I almost laughed. A tryst with Barrons? Get real.

“What are you doing here?” I countered. No more good little soldier. The bookstore was closed and neither of them should have been here, raining on my already rainy parade.

“I was on my way to the butcher when I saw Jericho stepping out,” she said tightly. “How long was he here? Where were you just now? What were the two of you doing before I came?” Jealousy so vibrantly colored her words I expected her breath to come out in little green puffs. As if conjured by the unspoken accusation that we’d been doing the dirty, a vision of Jericho Barrons naked—dark, despotic, and probably flat-out ferocious in bed—flashed through my mind.

I found it staggeringly erotic. Disturbed, I performed a hasty mental calendar count. I was ovulating. That explained it. I get indiscriminatingly horny for three days when I am: the day before, the day of, and the day after; Mother Nature’s sneaky little way of ensuring survival of the human race, I guess. I check out guys I wouldn’t normally look at, especially ones in tight jeans. I catch myself trying to decide if they’re lefties or righties. Alina used to laugh and say if you can’t tell, Junior, you don’t want to know.

Alina. God, I missed her.

“Nothing, Fiona,” I said. “I was upstairs.”

She stabbed a finger at me, her eyes dangerously bright, and I was suddenly afraid she would cry. If she cried I’d lose all backbone. I can’t stand older women crying. I see my mom in every one.

I was relieved when she snarled at me instead. “Do you think he healed your wounds because you matter to him? Do you think he cares? You mean nothing to him! You couldn’t possibly understand that man and his moods. His needs. His desires. You’re a stupid, selfish, naïve child,” she hissed. “Go home!”

“I’d love to go home,” I shot back. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that choice!”

She opened her mouth but I didn’t catch what she was saying because I’d already turned and was banging through the connecting doors to the private residence part of the store, in no mood to get dragged any further into the argument she was spoiling to have. I left her shouting something about how she didn’t have choices, either.

I went upstairs. Yesterday Barrons had told me to lose the splints. I’d told him bones didn’t heal that fast, but my arm was itching like crazy again, so I went in the bathroom adjoining my bedroom and took it off.

I gingerly wiggled my wrist then flexed my hand. My arm had obviously never been broken, probably just sprained. It felt whole, stronger than ever. I peeled off the finger splints to find they were better than fine, too. There was a faint smudge of red and black on my forearm, like a smear of ink. While I rinsed it off, I turned my face from side to side in the mirror, wishing my bruises would heal as quickly. I’d spent most of my life as an attractive blonde. Now, a badlybattered girl with short black hair stared back at me.

I turned away.

While I’d convalesced, Barrons had gotten me one of those little refrigerators college kids use in dorms, and stocked me up on snacks. I popped open a soda and sprawled across the bed. I read and surfed the Net the rest of the day, trying to educate myself on all the paranormal stuff I’d spent the first twenty-two years of my life belittling and ignoring.

For a week now, I’d been waiting for the army from Hell to come. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe this little lull was anything but the calm before the storm.

Was Mallucé really dead? Though I’d stabbed the citron-eyed vampire during my aborted showdown with the Lord Master, and the last thing I’d seen before losing consciousness from the injuries he’d dished out in retaliation was Barrons slamming him into a wall, I wasn’t convinced of his demise and wouldn’t be, until I heard something from the empty-eyed worshippers that stuffed the vamp’s Goth mansion to overflowing on the south side of Dublin. In the Lord Master’s employ—while two-timing and withholding powerful relics from the Unseelie leader—Mallucé had tried to kill me in order to silence me before I could betray his dirty secret. If he was still alive, I had no doubt he’d be coming after me again, sooner rather than later.

Mallucé wasn’t the only worry on my mind. Was the Lord Master really unable to get past the ancient wards laid in blood and stone around the bookstore, as Barrons assured me? Who’d been driving the car transporting the mind-bending evil of the Sinsar Dubh past the bookstore last week? Where had it been taken? Why? What were all the Unseelie recently freed by the Lord Master doing right now? And just how responsible was I for them? Does being one of the few people who can do something about a problem make you responsible for fixing it?

It was midnight before I slept, bedroom door locked, windows buttoned up tight, lights ablaze.

The instant I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong.

TWO

I t wasn’t just my sidhe-seer senses that tipped me off, screaming something Fae was very near.

My bedroom has hardwood floors and there’s no threshold strip beneath the door. I usually wedge a towel into the gap—okay, several—packed in by books, fortified with a chair, topped by a lamp so if some bizarre new monster slithers in through the crack, the lamp breaking will startle me awake, and buy me just enough time to be almost conscious when it kills me.

Last night I forgot.

As soon as I roll over in the morning, I glance at the haphazard stack. It’s my way of reassuring myself that nothing found me during the night and I live to see another day in Dublin, for whatever that’s worth. This morning my observation that I’d forgotten to stuff the crack was accompanied by another that made my heart freeze: The gap beneath the door was dark.