Autocratic has a picture of Barrons next to it in the dictionary. Unfortunately so does addictive. I poke Unseelie on both sides with my elbows and change the subject. “Haven’t you found a way to get rid of them yet? It’s been months.”

One after another black-cloaked, chittering wraiths continue to pop through the portal behind me. I have no idea why they’ve chosen me to stalk. I’m swiftly becoming the only human in an Unseelie sardine can, and just as smelly. It’s bad enough they stalk me, but where they brush against me they leave a greasy, pungent yellow dust on my clothes. That’s the least of the reasons I want them gone.

With rare exceptions—like tonight, when they inexplicably decided to roost up high—they make it impossible to fight. I can’t get to my enemy without first slaughtering a few dozen of the ones smothering me. By the time I slice and stab my way clear, whatever I really wanted to kill has disappeared. My sidhe-seer talent, nulling, or freezing them in place for a few seconds, doesn’t work on them.

As if that’s not bad enough, every time Ryodan sees me he grills me about why an Unseelie caste is following me around, and when that man gets a bone he strips the gristle with his teeth and gnaws until the marrow is gone, so I’ve stopped going to Chester’s or anywhere in public that I might run into him or his men, which is pretty much everywhere given the close watch they keep on Dublin and the surrounding districts. I’m bookstore-bound most days and nights, and me, cooped up, bored, gets riskier with each passing hour—idle hands make the devil’s work and all.

Not the devil, beautiful girl. Angel. Your angel.

Yet another voice I pretend not to hear.

You wish to be rid of them? Your wish. My command.

Oh, yeah, fully deaf now.

I killed the first fifty or so Unseelie when they began stalking me, but it didn’t matter how many I slayed, more appeared. Compounding my disgust, they release a huge cloud of that stinking yellow dust as they die, coating me and making me sneeze my head off. I haven’t seen them feed on any humans, and as their only offense seems to be stalking me and ruining my clothes, I no longer kill them. It’s pointless and disturbing.

I shoot Barrons a look. He has a full five feet of personal space around him in all directions. I, on the other hand, am a human dog with Unseelie fleas. “So, can you get rid of them or not?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Can’t you tattoo me or something?”

“Now she wants me to tattoo her. Will wonders never cease.”

“It’d be better than walking around with these … these … these bloody flipping odiferous gnats!”

“Have yet to find one that works.”

“Well, whatever’s keeping them out of the bookstore should keep them away from me, right? Can’t you just do to me what you did to it?” Inside those walls and beneath his garage are the only places I have any privacy.

“I’ve not isolated the precise element responsible. And no, I can’t do all of that to you. You’re animate. You might not be when I was done. I prefer you animate. Most of the time.”

Most? I bristle but refuse to be distracted. “Just how many elements are involved in protecting a bookstore? Five? Ten? A hundred?” When he betrays nothing of his secret protection spell—not that I expected him to, Butt-the-fuck-out-of-my-business is his middle name—I press, “Have you considered asking the Keltar if they can help? They’ve been druids to the Fae for thousands of years and maybe—”

This time the look he cuts me holds a glitter of crimson and I shut up. I’ve seen that flash when he’s on top of me, hands bracketing my head, eyes dark with lust. I’ve seen it when he’s killing. I know what it promises: primal passion or primal destruction. Hard as it is to believe, I’m in the mood for neither at the moment. My problems have bred entire subsets of problems, which are no doubt having birth pains to spawn yet more problems, even as I pause to brood about them. Mentioning the clan of sexy Highlanders to Barrons is never a good idea, which I would have remembered if I’d not been distracted by the sudden realization that I’m wearing the last clean outfit I own and will have to do laundry tonight. Again.

I’m sick of hiding. Tired of washing clothes. Fed up with sitting back and doing nothing to help my city, my people, myself. Arguably the most powerful person in Dublin, possibly on the planet—with the exception of one currently frozen prince—I lay low so no one discovers the psychopathic, homicidal embryo I carry inside me—a complete copy of the Sinsar Dubh, the most dangerous, twisted, evil book of black magic ever created.