I inclined my head, waiting.

“Barrons said you ate—”

“Aha! Unseelie flesh!” I pounced on the excuse, enormously relieved. “So it is a sidhe-seer place and that’s why I can’t find it! I can’t possibly see my lake right now!” I’d begun to fear the Sinsar Dubh was so quiet of late because it had been stealthily rearranging my internal furniture, hiding things I might want to use, planting booby traps. Could it do that?

Ryodan rolled his eyes. “Outstanding. Meet Mac, the junkie.”

“I am not.”

“How many times have you eaten it in the past week,” he demanded.

“Twice. But I had to the first time because I was going down the cliff, and the Guardians were shooting at me the second time,” I defended.

“I’m sure you’ll ‘have to’ the next time, too.”

“I am not an addict.”

“How the bloody hell long does the high last anyway,” Ryodan growled.

I shrugged. “Dunno exactly. Three days or so. I should be myself again in a couple of days.” Immensely irritable and tired but myself.

He looked at Barrons. “Don’t let her eat it again.”

“She makes her own decisions,” he said. But he shot me a look: We need information, Ms. Lane. I would prefer you refrain for a time.

Great. One of my two ball-fortifying techniques that were keeping me strong—sex with Barrons and eating Unseelie flesh—was now lost.

I was just thinking what an anticlimactic night this was turning out to be when Ryodan opened the door.

Christian MacKeltar stood on the other side.

17

“Knows everybody’s disapproval, I should’ve worshipped her sooner…”

Three hours earlier…

Jada didn’t have to wear the red dress.

It was a choice.

Men on every planet, in every realm, Fae or human, shared inherent characteristics.

They didn’t like to kill a beautiful woman.

At first.

They wanted other things. At first.

Beauty was one of many weapons.

It was why she’d abandoned her ragged haircut to grow it long again. But curly and wild, it had been far too easy for an opponent to grab a fistful, a liability in any battle. She’d learned to scrape it back, high, out of her face. Sometimes tuck a low braid into the collar of her shirt.

She didn’t have to dance either.

That, too, was a choice.

But when she walked into Chester’s, one of the Nine caught her eye across the dance floor and beckoned with such in-your-face enthusiasm and happiness to see her that she couldn’t resist.

Lor.

The man was a beast. A primitive caveman who loved being what he was. Blunt, blatantly sexual, with a voracious appetite for rock and roll, brawls, and hot blondes, he was prone to proposition a woman by saying, “Hey, wanna fuck?” and scored a ridiculous amount of the time with his Viking good looks and that hint of something dirty-kinky-raw just beneath the surface, locked, loaded, and ready to blast a woman’s inhibitions to dust.

They’d had something when she was younger.

Not that kind of something.

A bond that had been innocent yet knowing. An awareness that they were two people who were precisely what they were, no apologies, no excuses.

He’d appreciated who she’d been then, and from the look on his face, he was willing to appreciate her now.

He’d once brought her steak and potatoes. Had trailed her, making sure she stayed safe. He’d offered advice the night Ryodan dragged her off, after she’d defied him and slaughtered half the patrons in one of his subclubs. Helped her escape the room upstairs when the boss locked her in.

He’d encouraged her impulsiveness and belligerence, and for that reason alone, she should avoid him. She’d turned her back on those character flaws years ago.

But the music was seductive and the song playing was one of her favorites, and despite the icy facade she projected, she knew the heat she had inside. She didn’t deny it. Denying would have made her weaker.

Heat was strength. It was resilience. She channeled it, shaped it into purpose, like everything else.

Sexuality, too, was power.

Lor moved toward her, pushing through the crowd, completely ignoring the many hot blondes looking his way, his grin wide and only for her.

She approached him, allowing herself a faint smile. They met in the middle of the dance floor.

“Hey, kid,” he purred. “Looking good, honey. Nice to see you back.”

“You, too, Lor.” She could count on two fingers those who’d been happy to see her.

“Fuck, I always look good. I was born looking good. Dance?”

With Hozier inviting his lover to take him to church, she moved into Lor’s body with effortless grace, following the tempo of his hips, the muscle of his powerful torso. He danced from the groin, as most powerful, centered men did, easy to match.

On one of the worlds she’d briefly visited, nature itself had danced, sinuous vines, draping from trees, moving to a rhythm she’d not been able to hear. At first she was wary, regarding them as threats, but after nearly a week on that world, she’d seen a slender trailing plant heal a wounded animal with its dance.

And one night, under three full moons, she’d taken off her clothes and gone native, pretended to be part of the vegetation, imitating the sensual undulations until she finally found the rhythm with her body.

It had healed her, too. The wounds on her back had closed, expelling the infection, leaving only scars.