Shadowfever

“Where are you getting your information?” I demanded.

“And there was no ‘later’ for her.”

“How do you know that? What do you know about my mother, Ryodan?”

Ryodan glanced at Barrons. The look they exchanged spoke volumes, but unfortunately I had no idea what language they were speaking.

I glared at Barrons. “And you wonder why I don’t confide in you? You don’t tell me anything.”

“Leave it alone. I’m handling this,” Barrons told Ryodan.

“I suggest you do a better job.”

“And I suggest you go fuck yourself.”

“She didn’t tell you that the Book visited her the other night at Darroc’s. It skims her mind, picks up her thoughts.”

“I think it only picks up the surface ones,” I said hastily. “Not everything.”

“It killed Darroc because it learned from her that he knew a shortcut. Wonder what else it learned.”

Barrons’ head whipped around and he stared at me. You said nothing of this to me?

You said nothing to me about my mother? What do you know about her? About me?

His dark gaze promised retribution for my oversight.

So did mine.

I hated this. Barrons and I were enemies. It confused my head and hurt my heart. I’d grieved him as if I’d lost the only person who mattered to me, and now here we were, adversaries again. Were we destined to be eternal enemies?

One of us is going to have to trust the other, I told him.

You first, Ms. Lane.

That was the whole problem. Neither of us would take the risk. I had a lengthy list of reasons why I shouldn’t, and they were sound. My daddy could take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing my side. Barrons didn’t inspire trust. He didn’t even bother trying.

When hell freezes over, Barrons.

Same bloody page, Ms. Lane. Same bloody—

I turned my gaze away in the middle of his sentence, the ocular equivalent of flipping him the bird.

Ryodan was watching us, hard.

“Butt out,” I warned. “This is between him and me. All you need to do is keep my parents safe and—”

“Little hard to do when you’re such a fucking loose cannon.”

The door burst open, and Lor and two others stalked in. Tension rolled off them, so thick it seemed to suck the oxygen right out of the room.

Fade followed behind them, carrying a pile of sheets and a roll of duct tape.

“You’re never going to believe what just walked into the club,” Lor told Ryodan. “Tell me to change. Say the word.”

My eyes narrowed. Did Lor need Ryodan’s permission? Or was it a courtesy in his club?

“The Sinsar Dubh, right?” Ryodan gave Barrons a pointed look. “Because it skimmed Mac’s mind and now it knows where to find us.”

“You are so frigging paranoid, Ryodan. Why would it even want to find you?” I said.

“Maybe,” one of the other men said, “we’d make a damned good ride for it, and we don’t like being used.”

“Have you taught her nothing of strategy?” Ryodan fired at Barrons.

“I haven’t had all that much time,” Barrons said.

“A Seelie. A fucking prince,” Lor said. “He’s got a couple hundred more Seelie from a dozen different castes waiting outside. Threatening war. Demanding you shut the place down, stop feeding the Unseelie.”

I gasped. “V’lane?”

“You told him to come!” Ryodan accused.

“She knows him?” Lor exploded.

“It’s her other boyfriend,” Ryodan said.

“Besides Darroc?” one of the other men demanded.

Lor glared at Barrons. “When are you going to wise up and shut this bitch down for good?”

The testosterone level was rising to a dangerous high. I suddenly worried they might all transform into beasts. I’d be stuck in the middle of a pack of snarling monsters with talons and fangs and horns, and I didn’t think for one minute Barrons’ brand would protect me from the other five. I wasn’t even sure it would work on him.

“You think it’s the Seelie you need to be worrying about?” said Fade.

“What the fuck do you think we should be worrying about?” Barrons said impatiently.

Fade swung his gun up and pumped a half dozen rounds into Barrons before anyone even managed to move. “Me.”

20

The only reason it worked was because Fade caught him off guard. Barrons can move so fast that shooting him isn’t the easiest way to kill him.

But he didn’t expect Fade to shoot him, and Fade is as fast as Barrons.

I don’t know what Barrons and the others are, but until someone tells me otherwise, I’m going to assume they’re all the same. They have heightened senses: smell, vision, and hearing. Barrons has the strength of ten men, and his bones are extremely resilient. I imagine they have to be, so he can transform the way he does. I’ve watched Barrons drop thirty feet and land on his feet, as light as a cat.

Fade surprised them all. He managed to gun down Ryodan, too, before the others attacked him and took his gun away.

Fade stumbled back against the wall, and I thought how strange it was that he’d lost his weapon but was still hanging on to the sheets.

“What the fuck, Fade?” Lor snarled. “Forget your meds again?”

Fade looked at me. “Your parents are next,” he purred. “I will destroy everything you love, MacKayla.”

I sucked in a horrified breath. Ryodan wasn’t paranoid. He’d been right. The Sinsar Dubh had skimmed me, lifted information about them from my mind, and acted on it swiftly.

It was right here—in the room with me!

It had learned about Chester’s and had come to take a look around, see what it might see.

I’d been out of the Silvers for three days—and this was the third day in a row it had found me!

Was it really my fault that it had gone to the abbey because it hadn’t been able to find me in Dublin? Was I indirectly responsible for all the sidhe-seers who’d died that night? How long had it been here, moving from person to person, working its way closer to me all the while?

Long enough to have discovered my parents—

“It’s in the sheets,” I cried. “Get the sheets!” I regretted the words the instant I said them. Whoever touched it would also be possessed, and the other men still had guns. “No, don’t touch the sheets!” I screamed.