I scowl but look.

You said you trusted me to protect you. If I drop the ward, others can sift in. Unacceptable risk. Do not push me. My beast wants them dead.

Well, at least our beasts are in agreement, I retort saccharine-sweet. Seething, I slip the spear from my sheath and slap it into his palm before I get any more reminders of this afternoon.

Rath and Kiall rustle and chime in the bone-chilling, inhuman fashion that had been their only mode of communication when they first arrived in Dublin, crazed with hunger. I'd felt that chiming deep in my bones, as my mind slipped away. When Barrons hands the spear to Ryodan, who tucks it beneath his jacket, they resume their polished facade.

"Right, he can have it but I can't," I grouse.

"He does not consider past minor insult bar to future gain. Women are weak that way. Valuing things that mean nothing at all. Lamenting events they clearly enjoyed," Kiall says, raking me with a knowing, intimate sneer. "What was lost that night? Nothing. What was gained? An experience beyond compare. Your human women kill each other for our amus.e.m.e.nt, to eliminate the compet.i.tion for the privilege of such a night with us."

I don't know who goes more rigid beside me, Kat or Barrons. The room is a volcano waiting to blow.

I inhale, count to ten, exhale. At some point, when I've mastered my inner demon, I'll pay a visit to the gothic monstrous mess of a mansion on the outskirts of Dublin where the princes have surrounded themselves with worshippers. With my spear. And those women that chirp bright, vapid nonsense like "See you in Faery" will stop killing each other to lose their sanity in a monster's bed.

When R'jan, the Seelie Prince who claims to be the new king, enters, the Unseelie snarl like feral beasts.

R'jan reminds me of V'lane, before he dropped the mask, revealing his true Unseelie self, Prince Cruce. Gold-dusted skin pours like velvet over a powerful body; he has the face of a stunning, imperious Archangel. Long blond hair falls past his waist, unbound. He, too, has modified himself into something elegantly human, with fawn leather pants and dark boots, a creamy cashmere sweater, a gold torque at his throat. R'jan laughs and dismisses his dark brothers with a regal, condescending wave as if shooing a bothersome fly from a banquet surely called in honor of him.

The Unseelie leap from their chairs, Barrons rises, Ryodan joins him, and for a moment all the males in the room posture, a.s.sessing, debating the pleasure to be gained from turning this room into a slaughterhouse against whatever it is they're after that made them agree to this meeting. Just when I'm certain they're going to succ.u.mb to savagery, Kat and I are going to be sprayed with blood and bone fragments, and I'm going to end up taking back my spear and using it after all, Barrons growls, "You will all sit. Now."

No one moves. I laugh softly. That's a mistake.

Ryodan is abruptly gone.

When he reappears, he's holding R'jan from behind, a scarred forearm around the Fae's throat. He presses his mouth to the prince's ear and says softly, "Need I remind you what I did to Velvet."

R'jan hisses.

"He said sit. He doesn't repeat himself. Nor do I."

When Ryodan shoves him away, R'jan drops down on the third side of our square, eyes blazing with challenge and hatred. Kiall and Rath slowly take their seats with elaborate indolence, as if they do so because they wish to and for no other reason.

I eye the fourth side, wondering who else we could possibly be waiting for. When our final guest walks up the stairs and sits at our table, it's my turn to bristle.

I know the face of an O'Bannion mobster when I see one. I helped kill two of them. Our final guest is black Irish with a light complexion, thick, dark hair and eyes, and the blood of a distant Saudi ancestor in his veins. Broad-shouldered and handsome in a rugged, outdoors way, he moves with long-limbed grace.

Kat half rises, looking ashen. "Sean?" she says. "What on earth are you doing here?"

I glance between the two. I don't need a sidhe-seer gift to know there's deep emotion between them.

"Yes, what is an O'Bannion doing here?" I say.

"The name is Sean Fergus Jameson," the man says in a thick Irish brogue.

"First cousin to Rocky O," Ryodan says. "He tends to omit his surname in certain quarters."

"Why is he here?" Kat says again, resettling slowly.

Ryodan says, "You're looking at the three primary suppliers of goods in this city: myself, the princes, and the black market-like his fathers before him, also known as Sean O'Bannion. Seems your boy learned a trick or two working in my club, little cat. Bribed my suppliers. Got himself into the game."

"Only because you were charging half an arm and most of a leg for a simple meal," Sean says hotly. "We've women and children in our streets who've no way of paying such high prices. They were dying for want of milk and bread."

"You show your true colors, O'Bannion," Ryodan says.

"A good and honest heart?" Kat says sharply.

The look Sean gives her tells me everything: they're lovers, and I suspect they have been for a long time. How does he think to stand his ground against this kind of compet.i.tion? He's a human among beasts.

Ryodan cuts Kat a hard, flat smile. "That's often how it starts. Just not usually how it ends. If the two of you had been talking about any of the things you should be talking about, you'd have known."

"You will stay out of my business," Kat warns softly.

Ryodan leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. "Start taking care of your business and I might. Business unattended is free trade."

"You had no right to force him to work at Chester's," Kat says. "The debt owed was mine, not his."

Sean gives her a quizzical glance. "Force? What debt? My working there had nothing to do with you."

Kat blinks and looks sharply at Ryodan. "You said the price was demanded of him, not me."

Ryodan lifts a brow and gives her a mocking smile.

"What price?" Sean says.

"I said, precisely, Katarina, that I'd had difficulty staffing lately, my servers kept dying, and your Sean was good enough to fill in. I also told you he was free to go. Both were true. From the first. When he decided to thieve on my turf, I fired him."

His tone makes it clear how lucky she is that he didn't kill him. I wonder why he didn't kill him. No one takes from Ryodan and survives ... unless the cool-eyed manipulator has a long-term goal that makes him willing to suffer the poor fool's existence as Barrons does the princes.

"You pigs talk and talk and say nothing of interest to us. Too many of you here. Not enough of us. Or slaves," Rath says. "We demand more Unseelie at this table."

"Find another prince and we might take it under advis.e.m.e.nt," Ryodan says dryly. Cruce is locked down and the Crimson Hag has Christian. In other words, never going to happen.

R'jan says nothing. If any of the Seelie Princes remain, he wants no compet.i.tion for the Fae throne.

Sean says, "Why is Katarina here?"

I say, "As headmistress of the sidhe-seers, she's the front line of human defense and protection." I don't add: and she sits on Cruce and keeps watch so he doesn't get out. I really hope she hasn't confided that to him. They say every person with whom you share a secret will inevitably share it with at least one more, that it grows in exponential leaps and bounds until the entire world knows what you wish it didn't.

Sean a.s.sesses me. "Why are you here?"

Ryodan replies, "She has her uses. Any more f.u.c.king questions, take them up with Barrons. You don't like who sits at this table, figure out how to get rid of them. But be careful, it's not hard to figure out how to get rid of you. Human."

Kat snaps, "You will leave him alone."

I glance at her but she's trying to send a silent message with her eyes to Sean. Unfortunately, he's now staring too fiercely at Ryodan to notice.

She exhales gustily and I echo it.

The males at this table are ruthless. The only way Sean can hope to compete in business with them is to be equally ruthless. As the princes adopted a degree of civility to optimize their survival, Sean will have to adopt a degree of barbarism to optimize his.

Leaving me to wonder the same thing I know Kat's thinking: how much of the man she loves will remain?

6.

"I'm going be that n-n-nail in your coffin"

JADA.

The woman moves through dark streets, thick with fog blown off the sea. Dusk cloaks her in mist and shadow as if she's a secret the night has sworn an oath to protect. Moonlight illuminates wet cobblestones and rain-streaked windows but glances off her as if deflected by an invisible cloak.

Like the Shades, she's a smudge in the darkness.

Born of long and unforgettable habit, she avoids the pale yellow pools of streetlamps.

Better to see than be seen.

Being heard is another thing. Sound skitters and reverberates, and unless one is a highly skilled hunter, it's difficult to secure the target in one's crosshairs by noise alone.

She can do it. She's as infamous as the legendary Queen's Huntsman. She's never missed her mark.

Her enemy isn't so skilled. The one she seeks tonight is sloppy, blinded by gluttonous appet.i.te, but to lure it she's not enough. She needs an attractive, s.e.xually viable man.

Stiletto heels that gleam silver kick gusts of fog into lacy, sharp-edged patterns as she strides through Temple Bar toward Chester's nightclub, where she will select her bait. She's dressed to kill, weapons concealed: gun strapped to her thigh, knives flush to her skin, a s.e.xy chain of a belt that distracts the male eye as it swings at her hips, a lethal garrote. The ricochet of her shoes on pavement is loud, deliberate. She knows she's difficult to see and at the moment desires to be accessible.

Immediacy is efficiency.

Contempt for death is her way of life.

Nothing touches her.

To be touched is weakness.

As she turns down an alley, mist swirls back from long, bare, lightly oiled legs, the edgy hem and neckline of a black spandex dress, the supple body of a dancer, long hair pulled back in a high ponytail, the serene face of a stone-cold killer, before enveloping her again.

She's beautiful.

It's a weapon.

She has suffered the worst the world has to offer.

And thrived.

She's compiled a list of names.

And will hunt them one by one.

When at last the fog parts upon the face of her enemy, she will have no mercy.

This world had none for her.

7.

"This night could almost kill you"

LOR.

"Who am I?" the blonde kneeling between my legs demands.

I need to come so f.u.c.king bad my teeth hurt.

I know the answer she wants. She wants me to call her "mistress." Like she's the Dom. She's already tried to get me to say it twice, sneaking it in like she thinks I won't notice because of the mind-blowing stuff she's been doing with her lips and tongue and that flawlessly executed glide of teeth so few women ever master when giving head.

She's wasting her time. It's never going to happen. There isn't a submissive bone in my body. I'm alpha to the motherf.u.c.king core.

I pull her head from my groin and grin down at her. Hot, h.o.r.n.y blondes are a dime a dozen at Chester's. Riots may have sacked Dublin last Halloween and a killer freeze might have shut the city down for a while, but it's rebounding fast. People have been flooding in, resettling both sides of the River Liffey, drawn by the thaw, restored power, and supplies, but most of all by the endless parade of s.e.xually insatiable Fae that pack the bars and dance floors of 939 Revemal Street every night of the week, hunting human lovers. The hottest, most deadly nightclub in Dublin is bigger, better, and badder than ever: Chester's is Sin Central-if you want it, we got it.

"You're not that good, honey." I flash her a grin. My comment is guaranteed to spark one of two things: either she'll get up and walk out p.i.s.sed or I'll get even better head.

I know by her confidence-and the hungry way she's been watching me all night-she's not walking.

She laughs and runs her tongue over her lips to make them even wetter, shiny with the spit of a pro and pre-ejac. I lean back against Ry's desk, since he's off at some meeting for a few hours, looking forward to her amped-up performance, watching her, watching the club through the gla.s.s floor beneath my boots, loving life. As long as women walk this earth, I'll be a happy man. If they ever get wiped out, I'm done. I'll go in search of K'Vruck.

She slaps the head of my d.i.c.k then closes her mouth over it in one long perfect slide all the way to the base ... does some kind of swirly thing, then an intense suck back out.

I nearly stagger.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h, she's good.

She has her hands on my a.s.s, face grinding into my groin, my d.i.c.k is down her throat, and I'm a frigging volcano about to blow. Problem is, I been ready for a good twenty minutes, but whenever I get close she mixes it up and shoves it out of reach. What was initially a turn-on has become a pain in the a.s.s. Not to mention the b.a.l.l.s. I'm beginning to think they might rupture. I'm dripping sweat and I'm not even the one doing the work, although I'm looking forward to getting down to it. The woman has one d.a.m.n fine body.

I take her head in my hands and try to move her mouth on me the way I want.