Darkest Mercy. Melissa Marr

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СКАЧАТЬ can stay with him,” Gabriel said from the doorway. “If he wakes, I can send someone for you.”

      “No.” He didn’t tell Gabriel about the peculiar dreams that he and Irial seemed to share now. It didn’t make sense to think he was really in the same dream with Irial. But it is real. It feels real. Niall had lived a long time, wandered for years, spent time in three different courts. He’d never heard of being able to dream together as he and Irial seemed to be doing. Is it madness? In his dreams they’d talked about all of the things they hadn’t spoken of in centuries; they’d been close as they hadn’t been in far too long. Am I imagining it?

      The Hound tried again: “You need to rest. Court’s strength is from you. If you’re sick—”

      “Don’t.” Niall glared at him. “Leave us.”

      Gabriel ignored him. Instead of departing, he came farther into the room. He stood beside Irial’s bed and lowered one hand onto Niall’s shoulder in a gesture of support. “My pup is dead. Ani and Rabbit are over in Faerie. Irial’s hurt. I understand.”

      The grief in the Hound’s voice almost undid the scant self-control Niall was desperately clinging to. “I can’t,” he admitted. “I can’t leave him. . . . Something’s not right.”

      Gabriel snorted. “Lots of things aren’t right. Probably easier to list the things that are right.”

      Silently, Niall dipped the cloth into the basin again. He stared at the water, trying to make sense of the feelings that had come over him. His reaction to Irial’s injury seemed too intense. Unpredictable thoughts clouded his mind; he couldn’t follow them from moment to moment with much clarity. Urges to violence pressed against his better judgment. In the couple days since Bananach had stabbed Irial, Niall had gone from angry to positively unhinged. He knew it. He’d felt emotions overwhelm him, but there was something else.

      Something is wrong.

      “Niall?”

      The Dark King shook his head. “I’m not sure what I’ll do if I walk out of this room. I’m coming unraveled . . . without Irial. . . . I can’t do this alone, Gabe. I can’t. I’m not right.”

      “You’re grieving. Normal reaction, Niall. You two have . . . issues, but you both knew what you were to each other.”

      “Are, not were,” Niall corrected halfheartedly.

      Gabriel took the cloth from Niall. “You’re not alone, either. Most of the court is here. The Hunt stands with you. I stand with you.”

      When Niall looked up at the massive Hound, Gabriel extended his arms. “Give me a command, Niall. Your words, my orders. Tell me what you need.”

      Niall stood. “No one touches Irial without my consent. No one not of our court enters this house unless I summon them. No speaking of his injury to anyone outside the house. Increase the guards on Leslie.”

      The Dark King paused as the fear of the only other person he loved being injured by Bananach swelled inside him.

      Gabriel nodded, and the Dark King’s orders appeared in ink on Gabriel’s flesh as the words were spoken. “Leslie will be safe,” he promised. Then after a minute, he prompted, “And Bananach? And the ones leaving the court to stand with her?”

      The Dark King blinked at Gabriel. “She cannot enter our home, but Irial said we could not kill her without killing Sorcha and, thus, all the rest of us. I will not send forces after her. . . . The others . . . I don’t care what you do to them once we get through this. Not right now. Right now, Irial is what matters.”

      A brief frown flashed across Gabriel’s face, but he nodded.

      Niall walked over and dimmed the light. “Wake me when the next healer arrives.”

      And then he lay down on the floor beside Irial’s bed and closed his eyes.

      Chapter 7

      As Seth approached the gate, Devlin had one hand raised as if to touch the fabric that divided the two worlds, the veil that now separated the twins.

      Seth had spent the past hour thinking while he sought Devlin. He would’ve liked to ponder longer, but time didn’t allow for it. He’d been in Faerie less than a day, but every four hours in Faerie was a full day in the mortal world. That meant he’d been gone two days, and he had no idea what had been happening in the mortal world during that time. Irial had been stabbed, and the Hounds were fighting with Bananach’s allies when he had come to Faerie with Ani, Devlin, and Rabbit. Did they all survive? Is Niall okay? Is Ash safe? Until he went back, he had no answers.

      “Have you thought about the consequences?” Seth asked. He felt a loyalty to Faerie, but he was of both worlds. Devlin, however, was not.

      He turned to face Seth, but did not speak. The new Shadow King was the oldest male faery, the first, the one Sorcha and Bananach had created. In sealing Faerie, he’d assured that neither of his sister-mothers could kill the other. Asking him to consider the consequences beyond that appeared to perplex him.

      “For them”—Seth gestured to the other side of the gate—“now that Faerie is closed?”

      It was clear to everyone in Faerie that they were safe now. For that, Seth was grateful. However, he didn’t live solely in Faerie, nor did he intend to do so. If Sorcha could forbid him from leaving Faerie, she would, but he wasn’t going to give up on Aislinn—or abandon his friends.

      “They are not my concern.” Devlin let his hand drop toward the sgian dubh he carried. “The good of Faerie is my concern.”

      “I’m not here to fight you, Brother.” Seth held his hands up disarmingly. “I will fight Bananach, though.”

      Devlin’s frustration was an interesting thing to see. After an eternity of repressing emotions, the new Shadow King was now letting emotions influence him. That, too, was good for Faerie.

      “And if Bananach’s death still kills your mother?” Devlin asked. “Why should I let you cross over there, knowing that it could bring disaster on us?”

      Seth smiled at his brother. “You cannot keep me here. The terms of her remaking me were that I can return to the mortal world. Even you cannot negate her vow.”

      “If they came home, if the other courts returned here . . .”

      Faeries giving up power? The arrogance of every faery monarch Seth had met made the idea especially illogical. Seth laughed at the thought of proposing such a thing to any of them. “Do you think that Keenan would give up the Summer Court? That Donia would give up her court? That Niall would become a subject to you or to our mother? Pipe dreams, man.”

      “They would be safe here now that Bananach cannot enter.” Devlin didn’t see that he had already become like them, thinking that his idea, his rule, held the answers for the others. The sense of clarity, of surety, was an essential trait in a faery monarch, but his suggestion wasn’t feasible.

      Seth shrugged. “Some things are worth more than safety.”

      “I cannot speak СКАЧАТЬ