Being Pri-ya was worse than being raped by the princes.
It had been hundreds of rapes over and over again. My body had wanted. My mind had been vacant. Yet some part of the essential me had still been there, fully aware that my body was completely out of my control. That I wasn’t choosing. All my choices had been made for me. Sex should be a choice.
Only one had been left to me: more.
When he’d push inside me and I’d feel him begin to penetrate, it had turned me into a wild thing—hot, wet, and desperate for more of him. With every kiss, every caress, every thrust, I’d just needed more. He’d touched me, I went nuts. The world dwindled down to one thing: him. He really had been my world in that basement. It was too much power for one person to have over another. It could put you on your knees, begging.
I had a secret.
A terrible secret that had been eating me alive.
What did you wear to your senior prom, Mac?
That had been the last thing I’d heard, Pri-ya.
Everything from that moment on had really happened.
I’d faked.
I’d lied to him and myself.
I stayed.
And it hadn’t felt any different.
I’d been just as insatiable, just as greedy, just as vulnerable. I’d known exactly who I was, what had happened at the church, and what I’d been doing for the past few months.
And every time he’d touched me, my world had dwindled down to one thing: him.
He was never vulnerable.
I’d hated him for that.
I shook my head, scattered the broody thoughts.
Where would Barrons go to be alone, relax, maybe sleep? Beyond the reach of anyone. Inside a heavily warded Silver.
With the scent of him still hanging in the air, I ransacked his study.
I was feeling ruthless and tired of playing by rules. I didn’t know why there should be any rules between us, anyway. It seemed absurd. He’d been in my space since the moment I’d met him, larger than life, electrifyingly present, shaking me up and waking me up and making me just this side of insane.
I grabbed one of his many antique weapons and pried open the locked drawers of his desk.
Yes, he’d see that I broke into it. No, I didn’t care. He could just try to take his anger out on me. I had a fair share of my own.
He had files on me, on my parents, on McCabe, on O’Bannion, people I’d never heard of, even his own men.
There were bills for dozens of different addresses in many different countries.
In the bottom drawer, I found pictures of me. Stacks and stacks of them.
At the Clarin House, stepping out into the dewy Dublin morning, tan legs gleaming beneath the short hem of my favorite white skirt, long blond hair swinging in a high ponytail.
Walking across the green at Trinity College, meeting Dani for the first time, by the fountain.
Coming down the back steps of Alina’s apartment, exiting into the alley.
Slinking down the back alley, looking at O’Bannion’s abandoned cars, the morning I’d realized that Barrons had turned out all the lights and let the Shades take the perimeter, devouring sixteen men to kill a single one who was a threat to me. There was shock, horror, and something unmistakably relieved in my eyes.
Fighting back-to-back with Dani, sword and spear blazing alabaster in the darkness. There was a whole series of those shots, taken from a rooftop angle. I was on fire, face shining, eyes narrowed, body made for what I was doing.
Through the front window of the bookstore, hugging Daddy.
Curled on the sofa in the rear conversation area of BB&B, sleeping, hands tucked against my chest. No makeup. I looked seventeen, a little lost, completely unguarded.
Marching into the Garda station with Jayne. Heading back to the bookstore, without flashlights. I’d never been in danger that night. He’d been there, making sure I survived whatever came my way.
No one had ever taken so many pictures of me before. Not even Alina. He’d caught my subtlest emotions in each shot. He’d been watching me, always watching me.
Through the window of a crofter’s cottage, I was touching Nana’s face, trying to push into her thoughts and see my mother. My eyes were half closed, my features drawn with concentration.
Another rooftop shot. I had my palm on the Gray Woman’s chest, demanding she restore Dani.
Was there anything he didn’t know?
I let the photos fall back into the drawer. I was feeling light-headed. He’d seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He never asked me any questions, unless he thought I needed to figure out the answers. He never decked me out in convenient labels and tried to stuff me in a box. Even when there were plenty of labels to stick to me. I was what I was at that moment and he liked it, and that was all that mattered to him.
I turned and stared into the mirror.
The reflection of a stranger stared back.
I touched my face in the reflection. No, she wasn’t a stranger. She was a woman who’d stepped out of her comfort zone in order to survive, who’d become a fighter. I liked the woman I saw in the looking glass.
The surface of the mirror was icy beneath my fingers.
I knew this Silver. I knew all the Silvers. They had something of … K’Vruck in them. Had the king selected an ingredient of their creation from the Hunter’s home world?
As I gazed into it, I sought that dark, glassy lake and told it I wanted in.
Missed you, it steamed. Come swim.
Soon, I promised.
Alabaster runes popped up from the black depths, shimmering on the surface.
It was that easy. I asked, it gave. Always there, always ready.
I scooped them up and pressed them, one after another, to the surface of the Silver.
When the final one was in place, the surface began to ripple like silvery water. I trailed my fingers through it and the waters peeled back, receded to the black edges of the mirror, leaving me staring down a fog-filled path through a cemetery. Behind tombstones and crypts, dark creatures slithered and crept.
The Silver belched a gust of icy air.
I stepped up, into the mirror.
As I suspected, he’d stacked Silvers to form a gauntlet no intruder would make it through alive, protecting his underground abode.
Nine months ago, if I’d been able to figure out how to get in, I’d have gotten killed within the first few feet. I was attacked the instant I stepped inside. I didn’t have time to draw my spear. When the first volley of teeth and claws came at me, my lake instantly offered and I accepted without hesitation.