Barrons sat up with me. He was staring at me as if waiting for me to suddenly sprout a second, monstrous head. His nostrils flared; he ducked his face to my skin and inhaled. “You smell different,” he said roughly.
“I feel different. But I’m fine,” I assured him. “In fact, I feel amazing!” I laughed. “I feel fantastic. I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life. This is incredible!”
I stood, stretched out my arm, and flexed my hand. I fisted it and punched the stone wall. I hardly even felt it. I punched it again, hard. The skin on my knuckles tore—and healed instantly. Blood scarcely had the time to well before it was gone. “Did you see that?” I exclaimed. “I’m strong. I’m like you and Mallucé, I can kick ass now!”
His expression was grim as he rose and moved away. He worried too much. I told him so.
“You don’t worry enough,” he retorted.
It was hard to worry when I’d just been knocking on Death’s door and now felt like I was going to live forever. I’d been jerked between the two, a badly weighted pendulum, jarringly fast. I’d ricocheted from the depths of despair to euphoria, from pulverized to stronger than ever before, from terrorized to the one capable of terrorizing. Who could hurt me now? No one!
I finally felt like being a sidhe-seer had some perks. Better than Dani’s astounding speed, I had superhuman strength. I couldn’t wait to test myself, discover what I could do. I was giddy with fearlessness. I was drunk on power, on how good it was to be me!
I danced on light boxer’s feet over to Barrons. “Punch me.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Come on, punch me, Barrons.”
“I’m not punching you.”
“I said, punch—Ow!” He’d decked me. Bones vibrating, my head snapped back. And forward again. I shook it. No pain. I laughed. “I’m amazing! Look at me! I hardly even felt it.” I danced from foot to foot, feinting punches at him. “Come on. Punch me again.” My blood felt electrified, my body impervious to all injury.
Barrons was shaking his head.
I punched him in the jaw and his head snapped back.
When it came back down his expression said I suffer you to live. “Happy now?”
“Did it hurt?”
“No.”
“Can I try again?”
“Buy yourself a punching bag.”
“Fight me, Barrons. I need to know how strong I am.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You’re strong,” he said dryly.
I laughed, delighted. This southern belle was a force to be reckoned with! It was amazing. I had power. I was a player. Once I had my spear again, I’d be even better. The playing field against evil had just been leveled.
Speaking of leveling, I wanted Mallucé. Dead. Now. The bastard had shattered my will to live. He was a living, breathing reminder of my shame.
“Did you happen to see Mallucé on the way in? Speaking of the way in, how did you find me? He lied about the cuff, didn’t he?”
“I didn’t see him, but I was more concerned with finding you. The cave system beneath the Burren is vast. I’ll lead you out.” He glanced at his watch. “With luck, we’ll be out of here in an hour.”
“After we kill Mallucé.”
“I’ll come back and take care of Mallucé.”
“I don’t think so,” I said icily. I shot him a look that dared him to argue. I was pumped up, flying on adrenaline. There was no way I was letting someone else fight this battle for me. It was mine. I’d paid for it in blood.
“Give a woman a little power,” he said dryly.
“He broke me, Barrons.” My voice shook.
“Anyone worth knowing breaks once. Once. No shame, no foul, if you survive it. You did.”
“Did you break once?” Who, what could have broken Jericho Barrons?
He stared at me through the dimly lit cavern. The torchlight flickered across his dark face, hollowing out his cheeks, making flame-filled coals of his eyes. “Yes,” he said finally.
Later I would ask how, who. Now all I wanted to know was “Did you kill the bastard?”
I wasn’t sure that twist of his mouth was a smile, but I didn’t know what else to call it. “With my bare hands. After I killed his wife.” He waved his hand at the door of the cell. “You lead, Ms. Lane. I’ve got your back.”
I was “Ms. Lane” again. Apparently I was only Mac when gravely injured or dying. We’d talk about that later, too.
“He’s mine, Barrons. Don’t interfere.”
“Unless you can’t handle him.”
“I’ll handle him,” I vowed.
The cave system was vast. I wondered how Barrons had ever found me. Carrying torches we’d lifted from the wall, we ascended and descended through tunnels and caverns without apparent rhyme or reason. I’d seen pictures of the tourist parts of the Burren. They were nothing like these parts. We were much deeper beneath the ground and way off the beaten path, in the unexplored parts of the labyrinthine cave system. I imagined that if any foolhardy potholers ever found their way here, Mallucé simply removed the problem by eating them.
I never would have found my way out.
Although I was barefoot, either the rocks weren’t cutting my feet, or they were healing as quickly as they were being damaged. Under normal circumstances I found both darkness and confined spaces highly disturbing, but the Unseelie I’d eaten had done something to me. I felt no fear. It was exhilarating. My senses were extraordinary. I could see in the dim, flickering torchlight as well as daylight. I could hear creatures burrowing in the earth. I smelled more scents than I could identify.
Mallucé had moved in. He’d brought many of the Victorian furnishings I’d seen at his house into the caves. In a chamber he’d converted into a sumptuous Goth boudoir, I found my brush on a table, near a bed covered by a stained satin spread. Next to the brush was a black candle, a few of my hairs, and three small vials.
Barrons opened a vial, sniffed. “He was spying on you, projecting himself. Did you ever feel you were being watched?”
I told him about the specter. I shoved the brush in my back pocket. I hated touching what he’d touched but I was leaving no part of me here, beneath the earth, in his hellish domain.