“Tybalt…”

“That’s why I hated the changelings for so long. It was a changeling that killed my wife, intentionally or not, and doubled that…that pain by leaving me alone.”

I started to pull my hand away, but he caught it, pulling me back. “I wanted to hate you. Amandine got to keep her mortal lover and have her mortal child, even if she lost them eventually. I wanted to hate you because you made me think of Anne.”

“What changed?”

“I fell in love.”

Four words, simply stated, and impossible to believe. “You can’t mean that.”

“Can’t I? It’s been a long time since I’ve loved someone, but I know what it feels like. When you turn from me, it hurts. When you think badly of me, I think badly of myself. When you do stupid, suicidal things, I want to slap you upside the head and demand to know how you can be so brilliant and so blind at the same time.” Tybalt’s expression was calm. “If that’s not love, what is it?”

“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.

“Because we’re probably going to die today.” He waved his free hand toward the street. “I’ve always tried not to lie to you; I’ve seen how you react when others do. Dying without telling you how I felt would be lying. I’ve been patient. I’ve given you time to recognize my feelings, and I’ve seen you choose a man who loved the girl you were, not the woman you are. Now he’s gone, and I can’t be patient anymore. I love you, October. I’ll be sorry if we die here, but I won’t be sorry I helped you…and I won’t be sorry I finally told you.”

“Tybalt…”

“Cats never regret anything,” he said, and he turned and kissed me.

The lingering chill from the Shadow Roads fled as my body reacted without consulting my mind, leaning forward and returning his kiss with a degree of eagerness almost as surprising as his admission. We’d kissed before, but those kisses weren’t like this one. Nothing had ever been like this one. He kissed me like a man who knew he’d been condemned to die and had chosen me in lieu of his last meal.

One hand stayed on mine, pinning it to his knee, while the other hand laced through my hair, pulling me closer. A flicker of common sense asked what I thought I was doing—there were people coming to kill us, Chelsea was missing, and Riordan was planning Oberon-knows-what, yet here I was, kissing the King of Cats like a human teenager sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Tybalt’s thumb outlined the true edge of my ear through the gauze of my human disguise. I dropped the illusion, letting him touch my skin without magic getting in the way. At the same time, I placed my free hand against his cheek and leaned closer, until there was no space left between us. We were generating a stronger heat than I would have expected, and it wasn’t sudden. No, it wasn’t sudden at all. So many things he’d said and done were starting to make sense to me, and as we pulled each other as close as skin would allow, all I could do was wonder what had taken us so damn long.

A cat screamed from the direction of the street, the sound cutting off as abruptly as it started. Tybalt and I were on our feet before the echoes faded. My heart was pounding, fueled by hormones and adrenaline. That sounded like a response to fear, not an intentional signal, and one glance at Tybalt confirmed my fears. His eyes were narrowed, lips drawn back to expose his teeth. He flexed his hands, and his fingertips extended into claws. There was no more running.

I drew my knife. I spared a brief, wistful thought for my sword, but didn’t dwell on it; there wasn’t time. We were going to stand. And we were going to die.

The rest of the cats had stopped their calling, leaving silence in their wake. Shade was only willing to defend us so far. That was fine. This wasn’t her fight. This was mine, and my only regret was that Tybalt was going to go down with me.

“Come on, you bastards,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

As if that were the signal they’d been waiting for, Cait Sidhe—some familiar, some not—poured out of the shadows. They formed a ring around us, hissing, snarling, and flexing their clawed hands. Tybalt hissed. The largest, a tiger-striped pureblood I recognized as a member of Tybalt’s guard, hissed back.

“I warned you,” said Samson’s voice. I turned to see him smiling at us, lips pressed thin. “You could have put her aside, but you let her interfere with the smooth running of the Court. You were weak. You deserve to fall.”

Tybalt didn’t even look. “You will never be King.”

“My son will.”

“And how? You know he isn’t ready to take the throne. What would you do? Take it for him and hold it against all challengers, you and your little band of traitors? You would pervert Cait Sidhe law so much as that? Because there will be challengers, Samson. There are always challengers, when the King is weak.”

Samson snarled. “My son will be a stronger King than you ever were, and who are you to speak of perverting the law? You perverted it the day you brought her here.” He jerked his head toward me. “My son will heal this Court. He will be the law.”

In that moment, I realized just how far gone Samson really was. He could never be King, but he had rationalized away the rules until he actually believed he had a right to what he wanted—Raj as a puppet King of Cats, with himself as the power behind the throne. He didn’t know his son very well; Raj would never let himself be used that way. I was about to say something nasty when the smell of calla lilies hit my nose. I jerked the Luidaeg’s charm from my pocket, eyes widening as I saw that it was burning a brilliant red, brighter than it ever had before. “Tybalt…”

“Please do me a favor, October. Fight first, argue later.”

I turned, eyes searching the underbrush—there. Standing to the left, behind the ring of Cait Sidhe, looking utterly lost and terrified: a dark-haired teenage girl with eyes the color of freshly minted pennies. Only three men stood between her and us.

I had an instant to make my decision, and I made it. Grabbing Tybalt’s arm, I lunged toward Chelsea, shielding his body with mine as much as possible. My wounds would heal in a matter of minutes, as long as they weren’t fatal. His wouldn’t.

My lunge had been surprising enough that we were almost out of the ring before the nearest Cait Sidhe snarled and raked his claws across my belly, freeing a flood of warmth down my front. It felt like more than just blood was trying to slip out of me. I forced myself to keep running. My wounds might heal fast, but no one ever said they wouldn’t hurt.