“You spent the night I was getting raped searching his house and finding nothing?”

“A regrettable decision only because it did not yield fruit. I was certain she was there. If she had been, it would have been worth it. As it was, when I discovered what had transpired, I felt …” He lowered his lids over his eyes, leaving only a thin band of silver glittering beneath his lashes. “I felt.” His mouth shaped a bitter smile. “It was untenable. Fae do not feel. Certainly not the queen’s first prince. I tasted envy of my dark brethren for knowing you in a way I never would. I choked on rage that they harmed you. I grieved the loss of something of incomparable measure I could never have again. Is that not human regret? I felt …” He inhaled slow and deep, then blew it out. “Shame.”

“So you say.”

The smile twisted. “For the first time in my existence, I wanted to experience a temporary oblivion. I was unable to make my thoughts obey me. They wandered of their own accord to matters that were hellish to suffer. I was unable to make them stop. It made me want to stop. Is that love, MacKayla? Is that what it does to you? Why, then, do humans long for it?”

I jerked, remembering a moment when I’d considered stretching on the ground next to Barrons and bleeding out next to him.

“I am tired of being in impossible positions. For an eternity, my first allegiance has been to my queen. Without her, my race is doomed. There is no successor to her throne. There is none worthy or capable of leading my people. I could not choose to help you over attempting to recover her. My emotions, to which I had no right, could not be permitted to interfere. For too long I have been all that stands between peace and war.” He locked gazes with me. “Unless …”

“Unless what?”

“Still you point that spear at me.”

I stalked toward him, drawing my spear arm back.

He vanished.

He spoke behind me. “Could it be you are becoming like us?”

I whirled, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Are you becoming Fae, in the way some long ago were born? I suspect the young Druid also suffers birth pains. It is a most unexpected development.”

“And unwelcome.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Was that his breath at my ear, his lips against my hair?

“It’s unwelcome to me! I’m not going to become one of you. Get it out. I don’t want it.”

I felt his hands on my waist, sliding lower, over my ass. “Immortality is a gift. Princess.”

“I’m not a princess and I’m not turning Fae.”

“Not yet perhaps. But you are something, are you not? I wonder what. I weary of watching Barrons piss circles around you. I tire of waiting for the day you will finally look at me and see that I am so much more than a Fae and a prince. I am a male. With hunger for you thatknows no bottom. You and I, more than anyone else in the universe, are perfect for each other.”

He was half a dozen feet away, facing me, looking down into my eyes.

“I do not wish to continue like this. I am divided and know no peace. Pride has prevented me from speaking plainly. No more.”

He vanished and reappeared right in front of me, so close I could see a shimmer of rainbows in his iridescent eyes.

The spear was between us.

I tightened my hand on the hilt. He closed his over mine, pointed the spear at his chest, and leaned into me. I could feel him, rock hard and ready, against me. He was breathing fast and shallow, eyes glittering.

“Accept me or kill me, MacKayla. But choose. Just fucking choose.”

35

The last time I talked with my mom in person was on August 2, the day I said good-bye and caught a plane for Dublin. We’d fought bitterly about my going to Ireland. She hadn’t wanted to lose a second daughter to what she’d called “that cursed place.” At the time, I thought she was being melodramatic. Now I know she had reason to believe she should never have let Alina go and was terrified to see me follow. I’ve hated that our last words spoken face-to-face were harsh. Although I’ve spoken to her on the phone since then, it’s not the same.

I saw Daddy three weeks later, when he came to BB&B looking for me. Barrons Voiced him to make him go home and planted subliminal commands to prevent him from returning to Ireland. They worked. Daddy went to the airport several times to come back for me but couldn’t make himself get on a plane.

I saw them both again two weeks after Christmas, when I’d surfaced from being Pri-ya and V’lane had taken me to Ashford to show me that he’d helped restore my hometown and was keeping my folks safe.

I hadn’t talked to them then. I’d crouched in the bushes behind my house and watched them on the lanai, talking about me and how I was supposedly going to doom the world.

I’d seen them both when Darroc was holding them captive. They’d been gagged and bound.

Then I’d seen them here, at Chester’s, on the night the Sinsar Dubh took control of Fade and killed Barrons and Ryodan, but that was only through a glass pane.

Chronologically, it had been nine months since they’d seen me. With the time I’d lost in Faery, being Pri-ya, and in the Silvers, it felt more like three months to me, albeit the longest, most crammed-full three months of my life.

I wanted to see them. Now. Although I hadn’t accepted V’lane the way he’d wanted me to, I hadn’t stabbed him, either, which turned out to be fortuitous, because he’d finally gotten around to telling me that we were all supposed to meet at Chester’s today at noon to iron out our plans to capture the Book. He’d been dispatched as a sifting messenger to round everyone up.