Moning Maniacs discussion
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Countdown to Burned Release
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Samantha
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Jan 05, 2015 05:25AM

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Somebody mentioned once that maybe the 9 (10) were the queens bodyguards. So maybe there is some truth in that? The first queens bodyguards.

It could be the queen. It could also be that Unseelie Princess that Lor was being dominated by. She seemed wise enough to know the past of the nine.

Kasteo, Barrons, Fade, Ryodan, Lor, Daku.
She nearly smiles at the last name. He was once a gladiator for the sheer love of the game and, in another century and land, an epic samurai. She anticipates their battle second-most.
I think this is from the POV of the one that cursed The Nine (ten?). And I think Daku is going to be the 10th that was teased last week. I take this quote as someone looking at these "men" with a sense of pride.


I like your questions Kristen! Here are my theories/understanding of the King/Concubine:
Using glamour from the amulets, Cruce made everyone believe that the concubine was a Fae Princess. Over time she did become a true fae and as Cruce/V'lane killed the other powerful Seelie females, the concubine eventually became the most powerful living female seelie and therefore became the queen. I feel sure that V'lane/Cruce was there anytime anyone drank from the cauldron so he could make them believe that the concubine was truly fae royalty and always had been. Since he never drank from the cauldron, he was the only one left that knew the truth after a period of time. This was his plan all along. He wanted the concubine to become the queen before he began killing the other princesses. He then hid her in the unseelie prison so she would become weaker and weaker until he could get the book and merge with it. He would then kill the queen/concubine and the queen's magic would flow into him because he was the most powerful fae left. He also wanted to hurt the king and show that he is more powerful than the king.
Because the king believed his concubine had killed herself and allowed his grief to overtake him, he had no idea what Cruce had really done. When the king sees his concubine at the end of Shadowfever and realized what she has become, he is ecstatic. But we know the concubine has no memory of her time with of love for the king. In the teasers we have seen about them, the concubine/queen no longer feels affection toward the king, but (I think) he believes he can win her affections again. Much like Barrons brought Mac back from being Pri-Ya, the king thinks he can bring the woman he loved back as well. She may have become the queen of the fae, but somewhere in there is the woman he loved for time untold. The first queen may have been stasis whereas the king is change, but the concubine/queen isn't the same as the original queen. The concubine wasn't fae originally, she changed, so she is capable of change where the original queen was not. I don't think the King will grow tired of the concubine/queen like he did the first, original, queen.
Sorry for the long post!


It could be the queen. It could also be that Unseelie Princess that Lor was being dominated by. She see..."
Yeah. when I read the teaser I got the impression that the speaker was the unseelie princess back to get her revenge first on Lor, then on Daku. She talks of their past like she has been around that long too.
Or... it could be the tenth that was cursed. She is a woman and she has been separated from the rest and now wants to pay them back?
KimeyDian, great way to explain that whole thing! I doubt the seelie queen/concubine will jump into the UK's arms easily no matter how much persuasion is used. It will be so interesting to see the power play between R'Jan, SQ & UQ, Cruce, and the mortals.


You have no idea what I’m dealing with.”
Ah, such as a beast within? he mocks.
“Your beast is different.” I continue talking aloud, refusing to accept the intimacy of a wordless conversation. We’ve had this argument. We’ll continue having it until the day the king frees me. Neither of us will capitulate. I’m not sure either of us can even spell that word.
Perhaps not so very.
“Yes, but mine is more powerful,” I say irritably. Powerful enough to fool even me—someone intimately acquainted with its seductive, evil ways.
His dark eyes glitter with challenge. Care to test that, woman?
The look he gives me sends shivers down my spine and I feel it slip it into a gentler curve that achieves down-and-dirty doggie-style with sure, supple grace. There is no battlefield I prefer to the one I’ve found in this man’s bed. We fight. It’s what we do. I feel so much more intensely alive around him than I’ve ever felt with anyone else.
I’m obsessed and addicted and ripped-down-raw in love with Jericho Barrons.
Of course, I don’t tell him that. Barrons isn’t a pillow talk man. Sleeping with him, acknowledging our feelings for each other, has changed everything.
And nothing.
In bed, we’re one couple.
Out of bed, we’re another.
In bed, I steal moments of tenderness when sex has finally exhausted me to the point where I’m too bone weary to fret anymore about the enormous capacity for evil that’s taken up squatter’s rights inside me. I touch him, put all those things I don’t say into my hands as I trace the red and black tattoos on his skin, the sharp planes and hollows of his face, bury my hands in his dark hair. He watches me in silence when I do, eyes dark, unfathomable.
I sometimes wake up to find he’s pulled me close to him and is holding me, spooned into my back with his face in my hair, and those hands that don’t speak like mine don’t speak move over my skin and tell me I’m cherished, honored, seen.
Out of bed we’re islands.
Ms. Lane and Barrons.
The first time he retreated into distance, it hurt. I felt rejected.
Until I realized I’d done it, too. It wasn’t just him. Our boundaries seem sewn to our clothes; we can no more put one on without the other, than take them off separately.
I sometimes wonder if our passion is so obsessive and enormous that we need distance between the bonfires. I’m a moth to his flame and it frightens me how willingly I’d burn my wings off for him. Destroy the world. Follow him to hell. It’s scary to feel like you can’t breathe without someone. That a man has so much power over you because you love him as much, if not more, than you care for yourself.
So I fly away for a while—maybe just to know I can—and he vanishes to do whatever Barrons does for whatever reasons he does it.
I always come back. He does, too. Actions speak.
I shift restlessly and change the subject. “You invite my enemy here. That’s bullshit.”
A Day in the Life: You search manuscripts for a spell that may not exist. You paint your nails. You clip your nails. Ah, let us not forget you examine your nails.
I scowl. “I do more than that. And leave my nails out of this.”
You don’t visit your parents. You don’t go to the abbey. You’re barely eating and your clothes—
I cut him off by pretending to examine my nails again. This week they alternate black diamond, white ice, black diamond, white ice. The color scheme comforts me, as nothing else in my life is so tidily delineated. I’m acutely aware of the sorry state of my recent outfits and have no desire to hear what he thinks of them. It’s difficult to care when you’re always covered with yellow dust. He’s silent so long I finally glance warily up to find him regarding me with an expression women have been on the receiving end of since time immemorial, as if I’m a species he simply can’t fathom.
Do you think I can’t protect you should you persist with your idiotic passivity?
Idiotic passivity, my ass. As today proved, activity is far more idiotic, and deadly. Is that why he arranged this meeting? To force me to be involved? “Of course not.” I change the subject.
It’s time. He says his next words aloud and there’s a gentleness to them that undoes me. “You’re not living anymore, Rainbow Girl.”
I melt when he calls me that. There’s something in the way he says those two words that makes it seem he’s said a thousand and they all make me glow. It says he sees the pretty-in-pink-Mac I was when I first arrived, the black, kickass Mac I’ve become (unless covered with Unseelie fleas) plus every incarnation in-between and he wants them all.
I know I’m not living anymore. No one could be more excruciatingly aware of that fact. It’s driving me bugfuck. Passivity isn’t my nature and I’m choking on it, drowning in it; my balls held firmly hostage by a Book.
I stare up at him and tell him the words I can’t bring myself to say out loud.
I killed the Gray Woman today.
A corner of his sexy mouth lifts. “Banner fucking day. About time.”
I also killed one of the Guardians.
“Ah, he got in the way.”
I have no idea what happened. I blacked out.
A human would be shocked, horrified, demand to know what happened. Barrons’ gaze doesn’t change and he asks no questions. He tallies debits and credits. “You took two lives and saved thousands.”
Bottom line it all you want, the end doesn’t justify the means, I say silently, pissed that he elevated the conversation I don’t want to be having to a verbal level.
“Debatable.”
I lost control of myself. It took me over and made me kill. Said I’m the car and it’s the driver. The unspoken words hang like knives in the air anyway, cutting me.
“We train harder.”
I hate mys—
“Never say that.”
“I didn’t,” I mutter. Not technically.
“You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Someone told you life was easy. You believed them,” he mocks.
“I just don’t see why they all have to come here. Why not hold this little powwow at Chester’s?” I change the subject swiftly.
Like a verbal dancer, he follows my lead and I know why: as far as he’s concerned the discussion is over anyway. He has the blood of countless victims on his hands, while I’m having a hard time dealing with one. To him, this day is no different than any other: I’m possessed by a malevolent demon and I sinned. Tomorrow I’ll try again. I might sin again. I might not. But tomorrow always comes. For me and the demon. Despite my screw-up, my action will ultimately save countless lives. Barrons has the thousand-yard-stare and conscience of an immortal. I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be there. I ended a life before its time today. A family man. A good man. I must find a way to atone.
“I have wards in my bookstore that neutralize the princes’ power while within my walls,” he reminds me.
“You’re inviting my rapists into my home,” I toss the dual reminder that he wasn’t there to save me the night the Unseelie princes captured me in the church, and that it’s my bookstore without inflection, still it detonates in the room.
Abruptly the air is so charged with savagery that I feel squished into a corner on the Chesterfield. Barrons saturates space when he’s in a good mood—not that I would ever really call any mood Barrons exhibits ‘good’—but when he’s furious, it’s hard to breathe. He throws off energy, crams the air with intensity and mass, forcing everything else to retract into itself.
“Or have you forgotten that little fact?” I want them dead. I think he should want them dead. I fondle the spear in my thigh sheath lovingly. “We could kill them together.” I snatch my hand away hastily and busy myself plucking imaginary lint from my black Disturbed concert tee-shirt which I’m wearing not because I’ve been enjoying their music so much but because it’s how I feel. The images the Sinsar Dubh threw at me the second I touched my spear were graphically detailed and from this afternoon.
“You will not kill them when they come here. Nor will I.” The three words are guttural, accompanied by a thick rattle in his chest. It’s the sound of his beast trying to claw its way out of his skin. I can barely understand his last word. “Yet.”
“Why?”
His chest expands so enormously it threatens to pop buttons on his shirt. He says nothing for a moment, face impassive, his body frozen on an inhalation. Finally his ribs relax and he exhales carefully. I admire his self-control. I want it for my own. I may be more sparing with mention of my gang rape in the future. Although I enjoy baiting this bear, I don’t enjoy his pain. Just his fire.
When he speaks again, his words are precisely enunciated. “They are a known quantity, capable of controlling the masses. I’ve watched countless civilizations rise and fall. I’ve isolated seven components necessary to achieve the future I seek. Destroy the princes at this particular moment and it won’t happen. They are currently linchpins. They will not always be.”
The future he seeks? I want to know what Jericho Barrons plans, to be privy to his goals. I don’t ask. He shares when he’s ready and his reply was already generous for him.
And fascinating. I know what linchpins are.
When I was child, Daddy used to ride me around on his lap when he cut grass. I loved those hot Georgia days, drenched with the smell of a fresh mowed lawn, magnolia blossoms bobbing heavy in the humid, sticky air, a glass jar of sweet tea steeping on the front porch, near two ice-filled glasses topped with a sprig of mint from the garden.
One day I ‘helped’ Daddy change the tire on the lawn mower and he taught me about linchpins. I think I fell in love with all things with wheels that day, sprung of a golden summer hour with the man who can always make me feel like both princess and warrior.
A linchpin is a fastener that keeps the wheel from falling off the axle. It’s inserted crosswise directly through the axle’s end where it stays securely in place until manually removed. The end of the pin usually has a loop of metal so it’s easy to pull out.
In a broader sense, a linchpin is a key component that holds the elements of a complicated structure together. Some theorize if you can isolate the linchpin of a social, economic or political assemblage, you can destroy it in one fell swoop with a minute nudge or adjustment. Conversely, if you identify linchpins and protect them until you’ve achieved your desire result, you can shape the outcome. It doesn’t surprise me Barrons lives and breathes The Art of War. “I can kill them when they’re not?” I want to be perfectly clear about this.
“The instant they’re not, I will.”
We’ll fight about who does the honors later. I’ll just have to make sure there are no humans in the vicinity when it happens.
“You could let Ryodan host this summit. At Chester’s.”
“And have your ghoulish army in attendance?”
“You could ward the club against them.”
He snorts. “Now I’m your personal warder. You have no idea how complicated such magic is.”
Actually, I have a fairly good idea. He hasn’t died in a while and his chest is covered, both arms are fully sleeved and half his back is tattooed with black and crimson protection spells. The magic in which he dabbles is dangerous. Speaking of magic, “Barrons, it’s been three weeks since Dani disappeared. Isn’t there some kind of spell you can do?”
“Ward this. Spell that. How did you navigate life before you met me?”
I shrug. “It’s kind of like realizing you married Bewitched. Except not in the married sense,” I add hastily. “But you know what I mean. Why break your back vacuuming when a saucy twitch of the nose can clean the whole house?”
“My nose has never twitched, saucily or otherwise. And that was an utterly absurd premise. The only price for using magic was compounded human stupidity. Humans consistently engender chaos without violating alchemical principles.”

“I did not.”
“Yes, you—”
“Did not.”
“You just said—”
“Inescapable pop culture.”
“Oh, you so watched it.” I imagine this big, barbaric man stretched out on a tangle of silk sheets, naked, one arm behind his head, watching the comic antics of Darrin and Samantha Stephens on a large flat screen TV. The idea tickles me, turns me on somehow. It’s so anachronistic, it makes me want to hunt down old DVDs, stretch out beside him and lose myself in a simple show from a simpler time when the only price for magic was compounded human stupidity. Laugh together, do something mindless and fun. Then of course do something else mind-blowing. I’d love a few long rainy carefree days in bed with this man.
“Repetition of an erroneous assertion fails to alter reality. And you know we can’t track her in Faery. That’s why she went.”
Great, now I’m hearing the theme song from Bewitched in my head. It’s always a hard one to get out. “When she gets back, I want somebody tattooing her. The instant she gets back.”
“Bloody hell, after all the grief you gave me. Have you forgotten our tattoos haven’t worked right since the walls fell? Give it time. We’ll find her. At the moment, the most pressing matter on our agenda is this meeting.”
The meeting. I shift restlessly and my amusement vanishes just like that. “Are you sure we can’t move it somewhere else?”
“It happens here. You will attend.”
He asks little of me and gives much in return. I can’t imagine the world without him and don’t want to. Once, I almost destroyed it because I believed him gone forever.
“Aye, aye, master,” I mutter crossly.
He smiles faintly. “You’re learning, Ms. Lane, you’re learning.”


So who created and Damned the nine? There was speculation they were cursed for all the horrible things they had done, was it some other powerful being besides the fae? The fae consider themselves gods sure, but could there be actual gods like Artemis and the rest, from a different world that cursed the men?
I wonder if there is something in the UK's library on the nine, though Ryodan warned Mac they'd kill her if she found anything else about them, and she promised to stop asking questions because she no longer wanted to know. That was Bull though because when she gets back together (starts sleeping with Barrons again), she asks him LOTS and LOTS of questions. Why are the nine still hiding anyway? I mean billions dead the worlds falling down around them, almost constant war with someone(thing) or another, tons are creatures running amok and the nine are still hiding and threatening to kill anyone who gets close to them or finds out anything? Is it because they are ashamed? Or is finding out about them also finding weaknesses? And if Barrons didn't have the nine trying to kill Mac for knowing anything, would he have opened up an told her stuff?


Did she adopt Dani or something? She sounds like her mother.


Did she adopt Dani or something? She sounds like her mother."
It looks like they won't mortal enemies for the entire book after all. lol

I would love a teaser from Dani.


Maybe she got curious and somehow got in without knowing the way out?





“I did not.”
“Yes, you—”
“Did not.”
“You just said—”
“Inescapable pop culture.”
“Oh, you so watched it.” I imagine this big, barbaric man stretched out on a tangle ..."
Interesting Cookie, where did you find this?
I think that Ryodan must be half mad looking for Dani :)
God, I like Mac less and less. Just took myself speedning through the teaser.

Glad I'm not the only one feeling that way

I got Dani. Figures! You?

Here, they say that she KNOWS she won't get tracked there. the time she came in with Christian was the first time she learned about that (she rubbed that fact in Ryo's face remember?) Yeah so this must be different time. Beside, this is Faery, last time was the White Mansion.

Glad I'm not the only one feeling that way"
Haha. Same here. GIVE US SOME DANI WOMAN.

Here, they say that she KNOWS she won't get tracked there. the time she came in with Christian was the f..."
Thanks Cookie, I saw it myself and edited my post afterwards :) also thanks for posting the excerpt.
Regarding Mac: does her Voice irritate you guys also? Jeez, maybe I'm too old for this series now.

Dude! Hahaha. Dani rocks my socks off!

Here, they say that she KNOWS she won't get tracked there. the time she came in with Chri..."
Ah okay. And no problem! You're not too old for anything! I have to agree, Mac rambles on and on, bores me to dead. Dani is straightforward. I want Dani back.


"You’re a brilliant strategist: Machiavelli, Napoleon, Charlemagne and Sun T’zu all rolled into one. You make no apologies for what you do and never will. Ten steps ahead of everyone else, you shine a light to offer aid to those you deem worth it but they don’t always see it as such—because they’re still ten steps behind you, in the dark. Cool and in control, you don’t let your emotions decide for you: your head is always in the game. The passion you never let the world see you channel into sex, which you require constantly to keep the edge off, and it makes you an explosive, addictive lover. The world sees you as aloof, cold and ruthless. Few ever get to know the deeply passionate, loyal, primal beast beneath your skin."
The passion he never lets the world see he channels in to sex, that's why he constantly requires it. THAT confirms why he had to have sex right after Dani almost died. And FYI he's an explosive and addictive lover ;)

So it was Mac who was captured by the UK in one of the initially teasers?
Dani is hiding out in Faery. Something happened. Maybe she got into it with Ryodan or Mac. She is obviously upset if she willing went in to hide it.
I knew she was in Feary because why the freak would Ryodan leave Lor alone to get hurt by an Unseelie princess. I wonder why he was in Ryo's office. Damn. My head is spinning from reading that so fast. I need a moment.

"You’re a brilliant strategist: Machiavelli, Napoleon, Charlemagne and Sun T’zu all rol..."
I love me some him. Wasn't that a song? LOL. I'm having a fit at home right now.
Take the quiz again. Switch up the answers. LOL


I like Mac a lot better than at the beginning of the series, but I seriously wonder why Barrons puts up with her sometimes. I mean she's always always been so damn cocky its annoying, she puts herself up on a pedestal above everyone else, and she's still kind of whiny, the world revolves around me, oh my self pity no one could ever understand, you have no idea what it's like to be me or what I'm going through, and she still thinks she has the right to tell everyone what to do and boss them around. Her comment about tattooing Dani is ridiculous, I mean first of all she's giving Barrons (and his men by extension) orders secondly how she acted when he mentioned doing the same thing to her and now she wants it done to someone else like she has the right just because SHE'D feel better knowing where they were at all times, isn't that why Dani seems to have run away?
And she still through the fact that Barrons didn't come and save her the night she was raped in his face KNOWING how he feels about it, and that it was her fault she ASKED him to go away to help the Kelters with the ritual, she is the reason he wasn't there, and she being cocky about herself and her ability was the one roaming the streets that night. I LOVE Barrons though, and Mac needs to get over herself. Throughout the series she's always made assumptions (like she cannot be wrong it's impossible) without knowing all the facts and it ends up back firing.
I do wonder what Barrons goals are. And I guess the betrayal part of their bond could be that he invited the Unseelie for a meeting. I think it might be something like she jumps to conclusions and thinks he betrays her and overreacts like she's known to do, or Mac does something that betrays Barrons because she isn't the brightest bulb sometimes.
I still like Mac and Barrons the most out of all the characters but GEEZ!!
Also when Dani gets back, that snippet we have where Mac is talking to someone and he tells her to walk away. Maybe Dani wants Mac to join her against them and if Mac says no their mortal enemies, if she says yes and goes against Barrons men it's betraying him? Maybe Dani goes through the silvers and finds out more about Barron and his men while traveling the worlds.

So I always thought that they needed Dani for something bigger. I think Barrons have another end goal besides the son. So that is squashed and now he can focus on the end game. Maybe they want to be released from their curse. What if Dani is the answer to that? Like that is why Ryodan wanted her around. Always a little theory of mine. LOL.
I hope she is not gone too long. I know we will get her POV while she is gone. Wow what an evening.

So it was..."
Lmfao Samantha I totally understand how you're feeling right now. You think Ryo went to Faery after her? Makes sense really. Omg, that and his devotion. I'm gonna die.

I've always skipped over the Dani parts, I mean I like her okay I just find them uninteresting. I like Mac when she isn't being so uppity and blaming others for things that were her fault, it seems she's almost always blaming other people, but never really takes responsibility for her own mistakes, glass houses and all that. And there are plenty of things others can rub in her face. It also takes her a long time to understand and get things, because as Barrons said she has a thick hard head. Still though I like reading the scenes she's in and her POV.
She owes the Unseelie King a favor doesn't she? Or was he just kidding about that. I wonder how that will come into play. Now that she has killed the grey woman I guess she won't be owing her anything.


Does she owe the UK a favor? I'm glad that Grey chick is gone. I was worried she was going to come back for a favor.

Books mentioned in this topic
Burn for Me (other topics)Burned (other topics)