Ink Exchange

Chapter 30

Leslie rolled over, out of Irial's reach. Despite the vastness of the bed, she still felt too close to him. She'd meant to move several times already, to get up and leave. She didn't. She couldn't.

"It'll get easier," he said gently. "It's just new. You'll be fine. I'll—"

"I can't step away. I can't. I keep telling myself I'm going to go. But I don't." She wasn't angry even now, when her body ached. She should be, though. She knew that. "I feel like I'll throw up, like if I move too far from you …"

He rolled her back over so she was being held in his arms again. "It. Will. Fade."

She whispered, "I don't believe you."

"We were starved. It's—"

"Starved? We?" she asked.

He told her what he was, what Niall was, what Aislinn and Keenan were. He told her they weren't human, not any of them.

Seth was telling the truth. She'd known somehow, somewhere, but hearing it said again, hearing it confirmed was horrible. I am angry. I am afraid. I am … She wasn't, though, not any of those things.

Irial kept talking. He told her that there were courts and that his—the Dark Court—lived on emotions. He told her that through her he would nourish them, that she was their salvation, that she was his salvation. He told her things that should terrify her, and every time she felt close to afraid or angry he drank it away.

"So you're what in this faery court?"

"In charge. Just as Aislinn and Keenan are for the Summer Court." There was no arrogance in his statement. In fact, he sounded weary.

"Am I" — she felt foolish, but she wanted to know, had to ask—"human still?"

He nodded.

"So, what does this mean? What am I then?"

"Mine." He kissed her to emphasize his point and then repeated, "Mine. You are mine."

"Which means what?"

He looked perplexed by that one. "That whatever you want is yours?"

"What if I want to leave? To see Niall?"

"I doubt that he'll be coming to see us, but you can go to him if you want." Irial rolled on top of her again as he said it. "As soon as you're able, you can walk out the door anytime you please. We'll look after you, keep you protected, but you can always leave when you want to and are able to."

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.