To defuse any tension left over from last night, I offered him a smile, and a friendly, “Hey,” letting him know I was willing to start this night off fresh, and hoped he was, too.
I sensed his violence a split second before he attacked me, and then it was too late. He slammed the door behind him. Dead bolts ratcheted into place.
“Tell me every detail of the last time you saw the Sinsar Dubh.”
Voice compacted my body in a head-to-toe vise, and squeezed brutally. Shit, shit, shit.
I doubled over, the breath slammed out of me. A legion of voices rebounded in the room, careening off the walls, intensifying as they zoomed left and right, up and down, then through me, burrowing into my skin, rearranging things in my head, making my mind his. Dominating. Seducing. Selling me the lie that his will was mine, and I lived to obey it.
Sweat beaded on my brow and upper lip, and slicked my palms. The harder I tried to fight the compulsion, the less possible it was to inflate my lungs, to move any part of my body at all. A paper doll, I hung, folded, limp, spineless. And like a paper doll, he could tear me in half, if he wanted to.
“Stop fighting me, Ms. Lane, and it’ll go easier. Unless you enjoy the pain.”
In my mind I spewed a geyser of curses, but not a word came out. I had no breath to fuel it. He’d topped the level he’d used on me last night—the level of proficiency he’d said the Lord Master had achieved—and he’d done it with a voice of silk. Like the difference between other men’s motorcycles and his, Barrons walks softly—but he carries the biggest stick I’ve ever seen.
“Nice tan, Ms. Lane. How’s V’lane? Did you have a good time today? I take you to graveyards, but he takes you to the beach—is that what our problem is? Our little dates aren’t good enough for you? Does he romance you? Feed you all those pretty lies you’re so hungry for? I’ve been neglecting you lately. I’ll be remedying that. Sit. Over there.” He pointed to a chair near the fire.
I jerked upright and tiptoed tightly toward the indicated seat, not because I felt dainty, but because that’s what happens when you try to lock down your leg muscles to prevent your feet from rising and falling, but your body moves anyway. One resistant step after the next, I minced toward the chair. I reached it and collapsed into it like a rag doll. My throat muscles convulsed and I tried to force out words. “D-don’t. d-do—”
“You will not speak unless it is in direct answer to one of my questions.”
My lips sealed. I couldn’t believe he was doing this to me.
How ironic that V’lane had asked me to trust him today, I had, and he hadn’t betrayed me. I’d been ready to open up a little to Barrons tonight, tell him a few things, and he’d betrayed me. V’lane had muted his sexuality to preserve my will. Barrons had just stripped it away with a single command, no different from the Lord Master.
“Tell me what you saw the night you encountered the Sinsar Dubh,” he repeated.
Straining in my skin, nearly suffocating myself with my attempts to resist, I spilled every detail, every last thought, every perception. From the humiliation of lying in that vile puddle in my pretty clothes, to the various forms the Book had taken, to the look it had given me, to my decision about how to track it. Then, to make things worse, I volunteered my entire “intervention” with Inspector Jayne.
“Don’t move,” he said, and I sat ramrod-straight in my chair, unable to even scratch my nose while he pondered his thoughts. There was violence in the room with us, a killing violence. I didn’t get it. What had I done to piss him off so much? He hadn’t been half this angry last night, and he’d had every opportunity to grill me forcibly then. He hadn’t. He’d just driven off.
“Where did you go today?”
Sweat dripping down my face, I told him that, too. I wanted to speak of my own free will, to call him every name in the book, to tell him we were through, he and I, and that I was the one who deserved answers, not him. But he’d sealed my lips with a command, and I could only answer what he asked.
“Did V’lane tell you anything?”
“Yes,” I said flatly, biting it off there. I’d obeyed the compulsion to the letter. I didn’t have to offer more.
“What did he tell you?”
“That the Lord Master was once a Fae, named Darroc.”
He snorted. “Old news. Did he tell you anything about me?”
Old news? He’d been sitting on information about the Lord Master that he hadn’t shared with me? And he got pissed at me for not telling him everything I knew? If he didn’t kill me when he was done with me, he was dead. He was a walking encyclopedia with a cover I couldn’t crack. Useless.
Dangerous. “No.”
“Did you fuck him?”
“No,” I gritted.
“Have you ever fucked him?”
“No,” I ground out. I’d never had two men more obsessed with what was happening in my sex life, or rather, not happening.
Some of the violence in the air abated.
My eyes narrowed. Was this it? The source of his rage? Was Barrons jealous? Not because he cared, but because he thought of me as a possession, his personal and private sidhe-seer, and there would be no other men’s erections interfering with her OOP detections?
He gave me a cold look. “I needed to know if you were Pri-ya. That’s why I asked.”
“Do I look Pri-ya?” I snapped. I had no idea what a Fae addict looked like, but I somehow doubted I was the Poster Girl for it. I figured them for something more like the Goth girls I’d seen hanging out at Mallucé’s vampire lair: pierced, tattooed, and heavily made-up, dressed in vintage clothing, mostly black.
He started, measured me a moment, then laughed. “Good for you, Ms. Lane! You’re learning.”
I started, myself, realized what I’d just done. I’d said something that hadn’t been an answer to a direct question! I tried to do it again, mentally forming the words, but I couldn’t force them out. I didn’t know how I’d done it in the first place.
“Who were you going to see the night you saw the Sinsar Dubh?”
Oh, no. This wasn’t fair. He didn’t get to know everything. “A guy that knew Alina,” I said between clenched teeth.
“Tell me his name.”
No, no, no. “Christian MacKeltar.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He exploded from his chair and glared down at me.
Since he’d used Voice, I was obligated to say, “No,” although I knew the question had been rhetorical. The killing violence was back, over a simple name. Why? What significance did Christian’s name have to him? Did he know him? Closing my eyes, I sought the sidhe-seer place in my head. It was no help. I still couldn’t speak. How could I feel so much power in that hot, alien part of my mind, yet find nothing there of use to me in this situation?
“How did you meet Christian MacKeltar?”
“He works at the ALD at Trinity. I met him when you sent me to pick up the invitation to the auction from his boss, but she wasn’t there.”
His nostrils flared. “He must be a recent hire. They’ve been spying on me.”
He hadn’t used Voice, nor had he asked a question, so I said nothing.
“Have the MacKeltars been spying on me?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I said, “Yes.”
“Have you been spying on me, Ms. Lane?”
“As much as I can.”
“What have you learned about me?”