She resists with a m.u.f.fled laugh.

I pull her mouth off me and she looks up, smiling. Takes my breath away for a second. Her hair is a hot mess around her face, just the way I like it-bed-head always makes me want to f.u.c.k. Then again, pretty much everything does.

"Let me come, honey," I say. "There's plenty more after, if that's what you're worried about."

"Do I look worried? I know exactly what to expect from a man like you. Who am I?" She flicks her tongue over the swollen head of my d.i.c.k.

I start to hit it, I'm so close, but then she does this twisting thing with her hands and mouth at the same time, and I get needles on my d.i.c.k.

Pleasure killed by pain.

Velvet of her mouth.

Needles.

It's starting to chafe more than I like. And I've been known to play rough with the right woman. Or three.

"Mistress," she purrs. "Is it really so much to ask? For what I make you feel?"

I consider. She is blond with big, beautiful t.i.ts. Whole world knows I got a weakness for the combo. That's how I'd ended up in the boss's office, leaning back against his desk, leather pants around my ankles, buck-naked brick s.h.i.thouse between my legs while the ba.s.s of Rob Zombie's p.u.s.s.y Liquor-and when the h.e.l.l is she ever gonna give that up? It's one of my finest skills and I haven't even gotten the chance to dazzle her-rumbles in the desk beneath my a.s.s, pounding up from one of the subclubs below.

I love this place. One of our better investments.

"I'm giving you the best head you've ever had," she says. "Admit it."

Not a problem. I say so to every woman that sucks me. Women enjoy doing things they excel at, praise guarantees repeat performances, every repeat performance is more practice for the woman, which guarantees the next man even better head. Given how long I've been at this, and on how many continents, I'm pretty sure I've single-handedly improved the quality of head around the world.

"Sure, babe, you're the best. Head. Ever." d.a.m.n close anyway.

"Who am I?" she purrs.

I groan. "The b.i.t.c.h sucking my d.i.c.k." We agreed on no names. She asked me to call her b.i.t.c.h downstairs when we were doing shots at the bar. Said it turned her on. Later, with a laugh, she switched it to princess. Now she wants mistress. High maintenance. Some women are worth it.

She cups my b.a.l.l.s and squeezes, then begins sucking them with exquisite precision. All the muscles in my abdomen clench and I exhale explosively. I'm beginning to think this might be the best o.r.g.a.s.m I've ever had. If I ever get around to the b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.king thing.

"You really don't get this, do you?" she says. Laughter tinkles and the hair on the back of my neck feels weird all the sudden. There's a darkness to the sound that might worry me if she wasn't so frigging hot.

Speaking of hot, I look down to see sweat running down my six-pack, dripping down my legs. I'm practically standing in a puddle of my own sweat. What the h.e.l.l did Ry do? Crank up the heat in Chester's to a hundred? I'm burning up. Light-headed, like I have a fever. Which is impossible.

"Don't care. You're here. I'm here. Do that thing with your tongue again. The swirly thing."

"I'll give you a clue," she says, and somehow she's smiling while she's sucking and for a second I think I see rows of tiny needle-sharp shark teeth. Not what a man wants to hallucinate with a woman's hot wet mouth on his d.i.c.k. I blink and wipe sweat from my eyes. Trick of the light. She has perfect teeth, movie-star white, framed to perfection by smears of crimson lipstick, most of which is all over my d.i.c.k and stomach. Oh, yeah, I'll take a blonde with cherry red lipstick every day of the week that ends in y. Life is sweet. I laugh.

She cuts me a look then shoves me back on the desk and I'm cold where her mouth was burning, then she's on top of me, slamming down onto me, and I'm pushing up into her. I'm a grenade, pin out. Feels like my whole body is going to hit it, blow apart, come from head to toe. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, s.e.x has never been like this. I'm on fire, so frigging hot I'd swear the desk is burning.

Wait a second, it is.

Orange flames are licking up around us, like my sweat is some kind of gasoline sloshed across the lacquered ebony. We must have spilled some tequila. Must've been a candle on the desk. I'm sprawled on my back in fire and can't even feel it. She leans into me, joins me in the flames, fists her hands in my hair and we kiss.

It's unf.u.c.king real.

I half expect celestial trumpets to blare. I feel like my skin is melting and we're merging into each other. Strange s.h.i.t. But my d.i.c.k has never felt better.

"Who am I? Is it so difficult to give me such a tiny thing? A little respect. That's all I'm looking for, honey. I can give you so much in return."

Christ, she sounds just like me, right down to her inflection on the word "honey." I always get them to call me whatever I want. I'm always in control. Isn't much I like more than a beautiful woman tied to my bed while I make her come till she pa.s.ses out. So what's my problem? Like she says, it's a small thing. What can one word hurt? It isn't like letting a woman have the power for a change can bring about the end of my world as I know it, for f.u.c.k's sake.

I open my mouth and suck her tongue deep, grinding in, sliding out. I feel my d.i.c.k inside her, and I also feel what she's feeling: me filling her, giving her all she wants except for this one tiny little thing that is so important to her for some reason. Maybe some man treated her like s.h.i.t and now she needs to be called mistress to get back some of her own. Maybe I'm part of the healing. Maybe it'll make her come as violently as I know I'm going to. I like women. I want them to feel good. It's practically been my mission in life.

"Who am I?"

I try to shape the word twice and still fail. I'd honestly like to give her what she wants but submission just isn't the stuff I'm made of.

She clamps down on me and ... aw, s.h.i.t, she squeezes! She has muscles that could milk a herd of Holsteins dry. I buck and nearly get off but then she's soft again and I get the feeling she could do this all night if she wants. And this crazy babe might just want to.

"Mistress," I manage to growl. "Now make me come or get the f.u.c.k off me 'cause I'm jacking off."

"Tell me you want me more than life itself," she croons, all soft and sultry.

"Sure, honey." I've gone this far. If Ryodan ever finds out I called some babe mistress, I'll never hear the end of it.

"Would you die for me?" she asks breathlessly.

I'm beginning to see no matter how hot this woman is, despite her plentiful talents, she has serious-a.s.s issues. Looking for some big strong man to play hero for her. Who the h.e.l.l isn't? Every woman downstairs. I excel at the role. And I need to come. Simple enough exchange.

I grab her a.s.s, grind up and drive deep. "Protect you. Rescue you. Guard your frigging honor if you have any left by the time I'm done with you, woman. Now squeeze."

"But would you die for me?"

I don't tell her I might kill her if I don't come soon. I might turn. She's kept me on the brink too long. I'm getting edgier than is safe with a woman. "Sure, honey. Whatever." She doesn't know I can't. She doesn't even know my name.

She pulls back and smiles down at me with rows of needle-sharp shark teeth.

Blond hair darkens to blood-black.

Red lips fade to white. Then ice-blue.

Flames leap up around us. Takes me a second to process-also blue.

Aw, f.u.c.k.

I stare up, a little slow to get it.

I'm too close to coming to think real fast. h.e.l.l, her t.i.ts are too far in my face for me to think real fast.

Unseelie. The b.i.t.c.h is Unseelie. I can't believe I didn't pick up on it. I'm not easy to fool. Well, sans blond hair and curves enough to happily smother a man.

She's dark Fae. Twisted b.u.g.g.e.rs, one and all, some more than others.

And she wanted me to call her Princess ...

Unseelie. Princess.

I narrow my eyes, staring up at her.

Nah.

The dark king never got around to making them. They're a myth. They don't exist. d.a.m.n good thing, too. The Unseelie Princes are problem enough.

Oh, honey, she purrs in my mind, we certainly do. Trapped in a library for a small eternity. One of yours let us out. Good thing, too. Men have too much power on this world. We will fix that.

"Get the f.u.c.k off me."

You called me mistress. You said you would die for me. I own you.

I laugh. "Yeah, right. Try pursuing that thought." I shove her off me but my hands go the wrong way, fly up over my head, and abruptly I'm slammed flat on my back, with both wrists manacled to one end of the desk.

Links snake around my throat.

My waist. My ankles.

f.u.c.k me.

I'm chained.

I lunge up, testing the links, snarling. Magic doesn't work on me. Neither does glamour. Yet both seem to be. What the h.e.l.l is going on?

We are a singular recipe. His final creation. Improved by the Sweeper. She smiles and there are those frigging shark teeth again.

I'm immobilized, pants at my ankles, d.i.c.k sticking straight up, and this b.i.t.c.h has shark teeth. I'm beginning to think this might not be one of my finer nights.

"Say it again," she says, but now she's all icy, imperious princess. "Who am I?"

No way I'm saying it again.

Ever.

My mouth opens and it says, "Mistress," offending every G.o.dd.a.m.n fiber of my being. I think my b.a.l.l.s actually shrivel.

She slaps me. Hard across the face.

"I'm going to kill you, you crazy motherf.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h," I say tenderly. My kind doesn't get loud when we're about to annihilate. We go soft and gentle. See us like that: worry. She doesn't know I'm one of the few in existence that can actually make good on that promise. She doesn't know who or what I am.

She'll be calling me master before she dies.

"Who am I?" she says.

I clamp my mouth shut and strain against the Fae compulsion, and still my vocal cords grit, "Mistress."

Oh, yeah, definitely killing her. Ten different ways, and slow.

"That's a good boy, Lor."

What the h.e.l.l, she knows my name?

"Now we're really going to play," she purrs.

8.

"This town ain't yours and this town ain't mine"

MAC.

An hour into our meeting, we've got more problems on the table than I knew we had. Despite the bloom on New Dublin, our city has deeper shadows in which to die than ever before.

It's been an enormous test of self-restraint, negotiating concessions with the two Unseelie Princes that raped me; a Seelie Prince that's been shooting me looks like he wants to; Ryodan, whom I've never been able to get along with for more than a few sentences of conversation-oh, wait, I can't even do that; and the first cousin of the mobsters that put a price on my head. The Sinsar Dubh has been attempting to make its voice heard at every turn, but I pump up the volume on my seventh-grade recitation and drown it out.

A part of me wishes they'd all just stand up and battle to the death. Make it simple. Take control through bloodshed and war. I have no doubt Barrons would be the last one standing.

But humans would die, and in the Fae way of things, more princes would be born, or get transformed like Christian, and we would end up slaughtering one another all over again losing more humans every time.

I'm beginning to understand why Barrons wanted this meeting. Before the walls between worlds crashed, there was a system in place to run the city, the country, the world. But when that system collapsed, it was only a matter of time before someone or something stepped in and tried to become the new system. Though Barrons and his men prefer to wield power from the shadows, they'll step into the light long enough to reestablish the social order that best affords the existence they enjoy.

When Ryodan imparted the latest rough count of Fae and humans in Dublin, I was staggered. I had no idea how drastically our population was exploding. According to his sources, thousands more Seelie and Unseelie arrive in Dublin every day, intrigued by the news that the princes have settled here and the feeding ground is rich with humans willing to be enslaved.

The more Fae in Dublin, the more humans will follow, drawn by their power, s.e.x, and ability to provide comfort and luxury-or at least the illusion of it-in a time of such hardship and food shortages. Our city is growing too quickly to be controlled by any one of the males at this table.

A shattered, rapidly growing world requires multiple fiefdoms to rebuild it into a unified territory before a single king or democracy can hope to take it over.

During the transition period, clever enemies work together, or there'll be no kingdom to govern. As each male in this room believes he's the one who will ultimately be in charge, they're willing to play nice until one of them decides the moment is ripe for a swift and b.l.o.o.d.y coup.

At which point everything will go straight to h.e.l.l again.

It seems a rather futile and endless cycle, either way. Yet a truce offers the benefit of a period, however brief, of peace and-more importantly-the possibility that something might change during it, perhaps making it possible to tip the balance of things in human favor and get rid of all the Fae for good.

Even the one inside me.

For the moment, we concede that none of us can hold the population in check, so we've agreed to divide Dublin into territories and permit certain atrocities in exchange for a modic.u.m of civility for the ma.s.ses. Kat looks as miserable as I feel but there's no other way. Not yet. We justify our heartless calls by our commitment to one day defeat all our enemies so the people can live the remainder of their days in peace and prosperity.

We've become politicians.