Ink Exchange (26 page)

But she didn’t. She didn’t want to, and she wasn’t able. He wasn’t lying: she believed that, tasted it, felt it in his words, but she also knew that whatever he’d done to her made her not want to be anywhere other than with him. For a brief moment, she felt terror at that realization, but it fled, replaced by a craving that made her sink her fingernails into Irial’s skin and pull him closer—again and again, and still she was nearly shaking with need.

When Gabriel walked in, Leslie was dressed. She wasn’t sure how the clothes had ended up on her, but it didn’t matter. She was sitting up and covered. There was an apple in her hand.

“Remember to eat now.” Irial stroked her hair back from her face, gentle like his voice.

She nodded. There were words she was to say, but they were gone before she could remember what they were.

“Troubles?” Irial asked Gabriel. Somehow Irial was at a desk far away from her.

She searched for the apple she’d been holding. It was gone. She looked down: her clothes were different. She had on a robe; red flowers and swirling blue lines covered it. She tried to follow them with her finger, tracing the pattern.

“The car’s here.” Gabriel had her hand and was helping her to her feet.

Her skirt became tangled around her ankles.

She stumbled forward and was folded into Irial’s arms as they went into the club. The glare of lights made her hide her face against his shirt.

“You’re doing fine,” he told her as he combed out her hair, stroking his fingers through it, untangling it.

“It’s been a long day,” she murmured as she swayed under his caresses. She closed her eyes and asked, “The second day will be better, right?”

“It’s been a week, love.” He pulled the covers up over her. “You’re doing much better already.”

She listened to them laugh, the strange people—
faeries
—with Gabriel. They told her stories, amused her while Irial talked to a faery with raven feathers for hair. She was lovely, the raven-woman, Bananach. They all were. Leslie stopped staring at Bananach, trying to focus instead on the Vilas that danced with whichever of the Hounds beckoned, swaying through the shadows in the rooms like they felt the touch of shadows as Leslie did—like teasing hands, promising bliss that was too intense to allow for speech.

“Dance with me, Iri.” Leslie stood and, ignoring the Hounds, went over to where Bananach was talking to Irial. It occurred to Leslie that this was a repetition of a tableau she could remember from other days: Bananach was around too often, taking Irial’s time and attention. Leslie didn’t like it.

“Move,” she told the raven-woman.

Irial laughed as Bananach tried to raise a hand, only to
have it forced down by Gabriel and another Hound who both grabbed at her.

Irial said, “Bananach was just explaining why you aren’t of any use to us.”

Leslie felt the shivering in the tendrils that tied her to Irial, and she knew with perfect clarity in that moment that he had tamped down on their connection so she could have a few extra moments of lucidity. He did that.

“And what use am I, Irial? Did you tell her?” she asked.

“I did.” Irial was standing now, hand outstretched, palm up.

Leslie put her hand in his and stepped closer.

Beside Irial, Bananach had gone still. She tilted her head at an angle that made her look far less human than the other faeries. Her eyes—which were similar enough to Irial’s that Leslie paused—narrowed, but she did not speak.
She does not speak to me.
Leslie remembered that from other nights: Bananach refusing to address “the pet.”

Leslie glanced at Gabriel, who stood waiting, and then around the club. They were all waiting.
For me. For food.
She thought she should feel frightened, maybe angry, but all she felt was bored. “Can you keep a leash on her while I relax?”

Gabriel didn’t look to Irial for the Dark King’s accord. He smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

Leslie knew that almost everyone in the club was watching her, but she suspected they’d seen her in far more mortifying circumstances. She slid her hands up Irial’s chest,
over his collarbone, and down his arms—feeling the tension in him that was utterly absent from his posture and expression. She tilted her head up and waited until he looked down. Then she whispered, “Am I just for using up, then?”

She knew it, knew that the ink under her skin was intended to let him—let
them
—do just that. She knew that the bone-melting bliss she felt each time he funneled the storms of emotion through her, forcing a tidal wave through a straw, was a trick to keep her insensible to the clarity that she had grasped
again
in that moment—and she realized that she’d had similar moments of clarity other nights and forgotten each time when the rush hit.

“Am I?” she repeated.

He leaned closer still, until she could feel his lips on her neck. There was no sound, only movement, when he said it. “No.”

But she was willing to be: they both knew that as well. She thought about the life she’d had before—druggies in her home, drunken or missing father, bills to pay, hours waitressing, lying friends.
What’s to miss?
She didn’t want to return to pain, to worry, to fear, to any of that. She wanted euphoria. She wanted to feel her body go liquid in his arms. She wanted to feel the mad crescendo of pleasure that hit her with enough force to make her black out.

He pulled away to look at her.

She twined her arms around his neck and walked forward, forcing him to walk backward as she did so. “Later I’m
going to be too blissed out to keep my hands off you….” She shivered against him at the thought, at the admission here in public of what she was going to be like, not sure if admitting the desire was worse or better than telling herself some pretty lie to allay the blame. “This is fun, though. Being here. Being with you. I’d like to start remembering more of the fun stuff. Can we do that? Let me remember more of the good times with you? Let me have more of
this
?”

The tension fled then. He looked beyond her and gestured. Music filled the room; bass rumbled so heavily, it felt like it was inside her. And they danced and laughed, and for a few hours the world felt right. The disdainful and adoring looks on the faces of the mortals and faeries didn’t matter. There was only Irial, only pleasure. But the longer she was clearheaded, the more she also remembered things that were awful. She didn’t feel the emotions, but the memories came into sharper focus. There, in Irial’s arms, she realized that she had the power to destroy every person who’d given her nightmares. Irial would do that: he’d find out who they were, and he’d bring them to her. It was a cold, clear understanding.

But she didn’t want it, didn’t want to truly destroy anyone. She just wanted to forget them again—even knowing she should feel pain was more than she wanted. “Irial? Feed them. Now.”

She stopped moving and waited for it, the flash of emotions ripping through her body.

“Gabe,” was all he said. And it was enough to start a melee. Bananach shrieked; Gabriel growled. Mortals screamed and moaned in pleasures and horrors. Cacophony rose around them like a familiar lullaby.

Irial didn’t let her turn around. He didn’t let her see anything or anyone.

Stars flashed to life in some too-close distance. They burned her up for a few brief heartbeats, but in their wake they pulled a wave of ecstasy that made her eyes close. Every particle of her body cried out, and she remembered nothing—knew nothing—but felt only the pleasure of Irial’s skin against hers.

C
HAPTER
31

Snatches of time were nothing but blurs and blank spaces, but the lucid periods were becoming more frequent.
How long has it been?
Her tattoo had been healed for a while. Her hair was longer. Often she could feel Irial close the connection, stopping the pull of emotions that slithered along the black vine that hovered between them. On those days almost everything was in order, sequential. So much of the time was a long blur, though.
Weeks?

She hadn’t left his side yet.
How long? How long have I
…Today she would. Today she would prove she could. She knew she’d tried—
and failed
—to do this more times than she could guess. There were bits of memories jumbled together. Life was like that now: just montages of images and sensations, and through it all there was Irial. He was constant. Even as she moved, she heard him in the other room.
Always at my reach.
That was dangerous too. The raven-woman wanted to change that, take Irial away.

Leslie slipped into one of the countless outfits he’d ordered for her, a long dress that clung and swirled when she moved. Like everything he bought, it was of material that felt almost too sensuous as she slipped into it. Without a word, she opened the door to the second room.

He didn’t speak; he just watched her.

She opened the door to the hallway. Faeries followed her—invisible to any other human in the hotel, but she saw them. He’d given her the Sight with some strange oil he’d rubbed on her eyelids. Lanky creatures with tiny thorns all over their skin were silent, respectful even, as they followed her. Had she been able to, she’d have been terrified, but she was nothing but a conduit for emotions. The walls didn’t keep her safe from them. Every fear, every longing, every dark thing those passing mortals and faeries felt flowed through her body until she couldn’t focus. Only Irial’s touch kept her from madness, calmed her.

The elevator door slid shut, closing the watching faeries out, taking her to the lobby of the hotel. Others would be there, waiting for her.

A glaistig nodded as she stepped out of the elevator. The glaistig’s hooves clattered as she strode across the expanse of the room. Leslie’s own footsteps weren’t much quieter; Irial had bought her only ridiculously expensive shoes and boots with heels.

“…the car brought around?” The doorman was speaking, but Leslie hadn’t noticed. “Miss? Do you need your driver?”

She stared at him, feeling the flood of fear in him, feeling Irial several floors above her tasting that fear through her. It was like that, endless blurs of nothing but feeling emotions slither through her body to Irial. He said he was stronger. He said they were doing well. He said the court was healing.

The doorman stared at her; he spilled his fears and disdain onto her.

What does he see?

Irial had the appearance of someone far from responsible. He had the money and the constant flow of criminal-looking guests: the faeries’ human masks did little to hide the aura of menace that clung to them. And she—when she left the suite—moved through the halls like a zombie, clinging to Irial, and on several occasions coming close to putting on a public show.

“Will you be going out today?” the doorman asked.

Her stomach cramped. Being away from Irial made her sick.

Gabriel swooped in behind her. “Do you need help?”

The doorman glanced away: he mightn’t have heard the inhuman timbre of Gabriel’s voice, but he’d felt the fear the Hound’s presence elicited. All mortals did. It was what Gabriel was, and as he became agitated, he became more frightening.

The doorman’s fear spiked.

“You made it to the door, Leslie. That’s good.”
Irial’s voice slipped into her mind. It was no longer surprising, but she still winced.

“Not his driver. Grab me a taxi?” she asked the doorman. She clenched her hands: she wasn’t failing, not this time. She didn’t faint or crumble.
Little victories.
She forced the words from her lips, “Taxi to take me to warehouse…”

She swayed.

The doorman asked, “Are you sure you’re well enough to—”

“Yes.” Her mouth was dry. Her hands were fisted tightly enough that it hurt. “Please, Gabriel, carry me to the taxi. Going by the river…” Then she toppled, hoping that he’d listen.

When Leslie woke in a patch of grass by the river, she was relieved. She could feel relief. Irial didn’t drink her good feelings away. That should make her happy, knowing she wasn’t numb. If not for the other thing—that maddening craving for Irial’s touch, the awful sickening longing when darker emotions filled her to choking but didn’t touch
her
emotions—she might be okay.

A bit away from her, several of Gabriel’s Hounds waited and watched. They didn’t frighten her. They seemed pleased that she liked them. A few times, she’d seen Ani and Tish—and in that shock-free way she lived now, she’d accepted their mixed heritage without pause. She’d come to terms with the realization that Ani—and Tish and Rabbit—had known that the ink exchange would change her.

“But you’re strong enough, Les, really,” Ani had insisted.

“And if I’m not?”

“You will be. It’s for Iri. We need him to be strong.” Ani had hugged her. “You’re his savior. The court’s so much stronger.
He’s
so much stronger.”

Ignoring the Hounds, Leslie walked along the river until she came to a warehouse where she and Rianne used to go to smoke. She slid open the window they’d climbed in together so often and made her way to the second floor—just high enough to see the river. Out here, away from everyone, she felt the closest to normal she had since the morning she’d left her house with Irial.

She sat watching the river race away. Her feet dangled out the window. There were no mortals, no faeries, no Irial. Away from all of them, she felt less consumed. The world was back in order, more stable somehow now that she was on her own.
Is it the distance?

It didn’t matter, though: she felt his approach. Then Irial was in the street, looking up at her. “Are you going to come down from there?”

“Maybe.”

“Leslie—”

She stood up, balancing on the balls of her feet, hands above her head like she was preparing to dive into a pool. “I should be afraid, Irial. I’m not, though.”