“I knew there was something wrong with her!” Jo exclaimed.

The king had been watching the sidhe-seers and Barrons. He’d posed as one of the players hunting his own Book. He’d been watching me all this time. Since the day I’d come to Dublin. He’d checked me into the Clarin House.

“Before that, beautiful girl.” The king slanted me a look that horrified me. Pride glittered in his starry eyes.

My high school gym coach joined him. When my grade school principal appeared, I locked my jaw and gave the king a mutinous glare. Since the beginning. “Little help might have been nice.”

The king cradled the concubine tenderly to his chest. “What would you change?”

“You must give her to us,” Dree’lia demanded. “We need her. Without V’lane, who will lead us?”

“Find a new queen. She is mine.”

Velvet bristled. “But there is no one—”

“Grow a pair, Velvet,” the king snapped.

“We don’t want Cruce. You take him,” Kat was insisting.

“What the bloody hell is going on? You can’t take the queen. We work for her,” Drustan was saying.

“What about the Compact?” Cian said. “We need to renegotiate it!”

“Change me back!” Christian demanded. “I ate only one bite. That’s not enough to do this to me. Why am I being punished?”

The king only had eyes for the woman in his arms.

“You can’t leave until you put the bloody walls back up,” Dageus was growling. “We’ve no idea how to go about—”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Skins began to drop to the floor, empty shells of the king’s parts. For a moment, I was worried my own might fall off, but it didn’t.

Barrons had pulled me back from being Pri-ya. I had no doubt the king would find his concubine, too. Wherever she was, in whatever cave of amnesia she was trapped, he would join her. Tell her stories. Make love to her. Until one day they both got up and walked out of it.

The dreamy-eyed guy began to change, absorbing the shadows that passed from the skins.

He stretched and expanded until he towered over us like the Sinsar Dubh’s beast, but without the malevolence, and when his wings spread wide, eclipsing the chamber in night, stars and worlds dangling from his quills, I felt his joy.

The thought that she’d left him by choice had driven him mad.

But she hadn’t. She’d been taken.

He’d loved her for all time.

Before she was made.

After he’d believed she was gone.

Sunshine to his ice. Frost to her fever.

I wished them forever.

You, too, beautiful girl.

The Unseelie King was gone.

53

The sign was heavy, but I was determined.

Although Barrons’ strength would have made things a lot easier, I managed without him. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

As I unscrewed the last bracket suspending the gaily painted sign from the brass pole bolted into the brick above the door of the bookstore, it slipped from my hands, fell to the sidewalk, and cracked down the middle.

MACKAYLA’S MANUSCRIPTS AND MISCELLANY bit the dust before a single customer ever looked up and saw the sign.

I was okay with that. It didn’t have the right ring to it. Although I’d loved seeing my name up there, I’d never have gotten comfortable with it. This place was … well, MM&M just didn’t roll off the tongue.

I had no intention of giving him back the bookstore.

I was keeping it forever. And I planned to keep the name, too. I’d never be able to think of it as anything else.

Twenty minutes later, the original sign was restored.

I dusted off my hands, propped the ladder against a column, and stepped back to view my work.

The four-story—I looked up. It was five stories tonight. The five-story building was officially BARRONS BOOKS AND BAUBLES again. Owned by one MacKayla Lane. He’d given me the deed last night.

I walked out into the middle of the street and assessed my bookstore with a critical eye. It was mine to take care of, and I wasn’t yielding one inch of it to vandals or the elements. It had weathered the storm of Unseelie better than most places in the city, protected by wards and a man who could never die.

I remembered the first time I’d seen it. I’d come barreling out of the Dark Zone, terrified, alone, desperate for answers. It had blazed with the holy light of salvation for me that night.

My sanctuary. My home.

The updated façade of dark cherry and brass gleamed. The alcoved entrance, between stately pillars, sported a new light fixture that cast a warm amber glow on the handsome cherry door and stained-glass sidelights.

The tall windows on the sides of the building, framed by matching columns and delicate wrought-iron latticework, didn’t have a single crack, and there were no chips on the pillars. The foundation was solid, strong. Powerful spotlights mounted on the rooftop, controlled by timers, would be coming on any minute now. The lighted sign in the old-fashioned green-tinted windows winked OPEN.

The Dark Zone might be empty, but this place would always stand as a bastion of light, as long as it was mine. I’d needed it. It had saved me. I loved this place.

And the man.

And there was the rub.

It had been days since the showdown beneath the abbey, and we still hadn’t talked about it.

After the king left, we’d all just kind of looked at each other and headed for the door, as if we couldn’t get back to where we felt safe and comfortable fast enough.