He was dead.

Mac had assured them before she left for Faery that the Unseelie Court had been destroyed, each and every one.

Including Cruce.

Especially Cruce.

Kat had asked repeatedly. And Mac had repeatedly told her she could feel all other royalty in existence. Not by location, just a quiet burn in her mind.

Cruce wasn’t there.

Kat had gone so far as to dip into the Fae queen’s heart to ascertain the veracity of her words. Mac believed Cruce dead.

But now, standing tall, dark, and malevolent, powerful arms crossed, watching her with eyes of…Oh, dear God.

Eyes of such finality.

She jerked and brushed blood from her cheeks. Forced her gaze away, down the thick, dark column of his neck, over the writhing, glittering torque, down his black clad, massive body. His shoulders were enormously muscled, his legs powerfully sculpted.

“Never hold my gaze, Kat,” he purred softly. “I can protect you from much. But not that. It was not my intention to startle you. I sought you in private, so as not to alarm the others.”

She screeched a breath into her lungs that seared them, so desperately was it needed, and angled her body as if she might conceal her daughter from him.

Had he come to take Rae away? Both of them? If that was the choice, she’d go! Just don’t take my daughter from me, she thought hysterically. Anything but that.

“Why are you here?” she whispered faintly.

“Och, lass, it’s Sean, he needs you.”

What was he talking about? How was Cruce even alive? And what was he doing with Sean? And why was his voice so different than she remembered from those hellish, fevered dreams?

“We’ve a bit of a problem, Kat. Have you someone to watch the wee lass?”

His second use of the word “lass” finally penetrated a brain of concrete. Kat blinked, as slow comprehension dawned. “Christian?” she exploded softly. “Is that you?”

His lips drew back in a silent snarl. Then, “Och, Christ, tell me you didn’t think I was Cruce! Do I look that bad?”

She nodded vehemently. “Yes.”

“Bloody hell,” he growled. “He’s dead. I’d know if he was alive. At least I think I would.”

She sucked in a ragged breath and crumpled as the strength fled her body, crippled by the profoundly worst moment of her life—thinking Cruce had returned and was going to take Rae away from her. She had nightmares about that happening, awakened horrified and trembling, clutching a hand to her mouth to hold back screams.

Christian caught her before she hit the floor, swept her to her feet and steadied her with an arm about her shoulders.

Good God, he was enormous. Seven feet at least. Massive.

“Easy, Kat. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought you knew he was dead.”

She didn’t believe it. She would never believe it until she saw his lifeless form with her own eyes. Christian’s earlier words penetrated at last and, as swiftly as horror had seized her heart, wonder blossomed and happiness flushed her skin. “Sean asked for me?” she said breathlessly, and made the mistake of glancing up to search his eyes.

“Stop doing that,” he growled. “I can’t camouflage it and I bloody well hate wearing sunglasses at night.” He swept a wing around her and swept the blood from her cheeks with the tips of his silken feathers.

The sensation was so familiar, she shuddered and cried softly, “Stop! I’ll get a kerchief.”

He backed away, sensing her revulsion. “I’ve got the Sidhbha-jai muted, lass,” he said stiffly. “I’ll keep it that way.”

As she fumbled about in Rae’s chest of drawers—finding, yes, a sock would do—and wiped her eyes, she watched him carefully in the periphery of her vision.

He’d turned and was staring down at Rae. Then glanced back at her.

Her gaze went instinctively to search his eyes again—by the Saints, she was going to go blind from blood! She dabbed it on another of her daughter’s socks and said faintly, “What do you see?”

He yanked a pair of sunglasses from a pocket, shoved them on and said. “A lovely wee lass, Kat, nothing more.”

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, she’s my child. “Would you know if she was more?” Fuck, she thought, and she never thought that word. But she’d asked the damned question and it was hanging out there and she waited, breath locked down again, for his answer.

He said nothing for what seemed to her an interminable time. Finally, “Not necessarily. But what are you saying, lass? Have you some reason to fear she’s Cruce’s?”

“No,” Kat said on an explosive exhale.

“Lie,” he said flatly.

Fuck, she thought again. Christian MacKeltar was as bad as she was; a walking lie detector.

Christian sighed but it turned into a darkly amused laugh. “What a world we live in, eh, Kat? I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me that story?”

“You said Sean needs me.” She steered the conversation away from a subject she never discussed and certainly wouldn’t in her daughter’s presence, not even while she slept. Some names seemed too powerful to risk uttering. She regretted that his had ever been spoken in her daughter’s room. The mere syllable seemed to hold the power of a divine summons.

“Aye. Kat, have you someone to watch over the lass? I need to take you somewhere. Just for the night.”

She’d suffered such a fright, she felt abject terror at the thought of leaving her daughter. But the abbey was filled with women who vied for the opportunity to babysit Rae and heavily warded against—Again, fuck.

Three times in a night. That word. She demanded, “How did you get in here without setting off our wards, Christian?”

He smiled faintly. It was a terrible smile. White teeth, sharp canines, it brought only more darkness to his eyes. “Och, lass, I’m not what I used to be. None of the Fae are. You’ll be needing new wards. My clan and I can help you with that.”

“Our abbey is no longer safe from the Fae?” she exclaimed softly, horrified.

“Hasn’t been for a long time. Since shortly after the Song was sung.”

“But we’ve not had a single Fae intruder,” she protested.

“They’ve been busy elsewhere. You’re not their current focus. In truth, I doubt they even care you exist anymore.”

“Why?”

“You’re no threat to us. We’ve become what we once were. So, what if you can identify us? We’ll crush you. I don’t mean that personally. But that’s how they feel.”

Kat drew a deep breath, willing her mind and heart to calm. Then she fired off several rapid texts. Regardless of whether Sean needed her or not, Christian had information—and clearly a great deal of it—they didn’t possess and needed to. As well as the ability to help them re-ward the abbey. She inclined her head. “Where are we going?”

“Scotland.”

She cringed inwardly. “You mean to sift me?” That meant she had to touch him, and he reminded her far too much of Cruce.

He smiled again, that haunted and haunting dark smile. “Sorry, lass, it won’t be that easy. We’ll need to fly.”

Fly? As in hold onto him for hours?

“Try not to radiate abject fucking misery, Kat,” he said tightly. “I’m one of the good guys.”

“How certain of that are you?” she asked warily.

“Utterly,” he said with finality. “And it was a bitch of a battle, I’ll tell you that.”

Unseelie. And one of the good guys. She wanted to believe that. “We should leave before Enyo arrives. She’ll have a similar reaction.”

She’d deliberately chosen her fiercest warrior to babysit in her absence. And asked Duff and Decla to be stationed beyond the door. Three women capable of extreme kindness. And extreme violence. Able to shift between the two in a heartbeat.

“I can sift us to the perimeter of the estate but we’ll have to fly from there. Come, lass. And if it helps, close your eyes and think of Sean. He, too, looks like me. You’ll need to be prepared for that. Revulsion could push him over the steep edge he’s already perched on. But,” he added softly, as I moved uneasily into the circle of his arms, “you might be surprised by how beautiful you’ll find the sky at night. We’ll fly above the mist that obscures the terrain, where the moon kisses the tops of clouds, turning them to silvery puddles it seems you might dance upon. You’ll see the dark, glassy lochs and the grass turned to fine-spun metallic thread. The night creatures are different than those of the day, rarer to see. You might spy great snowy owls soaring, hooting, wolves frolicking as they woo their mates, you may even see a playful wildcat or two.”

I realized he was trying to set me at ease, distract me from the intimacy I would have to endure. It worked. As he’d spoken, I heard the truth of the pleasure in his words. He loved to fly at night, he loved the land, and Cruce would never have noticed a single bloody thing on the ground, no bird, nor animal; too power hungry and driven to see past his own ambitions.

I snatched a last, quick glance at my daughter and murmured that I loved her, as footsteps approached beyond my bedroom door.