It had been, Barrons said, a grand waste of time, and he wouldn‘t be escorting me back to see the old woman again.
How could he say that? I exploded. I‘d learned the name of my mother tonight! I knew my own last name!
―Names are illusions,‖ he growled. ―Nonsensical labels seized upon by people to make them feel better about the intangibility of their puny existences. I am this. I am that,‖ he mocked. ―I came from so and so. Ergo I am … whatever the blah-blah you want to claim. Bloody hell, spare me.‖
―You‘re beginning to sound dangerously like V‘lane.‖ I was an O‘Connor, from one of the six most powerful sidhe-seer lines— that mattered to me. I had a grandmother‘s grave I could visit. I could take her flowers. I could tell her I would avenge us all.
―Irrelevant where you came from. What matters is where you‘re going. Don‘t you understand that? Have I succeeded in teaching you nothing?‖
―Lectures,‖ I said, ―deafen the ears.‖
We were still arguing hours later, when he pulled the Hummer into the garage behind the bookstore.
―You just don‘t like that she knew something about what you are!‖ I accused.
―An old bag of rural superstitions,‖ he scoffed. ―Brain-starved by the potato famine.‖
―Got the wrong century there, Barrons.‖
He glowered at me, appeared to be doing some math, then said, ―So what? Same result. Starved by something. Reading blinds the vision, lectures deafen the ears, my ass.‖
We both leapt out of the Hummer and slammed the doors so hard it shuddered. Beneath my feet, the floor of the garage trembled.
The concrete actually rumbled, making my shins vibrate, as a sound from something that could only have been born on the far side of hell filled the air.
I stared at him across the hood of the Hummer. Well, at least one of my questions had been laid to rest: Whatever was beneath his garage wasn‘t Jericho Z. Barrons.
―What do you have down there, Barrons?‖ My question was nearly drowned out by another swell of hopeless, anguished baying. It made me want to run. It made me want to weep.
―The only way that could ever possibly be any of your business is if it was a book, and one that we need, and it‘s not, so fuck off.‖ He stalked from the garage.
I followed hot on his heels. ―Fine.‖
―Fiona,‖ he snarled.
―I said ?fine,‘ not Fiona.‖ I plowed into his back.
―Jericho, it‘s been too long,‖ a lightly accented, cultured voice said. I stepped out from behind him. She looked stunning as ever in a hip-hugging skirt, fabulous boots that clung to the shapely lines of her long legs, and a low-cut lace blouse that showcased every voluptuous curve. A long velvet cloak was draped lightly about her shoulders, flapping gently in the night breeze. Blowsy sensuality. Fae on her skin. Expensive perfume. Her flawless skin was paler than ever, more luminous, her lipstick blood-red, her gaze frankly sexual. My spear was in my hand instantly.
She was flanked by a dozen of the Lord Master‘s black-and-crimson-clad guard.
―Guess you‘re not important enough to merit protection from the princes,‖ I said coolly.
―Darroc is a jealous lover,‖ she said lightly. ―He does not permit them near me, should they turn my head. He tells me what a relief it is to have a woman in his bed, after the bland taste of the child he ripped to pieces.‖
I sucked in a sharp breath and would have lunged, but Barrons‘ hand closed like a steel cuff around my wrist.
―What do you want, Fiona?‖
I wondered if she remembered that Barrons was at his most dangerous when his voice was that soft.
For the barest moment, as she looked at Barrons, I saw unabashed, vulnerable longing in her eyes. I saw hurt, pride, desire that would never stop eating at her. I saw love. She loved Jericho Barrons.
Even after he‘d thrown her out for trying to kill me. Even after taking up with Derek O‘Bannion and now the LM.
Even with Unseelie flesh running through her veins, lover to the darkest denizens of the new Dublin, she still loved the man standing next to me and always would. Loving something like Barrons was a pain I didn‘t envy her.
She devoured his face with tender concern, searched his body with undisguised ardor. Then her gaze hitched on his hand around my arm, and it emptied instantly of love and burned with fury.
―You have not wearied of her yet. You disappoint me, Jericho. I‘d have forgiven a passing fancy, as I‘ve forgiven so many things. But you test my love too far.‖
―I never asked for your love. I warned you repeatedly against it.‖
Her face changed, tightened, and she hissed, ―But you took everything else! Do you think it works that way? I might have pointed the gun at my head, but you’re the one who put the bullets in it! Do you think a woman can give a man everything while still withholding her heart? We are not made that way!‖
―I asked for nothing.‖
―And gave nothing,‖ she spat. ―Do you know how it feels to realize that the one person you‘ve entrusted with your heart has none?‖
―Why are you here, Fiona? To show me you have a new lover? To beg to return to my bed? It‘s full, and always will be. To apologize for trying to destroy the one chance I had by killing her?‖
―The one chance you had for what?‖ I pounced on it immediately. Getting angry at her for nearly killing me hadn‘t been about me at all but about the fact that I was somehow his one chance at something?
Fiona looked at me sharply, then at Barrons, and began to laugh. ―Ah, such delicious absurdity!
She still doesn‘t know. Oh, Jericho! You never change, do you? You must be so afraid—‖
Abruptly, her mouth parted on a sudden inhalation, her face froze, and she sank to the ground, looking startled and confused. Her hands fluttered upward but did not achieve their destination. She crumpled limply to the pavement.
I stared. There was a knife buried deep in her chest, straight through her heart. Blood welled around it. I‘d not even seen Barrons throw it.
―I assume she came with a message,‖ he said coldly, to one of the guards.
―The Lord Master awaits that one.‖ The guard nodded toward me. ―He said it is her final chance.‖
―Remove that‖—Barrons glanced at Fiona—‖from my alley.‖
She was still unconscious, but she wouldn‘t remain that way long. Her flesh was laced with enough Unseelie that not even a knife through her heart would kill her. The dark Fae in her blood would heal the injuries. It would take my spear to kill what she was now. Or whatever weapon Barrons had used on the Fae Princess. But his knife sure had succeeded in shutting her up. What had she been about to say? What didn‘t I know that Barrons might be afraid I‘d find out?
What ―delicious absurdity‖?
I glanced up at ―my wave,‖ the one I‘d chosen to carry me through this dangerous sea. I felt like a child plucking daisy petals: I trust him, I trust him not, I trust him, I trust him not.
―And you can tell Darroc,‖ said Barrons, ―that Ms. Lane is mine. If he wants her, he can bloody well come and get her.‖