Rowena reached for the blade. I could have told her not to bother. V’lane raised the sword she sought in a flash of silver, and rested the razor-sharp tip in the wrinkled hollow of her throat.
The Grand Mistress of the sidhe-seers went very, very still.
“I know your kind, old woman. And you know mine. I could make you kneel before me. Would you like that? Would you like your lovely little sidhe-seers to watch you writhe naked in ecstasy before me? Shall I make them all writhe?”
“Stop it, V’lane,” I said sharply.
“She did not save you from me,” he said, reminding me of the time he’d nearly raped me in the museum. “She stood by and watched you suffer. I merely mean to—how do you say it? — return the favor. I will punish her for you. Perhaps then you will forgive me a little.”
“I don’t want her punished, and it wouldn’t be a favor. Stop it.”
“She interferes and offends you. I will eliminate her.”
“You will not. We have a deal, remember?”
Sword poised at her throat, hilt balanced on his palm, he glanced at me. “Indeed, I remember. You are helping me aid your race. For the first time in seven thousand years, Fae and Man are working together for a common cause. It is a rare thing, and necessary if we both wish to survive with our worlds intact.” He looked back at Rowena. “Our combined efforts will accomplish what all your sidhe-seers put together cannot. Do not make me angry, old woman, or I will abandon you to the Hell that is coming if MacKayla fails to find the Sinsar Dubh. Cease trying to steal her weapon from her, and start protecting her. She is the best hope for your race. Kneel.”
I didn’t care for that “best hope for your race” stuff. I test poorly. I’ve never functioned well under pressure.
He forced Rowena, white-lipped and shuddering, to her knees. I could see the battle raging within her small, sturdy frame. Her robe trembled, her lips peeled back from her teeth.
“Stop it,” I said again.
“In a moment. You will never again come before me bearing weapons, old woman, or I will forgo the promises I have made, and destroy you. Help her in her quest to help me, and I will let you live.”
I sighed. I didn’t need to take a look around to realize that I had made no friends here tonight. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d made things worse. “Just give her back the sword, V’lane, and get us out of here.”
“Your wish, my command.” He took my hand and sifted us out.
The instant we rematerialized a few dozen yards from the Viper, I slammed him with the palms of both hands, willing him to freeze with every ounce of that foreign place inside my skull.
Unlike the first time I’d tried Nulling him the night we’d met, he stayed frozen longer than a few heartbeats. I was so surprised that I didn’t move myself, until he began to move, and I hit him again, putting everything I had into my desire to neutralize Fae. If intention was what counted, I was strong in that department. I’d been intending to grow up one day, for years. I had intentions down pat.
I timed it. He stayed frozen for seven seconds. I searched him quickly for my spear, patting him down, sending little “Stay frozen, you bastard” messages with my palms along the way.
No spear.
I stepped back and allowed him to unfreeze.
We stared at each other across the ten feet I’d put between us and I saw many things in his eyes. I saw my death. I saw my reprieve. I saw a thousand punishments in between, and knew the moment he decided to take no action against me.
“It’s really hard for you to view me as a valid life form, isn’t it?” I said. “What would make you take me more seriously? How many years would I have to live to count as whatever it is you credit as being worthwhile?”
“Longevity is not the defining factor. I do not credit most of my own race as worthwhile; a view born not of arrogance but of eons spent among those who are the worst of fools. Why did you Null me, sidhe-seer?”
“Because you majorly screwed up my plan in there.”
“Then perhaps the next time you should confide in me the subtler nuances of your plan. I believed you wanted to establish the upper hand, and I endeavored to aid you in achieving that end.”
“You made them think I was allied with you. You made them fear me.”
“You are allied with me. And they should fear you.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why should they fear me?”
He smiled faintly. “You have barely begun to understand what you are.” Abruptly, he vanished.
Then his hand was in the curls at the back of my head, and his tongue was pushing in my mouth, and that hot, dark, frightening thing was piercing my tongue and embedding itself there, and I exploded in a violent orgasm.
He was ten feet away again, and I was sucking air like a fish out of water and floundering as badly. Shock waves of such intense eroticism rocked me that I was momentarily immobilized. If I’d tried to move, I would have collapsed.
“It only works once, MacKayla. I must replace my name on your tongue each time you use it. I assumed you did want it back?”
Furious, I nodded. Figured he’d not told me about that little catch.
He disappeared. This time he did not reappear.
I felt for my spear. It was back.
I stood still, waiting for the last of the aftershocks to pass. I wondered if I’d actually succeeded in Nulling V’lane tonight, or if he’d been faking it. I was growing increasingly paranoid, wondering if everyone was playing games with me. Surely anything that could move that fast could evade my sophomoric efforts at sidhe-seer magic. Or had I genuinely taken him by surprise? What might he gain by pretending? An ace in the hole? That maybe someday I’d really need to Null him, and that would be the day I’d find out it didn’t work, and never had?
I turned around and began walking toward the Viper. I hadn’t glanced in its direction since we’d materialized. I did now, and gasped.
The Wolf Countach was parked on the far side of it, deep in the shadows, and Jericho Barrons was leaning back against it, arms crossed over his chest, dressed from head to toe in black, every bit as dark and still as the night.
I blinked. He was still there. Hard to peel apart from the darkness, but there.
“What in the. how. where did you come from?” I sputtered.
“The bookstore.”
Duh. Sometimes his answers make me want to strangle him. “Did V’lane know you were standing there?”
“I think the two of you were a little too busy to see me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Making sure you didn’t need backup. If you’d told me you were taking your fairy little boyfriend, I wouldn’t have wasted my time. I resent it when you waste my time, Ms. Lane.”
He got in his car and drove away.
I followed him most of the way back to Dublin. Near the outskirts, he kicked his horses into a gallop I couldn’t match, and I lost him.
Chapter 6
It was a quarter till four when I drove the Viper down the back alley behind the bookstore. The predawn hours between two and four are the hardest on me. For the past few weeks, I’ve been waking up every night at 2:17 A.M. on the dot, as if it’s my official preprogrammed time slot to have an anxiety attack, and the world will fall apart, even worse than it already is, if I don’t pace my bedroom and worry it safe.
The bookstore is unbearably quiet then, and it’s not hard to imagine that I’m the only person alive in the world. Most of the time I can handle the mess I call my life, but in the butt-crack of the night even I get a little depressed. I usually end up sorting through my wardrobe, meager as it is, or paging through fashion magazines, trying not to think. Putting outfits together soothes me. Accessorizing is balm to my soul. If I can’t save the world, I sure can make it pretty.