The word was out. It was possible the Spyrssidhe alone—already banished and with little to lose—would dare approach me. I knew how feared the princes were among the Fae, inspiring obsequious fawning, obedience, and given wide, wary berth. No doubt their queen had been a hundred times as terrifying. How else could anyone control a race of immortals as power-hungry and brutal as V’lane/Cruce?
Damn it, I needed him on my side. He could teach me.
He’d prefer to kill me. I was the only thing standing between him and the throne for which he hungered. We’d left the princess cocooned in the boudoir.
“MacKayla.” Cruce appeared beside me as if summoned by my thoughts.
I startled, jumped back, nearly went down on the slippery pavement and caught myself on his arm.
He stared down at my hand on his forearm, a muscle working in his jaw, as if it was hard for him in some way to see me touching him. He was fully Unseelie prince, not bothering with glamour, dark, enormous, and powerfully built, with kaleidoscopic tattoos racing beneath his skin like brilliant storm clouds, flitting up his neck to flirt with the writhing torque around his neck. He’d dressed—no doubt in an attempt to disarm or make me see him as more like us—as a human, in faded jeans, boots, and a flowing linen shirt. I was inordinately irritated to see not one speck of rain falling on him. He was, I observed with a distant, unwilling part of my mind, unutterably beautiful, exotic, and disturbingly, basely male.
I snatched it away and stared up into his dark face.
He’d raped me.
And he had answers I needed. I’d offered to be the sheepdog, not the wolf, if he would cooperate.
I recalled the day Barrons had told me we couldn’t kill the Unseelie princes because they were linchpins. I’d thoroughly resented it.
I understood it now. And strangely, I no longer felt white-hot fury or trembling rage when I looked at him. He was a predator. He’d preyed on me. I was aware now. Wide-awake, eyes open. I knew what existed in the world and I knew how to protect myself from it. All that was left in me about the rape was a calm acknowledgment that this man had harmed me. I knew what he was and would deal with him accordingly.
He said icily, “Recall, when you regard me with condemnation in your eyes that I also gave you the elixir. I did not use the Sidhba-jai on you that day nor contribute to your madness. If I had not attended you then, you would have died in the street, maimed and broken as your sister. You have finally become the creature I knew you might one day be. If the price of your survival was permitting my carnal use of your body for that brief time, would you have accepted it, had the choice been presented to you?”
I said nothing, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of my spear.
“Answer me,” he said imperiously.
“I didn’t hear a ‘O Great and Glorious Liege’ in there anywhere.”
Abruptly, rain stopped splattering into my umbrella. He’d extended whatever power he was using to hold it at bay to encompass me as well. I closed my umbrella and rested the tip on the ground.
“I see the answer in your eyes. You, like me, would pay any price to survive to fight for your desires for even one more day.”
“That doesn’t excuse your actions. You could have simply given me the elixir. You didn’t have to rape me.”
“I caused you no harm. You experienced only pleasure at my hands. And I experienced enormous pleasure in yours. It was not the way I would have chosen it to be.”
“You think if a person is forced to orgasm during rape it’s not rape.” How wrong he was. Above me, thunder cracked and boomed, and I wondered if the weather was causing it, or me. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I am incapable of seeing it any other way. I am Fae, MacKayla. You know what I am. Do you seek my counsel? Shall I attend you?”
“You vanished last night, refusing us aid.”
“You do not see me. You have never seen me. To you, alone, will I give my aid. I have always offered it to you. I offer it now.”
“So you can get close to me, awaiting the opportunity to kill me.”
His eyes narrowed, locked with mine. “I would be your consort, your instructor, your lover. I would prove to you that I did not and never would harm you with my lust. Teach you as I once taught Aoibheal.”
“Who you also tried to kill.”
He smiled faintly. “She was not like you. You are the best of both worlds: the ice and power of a Fae queen, the passion and fire of a human. By the time she was queen, she’d been fully Fae for a long time.”
“Barrons is my consort.”
“Discard him. Choose me. I have always hungered for you. That was never a lie.”
“I will never choose you. I command you to aid me. I am your queen.”
“You are not my queen, nor was she. I am not of that puny race. I am Unseelie. Try again.” He smiled again, white teeth flashing in his dark chiseled face. “Unlike the Seelie, you do not know my True Name. You can never compel me. Merely request. I will be your ally. I will teach you all that I can about your newfound powers. But you must reward me.”
“What do you want?” Here it was: we were getting to the miracle it would take to wed him to my aim.
“First, you will restore my wings. Then once we have saved this world, you will willingly transfer the True Magic to me.”
“I could do that—restore your wings and transfer the queen’s power?” What else could I do? Fix a human heart?