I stared down the empty street, littered with debris and dehydrated human husks blowing like sad tumbleweeds across the cobblestones.
“Not wishing,” I growled. “I don’t want to be invisible.”
I wanted to feel like myself again. I desperately craved certainty in my soul. I was appalled to realize I’d almost given up. Withdrawing from Barrons, rarely pausing in my search for the king those weeks after I’d killed (or had I?) Rowena, not even to have sex, detaching from my parents.
But Barrons and Unseelie flesh had stirred fire in my belly again. Fire I needed.
I resolved to eat Rhino-boy and fuck constantly until I figured out this crisis of faith.
Toward that end, I needed a sifter.
Where the bloody hell was I going to find a sifting Fae?
—
“Christian,” I said, smiling. “I thought I’d find you here.”
“Mac,” he said, without lifting his eyes from the cut-crystal glass of whiskey in his hand.
I dropped down on a stool next to him at what had once been the Dreamy-Eyed Guy’s bar, then mine for a time.
The Sinatra club in Chester’s was one of the quieter ones, where human males gathered to discuss business and, on rare occasion, some freakish Unseelie took a table for a time. This subclub drew a more refined clientele, and the Fae were all about the unrefined. The more brassy, sexual, and desperate tended to catch their eye.
I gave him a once-over. Hot, sexy Highlander with strange eyes I was grateful were currently brooding into his drink, not turned on me. Something was different. He looked awfully…normal. “Where are your wings?” I asked.
“Glamour. Bloody women in this place go nuts if I show them.”
“You can sift, can’t you?”
“Aye. Why?”
“I was hoping you’d take me somewhere.”
“I’m not moving from this stool. That fuck Ryodan lied. He said he tried to bring Dageus’s body back to us but he didn’t. He doesn’t know that I know the man he brought us was from Dublin, not the gorge at all. He must have snatched a bit of plaid from our rooms upstairs and bloodied it up. Why would he give us someone else’s body, Mac?”
I rapped the counter sharply, ordering a drink. I raised my whiskey when it came as if to make a toast. “Sounds like you have a mystery. I’ve got one of my own. What do you say you help me solve mine and I’ll see what I can do about solving yours?”
He turned his head slowly and looked at me.
I dropped my gaze instantly.
He laughed softly. “That bad, Mac?”
I inhaled deeply and snatched a quick glance from beneath my lashes. I’d seen this look before, times a thousand, as I rolled in the Unseelie king’s great wings. I lowered my gaze again and steeled myself. Then looked up and straight at him, right in the eyes.
For about two seconds.
“Not bad, Christian,” I said, looking down at my drink. “Just different. Intense. Like looking up at stars. We’ll get used to it.” I paused then added, “You know I can get into more places in this nightclub than you can. I can keep an eye out. Go poking around later tonight, see if I can learn anything about your uncle.”
I had no intention of telling him. My loyalty is one hundred percent to Barrons. Period. The end. That is one of the few things I’m absolutely certain about anymore. Our bond. Our two-person religion. But I would certainly see if I could get Barrons to get Ryodan to consider letting Christian know. At some point. I knew what it felt like to lose family. I’d blamed myself a dozen different ways for all the things I hadn’t done that might have saved Alina. I could only imagine how badly Christian was blaming himself for his uncle’s death.
After a measured pause, he clinked his glass to mine. “Perhaps we can be of use to each other. You should know, lass, I’m far from a pro at it. It was easier before my stay on those cliffs.”
“Because you didn’t turn full Unseelie?”
“Aye. I suspect. I can do it, but it’s more difficult. I tend to give myself a wide margin. Where is it you’re wanting to go?”
14
“I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever…”
Ashford, Georgia: population 3,979, covering 8.9 square miles, boasting over 100 original antebellum homes, housing 964 families. It’s nestled in the prettiest part of down-Dixie I’ve ever seen.
Of course, I may be biased.
I love every nook and cranny of my town.
I’d not only toured all the historic homes decorated from pillars to eaves at Christmastime—Alina and I loved the holidays—but we’d practically lived in those atmospheric old homes on sultry afternoons and weekends, hanging out with our friends on bead-board-ceilinged porches with slow paddling fans, on white wicker swings, drinking sweet tea and believing nothing would ever change.