Both were shirtless and heavily tattooed—Lor and another of Barrons’ men I hadn’t seen before had made all of us strip down to clothing that couldn’t conceal a book, before permitting us access to the upper level of the club. Now the five of us stood, partially dressed, in an unfurnished glass cubicle.
The one arguing, Dageus, was all long, smooth muscle, with the fast, graceful movements of a big cat and cheetah-gold eyes. His black hair was so long it brushed his belt—not that he needed one, in hip-slimming black leather pants. He sported a cut lip and a shiner on his right cheek from the skirmish that had begun at the door and spread like a contagion through several sub-clubs. It had taken five of Barrons’ men to get things back under control. Being able to move like the wind gave them a tremendous advantage. They didn’t warn the patrons to stop fighting—they simply appeared and killed them. Once humans and Fae figured out what was happening, the outbreak of violence ended as quickly as it had begun.
The other Scot, Cian, had yet to speak a word and had escaped the brawl without a mark, but with all the red and black ink on his torso, I’m not sure I would have noticed blood. He was massive, with bunched short muscles, the kind a man gets from weight training in a gym or working off a long prison sentence. His shoulders were enormous, his stomach flat; he had piercings, one of his tattoos said JESSI. I wondered what kind of woman could make a man like him want to tattoo her name on his chest.
These were the uncles Christian had talked about, the men who’d broken into the Welshman’s castle the night Barrons and I had tried to steal the amulet, the ones who’d performed the ritual with Barrons on Halloween. They were nothing like any uncles I’d ever seen. I’d expected time-softened relatives in their late thirties or forties, but these were time-hardened men of barely thirty, with a dangerous, sexy edge. Both had an unfocused distance in their eyes, as if they’d seen things so disturbing that only by refocusing with everything slightly out of focus could they gaze on the world and bear it.
I wondered if my own eyes were beginning to look like that.
“One thing’s for certain: She doesna belong with you,” Dageus said to Barrons.
“How do you figure, Highlander?”
“We protect the Fae and he is Fae, which gives both of us greater claim than you.”
I felt someone staring at me, hard, and looked around. V’lane was watching me, eyes narrowed. So far everyone had been so busy arguing about what to do with the queen that no one had bothered asking how I’d found her or how I’d gotten her out of the prison. I suspected that was what V’lane was wondering now.
He knew the legend of the king’s Silver. He knew only two could pass through it—unless I’d serendipitously stumbled on a truth with my lie and whoever was the current queen was immune to the king’s magic, which I doubted. The one person the king would have wanted to protect the concubine from the most would have been the Seelie Queen. He’d barred his castle against the original, vindictive queen the day she’d come to his fortress and they’d argued. He’d forbidden any Seelie from ever entering it. I had no doubt he’d used the same spells or worse on the Silver that connected his boudoir to the concubine’s. V’lane had to be wondering if he had any idea who their queen really was, who I really was, or if maybe their entire history was as suspect and inaccurate as ours. Regardless, V’lane knew something about me wasn’t what it seemed.
Besides myself, only Christian knew the queen was really the concubine. And only I knew of this duality inside me that could be neatly explained away if I was the other half of their royal equation.
After a long, measuring moment, he gave me a tight nod.
What the hell did that mean? That for now he would keep his silence and not raise any questions that might further muddy already-muddied waters? I nodded back as if I had some clue what we were nodding about.
“You couldn’t even perform the bloody ritual to keep the walls up and you want me to trust you with the queen? And you,” Barrons turned on V’lane, who was maintaining a careful distance, “will never get her from me. As far as I’m concerned, you put her in the coffin she was found in.”
“Why don’t you ask the queen yourself?” V’lane suggested coolly. “It was not I, as she will tell you.”
“Conveniently for you, she’s not talking.”
“Is she injured?”
“How would I know? I don’t even know what you fucks are made of.”
“Why would anyone put her in the Unseelie prison?” I said.
“ ’Tis a slow but certain way to kill her, lass,” Dageus said. “The Unseelie prison is the opposite of all she is and, as such, leaches her very life essence.”
“If someone wanted her dead, there are quicker ways,” I protested.
“Maybe whoever took her couldn’t get the spear or sword.”
That ruled out V’lane. He took it from me regularly, like now. Darroc did, too. Whoever had taken the queen captive had to have been powerful enough to take her but not powerful enough to get the spear or sword, two conditions that seemed mutually exclusive. Was it possible her kidnapper had a reason to want to kill her slowly?
“V’lane told me all the Seelie Princesses are dead,” I said. “There’s a Fae legend that says if all successors to the queen’s power are dead, the True Magic of their race would be forced to pass to their most powerful male. What if someone was trying to time taking possession of the Sinsar Dubh with killing all the female royalty, ending with Aoibheal herself, so when the queen died, he would end up with not only the power of the Unseelie King but the True Magic of the queen, making him the first patriarchal ruler of their race? Who is the most powerful male?”
All heads swiveled toward V’lane.
“What do you humans say? I have it: Oh, please,” he said drily. The look he gave me was equal parts anger and reproach. As if to say, I’m sitting on your secrets, don’t turn on me. “It is a legend, nothing more. I have served Aoibheal for my entire existence and I serve her now.”
“Why did you lie about her location?” Dageus demanded.
“I have been masking her absence for many human years to prevent a Fae civil war. With the princesses dead, there is no clear successor.”
Many human years? It was the second time he’d said as much, but the ramifications only now penetrated. I stared at him. He’d told me far more than just one lie. On Halloween, he’d told me he had been otherwise occupied, carrying his queen to safety. Where had he really been that night when I’d so desperately needed him? I wanted to know right now, demand answers, but there was already too much going on here, and when I interrogated him, it would be on my terms, my turf.