Flames crackled and popped from white-barked, fragrant-smelling logs before I’d even finished speaking.

“I will provide for all your needs, MacKayla. You have but to ask. Your parents are well. I have seen to it. Barrons cannot give you what I can.”

I rubbed my hands together, warming them. “Thank you for checking. Please continue to do so.” At some point, I wanted to see them, if only from a distance. Even if the cell towers had been up, I wasn’t sure I could have spoken to them right now. I was no longer the daughter they’d known. But I was the daughter who loved them and would do everything in my power to protect them. Even if that meant staying away, so none of my enemies could follow me there.

I turned around. V’lane was on my right, Barrons at my left. I was amused to see that a sofa, four chairs, and three tables had appeared in the twenty-five feet between them. V’lane had rearranged furniture while my back was turned. As if a little furniture would stop Jericho Barrons. He could move lightning-fast, and there was no love lost between these two. For the umpteenth time, I wondered why. I knew neither of them would ever tell me.

Still, there might be a way …

In the meantime, while I stockpiled my flagging energy for the attempt, I said, “Bring me up to speed. What happened at the Keltars’ on Samhain?”

“The ritual to maintain the walls failed,” said Barrons.

“Obviously. Details.”

“We used dark magic. We tried everything. The Keltar come from a line of Druids that have long been walking a fine line. Especially Cian. Dageus and Drustan made the first attempt. When that failed, Christian and I took our turn.”

“What exactly did your ‘turn’ constitute?”

“Don’t ask, Ms. Lane. This time just leave it. It was the only thing we could have done that might have worked. It didn’t. It’s no longer relevant.”

I dropped the subject. I’d get more detail from Christian than I’d ever get from Barrons, and I planned to see him as soon as possible. He was an integral part of my plans for the future.

As if he’d read my mind, Barrons said, “Christian is gone.”

I jerked. “What do you mean, gone?”

“Missing. He disappeared when the Fae realm supplanted Ban Drochaid, the white stones where the Keltar perform the ritual. He was in the circle when it happened.”

“Well, where did he go?” I demanded, looking from Barrons to V’lane.

“If we knew that, he wouldn’t be missing,” Barrons said dryly.

“Impossible to say,” said V’lane, “although we have been searching. My queen is deeply distressed to have lost one of her Keltar Druids at such a critical time. His uncles, too, seek him.”

“He’s been missing for two months?” I was horrified. Where was the young, sexy Scotsman? Don’t let him be in Faery, I thought, being made Pri-ya! He had just the kind of extraordinary good looks that appealed to the Fae. I hated asking the next question. “Do we know if he’s alive? Does either of you have some mystical way of determining that?”

They shook their heads.

I sighed heavily and rubbed my eyes. Damn. Christian was the only man I’d met since arriving in Dublin that I’d actually trusted—well, more than anyone else, at least—and now he was gone. I refused to believe he was dead. That would be giving up on him. I would never give up on any of my humans.

Not only did I like him, I needed him. He was a walking lie detector. His ability to discern truth from fiction was a talent I’d been itching to put to use. And it was these two standing in this very room that I’d wanted to test it on. I narrowed my eyes. How very convenient for both of them that he’d disappeared when he had.

I was worried for Christian. I was disappointed that I’d lost the opportunity to force some answers.

But I hadn’t lost all my opportunities.

“Get your things,” Barrons said. “Let’s go. Now.”

“MacKayla comes with me,” said V’lane. “You cannot protect her parents. You cannot sift. She will not choose you.”

There was enough testosterone in the room for an entire army of men, and I wasn’t immune to it. Even without glamour, V’lane was more seductive than any human male alive. And Barrons—well, the body remembered and reveled in every moment of it. The two of them turning it up at the same time made it a little hard to breathe.

I looked from one to the other, considering my options. They watched in silence, waiting for me to make my choice.

I stepped toward Barrons.

His dark gaze glittered with triumph. I could feel the smugness rolling off him, nearly as strong as the sexual charge he was throwing my way.

“Think hard and fast,” V’lane hissed. “It would be unwise to alienate me, MacKayla.”

I was thinking hard and fast.

I closed my hand around Barrons’ forearm. He could not have looked more pleased if I’d just gazed up at him with doe eyes and told him he was my world.

I locked my hand down, dug my nails into his flesh, and held on.

His eyes narrowed, then flared, and then I was no longer seeing him at all, because I’d pushed, pushed, pushed violently, stabbed myself brutally deep into his mind with the special sidhe-seer talent that had fully wakened in his bed.

I wanted answers. I wanted to know why there was so much animosity between these two. I wanted to know who to trust, who was not the better man but at least the slightly less-bad one.