“Let me tattoo you.” He was silent a long moment then said, “Jada.”

She went utterly still, not liking him this way, not trusting this at all. He was being direct, noncaustic. Treating her as if she was exactly what she was—a woman who’d been through hell and made it back by sheer force of will and the skin of her teeth. He was calling her by her chosen name. Asking her to “allow” him to do something. No longer berating her for not being who he wanted her to be. Offering his protection. No longer jabbing at her or giving her anything to fight.

She didn’t know how to deal with this man without fighting him. “No,” she said.

“At least carry the phone.”

She regarded it as if it were a snake that would bite her the instant she reached for it. “It’s a little late to start worrying about me.”

“I always worried about you.”

The door behind her whisked open.

“Hey, guys.” Dancer stepped in to join them. He looked at her, did a double take, and said, “Wow. You look amazing, Jada.”

She felt suddenly nonplussed, a thing she’d not experienced in years. The faint heat of a blush was trying to stain her skin and she willed her capillaries to constrict and deny it. Once before Dancer had seen her in a skirt and heels, the night Ryodan made her change because her clothes smelled like Christian. She’d felt just as off-kilter with the way he’d looked at her then, with a soft stirring of butterflies in her stomach.

Sometimes she felt as split as they thought she was: a young girl hungry to spend time with a young man that was smart and good and real, a grown woman hungry for a grown man with edges sharp enough to cut herself on.

But hunger, like emotion, could drive a person to do stupid things. And the stupid didn’t survive. “It’s just a dress,” she deflected.

“It’s not the dress, Mega,” Dancer said quietly. “It’s the woman in it.”

He smiled at her and she felt herself smiling faintly back. Mega. She should correct him. How young, how naïve, she’d been all those years ago.

She’d had a crush on Dancer. The older, brilliant boygenius she’d idolized. She hadn’t known what to do with it. Hadn’t been ready for that kind of thing. She’d had so little childhood that she’d been determined to preserve what remained as long as possible. Sex was an irretrievable step into adulthood. She’d missed him in the Silvers. Had longed for his inventive, brilliant mind and way of making it seem it was the two of them against the world and that was more than enough, because they would win every battle.

She narrowed her eyes, studying him. He looked older now, especially without his glasses. He had beautiful eyes, flecked with every shade of green and blue, like a tropical sea, with thick, long dark lashes. And he was dressing differently than he used to. She was startled to realize he had a man’s body beneath his jeans and leather jacket, a man’s eyes. Perhaps he’d been dressing younger when she was young, matching her style. Perhaps her fourteen-year-old eyes simply hadn’t been able to see the parts of him she’d not been ready to deal with.

She saw them now.

Ryodan dropped the phone back into the drawer and slid it shut. “I want the two of you to gather every bit of information you have on the anomalies and bring it by tomorrow evening.”

“Already got it,” Dancer said, waving a packet of papers. “Right here.”

“I have other things to do tonight.”

Jada looked at Ryodan but his gaze was shuttered, distant, as if they’d never spoken before Dancer had arrived.

“You said you had a current map of all the black holes,” Jada said. “I want it.”

“I’ll have copies for you tomorrow night.”

“Time is of the essence,” she said coolly. Why didn’t he want to give her the map? Because he didn’t trust she’d come back once she had it?

Dancer said, “The first hole appeared more than two months ago, Jada. They’re growing slowly. I can’t see that another day will make much of a difference. Besides, the map isn’t the most important thing. Knowing their location doesn’t tell us how to fix them. I’ve been working on some other ideas about that.”

“Out. Now,” Ryodan said flatly.

Once, she would have insisted, argued, perhaps blasted up into the slipstream and raised a ruckus to get what she wanted. Or at least put on one hell of a show trying.

Now, she simply turned for the door, refusing to glance over her shoulder, although she could feel his gaze resting heavily on her.

Still, she heard Ryodan’s voice inside her head as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud.

Change your mind, Jada. Don’t be a fool. It won’t cost you anything. Let me be your anchor. I’ll never let you be lost again.

She’d always hated the doors in Chester’s.

They couldn’t be kicked open and they couldn’t be slammed shut.

18

“Ruler of the frozen lands…”

I lied to Mac.

Fortunately she isn’t capable of detecting lies as well as the Highlander/Fae prince/druid/lie detector that I am.

Besides, she’d been so obsessed with digging up her sister’s empty grave that she’d scarcely paid any attention to my small theft. She’d shrugged off the momentary tug she felt at her scalp, embracing my glib excuse and forgetting it.

I know precisely how to sift to a human’s location.

I need part of their physical person in my hand to track them, parting space like so many vines hanging from trees obscuring my vision as I isolate the hunted.

Such as the strands of paint-stained blond hair in the pocket of my jeans.

I know where her loyalties lie.

With Barrons.

With all of the Nine. Far more so than with me and my clan.

I don’t judge her for that. I understand clan and she’s chosen hers. Clan is necessary in times like these.

And so I played performing pony to get close enough to yank out a few long strands of her hair, then sat at the bar and sipped my whiskey, patiently waiting for a sign that something was going on in the bowels of Chester’s, wagering she was indeed in the innermost part of their circle.

Easier than trying to get some of that bastard’s hair, which, frankly, I’m not sure would even work. Although I can truth-detect with the Nine, if I try to apprehend any one of them as a singular entity, they simply aren’t there.

I know death intimately. I know life as well. The Nine register as neither. An hour ago, when Mac had risen, with Barrons and Ryodan flanking her, a severe expression on her face, I’d known something was afoot.

I’d sifted to follow her at a distance, wanting access but desiring not to be seen. I’d cloaked myself in glamour, spreading like moss along the walls, moss she’d touched, causing me to shiver. Moss that had peeled from the walls and coalesced once they entered the room at the far end of the corridor, re-forming as the Unseelie prince/Highlander that I am.

I’d stalked every inch of the dungeon, endless and sprawling. Empty. Utterly empty but for one corridor.

A false corridor.

A wall where in truth there was none. I could feel the invalidity of that stone barricade in every atom of my body.

Still, I couldn’t penetrate it. The bastard had powerful wards, designed to repel both human and Fae, and I was both, therefore blocked.

I’d planned to storm the room into which they vanished, thinking perhaps my uncle’s body was in that small cell and they were trying to perform some bizarre ritual with his potent druid remains.

It, too, was warded against Fae and human.

I stood outside, waiting for them to emerge with the long patience of an immortal.

Finally, the narrow door swung open.

“Where the fuck is my uncle?” I demanded.

Ryodan said coolly, “I already answered your questions, Highlander. As I’m sure you’ve seen, there’s nothing down here.”