Still no response. He knew she was listening, lingering a dimensional sliver just beyond the human realm. Watching, savoring his discomfort.
And . . . waiting for a show of submission, he acknowledged darkly.
A muscle leapt in his jaw. Humility was not, nor would ever be, his strong suit.
Still, if his choices were humble or human—and cursed and powerless, to boot—he’d eat humble pie until he choked on it.
“My Queen, you were right and I was wrong. See, I can say it.”
Though the lie tasted foul upon his tongue.
“And I vow never again to disobey you.”
At least not until he was certain he was secure in her good graces again.
“Forgive me, Queen Most Fair.”
Of course she would. She always did.
“I am your most humble, adoring servant, O glorious Queen.”
Was he laying it on too thick? he wondered idly, as the silence lengthened. He noticed he’d begun to tap a booted foot in a most human manner. He stomped it to make it be still. He was not human. He was nothing like them.
“Did you hear me? I apologized,” he snapped.
After a few more moments, he sighed. Gritting his teeth, he dropped to his knees. It was universally known that Adam Black despised being on his knees for any reason, for anyone.
“Exalted leader of the True Race,” he purred in the ancient, rarely used tongue of his kind, “Savior of the Danaan, I petition the grace and glory of thy throne.” Ritual, ancient words of formal court manners, they signified as nothing else could, his complete and utter obeisance. And ritual demanded she reply.
The contrary bitch didn’t.
He—who’d never before suffered the passage of time—now felt it acutely, as it stretched too long.
“Damn it, Aoibheal, fix me!” he thundered, lunging to his feet. “Give me back my powers! Make me immortal again!”
Nothing.
Time spun out.
“A taste,” he assured himself. “She’s just giving me a taste of this, to teach me a lesson.”
Any moment now she would appear. She would rebuke him. She would subject him to a scathing account of his many transgressions. He would nod, promise never to do it again, and all would be made right. Just like the thousands of other times he’d disobeyed or angered her.
An hour later nothing was right.
Two hours later and Chloe Zanders was gone, leaving him alone in the silent, dusty tombs. He almost missed her wailing. Almost.
Thirty-six hours later and his body was hungry, thirsty, and—a thing nearly incomprehensible to him—tired. The Tuatha Dé did not sleep. His mind, customarily razor-sharp and lightning fast, was getting muddled, sluggish, shutting down without his consent.
Unacceptable. He’d be damned if any part of him was doing a single thing without his consent. Not his mind. Not his body. It never had and never would. A Tuatha Dé was always in control. Always.
His last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was that he was bloody well certain he’d rather be anything else: stuck inside a mountain for a few hundred years, turned into a slimy, three-headed sea beast, forced to play the court fool again for a century or two.
Anything but . . . so . . . disgustingly . . . pathetically . . . uncontrollably . . . hum—
1
CINCINNATI, OHIO
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER . . .
Summer, Gabrielle O’Callaghan brooded—always her favorite season—had absolutely sucked this year.
Unlocking her car, she got in and slipped off her sunglasses. Shrugging out of her suit jacket, she nudged off her heels and took slow, deep breaths. She sat collecting herself for a few moments, then tugged free the clip restraining her hair and massaged her scalp.
She was getting the start of a killer headache.
And her hands were still shaking.
She’d nearly betrayed herself to the Fae.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid, but, God, there were just too many of them this summer! She hadn’t spotted a fairy in Cincinnati for years, but now, for some bizarre reason, there were oodles of them.
Like Cincinnati was some kind of great place to hang out—could a city be more boring? Whatever their unfathomable reason for choosing the Tri-State, they’d appeared in droves in early June, and had been ruining her summer ever since.
And pretending she didn’t see them never got any easier. With their perfect bodies, gold-velvet skin, and shimmering iridescent eyes, they were a little hard to miss. Drop-dead gorgeous, impossibly seductive, dripping pure power, the males were a walking temptation for a girl to—
Brusquely she shook her head to abort that treacherous thought. She’d survived this long and was darned if she was going to slip up and get caught by one of the erotic—exotic, she corrected herself impatiently—creatures.