I turned to circle with him, meeting that dark, hostile gaze. “I thought we resolved this in the mansion, Jericho. It’s Mac.”
“It’s Mac when I’m fucking you. The rest of the time, it’s Ms. Lane. Get used to it.”
“Boundaries, Barrons?”
“Precisely. Where’s the king, Ms. Lane?”
“You think he calls me to check in? Says, Honey, I’ll be home for dinner tonight at seven? How the hell should I know?” Which was technically the truth. Even Christian would have had a hard time with that one. I didn’t know where all his parts were.
The concubine made a faint sound and we turned to look at her.
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got to get her out of here. I won’t have the entire Fae race trying to get past my wards. I suppose we’ll have to protect her.” His distaste couldn’t have been more evident. If given a choice between having a razor-blade enema and protecting a Fae—had it been any other Fae than the all-powerful queen—Barrons would have willingly died a few times from internal bleeding.
But she was the one Fae he wasn’t willing to sacrifice—yet.
I was definitely up for moving her somewhere else; the farther from me, the better. I’d been worried that he might try to keep her at the bookstore and had been prepared to argue that, no matter how formidable his wards were, with the two of us coming and going constantly, she’d be left alone too much to guarantee her safety. “What do you have in mind?” I said.
Half a Dani Daily flapped on a streetlamp in the chilly night breeze. I plucked it off, scanned it for the date AWC, and did some hasty calculations. If it had been posted today—which it probably hadn’t, considering its condition—the date was March 23. Maybe a week later.
I read it and smiled faintly. She’d taken the bull by the horns while I was gone. The kid feared nothing.
The Dani Daily
147 Days AWC
Dudes—Listen Up if You Wanna Survive!
A few simple rules and regs will keep you alive!
1. Skintight clothes or nothing at all! Don’t be bashful, don’t be shy. Don’t leave no place for a book to hide. The fecker’s on the rampage, has been for weeks! Need to be seeing with your own eyeballs ain’t nothing hiding on your peeps.
2. No splitting up! Do NOT go anywhere alone. That’s when it gets you! If you see a book, DON’T PICK IT UP!!!!!
3. Don’t leave your hidey-holes at night! Don’t know why, but it likes the dark. Yes, I’m talking about the SINSAR DUBH. I said it, you heard me. You dudes who ain’t been seeing my rags, it’s a book of dark magic created by the Unseelie King almost a million years ago. Past time you know the truth. If you pick it up, it will make you KILL EVERYBODY AROUND YOU, starting with the peeps you love. Start following the rules! No deviations, no stupid fecking
The bottom half had been torn off, but I didn’t need to see any more. I’d really just wanted to know the date. I’d missed her birthday. Chocolate on chocolate, she’d said. I’d planned to make her a cake myself. I’d throw a belated party for her, even if it was just the two of us.
Hardly something the Unseelie King would think about: birthday parties for humans.
“You might have all night, but some of us don’t,” Barrons growled over his shoulder.
I stuffed the paper in my pocket and hurried to catch up. We’d parked the Viper a block away. The queen wore a hooded cloak and was wrapped in blankets.
“You have all night tonight and tomorrow night and all eternity for that matter. So how long were you dead this time?” I asked, needling him.
The rattle moved in his throat.
I took a perverse pleasure in irritating him. “A day? Three? Five? What does it depend on? How badly you’re injured?”
“If I were you, Ms. Lane, I’d never bring that up again. You think you’re suddenly a major player because you went through that Silver—”
“I left Christian at the mirror. I found him in the prison,” I cut him off.
His mouth snapped shut, then, “Why the fuck does it always take you so long to tell me the important things?”
“Because there are always so many important things,” I said defensively. “Her hair’s dragging again.”
“Pick it up. My hands are full.”
“I’m not touching her.”
He shot me a look. “Issues much, Ms. Concubine?”
“She’s not even the real queen,” I said irritably. “Not the one that ruined the concubine’s life. I just don’t like Fae. I’m a sidhe-seer, remember?”
“Are you?”
“Why are you so pissed at me? It’s not my fault who I am. The only thing that’s my fault is what I choose to do with it.”
He gave me a sidelong glance that said, That might be the only intelligent thing you’ve said tonight.
I looked past him to the wrecked façade of Chester’s ahead, and for a moment it looked eerily like a ruin of standing stones, black against a blue-black sky, from a faraway time and another place. A full moon hung above it, wearing a halo of crimson, round fat face splattered with craters of blood. More Fae changes in our world.
“When you get inside, go to the stairs and one of them will escort you up. Go directly to the stairs,” he said pointedly. “Try not to get in trouble or cause a riot on the way.”
“I don’t think that’s a fair statement. Life isn’t always chaotic around me.”
“Like when isn’t it?”
“Like when I’m …” I thought a minute. “Alone,” I finished pissily. “Or asleep.” I didn’t ask about my parents. It felt … wrong, as if I no longer had any right to ask questions about Jack and Rainey Lane. It made my heart hurt. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll meet you inside.”
“Because if I knew whatever secret back entrance you’re about to use,” I said sarcastically, “I might broadcast it to all the Fae, is that it?” He trusted me even less now that he thought I was the king’s mortal lover. How would he treat me if he thought I was the Big Bad himself?
“Move it, Ms. Lane,” was all he said.
I descended into the belly of the whale to find it crammed to the gills with humans and Unseelie—standing room only at Chester’s tonight.