“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he said finally.
“I know who killed Alina.”
“Ah.” The single word said more than most people can say in entire paragraphs. “Beyond a shadow?”
“Black and white.”
He waited. He didn’t ask. And I suddenly understood that he wouldn’t. This was part of who he was. Barrons did feel, and when he felt most strongly, he spoke the least, asked the fewest questions. Even from here I could feel the tension in his body as he waited to see if I would tell him more. If I didn’t, he would continue walking through the store and vanish as silently as he’d glided into view.
But if I spoke? What if I asked him to make love to me? Not fuck me hard, but make love.
“It was Dani.”
He said nothing for so long that I began to think he hadn’t heard me. Then he released a long, weary-sounding breath. “Mac, I’m sorry.”
I looked up at him. “What do I do?” I was appalled to hear my voice crack.
“You’ve done nothing yet?”
I shook my head.
“What do you want to do?”
I laughed bitterly and nearly began sobbing. “Pretend I never found out and go on like it never happened.”
“Then that’s what you do.”
I tipped my head back and looked up at him in disbelief. “What? Barrons, the great hand of vengeance, is telling me to forgive and forget? You never forgive. You never walk away from a fight.”
“I like to fight. You do, too, sometimes. But in this case, it doesn’t sound like it.”
“It’s not that I—I mean … it’s … God, it’s so complicated!”
“Life is. Imperfect. Royally fucked up. How do you feel about her?”
“I—” felt like a traitor answering him.
“Let me rephrase that: How did you feel about her before you found out she’d killed Alina?”
“—loved her,” I whispered.
“Do you think love just goes away? Pops out of existence when it becomes too painful or inconvenient, as if you never felt it?”
I looked at him. What did Jericho Barrons know of love?
“If only it did. If only it could be turned off. It’s not a faucet. Love’s a bloody river with level-five rapids. Only a catastrophic act of nature or a dam has any chance of stopping it—and then usually only succeeds in diverting it. Both measures are extreme and change the terrain so much you end up wondering why you bothered. No landmarks to gauge your position when it’s done. Only way to survive is to devise new ways to map out life. You loved her yesterday, you love her today. And she did something that devastates you. You’ll love her tomorrow.”
“She killed my sister!”
“With malice? Spite? Out of cruelty? Hunger for power?”
“How would I know?”
“You love her,” he said roughly. “That means you know her. When you love somebody you see inside them. Use your heart. Is Dani that kind of person?”
Jericho Barrons was telling me to use my heart. Could life get any stranger?
“Think maybe somebody told her to do it?”
“She should have known better!”
“Humans, in their infancy, tend to be infants.”
“Are you making excuses for her?” I snarled.
“There is no excuse. I’m merely pointing out what you want me to point out. How has Dani treated you since the day you met?”
It hurt to even say the words. “Like a big sister she looked up to.”
“Has she been loyal to you? Taken your side against others?”
I nodded. Even when she’d thought I’d hooked up with Darroc, she’d have remained at my side. Followed me into hell.
“She must have known you were Alina’s sister.”
“Yes.”
“Coming to see you would have felt like facing the firing squad, every time.”
I’d told her we were like sisters. And sisters, I’d told her, forgive each other everything. I’d caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror after I’d said it, when she hadn’t known I was looking. Her expression had been bleak, and now I understood why. Because she’d been thinking, Yeah, right. Mac’s gonna kill me if she ever finds out. Yet she’d still kept coming. When I thought about it, I was astonished she hadn’t hunted down and killed those Unseelie, removing the damning evidence from the face of the earth.
He was silent a long moment, then, “Did she actually kill Alina? With her hands? A weapon?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Everything has degrees.”
“You think some ways of killing are better?”
“I know they are.”
“Death is death!”
“Agreed. But killing is not always murder.”
“I think she took her somewhere she knew she’d be killed.”
“Now you don’t sound certain she killed her.”
I told him what had happened last night, what the Unseelie had said, how Alina’s body had looked, how Dani had vanished.
He nodded in silent agreement when I was finished.
“So, what do I do?”
“Are you asking me for advice?”
I braced myself for a sarcastic comment. “Don’t snap my head off, okay? I had a bad night.”
“Wasn’t going to.” He sat down on his heels in front of me and looked into my eyes. “This one got you. Worse than all the other things that happened to you. Worse than being turned Pri-ya.”
I shrugged. “I got to have sex nonstop, no blame, no shame. You kidding me? Compared to the rest of my life, that was a joy.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, “But not something you’d care to repeat in full possession of your senses.”
“It was …” I searched for words to explain.
He was motionless, waiting.
“Like Halloween. When people rioted. They loot. Do crazy things.”
“You’re saying Pri-ya was a blackout.”
I nodded. “So what do I do?”
“You pull your fucking—” He bared his teeth on a silent snarl and looked away. When he looked back again, his face was a cool mask of urbanity. “You choose what you can live with. And what you can’t live without. That’s what.”
“You mean can I live with killing her? Can I stand myself if I don’t kill her?”
“I mean can you live without her. You kill her, you snuff her life forever. Dani will never be again. At fourteen, she’ll be done. She had her chances, she fucked up, she lost. Are you ready to be her judge, jury, and executioner?”
I swallowed and dropped my head, shielding myself with hair as if I could hide behind it and not have to come out. “You’re saying I won’t like myself.”
“I think you’d deal with it fine. You find places to put things. I know how you work. I’ve seen you kill. I think O’Bannion and his men were the hardest for you because they were your first humans, but after that, you took to it with a bit of stone cold. But this would be a chosen killing. Premeditated. It makes you breathe different. To swim in that sea, you have to grow gills.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you telling me to kill her?”
“Some actions change you for the better. Some for the worse. Be sure which one it is and accept it before you do anything. Death, for Dani, is irrevocable.”
“Would you kill her?”
I could tell he was uncomfortable with the question, but I didn’t know why.
After a strained silence, he said, “If that’s what you want, yes. I’ll kill her for you.”
“That’s not what I—no, I wasn’t asking you to kill her for me. I was asking if you would in my shoes.”
“The shoes you wear are beyond my ability to fathom. It’s been too long.”
“You’re not going to tell me what to do, are you?” I wanted him to. I didn’t want any of the responsibility for this. I wanted someone to blame if I didn’t like how it turned out.
“I respec
t you more than that.”
I almost fell off the couch. I parted my hair and looked up at him, but he was no longer squatting in front of me. He’d stood and moved away.
“Are we, like, having a conversation?”
“Did you just, like, ask me for advice and listen with an open mind? If so, then yes, I would call this a conversation. I can see how you might not recognize it, considering all I usually get from you is attitude and hostility—”
“Oh! All I ever get from you is hostility and—”
“And here we go. She’s bristling and my hackles go up. Bloody hell, I feel fangs coming on. Tell you what, Ms. Lane,” he said softly, “anytime you want to have a conversation with me, leave the myriad issues you have with wanting to fuck me every time you look at me outside my cave, come on in, and see what you find. You might like it.”
He turned and began moving toward the entrance to the rear part of the store.
“Wait! I still don’t know what to do about Dani.”
“Then that’s your answer for now.” He stopped at the door and glanced back at me. “How much longer will you dissemble?”
“Who uses words like dissemble?”
He leaned back against the door and folded his arms. “I won’t wait much longer. You’re on your last chance with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” What was he saying? Would Barrons walk away from me? Me? He never walked away from me. He was the one who would always keep me alive. And always want me. I’d come to count on those things like I counted on air and food.
“During a blackout, people do what they’ve wanted to do all along but have repressed, afraid of the consequences. Worried what others might think of them. Afraid of what they’ll see in themselves. Or simply unwilling to get punished by the society that governs them. You don’t care what other people think anymore. Nobody’s going to punish you. Which raises the question: Why are you still afraid of me? What haven’t you wrapped your head around yet?”
I stared at him.
“I want the woman I think you are. But the longer you dissemble, the more I think I made a mistake. Saw things in you that weren’t there.”
I fisted my hands and bit down a protest. He made me feel so conflicted. I wanted to shout, You didn’t make a mistake. I am her! I wanted to cut my losses and run before the devil owned more of my soul.
“There was purity in that basement. That’s the way I live. There was a time I thought you did, too.”
I did, I wanted to say. I do.
“Some things are sacred. Until you act like they’re not. Then you lose them.”
The door swung silently shut.
38
“You okay, Mac?” Kat sounded worried. “You don’t look so good.”
I forced myself to smile. “I’m fine. Little nervous, I guess. I just want everything to go right and get this over with. You?”
She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes, and too late I remembered her touch of emotional telepathy. She could feel how badly off balance I was.
I felt doubly betrayed, first by Dani, then by Barrons for telling me he wouldn’t wait forever. And ashamed for things I didn’t understand. But it went all the way back to believing he was dead, then finding out he was alive, and it had something to do with my sister. No, it went back farther than that, to the end of my being Pri-ya. I sighed. I couldn’t pin it down.
“Last night I found the Unseelie that killed Alina,” I told Kat, figuring that would get her off my back.
The sharp focus of her gaze softened. “Did you have your revenge, then?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“But it failed to ease your pain as you expected it would.” She was silent a moment. “When the walls came down, Rowena didn’t tell us about eating Unseelie. I lost both my brothers to Shades. I’ve killed dozens of them since. It never makes me feel better. If only revenge would bring them back, but it doesn’t. It adds to the body count.”
“Wise as ever, Kat.” I smiled. But inwardly I seethed.
I didn’t want wise. I wanted blood. Crushed bones. Destruction. My dark lake had rippled into crashing waves last night, with a dark wind blowing hard across it.
I am here, it was saying. Use me. What are you waiting for?
I had no answer for it.
I continued to march toward O’Connell and Beacon, checking my watch. It was ten to nine. Kat had fallen into step with me a few blocks back.
“Where’s Jo?”
“Food poisoning. Bad can of beans. Thought about bringing Dani but couldn’t find her. Brought Sophie instead.”
Hearing Dani’s name impacted me hard. Kat looked at me sharply. I squared my shoulders and marched on. At the intersection, V’lane and his Seelie waited, on the opposite side of the street from Rowena and her sidhe-seers.
My dark lake boiled at the sight of her, hissed and steamed: Think she doesn’t know Dani did it? She knows everything. Did she order it? I locked my jaw down and fisted my hands.
I would take care of my personal vendettas later. First things first. If I was the Unseelie King, I needed the Book locked away, the sooner the better. If I wasn’t the Unseelie King, I still needed it locked away, because, for whatever reason, it kept coming for me and those I loved. My parents and I would never be safe, as long as it was loose.
All I had to do was play my small part. I would fly the Hunter over the city—supplied courtesy of Barrons, dampened and controlled—and help them corner it. Once it was contained, I would join them on the ground.
Just to be on the safe side, I planned to keep my distance. I didn’t want any more surprises in my life.
My body tensed with sexual awareness.
“Mac,” Ryodan said coolly as he pushed past me.
The sexual tension heightened to a painful state, and I knew Barrons was behind me. I waited for him to pass.
Kat walked by, Lor passed, and then they were all at the intersection. Still I stood, waiting for Barrons to get out from behind me.
Then his hand was on the nape of my neck and I felt the hardness of him against my ass. I inhaled sharply and leaned back against him, pushing for him with my hips.
He was gone.
I swallowed. I hadn’t seen him all afternoon, since he’d told me I could lose him.
“Ms. Lane,” he said coolly.
“Barrons.”
“The Hunter is landing in …” He looked up. “Three … two … now.”
It flapped down into the center of the intersection, wings churning black ice crystals in the air. It settled with a soft whuff of breath, swung its head low, and glared at me with fiery eyes. It was subdued—and pissed as hell about it. I felt for it with my mind. It was seething, rattling the bars of whatever cage Barrons was capable of creating with his mysterious runes and spells.
“Good hunting,” he said.
“Barrons, I—”
“You’ve got rotten timing.”
“You two gonna stand there fucking each other with your eyes all night, or can we get on with it?” Christian demanded.
The Keltar had arrived. Christopher, Drustan, Dageus, and Cian stalked from a nearby alley.
“Get on your demon horse, girl, and fly. But remember,” Rowena shook a warning finger at me, “we’re watching you.”
And although I knew now why she was so convinced I was a threat—since Dani had told me about the real prophecy—I still consoled myself with the thought of deposing and killing her.
This Hunter was larger than the last one Barrons had “charmed.” It took Barrons, Lor, and Ryodan to help me get up on its back. I was glad I’d remembered to bring gloves and to dress warmly. It was like sitting on an iceberg with sulfur breath.
Once I was settled between its icy wings, I looked around.
This was it.
The night we were going to take down the Sinsar Dubh.
At the meeting yesterday, no one had even raised the question: What then?
Rowena hadn’t said: The Seelie won’t be permitted anywhere near it! It will be ours to guard, and we will keep it under lock and key forever!
As if anybody’d believe that. It had gotten out once.
And V’lane hadn’t said: Then I will take my queen to Faery, with the Book, where she will recover and search it for fragments of the Song of Making, so she can reimprison the Unseelie and re-create the walls between our worlds.
I wouldn’t have believed that, either. What made them so certain fragments of the Song were in the Book? Or that the queen could even read it? The concubine might have once known the First Language, but she’d obviously drunk from the cauldron too many times to remember it now.
And Barrons hadn’t said: Then I will sit down and read it, because somehow I know the First Language, and once I get the spell I’m after, you all can do whatever the fuck you want. Fix the world or destroy it, I don’t care.
And Ryodan hadn’t said: Then we’re killing you, Mac, because we don’t trust you and you’ll no longer be necessary.
Unfortunately, I believed the last two.
The tension I felt was unbearable. I hadn’t realized how much I took Barrons for granted until he’d made it plain earlier today that his time with me had an expiration date.
I could lose him.
Maybe I didn’t know what I wanted from him, but at least I knew I wanted him around. That had always seemed to be enough for him.
Unfair as hell and you know it, a small voice inside me said.
At my hip, my radio squawked. “Check, Mac.”
I pressed a button. “Check, Ryodan.”
We tested the radios all around.
“What are you waiting for, girl?” Rowena barked. “Get up there and find it!”
I nudged the Hunter with muscles and mind and watched her dwindle beneath me, as great black wings powerfully churned the night air. I wanted to squash her with my thumb like the infuriating speck she was.
Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever Page 160