Dreamfever (Fever #4)

by Karen Marie Moning

He was fighting me. Resisting. He’d shoved me out of the princess’s body, sent me tumbling, end over end, from his memory at the Fae court. I was on the fringes of his mind, reeling from the unexpected ejection. I gathered myself, forged myself into a missile of sheer will, and fired back at the blockade he’d erected. I’M NOT DONE YET! I ricocheted off a smooth black wall and knew instantly it was impenetrable. He was stronger than me. I couldn’t get through it. I would end up ramming myself to death on it if I tried. But I wasn’t about to admit defeat. I harnessed the velocity of that ricochet like a boomerang, made a last-minute course adjustment, and veered sideways. Whatever w...

Barrons slammed a wall up in front of me. But not fast enough. I blasted through it. I was Barrons and she was on the ground and I was laughing— He slammed up another wall but didn’t get it reinforced fast enough. I toppled it. The bitch was dead. He slammed one more wall up. Too little, too late. I shattered it right out of existence. Every Fae in the queen’s court was screaming, fleeing for their lives, because the unth...

I was choking, sputtering, trying desperately to breathe, and I realized with horror that it wasn’t the Barrons/Mac persona that was choking. It was my body. I pulled back, yanked back, stumbled back, ripped myself from Barron’s mind. It wasn’t easy to untangle us. His hand was on my throat. Mine was on his. “What the fuck?” V’lane exploded. It was the most human sentence I’d ever heard him utter. He’d been watching us but had no idea what had happened. Our battle had been a private one. Barrons and I stared a...

“You really can kill V’lane!” I exclaimed. “That’s why he won’t let you near him. You can kill him. How?” Barrons said nothing. I’d never seen him so still, so silent. I whirled on V’lane. “How?” I demanded. I was shaking. Barrons could kill Fae. It was no wonder the Shades left him alone. “Did he have the spear or the sword?” But I knew in my bones that it had been neither of those weapons. The wall he’d thrown up had shielded the answer. Whatever weapon he’d used, it was not one I knew. V’lane said nothing. “What does he have on you?” I cried, exasperated. “Decide, Ms. Lane,” Barrons said, behind me. “Choose,” ...

“So it can fail me again when I need it?” “It failed only during that brief time when all magic was down. Such a moment is impossible to sustain. Darroc will not attempt it again. He does not need to. He achieved his end.” “I’ll think about it,” I said. And I would. All weapons. Good. Something clattered to the floor at my feet. It was a cell phone. I didn’t turn. “What’s that for? Duh, no towers, remember?” I mocked. “It works,” said Barrons. He paused heavily, the better to emphasize his coup de grâce. “It always did.” My breathing stopped. What he was saying was not possible. I spun, searched his eyes. “The power was down! My call to Dani was disconnected. I never got service back!” I...

I leaned into him and inhaled. I couldn’t help myself. He whispered, “O ye of little faith. Not for IYD.” It was the number he’d programmed into my cell, which stood for If You’re Dying. “But you didn’t ...

thumbed through the three numbers that had been preprogrammed into the phone when he’d given it to me. I pressed the first one—Barrons’ cell number. I knew it wouldn’t ring. It rang, startling me. I disconnected quickly. Mine rang. I flipped it open, snarled at Barrons, “Just testing,” and immediately disconnected. How in the world were these cell phones working? Was service back up in certain areas? I changed my settings to private and dialed my parents’ number so they wouldn’t know it was me, reserving the right to hang up if they answered and I couldn’t bring myself to speak. It didn’t go through. I tried The Brickyard, where I’d bartended back home. No connection. I tried a dozen other numbers, with no success. Apparently Barrons had some kind of special service. I thumbed up IYCGM and pressed it. “Mac,” a male voice growled. “Just testing,” I said, and hung up. I scrolled to IYD. My phone rang. It was IYCGM. I answered it. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Ryodan said.

“Wouldn’t what?” “Test the third one.” I didn’t bother asking how he knew. Like Barrons, he was on top of my every thought. “Why not?” “There’s a reason it’s called If You’re Dying.” “What’s that?” “So you use it only if you’re dying,” he said dryly. Also, like Barrons, I could go around in circles with him forever. “I’m going to call it, Ryodan.” “You’re better than that, Mac.” “Better than what?” I said coolly. “Lashing out because you hurt. He’s not the one who hurt you. He’s the one who brought you back.” “Do you know what his idea of bringing me back was?” I snapped. There was a smile in Ryodan’s voice. “I volunteered for the job. He didn’t seem at all touched by my offer.” The smiled faded. “Don’t lose yourself in anger, Mac. It’s gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you—only your body doesn’t have the good grace to quit breathing.” Deep inside, his words resonated. I was straddling a fine line and I knew it. But there was a part of me that wanted to go over the edge. Wanted to

scorch the battlefield. Just to watch the dam...

“Stay focused, Mac. Keep your eyes on the prize.” “What the bloody hell is the prize?” “We work together. Take back our world. We all win.” “What are you, Ryodan?” He laughed. “What are the nine of you?” I pressed. He said nothing. “I’m going to call it,” I threatened. “‘Bye now.” I didn’t hang up. He stopped laughing. “I’ll kill you myself, Mac.” “No, you won’t.” “Woman,” he said, and his voice was suddenly so hard and cold and ancient-sounding that the fine hair at the nape of my neck lifted and prickled all the way down my spine, “you don’t know the first thing about me. The Mac that would call IYD when she’s not dying isn’t the Mac I’ll protect. Choose carefully. Choose wrong, and it will be the last choice you ever make.” “Don’t you threaten—” I held the phone away from my ...

the air and looked crestfallen. “Dude, they were both here? Why’n’t’cha call me?” If Ro and half the abbey were at the bus, “trubs” were troubles. I was exhausted. I was wired. I was as ready as I was going to be. I stood and shoved my cell phone into my pocket. “You have super hearing. Why didn’t you hear them?” “S’not that good.” My eyes narrowed. “You really can smell that they were here?” What I’d give for her supersenses. She nodded. “I’m gonna give one of ‘em my virginity one day.” She preened.

“Those aren’t just people fecking, Dani. Those are hard-core.” “So?” she sneered over her shoulder. “What were you a few days ago?” “It wasn’t like that.” “So you gonna tell me what it was like? Being Pri-ya was all poetry and roses?” There had been moments that had felt startlingly like that. Not with the Unseelie Princes. But later with Barrons. I crammed that thought into the padlocked box in my head where I keep all

He looked behind me. “They’re here, and … well, you’ll figure it out.” Big hands bit down on my shoulders. There were two men behind me. I could feel them. Big, electric, powerful men. “Pull that thing out,” a man growled, “we’ll take it from you and never give it back. First rule of house: This is neutral ground. Second rule of house: Break a rule, you die.” “Get your hands off me,” I gritted. “We have the kid. You want to see her again, get up.” My eyes narrowed. How had they gotten Dani? “There’s no way you—” “We’re faster.”

“Like Barrons?” There was no answer. Well, I’d found my eight, or at least two of them. And they had Dani. Sighing,

I glanced from one of my escorts to the other. They hadn’t spoken a word since they’d closed their hands around my upper arms and begun steering me through the crowd. Nor had I. I could feel what they were made of: leashed violence. Both looked to be in their early thirties, heavily muscled. The man on my left had hands that were badly scarred. They were massive men. There was something about their eyes that made me decide keeping my mouth shut until I had a better understanding of my situation was the wisest course of action.

“Brought her like you said, Ry.”

They pushed me inside. The panel slid closed behind me with a soft hiss.

desk, a few chairs, a table, and a man standing

across the room, his back to me. Everything beneath the room, however, was clearly visible. It made each step feel like a leap of faith. “Glass houses, huh, Ryodan?” The first time I’d ever called IYCGM on my cell phone, Ryodan had berated me, told me people who lived in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, implying my goals were no loftier than Barrons’. Now here he stood, surveying his world from inside one. Did he consider his own goals so pristine? I narrowed my eyes.

It’s all train wrecks down there, Mac. Only one thing holds my interest now. Potential. Barrons thinks you have it.”

His tone made it plain. “But you don’t,” I said flatly. “You worry me.” “You worry me, too.” I took a few more steps into the room. I wanted a better look at him.

Like Barrons and my escorts, Ryodan was tall, well built. I wondered if it was a requirement to be whatever they were: no wimps allowed. He wore dark pants and a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up on thickly muscled forearms. A silver cuff, identical to Barrons’, glinted at his wrist. “Everyone seems to think you’re the solution, don’t they?” he said. I shrugged. “Not everybody.” Rowena didn’t. “Has it occurred to you that you might be the problem?” “What do you mean?” “Why do you think you keep having so many brushes with the Book, when everyone else who’s searching for it never gets a glimpse of it? Even Darroc, your illustrious master, can’t get close to it. Word is it’s been taking its own—Unseelie—chewing them up and spitting them out. But nobody who really wants it can find it. Except you.” “I’m an OOP detector,” I reminded him. “I’m the only one who ca...

“How should I know? Death. Destruction. Chaos. Same as the rest of the Unseelie.” “What would you want if you were a book?” “I’m different, and that’s easy. I’d want to not be a book.” “Maybe you’re not so different. Maybe it wants also to not be a book.” “It has other forms. It’s the Beast, too.” “Has the Beast ever harmed anyone? Don’t you think it would if it could? Isn’t that its nature?” I studied his back, pondered his words. “You’re saying the Beast is only glamour. That like any Fae, it creates illusion.” “What if its only true form is a...

“Barrons said it called you by name.”

I’d never told him that. He must have heard it speak to me that night. I’d thought it spoke only in my head. “So? I don’t know how it knew my name.” He liked the “maybe” game. I could play it, too. “Maybe it knows everybody’s. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but the Book repels me. I can barely

close to it. I’m too good and it’s too evil.” “Really.” He could not have said it more dryly. “What do you mean, ‘really’?” I said defensively. “Good and evil are merely opposite sides of a coin, Mac. Get tossed in the air enough, it’s easy to come down on the wrong side. Maybe the Book knows something about you that makes you different. Makes it want you...

out. “Like what? And if that was the case, then why wouldn’t it have taken me already? It’s had plenty of chances.” “Darroc bided his time, waiting for the perfect moment. Maybe you’re not primed to flip yet. Eternal life breeds eternal patience. If you lived long enough, you might feel that if today amuses, today is good. All sense of right or wrong, all morality, all value, might cease to exist.”

“So you think the Book is amusing itself, waiting for the right moment to pounce? Wake up. There’s never going to be a right moment for it to pounce on me.” “Arrogance, like anger, is often a fatal flaw.” “Darroc lost me. He didn’t get what he wanted. I’m still standing. And I’m still fighting. And I will never flip sides,” I said coldly. “You’re still standing because of that one, Mac.” He nodded at the room he was staring into. “Don’t forget it. Never seen anything like her, and I’ve seen a lot.” I moved to stand beside him, peered into the room. Up close, I could discern shapes. Dani was in the middle of four men, spinning ceaselessly, sword up, snarling.

“You hurt her, I’ll kill you,” I told him. No matter that he was a foot taller than me and twice my mass. “She said the same about you.” Suddenly Dani went into hyperspeed, then they all disappeared, and then there was Dani again, surrounded by four men. “She hasn’t stopped trying to get out since I put her in there. I wonder how long she could survive.” Not very long without food, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I looked up at him. He turned his face to mine, looked down. Handsome, chilling man. His eyes were the clearest I’d ever seen. This was a man that suffered no conflicts with himself. He had no problems being what he was. We stared at each other. “Black looks good on you,” he murmured. “Has Barrons seen you like this?” “Eternal patience,” I murmured back. His tie was loosened, and in the open collar of his white shirt his neck was a skein of scars, with a long, wicked-looking one stretching up the left side from shoulder to ear. I didn’t need a nurse to tell me he’d healed from a wound, long ago, that would have killed most men. How long ago? “Does today amuse, Ryodan?”

His

lips curved. He looked back at Dani and, after a moment, nodded. “It does. More than it has in recent … years.” “She’s thirteen.” “Time will remedy that.” “You worry me, Ryodan.” “Back at you. Bit of advice, Mac. Life’s an ocean, full of waves. All are dangerous. All can drown you. Under the right circumstances, even the gentlest swell can turn tidal. Hopping waves is for the weekend warrior. Choose one, ride it out. It increases your odds of survival.” He watched Dani for a moment, then said, “There are rules in my house.” “Your buddies already told me the first two. Neutral ground. Break a rule you die.” “No killing Fae inside my club. In my walls means under my protection.” “I just watched one of your protected Fae kill a human.” “If they’re stupid enough to be here, they’re stupid enough to die.” “Does that mean I can kill humans, too?” I said sweetly. There were two in particular who ...

Accompanying him was Fiona, the woman who used to run Barrons Books and Baubles, until she’d tried to kill me; then Barrons had fired her. Now I just needed the LM himself and a few Unseelie Princes to have all my enemies in the same place. “Special rules for you, Mac. You don’t get to kill anything in my club, Fae or human. Your fight is outside these walls. And if Barrons’ belief in you is unfounded, there won’t be anyplace you can hide. Every last one of us will come after you.” I didn’t dignify his threat with a response. He knocked on the glass and made a gesture with his left hand. Three of the men disappeared. Dani blinked out. Then suddenly there she was again, and one of his ...

Last night I’d realized I wasn’t the only one with trust issues. None of the players on Dublin’s board trusted anyone else. I’d made the mistake of assuming—since Barrons had chosen Ryodan to be my backup support—that when I went to see him he would be, well, supportive. Not only wasn’t he, he’d impugned my motives at the deepest level, questioning my fundamental character. He’d made it out like the Book might be after me, drawn by something kindred. I was about as far from evil as the North Pole was from the South. “Throwing stones, my ass,” I muttered. There he’d stood in his glass house, letting Unseelie prey on humans, and he accused me of having moral issues.

“Why didn’t Barrons just take the pages from you?” “We pursued a common agenda for a time. He doesn’t kill anyone he thinks might prove useful in the future.” Mercenary to the core. Sounded

like the man I knew. “What is he?”

that hunted me down for what I did to you. Doesn’t that tell you enough, MacKayla? You are a tool to him. His tool works again. He is satisfied.” “How did pages get torn

moved to the counter. A note was propped on the register. Welcome home, Ms. Lane. “Arrogant, overconfident jackass.” Keys lay on the counter beside it. I wondered what car he’d left me this time. I was reaching for the keys when, out of the blue, emotions bombarded me, intense and confusing. They were accompanied by a barrage of memories: the day I’d stumbled into this place, my anxiety at being lost, meeting Barrons for the first time, my

naïve conviction that he was exactly the kind of man I would never date. “And we haven’t dated.” I crushed the note in my fist. Just had completely uninhibited raw sex. Months of it.

the night I’d given Barrons a birthday cake, then eaten it alone, after it had splatted from the ceiling. I inhaled his scent. He was near, a few feet away. Lust nearly buckled my knees. He was a tireless lover. There was nothing off-limits with him.

“Ms. Lane.” I fisted my hands in my pockets and opened my eyes. He stood across the counter, eyes dark, features impassive. “Barrons.” “It’s a Hummer.” “Alpha?” I said hopefully.

His obsidian gaze mocked. Would I waste my time wi...

“You need me,” he said flatly. “I thought you’d have figured that out by now.” I had. I kept getting knocked down. And I kept getting back up again, a little stronger each time. But I still wasn’t strong enough. One day I would be. Until then, Barrons was the only one that scared all my enemies away. If IYD really would have worked on Halloween, he definitely guaranteed me the highest odds of survival. I was done hopping from swell to swell, trying to avoid the tidals. Right or wrong, good or bad, I’d chosen: Barrons was my wave. But there was no way I was living alone with him. I needed a buffer, and my buffer needed a place to live, too.

He might be my wave, but he wasn’t my surfboard. Knowledge and usefulness were all that stood between me and the riptide.

He studied me for a moment, then nodded tightly. “Forty-eight hours. Keep the kid under control and out of my way. And there are new rules. One: Stay away from Chester’s. That means a ten-block radius. Two: You share all pertinent information with me without my having to ask. Three: Keep the kid away from my garage. Four: If you try to force yourself into my head, I will force myself into your pants.” “Oh! That’s total bullshit!” “Tit for tat.” His gaze dropped to my breasts, and I had a sudden, much-too-detailed memory of yanking my shirt up while he’d watched them pop out, jiggling. “Or would that be tit for tit?” “There’s no need to be rude.” “I can think of endless needs to be rude.” “Keep them to yourself.” “Such a different tune you whistle now.” “You sound angry, Barrons. Frustrated. What’s wrong? You get a little addicted to me?”

His lips drew back, baring his teeth. I’d felt them on my nipples. I could almost feel them there now. “We fucked, Ms. Lane. Even cockroaches fuck. They eat each other, too.” “Same page, Barrons.” “Same bloody word,” he agreed. Oh, yes, here we were, working together agai...

“I really get to live at Barrons’? With, ...

“No,” I said dryly, “with, like, the LM and his minions.” “I’m living with Barrons! Holy fecking shit! Way cool!”

bet Barrons is there,” I dangled.

“Take your time, Mac. Me and Barrons, we got stuff to talk about.”

felt fantastic. I loved this sleeker, stronger me. The floodlights on the top of BB&B flashed on. The street was suddenly blindingly bright. I had no doubt Barrons was about to step outside.