“Haste is not the issue, stealth is. A score of you in the human realm is too risky, and our plans might never come to fruition. Seek you to roam the earth freely again, Hunter, as you did before The Compact?”

“You know I do,” growled Bastion.

“Do as I say and it will come to pass. Disobey me and it will never happen.”

“The Hunters obey no one.” Dark wings rustled angrily.

“We all obey, Bastion, and have since The Compact was sealed,” said Darroc, striving for patience. The Unseelie tried his patience at the best of times, and these were not. They were dangerous times, and he didn’t need the danger compounded by rogue Hunters who refused to obey his commands. “A thing I’m trying to change. Will you follow my orders, or am I to assume you are content in your realm? Trapped. Stabled like lowly beasts.”

Lips drawn back in a scowl, Bastion nodded once, tightly. “Very well. Four of us, no more. Have you any idea where he is?”

“Not yet. Aoibheal has forbidden his name to even be spoken at court, hence my spies have been able to tell me nothing. Go first to Scotland, the Highlands. He once sired a son there.” Unfortunately, Darroc knew little more than that. He had no idea if the child had even survived to maturity. Those Tuatha Dé Adam might count as friends had never been friends of Darroc’s, and Aoibheal kept her own counsel where the prince she’d been so wont to indulge was concerned. If not for Mael, he’d have known nothing at all of Adam’s fate. He—a bloody Elder of her High Council—kept in the dark. Still, a number of his race hadn’t been seen for several mortal months, coinciding with a time shortly after Adam’s banishment to the human realm. He had no doubt he would soon find one of his brethren who knew exactly where Adam was, if the Hunters didn’t find him sooner.

“And when we find him?”

Darroc smiled. He could sense the Hunter’s restlessness, his hunger for a return to old times and old ways. It mirrored his own. He felt every bit as caged on the Fae Isle of Morar as did the Hunters in their prison-realm. “You may kill him, but”—he placed a forceful hand on Bastion’s arm—“you must make it appear an accident. As if he died of mortal causes. Removing Adam Black is only the first step in my plan, and the queen’s suspicions must not yet be aroused. That means no hint of anything remotely Fae anywhere near his body. Human wounds only. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Can you make the other three understand and obey you?”

“I will choose well.” Bastion shifted impatiently.

“Then, name your three, and I will bring them here,” said Darroc.

Bastion’s flame-colored eyes flashed as he called forth his Hunters.

8

Gabby awoke just before dawn. For one blissful moment her body was awake, but her mind was still muzzily cocooned by dreams, and she thought it was a day just like any other. Normal, peaceful, filled with trivial issues and manageable concerns.

Then, wham-bam! memories battered her: She’d blown the job interview, betrayed herself to a fairy, had a week’s worth of work to do today, and her life was a living hell.

Groaning, she rolled over, trying desperately to fall back asleep so she wouldn’t have to face it all yet.

No such luck.

Adam Black was in the shower.

She could hear him, er—it—splashing around in there.

A mere dozen paces down the hall from her bedroom. A tall, dark, sexy, and very naked fairy. Right here in her house. In her shower. Using her soap and towels.

And it was singing. Sexy voice, too, with that strange, husky Celtic accent. Nothing less than an old Sophie B. Hawkins song: Damn, I wish I was your lover, I’d rock you ’til the daylight comes . . .

I just bet you would, a teenage voice sighed dreamily inside her mind.

“I need a gun,” Gabby whispered.

“I need a gun,” Gabby told Jay as she stepped into her cubicle.

Placing her cup of coffee on her desk, she tucked her purse in a drawer, dropped into the chair, smoothed her skirt over her hips, then spun about, facing the aisle. “Where does a person buy a gun, Jay?”

Jay Landry, co-intern and inhabitant of the cube catty-corner to hers, slowly spun his chair around and glanced at her searchingly. “Gabby, are you feeling all right? Jeff said you were sick. Are you sure you’re better? You’ve been acting funny.”

“I’m fine,” she said, legs crossed, one foot briskly tapping air. “I just wondered where a person might buy a gun.”

“What do you want it for?” he hedged.