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“With me, you wouldn’t have to hide who you are.”

She flinched. What did he know?

A tiny nod. “I thought as much. Others so rarely understand what it is to be a Seer. They fear us, ridicule our Gift. Or worse, ignore our warnings.”

Like Adric.

“Yes,” he said with a commiserating smile. “That’s the hardest of all, isn’t it? When the people we love simply won’t listen.”

Rosana moved to the panther statue. The butterflies were still perched on its snarling black head, their fragile blue wings opening and closing.

She stared at them unseeingly. Don’t agree to anything.

But , a sly voice countered, Langdon’s an old, powerful fae. He’s probably forgotten more than Colm ever knew.

“My people would honor a Seer with your Gift,” the prince purred from the couch.

“You could name your price. You’d be a wealthy woman—you could buy and sell your own brothers.

But more, you’d have their respect. They don’t see you how you really are, do they?

” Soft, seductive tones. “They think you’re still a child who doesn’t know her own mind. ”

Her hand fisted.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

She shook her head, not because he was wrong, but because it hurt to admit he was right.

“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”

Temptation tugged at her. She swallowed around the constriction in her throat. “No,” she rasped.

On the couch behind her, Langdon made a sharp, irritable movement. “Consider what you’re turning down. Imagine the power you’d wield as an honored Seer.”

She closed her eyes. Because she could picture it.

She fingered Adric’s amethyst through the shirt. If she stayed at the court, she’d lose him.

Her mouth twisted. So? He doesn’t want you. Even your own clan doesn’t know who you really are. Here, you could be yourself.

Her fingers tightened around the pendant.

No. That’s Langdon’s darkness talking.

Beneath her shirt, the pendant warmed, almost as if Adric had infused it with a spark of his own energy.

Adric had given the pendant to her, attached it to a leather thong so she could always wear it. In that instant, she saw something very clearly—with her heart, not her Sight. The warmth expanded to fill her chest.

Adric did want her. He just didn’t want to want her.

And suddenly, she wasn’t tempted at all.

She turned around. “And if I say no? Will you let me leave?”

The prince moved an elegant shoulder. “Perhaps.”

Anger balled in her stomach. “You can’t keep me here.”

“No? Try to leave without my permission and the portals will slam shut. I’m told it’s like running full speed into a stone wall.”

“You think you’re safe behind your wards?” She stalked toward him. “Keep me here against my will and my brothers will carve out your fucking liver and feed it to the fish.”

The prince’s mouth curved. “You’re a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” She smiled back, drew the stiletto—and leapt over the couch.

She instinctively avoided touching his skin with her bare hands.

Instead, she grabbed his long black hair, jerked his head back and touched the needle-like point to the hollow of his throat.

His flesh sizzled, the acrid scent stinging her nostrils.

Langdon stilled—and then he raised a diamond-studded brow, that irritating half-smile on his lips again. “Now what?”

She pressed the blade a little deeper. “This isn’t a joke, asshole,” she said in her animal’s guttural voice.

His hand shot out, quick as a striking snake, to grip her jaw.

“Careful,” he gritted. “Right now the fact that you amuse me is all that’s keeping me from returning you to Blaer. She’s rather primitive in how she treats fada. She seems to consider you animals to be kept in cages. Perhaps you heard what happened to the Baltimore alpha’s sister?”

“Marjani Savonett?” She sucked in a horrified breath. Adric’s sister had been shut in a cage?

But she’d gone too far to back down now. “Go to Hades. I’m not here to fucking amuse you.” She pushed the stiletto deeper, piercing the skin.

Blood slid down Langdon’s throat, soaking the V of his pristine white shirt.

Cold fingers dug into her jaw. “That, my pretty little fada, was a mistake.”

A red flame flared to life deep in his pupils.

She swallowed and tried to wrench her gaze away. But she was caught. The dark power that had been pulling at her surged to life. Tentacles wrapped around her like an invisible octopus, latching on to her skin with eager, mindless mouths.

Terror swamped her. “Stop it!”

She knocked Langdon’s hand from her jaw and slapped at the writhing tentacles. But her hands slipped through them as if they weren’t there.

Langdon rose from the couch without taking his gaze from hers. Her lungs seized. Her fingers opened and the stiletto clattered to the floor as she stared helplessly into his fire-touched pupils.

Yesss. The mindless tentacles drank up her fear, enjoying it.

She shook her head from side to side. Her knees felt like jelly.

Look away.

But she couldn’t. She was ensnared, helpless as a trout in a net.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

A sharp rock of fear lodged in her throat.

I can’t. Hopelessness welled up inside her.

Yes, you can. This isn’t you—it’s him. He’s making you feel this way.

Somehow, she managed to drag her gaze from Langdon’s. Her breath shuddered in. She stared at the floor, chest heaving, and stopped her useless slapping at the tentacles.

“Get them off me,” she said. She tried to make it a command, but it came out more like a plea.

He stalked toward her. “I want you.” A cold statement, spoken through set lips.

She blinked. “What? No.”

“You still think to fight me?” His brows bunched in a baffled frown, and the sucking sensation receded.

She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “I won’t bargain with a man who’s attacking me.”

A considering pause. Then he nodded. “Very well.” As suddenly as the tentacles had appeared, they disappeared.

She backpedaled, getting as far from him as she could. When her back hit a bookcase she halted, sucking in oxygen, skin crawling.

Langdon picked up her stiletto, tossed it into the air. It transformed into a small brown bat and with a high-pitched squeal, shot across the room straight toward Rosana.

She stilled. What kind of Gift did Langdon have, that he could bring inanimate objects to life?

The bat circled her head, its tiny face inquisitive, its scent wild, earthy, and then flapped away, curiosity satisfied, to perch on a window valence.

The prince stalked toward her, hand outstretched. “Come.”

She forced herself to take it. His fingers were cool, firm.

He drew her toward the table. “Sit,” he said, and it wasn’t a request. “Eat my food. Drink my wine. And then we’ll talk.”

She moistened her lips. The best thing was to buy some time. Dion would come for her, and Cleia.

And then there was Adric. He’d left before her.

Which meant he was probably already in Virginia.

Ice sheeted down her spine. What if her being at the court somehow set off the timeline that led to his death?

The prince pulled out a chair for her. She sank numbly into it. As he took the seat beside her, an ornate silver spoon appeared on the table next to the fish stew.

“Eat.” Langdon nudged the bowl in her direction.