“There may be a simpler solution,” I said, glancing at Ryodan. “Can you kill a god?” The Nine could kill Fae effortlessly. I’d once watched Jericho Barrons suck the psychopathic Sinsar-Dubh from within the body of an Unseelie princess and spit it out. I wasn’t sure there was anything they couldn’t kill.
He shrugged. “I’ve never tried. What few remained after the Fae killed or imprisoned them, we cultivated alliances with.”
Imprisoned. Criminy. I still couldn’t get over the news that the gods had been imprisoned beneath Arlington Abbey all this time. When Kat had told us that, I’d instantly flashed back to the night in the cemetery, years ago, when hundreds of dark Shadelike beings had risen from the earth, finally solving a chafing, unsolved case in my files.
I’d been standing right there when the gods gained enough strength to escape their tombs, months after the Song had been sung. I’d watched it happen, with no idea what they were.
I narrowed my eyes. They hadn’t cared for my hand that night. “It’s also possible I could kill him. I’d just need to get a direct hit to his eye next time.”
“No,” Ryodan snarled.
“No,” Kat snapped.
“No,” Enyo spat.
I blinked at them. “Seriously, guys, look at me. I can’t be touched anymore. Do you really think I’m going to sit on my hands, literally and figuratively, and do nothing to save our world, so I don’t get worse? How much worse can it get?” I had a fair idea. The difference between human and not. But they didn’t know that. Not for sure.
Ryodan locked gazes with me, growling so only I could hear, Let others tackle the enemy this time. You’ve done more than your share. He looked sharply away but not before I caught, Christ, woman, just stay with me awhile, will you? As long as you can.
It flayed me. I wanted to stay, too. Time had always been the problem with us. I said, “I’ll be the last resort, okay? I promise not to do anything unless I absolutely must, only if no one else can.” That was the best I could offer. I know myself. If I can do something to save the world and no one else can, I’ll pay the price. It’s the way I’m wired.
Everyone in the room nodded, looking enormously relieved. Inwardly, I beamed. They all wanted to keep me as long as they could.
Kat said, “When he was trying to take your soul, did you pick up any details about where he’s made his base camp, Dani?”
“Not a bloody thing. He could be anywhere. But his henchmen, Callum and Alfie, said he wanted them in Dublin for some reason and wouldn’t let them move to another location. I got the impression of tens of thousands of people, perhaps a hundred thousand or more, all gathered in the same place. It’s not easy to hide an army of that size.”
“I’ve already got most of the Nine out searching,” Ryodan said. “They’ll scour every inch of the city tonight and range out beyond that by morning.”
“In the meantime, we’ll continue researching,” Kat said, pushing to her feet, “and see if we can turn up anything else.”
“Can you get in touch with Christian and Sean?” I asked her. “They could cover a lot more ground from the sky.” So could I—if I were a Hunter.
“Christian, yes. Sean, no,” she said. “I’ll reach out to him.”
I said, “Ryodan and I will patrol, hunt the bastards abducting humans. If we can just find one of those mirrors, that will solve all of our problems.”
“We will not,” Ryodan said tightly.
Before I could even argue, Kat agreed. “Dani, I didn’t tell you this because I knew you had your hands full, but a dozen of our Adepts went missing last Saturday. From what Christian said, it’s a fair guess Balor’s holding them as Fae watchdogs. Two people, against the god you described, plus an army of countless humans controlled by him, won’t be enough. Our sisters are there. I want all boots on the ground for this mission.”
“She’s right,” Ryodan growled. “We need a location, we go in force. All of the Nine, all of the sidhe-seers, Christian and Sean.” He cut a dark look at Kat. “Fix whatever the fuck his problem is and get him functional.”
She sighed. “Easier said than done. I’m trying.”
“But if I kill Balor,” I argued, “it’s logical to conclude the humans will no longer be controlled. It could work.”
“You just made us a promise,” Kat snapped. “You’re the last resort. Period.”
“What she said,” Ryodan said icily.
“But it could take too long that—”
“Dani, shut the fuck up,” Enyo snapped. “We’re just trying to keep you alive, okay? Let us handle this. Yes, it may take longer. We all know we’re not as bloody superhero as you are. But we can do it. Think about it this way, we’ll have to do it if you’re no longer here. And it sounds like you won’t be here soon!” Her voice cracked and I stared at her, dumbfounded, as the hardened warrior’s eyes shimmered with sudden tears. She shook her head, wiping angrily at the moisture. “God, for being so brilliant, you are so fucking dense sometimes. You still don’t get it, do you? You bloody saved me when you found me. I was losing it. You roped me in and put me to work and gave me a cause worth fighting for. I don’t want to lose you. None of us do.” She sprang to her feet and stalked from the room, unleashing a stream of curses as she went.
“You always save everyone else,” Kat said quietly. “Let us save what we can of you this time.”
I couldn’t deal with this shit.
I shoved to my feet and stormed from the room.
* * *
π
I paced Ryodan’s suite, practically gouging tufts of polished, glazed concrete from the floor with each step.
They wanted me to do nothing. Sit idly by, while they went to battle against Balor. I had no idea how to live that way. And I saw little point. My future was inevitable. The only difference between me turning now or turning later was that I’d get to spend more time with the people I loved. But what if me sitting back and not fighting ended up costing the lives of those very people I wanted to spend that time with? I’d never be able to live with that!
I felt like I was being torn in half. Part of me wanted desperately to hang on as long as I could and stay here with my friends, but there was another part of me that…“Oh, hell, Dani, admit it,” I muttered aloud. Part of me hungered for the power that was growing in me. There was so much good I could do with it. Turning into a Hunter wouldn’t have been my first choice for the way my life would go. In fact, it wouldn’t have even been on my list of choices. But if it had to happen, well, at least I didn’t end up turning into any of the many other, weaker, disgusting things I’d killed. Hunters were lethal, their power astronomical. And I was pretty sure they were immortal.
I could watch over my friends forever. Protect them eternally. Kill Fae, kill anything that messed with them.
Then he was there, in the room with me, entering silently, stopping behind me. I shivered from raw aching awareness of him as a powerful, brilliant, basely sexual-in-all-the-right-ways man that had moved forever beyond my reach.
“Love is the one thing you’ve never understood,” he said quietly, “because you didn’t have it. You don’t need to save the world to make us love you, Dani. We already do.”
I exploded into tears, crying ugly.
How did he always know my secrets? That was exactly what I kept boxed in one of my highest security vaults.
The “Mega’s” greatest insecurity: I have to be Mega; I have to be a superhero to be loved.
Hands fisting, he took two steps forward then jerked to a stop. We both knew he couldn’t touch me. “Christ, it fucking slays me when you cry,” he said roughly.
I growled through tears, “I’ll get it under control, just give me a minute.”
“You always do,” he said flatly. I looked at him, startled by the undercurrents in his voice. Enormous respect, enormous s
orrow. Gargantuan frustration at not being able to touch me.
I forced myself to breathe deep and even. I’d figured out long ago that freedom wasn’t just another word for nothing left to lose.
Fearless was.
I’d had nothing to lose. No mom. No home. No friends. No life. It’s easy to be fearless in those circumstances.
Now I had everything to lose, and a destructive, raging part of me wanted to go ahead and lose it right away, get it over with because limbo unravels me. Once you lose everything, you can take action: You either die or cope. But before, while you’re watching it all go to hell, there’s no action you can take. You’re helpless, caught in a killing undertow. My mom was my entire world and, trapped in a cage, I was forced to watch her slip away bit by bit, unable to do anything to prevent it. I might have stolen food for us. With my super skills, I could have stolen money, we’d have been rich. I could have taken care of us.
But I’d had to sit there, watching, while everything fell apart.
“Close your eyes,” Ryodan said softly.
I didn’t argue, just let my lids flutter closed, then he was there, standing next to me. I could see him, us, as clearly as if it was actually happening. I shivered with emotion, with desire. I could smell the scent of his skin, feel the omnipresent erotic current of his body as his powerful arms slipped around me.
I dropped my head to his chest and melted into him like a second skin, savoring his strength, his heat, his big, hard body. This man was the one thing in my universe that made me feel safe.
He rubbed his jaw against my hair, his hands spanning my back, and as he began to work at my tight muscles, my tears stopped, my body stilled, my breathing deepened. Even an illusion of him could take me down to ground zero. I wondered how he’d survived his childhood and come out so bloody strong.
Careful, he said in my mind. We’re linked right now. You might see things you’d rather not.
“You know my pain. Show me yours. I want to know.”
It wasn’t pretty.
“As if my life has been.”
Exhaling gustily, he dropped his forehead to mine in our illusory embrace, raised his hands to my temples.
We’d been standing in his office at Chester’s, years ago, when he’d shown me that, like me, he’d been caged as a child, horribly abused, kept in a pit in the ground that was dark and damp and cold.
Suddenly, I was there. Trapped. The smell of damp soil and my own waste. Never let out.
Unless he hurt me so bad he had to take me out for his “doctors” to heal me so he could do it again. It was the only time I saw the sun. I lived for the times he almost killed me. I began to pray for them. I wanted to see sunshine that badly. To feel it on my battered skin, to soak it into my broken bones, to walk “up there” with the others. Sunshine became synonymous with life.
He wasn’t just giving me words in my head, he was somehow translating every nuance of the child’s desperation, the hope, the hate, the pain. I was in that horrid, smelly, small pit with that horrid steel door above me, fitted so tightly not one ounce of light trickled in. I was cold. I was lost. I was an animal. Everyone else got to live. But not me.
I shuddered from the intensity of it. I was…oh! Like me, he’d gone into his brain. There’d been no place else to go. The boy had created lavish worlds in his head, lived in them. Had replayed every detail of the wonderful loving life he’d once had, milking it for what he needed to continue trying to survive.
Why doesn’t she come for me? Why doesn’t she save me? An anguished scream. The crack of breaking bone.
He’d not had the blessing of my TV, my infrequent mother, my glimpses beyond tightly drawn curtains when she’d walked out and slammed the door, gusting the drapes from the wall, of the world beyond, of OUTSIDE. Just endless, eternal darkness. No stimulation. Incessant solitary confinement.
How the bloody hell had he not gone mad?
I held onto my family in my mind. My mother was a beautiful woman, coveted far and wide. Barrons was her first husband’s son. When he died, two wealthy, powerful suitors vied for her hand. She chose my father and was quickly pregnant with me. I had an incredible childhood. My parents adored us. No harm touched me. If it had tried, my older brother would have beaten it senseless. But it was a lawless, barbaric time and my father was killed in battle. Her other suitor came again, determined to possess her this time. She’d never liked him, always feared him, called in friends to stand her ground with her, begging for time. He agreed to leave only if she permitted him to take her youngest son until she joined him. He said it was to foster me. We all knew I was his hostage.
I saw the man then, dark and savage, from long ago, and realized Ryodan was translating things into words I could understand because people had been so much more primitive then. Wealth didn’t mean a fine home. It meant a vast tribe, furs, and fire.
She never came for me because she died. Barrons says she passed peacefully in her sleep of a broken heart, that losing both her husband and son was more than she could bear. I know better. A woman unprotected by a man back then was prey. I suspect those same friends that stood with her that day descended later and killed her, seizing our lands, and Barrons barely escaped alive. He swore he would get me back. And he did. But that’s a tale for another time, Dani. Our time may be short.
I drifted for a moment, linked to him, feeling him with all my senses. I’d never experienced intimacy like this before, so much more than our bodies touching, our minds mingling. I could taste the flavor of him: Danger, ruthlessness, savagery, fearlessness. And ferocious, unwavering commitment and loyalty. He was an animal first, pure, loyal, and territorial as a wolf.
Family was everything to Ryodan. He’d followed Barrons around his entire existence, determined to stay together. The Nine had become his family, too. He’d patiently reclaimed them each time they wandered off, moved them all over the globe for eons, following Barrons as he searched for a way to free the son I hadn’t known he’d had.
He showed me Barrons’s son then, the cage in which he (and Ryodan!) had been imprisoned. He shared the final scene with me as well: the way the tormented child had finally been laid to rest.
My eyes flew open in shock, shattering the illusion of our embrace, and I glared at him across the distance that separated us, which now seemed far too near for my comfort. I backpedaled hastily away. “Are you kidding me?” I cried. “I’m turning into the one thing that can kill you?”
He shrugged, a faint smile playing at his lips. “I always said I wanted an equal, Dani. Looks like I got one.”
I stared at him in horror. “If my bare skin touches you and I blow you up, will you die permanently?”
He shrugged again. “I have no idea. I can, however, touch a Hunter just fine.” He flashed me a wolfish grin. “At least then I’ll get to ride you, woman, in one sense of the bloody word.”
“Don’t joke at a time like this,” I hissed.
Silver ice glittered in his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Dani, unbox your sense of humor. It’s one of the many things I missed most about you. Speaking of which, any time now, you can start telling me what you missed most about me. From what I understand, if you turn into a Hunter, you’ll be immortal. That’s a plus. I don’t brood. That’s Barrons’s gig. Never yours and mine.”
He had a point. There were worse fates. Shazam would probably like me even more as a Hunter. Ryodan and I could crack each other up for all eternity. A dragon, a beast, and a Hel-Cat, carving out our own unique way of life together.
Still, any man would eventually tire of loving a dragon.
“I’m not any man,” he said quietly, as he moved to a chest of drawers and withdrew a long wooden box. “What did I tell you so long ago? Adaptability is survivability. There are ways. I didn’t want you out in the streets tonight because there’s something else I want you to do. Come.”
>
He turned and walked to a table near the fire, where he removed items from the box. Inks. Needles. A complicated design etched on a piece of parchment. As I joined him, maintaining a cautious distance between us, he said, “While I can create illusion in your mind that feels real, you can’t do it for me unless we complete the brand. Then the illusion will be real for both of us. Specifically,” he went on, in case I was missing the point, “sex will be indistinguishable from reality. Fuck the uncertain future. Tattoo me, Dani. Let me be a beast in love with a dragon. We can still have it all.”
I stood there, doing something utterly alien to me, thinking about everything that could go wrong. Love did that to you. Messed with your brain, made you think about things you’d never think about otherwise.
I shook my head hard, scattering those thoughts. I don’t invite trouble. I invite the next grand adventure, and with Ryodan it was certain to be as incredible as it was unpredictable. And if we could create a convincing illusion of intimacy? It had felt exquisitely real to me with all my senses fiercely engaged. I’d known years ago that part of the reason I chose Dancer was because of how deeply Ryodan rattled me. Dancer had been easy laughter and a normal future. Ryodan was endless challenge and a future that was impossible to imagine. The future was here. I’d never had a normal life. Why would I expect a normal future?
An unexpected exhilaration filled me. I wasn’t losing him, we were just changing, becoming the next thing. We were good at that, he and I. It was our strength. It occurred to me that adaptability was more than survivability; it was the foundation of love. We were all changing, every day, and those relationships that endured were the ones that rode the waves together, grew and allowed each other to evolve. Encouraged it, even when it was frightening. Adaptability in relationships was the polar opposite of a cage. It was necessary commitment wed to necessary freedom.
He dropped backward in a chair and stripped off his shirt, his back rippling sleek and beautiful in the firelight, and said in a low, sexy voice, “Come on, Stardust, brand your man. I’ve been waiting a long fucking time for this.”
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