“I’ve not isolated the precise element responsible. And no, I can’t do all of that to you. You’re animate. You might not be when I was done. I prefer you animate. Most of the time.”
Most? I bristle but refuse to be distracted. “Just how many elements are involved in protecting a bookstore? Five? Ten? A hundred?” When he betrays nothing of his secret protection spell—not that I expected him to, Butt-the-fuck-out-of-my-business is his middle name—I press, “Have you considered asking the Keltar if they can help? They’ve been druids to the Fae for thousands of years and maybe—”
This time the look he cuts me holds a glitter of crimson and I shut up. I’ve seen that flash when he’s on top of me, hands bracketing my head, eyes dark with lust. I’ve seen it when he’s killing. I know what it promises: primal passion or primal destruction. Hard as it is to believe, I’m in the mood for neither at the moment. My problems have bred entire subsets of problems, which are no doubt having birth pains to spawn yet more problems, even as I pause to brood about them. Mentioning the clan of sexy Highlanders to Barrons is never a good idea, which I would have remembered if I’d not been distracted by the sudden realization that I’m wearing the last clean outfit I own and will have to do laundry tonight. Again.
I’m sick of hiding. Tired of washing clothes. Fed up with sitting back and doing nothing to help my city, my people, myself. Arguably the most powerful person in Dublin, possibly on the planet—with the exception of one currently frozen prince—I lay low so no one discovers the psychopathic, homicidal embryo I carry inside me—a complete copy of the Sinsar Dubh, the most dangerous, twisted, evil book of black magic ever created.
I know where to find the spell to be rid of the Unseelie that stalk me. I even know where to find the magic to hunt and destroy whatever has been freezing people and icing our city. In the pages of a book I don’t dare ever open, not even for one tiny peek inside. The dark book possesses anyone that reads it, takes them over and corrupts them completely. I’m carrying a lethal bomb around inside me. As long as I don’t touch it, I won’t blow up into the greatest evil mankind has ever known.
For the first week after I refused to take the spell to lay Barrons’s son to rest, the Sinsar Dubh was silent. For eight and a half blissful days I believed I’d gotten my happily-ever-after, and could settle down to a peaceful life of killing Unseelie, rebuilding Dublin, gardening with Mom, driving supercars with my dad, fortifying the abbey, bonding with my sister sidhe-seers, and having phenomenal fights and even better sex with Barrons. All I had to do was ignore the Sinsar Dubh. Never open it. Never use the limitless power at my disposal. Easy, right?
Not.
Temptation isn’t a vice you triumph over once, completely, and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows just the way you take it, heavy on the sin.
Every blasted day it’s that afternoon outside the bookstore all over again, only instead of refusing the spell to save one man’s son, I’m refusing to save an entire city.
It took me all of five minutes suffering the Sinsar Dubh’s goading to devise a plan of action.
Get rid of it.
Before someone finds out or I lose control and rain down death and destruction on everyone I care about. I’m not living this battle every day for the rest of my Fae-elixir-enhanced life. And hopefully the stalkers that impede my ability to move at every turn will vanish along with it.
While our city has been fighting the ice monster, Barrons and I, trailed by my ghouls, have been wasting weeks at a time making trips into the ever-changing White Mansion, sorting through endless libraries, scouring old manuscripts and scrolls, hunting for a ghost of a whisper of a legend: an infamous spell to summon the Unseelie King back to Dublin, so he can strip his damned book out of me.
Barrons thinks it’s wasted effort and is getting impatient. He spent countless millennia searching ancient books for spells—and now I have him searching ancient books for a spell again. He says even if we manage to get his attention, the half-mad king will simply laugh, vanish as quickly as summoned.
I refuse to believe that. The king is my only hope. Besides, he has a soft spot for me. Sort of. I think. That’s about as conclusive as one can be with the entity that calls himself Unseelie King.
“You will obey me, Ms. Lane. You will not follow her. That is all.”
Jericho Barrons turns in a ripple of muscle and beautifully tailored Armani and stalks through the portal, leaving me alone with too many questions, two few choices, and a hundred-odd Unseelie.
That is all, my ass. I’m my own woman. I’m Death walking. I’m the possibility for Complete and Total World Destruction. I can sure as hell make my own decisions.
I ponder the Silver, eyes narrowed.
I know Barrons.
If I follow Dani, he’ll follow me, as will my confederacy of Unseelie. I imagine the parade we make: pretty blonde with the scary eyes followed by big, dark, tattooed man with the really scary eyes, trailed by a hundred eerily gliding, cobweb-dusted, black-cloaked, stinking wraiths. Hell, I’d take one look at us and run, even if I didn’t know we had good reason to be pissed at me.
Barrons is right. Dani will only keep fleeing, anywhere, any way, possible.
And it’s not our bizarre cavalcade causing it.
It’s me.
You’re not ready yet, he said.
It’s my fault she went through the Silver. I’m getting better at recognizing pivotal moments, and there was one back in the alley where I might have been able to reach her, stop her from running. Or at least not drive her into Faery.