I gaped. Jericho Barrons was standing beside me.
Inside my head.
I shook it, half expecting him to be knocked off his feet and go rattling around.
He remained standing, urbane and implacable as ever.
“This isn’t possible,” I told him. “You can’t be here. This is my head.”
“You push into mine. I merely projected an image with the push this time, to give you something to look at.” He gave me a faint smile. “Wasn’t easy getting in. You give a whole new meaning to ‘rock-head.’ ”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He invaded my thoughts and gave me guff even here.
“I found you standing in the street, staring at the sign over the bookstore. Tried talking to you but you didn’t respond. Thought I’d better take a look around. What are you doing, Mac?” he said softly—Barrons at his most alert and dangerous.
My laughter died and tears sprang to my eyes. He was in my head. I saw little point in hiding anything. He could take a good look around and see the truth for himself.
“I didn’t get the spell.” My voice broke. I’d failed him. I hated myself for that. He’d never failed me.
“I know.”
My gaze flicked to his face, bewildered. “You … know?”
“I knew it was a lie the moment you said it.”
I searched his eyes. “But you looked happy! You smiled. I saw things in your eyes!”
“I was happy. I knew why you’d lied.” His dark gaze was ancient, inhuman, and uncharacteristically gentle. Because you love me.
I drew in a ragged breath.
“Let’s get out of here, Mac. There’s nothing for you down here.”
“The spell! It’s here. I can get it. Use it. Lay him to rest!”
“But you wouldn’t be you anymore. You can’t take a single spell from that thing. It’s all or nothing. We’ll find another way.”
The Sinsar Dubh poisoned the moment. He lies. He hates you for failing him.
“Shut it down, Mac. Ice the lake over.”
I stared at the Book, shining in all its glory. Power, pure and simple. I could create worlds.
Ice his ass over. He’s just worried you’ll be more powerful than he is.
Barrons held out his hand. “Don’t leave me, Rainbow Girl.”
Rainbow Girl. Was that who I was?
It seemed so long ago. I smiled faintly. “Remember the skirt I wore to Mallucé’s the night you told me to dress Goth?”
“It’s upstairs in your closet. Never throw it away. It looked like a wet dream on you.”
I took his hand.
And just like that, we were standing in the street outside Barrons Books and Baubles.
Deep inside me, the Book whumped closed.
As we headed for the entrance, I heard gunshots, and we looked up. Two winged dragons sailed past the moon.
Jayne was shooting at Hunters again.
Hunters.
My eyes widened.
K’Vruck!
Could it be that simple?
“Oh, God, that’s it,” I whispered.
Barrons was holding the door open for me. “What?”
Excitement and urgency flooded me. I clutched his arm. “Can you get me a Hunter to fly?”
“Of course.”
“Hurry, then. I think I know what to do about your son!”
54
Jericho Barrons buried his son in a cemetery on the outskirts of Dublin, after five days of keeping vigil beside his lifeless body, waiting for it to disappear and be reborn wherever it was they were reborn.
His son never disappeared and was never reborn.
He was dead. Truly dead.
I kept a vigil of my own at the door to his study, watching him stare at the beautiful boy through the long days and nights.
The answer was so simple once I’d thought of it.
It had taken a while to find him flying over the city, but he’d finally soared in beside me, blacker than blackness, with his Nightwindflyhighfreeeeeee comments and his old friend remarks—serene and smooth, chuffing the night air in small frosted puffs. The wind had steamed like dry ice in his wake.
I’d asked a favor. It had been the best kind for a Hunter. It had amused.
It took Barrons and five of his men to get the beast from beneath the garage up onto the roof of a nearby building, safely restrained.
Once they’d been far enough away, they radioed me and I had my new “old friend” fly in and do what he does best.
Death isn’t nearly as final as a good K’Vrucking.
When he closed his great black leathery wings around the beast and inhaled long and deep, the beast turned into the boy.
And the boy died.
As if K’Vruck had simply inhaled his life essence.
After he’d suffered who-knew-how-many thousands of years, the child was finally at peace. So was Barrons.
Ryodan and his men had sat with Barrons through the days and nights, waiting, wondering if it was possible one of them could actually be killed. They’d seemed as offended as they’d been relieved. Kasteo had sat in the room and stared unblinking at me for hours. Ryodan and the others had to drag him away. I wondered what they’d done to him a thousand years ago. I knew what grief looked like when I saw it.
And when they’d left, although hostility had poured off them in my direction, I knew I’d won a stay of execution.
They wouldn’t kill me. Not now. I didn’t know how long they might feel benevolent toward me, but I’d take what I could get.
And if one day they decided it was war between us, it was war they’d get.
Somebody’d made me a fighter. With him by my side, there was nothing I couldn’t do.
“Hey baby, you up there?” Daddy’s baritone soared up from the street.
I peeked over the edge of the rooftop and smiled. Mom, Dad, and Inspector Jayne were standing down below, in front of the bookstore. Daddy was carrying a bottle of wine. Jayne had a notebook and a pen, and I knew he was planning to grill me about methods of Fae execution and try, once again, to get his hands on my spear.
I was thrilled my parents had decided to stay in Dublin. They’d taken a house in the city, so we could visit. One of these days, I would give Mom most of Alina’s stuff back. We would sit and talk, go visit her apartment. I’d take Mom to the college where Alina had been happy for a time. We’d remember her and celebrate what we’d had with her while we had it. Mom was a different woman now, stronger, more alive than ever before.
Dad was going to be some kind of brehon, or lawmaker, and work with Jayne and his crew to maintain order in New Dublin. He wanted to fight, but Mom wasn’t real keen on that idea.
She was spearheading a group called NDGU. New Dublin Green-Up was devoted to making the city green again—fertilizing the soil, filling the planters, putting down sod, and eventually bringing the parks and commons back to life. It was the perfect job for her. She was the ultimate nester, and Dublin’s nest was sorely in need of some feathering.
“It’s open, come on up,” I called. Mom was carrying two pretty ceramic pots, and I could see the green tips of bulbs sprouting. All my window boxes and planters were still empty. I hadn’t had time to get out to the abbey yet and dig a few things up. I hoped they were a housewarming gift.
I turned and checked the table. The drinks were chilled, the plates out, the napkins folded. It was my first garden party.
Barrons was looming over a gas grill, searing thick steaks and trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his disgust. I wasn’t sure if he found the act of cooking meat revolting—as opposed to eating it raw—or if he just wasn’t much for dead cow because he preferred live … cow. Or live something.
I didn’t ask. Some things are better left unsaid.
He looked at me and I shivered. I never get enough of him. Never will.
He lives.
I breathe.
I want. Him. Always.
Fire to my ice. Ice to my fever.
While I waited for our dinner company to come up the stairs, I stared at the city. It was mostly dark, with only a few lights flickering. It wasn’t remotely the same city I’d met last August; still, I loved her. One day she would be filled with life, teeming with craic again.
Dani was out there in the streets somewhere. Soon I would go looking for her.
But not to kill her.
We’d fight back to back.
Sisters and all.
I think Alina would understand.
The good guys and bad guys aren’t as easy to tell apart as I used to think they were. You can’t look at someone with your eyes and take their measure.
You have to look with the heart.
The end …
… for now.
Deleted Scene From
SHADOWFEVER
Sometimes characters just won’t cooperate. Mac and Barrons kept trying to have sex before it was time and screwing up the way the story was supposed to go. I finally wrote a sex scene to keep them occupied so I could write the book the right way in peace. Funny thing was, once I wrote them a sex scene, the novel got back on track and never derailed again. This was the scene I deleted for the current Chapter Thirty-three. It took place right after Mac had killed Fiona (in the wrong version, she did it without Barrons). Mac had been gone for weeks and had just walked back into the bookstore.
Finding out that I was adopted had triggered a slow but relentless erosion of my identity. I tried to roll with the punches, be a good trooper, go with the flow.
When I’d learned that maybe I wasn’t even Alina’s real sister, I’d kept my chin up. When Darroc had proposed that I might be a stone, I’d laughed in his face. When Ryodan had suggested that perhaps I’d never actually been born, I hadn’t let it get me down. When Barrons had accused me of being the Unseelie King’s creation, one of his final castes, I’d doggedly persevered. I’d even been levelheaded and optimistic in the face of discovering I was the ill-fated, star-crossed love of the Unseelie King’s life.
But there was no escaping what Fiona’s death had just proved.
I was the Unseelie King.
I stared around the bookstore.
I loved this place. The bookstore was where I wanted to be. And the woman that I felt like here was who I wanted to be. From my magazine rack to my gas fireplaces, from my cash register to the joy of ordering books and introducing people to new worlds, from earning my keep at the end of the day to knowing my constant jackass was always going to be out back, breathing down my neck, I wanted to be who I was here. And wasn’t that the defining quality of “home”? You liked the person you were inside those walls.
I felt as if most of the living I’d done in my twenty-two years had taken place in BB&B. Definitely the most intense and formative parts. Ashford seemed a million miles away, a lifetime ago. None of my memories of home were as vivid and real as my memories here. I’d accumulated so many defining experiences in such a short time.
I’d learned about OOP-detecting. I’d touched copies of pages of the Sinsar Dubh and felt my latent power. I’d discovered monsters were real. I’d sat on the rooftop, my arm splinted, watching the world’s most improbable nail technician paint my fingernails. He’d taught me to look inside myself without flinching. He’d taught me to kill. I’d fought Shades, invented a MacHalo, danced, and been caught making a complete fool of myself. And although he’d tried not to laugh, it had been one of the few moments I’d ever seen him unguarded—except in bed. In a basement, with me Pri-ya, he’d been raw, open, animal without apology. I’d learned about hard decisions and consequences. I’d let go of the pink and embraced the black.
That day, so long ago, when I’d gotten lost in the Dark Zone, I’d burst through the front doors seeking sanctuary, and the fact of the matter was, I’d found it.
Unconditional sanctuary.
I reached into my pocket for my new iPod and thumbed it on. He’d loaded it with music. The playlists were titled with nifty little acronyms. Jericho Barrons had picked out a pink iPod for me, hooked it up to a computer and downloaded music. I could more easily envision a lion donning a frilly apron and cooking a scrumptious vegetarian dish.
I scanned the playlists. There was HOHW, OTB, WYB, WIFYS&E, WIFYF&H.
I thumbed up HOHW and laughed. Even though he’d had dozens of hits, Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” topped the list of Happy One Hit Wonders. It would always be a painful song to me.
OTB had to be On The Beach, and was full of songs that were perfect for tanning, including my favorite Beach Boys songs. The man had definitely snooped in my old iPod.
WYB was a puzzle at first, until I saw “My Violent Heart” by Nine Inch Nails. “When You Brood,” I said, getting it.
I scrolled down. Lust softened my knees and muscled my spine. These were the songs I remembered from my time in the basement. “I Came For You,” “Awake and Alive,” “Because the Night” and dozens of others. “So what is WIFYS&E?” I liked the game of trying to think like him.
“When I fuck you slow and easy,” Barrons said, tight and hard, at the back of the store.
All the moisture in my body went south, leaving my mouth painfully dry. The next playlist began with “Pussy Liquor.” I pressed the play button. “And WIFYH&F?” I’d already figured it out. I just wanted to hear him say it out loud.
“When I fuck you fast and hard,” he said slow and precise and each word was plucked on tight strings in my groin as if he was purring them with his mouth to my clitoris.
Wanting him is visceral. Undeniable. Doesn’t matter if I was born, who I might have been in any other life-time, or what I’m headed for.
Barrons lives.
I breathe.
I want. Him. Always.
Fire to my ice. Ice to my fever.
“What do you want, Ms. Lane?”
I opened my mouth with a complete sentence formed and ready to come out but all I managed was an incoherent sound of pain and lust.
“Finally speaking a language I understand.”
I’d never felt so exposed, so vulnerable. I hated everything about it.
Here I am, his dark gaze said. Don’t expect me to make the first move. I’ve been making it since the day you sashayed your manicured, deluded little self in here.
You did not. You treated me like—
A woman I wanted to fuck. You aren’t my type. It pissed me off.
Get over yourself—you aren’t my type, either!
I’m your only type. Admit it.
You admit it.
I wanted to send Fiona home, drag you behind a bookcase and grow your fancy pink ass up in a hurry. Mark you. Fuck you till you figured out you belonged to me.
How shocked pink Mac would have been! How horrified. How turned upside down. How … turned on. All that wasted time. We could have been fighting and having sex and getting inside each other’s skin. Women don’t belong to men.
Bullshit.
Fine. Then you belong to me, Barrons.
There was an unholy light in his eyes. He caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth, fangs gleaming into view, and smiled. You think you could keep something like me happy? I have large appetites.
I don’t think you know the meaning of the word “happy,” Broody, pissy bastard.
You want me, stake your claim.
I’ll stake your fanged ass.
I’d come back from that, too, so don’t get your hopes up.
I lunged for him but he was already halfway there. We would have slammed into each other but at the last minute, I leapt and he caught me by the waist. I wrapped my legs around him, then his tongue was in my mouth, and we were falling back to the floor. I straddled him, riding him to the flawlessly raunchy beat of Rob Zombie, reveling in the raw energy, lust, and life flowing between us.
; He wanted a spell of unmaking.
I would never give it to him. I didn’t give a damn if he’d lived so long that now he wanted to die. Barrons was not dying. Not in my lifetime. And it looked like mine was going to be every bit as long as his.
I tore my mouth from his, sat back on my heels and, when he reached for me, shoved him back on the floor. “Hands off. This one is for me. You had your turn when I was Pri-ya.”
You’re not Pri-ya now.
“Point?” I asked dryly. But I knew what it was. It burned him that I’d only had sex with him when I was out of my mind and had no idea who he was. It would have burned me, too, if the tables were turned.
You know who I am. Say my name.
“Jericho.”
You chose this. Tell me.
“I’m choosing this. Right here. Right now. I know who you are, I know who I am. And I want this.”
What am I? His eyes glittered with expectation.
I remembered him saying this, back in a basement when I was Pri-ya. He wanted me to tell him he was my world. “How would I know?” I asked glibly. “You never cooperate.”
I was so aroused, it was painful. I felt violent with emotion. If I couldn’t control my lust, at least I could control him.
We’ll see about that. Mockery glinted in his dark eyes, and something else I was having a hard time defining. A shimmer of disappointment? Had he just muttered something beneath his ocular breath? A pity. Not as ready as I thought you were …
Stay out of my head. I stripped off my shirt and bra and gasped at the coolness of the air on my fevered skin.
When he reached for me, I pushed him back with a boot square in his chest. “I said ‘my turn.’ ”
He laughed and lay back on the floor and folded arms his behind his head. I wasn’t fooled. I could feel the violence in him, too. We were like two great boulders, crashing into each other, chipping away, seeing if the other might crack.
I kicked off my boots, stripped off my jeans and thong, and stood over him, looking down my naked body at his face. His eyes narrowed, his lips tightened. Lust in those ancient eyes makes me feel elated to be alive. He unzipped his pants, made an adjustment, and his dick sprang free.
Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever Page 175
