obeyed and butcher everyone in sight. Ryodan excels at chess, crushes his opposition in five or fewer moves. Barrons eats the board, with blood for ketchup.
“Got a lot of Unseelie outside the bookstore, Mac,” Ryodan says.
“Got a lot inside Chester’s,” I rejoin coolly.
“He understands our needs,” one of the Unseelie Princes says.
“They don’t trail me everywhere I go,” Ryodan says.
“Then again you understand them, too, from personal experience,” the prince reminds me silkily.
I ignore it. “Guess you don’t smell as sweet,” I tell Ryodan.
“Or as rotten,” he returns.
“I’ve been testing wards on them.” Barrons puts the issue to swift rest.
Ryodan laughs but lets it go.
The six of us sit eyeing one another in silence. There is no air in the room, only hostility and rage. I breathe shallowly of it and slide my hand to the comforting hilt of my spear. And snatch it away, assaulted by horrific images again.
“You will remove the ward that prohibits our sifting, or you will take away her spear.” The taller of the princes speaks to Barrons, but his gaze is moving, hot, sexual, devouring, over my body.
Barrons goes so motionless next to me that for a moment I’m not sure he didn’t just vanish in that stealthy way of his. I inhale shallowly, wondering if this meeting is going to end before it even begins.
Then Barrons says softly, carefully, “Ms. Lane.” I feel the tension in his body, mirroring the same tightly coiled rage in mine.
“I’m not giving you my spear,” I say just as softly. “ It can deal with it.” Time was, they could weave the illusion that they’d taken it from me, but I got wise to their trick and it doesn’t work on me anymore.
“I am not an ‘it.’ I am Prince Rath of the second royal Unseelie House created,” the tall Unseelie says coldly. “My brother is Kiall, from the third. Once, you whimpered our names. As you begged us for more. Without the spear you are nothing. Human. Weak.”
Neither Barrons nor I speak for a moment. Then he says, tonelessly, “I’m not removing the wards.”
“Fine, they can leave,” I say just as tonelessly. I am nothing, my ass. They don’t know about my inner psycho.
Barrons shoots me a look. I feel it on my ear, needling me to turn my head.
“Look at me,” he commands.
I scowl but look.
You said you trusted me to protect you. If I drop the ward, others can sift in. Unacceptable risk. Do not push me. My beast wants them dead .
Well, at least our beasts are in agreement , I retort saccharine-sweet. Seething, I slip the spear from my sheath and slap it into his palm before I get any more reminders of this afternoon.
Rath and Kiall rustle and chime in the bone-chilling, inhuman fashion that had been their only mode of communication when they first arrived in Dublin, crazed with hunger. I’d felt that chiming deep in my bones, as my mind slipped away. When Barrons hands the spear to Ryodan, who tucks it beneath his jacket, they resume their polished facade.
“Right, he can have it but I can’t,” I grouse.
“ He does not consider past minor insult bar to future gain. Women are weak that way. Valuing things that mean nothing at all. Lamenting events they clearly enjoyed,” Kiall says, raking me with a knowing, intimate sneer. “What was lost that night? Nothing. What was gained? An experience beyond compare. Your human women kill each other for our amusement, to eliminate the competition for the privilege of such a night with us.”
I don’t know who goes more rigid beside me, Kat or Barrons. The room is a volcano waiting to blow.
I inhale, count to ten, exhale. At some point, when I’ve mastered my inner demon, I’ll pay a visit to the gothic monstrous mess of a mansion on the outskirts of Dublin where the princes have surrounded themselves with worshippers. With my spear. And those women that chirp bright, vapid nonsense like “See you in Faery” will stop killing each other to lose
“Got a lot of Unseelie outside the bookstore, Mac,” Ryodan says.
“Got a lot inside Chester’s,” I rejoin coolly.
“He understands our needs,” one of the Unseelie Princes says.
“They don’t trail me everywhere I go,” Ryodan says.
“Then again you understand them, too, from personal experience,” the prince reminds me silkily.
I ignore it. “Guess you don’t smell as sweet,” I tell Ryodan.
“Or as rotten,” he returns.
“I’ve been testing wards on them.” Barrons puts the issue to swift rest.
Ryodan laughs but lets it go.
The six of us sit eyeing one another in silence. There is no air in the room, only hostility and rage. I breathe shallowly of it and slide my hand to the comforting hilt of my spear. And snatch it away, assaulted by horrific images again.
“You will remove the ward that prohibits our sifting, or you will take away her spear.” The taller of the princes speaks to Barrons, but his gaze is moving, hot, sexual, devouring, over my body.
Barrons goes so motionless next to me that for a moment I’m not sure he didn’t just vanish in that stealthy way of his. I inhale shallowly, wondering if this meeting is going to end before it even begins.
Then Barrons says softly, carefully, “Ms. Lane.” I feel the tension in his body, mirroring the same tightly coiled rage in mine.
“I’m not giving you my spear,” I say just as softly. “ It can deal with it.” Time was, they could weave the illusion that they’d taken it from me, but I got wise to their trick and it doesn’t work on me anymore.
“I am not an ‘it.’ I am Prince Rath of the second royal Unseelie House created,” the tall Unseelie says coldly. “My brother is Kiall, from the third. Once, you whimpered our names. As you begged us for more. Without the spear you are nothing. Human. Weak.”
Neither Barrons nor I speak for a moment. Then he says, tonelessly, “I’m not removing the wards.”
“Fine, they can leave,” I say just as tonelessly. I am nothing, my ass. They don’t know about my inner psycho.
Barrons shoots me a look. I feel it on my ear, needling me to turn my head.
“Look at me,” he commands.
I scowl but look.
You said you trusted me to protect you. If I drop the ward, others can sift in. Unacceptable risk. Do not push me. My beast wants them dead .
Well, at least our beasts are in agreement , I retort saccharine-sweet. Seething, I slip the spear from my sheath and slap it into his palm before I get any more reminders of this afternoon.
Rath and Kiall rustle and chime in the bone-chilling, inhuman fashion that had been their only mode of communication when they first arrived in Dublin, crazed with hunger. I’d felt that chiming deep in my bones, as my mind slipped away. When Barrons hands the spear to Ryodan, who tucks it beneath his jacket, they resume their polished facade.
“Right, he can have it but I can’t,” I grouse.
“ He does not consider past minor insult bar to future gain. Women are weak that way. Valuing things that mean nothing at all. Lamenting events they clearly enjoyed,” Kiall says, raking me with a knowing, intimate sneer. “What was lost that night? Nothing. What was gained? An experience beyond compare. Your human women kill each other for our amusement, to eliminate the competition for the privilege of such a night with us.”
I don’t know who goes more rigid beside me, Kat or Barrons. The room is a volcano waiting to blow.
I inhale, count to ten, exhale. At some point, when I’ve mastered my inner demon, I’ll pay a visit to the gothic monstrous mess of a mansion on the outskirts of Dublin where the princes have surrounded themselves with worshippers. With my spear. And those women that chirp bright, vapid nonsense like “See you in Faery” will stop killing each other to lose
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