Part 20 (2/2)

I glare at him. He's never said anything that nice about me.

Dageus finishes his drink and slides it back for another. ”I doona ken the names of the slain. During battle for possession of the grounds, a sidhe-seer escaped. We found her stumbling, badly injured, along the road toward Dublin. Drustan took her to the hospital at Dublin Castle. Your Inspector Jayne said he will commit the aid of his Guardians but only if the sidhe-seers turn over either the spear or sword to his troops. Permanently.”

I slap lids on the condiments and shove them in the fridge. Not a chance in h.e.l.l. ”What happened, Ryodan? You were supposed to place more powerful wards around the grounds. That was part of our negotiations.”

”My men have been busy, in case you've forgotten. Besides, you asked us to place more wards against Fae. Not humans.”

”Humans took control?” This just keeps getting worse. ”Who?”

”The new sidhe-seers say it's their home now.”

I narrow my eyes and snarl. Sidhe-seers came into our town and took our home? I promised Kat we wouldn't let this happen. I promised her we would protect the abbey. We're the home team. n.o.body takes our stadium. ”How many are there? What weapons do they have? How did they take the abbey? Didn't Kat put up a fight?”

Dageus says, ”If your Kat who was with us that night is in charge now, that may explain things. The woman we found said their headmistress has been missing for nigh a week, and someone inside their own group, Margery, invited the new sidhe-seers in.”

Nearly a week? That means she disappeared the day after our meeting! ”Have you seen her?” I ask Ryodan.

”What do you think, she comes to visit me,” he says. ”This is Katarina we're talking about.”

”Bar's closed,” I snap at a guy about to sit down.

He looks at Ryodan and Dageus. ”They're sitting here.”

”I said it's closed.”

”Pour me a drink, b.i.t.c.h. It's a free f.u.c.king world.” He drops a leg over the stool.

Ryodan smashes a fist out sideways, squarely into the guy's face without even looking, while saying, ”a.s.suming I arrange this meeting, the Keltar will aid in regaining control of the abbey regardless of the outcome.” The guy flies backward off the bar stool and crashes to the floor.

”Unlike you, we are men of our word. Unlike you,” Dageus growls, ”we are men. As in human.”

”Humans break.” Ryodan doesn't say it, doesn't have to, it hangs in the air: We don't.

The guy Ryodan punched picks himself up, gives us looks like we're all crazy, and backs away into the crowd.

I tell Dageus, ”The meeting with R'jan happens after we free the abbey.”

”It happens before or no' at all,” Dageus says flatly.

”More sidhe-seers could die!” I say heatedly.

”Aye. Once. Christian is being butchered o'er and o'er again every day.” The Highlander's brogue thickens. ”Who kens it-perhaps he's died a hundred times so far. Have you any idea what that can do to a man?”

I s.h.i.+ver. Yes. It sounds too similar to the h.e.l.l Barrons's son suffered. Regenerating only to be killed each time he was reborn. It turned the small boy into an animal, drove the child deep into madness from which there was no return. What is the same fate doing to Christian, even as we speak, who was highly unstable to begin with? He certainly hasn't had an easy time of it since I arrived in Dublin: catapulted unarmed into the Silvers for years by a botched ritual, fed Unseelie by myself, locked in a desperate battle for control over what he's becoming, and now held captive by a monster that rips out his guts every time he heals.

”His mind is fragile. His body is no'. 'Tis a dangerous and deadly imbalance that can go terribly wrong.”

It certainly is.

To Ryodan, I say, ”Summon the prince for Dageus or I'm moving back to the bookstore, and leaving you on your own with the Unseelie Princesses. With Barrons in Faery, you're the only one I'm protecting anyway.”

To Dageus, I say, ”Get your clan ready to fight.”

”Och, MacKayla, 'tis no' a thing for which the Keltar need preparing. We were born ready.”

19.

”Hey, hey mama, like the way you move”

LOR.

”Think you missed a spot,” I tell the voluptuous blonde that's was.h.i.+ng my d.i.c.k.

I'm Pri-ya, I can't be expected to bathe myself. They've been giving me sponge baths 'cause I'm pretty much covered from head to toe in p.u.s.s.y juice. They feed me and f.u.c.k me and clean me. Reminds me of the good old days when a man protected women with his club and they took care of him in return.

This week has been one of the finest of my existence-well, at least in the past century anyway-a veritable f.u.c.k-party 24/7, with five to ten women in the room at any given time, their sole reason for existing to sate my many needs, all blond, all buxom, all h.o.r.n.y as h.e.l.l. Life rocks. It's better than Woodstock.

At first I pretended to be completely senseless, incapable of speech, but that gets old fast. Can't tell a woman what you want next if you're not talking, can't ask what they want, although I never have a problem figuring that out. You watch their faces, listen to the sounds they make. Do they whimper, or do that sudden inhale that turns into a killer, husky purr? Do they growl and turn a good f.u.c.k into a better fight? Most women in these times got a whole lot of frustration to take out in bed, when they know they got a man big and tough enough to handle it. Are they the kind that tries not to make any sound at all, like they're too tough to crack? That's just waving a big-a.s.s red flag at this bull. Those are the ones that always end up making the most noise by the time I'm done with 'em. I especially like the ones that hiss like a cat when I f.u.c.k 'em hard from behind, rubbing back, h.o.r.n.y and pa.s.sionate and wild.

d.a.m.n, I love women.

One thing that seems universal is that after a good hard f.u.c.king, most of 'em love to lay back and have a man take his time with them, stroking 'em from head to toe, licking, petting, telling 'em how beautiful they are, making 'em come over and over, especially with their hands tied, not that I'm into your run-of-the-mill S&M. I like to know the woman in my bed wants to call me master. That being said, I do like chains. Something about the heavy links against soft, silken skin, telling me I can take my time doing whatever I want. Test their s.e.xual limits.

”There's another sticky spot.” I point to my groin where a smear of honey lingers. She licks it off with catlike delicacy. Then starts sucking. Christ.

Once I realized the boss had fallen for my charade and wasn't checking on me, I quit being so disgustingly Pri-ya. According to the promise I made Mac, I got one more week of this, then it's back to the grind.

I mean to make the most of it. Then I'll hunt and kill the Unseelie b.i.t.c.h that has some kind of strange magic that actually worked on me.

Turn me Pri-ya? You can't amp up my s.e.x drive. It's already over the top.

Aw, f.u.c.k me, this blonde's got a tongue that could strip copper tubing clean! I grab her head and pull her up to kiss the honey from her mouth. As I roll her beneath me, crushed between a tangle of naked, h.o.r.n.y women, and about to drive in deep, I hear a woman say sternly, ”Get out of here. All of you.”

What the f.u.c.k? I didn't even hear the door open. Has the boss figured me out? Did Mac rat on me?

I ignore it. They're gonna have to drag me out of this bed.

”You know I'm Ryodan's girlfriend. You know he listens to me. You want to keep your jobs?”

I freeze, halfway in. It's Jo. What the h.e.l.l is she doing here?

Reluctantly, with a p.i.s.sed off sound, the woman in my arms tries to disengage. I groan and hold on, won't let her go.

<script>