Fever - Burned Part 38

The only reply is a deep, atavistic rattling noise, and I tense. It's primitively terrifying on a cellular level. It's not Barrons behind me.

It's the beast version of the man.

I hear the sc.r.a.pe of taloned claws on the floor as he prowls into the bookstore, the prehistoric panting around what sounds like a death rattle caught in its chest. The beast version of Barrons is death: a primeval executioner at the top of his game. Although I've seen him transform partially on multiple occasions, I've only seen him wearing its full skin twice. Both times I was acutely aware that I was in the presence of a thing not at all human, governed by vastly different imperatives, a beast that had no mercy for anything but others of its kind.

It's behind me, beside me, then the creature pa.s.ses the couch and hulks into my line of vision.

I sit motionless, staring up at it. Nine feet tall or more, its skin is ebony, it's nude and enormously male. Ma.s.sively muscled, with thick veins and tendons, it has crimson eyes with inhuman, slitted, vertical pupils. Three rows of long, deadly horns at bony intervals frame each side of its head and there are bits of b.l.o.o.d.y things stuck on them.

Its prominent, crested forehead is a throwback to ancient times. It has long, lethal black fangs, and when it snarls-as it's doing now-like a lion, it becomes all teeth and deep, rumbling roar.

It's horrifying, it's b.e.s.t.i.a.l, yet in this form I still find Barrons savagely beautiful. I'm envious of how well he's engineered to survive, to conquer, to outlast apocalypse.

I remain completely still. I'm invisible.

It whips its head to the left and looks directly at me, peering down through matted hanks of black hair.

Well, s.h.i.+t, I realize, I'm making b.u.t.t-cheek-shaped indents on the soft leather.

It's holding the severed heads of Kiall and Rath, still dripping a bluish-black blood.

"Some crimes," I quote Ryodan stiffly, "are so personal, blood-vengeance belongs only to the one who suffered them."

The beast snarls at me and gouges the floor with a taloned foot, ripping long gashes into the priceless rug. Crimson eyes flash. So much for the damage my heels do. I'll remind him of this the next time he comments on my shoes.

"I wanted to be the one that killed them," I say, in case I hadn't made myself perfectly clear.

It roars so loudly, the windows rattle in their panes, then stalks forward, shaking the severed heads at me in wordless rebuke, crimson eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

I stare into the princes' faces. Eyes rolled back in their heads, their mouths open on screams. Faces don't freeze like that unless pushed to breaking, where death itself becomes the kindness.

Around enormous fangs, the beast snarls, "You had ample time. You didn't. Your time ran the f.u.c.k out." Its horns begin to melt and run down the sides of its face. Its head becomes grossly misshapen, expands and contracts, pulses and shrinks before expanding again-as if too much ma.s.s is being compacted into too small a form and the beast is resisting. Ma.s.sive shoulders collapse inward, straighten then collapse again. The princes' heads thud wetly to the floor. The beast gouges deep splinters of wood up through what used to be a priceless rug, as it bows upon itself, shuddering.

Talons splay across the rug and become fingers. Haunches lift, slam down, and become legs. But they aren't right. The limbs contort, the bones don't bend where they should, rubbery in some places, k.n.o.bbed in others.

Still it bays, but the sound is changing. Its misshapen head whips from side to side. I catch a glimpse through matted hair of wild eyes glittering with moonlight, of black fangs and spittle as it snarls. Then the tangled locks abruptly melt, the sleek black skin begins to lighten. It hits the floor, convulsing.

I can't help but compare it to the sudden swiftness with which Ryodan transforms. Although both can become the beast quickly, Barrons's reversion to human is lengthy.

I enjoy the beast, Barrons had said. Ryodan enjoys the man.

Although both are animal, they prefer to stalk different terrains. Ryodan dons the concrete and gla.s.s of the urban jungle like a second skin. Barrons glides into the dark, primitive, forested jungle with the l.u.s.ty hunger of a long-confined, feral lion escaped from a zoo.

Suddenly it shoots up on all fours, head down. Bones crunch and crack, settling into a new shape. Shoulders form, strong, smooth, bunched with muscle. Hands brace wide. One leg stretched back, the other bent as it tenses in a low lunge.

A naked man crouches on the floor.

Barrons lifts his head and stares straight at me, a few feet above my indent on the sofa. "It was my crime, too. I may not have been there to see it, but I've seen it in my head every f.u.c.king day since."

"I was the one that got raped."

"I was the one that failed to save you."

"And because you blamed yourself-"

"I wasn't the only one blaming me."

"I didn't blame you for not saving me," I growl. It's n.o.body's responsibility to save me but mine."

"You blamed me for letting them live."

"I did-" not is what I intended to say. But I'm startled to realize that he's right.

Deep down I was harboring a grudge. I'd despised that Barrons hadn't killed them the instant he learned what they'd done to me.

"I wanted to," he says tightly. "They were f.u.c.king linchpins."

V'lane had needled me that Barrons permitted my rapists to live, to go on after the h.e.l.lish things they'd done to me. I'd hungered for him to go bloodl.u.s.t crazy for vengeance, to do precisely what he'd done tonight, rip their heads off and bring them to me in a silent I may not have saved you but I f.u.c.king avenged you. All this time some part of me was measuring him by his failure to retaliate on my behalf, holding a piece of myself back. How could he not want them dead?

He's right about the other part, too. I could have hunted the princes months ago. I didn't want to. They changed me. Before the rape, I was good, genuinely never had a mean thought. If I hurt someone, it was by accident and I felt bad about it. But when they were done with me, there was something new inside me: something ruthless and feral and beyond law that hungered to be the one perpetrating the savagery, because when you are the savage, no one messes with you. I'd wanted to be bad. It's safer to be bad.

When someone hurts you-and I'm not talking about forgivable offenses, some things are irrevocable and demand recompense-you have two choices: slice them out of your life or slice them into delicious, b.l.o.o.d.y pieces. While the latter would be infinitely more satisfying in an immediate, animalistic way, it changes you. And, although you think the memory of the battle won will be a pleasure-if it is a pleasure, you've lost the war.

They raped me. I survived. I moved on. I wanted someone else to be the animal I didn't want to become.

I could have cold-bloodedly stalked into their goth mansion months ago. I would have enjoyed mutilating and torturing them, killing them slowly. Savored every minute of it. Painted my face with their blood, reveling in my dominance.

But it wouldn't have been a sheepdog that walked out that gothic, towering front door.

It would have been a wolf.

"Wolves don't kill with hate," Barrons says. "They kill because it's what they do."

"What are you saying?"

"Only humans kill with hate. When you kill, you must kill like an animal."

"I don't understand."

"What happens when a sheepdog gets bit by a wolf?"

"Duh. It becomes a wolf."

"No. It becomes a sheepdog that fights with the savagery and lawlessness of a wolf."

"Debatable." I feel like a wolf inside and I don't know what to do with it. I think my soul was turned. It worries me.

Two of the princes who raped me are dead, their heads lying at my feet. The third one, Dani killed months ago. The fourth one-about whom Barrons knows nothing-is imprisoned behind bars of ice.

I have a bad feeling if he ever gets out, I might grow those fangs I don't want.

"The princess is waiting for their heads," Barrons says. "She will not give us Christian's precise location until she receives them."

I sigh and say something I never thought I'd hear myself say to a completely, beautifully, naked Barrons. "Get dressed. I'm ready."

As he leaves the room, I glance at the severed heads, the tortured expressions, and I feel a festering, messy wound inside me finally begin to grow a thin covering of healing skin.

It's over. With the deaths of those who so deeply cut me, I can finally put the horror to rest.

I add softly, "And thank you."

Walking invisible behind Barrons through Chester's many subclubs is annoying as h.e.l.l. When I rode his wake before, between being aggravated with him and intoxicated by my new super-sleuthing state, I hadn't spared a glance beyond his wide shoulders.

Tonight I'm looking. Tonight I see the dozens and dozens of heads rotating to follow him as he pa.s.ses, the blatantly s.e.xual looks the women give him (and more than a few men!), and I growl with irritation.

"Problem, Ms. Lane?"

"Nope," I mutter, then voice something I can't quite wrap my brain around. "Why are you and Ryodan willing to help rescue Christian?"

"Beats looking for a b.l.o.o.d.y spell all the time," he says dryly.

"Aha, I knew I forgot to tell you something! I saw the Dreamy-Eyed Guy in Chester's and again on the street. We don't need to keep looking. The king is hanging around Dublin again."

"You continue to cling to the absurd hope he'll free you from your burden, no harm, no foul. Doesn't look like much of a burden at the moment, Ms. Lane. Rather seems you're enjoying it."

Criminy, that woman is flas.h.i.+ng him her b.o.o.bs! Slanting him a come-hither look, gyrating seductively to the music, pulling up her s.h.i.+rt (no, there's not a d.a.m.n thing but skin and perky nipples underneath), gaze moving hungrily from his face to his crotch as she prowls closer.

I veer to the right and jostle her before she gets to him, knocking her off balance. She has no idea what hits her. She stumbles into a chair then crashes into a table, drinks go flying, and she lands in a tangled heap on the floor. A bottle of beer mysteriously tips itself over and pours all over her head.

Now she looks like a drowned rat. "It does have perks," I agree.

"Little testy tonight?"

"That woman's b.o.o.bs do not belong in your face."

"It's not as if I can see yours at the moment."

"Well, you're d.a.m.n well going to feel them. Soon."

"One hopes," he murmurs.

"So, why is Ryodan willing to get involved in all this again?" I circle back to my earlier question. "I thought he couldn't stand Christian."

"Jada will go after the Highlander herself if she discovers where he is. Ryodan won't let that happen."

"He cares about her. A great deal."

Barrons says nothing, but I didn't expect him to.

When we step into Ryodan's office, Barrons removes the princes' heads from a duffel bag and tosses them onto the desk next to R'jan's.

I never knew I could be happy to see three gruesome, severed heads. More princes will no doubt be made, transformed from whatever raw material the Fae realm likes to pick up and use. But at the moment the only two princes that remain are Christian and Cruce.

"Risky as f.u.c.k," Ryodan says, staring down at the heads.

"What?" I ask.

"Killing them now," Barrons replies. "Their continued use as linchpins was debatable. Their absence problematic."

"Well, at least now we can get the women out of their mansion, help the ones they turned Pri-ya," I say.

Ryodan says, "More princes will be made."

"Yeah, but they'll have to do something like eat Unseelie flesh. And partic.i.p.ate in a botched ritual."

"Any here that haven't eaten Unseelie flesh, raise your hand," Barrons says dryly. He glances down through the gla.s.s floor. "Ask the same question down there."

"Humans are eternally performing botched rituals," Ryodan says. "Every f.u.c.king time they use a Ouija board. Among other things."

"Really, a Ouija board?" I knew it! The macabre board game played with unseen partic.i.p.ants always made me uneasy. Someone tells you, Here, I'm giving you a door to death, and you play with it? Not me. No clue what's on the other side but I'd bet it sure as h.e.l.l isn't going to be my dead sister. No matter how much I'd like to think so.

By such criteria, half this city could start turning Fae. "Barrons could become Rath. I could become Kiall," Ryodan says.

I protest instantly, "You two are immune-"

"Not to the princess's magic. Not to K'Vruck," Barrons points out. "When the Fae royal court is reduced, someone or something will always be altered to complete it. Who's to say we're immune to being transformed?"

I refuse to entertain the possibility. "Speaking of the princess," I ask Ryodan, changing the subject, "how are you controlling her?"

"How are you controlling the Sinsar Dubh," Ryodan mocks.

"Day by day," I say coolly. "And I'm doing just fine."

Ryodan smiles faintly. "Welcome to war games, Mac, where the terrain never stops changing and he who adapts fastest wins."

None of us adapt fast enough in the next moment. But then we have absolutely no warning.

The Unseelie Princess sifts in, s.n.a.t.c.hes the princes' heads, and sifts out before my brain manages to process what my eyes just saw.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Barrons snarls.

"Don't make me hunt you, Princess," Ryodan warns softly. "You'll become my sole target, my obsession, my compulsion, my undying homicidal fantasy, the object of my every f.u.c.king thought and inclination, and the more time I have to contemplate what I'm going to do to you when I find you-"

Christ, he's freaking even me out. I'd never want to be that to him.

A disembodied voice snaps, "As you do not intend to kill the final prince, the Compact between us is complete. We will spare no further aid to rescue one of our enemies." A sc.r.a.p of paper materializes and floats to the desk.

"You will sift us there," Ryodan barks.