No. He could not afford self-pity.
Victory must be assured. In the darkest moments, he must still hold fast. It didn’t matter what it cost him. He’d pledged his soul to combating Shadow, and he still had that soul to give.
“Dad!” The young woman sounded hurt.
Her mother looked around, forehead wrinkling. “What’s the matter?”
Xavier’s skin flashed cold with the threat of exposure.
He waved the mother away with a smile and feigned interest in the girl’s topic. She was interested in mages?
Soul light burned his back behind him, but he forced his head to bend down to the girl’s ear. “Witchcraft.”
She nodded, an adult begging for attention like a dog.
He should take precautions. People needed to know.
Xavier moved into her mind as he whispered. “If you’re going to be passionate about witchcraft, what about the one in your midst? Cari Dolan.”
Her eyes were blank for a moment, then sparked. “Might be an interesting angle if I could get an interview.”
Xavier pushed harder at her mind, directing her interests.
The paper receded to the back recesses of her brain. The light burned brighter. “Cari Dolan,” she said, voice full of fear.
Xavier leaned toward another person in the crowd, and whispered the same thing. “Spread the word.”
If he were to be caught now, or tomorrow, or the next day, he needed to make sure others would finish his mission. That there was hope.
Xavier whispered to another and another, planting seeds where he could, like a gardener sowing thought. “Cari Dolan is the end of the world. She must be stopped.”
Cari folded the last of the loaned clothing. The bed was still in shambles, covers and sheets spilled to the floor. One pillow had fallen off the side of the mattress, while the other was a cloud in the center of the bed. She put the clothing to the side and reached to grab the sheet. It was way too obvious what had happened here.
“Princess Dolan, making a bed.”
She didn’t look at Mason. “My father always had us keep our own rooms tidy.” She folded and tucked an expert hospital corner to prove it.
“You okay?”
She straightened. “Well, let’s see—both a rogue angel and Khan seem to think that the world would be better off if I were dead. There’s even, supposedly, a mage saying about it. ‘Never suffer a Dolan female to live,’ is how I think it went.”
“Your father made a different call. And he was a very smart man.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m here now. I’m certainly not going to roll over and die.” That’s not how her father had raised her. He’d raised her to be the next Dolan, with all the fun and games that entailed.
“Never thought you would,” Mason said from the doorway.
In spite of it all, the news hadn’t changed anything, not really. She’d received her answers from Khan, but Maeve’s answers had actually been similar, minus the part where Cari needed to die—so everyone was in agreement there. Dolan was a great House, an old House, with a faery queen for a patron.
“Good.” Cari snapped the blanket to whip it flat across the bed.
If not for Maeve’s protection, she would have succumbed to the mage plague, which was systematically decimating the Houses. When she’d needed power, Maeve had given it to her. And even if Mad Mab did speak in a grandiose, megalomaniacal way—she was fae. They had no sense of proportion. Khan was not so different. She thought of his grumbly voice: I would be happy to dispatch you. Blah blah blah.
“Adam is loaning us the use of his helicopter to get back to Dolan House.” Mason came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
The muscles underneath quivered in exquisite relief. He had great hands.
She sighed hugely. All she could really do was continue to be cautious where Maeve was concerned. She could work for mastery. Her body was getting stronger, better able to bear the massive amount of magic. And if she benefited from the faery’s gifts, then good for Dolan.
This place—Segue—mixed her up. Everything here was worse . . . and better. So much better.
“Custo said he would contact us when the Order had identified who the blood from the tainted Shadow had come from. Should be soon.” With Mason behind her, she felt so good. Why had she resisted during this past week? Maeve had told her to take him from the beginning.
Wait until you taste his soul.
Cari shoved Maeve out of her mind and turned to face Mason.
He’d had a look of concern in his eyes at first, but it was darkening now to match her mood. All her life, Cari had tried not to abuse her privilege by being greedy. And it hadn’t been too hard, because she’d pretty much had everything she wanted.
Except for that once, when Liv had stolen Mason back after breaking up with him. Cari had been left wanting then, and had been utterly unable to do anything about it. And now that she understood exactly how much had slipped from her grasp, she was wanting again.
“Cari?”
The periphery of her vision was occluded by a growing haze.
No reason you should go without.
She wasn’t going to just give up and die. She was going to live life to the fullest. She was going to crush the person who’d killed her father. She was going to summon enough Shadow to raise Dolan to new heights. Magic swelled within her. After everything, maybe Maeve was right: Maybe she could have it all. No, she would have it all. The alternatives—failure, death, obscurity—did not interest her. And anyone who got in her way—
“Pitch,” Mason said.
Maeve hissed frustration.
He crushed Cari to him, his mouth taking hers, robbing her of breath. The kiss devoured, and whether from oxygen deprivation or the shock of the pleasure of his tongue rubbing on hers, she melted against him, body and heart. This close, she could feel the blue bright of his soul burning away the Other night that had permeated her umbra. Mason’s soul could defeat anything.
And his hands—please Shadow—his hands. Where he stroked—waist, breast, collar bone—he remade her. He’d learned her last night, and now he applied his knowledge. His hands remembered how she used to be—years ago, what seemed like forever—without this harshness in her mind.
Only when she tasted salt did she realize that she’d been crying. Who was she fooling? She was so afraid.
He must have tasted her tears, too, but he didn’t relent. He drew patterns on her skin like a mystic tracing symbols of power. The presence in her mind was banished by his touch. The clothes fell like leaves from their bodies. The tidy bed was destroyed.
He bowed over her—sorcerer, lover, friend—filling her up so that there was no room for anything else. And she held onto him with all her strength.
She didn’t know how—her brain was too loose to make a plan—but she wasn’t going to let him go.
Chapter Twelve
“See?” Kaye Brand dropped her purse on the bare floor of what would be her sitting room—when they had time to shop for furniture—and turned to face Bastian, her eyes flashing. She was ready for his bad mood, but she headed him off with, “Home safe and sound.”
Her confidence felt a little thin, beaten as it was by the hammering of her pulse these past two hours that she’d been meeting with the senator and the Special Committee on Shadow. The rising furor against magic had to be stopped or someone was going to get hurt. The crowd around Dolan House was swelling, not settling down. She had to make it clear that the Houses would reciprocate against violence if the law wouldn’t or couldn’t protect them.