I gasp when the Unseelie Princess from whom I’m supposedly protecting the Nine sifts into the room, materializing directly behind Barrons and Ryodan.

She takes each by an arm.

Then all three of them are gone.

32

I ain’t scared of your teeth, I admire what’s in ’em

MAC

The problem with having all chiefs and no Indians in your teepee is that unless you’re the chief dictating the current warpath, or in tight with that chief, you have no bloody idea what’s going on.

I’m not in tight with Ryodan, and apparently not with Barrons either.

I have news for them: if they think I’m going to be one of the squaws in their chauvinistic tent, they’re wrong.

Dageus and Drustan left the bookstore, less angry than I expected them to be, with Dageus making a comment about heading back to wherever it is they’re staying to spend time with his wife, and I got the impression they were either in on the plan or had reason to believe Ryodan and Barrons were actively furthering their aim of rescuing Christian. The Keltar remind me of Ryodan, men accustomed to patiently mounting complicated campaigns in pursuit of long-term goals. I suspect they see a few chess moves ahead better than I do. At the moment. I’m learning.

I have no clue if Jada/Dani was in the know or as miffed as me. Her cold, beautiful face had betrayed nothing. I’d slipped behind a bookcase and held perfectly still until I heard the doorbell tinkle as she left, then remained motionless an additional interminable ten minutes to be certain she wasn’t faking an exit while crouching silently near, a tiger ready to pounce the moment I moved so she could try to take my spear and lock me up beneath the abbey.

Eventually I’d eased out and taken a thorough look around. She was gone, ostensibly no more anxious to spend time with me than I was with her.

Now, sitting in front of the fireplace, munching a bag of slightly stale chips, I wonder why, in whatever chess game they’re playing, Barrons and Ryodan would want to make the princes think their wards didn’t work on them any longer.

I smile faintly. I am getting better at this. Soon I’ll be devising the plans, instead of merely decoding them while they’re being implemented without me.

Because the princes would relax.

Encouraging them to further lower their defenses, Ryodan made them believe they were essential to his plan, and power goes to an Unseelie Prince’s head faster than night comes slamming down in Faery.

When one feels threatened, one clears the house before going to bed, but when one feels safe—a foolish thing to ever believe—one doesn’t compulsively check all windows and doors, or is perhaps busy celebrating what one perceives as a victory over one’s enemy.

And that’s precisely when the enemy strikes.

Barrons and Ryodan went after the princes.

Ryodan usurped the contract Jada sought: offered to kill the princes in exchange for Christian’s location, and after what I heard him asking Papa Roach in his office, I suspect he upped the ante, offering R’jan to the princess as well, thus allying himself with the only royal remaining in Dublin. At least for a time. Why bother dealing with three Fae princes when you can deal with a single Fae princess?

They went after my rapists without me.

I murmur, “Son of a bitch.” Now I’m pissed at Barrons about two things.

An hour later when the doorbell tinkles, I don’t bother turning around. On the chesterfield, with my back to the door, I know it’s Barrons. I feel him.

“If you came back to tell me you killed the princes, I’m never speaking to you again.”

I half expect him to say, Good. I wondered when you’d finally shut up.

The only reply is a deep, atavistic rattling noise, and I tense. It’s primitively terrifying on a cellular level. It’s not Barrons behind me.

It’s the beast version of the man.

I hear the scrape of taloned claws on the floor as he prowls into the bookstore, the prehistoric panting around what sounds like a death rattle caught in its chest. The beast version of Barrons is death: a primeval executioner at the top of his game. Although I’ve seen him transform partially on multiple occasions, I’ve only seen him wearing its full skin twice. Both times I was acutely aware that I was in the presence of a thing not at all human, governed by vastly different imperatives, a beast that had no mercy for anything but others of its kind.

It’s behind me, beside me, then the creature passes the couch and hulks into my line of vision.

I sit motionless, staring up at it. Nine feet tall or more, its skin is ebony, it’s nude and enormously male. Massively muscled, with thick veins and tendons, it has crimson eyes with inhuman, slitted, vertical pupils. Three rows of long, deadly horns at bony intervals frame each side of its head and there are bits of bloody things stuck on them.

Its prominent, crested forehead is a throwback to ancient times. It has long, lethal black fangs, and when it snarls—as it’s doing now—like a lion, it becomes all teeth and deep, rumbling roar.

It’s horrifying, it’s bestial, yet in this form I still find Barrons savagely beautiful. I’m envious of how well he’s engineered to survive, to conquer, to outlast apocalypse.

I remain completely still. I’m invisible.

It whips its head to the left and looks directly at me, peering down through matted hanks of black hair.

Well, shit, I realize, I’m making butt-cheek-shaped indents on the soft leather.

It’s holding the severed heads of Kiall and Rath, still dripping a bluish-black blood.