For a long moment he doesn’t speak. Then he moves his head once, in silent negation.

“As in: never? No matter what happens to you?”

I get that silent slice to the left and back to the middle again.

The bastard. Now I understand the anger I’ve been feeling beneath the elation. Some part of my brain had already put this together:

He’d let me grieve.

He never told me he was a beast that couldn’t be killed. He could have spared me all the pain I’d endured with one tiny little truth, one small confession, and I’d never have felt so violent and dark and broken. If he’d only just said: Ms. Lane, I can’t be killed. So if you ever see me die, don’t sweat it. I’ll be back.

I’d lost myself. Because of him. Because of his idiotic need to keep everything about himself secret. There was no excuse for it.

But even worse was this: I’d thought he’d given his life to save me, when all he’d really done was the equivalent of take a little nap. What did “dying” for someone mean when you knew you couldn’t die? Not a damn thing. An inconvenience. IYD hadn’t been a big deal after all.

I’d wept, I’d mourned. I’d built a massive and utterly undeserved Monument to Barrons, The Man Who’d Died So I Could Live, in my head. I’d thought he’d made the ultimate sacrifice for me, and it had milked my emotions brutally. I’d let it consume me, take me over, turn me into someone I couldn’t believe I’d been capable of becoming.

And he’d never been willing to die so I could live. It had been business as usual—Barrons keeping his OOP detector alive and functioning, coolly impersonal, focused on his goals. So what if he was the one who would never let me die? It didn’t cost him anything. He wanted the Book. I was the way to get it. He had nothing to lose. I finally understood why he was always so fearless.

I’d thought he’d cared about me so much he’d been willing to give up his life. I’d romanticized it and gotten swept away in a misguided fantasy. And if he’d stayed here last night, I’d have made a complete fool of myself. I’d have confessed feelings to him that I’d felt only because I’d thought he’d given his life for mine.

Nothing had changed.

There was no deeper level of understanding or emotion between us.

He was Jericho Barrons, OOP director, pissed off at me because he thought I’d taken up with the enemy, irked that he’d had to endure an inconvenient death, but still not telling me a thing, using me to achieve his mysterious ends.

He bristles with impatience. I feel the lust rolling off him, the violence beneath it.

“You said you wanted something. What is it, Ms. Lane?”

I smile coolly. “The deed to my bookstore, Barrons. What else?”

The Dani Daily

106 Days AWC

DING-DONG THE DICK IS DEAD!

Read all about it!

THE LORD MASTER WAS MURDERED!!!

Dude, like it was my 14th birthday or something already, ’stead of next week on the 20th, I got the über-coolest present: Darroc, the fecker that brought the walls down between our worlds, is DEAD! These eyeballs saw it happen up close and personal last night! And get this—one o’ his own Hunters killed him! Took off his head!

Time to fight is NOW, while we got ’em on the run with nobody in charge! Jayne and his men got a method; join the madness at Dublin Castle!

Annie, I got the nest of Creepers in the back of your place last night.

Anonymous847, I cleared the warehouse, but—dude—you didn’t need me. There was only two. ’Member, you can build your own Shade-Busters. I told you all about it coupla rags ago. If you need supplies, check out Dex’s on Main. I tacked the recipe to the wall by the bar.

Keeping it short, got a lot of Fae ass to kick while I’m still thirteen! Which ain’t much longer, only SIX more days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MEGA OUT!

PS: Happy V’day, which I’m officially changing to V’lane’s Day. Speaking of—anybody seen the prince recently? If so, gotta tell him the Mega’s looking for him. Got some stuff he needs to know about.

17

Turn right, here,” I said.

Barrons shot me a look that pretty much said, Fuck off and die.

I returned it. “I left the stones at Darroc’s penthouse.”

He yanked the wheel of the Viper to the right so hard, I nearly ended up in his lap. I knew what a mistake that would be. Since our sexually charged incident back at the bookstore, he hadn’t spoken a single word.

I’d never seen him so angry. And I’ve seen Barrons angry a lot.

When I’d delivered my frosty coup de grâce, he regarded me with such contempt that, if I’d been a lesser woman, I’d have withered up and died. I’m not lesser. He deserved it.

Then he’d stalked away from me and stood staring into the Silver for long moments. When he’d finally turned back, he raked a glance from my tousled blond hair to my wedge flip-flops, then shot a look at the ceiling, telling me as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud to go change into something a grown woman would wear, because we were leaving.

When I’d come back down, he herded me into the garage without touching me. I’d felt tension ebbing and flowing like a violent surf beneath his skin, the same way the colors had crashed ceaselessly beneath the skin of the Unseelie Princes.

He’d chosen the Viper from his collection and slid into the driver’s seat. I knew he’d done it to provoke me. To remind me that nothing was mine. Everything was his.

“This is bullshit, and you know it,” I snapped. I couldn’t fight about what was really pissing me off, so I’d work with the material at hand. “Mom and Dad are out, I’m alive, and Darroc is dead. You never specified who had to do what or how it had to happen. You only demanded an end result. Your terms were met.”

The Viper rumbled down the street, and I felt a flash of envy. I knew the thrill of the exhaust pipe’s heat in the driver’s compartment, the sleek pleasure of the gear stick in my hand, the rush of massive muscle idling hungrily, waiting for my next command. I sighed and looked out the window, watching the darkness slide by.

I didn’t have to give Barrons directions. He knew exactly where I’d stayed two nights ago. He turned right, then left, twelve blocks to the east, and seven to the south.

The city was as silent as he was. Although I sensed a great number of Fae, they weren’t out in the streets. I wondered if they were having a Fae summit somewhere, planning their next moves. I wondered if the Unseelie nation had been unsettled by the loss of their liberator and leader and if they were meeting to choose a new one. I wondered who would step up to take over. One of the Unseelie Princes?