“Royals regenerate and that was no human. Your precious MacKayla is gone. What remains will never be human again.”

Mac wasn’t gone. Barrons had felt her. That was enough for Jada. “So long as I wear the cuff, we’re going to be closer than either of us like, and I have the weapon that can terminate your immortal existence.”

“I am a weapon that can terminate your mortal existence.”

“Like I said, impasse. Bottom line: we can kill each other or work together against our common enemy. Negotiate. What do you want? I have my list ready.”

“I want my cuff back.”

“Not on the table.”

Snarling, Cruce lunged but swiftly checked himself.

“I’ve got the advantage. Accept that and quit wasting my time. Mac is a problem for both of us. If you have knowledge from the Book, you may know something we can use to get her back.”

“There is no getting her back from that. That was not MacKayla. Nor was it the Book, at least not the one I touched. That was…”

“What?” Jada demanded.

“A sense of superiority that exceeds even mine, and I would not have believed that possible. It felt contempt for me. To the Book, I was as foul an aberration as a…a human. It is depravity, viciousness, sadism, and hunger for absolute dominance. Fae but unlike any I have ever encountered. It changed.”

“And we’re going to change it back,” Jada said evenly. “If it takes you again, and I suspect it will, we won’t free you next time. We’ll leave you like that. You need us. If I were you, I’d make us need you for something.” She paused a moment then probed, “This cuff protects the wearer from many things, Unseelie and otherwise. That includes you, doesn’t it?” She’d been able to meet his gaze as both V’lane and Cruce without her eyes bleeding, and seriously doubted he was willingly muting himself.

The sudden flash of ire in his iridescent gaze was all the answer she needed. She smiled faintly. “You couldn’t make it work against the other princes, without also protecting the wearer against yourself.”

“I may not be able to harm you but I can sift you to a fire world, sidhe-seer.”

“Where you’ll die, too. I’m fast enough to take you out as I go. I want the knowledge you took from the Sinsar Dubh. I want you to tell me everything.”

“I want MacKayla dead. She can be killed in her current form.”

“That’s not on the table either.”

“Then we have nothing to negotiate.” He sifted out.

“Cruce,” she murmured, and he was instantly back, face taut with rage.

Abruptly, she was in arctic wasteland, with a bone-chilling wind knifing through her. Her leather jacket froze solid and crackled when she slid up into the slipstream. Vibrating, moving in that higher dimension, she was no longer quite so cold.

And the tip of her sword was at Cruce’s heart.

He flashed her through a dizzying array of hostile landscapes, testing how quickly she could get to him.

She waited for him to tire. He would never take her to a fire world that would force her hand. He was too in love with his own immortal existence to invite death.

At last they were back on the beach.

Coolly, she peeled open a protein bar and ate it slowly, despite the desire to wolf it down in two bites to compensate for the energy she’d just expended. She was pleased to see that beneath his glamour he, too, was suffering from the exertion, far paler than before.

“My my, how you have changed, little girl,” he mocked. “I recall you, human. Still brash, not so gangly.” His eyes narrowed to slits of glittering fire. “Not gangly at all.”

“You’ve changed as well.” In her past encounters with V’lane, the prince had always been flirtatious yet solicitous, well-spoken yet feigned ignorance of many human ways. With Cruce, all pretenses were gone. Here was the brilliant dark prince who’d plotted and planned for eons, icy, focused, ruthless. V’lane was a seducer, Cruce a conqueror.

“I want the Book rendered inert. I want protection until it is.”

“Accepted. You will wear a glamour that shields humans from your sexual thrall, until the goals we agree to pursue are achieved.”

He inclined his head. “As you will. I rule the Fae court. As of this moment.”

“You’ll have to confirm with Barrons. I’m not opposed to it, if you remove them from our planet immediately.”

“This is our planet and here we will remain.”

She’d expected the rebuff; it was one of her planned concessions. “I want your full assistance rebuilding the walls between our worlds.”

His eyes shimmered with sudden interest. “I will aid you in reclaiming the Song of Making.”

“From a distance and with only superficial knowledge of it,” she stipulated. This would be an ongoing war in which keeping the enemy close was the only way to win it.

He laughed and the sound was a symphony of dark crystals chiming. “Not possible and you know it. You cannot invite me in yet bar the door. Working together entails risks for all of us, sidhe-seer.”

“You’ll cooperate fully with the needs we have on a daily basis; sifting, helping us complete tasks we deem necessary. That means no wasting time with ego or arguing.”

He said disdainfully, “Demand the same of Barrons.”

“I won’t have to. Time isn’t one of our luxuries and he knows that.”

“You will return my cuff to me when our common goals have been met.”

“In exchange for a final service.”

“What service?”

“A small thing that will cost you nothing. Then I’ll return it.”

His head swiveled in an entirely inhuman way and his eyes cooled to iridescent ice. “For all of this I have only your word.”

“Ditto,” she said.

“As of this moment, I am my race’s king and all will recognize me as such. My rule is undisputed. Even your bastard Highlander prince will pledge his fealty to me. Barrons and his kind will acknowledge my reign and kneel before me.”

She snorted. “I have serious doubts about the fealty and kneeling parts. As of this moment you’ll order your race to stop killing humans.”

“Not on the table. My brethren were locked away with nothing for too long. I will not subject them to starvation again. The status quo remains as it is. Nothing changes with the exception of us working toward the common goals of destroying the Sinsar Dubh—”