Kingdom of Shadow and Light Read online

  If only.

  Initially, I’d hungered to divest myself of the reign. It hadn’t taken me long to realize ruling the Fae would be a never-ending, dangerous job and, as with any job I tackle, if I had to do it, I’d become obsessed with doing it well. Goodbye, humanity. I’d have no time for it.

  What I’ve discovered leaves me no reason to remain sequestered here.

  I’m all I can be without being Fae. Admittedly, I could spend another few thousand years in here reading files, but they may or may not teach me anything of use, while more time will pass in the human realm.

  Disengaging from my internal study, I direct my gaze outward and push up from the sofa, stretch and twist, bend and turn, reacquainting myself with my body. God, it feels good to move, to be a living, breathing, hot-blooded woman again.

  Speaking of hot-blooded.

  Barrons.

  The quiet burn of his nearby presence kept me sane. I recently felt Ryodan’s and Dani’s as well. Dani’d been troubled, so I’d projected a quick text onto the screen of her phone. Having suspended Barrons Books & Baubles in the clouds, I’ve felt little else. This chamber mutes what lies beyond.

  Abruptly, I can’t wait to grasp the knob of the door, feel it with my hand, yank it open, rush out of here, be corporeal, be part of Dublin again. I hope I haven’t missed too much. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here in mortal time and that concerns me deeply.

  I stand, readying myself. I must never let anyone discern what I’ve learned about my limits or that I have no idea how to use the Song. I must convincingly feign that I have access to all of the True Magic and make the Seelie believe I am their deadly-to-displease High Queen. Ruling with kindness, fairness is not an option. Mine is a cruel, avaricious, jaded species. How is one to command savages without savagery?

  There’s only one thing capable of keeping the Light Court in check: fear. If they catch the faintest whiff of weakness, they’ll descend on me like a pack of anorexic Shades.

  I must be cruel. Monstrous. Merciless.

  Do the things I’ve learned to do, that will make them cringe like whipped dogs at my feet. Things that will make me want to cringe, although I dare not.

  MAC.

  The word explodes in my skull, roared by Barrons with urgency in his voice I’ve heard on precious few occasions.

  Those times he believed I was dying.

  I’m not.

  For Barrons to roar in such a voice—to risk interrupting what he thinks I’m still doing here—that means someone else is in mortal danger.

  And whoever it is matters deeply to me.

  4

  I am immortal

  I have inside me blood of kings

  CRUCE

  “It is done, my liege,” the prince said as he entered the laboratory.

  “You did as I requested?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you encounter any difficulties with your task?”

  “None.”

  “And how was your first solo journey into the realm of mortals?”

  Masdann smiled, dark eyes glittering in a face MacKayla Lane would recognize should it visit her in dreams—and it certainly would, but only in nightmarish romps through her subconscious. It amused Cruce to employ this particular genetic stamp for his Morpheus prince, and it would prove a powerful weapon. Humans and Fae alike always responded favorably to the face and form—with both desire and fear—and Cruce wanted the best the world had to offer his children.

  “Far more intriguing than Faery, when I switched the Cauldron with your replica. More daring even than releasing the damhan-allaidh into their world. The mortal realm is more abundant and exotic than I imagined,” Masdann said. “So many slumbering, so many doors from which to choose.”

  Doors into their subconscious minds. Cruce envied the ability he’d given his prince, command of a realm none had ever mastered, few could even walk within without succumbing to madness. He himself had successfully navigated only the outer perimeter of it for a short time, long enough to bed a certain sidhe-seer. He considered Masdann his finest creation, a prince capable of slipping in and out of the Dreaming, of altering the underlying currents of another’s psyche in that unpredictable no-man’s-land of ever-shifting terrain.

  The Dreaming was fashioned of cosmic matter even more mysterious than the Song of Making. Logic and physics flowed differently there. What took place in the Dreaming—if tampered with properly, in what mortals called “lucid dreams”—could have lasting physical and emotional impact on the dreamer in the Waking, undermining convictions, confusing the heart, even ending a mortal’s life.

  He’d given each of his princes powers that were inordinately useful to him, his to if not possess, at least command. “And you enjoyed Chester’s?”

  Masdann’s eyes glittered. “It was a veritable feast. Drunk, they succumb swiftly to slumber; their minds are malleable and weak.”

  “You saw Ryodan?”

  “I did.”

  “And he believed you were Jericho Barrons?”

  The prince inclined his head. “He did.”

  Cruce laughed softly. The devil was in the details, and he’d captured the nuances of personality unique to the owner of the arrogant, savage face he’d purloined to perfection in the simple yet defining inclination of his head; the tight slice of negation, always to the left, the way he stood and moved, the precise nuances of his eyes and voice. Dressing him was simple: the prototype favored expensive Italian suits, crisp shirts, and ties.

  The original was his enemy, which made being served by a copy that obeyed his every wish and called him king even more enjoyable. One day, they would meet, face-to-face, original and copy, and, on that day, Barrons would know he’d been beaten by Cruce, all spoils to the victor.

  Including the woman.

  Cruce was feeling celebratory. His plans hinged upon Masdann’s ability to pass as Barrons to those in MacKayla’s inner circle; today had been a crucial test. “That is all for now. You may go.”

  “As you wish, my liege.” Masdann turned, melting with inhuman grace from table to wall to door, nearly unseen.

  As he closed the door, Cruce smiled, but it vanished swiftly as pleasure at Masdann’s delight in the world above turned to rage at his own creator. King to a court of his making, Cruce had found the act of creation illuminating, understood more about his ex-liege than ever before.

  He despised him all the more for it.

  Creation was a kingly right, but it was accompanied by responsibility for what one created. The ex-king’s Unseelie were lab rats first, children only much later, by default. He’d created ugliness when he might have spawned beauty. He’d made hundreds of thousands of horrific Unseelie, knowing they would be abhorred by the world. He’d made them rapacious, insatiable, and incapable of ever being sated. To live in such a fashion wasn’t life at all. The Song of Making had been a mercy for the Unseelie destroyed, laid at long last to rest.

  Toward the last, the ex-king had fashioned his four princes: Famine, Pestilence, Death, and War, and, while he’d made them superior to the rest of his castes in countless ways, possessing both emotion and the intellectual capability to govern it, Cruce’s three brothers had been barren-minded fools governing barren domains. Death alone held a realm Cruce coveted, and he had no intention of letting the Highlander pup survive long enough to learn the true extent of his power.

  Unlike his ex-liege, Cruce had chosen to elevate his royalty, gifted them powers to create, not destroy (although they could destroy, in inventive and horrific ways if they chose—point being: they had a choice), fashioning the princes of Dreams, Fire, Water, and Air; each lording power over a unique realm and, while he’d granted them staggering sensuality, he’d not hobbled their potential for evolution with the lethal Eros of the Fae. He’d taken the best of all he’d beheld in three quarters of a million years and blended it into forms capable of withstanding the tests of time, resilient, adaptive, ferociously intelligent, majestic. He’d not made princesses for his Royal Houses, deemed them unnecessary, liabilities, vying for power against his princes. His royal caste would have the right to select their own consorts.

  He’d birthed a Shadow Court of fierce survivors, as brilliant as the stars, as elegant and imaginative as the cosmos, as potentially deadly as the vacuum of space. He’d succeeded in all the areas his king had failed. He’d created a court of entities that could thrive on any world, walk in the warmth and sunlight, in the open day, welcomed. At least those who were visible. Some of his children were too clever for the eye to spy.

  The king had abdicated his throne years ago yet still hadn’t chosen a successor. Occasionally the great dark cloud of kingly power would come and hover above Cruce, watching as he worked.

  Then simply vanish. Leave, as if unconvinced, as if the choice of his correct successor wasn’t as fucking obvious as the fucking sun in the sky.

  He’d proven himself the superior king. What the bloody hell was the old fool’s problem?

  Although his court addressed him as their ruler, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough until the bastard ex-king acknowledged that Cruce was the better king and conferred all his power upon him.

  He never betrayed you, Cruce, one of the king’s many skins had said. He betrayed none of his children. He gave up what he held most dear for them.

  Meaning that, although the king had, unbeknownst to all, completed the Song of Making, once he’d realized using it to make his concubine Fae would destroy the Court of Shadows, he’d chosen not to use it.


  Cruce snorted. “Too little, too late, old man.” One benevolent act did not an immortal lifetime of torment unmake.

  Here, in this arena beyond time, where he’d labored for nearly as long as MacKayla had quarantined herself in a similar place, sorting through her new power—he knew because his laboratory afforded a private view of hers—he’d birthed a dark court beyond reproach, and bestowed upon them a gift of immortality far superior to that which the prior court had been given.

  So many things the old half-mad king might have done, but he’d created his court only to find a way to save his concubine. Cruce had created his court for the pleasure of creation.

  Motive defined results. Flawed motive, flawed results.

  A sudden, unexpected motion in his periphery jarred him from his thoughts.

  Cruce turned his head and watched through the shadowy, burnished glass that joined their chambers as, at long last, MacKayla Lane moved for the first time in several centuries, if one counted the way time moved in their suspended arenas. Slowly, she rose from the sofa, raised her arms above her head and stretched, long, lean, and lovely. In her dimly lit chamber, she shimmered with Fae radiance as she turned, twisted, and bent. Platinum hair swept the backs of her thighs. Green eyes shimmered with otherworldly luminescence. Deep within them glittered the fire of her Summer Court, the ice of her wintry realm. Like him, she was thesis and antithesis, fire and ice, equal capacity for beauty and horror. The high temper and passion of a mortal in the body of a Fae queen, nearly immortal herself, thanks to the elixir he’d given her at an intimate, uncomprehending moment. The concubine had drunk the queen’s elixir, which eventually scorched her soul to ash. The elixir Cruce gave MacKayla had no such side effect. It left her soul—and immense passion—intact. Just one more way Shadow Court ways were superior to the Light Court.

  Once, he’d had her beneath him. He had buried himself inside her, felt her essence to his core. Her power and potential were intoxicating; she was his equal in nearly every way. She’d been unaware of him then, despised him for taking her against her will. In his book, that time didn’t count. He would erase it from hers.

  If I’d met you first, she’d once offered.

  You might have loved me, he’d finished for her. And if you’d loved me, he’d stopped and waited.

  You might have changed, she’d said softly.

  He’d seen truth in her eyes. He’d gifted her his half of the Song of Making, he—Prince Cruce of the Tuatha De Danann—had saved the world for a single kiss, a kiss that evoked the finest in him, that told him, had events played out differently, she might have chosen him over Barrons. Of course she would have. The playing field between him and Barrons had never been level. That would change.

  I am not your Barrons and will never be, he’d told her. Nor would I wish to. I am Cruce of the Tuatha De Danann, High Prince of the Court of Shadows. And you are MacKayla Lane-O’Connor, Queen of the Court of Light. Convince me on another day you would have chosen me as your consort.

  She’d convinced him—and kept her word to grant him four hours before she released the melody. Four hours to inter himself far beyond the Song’s lethal reach, with aid of the bracelet he’d demanded in exchange for the contract they’d signed.

  As she moved for the door, he narrowed his eyes, studying, measuring her. The power she’d channeled had increased tenfold, as majestically restrained and graceful as her lovely body.

  Eyes alight with amusement, he wondered if she’d finally discovered his omission, ergo her departure from the chamber. She would never be full queen. Not without living in Faery for an extended period of time. And she would never survive five thousand years in Faery without him at her side, protecting her. He alone could glamour her, make her seem full queen even to the Seelie. He alone could summon her court, making it seem she was the one capable. Not even Barrons could keep her alive amid such deadly enemies for as long as was necessary to transform her. With Cruce at her side, the Light Court would heel like whipped dogs. Together, they would be unstoppable.

  He wondered how long it would take, how much she would have to lose before she finally saw him for who he was. And who he wasn’t.

  Never her enemy.

  Had events played out differently.

  Wings arcing high, black feathers ruffling and resettling, he stood and moved for his own door.

  Both had sequestered in places where time moved differently, testing their power, refining it, becoming more.

  She believed him dead. Many were the times he’d envisioned her face when she discovered he wasn’t, and that a new, vastly improved Court of Shadows had been born and was ready to claim its rightful place.

  “So it begins,” he murmured, as they stepped simultaneously from their chambers and into the world again.

  5

  Truth is seldom found when a woman is around

  CHRISTIAN

  As the rainbow-hued mist morphs into a whirling tornado of color, I wait to see what it becomes, ready to duel to the death. I will suffer no disemboweling, dismembering, dis-anything-ing ever again.

  When it finally solidifies and stills, fully manifested, I stare, baffled. “Mac?” I explode. Followed by an incensed, “For Christ’s sake, put some clothes on.”

  “Who is Christ?” Mac asks.

  “What?”

  “I do not know that name,” Mac says, with uncharacteristic formality.

  I frown. How did Mac end up in that flask? What are the odds it would be the precise one I kicked? Coincidences raise every suspicious hackle on my spine, and I’ve got a lot of them. When insane things start lining up in sane patterns, someone’s manipulating you and having a grand laugh while doing it. “What are you doing here?”

  “You released me.”

  “Yes, but how did you end up in that beaker in the first place?” It’s a struggle to keep my eyes on her face. I can have sex again. My body hungers. She’s a beautiful woman and, although I’ve been disgusted with Mac at various points in my life (all of which I’ve gotten over; she’s as much a pawn on this ever-tilting stage as I am), I’ve always found her attractive. From perky, determined pink Mac, to blood-and-gore-covered black Mac, she’s the faint whiff of chlorine in a sparkling pool on a summer’s day, hot, sun-kissed skin, wed to something deliciously, dangerously darker and complex. I like complicated women. They smell like sex to me. To hell with stiletto heels and cleavage. Give me a woman with the dichotomy of ice in her eyes, fire in her body, honor in her heart, and the oft-necessary dishonor of thieves in her soul. I find duality irresistible.

  “Put some clothes on,” I order, scowling. She’s queen of the Fae; she can will them into existence. Why the bloody hell is she naked?

  “I possess no attire.”

  “Glamour yourself.”

  She gives me a blank look.

  I turn, stalk to the mirror, grab the dark cloth puddled on the floor, whirl and fling it at her. “Drape that around you.”

  “Is my form not pleasing to you?”

  “Cover yourself.” The body is frequently drawn to places it shouldn’t go. Perversely, the more forbidden and unpredictable the partner, the more erotically combustible in bed. Mac is both forbidden and unpredictable. After years of enforced celibacy, I’m indisputably combustible.

  She stoops, collects the cloth, and drapes it about her shoulders. Covering nothing.

  “Clutch it closed.”

  She does.

  I relax infinitesimally. At least parts of me do. “Why are you here? And what were you doing in that flask?”

  “I’m here because you released me. I was in that flask because that’s where I was until released.” She glances down at the shattered beaker. “You broke my flask.”

  I’m struck by a sudden suspicion. “Your name is Mac, right?”

  “That is not my name.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You may call me the librarian.”

  “What?” I say blankly.