I’d not tried to sleep again.
I’d stripped, stood in the shower, and let the scalding spray punish my skin. Sun worshipper to the core, I’ve never been cold so often in my life as I have these past few months in Ireland.
After scrubbing myself pink and as clean as I was going to ever be again, I’d toed my pile of black leather with distaste.
I’d been wearing the same underwear for too long. My leather pants had been soaked, dried, shrunk, stained. It was the outfit I’d killed Barrons in. I wanted to burn it.
I’d wrapped myself in a sheet and stepped into the living room of the penthouse, where dozens of Darroc’s crimson-clad Unseelie were standing guard. I’d given them detailed instructions on where to go and what to get for me.
When they’d moved toward another bedroom suite to wake Darroc to obtain permission, I’d snapped, He doesn’t let you make your own decisions? He freed you only to dictate your every move and breath? One or two of you can’t go run a few simple little errands for me? Are you Unseelie or lapdogs?
The Unseelie are chock-full of emotion. Unlike the Seelie, they’ve not learned to conceal it. I got what I wanted—bags and boxes of clothing, shoes, jewelry, and makeup.
All weapons, good.
Now, as I admire myself in the mirror, I’m grateful I was born pretty. I need to know what he responds to. What his weaknesses are. How much weakness I can get him to feel for me. He used to be Seelie. It is what he is at the core, and I got an intimate look at what the Seelie are like last night.
Imperious. Beautiful. Arrogant.
I can be that.
I have little patience. I want answers and I want them quickly.
I finish my makeup with care, dusting extra bronzer across my cheeks and the upper curves of my breasts, mimicking the gold-dusted skin of the Fae.
My yellow dress clings to a body toned to perfection by marathon sex with Barrons. My shoes and accessories are gold.
I will look every inch his princess.
When I kill him.
He stops talking when he sees me and looks at me for a long moment. “Your hair was once blond like hers,” he says finally.
I nod.
“I liked her hair.”
I turn to the nearest guard and tell him what I need to change my hair. He looks at Darroc, who nods.
I toss my head. “I ask for simple things, yet they question me. It’s infuriating! Can you not give me two of your guards for my own?” I demand. “Am I to have nothing for myself?”
He’s looking at my legs, long and sleekly muscled, and my feet, pretty in high heels. “Of course,” he murmurs. “Which two do you wish?”
I wave a hand dismissively. “You choose. They’re all the same.”
He assigns a pair to carry out my wishes. “You will obey her as you would obey me,” he tells them. “Instantly and without question. Unless her orders conflict with mine.”
They will become accustomed to obeying me. His other guards will become accustomed to seeing them obey me. Tiny gains, tiny erosions.
I join him for breakfast and smile as I choke down food that tastes of blood and ashes.
The Sinsar Dubh is rarely active during the day.
Like the rest of the Unseelie, it prefers the night. Those who were so long imprisoned in ice and darkness seem to find the sunlight jarring, painful. The longer I walk around with this grief inside me, the more I understand that. It’s as if sunshine is a slap in the face that says, Look, the world’s all bright and shiny! Too bad you’re not.
I wonder if that’s why Barrons was rarely around during the day. Because he, too, was damaged like us and found comfort in the secrecy of shadows. Shadows are wonderful things. They hide pain and conceal motives.
Darroc leaves for the day with a small contingent of his army and refuses to take me with him. I want to push, I feel like a caged animal, but he has lines that I know better than to cross if I want him to trust me.
I pass the afternoon in his penthouse, fluttering around like a bright butterfly, picking up things, flipping through books and looking in cabinets and drawers, exclaiming over this or that, searching the place under guise of curiosity, beneath the watchful eyes of his guards.
I find nothing.
They refuse to let me in his bedroom.
Two can play that game. I refuse to let anyone in mine. I beef up my protection runes to keep my backpack and stones safe. I’ll get into his bedroom one way or another.
Late in the afternoon, I color my hair, blow it dry, and style it into a tousle of big, loose curls.
I’m blond again. How strange. I remember Barrons calling me a perky rainbow. It makes me long for a white miniskirt and pink camisole.