Shadowfever
Page 146
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I watch it clatter to a stop against the faade of the hearth, relieved. I can die. Not that I want to right now. I just like options. As long as I have the spear, I have options. Im never getting rid of that thing. Its my date with a gravestone, and Im human. I want to die one day.
But he cant. Its the first complete sentence I speak since I was attacked. Your son cant die, can he? No matter what. Ever.
43
If Id never eaten Unseelie, healing miraculously would have messed with my head.
As it was, I pretended I had eaten Unseelie. I couldnt deal with the whole elixir-that-prolongs-life scenario. It made me want to kill Darroc all over again. Violently. Sadistically. With lots of torture.
Hed not only turned me Pri-ya, hed planned for me to live that way eternally. Id softened when I saw those pictures of him with Alina, imagining a different outcome for them, but now all softness vanished. If Barrons hadnt saved meI couldnt even begin to imagine the horrors. I didnt want to. I would have been pathologically insane in a very short time. What if hed locked me away, refused to give me what I needed? Kept me somewhere small and dark and
I shuddered.
Stop thinking about it, Barrons said.
I shivered. I couldnt help it. There really were worse things than dying.
It didnt happen. I got you out and brought you back. It all worked out in the end. Youre tough to kill. Im glad.
Id bled out, according to Barrons, several times. Too much of my throat had been torn away for my body to repair me quickly enough. While Id been deador at least no longer breathingmy body had continued repairing itself. Id regain consciousness, only to bleed out again. Eventually enough of me had been restored that Id remained conscious for the rest of the process. I was covered with blood, crusted with it.
Barrons picks me up and is carrying me again. We pass through luxurious rooms, down stairs and more stairs, and I realize there are more than three levels beneath his garage. He has a whole world down here. I usually hate being underground. But this is different. Theres a sensation of expansiveness, of space not being quite what it seems. I suspect he has more Silvers in here, many ways in and out. Its the ultimate survivalist fantasy. The world could be nuked, and life would go on down here, or we could pass through to some other world. With Barrons, I suspect, no catastrophe is ever final. He always goes on.
Now, so will I.
I dont like that. Ive been reprogrammed, changed in so many ways. This one is going to be the hardest to deal with. It makes me feel less human, and I was already feeling detached. Am I part of the Unseelie King, now nearly immortal? I wonder if this is a loop. Arewe reborn over and over again, to repeat the same cycles?
Would it be so bad?
Are you reading my mind?
Youre thinking with your eyes. He smiles.
I touch his face, and the smile vanishes. Do it again.
Dont be a jackass.
I laugh. But theres no amusement left in his face. It was swiftly erased.
He looks at me with cold, hard eyes. I see whats in them now. To the rest of the world, they might seem empty. I remember thinking a few times myself that they were void of all humanity, but thats simply not true.
He feels. Rage. Pain. Lust. So much emotion, electric beneath his skin. So much volatility. Man and beast, always at war. I know now its never easy for him. The battle he fights is nonstop. How does this man go on every day?
He stops and lowers me to my feet. He moves through the shadows, turns on a gas fire, and begins to light candles.
We are in his bedroom. Its like the Unseelie Kings lair: opulent, luxurious, with an enormous bed, draped in black silk, black furs. I cant see past it. All I can see is myself there, naked with him.
Im trembling.
Im awed that Im here. That he wants me.
He lights more candles near the bed. He picks up pillows and pushes them into a pile I remember from being Pri-ya.
In that long-ago basement, he mounded them beneath my hips. I sprawled over them with my head on the bed and my ass in the air. He would rub himself back and forth between my legs until I was begging, then push slowly into me from behind.
He places the last pillow on the pile, and looks at me. He jerks his head toward the pile of pillows.
I watched you die. I need to fuck you, Mac.
The words slam into me like bullets, taking my knees out. I lean back against a piece of furniturean armoire, I think. I really dont care. It holds me up. It wasnt a request. It was acknowledgment of a requirement to make it from this moment to the next, like I need a transfusion, my blood has been poisoned.
Do you want me to? There is no purr, or coyness, or seduction in his voice. There is a question that needs an answer. Bare bones. Thats what hes after. Thats what he offers.
Yes.
He strips his shirt over his head and I catch my breath, watching those long, hard muscles ripple. I know how his shoulders look, bunched, when hes on top of me, how his face gets tight with lust, as he eases inside me. Who am I?
Jericho.
Who are you? He kicks off his boots, steps out of his pants. Hes commando tonight.
My breath whooshes out of me in a run-on word: Whogivesafuck?
But he cant. Its the first complete sentence I speak since I was attacked. Your son cant die, can he? No matter what. Ever.
43
If Id never eaten Unseelie, healing miraculously would have messed with my head.
As it was, I pretended I had eaten Unseelie. I couldnt deal with the whole elixir-that-prolongs-life scenario. It made me want to kill Darroc all over again. Violently. Sadistically. With lots of torture.
Hed not only turned me Pri-ya, hed planned for me to live that way eternally. Id softened when I saw those pictures of him with Alina, imagining a different outcome for them, but now all softness vanished. If Barrons hadnt saved meI couldnt even begin to imagine the horrors. I didnt want to. I would have been pathologically insane in a very short time. What if hed locked me away, refused to give me what I needed? Kept me somewhere small and dark and
I shuddered.
Stop thinking about it, Barrons said.
I shivered. I couldnt help it. There really were worse things than dying.
It didnt happen. I got you out and brought you back. It all worked out in the end. Youre tough to kill. Im glad.
Id bled out, according to Barrons, several times. Too much of my throat had been torn away for my body to repair me quickly enough. While Id been deador at least no longer breathingmy body had continued repairing itself. Id regain consciousness, only to bleed out again. Eventually enough of me had been restored that Id remained conscious for the rest of the process. I was covered with blood, crusted with it.
Barrons picks me up and is carrying me again. We pass through luxurious rooms, down stairs and more stairs, and I realize there are more than three levels beneath his garage. He has a whole world down here. I usually hate being underground. But this is different. Theres a sensation of expansiveness, of space not being quite what it seems. I suspect he has more Silvers in here, many ways in and out. Its the ultimate survivalist fantasy. The world could be nuked, and life would go on down here, or we could pass through to some other world. With Barrons, I suspect, no catastrophe is ever final. He always goes on.
Now, so will I.
I dont like that. Ive been reprogrammed, changed in so many ways. This one is going to be the hardest to deal with. It makes me feel less human, and I was already feeling detached. Am I part of the Unseelie King, now nearly immortal? I wonder if this is a loop. Arewe reborn over and over again, to repeat the same cycles?
Would it be so bad?
Are you reading my mind?
Youre thinking with your eyes. He smiles.
I touch his face, and the smile vanishes. Do it again.
Dont be a jackass.
I laugh. But theres no amusement left in his face. It was swiftly erased.
He looks at me with cold, hard eyes. I see whats in them now. To the rest of the world, they might seem empty. I remember thinking a few times myself that they were void of all humanity, but thats simply not true.
He feels. Rage. Pain. Lust. So much emotion, electric beneath his skin. So much volatility. Man and beast, always at war. I know now its never easy for him. The battle he fights is nonstop. How does this man go on every day?
He stops and lowers me to my feet. He moves through the shadows, turns on a gas fire, and begins to light candles.
We are in his bedroom. Its like the Unseelie Kings lair: opulent, luxurious, with an enormous bed, draped in black silk, black furs. I cant see past it. All I can see is myself there, naked with him.
Im trembling.
Im awed that Im here. That he wants me.
He lights more candles near the bed. He picks up pillows and pushes them into a pile I remember from being Pri-ya.
In that long-ago basement, he mounded them beneath my hips. I sprawled over them with my head on the bed and my ass in the air. He would rub himself back and forth between my legs until I was begging, then push slowly into me from behind.
He places the last pillow on the pile, and looks at me. He jerks his head toward the pile of pillows.
I watched you die. I need to fuck you, Mac.
The words slam into me like bullets, taking my knees out. I lean back against a piece of furniturean armoire, I think. I really dont care. It holds me up. It wasnt a request. It was acknowledgment of a requirement to make it from this moment to the next, like I need a transfusion, my blood has been poisoned.
Do you want me to? There is no purr, or coyness, or seduction in his voice. There is a question that needs an answer. Bare bones. Thats what hes after. Thats what he offers.
Yes.
He strips his shirt over his head and I catch my breath, watching those long, hard muscles ripple. I know how his shoulders look, bunched, when hes on top of me, how his face gets tight with lust, as he eases inside me. Who am I?
Jericho.
Who are you? He kicks off his boots, steps out of his pants. Hes commando tonight.
My breath whooshes out of me in a run-on word: Whogivesafuck?
