Old Dog, New Tricks by Hailey Edwards Page A

despite myself, waiting for the old anger to resurface, but it was slow to rise and easily shoved aside when it did.
    Yes, he had hurt my mother. He was hurting her even now. But I was raised as a human, and it wasn’t fair to hold Mac to human standards. Not when he obviously loved my mother, and not when his responsibilities in Faerie had been greater than any love he had for her...or for me.
    I tilted my head. “Do you remember what it was like...before?”
    “I do.” A melancholy sigh escaped him. “I miss the simplicity of that life.”
    Another question came to my lips, but he hushed me as he would a child.
    “Later, you and I will talk, and I will answer any questions you have.” He drew himself up taller and rolled his narrow shoulders. “For now, we must focus on the task ahead. Time is running short.”
    Seven days—six and a half after our slow start—until hunger turned Shaw rabid. Bonded as we were, even raging in his incubus form, I was his only food source. The circuit he burnt into himself during sex with me meant he could be faithful. Had to be, actually. He was now dependent on me to keep him alive, a job I would normally relish, but finding him starved meant he might kill me.
    “We’ve stood exposed too long.” Mac scowled. “We need to sever this one and get moving.”
    I blew out a breath. “What next?”
    “We find out if the Morrigan’s fear is justified.” He held out his hand. “You have to bleed.”
    Slapping my right palm into his, I grimaced. “I thought you might say that.”
    Metal rasped as he drew a dagger the length of my forearm from his thigh holster. “Look away.”
    He sounded exactly like Mom when I was about to get a finger pricked at the doctor’s office.
    “I can handle it.” Swallowing, I uncurled my fingers and braced myself. “I’m a big girl.” Sharp as his blade was, I still winced as faint pressure sliced open my index finger. “Freaking monkeys.”
    Blood rose along the seam of the cut, but none fell. The cut crusted over as I began healing.
    “I was afraid of this.” Mac sheathed his blade. “You heal almost as fast as I do.”
    “How do you control your bleeding for spellwork?” I wondered.
    A chuckle slipped from him. “I keep a never blade I confiscated in a cabinet in my office.”
    Removing my left hand from his, I flexed the right, which was marked by my own never blade wound, and wished there was another way. I really didn’t want to bleed out. “Can you remove the enchantment?”
    “I can.” He took my hand, palm up. “It’s an original spell of mine crafted for the same reason.”
    “So you willingly cut yourself with a never blade often enough you had to figure this out, huh?” I watched as pink spilled onto his cheeks. “Yet you still can’t heal the wound. Isn’t that dangerous?”
    “Unless another source of magic is introduced into our blood, interrupting our own, our gift mends us too quickly.” Mac’s expression turned pensive. “There are a few fae who have natural immunity to us. It was their blood used to spell the first never blades. It’s a necessary failsafe that must be broken once in a while in order for us to do any good with the gifts we have been given, but as in all things, we pay a price.”
    Thinking back on the past year, I got an inkling. “Hobgoblins are immune, aren’t they?”
    “Yes.”
    “Redcaps too.”
    “Yes.” His head lifted, eyes softening. “They are.”
    I was about to ask why he would let me go a few rounds with one of the rare fae who could hurt me, not to mention leaving him with plenty of my blood he could use as a focus object for dangerous spellwork later, but Mac pressed his palm to mine, and a pulse of searing pain dropped me to one knee.
    Forget ripping off a bandage. This ripped off the top layer of my freaking skin, and I screamed.
    Mac slapped a hand over my mouth until I could clamp my jaw shut and get it under control.
    “The original spell grafts skin.” His