Burned (40 page)

To Jada, Ryodan says, “If you think to attack Mac for a
reason I’m certain you don’t want to discuss right now, it’ll be war between us. If you’re half as intelligent as I think you are, you know such a war would be futile, pointless, and catastrophic.” To the princes, he says, “We will work together to destroy our mutual enemies. Only then will we kill each other, making it easier for the one who remains to control the world.”

Rath and Kiall look at each other and nod. “That is the first wise thing you’ve said, human.”

Ryodan cuts Kiall a hard look. “Call me human again and you die.”

Kiall is silent a moment then inclines his head. “Mongrel will do. For now.”

Ryodan smiles faintly but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Mongrel is preferable to human.”

“Another wise comment. But we will not be ‘bait’ for the Hag.”

“Nor will I,” R’jan growls.

“Whoever agrees to be bait will get another vote at the table.”

“Who the fuck put you in charge of the table anyway?” Kiall demands.

“In addition to the advisor you killed?” R’jan says quickly.

“None of you are touching me long enough to sift,” Rath says. “I am not one of your fucking ferries.”

“Yes.”

“That would give him three and us two,” Kiall growls.

“A tie, when you rescue your brother,” Ryodan points out.

“A Keltar druid will bloody well not be joining the Unseelie Princes,” Dageus says.

Ryodan says nothing. Merely waits.

“You have no investment in Christian,” Jada says.
“I have an investment in the Keltar. They wish him freed.”

“I don’t believe Mac is here,” Jada says.

“Ms. Lane, speak,” Barrons orders.

Ruff
, I don’t say, feeling like a dog ordered to bark. Not speaking. I’m not getting used like this. They didn’t even consult with me. Like my vote doesn’t even matter.

“You will also have a vote at our table, Mac,” Ryodan says. “Or do you plan to continue abandoning your city in her time of need?”

“Oh, fuck you,” I snap. “I didn’t plan to abandon it at all. I’ve had a few problems of my own to contend with.”

Every head in the room whips to my general direction.

I duck, tumble, and roll instantly. When I look back, Jada is standing precisely where I was an instant ago.

Ryodan is behind her with an arm around her throat. Barrons is standing in front of her. I don’t envy her, sandwiched between those two men.

Or wait, maybe I do.

Jada puts a hand on Ryodan’s wrist, executes a maneuver too sleek and fast for me to follow and is abruptly standing next to him, unrestrained. “You know what Mac is. She cannot be trusted.”

Barrons moves to her left, sandwiching her between them again.

“I do know what Mac is. Your best friend. Dani,” Ryodan says, and it hurts my heart because if I’d really been her best friend, I wouldn’t have run her off into who knows what that turned her into Jada permanently. I understand now what Ryodan wasn’t telling me that night in the Hummer. Dani didn’t kill Alina. Jada did—coerced by Rowena with her vile black arts. And Jada is savagery born of unconscionable savagery
done to her. I close my eyes, mourning Dani, the girl who staunchly, bravely, took the blame for killing my sister. If Ryodan is right, Dani doesn’t know for certain that she did. Merely suspects it. If Ryodan is wrong, then somehow Dani was forced to see what Jada was forced to do. I don’t know which thought pains me more.

Kiall narrows his eyes. “Dani. This human woman who stands before us now was once the young female with the sword?” Reverting for a moment to full, mad Unseelie Prince, he swivels his head and fixes Jada with an empty stare, iridescent eyes flashing as he realizes what that means. “Both the sword and the spear are in this room with us. That is unacceptable.” He begins to chime, harshly, gutturally.

“Now you understand why I’m in charge,” Ryodan says.

Jada says coolly, “Because we have the weapons and you
think
you have us?”

“We are far more lethal weapons,” Ryodan corrects, “and we have you.”

“No one has me or ever will. I assure you, if Mac or I cooperate with you on any matter, it’s because we want something. No other reason.” Still sandwiched between Barrons and Ryodan, she cuts a look in my general direction. “What do you want, Mac?”

Oh, wow, that’s a long list. My sister back. Dani the way she was. The
Sinsar Dubh
out of me. To be able to trust Barrons again. The black holes in our world gone. And that’s just for starters.

I keep it simple. Someone needs to be the voice of reason in this room.

“I want Christian rescued,” I say. “I agree to put aside all grievances in pursuit of that end. Do you?” I pause a moment,
then say carefully, “Jada.” I resume studying her, nagged by something I just can’t quite—oh, holy shit. Her clothing hugs her curves, leaving no room for her to carry anything larger than a gun, knife, or grenade concealed. Jada doesn’t have the sword. At least not on her. I mentally review each time I’ve seen her: nope, she’s never been carrying it. The Dani I know would never stand in the same room with any Fae princes without it.

After a long moment she inclines her head. “I will agree to that. For now. Ryodan, you may tell us your plan.”

I glance back at her cuff. No sword, but a shiny new cuff. What would make Dani feel invincible in the presence of Fae royalty? Not at all worried that they might control her with their sexual thrall, a thing they once did; the only time I ever saw Dani cry. If she lost her sword in Faery, what would she want instead—besides my spear, and if she’d interred me at the abbey, she could have taken it.

The truth hits me with the intensity of a two-by-four to my skull.

“Your cuff,” I blurt, stunned. I was offered it on several occasions. Never looked at it long because I wanted it so damn much I could taste it. “It was Cruce’s.” My gaze flies to her face. “And it was on his arm when he got iced!” The cuff protects the wearer from Seelie and Unseelie and, according to Cruce, other assorted nasties. If his claims about it are true, with it, Jada could literally walk through a wall of Shades and pass untouched. I stare at the cuff longingly.

“Cruce?” Rath growls.

“He was destroyed long ago,” Kiall hisses.

“Remember the fourth when we fucked her in the street,” Rath murmurs to Kiall. “We detected a presence but couldn’t see it.”

“You said ‘iced.’ By the Gh’luk-ra d’J’hai? Cruce is alive?” Kiall demands.

“Duh, iced means dead,” I say coldly, in a belated attempt to exercise damage control. Their idle comment about fucking me in the street was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart. I inhale slowly, exhale even more slowly, waiting for the Book to goad me. There’s only silence.

Kiall sneers. “I do not believe even the one you called the Hoar Frost King could destroy our brother. Where is he? You will tell us now.” The Unseelie Princes lunge to their feet, staring directly at the spot I used to be standing in.

I’m a dozen feet away, half concealed behind a bookcase, hand pressed to my lips, wishing I could scrape most of my words back into my mouth tonight.

“Her brain vanished when her body did,” Ryodan says to Barrons.

“Apparently,” Barrons says.

“That’s not true,” I say hotly. “The realization startled me. I blurted. Excuse the hell out of me for being stunned to realize the one who was so busy incriminating me for trafficking with the
Sinsar Dubh
was also trafficking with the
Sinsar Dubh
. And why isn’t anyone looking accusingly at Jada?” I want to know how the heck she got that cuff off the frozen prince. That worries me. A lot.

“The
Sinsar Dubh
,” Kiall says softly, eyes gleaming. “It is here as well? In Dublin? Where?” He and Rath begin to chime hollowly. I can imagine their alien conversation and it’s all my fault:
Our brother is alive and the
Sinsar Dubh
is near, we can bring them together and rule the world!

They don’t know their brother
is
the
Sinsar Dubh
and would destroy them before teaming up with them.

“And she just keeps making it worse,” Ryodan marvels.

“She
is
the
Sinsar Dubh,”
Jada says coolly. “She has it inside her.”

“And Dani just joined her,” Barrons observes, fascinated.

“As one of our Pri-ya,” Kiall murmurs to Rath, like I’m not standing right here, listening, “we could control both her and the power of the Unseelie King.”

“Pri-ya doesn’t work on me anymore. And nobody controls the
Sinsar Dubh
,” I say irritably, then snap at Dani, “I can’t believe you just ratted me out like that!” I duck and roll again, soundlessly relocating as Rath and Kiall begin to prowl the room looking for me.

“You did it first,” Jada says. “The cuff is an invaluable weapon. Dangerous to leave where it was.”

“You lost your sword. Admit it.”

“I know precisely where it is.”

Maybe she does. But wherever it is, for some reason she can’t get to it.

“We shall see,” Rath threatens me. “Perhaps it merely takes longer now.”

I open my mouth to ask how Dani got the cuff and if the removal of it in any way compromised the integrity of Cruce’s prison, then clack my teeth together before I say anything else spectacularly stupid. At the moment, the Unseelie Princes think I am the Book. Last thing I want them to know is that their long lost brother is, too.

As the princes continue stalking, I warn them, “I have the spear. Touch me, you’re dead.” They don’t know it’s a bluff. I draw my spear in this room, and who knows what will happen? I duck, roll, stay low.

“Where is Cruce?” R’jan demands.

No one says a word. There were only three “Seelie” present
the night we interred the
Sinsar Dubh
: V’lane, who was actually Cruce; Velvet, who is dead; and Dree-lia, who’s apparently told no one among her court what happened. Wise woman.

“You invite us to this table yet treat us as slaves. You lie, deceive, and manipulate,” Rath snarls.

“Oh, gee, we act like far more civilized versions of you,” I mock.

“You have information you do not share,” Kiall fires back. “We are no longer allies. Fuck you.” He and his brother vanish.

“Uh, did they just sift out?” I say, looking around warily, ready to duck and roll again in a heartbeat.

“We are no longer so predictable,” R’jan purrs.

“Predictable enough,” Ryodan says.

R’jan sifts out an instant before Ryodan gets to him.

“My head is not up my ass. The advisor was disposable. We knew you kept secrets. We kept our own.” The Seelie’s words linger on the air, disembodied. “Your wards no longer work on us.”

“Your wards don’t work?” I say incredulously.

“So they think,” Barrons murmurs.

“Och, that was bloody grand,” Drustan growls. “We’ve no sifters.”

“Aye,” Dageus agrees. “So now what’s the fucking plan?”

Ryodan smiles faintly. “That was the plan.”

I gasp when the Unseelie Princess from whom I’m supposedly protecting the Nine sifts into the room, materializing directly behind Barrons and Ryodan.

She takes each by an arm.

Then all three of them are gone.

      32      

I ain’t scared of your teeth, I admire what’s in ’em

MAC

The problem with having all chiefs and no Indians in your teepee is that unless you’re the chief dictating the current warpath, or in tight with that chief, you have no bloody idea what’s going on.

I’m not in tight with Ryodan, and apparently not with Barrons either.

I have news for them: if they think I’m going to be one of the squaws in their chauvinistic tent, they’re wrong.

Dageus and Drustan left the bookstore, less angry than I expected them to be, with Dageus making a comment about heading back to wherever it is they’re staying to spend time with his wife, and I got the impression they were either in on the plan or had reason to believe Ryodan and Barrons were actively furthering their aim of rescuing Christian. The Keltar remind me of Ryodan, men accustomed to patiently mounting
complicated campaigns in pursuit of long-term goals. I suspect they see a few chess moves ahead better than I do. At the moment. I’m learning.

I have no clue if Jada/Dani was in the know or as miffed as me. Her cold, beautiful face had betrayed nothing. I’d slipped behind a bookcase and held perfectly still until I heard the doorbell tinkle as she left, then remained motionless an additional interminable ten minutes to be certain she wasn’t faking an exit while crouching silently near, a tiger ready to pounce the moment I moved so she could try to take my spear and lock me up beneath the abbey.

Eventually I’d eased out and taken a thorough look around. She was gone, ostensibly no more anxious to spend time with me than I was with her.

Now, sitting in front of the fireplace, munching a bag of slightly stale chips, I wonder why, in whatever chess game they’re playing, Barrons and Ryodan would want to make the princes think their wards didn’t work on them any longer.

I smile faintly. I
am
getting better at this. Soon I’ll be devising the plans, instead of merely decoding them while they’re being implemented without me.

Because the princes would relax.

Encouraging them to further lower their defenses, Ryodan made them believe they were essential to his plan, and power goes to an Unseelie Prince’s head faster than night comes slamming down in Faery.

When one feels threatened, one clears the house before going to bed, but when one feels safe—a foolish thing to ever believe—one doesn’t compulsively check all windows and doors, or is perhaps busy celebrating what one perceives as a victory over one’s enemy.

And that’s precisely when the enemy strikes.

Barrons and Ryodan went after the princes.

Ryodan usurped the contract Jada sought: offered to kill the princes in exchange for Christian’s location, and after what I heard him asking Papa Roach in his office, I suspect he upped the ante, offering R’jan to the princess as well, thus allying himself with the
only
royal remaining in Dublin. At least for a time. Why bother dealing with three Fae princes when you can deal with a single Fae princess?