V’lane sat on the queen’s High Council. He’d been handpicked by the leader of their race to see through court intrigue to the truth of matters. And he’d failed. His inability to discern truth from lie—from an Unseelie, no less—had shaken him. I understood that. It’s debilitating to realize you can’t trust your own judgment.

However, in this case he hadn’t been wrong. Barrons really had been dead, and the Unseelie Princes hadn’t deceived V’lane. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. Not only had Barrons insisted I lie to V’lane, it seemed I was programmed with an unshakable imperative to keep Barrons’ secret.

Knowing him, he’d probably tattooed it on me somewhere.

Still, I could give V’lane some of the truth. “Remember when you said that I had only begun to discover what I was?”

His gaze sharpened and he nodded. He touched my hair. “I am pleased you restored it, MacKayla. It is lovely.”

Yeah, well, Barrons hadn’t seemed to think so. “You were right. I’ve recently become aware of a place inside me where I know things that I can’t explain knowing. I find things I don’t understand.”

He inclined his head, waiting.

“I found runes that the princes didn’t like. I used them with a combination of others to create an illusion that Barrons was dead,” I lied.

He processed my words: The Unseelie hadn’t duped him. I’d duped the Unseelie. Faint lines of tension eased in his face.

“You convinced Darroc and the princes that Barrons was dead so Darroc would believe you genuinely sought an alliance with him?”

“Exactly.”

“Why?”

I hesitated.

“MacKayla, can we not finally trust each other?” he said softly. “What must I do to convince you? Command me, I am yours.”

I was so tired of lying and being lied to, of not trusting and not being trusted. “He knew a shortcut to controlling the Sinsar Dubh. It’s why the Book killed him.”

“It is true, then, what we heard,” he murmured. “It was not a Hunter after all.”

I nodded.

“And what is this shortcut?”

“I wasn’t able to get it out of him before he died.”

He studied me. “Deceiving the princes so thoroughly would have required immense power.” He began to say something, then seemed to change his mind and stopped. After a moment he said carefully, “These runes you used, what color were they?”

“Crimson.”

He went still, regarding me as if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at. It made me extremely uncomfortable. Then he said, “Did they beat like small human hearts?”

“Yes.”

“Impossible!”

“Would you like me to summon themnow?”

“You could, with such ease?”

I nodded.

“That will not be necessary. I accept your word, MacKayla.”

“What are they? Darroc wouldn’t tell me.”

“I imagine he was even more interested in you after he saw them. Tremendous power, MacKayla. Parasites—they graft onto anything they touch, grow, and spread like a human disease.”

Great. I remembered how they’d seemed larger in the bedroom at Darroc’s penthouse. Had I inadvertently loosed another Unseelie evil on the world?

“Used with the Song of Making, they can form an impenetrable cage,” he said. “I have never seen them myself, but our histories tell us they were employed on occasion by the first Seelie Queen for punishment and were one of the ingredients used in the walls of the Unseelie prison.”

I jerked. “How could I possibly know anything about runes used to build the Unseelie prison walls?”

“That is precisely what I would like to know.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. More questions. They were beginning to gnaw at my sanity.

“You are weary,” he said softly. “On this night for lovers, where would you sleep, MacKayla? In a silken hammock tied between palm trees, swaying over tropical surf, with a devoted Fae lover to attend your every desire? Would you share a Fae prince’s bower? Or would you climb the stairs in a ruined bookstore to sleep alone in the building of a man who has never trusted you and never will?”

Ouch.

He touched my jaw, slid a finger beneath my chin, and tipped my face back. “What a lovely woman you’ve become. You are no longer the child that arrived here months ago. You have been tempered. You display strength and determination, conviction and purpose. But are you wise? Or are you ruled by a heart that foolishly imprinted on the wrong man? Like most humans, are you incapable of change? Change requires an admission of error. Your race devotes itself to justifying its errors, not correcting them.”

“My heart hasn’t imprinted on anyone.”

“Good. Then it may yet be mine.” He lowered his head and kissed me.

I closed my eyes and melted into his body. It was a novel change to have someone believe in me, answer my questions when I asked them, just plain be nice to me, and there was no denying his erotic allure. When his Fae name eased gently into my mouth, teasing, offering, waiting for me to invite it to settle, I breathed into his kiss and he breathed back. Consonants I would never be able to pronounce, with vowels comprised of delicate arias, began to pierce the meat of my tongue, causing my entire body to flush with sensual pleasure.

I inhaled the scent of Fae prince and the intoxicating aroma of spiced roses into my lungs. Not a bad Valentine’s Day kiss, not bad at all.