Fever 5 - Shadowfever (27 page)

I loved this wing. As I stared out the window, the concubine was suddenly there, but she was faint around the edges, a little misty, a partially realized memory.
She sat on a stone bench, in a dress of blood-red and diamonds, through which I could see snow and iced branches. The light was strange, as if everything but her was painted in halftones.
I jerked. The fourth Unseelie Prince, the winged War/Cruce, had just appeared. He was also semi-transparent, a residue from a time long past. At his wrist glinted a wide silver cuff, and around his neck was an amulet, very different from the one Darroc had worn.
I watched with astonishment as the concubine rose and greeted him with a kiss on both marble-white cheeks. There was affection between them. Once, long ago, the beautiful woman in my dream hadn’t been afraid of him. What had changed? The raven-winged prince carried a silver tray, upon which sat a single teacup and an exquisite black rose. She laughed up at him, but her eyes were sad.
Another of his potions to change me?
War/Cruce murmured something I couldn’t catch.
She accepted the cup.
Perhaps I do not want his salvation
. But she drank deeply, until the cup was empty.
“The king kept all his notes and journals on his experiments in the White Mansion, to prevent those in his Dark Court from stealing his knowledge.” Barrons’ voice jarred me.
I blinked, and the memory was gone.
“You sure do know a lot about the king.” I was going to say more, but I suddenly felt as if a rubber band attached to my belly button had contracted, yanking me toward the other end. I’d been too far away, gone too long.
Without another word, I turned and ran down the corridor, away from him. Gone was all desire to fight with him. I was being summoned. Every fiber in my being was drawn, the same way it was the last time I was here.
“Where are you going? Slow down!” he called behind me.
I couldn’t have slowed if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t. I’d come here for a reason, and that reason was where I was being pulled. The black floors of the Unseelie King were calling me. I wanted to be in that boudoir again. I wanted to see him this time, to see the king’s face. Assuming he had one.
I passed over rose marble, skidded onto bronze floors, dashed through turquoise corridors, and flew through halls of yellow, until I felt the sultry warmth of the crimson wings. I could feel Barrons behind me. He could have caught me if he’d wanted to. He was fast like Dani, like all his men. But he let me run, and he followed.
Why? Because he suspected the same things I did? Because he wanted it out in the open? My heart was pounding with fear and anticipation to have it finally over, to know what I was, what he was.
Barrons was suddenly beside me. I glanced over at him, and he gave me a look that was equal parts fury and lust. He was really going to have to get over that fury part. It was beginning to piss me off. I had just as much to be mad at him about.
“I
didn’t
have sex with Darroc.” I was mad all over again, itching for physical contact. “Not that I should have to explain myself to you. It’s not like you ever explain yourself to me. But even if I did, even if I was the traitor you’re determined to believe I am, he’s dead, so according to the philosophy of Barrons, who cares? Here I am, with you again. Actions speak, right? You got the action you wanted. OOP detector back under control, tightly leashed. Lead me around by the collar, why don’t you? Isn’t that when you’re happiest?
Ruff-ruff
,” I mock-barked, seething.
“You haven’t fucked me since you were
Pri-ya
. There’s an action for you. Says pretty much all there is to say.”
It burned him. Good. It was burning me, too. “This is some kind of pissing contest? Darroc got laid but you didn’t? That’s the only reason you’re mad?” What did he think it said? That I would touch him only if I was sex-starved? Or if the alternative was dying a mindless animal?
“You couldn’t begin to understand.”
“Try me.” If he’d ever just admit to one little feeling about me, I might admit to one about him.
“Don’t push me, Ms. Lane. This place is getting to me. You want the beast on your hands?”
I glanced at him. His eyes were sparking crimson and he was breathing hard, but not from exertion. I knew him. He could run for hours. “You want me, Jericho. Admit it. A lot more than once or twice. I’m under your skin. You think about me all the time. I keep you awake at night. Go ahead, say it.”
“Fuck you, Ms. Lane.”
“Is that your way of saying it?”
“That’s my way of saying grow up, little girl.”
I skidded to a halt, slipping and sliding on the black marble floor. The instant I stopped running, he did, too, as if we were bound by the same tether.
“If I’m a little girl, then that makes you a serious pervert.”
The things we did together
… I shot him a graphic reminder with my eyes.
Oh, so you’re finally ready to talk about them
, his dark gaze mocked.
Maybe
I
don’t want to now
.
Too bad. You were always slapping me in the face with reminders. Turnabout’s fair play. But it sure wasn’t a little girl back in that bed, Jericho. It’s not a little girl you’re messing with now
.
I poked him in the chest with my finger. “You died in front of my eyes and let me believe it was real, you bastard!” I felt like I was being torn in half—pulled toward the boudoir by destiny, rooted in place by the need to air my grievances.
He knocked my finger away. “Do you think it was fun for me?”
“I hated watching you die!”
“I hated doing it. It hurts every damned time.”
“I grieved!” I shouted. “I felt guilty—”
“Guilt isn’t grief,” he snapped.
“And lost—”
“Get a fucking road map. Lost isn’t grief, either.”
“And—and—and—” I broke off. There was no way I was telling him all the things I’d really felt. Like destroying the world for him.
“And
what
? What did you feel?”
“Guilt,” I shouted. I punched him, hard.
He shoved me, and I stumbled back against the wall.
I shoved him back. “And
lost.
”
“Don’t tell me you grieved me when you were really just pissed off about the mess you’d gotten yourself into. I died and you felt sorry for yourself. Nothing more.” His gaze flickered to my lips. I got that. He was once again furious with me and once again perfectly ready to have sex with me. The conundrum that was Barrons. Apparently it was impossible for him to feel anything as far as I was concerned without getting angry about it. Did anger make him want to have sex with me? Or was it that he always wanted to have sex with me that made him so angry?
“I was grieving more than that. You don’t know the first thing about me!”
“And you
should
have felt guilty.”
“So should you!”
“Guilt is wasted. Live, Ms. Lane.”
“Oh! Ms. Lane! Ms. Frigging Lane! There it is again. You tell me to feel guilty, then you tell me it’s wasted. Make up your mind! And don’t tell me to live. That’s exactly what I was doing that you’re so pissed about. I went on!”
“With the enemy!”
“Do you care how I went on, as long as I did? Isn’t that the lesson you’ve been trying to teach me? That adaptability is survivability? Don’t you think it would have been easier for me to lay down and quit once I thought you were dead? But I didn’t. You know why? Because some overbearing prick taught me that it was how you
go on
that matters.”
“The word that was supposed to be emphasized there was
how
. As in honorably.”
“What place does honor have in the face of death? And, please, did you
honorably
kill that woman you carried out of the Silver in your study?”
“You couldn’t possibly understand that, either.”
“That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? I couldn’t possibly understand, so you’re not going to bother telling me. You know what I think, Jericho? You’re a coward. You won’t use words, because you don’t want anyone to hold you accountable,” I accused. “You won’t tell the truth, because then somebody might judge you, and God—”
“—has nothing to do with this and—”
“—forbid you actually get
personal
with me—”
“—I don’t give a damn about being judged—”
“—and I don’t mean try to have sex with me—”
“—I wasn’t trying to have sex with you—”
“—I didn’t mean at this precise moment. I meant—”
“—and it would have been impossible, anyway, because we’ve been running. I don’t have any bloody idea
why
we’ve been running,” he said irritably, “but you’re the one who started it and you’re the one that stopped.”
“—like knock down a few walls between us and see what happens. No, you’re such a coward that the only time you can call me by my name is when you’re either pretty sure I’m dying or you think I’m so out of my mind that I won’t notice. Seems like a hell of a wall to erect between yourself and someone you don’t like.”
“It’s not a wall. I merely endeavor to help you keep our boundaries straight. And I didn’t say I didn’t
like
you. ‘Like’ is such a puerile word. Mediocre people
like
things. The only question of any significant emotive content is: Can you live without it?”
I knew the answer to that question where he was concerned, and I didn’t like it one bit. “You think
I
need help understanding where our boundaries are? Do
you
understand where our boundaries are? Because they seemed pretty damned mysterious and movable to me!”
“You’re the one arguing about the names we call each other.”
“What do you call Fiona? Fio! How charming. Oh, and what about that twit at Casa Blanc the night I met that bizarre man McCabe? Marilyn!”
“I can’t believe you remember her name,” he muttered.
“You called her by her full first name, and you didn’t even like her. But not me. Oh, no. I’m Ms. Lane. In bloody frigging perpetuity.”
“I had no idea you had such a hang-up about your name,
Mac
,” he snarled.
“Jericho,” I snarled back, and pushed him.
He manacled both my wrists with one hand so I couldn’t hit him again. It infuriated me. I head-butted him.
“I thought you died for me!”
He shoved me against the wall and braced his forearm across my throat so I couldn’t head butt him again. “For fuck’s sake, is that what this is about?”
“You didn’t die. You lied to me. You took a little nap and left me on that cliff thinking I’d killed you!”
He searched my face, dark eyes slitted. “Ah, I see. You thought it meant something that I died for you. Did you dress it up in romance? Compose sonnets memorializing my great sacrifice? Did it make you like me better? Did I have to be dead to get you to
see
me? Wake the fuck up, Ms. Lane. Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn’t the hard thing. The man that dies
escapes
. Plain and simple. Game over. End of pain. Alina was the lucky one. Try
living
for someone. Through it all—good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That’s the hard thing.”
Alina was the lucky one
. I’d thought that, too, and had been ashamed of myself for thinking it. I punched him so hard, he stumbled on the slick black floor, and as he went down, I felt sudden horror at seeing him stumble. I never wanted to see him stumble, so I grabbed him and we both went down to our knees on the black floors. “Damn you, Jericho!”
“Too late, Rainbow Girl.” He grabbed a fist of my hair. “Somebody beat you to it.” He laughed, and when he opened his mouth over mine, fangs grazed my teeth.
Yes, this was what I needed, what I’d needed since the day I woke up in that basement and left his bed. His tongue in my mouth, his hands on my skin. The burn of his body against mine. I grabbed his head with both hands and ground my mouth against his. I tasted my own blood from a nick on his teeth. I didn’t care. I couldn’t get close enough. I needed rough, hard, fast sex, followed by hours and hours of slow and intimately thorough fucking. I needed
weeks
in bed with him. Maybe if I had willing, cognizant sex with him long enough, I’d get over him already.
Somehow I doubted that.
He hissed. “Fucking fairy in your mouth. You have me in your mouth, you don’t get anybody else. Or you don’t get me.” He sucked on my tongue, hard, and I could feel V’lane’s name unraveling from the center of it. He spat it out like an unfastened piercing. I didn’t care. There hadn’t been enough room in my mouth for them both anyway. I pressed into his body, rubbing desperately against him. How long had it been since I’d had him inside me? Too long. I grabbed the sides of his shirt and ripped, sent buttons flying. I needed skin to skin.
“Another of my favorite shirts. What is it with you and my wardrobe?” He pushed his hands up my shirt and unhooked my bra. When his hands rasped over my nipples, I jerked.
Come, you must hurry …
Shut up
, I snarled silently. I’d left that voice back in Dublin, where it had been torturing me in my bedroom.

All will be lost.… It must be you.… Come
.
I growled. Couldn’t she leave me alone? She hadn’t spoken in my head for the past forty-five minutes. Why now? I wasn’t asleep. I was awake, wide awake, and I needed this. I needed him.
Go away
, I willed. “Please,” I groaned.
“Please what, Mac? You’ll have to ask for it this time, spell it out in graphic detail. I’m done giving you everything you want without making you ask for it.”
“Right. Words mean nothing to you, but now you insist on them,” I said against his mouth. “You are
such
a hypocrite.”
“And you’re bipolar. You want me. You always do. You think I can’t smell it?”
“I’m
not
bipolar.” Sometimes he struck way too close to home. I popped the button on his pants, unzipped them, and shoved my hands inside. He was rock hard. God, he felt good.
He stiffened, air hissing between clenched teeth.
Make haste … He comes.…
“Leave me
alone
,” I snapped.
“Over my dead body,” he said roughly. “You’ve got my dick in your hands.” He told me where it was going to be next and my bones turned to water, tried to spill my body across the floor and let him do anything he wanted to me.
“Not you. Her.”
“Her who?”
A hand tugged at the sleeve of my jacket, and I knew without looking that it wasn’t his. “Kiss me and she’ll go away.” I needed him inside me so badly I hurt from it. I was hot and wet and nothing mattered but this moment, this man.
“Who?”
“Kiss me!”
But he didn’t. He pulled back and looked past me, and I knew from the look on his face that I wasn’t the only one who could see her.
“I think she’s me,” I whispered.
He looked at me, back at her, and at me again. “Is that a joke?”
“I know this house. I know this place. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Impossible.”
It is nearly too late. Come NOW
.
It was no longer a wisp of a plea. It was a command, and the hand was implacable on my arm. I could not disobey, no matter how badly I wanted to stay here and lose myself in sex, no matter how desperately I needed him inside me again, needed to feel we were joined in the most primal way, that I was in Jericho Barrons’ arms and mouth and under his skin.
And, God, did I need it! So much that I resented it. I never wanted to want a man this much—so much that
not
having him was physical pain. I never wanted to feel that any man had so much control over me and my life.
I pushed up from my knees and shoved past him.
He grabbed the sleeve of my coat; it ripped as I pulled away. “We need to talk about this! Mac!”
I dashed down the corridor, running after her like a dog chasing its own tail.
The concubine’s white half of the boudoir was carpeted in dewy petals and lit by a thousand candles. The winking diamonds that floated on the air were tiny fiery stars. Those few that passed through the enormous mirror to the dark king’s side were instantly extinguished, as if there wasn’t oxygen enough to support flame, or the darkness there was too dense to permit light. The concubine sprawled nude on piles of snowy ermine before the white hearth.
In the shadows on the far side of the bedchamber, darkness moved. The king watched her through the mirror. I could feel him there, immense, ancient, sexual. She knew he was watching. She stretched languidly, slid her hands up her body into her hair, and arched her back.
I’d expected to find the other end of the rubber band here, ending with the concubine, but it tugged me still. It stretched invisibly on, through the massive black Silver that divided their bedchamber in half.
I wanted to step through and join that immense ancientness.
I never wanted to step one foot closer to those shadows.
Was the king himself summoning me? Or was part of the king standing behind me, even now? I had to know. I’d called Jericho a coward but could too easily be accused of the same.
I need …
the voice summoned.
I understood that. I did, too. Sex. Answers. An end to my fears, one way or another.
But the voice hadn’t come from the woman on the rug.
It had come from the dark side of the boudoir, which was all bed because he required that much bed. It was a command I couldn’t refuse. I would slip through the mirror and Barrons would lay me back on the Unseelie King’s bed and cover me with lust and darkness. And we would know who we were. It would be okay. It would all be out in the open finally.
As I stared into the Silver that I knew was a killing mirror for anyone who wasn’t the king or his concubine, I was suddenly five again. More details of my Cold Place dream crashed over me and I realized there were many I still didn’t remember.
I’d always had to pass through this chamber first: half white, half dark, half warm, half cold. But numbed and frightened out of my childhood wits by the nightmarish things that followed, I’d always forgotten how the dream had begun. It had always been here.
And it had always been so hard to force myself to go through the enormous black Silver, because I’d wanted nothing more than to stay in the warm white half of this chamber forever, to lose myself in endlessly replaying scenes of what had once been but was now lost to me and I could never have again, and grief—oh, God, I’d never really known grief at all! Grief was walking these black halls and knowing they would be haunted for eternity with the residue of lovers too foolish to savor what time they’d had. Memories stalked these corridors, and I stalked those memories like a sad ghost.
Still, wasn’t illusion better than nothing?
I could stay here and never have to face that my existence was empty, that emptiness was all my life had ever been about: dreams, seduction, glamour.
Lies. All lies.
But here I could forget.
Come NOW
.
“Mac.” Jericho was shaking me. “Look at me.”
I could see him distantly, through sparkling diamonds and ghosts of times past. And behind him, through the mirror, I could see the monstrous dark shape of the Unseelie King, as if he was casting Jericho as his shadow on the other side, on the white half of the room. I wondered if the concubine’s shadow was different, too, through the king’s Silver. Did she become like him on his half? Large and complex enough to mate with whatever the king was? Over there, in the blessed, comforting, sacred dark, what was she? What was I?
“Mac, focus on me! Look at me, talk to me!”
But I couldn’t look. I couldn’t focus, because whatever was beyond that mirror had been calling me all my life.
I knew the Silver wouldn’t kill me. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
His hands tightened on my shoulders and tried to turn me away. “Walk away from it, Mac. Let it go. Some things don’t need to be known. Isn’t your life enough as it is?”
I laughed. The man who always insisted I see things as they were was now urging me to hide? On the rug behind him, the concubine laughed, too. Her head arched, her chin tipped up, as if she was being kissed by an invisible lover.
He had to be the king. I slid my hand down his arm, twined my fingers with his. “Come with me,” I said, and ran for the Silver.