He went motionless, staring into my eyes. Softly, he said, “You crazy, beautiful, maddening woman, that’s because you trained yourself to live that way. And wisely so. It’s what kept you alive. It’s been your saving grace. You learned young the necessity of leaving the pain behind and embracing the next good thing. Few people ever achieve that clarity. Prolonged grief is self-mutilation; a blade you turn on yourself. It doesn’t bring them back and only keeps you trapped in misery. You were healing the way people should heal but they punish themselves instead. For what—being the one who lived? Those we love will die. And die. And die. Life goes on. You choose how: badly or well.”

I knew that. With my head. But my heart had felt guilt so enormous and crushing, I hadn’t known what to do with it. I’d been out of control from that moment on. Each time I’d passed Chester’s, telling myself I was just checking on it, it was all I could do not to stalk in that door and pick up where our last kiss had left off, when he’d kissed me like I was the many complicated things that I am, when he’d shown me how completely he understood me. I’d wanted to forget my pain but any way I looked at it that was equivalent to forgetting Dancer and I was the one who remembered the people who died, damn it. That was what I did. I noticed the invisible people. I knew what it felt like to be one. I used to think I’d die in my cage and no one would ever even know I’d once been there. I’d simply vanish, unknown, unmourned, forgotten. Sometimes, toward the end, I’d wondered if she’d been trying to starve me to death.

“I couldn’t forgive myself,” I said softly. “It was a betrayal of the love we’d shared. I refused to see you because I knew what I’d do and I couldn’t resolve the conflict. But I would have,” I added heatedly. “Within a few months at most. You could have texted me, checked to see how I was. But you never did. Not once,” I said bitterly. “Your turn. Where did you go? And why were you starved when you got back?”

He smiled faintly, mirthlessly. “I never went anywhere, Dani. I never left at all. I was right here in Dublin the entire time, beneath your feet, under the garage behind Barrons Books & Baubles.”

“What?” I exploded.

“You walked above me once, feeling lost. I tried to send you a thought but the pain was so intense by then, the hunger so consuming, I’m not certain it got through. It was either make Barrons imprison me in a spelled cage I couldn’t escape, where he’d once contained his son, or cut my brand off you, and risk you getting lost. I was never going to risk that. If you’d called me, Barrons would have released me. If you’d used IISS, it would have bypassed the spells holding me.”

I stared. He’d been locked in a cage for two years? Barrons’s son—what the hell? I knew nothing about a son! I filed that away for future questions. Right now all I could think about was Ryodan trapped like an animal, as he’d once been so long ago as a child. As I’d been. We both knew the hell of cages. I would never go back into any kind of prison again. Couldn’t imagine any reason to willingly commit myself to two years of isolation, locked up. Oh, God, the whole time I’d been so angry that Ryodan had left me alone, he’d been alone, too, suffering! He’d been starved because he hadn’t eaten for two years, shut away in the ground!

“I turned into the beast shortly after Barrons completed the final spell, and never changed back again. I knew it would happen when I went in. We can only go so long without eating. After that it was madness. I lost all sense of time. Marked moments by your most intense emotions. My beast raged every time you fucked. My beast wept every time you cried. With some small part of my brain, I kept thinking you’d call and it would end. I’d be free. We’d be free. Together.”

The horror of it flooded my heart. All that time, waiting for me to call. But I never did. “Why?” I cried, incredulous. “I don’t understand!”

Shadows rushed in his silvery, crimson-flecked gaze. I would have killed every man you slept with, Dani. I’d have left a trail of dead men behind you, guilty of nothing more than being chosen to share your bed. You’d have hated me for that. And I couldn’t control it.

“But you controlled it with Dancer,” I said.

Locked beneath Chester’s. I killed three of my men the final night you spent with him. That you loved him and were loved in return was enough to give me an edge over the beast. But lust, ah, Dani, that my beast can’t accept. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t win. I’m not human. Despite my appearance, despite my efforts, I’m beast first and it’s not always controllable. That’s what I was trying to tell you when I told you Lor wouldn’t have stayed to watch you dance. We know our weaknesses. If we can’t control them, we avoid them. We live by a rigid code. We didn’t always. Barrons developed and enforced it and one by one we all adhered. You have always been my greatest weakness. You had every right to take men to bed. I had no right to stop it. I stopped myself the only way I could.

I stared at him and began to cry. Not ugly, just big, silent tears slipping down my cheeks.

“Christ, don’t do that. Not when I can’t—ah, fuck. Close your eyes.”

I did, because I couldn’t stand looking at him, knowing I couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t bear the expression in his eyes, identical to my own.

Then he was holding me and my eyes flew open but he hadn’t moved.

“There are benefits to the bond we share. Close your eyes, Stardust.”

I did, again, then his hands were in my hair and he was cradling my head, holding me to his chest. I could smell his skin, feel the unflinching strength of his body.

I opened my eyes and the illusion vanished.

“It only works if you keep your eyes closed.”

“Ryodan, I’m so sorry,” I said miserably. “If I had known, if I’d had any idea this would happen…” I trailed off. We’d both wasted two years. I’d wasted it. I’d never called. And I’d wanted to so many times.

His silver gaze locked with mine. You, Dani O’Malley, have always been the greatest mystery of my existence, the one thing I’ve never been able to predict. Linchpin theory means nothing where you’re concerned. My actions may not have been the wisest either. But whatever’s happening changes nothing. You’re so bloody beautiful to me—any color, any race, any skin, any species, woman, I will love you across all of them. If you turn into a Hunter, my beast and yours will run together. We’ll fight wars, save worlds, become legend. He smiled faintly. I’ll be the only beast in the universe in love with a dragon.

His words took my breath away, slammed into me with a painful blend of joy and sorrow. In a moment I would pull myself together.

“As will I. That’s what we do, you and I,” he said quietly.

And in a moment we would get down to determining how to save our world.

“Precisely.”

And maybe in a million, trillion, gazillion moments, being a dragon loved by a beast would be enough for me. But at the current moment I couldn’t begin to envision that place in time.

Once before I’d waited too long and learned the true meaning of regret. I was choking on that bitter taste now.

Raw. Endless. Grief. Raining. Eternal. Tears.

I closed my eyes against the burn of it and wondered if dragons could cry.

FOR A NOVEL CHANGE, Gustaine was happy to be small and inconspicuous.

The great god Balor was in a lethal mood today, killing the human bodies brought to him without even bothering to absorb their souls—a total waste of power!—just so he could enjoy each moment of pain and torture he inflicted upon them before they died.

Gustaine had little respect for those who reacted with ego and emotion over long-term planning for survival, it was against his cockroachian nature. Survival was paramount. Patient, subtle chesslike moves, plus yet more patience, guaranteed success. That was why he’d pledged fealty to the one called Ryodan for as long as he had. Of his many alliances over time, it was that cool, calculating beast that had commanded his respect. Like the cockroach, the beast-man would endure.

The Faerie prince was once a close second, but Cruce lied and the lethal ice-fire he’d charged Gustaine with planting at the abbey had damaged many of his individual parts. A single mind controlled his hive of bodies, and Gustaine counted each incremental part of himself precious. Felt the pain of them all. Hundreds of his bodies sported permanent scars from that battle, had been hobbled, crippled—like Balor was now.

Dani O’Malley had injured the great god, making Gustaine wonder if he’d pledged his services hastily. The Soulstealer was limping with a raw, jagged wound in his leg, charred at the edges.

Eons past, Balor had been one of the most powerful gods to walk the face of the Earth, and a merciful one. The Soulstealer had once alleviated the suffering of humans, walking battlefields, attending the lingering dying, removing their souls from their bodies to spare them the pain of slow death.

But the Faerie had come with stealth, abducted and tortured Balor for a small eternity, trying to kill him, all the while impersonating him to his tribes. The Faerie had destroyed half his face in their efforts to gouge that great killing eye from his body. But he’d slipped their clutches, even with his shattered leg, and returned to live up to every one of the horrific legends the Fae had sown about him.