Page 79

Kierse’s head was pounding. Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed cotton balls. Her eyes stung like she was cutting fresh onions. She could still smell the laced chloroform. It turned out she could still be knocked out by the shit, even as a wisp. Good times.

“Graves,” she said out loud.

No response. She couldn’t feel the earpiece in place anymore. Fuck.

She peeled her eyes open, but she might as well not have.

The room was pitch black. She could only make out that she was in some kind of conference room from the strip of light coming in under the door.

The only sound was the air-conditioning system blowing cold air on her face.

She was tied to a wooden chair with some kind of thick rope.

She wiggled against the bindings and immediately hissed as they dug in.

Not just ropes. Iron.

She froze like a deer in headlights. Who else knew what she was? That iron would be a better restraint than rope?

They had been careful. She’d been wearing her glamours all the time around New York, just as she had in Dublin.

The only people she’d told she was Fae, besides those who had been there the night she had discovered her identity—Graves, Lorcan, Ethan, and Gen—were Nate, Colette, Oisín, and Niamh. None of them would betray her.

But that wasn’t true, was it? Rio knew. Though she doubted this was their handiwork. No, there was one other person in Manhattan who knew her identity. The person who had put the spell on her to begin with—Cillian Ryan.

The cultist’s voice came back to her then: The Curator has been waiting for you .

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

They’d been so careful. And still, somehow, she’d been caught in the trap. She might have been strong enough to burst through rope, but the iron had enough of a dampening effect to make her nauseous. Or was that the drugs? Maybe both.

The question was: what was he going to do with her?

Kierse started to tremble. How long before anyone noticed she was missing? She was supposed to get herself out of the Plaza. Graves would be back at the brownstone already. Lyra had been dealing with a diversion. Everyone else had their own getaway plans. She was alone.

Fear filled her lungs and wracked her nerves.

The darkness was normally her friend. She needed to get it together.

She would not be the girl afraid of the dark.

She was a survivor. She had gone through worse than this.

Jason had beat her senseless and left her for dead.

She’d nearly died from god magic last year.

What was a little darkness when she was already filled to the brim with it? She had embraced the darkness long ago.

She would get herself out of this situation. She just had to wait. It was a common tactic. Sensory deprivation. Leave a mark alone with their thoughts long enough and they’d sing whatever tune you wanted.

Kierse wasn’t one of them. She went deep within herself.

To the vault that she opened and closed and opened and closed.

The memory that grounded her, that had always grounded her.

The thing she had thought about when Jason had hit her was the same place that brought her out of the magical connection with Lorcan was the same thing that kept her mind clear of panic.

Kierse jolted at that thought. She and Lorcan were connected. She could sense him, but only barely—maybe he’d already left the Plaza but wasn’t yet back to Brooklyn. They weren’t bound through the ceremony yet, and she had never tried to reach out to him. But if there was ever a time…

She closed her eyes and let her breathing even out. She ignored the feel of the iron biting into her skin and went deep into her magic. She felt that connection at the center of it all. The thrum that beat against her breastbone like a second heartbeat. Lorcan .

It purred to life at the acknowledgment.

It didn’t get any stronger, though. Still just a soft hum. She focused her entire attention on it. She let it build inside of her. Coaxed it to life in a way she never had before. The only time it had felt like this was when he was touching her.

She hesitated. She needed the connection to be stronger. As strong as when they kissed. But to do that…she’d have to let her mind go there. She’d have to think about him… want him.

Her stomach twisted. She didn’t want to want him. But if she wanted his help, then she would have to try. She’d have to let herself delve into that place she had ignored all this time. She had no one else she could reach right now. There was only Lorcan.

She let her defenses down, peeling back the layers of her mind until she exposed that small part of herself that did want Lorcan. And maybe…it wasn’t that small. Maybe it wasn’t just a sliver she ignored. Maybe it was all of her in that moment.

She swallowed hard as she let that connection, that feeling, that man flood through her.

All the things she had ignored and pushed aside and cut off from herself.

The first time he’d smiled at her when she’d met him at his restaurant.

The way he’d caught her stealing. How he could barely keep himself from touching her.

The ease of his presence when they talked.

The look on his face when he’d realized who and what she was in Graves’s library.

Even then, she’d known. Deep down, she’d known.

Her anger had been a living, fire-breathing dragon inside of her, and she’d refused to see it.

Now she couldn’t ignore it. The feel of his hands on her skin.

The summer sunshine on her face. Those cerulean eyes boring through her.

His insistence that she should live in Brooklyn with him, with her family, with his family.

That they were connected and she couldn’t deny it.

Now she wasn’t denying it. It was there.

Still, she pushed further. To that moment by the Oak Throne, wearing his faerie crown, his hands cupping her face.

The devotion in his eyes. The irreverent king wanting nothing more than his irreverent queen.

Then the kiss. His lips against hers. The way her entire being had been turned inside out.

She shuddered at the memory, at the way his touch, the way their magic rose up, could conjure a storm within her.

It ached to look at the memory. She’d made her choice, and still, this was here.

This thing she couldn’t seem to carve out of herself.

The magic rose like the tide. The connection strengthening in a way that she feared she wouldn’t be capable of dissipating. But that was a fear for another day. Not when she was bound by iron and helpless.

Right now, she needed him.

Lorcan , she pleaded silently, reaching through their connection. Please . Help .

She waited and waited and waited. Nothing happened.

She didn’t know what it would feel like for him to hear her, or if he could even reach back through.

Could he talk to her? Were her words reaching him?

Still she pushed, pleading and begging and coaxing, using the force of their connection to reach for him. Anything to get him to come back.

Don’t go to Brooklyn . Don’t leave me , she said in her mind. Come back . Help me .

The lights flicked on.

Her eyes were closed, and still she winced at the sudden brightness. It severed the connection to Lorcan she’d been trying so hard to hold on to. The magic faded back to its normal dullness as he continued to get farther away. She hadn’t reached him at all.

She slowly peeled her eyes open and got her first real look at the hotel meeting room.

She was facing the door with her back to most of the room.

There was a kitchenette against one wall stocked with drinks, and a small round table and chairs.

She tried to wrack her brain for the floor plan and guessed she was on the second or third floor, in one of the smaller rooms off the ballrooms. The hallway outside connected to elevators near the bathrooms. If she could just… get out, then she could escape.

But there was no time for that. The door was creaking open. A black boot appeared through the gap. Kierse rattled against her bindings, ignoring the pain that shot up her arms and legs as the iron worked hard against her skin. But it was no use. There was no escape from whatever was about to come.

The man who’d knocked her out stepped through first. She still didn’t know why he seemed familiar. Maya followed behind him. She pushed her glasses up her nose and smiled warmly at Kierse.

“Good to see you again, Shannon,” Maya said as she took up a position to Kierse’s left. The other man stood sentinel to her right. Two other guards she didn’t recognize took up stances by the door.

“Her name isn’t Shannon,” the guy barked. “It’s Kierse.”

The tap , tap , tap , of a cane against the floor announced the arrival of their leader. “Shannon was her mother.”

All of his goons dropped to a knee and said as one, “Curator.”

Kierse froze at the sight of the man who entered. The Curator. Cillian Ryan. A rogue Druid and the powerful magical user who had cast a spell on her and stolen her memories. She recognized the face that hadn’t aged in the nearly ten years since she’d stabbed him in the back and left him for dead.

“Jason?”