Then I scowled at him. “One,” I snapped, “how did you do that to fifty people at once. Two, why did it work on me when I thought I was supposed to be immune to you, and three—”
“The abbey is under attack. Get on the Hunter, Ms. Lane. And read this.” He thrust a paper at me. “We didn’t understand why the club was so empty. One of the patrons brought this in. Then Jada called. The others have already gone ahead.”
He’d waited for me. That must have driven him bugfuck crazy, knowing a battle was being fought and he wasn’t there. Waiting for his girlfriend.
“You’re not my girlfriend, Ms. Lane,” he said coolly.
“You could have gone without me,” I said just as coolly.
“You could have checked your bloody texts.”
I gave him a blank look. “I didn’t get any.” I tugged my cellphone from the front pocket of my jeans. It was completely coated with a thick layer of ice. When I fly, I scoot up beneath the bony apex of the Hunter’s wings because it gives me more to hold on to, and my phone must have been pressed to the underside of the frigid crest. I tapped it against a nearby trash can to crack the ice. Sure enough, three texts messages, and the last one was pissed as hell. I made a mental note to carry it somewhere else when I flew in the future.
“You still could have gone without me.”
“I bloody fucking know that.” He cut me a seething glance.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because, Ms. Lane, when the world goes to bloody hell, I will always be at your bloody side. Read the fucking paper. Not even Ryodan saw this one coming. Seems his ‘news’ isn’t as spot-on as it once was.”
I snatched the paper and scanned it quickly.
The Dublin Daily
August 7 AWC
STOP THE BLACK HOLES THAT
ARE DESTROYING OUR WORLD!!!
FREE PRINCE CRUCE!
Held hostage beneath ARLINGTON ABBEY is the most
POWERFUL FAE PRINCE ever created!
He is our SAVIOR!
He has the power to stop the black holes that are DEVOURING EARTH.
He ALONE possesses the magic to heal our world!
Fae power damaged it and only FAE MAGIC can SAVE it.
WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!
A secret cult known as the sidhe-seers has taken him PRISONER and is holding him in a vain attempt to EXPLOIT HIS POWERS for their OWN purposes!
They have the ability to travel to other worlds and care nothing for THIS ONE.
JOIN THE CRUCEAID!
FREE PRINCE CRUCE!!!
Meet at Arlington Abbey and help us liberate our champion!
See map below!
“Who would print this?” I exploded.
“No bloody clue,” Barrons said tightly. “Up. Now.”
I scrambled back onto the Hunter and, as Barrons settled behind me, reached for the great beast’s vast, unfathomable mind. Can you help us fight? Call more Hunters?
We do not attend matters of Fae and man.
You’ve been flying me around.
You amuse.
Because it sensed the king in me? I wondered. I order you to help us fight.
Not even you.
Can I offer you something? If bribes were what it wanted, I’d try.
It rumbled deep inside, a chuckle of sorts. You have nothing. We have all.
Well, then just hurry! I urged it. My friends are in danger. Take us to the abbey as quickly as you can get us there!
You do not mean that. It rumbled again and I felt its mirth. You would not survive. But it flapped its enormous leathery sails, churning black ice beneath us, and pumped up and up.
We soared beneath the clouds, where the day was still bright, then through the clouds and above them, sailing higher and higher into blackness and stars and cold, cold sky, then just when I thought my lungs might explode and it was getting dangerously hard to breathe, it tucked its wings close to its body like an eagle preparing to plunge and whispered in my mind with a soft rumble, Hold, not-king.
I shoved my arms beneath its tightly wrapped wings and hugged the bony crest, clutching it, clenched my thighs and pressed my face to its frosty hide. It burned and I drew back sharply, but too late, I left a layer of my cheek on its back. “Ow!”
It suddenly went motionless, hanging in the sky like a dead weight, not moving one leathery scale. I remained just as still, bracing for whatever was about to happen.
Suddenly it rocketed forward so fast I’d have flown right off its back if it hadn’t given me warning. I felt like the Enterprise, entering warp speed.
I tucked my face low (but not too low!) to its hide, as Barrons’s arms tightened around me, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the cutting wind. I could feel the skin of my cheeks dragging back with gravitational force humans were not intended to experience without helmets or space suits.
After a moment I slitted my eyes open and watched stars trail past, like silvery party streamers.
Behind me, Barrons laughed with raw, ferocious exhilaration. I felt the same. Best. Damn. Supercar. Ever.
I sensed the Hunter prodding gently at my mind, making sure I was breathing and alive.
Best safety features, too.
We bulleted through the sky, dropping down and down until at last fields came into view, lush and fantastical from Cruce’s magic. In no time at all we were nearly to the abbey.
“Oh, God, Barrons, look at all the Fae!” Nonsifters crammed the narrow winding road to the abbey, Seelie and Unseelie alike, while more loped and slithered and crawled through meadows, splashed and lumbered across streams. There were humans, too, though not many. I suspected there may have been more but this dark, wild army had fed on them, all pretense at seduction abandoned to the hunger of battle-frenzy. “All for Cruce?” I yelled over my shoulder. “I thought the Seelie despised the dark court!”