Why did I have a lake inside me? Did every sidhe-seer? Was it simply my chosen visualization of an inner power source, different for all of us? With constant calamity around me, I’d never gotten time to sit down with the sisters of my bloodline to ask questions, compare notes.
I frowned. Now that I’d added my brain to the mix, trying to pinpoint the metaphysical coordinates of my dark glassy lake—as if I might establish some quantum latitude and longitude—was difficult. The place proved abruptly elusive.
I inhaled deep, exhaled slow, willing myself to relax. Sink, sink, don’t think, I murmured in my mind.
Nothing.
Not even a puddle in sight anywhere.
I opened my eyes, thinking I needed to refocus and try again. Barrons gave me a look. “Hang on,” I said, “give me a minute.”
“Don’t play games with me, Mac,” Ryodan warned.
“I’m not,” I said. “It’s not easy. I’ve spent months trying to stay away from the place and now you expect me to dive right in. I’ve trained myself to never even think about it.” Although I didn’t always succeed.
Letting my gaze shift slightly out of focus, I mentally envisioned a giant lake, glassy and deep. I paid careful attention to the details, the pebbled shore, the faint light from what seemed to be a distant sky. I lavished attention on the sleek black surface. Told myself I couldn’t wait to swim, climbed up on a large rock, and when I’d gotten the scene exactly right, closed my eyes, leapt into the air, and dove.
I crashed into the ground, hard.
Not one bloody drop of water anywhere.
“Fuck,” I snapped, rubbing my head. It hurt, as if I’d actually hit a rock with it. And my arms felt bruised. I looked at Barrons. “I can’t find it.”
“Try again,” Ryodan ordered.
I did.
And again.
And again and again.
Driving us all crazy with repeated failure.
“You’re too tense,” Ryodan growled. “For fuck’s sake, you don’t stalk an orgasm, you enjoy its arrival.”
“Bloody talk about bloody orgasms with your own bloody woman not mine,” Barrons said tightly. “You don’t know a thing about her orgasms and never will.”
Ryodan shot him a dark look. “It was a metaphor.”
“I never stalk an orgasm. I don’t have to with Barrons,” I said.
“Too the fuck much information, Mac,” Ryodan said.
“You’re the one who brought up orgasms.”
“And he never will again,” Barrons said pointedly.
“Everybody shut up. I’m trying to concentrate.” Now I was thinking about orgasms. I considered Ryodan’s advice. Maybe I was trying too hard.
An hour later I was dripping sweat, my head was pounding, and my arms felt like I’d been delivering karate chops to brick walls.
“I can’t get there,” I finally said wearily. “I don’t know why.”
Ryodan regarded me through narrowed eyes. “You said you thought it was a sidhe-seer place.”
I inclined my head, waiting.
“Barrons said you ate—”
“Aha! Unseelie flesh!” I pounced on the excuse, enormously relieved. “So it is a sidhe-seer place and that’s why I can’t find it! I can’t possibly see my lake right now!” I’d begun to fear the Sinsar Dubh was so quiet of late because it had been stealthily rearranging my internal furniture, hiding things I might want to use, planting booby traps. Could it do that?
Ryodan rolled his eyes. “Outstanding. Meet Mac, the junkie.”
“I am not.”
“How many times have you eaten it in the past week,” he demanded.
“Twice. But I had to the first time because I was going down the cliff, and the Guardians were shooting at me the second time,” I defended.
“I’m sure you’ll ‘have to’ the next time, too.”
“I am not an addict.”
“How the bloody hell long does the high last anyway,” Ryodan growled.
I shrugged. “Dunno exactly. Three days or so. I should be myself again in a couple of days.” Immensely irritable and tired but myself.
He looked at Barrons. “Don’t let her eat it again.”
“She makes her own decisions,” he said. But he shot me a look: We need information, Ms. Lane. I would prefer you refrain for a time.
Great. One of my two ball-fortifying techniques that were keeping me strong—sex with Barrons and eating Unseelie flesh—was now lost.
I was just thinking what an anticlimactic night this was turning out to be when Ryodan opened the door.
Christian MacKeltar stood on the other side.
17
“Knows everybody’s disapproval, I should’ve worshipped her sooner…”
Three hours earlier…
Jada didn’t have to wear the red dress.
It was a choice.
Men on every planet, in every realm, Fae or human, shared inherent characteristics.
They didn’t like to kill a beautiful woman.
At first.
They wanted other things. At first.
Beauty was one of many weapons.
It was why she’d abandoned her ragged haircut to grow it long again. But curly and wild, it had been far too easy for an opponent to grab a fistful, a liability in any battle. She’d learned to scrape it back, high, out of her face. Sometimes tuck a low braid into the collar of her shirt.
She didn’t have to dance either.