“Careful,” Irial murmured, unmindful of everyone but her. His hands were on her hips then.
How did he get up the stairs so quickly?
“Don’t. Please?” She wished she didn’t feel so comforted that he was here, wished she were sure what she was asking when she repeated, “Please?”
“I’m not here to hurt you, a ghrá.” He stepped backward, not looking as he walked down the stairs, not removing his hands from her hips, either.
“You didn’t lie, did you?”
“We don’t.”
Leslie stared at Irial. “Who are you? What are you?”
He held her gaze, and for an unreal moment she thought she saw shadows clinging to his skin like dark wings. Her body tingled all over, and she was sure that innumerable tiny mouths touched her skin all at once—soothing her, erasing everything but pleasure. She shivered against the sudden onset of cravings that made no sense. Her mouth was dry, her palms damp, her heart thundering in her head.
Without breaking her gaze, he said, “I’ll take care of you, keep you from hurting or pain. You have my vow on this, Leslie. You’ll never want anything again. Say the word, and it’s yours. No more fear or pain. Just shadows of them, and I’ll take them away. You won’t have to feel them but for a moment. Look.” He dropped his gaze to the air between them. A shadowy vine extended from his body to hers, coiling into her skin. She reached out as if she’d touch it; her hands brushed against the black feathers that curled from it like leaves. When she did, they both flinched.
“It’s real. Whatever you did to me,” she said.
“You wanted to be safe. You wanted to be without fear or pain. You have it.” Irial didn’t wait for her to move; he pulled her closer so she was leaning against him. He smelled like peat smoke, musty rooms full of sex and longing, sweet-strange and dizzying. She rubbed her cheek against his shirt, breathing in the scent of him.
“I’ll never leave you,” Irial whispered. Then he turned to the assembled crowd. “If anyone ever touches her again—”
The dealer started, “When I…I didn’t know she was your—”
Irial made a gesture. Two very scarred guys appeared out of the empty air. They stepped forward and took hold of the dealer.
He was one of them. Leslie’s knees buckled. He… Her stomach burned as she tried to let that thought finish itself. The terror of the other people in the room, of the dealer who was crying out as he was led away—she felt that too, all of it at once. The lust of the mortals—mortals?—in the room, the want, the desperate need. She felt a tangle of emotions assailing her. Flashes of need, of terror, of aching—they flooded her body until she swayed.
“Their feelings…I need…” She clenched Irial’s hand.
“Shhh.” He kissed her, and the feelings evaporated. “They just come through you. Those feeling aren’t yours. Just a blink, and they’re gone from you.”
He had an arm around her, leading her to the sofa.
She stared at the door where the guys—where did they come from?—had led the dealer away.
Irial was kneeling in front of her. “It’ll all be fine. No one will hurt you again. Ever. You will get used to the rest.”
Mutely she nodded, watching him the way she’d never watched anyone in her life, transfixed. Irial could make everything good, right, happy. He was an answer to a question she’d forgotten to ask. Her body hummed in a pleasant blur. The feelings that had rolled through her were awful, ugly; she knew that objectively. After Irial took them, all she felt was bliss. Something heavy and floral was in her mouth, on her lips. Lust. His. Mine. Her veins sang with it, like fire coursing through her body, seeking her heart, flooding her nerves.
Then Niall’s words echoed in her head, “Surviving is what matters. You can do this.” Do what? Survive what? There was nothing bad here. Irial was making her safe. He was taking care of her.
“Come now. They’ll pack your things.” Irial motioned at three almost-androgynous guys who were headed up the stairs. “We need to get out of here. Away from so many mortals. Talk.”
“Talk?” She almost laughed. Talking was pretty far from what was on her mind as he knelt there in front of her. Her eyes felt too wide. Every pore in her body was awake and zinging.
“Or whatever else would make you happy,” he added with a wicked grin. “You’ve done me a great honor, Leslie. The world is yours.”
“I don’t need the world. I need—” She leaned forward until she was able to rest her face against his chest, hating the cloth that was in her way, suddenly furious at the damnable material. She snarled—then froze, realizing that her hand was already tearing at his shirt, that she’d made a sound that was so far from normal, so far from human that she should be terrified.
He pulled her to her feet, keeping her clutched tightly to his side. “It’s fine. Just the initial changes. Shhh.”
And as he breathed deeply, it was fine. He was still talking, though, asking, “What shall I do with them?”
Ren and the others were watching with looks of abject terror. But they didn’t matter now; none of this mattered anymore. Only Irial. Only this pleasure, this confidence. That was all that mattered.
“Who cares?” she said.
Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her over the threshold into a world that was suddenly far more tempting than she’d realized it could be.
CHAPTER 29
Niall had walked out on his king; he’d failed Leslie; and he’d exposed his doubts and longings to Irial. He hadn’t had such a complete feeling of loss in centuries. He’d spent part of the night and the whole of the day walking aimlessly but had come no closer to any answers or even the right questions.
He’d seen the faeries watching him: Keenan’s and Irial’s and those who were solitary. Like I am again. None of them, even those who’d tried to speak with him, had made him pause. Several times he’d had to move them bodily from his path, but he hadn’t spoken a word or registered the words that they spoke.
But then Bananach was swaying toward him, moving like a shadow in the just-fallen night. The long feathers that spilled down her back fluttered and shifted in the breeze. She wore a glamour that made those feathers look like hair, playing mortal for him as she approached.
He stopped walking.
The smile she offered him was at odds with the malice in her eyes. She passed him, paused, looked back, and beckoned. She did not watch to see if he’d follow her as she walked into a narrow alley partway down the block. She did not glance back as she slipped under the metal fence or as she trailed her fingers over the razor wire that draped the top of that fence. It was only once Niall was standing behind her, like prey foolishly pursuing a predator, that she turned to face him.
Niall wondered if he was following her to his death: it was a fate he had considered and rejected after Irial allowed the Dark Court to torture him. It wasn’t the right choice then. Bananach would gladly have taken Niall’s life at the time had Irial not sent her away to indulge in her mayhem. It’s never the right choice.
But he didn’t retreat.
She leaned on the metal fence, her arm stretched over her head, her fingers curled around the loops in the fence. The barbed steel of the razor wire was just above her fingers, close enough that it looked like she was reaching for the poisonous metal. It was unhealthily attractive to him, her desire to touch pain.
He kept his distance and his silence.
She tilted her head to stare at him. The avian gesture contrasted with the mortal glamour she held on to as she waited. “Irial needs replacing,” she said.
“And you’re telling me this why?”
“Because you can give me change. He’s not right for us. Not now.” Her glamour shivered, flickering in and out. “Help me. Bring me my wars again.”
“I don’t want war. I want…” He glanced away, not knowing what he truly wanted. He’d followed her into a too-small space, pursuing the temptation of her violence. And leaving Leslie to figure ou
t the impossible on her own if I give in to the temptation of self-destruction. He’d run away from Irial, from Keenan. He was still running. “I’m not going to help you.”
“Smart answer, pretty boy.” Gabriel appeared beside him. The Hound held an arm out, tattoos racing furiously over his skin, and motioned for Niall to step back. “You need to move along now.”
Bananach snapped her mouth open and closed. Her glamour faded, revealing her sharp beak. “Your meddling is getting tiresome. If the Gancanagh wants to stay with me…”
Gabriel stepped in front of Niall just as Bananach launched herself forward. She shrieked, a sound that might have been laughter or anger or some combination of the two. Her hands were splayed open, her fingertips black talons.
“Court business, Niall. Go on now,” Gabriel said without glancing back.
Gabriel lifted Bananach and hurled her into the metal fence. Her feathers snagged on the razor wire, but she yanked herself away. Shredded feathers drifted to the ground behind her and were lost on the shadowed pavement.
Niall wanted to leave, to stay, to tell Gabriel to get out of the way so Bananach could end the confusion and depression that had been weighing on him, to tell Gabriel to rip into her. Instead he stood still, watching, no more resolved than he’d been when Bananach had beckoned him to follow her.
It wasn’t truly beautiful to watch Gabriel in action, but there was a brutal harmony in his movements. Like the Summer Girls’ dancing, Gabriel’s fighting had a rhythm to it, a song of its own. But the Hound’s moves were well matched by Bananach’s fury. The raven-woman was gleeful as she darted away and then returned to dive at Gabriel with abandon. From somewhere she drew a bone blade that glowed with preternatural light. Her black-taloned nails stood in relief against white bone and red blood as she slashed Gabriel from his left brow to his right cheek.
The fresh blood drew cries of pleasure from a group of Ly Ergs who filed into the enclosed lot from the street. Their red hands twitched in unison as they began circling Gabriel. They took some of their sustenance from freshly drawn blood, a habit that Niall had found disquieting when he’d learned of it. There weren’t enough of them to overcome Gabriel, but with Bananach there too…It’s not really my business. It’s Dark Court business. Which is not my court.
Niall started to step out of their path, but leaving Gabriel to a half dozen Ly Ergs and a blood-mad Bananach wasn’t something that set well with him. Gabriel’s arrival had prevented Bananach from seriously wounding or killing him. He owed Gabriel for that. The Hound might not expect it, but Niall expected it of himself. That was one thing he hadn’t lost, his honor.
He threw himself into the fracas—not for a court or a king, but because it was the right thing to do. Standing by while someone—even Gabriel—was outnumbered wasn’t an option.
Niall didn’t worry about consequences as he struck the Ly Ergs. He didn’t worry about where his king was. He didn’t worry about anything. He avoided some but not all of the Ly Ergs’ blows. Although the red-palmed faeries were more concerned with drawing blood than with inflicting permanent injury, they had murdered their share of faeries and mortals over the years.
Bananach darted past Gabriel and caught Niall in the upper abs with the tips of her boots. Searing pain rocked him back as the boots’ poisonous iron cut into his flesh. He stumbled, and she pressed her advantage with a swipe of her blood-soaked talons.
Then Gabriel grabbed her and steadfastly moved their fight away from Niall, back toward the fence, leaving Niall free to deal with the Ly Ergs. It was disturbingly good fun, salve for the gloom Niall had been trying to shake. It didn’t change anything but was refreshing.
By the time Niall had most of the Ly Ergs retreating, Gabriel had bloodied Bananach severely enough that she was leaning against the one Ly Erg who’d held back from the melee. But even so, she fought until Gabriel punched her hard enough that she swayed backward and tumbled to the ground.
Gabriel told the single unwounded Ly Erg, “Take her out of here before Chela notices I’ve had another tussle with her.” He snarled at the rest of the Ly Ergs, who’d eased closer. “I keep getting into fights with Bananach, Che’s going to get all territorial. Don’t none of us want that, do we?”
The Ly Erg didn’t speak but merely stepped up beside the raven-woman. Bananach rested her head against his leg.
“You’re inconveniencing me, puppy. If necessary, I’ll see the ice queen or the kingling. Someone’s”—she snapped her jaw at Niall in what was either an invitation or a warning—“going to help me get this court set right.”
“Irial said how we’d handle things.” Gabriel stretched out his arms to show the raven-woman the spiraling orders on his skin.
“Iri needs to go. He’s in the way and not doing what needs done. War’s what we want. Need some proper violence. It’s too long.” Bananach closed her eyes. “And you following me everywhere’s getting old.”
“So stay put and I’ll stop following you.” Gabriel lowered himself to the pavement with a graceless gesture and began inspecting his wounds. He grimaced, a decidedly unpleasant sight with the blood flowing down his face, as he poked at a gash on his forehead.
The Ly Erg reached an already red hand down to caress Bananach’s bloody face and arms, nourishing himself on battle blood as his kind had once done on red-soaked fields. His skin shimmered as Bananach’s fresh blood seeped into his palm. Another Ly Erg walked up and laid his hand on Gabriel’s blood-covered face. Despite the fact that they’d all been trying diligently to skewer, maim, and otherwise incapacitate one another mere moments ago, they were almost cordial for a few bizarre moments. The Ly Ergs took the pain and blood into their skin, unmindful of past conflict in the moment of postfight pleasure and sustenance.
Then Gabriel swung at the Ly Erg who stood patting his still-bleeding wounds and said, “Enough. Get her out of here. Maybe you could try being obedient tomorrow?”
“Maybe you should try staying out of my way tomorrow.” Bananach stood and flicked her long hairlike feathers over her shoulder with a look of disdain. She might be bruised and unsteady on her feet, but she wasn’t cowed by anyone. Then, with a solemnity that was as eerie as her violence, she shifted her attention to Niall. “Think about what you want, Gancanagh—what’s right. Forgiving the Dark King? Forgiving the Summer King? Or letting me bring you justice, pain, and war, and everything you desire. We’d both be happy.”
Once she was out of sight, Gabriel asked, “You might have walked away from Irial, Gancanagh, but do you really want this lot influencing our court? Do you want to help her?”
“I’m not getting involved. It’s not my court.” Niall sat beside the Hound. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like one of his ribs had been cracked.
Gabriel snorted. “It’s yours as much as mine. You’re just too much of an ass to admit it.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not out looking for fights or—”
“You don’t back down from them, though. ’Sides, Irial’s not all about fighting either. That’s why he keeps me around.” The Hound grinned and gestured at the shattered windows and cracked bricks. “There’s more to the Dark Court than violence. You bring out another sort of darkness. We both belong in the shadows.”
Niall ignored the implications of Gabriel’s words. “I left the Summer Court. That’s why Bananach was here—because I am solitary, fair game, prey.”
Gabriel clasped Niall’s shoulder approvingly. “I knew you’d get it figured out eventually: you don’t belong with them. You get a few more things figured out, you’ll be all right.”
Then he lifted a broken brick and tossed it at a still-lit streetlight. As the glass shattered and clattered to the ground, Gabriel stood and started to walk away.
“Gabe?”
Gabriel’s steps didn’t slow or waver, but Niall knew the Hound was listening.
“I’m not letting him keep Leslie. She deserves a life. Irial can’t take hers like this.”
“You’re s
till a slow learner, boy.” Gabriel turned back. “She’s part of the court now. Just like you. Been part of it since that first touch of ink went in her mortal flesh. Why do you think we’re all called to be nearer her? I watched you try to resist it. Like draws to like. You’re both Irial’s, and with her being a mortal…”
Niall froze.
Gabriel gave him a pitying smile. “Don’t beat yourself up over things that are out of your control…or worry so much after the girl. You of all faeries ought to know Iri’s not going to give up on the ones he claims as his own. He’s just as stubborn as you.”
Then the Hound was in his Mustang and vanishing into the darkened street, and for the third time in less than two days Niall was left with answers that did more to confuse him than ease his worries.
CHAPTER 30
Leslie rolled over, out of Irial’s reach. Despite the vastness of the bed, she still felt too close to him. She’d meant to move several times already, to get up and leave. She didn’t. She couldn’t.
“It’ll get easier,” he said gently. “It’s just new. You’ll be fine. I’ll—”
“I can’t step away. I can’t. I keep telling myself I’m going to go. But I don’t.” She wasn’t angry even now, when her body ached. She should be, though. She knew that. “I feel like I’ll throw up, like if I move too far from you…”
He rolled her back over so she was being held in his arms again. “It. Will. Fade.”
She whispered, “I don’t believe you.”
“We were starved. It’s—”
“Starved? We?” she asked.
He told her what he was, what Niall was, what Aislinn and Keenan were. He told her they weren’t human, not any of them.
Seth was telling the truth. She’d known somehow, somewhere, but hearing it said again, hearing it confirmed was horrible. I am angry. I am afraid. I am… She wasn’t, though, not any of those things.
Irial kept talking. He told her that there were courts and that his—the Dark Court—lived on emotions. He told her that through her he would nourish them, that she was their salvation, that she was his salvation. He told her things that should terrify her, and every time she felt close to afraid or angry he drank it away.