Shadowfever

Barrons was one of the most complicated men I’d ever met and at the same time one of the simplest: You were with him, or you were against him. Period. End of story. You got only one chance with him. And if you betrayed him, you ceased to exist in his world until he got around to killing you.

Fiona had ceased to exist when she’d let Shades into the bookstore to devour me while I was sleeping—thereby stealing his only chance at something he wanted very badly, whatever it was—and the only thing he felt now was a twinge of wishing it hadn’t turned out this way, a whisper of a regret. Not so long ago he’d put a knife through her heart, and if she hadn’t been eating Unseelie, it would have killed her. He’d been ready to kill her in the alley, and not mercifully.

I stole another look at him, realizing the full extent of what I’d just been mulling over.

He thought I’d betrayed him by taking up with Darroc when I’d believed he was dead. But he hadn’t excised me from his life. Whatever he wanted from the Sinsar Dubh, he wanted very badly.

And according to my own assessment of him, once he had it, he would kill me.

He must have felt my gaze, because he looked at me.

Something wrong, Ms. Lane?

My gaze mocked, Is there anything right about this situation?

He smiled without humor. Besides the obvious.

I shook my head.

You’re looking at me as if you expect me to kill you.

I jerked. Was I that easy to read?

You’re wondering what kind of man I am and how I feel about all this.

I stared.

You think you betrayed me and one day I will kill you for it.

I’m not sure why I even bother talking. My eyes flashed with temper. I hated being so transparent.

That you allied with Darroc to attain your goals did not betray me. I’d have done the same.

Then why are you so pissy?

That you fucked him will be forgiven once you fuck me. Another woman might run headlong toward absolution.

I put an end to our discussion by staring straight ahead.

It was slow going. Fiona couldn’t move very quickly. We proceeded at a snail’s pace through rose halls, to sunshine, to bronze.

“The libraries,” Barrons said as we passed. “We’ll stop on the way back, since we’re in here anyway. I want another look around.”

I felt a sudden tension in the cloaked figure next to me as the dark hood turned my way.

I didn’t need to be able to see her face to sense the bitterness of her gaze or divine the morbid turn of her thoughts.

His comment had driven home that he and I would be walking out of here together and she would be dead. And I knew she thought we would be having a fabulous time, dancing and fighting, having sex and living, while her existence would be over, extinguished as if she’d never been born, unmourned, unmissed.

I felt hatred emanating from beneath that cloak, malevolent and dark, and was glad to see black floors ahead.

I felt like we were prison guards, taking the long, slow, hellish walk to the electric chair. The convict between us would have done anything to escape her sentence, but fate had left her no choice but to crave oblivion.

“How?” she whispered, as we entered the black tunnel.

I looked at Barrons and he looked at me. Once we’d stepped onto the black floors, I’d begun to feel the sexual tension this part of the castle inevitably stirred. One glance at his face confirmed he was feeling it, too.

I was horrified to realize that Fiona must be feeling it, too.

Barrons replied tightly, “There is a Silver that divides the chamber of the Unseelie King and the concubine’s. Only those two can step through it. All others die instantly.”

“Even … you?”

So she knew he could die. And come back.

“Yes.”

There was that awful wet sound, laughter but not. “She … knows now.”

Barrons gave me a look that clearly said, Shut her up or I’ll end it now.

“Yes. I know all of it, Fiona,” I lied.

She moved forward, silent once again.

*   *   *

Christian was asleep in the Unseelie King’s big bed, long black hair a silken fan across a pillow.

If Fiona hadn’t been skinned and in so much pain, I would have pushed her across the white half of the boudoir into the mirror to get it over with, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch her.

“Who the—What the fuck?” Barrons stalked across snowy furs, through diamond-studded air, to the enormous Silver, staring at the male in the bed.

I glanced at the fireplace, expecting to see the concubine, trying to figure out how I would explain things to Barrons if the queen’s memory residue was stretched out there, but the furs were empty, the fire banked to low white embers.

His voice startled Christian awake; the young Scot rolled over and sprang to his feet.

Silk sheets dripped from his body, leaving him nude and visibly aroused. For a moment I thought he’d gotten rid of the tattoos, but they appeared, moving up his legs, his groin, and his abdomen, then around the side of his chest, before vanishing again.

I joined Barrons at the edge of the mirror, trying not to stare, but gorgeous naked men are gorgeous naked men.

I wondered if memories of the king and queen’s lovemaking had been affecting him the way they’d got to me. His eyes glittered with lazy sensuality, and I could too well imagine the bent of his dreams. He might be difficult to pry out of the chamber when the time came.

He stood on the dark side of the boudoir and looked at me. “I must be dreaming. Bring that sweet ass over here and I’ll show you what God made women and well-hung Scotsmen for.”

“Who the bloody hell is that?” Barrons demanded.

“Christian MacKeltar.”

“That’s not Christian MacKeltar!” Barrons exploded. “That’s Unseelie royalty!”

“Ah, fuck me.” Christian ran his hands through his long, dark hair, muscles rippling in his shoulders. “Is that really what I look like, Mac?”

I almost said, I don’t know, I can’t stop looking at your—

Fiona pushed me.

The bitch actually shoved me from behind.

I was so flabbergasted, I didn’t even gasp. I was speechless. I’d come here on a mission of mercy and she’d tried to kill me again!

She’d concluded from what Barrons had told her that I would die if I touched the Silver, too, and her final act had been to try to take me with her.