Fever 4 - DreamFever (15 page)

  "So would I," I said just as softly. "Never try to take from me, Jayne. Never make
that mistake. What's mine is mine. You really don't know what you're messing with."

   "I don't want to `mess' with you at all, Ms. Lane. I'm merely looking for a little
teamwork."

  "I've already got my team, Jayne." I looked at Dani and nodded.

  Her face lit up and she grinned. "Tuck in your elbows, Mac."

  I poked them out, the better to bruise a few ribs along the way. I got a gratifying
chorus of grunts, heard guns clatter to the pavement.

  They didn't even see us go.

"We need iron, Mac," Dani said as we moved down the street, back at normal speed
again. We'd put a huge chunk of the city behind us in a matter of seconds. Her mode of
transportation, nauseous as it made me, was worth its weight in gold.

  I nodded absently, still mulling over the Jayne encounter. I regretted that it had ended
on a note of animosity. I wanted every front in the battle for our planet united, with no
cracks any Fae could slip through.

   "We need more than iron." I was busy making a mental list to scribble in my journal
later. Between high school and college, my dad had made me take a Franklin Planner
course. He said it would help me get control of my life. I told him I had control of my
life: sun, friends, fashion, marriage one day. That's not enough for you, baby, he said.

  I argued; he bribed. I took the course, let Daddy spend a fortune on pink flower-
covered calendar pages, doodled on them until I got bored, and shelved it.

  What a brat I'd been.

   One of the primary tenets of the course was that highly successful leaders kept
journals, morning and night, in order to stay tightly focused on their goals. I was going
to be a highly successful leader.

   "I don't have a gun, Mac. I need a gun." Dani had turned to face me and was walking
backward, bounding from foot to foot, a thousand watts of hyper energy, gobbling a
candy bar. I was surprised her auburn hair wasn't crackling with static electricity from
frantic friction with the pavement.

  I laughed. "All weapons are good weapons, is that it?"

  "Aren't they?"

   Watching her was like watching a Ping-Pong ball bounce back and forth: zing-zing,
zing-zing. I liked the way she thought. "I've got a plan."

  "You said you'd make them take us back at the abbey. Is this part of it?"

  "You bet." I eyed her speculatively. "Just how super is your superhearing? If there
was somebody really stealthy nearby, could you hear him before we stumbled on him?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "How stealthy?"

  "Very."

  She gave me a suspicious look. "We talking Jericho Barrons stealthy?"

  I frowned. "How do you know how stealthy he is?"

  "I saw him the day he busted you out. The nine of `em were all the same. Oozing
whatever it is he oozes."

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried to wrap my brain around what she'd just said.
Then, "Nine?" I said. "Eight other men like Barrons? As in exactly like him?"

  "Well, they weren't ninetuplets or nothing, but yeah. He had eight other ... whatever
they are with him. Big men. Bad-asses. Major show of force, breaking you out. Ro
never woulda let you go." She was bouncing from foot to foot so rapidly, she was
becoming difficult to focus on.

    "I don't remember that! How come I didn't see them? I mean, I know I was ... out of
it, but--"

  "He didn't let any of `em near you. It was like he didn't even want `em to see you.
None of `em was human, that's a fact."

  I sucked in a sharp breath. "You know that? How?"

  Her face was too blurred to see, but I heard the scowl in her voice. "He grabbed me
out of superspeed. Like it was no effort at all. Nothing human could do that."

  "Barrons was able to stop you?" I said incredulously.

  "Snatched me right outta the air."

  "How could he even move fast enough to get to you in the first place?" I exclaimed.
Was there anything the man couldn't do? Most of my plans relied heavily on Dani's
superspeed.

  "`Zactly what I thought."

  I tried to focus on her but couldn't. It was giving me a headache. "Would you slow
down?" I said, exasperated. "You're impossible to see."

  "Sorry," said the smudge of long black leather coat, MacHalo lights, and luminous
sword. "Happens when I get excited or upset. Pissed me off that he could do it. Hang
on." She was visible again, tearing open another candy bar.

  "So, there are eight others like Barrons." I tried to wrap my mind around the fact.
Where had they been all this time? What were they? What was he? Another caste of
Unseelie no one knew about? "You're absolutely certain? It's not possible they were
normal men?"

   "No way. They moved weird. Way weirder even than Barrons, like he's the civilized
one of the lot. It was creepy. I didn't pick up Fae, but I sure didn't get no human read
off `em, either. And some of their eyes were way fecked up. Nobody wanted to get near
`em. Sidhe-seers plastered against the walls, trying to stay as far outta their way as
possible. One of `em had a blade to Ro's neck. All toting Uzis, storming in there, not
taking shit from nobody. You could tell they were Death walking if anybody even
blinked wrong. The girls couldn't stop talking about it. They were pissed, but ... well,
they were kinda fascinated, too. Shoulda seen the way those dudes looked. The way

Barrons looked. Dude," she said reverently, then glanced at me, alarmed. "I mean, man,
you shoulda seen it. Don't call me Danielle, I hate that name."

  There were eight other ... beings ... like Barrons out there. I could barely deal with
one. Who and what were they? Of all the things I'd learned today, this one rattled me
the most. I'd considered him an anomaly. One of a kind. He wasn't. I should have
expected the unexpected.

   Eight others like him. At least eight others, I amended. Who knew? Maybe he'd only
brought a limited number with him. Maybe there were dozens more. And he'd never
told me about them. Not one word.

  Any reservations I might have entertained about the plan I'd been working on since
encountering Jayne vanished.

  "You're right, Dani," I said. "You need a gun. In fact, we need a lot of guns. And I
know just where to find them."
 

I   t was nearly dawn by the time I parked the school bus in front of the abbey.

  I hated giving up the Range Rover, but I needed larger transport. I'd found the bright
blue bus, with its dented sides, peeling paint, and lethargic transmission, outside a youth
hostel. Dani and I had packed it with crates of guns and Unseelie corpses.

  I was bone-tired. I'd been up for twenty-four hours straight, and they'd been
crammed full. I didn't expect to get much sleep before moving on with my plans, but I
hoped to snatch an hour--at least--of silence and the opportunity to clear my mind, so I
could sort through all that had happened, all I'd learned.

   "The Dragon Lady's library's in the east wing, Mac," Dani said, as she headed off
toward the kitchen. "Ain't been used in years." She wrinkled her nose. "It's dusty but
cool. I sleep there times they're blaming me for something or I just don't feel like
dealin'. Most of the east wing's empty. I'll hook up with you after I eat. Du--man, I'm
fecking starved!"

  As she sped off, I shook my head and smiled. She'd told me that as long as she kept
eating, she could go days without sleep. She was constantly testing her limits. I
wondered what I might have been like if I'd grown up knowing what I was. I imagined I
would have pressed my limits, too. Probably been a lot more useful than I felt now. I
envied her stamina. I had no such gift. Lack of sleep had eroded my patience and left
me raw. I was in no shape to make a rousing join-up-with-me-sidhe-seers-and-let's-
kick-some-Fae-ass speech. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn't stretch out on a comfy sofa
soon enough.

  I entered the abbey through a side door and hurried toward the east wing. Halfway
there, I realized I was being followed.

  I smiled tightly but made no move to acknowledge her. I wasn't about to get into an
argument with the Grand Mistress in the middle of a corridor, where all the other sidhe-
seers could burst from their rooms at the sound of raised voices and chip in their two
cents' worth before I was ready to deal with it. If she wanted a fight, she was going to
get it on my terms, on my turf. I made a mental note to find out what Dani knew about
wards. It would be too perfect if I could block Rowena from the east wing and secure
my own little space in her abbey. Otherwise, I was never going to feel safe.

   I followed Dani's directions down dimly lit corridors. I was surprised Rowena didn't
stick closer to me with my blazing MacHalo. Although I refused to turn and
acknowledge her, no glare of light competed with mine casting shadows on the stone
walls, which meant she couldn't be carrying more than a couple of flashlights. We had
no idea how many Shades were still in the abbey. The old woman had balls.

  I stepped into the library and moved from one lamp to the next, turning them all on. I
was pleased to see a plush brocade sofa where I could grab a catnap.

  As soon as I got rid of Rowena.

  "Not now, old woman," I tossed over my shoulder coldly. "I need sleep."

  "Funny. You didn't seem to need so much a few days ago."

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I wasn't ready for this confrontation. I might
never be ready for it.

  "In fact, sleep was the last thing on your mind," he said tightly. He was angry. I could
hear it in his voice. What was he angry about? I was the one who'd been through the
emotional wringer.

  My hands curled into fists, my breathing grew shallow. I trusted him no more today
than I had two months ago.

  "Fucking was all you wanted."

  It was what I wanted right now, too, I was horrified to realize. His voice worked on
me like an aphrodisiac. I was wet and ready. I had been since he began speaking. For
two months, I'd been trapped in a Fae-induced sexual frenzy, having constant,
incredible sex with him, while listening to his voice, smelling his scent. Like one of
Pavlov's dogs, I'd been conditioned by repeated stimuli to have a guaranteed response.
My body anticipated, greedily expected pleasure in his presence. I inhaled, caught
myself straining for the scent of him, forced it back out, and closed my eyes, as if
maybe I could hide behind my own lids from an ironic truth: V'lane and Barrons had
swapped roles.

  I was no longer sexually vulnerable to the death-by-sex Fae Prince.

  Jericho Barrons was my poison now.

  I wanted to punch something. Lots of somethings. Starting with him.

  "Cat got your tongue? And what a lovely tongue it is. I know. It licked every inch of
me. Repeatedly. For months," he purred, but there was steel in the velvet.

  I locked my jaw and turned, bracing myself for the sight of him.

  It was worse than I expected.

   I was nearly flattened by erotic images. My hands on his face. Me on his face. Me
backing up to him. Me straddling him, my I'm-a-Wanton-Pink fingernails long and sexy
as I wrapped both hands around his big, long, hard ... yeah.

  Well.

  Enough images.

  I cleared my throat and forced myself to focus on his eyes.

  It wasn't much better. Barrons and I have wordless conversations. And right now he
was reminding me, in graphically lush detail, of everything we'd done in that big Sun
King bed of his.

   He'd especially enjoyed the handcuffs. I had as many memories of his tongue as he
had of mine. He'd never offered turnabout as fair play, even though I'd asked plenty. I'd
never understood why. We'd both known nothing so flimsy could hold whatever he
was. Now that I was clearheaded again, I understood. Even if it was only illusory, he
was not a man to tolerate dominance. It was all about control with him. He never
relinquished it. And that was a huge part of what chafed so badly, burned like salt in an
open wound. I'd been completely out of control the entire time we'd spent in that room.
He'd seen my most raw, bare, vulnerable self, yet he'd never shown me anything of
himself that I hadn't had to rip from his head against his will.

  He'd never lost control. Not once.

  You told me I was your world.

  "It wasn't me. I was an animal." My heart pounded. My cheeks burned.

  You never wanted it to end.

  "Why are you being such a jackass, slamming me in the face with my own
humiliation?"

  Humiliation? That's what you call this? He forced a more detailed reminder on me.

  I swallowed. Yes, I certainly remembered that. "I was out of my mind. I'd never have
done it otherwise."

  Really, his dark eyes mocked, and in them I was demanding more, telling him I
wanted it to always be this way.

  I remembered what he'd replied: that one day I would wonder if it was possible to
hate him more.

  "I had no awareness. No choice." I searched for words to drive my point home. "It
was every bit as much rape as what the Unseelie Princes did to me."

  His glittering gaze went flat black, opaque as mud, the images died. Beneath his left
eye, a tiny muscle contracted, smoothed, contracted again. That minute betrayal was
Barrons' equivalent of a normal person having a hissy fit. "Rape isn't something--"

  "You walk away from," I cut him off. "I know. I get it now. Okay?"

  "You crawl. You were crawling when I found you."

  "Your point?"

  "You walked away from me. Stronger for it."

  "Point?" I gritted. I was tired, impatient, and I wanted the bottom line.

  "Making sure we're on the same page," he clipped. His eyes were dangerous.

  "You did what you had to do, right?"

   He inclined his head. It was neither nod nor negation, and it pissed me off. I was sick
of nonanswers from him.