Текст книги "Shadowfever"

Автор книги: Karen Marie Moning

Соавторы: Karen Marie Moning,Karen Marie Moning
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

“You knew I’d fight. You knew I’d win. I always win. That’s why you were supposed to separate us and shoot me, so she wouldn’t know I was dead. Bring more ammo next time. Try a rocket launcher. Think maybe you could manage to hit me with that?” he said sarcastically.

A rocket launcher? Barrons would survive that?

“You’re the one that fucked up. She watched us die.”

Indeed, I did. So why weren’t they dead? There was another pause. I held my breath, listening.

“I don’t give a shit what they think. And don’t give me this vote crap. Nobody voted. Lor doesn’t even know what century it is, and Kasteo hasn’t said a word in a thousand years. You’re not killing her and neither are they. If anyone is going to kill her, it’s me. And that’s not happening right now. I need the Book.”

I stiffened. He’d said “right now,” strongly implying that there might be another time it was happening. And the only reason he wasn’t killing me was because he needed the Book.

This was the jackass I’d been grieving? Whose return I’d been celebrating? I didn’t ponder the “thousand years” comment. I’d work on that later.

“If you think I’ve hunted it this long to kill the best chance I’ve got, you don’t know shit about me.”

There it was again, the phrase Fiona had used the night he’d stabbed her to shut her up. I was his “best chance.” At what?

“Bring it on. You. Lor. Kasteo, Fade. Whoever wants to get in my way. But if I were you, I’d back the fuck off. Don’t give me a reason to make you live to regret it. Is that what you want? A pointless, eternal war? You want us at each other’s throats?”

Silence.

“I never forget my loyalties. You’ve forgotten your faith. Keep her parents alive. Follow my orders. It’ll be over soon.”

I fisted my hands. What exactly was going to be over?

“That’s where you’re wrong. One world isn’t just as good as any other. Some worlds are better. We’ve known she’s a wild card since the beginning. After what I learned about her the other night, I have to let this hand play out. Have you located Tellie yet? I need to question the woman. Assuming she’s still alive. No? Get more people on it.”

What did he mean by after what he’d learned about me? That I’d teamed up with Darroc? That according to him I’d been willing to betray him? Or was there something else? Who was Tellie and what did he need to question her about?

“Darroc is dead. She’ll tell V’lane she made it up. No one will believe the kid.” Another long pause. “Of course she’ll do what I say. I’ll take V’lane out myself if I have to.” He paused. “The fuck you could.”

The silence stretched so long that I realized he must have terminated the call.

Hand on the door frame, I stood, eyeing the stairs.

“Get your ass in here, Ms. Lane. Now.”

“I heard—” I began.

“I let you hear,” he cut me off.

I shut my mouth, closed the door, and leaned back against it. The corners of his lips turned up as if at some private amusement, and for a moment I thought we were having one of those silent conversations.

You think it’s safe to close yourself in with the Beast?

If you think I’m afraid of you, you’re wrong.

You should be afraid.

Maybe you should be afraid of me. Go ahead, piss me off, Barrons. See what happens.

Little girl thinks she’s all grown up now.

His mouth moved into a smile that I’ve grown familiar with over the past few months, shaped of competing tensions: part mockery, part pissed off, and part turned on. Men are so complicated.

“Now you know what they think of you. I’m all that stands between you and my men,” he said.

That and a very deep glassy lake. I’d dive to the bottom if I had to. Even though he was alive again, even though I now understood I never would have destroyed this world to resurrect him, I was no longer the woman I’d been before I’d helped kill him and never would be again.

The transformation I’d undergone had done permanent damage. The emotions I’d felt, believing he was dead, had cut deep, leaving my heart battle-scarred, my soul changed. The grief might be over, but the memory of those days, the choices I’d made, the things I’d almost done, would be a part of me forever. I suspected some part of me was still slightly numb and might be for a long time.

My gaze strayed to his neck. It was as if his throat had never been cut. There was no wound, no scar. He was completely healed. I’d seen him naked last night and knew there were no scars on his torso, either. His body bore no evidence of the violent death he’d endured.

I glanced back at his face. He was staring at my newly dyed hair. I pushed it back, tucked it behind my ears. From the hostility in his gaze, I knew if I opened my mouth again, he’d just cut me off, so I waited, enjoying the view.

One of the things I realized when I’d been grieving him was how attractive I find him. Barrons is … addictive. He grows on you until you can’t begin to imagine anyone you’d like to look at more. He wears his dark hair slicked back from his face, sometimes cut, sometimes long, as if he can’t be bothered to regularly get it trimmed. I now know why, at well over six feet of long, hard muscle, he moves with such animal grace.

He’s an animal.

His forehead, nose, mouth, and jaw bear the stamp of a gene pool that died out long ago, blended with whatever it is that makes him the beast. Though symmetrical, with strong planes and angles, his face is too primitive to be handsome. Barrons might have evolved enough to walk upright, but he never relinquished the purity and unapologetic drives of a born predator. The aggressive ruthlessness and bloodlust of my demon guardian is his inherent nature.

When I first arrived in Dublin, he terrified me.

I inhale deeply, inflating my lungs with a long, slow breath. Though ten feet and a wide desk separate us, I can smell him. The scent of his skin is one I will never forget, no matter how long I live. I know the taste of him in my mouth. I know the smell we make together. Sex is a perfumery that creates its own fragrance, takes two people and makes them smell like a third. It’s a scent neither person can make alone. I wonder if that third smell can become a drug of blended pheromones that can be generated only by the mixture of those two people’s sweat, saliva, and semen. I’d like to shove him back on the desk. Straddle him. Dump a storm of emotion across his body with mine.

I realize he’s staring at me, hard, and that my thoughts might have been a bit transparent. Desire’s a hard thing not to telegraph. It changes the way we breathe and subtly rearranges our limbs. If you’re attuned to someone, it’s impossible not to notice.

“Is there something you want from me, Ms. Lane?” he says very softly. Lust stirs in his ancient eyes. I remember the first time I glimpsed it there. I’d wanted to run, screaming. Savage Mac had wanted to play.

The answer to his question was a resounding yes. I wanted to launch myself across his desk and expel something violent from my system. I wanted to beat him, punish him for the pain I’d suffered. I wanted to kiss him, slam myself down on him, reassure myself that he was alive in the most elemental way I could.

If anyone is going to kill her, he’d said moments ago, it’s me.

God, how I’d grieved him!

He speaks of killing me so casually. Still not trusting me. Never trusting me. Those dark currents gurgle, begin to gush. I am furious. With him. He deserves a dose of grief himself. I wet my lips. “As a matter of fact there is.”

He inclines his head imperiously, waiting.

“And only you can give it to me,” I purr, arching my back.

His gaze drops to my breasts. “I’m listening.”

“It’s long overdue. I haven’t been able to think about anything else. It nearly drove me crazy today, waiting for you to get here so I could ask for it.”

He stands up and rakes me with a scathing look.

Sloppy seconds, his eyes say.

You had it first, I counter silently. I think that means he got the leftovers.

I push away from the door, circle the desk, trailing my fingertips lightly over his Silver as I pass it. He watches my hand and I know he’s remembering how I once touched him.

I stop a few inches from him. I’m humming with energy. He is, too. I can feel it.

“I’ve become obsessed with getting it, and if you say no, I’ll just have to take it.”

He inhales sharply. “You think you can?” Challenge stirs in his dark gaze.

I have a sudden vision of the two of us having an all-out fight from end to end of the bookstore, culminating in fierce, no-holds-barred sex, and my mouth goes so dry I can’t swallow for a moment.

“It might take me a while to … get my hands on exactly what I want, but I have no doubt I could.”

His eyes say: Bring it on. But you’ve got a lot to pay for.

He hates me for teaming up with Darroc. He believes we were lovers.

And he’d have sex with me in a heartbeat. Against his better judgment, with no tenderness at all, but he’d do it. I don’t get men. If I thought he’d betrayed me with … say, Fiona, a day after he’d helped kill me, I’d make him suffer for a good long time before I slept with him again.

He believes that I had sex with my sister’s lover the day after I stabbed him, that I forgot all about him and moved on. Men are wired different. I think for them, it’s about stamping out all trace, all memory, of their competitor as quickly and completely as possible. And they feel that the only way they can do it is with their body, their sweat, their semen. As if they can re-mark us. I think sex is so intense for them, they can be so easily ruled by it, that they think we can, too.

I look up at him, into those dark, bottomless eyes. “Can you die—ever?”

For a long moment he doesn’t speak. Then he moves his head once, in silent negation.

“As in: never? No matter what happens to you?”

I get that silent slice to the left and back to the middle again.

The bastard. Now I understand the anger I’ve been feeling beneath the elation. Some part of my brain had already put this together:

He’d let me grieve.

He never told me he was a beast that couldn’t be killed. He could have spared me all the pain I’d endured with one tiny little truth, one small confession, and I’d never have felt so violent and dark and broken. If he’d only just said: Ms. Lane, I can’t be killed. So if you ever see me die, don’t sweat it. I’ll be back.

I’d lost myself. Because of him. Because of his idiotic need to keep everything about himself secret. There was no excuse for it.

But even worse was this: I’d thought he’d given his life to save me, when all he’d really done was the equivalent of take a little nap. What did “dying” for someone mean when you knew you couldn’t die? Not a damn thing. An inconvenience. IYD hadn’t been a big deal after all.

I’d wept, I’d mourned. I’d built a massive and utterly undeserved Monument to Barrons, The Man Who’d Died So I Could Live, in my head. I’d thought he’d made the ultimate sacrifice for me, and it had milked my emotions brutally. I’d let it consume me, take me over, turn me into someone I couldn’t believe I’d been capable of becoming.

And he’d never been willing to die so I could live. It had been business as usual—Barrons keeping his OOP detector alive and functioning, coolly impersonal, focused on his goals. So what if he was the one who would never let me die? It didn’t cost him anything. He wanted the Book. I was the way to get it. He had nothing to lose. I finally understood why he was always so fearless.

I’d thought he’d cared about me so much he’d been willing to give up his life. I’d romanticized it and gotten swept away in a misguided fantasy. And if he’d stayed here last night, I’d have made a complete fool of myself. I’d have confessed feelings to him that I’d felt only because I’d thought he’d given his life for mine.

Nothing had changed.

There was no deeper level of understanding or emotion between us.

He was Jericho Barrons, OOP director, pissed off at me because he thought I’d taken up with the enemy, irked that he’d had to endure an inconvenient death, but still not telling me a thing, using me to achieve his mysterious ends.

He bristles with impatience. I feel the lust rolling off him, the violence beneath it.

“You said you wanted something. What is it, Ms. Lane?”

I smile coolly. “The deed to my bookstore, Barrons. What else?”

The Dani Daily

106 Days AWC

DING-DONG THE DICK IS DEAD!

Read all about it!

THE LORD MASTER WAS MURDERED!!!

Dude, like it was my 14th birthday or something already, ’stead of next week on the 20th, I got the über-coolest present: Darroc, the fecker that brought the walls down between our worlds, is DEAD! These eyeballs saw it happen up close and personal last night! And get this—one o’ his own Hunters killed him! Took off his head!

Time to fight is NOW, while we got ’em on the run with nobody in charge! Jayne and his men got a method; join the madness at Dublin Castle!

Annie, I got the nest of Creepers in the back of your place last night.

Anonymous847, I cleared the warehouse, but—dude—you didn’t need me. There was only two. ’Member, you can build your own Shade-Busters. I told you all about it coupla rags ago. If you need supplies, check out Dex’s on Main. I tacked the recipe to the wall by the bar.

Keeping it short, got a lot of Fae ass to kick while I’m still thirteen! Which ain’t much longer, only SIX more days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MEGA OUT!

PS: Happy V’day, which I’m officially changing to V’lane’s Day. Speaking of—anybody seen the prince recently? If so, gotta tell him the Mega’s looking for him. Got some stuff he needs to know about.

17

“Turn right, here,” I said.

Barrons shot me a look that pretty much said, Fuck off and die.

I returned it. “I left the stones at Darroc’s penthouse.”

He yanked the wheel of the Viper to the right so hard, I nearly ended up in his lap. I knew what a mistake that would be. Since our sexually charged incident back at the bookstore, he hadn’t spoken a single word.

I’d never seen him so angry. And I’ve seen Barrons angry a lot.

When I’d delivered my frosty coup de grâce, he regarded me with such contempt that, if I’d been a lesser woman, I’d have withered up and died. I’m not lesser. He deserved it.

Then he’d stalked away from me and stood staring into the Silver for long moments. When he’d finally turned back, he raked a glance from my tousled blond hair to my wedge flip-flops, then shot a look at the ceiling, telling me as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud to go change into something a grown woman would wear, because we were leaving.

When I’d come back down, he herded me into the garage without touching me. I’d felt tension ebbing and flowing like a violent surf beneath his skin, the same way the colors had crashed ceaselessly beneath the skin of the Unseelie Princes.

He’d chosen the Viper from his collection and slid into the driver’s seat. I knew he’d done it to provoke me. To remind me that nothing was mine. Everything was his.

“This is bullshit, and you know it,” I snapped. I couldn’t fight about what was really pissing me off, so I’d work with the material at hand. “Mom and Dad are out, I’m alive, and Darroc is dead. You never specified who had to do what or how it had to happen. You only demanded an end result. Your terms were met.”

The Viper rumbled down the street, and I felt a flash of envy. I knew the thrill of the exhaust pipe’s heat in the driver’s compartment, the sleek pleasure of the gear stick in my hand, the rush of massive muscle idling hungrily, waiting for my next command. I sighed and looked out the window, watching the darkness slide by.

I didn’t have to give Barrons directions. He knew exactly where I’d stayed two nights ago. He turned right, then left, twelve blocks to the east, and seven to the south.

The city was as silent as he was. Although I sensed a great number of Fae, they weren’t out in the streets. I wondered if they were having a Fae summit somewhere, planning their next moves. I wondered if the Unseelie nation had been unsettled by the loss of their liberator and leader and if they were meeting to choose a new one. I wondered who would step up to take over. One of the Unseelie Princes?

In a way, Darroc hadn’t been a bad choice to have leading the Dark Court. He’d wanted our world intact, because he’d wanted to rule it alongside the Fae realm. He’d liked his human pleasures and had intended to continue them. His years among us had increased his appetite for mortal women and mortal luxuries; ergo, he’d have preserved them.

But there was no guarantee that whoever stepped up to the plate next would feel the same. In fact, there was little likelihood that the new Unseelie leader would feel anything even remotely human.

If one of the dark princes took over—say, Death or Pestilence—they’d have no long-term goals, no restraint. They’d indulge until there was nothing left to devour. We’d actually been lucky to have an ex-Seelie leading the Unseelie. I knew what the princes were made of: emptiness darker and vaster than the night sky. Their appetites were boundless, insatiable.

I’d seen what had happened in the street between the Seelie and Unseelie when they’d faced off. The ground had begun to split. If the two courts clashed on a grand scale, if they went at each other en masse, they would destroy our world.

While they could move on to a new planet, we couldn’t.

The human race would die out.

I’d thought I had no pressing obligations, no express deadlines. But I did. The longer the Book was loose and the Fae battled each other, the greater the danger of total human annihilation.

I wondered if Barrons realized any of this. I wondered if he even cared. Whatever he was could probably survive any fallout, nuclear or Fae. Would he simply hook up with the other immortals on our planet and move on with them? I needed to know where he stood. “We’ve got serious problems, Barrons.”

He slammed the brakes so hard I got whiplash. If I hadn’t had my seat belt on, I’d have gone through the windshield. I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t realized we’d arrived.

“Mortal over here!” I said irritably, rubbing my neck. “You might try remembering tha—ack, what the—Barrons!” I was yanked out of the car by my arm so hard, it nearly popped out of socket.

I hadn’t even seen him get out and come around to my side. Then I was over the curb, up on the sidewalk, and flattened against the brick wall of a building.

He leaned into me, trapping my legs with his, completing the cage with his arms.

I braced my palms against his chest to hold him at bay. His rib cage rose and fell beneath my hands, pumping like bellows. He was rock hard against my thigh, much bigger than I’d ever felt him. Too big. I heard the sound of ripping fabric.

I looked up at his face and did a double take. His skin was the color of mahogany, darkening by the second. He was taller than he should be, and sparks of crimson glittered in his eyes. When he snarled, I caught the flash of long black fangs in the moonlight.

He was changing. His hair was getting longer, thicker, matting around his face. He dropped his head close and sharp fangs grazed my ear.

“Never. Use sex. As a weapon. Against me. Again.” The words were guttural, misshapen by teeth too large for a human mouth, but I understood them perfectly.

I shrugged.

“Don’t give me a fucking shrug!” he snarled. His cheek was against mine and I could feel the planes of it sharpening, broadening. Again, I heard cloth ripping.

“I was angry.” I’d had every right to be.

“So am I. You don’t see me playing head games.”

“You manipulate me all the time.”

“Am I ruthless? Yes. Do I keep my own counsel? Sure. Do I push you sometimes to get you to say something you want to say anyway? Certainly. But I never mind-fuck you.”

“Look, Barrons, what do you want from me? It was …” I searched for the right word and didn’t like what I found. “Immature. Okay? But you aren’t blameless. You were talking about killing me.”

The rattlesnake moved in his throat.

“You owe me an apology, too,” I snapped.

“For what?” Something grazed my ear, tore the tender skin, and I felt a warm rush of blood, then his tongue touched my skin.

“For not telling me you couldn’t die. Do you have any idea what watching you die did to me?”

“Ah. Let’s see. Yes. Made you fuck Darroc within hours.”

“Jealous, Barrons? Sounds like it.” There was no way I was explaining myself. He hadn’t given me any explanations. Because he hadn’t, I’d assumed all kinds of things and very nearly made a grand ass of myself in front of him last night.

Air hissed between his fangs as he shoved away from the wall. I hadn’t realized how cold the night was until the heat of his body was gone. He stood in the middle of the street with his back to me, hands fisted at his sides, long talons sliding through monstrous fingers, shuddering, snarling.

I leaned against the wall, watching him. He was fighting for control over which form was going to achieve dominance and, although I was pissed off at both of them at the moment, I preferred the man. The beast was more … emotional, if that word could be applied to Barrons in any form. It made me feel confused, conflicted. I would never get the image of stabbing it out of my head.

When I’d been provoking him, it hadn’t occurred to me that this might be the outcome. Barrons was always so controlled, disciplined. I’d thought his transformation into the beast had been a conscious one. That, like everything else in his world, it happened if he willed it to, or it didn’t happen at all.

I remembered the first time I’d ever heard the strange rattle in his chest, the night he and I had gone after the Book with the three stones and failed. He’d carried me back to the bookstore and I’d wakened on the sofa to find him staring at the fire. I remembered thinking that Barrons’ skin might be a slipcover for a chair I never wanted to see. I’d been right. Beneath his human form was an utterly inhuman one. But why? How? What was he?

Not once had he lost control like this around me. Was his ability to contain his animal nature getting weaker?

Or was I more deeply rooted beneath that changeable skin?

I smiled, but it held no mirth. I liked that thought. I wasn’t sure who that made more screwed up: him or me.

I stayed against the wall, and he stayed in the street with his back to me, for a good three or four minutes.

Slowly, with what looked like a great deal of pain, he changed back, shuddering, snarling all the while. I understood why I’d thought I killed him with my runes last night. The transformation from beast to man appeared to be intensely painful.

When he finally turned around, there was no trace of crimson in his dark gaze. No stump of horns erupting from his skull. He grimaced as he stepped up on the curb, as if his limbs hurt, teeth flashing white and even in the moonlight.

He was once again a powerfully built man of thirty or so, wearing a long coat that was ripped at the shoulders and split down the back.

“You mind-fuck me again, I’ll fuck you back. But it won’t be with my mind.”

“Don’t threaten me.” I was tempted to do it right then and there and see if he’d really follow through. I was furious at him. I wanted him. I was a mess where Barrons was concerned.

“I didn’t. I warned you.”

A sharp retort was on the tip of my tongue.

He shamed it into silence with “I expect better from you, Ms. Lane.” Then he turned for the door and entered the building.

I half-expected there to be Unseelie guards on the top floor, but either Darroc had been too arrogant to bother leaving any or, since he’d been killed, his army saw no point in protecting his hideouts anymore.

Once inside, Barrons went straight for the bedroom suite Darroc had occupied. I followed him, because it was the one place I’d not gotten the chance to search. I stood in the doorway, watching him ransack the opulently furnished room, pushing chairs and ottomans out of his way, overturning the dresser and kicking through the contents, before he turned to the bed. He ripped the blankets and sheets from it, flung the mattress from the frame, pulled out a knife, and gutted it, searching for anything hidden inside, then stopped and breathed deeply. After a moment, he cocked his head and inhaled again.

I got it instantly. Barrons has extremely heightened senses. Being in touch with your inner animal has its advantages. He knows my scent, and he couldn’t smell me on Darroc’s bed.

I knew the second he decided we’d probably done it on the kitchen table, or in the shower, or bent over the couch, or on the balcony, or maybe just had an orgy with all the Rhino-boys and guards watching.

I rolled my eyes and left him to finish searching Darroc’s bedroom by himself. He could believe whatever he wanted to believe. I hoped he drowned in images of me having sex with Darroc. He might not feel emotions about me, but he certainly had the territorial instincts of an animal. I hoped the idea of somebody else playing on his turf drove him nuts.

I hurried to the suite I’d slept in. My runes were still throbbing crimson at the threshold and in the walls. They were larger, pulsating more brightly. I didn’t linger. I’d searched the place thoroughly the other night. I grabbed my pack, hurried out into the living room, and began stuffing the photo albums of Alina into my pack. They were mine now, and when this was all over, I was going to sit down and lose myself in them for days, maybe weeks, and tell myself the happy part of her story.

I heard Barrons in the den, knocking over lamps and chairs and tossing things around. I walked in and watched books fly, papers explode into the air. He had his beast under control, but he wasn’t bothering to try to control the man. He’d swapped his torn coat for one of Darroc’s. It was too small for him, but at least it covered the rest of his shredded clothes.

“What are you looking for?”

“Allegedly, he knew a shortcut, or I’d have killed him long ago.”

“Who told you about the shortcut?” Was there anything Barrons didn’t know?

He shot me a look. “I didn’t need anyone to. Prima facie, Ms. Lane. Facts speak. Didn’t you wonder why he kept tracking it, even though he had none of the stones and would have been corrupted the moment he picked it up?”

I shook my head, disgusted with myself. It had taken me months to get around to wondering that. What a great sleuth I was.

“You think he left notes?”

“I know he did. The limits of his mortal brain posed problems for him. He was accustomed to the memory capabilities of a Fae.”

So, Barrons knew there was a shortcut, too, and had been seeking it for some time.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“They’re called shortcuts for a reason. The shorter they are, the more they usually cut. Nothing is without price, Ms. Lane.”

Didn’t I know it. I knelt and began scanning sheets of paper on the floor. Darroc hadn’t written in notebooks; he’d used thick, expensive vellum sheets and written on them in fancy calligraphy, as if he’d expected his work to one day be memorialized: documents from Darroc, liberator of the Fae, displayed like we showcase the Constitution, in a museum somewhere. I looked back up at Barrons. He was no longer throwing things; he was sorting through papers and notebooks. There was no trace of temperamental beast or angry man. He was icy, impervious Barrons again.

“Didn’t anybody ever tell him about laptops?” I muttered.

“Fae can’t use them. They fry them.”

Maybe there was something to my energy theory. As more sheets rained down, I gathered them up and examined them. Under the watchful eyes of Darroc’s guards, I hadn’t been able to snoop through his personal documents. It was fascinating stuff. This particular cache of notes was about the different Unseelie castes—their strengths, weaknesses, and unique tastes. It was jarring to realize he’d had to learn about the Unseelie, just like we had. I folded the pages and began stuffing them in my backpack. This was useful information. Sidhe-seers need to be passing it down, one generation to the next. We could put together a set of Fae encyclopedias from his notes.

When I ran out of room in my pack, I began stacking the pages up to return for them later.

Then I saw a page that was different from the rest, filled with scribbled bits of thoughts, bulleted lists, circled comments, and arrows pointing from one note to another.

Alina’s name was on it, along with Rowena’s and dozens of others. Scribbled next to their names were their special “talents.” There were lists of countries, addresses, and names of companies I assumed were the foreign branches of Poste Haste, Inc., the courier service that was our front. One bulleted list contained the six Irish bloodlines of our sect, plus another I’d never heard of: O’Callaghan. Was it possible there were more bloodlines than we knew about? What if another Fae got their hands on this information? They could wipe us all out!

I continued scanning and gasped. Rowena had a touch of mental coercion? Kat had the gift of emotional telepathy? How the hell had Darroc figured these things out? According to him, Jo was in the now-secret Haven! Dani’s name was also on the page, heavily underlined and punctuated with a question mark. I wasn’t on the list, which meant he’d written it before he’d become aware of me, last fall.

At the bottom of the page was a short bulleted list:

Sidhe-seers—sense Fae.

Alina—senses Sinsar Dubh, Fae Hallows, and relics.

Abbey—Sinsar Dubh

Unseelie King—sidhe-seers?

I blinked at it, trying to make sense of it. Was Darroc saying that it hadn’t been the Seelie Queen, as Nana O’Reilly had claimed, who’d delivered the Dark Book to the abbey so long ago? Had the Unseelie King himself brought it to us, because we could sense Fae, and Fae Hallows, and that made us the perfect guardians for it?

Suddenly Barrons was behind me, looking over my shoulder. “Makes you think about yourself a little differently, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. I mean, who cares who brought it to the abbey? Point is, we’re the guardians.”

“Is that what you get from his notes, Ms. Lane?” he purred.

I glanced up at him. “What do you get from them?” I said defensively. I didn’t like his tone any more than I liked the amused glitter in his dark gaze.