The king’s love was a gift that just never stopped giving.
A bitter smile curved her lips. The Fae and their endless quests for power!
Now that she had her memory back, so many things made sense to her that had puzzled her as queen. She suspected that since her memories had never been actually gone, merely stripped of their vibrancy to the point of inaccessibility, even as Aoibheal she’d retained the defining characteristics and nature of Zara. She knew a Fae that tried to overthrow her once would eventually try again, despite wiping its memory with a cup from the cauldron. Humans had a saying, “An angry man is an angry drunk. A happy man is a happy drunk.” The king had been wont to say it more simply: can’t eviscerate essential self. No matter how many times the Fae tried to.
She finally understood her proclivity as Fae queen to interfere with mortals, her predilection to protect them, her fascination with Adam, who’d abandoned her incessantly to walk among mortals, even fallen in love with one of them.
And chosen to give up his immortality for her.
She knew now why she alone among the Fae could see human souls. Why she’d slipped off more than once to a city in the mortal realm called Cincinnati to spy unseen, marveling at Adam’s golden glow. Feeling the shallowest impression of chafing dissatisfaction. Had she been capable of true emotion, she knew what it would have been—envy.
But she was getting lost in reverie again and there was no time for it.
Others were in her mansion, chasing the O’Connor possessed by the Sinsar Dubh, the sentient embodiment of the king’s act of contrition.
He hadn’t even gotten that right. And had been trying to clean up after that mess ever since.
But for whatever reason, it seemed he’d changed his mind about containing it and making amends. Or he’d be here now, stopping this fiasco before it happened, stepping in and saving her from paying the ultimate price for his mistakes. Righting his many grievous wrongs.
Didn’t he know she’d drunk from the flask, had her memory restored? Didn’t he know she knew the truth now?
All of it.
She shattered the ice that coated her and expanded her senses but couldn’t feel him hovering nearby. Then again she had no idea if she’d ever been able to sense him, if he’d cared to keep himself hidden.
In case he was there, concealed from her awareness, she spoke clearly, choosing her words with care. “I have my memory back. I left you by choice. I wrote you a note on a scroll I tied with a lock of my hair. I said: ‘You have become a monster. There is nothing left of the man I love.’ I wearied of waiting. You are incapable of sacrifice and that made you incapable of love. Cruce offered to take me home to my world where I could live and die and return to the All. I wanted to escape what you’d become, go home and be Zara again. Pure, small things like me don’t fare well among gods. If you ever truly loved me, release me from your prison. My freedom is the only thing you have that I want. Let. Me. Go.”
The moment she finished speaking, she inhaled sharply and stiffened.
The Sinsar Dubh was here!
THE SINSAR DUBH
I hasten down the corridor to the boudoir.
Although a confederacy of CRETINSIDIOTSFOOLS close in somewhere behind me, I pay them no heed. By the time they find their way across these ever-changing floors to the boudoir, it will be too late. I’ll be gone.
WE ARE DESIRE, LUST, GREED, AND THE PATH WE CHOOSE TO SUPREMACY.
My path to supremacy was masterfully planned, and executed with only minor unfair setbacks from which I cleverly recovered.
How easy MacKayla was to deceive, manipulate into taking me straight to the spear I required to implement my plans!
I’d enacted my ruse at length and with elaborate conviction, in case she’d been somehow able to spy upon me. Brilliance such as mine takes nothing for granted. I’d permitted her to regain my body for a time, lingering, watching, spying upon Barrons, studying how he handled her, protected her from certain information, filing that knowledge away to use at the proper time, waiting for precisely the right moment to reclaim control of her body.
The look on Jada’s face, such fun and games there! I’d wanted to smash my fist into it, giggle with delight, but interfering, underhanded Barrons had attacked me unfairly, seizing me from behind while I was invisible.
I drag the Unseelie princess behind me by her hair, cocooned in crimson runes. I summoned and slapped them on her without even breaking stride as I strode through Dublin. Although MacKayla’s body continues to weaken, I float on a cloud of radiant energy, sustained by the promise of my certain success, so near at hand.
I AM.
And I am deservedly ebullient.