Burned by Karen Marie Moning

would have destroyed her to carry the deaths of our entire abbey on her conscience. His sacrifice spared her that horror. We owe him a tremendous debt.”
    “Any word on Christian’s whereabouts?”
    “His uncles are searching. All of us at the abbey are eager to help mount a rescue, if they find him.”
    Although it horrified me that he’d given himself up to the Hag, it also relieved me because it meant the man I knew was still in there, despite the madness. Deep down, he still cared about the world around him. I made a mental note to ask Barrons to aid in the search. He could lean on Ryodan to enlist some of the Nine to go scouting. We couldn’t just leave Christian out there, being tortured and killed over and over. We owed him rescue for the sacrifice he’d made. What he was suffering in the Hag’s sadistic hands would only drive him deeper into Unseelie madness. We needed to save him before he lost all trace of his fundamental humanity.
    The princes ascend the stairs, identical but for a few inches’ height difference. I realize I’m looking directly at them without weeping blood. I glance at Kat to see if it’s just me or if she, too, can regard them directly. She can. And is—with fascination.
    “They’ve fed enough to gain control of themselves,” I say softly. When they first arrived in Dublin they were like rabid animals from long confinement and starvation, and flat-out terrifying. “They’re studying us, learning from us.” I get it: pacify the sheep before the slaughter. A panicked kill makes for a soured stew. These two, the worst of the Unseelie, are now the ultimate bad boys. Women will flock to them, lemmings on a suicide march over a cliff.
    These are my rapists, the ones that turned me inside out, ripped my mind from my body and shredded it. They are also, unfortunately, hot as hell.
    I want them dead.
    Yes, yes, yes, KILL , the Book surges to life again.
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December; and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor .
    The rhythm takes over. I roll the many internal rhymes and dazzling alliteration over my tongue silently while I assess the princes, building the syllables, brick by brick, into a mental wall.
    My rapists are dressed like Barrons. Sleek. Masculine. Sexy. It pisses me off.
    “Son of a bitch,” Kat says softly. Kat doesn’t curse. “Do you know how my girls will react to them? Cruce is bad enough.”
    “Son of a bitch,” I agree.
    Behind the balustrade, four long cherry tables make a square.
    The Unseelie Princes take one side.
    Barrons, Kat, and I take the opposite.
    It’s all I can do to not lunge across the space separating us and attack them. Two things stay my hand: Barrons wants them alive, and I’m afraid I’ll black out again. Kat is vulnerably human.
    After a few moments, Ryodan drops into a chair beside us, sandwiching Kat and me between a gentle hum of power. He pushes a hand through thick, dark hair, cut close at the sides, and assesses me with that clear, analytical gaze of his. I meet itimpassively. His chiseled features are untouched by lines, and I’d guess him frozen in time, however he stopped aging, at about thirty, plus however many thousands of years he’s actually lived.
    Like all of Barrons’s men, he’s powerfully muscled and sports multiple scars, the most prominent running from his jaw down his neck and over his chest. He appreciates the finer things in life and pursues them without scruple. I want to know the history these men will never tell me. Although an animal exists beneath each of their skins, Ryodan hides his the best. He’s the businessman of the Nine of whatever-they-are, managing financial concerns, maintaining their vast empire.
    Barrons is the taciturn, primal leader of their small immortal army, the one to whom they all answer. He usually lets Ryodan do his talking. Probably because Barrons knows he would lose patience the moment one of his orders isn’t instantly