Run, hide! she screamed.

I couldn’t. My feet were rooted to the ground, my eyes locked on him. He was far more beautiful than the other Unseelie Princes and far more terrifying. Like the others, he looked into me, not at me, and his gaze felt like razors slicing through my most private hopes and fears. I knew that War’s specialty was not merely to turn opposing factions, races, or populations upon one another but to find sides within a person and turn them upon themselves.

Here was the ultimate trickster, the destroyer.

And I understood that Death wasn’t the one to be feared. War was the one that laid waste to lives. Death was just the cleanup guy, the janitor, the final act.

Though the same black torque writhed around War’s neck, it was threaded with silver. Though kaleidoscopic colors rushed beneath his skin, a nimbus of gold surrounded him, and, at his back, I glimpsed the flash of black feathers. War was winged.

You are too late, he said.

I was jarred awake the next morning by an unaccustomed noise and sat up, looking around. Twice more I heard the sound before I figured out what it was. Someone was throwing a rock against my window.

I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “Coming,” I groused, and tossed back the covers. I figured it was Dani. Since cell phone service still wasn’t back up and the store had no doorbell, it was the only way she could get my attention, short of breaking in.

I pushed aside the drape and glanced out into the alley.

V’lane reclined on the hood of Barrons’ Viper, leaning back against the windshield. Though supposedly the car wasn’t mine (we’d see about that), I instantly assessed V’lane for rivets or any other abrasive elements that might mar the paint job. I love sports cars. All that muscle just does it for me. I decided it was a safe bet the soft white towel knotted loosely at his waist wasn’t going to scratch anything. His perfect body was dusted gold, and his eyes were sunshine sparkling on diamonds.

I pushed the window up. Chilly air wafted in. The temperature had dropped, low-hanging clouds had moved in. It was once again cold and gloomy in Dublin.

He lifted a cup of Starbucks. “Good morning, MacKayla. I brought you coffee.”

I eyed it with equal parts suspicion and longing. “You found an open Starbucks?”

“I sifted to a store in New York. I ground the beans and made it myself. I even … how do you say? Frothed the milk.” He held up some packets. “Splenda or raw sugar?”

My mouth watered. Raw sugar and caffeine in the morning. Only sex could make it better.

“Is Barrons around?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Where is he?”

“Busy for the day,” I lied.

“Anything pressing on your agenda?”

I narrowed my eyes. V’lane wasn’t talking like he normally did. Usually he spoke with great formality. Today he sounded almost … human. I eyed the towel, trying to decide if there might be a Book beneath it. It was possible. “Could you swap that towel for something like, well, skintight shorts?”

He was suddenly nude.

Definitely no Book. “Put your towel back on,” I said hastily. “Why are you talking funny?”

“Am I? I endeavor to learn from humanity, MacKayla. I thought you would find me more appealing. How am I doing? No, wait. I am appropriating human contractions. How’m I doing?”

He was still nude. “Towel. Now. And you contracted the wrong words. ‘I am’ becomes ‘I’m.’ ‘How am’ does not become ‘how’m.’ But, really, it’s okay. Contractions don’t sound right coming out of your mouth anyway.”

He flashed me a dazzling smile. “You like me as the prince I am. That is promising. I came to take you for a day at the beach. Tropical surf and sandbars. Coconuts and palm trees. Sand and sun. Come.” He offered a hand. It wasn’t the only part of him extended in my direction.

I’m surrounded by intensely sexual men at every turn. “Towel,” I demanded. I bit my lower lip. I shouldn’t. I had no right. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I even had the tarot card to prove it.

“I do not know why you do not enjoy seeing me nude. I enjoy seeing you nude.”

“Do you want me to go to the beach with you or not?”

His iridescent eyes were brilliant. “You have accepted my invitation. I see it in your eyes. They have taken on a languorous sheen. I find it arousing.”

“But not to a beach in Faery,” I said. “No illusion. Can you sift us to somewhere like Rio, in the human world, where only human hours will pass?”

“Command me, I am yours, MacKayla. We shall spend a finite number of human hours, to be specified by you.”

I was fatally flawed. I couldn’t say no. “I’ll take that coffee now.” I reached out the window for it, expecting him to float it up or something.

“I am unable to oblige. The paranoid one’s wards are still active. They keep me several feet from the building.”

“But not off his car,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips. Barrons would go nuts if he knew V’lane had touched his Viper. And stretched out on it nude? He’d have an aneurysm.

“It is all I can do not to sear my name into the paint. I am afraid you will have to come down for your coffee. It is hot; make haste.”

I ran a brush through my hair, splashed water on my face, slipped into shorts, a tank, and flip-flops and, ten minutes later, I was in Rio.

I can’t be on a beach without thinking of Alina. I keep telling myself that, when all this is over, I’ll ask V’lane to give me an illusion of her again and we’ll spend a day playing volleyball together, listening to tunes, and drinking Corona and lime. I’ll say good-bye, once and for all. I’ll let go of the pain and the anger, tuck the wonderful parts of the life we shared into a sacred corner of my soul, and accept living without her.

If Barrons had truly been dead, and enough time had passed, would I have eventually accepted living without him? I was afraid I never would have.

I turned my attention to the Seelie Prince walking beside me. I was glad he’d come to find me this morning. If he hadn’t, I would have summoned him with the sensual sting of his name through my tongue. My dreams last night had unsettled me deeply. I had questions, and he was the only one who might have the answers.

We walked a short distance down the powdery beach to a pair of silken chaises sunk in white sand, close to the salty spray of the sea. My clothes melted away and were replaced by a hot-pink string bikini and a gold belly chain adorned with fiery stones. The beach was deserted. I had no idea if there were no people left or if V’lane had sent them away for privacy.

“What’s with the belly chain?” He seemed to have a fondness for them.

“When I have sex with you from behind, I will use it to pull you closer, push in deeper.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I was the idiot that had asked.

“And now whenever you see the gold of it glinting in the sun, you will think about fucking me.”

I sank into the chair and tipped my head back, watching birds fly overhead. The soft rush of waves soothed my soul. “Baseball cap and sunglasses, please.”

He reached over and tucked a cap on my head, propped sunglasses on my nose. I looked at him. He was nude again, towel mounded between his legs.

“I have found it burns. It is most unpleasant.”

“Is your skin real?”

He removed the cloth. “Touch it.” When I made no move to do so, he said, “I regret that you are immune to me. Human seduction of one such as you may take an eon. Yes, MacKayla, in this form my skin is every bit as real as yours.”

A drink appeared in my hand, a creamy blend of pineapple, coconut, and spiced rum.

“Tell me about Cruce,” I said.

“Why?” V’lane said.

“He interests me.”

“Why?”

“It seems he was somehow different from the other Unseelie Princes. The others didn’t have names. Why did Cruce? When I first met you, you offered me the cuff of Cruce. Why was it called that? How did Cruce learn to curse the Silvers? There seems to be so much more history about him than any of the other princes.”