Eight others like him. At least eight others, I amended. Who knew? Maybe he’d only brought a limited number with him. Maybe there were dozens more. And he’d never told me about them. Not one word.
Any reservations I might have entertained about the plan I’d been working on since encountering Jayne vanished.
“You’re right, Dani,” I said. “You need a gun. In fact, we need a lot of guns. And I know just where to find them. ”
It was nearly dawn by the time I parked the school bus in front of the abbey.
I hated giving up the Range Rover, but I needed larger transport. I’d found the bright blue bus, with its dented sides, peeling paint, and lethargic transmission, outside a youth hostel. Dani and I had packed it with crates of guns and Unseelie corpses.
I was bone-tired. I’d been up for twenty-four hours straight, and they’d been crammed full. I didn’t expect to get much sleep before moving on with my plans, but I hoped to snatch an hour—at least—of silence and the opportunity to clear my mind, so I could sort through all that had happened, all I’d learned.
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“The Dragon Lady’s library’s in the east wing, Mac,” Dani said, as she headed off toward the kitchen. “Ain’t been used in years. ” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s dusty but cool. I sleep there times they’re blaming me for something or I just don’t feel like dealin’. Most of the east wing’s empty. I’ll hook up with you after I eat. Du—man, I’m fecking starved!”
As she sped off, I shook my head and smiled. She’d told me that as long as she kept eating, she could go days without sleep. She was constantly testing her limits. I wondered what I might have been like if I’d grown up knowing what I was. I imagined I would have pressed my limits, too. Probably been a lot more useful than I felt now. I envied her stamina. I had no such gift. Lack of sleep had eroded my patience and left me raw. I was in no shape to make a rousing join-up-with-me-sidhe-seers-and-let’s-kick-some-Fae-ass speech. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t stretch out on a comfy sofa soon enough.
I entered the abbey through a side door and hurried toward the east wing. Halfway there, I realized I was being followed.
I smiled tightly but made no move to acknowledge her. I wasn’t about to get into an argument with the Grand Mistress in the middle of a corridor, where all the other sidhe-seers could burst from their rooms at the sound of raised voices and chip in their two cents’ worth before I was ready to deal with it. If she wanted a fight, she was going to get it on my terms, on my turf. I made a mental note to find out what Dani knew about wards. It would be too perfect if I could block Rowena from the east wing and secure my own little space in her abbey. Otherwise, I was never going to feel safe.
I followed Dani’s directions down dimly lit corridors. I was surprised Rowena didn’t stick closer to me with my blazing MacHalo. Although I refused to turn and acknowledge her, no glare of light competed with mine casting shadows on the stone walls, which meant she couldn’t be carrying more than a couple of flashlights. We had no idea how many Shades were still in the abbey. The old woman had balls.
I stepped into the library and moved from one lamp to the next, turning them all on. I was pleased to see a plush brocade sofa where I could grab a catnap.
As soon as I got rid of Rowena.
“Not now, old woman,” I tossed over my shoulder coldly. “I need sleep. ”
“Funny. You didn’t seem to need so much a few days ago. ”
I felt the blood drain from my face. I wasn’t ready for this confrontation. I might never be ready for it.
“In fact, sleep was the last thing on your mind,” he said tightly. He was angry. I could hear it in his voice. What was he angry about? I was the one who’d been through the emotional wringer.
My hands curled into fists, my breathing grew shallow. I trusted him no more today than I had two months ago.
“Fucking was all you wanted. ”
It was what I wanted right now, too, I was horrified to realize. His voice worked on me like an aphrodisiac. I was wet and ready. I had been since he began speaking. For two months, I’d been trapped in a Fae-induced sexual frenzy, having constant, incredible sex with him, while listening to his voice, smelling his scent. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I’d been conditioned by repeated stimuli to have a guaranteed response. My body anticipated, greedily expected pleasure in his presence. I inhaled, caught myself straining for the scent of him, forced it back out, and closed my eyes, as if maybe I could hide behind my own lids from an ironic truth: V’lane and Barrons had swapped roles.
I was no longer sexually vulnerable to the death-by-sex Fae Prince.
Jericho Barrons was my poison now.
I wanted to punch something. Lots of somethings. Starting with him.
“Cat got your tongue? And what a lovely tongue it is. I know. It licked every inch of me. Repeatedly. For months,” he purred, but there was steel in the velvet.
I locked my jaw and turned, bracing myself for the sight of him.
It was worse than I expected.
I was nearly flattened by erotic images. My hands on his face. Me on his face. Me backing up to him. Me straddling him, my I’m-a-Wanton-Pink fingernails long and sexy as I wrapped both hands around his big, long, hard … yeah.
Well.
Enough images.
I cleared my throat and forced myself to focus on his eyes.
It wasn’t much better. Barrons and I have wordless conversations. And right now he was reminding me, in graphically lush detail, of everything we’d done in that big Sun King bed of his.
He’d especially enjoyed the handcuffs. I had as many memories of his tongue as he had of mine. He’d never offered turnabout as fair play, even though I’d asked plenty. I’d never understood why. We’d both known nothing so flimsy could hold whatever he was. Now that I was clearheaded again, I understood. Even if it was only illusory, he was not a man to tolerate dominance. It was all about control with him. He never relinquished it. And that was a huge part of what chafed so badly, burned like salt in an open wound. I’d been completely out of control the entire time we’d spent in that room. He’d seen my most raw, bare, vulnerable self, yet he’d never shown me anything of himself that I hadn’t had to rip from his head against his will.
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He’d never lost control. Not once.
You told me I was your world.
“It wasn’t me. I was an animal. ” My heart pounded. My cheeks burned.
You never wanted it to end.
“Why are you being such a jackass, slamming me in the face with my own humiliation?”
Humiliation? That’s what you call this? He forced a more detailed reminder on me.
I swallowed. Yes, I certainly remembered that. “I was out of my mind. I’d never have done it otherwise. ”
Really, his dark eyes mocked, and in them I was demanding more, telling him I wanted it to always be this way.
I remembered what he’d replied: that one day I would wonder if it was possible to hate him more.
“I had no awareness. No choice. ” I searched for words to drive my point home. “It was every bit as much rape as what the Unseelie Princes did to me. ”
His glittering gaze went flat black, opaque as mud, the images died. Beneath his left eye, a tiny muscle contracted, smoothed, contracted again. That minute betrayal was Barrons’ equivalent of a normal person having a hissy fit. “Rape isn’t something—”
“You walk away from,” I cut him off. “I know. I get it now. Okay?”
“You crawl. You were crawling when I found you. ”
“Your point?”
“You walked away from me. Stronger for it. ”
“Point?” I gritted. I was tired, impatient, and I wanted the bottom line.
“Making sure we’re on the same page,” he clipped. His eyes were dangerous.
“You di
d what you had to do, right?”
He inclined his head. It was neither nod nor negation, and it pissed me off. I was sick of nonanswers from him.
I pressed. “You made me capable of walking again the only way you could. It had nothing to do with me. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
He stared at me, and I had the feeling our conversation had taken a wrong turn somewhere, that it could have gone a completely different way, but I couldn’t think of how it might have or where it had strayed.
He brought his head down, completing the nod. “Right. ”
“Then we’re on the same page. Same paragraph, same sentence,” I snapped.
“Same bloody word,” he agreed flatly.
I felt like crying and hated myself for it. Why couldn’t he have said something nice? Something that wasn’t about sex. Something about me. Why had he come in here all stalking and shoving in my face that we’d been in each other’s skin? Would it have killed him to show a little kindness, some compassion? Where was the man who’d painted my nails? The one who had papered the room with pictures of Alina and me? The one who had danced with me?
Means to an end. That was all it had been for him.
The silence lengthened. I searched his eyes. There wasn’t a single word to be found in them.
Finally, he gave me a faint smile. “Ms. Lane,” he said coolly, and those two words spoke volumes. He was offering me formality. Distance. A return to the way things had been, as if nothing else had ever passed between us. A façade of civility that made us able to work together when we had to.
I’d be a fool not to accept it.
“Barrons. ” I sealed the deal. Had I ever told this enigmatic, cold man that he was my world? Had he really demanded I say it, over and over? “Why are you here? What do you want?” I was exhausted, and our little run-in was swiftly depleting my last stores of energy.
“You might start by thanking me. ” There was that dangerous look in his eyes again, as if he felt taken advantage of. He felt taken advantage of? I was the one who’d been at her weakest, not him.
“For what? For finding something else that was so important to do that it took you all the way from midnight on Samhain ‘til four days later to come for me? I’m not going to thank you for saving me from something you failed to save me from to begin with. ” I’d asked Dani on the way back to the abbey when he and his men had broken me out. She’d said late in the evening on November 4. Why? Where had he been, and why not with me?
He lifted a shoulder, shrugged, grace and power in an elegant Armani suit. “You look fine to me. In fact, you’re better than fine, aren’t you? You walked right through my wards, without a word. Didn’t even leave a note by the bedside. Really,” he mocked, “after all we shared, Ms. Lane. ” He gave me a wolf smile, all teeth and promise of blood. “But do I get any thanks for doing the impossible and bringing you back from being Pri-ya? No. What do I get?” He eyed me coldly. “You steal my guns. ”
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“You snooped in my bus!” I said indignantly.
“I’ll snoop anywhere I damned well please, Ms. Lane. I’ll snoop inside your skin if I feel like it. ”
“You just try,” I said, eyes narrowing.
He moved forward in one swift, violent lunge but caught himself and locked down hard.
I mirrored the move, without conscious thought at all, as if our bodies were connected by puppet strings. Lunged forward, froze. Fisted my hands at my sides. They wanted to touch him. I looked down. His hands were fisted, too.
I uncurled my hands and crossed my arms.
He crossed his at exactly the same moment.
We both practically flung them down at our sides.
We stared at each other.
The silence lengthened.
“Why did you take my guns?” he said finally.
His question snapped me fully awake again. I was dangerously tired. “I needed them. Figured it was the least you could give up after all the sex you got,” I added, with flippancy I didn’t feel.
“You think you can steal from me? You’re out of control, Rainbow Girl. ”
“Don’t call me that!” She was dead. And if she wasn’t, I’d have killed her myself.
“And you know it. ”
“You’re the one who’s out of control,” I said, just to irritate him.
“I’m never out of control. ”
“Are, too. ”
“Am—” He broke off and looked away. Then, disbelievingly, “Bloody hell, have you learned nothing?”
“What was I supposed to learn, Barrons?” I demanded. My temper, already a frayed rope, snapped. “That it’s a sucky world out there? That people will take everything from you that matters, if you let them? That if you want something, you’d better hurry and get it, because odds are somebody else wants it, too, and if they can beat you to it they will? Or was I supposed to learn that it’s not only okay to kill but sometimes it can be downright fun? That was a real kicker to find inside your head. Want to talk about it? Share a little intimacy with me? No? Didn’t think so. How about this: The more weapons, knowledge, and power you can get your hands on, any way you can, the better. Lie, cheat, or steal, it all comes out in the wash. Isn’t that what you think? That emotion is weakness and cunning priceless? Wasn’t I supposed to become like you? Wasn’t that the point?” I was shouting, but I didn’t care. I was furious.
“That was never the point,” he snarled, moving toward me.
“Then what was it? What the bloody hell was the point? Tell me there was some kind of point to all this!” I snarled back, stepping toward him.
We charged each other like bulls.
An instant before we collided, I shouted, “Did you help the LM turn me Pri-ya just to make me stronger?”
His head snapped back, and he stopped so suddenly that I slammed into him, bounced off, and sprawled on my ass. On the floor. Again.
He stared down at me, and for a split second I saw a completely unguarded look in his eyes. No. He hadn’t. Not only hadn’t he, this … man, for lack of a better word … who enjoyed killing, was horrified by the thought of it.
A terrible tension inside me eased. Breath came more easily.
I stayed on the floor, too drained to get back up. There was another of those long, strained silences.
I sighed.
He took a deep breath. Released it.
“I would have given you the guns,” he said finally.
“I should have asked for them,” I admitted grudgingly. “But then you probably would have spiked them with something deadly, same way you did the Orb, and I’d have gotten blamed for that, too,” I couldn’t resist adding.
“I didn’t spike the Orb. I bought it at an auction. Somebody set me up. ”
He said it with such a complete lack of heat that I almost believed him.
There was another long silence.
He slid a bag from his shoulder, dropped it at my feet. It was my backpack.
“Where’d you get that? I didn’t see it in the room when I left, and I hunted for it. ” I’d wondered where it had gone.
“Found it here at the abbey while I was waiting for you to get back. ”
I frowned. “How long have you been here?”
“Since late last night. I spent all day yesterday trying to find you. By the time I tracked you here, you’d left again. Easier to wait for you to come back than waste time tracking you again. ”
“Doesn’t your trusty little brand work?” I rubbed the base of my skull where he’d stamped his mystical tattoo. The one that had failed me when I’d needed it.
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“I can sense your general direction, but I can’t get a solid lock on you. Haven’t been able to since the walls came down. It’s working more like a compass than a GPS, now that Fae realms have splintered ours. ”
“IFPs. I call them Interdimensional Fairy Potholes. ”
He smiled faintly. “Funny girl, aren’t you?”
We lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. I looked at him. He looked away. I shrugged and looked away, too.
“I wasn’t—” I began.
“I didn’t—” He began.
“How charming,” V’lane cut us off. His voice arrived before he did. “The very portrait of human domestic bliss. She’s on the floor, you’re towering over her. Did he strike you, MacKayla? Say the word and I’ll kill him. ”
It annoyed me to think V’lane might have been hanging around, invisible, eavesdropping on us. I gave him a sharp look when he appeared. My hand slipped instantly inside my coat, searching for my spear, holstered beneath my arm. It was gone. V’lane never let me keep it in his presence, but he always returned it when he left. I hated that he had the power to take my weapon. What if he didn’t give it back? What if he decided to keep it for his race? Surely he would have taken the spear and the sword months ago, if he’d wanted them. He’d give it back this time, too, I thought coolly. Otherwise the almighty Book detector would tell him to piss off.
“As if you could,” said Barrons.
“Perhaps not. But I do enjoy thinking about it. ”
“Bring it on, Tinker Bell. ”
I stood up.
V’lane laughed, and the sound was angelic, celestial. Although he no longer affected me sexually, he still packed that otherworldly punch. Regal, larger than life, he would always be too beautiful for words. He was dressed differently than I’d ever seen him, and it suited his golden perfection. Like Barrons, he wore an elegant dark suit, crisp white shirt, and blood-red tie.
“Get your own fashion adviser,” Barrons growled.
“Maybe I decided I like your style. ”
“Maybe you thought if you were more like me, she’d fuck you, too. ”
I flinched, but my reaction was nothing compared to V’lane’s.
I was frozen for a moment, stiffer than the Tin Man without oil. I gave a full body shudder, and ice tinkled to the floor. I stepped forward, leaving my frosty casing behind. The entire library—furniture, books, floor, lamps, walls—glistened with a thin sheet of ice. The bulbs popped, one after the next.
“Stop it,” I snapped, breath frosting the air. “Both of you. You’re tough guys. I get it. But I’m tired and fed up. So say whatever you came here to say, without all the posturing, then get the hell out. ”