Burned
Page 31

Deep down I feel the Book stir, sniffing around the edges of my brain, trying to skim my mind.
I swiftly bury all thought of the song in one of the many padlocked boxes in my brain and resume reciting silent poetry, vowing to never think about it again until the king has removed his parasite from my body.
And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before …
Ryodan lobbied successfully to restore the euro as the only acceptable currency, which baffled me at first. It couldn’t be more worthless … unless every supplier of goods in the city agrees to provide for nothing but the euro. Then it becomes the only thing worth having all over again.
He argued that a unilaterally enforced currency was essential to achieving sustainable order, a point that wasn’t easy to make with the three princes, as currency is an alien concept in their society. I agree it will restore a much-needed sense of normalcy to our city’s inhabitants. I’m surprised the men are willing to give up the barter system with its immediate benefits for the chance to be king, but these are wild days and this summit attended by primal males that thrive in times of chaos.
Barrons says little. His presence says enough.
For the past twenty minutes we’ve been debating the finer nuances of how to get the money out there and reestablish it as the norm. I wasn’t surprised to learn Ryodan cleared out the city’s bank vaults in the early days right after the fall. He’s always miles ahead of everyone in matters of business.
“What of the new sidhe-seers?” Kiall suddenly demands.
New? “Nothing about the sidhe-seers,” I say instantly. “They are mine.”
Beside me, Kat gently clears her throat.
“ ‘Ours,’ ” I amend. “We already discussed that. You stay off their land.”
He sneers. “It is not her group that concerns us. They are no threat compared to the other. I am surprised they have no representative at this table.”
I glance at Kat, who looks as shocked as me. Chester’s nightclub is the pulsing heartbeat of Dublin, and if there are new sidhe-seers in town, he knows about it. “Ryodan?”
Ryodan affirms it with a silent nod.
“There’s another group of sidhe-seers in town?” Kat exclaims. “Why didn’t they come to the abbey? We’d be happy to have them.”
“They would not be so happy to have you,” Rath mocks. “You are nothing alike. You are weak and pliable. They are steel.”
Barrons says, “All sidhe-seers are off limits to you.”
“Fuck you,” Kiall says. “One of them infiltrated our compound and took out thirty of my finest before we were able to stop her. I keep her in a cage, happily mindless.” He slants a look at me. “She sucks my dick at my command with the zeal of one I knew before.”
Barrons’s chest expands and I don’t have to look at him to know his eyes are glittering bloodred. I see the change in the princes’ faces across the table. Fury explodes in my blood so hot and hard, it hits my heart like a sledgehammer. Some days I’m made of nothing but triggers. Rape scars deep.
Destroy them now. You know you can, my dark companion purrs. They humiliated and used you, made you feel powerless—you who possess more raw power than they could ever hope to achieve. Remind these pigs that the Fae have always been ruled by a woman.
Sure, toss me a few crimson runes, I mutter at it. I’d kill to get my hands on those again, the strange binding runes it shared with me at critical moments, believing I would never figure out that I could also use them to seal the physical Sinsar Dubh’s cover closed. Until Cruce tricked me into removing them. I knew I shouldn’t have pulled the damned things off down there in the cavern the night we sealed it on the stone slab. Or at least held onto a few for future use, rather than let Velvet sift them away.
I’d love to see if they’d also work on my inner copy somehow, but although the Sinsar Dubh goads endlessly, even saddled and rode me today, it offers me no runes or spells to use without price as it did before. A once-robbed John, it won’t remove its wallet from its trousers again until it gets the action it paid for.
Nice try, sweet thing. NOT.
I pick up with my mental chant where I left off last time, muttering the fourth, fifth, and sixth stanzas of “The Raven.” Beneath the table, I feel Barrons’s hand move to my thigh, and in the strength of his fingers is his commitment to destroy them with me, the reminder to be patient. It cools my blood enough that I retain my impassive stare.
The Unseelie Princes hold a sidhe-seer Pri-ya. I wonder what her talent is, if they exploit it. I worry about her soul. She has no Barrons to rescue her. Inside me, the Sinsar Dubh falls silent. “Tell me about these sidhe-seers,” I say to Ryodan.
“They’re black-ops trained and militarily focused, led by a woman they seem willing to follow to death. Word is they connected after the walls fell. Some were soldiers, stationed in Iraq, others hail from Asia, skilled in martial arts.”
“We want them all dead,” Rath growls.
Before I can say it, Kat asks, “Have you met their leader?”
Ryodan says, “We’ve been tracking her but no luck so far. They speak her name like she’s some bloody damned mystical warrior, protected by the elements. Their home was destroyed; they want a new one and intend to make it here.”
I feel Kat’s tension. I say, “You are in charge at the abbey. She won’t take it from you. If we must enforce it, we will.”