“Before that, beautiful girl.” The king slanted me a look that horrified me. Pride glittered in his starry eyes.

My high school gym coach joined him. When my grade school principal appeared, I locked my jaw and gave the king a mutinous glare. Since the beginning. “Little help might have been nice.”

The king cradled the concubine tenderly to his chest. “What would you change?”

“You must give her to us,” Dree’lia demanded. “We need her. Without V’lane, who will lead us?”

“Find a new queen. She is mine.”

Velvet bristled. “But there is no one—”

“Grow a pair, Velvet,” the king snapped.

“We don’t want Cruce. You take him,” Kat was insisting.

“What the bloody hell is going on? You can’t take the queen. We work for her,” Drustan was saying.

“What about the Compact?” Cian said. “We need to renegotiate it!”

“Change me back!” Christian demanded. “I ate only one bite. That’s not enough to do this to me. Why am I being punished?”

The king only had eyes for the woman in his arms.

“You can’t leave until you put the bloody walls back up,” Dageus was growling. “We’ve no idea how to go about—”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Skins began to drop to the floor, empty shells of the king’s parts. For a moment, I was worried my own might fall off, but it didn’t.

Barrons had pulled me back from being Pri-ya. I had no doubt the king would find his concubine, too. Wherever she was, in whatever cave of amnesia she was trapped, he would join her. Tell her stories. Make love to her. Until one day they both got up and walked out of it.

The dreamy-eyed guy began to change, absorbing the shadows that passed from the skins.

He stretched and expanded until he towered over us like the Sinsar Dubh’s beast, but without the malevolence, and when his wings spread wide, eclipsing the chamber in night, stars and worlds dangling from his quills, I felt his joy.

The thought that she’d left him by choice had driven him mad.

But she hadn’t. She’d been taken.

He’d loved her for all time.

Before she was made.

After he’d believed she was gone.

Sunshine to his ice. Frost to her fever.

I wished them forever.

You, too, beautiful girl.

The Unseelie King was gone.

The sign was heavy, but I was determined.

Although Barrons’ strength would have made things a lot easier, I managed without him. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

As I unscrewed the last bracket suspending the gaily painted sign from the brass pole bolted into the brick above the door of the bookstore, it slipped from my hands, fell to the sidewalk, and cracked down the middle.

MACKAYLA’S MANUSCRIPTS AND MISCELLANY bit the dust before a single customer ever looked up and saw the sign.

I was okay with that. It didn’t have the right ring to it. Although I’d loved seeing my name up there, I’d never have gotten comfortable with it. This place was … well, MM&M just didn’t roll off the tongue.

I had no intention of giving him back the bookstore.

I was keeping it forever. And I planned to keep the name, too. I’d never be able to think of it as anything else.

Twenty minutes later, the original sign was restored.

I dusted off my hands, propped the ladder against a column, and stepped back to view my work.

The four-story—I looked up. It was five stories tonight. The five-story building was officially BARRONS BOOKS AND BAUBLES again. Owned by one MacKayla Lane. He’d given me the deed last night.

I walked out into the middle of the street and assessed my bookstore with a critical eye. It was mine to take care of, and I wasn’t yielding one inch of it to vandals or the elements. It had weathered the storm of Unseelie better than most places in the city, protected by wards and a man who could never die.

I remembered the first time I’d seen it. I’d come barreling out of the Dark Zone, terrified, alone, desperate for answers. It had blazed with the holy light of salvation for me that night.

My sanctuary. My home.

The updated facade of dark cherry and brass gleamed. The alcoved entrance, between stately pillars, sported a new light fixture that cast a warm amber glow on the handsome cherry door and stained-glass sidelights.

The tall windows on the sides of the building, framed by matching columns and delicate wrought-iron latticework, didn’t have a single crack, and there were no chips on the pillars. The foundation was solid, strong. Powerful spotlights mounted on the rooftop, controlled by timers, would be coming on any minute now. The lighted sign in the old-fashioned green-tinted windows winked OPEN.

The Dark Zone might be empty, but this place would always stand as a bastion of light, as long as it was mine. I’d needed it. It had saved me. I loved this place.

And the man.

And there was the rub.

It had been days since the showdown beneath the abbey, and we still hadn’t talked about it.

After the king left, we’d all just kind of looked at each other and headed for the door, as if we couldn’t get back to where we felt safe and comfortable fast enough.

Mom and Dad took one look at Barrons and me and decided to go back to Chester’s. I’ve got the smartest, coolest parents. Barrons and I went back to the bookstore, straight to bed. We’d gotten out only when near starvation had forced us.

The finale hadn’t been perfect and certainly not what I’d expected last fall, when we were making our desperate plans to keep the walls up between the realms of Fae and man.

The Sinsar Dubh had been destroyed.

But in the way of Fae things, another had come into being.

The sidhe-seers were furious that they’d been left in charge of the new one, but it’s hard to argue with an absentee king.

Kat had stepped up to the plate, taking over for Rowena, agreeing to lead until the abbey was cleared of Shades and their numbers were partially restored, at which time they would revert to a democratic vote and rebuild the Haven.

I intended to snag a spot in that inner sanctum, where I would lobby for significant changes—first and foremost that we permanently and irrevocably seal the cavern where the Sinsar Dubh was currently frozen in its much-too-exquisite temptation. Line it with iron. Pump it full of concrete.

The Keltar had returned to Scotland, taking Christian with them, but none of us believed we’d seen the last of them.

Before Halloween, we’d all thought life might one day get back to normal. Those days were gone forever.

We’d lost nearly half the world’s population—more than three billion people dead.

The walls were down and I was pretty sure they’d stay that way, with no queen and no one to lead the Seelie. I had no doubt the king was on extended sabbatical.

Jayne and his men were out in force, kicking ass, hell-bent on emptying the streets of Unseelie and the skies of Hunters. I planned to talk to him about that. I wondered if we might be able to negotiate a treaty with the Hunters. I didn’t like the thought of K’Vruck being shot at.

Kat had connected with Post Haste, Inc.’s international branches. She told me that Dark Zones abounded around the world, but Dani’s Shade-Buster recipe had been translated into virtually every language and manufacturing MacHalos was a booming business. In certain parts of the world, you could trade one for a cow. There were millions of surplus houses, cars, electronics, all the things I used to dream about one day owning, lying around out there for the taking. And all I could think was that I might cheerfully give up Barrons’ 911 Porsche turbo for a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.