Shadowfever
Page 24

I do not, and did not. There are holes larger than Hunters in your puny human logic!
Who else could it have been? Who else did she fear?
He turns and paces to one of the windows, where he stands gazing out at the dazzling winter day. Ice-crusted trees sparkle like theyve been diamond-dipped. Drifts of powdery snow shimmer in the sunlight. The scene seems lit from within, like the concubine herself.
But there is only darkness inside me. I feel it growing.
You are certain that the day you had this conversation with her was the day she died?
It wasnt a conversation, but I dont tell him that. Although the Garda didnt find her body for two days, they estimated her time of death at about four hours after she called me. The coroner in Ashford said it was possible she died as much as eight to ten hours after she made the call. She said it was difficult to estimate exact time of death due to the way her body had been savaged. I refuse to say chewed on.
Still staring out the window, his back to me, he says, One morning after I left, she followed me to the house on LaRuhe.
I catch my breath. These are words Ive been waiting to hear since the day I identified my sisters body. To learn what she did the last day she was alive. Where she went. How it came to such a bitter end.
Did you know? I demand.
I eat Unseelie.
He knew. Of course he knew. It amps up all the senses, hearing, sight, taste, touch. Its what makes it so addictiveand the super-sized strength is icing on the cake. You feel alive, incredibly alive. Everything is more vivid.
Wed been in bed all night, fucking
T-the-fuck-M-I, I snarl.
You think I dont know what that means. Alina used to say it. Too much information. It disturbs you to hear of the passion your sister and I shared.
It sickens me.
When he turns, his gaze is cool. I made her happy.
You didnt keep her safe. Even if you didnt kill her, she died on your watch.
He flinches almost imperceptibly.
I think, Nice, real nice, got that fake emotion down real well.
I thought she was ready. I believed what she felt for me would win in one of your idiotic human battles of morality. I was wrong.
So she followed you. Did she confront you?
He shakes his head. She saw me through the windows at LaRuhe
Theyre painted black.
They werent yet. I did that later. She watched me meet with my Unseelie guard and overheard our conversation about freeing more of the Dark Court. She heard them call me Lord Master. After my guard left and I was alone, I waited to see what she would do, if she wouldcome in, if she would give us a chance. She didnt. She fled, and I followed, at a distance. She spent hours walking around Temple Bar, crying in the rain. I waited, gave her space, time to clarify her thoughts. Humans do not think as quickly as Fae. They struggle with simple concepts. It is astounding your species ever managed to
Spare me your condescending judgments and Ill spare you mine, I cut him off, in no mood to listen to him condemn my race. His race already did that. Billions dead. All because of their petty power struggles.
He inclines his head imperiously. I went to her apartment later that day. I found her in the bedroom, climbing out the window, onto the fire escape.
See? She was afraid of you.
She was terrified. It made me angry. I had given her no reason to fear me. I dragged her back in. We fought. I told her she was human, stupid and small. She called me a monster. She said I tricked her. That it was all a lie. It was not. Or, rather, it was at first but then it wasnt. I would have made her my queen. I told her that. And that I still would. But she wouldnt listen. She wouldnt even look at me. Finally I left. But I did not kill her, MacKayla. Like you, I do not know who did.
Who trashed her apartment?
I told you we fought. Our anger was as intense as our lust.
Did you take her journal?
I went back for it after I learned she was dead. It was not there. I took photo albums. It was then, when I found her calendar book, that I discovered her friend Mac was really her sister. She lied to me. I was not the only one who was duplicitous. I have lived among your kind long enough to know this means she knew from the beginning something about me was not what it seemed. And wanted me anyway. I believe that if she had not been murdered, in time she would have come to me, chosen me of her own free will.
Yes, I think, she would have come to you. With a weapon in her hand, just like I will.
I needed to know if you shared her unique talents. Had you not arrived in Dublin when you did, I would have had you brought to me.
I absorb that and am furious. Its very important to me to pinpoint the exact moment my life started going wrong. Especially now.
It goes back further than Id realized.
The moment Alina left for Dublin and began heading toward the day she would encounter him, thered been no hope of my life turning out any other way. Events had been set in motion that trapped me. I would have embarked upon exactly the same path, through a different door. If Id not disobeyed my parents and flown to Ireland to investigate Alinas murder, would he have sent the Hunters after me? The princes? Maybe dispatched the Shades to devour my town and drive me out?