Shadowfever (Fever #5)

by Karen Marie Moning

“Fae can’t use them. They fry them.” Maybe there was something to my energy theory. As more sheets rained down, I gathered them up and examined them. Under the watchful eyes of Darroc’s guards, I hadn’t been able to snoop through his personal documents. It was fascinating stuff. This particular cache of notes was about the different Unseelie castes—their strengths, weaknesses, and unique tastes. It was jarring to realize he’d had to learn about the Unseelie, just like we had. I folded the pages and began stuffing them in my backpack. This was useful information. Sidhe-seers need to be passing it down, one generation to the next. We could put together a set of Fae encyclopedias from his notes. When I ran out of room in my pack, I began stacking the pages up to return for them later. Then I saw a page that was different from the rest, filled with scribbled bits of thoughts, bulleted lists, circled comments, and arrows pointing from one note to another. Alina’s name was on it, along with Rowena’s and dozens of others. Scribbled next to their names were their special “talents.” There were lists of countries, addresses, and names of companies I assumed were the foreign branches of Po...

Abbey—Sinsar Dubh Unseelie King—...

blinked at it, trying to make sense of it. Was Darroc saying that it hadn’t been the Seelie Queen, as Nana O’Reilly had claimed, who’d delivered the Dark Book to the abbey so long ago? Had the Unseelie King himself brought it to us, because we could sense Fae, and Fae Hallows, and that made us the perfect guardians for it? Suddenly Barrons was behind me, looking over my shoulder. “Makes you think about yourself a little differently, doesn’t it?” “Not really. I mean, who cares who brought it to the abbey? Point is, we’re the guardians.” “Is that what you get from his notes, Ms. Lane?” he purre...

“It’s said the king was horrified when he realized that his act of atonement had resulted in the birth of his most powerful abomination yet. He chased it from one world to the next, for eons, determined to destroy it. When he finally caught up with it, their battle lasted centuries and reduced dozens of worlds to ruins. But it was too late. The Sinsar Dubh had become fully sentient, a dark force of its own. When the king first created the Sinsar Dubh, he was greater, and the Book was lesser. It was a repository for the king’s evil, but without drive and intent. Yet while it roamed, it evolved, until it became all the king was, and more. The creation—abandoned by its creator—learned to hate. The Sinsar Dubh began to pursue the king.” He paused and gave me one of his wolf smiles. “So what else might the dark king have created? Perhaps an entire caste that could track his greatest enemy, contain it, and keep it from destroying him? Are you going to tell me you never once considered that?” I stared. We were the good guys. Human to the core. “Sidhe-seers: watchdogs for the U.K.,” he mocked. I was chilled by his words. It had been bad enough to discover I was adopted and the parents w...

entire club was silent, frozen. Then sound and motion resumed with the tinkle of crystal as the wineglass the dreamy-eyed guy had been tossing hit the floor and shattered. Three stools down, the tall, gaunt thing made a choking sound and his deck of cards sprayed the air, raining down on the counter, my lap, the floor. Ha, I thought, got you, dreamy-eyes. He was a player in all this. But who was he and which team was he playing for? “So, who are you really, dreamy-eyed guy? And why do you keep popping up?” “Is that how you see me? In another life, would you take me to the prom? Home to meet the parents? Kiss me good night on the stoop?” “I said, ‘Stay close,’ ” Barrons growled behind me. “And don’t talk about the bloody Book in this bloody place. Move your ass, Ms. Lane, now.” He took my arm and pulled me from the stool.

at the dreamy-eyed guy, but he was no longer there. I looked to my right. Mr. Tall, Pin-striped, and Gaunt was also gone. On the bar, beside a freshly filled shot and a Guinness, another tarot card had been placed with care, facedown, black-and-silver side up. “Now or never, Ms. Lane. I don’t have all night.” I tossed back the shot and chased it, then picked up the card and slipped it into my pocket for later. Barrons steered me to a chrome staircase that was guarded at the bottom by the same two men that had escorted me to the top floor to see Ryodan the last time I was here. They were enormous, dressed in black pants and T-shirts, with heavily muscled bodies and dozens of scars on their hands and arms. Both carried snub-nosed automatics. Both had faces that drew the eye but, the moment you saw them, made you want to look away.

As we approached, they swung their weapons toward me. “What the fuck is she doing here?” “Get over it, Lor,” Barrons said. “When I say jump, you say how high.” The one that wasn’t Lor laughed, and Lor slammed him in the gut with the butt of his gun. It was like hitting steel. The guy didn’t even flinch. “The fuck I jump. In your dreams. Laugh again, Fade, and you’ll be eating your balls for breakfast. Bitch,” Lor spat in my general direction. But he didn’t look at me, he looked at Barrons, and I think that’s what pushed me over the edge. I glanced between the two guards. Fade stared straight ahead. Lor glared at Barrons. I stepped away from Barrons and walked directly in front of them. Their gazes never wavered. It was as if I didn’t exist. I had no doubt I could stand there and do a dance, naked, and they’d still stare at anything but me.

women had been owned. I hadn’t forgotten his comment about Kasteo, who hadn’t spoken in more than a thousand years. How old were these men? When, how, where had they lived? Barrons took my arm and turned me toward the staircase, but I shook him off and turned back to Lor. I was getting way too much bad press. I wasn’t a stone. I hadn’t been created by the Unseelie King. And I wasn’t a traitor. One of those things I could have a satisfying fight about. “Why am I a bitch?” I demanded. “Because you think I slept with Darroc?” “Shut her up before I kill her,” Lor told Barrons. “Don’t talk to him about me. Talk to me about me. Or do you think I’m not worthy of your regard because, when I believed Barrons was dead, I hooked up with the enemy to accomplish my goals? How terrible of me,” I mocked. “I guess I should have just laid down and died with a whimper. Would that have impressed you, Lor?” “Get the bitch out of my face.”

“I guess taking up with Darroc makes me pretty … well”—I knew what word Barrons hated, and I was in the mood to try it out on Lor—“mercenary, doesn’t it? You can blame me for that if you want to. Or you can pull your head out of your ass and respect me for it.” Lor turned his head and looked at me then, as if I’d begun to speak his language. Unlike Barrons, the word didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, it seemed he understood, even appreciated it. Something flickered in his cold eyes. I’d interested him. “Some people wouldn’t see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like—I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I’ll get so far in your face you’ll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You’ll be seeing me in your nightmares. I’ll scorch myself on the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I’m not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you’ll get one. Just try me. Give me an excuse to go play in that dark place inside my head.” “Dark place?” Barrons murmured. “As if you don’t have one,” I snapped. “Your cave makes mine look like a white beach on a sunny day.” Shouldering past them, I pushed up the stairs. I thought I heard a rumble of laughter behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Three men stared at me with the dead, emotionless gazes of executioners. But, hey—they were all looking.

could see in. The perimeter of the ceiling was lined with dozens of small LED screens fed by cameras that panned every room in the club, as if you couldn’t see enough of what was going on merely by looking down past your feet. I stayed where I was. Every step you take on a glass floor feels like a leap of faith when the only solid floor you can see is forty feet below. “Mac,” said Ryodan. He stood behind a desk, couched in shadow, a big man, dark in a white shirt. The only light in the room came from the monitors above our heads. I wanted to launch myself across the room and attack him, claw his eyes out, bite him, punch him, stab him with my spear. I was astonished by the depth of hostility I felt. He’d made me kill Barrons. High on that cliff, the two of us had beaten, cut, and stabbed the man who’d been keeping me alive almost since the day I arrived in Dublin. And I’d wondered for days that had felt like years if Ryodan had wanted Barrons dead. “I thought you tricked me into killing him. I thought you’d betrayed him.” “I kept telling you to leave. You didn’t. You were never supposed to see what he was.” “You mean what you all are,” I corrected. “All nine of you.” “Careful, Mac. Some things don’t get talked about. Ever.” I reached for my spear. He could have told me the truth on the cliff, but, like Barrons, he’d let me suffer. The more I thought about how both of them had withheld a truth from me that would have spared me so much agony, the angrier I got. “I was just m...

each other offends you in me. I think it worries you. Makes me more unpredictable than you’d like.” He guided my hand to the holster and tucked the spear back in. “ ‘Unpredictable’ is the key word there. Did you flip, Mac?” “Do I look like I flipped?” He brushed hair from my face, tucked it gently behind an ear. I shivered. He bristled with the same kind of energy Barrons did—heat, muscle, and danger. When Barrons touches me, it turns me on. But when Ryodan stands behind me, locking me in place with an arm of steel, touching me tenderly—it scares the hell out of me. “Let me tell you something about flipping, Mac,” he said softly against my ear. “Most people are good and occasionally do something they know is bad. Some people are bad and struggle every day to keep it under control. Others are corrupt to the core and don’t give a damn, as long as they don’t get caught. But evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it’s good.” “What are you saying, Ryodan? That I flipped and I’m too stupid to know it?” “If the shoe fits.” “It doesn’t. Point of curiosity: Which camp are you and Barrons in? Corrupt to the core and don’t give a damn?” “Why do you think the Book killed Darroc?” I knew where this was going. Ryodan’s theory was that I wasn’t tracking the Sinsar Dubh; it kept finding me. He was about to tell me that it had killed Darroc to further its goal of getting closer to me. He was wrong. “It killed Darroc to stop him. It told me no one was going ...

“The Sinsar Dubh can pick thoughts out of your mind? Have you considered the potential ramifications of that?” I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I had much time to consider anything. I’d been so busy jumping from the frying pan into the fire and back into the frying pan again that reflection upon the various possibles wasn’t top on my list of priorities. Who could worry about potential ramifications when the real ones kept kicking you in the teeth? “It means that it knows about us,” he said tightly. “First of all, why would it care? Second, I hardly know anything about you at all, so it couldn’t have gotten much.” “I’ve killed for less.” Of that I had no doubt. Ryodan was stone cold and suffered no conflicts about it. “If it even bothered skimming for information about you, the only thing it knows is that I thought the two of you were dead and you’re not.” “Not true. You know a great deal more than that, and that the Book might know about us at ...

Ryodan? Why did we have to kill him? I know it’s not because he can’t control himself when he’s the beast. He controlled himself last night when he rescued me from the Book. He can change at will, can’t he? What happened in the Silvers? Does the place have some kind of effect on you, make you uncontrollable?” I almost slapped myself in the forehead. Barrons had told me that the reason he tattooed himself with black and red protection runes was because using dark magic called a price due, unless you took measures to protect yourself against the backlash. Did using IYD require the blackest kind of magic to make it work? Would it grant his demand to magically transport him to me no matter where I was but devolve him into the darkest, most savage version of himself as the price? “It was because of how he got there, wasn’t it?” I said. “The spell you two worked sent him to me like it was supposed to, but the cost was that it turned him into the lowest common denominator of himself. An insane killing machine. Which he figured was all right, because if I was dying, I’d probably need a killing machine around. A champion to show up and decimate all my enemies. That was it, wasn’t it?” Ry...

me you should kill, it’s yourself. Oh, gee, wait,” I said sarcastically, “that wouldn’t work, would it?” “Did you know that when you were in the Silvers, the Book paid a visit to the abbey?” I winced. “Dani told me. How many of the sidhe-seers were killed?” “Irrelevant. Why do you think it went to the abbey?” Irrelevant, my ass. Being unable to die—I was still having a hard time wrapping my brain around that and was certain I could come up with some creative ways to test it—had given him a Fae share of arrogance and disdain for mortals. “Let me guess,” I said tartly. “This is somehow my fault, too?” Ryodan pressed a button on his desk and spoke into an intercom. “Tell Barrons to leave them where they are. They’re safer there. I’ll bring her to them. We’ve got a problem. A big one.” He released the button. “Yes,” he said to me, “it is. I think that when it couldn’t find you, it went to the abbey, hunting for you, trying to get a lead on you.” “Do the others believe this, too, or is it your personal delusion? Perspective, Ryodan. Get some.” “I’m not the one that needs it.” “Why do you hate me?” “I have no emotion about you at all, Mac. I take care of my own. You are not my own.” H...

19 You put them in a glass room? Can’t you give them a little privacy?” I stared at my parents through the wall. Although comfortably furnished with rugs, a bed, a sofa, a small table, and two chairs, the room was made of the same kind of glass as Ryodan’s office, only in reverse. Mom and Dad couldn’t see out, but everyone else could see in. I glanced to the left. The shower had an enclosure of sorts; the toilet didn’t. “Do they know people can see in?” “I spare their lives and you ask for privacy. This isn’t for you. Or them. It’s insurance for me,” Ryodan said. Barrons joined us. “I told Fade to bring up sheets and duct tape.” “For what?” I was horrified. Were they going to roll my parents up in sheets and duct-tape them? “They can tape sheets to the walls.” “Oh,” I said. “Thanks,” I muttered. I was silent a moment, watching them through the glass. Dad was sitting on the sofa, facing my mom, holding her hands, talking softly. He was robust and handsome as ever, and the extra silver in his hair only made him look more distinguished. Mom had that glazed look she got whenever she couldn’t deal, and I knew he was probably talking about normal, everyday things to ground her in a re...

that promised hope, the other warning of a blight upon the earth. If I genuinely was part of either one, I was determined to fulfill the former. I wanted to know more about the latter so I could avoid it. I wanted the names of the people Daddy had spoken to all those years ago when he’d gone to Ireland to dig into Alina’s medical history when she was sick. I wanted to know exactly what they’d told him. But there was no way I could ask him about any of it in front of Barrons and Ryodan. If they got the smallest whiff of some prophecy in which I supposedly doomed the world, they might just lock me up and throw away the key. “I miss them. They need to know I’m alive.” “They know. I videoed you walking in, and Barrons showed them the clip.” Ryodan paused, then added, “Jack insisted on it.” I glanced sharply at Ryodan. Was that a faint smile on his face? He liked my father. I’d heard it in his voice when he called him Jack. He respected him. I glowed inside. I’m always proud of my daddy, but when somebody like Ryodan likes him … Even though I couldn’t stand the owner of Chester’s, I took it as a compliment. “Too bad you’re not really his daughter. He comes from strong blood.” I gave ...

Court, arguing my side. Barrons didn’t inspire trust. He didn’t even bother trying. When hell freezes over, Barrons. Same bloody page, Ms. Lane. Same bloody— I turned my gaze away in the middle of his sentence, the ocular equivalent of flipping him the bird. Ryodan was watching us, hard. “Butt out,” I warned. “This is between him and me. All you need to do is keep my parents safe and—” “Little hard to do when you’re such a fucking loose cannon.” The door burst open, and Lor and two others stalked in. Tension rolled off them, so thick it seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the room. Fade followed behind them, carrying a pile of sheets and a roll of duct tape. “You’re never going to believe what just walked into the club,” Lor told Ryodan. “Tell me to change. Say the word.” My eyes narrowed. Did Lor need Ryodan’s permission? Or was it a courtes...

“Maybe,” one of the other men said, “we’d make a damned good ride for it, and we don’t like being used.” “Have you taught her nothing of strategy?” Ryodan fired at Barrons. “I haven’t had all that much time,” Barrons said. “A Seelie. A fucking prince,” Lor said. “He’s got a couple hundred more Seelie from a dozen different castes waiting outside. Threatening war. Demanding you shut the place down, stop feeding the Unseelie.” I gasped. “V’lane?” “You told him to come!” Ryodan accused. “She knows him?” Lor exploded. “It’s her other boyfriend,” Ryodan said. “Besides Darroc?” one of the other men demanded. Lor glared at Barrons. “When are you going to wise up and shut this bitch down for good?” The testosterone level was rising to a dangerous high. I suddenly worried they might all transform into beasts. I’d be stuck in the middle of a pack of snarling monsters with talons and fangs and horns, and I didn’t think for one minute Barrons’ brand would protect me from the other five. I wasn’t even sure it would work on him....

20 The only reason it worked was because Fade caught him off guard. Barrons can move so fast that shooting him isn’t the easiest way to kill him. But he didn’t expect Fade to shoot him, and Fade is as fast as Barrons. I don’t know what Barrons and the others are, but until someone tells me otherwise, I’m going to assume they’re all the same. They have heightened senses: smell, vision, and hearing. Barrons has the strength of ten men, and his bones are extremely resilient. I imagine they have to be, so he can transform the way he does. I’ve watched Barrons drop thirty feet and land on his feet, as light as a cat. Fade surprised them all. He managed to gun down Ryodan, too, before the others attacked him and took his gun away. Fade stumbled back against the wall, and I thought how strange it was that he’d lost his weapon but was still hanging on to the sheets. “What the fuck, Fade?” Lor snarled. “Forget your meds again?” Fade looked at me. “Your parents are next,” he purred. “I will destroy everything you love, MacKayla.” I sucked in a horrified breath. Ryodan wasn’t paranoid. He’d been right. The Sinsar Dubh had skimmed me, lifted information about them from my mind, and acted on...

“We’ll take precautions. We’re o...

Someone has to carry it in. No one will enter the upper levels of the club or your parents’ cell with clothes on.” My brows shot up. That was going to be a real shocker for my mom. “I said lose the skirt.” “How could Fade have passed it to me?” “Minuscule possibility. I take no chances.” Sighing, I unzipped and dropped it. My sweater was snug. I had on a black thong. My boots clung to the shape of my legs. No place to hide a book. “Happy?” “Hardly.” As I zipped my skirt back up, I took a last longing glance at my parents and turned away. My gaze hitched as it passed over Barrons’ crumpled body, and I flinched violently. Here I was with Barrons dead. Again. I knew he wasn’t really dead, or at least he wouldn’t be for long, but my grief was too fresh and my emotions too complicated. “How long until he—” I broke off, horrified to hear the catch of a sob in my voice...

Lor thought of me. I hated Barrons being dead. Hated it. Beyond reason. Beyond my understanding. I punched until Lor caught my bloody fists and pulled me away. “How long?” I demanded. “I want to know! Answer me or else!” He grinned faintly. “What, you gonna feed me bloody runes?” I scowled. “Do you guys tell each other everything?” “Not everything. Pri-ya sounded pretty fucking fascinating to me. Never did get all the details.” “How long? Answer me.” I used Voice to force him. “Not sure...

paused with my hand on the doorknob of Barrons Books and Baubles. Barrons had changed the locks on the garage and the back door, so I’d had to park the Viper in the alley and walk around to the front. It had been a difficult night. I was ready for it to end. I wanted covers over my head and deep, dreamless sleep. Mere hours ago I’d been consoling myself that, even though Barrons was furious with me, at least I would be going to sleep tonight with the comforting knowledge that he was alive. Right. Happy Valentine’s Day to me. “I believe human males present flowers.” I was abruptly wreathed in the delicate scent of roses. A bouquet appeared, tucked into my arm. Petals tickled my nose. The ground at my feet was strewn with them. Dewy, lush, they gave off an otherworldly, spicy scent. I leaned my forehead against the diamond-paned cherry door. I could see my demolished shop through it. “Did you come here to accuse me of being a traitor, too?” It would be just like a Fae to shower me with gifts while threatening me. I was through justifying myself. Seeing Barrons’ lifeless eyes again had nearly put me back on the cliff’s edge. I had no idea why I hated seeing him dead so much, when I knew he wasn’t really. Lor had assured me he would be back, although he couldn’t say when. Why couldn’t he say when? Did Barrons’ body have to heal, and certain injuries took longer than others? I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Now I had two visions of Barrons to torture myself

with: gutted and shot. On top of that, I was terrified for my parents. Terrified by how easily the Book had infiltrated those closest to me. First the abbey, then Darroc, Barrons, and now a threat to my parents. I could no longer dispute Ryodan’s conviction that the Book was finding me. Playing with me. But why not just kill me and get it over with? Did it really think I would—as Ryodan said—“flip”? Nothing about the Sinsar Dubh made sense. Sometimes it gave me a splitting, crushing headache and I could sense it coming a mile away. Other times, like tonight, I didn’t have a clue it was in the same room with me. It killed everyone else it came into contact with. But not me. It hurt me, but it always left me alive. Why? I’d demanded Lor remove Mom and Dad from Dublin. He’d refused to even consider it. Said nobody would lift a finger unless Barrons told them to. So much for their demands for my head—apparently Barrons had the final say about everything. I could always persuade V’lane to sift in, get them, and whisk them somewhere safe, except … well, maybe it was the sidhe-seer in my blood, but I just couldn’t trust my parents to a Fae. “I am not a fool, MacKayla. You were playing Darroc. My only question is why.”

know the woman you are, MacKayla. Were you Fae, you would belong to my court.” He studied me with ancient, iridescent eyes. “My army is not as discerning as I. They believe you are his ally. We will persuade them otherwise.” A smile touched the corners of his lips. “If nothing else, your claim that Barrons was dead gave you away. I saw him tonight with you at Chester’s.” He paused. “I am uncertain how you managed to deceive the Unseelie Princes. They were convinced he was dead.” He delivered the statement so blandly that I almost missed the question, and the threat. Lacing his silken words was steel. Beneath his playfulness, V’lane was in a dangerous mood. But why? I knew he’d been at Chester’s. Had something happened after Lor had whisked me out and dumped me at the Viper? Did he know the Sinsar Dubh had also been there? “Just a little trick I learned,” I evaded. “Barrons was never dead? Was he … incapacitated for a time?” V’lane and Barrons hate each other, something to do with Barrons killing V’lane’s princess a long time ago. Instinct deeper than I could fathom made me lie. “You’re kidding, right? Barrons is unkillable.” “I would know how you deceived the Unseelie Princes, MacKayla.” There was the steel again, lacing the silk. It was not a question. It was a command. He moved into the alcove with me, and the intoxicating fragrance of the Fae court, of jasmine and sandalwood, perfumed the delicate spice

the purple petals crushing beneath his boots. Danger stepped in with him. I cocked my head, studying him. I suddenly knew where his anger was coming from. He was on a dangerous edge not because he thought I had managed to deceive the dark princes but because he was worried they’d known all along that Barrons wasn’t dead and had somehow managed to deceive him. V’lane sat on the queen’s High Council. He’d been handpicked by the leader of their race to see through court intrigue to the truth of matters. And he’d failed. His inability to discern truth from lie—from an Unseelie, no less—had shaken him. I understood that. It’s debilitating to realize you can’t trust your own judgment. However, in this case he hadn’t been wrong. Barrons really had been dead, and the Unseelie Princes hadn’t deceived V’lane. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. Not only had Barrons insisted I lie to V’lane, it seemed I was programmed with an unshakable imperative to keep Barrons’ secret. Knowing him, he’d probably tattooed it on me somewhere. Still, I could give V’lane some of the truth. “Remember when you said that I had only begun to discover what I was?” His gaze sharpened and he nodded. He touched my hair. “I am pleased you restored it, MacKayla. It is lovely.” Yeah, well, Barrons hadn’t seemed to think so. “You were right. I’ve recently become aware of a place inside me where I know things that I can’t explain knowing. I find things I don’t understand.” He inclined his head, waiting. “I found ...

Great. I remembered how they’d seemed larger in the bedroom at Darroc’s penthouse. Had I inadvertently loosed another Unseelie evil on the world? “Used with the Song of Making, they can form an impenetrable cage,” he said. “I have never seen them myself, but our histories tell us they were employed on occasion by the first Seelie Queen for punishment and were one of the ingredients used in the walls of the Unseelie prison.” I jerked. “How could I possibly know anything about runes used to build the Unseelie prison walls?” “That is precisely what I would like to know.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. More questions. They were beginning to gnaw at my sanity. “You are weary,” he said softly. “On this night for lovers, where would you sleep, MacKayla? In a silken hammock tied between palm trees, swaying over tropical surf, with a devoted Fae lover to attend your every desire? Would you share a Fae prince’s bower? Or would you climb the stairs in a ruined bookstore to sleep alone ...

been tempered. You display strength and determination, conviction and purpose. But are you wise? Or are you ruled by a heart that foolishly imprinted on the wrong man? Like most humans, are you incapable of change? Change requires an admission of error. Your race devotes itself to justifying its errors, not correcting them.” “My heart hasn’t imprinted on anyone.” “Good. Then it may yet be mine.” He lowered his head and kissed me. I closed my eyes and melted into his body. It was a novel change to have someone believe in me, answer my questions when I asked them, just plain be nice to me, and there was no denying his erotic allure. When his Fae name eased gently into my mouth, teasing, offering, waiting for me to invite it to settle, I breathed into his kiss and he breathed back. Consonants I would never be able to pronounce, with vowels comprised of delicate arias, began to pierce the meat of my tongue, causing my entire body to flush with sensual pleasure. I inhaled the scent of Fae prince and ...

against him. I stood in the alcove of BB&B, kissing him long after his name was mine again. I was still glowing when I climbe...

She polished off the apple and tossed it into a pile. “Looking forward to seeing Barrons, though,” she said enthusiastically. “You? Nah, guess you don’t care. You seen him naked for, what, like—months, din’t’cha?” There were times I seriously wished she’d bar some of those holds. I was suddenly in a basement again, watching Barrons walk naked across the room, telling him he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I changed the subject hastily. “What’s going on at the abbey? I know you left, but what were things like before you did?” Her face darkened. “Bad, Mac. Real bad. Why? You thinking of going back? Gotta tell you, don’t think it’s a good idea.”

glanced at the garage. I looked at the bookstore. I sighed. I missed him. Ironically, now that I’d become obsessed with wondering who and what I was, I was less worried about who and what he was. I was beginning to understand why he’d always insisted I judge him by his actions. What if the sidhe-seers really were Unseelie? Did that make us innately bad? Or did that just mean we—like the rest of the human race—had to choose whether to be good or evil? I got out of the car, locked it, and turned for the bookstore. “Barrons say you can drive his Viper?” Lor said behind me. Hand on the doorknob, I turned, dangling the key ring from my finger. “Possession. Nine-tenths of the law.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “You been around him

too much.”

“Where’s Fade? Did you catch him?” “Book left him dead.” “And just when do you expect him back?” I said sweetly. “Report. What did you learn at the abbey?” “You think I’m reporting to you now?” “Until Barrons gets back and takes control of you again.” “Is that what you think? He takes control of me?” My temper flared. “You’d better hope so, because if he doesn’t, we kill you.” The threat was delivered tonelessly, with utter disinterest. It was chilling. “We don’t exist. That’s the way it always has been. That’s the way it always will be. If people find out about us, we kill them. It’s not persona...

I snorted and turned to enter the store. He was behind me, his hand on my hand on the doorknob, his face in my hair, lips close to my ear. He inhaled. “You don’t smell like other people, Mac. I wonder why. I’m not like Barrons. Ryodan is downright civilized. I don’t suffer Kasteo’s problems, and Fade is still having fun. Death is my morning coffee. I like blood and the sound of bones breaking. It turns me on. Tell me what you learned about the prophecy and, next time, bring me the seer’s book. If you want your parents to remain … intact, you will cooperate only with us. You will lie to everyone else. We own you. Don’t make me give you a lesson. There are things that can break you. You wouldn’t believe the madness certain kinds of pain can induce.” I turned to face him. For a moment he didn’t let me, made ...

are things that can break you, he’d said. I almost laughed. He had no idea the thing that had broken me most completely was my belief that Barrons was dead. One look at Lor’s eyes and I decided I would wait until Barrons was back before pressing any issues with him. “You think Barrons has a weakness for me,” I said. “That’s what worries you.” “It is forbidden.” “He despises me. He thinks I slept with Darroc, remember?” “He cares that you slept with Darroc.” “He cared that I burned his rug, to...

25 Shortly after midnight, I was pacing the alley behind Barrons Books and Baubles, arguing with myself and getting nowhere. Barrons still wasn’t back, which was driving me crazy. I planned to have it out with him the moment he showed up. Knock-down, drag-out, air all the dirty laundry between us. I wanted to know exactly how long I could anticipate him being gone if he got killed again. I was on constant edge, waiting, half afraid he might never come back. I wouldn’t be satisfied that he was really alive until I saw him with my own eyes. Every time I’d closed my eyes tonight, I slipped into my Cold Place dream. It had been waiting to ambush me the moment I’d relaxed. I’d flipped endless hourglasses of black sand; I’d scoured miles and miles of ice, with increasing urgency, for the beautiful woman; I’d repeatedly fled the winged prince we both feared. Why did I keep dreaming the damned dream? Ten minutes ago, when I’d woken from it for the fifth time, I’d been forced to accept that I simply wasn’t going to get any sleep without having it—and that was no sleep at all. The fear and anguish I felt in the dream were so draining that I kept waking up feeling even more exhausted than when I’d closed my eyes. I stopped pacing and stared at the brick wall.

that I knew it was there, I could feel it—the hidden Tabh’r in the brick, the Silver Darroc had carefully camouflaged within the wall catty-corner to the bookstore. All I had to do was press into it, follow the brick tunnel to the room with the ten mirrors, and pass through the fourth one from the left to get back into the White Mansion. I’d have to hurry, because time passed differently inside the Silvers. I would just take a quick look around. See if there was anything I’d missed the first time. “Like maybe a portrait of myself hanging on the wall, arm in arm with the Unseelie King,” I muttered. I closed my eyes. There it was, out in the open. I’d voiced my fear. Now I had to deal with it. It seemed to be the only thing that explained all the loose ends that wouldn’t connect. Nana had called me Alina. Ryodan said Isla had only one child (which Rowena confirmed, unless she was

Then there was my lifelong feeling of bipolarity, of things repressed just beneath the surface. Memories of another life? When I’d been walking around in the White Mansion with Darroc, it had all been so familiar. I’d recognized things. I’d been there before and not just in my dreams. Speaking of dreams—how could my slumbering mind conjure up a fourth prince that I’d never seen? How could I have known Cruce had wings? I could sense the Sinsar Dubh. It kept finding me, liked to play with me. Why? Because in an earlier incarnation—when it had been the Unseelie King, not a book of the banished knowledge—it had loved me? Did I sense it because I’d loved the earlier incarnation of it? I buried my hands in my hair and tugged, as if the pain might clarify my thoughts or perhaps fortify my will. See me, Barrons kept saying. And, more recently, If you can’t face the truth of your reality, you can’t control it. Ryodan had been right: I was a loose cannon, but not for the reason he thought. I didn’t know the truth of my reality. And until I did, I was a wild card, something that could flip. The question keeping me awake at night wasn’t whether or not sidhe-seers were an Unseelie caste. That was small compared to my problem. The question that kept me from sleeping was much more alarming. Impossible as it seemed, was I somehow the Unseelie King’s concubine? Reincarnated and brought back to life in a new body? Fated for her inhuman lover, destined to a tragic cycle of rebirth? And just ...

I looked at him. I’d flipped on the exterior lights outside BB&B, powered by the store’s immense generators, but the light was at his back and he was heavily shadowed. Still, I would have known it was him even if I were blind. I could feel him on the air; I could smell him. He was furious with me. I didn’t care. He was back. He was alive. My heart did a flip-flop. I thrilled to his presence. I would anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. No matter what he was, what he’d done. Even if he was one-ninth of the Unseelie King who’d begun it all. “Something’s seriously wrong with me,” I said, half under my breath. “Just now figuring that out, are you?” I gave him a look. “Good to see you alive again.” “Good to be alive.” “Do you really mean that?” He’d made comments about death in the past, which now made sense to me. Apparently he would never experience it, and at times he’d seemed almost … envious. “Nice tan. You just can’t stay away from the Fae when I’m gone, can you? Did V’lane take you to the beach again? Did you get a sand burn when he fucked you?” “Are you the Unseelie King, Barrons? Is that what you and your eight are? Different facets of you, crammed into human form, while you search Dublin for your missing Book?” “Are you the concubine? The Book certainly seems enamored of you. Can’t stay away. Kills everyone else. Plays with you.” I blinked. He was always way ahead of me, and he didn’t even know about my dream of the winged prince or my déjà vu experience in the...

“Aren’t you full of yourself?” he mocked. “I want you to come somewhere with me,” I said. Did Barrons know full well what he was and would just never admit to it? Was it possible the king could subdivide himself into human parts and forget who he was? Or had he been tricked into human form, his individual facets forced to drink from the cauldron, and now the most feared of the Unseelie walked the earth with no greater clue to what he was than his oblivious concubine? One way or another, I wanted answers. I was sure enough of the truth about myself to run the gauntlet. If I was wrong about him, he didn’t have much to lose, just the equivalent of a few days’ “nap.” And somehow I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I was right about this one. I had to be. He stared at me in silence. “C’mon, Barrons. What’s the worst that can happen? I lead you into some trap and you die for however long it is you go away? Not that I’m going to,” I added hastily. “It’s hardly pleasant, Ms. Lane. It’s also highly inconvenient.” Inconvenient. That’s what dying for me back on the cliff had been. An inconvenience. And I’d been ready to wipe out ...

“Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors. “Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the s...

“You don’t have the right to call me Jericho.” “Why? Because we haven’t been intimate enough? I’ve had sex with you in every possible position, killed you, fed you my blood in the hopes that it would bring you back to life, crammed Unseelie into your stomach, and tried to rearrange your guts. I’d say that’s pretty personal. How much more intimate do we have to get for you to feel comfortable with me calling you Jericho? Jericho.” I expected him to pounce on the sex-in-every-possible-position comment, but he only said, “You fed me your—” I pushed into the mirror, cutting him off. Like the first one, it resisted me, then grabbed me and squirted me out on the other side. His voice preceded his arrival. “You bloody fool, do you never stop to consider ...

“Funny girl, aren’t you, Ms. Lane?” “Sure am. Jericho. It’s Mac. I’m Mac. No more fake formality between us. Get with the program or get the hell out of here.” His dark eyes flared. “Big talk. Ms. Lane. Try to enforce it.” Challenge burned in his gaze. I sauntered toward him. He watched me coldly and I was reminded of the other night, when I’d pretended to be coming on to him, because I was angry. He thought I was doing it again. I wasn’t. Being in the White Mansion with him was doing something strange to me. Unraveling all my inhibitions, as if these walls had no tolerance for lies, or within them there was no need. Then he was staring past me. “I don’t believe it. We’re in the White Mansion. You just casually lead me in here like you’re running errand...

He turned in a slow circle, absorbing the white marble floors, the high arched ceilings, the columns, the sparkling windows opening on a brilliant, frosted winter’s day. “I knew where it was supposed to be, but the White Mansion shows itself only when and to whom it chooses. This is incredible.” He walked to the window and stared out. Then he turned on me. “Have you found the libraries?” “What libraries?” I was having a hard time looking at him, mesmerized by the glittering winter day beyond his shoulder. How many times had I sat in that snowy garden, surrounded by dazzling ice sculptures and frozen fountains, waiting for him? Fire to his chill. Ice to her flame. I loved this wing. As I stared out the window, the concubine was suddenly there, but she was faint around the edges, a little misty, a partia...

I blinked, and the memory was gone. “You sure do know a lot about the king.” I was going to say more, but I suddenly felt as if a rubber band attached to my belly button had contracted, yanking me toward the other end. I’d been too far away, gone too long. Without another word, I turned and ran down the corridor, away from him. Gone was all desire to fight with him. I was being summoned. Every fiber in my being was drawn, the same way it was the last time I was here. “Where are you going? Slow down!” he called behind me. I couldn’t have slowed if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t. I’d come here for a reason, and that reason was where I was being pulled. The black floors of the Unseelie King were calling me. I wanted to be in that boudoir again. I wanted to see him this time, to see the king’s face. Assuming he had one. I passed over rose marble, skidded onto bronze floors, dashed through turquoise corridors, and flew through halls of yellow, until I felt the sultry warmth of the crimson wings. I could feel Barrons behind me. He could have caught me if he’d wanted to. He was fast like Dani, like all his men. But he let me run, and he followed. Why? Because he suspected the same things I did? Because he wanted it out in the open? My heart was pounding with fear and anticipation to have it finally over, to know what I was, what he was. Barrons was suddenly beside me. I glanced over at him, and he gave me a look that was equal parts fury and lust. He was really going to have to get ...

“You haven’t fucked me since you were Pri-ya. There’s an action for you. Says pretty much all there is to say.” It burned him. Good. It was burning me, too. “This is some kind of pissing contest? Darroc got laid but you didn’t? That’s the only reason you’re mad?” What did he think it said? That I would touch him only if I was sex-starved? Or if the alternative was dying a mindless animal? “You couldn’t begin to understand.” “Try me.” If he’d ever just admit to one little feeling about me, I might admit to one about him. “Don’t push me, Ms. Lane. This place is getting to me. You want the beast on your hands?” I glanced at him. His eyes were sparking crimson and he was breathing hard, but not from exertion. I knew him. He could run for hours. “You want me, Jericho. Admit it. A lot more than once or twice. I’m under your skin. You think about me all the time. I keep you awake at night. Go ahead, say it.” “Fuck you, Ms. Lane.”

“Is that your way of saying it?” “That’s my way of saying grow up, little girl.” I skidded to a halt, slipping and sliding on the black marble floor. The instant I stopped running, he did, too, as if we were bound by the same tether. “If I’m a little girl, then that makes you a serious pervert.” The things we did together … I shot him a graphic reminder with my eyes. Oh, so you’re finally ready to talk about them, his dark gaze mocked. Maybe I don’t want to now. Too bad. You were always slapping me in the face with reminders. Turnabout’s fair play. But it sure wasn’t a little girl back in that bed, Jericho. It’s not a little girl you’re messing with now. I poked him in the chest with my finger. “You died in front of my eyes and let me believe it was real, you bastard!” I felt like I was being torn in half—pulled toward the boudoir by destiny, rooted in place by the need to air my grievances. He knocked my finger away. “Do you think it was fun for me?” “I hated watching you die!” “I hated doing it. It hurts every damned time.” “I grieved!” I shouted. “I felt guilty—” “Guilt isn’t grief,” he snapped. “And lost—” “Get a fucking road map. Lost isn’t grie...

tell me you grieved me when you were really just pissed off about the mess you’d gotten yourself into. I died and you felt sorry for yourself. Nothing more.” His gaze flickered to my lips. I got that. He was once again furious with me and once again perfectly ready to have sex with me. The conundrum that was Barrons. Apparently it was impossible for him to feel anything as far as I was concerned without getting angry about it. Did anger make him want to have sex with me? Or was it that he always wanted to have sex with me that made him so angry? “I was grieving more than that. You don’t know the first thing about me!” “And you should have felt guilty.” “So shoul...

And don’t tell me to live. That’s exactly what I was doing that you’re so pi...

“With the enemy!” “Do you care how I went on, as long as I did? Isn’t that the lesson you’ve been trying to teach me? That adaptability is survivability? Don’t you think it would have been easier for me to lay down and quit once I thought you were dead? But I didn’t. You know why? Because some overbearing prick taught me that it was how you go on that matters.” “The word that was supposed to be emphasized there was how. As in honorably.” “What place does honor have in the face of death? And, please, did you honorably kill that woman you carried out of the Silver in your study?” “You couldn’t possibly understand that, either.” “That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? I couldn’t possibly understand, so you’re not going to bother telling me. You know what I...