The spots on Rae’s tiny shoulders had vanished. She must have stretched out on something, perhaps lain on two rocks in the grass at just such an odd position. An unnerving freak occurrence, nothing more.
When Rae rolled over in her sleep, mumbling inaudibly, Kat’s phone tumbled to the floor, and she realized she’d forgotten it on the bed. She reclaimed it, tucked her daughter back in, kissed her forehead lightly and smoothed her curls.
As she turned back for the door a radioactive cloud of
PANICFEARHORRORFEARGETRAERUN!
exploded in her head. A scream escaped her lungs, clawing its way up her throat. She choked on it to keep from frightening Rae.
Rooted to the spot by terror, she stood, sputtering softly, trembling from head to toe, staring with wide, horrified eyes.
No, no, no, no, no, began the desperate litany in her mind. Please, God, no, I don’t deserve this, Rae doesn’t deserve this. I’m a good person, a good mother, but I can’t protect us from this!
He towered against the door of the bedroom, barring her exit.
Trapping them within.
Enormous black wings curved loosely forward around his body. She knew those wings. She’d dreaded them. Orgasmed exquisitely, over and over again, wrapped in them.
Breathe, breathe, breathe, you must breathe, she told herself. But her lungs refused to cooperate. Everything was locked down tighter than the Sinsar Dubh had ever been.
It wasn’t possible.
He was dead.
Mac had assured them before she left for Faery that the Unseelie Court had been destroyed, each and every one.
Including Cruce.
Especially Cruce.
Kat had asked repeatedly. And Mac had repeatedly told her she could feel all other royalty in existence. Not by location, just a quiet burn in her mind.
Cruce wasn’t there.
Kat had gone so far as to dip into the Fae queen’s heart to ascertain the veracity of her words. Mac believed Cruce dead.
But now, standing tall, dark, and malevolent, powerful arms crossed, watching her with eyes of…Oh, dear God.
Eyes of such finality.
She jerked and brushed blood from her cheeks. Forced her gaze away, down the thick, dark column of his neck, over the writhing, glittering torque, down his black clad, massive body. His shoulders were enormously muscled, his legs powerfully sculpted.
“Never hold my gaze, Kat,” he purred softly. “I can protect you from much. But not that. It was not my intention to startle you. I sought you in private, so as not to alarm the others.”
She screeched a breath into her lungs that seared them, so desperately was it needed, and angled her body as if she might conceal her daughter from him.
Had he come to take Rae away? Both of them? If that was the choice, she’d go! Just don’t take my daughter from me, she thought hysterically. Anything but that.
“Why are you here?” she whispered faintly.
“Och, lass, it’s Sean, he needs you.”
What was he talking about? How was Cruce even alive? And what was he doing with Sean? And why was his voice so different than she remembered from those hellish, fevered dreams?
“We’ve a bit of a problem, Kat. Have you someone to watch the wee lass?”
His second use of the word “lass” finally penetrated a brain of concrete. Kat blinked, as slow comprehension dawned. “Christian?” she exploded softly. “Is that you?”