He grabbed me and swung me back around. “You’d better believe I’m here, Ms. Lane, and you’d better believe I’ll kill you. You could not have proved your loyalties—or lack thereof—any more completely. You jumped on me the second Ryodan said I was a threat and took me out without an instant’s hesitation—”
“I hesitated! I hated killing my guardian beast! Ryodan told me I had to! I didn’t know it was you!” Great. Now I was arguing with the Sinsar Dubh’s fake Barrons about killing him. Why would it want to do this to me? What could the Book possibly gain from making me live this fight?
“You should have known!” he exploded.
I knew I should end it, stop the illusion now, but I couldn’t.
Being around Barrons has always made me fire on all pistons, and it didn’t seem to matter a bit that I knew this Barrons was a mirage. Some people bring out the worst in you, others bring out the best, and then there are those remarkably rare, addictive ones who just bring out the most. Of everything.
They make you feel so alive that you’d follow them straight into hell, just to keep getting your fix.
“How should I have known? Because you’ve always been so honest with me? Because sharing information is what Jericho Barrons does best, where he really shines? No, because you’d bothered to warn me what might happen if I pressed IYD. Wait, I have it: I should have known because you’d confided in me—in the same trusting and open way we’ve shared so many confidences—that sometimes you turn into a nine-foot-tall, horned, insane monster!”
“I am not insane. I was sane enough to piss circles around you. I killed food for you. I picked up your things. Who else do you know that would have done that? V’lane doesn’t have dick enough to piss with. Your little MacKeltar doesn’t have the balls to own his actions. He certainly isn’t capable of doing what it takes to own a woman!”
“Own? You think women can be owned?”
He gave me a look that said, Oh, honey, of course they can. Have you forgotten so quickly?
“I was Pri-ya!”
“And I liked you much better then!” His eyes narrowed as if he’d only finally processed something I’d said earlier. “I’ve been dead for you for only three bloody days? And you already had Darroc up against my wall out back two nights ago? You waited one fucking day to line up my replacement? I spent weeks worrying about whether he would scrape my brand off your skull and I wouldn’t be able to track you in the Silvers. The entire time I was trying to get back to save your ass from him, you were giving him a piece of it!”
“I didn’t give Darroc a piece of anything!” Get back from what, where? Being dead?
“A woman doesn’t rub herself up against a man like that unless she’s fucking him.”
“You don’t know the first thing about what I was and wasn’t doing. Ever heard of going undercover? Sleeping with the enemy?”
“ ‘I think you should be king, Darroc,’ ” he mocked in falsetto, “ ‘and if you want me, I would be honored to be your queen.’ ”
I gaped.
“Isn’t that what you said?”
“What were you doing—spying on me? And if you’re Barrons, you know better than to believe words.”
“Because your actions speak so well of you, do they? Where did you sleep last night, Ms. Lane? It wasn’t here. My bookstore was wide open. Your bedroom was upstairs waiting. So was your fucking honor.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Honor? Barrons was flinging the word “honor” at me? Er … actually, the Sinsar Dubh was. I couldn’t decide which was more anachronistic. I frowned. There was something wrong here. Something was very, very off. Although “Barrons” and “honor” weren’t two words I’d think to use together in a sentence, I couldn’t come up with a single reason for the Sinsar Dubh to pull this kind of stunt. It had never inflicted such a prolonged and detailed illusion on me before. I could see nothing it might gain by doing it.
“Do you know why I was in the street with you and Darroc tonight?” When I didn’t reply, he snarled, “Answer me!”
I shook my head.
“I wasn’t there to spy on you and your little boyfriend. Speaking of which, what’s it like to slurp down your sister’s sloppy seconds?”
“Oh, fuck you,” I said instantly. “That’s low even for you.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. I came to kill him tonight. I should have done it a long time ago. But I didn’t get that pleasure. The Sinsar Dubh beat me to it,” he said bitterly.
“Enough already. You are the Sinsar Dubh!”
“Hardly. But I’m every bit as deadly. We can both destroy you. Nothing can save you from me if I turn on you.”
It was past time for this illusion to end. The only reason I’d let it go on this long was because it had begun enjoyably and I’d kept hoping it might turn around. But whatever bizarre game the Book was playing, it wasn’t going to play nice, and this icy, sneering Barrons wasn’t the man I wanted to remember.
“Time for you to go now,” I muttered.
“I’m not going anywhere. Ever. If you think for one minute I’ll let you flip sides mid-game, you’re wrong. I’m invested. You’re in too deep. You owe me. I will chain you up, tie you down, leash you with magic, whatever I have to do, but you will help me get that Book. And when I’ve got it, I might let you live.”
“You’re the Sinsar Dubh,” I said again, but my protest was weak. While he’d been talking, I’d sought my sidhe-seer center—that all-seeing eye that can rip away illusion and reveal the truth beneath it—and I’d focused it like a laser on the mirage.
Nothing had happened. No bubble had burst, no mirage had fractured. My hands were shaking. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.
It wasn’t possible.
I’d killed him.
And when I’d realized what I’d done, I’d channeled my grief into a weapon of mass destruction. I’d made a plan, with a set-in-cement past and a concrete future.
This … this … inexplicability didn’t fit anywhere in my understanding of reality. Not with any of my goals, not with what I’d become.
“But then again, I might not,” he said. “Unlike some people, I don’t do sloppy seconds.”
I inhaled sharply. I was growing dangerously light-headed. It couldn’t be. He was not actually standing there.
Was he?
It looked like Barrons, felt like Barrons, smelled and sounded like Barrons, and certainly had his attitude.
Screw my sidhe-seer center. I needed juice. And I knew where to find it. I let my gaze drift out of focus and frantically sucked raw power from my glassy lake.
Refocusing again, I turned everything I had on the figment.
“Show me the truth,” I commanded, and blasted it to bits.
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass, Ms. Lane. Case in point: It just did.” He gave me that wolf smile, but it didn’t hold an ounce of charm. It was all teeth, reminding me of fangs against my skin.
My knees gave out.
Jericho Barrons was still standing there.
Towering, naked, and pissed off as hell, hands fisted as if he was about to beat the crap out of me.
Puddled on the floor, I stared up at him. “You’re n-not d-dead.” My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely force the words past my lips.
“Sorry to disappoint.” If looks could kill, the one he shot me would have sunk me six feet deep in scorpions. “Oh, wait a minute. No, I’m not.”
It was too much. My head was spinning and my vision began to go dark.
I fainted.
16
Consciousness returned in slow degrees. I came to on the floor of the bookstore in the dark.
I always thought fainting showed an inherent weakness of character, but I understood it now. It was an act of self-preservation. Confronted by emotion too extreme to handle, the body shuts down to keep from running around like a chicken with its head cut off, potentially injuring itself.
The
realization that Barrons was alive had been more than I could deal with. Too many thoughts and feelings had tried to coalesce at once. My brain had tried to process that the impossible was possible, make words for all I was feeling, and I’d silently imploded.
“Barrons?” I rolled over onto my back. There was no reply. I was gripped by the sudden fear that it had all been a dream. That he wasn’t really alive, and I was going to have to come to terms with that unbearable fact—again.
I shot up to a sitting position, and my heart sank.
I was alone. Had it all been a cruel illusion, a dream? I glanced wildly around, seeking proof of his existence.
The bookstore was a wreck. That much hadn’t been a dream. I began to stand and stopped, realizing there was a sheet of paper taped to my coat. Dazedly, I pulled it off.
If you leave this bookstore and make me track you, I will make you regret it to the end of your days. ~Z
I began to laugh and cry at the same time. I sat, clutching the paper to my chest, elated.
He was alive!
I had no idea how it was possible. I didn’t care. Jericho Barrons lived. He walked this world. That was enough for me.
I closed my eyes, shuddering as a crushing weight slipped from my soul. I breathed, really breathed for the first time in three days, filling my lungs greedily.
I hadn’t killed him.
I wasn’t to blame. I’d somehow been granted with Barrons what I’d never gotten with my sister—and I hadn’t even had to demolish the world for it: a second chance!
I opened my eyes, read the note again, and laughed.
He was alive.
He’d ruined my bookstore. He’d written me a letter. A lovely, lovely letter! Oh, happy day!
I stroked the sheet upon which he’d scrawled his threat. I loved this sheet of paper. I loved his threat. I even loved my wrecked shop. It would take time, but I would restore it. Barrons was back. I would rebuild the shelves, replace the furniture, and one day in the future I would sit on my sofa and stare into a fire and Barrons would walk in, and he wouldn’t even have to say anything. We could just sit in companionable or—who cared?—grumpy silence. Whatever bizarre scheme he came up with, I’d go along with it. We’d squabble over what car to take and who got to drive. We’d kill monsters and hunt artifacts and try to figure out how to capture the Book. It would be perfect.
He was alive!
As I moved to stand again, something slipped from my lap and I dropped back down to the floor to retrieve it.
It was the picture of Alina that I’d left in my parents’ mailbox the night V’lane had taken me to Ashford to show me that he’d restored my hometown and was keeping my family safe. The night Darroc had tracked me by the brand on my skull and later abducted my mom and dad.
This was the calling card Darroc had tacked to the front door of BB&B, demanding I come to him through the Silvers if I valued their lives.
That Barrons had left it for me now told me one thing: He had rescued my mom and dad before I’d IYD’d him into the Silvers.
But he hadn’t given me the picture as a present or to make me feel better. He’d left it for the same reason Darroc had. To make the same point.
I have your parents. Don’t fuck with me.
Okay, so he was a little pissed off at me. I could deal with that. If he’d killed me, I’d be a little pissed off, too, no matter how irrational it was. But he would get over it.
I couldn’t have asked for more. Well, I could have, like Alina back and all the Fae dead, but this was good. This was a world I wanted to live in.
My parents were safe.
I clutched the letter and photo. I hugged them to my chest. I hated that he’d stormed off and left me lying on the floor, but I had proof of his existence and I knew he’d be back.
I was the OOP detector and he was the OOP director. We were a team.
He was alive!
I wanted to stay awake all night, basking in the glow that Jericho Barrons wasn’t dead, but my body had other ideas.
The moment I stepped into my bedroom, I nearly collapsed. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since Alina’s death, it’s that grief is more physically draining than running a marathon every day. It wipes you out and leaves you bruised, body and soul.
I managed to wash my face and brush my teeth, smiling like an idiot at myself in the mirror, but flossing and moisturizing was beyond me. Too much effort. I wanted to puddle in a brainless heap, curl up in the comforting arms of the knowledge that I hadn’t killed him. I wasn’t guilty. He wasn’t dead.
I was sorry he hadn’t waited around. I wished I knew where he was. I wished I had a cell phone.
I would have told him all the things I’d never said. I would have confessed my feelings. I wouldn’t have been afraid to be tender. Losing him had clarified my emotions, and I wanted to shout them from the rooftop.
But not only didn’t I have any idea where he went at night, I could barely move. Pain had been the glue keeping my will strong and my bones together. Without it, I was limp.
Tomorrow was another day.
And he was going to be alive in it!
I stripped and crawled into bed.
I passed out while I was still pulling the covers up and slept like a woman who’d hiked through hell without food or rest for months.
My dreams were so vivid, I felt like I was living them.
I dreamed I was watching Darroc die again, enraged that his death was being stolen from me so anticlimactically, my revenge snatched away, in the pinch of a Hunter’s talons. I dreamed I was back in the Silvers, searching for Christian but never finding him. I dreamed I was at the abbey, on the floor of the cell, and Rowena came in and slit my throat. I felt the lifeblood gurgle out of me, turning the dirt floor to mud. I dreamed I was in the Cold Place, chasing the beautiful woman that I couldn’t catch up with, and then I dreamed I’d actually done it—destroyed the world and replaced it with one I wanted. Afterward, I flew over my new world, astride the mighty, ancient K’Vruck. His great black wings whipped my hair into a tangle, and I laughed like a demon while the dissonant, haunting notes of Pink Martini’s remix of “Qué Sera Sera” tinkled like a harpsichord from hell.
I slept for sixteen hours.
I needed every minute of it. The past three days were a surreal nightmare and had exhausted me.
The first thing I did when I woke up was pull Barrons’ note out from under my pillow and read it again to reassure myself he was alive.
Then I dashed down the stairs so fast I slid down the last five steps on my pajama-clad ass, desperate for confirmation that the bookstore was indeed still trashed.
It was. I did a celebratory dance in the debris.
Because it was afternoon and Barrons rarely came around until early evening, I went back upstairs and took a long, hot shower. I conditioned, exfoliated, and shaved.
I leaned back against the wall, stretched out my legs, and watched water splash over the spear strapped to my thigh, letting my mind go blank while I relaxed.
Unfortunately, my mind wouldn’t stay blank and my body wouldn’t relax. The muscles in my legs kept tensing, my neck and shoulders were tight, and my fingers tapped a fast staccato on the shower floor.
Something was bothering me. A lot. Beneath my happy surface, a dark storm was brewing.
How could anything be bothering me? My world was blue skies all the way, despite Dublin’s constant rain. How could I not be blissfully happy at this moment? It was a good day. Barrons was alive. Darroc was dead. I was no longer stuck in the Silvers, fighting myriad monsters and dodging illusions.
I frowned, realizing that was exactly the problem.
At this moment, there was nothing wrong, besides the usual fate of the world stuff I’d become mostly inured to.
I couldn’t deal with that. I’d been compressed, gripped in a painful vise. I’d gotten used to it.
It was things being wrong that had given me shape and purpose and kept me going.
/> But in the past twenty-four hours, I’d gone from being one hundred percent consumed by grief and rage to having every single reason for feeling those emotions stripped away.
Barrons was alive. Grief—poof!
The man I’d believed had murdered my sister, the one I’d been so committed to killing, was dead. The infamous Lord Master was gone.
That chapter of my life was over. He would never again lead the Unseelie, wreak havoc in my world, or hunt and hurt me. I didn’t have to constantly watch over my shoulder for him anymore. The bastard who’d turned me Pri-ya was beyond my vengeful grasp. He’d gotten his just deserts. Well … he was dead, anyway. His just deserts would have been a whole lot worse if I’d been in charge of doling them out.
Regardless, he’d been my raison d’être for the longest time. And he was gone.
What did that leave me? Revenge—poof!
I’d always envisioned a final showdown between the two of us, and I would kill him.
Who was my villain now? Who would I hate and blame for Alina’s death? It wasn’t Darroc. He’d had a genuine weakness for her. He hadn’t killed her and, if he’d been somehow responsible for her death, he hadn’t known it. Six months in Dublin, and I was no closer to uncovering my sister’s murderer.
With Barrons alive and Darroc dead, there went my all-consuming focus on revenge.
My parents were safe and in Barrons’ care. There was no one I needed to save.
I had no urgent purpose, no express deadline. I felt lost. Directionless.
Sure, I had most of the same primary goals I’d had before I’d gone into the Silvers and everything had gone so terribly wrong, but grief had poured me into a tight box and those walls had shaped me. Now that the box was gone, I could feel myself collapsing into a shapeless blob.
What was next? Where to from here? I needed time to absorb the sudden changes in my reality and recalibrate my emotions. Confusing me even more, beneath the joy I felt that Barrons was alive, I was … well, angry. Furious, actually. There was something seething inside me. And I didn’t even know what. But deep down, underneath it all, I was working up a major temper and feeling … stupid. Like I’d leapt to conclusions that didn’t hold water.
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