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  “Duh, iced means dead,” I say coldly, in a belated attempt to exercise damage control. Their idle comment about fucking me in the street was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart. I inhale slowly, exhale even more slowly, waiting for the Book to goad me. There’s only silence.

  Kiall sneers. “I do not believe even the one you called the Hoar Frost King could destroy our brother. Where is he? You will tell us now. ” The Unseelie Princes lunge to their feet, staring directly at the spot I used to be standing in.

  I’m a dozen feet away, half concealed behind a bookcase, hand pressed to my lips, wishing I could scrape most of my words back into my mouth tonight.

  “Her brain vanished when her body did,” Ryodan says to Barrons.

  “Apparently,” Barrons says.

  “That’s not true,” I say hotly. “The realization startled me. I blurted. Excuse the hell out of me for being stunned to realize the one who was so busy incriminating me for trafficking with the Sinsar Dubh was also trafficking with the Sinsar Dubh. And why isn’t anyone looking accusingly at Jada?” I want to know how the heck she got that cuff off the frozen prince. That worries me. A lot.

  “The Sinsar Dubh,” Kiall says softly, eyes gleaming. “It is here as well? In Dublin? Where?” He and Rath begin to chime hollowly. I can imagine their alien conversation and it’s all my fault: Our brother is alive and the Sinsar Dubh is near, we can bring them together and rule the world!

  They don’t know their brother is the Sinsar Dubh and would destroy them before teaming up with them.

  “And she just keeps making it worse,” Ryodan marvels.

  “She is the Sinsar Dubh,” Jada says coolly. “She has it inside her. ”

  “And Dani just joined her,” Barrons observes, fascinated.

  “As one of our Pri-ya,” Kiall murmurs to Rath, like I’m not standing right here, listening, “we could control both her and the power of the Unseelie King. ”

  “Pri-ya doesn’t work on me anymore. And nobody controls the Sinsar Dubh,” I say irritably, then snap at Dani, “I can’t believe you just ratted me out like that!” I duck and roll again, soundlessly relocating as Rath and Kiall begin to prowl the room looking for me.

  “You did it first,” Jada says. “The cuff is an invaluable weapon. Dangerous to leave where it was. ”

  “You lost your sword. Admit it. ”

  “I know precisely where it is. ”

  Maybe she does. But wherever it is, for some reason she can’t get to it.

  “We shall see,” Rath threatens me. “Perhaps it merely takes longer now. ”

  I open my mouth to ask how Dani got the cuff and if the removal of it in any way compromised the integrity of Cruce’s prison, then clack my teeth together before I say anything else spectacularly stupid. At the moment, the Unseelie Princes think I am the Book. Last thing I want them to know is that their long lost brother is, too.

  As the princes continue stalking, I warn them, “I have the spear. Touch me, you’re dead. ” They don’t know it’s a bluff. I draw my spear in this room, and who knows what will happen? I duck, roll, stay low.

  “Where is Cruce?” R’jan demands.

  No one says a word. There were only three “Seelie” present the night we interred the Sinsar Dubh: V’lane, who was actually Cruce; Velvet, who is dead; and Dree-lia, who’s apparently told no one among her court what happened. Wise woman.

  “You invite us to this table yet treat us as slaves. You lie, deceive, and manipulate,” Rath snarls.

  “Oh, gee, we act like far more civilized versions of you,” I mock.

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  “You have information you do not share,” Kiall fires back. “We are no longer allies. Fuck you. ” He and his brother vanish.

  “Uh, did they just sift out?” I say, looking around warily, ready to duck and roll again in a heartbeat.

  “We are no longer so predictable,” R’jan purrs.

  “Predictable enough,” Ryodan says.

  R’jan sifts out an instant before Ryodan gets to him.

  “My head is not up my ass. The advisor was disposable. We knew you kept secrets. We kept our own. ” The Seelie’s words linger on the air, disembodied. “Your wards no longer work on us. ”

  “Your wards don’t work?” I say incredulously.

  “So they think,” Barrons murmurs.

  “Och, that was bloody grand,” Drustan growls. “We’ve no sifters. ”

  “Aye,” Dageus agrees. “So now what’s the fucking plan?”

  Ryodan smiles faintly. “That was the plan. ”

  I gasp when the Unseelie Princess from whom I’m supposedly protecting the Nine sifts into the room, materializing directly behind Barrons and Ryodan.

  She takes each by an arm.

  Then all three of them are gone.

  32

  I ain’t scared of your teeth, I admire what’s in ’em

  MAC

  The problem with having all chiefs and no Indians in your teepee is that unless you’re the chief dictating the current warpath, or in tight with that chief, you have no bloody idea what’s going on.

  I’m not in tight with Ryodan, and apparently not with Barrons either.

  I have news for them: if they think I’m going to be one of the squaws in their chauvinistic tent, they’re wrong.

  Dageus and Drustan left the bookstore, less angry than I expected them to be, with Dageus making a comment about heading back to wherever it is they’re staying to spend time with his wife, and I got the impression they were either in on the plan or had reason to believe Ryodan and Barrons were actively furthering their aim of rescuing Christian. The Keltar remind me of Ryodan, men accustomed to patiently mounting complicated campaigns in pursuit of long-term goals. I suspect they see a few chess moves ahead better than I do. At the moment. I’m learning.

  I have no clue if Jada/Dani was in the know or as miffed as me. Her cold, beautiful face had betrayed nothing. I’d slipped behind a bookcase and held perfectly still until I heard the doorbell tinkle as she left, then remained motionless an additional interminable ten minutes to be certain she wasn’t faking an exit while crouching silently near, a tiger ready to pounce the moment I moved so she could try to take my spear and lock me up beneath the abbey.

  Eventually I’d eased out and taken a thorough look around. She was gone, ostensibly no more anxious to spend time with me than I was with her.

  Now, sitting in front of the fireplace, munching a bag of slightly stale chips, I wonder why, in whatever chess game they’re playing, Barrons and Ryodan would want to make the princes think their wards didn’t work on them any longer.

  I smile faintly. I am getting better at this. Soon I’ll be devising the plans, instead of merely decoding them while they’re being implemented without me.

  Because the princes would relax.

  Encouraging them to further lower their defenses, Ryodan made them believe they were essential to his plan, and power goes to an Unseelie Prince’s head faster than night comes slamming down in Faery.

  When one feels threatened, one clears the house before going to bed, but when one feels safe—a foolish thing to ever believe—one doesn’t compulsively check all windows and doors, or is perhaps busy celebrating what one perceives as a victory over one’s enemy.

  And that’s precisely when the enemy strikes.

  Barrons and Ryodan went after the princes.

  Ryodan usurped the contract Jada sought: offered to kill the princes in exchange for Christian’s location, and after what I heard him asking Papa Roach in his office, I suspect he upped the ante, offering R’jan to the princess as well, thus allying himself with the only royal remaining in Dublin. At least for a time. Why bother dealing with three Fae princes when you can deal with a single Fae princess?

  They went after my rapists without me.

  I murmur, “Son of a bitch. ” Now I’m pissed at Barrons a
bout two things.

  An hour later when the doorbell tinkles, I don’t bother turning around. On the chesterfield, with my back to the door, I know it’s Barrons. I feel him.

  “If you came back to tell me you killed the princes, I’m never speaking to you again. ”

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  I half expect him to say, Good. I wondered when you’d finally shut up.

  The only reply is a deep, atavistic rattling noise, and I tense. It’s primitively terrifying on a cellular level. It’s not Barrons behind me.

  It’s the beast version of the man.

  I hear the scrape of taloned claws on the floor as he prowls into the bookstore, the prehistoric panting around what sounds like a death rattle caught in its chest. The beast version of Barrons is death: a primeval executioner at the top of his game. Although I’ve seen him transform partially on multiple occasions, I’ve only seen him wearing its full skin twice. Both times I was acutely aware that I was in the presence of a thing not at all human, governed by vastly different imperatives, a beast that had no mercy for anything but others of its kind.

  It’s behind me, beside me, then the creature passes the couch and hulks into my line of vision.

  I sit motionless, staring up at it. Nine feet tall or more, its skin is ebony, it’s nude and enormously male. Massively muscled, with thick veins and tendons, it has crimson eyes with inhuman, slitted, vertical pupils. Three rows of long, deadly horns at bony intervals frame each side of its head and there are bits of bloody things stuck on them.

  Its prominent, crested forehead is a throwback to ancient times. It has long, lethal black fangs, and when it snarls—as it’s doing now—like a lion, it becomes all teeth and deep, rumbling roar.

  It’s horrifying, it’s bestial, yet in this form I still find Barrons savagely beautiful. I’m envious of how well he’s engineered to survive, to conquer, to outlast apocalypse.

  I remain completely still. I’m invisible.

  It whips its head to the left and looks directly at me, peering down through matted hanks of black hair.

  Well, shit, I realize, I’m making butt-cheek-shaped indents on the soft leather.

  It’s holding the severed heads of Kiall and Rath, still dripping a bluish-black blood.

  “Some crimes,” I quote Ryodan stiffly, “are so personal, blood-vengeance belongs only to the one who suffered them. ”

  The beast snarls at me and gouges the floor with a taloned foot, ripping long gashes into the priceless rug. Crimson eyes flash. So much for the damage my heels do. I’ll remind him of this the next time he comments on my shoes.

  “I wanted to be the one that killed them,” I say, in case I hadn’t made myself perfectly clear.

  It roars so loudly, the windows rattle in their panes, then stalks forward, shaking the severed heads at me in wordless rebuke, crimson eyes flashing.

  I stare into the princes’ faces. Eyes rolled back in their heads, their mouths open on screams. Faces don’t freeze like that unless pushed to breaking, where death itself becomes the kindness.

  Around enormous fangs, the beast snarls, “You had ample time. You didn’t. Your time ran the fuck out. ” Its horns begin to melt and run down the sides of its face. Its head becomes grossly misshapen, expands and contracts, pulses and shrinks before expanding again—as if too much mass is being compacted into too small a form and the beast is resisting. Massive shoulders collapse inward, straighten then collapse again. The princes’ heads thud wetly to the floor. The beast gouges deep splinters of wood up through what used to be a priceless rug, as it bows upon itself, shuddering.

  Talons splay across the rug and become fingers. Haunches lift, slam down, and become legs. But they aren’t right. The limbs contort, the bones don’t bend where they should, rubbery in some places, knobbed in others.

  Still it bays, but the sound is changing. Its misshapen head whips from side to side. I catch a glimpse through matted hair of wild eyes glittering with moonlight, of black fangs and spittle as it snarls. Then the tangled locks abruptly melt, the sleek black skin begins to lighten. It hits the floor, convulsing.

  I can’t help but compare it to the sudden swiftness with which Ryodan transforms. Although both can become the beast quickly, Barrons’s reversion to human is lengthy.

  I enjoy the beast, Barrons had said. Ryodan enjoys the man.

  Although both are animal, they prefer to stalk different terrains. Ryodan dons the concrete and glass of the urban jungle like a second skin. Barrons glides into the dark, primitive, forested jungle with the lusty hunger of a long-confined, feral lion escaped from a zoo.

  Suddenly it shoots up on all fours, head down. Bones crunch and crack, settling into a new shape. Shoulders form, strong, smooth, bunched with muscle. Hands brace wide. One leg stretched back, the other bent as it tenses in a low lunge.

  A naked man crouches on the floor.

  Barrons lifts his head and stares straight at me, a few feet above my indent on the sofa. “It was my crime, too. I may not have been there to see it, but I’ve seen it in my head every fucking day since. ”

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  “I was the one that got raped. ”

  “I was the one that failed to save you. ”

  “And because you blamed yourself—”

  “I wasn’t the only one blaming me. ”

  “I didn’t blame you for not saving me,” I growl. It’s nobody’s responsibility to save me but mine. ”

  “You blamed me for letting them live. ”

  “I did—” not is what I intended to say. But I’m startled to realize that he’s right.

  Deep down I was harboring a grudge. I’d despised that Barrons hadn’t killed them the instant he learned what they’d done to me.

  “I wanted to,” he says tightly. “They were fucking linchpins. ”

  V’lane had needled me that Barrons permitted my rapists to live, to go on after the hellish things they’d done to me. I’d hungered for him to go bloodlust crazy for vengeance, to do precisely what he’d done tonight, rip their heads off and bring them to me in a silent I may not have saved you but I fucking avenged you. All this time some part of me was measuring him by his failure to retaliate on my behalf, holding a piece of myself back. How could he not want them dead?

  He’s right about the other part, too. I could have hunted the princes months ago. I didn’t want to. They changed me. Before the rape, I was good, genuinely never had a mean thought. If I hurt someone, it was by accident and I felt bad about it. But when they were done with me, there was something new inside me: something ruthless and feral and beyond law that hungered to be the one perpetrating the savagery, because when you are the savage, no one messes with you. I’d wanted to be bad. It’s safer to be bad.

  When someone hurts you—and I’m not talking about forgivable offenses, some things are irrevocable and demand recompense—you have two choices: slice them out of your life or slice them into delicious, bloody pieces. While the latter would be infinitely more satisfying in an immediate, animalistic way, it changes you. And, although you think the memory of the battle won will be a pleasure—if it is a pleasure, you’ve lost the war.

  They raped me. I survived. I moved on. I wanted someone else to be the animal I didn’t want to become.

  I could have cold-bloodedly stalked into their goth mansion months ago. I would have enjoyed mutilating and torturing them, killing them slowly. Savored every minute of it. Painted my face with their blood, reveling in my dominance.

  But it wouldn’t have been a sheepdog that walked out that gothic, towering front door.

  It would have been a wolf.

  “Wolves don’t kill with hate,” Barrons says. “They kill because it’s what they do. ”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Only humans kill with hate. When you kill, you must kill like an animal. ”

  “I don’t understand. ”

  “What ha
ppens when a sheepdog gets bit by a wolf?”

  “Duh. It becomes a wolf. ”

  “No. It becomes a sheepdog that fights with the savagery and lawlessness of a wolf. ”

  “Debatable. ” I feel like a wolf inside and I don’t know what to do with it. I think my soul was turned. It worries me.

  Two of the princes who raped me are dead, their heads lying at my feet. The third one, Dani killed months ago. The fourth one—about whom Barrons knows nothing—is imprisoned behind bars of ice.

  I have a bad feeling if he ever gets out, I might grow those fangs I don’t want.

  “The princess is waiting for their heads,” Barrons says. “She will not give us Christian’s precise location until she receives them. ”

  I sigh and say something I never thought I’d hear myself say to a completely, beautifully, naked Barrons. “Get dressed. I’m ready. ”

  As he leaves the room, I glance at the severed heads, the tortured expressions, and I feel a festering, messy wound inside me finally begin to grow a thin covering of healing skin.

  It’s over. With the deaths of those who so deeply cut me, I can finally put the horror to rest.

  I add softly, “And thank you. ”

  Walking invisible behind Barrons through Chester’s many subclubs is annoying as hell. When I rode his wake before, between being aggravated with him and intoxicated by my new super-sleuthing state, I hadn’t spared a glance beyond his wide shoulders.

  Tonight I’m looking. Tonight I see the dozens and dozens of heads rotating to follow him as he passes, the blatantly sexual looks the women give him (and more than a few men!), and I growl with irritation.

  “Problem, Ms. Lane?”

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  “Nope,” I mutter, then voice something I can’t quite wrap my brain around. “Why are you and Ryodan willing to help rescue Christian?”

  “Beats looking for a bloody spell all the time,” he says dryly.

  “Aha, I knew I forgot to tell you something! I saw the Dreamy-Eyed Guy in Chester’s and again on the street. We don’t need to keep looking. The king is hanging around Dublin again. ”

  “You continue to cling to the absurd hope he’ll free you from your burden, no harm, no foul. Doesn’t look like much of a burden at the moment, Ms. Lane. Rather seems you’re enjoying it. ”

  Criminy, that woman is flashing him her boobs! Slanting him a come-hither look, gyrating seductively to the music, pulling up her shirt (no, there’s not a damn thing but skin and perky nipples underneath), gaze moving hungrily from his face to his crotch as she prowls closer.