked, and I wondered again at how she could be simultaneously so ruthless and insecure.
    “Fearsome. Deadly. A bit delicious.”
    She smiled. “You always know what to say. Let’s go.