Chapter 5

The silence coils thick and acrid, like smoke.

Finally, Andreas breaks it. "She wanted to cast the glamour before you were born, but it required too much vitality. It took weeks before we were able to weave the glamour on you."

"Where was I born?" I ask.

"You were born in a safe house on the shores of Lake Michigan, about an hour outside of Chicago. Eliza was in labor for sixteen hours, and you were delivered by a fae midwife at exactly three-thirty-three in the morning, on March Third, two-thousand-five. You were seven pounds six ounces, and nineteen and a half inches. You had so much hair, and your eyes, Maeve, your eyes were so blue it was downright eerie."

I swallow hard, sniffle, wipe the tears that just won"t stop. "You were there?"

His smile is a bright blossom of love. "Of course I was, Maeve. I held your mother"s hands and I counted through the contractions. I cut your umbilical cord. I held you less than fifteen minutes after you emerged from your mother." He blinks hard, but the tears fall anyway—it seems to me a testament to his masculinity and strength that he lets them fall without embarrassment. "I may not be your father biologically, but I"ve always felt like I am. I know Eliza…I know your mom wanted me to be. I understand you don"t know me in that way, since we"ve only known each other for a short time."

"Andreas, I…"

He interrupts, even as I trail off, the words drying up in my mouth—I have too many thoughts and feelings happening all at once. "It"s okay. My experience isn"t yours, Maeve. For me, the last eighteen years have flashed by in a blink, waiting for you to grow up, waiting for…well, what happened."

"Are you mad at Mom for leaving?"

He sighs. "Not mad—I get it. It hurt, of course. Maybe I could have protected her. Kept her from being executed. But…they were onto us by the time you were two weeks old. Your mom spotted a tail—she was glamoured to look totally unlike herself, but they knew where we were and it was only a matter of time before they found us. We hadn"t managed the glamour yet, and while you hadn"t manifested anything, you were basically a beacon for anyone who knew how to look."

"I hadn"t manifested anything yet?" I ask.

"Oh, well, fae children don"t display any real magical traits till puberty. Growth and age rates are mortal-normal through the end of puberty, and that"s when magical traits and abilities begin showing up and aging slows nearly to a halt."

"What did you mean when you said Mom was executed?" I ask.

He sighs. "Officially, her cause of death is severe cranial trauma from a car accident. I don"t have any firm details, but I know for a fact that she didn"t die in a crash. This is how they do things, these days. Bribes, glamours, and manipulation to cover their dirty deeds. Now, I doubt highly the order came from your grandfather. Rather, I suspect it came from even higher up—the Tribunal. But I"ve heard and read reports from LA-based fae, members of the sect I"m a part of, that your mother was taken off the street by Tribunal Enforcers. These are eyewitness accounts from masked fae."

"Why—" my voice breaks. "Why execute her?"

"She killed at least fifty immortals, Maeve. She never knew the full scope of her vent burst. It was, as far as I know, the largest mass death of immortals since World War Two, when a bomb dropped on a fae safe house during the London Blitz."

"They kidnapped her and subjected her to sexual assault for six months!" I shout, shooting to my feet—I feel power buzzing in my veins, and I know I'm dangerously close to losing control.

I feel fire crackling on my palms, flickering at the tips of my hair, snapping behind my eyes.

Andreas is unfazed. "Take a breath, Maeve. Rein it in. I"m on your side. I"m only explaining it from their perspective, not absolving or justifying."

I glance down at my hands, fisted at my sides—heatless white flames lick at my knuckles; I open my hands palms up in front of me and watch the flames dance. I suck in a ragged, sobbing breath, and another, but the flames remain. Focus. I need to focus. I suck in another breath and hold it, and this time I turn my focus inward, to where the sea of power simmers at the core of my being. It"s a boiling cauldron at the moment, rather than a simmering stock pot. The flames on my hands, hair, and eyes are a symptom of leaking power, like lava trickling out of a caldera and down the side of a volcano on the verge of eruption.

I visualize the flames becoming liquid, reversing flow into my veins, oozing back into my pores, sluicing inward, downward, deeper and deeper within until it becomes a river of white and gold liquid magic, glittering and twisting and flowing back into the ocean of vitality. And then I visualize the boiling cauldron quieting, the heat dissipating, the power calming.

Slowly, the buzzing in my veins subsides, and I feel like myself again, rather than a lit stick of dynamite.

"Good." Andreas"s voice is calm and soothing. "Very good, Maeve. Excellent control. You really are your mother"s daughter. You have her temper as well as her control."

I frown at him. "Temper? I never saw Mom anything other than cool as a cucumber. She never raised her voice, not once."

He smiles. "Thus the control. When she was younger, gods, she had a hell of a hot temper."

"Really?" I ask, my voice quiet and shaky.

"Oh yes. Most definitely." He looks spent, pale, and tired. "We were in…Cyprus. It was after the war for Greek independence, so perhaps 1830? No later than 1835. We were eating at a little cafe on the seaside, toward sunset. A beautiful day, but then, most days are beautiful in Greece." He smiles wistfully. "Anyway. There was a man. He was drunk, and his donkey wasn"t cooperating. It wouldn"t go. He"d overloaded the cart, and the poor donkey wasn"t having it. So, the man began kicking the beast, mercilessly. Your mother, oh, she lost it. Before I could so much as blink, she"d left the table and was out in the street. The fire you just experienced? Well, that"s a family trait. She was an inferno of rage. She didn"t say a word. All you could see was a woman-shaped pyre of golden-white flames. She spoke a word of power, and snapped her fingers at the man." He shakes his head, smiling at the memory. "He just… desiccated. Instantly."

"Dessicated?" I question.

"She evaporated all the water out of his body. I saw a cloud of steam rise up from his body, and then he just… withered. Instantly. His skin turned to paper and then shriveled up around his bones, and then he collapsed."

"Holy shit," I breathe. "You can do that?"

"Indeed. And much worse, if you have a mind to. That"s why mortals fear us the way they always have." He sighs. "Such acts are, obviously, strictly prohibited, and were even then. Using your abilities in public, especially resulting in the death of a mortal? Huge no-no. Fortunately, the street was largely empty at the time, and the man she killed was wholly and vehemently despised by everyone, so no one mourned his loss. She was very, very fortunate in that respect, or she would have caught the attention of the Tribunal, which is…not a good thing."

I pace across the room to the window looking out over the front yard. I"m feeling…god, a million and one different emotions. I have a few facts and roughly six zillion questions.

Mom was a Fae. A powerful one. She was five hundred years old.

She was the unwilling subject of a reproduction experiment, forced into it by her own father. I am the result of that experiment.

She was murdered by the Tribunal—or the IRRC. Or both.

I have a grandfather and grandmother I"ve never met. The identity of my biological father is a mystery.

The IIRC is hunting me, likely even as we speak.

Most immortals would kill me out of hand simply for existing, for being what I am, even though I had no choice in my existence, and didn"t even know WHAT I was until mere hours ago.

"Speak your thoughts, Maeve."

I shake my head. "Too many."

"First thing that comes to mind."

"If immortals can cross-copulate or whatever, and make babies that way, without risking innocent mortal lives, why is it such a taboo thing? Why would the larger immortal population not want to at least entertain the idea?"

"Because there are simply too many questions," Andreas says. "Does the offspring of a cross-race mating always result in a hybrid like you? How does the hybridization work? How do the powers and abilities balance out? A vampire is balanced by blood hunger. Fae need vitality. Shifters need…I don"t know, but there"s a balance there, I"m certain. What if a hybrid is out of balance? That could disrupt the very tenuous balance between the three races as it has existed for millennia. Take you, for example. Do you require blood and vitality in equal measure, or is there a bias toward blood or vitality? What happens when you are unblooded? Or without vitality? Are you sensitive to sunlight? Do you possess the powers of a vampire in full measure along with full fae powers? What about reproduction? When and if you have a child, as your mother predicted, how will the race of the father affect that? If you, a fae-vampire hybrid—a Vaer, as your mother named you—have a baby with Caspian, a vampire…then what? Is the child three-quarters vampire? What happens when the other two races procreate? What does a shifter-fae look like? A shifter vampire?"

I feel Andreas moving behind me, hear ice crackle and clink against the glass and the echoing huff of breath against the foreshortened tunnel of the tumbler, and then the metallic thunk of ice crashing into the sink and the glass being set down on the counter.

He leans against the window frame beside me, just inside my peripheral vision. "There are just too many unknowns, too many questions."

"So?" I turn my head to look at him. "If it"s that, risk open with mortals again, or die out, doesn"t it make sense to simply opt for self-preservation as a species? As a culture? Even if there are unknowns, even if things might change?"

"You"d think so, I suppose. On paper, it seems logical enough a choice. But what you"re not accounting for is the simple fact that eventually pure-blooded vampires, shifters, and fae would vanish and there would only be hybrids. And that would be the end of our races anyway, and the end of our cultures. Plus, all that aside, you"re facing an uphill battle against thousands and thousands of years of tradition and cultural enmity. Or, if not outright hostility, at the very least distrust."

I let out a disgusted sigh. "It seems immortals are human after all: stubbornly resistant to change, even if it is a matter of our own survival." I shake my head. "And in the meantime, I"m going to be hunted purely for the fact of my existence. I didn"t ask for this. Hell, Mom didn"t ask for this. We"re the victims here, but they"re gaslighting us into being the villains."

"Unfortunately, yes." He suddenly freezes, his eyes flashing white, nostrils flaring. "They"re here. You need to go. NOW."

I reach out a mental tendril, the same vaguely-understood extra sense that I use to see within, to stir my powers, to reach for my vitality. Now, I attempt to extend it outward simply as a receptor, listening, sensing, feeling.

There: I taste them…six—no, nine—wait…twelve bodies. Twelve lifeforms. Twelve distinct bloodflows, warm, sweet-smelling, luscious, tempting.

Fuck, I"m hungry.

I feel them. Hear them:

…fan out…

…assume…dangerous…

powers unknown…

…wanted alive…

…roger…

My muscles feel like piano wire, stretched taut, humming with untapped power, vibrating with unspent kinetic energy. The cauldron of power within boils, begs for release.

My blood burns. My mouth….salivates. The scent of their blood, even hundreds of yards away, taunts me. Teases. Tempts.

My vision goes white, and the roaring of blood in my ears drowns out the world until I know nothing but the scent of the blood out there, sunlight made liquid, undiluted power, distilled magic.

"—MAEVE! SNAP OUT OF IT!" A voice permeates the tumult, the white-out of hunger.

Andreas.

I see him in front of me, his familiar face, the heavy stubble replaced by the smooth, hairless jawline of a fae male. And I…I smell his blood. It"s the same. Sunlight and magic. I can almost taste it.

"Maeve?" His voice is low, dangerous, razor sharp with unveiled threat. "Maeve, it"s me. It"s Andreas."

The hunger is nearly too strong. I fight it. Part of me recognizes him, knows him as my friend, my father figure, but the baser part of me, at this moment, only sees him as food. My whole being trembles with the war of self against self.

I reach out to Caspian. It"s all I can do—I fear I'm going to lose the war. Caspian? Help. Help me.

But he"s already here. I feel his arms around me like iron bands, feel his breath on my ear. "I"m here, beloved. I"m here, my bloodmate." His voice is real. He"s real. It cuts through the clamor of hunger. "Stop fighting it. You won"t win, not like that."

"Andreas," I hiss, my voice distorted by elongated fangs, by inhuman power and primal hunger. "Blood."

"Now is not the time for lessons," Andreas snaps. "The Council"s warriors are here. Get her out of here. I"ll handle them."

That pulls me out of it a little bit. "Don"t die." My voice is still thick, darkened, more animal and less human. "Need you."

He cups the back of my neck and rests his forehead against mine. "I"ll come to you, Maeve. I"ll teach you how to leach and how to cast a mask on yourself. I"ll tell you more about your mother. The Council"s Elites can"t handle me on their best day, my dear. The warriors out there are young bucks. I"d fought a thousand battles before they learned their first glamour."

His blood is an overpoweringly delicious scent in my nostrils, his wrists so close. He pulls away, and his words are for Caspian. "Get her out of here."

He finds my gaze and holds it. "You trust no one but me and the Taylors."

The hunger is fading—sort of like normal, mortal hunger, coming and going in waves, only a thousand times more powerful.

"Andreas…" tears spring to my eyes as awareness and control return. "I"m sorry, I"m sorry, I—"

His smile is quick, the touch of his lips to my forehead quicker yet. "Nothing to apologize for, darling. now go. Trust no, and do not let them take you, no matter what it takes. I'll find you."

Caspian"s arms tighten around me and then we"re airborne, wind whistling past my ears. A tree branch touches the bottom of my feet, and I smell pine sap, hear a bird flutter away squawking in terror.

I smell the fae warriors. Hear their voices as they murmur to each other. I hear a sound—a WHUMP, like a muffled explosion. Shouts. Screams. The clash of metal on metal.

"Maeve? Baby?" Caspian"s voice in my ear. "Focus on physical sensations. The branch under your feet. The wind. The birds. Warmth. Cool. Me."

I feel the tree swaying. My vision is tunneled, hyper-focused on what"s directly in front of me—bark, pine needles. Sap—thick, sludgy, amber, oozing in slow runnels between the gaps in the bark. I see an insect, something tiny, almost microscopic, scuttling.

I expand my awareness, forcefully, savagely. The wind, long and low and cool. It"s infinite, the wind. No beginning, no end, no middle. It just is. It"s everywhere. I feel the weight of darkness, the onrushing of night. I breathe in, deeply, slowly. I taste them out there, the fae soldiers. I smell their blood—spilled, soaking into dirt and mingling with pine needles and grass. I smell eight lives, eight still-pumping hearts. Eight bloodflows of magical sunlit starburst blood that would be so sweet on my tongue…

Caspian"s fingers dig into my arm. "Don"t fight against it, Maeve. That only makes it worse. When the hunger hits, you have to freeze yourself. Lock down your muscles. Dig into the earth. Feel the sky and the soil and the wind, and become one with it. Let the hunger move through you. It"s a thing, the bloodlust. I think of it as a parasite. You can"t get rid of it, and you can"t win in a battle of wills. Let it have its way in your mind and in your soul, but not your body. It can"t rule your body if you don"t let it."

I do as he says—focus on the wind and the cold of the night and the rough bark of the pine tree against my cheek, the scent of the sap. I focus on the inhumanly slow thump of my heart, beating not quite fifteen beats per minute—each pulse is viciously powerful, however, sending the blood rushing around the loop of my veins several times for each pump of the muscle in my chest.

The bloodlust abates as swiftly as it hit.

"Good, my love. Good." He nips at my earlobe. "Now. We need to move. I can carry you, but it would be faster if you could run on your own."

I let him go, and it's only when I force myself to let him go that I realize I had him in a death grip, clinging to him for dear life so hard a mortal would have been crushed like a soda can.

"I can run." I"m somehow able to balance without thought or effort on a branch barely bigger than my wrist.

Yet, even as I realize it, the branch creaks under my weight, as if I was subconsciously lightening myself.

I pull on the maelstrom of magic within me and picture myself weighing no more than a sparrow—immediately, the creaking fades and the branch straightens, unbends.

"Perfect," Caspian murmurs. "Now, try to keep up. You know the way."

He"s gone in an eyeblink—my brain, or perhaps my consciousness, hasn"t fully adjusted to my new reality, and for a moment I"ve lost him, unable to follow his preternaturally swift movements. Then, I feel something click in my brain, I feel my eyes focus, and I see him ahead of me, perhaps a hundred feet. He"s running from branch to branch, tree to tree as if along the forest floor, effortlessly, dancing on diagonals, soaring five, ten, sometimes up to twenty feet at a time, landing on the balls of his feet and his toes and pushing off again instantly.

I pull on the magic within and leap to the nearest branch, a few feet higher than the one I"m perched on, and perhaps six or eight feet away. I"ve misjudged, however—too much power and not enough weight. I float like a lost feather far past my intended target and slam full-force into another tree a full fifteen feet away. The impact is painful, and I hear a crunch and crackle of snapping wood—the tree is bent, broken nearly in half.

So, apparently, using vitality to make myself lighter doesn"t actually reduce my mass. I don"t understand the physics of it, but then I"ve always barely passed math class, and I'm particularly bad a physics, so my hope of comprehending magical physics is less than zero. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel gravity pulling at me.

I squat on the branch, rolling my shoulder to stretch it out after the impact. I can feel the tree, though. I can almost…hear it. I can sense its pain as if there is something semi-sentient within it.

I"m sorry,I whisper to the tree, and press my palm to the break, not allowing myself to think, following instinct instead. I feel the maelstrom within begging for release, for use, begging to be set free upon the world. It wants to help.

Almost as semi-sentient as the tree I"ve broken, the magic within me lifts in coils and tendrils, moving with serpentine waves, undulating, nosing up and up and up. It feels like like soda water in my veins, like static in my blood. Gut—lungs, throat, shoulder, bicep, forearm, slinking and speeding all at once into my palm. A long hot wind sears my cheeks, the broken and sagging upper half of the tree inches upward—ninety degrees, then forty-five, and then it's vertical again and I can hear wood crackling and creaking, but in reverse. I can"t explain the sound any better, other than to say it sounds like snapping wood but in reverse. And just like that, the keening of the tree in the still, small voids of my immortal mind ceases, leaving only relief.

The maelstrom has quieted within me, as well, the pressure of unspent magic less painful.

I focus my gaze on a thick branch ten feet away, too far for a mortal to leap unaided, and lower to the ground than I am, now.

I leap.

I feel the branch under my feet, feel it bend and hear it creak, and I leap again without thought, without focus or conscious intent—this time, I soar effortlessly to a branch fifty feet away, and my feet carry me to another and another, and somehow I feel Caspian behind me, hear his laughter both out loud and in my mind. This distracts me, and I overshoot my target, hurtling to the ground; I hit with a crunch, leaving a hollow depression in the ground, shaken up and aching.

You can"t TRY, Caspian says. You can"t think about it. It"s like riding a bicycle or throwing a ball—your mind does the necessary calculations subconsciously, and your body knows what to do, but if you start thinking about it too hard, you"ll wipe out. Just follow me, and focus on your next step. You"ll get the hang of it in no time.

I leap before my brain has a chance to catch up, toes hitting a branch and pushing me off in a single motion. Another branch. Another. The forest flies past in a blur, and I get snatches and glimpses of forest life—a deer below, sensing our passage and freezing, barely breathing, a squirrel, a bird, insects. I don"t allow myself to think; I attune my focus to Caspian"s form, ahead of me once more, putting my intent upon landing where his feet touch.

It"s like flying. I let myself laugh as the thrill ripples through me—I"m doing it!

I feel Stirling"s mind brush against mine: he"s giddy with my excitement, and he wants me to know it. I nuzzle him mentally, sharing my joy.

He sends me an image: Stirling"s fangs in my throat, mine in his wrist, and I can feel across the connection the painful hardness of his arousal, and then the image twists somehow, and Caspian is inside me and he"s coming and he"s telling me he loves from his mind to mine and Stirling"s long hard cock is pressing against my lips and sliding into my mouth, and I feel his pleasure. I feel the memory of his ecstasy as I take him deep into my mouth—I feel, almost as if the sensations were my own, hot wet sliding heat of a mouth around my cock and it"s pure heaven, a heaven I haven"t felt in so, so long, and it"s her, it"s me, it"s—god, it"s confusing, my awareness of my own self tangled up into his memory—and I"m coming and I feel her coming and I feel her orgasm rippling and ripping through her and I feel my own orgasm like an onrushing tide and I don"t fight it, I give it to her, and I take it, I take his long slender lovely cock in my mouth and my beloved Caspian comes inside me and loves me and shares me eagerly with his brother and I"m coming as her mouth tightens around me and her mouth is so fucking hot and so tight and so wet and so beautiful and I feel her love for Caspian like an inferno and his for her more vaugely but equally as potent and her body is so perfect and there is no past or present or future, only her and me and him—I, and I, and I.

Mingled ecstasy, triune completion. I come, and it"s a hollowing out of my being, and I taste him all at once, and I feel Caspian surging inside me and Stirling at the back of my throat and his cum tasting so good, tasting of him, tasting of his soul—

Jesus, Stirling. Warn a girl, next time.

He laughs, mind to mind. It"s all I can think about.

I can"t tell if this is limited to only him and me, or if the others are here. I cast out my awareness, but the others are vague and distant—except Caspian, but I think he somehow knows I was talking to Stirling and chose to give me privacy. This whole coven thing is weird. My mortal upbringing makes me feel like I should be ashamed of myself, of being shared, like I"m being passed around and it"s wrong somehow.

I deny that feeling, that impulse. I am not mortal, and mortal ethics and social mores do not apply to me. What I"ve shared with Stirling feels right. It feels…normal. It feels good. I can sense the boundaries—I know them, and I embrace them.

I could feel how dark and heavy things were for you, there for a minute,Stirling says, and I figured I"d lighten things up for you. I thought maybe you needed reminding of the finer things in life. Like me.

I laugh and share my feeling of gratitude for his distraction. It was heavy, yes, but it was good, in a way. I have some much-needed answers about myself and my origins.

This whole interlude occupied less than a minute—I"ve been crouched on a branch some ten feet off the forest floor; Caspian is ahead of me, and I can feel him pulling me onward, and the levity and arousal of the moment are doused with a bucket of cold water as I feel the fae behind me, feel their relentlessness, their determination to capture me. I can taste their ill intent in the air like the rank, fetid scent of a malignant swamp.

I burst into flight, barely touching each branch as I speed ahead to catch up with Caspian. All at once, I"m soaring into a clearing, and their house looms in the night, a thing of gothic spires and glass glinting in the starlight.

My feet hit dirt and I slide to a stop at the base of the porch steps. The four men of my coven stand in a line abreast on the porch, waiting for me.

Fin has my duffle bag and purse, as well as my carry-on-sized hard-side roller suitcase. He"s serious, which is an intense feeling coming from him. Alistair has changed out of his usual chinos and blazer, opting for lightweight black cargo pants with combat boots, a black t-shirt, and a ballcap with a logo patch on it: the logo bears a dagger, point down, adorned with wings, and ribbon with the words "Who dares wins". The hat is battered and faded, weather-worn. For the first time since I met him, I see more in him than the calm, genial professor, the father figure, the tragic archetype. For the first time, I get a sense of a man who has seen war when war was lines of men clashing together with swords, spears, axes, and shields, a hail of arrows and the reckless spill of blood, mortal and immortal.

Fin and Stirling are similarly dressed, in fatigues from a bygone era—Stirling"s uniform is formal looking, blue-gray, pressed and creased, whereas Fin"s is unfamiliar to me, being khakI with a more formal button down with a black leather belt that has a strap crossing his torso diagonally; the shirt features wide, prominent lapels, adorned with rank patches, although I"m clueless as the indicated rank. Oddly, instead of trousers, he wears shorts with knee-high socks and thick, ankle-height leather boots.

He feels my question and answers it mentally. French Foreign Legion.

Caspian still wears his customary street clothes, although he"s changed in the moments since he left the forest ahead of me, now wearing black jeans, a tight-fitting black V-neck shirt, and boots.

"What"s with the military getups?" I ask out loud.

Alistair answers. "Fae approach—I know you"ve sensed them. They mean harm to us and intend to capture you, no matter the consequences. We will not seek conflict with them, but neither will we avoid it."

"That"s great, but it doesn't explain why Fin and Stirling are wearing hundred-year-old uniforms," I say with a smirk. "I mean, don"t get me wrong, I"m as much a sucker for a man in uniform as the next girl, so it"s hot, but I don"t get it."

To my surprise, it"s Fin who answers, with no trace of his usual humor. "As with most things, we are most comfortable with old things. In this case, our old uniforms." His broad, handsome face creases with a frown. "We have all seen too much war to not feel it approaching. This is how we prepare, mentally and emotionally."

I gulp a breath. "War?"

He smiles gently. "A small one, perhaps, but a war nonetheless." He"s not the Fin I know—his eyes speak of gunfire and bloodshed and lost comrades in the rippling desert heat. The uniform suits him. I touch his mind, and I see him kneeling in the sand, rifle braced in the crook of a curled arm, sand everywhere, men all around, some alive, some dead. I hear the distant echoes of gunfire, hear yells and screams.

His huge hard hand cups my jaw. "All will be well, Little Sparrow." No, this is not my Fin.

I lift on my toes and nip his lower lip. "Give me my Fin back."

The weight of ages past ebb from his eyes, and he grins, cocky. "We got you, babe."

"There you are," I murmur.

When do I get you alone?he asks, sending me a private inkling of his need, his desire—it sends heat billowing through me, as the simmering inferno of post-bloodmating arousal returns to a boil. Barely got to taste you, sweetness. I need more.

Soon, Fin. I can"t promise when, but believe me, I need to taste more of you too.I let him have a hint of my own need, my roiling desire, along with an imagined picture of us, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, of my hands on him, of my bare body laid out for him, begging for him.

He snarls, grinning at me, and saunters down the steps, pausing beside me. He nuzzles my throat with his nose, inhales deeply, and then continues to Caspian"s truck, where he secures my suitcase in the bed with a bungee cord.

I eye the truck, and then Caspian. "I take it there"s a plan?"

"We"re going to New York," Capian answers. "To one of the havens we own. They can"t be traced back to us, first of all. And second, there are apartments above them. The apartments are secret, and accessible only to us."

"We"re all going together?" I ask.

Alistair answers. "No, Maeve. You and Caspian should go alone. Fin, Stirling, and I will hold back and deal with any pursuit, if possible. We"ll meet you in New York."

"Will you make sure Andreas is all right?" I ask.

Alistair grins. "It would take far more than a band of Elites to put a fae like Andreas in danger, my dear. His exploits are rather notorious in certain immortal circles."

"Oh."

Alistair"s eyes narrow, and his nostrils flare. "Go. You need a head start." He meets my eyes. "Use every resource and ability at your disposal to stay free, Maeve. Do not let them take you prisoner. We could, and would, free you, no matter what it takes, but once they have you, getting you free of their laboratories would be a dangerous proposition." His gaze is serious, concerned. "They want you alive, so they won"t be using lethal attacks, which gives you an advantage. By which I mean you must be willing to take lives, Maeve. You can effect a change in this world, dearest one. And I believe you"re meant to. Our culture, immortal culture, is stagnant. We"re dying out and too myopic and stuck in our traditions and enmities to change. You are the change. But you can only do this if you"re free. Do you understand?"

I inhale, eyes closed, and then let it out and nod once, meeting his gaze. "I do. Andreas said something very similar."

"He"sa wise man…for a fae." He says this with a sardonic, teasing smile.

There are no goodbyes or embraces, but as I slide into the passenger seat of Caspian"s truck, I feel Fin"s mind touch mine, absent of words or images, purely sensory—arousal, the foreign and thrilling sensation of his achingly hard cock; Stirling shares an image of me as I walk to the truck, specifically his hungry view of my ass swaying side to side, and then the sweep of my hair around my shoulders, and then my eyes palest blue and dimly glowing as I glance over my shoulder.

Alistair brushes up against my mind as well—there"s comfort and protection and security in his touch, but I sense his need behind it, buried and hidden and blocked away.

I meet his gaze through the window, and I know he is aware that I sensed his need. Perhaps he let me see it, pulling back the veil, just a bit.

I can"t help but remember his bloodtears, the desperately tragic soul at the center of his manic violin-playing, that day in the forest. I touch his mind, but instead of a mere brush, a reminder of my presence, I envelop him with myself. I imbue warmth. I press into him the sensory impression of an embrace—my arms around him, my soft curves against his hard body, my breath against his ear, my hands in his hair—peace, and comfort, and warmth, and something like love.

Not like I love Caspian. Nothing can even approximate that. Nor is it brotherly, or paternal as for Andreas. I can"t put words to it, or a name on it. I decide I don"t need to. I feel Alistair"s mind slither against mine, slow, subtle, and powerful, like a tsunamI before it reaches shore. He gives me no words, no images, not even a sensation—instead, he touches me somewhere in my mind, and all my sexual urges and needs are ignited all at once, like a match lit and tossed into a roomful of dynamite.

I barely suppress a whimper, and my thighs press together as heat floods my core, and my nipples harden and I'm suddenly on the cusp of climax—and then he does it again, a precise mental probe to some secret cluster of nerves in my brain or my soul or…I don"t even know. All I know is that I can"t stop it.

I orgasm, an instantaneous rupturing. I can"t hold back the whimper that becomes a full-voiced moan, and I grip Caspian"s thigh with all my strength, and my body bucks, hips lifting off the seat and my chest driving toward the ceiling.

I crank open the channel between Alistair and me, pouring the molten power of the climax back down the connection into his mind.

Caspian has driven us away by now, and I feel his gaze on me, a hot grin on his face as he watches me writhe through the waves of the unexpected orgasm.

He pulls the truck onto the main road, and then I feel his hand work at the closure of my jeans and then his fingers delve beneath my panties and drive against my aching clit. I scream at his touch, shattering into another orgasm, and the connection between Alistair and me is scorching, rippling with palpable heat, snapping with tension.

I feel Alistair. I feel his frustration, his confusion, his conflict, his need. I press deeper into his mind, and as Caspian"s fingers touch and circle, dip into my slit and scoop up my essence and circle me until the orgasm multiplies, expands, alters, and twists, becomes an all-consuming thing, I share it with Alistair. Press it into his mind, into his body. I feel him, all of him. I feel his hardness. I can almost see through his eyes. He"s in the forest, speeding down the hallway of pine trunks until he reaches a clearing—the same where he sawed at his violin and shared his sorrow with me. Now, I feel only his arousal. His need.

I feel his cock throbbing, aching in my mind. I feel him grasp it in a rough hand. I share a memory of the night in the cabin, his mouth on my sex. I offer an image of us together, my hand where his is now, wrapped around him, stroking him.

I feel his release, feel it shock through me, and Caspian"s fingers continue to press ever so gently, perfectly against my clit and now I come again, and I have Alistair"s orgasm ripping through my mind and mine crashing through my body until I"m left limp and wrung out and trembling.

For a few moments—or perhaps it's minutes, I"ve lost the ability to track time, at the moment—I"m lost in the chaotic wash of our bizarre mutual orgasm, floating in beautiful blessed nothingness with Alistair. No politics, no Council or Tribunal, no questions without answers, no lost mother, no weight of responsibility for an entire civilization and culture.

Only mutual physical pleasure.

When I rejoin the world of the living, Caspian is smirking at me as he drives one-handed. His other is still cupping my sex, no longer manipulating my clit or delving into my channel, but merely holding with possessive affection.

"Alistair," I mumble. "He did something…in my mind. Made me come without touching me."

Caspian hums thoughtfully. "Didn"t know that was possible." He withdraws his hand from my underwear and slips his fingers into his mouth, licking my essence away. "Watching you come is the most beautiful thing I"ve ever seen, Maeve."

Mind whirling, body exhausted, I reach for his hand and clutch it in mine. Reach for his mind and wrap mine around his as I tumble into slumber. I can"t manage words, being too close to sleep, but I do manage to press my feelings of love for him across the connection.

I love you, too, Little Sparrow. Sleep, now.

Sleep pulls me under, then.