Fever 5 - Shadowfever (31 page)

That was why I’d screamed. I’d been having a hard enough time dealing with the thought that I was the concubine.
As I’d stared into the coffin and recognized her from the White Mansion, it had taken me only a moment to process that, if the concubine was lying in the coffin and I could pass through the king’s Silver, I had a serious problem.
The scream had been instinctive, denial from the very marrow in my bones clawing its way up my throat and past my lips.
If she was the concubine, and I could go though the Silver, too, there was only one other … person—and I was using that term
very
loosely—I could be.
“And it’s not the concubine, that’s for sure,” I muttered as I pushed through the Silver and slammed into the wall. I’d expected resistance like in every other Silver, but this one—the first ever created—was untainted by Cruce’s curse. I turned at the last moment, cradling her in my arms, taking the brunt of the impact on my shoulder. Not a damned thing about this made sense.
“Mac, what are you doing?” Christian roared, storming toward the mirror.
“Don’t touch it!” I cried. “It
will
kill you!” I didn’t want him to think for a minute that it wouldn’t and try to come through. It had killed Barrons. I had no doubt it would destroy Christian, and he didn’t have a get-out-of-death-free card. At least not that I knew of. But as had just become painfully apparent to me, I didn’t know much of anything, so maybe he had a whole deck of them. Maybe everyone did but me. Still, I wasn’t going to count on it. I needed him. More than ever before, I needed the
Sinsar Dubh
contained, and he was one of the five necessary to do it. I understood why it played with me now.
He stopped inches from the mirror and peered at me through it. “Why didn’t it kill her? I’ll know the truth,” he warned.
I adjusted her in my arms, scooped up a mass of her hair, and draped it over my shoulder so it didn’t trail the floor and trip me. I stared back through the mirror at him. “Because she’s the concubine. That’s why I really screamed. I recognized her.”
“But I thought you were the conc—” He gave me a fast once-over. “But you went through the—But that would mean—Mac?”
I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“How do you
know
she’s the concubine?” he demanded.
“The memory residue of the king and the concubine walks these halls. It’s hard not to get lost in them. But I imagine you won’t have quite as hard a time as I had, seeing how you aren’t quite so … personally involved,” I said bitterly. “I have no doubt you’ll see her while I’m gone.” I still wouldn’t look at her. It was too disconcerting. She was frighteningly light, delicate, and very, very cold. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
We stared at each other.
“I won’t believe it,” he said finally.
“It makes too much sense not to be true. There’s no record of me being born, Christian. The Book … it hunts me. I hear it always has.”
“Not buying it.”
“Give me another explanation.”
“Maybe the legends are wrong. Maybe a lot of people can step through the Silver. Maybe it’s all bluff, to keep people from trying.”
My heart lurched when he took a step forward. “No, don’t! Christian, listen to me. I can’t tell you who, but I know you can hear the truth in what I’m saying. I watched the Silver kill someone already.”
He cocked his head, then nodded. “Aye, lass. I hear truth in that, but why can’t you tell me who?”
“It’s not my secret to tell.”
“You’ll tell me one day.”
I didn’t reply.
“I’m still not buying it.”
“Find me an alternative. Any alternative. I’ll happily believe it.”
“Maybe you’re … I don’t know … Maybe you’re their child somehow,” he offered.
“Seven-hundred-thousand-plus years later?” I’d already considered and discarded that thought. Not only didn’t it resonate with my gut feelings, but “It doesn’t begin to explain all the things I know and feel and remember, or why the Book plays with me,” I said. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I wasn’t the progeny of the Unseelie King and his concubine. My feelings were far too personal. Far too sexual and possessive. Not a child’s feelings at all. But a lover’s.
He shrugged. “I’ll remain here. But hurry back.”
“Promise me you won’t try to come through, Christian.”
“I promise, Mac. But hurry. The longer I’m in here, the more I feel myself … changing.”
I nodded. As I turned away with the queen/concubine/woman I’d apparently destroyed worlds for, I couldn’t help but wonder where my other parts were.

I stared through the front door of Barrons Books and Baubles, uncertain what surprised me more: that the front seating cozy was intact or that Barrons was sitting there, boots propped on a table, surrounded by piles of books, hand-drawn maps tacked to the walls.

I couldn’t count how many nights I’d sat in exactly the same place and position, digging through books for answers, occasionally staring out the windows at the Dublin night, and waiting for him to appear. I liked to think he was waiting for me to show.

I leaned closer, staring in through the glass.
He’d refurnished the bookstore. How long had I been gone?
There was my magazine rack, my cashier’s counter, a new old-fashioned cash register, a

small flat-screen TV/DVD player that was actually from this decade, and a sound dock for my iPod. There was a new sleek black iPod Nano in the dock. He’d done more than refurnish the place. He might as well have put a mat out that said WELCOME HOME, MAC.

A bell tinkled as I stepped inside.
His head whipped around and he half-stood, books sliding to the floor. The last time I’d seen him, he was dead. I stood in the doorway, forgetting to breathe,

Leave it to Barrons—the world melts down and he’s still dressed like a wealthy business tycoon. His suit was exquisite, his shirt crisp, tie intricately patterned and tastefully muted. Silver glinted at his wrist, that familiar wide cuff decorated with ancient Celtic designs he and Ryodan both wore.

Even with all my problems, my knees still went weak. I was suddenly back in that basement. My hands were tied to the bed. He was between my legs but wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He used his mouth, then rubbed himself against my clitoris and barely pushed inside me before pulling out, then his mouth, then him, over and over, watching my eyes the whole time, staring down at me.

What am I, Mac?
he’d say.
My world
, I’d purr, and mean it. And I was afraid that, even now that I wasn’t
Pri-ya
, I’d be just as out of control in bed with him as I was then. I’d melt, I’d purr, I’d hand him my heart. And I would have no excuse, nothing to blame it on. And if he got up and walked away from me and never came back to my bed, I would never recover. I’d keep waiting for a man like him, and there were no other men like him. I’d have to die old and alone, with the greatest sex of my life a painful memory.

So, you’re alive
, his dark eyes said.
Pisses me off, the wondering. Do something about that
.
Like what? Can’t all be like you, Barrons
.
His eyes suddenly rushed with shadows and I couldn’t make out a single word. Impatience, anger, something ancient and ruthless. Cold eyes regarded me with calculation, as if weighing things against each other, meditating—a word Daddy used to point out was the larger part of premeditation. He’d say,
Baby, once you start thinking about it, you’re working your way toward doing it
. Was there something Barrons was working his way toward doing?
I shivered.
“Where the fuck’ve you been? It’s been over a month. Pull a stunt like that again without telling me what you’re doing first, and I’m chaining you to my bed when you get back.”
Was that supposed to be a deterrent or an incentive? I pictured myself sprawled on my back, his dark head moving between my legs. I imagined Mac 1.0, knowing what I knew now: that in a few months Barrons would be doing everything a man could do to a woman in bed. Would she have run screaming or torn off her clothes right then and there?
As he stepped around the high-back chesterfield, he spotted the slight woman in my arms, her silvery hair trailing the floor. He looked incredulous, which, for Jericho, meant his head took on a slight cant and his eyes narrowed. “Where the hell did you find her?”
I shoved the fragile body into his arms. I’d touched her all I ever wanted to. My feelings were too complex to sort out. “In the Unseelie prison. In a tomb of ice.”
“V’lane, that fuck—I knew he was a traitor!”
I sighed. That meant Jericho thought she was the queen, too. And he should know. He’d spent time at her court. But I knew she was the concubine. So, who had actually died in the Unseelie King’s boudoir eons ago? Had anyone? The concubine hadn’t killed herself. How had she gotten from the Silvers into Faery and ended up one day becoming the current queen? Had V’lane lied to me? Or had they all drunk from the cauldron so many times that the Fae didn’t have one bit of their own history right? Maybe someone had sabotaged their written records.
“How did you get her out of there? The Silver should have killed her.”
“Apparently the queen has the same kind of immunity to the Silver that she has to the
Sinsar Dubh.
” I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly I lied. Barrons has a sharp nose for deceit. “She can touch both. It looks like the king and queen can’t cast spells that the other can’t break.” The best lies are solidly cemented in known exceptions to the rule, and by her very nature as matriarch and ruler of both courts, the queen was the universal exception to every rule that bound the lessers of the Fae court. I wasn’t above exploiting it to secure my cover until I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt what to make of myself. In his dark gaze, I saw the moment he accepted the logic of my lie.
How could I be the Unseelie King? I didn’t feel like the king. I felt like Mac, with a bunch of memories I couldn’t explain. Well, that wasn’t the entire truth. There was also that place in my head where I had nifty little things like parasitic runes of ancient origin and—I terminated that line of thought. I didn’t feel like taking a tally of all the things I couldn’t explain about myself. The list was miserably long.
He took her to the sofa, tucked blankets around her, and shoved the sofa closer to the fire and turned it on. “She’s freezing. I’ve half a mind to take her back and let the place finish her off,” he said darkly.
“We need her.”
“Maybe.” He sounded unconvinced. “Fucking fairies.”
I blinked and he was no longer by the couch—he was nose-to-nose with me. My breathing quickened. It was the first time he’d ever put his preternatural speed to full use in front of me.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, trailed his fingers down my cheek. He traced the shape of my lips, then let his hand fall away.
I wet my lips and looked up at him. The lust I felt when standing so close to him was almost unbearable. I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to pull his head down and kiss him. I wanted to strip, and shove him back, and be his reverse cowgirl, ride him hard until he made raw, sexy, rough sounds as he came.
“How long have you known you were the Unseelie King’s concubine?” Though his voice was soft, his words were too precise. Tension shaped his mouth. I knew every nuance of that mouth. Fury was gnawing at him and needed an outlet. “You shoved through that Silver with no doubt you’d make it through.”
My laughter held a note of hysteria. Oh, if only that was the extent of my problems!
Was I a woman, obsessed with the woman on the couch?
Or was I the male king of the Fae, obsessed with Jericho?
I consider myself open-minded about gender preference—love is love, and who’s to say how the body follows the heart?—but both of those scenarios were hard for me to accept for myself. Neither fit me like a glove, and sexuality should. When it’s right, it feels good on you, like your own skin, and the only thing that felt like skin to
me
was woman to man. Then there was the whole
Oh, gee
, I’m
the screwup responsible for this whole mess
. No more blaming the Unseelie King for making so many bad decisions and messing up my world. Was I the one who’d messed up theirs? If so, I bore an unbearable amount of guilt.
I raked my hair back from my face with both hands. If I kept thinking about it, I was going to lose it.
I’m not the concubine, Jericho. I’m afraid I must be some part of the Unseelie King in human form
. “Not very long,” I lied. “I recognized things in the White Mansion, and I kept having dreams that made sense only if I was her. I knew there was a way to test it.”
“You bloody fool, if you’d been wrong it would have killed you!”
“But I wasn’t wrong.”
“Obtuse and illogical!”
I shrugged. Apparently I’d been a lot worse than that.
“You will never do such an idiotic thing again,” he said, muscles bunching in his jaw.
Given my track record, I was pretty sure I would. I mean, really, if I
was
the Unseelie King—the most powerful Fae ever—I’d somehow ended up human and clueless. That meant I was not only evil, obsessed, and destructive, I was inexcusably stupid.
He began to circle me, looking me up and down like an exotic in a zoo. “And you thought I was the king. That’s why you tried to drag me through it with you. You just can’t get enough of killing me, can you? What’s the last thing you said to me?” He mocked in falsetto: “
What’s the worst that can happen? I lead you into some trap and you die for however long it is you go away
?”