At a complete loss to explain what just happened, for a novel change, I silently obey him. “Don’t get used to it,” I mutter.
We enter the spartan waiting room, move to the second set of double doors, and I’m on the verge of proposing we pause and listen a few seconds to get a feel for what’s on the other side when Barrons kicks the door open so hard it flies back, slams into the wall, and splits down the middle.
Women shout in alarm but I can’t see past Barrons’s and Ryodan’s backs.
I shut my mouth and step into the room, feeling uncomfortably … obsolete. I may have unique sidhe-seer gifts and there’s no question that without my wraiths hemming me in I’m a seriously badass street fighter, but Barrons and his men are faster, stronger, and more ruthless.
Before, one of my most valuable assets was that I could sense the Sinsar Dubh, but that skill is no longer in demand. Before, I could slay Unseelie better than the best, but now I’m afraid to draw my spear and give my inner demon the opportunity to manifest. Which begs the questions: what makes me any more special than the average sidhe-seer? Enforced passivity has me pondering that question too much of late.
Me. You could crush them in your sleep, said inner demon purrs.
I opt, instead, to crush the twinge of insecurity that invited the Book’s commentary, resuming my silent recitation with a sigh.
Exasperated that I can’t see, I push between them and am rewarded with a quick glimpse of a dozen armed women grouped around a central figure standing in front of Rowena’s ornate desk, but Barrons pushes me back and growls, “Stay there.”
His guttural words spark that freaky collision of dual realities again.
Stay there, he’s growling, back in my room at the Clarin House, I want you that way.
But you said I could—
Your turn next.
This is about me, remember. That’s what you said. I want what I want now.
I catch my breath and hold it. Something’s trying to kick up from my subconscious through murky waters and it’s having a hard time, weighted at the ankles by stones; a swimmer trapped in a dark cave where it was meant to remain forever.
Unless … somehow … the boulder blocking the entrance got jostled … nudged aside, freeing fragments of memory like tadpoles desperate to break the placid surface of my mind.
“She said she’s not receiving visitors,” a woman snaps.
“Put down that fucking gun or you’ll be eating it,” Barrons orders.
“Retreat and we’ll let you live,” she counters. “Don’t move another inch.”
“Try to stop me.”
Try echoes in my mind. In my alternate reality, I hear him saying, Try, Ms. Lane, just try.
“Move away from her,” Barrons growls. “Show yourself, Jada.”
“You move,” the woman counters. “What’s behind you? Show us now!”
Move, you bastard, I’m snarling at the Clarin House.
“You will leave, immediately,” a new voice says in a cool monotone.
Barrons laughs. “I’ll leave when I’m bloody well ready.”
When I’m ready echoes, and in my cramped, rented room, Barrons closes his hands on my ribs.
“Jada, it’s here. They brought it with them!” one of the women cries.
“You aren’t welcome here. I don’t interfere with your world. Don’t interfere with mine. You’ll regret it,” that same cool monotone says.
In both realities my ribs suddenly hurt. Between Barrons’s and Ryodan’s backs, I glimpse a beautiful woman, long hair pulled back in a high ponytail that falls to her waist.
She dwindles as a peculiar tunnel vision overtakes me, then I’m seeing only Barrons’s back.
Then his face, as he stretches his big, hard body over me.
Images smash into me, one brick to my head after another, and I grimace, closing my eyes …
Barrons popping the buttons on my fly.
He makes me a deal: If I’m not wet, we won’t have sex.
If I am, we will.
I’m wet. I’m so damn wet. I’ve never been wet like this before.
He was right. With Billy James’s older brother, and all the boys before him, when it was over, I wondered what the fuss was about.
He was right: If it’s perfectly good, it’s not good enough.
And I knew that night, staring up at him, that touching this man would change my soul, alter me forever, that sex with him would blow my fucking mind.
My sister was dead.
My heart was in pieces.
I was useless and my life was meaningless.
I wanted my mind blown.
Then I’m on the floor, and his big, hard, beautiful body is on me and I’m in a rage of passion I didn’t know I was capable of feeling, grabbing his waistband, busting the zipper, feeling him shove into me, throwing back my head and roaring.
Alive. So damned alive.
“Oh, my God,” I breathe. “I had sex with you that night. All night. I didn’t even know you. I didn’t even like you.”
Barrons mutters, “Ah, fuck. Not now.”
“Jada, they set it free!”
“Are you certain?” the cool monotone says.
“Yes, wait … no it’s—wait, yes … what the hell?”
Ryodan thunders, “I want to see Jada. Get out of my way.”
Out of my way echoes. At the Clarin House, Barrons is saying, I’ll give you until nine P.M. tomorrow to get the bloody hell out of this country and out of my way. Then he bends over me and begins to speak in a voice that sounds like a thousand voices, muttering ancient words.
Here, in the abbey, I freeze.
He didn’t.
He wouldn’t.